Aconite, Belladonna, Calcarea, Causticum, Lycopodium, and Sulph., are additional remedies in our list often required.
63. Wetting the Bed (Enuresis Nocturna)
CAUSES:
Irritation of Worms; too large a quantity of fluids, especially if taken warm and in the evening; improper food or drink, giving rise to acrid urine; constitutional weakness. The cause is often obscure, and generally requires professional treatment.
TREATMENT:
Cina. Enuresis from worms.
Belladonna. Irritability of the urinary organs, without any irritating property in the urine, especially in sensitive children with too active brains.
Benzoic Acid. When the urine is very bad smelling.
Aconite, Gelsemium, Cantharis, and Nux Vom., are additional remedies. See the previous Section.
ACCESSORY MEANS:
All sharp, salty, and sour articles, malt liquors, spirits, tea, and coffee, should be avoided. Meat in moderate quantities, but little fruit, and no flatulent food. Milk-and-water, or cocoa, may be taken in the morning, but nothing hot towards evening. Cold water and mucilaginous drinks may be taken in moderation, as they diminish the sharpness of the urine. The patient should sleep on a hard mattress, with light covering, take exercise in the open-air, and have shower-baths, or daily ablutions with cold water. The whole process of ablution, including drying with a large towel, should not occupy more than five or six minutes. The bladder should be invariably emptied before getting into bed, and sleep after waking up in the morning should not be indulged in.
64. Spermatorrhoea Involuntary Emissions
In the early editions of this Manual, the subject of this Section has been incidentally mentioned under one or two medicines in the Materia; Medica; and since the first edition was published, the author has been consulted by many hundred persons, in various parts of the kingdom, suffering from seminal weakness, proving that the evils of this affection are wide-spread as well as serious. The author’s practice and correspondence with patients lead him to conclude that the disease is much over- looked or underrated by medical men generally; although, probably, in some cases his treatment has been adopted from an indisposition to refer personally to a medical man in the patient’s neighbourhood on such a subject.
CAUSES:
The discharge alluded to generally occurs as the result of a bad habit self-abuse, either accidentally acquired, or learned from associates, especially in schools, and continued under the influence of a morbid imagination, and often in ignorance of the consequences of the vicious practice. Other causes may be unhealthy condition of the urethra, or of the rectum; a too long or narrow prepuce, causing irritation from the retention of the secretions; sexual excesses; frequent excitation of the sexual passion; irritation from worms, Piles, or excessive horse- exercise; disease of the brain or spinal marrow; etc.
EFFECTS:
The effects of Spermatorrhoea are depression of spirits, often very marked; loss or weakness of memory and of the senses; indigestion, with oppression after food, flatulence, constipation, headache, etc.; sunken eyes, and loss of the healthy tints of the lips and face, the patient looking older than his years. When indulgence in the habit has been long- continued, the effects, which need not be here particularised, are more serious and general. Happily a course of judicious treatment is sufficient in nearly every case to effect a cure.
TREATMENT:
The treatment, both medical and hygienic, must be varied in almost every instance, and include all available methods for establishing the constitutional strength, soothing local excitement and irritability, and forming healthy habits both of the mind and body.
No treatment can be successful unless the bad habit be utterly relinquished.
The Medical treatment involves the administration of homoeopathic remedies (only two or three are described in this work China, Phosphorus, etc.). the selection and the doses of which can only be determined by the local and general symptoms of individual cases. An important feature in the medical treatment should be the correction of any concurrent affection from which the patient may suffer.
The Hygienic treatment involves influences of wide extent, and embraces the commercial, social, and moral relationships of the patient, occupation, recreation, books, meals, sleep, bathing, and mental and moral discipline. The management of these several points must be regulated according to the exigencies of each case, and involves details which cannot be described here.
Preventive Treatment. Measures for preventing the precocious development of the sexual instincts, or keeping them in subordination, are pointed out in the Author’s Vade Mecum of Modern Medicine and Surgery.
