The Medical Visitor.

A MEDICAL NEWSPAPER.

No. 7.

JULY, 1893.

VOL. IX

SOME EXPERIENCES WITH SILICEA.

Read before the International Hahnemannian Association by T. S. Hoyne, M. D.

This remedy is frequently condemned by homœopathic physicians, or at least is often adjudged of little value in the treatment of chronic affections. I have jotted down a few cases which may prove of interest.

hair

Mr. A., a street-car driver about 48 years of age, with sandy and beard, and of rather slight build, came to me with gleet which had been constantly with him for a period of over ten years he had during this time tried all sorts of remedies with only temporary benefit. Injections of various compositions had controlled it for a brief period, but the discharge invariable reappeared after the stoppage of the injection or even during its Quance. Dilatation of the urethra helped him only for a days.

con ti

few

The usual routine of remedies, with slight benefit or aggrava

tion

as the case might be, was persisted in until the patient

bec a me discouraged and did nothing for two or three years.

I

view

btained the following symptoms at my first and only interwith him: There was a slight discharge of a thin watery

character from the urethra every morning, also a slight discharge of prostatic fluid while straining at stool; there was some itching and a few moist spots about the scrotum; bowels constipated nearly all the time, the stool consisting of hard lumps

evacuated only by great straining; only at the rarest intervals did he have a loose stool; some burning in the anus after stool. Whereas the patient had formerly been always in good spirits he was now inclined to be very irritable from the slightest cause, and was frequently despondent. The sexual desire was very weak, and after coition he felt as if bruised. He said that he took cold easily, and was then liable to a nightly cough.

Upon the strength of these symptoms he received Sil. 200, and I never saw the patient again. A number of months afterward another driver on the same car line called upon me for some of the medicine that cured Mr. A.

Mr. B., a bright young clerk aged about 30, came to consult me about his gleet which was the result of a badly treated gonorrhoea. He had been through the regular course of treatment pursued by regulars and some homœopathists. He told me that the gonorrhoeal discharge had been suppressed several times by injections, the last time being followed by a right sharp attack of orchitis, which had laid him up for a number of days. He then tried a homœopathic physician who gave him a number of remedies without decided benefit, and then resorted to mild injections which were worse than useless for they converted the remnants of the gonorrhoea into a gleet, which had remained unaffected by all sorts of treatment.

I found that the discharge was thin and offensive, very slight in quantity. He had rather frequent emissions, the discharge sometimes being tinged with blood. The urine was turbid and deposited a yellowish sand at times. He could not hold his urine as long as formerly and had to rise once or twice at night to void it. He also had a cold, offensive perspiration of the feet and usually a general perspiration of the whole body every morning. He said that he felt tired all of the time and was disinclined to do any work that he could possibly avoid. was, like the former patient, very sensitive to the cold air and took cold easily; his sleep was restless and filled with frightful dreams. In the morning on rising he experienced a slight dizziness.

He

December 10, Sil. 200 was prescribed. On the 17th he reported that the medicine made him worse at first, increasing the discharge and making him urinate oftener than before.

Sac. lac was given for two weeks, but the symptoms remained. the same day after day.

December 31, Sil. c. m. was given, which was also followed by a marked aggravation of all the symptoms, Sac. lac. was prescribed for three weeks, but there was no apparent change in his symptoms for the better.

January 25, I gave him Sil. 12, which aggravated the symptoms for a few days and then they gradually disappeared. The patient has had no return of the trouble.

their with

Mrs. C., aged 30, of a scrofulous diathesis, complained that she always had had trouble with her menses. They were always rather scanty, of bad color and more or less acrid; and during ontinuance she had burning and soreness of the pudenda, an eruption on the inner side of the thighs. Her history was a rather bad one. She had given birth to two children, both of whom had died of cholera infantum. Her mother died of pulmonary tuberculosis and her father of an eruptive disease- probably, but not certainly, syphilis. When a child she had much trouble with the glands of the neck. Several of them suppurated, leaving bad looking scars. nursin g

own

was a

SO

When her first child she suffered with a broken breast. She very sensitive woman, easily startled, and had frequent

gloomy spells. She was very irritable at times, and especially during the menses. She had frequent headache which seemed to rise from the nape of the neck to the vertex, with pressing pains, as if the skull bones were being pressed apart, the parts were sore to the touch. She has had frequent attacks of earache, sometimes followed by a thin discharge from

and

the affected ear.

every

Of

The bowels were constipated as a rule, moving second or third day and with difficulty.

