BHATIA V. R., Influenza and its Homoeopathic Treatment BHATIA V.R. PAGE 1 Influenza Introduction "FLU" - That dreaded three syllabic word carries with it the import of suffering and impending sickness whenever the Newspapers carry the news that it is once again within our doors. This year of grace 1972 has it again. Previously the epidemics of influenza used to visit humanity at very long intervals. But with the progress of civilisation and all round progress this disease is showing its ugly face more frequently as we shall presently see from the history of the disease so discerningly collected by our medical men. Much has been said and dealt with by almost all schools of medicine in this field but one does not find the available knowledge about it in one place. It seems expedient, therefore, to put together all that can reasonably be collected at one place, subject to the exigencies of space and precision. Therefore, these pages shall make known for the advantage of the public and the progressive-medical men how to protect, abort, treat and manage influenza and post influenzal sequelae from the angle of vision of the Allopathic and Homoeopathic systems of medicine.
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BHATIA V. R.,
Influenza and its Homoeopathic Treatment
BHATIA V.R. PAGE 1 Influenza Introduction "FLU" - That dreaded three syllabic word carries with it the import of suffering and impending sickness whenever the Newspapers carry the news that it is once again within our doors. This year of grace 1972 has it again. Previously the epidemics of influenza used to visit humanity at very long intervals. But with the progress of civilisation and all round progress this disease is showing its ugly face more frequently as we shall presently see from the history of the disease so discerningly collected by our medical men. Much has been said and dealt with by almost all schools of medicine in this field but one does not find the available knowledge about it in one place. It seems expedient, therefore, to put together all that can reasonably be collected at one place, subject to the exigencies of space and precision. Therefore, these pages shall make known for the advantage of the public and the progressive-medical men how to protect, abort, treat and manage influenza and post influenzal sequelae from the angle of vision of the Allopathic and Homoeopathic systems of medicine. The Allopath might object to his learning the method the Homoeopath applies in such cases. But it would be advantageous to him, for, after all, he too is in need of something which can really benefit his patients and more so when it is not on shifting moving grounds but is of a permanent value. If we are not dealing with such a serious subject as medicine, which means health and happiness and often hazard of life itself to the patient, it would be amusing to notice the shifts that the old school are put to, to explain and justify their appropriation of homoeopathic ideas. They should leave the art of "conjecture" in medicine for the good of humanity whose health they swear by. It would be nice legal question to consider, whether a physician is not criminally liable, when he refuses to learn how the health of those entrusted to his care may be benefited ? PAGE 7 Allopathic view
In order to do honor to our elder brother the Allopath let us first of all consider what his system of medicine (Allopathy) has to say about the subject "Influenza". "Influenza", "La Grippe" or, in common parlance, simply "Flu" is an acute infectious disease spread by a filterable virus. "Virus" is a Latin word meaning poison but is used specifically as a term for a group of pathogens which are barely visible or invisible under the ordinary microscope; they are generally believed to be living organisms or chemical entities on the borderline between the living and the non-living, causing disease in plants, bacteria, insects, animals and man. With few exceptions, they are capable of passing through fine filters that can retain bacteria. They are incapable of growth or reproduction apart from living cells. They are composed of a protein structure units. RNA (Ribo-nucleic-acid) and DNA (De-exyribo-nucleic-acid) are the two main groups with many sub-groups which are classified according to their origin, mode of transmission and manifestations produced in the host. Many are named for the geographic locations where they were first isolated. Among the groups one such sub-group is known as "myxovirus" which has special affinity for certain mucins and have ability to sense influenza or influenza-like infections in man, other primates, and domestic mammals and even poultry. They are transmitted by means of respiratory secretions of infected hosts. Types of influenza Types A, B, C and D of influenza virus are recognised. They differ in antigen structure and do not have cross - immunity. They have low resistance to environmental influences and perish in a few hours at room temperature. When acted upon by disinfectants, or exposed to direct light of the sun or heated at 60°C, perish in 5 to 10 minutes. PAGE 8 Influenza A viruses are the most important pathogens among the influenza viruses, infecting man and many domestic animals and birds. This type causes influenza and sometimes pneumonia and also naturally infects ferrets and pigs. Considerable changes in the antigen structure have taken place since 1933. A (1933-46), A-1 (1947-56) A-2 (1957 - to date). Influenza B virus causes influenza and sometimes pneumonia in man, the disease being more endemic than that caused by influenza A virus. Influenza C virus is thought to cause sporadic, mild influenza-like infections in man. Para - influenza viruses D, HA 1, HA 2, C A are other varieties. History
Influenza must be having a very remote antiquity, since humanity has been suffering from diseases of respiratory system and fever called catarrhal fever but it was recorded clearly for the first time in the fourteenth century and since the early decades of that century, it has been occurring in epidemics and pandemic with varying intervals and duration as also severity. Some notable years are 1837, 1847, 1890, 1916, 1918-19, 1957, 1960, 1964, 1968. Endemic and sporadic cases are not to be accounted for. The 1918-19 pandemic was the severest. Occurrence Sporadically, epidemically and pandemically, influenza has now been visiting the world. It usually occurs in epidemic form many people in the community being struck at the same time. The epidemic generally reaches its peak in 2 or 3 weeks, then sub-sides in another month or two. A devastating world-wide epidemic (pandemic) occurred in the fall of 1918 and early winter of 1919, killing somewhere between 6 and 10 million people, including a half million in the U.S. A. Such widely fatal epidemic has, fortunately, not since occurred. PAGE 9 However, in the year 1957 (summer), a world wide influenza originated in China but it produced a much milder disease than the 1918-19 pandemic. This was named Asian Influenza. In India this year (1972) the Asian Influenza has again been declared to be "in the air", both literally and figuratively. Even in New York there were reported in first fortnight of December '68, 5,00,000 cases of Flu with 107 deaths and 40% absenteeism in factories. In America it is now a warning from the United States Public Health Service that Type A Influenza tends to flare up every two or three years. Type B may also come. We would rather say that Influenza might become an annual feature in future because of the vast areas sprayed with insecticides all over the world and air being charged with poisonous matter inimical to human health. Those poisons are absorbed by the vegetables and fruit that reach us. Body reacts to this poisonous matter and attempts to expel it via the respiratory tract and excretions. Efforts results in fever, also. Endemic Influenza or Influenza Nostras or the Acute Catarrhal Fever or "Winter Grippe" is a disease resembling in its general features pandemic influenza but is usually of less severe type, occurring with more or less regularity during the cold season especially in larger cities of the world. One thing is sure. Once it starts in any country, it takes a global tour. Probably, however, no diagnosis is made so frequently and often with so little justification as that of influenza. The layman, indeed, is very apt to
term any severe nasal catarrh or infection of the upper respiratory tract an influenzal attack, irrespective of fever and bodyache. PAGE 10 Age ? Any. But is more often found affecting persons between the age of 20 and 40. It has been found that in pandemics the disease is usually more severe in young and otherwise healthy adults than in infants and the aged. It attacks both the sex. Its incubation period is 1 to 3 days only. Mode of infection It is a droplet infection. (All those suffering from influenza are its carriers.) Clinical features After a short incubation say of one or two days, at the most three, there is felt a sudden malaise, headache, pain in the back and limbs, anorexia and may be there is nausea and vomiting. Fever is usually 103°F (39°C) - remits for two or three days, with chills and shivering but there is seldom any rigor. Face is flushed, conjunctivae is suffused and hyperaemic fauces - with very prominent lymphoid follicles. Pulse is rapid. Leucopenia (2,000-4,000) per c. mm. Cough - Harsh unproductive (dry) - No signs over the lungs. Note : at this stage, clinically the case would be difficult to be distinguished from a severe respiratory infection due to respiratory viruses, which are : - (a) Non-specific toxaemia : malaise, fever, headache, muscular pain, shivering, prostration. (b) Upper respiratory Infection : Pharyngitis, rhinorrhoea, laryngitis, croup (children). (c) Lower respiratory Infection : Bronchitis, pneumonia, Bronchiolitis. (d) Specific features : In adenovirus infection keratoconjunctivitis; Herpangina. PAGE 11 Symptoms and signs 1. Onset : Sudden fever. With symptoms similar to those of common cold or an acute bronchitis; aching in limbs and back. The symptoms tend to vary with different epidemics. Temperature 103°F. It is almost classical. 2. The general constitutional upset is more severe than one would expect with an ordinary cold : -
Headache, chill, lethargy are common. 3. A cough, sneezing, running eyes and nose, and laryngitis. 4. Nausea, vomiting and abdominal pains are also found in some outbreaks. Not in all. 5. Tongue is furred. 6. Appetite is lost. 7. Great prostration. Complication Bronchopneumonia is the most important complication and is responsible for most of the deaths. The Pneumonia is usually caused by secondary infection with such organisms as the influenza bacilli, streptococci and staphylococci. PAGE 12 Note : 1. Elderly people are more prone to develop Pneumonia. Caution the family. 2. Pleurisy. 3. Otitis media. 4. Meningitis Influenzal. 5. Oedema laryngis. 6. Raynaud's disease. Prognosis In ordinary cases which are uncomplicated the Temperature drops after 4 or 5 days but the prostration lasts a pretty long period (and is felt very early in disease). If complications develop, the prognosis would be grave. Imp. Note : If the case lasts longer than a week, it is probably not a case of influenza or else some complication has developed, which must be looked for very carefully. Differential diagnosis From Common Cold and Fever : 1. By abrupt onset of fever and other symptoms. 2. By catarrhal symptoms occurring after onset of fever. 3. By intolerable aching all over the body particularly the back and limbs and the severe sudden headache. Note : In many influenza cases recovery is not always complete within a few days; many patients exhibit a rather marked "post-infection asthenia", characterised by weakness, dizziness, easy fatigue, palpitation and anorexia. Allopathic treatment
There is no specific treatment of influenza in Allopathic system. Simple influenza is self-limiting disease, and signs of recovery are usually evident in four or five days. *Aspirin or Codeine is usual for headache. After the complications have developed antibiotics like Penicillin are administered. It is said that by following this rule the unnecessary and possibly dangerous toxic and sensitizing reactions can be avoided. Some rely on COSOWIL or PHENICINE - all unreliable. PAGE 13 Symptomatic measures may afford relief. Dover's Powder (10 gr.) and steam inhalation give relief. Cough syrups with or without codeine or morphine are often given. Management of the case 1. Bed Rest is of primary importance, the sooner, the better. Continue even after recovery. 2. In order to avoid complications like pneumonia the patient should under all circumstances be protected from a draught of air. However, the room should be well ventilated. 3. Isolation is necessary to avoid its spread. It may not be possible as the disease is fast spreading. 4. Diet should be liquid - hot and sweetened. Hot milk. Fruit juice, nourishing soup. 5. The patient should not be given bath (cold or warm) since it causes further chilling, particularly the chest and head. 6. To avoid droplet infection, all the expectorations should be received in a pot and the excretions should be incinerated. 7. As the patient is left a physical wreck, he should be instructed to clothe himself properly and avoid chilling and fatigue at all costs. PAGE 14 Note : It is again stressed that convalescence being very slow, even after mild cases, several days of rest should be insisted upon before the patient is allowed to return to work. 8. The worst way to treat influenza is to ask the patient to walk about. It may bring about perspiration but an exposure would result in complications or prostration. Prevention It is said that controlled studies have revealed that influenza virus vaccines, given in two or three doses for the first year and then annually, protect about 80% inoculates. Therefore, it is being urged that the inoculation of whole populations, especially in the urgent conditions of epidemics should be done
but this would present formidable problems. As such, at present at start of epidemics, immunisation can be restricted to workers in medical, nursing, transport and essential public services. Immunity Type specific immunity follows an attack which unfortunately lasts only a few months. There is no cross-immunity between the different types and the sub-types. The best immunity is improvement of general health of the people of the world or at least of a country so that there is no susceptibility to this disease. The correct physical training in schools and the wide development of sports are also important in increasing resistance. Correct nutrition should be a matter of constant care. Natural immunity must exist, since large number of individuals escape the infection during serious epidemics even. Antibodies against the virus can be demonstrated in the blood of the patients who have recovered from the infection, and similar studies upon the blood of contacts seem to indicate that many sub-clinical cases occur during the epidemics. PAGE 15 Acquired immunity can apparently be induced in some individuals by the use of a complex vaccine mentioned already, but unfortunately influenza cannot be prevented in all cases by its use. The vaccine is prepared from the various viruses of influenza which have been inoculated into various growing chicks embryos or tissue cultures. When type-specific vaccines are used a relatively high degree of immunity is conferred and this may last for 6 to 8 months. In some cases, prostrating reactions, with (a) fever (b) aching, (c) nausea and (d) vomiting occur following such vaccination. Moreover, local reactions at the site of injection are common. How to avoid influenza To avoid influenza in an epidemic persons should endeavour to live in open air as much as possible, well clad - and should keep away from crowded rooms, theatres, etc. The diet should be generous, containing plenty of raw fruit, green vegetables and dairy produce; every effort should be made to prevent any tendency to constipation. Nothing should be taken which might produce sore throat. A morning gargle with fresh or luke warm water is useful. Price's Text book of Medicine gives five clinical types of Influenza : 1. Febrile type. 2. Respiratory type. 3. Nervous type. 4. Fulminant type.
5. Gastro-intestinal type. This classification is perhaps more nearer reality and some prominent Homoeopaths agree with these types. Price has also given detailed description of these and of the complications and sequelae. (This classification is being mentioned here for we shall be grouping our Homoeopathic Remedies along with these types for the benefit of those who are converts to Homoeopathy or are institutionally so trained as to use Allopathic Text Books for their guidance). PAGE 16 Homoeopathic point of view Now let us try to know what the younger brother the Homoeopath (whom once Dr. Burnett used to call "the peculiar people") has to say and profess about Influenza. Since our aim is to aid the Homoeopath in his practice, we shall be dwelling on the subject rather in reasonable details. In what follows, therefore, we shall state the Homoeopathic view and allude to comparison where required of the prophylactics or remedies used by the two systems of medicine. That there are no diseases but sick people is what homoeopathy declares from top of its structure. The concept of diseases in the two (the Allopathic and Homoeopathic schools of medicine is quite different. Hahnemann once said to one of his patients, "The disease from which you are suffering is no business of mine and the drug that I administer to you is no business of yours." In the therapeutics, etiology or nosology has classified diseases and since the Homoeopathic physician is found using books on Therapeutics, he too is apt to use the terminology as is found in medical books and dictionaries. That the word "influenza" brings before his eyes a certain group of patients or symptoms constituting a sick person cannot be denied. As Dr. Kent has said the Homoeopathic physician should learn the pathological conditions and use their terms for classifying the cases in order to report them to the State Boards, etc. But in each case the method is individualisation and individualisation alone, which should be his guide. And it is a widely known fact which generations of experience has demonstrated that constitutional homoeopathic prescribing tends to raise the general level of health and in so doing almost invariably raises the resistance of the individual being treated to colds and influenza. Dr. Tyler once said that the "influenza" word is perhaps the best which more aptly justifies the Homoeopath's contention that the diseases are due to miasms, because the word "influenza" means "influence". The miasms influence the health of individuals and have a sway over them when there is susceptibility to a particular influence.
