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

the head and back, aching in the joints, yawning, followed by coldness of the hands and feet, blueness of the nails and skin of the hands, general chilliness, sometimes "shaking." This lasts from a few minutes in some cases, to several hours in others. The chill is followed by a fever, which is generally severe and long continued, in proportion to the length and severity of the chill. The fever is followed by free perspiration, when it subsides and leaves the patient in a comfortable condition. This state is called the Intermission. This continues from a few hours to twenty-four, or longer, when another chill comes on followed by fever and sweats as before. During the chill and fever, the patient often suffers great pain, and is sometimes delirious. Young children frequently have convulsions when the chill sets in. These convulsions of children, though alarming, are not often dangerous. TREATMENT.

As soon as the first symptoms of the chills appear, such as the headache, pain in the back and bones, coldness of the hands, nose and ears, give Aconite and Baptisia alternately, giving the first three doses every ten minutes, the next three doses every fifteen minutes, and then once in half an hour until the patient begins to sweat freely, when the medicines should be discontinued. If there is nausea or vomiting present, let the patient have lukewarm water freely in large draughts, until he vomits it up several times. As soon as the sweating commences, give Arsenicum and Macrotin alternately every hour during the intermission, except during sleeping time. On return of the chill, should it appear a second time, use the Aconite and Baptisia as before, and follow them with Arsenicum and Nux Vom. every two hours. This course of treatment will cure a majority of cases, but some require Cinchonia. That Cinchonia is a specific for intermittent fevers in many of their forms, no one will deny. It is the Homœopathic remedy for many cases, and should be prescribed. The injurious effects that are often attributed to Quinine, are, I have no doubt, attributable not to that remedy, but to the drugs that are used prior to giving the Chinium Sul. I have used it in more than two thousand cases, and have never been able to see any evil consequences follow its proper use. It should be given from the beginning of the chill to the end of the paroxysm, and continued during the whole time of the intermission: i. e. until the time arrives for the next chill, time being important in the use of this remedy. Use the first decimal trituration, and give grain doses (equal to 1-10th of a grain of the drug) every half hour till the time the next chill would occur, if it pursued its regular course, allowing the patient six or seven hours time in each twenty-four, for sleep.[1] Though from two to four grains of the pure Chinium Sulphuricum is all the patient would get, very few cases that do not yield to a course of the former treatment here recommended, will have the third paroxysm after this China treatment is commenced and pursued as here directed. For children the dose may be one-half or one-fourth that of the adults. If a trituration of the medicine cannot be got conveniently, four grains of the Quinine may be put into a four ounce vial of water, shaken well every time, and a teaspoonful taken at a dose. Abstinence from food as far as practicable, and quiet is of much importance in this disease, but the patient may use water freely.

In some cases, the chill is irregular and indistinct, the patient is thirsty during the chill, and the cold stage is long in proportion to the length of the fever, the surface pale and more or less bloated. Arsenicum is the remedy, and should be given from the commencement of the chill, and every hour until the fever subsides, then every three hours during the intermission. In chronic cases, where the patient has been drugged with mercurials and cathartics, together with larger doses of Quinine, and is still suffering under the disease, Pulsatilla and Macrotin in alternation, will, in nearly every case, effect a cure.

Bilious Fever.

This fever may be either intermittent, remitting, or continued, and typhoid. It is distinguished from common intermittent, by the great derangement of the stomach, as nausea and vomiting of bilious matter, yellow coated tongue, bitter taste in the mouth, foul breath, loss of appetite, high colored urine, and frequently distress and fullness in the right side, (though this last is not in every case present,) the skin and white of the eyes soon become yellowish, the chills are often imperfect, the fever being disproportionably long.

TREATMENT.

Podophyllin and Merc. should be given in ease of intermittents of this character, during the paroxysm, and in rotation with the other remedies for intermittents, giving a dose every three hours during the intermission. It is well also to continue these remedies night and morning, alternately, for a week or so, after the cessation of the chills and fever, or until all bilious appearances cease.

A Remitting Fever is one that goes nearly off, but not so entirely as an intermittent, returning again by a paroxysm of chill more or less distinct, sometimes hardly perceptible, and an increase of the fever following, from day to day, until arrested.

