Helmuth furnished Swan with septic pus from an abscess, from which Pyrogen was prepared, first in a dilution, then potentized. This is preparation that is used by most Hahnemannians. Heath made Pyrogen from decomposed lean beef, and this has gone under the name of Sepsin. Burnett in his provings used Heaths preparation. Sherbino proved Swans, which was the preparation of septic pus in the potency. Kent used both preparations. The provings of the two are almost identical, so preparations. The provings of the two are almost identical, so that they have practically all been classed under the head of Pyrogen.
This is one of the great nosodes. As you all know, a nosode is a remedy prepared from a pathological produce; but like all the nosodes, Pyrogen has a very definite field, and one who uses PYrogen on the pathological findings will meet with disappointment. H.C.Allen says it is often indicated in septic states when the best selected remedies fail to relieve or permanently improve, analogous to the action of Psorinum or Sulphur in other conditions.
Most remedies have an acute and a chronic field, and Pyrogen is no exception to this general rule. Pyrogen is the Aconite of the typhus and typhoid quality in pyrexia, and wherever poisoning by bacterial products is going on, Pyrogen may do good work. This remedy is to be thought of in many of the surgical fevers, in carbuncles and erysipelatous swellings, and often in the poisoning caused by sewer gas. I do not know from my own observation, for I have never had a case of puerperal sepsis in my practice, but it is said to abort puerperal fevers.
The Pyrogen patient has a condition ushered in with a violent chill, beginning in the legs, with great heat and profuse perspiration.
The heat at first is dry, with intense aching in the limbs, and restlessness, which is ameliorated by heat and motion. If the patient is a child, this restlessness and nervousness by hard rocking in a chair. The patient will not sleep in bed, but wants to be held in the lap, like Chamomilla, but kept in slight motion; and if the motion stops, or you attempt to lay the child down, he immediately wakens. Like Sulphur, Pyrogen has a great aversion to being washed, and the child cries a great deal when being washed. However, if very hot water is used, it relieves the situation.
The pains of Pyrogen are worse when sitting, and decidedly worse from test. The aching pains are like those of Eupatorium, or are sore, bruised pains. The intense restlessness can be compared to Rhus, which is relieved by continued motion; but unlike rhus, which is aggravated from first beginning to move, Pyrogen is relieved immediately upon motion. Many of the complaints of Pyrogen are brought on by becoming cold and damp. We find indications for this remedy in many of the hectic fevers of phthisis, when these symptoms are present.
The delirium of Pyrogen simulates that of Baptisia, in that it is a confused delirium, as though the parts of the patient were scattered about. The Pyrogen fever is apt to be very high, often times reaching 106; and with it there is great soreness and aching all over the body, but pains are relieved by motion. A condition peculiar to the Pyrogen fever which stands out as a characteristic symptom is the loss of rhythm between the pulse and the fever. With an intensely high fever, the pulse will be low. There is threatening heart failure in septic and zymotic fevers.
In conditions where there is scanty flow from an open wound, or when the secretions are scanty, together with great pain, this is one of the first remedies to be considered. In abscessed condition there is always intense burning. Here we can compare Pyrogen with Arsenicum, Anthracine, and Tarentula cubensis. The differentiation from Arsenicum is in the thirst and the slow pulse. It is interesting to note the Anthracine is also a pus product. Tarentula cubensis was produced from a Tarentula shipped from Cuba, which has been long delayed on the way. The alcohol had been spilled and the spider had partly decomposed, therefore we get the active septic conditions.
In recurrent abscesses, where they follow a history of sepsis, Pyrogen has done remarkable work. The patient is pale, sickly, rheumatic and stiff, together with these recurrent abscesses, which will date back to a sepsis of some kind. In the chronic states, the complaints practically always date back to a septic condition. The patient says she has never been well since she had puerperal fever years ago. Again, it is to be thought of in cases of Brights disease where there has been a septic base years before. When we go into the history of the case carefully we are apt to find that some septic condition has been present earlier in life, and Pyrogen will often cure these ulcers when the history of an early sepsis is to be found.