PAGE 17 Influenza then is an acute miasmatic disease - self limiting having a prodrome, progress and a decline. Psora is the main cause and it is Psoric constitutions which are influenced most by it. In Art. 31 of the Organon, Dr. S. Hahnemann says : "The inimical forces, partly physical, partly psychical, to which our terrestrial existence is exposed, which are termed morbific noxious agents, do not possess the power of deranging the health of men unconditionally; but we are made ill by them only when our organism is sufficiently disposed and susceptible to the attack of the morbific cause that may be present and to be altered in its health, deranged and made to undergo abnormal sensations and functions; hence they do not produce disease in everyone, nor at all times." Virus - is it the cause of influenza Now the question arises, "Does homoeopathy regard filterable virus to be the cause of influenza ?" The reply is an emphatic 'No'. Let us see what Dr. J. T. Kent has to say about it. In his Lectures on Homoeopathic Philosophy he says, "Everything that can be seen, that can be observed with aid of the finest instrument, is but the result. Nothing in the world of immaterial substance can be seen with any faculty that is capable of seeing things in the world of material substance. The employment of instruments of precision will enable us to see the finest disease results, which are the outcome of or result of things immaterial, the very finest form of vegetable life; but the cause of disease is a million time more subtle than these and cannot be seen by the human eye. The finest visible objects are but results of things still finer, so that the cause rests within. The morbific agents that Hahnemann refers to are simply the extremely fine forms of simple substance or to bring them down to human thought we might call them "Viruses" but viruses are often gross because they can sometimes be observea by the vision of man, and, therefore, we must remember that within the virus is its innermost and that its innermost is in itself capable of giving form to the outermost, which is the visible virus aggregated and concentrated. The coarser forms would be comparatively harmless were it not for their interiors. Disease products are comparatively harmless were it not for the fact that they contain an innermost and it is the innermost itself that is causative. Every virus is capable of assuming forms and shapes in ultimates. The causes of ultimates are not from without but the immaterial invisible centre. There is something prior to the virus which gives it form. Therefore, virus is also crude enough to produce disease". PAGE 18
What then is the cause of disease, if not virus or bacteria ? What ? If not virus ? We shall refer to Art. 16 of the Organon. "Our vital force, as a spirit-like dynamics cannot be attacked and infected by injurious influences on the healthy organism caused by the external inimical forces that disturb the harmonious play of life otherwise than in a spirit-like (dynamic) way, and in like manner all such morbid derangements (diseases) cannot be removed from it by the physician in any other way than by the spirit-like (dynamic, spiritual) alternative powers of the serviceable medicines acting upon our spirit-like vital force." Aura The cause of disease is therefore, not the virus but the causes are finer than the virus. They are dynamic. All such dynamic influences have an aura of their own. Take for example a case of small-pox - another virus produced disease. Now, if one swallows small-pox crust, "it will be digested and very little trouble come from it, but the inhalation of the atmosphere that contains the aura of smallpox upon a plane corresponding to the susceptibility of the individual, will bring him down with the disease having a definite prodrome, a period of progress and a period of decline, showing that the very foundation of man's nature has been struck. Such an operation is upon the internals of man; upon his invisible, immaterial substance and it operates from within out, producing ultimates in his tissues, establishing result upon the skin." PAGE 19 Aura what it is Everything in the universe has its aura or atmosphere. Every star and planet has an atmosphere. The sun's atmosphere is its light and heat. Every human being has his atmosphere or aura; every animal has its atmosphere or aura. This aura is present in all entities. What may be said to be the aura of musk ? That is a strong physical aura which almost everyone can perceive. A grain of musk has been kept for experiment's sake, in a bottle for seventeen years, giving off a perceptible aura yet without loss of weight. As a further evidence of aura, take, for instance, the animals which prey upon their food and you know that they can discover by an extremely intense aura states and things that man cannot discover. This is not an ordinary nose, but it is really the very instinct of the animal, whereby he perceived what is prey. His instinct is analogous to man's perception, and by this instinct he discovers his prey, when man would not be able to discover it. Man can discover musk in a bottle but it is doubtful if man could discover the finest aura by its odor. This aura becomes useful and introduces a prominent sphere in the study of homoeopathics.
There are two realms of worlds, the realm of causes and the realm of ultimates. In this outermost or physical world we can see only with the eye, touch with the finger and such is the realm of results. The world of cause is invisible, is not discoverable by five senses. All disease causes are in simple substance; there is no disease cause in concrete substance considered apart from simple substance. We therefore, study simple substance, in order that we may arrive at the nature of sick-making substances. PAGE 20 It does not make much difference to the homoeopathic prescriber whatever strain of virus is present - "A" "B" "C" or "D" or Asian - Siberian as he takes the reaction of the patient for his guide to the remedy. Sometimes widespread publicity is given of the approaching epidemics of influenza by Health authorities in order to warn the public of the impending evil. We know that it is done with the best of intentions; but fear is one of the most depressing factors and makes human beings susceptible to a great variety of diseases. "The human mind should be kept as placid and normal in its outlooks on life and the life-giving impulses as possible. When an epidemic actually does take place under such strain and apprehension the whole vital system is depressed and one is much more susceptible to disease and much more apt to contract the prevailing ailment than would otherwise be the case." "On the other hand if the principle "Similia Similibus Curentur" were better understood and its very great value in the healing art could be spread among the laity as industriously as this poison of fear, health and vigor would be the common lot and epidemics influenced by fear would become things of the past. If we could teach and spread abroad the facts that in the 1918 epidemics the homoeopathic physicians had the record of over 16,000 cases treated by Hahnemannian homoeopaths with a mortality of only one-quarter of one per cent, the fear of epidemics would be removed." H. A. Roberts. We shall presently see that Dr. Kent holds similar views, namely fear being a great source of attracting disease. Ds. Jahr of France in his 'Forty Years' Practice" while talking of Influenza says. "What distinguishes Influenza, which is really nothing more than a very violent catarrhal fever, from other fevers of this class, is the circumstances that Influenza attacks the whole nervous system at once, sometimes with rheumatic pains in all the limbs, more or less lameness, fever and inflammatory symptoms increased to a genuine acute Bronchitis or acute Pleuritis". PAGE 21
Dr. Richard Hughes, one of the ablest exponents of Homoeopathy maintains, in his "Principles and Practice of Homoeopathy" : - "In my 'Therapeutics' I discussed this malady among those of the respiratory organs, assuming that was present when a severe fluent coryza was accompanied by headache, pains in the limbs, and great prostration, and advised Ars., and Eup. Perf. in its treatment. I expressed my suspicion, however, that such a condition was to true epidemic Influenza what English is to Asiatic Cholera, and advised consultation of the older Homoeopathic writers for their experience in the visitations of the thirties and forties. "My suspicion was well founded, and I do not now speak as one to whom epidemic Influenza is unknown. The wayes of it which since 1890 have passed over the world with almost un-varying annual persistency have made all practitioners familiar with its features, and have taught us much as to its nature and various manifestations. It is evidently an essential fever, as much so as Typhoid and Dengue, to which last it presents many points of resemblance, especially in its characteristics of pain of head and limbs. Catarrhal, nasal and bronchial, is (contrary to our former notions) a secondary and incidental occurrence only. When it does set in, however, it is very apt to run down the air tubes into the cells, and to set up a low diffuse Broncho-Pneumonia, which in aged persons and broken constitutions readily proves fatal." It would be seen that while Jahr considers it a mere catarrhal fever, Dr. Hughes classifies it as an essential fever. Though its action is primarily limited to the respiratory organs and here it is not a dangerous disease, but as far as its complications appear it is rightly classified by Hughes as an essential disease which might terminate fatally in the aged and infants. Dr. Kippax - R. John in his "Lectures on Fevers" states as follows : - "Influenza is a miasmatic-contagious disease of from three to ten days' duration, due to an unknown morbific agent and occurring in wide spread epidemics. It is characterised by suddenness of onset, by great and early prostration and by the development of general catarrhal symptoms. Usually there is intense frontal headache, coryza, sore throat, a tickling cough, dyspnoea, pains in the back and limbs, fever of varying intensity and great nervous depression. At times there is more or less catarrh of gastro-enteric mucous membrane, with hepatic disturbance. Inflammatory affections of the lungs are not rare complications. The disease is very rarely fatal except in advanced life. When death takes place it is generally the result of complications. Relapses are not uncommon." PAGE 22
Dr. C. G. Raue in 'Special Pathology and Diagnostics with Therapeutic Hints" has written : - "Influenza is an acute infectious epidemic disease characterised by a series of catarrhal manifestations affecting the respiratory and frequently the digestive tract attended by prostration, pains in the bones and limbs, severe nervous symptoms and fever." It usually commences with a chill or chilliness followed by fever of a remittent character, anorexia, headache, apathy and prostration and may be divided into three forms i.e. (i) Catarrhal, (ii) Gastric, (iii) Nervous; depending upon the organs which receive the brunt of the attack." Homoeopathic treatment In Homoeopathy there are no specifics for any ailment. There can be as many types of Influenza as the human beings, because each individual puts his own stamp on the disease and modifies it too to some extent in his own peculiar way. Almost any remedy in the Materia Medica could prove useful in any given case. But this disease being acute and coming in epidemics, we have for our guidance the incomparable Organon and Dr. Kent's Lectures on Homoeopathic Philosophy. (Articles 100 to 102 of the Organon refer.) This has been explained by Dr. Kent as under : PAGE 23 Genius epidemicus The First Step. "If the epidemic is entirely different from anything that has hitherto appeared in the neighborhood, it is at first confusing. From the first few cases the physician has a very vague idea of this disease, for he sees only fragment of it, and gets only a portion of its symptoms. But the epidemic spreads and many patients are visited, and twenty individuals have perhaps been closely observed. Now, if the physician will write down all the symptoms that have been present in each case in a schematic form, arranging the mind symptoms of the different patients under "mind" and the head symptoms under "head" and so on, following Hahnemann's method, they - considered collectively - will present one image, as if one man had expressed all the symptoms, and in this way he will have that particular disease in schematic form. If he places opposite each symptom a number corresponding to the number of patients in which that symptom occurred, he will find out the essential features of the epidemic. For Example twenty patients had aching in the bones, and at once he sees that, that symptom is a part of this epidemic. All the patients had the catarrhal condition of the eyes and flushed face, and these must be recorded as pathognomonic symptoms. And so by taking the entire scheme and studying it as a whole, as if one
patient had experienced all the symptoms, he is able to perceive how this new disease affects the human race, and each particular patient, and he is able to predicate of it what is general and what is particular. Every new patient has a few new symptoms; he has put his own stamp on that disease. Those symptoms that run through all are the pathognomonic symptoms; those which are rare are the peculiarities of the different people. This totality represents to the human mind, as nearly as possible, the nature of this sickness and it is this nature that the therapeutist must have in mind." The Second Step. "Now let us take the next step, which is to find in general the remedies that correspond to this epidemic. By the aid of a repertory he will write after each one of these symptoms all the remedies that have produced that symptom. Having in this way gone through the entire scheme, he can then begin to eliminate for practical purposes, and he will see that six or seven remedies run through the picture, and, therefore, are related to the epidemic, corresponding to its whole nature. This may be called the group of epidemic remedies for that particular epidemic, and with these he will manage to cure nearly all his cases. PAGE 24 The Third Step. The question now arises which one is the remedy for each individual case ? When he has worked out the half dozen remedies, he can go through the Materia Medica and get their individual pictures so fixed in his head that he can use them successfully. Thus he proceeds from generals to particular, and there is no other way to proceed in Homoeopathy." "He is called to a family with half with half a dozen patients in bed from this epidemic, and he finds a little difference in each case so that one remedy is indicated in one patient and another remedy in another patient. THERE IS NO SUCH THING IN HOMOEOPATHY AS ADMINISTERING ONE OF THESE REMEDIES TO ALL IN THE FAMILY BECAUSE OF A DIAGNOSTIC NAME. Now, while one of the remedies in the epidemic group will most likely be indicated in many cases, yet if none of these should fit the patient, the physician must return to his original anamnesis to see which one of the other remedies is suitable. Very rarely will a patient demand a remedy not in the anamnesis. Every remedy has in itself a certain state of peculiarities that identifies it as an individual remedy, and the patient has also a certain state of peculiarities that identifies him as an individual patient, and so the remedy is fitted to the patient. No remedy must be given because it is in the
list, for the list has only been made as a means of facilitating the study of that epidemic." Note : (Things can only be made easy by an immense amount of hard work, and if the physician does the drudgery in the beginning of an epidemic, the prescribing for his cases will be rapid and the remedies would be found aborting cases of sickness, malignant cases made simple.) PAGE 25 The alternative method "If the physician does not work out this scheme on paper he must do it in the mind, but if he becomes very busy and sees a large number of cases, it will be too much to carry them in the mind. You will be astonished to find that if you put an epidemic on paper you will fore-over be able to carry that knowledge of it in mind." "Of course, every now and then there will come up a rare and a singular case, which will compel you to go outside of the usual group. Never allow yourself to be so cramped that you cannot go outside of the medicines that you have settled upon as medicines of the disease." Thus is described the method of finding the Genius Epidemicus. In Homoeopathy, the physician first sees the disease in general as to its nature, and then when an individual has this disease, this individual will present in his own peculiarities the peculiar features of that disease, as he modifies the disease in his own peculiar nature. The homoeopath is in the habit of studying the Slightest shades of difference between patients, the little things that point to the remedy. If we looked upon disease only as the old - school physician sees it, we would have no means of distinction, but it is because of the little peculiarities manifested by every individual patient, through his inner life, through everything he thinks, that the homoeopath is enabled to individualise. Make the patient your friend or ward. Susceptibility is the cause of disease Disease causes exist among attenuated things, the infinitesimal or immaterial substances. In contagion there is practically but one dose administered, or at least that which is sufficient to cause a suspension of influx. When cause ceases to flow only in the direction of least resistance and so when resistance appears influx ceases, the cause no longer flows in. In the beginning of disease, i.e. in the stage of contagion, there is this limit to influx, for if man continued to receive the cause of disease (if there were no limits to its influx) he would receive enough to kill him, for it would run a continuous course until death. BUT WHEN SUSCEPTIBILITY IS
