Arsenicum. Extreme weakness; burning pain with the evacuations; coldness of the extremities; cold breath; faeces and urine putrid, offensive, and often passed involuntarily.
Ipecacuanha. Autumnal Dysentery, with nausea, much straining, and colic; the evacuations are first slimy, afterwards bloody. Often advantageously alternated with Bryonia.
Administration. In severe cases, a dose every twenty or thirty minutes; in mild, every two or three hours.
ACCESSORY MEANS:
The patient should maintain a reclining posture in bed, in a well ventilated apartment, and in bad cases use the bedpan instead of getting up. Local applications afford great relief, the best of which is the cold compress, i.e., two folds of linen, or a napkin, wrung out after immersion in cold water, and applied over the bowels, covered with oiled silk, and secured by a flannel bandage around the whole abdomen. If the pains are very severe, flannels wrung out of hot water should be applied, a second hot flannel being ready when the first is removed. The best beverages are: cold water, gum-water, milk, etc.; the diet should be restricted to arrowroot, cocoa, boiled milk, macaroni, oranges, ripe grapes, etc.
Even broths are inadmissible during the worst stages. Animal food and stimulants should be withheld, except during recovery and in chronic cases, when extract of meat should be taken. In extreme cases patients may be kept alive on wine alone, when the stomach will retain nothing else. Claret is the best in this country, and in wine-growing countries the ordinary table wine. Eight ounces may be taken daily, as much as two or three ounces being given at a time and extremely slowly. Rice milk milk having had rice boiled in it for two or three hours and then strained may afterwards be given as well. A teacupful may be given two hours after the wine. Great care is required in returning to solid food, and the importunities of patients must be strenuously resisted. Cold and sudden changes of temperature and damp night air should be carefully avoided. The feet and abdomen should always be kept warm.
PREVENTION OF DYSENTERY:
The following passage by SIR THOMAS WATSON is valuable and suggestive: “The remarkable decline of Dysentery in this Metropolis has been contemporary with that of some other severe disorders, and is due to the same combination of causes. For two centuries we have had no plague among us. Agues, formerly very rife in London, have almost disappeared. Continued fevers, which used to break out annually in hot weather, are comparatively unfrequent.
I believe that we may trace these great blessings to an event which was regarded by many, at the time, as a national judgment I mean the great fire, that in 1666 consumed everything between Temple Bar and the Tower. The streets and houses thus destroyed had been filthy in the extreme, close, densely crowded, and consequently most unhealthy. The impurity of the air excited, perhaps, some maladies, and it certainly predisposed those who dwelt in it to various kinds of disease, `the seeds of which,’ says Dr. Heberden, `like those of vegetables, will only spring up and thrive when they fall upon a soil convenient for their growth.
To the better construction of the houses and of the streets in the rebuilt city, to the increased means of ventilation, to the general formation of drains and sewers, to the more copious supply of water, and to the more temperate and cleanly habits of the people, we may fairly ascribe our present comparative exemption from Dysentery, from Ague and Continued fever, which are often the parents of Dysentery, and from the Plague itself.”
51. Rupture (Hernia) and Strangulated Hernia.
NATURE:
Rupture is a protrusion of some portion of intestine or its covering through the walls of the abdomen, causing a swelling. If such a portion of the intestine become constricted in any way, so that the contents of the bowels cannot pass onwards, and the circulation of blood is impeded, it is said to be strangulated.
SYMPTOMS:
A painful, tense, and incompressible swelling; flatulence and colicky pains; desire to go to stool, and inability to pass anything, unless there be faecal matter in the bowel below the rupture. If relief be not obtained, inflammation sets in, with vomiting, extreme pain, small wiry pulse, etc.; and finally, Mortification with cessation of pain and death.
CAUSES:
Predisposing weakness of the abdominal walls from disease, injury, or congenital deficiency. Exciting causes violent exertion, as in lifting; immoderate straining, as in passing urine through a structure, or in relieving the bowels.
