An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art by B. L. Hill (story reading TXT) 📖

of the breast and uterus, used as a wash. Arsenicum

acts favorably on cancers, and is a specific when applied to the surface of carbuncle.

Ipecac

acts very beneficially when applied to the surface where there is high fever, with nausea and vomiting. Half an ounce of tr. Ipecac to two quarts of tepid water, applied with a sponge to the whole surface, acts like magic in yellow fever, allaying the nausea, producing free and health-restoring perspiration.

Rhus Tox,

applied, with water at the strength of thirty drops of the tr. to a gill, to parts affected with Rheumatism, acts very beneficially. It is also a most valuable application at half the above strength upon parts affected with Erysipelas, when the surface is swollen, and there are vessicles filled with fluid like a blister in burns.

It is also useful for sores that exist as the chronic effects of burns when the proper treatment had not been used in the beginning, and the healing process was never perfected.

Rhus Cerate is a very useful application to irritable ulcers.

Hepar Sulphur

is a specific for Itch and Scald Head, applied in form of a wash with twenty to thirty drops of tr. Hepar Sul. to a gill of water. Also for ill-conditioned scrofulous ulcers, generally.

Cuprum Aceticum.

(Acetate of Copper Verdigris) applied to Cancerous ulcers of the face, Lupus or Noli-me-tangere, in the early stage, will in most cases effect a perfect cure, especially if for a week previously the part has been wet daily with tr. Thuja. The best mode of applying the acetate is to mix the impalpable powder, as prepared for paint, with some substance to form a cerate, as equal parts of bees-wax and mutton suet, with 1-50 to 1-100 part of the pure acetate as found in the bottom of the can, when prepared in oil for paint; heat all together and stir until cool. This forms a good plaster for covering and shielding the sore while its medicinal property is in the Cuprum Aceticum diluted as above. It is quite useful for any ill conditioned ulcer.

Acetic Acid

is a most efficient remedy applied to old irritable varicose ulcers on the limbs of females who have suffered from Phlegmasia Dolens, (milk leg.)

It may be applied as a wash to the part once or twice a day at the strength of 1-20th of the acid with water, or in the form of good cider vinegar.

The manufactured vinegar of the cities does not usually contain acetic acid.

Arum Triphyllum is a specific to allay the inflammation and excessive pain in scrofulous swellings of the neck, (Kings Evil.) The pure drug in powder, wet with warm water, or the green root bruised so as to form a poultice, is to be applied over the swelling. It soon discusses the swelling, or if pus has already formed, allays the the pain, and brings the pus to the surface, and if continued, disposes it to heal rapidly.

Baptisia Tinctoria applied as a poultice either in the powdered drug, or with some other substance wet with the infusion or tr., arrests gangrene in a short time. It is especially useful for threatened or actual gangrene arising from lacerated wounds or scalds with wounds, as in accidents connected with the explosion of steam boilers; when we often have scalds and lacerations in the same wound.

Hydrastus Canadensis used as a gargler in a putrid state of the throat in malignant Scarlet fever, arrests the destructive process at once.

It is also a most excellent application for inflamed eyes in the second or sub-acute stage.

PROPHYLACTICS.

(Preventives of Disease.)

TO PREVENT SCARLET FEVER

Give Belladonna at the 3d attenuation, three to six pellets, according to the age of the child, every morning, during the prevalence of the epidemic. This is for the common or mild form of the disease. If the prevailing epidemic is of the malignant kind, producing fatal ulcerations of the throat, give Bell. once in two days and Mercurius Corrosivus at the 3d attenuation on the alternate day.

While Bell. is a very certain preventive of the common eruptive Scarlatina, it is not as certain to prevent the malignant form. Though it renders the latter much more mild, the Merc. Cor. is necessary to ward it off entirely, or so modify as to divest it of the dangerous features.

TO PREVENT YELLOW FEVER

Take Aconite, Belladonna and Macrotin, 1st in rotation one dose a day. If there is any headache, or pains occur in other parts of the body, or a languid feeling, take a dose twice or three times a day in rotation.

TO PREVENT BILIOUS FEVER OR AGUE

Take Podophyllin, Baptisia and Gelseminum 1st in rotation, one dose at night, and if symptoms of fever, as headache and loss of appetite, or bad taste in the mouth in the morning appear, take a dose three times a day, and refrain entirely from food for one or two days.

TO PREVENT TYPHOID FEVER

When exposed, as in nursing the sick, take Baptisia 2d, and Macrotin 2d, a dose three times a day.

TO PREVENT SMALL-POX

Use Macrotin 1st night and morning, and if nursing or exposed frequently, use it every four hours.

TO PREVENT CHOLERA.

Camphor (pellets medicated with the pure tincture) Veratrum 3d, and Arsenicum 3d, should be taken in rotation—a dose morning, noon and night, in the order named; so as to take a dose of each every twenty-four hours. If any sense of weakness or trembling comes on, use the Camphor oftener; if pain or uneasiness in the bowels threatening diarrhœa, use the Veratrum, and for increased thirst with uneasiness at the stomach Arsenicum more frequently.

