SYMPTOMS.- Itching, heat, pain, sometimes slight fever. Styes are apt to be multiple and to keep recurring.
CAUSE.- Microbic. Often associated with general debility and poor health; also with microbic infection elsewhere, such as boils and acne.
TREATMENT.- Aconite, followed by Pulsatilla, will often remove the stye if given sufficiently early. After this Staphysagria may be given.
INDICATIONS FOR THE ABOVE AND OTHER REMEDIES.
Aconitum.- Pain, fever, restlessness.
Hepar S.- When suppuration has begun. Especially upper eyelid.
Pulsatilla.- Especially lower eyelid.
Sulphur.- During convalescence,, and as preventive.
ACCESSORIES.- Bath the eyelid with very hot water several times a day, or apply a hot compress. If the stye does not readily burst, prick with a sterilized needle and let the matter out.
44. Earache (Otalgia).
Acute pain in the ear is not uncommon in children. This may be due to an inflammatory condition (e.g. a boil), or a foreign body, in the external meatus. More often it is due to an inflammation extending from the naso-pharynx along the Eustachian tube to the middle ear (Otitis Media); hence the common association with colds in the head and adenoids. it also occurs as a complication of other diseases, as Measles, Scarlet fever, Diphtheria, Influenza, Pneumonia, Whooping-cough, etc. In acute Tonsillitis there is often a sharp pain shooting into one or both ears, especially on swallowing.
SYMPTOMS.- The ordinary earache due to catarrhal inflammation of the Eustachian tube and middle ear consists of a severe aching, throbbing pain, accompanied by some tenderness and sense of fulness in the ear, and usually by more or less deafness. The deafness and stuffed-up feeling in the ear is generally relieved temporarily by blowing down the nose with the nostrils closed, when a cracking is heard in the ear.
In severer forms the pain may radiate upwards or forwards, or backwards and downwards into the neck, and there is tenderness over the mastoid process. The temperature may raise to 103o. The symptoms are all aggravated at night. If taken in time and properly, treated, the otitis should not go on to suppuration. When suppuration takes place, the membrane tympani (“drum”) is not only red but bulges outwards. Paracentesis or puncturing of the membrane should then be done under an anaesthetic. If left to itself, it will burst on the third or fourth day.
DIAGNOSIS.- In infants suffering from Otitis Media there may be Vomiting, Convulsions, and head-retraction, and the case may easily be diagnosed as acute Meningitis if the ear is not examined. Otitis Media is one of the complications of Pneumonia, and may then be present without pain or symptoms pointing to the ear. It may also at times exist independently, with no symptom but fever. In cases of obscure fever the ears should always be examined.
INDICATIONS FOR TREATMENT.- Aconitum.- Pain, soreness, and throbbing in the ear; sensitiveness to noise; red, shining swelling of the meatus; feverishness.
Belladonna.- When the head is much involved and the patient delirious – to be given either alone or alternately with Aconite or Mercurius-Sol.
Chamomilla.- Earache of nervous, irritable children, with one cheek red and hot.
Mercurius Cor.- After suppuration has taken place.
Mercurius-Sol.- Catarrhal earache without suppuration.
Pulsatilla.- In less acute and more persistent forms of the disease.
Sulphur.- Chronic or recurring inflammation, especially in scrofulous patients.
ACCESSORY TREATMENT.- Plantago Q, diluted with an equal quantity of hot water and dropped into the ear. Warm olive oil dropped into the ear. The heart of an onion made very hot, or a tiny muslin bag containing hot salt, may be inserted into the external meatus, with great relief of pain, and a bran poultice may be put over the whole ear.
An inflammatory condition of the external meatus should be treated similarly, and Belladonna, Hepar S., or Mercurius- Sol. given internally. If the trouble is due to foreign bodies (e.g. peas, pips, insects), these must be removed by syringes.
45. Discharge from the Ear (Otorrhoea).
DEFINITION.- Wax (cerumen), more liquid than usual, may flow from the ear; blood too, as a result of fracture of the base of the skull or of rupture of the drum (Membrana tympani), may flow from the ear. But the term Otorrhoea is generally applied to a discharge of pus, muco-pus, or sanguineo-pus, nearly always offensive, chronic in its nature, and resulting from suppurative Otitis Medica – often a sequel of Scarlet fever or Measles, and not rarely of tuberculous disease.