TREATMENT:
In simple rupture there is no danger. A medical man should be sent for and the patient kept lying down. Where there are symptoms of strangulation pain, sickness, collapse the danger is great, and a medical man should be summoned immediately. In the meantime unskilled persons should not meddle with the tumour. The patient should be placed on a board, raised so as to form a steep inclined plane, the legs uppermost. The legs should be drawn up, to relax the walls of the abdomen. The head should be supported by a pillow. Nux v. should be given every five minutes.
To prevent a recurrence, a suitable truss should be worn, and as it is important that the truss be exactly adapted to the case, a surgeon should be consulted.
52. Worms (Helminthia)
Intestinal worms being the attendants of certain morbid states, the treatment should be directed against the disease itself, rather than against the products it engenders. The effect of most allopathic remedies is, at the best, to excite a discharge of the worms, without correcting the morbid condition on which their presence and reproduction depends.
VARIETIES:
There are three chief species of worms which infest the human body, viz., Oxyuris Vermiculars, Ascaris Lumbricoides, and Taenia Solium.
1. The Oxyuris Vermicularis, or threadworms, infests especially the rectum. It is small, about a quarter to half an inch long, occurs chiefly in children, and occasions much local irritation. The chief symptom is an intolerable creeping itching within and about the anus in the evening, aggravated by the warmth of bed; also picking of the nose foetid breath, depraved appetite, and disturbed sleep.
2. The Ascaris Lumbricoides, or round-worm, also exists in children, its habitat being the small intestines, where it feels on the chyle, and attains a length of six to twelve inches. The symptoms, often obscure, are pains in the belly, fretfulness, grinding of the teeth, disturbed sleep, or convulsive attacks; also itching of the nose and anus. The child becomes sallow, its limbs waste, but its belly is enlarged, hot, and tense; the appetite is uncertain, often voracious; the breathe is offensive; and the stools contain much slimy mucus. The worms sometimes travel upwards into the stomach and are vomited, or downwards into the colon and are passed with the stools.
3. The Taenia Solium, or tape-worm, is nearly white, flattened, and of a jointed structure; it attains a great length, even many yards, by repetition of the joints; and exists both in adults and children. The symptoms being masked, its presence is often unsuspected until portions are passed in the motions, the head still remaining. There is seldom more than one worm present at a time, yet each joint possesses an ovary, and its eggs are millions, but they discharged with faeces, and devoured by unclean animals swine, ducks, and rats; in these creatures they become developed, but not into tape-worms, for they go through several generations before returning to the jointed form. They are probably introduced into the human body by eating unwholesome animal food, especially “measly” pork, or tripe, and sausage- skins improperly cooked. The ova sometimes reach the circulation, and in the liver or other organs are developed into encysted Entozoa, commonly called Hydatids.
GENERAL SYMPTOMS OF WORMS:
Sudden changes in the colour of the face; dark semi-circles under the eyes; copious flow of saliva; nausea; insipid, acid, or foetid odour of the breath; a voracious, alternating with a poor, appetite; itching of the anus; talking, and grinding the teeth during sleep; thick and whitish urine; tightness and swelling of the lower part of the abdomen; frequently emaciation; and, sometimes, convulsions or delirium. Perhaps the only certain sign is the presence of worms in the stools, or in the matter vomited.
TREATMENT:
Aconitum. At bed-time, for fever, restlessness, and burning itching at the anus.
Cina. A valuable remedy for the condition producing thread-worms for round-worms, with the following symptoms: Boring at the nose, livid circles round the eyes, tossing about, or calling out suddenly during sleep, Epilepsy or Convulsions, nausea and vomiting, griping, itching at the anus, and white and thick urine, sometimes passed involuntarily.
Mercurius. Diarrhoea, slimy stools, distention of the abdomen, difficult teething, and augmented secretion of saliva.
Nux Vomica. For both threat and round worms, hard stools, and after indigestible food.
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."