TO PREVENT DIARRHŒA

Where it is prevailing as an epidemic, Ipecac at night, and Veratrum in the morning will often suffice. For teething children give Ipecac and Chamomilla in the same manner.

TO PREVENT DYSENTERY

In hot weather when bilious diseases prevail, use Mercurius 3d, Podophyllin 2d, and Leptandrin 1st in rotation, giving one dose a day.

In the winter, or when Typhoid fevers prevail, use Mercurius and Rhus tox. alternately a dose every day.

TO PREVENT ITCH.

A dose of Sulphur, or rubbing a little flour of sulphur on the hands, will generally suffice.

TO PREVENT COLDS

Keep the arms, hands and chest well clothed and warm. Affecting the head as catarrh, or the pelvic regions keep the feet and ancles warm and dry. Affecting joints and muscles as Rheumatism—protect the Spine (back) from colds and currents of air.

After an accidental exposure as by getting the feet wet, or being caught in a shower, drink bountifully of cold water, and take a dose of Nux; followed in an hour by Aconite, if any chilliness is felt, or Copaiva if the head is "stuffed up."

In winter and spring when the weather is mild, but there is snow, or the ground is damp, more clothes are necessary than when it is freezing hard and the air is dry.

PREPARATION OF MEDICINE.

As it often becomes necessary for the practitioner to make more or less of his own dilutions and attenuations, some brief instructions especially to new beginners, may not come amiss.

Medicine is prepared by mixing it with distilled water, or purified 98 per cent. Alcohol; or if solid and dry, by reducing it to powder and triturating (rubbing) it in a mortar with pure sugar or Sugar of Milk. The liquid is called dilution, the powder trituration. The attenuations are mostly made at the decimal (1-10,) or centecimal (1-100) ratio and numbered 1, 2, 3, &c., by putting ten drops of the liquid with ninety drops of Alcohol, or ten grains of the powder with ninety grains of Sugar for the 1st, and ten grains or drops of the 1st with ninety more of Alcohol or Sugar, as the case may be, for the 2nd, and so on to any desirable extent.

If the centecimal attenuation is adopted, one grain or drop is used instead of ten, as in the decimal.

I prefer the decimal to the centecimal ratio. Not that there can possibly be any difference in the action of the medicines, at the same attenuation, whether it was brought to that state through a series of 1-10, or 1-100; the 3d at the 1-100 ratio of dilution being precisely the same as the 6th at 1-10. My preference for the decimal ratio is based upon the greater convenience and accuracy of measuring larger quantities.

Accuracy is very desirable, but the practice of guessing at the amount as pursued by some, is anything but accurate. When one makes his dilutions by putting the fluid into a vial and "pouring it all out," guessing that he has a drop left which is to medicate the ninety-nine drops of Alcohol or water, he may put in by guess, I am inclined to guess that he knows nothing, accurately as to what dilution he is making. (See Hull's Laura, introduction, also Jahr & Possart's Pharmacopœia and Posology.) For if the vial is small and quite smooth there may not be a drop left, or if it is rough, there may be several drops.

Yet some physicians make their dilutions thus, and insist upon the superiority of the centecimal over the decimal attenuations.

Whatever ratio is adopted, should be accurately followed. Have true scales for weighing solids, and a graduated measure marked from ten drops up to one hundred for liquids; then always weigh or measure accurately the medicine, as well as the substance with which it is to be attenuated.

The measure and mortar, after using them for one medicine, can be cleaned preparatory for another, with scalding water, rinsing them with purified Alcohol, then drying.

Never smoke or chew Tobacco in any place, but if you are such a slave to habit, that you must do it despite your good sense and better judgment, never do either, or have tobacco or any other odoriferous substance about your person when you are preparing medicines, or they are exposed to the air. Keep the medicines excluded from the light and air as far as practicable.

Triturate the powders thoroughly for an hour or more upon each, and shake the dilution from fifty to one hundred times, more for the higher attenuations.

It is better to medicate pellets in large bottles, filling them half or two-thirds full, put in just liquid enough to wet every one, but not so as to dissolve any. Shake them until all are equally wet, and let them stand for four or five days, if practicable, shaking them up two or three times a day until all are dry.

INDEX. Administration of Remedies, 11 Ague, 22 Ague, preventive treatment of, 153 Asthma, 57 Aphthæ, 90 Asiatic Cholera, 104 Amenorrhœa, 129 Ague in the breast, 135 Attenuation of medicines, 151 Bathing, 12 Bilious Fever, 26 Preventive treatment of, 153 Bronchitis, 51 Burns and Scalds, 64 Bilious Colic, 19 Brain Fever, 70 Bee stings, 75 Bite of Rattlesnake, 77 Bruises, 95 Cholera Case, 3 Colic, 18 Colic, Bilious, 19 Cholera Morbus, 21 Cholera, Asiatic, 104 Preventive treatment of, 153 Chill Fever, 22 Continued Fever, 28 Catarrhal Fever, 28 Cough, 52 Colds, 57 Colds, Preventive treatment of,