SATISFIED, THERE IS A CESSATION OF CAUSE AND WHEN CAUSE CEASES TO FLOW INTO ULTIMATES, NOT ONLY DO THE ULTIMATES CEASE BUT CAUSE ITSELF HAS ALREADY CEASED. PAGE 26 Disease causes, existing as they do as immaterial substances, flow into man inspite of him; he can neither control nor resist them, and they make him sick. But certain changes occur and man ceases to be susceptible, and there is no longer an in flowing of cause into his economy; a suspension has taken place, because susceptibility has ceased. Why all do not fall sick during an epidemic Because of varying degrees of susceptibility some are protected from disease cause and some are made sick; the one who is made sick is susceptible to the disease cause in accordance with the plane he is in and the degree of attenuation that happens to be present at the time of contagion. The degree of the disease cause fits his susceptibility at the moment he is made sick. In the thirty first (31) paragraph of the Organon Dr. Hahnemann says that disease causes are limited in their ability to effect changes in health, to certain conditions and states i.e. susceptibility. When a natural disease is taken it runs its period, and tends to decline, and the patient will not be susceptible until another change of state has arrived. When a violent epidemic is ranging we all know that, although the number of victims is large, they are few compared to those who go through the epidemic unscathed, and the question always arises, why is it ? We suppose, and probably rightly so, that a large number of the immense have escaped because they were unusually strong and vigorous, or in a state of very good order. But we find among those who have escaped the epidemic a number of persons who are anything but strong, really invalids, one in consumption, another in the last degree of Bright's disease, another with diabetes. The reason for their having remained unaffected with the epidemic is that they have sickness that it is impossible for the epidemic to suppress. The epidemic is dissimilar to their diseases and cannot suppress their disease because of its virulency. These things go to prove that dissimilars are unable to cure; they can only suppress. If the chronic disease is stronger than the epidemic disease, it cannot be suppressed. As such, it will be seen why some vigorous and some chronically sick people can escape the epidemics. PAGE 27 Homoeo prophylaxis Dr. Kent says, "Man is protected from sickness in two ways, by Homoeopathy and by use. The physician and the nurse who go into the
district of epidemics who keep busy, who have, in the highest sense of the word, the true love of the use, who have gone into the work as mediums of mercy, will be largely protected just simply from their love of the work, from their delight in it. They have no fear. Fear is an overwhelming cause of sickness; those who fall prey to fear are likely to become sick, but those who face disease with no fear are likely to remain well; they do sometime fall sick, it is true, but I believe it is because they begin to have fear in the work." "The other and greater prophylactic is the homoeopathic remedy. After working in an epidemic for a few weeks, you will find perhaps that half-a-dozen remedies are daily indicated and one of these in a large number of cases than any other. This one remedy seems to be the best suited to the general nature of the sickness. Now one remedy seems to be the best suited to the general nature of the sickness. You will find that for prophylaxis, there is required a less degree of similitude than is necessary for curing. A remedy will not have to be so similar to prevent disease as to cure it, and these remedies in daily use will enable you to prevent a large number of people from becoming sick. We must look to Homoeopathy for our protection as well as for our cure." PAGE 28 Dr. Clarke (J. H.) while speaking on the subject said sometimes, "The best prophylactic against an attack of influenza is Arsenicum. When a case of influenza occurs in a household, every person who has not already been infected should take Arsenicum Alb. 3 - a few globules, a drop of the tincture, a disc, or a capsule of pilules, for a dose - three times a day. In the case of persons who are very susceptible to influenza, and take it on every opportunity, I keep them constantly under the influence of Arsenicum, giving one dose daily whether there are cases in the house or not." Non-medicinal protection Dr. Clarke, says, further, "So much for medicinal protection. I need not here go into details about common-sense protection. It will be obvious to every one that anything that brings about a lowered state of vitality - over-exertion, long fasting, chill, wetting, and the like, must be carefully avoided when influenza is about. In many a case it only needs the impetus of one of these lowering causes to set the infection alight, when the normal resistance would be amply sufficient to protect a person against it." During an attack. what to do Dr. Clarke says, 'When an attack has definitely set in, it depends upon the severity of the attack and the degree of robustness of the patient, whether bed is to be enjoined. Thousands of the people have slight attacks which do
not prevent their following their usual vocations, but only make then very uncomfortable. Those who are at all delicate should keep indoors, and if there is fever, should keep in bed. Whatever is the course adopted, it is very essential that the strength should be kept up with plenty of nourishment. It does not do to starve Influenza. If the digestion is in fair order, solid food may be taken, if it is relished. All food taken should have good food-value - co cold meats and no done-up meats. If there is distaste to food and difficulty of eating, concentrated liquid food should be given every hour or two. Warmth is also an essential. I do not advise "open air treatment" for influenza, though ventilation is necessary. But chill must be avoided in every case." PAGE 29 Bath ? "Another point which is of importance. NO BATH SHOULD BE TAKEN WHILST AN ATTACK OF INFLUENZA IS ON. In a debilitated state a bath is a great vital expense, and though it may stimulate for a time, the reaction is sure to be injurious." Walking ? The treatment of influenza "on foot" is perhaps the worst. Some people are of the view that if one walks about and gets perspired, influenza gets relieved. It is a wrong notion and injurious. Bed rest is the best. It is one of the donots of influenza state namely, 'to walk'. Let the patient be confined to bed. Otherwise greater exposures and complications, relentless suffering shall be the fate. PAGE 30 Medicines (homoeopathic) Hahnemann was the first to say something about the use of medicines in cases of influenza. Let us refer to introductory remarks about Camphor in the Materia Medica Pura (Vol. I). On page 305 (Bhattacharya's Edition) he remarks : "When the influenza endemic in Siberia comes among us as it does occasionally, when the hot stage has already commenced, Camphor is of service, only as a palliative, seeing that the disease is one of short duration. It should be given in frequent but ever increasing doses, dissolved in water. It does not shorten the duration of the disease, but renders it much milder, and hence it conducts the disease innocuously to its termination. (On the other hand, NUX VOMICA, in a single dose, and that the smallest possible), will often remove the disease homoeopathically in a few hours)." Taking his cue from Hahnemann Dr. YOUNAN, the celebrated Homoeopath of Calcutta says, "On the strength of this recommendation, I was tempted to give Nux Vomica to my Influenza patients oftener perhaps than I should have done otherwise. Like every other drug it has its own
sphere of action and will cure the cases, especially if administered at the commencement of the disease, and I have more than once succeeded in breaking up a threatened attack of Influenza. IF THERE IS ANY PROPHYLACTIC REMEDY AGAINST INFLUENZA, IT IS NUX VOMICA, EVEN IN THE SMALLEST DOSES. When it is simillimum to a case, nothing is prettier or prompter than its therapeutic action." Dr. Clarke on the other hand says, "In regard to medicines, Baptisia is, as previously, the leading epidemic remedy. Many patients rapidly get through an attack with Baptisia 3x or 30 every hour or two hours. But Baptisia has a very serious rival in the nosode of Influenza Influenzinum. This I have used very extensively for the last year or more. I have always given it in the 30th, every two hours generally and found it very efficacious in cutting short an attack or modifying the symptoms. As might be expected, INFLUENZINUM and Baptisia antidote each other, so it does not do to alternate them." (Strange enough that Lilienthal makes no mention of Baptisia in his Therapeutics, while writing of Influenza). PAGE 31 Influenzinum is the nosode of Influenza. Dr. Clarke in his Dictionary of (Homoeopathic) Practical Materia Medica - (Appendix attached to VOL. III) at page 1624 (1962 Edition) gives its characteristics as under : "The nosode of influenza has with many practitioners taken the place of Baptisia as the routine remedy in epidemics. It may be given in the 12th or 30th potency, either in the form of tincture, pilules or discs; or ten globules may be dissolved in six ounces of water, and of this a dessert spoonful may be given for a dose. It may be repeated every two hours. This will be found sufficient to control a large proportion of the cases. The general directions I give to my patients are these. When 'colds' appear in a family let all those who are unaffected take Arsenic 3 thrice daily, and let the patients take Influenzinum 30 every hour or two. This generally prevents the spread of the trouble and clears up the 'cold', whether they are of the influenza type or not. Influenza has the property of developing old troubles, and thus it takes an infinite variety of forms in different persons, so that Influenzinum need not be expected to cure all cases unaided, or indeed, to be appropriate to every case." Dr. Clarke finds 'Influenzinum compatible with Act. R., Ars., Bell., Bry., Hep., Merc; (and many others)." Dr. FRED B. MORGAN, M. D., (IOWA) published in the Homoeopathic Recorder, April 1950 issue two letters in this behalf which need be preserved and being appropriate to the subject are being re-produced herein below :
"The two letters herewith were rescued from an old letter file. They seem too valuable to be lost because of the intrinsic value of the material contained therein and because of the ability of the writer. Both letters were written by the late Guy Buckley STEARNS, M. D. President of the Foundation of Homoeopathic Research." PAGE 32 Letters March 7, 1940 Dear Dr. Morgan, INFLUENZIN NEBEL came through Dr. S. Alexander Klein's suggestion. It came from France. Probably it came from Lederle and it contains bacillus influenzae (Pfeiffer), pneumococcus, types 1, 2 and 3 and streptococcus haemolyticus. The potencies were run up for me by Ehrhart and Karl, Chicago. INFLUENZIN MENINGITIS is a potency made from a spinal puncture by Dr. Griggs of Philadelphia in a case of influenzal meningitis. He finds it specific in that type of case (I have had no experience with this influenzin) (I carry it in my armamentarium. - F. B. M.) The old Spanish Influenzin, which probably goes back to the epidemic of 1918, comes through occasionally in the chronic type of influenza. The ones that come through most frequently are Influenzin serum and Influenzin antitoxin. These came from Ehrhart and Karl and they, I suppose, obtained then from one of the biological laboratories in the Middle West. At any rate, they come oftener in our tests than any other Influenzins. The Influenzin antitoxin comes most frequently (my experience co-incides - F. B. M.) Patients with chronic conditions have, as one of the main factors, a chronic type of influenza more frequently than any other infection; and often times Influenzin will clear up the whole complex. There is nothing typical about the chronic influenzal cases, although they may have respiratory symptoms. Unaccountable weakness is quite a common indication, but one should suspect influenza as a major factor in any chronic trouble. PAGE 33 For instance, a patient, who had been a major in the Engineering Corps of the War of 1914, had for years what he called a chronic "rheumatic" condition that for several months had made it difficult for him to get about. He had diathermic treatments, and had been on strict dietetic regime without benefit. A single does of Influenzin serum brought a reaction that brought lyric praise, as he could go about more comfortably than he had been able to for two or three years. Two cases of Raynaud's disease have responded permanently to Influenzinum Antitoxin. (Raynaud's Disease is the Gangrene found in
females affecting their ears (lobes) and nose tip first and later hands). Another one was cured. In the second case the response was prompt, although gangrene of the hand had already commenced. In the latter case other remedies have had to follow Influenzin, but the first effect was gratifying. Although a patient may become immune for a period of a year or two, mild attacks are often not recognised. Fraternally yours, Guy Buckley Stearns. Under date of August 6, 1940, Dr. Guy Buckley Stearns wrote me : "I am always pleased to have a report on the action of any of the Influenzins. Influenzin Meningitis came from a nasal puncture made for diagnostic purposes by Dr. Griggs of Philadelphia. He first potentised it and the child's life was saved by it. I had Ehrhart and Karl run the potencies up to the CM. It really ought to be named Influenzinum Meningitis, Griggs. PAGE 34 Encephalitis lethargica, I believe, is always an influenza infection and probably many other meningeal cases are the same. Frequently, we have intestinal influenzas. Some epidemics of diarrhoeas are intestinal influenza...... We have had three cases of Raynaud's disease - one in which gangrene had already been established. The tips of the fingers and thumb of the left hand were shriveled and black, and there were gangrenous areas in the palm of the hand. She was in the hospital at the time and the consultants had decided she must have her arm amputated. She refused and, being an old patient of mine, wanted me in consultation. I could not go, but my associate, deferral, saw her and diagnosed her trouble as Raynaud's. She made a remarkable response to Influenzin antitoxin. However, she had to have other remedies, Carbo Oxigenisatum being the one that appeared to be constitutional. However, intercurrently she had to have Influenzin Anti-toxin three times, and Streptococcus phage three times. All the gangrenous areas have cleared up and the gangrenous fingers are quite amazingly improved. The bones of the first phalanx apparently alive and the tips of the fingers seem to be proceeding with restoration underneath. One of the other cases was acute and responded promptly to Influenzin antitoxin. The third case was chronic; for several years the woman had not been able to touch anything cold or put her hands in cold water. Her husband, because he had heard of our cases of Raynaud's, gave her a dose of Influenzin without result. I gave him the Influenzin serum and Influenzin antitoxin and told him to test them on her pupils. Influenzin antitoxin caused the pupils to dilate, and one dose of the 1M cured her.
There has been a great deal of streptococcin infection in the last three years, with an occasional case of septic endocarditis. Of the streptococcic pages, 701 is the one most often indicated. When the pages are needed they work quickly and thoroughly. You can take this as a valuable tip. PAGE 35 "I have found much in these letters of Dr. Stearns that is thought-provoking and has proved of positive benefit in treating ill persons, that I am assuming that other physicians will value these letters as I have." The New Asian FLU Nosode. Mr. A. L. Wagaland, Chairman of the B. H. A. presided at a Press Conference in London on September 17, 1957 at which he announced the new nosode against Asian 'Flu.' He was supported by two doctors and a pharmaceutical chemist, who helped to deal with technical questions. In this address Wagaland said : "We are drawing attention to the new nosode "Asian 'A' Influenzinum, because we are convinced that it could be of great value in the event of the threatened epidemic becoming a reality in this country. IT HAS A VALUE AS A PROPHYLACTIC. It has value as a means of speeding up recovery. It has value as a means of making recovery complete and thus avoiding the debility that so often follows. Although a hypodermic vaccine has been produced, as I understand it, the cost and the difficulty of production would make it impossible for it to be made available for general public use. The Ministry of Health has stated : "On present evidence there is no medical necessity for general vaccination against so mild a disease. On past experience the protection given by vaccines of this type does not usually exceed 30 to 40 per cent." Homoeopathic doctors have used nosodes generally for a very long time and there is a store of evidence of their effectiveness, both as prophylactic and in treatment. They are inexpensive and can be produced in large quantities. Not always mild Epidemics of the kind visualised, and indeed influenza generally, do not always have such mild effects as the Ministry of Health had forecast in this instance. Doctors frequently are told by their patients, "I have never been well since I had the 'FLU'". In these cases the nosodes prove invaluable. PAGE 36 Dr. Guy Stearns, an American doctor, in his paper on influenza nosodes given to the International Hahnemannian Association said : "In the matter of influenza, the acute cases are quickly cured by the proper Influenzinum nosode and the chronic cases are so modified by the nosode as later to make easy the selection of the chronic simillimum. Infection originally occurs
because of some constitutional tendency. The disease factor is best met by the nosode-the constitutional factor by the constitutional remedy." It may be of interest to note that although their method of use is entirely different the hypodermic vaccine is based on a theory which is fundamental to homoeopathy - namely, "Like cures Like." Dr. John Henry Clarke, the eminent homoeopathic physician and author, says in his book while writing about "Whooping Cough". "The method of treating cases of disease with a remedy derived from the infectious principle of the disease itself was discovered by Hahnemann and his contemporary disciple Pasteur, Koch, von Behring and Roux. The last two had the candour to admit : "There is truth in Hahnemann's method of curing 'like by like'". The Homoeopathic preparations are made in such a way that no danger to patient is run. Disease viruses are treated in the same way a serpent venoms, and the homoeopathic preparations of both retain all the therapeutic properties of the original source without any of their dangers." A new Influenzinum is sold in the form of tablets - two a week are to be taken for four weeks. They should give immunity for 40 days and then a booster dose should be taken Children could take the tablets. PAGE 37 This nosode is available from Nelson and Co., Homoeo Chemists, LONDON. Yet another nosode which proves very effective in cases of Influenza with severe back-ache is the "Variolinum" in 200 potency. Those who often suffer from back-ache more so as Lumbago and fear Influenza would do better by taking. "The Variolinum 200" as the nosode prophylactica and even curative. "Whenever influenza is about, in Calcutta, it cannot reach others without first visiting me" - Dr. Younan. It is an interesting remark to show that there is constitutional susceptibility in some persons to catch in influenza. PAGE 38 Therapeutics Although the homoeopath should have nothing to do with the "therapeutic" part of medicine and always individualise his case (yes each and every case), and Doctor Southerland had once said that it should not be taught to the Homoeopathic students, yet it has been observed that books on Therapeutics are sometimes ready help for the busy physician. We given below Homoeo Therapeutics of Influenza from several angles and from several recognised authorities.