The discharge of Pyrogen are intensely offensive, putrid. There is a cadaverous odor from the body, from the breath, and even the perspiration is very offensive.
Now let us glance at some of the peculiar and characteristic symptoms. The delirium is peculiar. The patient will know that where the rest of his body is. He has a sensation as if he covered the whole bed. He is always irritable, and with this, there is a decided loquacity; he talks all out of proportion to his normal state; he talks rapidly, and changes from one subject to another in quick succession.
There is the fan-like motion of the alae nasi, making us think of Lycopodium and Phosphorus. The tongue may show a brown steak down the center; it may be clean, smooth and dry; but the characteristic tongue is shiny as if varnished. The vomiting of pyrogen, like Phosphorus, occurs as soon as water becomes warm in the stomach. There is thirst for cold drinks in the chill as well as in the fever.
The patient craves chocolate. Stools are usually involuntary, and exceedingly offensive. The urinary deposits are red and very hard to wash from the vessel, making us think again of Lycopodium. In the heart action there is great palpitation, with a sinking feeling of the heart; a sensation as it the heart were pumping old water; a sensation as if the heart were purring.
It is a remedy of very great importance in the last stages of tuberculosis, where there are the very offensive, copious night sweats and the great tendency to diarrhoea.
There are many more detailed symptoms recorded, but the main characteristics of the remedy stand out clearly, and Pyrogen becomes one of our great curative agents when these peculiar and unusual symptoms are present in fevers or septic conditions.
This great nosode is to be compared with Arsenicum, Baptisia, Sulphur, Phosphorus, and all of the reptile and many of the spider poisons. A careful study of these several poisons in comparison with Pyrogen will yield abundant reward to the careful prescriber. It will do yeoman duty in many so-called surgical conditions, and will turn a hopeless prognosis into one of assurance of complete recovery. When we have a desperate case, and hope is all but abandoned, if these characteristic symptoms are present, Pyrogen will turn defeat into victory.
DERBY, CONN.
DISCUSSION.
CHAIRMAN W.W.WILSON: Pyrogen is a great remedy. What is the experience of some of your men with Pyrogen?.
DR. P. BROWN: I have enjoyed this paper very much. I have used Pyrogen for three years. This is the first paper I ever heard on Pyrogen. I wish to beat testimony to the efficacy of this remedy. I have some cases which I have successfully treated with it. I am prescribing it in quite large doses.
PRESIDENT G. STEVENS: Dr. Leonard, who was for twelve years health officer in Minneapolis, told me that he had cured at least one case of malignant smallpox with Pyrogen.
DR. J.GREEN: I turned the tide in a very serious case of erysipelas with Pyrogen prescribed on a mental symptom. The patient had a very sudden and very strong delusion of wealth and began to talk about what he was going to do with all the money that had come into his possession.
DR. L. ROSS: During the influenza epidemic in 1918, early in October I was led to Pyrogen by that discrepancy between temperature and pulse in the first case I saw. The man made a very uneventful recovery, but he was desperately sick.
DR. E. UNDERHILL. JR.: My first experience with Pyrogen was in a pneumonia case. I had only been converted to homoeopathy about a year when I saw this case and I had some little difficulty in deciding to give Pyrogen as I couldnt find that it had ever been recommended for pneumonia. However, I gave it on the septic symptoms, the slow pulse. It worked like magic. That patient afterwards went into a state requiring Psorinum and while I think it is dangerous to say that one remedy is the chronic of another it seems to me that Psorinum often does follows Pyrogen very well.
One other point as that I see great similarity between Phosphorus and Pyrogen. In one case of meningitis I came to the conclusion that I needed Phosphorus but the next day I saw I was wrong and gave Pyrogen, which remedy was correct. The case had gone too far, however, and the patient died, although the Pyrogen palliated the case until the last day.
