the primary shock, if accompanied with coldness, camphor should be given. If, with the reaction, fever should set in, after a few doses of aconite arsenicum should be steadily administered. We must also be on the look-out for the duodenal mischief which Mr. Curling showed to be so frequent after severe burns:-I have already mentioned the value here of kali bichromicum. Before leaving the local effects of excessive heat, I would mention those of undue cold. Frost-bite is out of the range of medicine, but I may give some suggestions in aid of the treatment of a minor form of this evil Chilblain. Painting these enemies to comfort with the mother-tincture of aconite or agaricus—the former if they are inflamed, the latter if simply irritable-gives great relief. Internally, pulsatilla may be administered; and is often useful to moderate or extinguish the proclivity to this complaint with which some persons are afflicted. Dr. Balzer has found hepar sulphuris effective for the latter purpose.* And now of Stings. Teste speaks in the strongest terms of the rapid relief given in mosquito-bites by the application or even internal administration of ledum, as high as the 15th dilution. I suppose that the same treatment would be applicable to the stings of bees, wasps and other venomous creatures. An old popular remedy for bee and wasp stings, the application of moist earth, is generally quite successful in speedily removing pain and swelling. For snake-bites the use of arsenic in the form of the Tanjore pills is sufficiently specific and even homoeopathic for us; and so also is that of cedron just lately revived.† I should not, however, with our present knowledge allow these to supersede the usual ammonia and stimulants in such cases. You will hardly think that homoeopathy finds any place in Fractures. Besides, however, the use of aconite and arnica for shock, fever, and startings in the broken limb, we have not uncommonly to deal with cases where the bones seem disinclined to unite. Cogswell has shown what medicinal treatment can do here, by his use of iodine in scrofulous subjects—a recommendation I have verified. Should no such cause be traceable, you may rely upon symphytum. The claims which this plant makes by its very name to efficacy here, which popular tradition asserts, and which Jahr and others strongly confirm, may well lead us to give it in every case of fracture, especially in those of the patella and the neck of the femur, * J. B. H. S., ii., 365. where the disinclination in question is strongly marked.* As alternatives, I may mention Dr. Henriques's successful use of ruta, suggested by its action on the periosteum, or Hering's and Grauvogl's stimulation of osseous production by calcarea phosphorica. Particulars of these experiences will be found under the heads of the respective medicines in my Pharmacodynamics. Sunstroke finds a most homoeopathic and effective remedy in glonoin. Many cases are on record of its speedy efficacy in removing the acute symptoms; and I have found it no less useful in some of the after-effects which linger with the patient. It is only when these are of a continuously hyperæmic type that they call preferably for belladonna. I have advisedly said "sunstroke" and not "heat-stroke" here. That there is a heat-stroke, producing phenomena far more general than those which occur from the coup de soleil, I fully recognize. Aconite would probably do all that medicine can do for it, but abstraction of heat by the cold douche or pack is so obvious and so well-accredited a remedy that I hesitate to advise in this condition any dependence on internal medication. Shock may take two forms-the torpid and the erethistic. Dr. Howard Crutcher, of Chicago,-one of the American homœopathists who have so distinguished themselves in surgery of late, writes-"For shock, camphor, veratrum album and carbo vegetabilis are pre-eminent. Coldness is the main feature of camphor; blueness calls for carbo; and the well-known cold sweat on the forehead and over the body points to veratrum. I have repeatedly witnessed the efficacy of these remedies in surgical shock." His fellow-citizen, Dr. J. S. Mitchell, says of one of them, veratrum, that it is one of the best heart-stimulants we have; and that he "can get as prompt results from it, in the 3x dilution, as he can from a hypodermic of strychnia." Dr. Helmuth adds his testimony to the same effect. In the erethistic form arsenicum, in a pretty high dilution, would be preferable. Emotional Disturbances have received especial study from homœopathic therapeutists; and the following are the main conclusions at which they have arrived. The immediate effects of fright are best controlled by a dosesome say of opium, others of aconite. I should prefer the latter. * See M. H. R., xl., 601. But when fright has given rise to a genuine neurosis, as chorea or epilepsy, ignatia is more suitable than any other medicine. For the effect of grief, also, ignatia bears away the palm, especially when the emotion is suppressed. If it be longcontinued and wearing, phosphoric acid is preferable. When anger has been the disturbing