To begin with let us refer to Dr. Martha Boger-Shattuck's grouping of cases and remedies suggested in 1932 and published in the Homoeopathic Recorder, May, of that year. Influenza with sudden onset Acon. - Ars. - Bell. - Camphor. - China. - Ferr Phos. - Ipecac. - Phos. Influenza with insidious onset Gel. - Bryonia. - Arnica. - Bapt. - Caps. - Caust. - Echin. - Lach. - Rhus Tox - Ant. tart. Influenza with complications Tub. - Graphites - Sulphur - Phos. ac. - Pyrogen - Psorinum - Sul. iod. William Boericke, M. D. and O. E. Boericke's 'Pocket Manual Homoeopathic Materia Medica'' contains the following list of remedies under 'Influenza' in the "Therapeutic Index' : (P. 1004). Eryng., Bap., Eucalp., Lobel cerul., GELS., RHUS., Eup. perf., Bryonia; Arsenic. PAGE 39 In the Repertory part of the Pocket Manual of Materia Medica, Dr. Boericke gives under "Fever" the following medicines : - (P. 927, 928). INFLUENZA (grippe). ACO., Aesc., Ant. iod., Ant. t., Arn., ARS., ARS. IOD., Ars. s. r., Asclep., BAPT., BELL., BROM., BRY., Calc. c., Camph. Canchal., CARB. AC., Card. m., DULC., Eryng., EUCAL., EUP. Per., Euphorbia, Euphras., GELS., Glon., Glycerin., Influenzin., Iod., Ipec., Kali. Bi., Kali. c., Kali iod., Kali. s., Lach., Lob. cer., Lob. purp., Lyc., Merc. s., NAT. SAL., NUX. V., PHOS., Phyt., Pod., Psor, Puls., PYROG. RHUS. T., Rumex., SABAD., Sal. ac., Sang., SANG. N., Sarcol. Ac., Senega, Sylph., Spig., Spong., STICTA., Sul., SUL RUB., Triost., Ver. a. INFLUENZA, Debility of : - Abrot., Adon. v., ARS. IOD., AVENA, Carb. ac., CHIN. ARS., Chin. s., CINCH., Con., Eup. perf., Gels., IBERIS., Lac. ac., Lathyr., Phos., Psor., Sal. ac., Sarcol ac. Influenza, pain remaining : - Lycopers. For their detail kindly consult the parts of the Materia Medica (Boericke's) "Respiratory" "Fever", "Head" and the introductory remarks as also "Extremities" to make a complete picture of the individual case. We have however, added a Materia Medica at the end. Dr. Boenninghausen's 'Characteristics and Repertory, translated, Compiled and Augmented by Dr. C. M. Boger, M. D. mentions the following drugs at pp. 904 Col 2nd. (Roy and Company) under "Sensations and Complaints in General".
Aco., (4), Arn (2)., Ars. (4), Bap. (2)., Bell (3)., Bry (3)., Cam (3)., Caust (4)., Chel (2)., China (2), Cimic (3)., Eup. perf (5)., Gels (3)., Ip. (2)., Merc (5), Nux v. (5), Phos (3)., Phyt (3)., Puls (2)., Rhus-t (4)., Sabad (3)., Sang (2)., Scil (2)., Sil (2)., Spig (3)., Stic. (2)., Ver. v (3). [Figures refer type] PAGE 40 Kindly note that Boger has classed Influenza as Sensations and Complaints in General and not under Fevers Simple or Compound. Boger has also attached the Materia Medica to the "Boenninghausen's Repertory" and any remedy selected by the use of that Repertory should be verified from the said Materia Medica of Characteristics under various heads of the remedy so as to make a positive picture. Dr. Boger in his "Synoptic Key of the Materia Medica has mentioned under "generalities" the following medicines supplemented by a few in the "Supplemental Reference Table" of the same Book. Ars. iod., Bap., Bry., Camp., Caust., Cup., Eucalp., EUP. P., Fer. P., GEL., Merc., NUX-V; Rhus-T; Sabad. The remedy may be verified from the Synoptic Key-Materia Medica (II part) itself. Note : It is wrong and inadvisable to select a remedy from one Repertory and verify it from some other author's Materia Medica unless the author has not written any Materia Medica. Note : Boger's Synoptic Key is for quick bedside reference and not for office work where it should be possible to refer to fuller works. It involves labour and hard work. But then Homoeopathy is not for the indolent. While we play with the lives of people any lethargy or love of ease is criminal. Remedies description Now to revert to the Grouping by Dr. Martha Boger-Shattuck we may reproduce the description of the remedies mentioned by the author in author's own language. Group i Aconitum napellus Although this is recommended strongly in the List from Boger (Boenninghausen), it has not proved useful or indicated so often in my practice. It is likely to be of help in the patient who has a very strong FEAR. PAGE 41 Arsenicum album This remedy has also got FEAR, thirst for small quantity, restless to a marked degree (mental), gastric irritability. It is a good remedy to bring the
RESTLESSNESS under control; but, I should draw your attention to the warning given by Kent in his Lectures on Materia Medica wherein he states that Arsenic is not pathologically indicated for more serious states like pneumonia and no sooner the restlessness is controlled, Lyco., Phos., or Sulph (according to the prevailing indications) must be administered if the life of the patient is to be saved. In my early years of practice, I remember to have lost a case of bronchopneumonia as I was not aware of this. Belladonna This remedy will be indicated for the flushed face with a throbbing headache, fear of dark; although there is photophobia, the child will insist on light at night and this is a peculiar feature. Camphora officinalis This is another remedy which I have not seen indicated often. There is coldness but the patient does not like covers. It is likely to be indicated for cases with collapse. China officinalis The main indications for this remedy will be weakness following loss of vital fluids : gastro-enteritis, perspiration. Chilly patient. Eupatorium perfoliatum This is the classical remedy indicated for 'Break-bone Fever'. The bones feel as if they are pounded. Ferrum phosphoricum One characteristic of this remedy is fever with 'peaks' - more than one diurnal variation. (Comp. Pyrogen and Veratrum viride - indicated for hyper-pyrexia). PAGE 42 Ipecacuanha A thirstless patient with nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea (at times) and with a clean tongue - this peculiar combination will call for this remedy. In addition, there might be bronchial catarrh with coarse rales. Phosphorus Is indicated for the Respiratory Type; bronchopneumonia more often than Lobar. There is thirst and cold water is retained only for a short time; it is thrown out no sooner it gets warm in the stomach. Group ii Gelsemium sempervirens Insidious onset, temperature not very high; drowsy, headache. The remedy is very similar to Puls. The differentiating point I have found most useful is that Puls., is associated with digestive upset (nausea, vomiting, anorexia, pain in abdomen, loose motions) whereas, Gels., has no gastric concomitants
with fever. Both remedies are thirstless during fever and are drowsy. (In the 1932 epidemic this remedy was used with great success-Puls). Bryonia alba Pains, worse Motion and Better Pressure are the leading indications. The headache will be worse by even a motion of the limbs. Thirst for large quantities and dry lips; generally constipated but, in a few cases, diarrhoea is observed. Arnica montana Soreness, Ecchymosis, Sensorium affected (typhoidal type) : drowsy - does not complete the answer, apathetic. This remedy stands comparison with Bapt. (foul discharges). Capsicum annuum This will be indicated in those cases complicated by otitis media better by warmth and warm applications (Comp : Hep.; Opp : of Puls). The patient is thirsty and feels chill when he drinks water. Capsicum annuum Affections of the Larynx with hoarseness (Comp : Phos - incontinence while coughing; Phos. and Caust, are indicated for painless hoarseness. In Phos. only is painful hoarseness). PAGE 43 Note : Both are inimical. Do not give one after the other. Lachesis mutus This will be indicated in the serious type of cases with throat involvement which is worse by Hot drinks; Left to Right affection of the throat; Agg. sleep, after; there might be involvement of the heart. Rhus toxicodendron Early typhoidal state. Thirst for small quantity of water, no gastric irritability (Comp. Ars.), restlessness of the physical type. (Comp. Ars) Pains are better by motion (Comp : Bry). Antimonium tartaricum This will be indicated for the respiratory cases with capillary bronchitis (fine rales) with cyanosis and working of the alae nasi. (See Kent's Repertory pp. 340 - Fan-like motion of Wings of Nose in pneumonia-Amm. c., Ant. t., Kreos LYCO, Phos, Sul.) Group iii Tuberculinum bovinum kent Aviare was used successfully in the last Influenza epidemic in a case of Bronchopneumonia which would not progress further and a stalemate was reached. The case responded to 30 potency initially but, failed to respond
even when the 200 potency was administered later. With the background of mixed infection in mind, Bacillinum 200 was administered and the case made good recovery. One dose administered every week. Tuberculinum (Kent's Bovinum) would be indicated in chronic broncho-pneumonia with Influenza onset. In some cases, a lurking tubercular infection is flared up after an attack of Influenza; these cases call for the remedy. Graphites The patient will be having associated skin complaints (cracks) which are aggravated in the winter. Nose sore on blowing. Abnormally acute smell. PAGE 44 Phosphoricum acidum Profound weakness of the nervous type and depression; self abuse. Bores fingers in nose. Pyrogenium This remedy along with Veratrum Viride would be indicated for hyper-pyrexia; pulse and temperature ratio is disturbed and there may be two peaks in 24 hours. Psorinum This would come in for cases complicated by asthma better Lying with head low - a very peculiar symptom also arms stretched on sides, wide apart. Sulphur Chronic cases with the following indications : Rectum : urging, morning Agg; Unrefreshed morning; Hunger 11 A.M. Unwell : Burning palms and soles, better uncovering or cold applications. Sulphur iodatum I remember that one Homoeopath while writing in the Homoeopathic Recorder, said that if Sul., does not help the patient go to Sul. Iodide. This is a combination of two deep acting remedies : Sul., and Iodide. Lingering consolidation is one of the indications. Miscellaneous Chelidonium majus Influenza with Jaundice. Cimicifuga racemosa Influenza with joint pains. Mercurius solubilis Salivation with thirst, intestinal and throat type. Nux vomica Gastric type of Influenza; ineffectual calls for stools. Extreme chilliness. Pulsatilla pratensis
In 1932 epidemic showed good effect; Thirstless patient with digestive concomitants. Sabadilla Throat Pain; better warm drinks; Left to Right affection of the throat. Sanguinaria canadensis Symptomatology very similar to that of Sulph; employed in case where Sulphur would prove too deep acting. PAGE 45 Squilla maritima Dry, troublesome cough. Spigelia anthelmia Influenza with trigeminal neuralgia or pain in the region of the heart. Silicea terra Septic focus. Sticta pulmonaria Constant cough, can't stop it. Chininum arsenicosum Profuse sweating of the debilitating type 6 X Trit. 3 hourly to start with and then increase the interval between the doses. This is also very useful in Malaria with severe burning in the epigastrium. Influenzinum For troublesome sequelae like persistent cough or malaise. Strychninum phosphoricum 6X - Trit. is used as a heart tonic. Lycopodium clavatum This was indicated in one case of Influenzal Pneumonia treated in the recent epidemic. Alae nasi working, thirstless patient. Cough; Agg. Lying on the Left side, Agg. Lying on back. Lyco and Sulph. come up for consideration : Sulph. follows Lyco and not the reverse. This decided in favour of Lyco (the patient had pneumonia of the left base). Lyco. 200, one dose brought the temperature from 104°F to 99.6°F, the next morning (the 3rd day of onset) normal. Watch for fall of temperature by crisis. Phytolacca decandra Pain, throat, better from Cold drinks for this remedy in Influenza. Dulcamara Drenching aggravates. Arsenicum iodatum A good heart tonic. Not chilly. (Comp : Ars.). Other symptomatology similar to Arsenicum album. (Note : Here full symptomatology is not given. Consult Materia Medica).
