This may be simple, symptomatic, or typhoidal in its character; and being of a variable character, the name itself is no guide to the selection of the remedy. Among other remedies that may at one period or another be appropriate in such a condition are Aconite, Nux vomica, Ammonium causticum, and Bryonia. What conditions should guide us in selecting Arsenic? The following: Great prostration of strength; diarrhoea, oedematous swellings of the sheath, of the penis or legs; debility and rapid emaciation; pulse almost imperceptible; general coldness of the body; cold, clammy perspiration, and general declining powers.
The remarks apply with equal force to influenza or catarrhal fever, and a very large number of other diseases, so that it is impossible to enumerate a long list of pathological names, and state positively that Arsenic is the specific remedy for these We must, if we would practise medicine according to homoeopathic law and with the best interest of our patients at heart, be guided by the symptoms as they appear from stage to stage.
Among the diseases above enumerated as those in which our friends of the orthodox school rely upon arsenic as their remedy, and which we of the homoeopathic school also very often treat with the same drug are the skin diseases named, asthma, empyema of the lungs, and certain forms of dyspepsia, especially if the patient is at the same time the subject of cutaneous disease. In so far, therefore, as these forms of disease apply, the allopath is, to all intents and purposes, practising according to Hahnemanns law of drug selection.
To give a short list some of the more notable morbid conditions in which Arsenic is very frequently useful, we may name cholera; inflammation of the various mucous membranes, viz., the Schneiderian membrane, that of the throat, and stomach, more or less that of the whole respiratory tract, the palpebral conjunctiva, and the mucous membrane of the genito-urinary organs; some forms of diarrhoea; coryza where the discharge is thin and acrid; ophthalmia, with thin watery secretion that irritates the edges of the lids; and ulceration of the cornea.
Inflammation of serous membranes also come under the control of this drug, for instance, advanced cases of pleuritis, pericarditis, and pneumonia, as well as old standing serous dropsies, particularly those that are the sequelae of inflammation. In its action on the heart Arsenicum has a marked effect on cardiac dyspnoea. In chorea, when the special characteristics are present, it is a splendid remedy, a fact well worth the attention of veterinarians who make dogs their specialty. Again, in distemper of dogs it plays a very important role in effecting a cure if taken at the right time.
Compare the above with the limited application among practitioners of the old school and it becomes markedly apparent what a loss these gentlemen experience by not availing themselves of the knowledge and application which a study of drug selection according to Hahnemanns law places at their disposal.
NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA.
As to the condition of the organism and its healthy state depend solely on the state of life which animates it, in like manner it follows that the altered state which we term disease consists in a condition altered originally only in its vital sensibilities and functions, irrespective of all chemical or mechanical principles, in that must consist in an altered dynamical condition, a changed mode of being, whereby a change in the properties of the material component parts of the body is afterward effected, which is a necessary consequence of the morbidly altered condition of the living whole in every individual case.- HAHNEMANN.
We shall find that, as the confidence of men in potentized drugs declines, under the influence of a gross materialism, others will be declared inert, and fare as badly in the hands and esteem of such men. But what is true and supported by facts to day, will, with the well-balanced mind, be the same tomorrow and forever, despite the caprices of human opinion.-D.M.DAKE, M.D., 1868.
