There are rheumatic pains in the limbs, mostly shooting and stabbing here and there, as well as in the fingers and phalanges. With these rheumatic pains there is restlessness and inability to keep quiet. There is relief in the open air and relief evenings.
The skin symptoms manifest themselves in pimples, especially on the nape of the neck and in the beard.
The sleep is restless and with lewd dreams. There is constant waking from 4 a.m. on.
In the feverish condition calling for Trombidium there is a great deal of chilliness in the evenings, in the mornings and on waking.
Trombidium is a remedy that bears study, keeping in mind these peculiar symptoms that have been mentioned, and these will lead us to the more frequent use of this remedy. Where it is indicated, it does exceedingly prompt and efficient work.
DERBY, CONN.
DISCUSSION.
DR. C. L. OLDS: I think this is an exceedingly valuable paper. I am particularly interested in these remedies. Regarding spider poisons, it is rather remarkable that many of the spiders are only poisonous during the period of bringing forth their young, that is, during July and August in this climate. It is during those months, almost entirely, that we get the poisonous spider bites with their poisonous symptoms.
I recall the case, some years back, of a child that had been bitten by a spider, being brought to me. She was brought to my office about thirty minutes after she was bitten. She was then swollen from the feet to the top of the head in an almost unrecognizable way. I dont remember the other symptoms. I think there was not very much pain. I gave her, as an antidote, Apis, and in a short time she returned to her usual health.
In regard to this first remedy, Latrodectus, I have used it very little except in cases of angina pectoris, and there I have had very good results with it.
In regard to Theridion, I am particularly interested in this remedy as I recently had a case in which it acted most beautifully. It was a case in which there was swelling of the glands of the groins and neck. There was emaciation and long sickness. There were intense bone pains, which were left-sided. In fact, most of the symptoms were left-sided. There was this great sensitiveness that the doctor spoke of, sensitiveness to jar, sensitiveness to all impressions, mental and physical.
The mental state was also one of more or less agony. The woman felt as if she would fly all to pieces; she felt she could not exist any longer. The condition had been going on for some months and nothing had been found to more than temporarily relieve these pains–intense pains from the left hip down. One dose of Theridion 200th caused a terrible aggravation the first night. After that there was absolutely no pain. It has been about two months now. It is quite a remarkable case.
In regard to Trombidium, I have had little experience with it except in the case of certain diarrhoeas that come in the daytime and usually only after eating. Several such cases I have cleared up with this remedy.
DR. E. B. LYLE: About a year ago, a paper was published in the Recorder, January 1930, p 20, on spider bites and the way the doctor treated them. We are not quite sure what the spider was, because unfortunately in sending it to the university for identification it was lost, but it would be well to compare this paper with that one.
DR. G. STEVENS: I would like to ask Dr. Roberts if he know any antidote for Latrodectus. For instance, would Lachesis serve?.
DR. C. M. BOGER: The signature for Latrodectus turned up quite unexpectedly in my work. I was reading over one of my cases one day, and I noticed that one of the main symptoms was that the patient was persistently annoyed by dreams of flying. Of course, that is not such an unusual dream, but in a few days the patient came in and her symptoms were not very clear. They did not point very clearly to any particular remedy. I didnt have the particular spider, but I had the next one, which was Latrodectus. I gave that and all the symptoms disappeared.
I frequently do that sort of prescribing. The spider doesnt fly with wings, but he flies with jumps. I think that one of the great signatures for spider poisoning is a dream of flying. It seems to indicate that this symptom is more or less in common with many of our remedies, remedies from the same natural order, remedies of the same chemical composition. It is well worth remembering.
DR. D. T. PULFORD: I think the article by Dr. Schwartz, Spider Bites, Recorder, January 1930, page 20. in regard to spider bite might help some of us in regard to the question of an antidote. He used Arsenicum, I think, in most of his cases.
DR. H. A. ROBERTS: There is very little I need to say that is not in the paper itself. From the clinical observation, however, I have had quite a bit of experience. It is a very, very valuable remedy. I will not go out without Latrodectus in my case, for the reason that when you want it you want it very badly. It will relieve the terrible torture of angina very promptly, and it will hold it for sometime. I have used it repeatedly in those cases. Not only does it hold it, but it holds it for a very long while. You very seldom get a repetition of it afterwards, unless it is a natural pathological condition that has destroyed altogether the coronary artery.
There is another peculiar thing that is very annoying, which you will often be able to relieve. There are many people whose noses will begin to drip the minute they begin to eat, a fluent discharge from the nose. It is exceedingly annoying to the patient. I have, on several occasions, been able to relieve that entirely by Trombidium. It is a light symptom, but it is terribly annoying.
DR. C. C. WALTENBAUGH: Would you give them a high potency or a lower potency?.
DR. H. A. ROBERTS: I ordinarily in those cases use 200th.
DR. C. C. WALTENBAUGH: Do you think a higher potency would aggravate them too much?.
DR. H. A. ROBERTS: I should be afraid of it. It is too powerful.
CHAIRMAN A. H. GRIMMER: The doctor brought out one point that might be of value in the case of people who are trying to rid themselves of the desire for tobacco or alcohol. It might be one of the remedies in such a condition. That is just a suggestion, because of the craving that it has. That is the way we develop these things.
Hypothesis has no part nor lot in the homoeopathic prescription; the homoeopath does not attempt to translate the simple, truthful language of the symptoms into the ever changing, and always unintelligible jargon of pathological diagnosis.
A diagnosis of the symptoms of any given case might indeed point to fatty degeneration of the heart, or to a cirrhosis of the liver, or to some other artificial classification; nevertheless the true homoeopath administers the remedy indicated by the totality of the symptoms, not stopping to ascertain whether or no that remedy has ever caused fatty degeneration or cirrhosis. Any attempt at a pathological basis, for homoeopathic prescriptions, must at once exclude mental and subjective symptoms, and these are often our surest guide to a proper selection, even though they be pathologically insignificant.—E. J. LEE, M.D., 1881.