(Natrum Mur is recommended by some Biochemic minded, persons. Lilienthal, Boger-Boenninghausen or any other book on Homoeopathic Therapeutics does not mention Natrum Mur for acute Influenza, neither does the symptomatology correspond with the cases in epidemics. Some persons who give Natrum Mur bungle their cases. Clarke in his Dictionary also warns against the use of Nat. Mur during fever. PAGE 46 Dr. Dhawle of Bombay stated in one of his articles on Influenza that in the 1957 epidemic Pulsatilla, Bry. alb; and Gelsemium proved very useful. (Note : Pulsatilla is prominently indicated for Fevers due to Sun's Heat). He also affirms the master's declaration that "Epidemic Remedy" is the best prophylactic. In one case of influenza pneumonia of the left base, Lycopodium 200 reacted marvelously. China Ars. 6X helped to remove the weakness caused by profuse sweating which was seen even when the fever was controlled by the homoeopathy remedy. PAGE 47 Some clinical tips on influenza from various masters Bacillus sycoccus (Paterson) (A nosode) is a remedy of great value in all catarrhal conditions and violent coughs. Dr. T. D. Ross. Tuberculinum avis Recurrent influenza with long teasing cough : Dr. Boericke. Natrium sulphuricum 'I firmly believe that Influenza which was been of such dread to Physicians in general has at last met a remedial agent which will render it as susceptible to treatment as any slight catarrhal trouble. I have found that Nat. Sulph., will serve the great number of cases and have received wonderful results from its use, both at the beginning and when followed by sequelae' Dr. Charles Qaunght. Magnesium phosphoricum Dr. Qaunght must have added that if the pain becomes unbearable, Magnesia Phos., should be exhibited. Dr. Heselton. Bacillinum burnett I have often used Bacillinum in grippy colds or in Bronchitis where a cough has persisted despite the usual treatment. It is quite astonishing sometimes to note how promptly a dose of Bacillinum will stop such a cough. Dr. Walter Sands Mill. Sarcolacticum acidum
For Influenza with Nausea and uncontrollable vomiting of water with extreme weakness and prostration when Arsenicum and Ipecac have failed. Dr. Beta. Eupatorium aromaticum 3X is the drug in cases of Influenza complicated by aphthous inflammation of the mouth. Dr. W. Karo. PAGE 48 Tuberculinum koch I was struck with the similarity of the pathogenesis of Tuber. Kochii to the late effects of influenza as I had observed them in my practice. I had also noted the effect of an attack of influenza on phthisical patients and have seen them rapidly broken up by such an attack. I, therefore, concluded that Tuberculinum Kochii might form the pathologic similimum of late Influenza effects. Experience proved that the law of similars in this was true as elsewhere and I have confirmed the observation many times. Dr. Clarke. Conium maculatum Is especially useful in profound and long continued weakness following exhaustive diseases. Cowperthwaite. Kalium iodatum 6X is recommended as a prophylactic against colds and Influenza. Dr. Heselton. Natrium sulphuricum Is Schuessler's specific for epidemic influenza where it has given good account of itself; witness Plumb Brown's case records. T. K. Moore. Baptisia tinctoria In the delirium of severe influenza with a sense that a part of the body is separated from another, I ordinarily think of Baptisia. The symptoms are also clearly delineated with COTYLEDON. Dr. Robert L. Redfield. One has seen startling examples of the prompt curative action of Baptisia in Influenza - in slight cases and in serious ones. Dr. Tyler. In gastric influenza, Baptisia has seemed to me to be practically specific; sudden attack of violent diarrhoea and vomiting, frightfully and suddenly ill. Dr. Tyler. Bryonia alba Is an efficient medicine when the bronchial mucus membrane is attacked and the general pains are tormenting. Dr. Goodnough. Pyrogenium Those cases that simulate typhoid fever and the positive diagnosis is only established after the Widalreaction has decided one way or the other, respond well to Pyrogen. Dr. F. Aquilar.
PAGE 49 Eryngium aquaticum Boericke recommends in cases having urinary disorders in influenza or sweat of urinous odour in evening. Thick yellow mucous discharge with smarting in throat and larynx. Eucalyptus globulus Accelerated but not strong pulse with high temperature. All discharges show a tendency to foulness. Constant sensation of phlegm in throat; relaxed aphthous condition of mouth and throat. Stuffed up sensation; though nose does not stop running. Pricking sensation in extremities. Lobelia syphilitica Gives a perfect picture of sneezing influenza, involving the posterior nares, palate and fauces. Very depressed. Pain in knees. Great oppression in lower part of chest, as if air could not reach there. Pain in chest under short ribs of left side. Podophyllum peltatum Great loquacity during fever. Profuse sweat. Paralytic weakness of left side. Tongue, broad, large moist, burning; putrid taste, Chills 7 A.M. Triosteum perfoliatum Heat and Numbness of lower limbs after stool and increased flow of urine; loathing of food with occipital pain. Aching all over. PAGE 50 After influenza badly recovered from (tyler) Gelsemium sempervirens Patients sometimes come saying "cannot get well after 'flue' a few weeks ago'. They are found to have a temperature of some where 99°. Not ill : Not well ! If they are chilly, with heats and chills; if they feel a weakness and heaviness of limbs and eyelids, Gels., quickly puts them right. China officinalis Continued debility, with chilliness. Anaemic : pallid : weak. Sensitive to touch : to motion : to cold air. Worse alternate days. Weariness of limbs, with desire to stretch move or change position. Kalium phosphoricum General weakness and gloom. Arsenicum album Chilliness : restlessness : anxiety : fear : fear death (Acon) : prostration. Burnings, relieved by heat.
Oversensitive : fastidious. Queer symptoms : - red-hot needle pains. Sensation of ice-water running through veins. Or boiling water going through blood vessels. Thirst, sips of cold water. Pulsatilla pratensis Flitting chilliness : chills in spots. Cold creeps in back. Chilly in warm room. Profuse morning sweat. PAGE 51 Heat as if hot water thrown over him. One-sided chilliness - heat - sweat. External warmth intolerable. Worse in a close room. Palpitation with anxiety : must throw off clothes. Better out of doors. Better for slow motion (opp : Bry., Eup. per., etc.) Dry cough at night, goes on sitting up : returns only on lying down again. (Hyos.) Thirstless : no hunger. Tearful; peevish. Sulphur Partially recovers and then relapses. Frequent flushes of heat. Uneasiness in blood. Very sensitive to open air : to draughts (opp : to Puls); worse for washing and bath. Takes cold. Oppression, burning, stitches, congestion, in chest. Heat, crown of head with cold feet. Soles burn at night, must be put out of bed. Hungry - starving at 11 a.m. Drowsy by day : restless at night. Starts from frightful dreams. Burnett recommends : Cypripedium pubescent, Scutellaria, Cyprepedin as his sheet anchors in Post-Influenzal Neurosis Case : A case to justify Burnett : - "J.M. ill and away from work for a year after an attack of influenza which lasted six weeks, till he "Collapsed". Said his heart was weak. He couldn't walk. Was suicidal. "Couldn't restrain himself". He complained of depression : despondency : felt his brain would burst. Given - SCUTELLARIA 30. PAGE 52 A week later : "Different : livelier : stronger": Went back to work - absolutely himself again. Dr. S. K. Ghosh mentious the efficacy of Radium Bromide in high potency, for treatment of neuralgia persisting as a sequelae of influenza.
FOR POST-INFLUENZAL PARALYSIS : 1. Causticum. 2. Gelsemium. For post influenzal mental retardation remember : our old friend BARYTA CARB. Here do not use below 200th. For cases spoiled by Anti-biotics : SULPHUR arsenicum, NUX VOM. For cases spoiled by the use of Aspirin : ARNICA; CAPSICUM. For cases 'Never-well-since' influenza : - 1. CARBO VEG. 2. INFLUENZINUM. 3. TYPHOIDINUM. 4. KALI CARB. 5. LATHYRUS. "Our Doctors tell of great cures with LYCOPODIUM of literary persons unable, after an attack of "FLU" to get to work again. The intellectual sequelae of 'flu' often call for LYCO; while the neurotic ones (to almost insanity) need SCUTELLARIA, and those with long-lasting weakness and chilliness find their rapid help in CHINA." "Lyco calls by wrong names, says "Cluent Foryza" when he intends saying "Fluent Coryza". Tyler 'Drug Pictures' (515). PAGE 53 When BRY. AL; did not relieve the bronchial cough in Influenza, Sulphur did. For the Dry persistent, worrying cough that remains after Bry. Al., STICTA is curative. For the Great Weakness and exhaustion with loss of appetite, NUX VOM low worked charmingly and in many cases completed the cure and enabled the patient to return to work." Dr. Wallace Mc. George. M.D. "I have found TUBERCULINUM 30, 200, 1M the best general antidote to Influenza poisoning." Clarke. "I have found MEDORRHINUM high a good antidote to the effects of Influenza". Dr. Swan. "I prescribe PYROGEN very often especially for Influenza. It works wonderfully. It cures but nevertheless the constitution remains the same. AFTERWARDS I must prescribe something else." Dr. Bellokossy. Conium maculatum Is especially useful in profound and long continued weakness following exhaustive diseases. (Think of it particularly in cases of widowers/bachelors.) - Dr. Cowperthwaite. Phosphorus
Is very useful for the debility following la grippe; it is a great post-influenzal tonic. - Dr. Dewey. In regard to the debility of CHINA, one has again and again proved the value of the drug in patients, who, after an attack of Influenza remained chilly and weak and went crawling about, feeling that they would never be able to wear summer clothing or go back to normal, and where potentised China promptly restored normality and the trouble was forgotten. - Dr. Tyler. Sometimes after acute or violent diseases, we find the patient greatly prostrated. He is depressed in mind, weak in body, low spirited, hopeless of recovery and yet you know that there is no absolute certainty that the patient cannot get well; there are no organic lesions remaining. He has weakening night sweats. Perhaps Sulphur has been given without result. In such cases, PSORINUM is the remedy. - Farrington. PAGE 54 Acute pain in limbs after Influenza : This medicine is indicated because the atmosphere is getting charged with atomic effects of one of the contents of which is STRONTIA CARB : RADIUM BROMIDE. (Decide which one is better indicated). - Anon. The cardiac irritability following Influenza finds a remedy in - Dr. Joseph S. Hepburn. If the palpitation results from the patient having taken too strong tea or Anacin (containing quinine see the pathogenesis of CHINA. - Anon. Chronic Influenza characterised by obstinate, rheumatic, neuralgic pains, coupled with low temperature : there is one drug I should like to mention. It is not very well known, but it should be considered in such desperate cases, although it is quite a dangerous drug, viz. THALLIUM. It belongs to the lead group of metals (and it has been recommended for cases of baldness and ataxy). It is especially suitable to cases of chronic influenza with violent lancinating pains and trembling in the lower limbs. It should be given in occasional doses, alternating with Influenzinum. - Dr. W. Karo, M.D. For the persisting infections of the accessory and naso-pharynx, the remedies which I have found most frequently indicated are : Kali Bichromicum. Silicea. In those cases calling for Kali bi., there has been a persistence of glairy discharge, associated with pain or a sense of fullness or pressure over the frontal sinuses or antra and usually a sense of obstruction at the root of the nose. These post-influenzal Kali Bi patients are always very much below par; classical examples of post-influenzal debility and their symptoms are
acutely aggravated in cold, damp weather, and better in warm bed. If by any chance, as they not frequently do, they complain of sharp, pressing pain over the affected sinus, that is always a confirmatory symptom of great value for use of Kali Bi. PAGE 55 In Silicia, there is damming up of the discharge and a steadily increasing tension in the affected sinus. - Dr. Borland. There was one remedy which I found useful in my own personal experience if Influenza, if Gelsemium did not completely meet the case, 2 doses of Nux Vom., would meet it. Mc Donaugh said, 'All true influenza was due to some intestinal infection, - Nux Vom was very good intestinal remedy and often covered the post-influenzal effects in so called 'gastric flu.' - John Paterson. In the acute digestive complications of Influenza, the drug which I have found most frequently indicated is Bryonia. Here we have a classical picture of acute gastritis, with extreme abdominal sensitiveness, intense nausea, agg. by any movement; better eructations and relief from hot drinks. This is not infrequently a complication which yields to Bry. - Dr. F.M. Borland For post-influenzal nervous asthenias, there are three remedies which I have found of the greatest value : 1. PICRIC ACID. 2. PHOSPHORIC ACID. 3. COCCULUS INDICUS. In all the three, there is the same feeling of weariness and inability to sustain any mental effort. - Borland PAGE 56 Dry cough following influenza : 'Sudden, spasmodic burst of violent cough, hurting the lower ribs greatly MEPHITIS. O.S. Haines. After Influenza, one has always used INFLUENZINUM 200 and has seen it clear up such little legacies as FURIOUS, UNBEARABLE TEMPERS, hitherto unknown in the patient and EPILEPTIC FITS even. - Tyler Post-influenzal asthenia : 1. CHININUM ARS. 2. CHINA. 3. CARBO. VEG. - Charles Boericke A remedy which comes near to a specific in chronic post-influenzal states, if indicated by the exhaustion of mind and body, apathy, depression and hopelessness : CADMIUM METAL. PURUM 30. Journal of American Inst. of Homoeopathy. Inula helenium
For post-grippe coughs, dry spasmodic ones worst at night, in rapid succession, with pains over chest, call for it especially. - Dr. William Boericke. Curare Takes hold of grippe or its after effects right away when the patient has these symptoms : - weakness with shaky lower extremities especially : the patient is surprised at his weakness and says, "Why I am all gone"; thirst for large quantities of cold water; sensation of heat and sensitive to heat; it is a remedy for the rapid pulse of post-influenzal myocarditis of which we see so many some years, persisting for weeks or months after grippe when some degree of the above symptoms are present. - Dr. R. E. S. Hayes, M. D. When after any infection of upper respiratory tract (Pertussis, Influenza, etc.) attacks of irritating nervous cough at regular intervals persist for weeks, this terminates it - the medicine is CORALLIUM - PAGE 57 Lathyrus sativus After influenza where there is much weakness and heaviness, slow recovery of nerve power. Sleepy, constant yawning. - Boericke Lycopersicon esculentum Pains left after influenza. Avena sativa Inability to keep mind on one subject. Strength of hand diminished. Numbness of limbs as if paralyzed. Abrotanum Great weakness and emaciation of lower extremities after influenza. Adonis vernalis A heart medicine after influenza, increased urinary secretion, slow weak pulse. Fatty degeneration of heart. Carbolicum acidum Debility after influenza. Smell very acute. Iberis amara Cardiac Debility after Influenza. Antimonium iodatum Loss of strength and appetite, croupy cough with inability to raise the the sputum. Salicylicum acidum Prostration after influenza, also tinnitus aurium and deafness. Arnica montana
If fear of approach and hardness of bed remain Arnica might be needed. Deathly coldness of forearm. So weak, must lie down after each stool. agoraphobia. PAGE 58 A lecture by Dr. Younan and by Dr. Ghosh Dr. Younan once said, "When Influenza is around Calcutta, it cannot affect anybody unless it visits me first." Therefore, let us hear him, since he knew it intimately : "We of the the Homoeopathic cult, have in the case of influenza as in that of most other diseases, pursued the even tenor of our way, and confident in the powerful assistance of our infinitesimals, refused the heavy armamentarium of the old school in the fight against germs and their evil doings." "Sufficient for our purpose it is to know that Influenza is an epidemic catarrhal fever, which spreads rapidly from locality to locality, and chiefly by air infection - and that the the disease varies in severity in different individuals and in different localities - and that the treatment is not and cannot be uniform in all cases. But for clinical purposes it will be well to point out : - 1. Cases of simple uncomplicated Influenza run their course in a few days and are a worse than an ordinary cold. 2. Cases occur where disease is complicated with respiratory affections, more or less severe bronchitis and pneumonia being often common and especially to be feared fatal in colder climates. 3. Those characterised by an amount of prostration entirely disproportionate to the physical changes present - Influenza being apparently a blood and nerve poisoned. 4. Influenza often modifies the course of other diseases which usually prevail at the same time and place - "continued fever" for instance. PAGE 59 I am of the opinion that constitutions that are markedly psoric are more liable to take the infection of Influenza, just as the same constitutions are more easily infected by the malarial poison. This was Hahnemann's remark in writing on Intermittent Fever, and each one of us can corroborate. In some of its symptoms Influenza resembles Intermittent Fever, with its (i) cold and (ii) hot and (iii) sweating stages. Younan's own case "The first case I shall describe is my own, as I am most familiar with it : - In the afternoon of the 28th of last December, I accompanied some friends to a steamer party on the river. In the evening a few of us got into an open boat without hats or caps, and I pulled an oar upstream for more than an
hour, but felt hardly any fatigue and certainly no chill. I was in the best of health and thoroughly enjoyed my outings. Next morning, on waking, I felt a slight irritation in the larynx, with frequent inclination to clear it of some adhesive mucus. This increased as the day went on and led to short dry cough with a little feverishness in the afternoon and evening and aching pains in the back and limbs. The pulse was full and rapid and the face flushed, but I go not relief from a dose or two of Aconite 200. These symptoms continued for two or three days, getting more aggravated each day - but I fear I was imprudent in bathing every morning and attending to some urgent cases, which required attendance even at night. IT IS A GOOD RULE IN THE TREATMENT OF INFLUENZA TO PREVENT CHANGES OF TEMPERATURE FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE ILLNESS, AND TO FORBID BATHING EVEN IN WARM WATER. THE PATIENT IS USUALLY SO CHILLY AND SUSCEPTIBLE TO ATMOSPHERIC CHANGES THAT THERE IS RISK OF RESPIRATORY COMPLICATIONS OCCURRING. The advice given by doctors to their patients during the epidemic of 1918 in England, TO GO TO BED AT THE ONSET OF THE DISEASE AND STAY THERE TILL THEY RECOVERED OR DIED, was as sound as it was EFFICACIOUS. PAGE 60 EVEN IN A WARM CLIMATE LIKE OURS A NEGLECT OF THIS PRECAUTION HAS DONE MUCH HARM, and in my case who tried to battle against the disease, the illness was, I believe, prolonged." Fever set in on the morning of the 1st January and rose to 103°F by the evening, accompanied by severe frontal headache and pains in the back and limbs. The pains made me restless and fidget and change of position was ameliorating. Pressure on painful parts was very grateful, and these symptoms combined suggested to me the use of EUP. PERF. A dose of 6 pellets of the 200th was taken, and the relief was as speedy as it was expected; perspiration came on in a few hours and I fell asleep and awoke next morning free of fever and pains and was in abeyance, but became trouble-some during the apyrexia and continued so for many days together. Influenza sicca (I frequently noticed since that some people began their Influenza with marked coryza and cough on which the fever supervened, and others, where chills and fever ushered in the disease and coryza and cough supervened on the apyrexia. These two types have been very marked, and I may add a third which has seemed to be DRY in all stages - a sort of INFLUENZA SICCA, which is apparently a contradiction in terms."