Course, she had taken all sorts of remedies for this latter

condition, with but temporary benefit. The patient had no cough and complained of no symptoms referable to the chest, somewhat to my surprise, for she looked as if of consumptive

tendency. Some years ago she was thought to have consump

tion,

but a careful examination of her lungs revealed no evidence

of this affection.

Sil

1 m. was prescribed with some slight benefit, but the

improvement was not as great as expected. After three weeks

Sil. c. m. was given and the patient began to cough after lying down at night and again early in the morning or awaking. Sac lac was given for a time, but still there was no real improvement in her symptoms.

Sil. 12 was next administered with immediate and permanent improvement. The cough disappeared, the menses became normal and the headaches vanished.

Thus on two occasions the use of Sil. c. m. was followed by aggravations which were only relieved by the 12th of the same medicine.

Mr. R., a young man of 23 whom I was treating for secondary syphilis, contracted gonorrhoea. One of the symptoms of syphilis which had proved troublesome time and time again was morning diarrhoea which was always relieved by sulphur high. During his gonorrhoea the opposite condition was well marked, and as his discharge was thin and very offensive Sil. 1 m. was given. He made a rapid recovery from this affection, and since his bowels have been as regular as clock work. He is still under treatment for syhpilis.

Mrs. D. had a bursa on the right hand which she objected to having ruptured with the blow of a book. Her symptoms were those of Silicea throughout, and I gave her the 1 m. of this drug. Several weeks elapsed and the bursa was still there. The remedy was repeated and I did not see her for a long time, but in the meanwhile she had been taking Sil. 6 on her own account at frequent intervals. She began to think another remedy was demanded. I then gave her Sil. cm., but did not let her know what she was taking. The bursa disappeared slowly in the course of two or three weeks.

Some two years ago a young lady who was about to be married called upon me with a parasitic disease of the skin of the chest. After a very quick examination and brief questioning I gave her Sil. cm. To-day, June 5, I learn through another patient that the eruption entirely disappeared in the course of a few weeks. The lady had tried all schools and all sorts of treatment for several years without benefit of a lasting character.

Such cases might be continued indefinitely, but as the members of this association have had equally as good an experience further reports are unnecessary.

In the

MICROBIAN WARFARE.

BY SAMUEL SWAN, M. D., NEW YORK.

the far-away time before the silver age was succeeded by Copper age, the magical forces of the dark satelite had entered by means of the dark magnetisms, and the happy condition of the inhabitants began to undergo an unpleasant and disastrous change. Irritability of temper began to manifest itself, a thing heretofore unknown. The digestive and nutritive faculties commenced to fulfill their offices imperfectly,-a fluid of animal magnetism remained in the body, and this commenced to produce irritability of the nerves. This affected the amiability, in which all the organs had co-acted together heretofore for the delights of life. Thence the molecules of the brain commenced to be affected, and to be disturbed in the motions of their harmony.

to

Previous to this time there were no parisitical creatures known be among the myriads of the virtuous infinitisimals that inhabit the blood. These infinitesimals were all strengths, gentlenesses, kindnesses, or life-giving productivities.

Then it was discovered that both in the red and white fluids, alike of mankind and of the subject creatures, the infinitesimals among them forms of inversive creations, a thing never

had

before recorded by previous investigators. Thus the organisms both of man and of nature, commenced to pass from a state of

ease

into the state of disease. Some of these infinitesimals have

become objective by means of the microscope, but little was

know

wn concerning them; they were called microbes, bacilli,

bacteria, micrococci, and other names to indicate their forms

and

Si

in ve

exceeding smallness.

nce the publication of a previous paper on this subject, stigators have ascertained the truth of the statement that

microbes, vibriones, cells, or whatever they are, fight and conSum e each other. That others guard the channels of life, that many are so minute that they pass through the tissues of the blood vessels and the sheaths of the nerves, that in their labors and uses they act with a human intelligence, but they do not Seem to have had their spiritual or arch-natural sight opened to

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