INDICATIONS FOR TREATMENT
Arsenicum.- Old standing cases in delicate children; excoriating discharges.
Calcarea carb.- Tedious cases in tuberculous children.
Hepar S.- Discharge of pus and blood; and when the patient has been closed with Mercury.
Mercurius Cor.- Thick, bloody, foetid discharge, tearing pains in ear and side of head, swelling and tenderness of glands about the ear.
Mur.-Ac.- Following Scarlet Fever.
Pulsatilla.- Especially after Measles or Mumps.
Sulphur.- In case similar to those calling for Calcarea carb.
ADDITIONAL REMEDIES.- Aurum, Iodium, Kali Hyd., Mercurius-Iodium, Nit.- Ac., and Silicea
ACCESSORIES.- The intractable character of this affection is often in great measure due to the neglect of that strict cleanliness which is indispensably necessary. A little fine wool, frequently changed, should be put into the ear, which should be gently syringed out with hydrogen peroxide (mixed with ten or twelve parts of water) three or four times a day.
The improvement of the general health of the patient is a point of great importance. To this end, change of air is often necessary; country air, in a dry, salubrious district, or, in the autumnal months, sea air, is generally of marked utility. Cod-liver oil is also strongly recommended.
46. General Management of the Ear
1. SUDDEN VIOLENT NOISES.- It is very important to avoid the exposure of children to acute and extreme sounds, especially to those of firearms, which may occasion serious disorders, either rupturing the drum of the ear, or giving an injurious shock to the brain. When children have to be exposed to violent sounds, a little cotton-wool should be introduced into each ear to guard the drum of the ear from the painful impression of a too acute shock. The precaution is increasingly important in illness, especially in diseases which involve the nervous system.
2. WET OR DAMP EARS.- Imperfectly drying the head and ears of children after washing it sometimes a cause of Otitis Media and Deafness. It is the more necessary to guard against this danger if there already exist any discharge from or other disorder of, the ear. The strictest care should be taken to dry the hair and ears thoroughly after bathing.
3. TWISTED CORNER OF TOWEL NOT TO BE USED.- The introduction of the screwed-up corner of a towel, and twisting it round in the ear, does much harm. It forces down the wax upon the membrane, irritates the passage, and causes small flakes of skin, which dry up and become hard, so that pain, inflammation, and deafness may ensue. Washing should only extend to the external surface as far as the finger can reach, and the screwed-up corner of a towel should never be used for cleaning the cavity of the ear.
4. BOXING THE EARS.- Parents, governesses, and others who have the care of children, should be aware of an accident likely to result from blows on the head or boxing the ears, namely, rupture of the membrana tympani, a membrane which closes the bottom of the meatus, and is stretched something like the parchment of a drum. Sometimes incurable Deafness or hardness of hearing is the result. Rupture of this membrane may be recognized by a sense of shock in the ear, Deafness, and a slight discharge of blood from the orifice; and if examined by an ear speculum, the rent may be seen. For this injury a weak Arnica lotion should be employed, and the little patient should enjoy absolute rest for two or three days.
5. FOREIGN BODIES IN THE EAR.- The introduction of foreign bodies into the ear is no rare occurrence in children. Such substances, although they do not always give rise to mischief, should be removed at once by syringing with warm water. When insects find their way into the ear, they may be similarly dislodged.
6. DEAFNESS NOT STUPIDITY.- Another point of considerable importance is that a child should not be thought to be stupid or obstinate simple because he is deaf.
47. Epistaxis – Bleeding from the Nose.
This is generally a trifling ailment in children enjoying fair health, and requires no treatment, ceasing spontaneously in a few minutes.
When, however, it occurs in delicate children, when it recurs frequently, or when due to injury, treatment may be necessary.
SYMPTOMS.- Giddiness, weight or oppression in the forehead, may precede the bleeding. In some cases the blood passes backward into the stomach, when it may, without careful investigation, be mistaken for haemorrhage from the lungs or stomach.
CAUSES.- Injuries; congestion of the head from coughing, passion, etc.; thinness of the blood; weakness of the lining membrane of the nose, etc.
LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS; MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS; LICENTIATE IN MIDWIFERY, LONDON AND EDINBURGH, ETC. PHYSICIAN TO THE READING AND BERKSHIRE HOMOEOPATHIC DISPENSARY.
Author of "The Stepping Stone to Homeopathy and Health,"
"Manual of Homoeopathic Treatment". Editor of "The Homoeopathic World."