After the fever had left me, I suffered much from anorexia, nausea and vomiting. These together with the cough, made life very miserable for three or four days, during which I was surprised to find that such well recommended remedies as Nux. Vom., Ipecac, Sulphur, Mercurius, Phosphorus did no good. (I am so sensitive to the action of right remedy, that, if the first dose of a medicine does not relieve, it is perfectly useless to take more). My cough used to be very troublesome at night, and I noticed once that it began to be whoopy in character, where-upon I took a dose of 3 pellets of Drosera 200 and the relief was speedy and grateful. That night, and for three or four succeeding nights, I slept soundly and I felt much relieved of the other symptoms also. The second dose was apparently necessary but did no further good. As my cough became very troublesome again, I took a dose of three pellets of Ammonium Carb 200 and was charmed with the result; for day by day I felt better and better of the cough and the other symptoms and I felt as if I had taken a tonic, in the old school sense of the term. PAGE 61 Influenza is supposed to be predisposed to by exposure to cold, as it was apparently in my own case. But there are many cases which have no such predisposing history. Case A man aet. 40 came to me complaining of chills and fever which had been alternating for three or four days and attended with severe frontal headache. There were NO SYMPTOMS of catarrh, but complete anorexia and much thirst. I prescribed Arsenicum 200, of which he took two doses without benefit. On questioning him further I learnt that, in addition to the severe headache he had distressing breakbone pains all over the body, which prevented him lying down and made him feel very restless. Accordingly, I gave a dose of Eupatorium Perf. (6 pellets of 200th) in the afternoon, and he slept in comparative comfort that night, and by morning the fever had left him in free sweating. For the headache which persisted, I gave a second dose of the same magnitude as the first, and no more medication was necessary. This was a case of Dry Influenza of which I have already made mention. Bry al and eup perf need be differentiated We are accustomed to read of Bryonia alba as a very valuable drug in Influenza. No doubt it is so in the cases which call for it, and I myself have used it more than once recently. We must not forget that Bryonia and Eupatorium are very closely related both in their pathogenesis and in their therapeutical application. Both these are apparently very close. But there are certain differences between them which decide the choice of one or the other
remedy in a given case. It is for the purpose of pointing out these differences that I shall relate to you my next case : PAGE 62 Case "A lady, about 36 years of age, took Influenza catarrh with chills and fevers two or three days before I saw her. My first prescription was Nux Vomica 200 of which she had two doses of a few pellets each. No change, however for the better occurred, and the patient complained of great soreness of the head and eyes and of the whole body, much aggravated by touch and movement and coughing. In fact the patient feared to move and had pillows put around her to prevent hard pressure. There was a good deal of wheezing with respiration temperature ranged between 102°F and 103°F. I gave her a dose of Bryonia Alb. 200 in the morning, and twenty four hours after when I saw her again, the temperature had fallen to 99°, the pains and aches had considerably abated, and she had spent quieter night. A second dose was given and the patient soon convalesced. For the cough that remained, I gave a dose of Ammonium Carb. Comparison You will have perceived at a glance, gentlemen, the difference between the Eupatorium case and the Bryonia case. The Eupatorium patient has pains and aches like Bryonia patient, but while the latter fears to move lest aggravation should occur, the former is restless and fidgety and finds some amelioration in movement. Again, the Eupatorium patient has a hot dry skin or scanty perspiration only, while the Bryonia patient has profuse or easily provoked perspiration. Besides, Bryonia has more respiratory symptoms than Eupatorium. These cases, gentlemen, show us the necessity of carefully studying the characteristic features of each drug in our Materia Medica, and of imprinting them on our minds by means of clinical images and pictures. Otherwise the study of Materia Medica will be harder and often less profitable. PAGE 63 Cases of nux vomica Nux vomica Case I have many cases in mind of the success of Nux Vomica in Influenza, but I shall content myself with relating the case of a little girl, five years old. She took the disease after a number of her family were attacked by it. The fever ran very high (105° to 106°F) and Acon., Bell., Gels., had already been administered without effect before I saw the patient. I put a few pellets of Nux Vomica 200 in three or four ounces of water, and directed that a
teaspoonful be given every two hours till the temperature fell. This was late in the evening, and when I saw the little patient next morning, she was free of fever, and I was told that sweating had set in shortly after the first dose of medicine and continued till the fever broke. The same prescription was required a day or two after for a younger sister, three years old, and with the same success. Both children required Ammonium Carb for the troublesome cough that remained. A very interesting case "While on the subject of influenza in children, I desire to put before you a very interesting and instructive *case, which, but for the prompt action of the right homoeopathic remedy, would have surely proved fatal : - PAGE 64 Case. On the strength of my success here I used Ant. Tart. in the case of another child, who was in continued Influenzal fever for three or four days, with nausea and vomiting and complete prostration. Nux Vom; had done little or no good, but a single dose of Antim. Tart was sufficient for cure. PAGE 65 Case of an aged person I shall now pass to the other extreme of life and show you the peculiarities of Influenza, in the aged by relating the case of an old man of 70 with fatty degeneration of more than one important organ of the body : - It was in the first week of last October that I was asked to see Mr. D - who had been ill for two or three days. From the first there were symptoms of bronchial and pulmonary catarrh, accompanied by excessive wheezing and dyspnoea which prevented the patient lying down in bed. The wheezing dyspnoea were principally expiratory, and as the heart was weak and fatty. I concluded that the trouble was partly respiratory and partly cardiac. The patient lay under a punkhah night and day inspite of much advice to the contrary and it was only when the left shoulder joint got attacked with acute Rheumatism that the punkhah was discontinued. I did not mention before that Rheumatism frequent accompaniment of Influenza and often makes a serious complication. In this case it was a most troublesome symptom all through the illness, and has left a stiff shoulder - joint which has refused to yield to treatment. I have more than once told the patient that Influenza had left him a legacy. To return to the catarrhal symptoms of the old man, I must add that a rapid serious exudation into both lungs made the case more anxious in consideration of his advanced age and fatty organs, for the kidneys were also
fatally degenerated, and there was more or less oedema of the body generally. The expectoration was serious (like white of egg) and very rusty, and the cough and dyspnoea very distressing. In consideration of the gravity of his symptoms, I put the patient upon Phosphorus 200 of which he had 3 or 4 doses. Absorption was, however, slow and to be aided by a does of Sulphur 200, but the patient made a nice recovery with the exception that of the left shoulder joint which remained stiff and painful on movement. (This case well illustrates the value of Phosphorus in Influenza and its sphere of action). PAGE 66 (Study C. Dunham's Lectures on Materia Medica-Phosphorus for symptoms of Cough-dry, rusty scanty sputum; tickling in trachea pretty low down; hoarseness, barking sound; rawness of whole chest) Importance of arsenicum alb I have as yet, gentlemen, to draw your attention to the value of a drug in Influenza, which is as old in the treatment of the disease as it is efficacious-namely ARSENICUM ALBUM, I mean. Its relationship to epidemic catarrh has been established beyond all question, and it is a favourite remedy in the hands of many homoeopathic practitioners. My experience of it during the late epidemic of Influenza has not been as extensive as I anticipated. There is a class of cases which it suits admirably, and in which it has seemed to me a true simillimum. Arsen al in flu Either at the beginning of an attack of Influenza or when the acute symptoms have somewhat subsided, the patient suffers from intermittent or remittent troubles of various kinds, of which neuralgias, chills, and fever are the chief. Nothing in my experience gives such prompt and lasting relief as Arsenicum in these cases. Two or at the most three doses of a high potency have been quite sufficient. The cases resemble the intermittent or remittent types of malarial poisoning, for which Arsenic, is as you know, a sovereign remedy. Influenza modifies symptoms IN THE BEGINNING OF MY PAPER, I DREW YOUR ATTENTION TO A PARTICULAR POINT WHICH I SHALL ILLUSTRATE viz., THAT INFLUENZA IS CAPABLE OF MODIFYING THE SYMPTOMS' COURSE AND TREATMENT OF OTHER DISEASES THAT USUALLY PREVAIL AT THE SAME TIME AND PLACE, THE CONTINUED FEVERS, FOR INSTANCE. PAGE 67
At the beginning of last month I was asked to attend a gentleman who had been ill with fever for five or six days. The disease was probably influenzal, as his wife took ill with catarrhal symptoms at the same time, and keeping to her bed for a few days, was cured by a few doses of Bryonia administered by a Homoeopathic friend. Her husband, however, being a busy man could not lay up and went about his business for two or three days with fever on him. Matters became worse however, and the fever was attended by very severe occipital headache, which the patient and his friends attributed to exposure to the sun. For two or three days no rest or sleep could be had, and when asked to see him, I prescribed Belladonna of which he had two or three doses with complete relief to the head. But the fever continued of a remittent type in spite of Nux Vom., Bryonia and Arsenicum. The skin could not be got to act, the bowels were confined and had to be relieved by enema every other day, the tongue was thickly coated. In the second week of the fever the cough, which was hardly troublesome before, began to be a pronounced symptom and examination showed rales over both lungs and crepitations and dullness over the base of the left. I administered a single dose of a few pellets of Sulphur 200, and the following results were noticed : - The skin began to act profusely, the fever abated slowly till the morning remission showed 99°F the cough and expectoration had correspondingly improved, while the left lung seemed clearer under the stethoscope. A second dose of Sulphur was given three or four days after, as the skin had ceased to perspire, but no further change for the better occurred. On the contrary, the fever began to rise again, the cough got troublesome again, expectoration became serious and rusty and the left lung duller on percussion over a larger area at the back. The right lung suffered little, however. An extensive serious pneumonia had apparently occurred, and I put the patient immediately upon Phosphorus 200, of which he had three doses in all. When the pulmonary trouble was well controlled by the Phosphorus, I administered two or three doses of Ammonium Carb, which cleared the chest completely and removed the cough entirely. In a few days more the patient had left his bed and was ready to go for a change. What should we poor doctors do without that great prescription - a change ? PAGE 68 In thinking over this case, I could not help coming to the conclusion that it was one of Influenzal Remittent Fever. The temperature did not range much over 103°F, and yet early in the second week of the fever, marked pulmonary trouble had occurred. In ordinary Remittent Fever this is not usually the case, and when pulmonary trouble does occur, it is late in the disease and is the nature of hypostatic congestion.
Two other points in the homoeopathic treatment of the case came out very markedly - the patient took a large amount of nourishment all through his illness, from five to six seers of milk daily, and digested it all, and as the result of this no marked weakness was appreciable at the end of the illness. The Homoeopathic treatment of the Fevers is essentially conservative, and the cure TUTO, CITO ET JUCUNDE. A few cases extracted from a lecture by Dr. S. K. Ghosh. "I got the case of a young boy who had high temperature, cough and expectoration of sanguineous fluid in large quantities (as in cases of oedema of lungs). He had also sticking pains in the chest related to respiration. He responded very quickly and favourably to a few doses of SANGUINARIA CAN. 30. But within 12 hours all the 6 members of his family excepting the old mother fell victim to the epidemic. It is refreshing to say, that every one of them, had their speedy recovery by respective indicated medicines." "In the last epidemic of influenza in view of long hot spell. I prescribed Selenium 6 as preventive, in majority of cases. But for those who were disposed to acidity, indigestion, etc., I selected Antim Crud 30 and for the third group, who were very susceptible to influenza I selected Tuberculinum 200 as preventive, Tubercul., I am inclined to opine is a very potent drug both as preventive and curative for those cases who are very susceptible to influenza. PAGE 69 I think it is worth mentioning that a boy 9 or 10 having congenital heart, had his uneventful cure from his attack of influenza by a few doses of Naja tr. 6. Towards the tail end of epidemic some cases came in with high rise of temperature (continued type) was combated by Eupatorium Perf. 6. In cases where after the setting down of temperature diarrhoea or even acute colitis supervened, Nux. Vom., Colch., had been of much help to me - and in cases with bloody stool Sanguinaria Can., and Sulphur have been of unfailing efficacy. Sang. Can. is seldom used by Homoeopaths in Influenza. But I am encouraged to mention that in cases of influenza especially in rainy season, and associated with gastro-intestinal complaints (gastric flu) Sang. C., supercedes the claim of Rhus Tox and Dulcamara especially when the case is complicated with acute colitis sero-sanguineous stool but with no marked tenesmus. The other remedy Ars. Sulph. Rub., in 6th or 30th potency has been proved to be of much service in cases where rise of temperature is attended with chilliness and catarrhal symptoms of the upper respiratory tract in much marked degrees.