CHAPTER VIII
DISEASES OF THE CUTANEOUS SYSTEM
65. Nettle-Rash (Urticaria)
SYMPTOMS:
Prominent round or oval elongated patches or wheals of the skin, resembling those produced by nettle-stings. They appear and disappear suddenly, are easily excited by scratching or exposure to cold, and cause severe heat and itching. The elevations contain no fluid, and do not end in scaling of the skin. It is not contagious, and may trouble the same patient repeatedly. Chronic Urticaria is very rebellious against treatment, unless the cause be detected and removed.
TREATMENT:
Apis. Urticaria, with stinging or burning, itching, and much swelling.
Pulsatilla If Indigestion or Dysmenorrhoea be present.
Ant. Crud. From gastric disturbances. Dulcamara. From cold, with much stinging.
Rhus Tox. From eating shell-fish, etc.; worse in bed; rheumatic patients.
Aconitum. With feverishness.
Calcarea. Chronic Nettle-rash, especially in scrofulous patients. Also Sulph., the irritation coming on chiefly at night.
GENERAL TREATMENT:
Smearing with bacon fat, as recommended page 92, gives great relief. A general warm-bath is also soothing and aids the cure. A milk diet, and no stimulants.
PREVENTIVES:
A dry, uniform, and moderate temperature, plain food, exercise in the open air, cold or tepid bathing, and great cleanliness. As the use of flannel may be an exciting cause, by the irritation it produces, it should never be worn by the patients next to the skin.
66. Itching of the Skin (Prurigo)
This condition consists of an eruption sometimes nearly imperceptible, which occasions the irritation.
CAUSES:
Rich, indigestible food, stimulating drinks, extreme heat or cold, a constitutional taint, chronic disease, etc.
TREATMENT:
Sulphur. Severe itching, with dryness of the skin, worse in the evening, in warmth and in bed. A dose twice or thrice daily.
Carbo Veg. When Sulph. only partially cures.
Aconitum. Feverish heat, redness of the skin, thirst; symptoms worse at night.
Rhus Tox. Itching and redness, with swelling and tingling.
Arsenicum. Itching, with burning, or an eruption emitting a small drop of watery fluid; chronic cases, with constitutional feebleness.
Calcarea, Mercurius, Hepar., and Pulsatilla, are also remedies in our list sometimes required.
ACCESSORY MEASURES:
Medicated ointments should not be used, as they might transfer the disease from the skin to some internal organ, where it would become far more serious. In severe cases, temporary relief may be obtained by bathing the parts in alcohol and water, in equal proportions, or sponging the skin with a warm infusion made by pouring boiling water on bran. Very troublesome prurigo is much benefited by a warm bath (p. 82), which is both soothing and curative; it should be taken in the evening or when the patient has not to be again exposed to atmospheric changes, and followed next morning by the wet sheet squeezed out of cold or tepid water, rapid drying, and friction.
If the irritation or eruption be limited, the use of a wet compress over the parts will also be beneficial, although at first it may increase the irritation. Scratching must be avoided. The skin should be strengthened by daily ablutions of cold or tepid water sponging, shower-baths, etc.; also by regular exercise in a bracing air. Stimulating food and drink, pastry, and other indigestible diet, must be avoided; also irregular hours of meals. Without good hygienic measures, medicines will be of little permanent utility.
67. Ringworm (Herpes circinnatus)
SYMPTOMS:
Small round vesicles, filled with clear or yellow fluid, on the head, at the roots of the hair, and on various parts of the skin. The rings or patches vary in size from a shilling to that of a crown-piece. There is much itching, and in old-standing cases the whole scalp may be implicated; but the general health is rarely disturbed.
CAUSES:
It is an epidemic affection, readily communicated by touch; and ill-health, poor food, dark, badly-ventilated dwellings, etc., favour its spread and activity.
TREATMENT:
Internal Sepia.
Local. Cut short the hair and wash well with soap and water. Apply a little Cod-liver oil to the spots night and morning, rubbing it in gently with the finger. Afterwards, if this is not sufficient, the local application of Sulphurous Acid, Carbolic Acid, or Oleate of Mercury, will destroy the parasite which causes the eruption. 1 See “Homoeopathic Treatment of Infants and Children,” 6th Edition, 1899.
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."