emotion, chamomilla removes its effects, even when these reach as far as jaundice. Beyond these well-tested recommendations, a good deal that is very hypothetical has been written about the remedies for the effects of emotion. The fun that was made out of this material by the first Lord Lytton in "My Novel" was fully provoked. The subject, however, is not the less worthy of further and more experimental study. LECTURE LIV. DISEASES OF CHILDREN. I have finally, in the next two lectures, to bring before you what we can do for the special diseases which wait upon childhood. You may call this an arbitrary division, and may perhaps be disposed to criticize it as unfitting to a scientific classification. Perhaps it is, yet I cannot doubt that it is practically useful to present under one view the distinctive maladies in question, and the modifications of ordinary disease which their subjects show. The "jucunde" element in homoeopathic treatment naturally makes it sought to for children,* so that we have large experience in the treatment of their disorders. The results of such experience I think it well to put before you in a connected form; and I do not think that you will find the arrangement otherwise than convenient. I will begin by passing down the classes of diseases already identified, and noting the treatment of such of them as are peculiar to children, or offer special characters in early life. In addition to what I shall myself bring forward, you may consult the special treatises on diseases of children by Hartmann, Hartlaub and Teste,-all of which have been translated into English; and the remarks on the treatment of infantile disorders appended by Drs. Leadam and Guernsey to their gynæcological manuals already mentioned. I may refer you also to monographs. on the subject lately issued by Drs. C. E. Fisher and Sigmund Raue; to a Digest of Ten Years' Work at the Children's Sanatorium, Southport," by Dr. Storrar, published in the sixth volume of the Journal of the British Homeopathic Society; to a paper by Dr. Roberson Day, entitled "A Year's Work in the Children's Department of the Hospital" in the sixth volume of the London Homeopathic Hospital Reports; and to a lecture on "Homœopathy and the Diseases of Children," by Dr. James Love, of Paris, reported in the thirty-ninth volume of the Monthly Homeopathic Review. Among the general diseases we have to treat of a fever-the infantile remittent, and a disorder of nutrition-rickets: we * See M. H. R., xxxix., 86. have also to speak of the form which syphilis takes in the first few months of life. I know it is a question at the present day whether Infantile Remittent Fever is a distinct pathological entity. The question may now, indeed, be regarded as settled in the negative. None the less, however, has it a clinical existence, and presents itself as a true primary fever, independent of local inflammation. An excellent account of it is given, evidently from the life, by Dr. Guernsey. Its antipyretic is gelsemium, as first indicated by Dr. Ludlam; and I recommend you to give this medicine in all obscure febrile disorders of infancy in which remittency is marked. It will generally need an ally to remove the gastric symptoms, and this I have always found in pulsatilla; though you must not forget antimonium crudum. Should the head symptoms be prominent, the most suitable medicine is hyoscyamus. Sometimes a condition like that of remittent fever proves very lingering, and here helminthiasis is often present-the "worm-fever" of domestic medicine. Whether, however, worms are actually in existence or not, you cannot do better in such cases than follow Dr. Chepmell's prescription of cina.* you want further help, you may consider Stille's prescription of spigelia, which I have quoted when lecturing on that drug. We are learning more and more, since Sir William Jenner broke ground on the subject, to regard Rickets not as a malady seated in the bones only, but as a true constitutional diathesis ranking with scrofula and syphilis -though not like these hereditary. "If a child cuts its teeth late, if it does not walk so early as other children, if the fontanelles are late in closing, the probability is that it is the subject of rickets." So wrote Dr. Hillier. He further defined it as "a general disease of nutrition chiefly affecting infants, characterized at first by unhealthy alvine secretions, pains in the limbs, perspirations about the head, and subsequently by great muscular weakness and retarded ossification and dentition, with abnormal growth of cartilage, causing various deformities in the head, trunk and limbs. In the spleen, lymphatic glands and liver, there is degeneration with enlargement, sometimes also in the cerebrum." Knowing these facts about rickets, it would seem probable that regulation of defective diet and hygiene, and administration of cod liver oil and suitable medicines for the digestive derangements present, would be all that was required for treatment. * See his "Hints for the Practical Study of the Homoeopathic Method," P. 35. + "Clinical Treatise on Diseases of Children," 1868. |