In cases with acute cough hacking in nature Osmium 6 and Hepar Sulph have been found of great use in autumn months." Here is a safe rule : - "When in doubt what to give; DO NOT give." "Once well selected remedy is given - WAIT." PAGE 70 The dangers of aspirin and what should be substituted for it Aspirin - dangers of We give below a very valuable warning conveyed in a lecture by Dr. W. A Dewy on the authority of very eminent Physicians of America. Since some Homoeopaths are also tempted to use Aspirin or its popular preparations, being marketed now all over the world under various proprietary names and advertised through the media of daily Newspapers and the Broadcasting Systems and even recommended in various Allopathic Books on Practice of Medicine, we would like to quote in extenso, so as to drive home to our brethren in the field of medicine not to jeopardise the health of the already very ignorant and innocent laity whose let must be improved by all Medical Profession and at least the Homoeopaths, otherwise the process of degeneration which is being evidenced all around shall require another Noah's Ark. Even Ayurvedic Pharmacies vend Aspirin e. g, Sarbyna (Dabur). "Aspirin is the trade name for Acetyl-Salicylic Acid. It was patented in the United States in 1900. The patent expired, and since its expiration the advertisement of the Bayer firm (German) who manufactured it say that only their aspirin is genuine. If aspirin is simply a form of Acid any chemist can prepare". As already mentioned above, many Drug Houses are now vending it under various patent names. "What we find in advertisements which are appearing in profusion should be noted that these are addressed not to the medical profession, but always to the laity. We find in the advertisements the claim that it is a remedy for headaches, toothaches, earaches, neuralgia, rheumatism, neuritis, lumbago, joint pains, pains in general and also for colds and directly "FLU". These comprehensive claims remind one of the claims made by the makers of proprietory medicines of every kind. Any one remedy which is said to relieve all these conditions, irrespective of the causes, and individual's own constitution or propensities, and of universal sure cure, may AT ONCE BE DANGEROUS NOSTRUMS." PAGE 71 Action of aspirin and how it works
"A thorough study of all the works on pharmacology fails to reveal any knowledge of its curative action in any disease, beyond that which appears in the advertisements of the substance written by the manufactures. Drs. Shoemaker, Cuthbert, Bestedo, Cushny and subsequent writers give nothing. It is only in Germany that we find reckless statements and exaggerated claims of its action and safety, such as absence of cardiac depression. The Journal of American Medical Association in 1911 said, "Aspirin should be listed as one of the dangerous drugs". We find nothing in scientific literature favouring its use". Poisonous produced cancer "It is, moreover, poisonous and people have been poisoned by it. In one case it produced vomiting, weak and irregular heart action, haemorrhages from the bowels, unconsciousness and death. In my own practice a case of cancer was produced wholly by the Aspirin habit. It was a young woman of thirty who took it continually for headache. It produces a mental condition similar to that caused by the morphine habit. The British Medical Journal said that it 'produces violent palpitation of the heart, deficient respiration, weakness approaching unconsciousness, pointing to syncope', etc." PAGE 72 Harm done by aspirin in influenza 'No greater case against the safety of Aspirin is found than the record of the influenza epidemic of 1918. Much of its mortality was due to the indiscriminate use of Aspirin. We found, in cases coming to us after having taken it, that it not only poisoned the heart and injured the circulation but, what was more serious and important, that it POISONED THE BLOOD ITSELF AND STUPEFIED THE MIND." "ASPIRIN HAS BEEN USED PARTICULARLY FREELY by both medical profession and laymen in treating influenza. In 1918 Quinine and Aspirin were recklessly given by the orthodox doctors, but not by conscientious Homoeopaths who do not treat for the name of their disease with "a specific" but who treat patients according to the symptoms which appear in the sick INDIVIDUAL. Some eminent Homoeopathic Physicians have reported as follows : - "In a plant of 8,000 workers we had only one death. The patients were not drugged to death. Gelsemium was practically the only remedy used. We used no Aspirin and no vaccine" - Frank Wieland, M.D. (Chicago). "There was one drug which was directly or indirectly the cause of the loss of more lives than was influenza itself. It claims to be Salicylic Acid. Aspirin's history has been printed. Its indirect action came through the fact
that Aspirin was taken until prostration resulted and patient developed pneumonia. Frank. L. Newton, M.D. "I did not lose a single case of influenza; my death rate in the pneumonias was 2.1%. The Salicylates including the Aspirin and Quinine, were almost the sole standbys of the old school and it was a common thing to hear them speaking of losing 60% of their pneumonias." Dudley A. Williams. M.D. PAGE 73 "Three hundred and fifty cases and lost one, a neglected pneumonia that came to me after she had taken one hundred grains of Aspirin in twenty-four hours." Cora Smith Kind, M.D. "My low death rate at Camp Lee was due entirely to the fact that I avoided the use of Aspirin absolutely. I was complimented by the Chief Medical Officer as having the lowest death rate in the hospital. After the medical chief had noted the effect of Aspirin on the blood and the results which I was having in using the Homoeopathy, he discouraged the use of Aspirin and the death rate came down very rapidly after that ruling." Carleton A. Harkness M.D. "One case that was loaded with Aspirin by an old school physician, before I saw him, died." G. H. Wright, M.D. "Ill luck always followed the coal tar derivative, the Aspirin" W. H. Hanchest M.D. "The more Aspirin, Codeine, Dobell's solution and the extra-homoeopathic remedies used, the slower the recovery." H - James W. Ward M.D. "A physician in a Pittsburgh hospital asked a nurse if she knew anything better than what he was doing, because he was losing many cases. 'Yes, Doctor; Stop Aspirin and go down to a Homoeopathic Pharmacy and get homoeopathic remedies." The doctor replied, "But that is Homoeopathy". "I know it, but the Homoeopathic doctors for whom I have nursed have not lost a single case." (He became an ordent Homoeopath). W. F. Edmundson. M.D. "All the people under my care who died of influenza had of their own accord taken Aspirin before I saw them" W. P. Best M.D. PAGE 74 "Aspirin and the other coal tar products are condemned as causing great numbers of unnecessary deaths. The omnipresent Aspirin is the most pernicious drug of all. It beguiles by its quick action of relief of pain, a relief which is but meretricious. In several cases Aspirin weakened the heart, depressed the vital force, increased the mortality in mild cases and made convalescence slower. In all cases it masks the symptoms and renders immeasurably more difficult the selection of the curative remedy.
Apparently Aspirin bears no curative relation to any disease and ought to be prohibited." Guy Buckley STEARNS. M.D. New York. Please note that CAPSICUM is potency is an effective antidote to ASPIRIN. The other one is Nux V. Some case need SULPHUR, or ARNICA. PAGE 75 Materia medica We now proceed to give hereunder description of almost all the Homoeopathic Remedies found in the works of renowned authors e.g. Lilienthal, Dewy, Hering, Boericke, Tyler, Goodno, Custis, Ruddock and Hughes as also drawing from the Materia Medica of Hering, Kent, Dunham, Allen and Pulford. Aconitum napellus Complaints arise from sudden exposure to dry cold winds particularly when the patient is in the state of perspiration. Before the midnight starts, the patient is found having developed sudden high temperature, dry skin, great restlessness, fear of death. He predicts the hour of death. If there is a clock in the room, he tells that when the hour hand reaches 11, he will die. Asks "take down my will". There is dry violent, racking cough with stitches in the chest. Thirst for large quantities of very cold water. Coryza dry or with watery discharge, nose stopped up, sneezing. Chill in general. Rheumatic pains and swelling of joints, worse at night. Full bounding pulse, hard pulse. Sthenic cases (Custis). Persons who are otherwise robust and vigorous usually develop such symptoms. There is a storm in his symptoms. Urine dark and hot. Sweat is critical and usually ameliorates all pain and other symptoms. One cheek red and hot the other pale and cold (Pulford). No matter how high the temperature, Acon., is not the indicated remedy if the patient is quiet. In one word there is "agonized Tossing About" It is better to call Aconite patient as 'agonized.' Headache is ameliorated by copious urination, like Gels., Sil., and Verat (but note that all other remedies lack the agonized tossing about). PAGE 76 Everything tastes bitter except water. (The only other known remedy, so far, is Stann.) Allium cepa Profuse, watery and acrid coryza with bland lachrymation. Fluent coryza, headache, lachrymation, cough, thirst, want of appetite, trembling of hand's feverish, worse evening and indoor, better in open air (Hering Condensed M.M. ) "Chest laiden with mucus, stitches with BURNING IN MIDDLE OF
LEFT SIDE OF CHEST when taking a deep breath, dull frontal headache, intense pain in occiput and cervical spine, dullness of eyes with aversion to light "(Lilienthal). Pain especially in upper extremities with chilliness. *Sneezing worse after rising and going in a warm room. Constant inclination to hack. Immediately after rising from the bed in the morning after sleep, a violent sneezing fit. Eyes smart but the discharge is bland. (Opposite of Euphrasia). Kent says, "Allium Cepa complaints - coryza la grippe, influenza or whatever they may be called, in all usually there is a congestive headache. Rawness in the nose, copious flow of water from the eyes which is always bland - copious watery discharge from the nose, which is always excoriating. Rawness in the larynx and the throat, extending down into the chest. I have heard patients describe the pain in the larynx on coughing, saying that 'it felt as if someone was reaching in the larynx down with a hook at every cough. A watery discharge drips from the nose constantly." Ammonium bromatum Throat during day filled with white sticky mucus; stinging in fauces with inclination to cough, but relieved by sneezing; when walking; KEEPING MOUTH WIDE OPEN ON ACCOUNT OF HEAT IN THROAT AND LUNGS; must move about for fear of suffocation. Wakes 3 A.M. with cough. Bites his nails. Ammonium carbonicum Burning water runs from nose in day time, dry coryza at night; cough after midnight with tickling in larynx and headache; chronic weakness of chest; pain in all limbs at night, especially back and loins, better by lying on abdomen; constant tingling in nose and disposition to sneezing; the least breath of cool air aggravates and brings on sneezing. PAGE 77 Dr. Younan recommends it very much in cases with Cough. Dr. Younan says that even where Drosera apparently indicated but not being the true simillimum could not cure he pushed in Ammonium Carb 200 and succeeded. "Since my own experience with Ammonium Carb, I have used it in many cases, especially those of children, with much success. It has cured the cough of Influenza when everything else had failed, and I have more than once not found it necessary to give a second dose. There is a vaunted specific against Influenza - Ammoniated Quinia - which Allopathic doctors have largely used in every epidemic of the disease. I have no doubt it has been efficacious in many cases, but I incline to the belief that the Ammonia in the mixture is the principal remedy, and the large dose of it
is partly counteracted by admixture with the quinine and probably other ingredients." Younan. Younan also recommends Ammon. Carb for the cough that remains after Influenza has been treated with other drugs. Patients sleep with mouth open. Breathes through mouth. Ammonium muriaticum Watery discharge from nose; loss of smell, with coryza and stoppage of nose, hoarseness and burning in the larynx; frequent sneezing, tearing from nape of neck to shoulders; painful jerks, now here and now there; through all the limbs; thirst at night. Dr. Kent says, "Much sneezing, watery burning discharge, yet stoppage of nose." Coryza with burning in larynx. It has been used extensively in traditional medicine for coryza. Some sore throat and inflammation of the larynx. For these troubles in olden times, the large chunk of Salammoniac was produced, a few crystals shaved off with a common jack knife into a glass of water. All got the same thing, regardless of symptoms. Some were cured promptly of these bad colds, with or without fever. It is now an overlooked remedy. Its symptoms should be carefully studied. With many of its complaints there is much pallor of the face. Tearing in the bones of the face. Swelling of the submaxillary and parotid glands with stitching pains." PAGE 78 If capsular cataract results from Influenza, think of Ammon. Mur. Antimonium crudum Cases resulting from acid diet like pickles, chutneys and sour fruit or cold bathing. Excessive irritability. Gastric Flu. Itching of chest; chilly even in warm room. Intermittent with disgust, nausea, vomiting, eructations, coated tongue, diarrhoea. Hot sweat. Voice harsh; cough worse in warm room. Antimonium tartaricum Oppression of breathing relieved by expectoration; much fatiguing cough most nights, shaking the whole chest and causing headache, most in forehead; constant irritation to cough, with brown mucous of sero-albuminous fluid, chest feels full but has to strive hard before any expectoration takes place. Every time the patient coughs it seems as if he would bring out a large quantity of mucus, but none turns out. There seems paralysis of lungs. Oedema of the Larynx in Influenza (Younan). Constant irritation to cough, during night, must sit up in an erect position restraining, nausea and vomiting. Loss of appetite without much thirst. Thick white coating on the tongue. Pain in the forehead. Extremities affected; Lumbago. The patient is chilly and pale. Weakness at once speaks for this remedy (Kent). He must sit up in bed and be fanned.