Continued Fevers are generally of a Bilious character, except in winter, when they are more or less connected with irritation of the lungs, or with Rheumatic affections, when they are termed Catarrhal or Rheumatic Fevers. If the bilious symptoms prevail, give Aconite and Baptisia during the chills and high febrile stage, at intervals of an hour, and during the declining stage of the fever, give Podophyllin and Mercurius until a perfect intermission is produced, when the same treatment should be adopted as in intermittents. But should it take the form of

Catarrhal Fever,

the head being "stuffed up," pain in the head, the lungs oppressed, cough and sneezing, the eyes and nose suffused with increased secretion of tears and mucus, pain in the back or loins, almost constant chilly sensations, use in rotation Baptisia, Copaiva and Phosphorus, giving a dose every hour until the fever begins to abate and perspiration comes on, then leave off the Baptisia, and give in its stead Macrotin, lengthening the interval between the remedies to two hours or longer.

For the chronic cough that sometimes follows catarrhal fever, Copaiva, Macrotin and Phosphorus should be used morning, noon and night, in the order here named. Should the fever be a

Rheumatic Fever,

(Rheumatism,) the patient complaining of soreness of the muscles, of the chest, back and limbs, with or without lameness of the joints, Aconite, Macrotin and Nux Vom. are the remedies for a male patient, and the two former, with Pulsatilla, for a female, (or for a male, of light hair, delicate skin, feminine voice and mild temper,) to be used in rotation one hour apart. These remedies are to be taken in a severe acute case, every half hour until the symptoms begin to abate; then every hour or two hours as the case progresses. Baths properly administered, are of great importance in all forms of fever. The surface of the patient should be washed and thoroughly rubbed in water quite warm, into which a sufficiency of the ley of wood ashes has been put to make it feel quite slippery. This should be done twice daily in all fevers. But in

Rheumatism,

In addition to the medicines directed under the head of Rheumatic Fever, the most decided benefit can be derived from Alcoholic Vapor Baths, which, while they do not in the least interfere with the action of the medicines, tend greatly to mitigate the pains, and produce an equal state of the circulation by stimulating the surface; abridging in many cases, the disease one-half the time it would run under the long interval treatment alone. This is to be applied by filling a tea cup with alcohol, placed in a saucer of water to insure against danger from an overflow while burning. Place both under a solid wood bottom chair, elevated about the thickness of a brick under each post, strip the patient naked, and after giving him the alkaline bath, and rubbing his surface dry, place him upon the chair, enveloping him completely, except his head, with a woollen sheet or blanket, (as there is no danger of the wool taking fire,) letting the blanket enclose also the chair and come down to the floor. Then set fire to the alcohol, and if the heat is too great, raise the edge of the blanket and let it become reduced. Continue this until he sweats freely, or becomes too much fatigued to sit longer. Let the patient often drink freely of cold water, during the process. Remove him from the chair to his bed and cover him warmly. It is well to place the feet in hot water during this process. This is a delightful operation for a rheumatic patient, and no one will object to a repetition of it. Whatever Physicians may think or say of this operation, I know it is a most potent agent for the cure of inflammatory rheumatism, and is a valuable agent in the chronic form of this disease.

Typhoid Fever.

This is a dangerous, and with the ordinary allopathic treatment, a very fatal disease. It generally comes on insidiously, the patient feeling a dull head ache, more or less pain in his joints, back and shoulders, with loss of appetite, restless and disturbed sleep, slight chilly sensations, with a little fever, dry skin, and a general languid feeling. These symptoms continue from four or five days in some cases, to two or three weeks in others, gradually getting worse until the patient is prostrated, or if he takes no drugs, and keeps still, avoiding food as far as practicable, he may escape prostration, and after lingering for eight or ten days, and sometimes longer, just on the point of prostration, he begins slowly to get better, and recovers about as slowly and imperceptibly as he grew sick. This is in accordance with observation of cases under my own eye, and I have no doubt those cases of spontaneous recovery, had they taken a single dose of active cathartic medicine or any of the active drugs, they would have been immediately laid upon a bed of sickness from which a recovery would have been extremely doubtful. I believe that two-thirds of the deaths from typhoid fever are the direct results of medication, and that those who recover, do so in spite of the cathartics and the active drugs when such are used. Some cases, however, will not thus spontaneously recover, and require proper treatment; and it is safest to treat all cases, at as early a day as possible. Some cases come on more rapidly and run into the prostrating or critical stage, in a very few days. Delirium is a symptom that comes on early in these cases. When the disease is fully established, and even sometimes in the early stage, diarrhœa sets in and runs the patient down rapidly.

TREATMENT.

In the early stage, that which might be called premonitory, while the patient is yet able to be about his business, but is complaining of the symptoms above named, he should, as far as possible, abstain from exercise and food, and take of Baptisia and Phosphorus alternately, a dose once in three hours. These will almost invariably produce amendment in a few days, and as soon as he improves any, leave off the medicines. Should there be diarrhœa present, use