The infant is always keeping up a pitiful whining and moaning. The wings of the nose move like Lyco. The patient is as a rule thirstless. Arsenicum album A remedy of sovereign value in this disease. There is a sudden catarrh threatening suffocation at night 1A.M. and mid-day 1 P.M. Fluent coryza with thin watery burning excoriating discharge but still there is a stuffed up feeling which rather predominates, with severe sneezing. Upper lips become sore. "Nose-bleed after a fit of passion or vomiting" (Hering's Cond. Mat. M.) Great debility, spasmodic cough, inclination to vomit. With discharge from eyes, is photophobia. Thirst for little quantities and very often (wants to wet his lips only) - thirst for very cold water which is vomited as soon as it becomes hot in stomach. Very chilly. Wants his body in an oven but his head in an ice-box. Burning pains in head, extremities. Periodical burning pains in head. Burning pains are better by warmth and hot applications. Great restlessness. It is more mental than physical. Wants to change his bed. He is afraid of death. Despite illness and suffering wants things tidy. Is very fastidious. Would get up to correct the alignment of wall pictures and furniture. PAGE 79 Kent's warning of the use of Ars. Al too hastily has already been mentioned. Farrington recommends Ars. Iod on the ground that "owing to the Iodine it contains, there is a marked affinity for the lymphatic glands. It has also thin acrid discharge and chilliness as Ars. Alb. Remember that the odour of discharges of Ars. Alb. is putrid. Clarke has recommended the use of Ars. Al 3 as a prophylactic and also to keep those who get cold on every change of weather fed on Ars. Al 3 regularly. But Dr. Kent's warning of not using Ars. too promiscuously should not be ignored. Mid-night and Mid-day aggravation, fear of death, restlessness, little and often drinks of cold water, chilly within, hot without, prostration and fastidiousness characterise. A Sneeze in Ars. alb is no joke. Arsenicum hydrogenisatum VIOLENT SNEEZING AND SUCH COLDNESS OF NOSE THAT IT MUST BE WRAPPED UP IN WARM CLOTHS; tickling in the nose causes sneezing; eyes yellow, deeply sunken with broad-blue circles; face pale lips discolored, can hardly walk; whispering, squeaking voice; oppression of chest during chill; sensation as if the whole thorax were laced tightly, with rapid breathing; weakness and coldness in limbs. PAGE 80 Arsenicum iodatum
Frequent sneezing; severe coryza with catarrhal tendency; pungent irritation about nose and eyes and an irritating watery secretion; alternate chills and flushes of heat; short dry cough; tightness in chest; worse in open air; PUFFINESS OF LOWER LIDS AND FACE; thick, white, tongue, with red tip and edges. Arum triphyllum Acrid fluent coryza and much sneezing worse at night; nose moist and still feels stopped up, worse on left side, must breathe through the mouth; water in the eyes all day, edges of lids swollen; frequent coughing, with much spitting; tickling cough from mucus in trachea, Agg. at night after lying down, with inability to sleep and hoarseness lassitude and low spirits; discharge excoriating both nostrils and upper lip. Bites his nails. "Picking and boring especially at and into the nose, and more especially into the sides of the nose, works with the nose constantly, picks at the dry lips till they bleed despite pain" (Pulfored). Baptisia tinctoria A remedy of great value like Ars., Gels., Rhus. t; and if given at the commencement of the fever, it might abort the entire course of the disease. Dr. Hughes, Ruddock, in Vade Mecum (P. 165) says, 'Heaviness, besotted appearance of the eyes, headache and foul tongue, sore throat, soreness all over, general uneasiness with or without fever. Even when cough supervenes Bapt., will often be useful and successful." Hughes recommends in all cases of gastro-enteric complications. "Face is dark red, purple; the darker red the face, the more Baptisia; expression is besotted." All the secretion, excretions offensive, cadaverous, penetrating, even the urine and sweat." (Pulford). Drowsy, cannot sleep because head and body feel scattered about bed must toss about to get the pieces together. Confused. When typhoid conditions supervene. Tongue is yellowish brown in centre, edges red and shiny. Can swallow only liquids, least solid causes gagging. Bruised soreness causing restlessness, bed feels too hard, like Arn. Mouth and tongue are dry. Prostration out of all proportion to attack, like Ars. PAGE 81 In Baptisia the onset is very rapid-sinks rapidly into a stupor. Temperature is high. "Gastric Flu. Sudden attacks of diarrhoea and vomiting. "In such cases Baptisia would ensure a sudden recovery." (Tyler). Flu pneumonia. This remedy cures many bad cases but is not Panacea. Belladonna Burning heat and redness, the heat is so intense that the examining hand carries the sensation till sometimes after. "Dull frontal headache and dryness
of nose, fluent coryza from one nostril only" (Hering's Cond. M.M. ) Head hot, hands and feet cold. Pupils fully dilated; eyes suffused and brilliant. Hot skin, with inclination to perspire; spasmodic cough which aggravates the headache; sleepy but cannot sleep. Frequent sneezing, dry nose. Carotids throb violently. Tongue and throat scarlet red, dry and hot; agg. right side. Sudden onset. Continued night temperature rises very high. The bright red skin, usually shiny, is apt to become mottled as the fever advances. Hot outside, cold inside. A disposition to sweat often differentiates Bell from Acon. Thirstless. But there is great desire for cold lemonade. Pains and sweat come and go suddenly; they clutch and stab. Starts up suddenly from sleep. Muscles twitch and limbs jerk during sleep. Agg. jar especially of bed; 3 P.M. ; Night. If the cold has been brought after cutting the hair or wetting the head (often women and those gents who wear long hairs, complain of coryza after washing the head). Bell must be thought of first. PAGE 82 The patient is excited, even wild, and may strike, bite or roll head. Fever is high and RELAPSING. There may be hiccough (T.D. Ross). Aversion to light yet wants the lights of the room on, but lies with back to the lights. Bromium First the right nostril is stopped and then the left. Fluent coryza, dull frontal headache, especially the right side, brain feels as if being forced through the nose. Dry hacking cough with difficulty of breathing and shortness of breath, but it is hurried. Coryza of sailors when they touch the shores. They complain of tickling smarting, as from cobwebs, corrosive soreness of nose. Pressure at root of nose. Fanlike motion of alae (Lyco). Profuse sweat and great weakness. Croup after febrile symptoms have subsided. Bryonia alba Fluent coryza, watery or greenish discharge, much sneezing. Fever with great dryness of mouth with great thirst for large quantities of cold water at long intervals. Stitching pain in the chest. All symptoms are aggravated by motion. Wants to lie undisturbed, be let alone, quiet and still because motion aggravates so much so that motion even of an eyelid or of talking hurts him. Better from, and desires, perfect quiet and rest and not be paid attention to, coupled with irritability and great thirst. Wants many things, but knows not what. Burning fever, 9 to 12 P.M. Like Baptisia often lies curled up like a dog. Resents being examined - because motion agg. Avoids light. To the
astonishment of all, lies on the painful side to restrict movement of the inflamed part. Tearing pain in the sacro-iliac symphysis. Pain in lumbar region on region on turning in bed, turning almost impossible (Note that Nux sits up first to turn). Sweat ameliorates all complaints and is profuse, sweat as if mixed with oil : like China. Delirium of day's work, busy dreams. In delirium imagines is away from home. Fear of impending poverty. Pains affect usually the right lower chest and head. No desire for stools, stools burnt, dry. While coughing holds the chest (Nat. s when the cough is with expectoration; Bry when dry). Much aching in joints. PAGE 83 Note that before the troubles of Bry., get started, one complains of being tired and languid, does not wish to speak, to move or do his routine. He has been sickening for some days. Taste, without hesitation, is said to be Bitter. Cases with pneumonia, pleurisy, pleuro-pneumonia. Bry. is sensitive to the light of the sun. When room becomes warm or enters a warm room, cough is aggravated. Pressure : wants being pressed, because feels better by it. On stooping feels as if all contents of head would issue through forehead. Camphora officinalis This remedy if taken early, when there is a sensation of cold, will keep an attack away. A drop of spirit of Camphor on sugar every 5 minutes is a traditional remedy for the chill at on set of 'flu', but this remedy in potency can also save desperate cases with sudden collapse and icy coldness of body and (strange) aversion to being covered. This differentiates Camphor from Carbo Veg. which has similar collapse but craves fresh air; has much flatulence. Hahnemann discusses the affect of Camphor in the influenza epidemics in Materia Medica Pura where he says, epidemics of influenza endemic in Siberia, which come among us occasionally - Camphor is of service, only as a palliative certainly - but an invaluable palliative, seeing that the disease is one of short duration. "Lilienthal says, 'Influenza in the spring, more of an asthenic character, beginning with more or less Chilliness or Chills, with Death-like Paleness of the face, often at the same time a desire to be uncovered." ("Amritdhara" which is so popular as a household remedy in India has Camphor as its main ingredient.) Note : Some authors recommend sucking or smelling of cinnamonum. Carbo vegetabilis
Influenza, with hoarseness in the morning or at night, worse in the damp cool weather; from damp evening air and from talking; irritation in larynx causes sneezing; soreness of chest and heat of body when coughing. There is air hunger. PAGE 84 Wants to be fanned. Knees are cold even when well covered and wrapped up in warm bed. Fears ghosts. Anxiety at night. A condition of collapse calls for this remedy. It is the corpse reviver. Cold with all complaints except coryza. (Pulford). Great flatus in the whole abdomen, a.m. on waking and agg. by taking milk. Desires coffee. "Desires cold water in chill; like Ign., thirstless during heat," is a valuable feature. Sweat copious, does not amel. Faints readily. Note : Very valuable for lack of reaction from a vital attack, dyspnoea, cold; copious sweat, exhaustion; cadaverous appearance. Followed well by Kali C. Ars., Mur. ac., and Carbo Veg. have often proved saviours at the brink of death. Causticum From the start sensation of weakness and paresis in all extremities; total loss of appetite; unilateral nervous headache; eyes sensitive to light and heat; lachrymation in room, worse in open air, frequent sneezing; aggravated in mornings; nose stopped up at night; running by day; facial neuralgia; cough, with sensation as if could not cough deep enough to start mucus; waking him from sleep in morning and evening; agg. from draught of air; says he is tired; his limbs beaten; intolerable uneasiness in limbs, in evening; rheumatic pains, chest feels raw and excoriate. Nose runs by day but stops at night. Marked hoarseness, if child, would be afraid of going to bed alone (like Carbo. V) Complaints brought on by exposure to cold dry winds, like Aco., Hep; and bathing in cold water like Ant. C., Rhus. When coughs, sips cold water as it relieves the caught. As if coughing in a barrel, sounds hollow. Shooting in sternum on a deep breath. If one develops chorea after 'flu', give Causticum if agg. is in dry weather. Causticum is averse to sweets. Incompatible after or before Phosphorus. PAGE 85 Chelidonium majus Shortness of breath and tightness of chest; loud mucous rales in bronchi; violent pains in forehead above eyes; anxiety and restlessness. DRAWING IN NAPE AND OCCIPUT; photophobia; lachrymation; nose, tongue and
throat dry; great dry heat in face, thirst with dry mouth or thirstlessness; no appetite, delirium, mostly at night, followed by lethargy which continues through the day. FIXED PAIN UNDER INFERIOR (INNER AND LOWER) ANGLE OF RIGHT SCAPULA. Icy coldness of tips of fingers. Small lumps of mucus fly from mouth while coughing. Very quick and short respiration with pains on deep inspiration indicates it most. Skin is cold and clammy. Cases relieved by Chelidonium need Sulphur or Lyco., for completion of their cure. Cimicifuga racemosa Rheumatic catarrhal attacks, with pains in limbs, head face, eye-balls; chilliness; heat and fluent watery coryza; stuffed nostrils, with great sensitiveness to cold air; as if the base of the brain were laid bare and every inhalation brought the cold air in contact with the brain. Tickling in the throat. Dry, short cough, worse speaking and at night. Crick in back. Uneasiness; restless feeling in limbs. Ears sensitive to least noise. After the 'flu', symptoms referable to pelvic organs are renewed. Cuprum metallicum Is similar to Arsenic but adds violent cramping colic and cramps in hands and feet with bluish face, and thin, bloody discharge from one nose and lungs. Grave cases who might die soon without Cuprum. Violent suffocating spasms in the chest; cough worse from cold drinks. (T.D. Ross). Sweat is staining yellow. Taste slimy metallic. Great thirst for cold drinks which amel. all symptoms, except that they agg. cough. It is a peculiarity. Urine might be suppressed. Cholera like stools. Stools amel. vertigo, if present. Dulcamara When summer has been prolonged. Days are still hot in autumn and nights are cold and persons get their perspiration suppressed or are exposed to a draught of very cold suddenly blown wind. Dry coryza with congestive headache. Wants nose kept warm, least cold air stops the nose. Dry burning heat all over. Chilliness towards evening mostly in back. Icy coldness with pains. Chilliness with thirst. Drinks much and often. Perspiration of palms of hands. Headache is relieved by conversation (Boericke). PAGE 86 Eupatorium perfoliatum Cures cases where the aching is felt in the bones and where this pain is excessive. There is vomiting of bile after drinking, and great thirst. Nausea. Sneezing soreness eyeballs, watering eyes, hacking cough and hoarseness. (Ross). Farrington says, "Eup. perf is very similar to Caust, in that it causes
hoarseness in the morning. Both are indicated in Influenza with aching all over body, but Eup. Perf. has more soreness than burning and rawness in "chest." Hering in Condensed M.M. (422) says, "Influenza with weak pulse, prostration, bones sore especially with inebriates and old people." And again, "Hoarseness worse in the morning, with cough; extreme soreness along the trachea and even to the finest ramifications of the bronchial tubes; there will be aching in all the limbs and body; as if in the bones, which impels the sufferer to move, but thereby no relief in obtained." (244). Lilienthal says there is so much restlessness that "there is constant change of position though pains are not worse by repose; lassitude; surface pale and morbidly sensitive. "Chills between 7 and 9 a.m. Bones feel broken : dislocated : as if would break. Dare not move for fear of pain (opp. Of Pyrogen). Shivering chills in back, Bursting headache. There may be vomiting of bile (Tyler). "In Eupatorium we have overwhelming sadness" (Kent). "A dry cough, hacking, teasing, that seems to rack the whole frame, as if would break him up, it is so sore, and he is so much disturbed by motion. A great amount of tribulation is found in the respiratory tract, in the bronchial tubes. We find a cough in capillary bronchitis that shakes the whole frame, analogous to Bry. and Phos." (Kent). Urine charged with bile. During the chill, wants to be covered up and clothing needs to be piled on. Thirst extends to all stages. PAGE 87 Ferrum phosphoricum Is another drug like a mixture of symptoms of Aconite and Belladonna, without Aconite's fear and less wild than Belladonna. There is a tendency to : nosebleed, to spitting of blood, to SHARP CHEST PAINS, and may be there is suppuration from middle ear. Fever tends to relapse. Gelsemium sempervirens Dullness, Drowsiness, dizziness, dim sight, delirium characterise Gels . patient. He is sensitive to falling barometer; cold and dampness bring on complaints. No thirst. Chills in back. "Chills and heat chase one another." Heaviness and tiredness of body and limbs. Headache is most in the nape of the neck upwards to occiput goes to eyes and settles there. Coryza with violent sneezing fits in the morning. Right nostril stopped, discharge watery and excoriating. Sore throat felt at upper part of left nostril. Continuous accumulation of irritating mucus about the throat, hard painful cough, swallowing causes shooting in the ears. Hand may tremble. Chills pass up and down the back, and strange to say, there is no thirst during fever. Pulse os relatively slow and there is much pain on moving the eyes. Like Bry. wants to be left alone, but Bry has much thirst for large quantities at long
intervals. Urine is copious which ameliorates. Feels ameliorated from sweat and stimulants. He faints if there is anything annoying him to anger. In some epidemics and in some localities, cures most of the cases but we must have the similar picture. If feels heart is involved, think of it. And also remember that strangely enough he thinks unless he is on the constant move his heart will stop beating. (Opp. of Digitalis). Hepar sulphur Cough tight and loose, or worse in the morning, and after exposure to cold wet wind; coryza with INFLAMMATORY SWELLING OF THE NOSE, PAINFUL AS FROM A BOIL; cough is followed by sneezing; drawing pain in limbs, especially in the morning, when awaking; nightly chill in bed, all symptoms aggr. at that time; great chilliness in open air; rheumatic swelling, with heat, redness and sensation as if sprained. Remember always that Hepar is sensitive, mentally and physically, very especially to a draft of air, to least touch of hand or dressing, and to pain which becomes so intolerable at times as to cause fainting and which is throbbing and splinter like. He is so irritable that it is hard to get along with him; like Chamomilla it is difficult to nurse such patients (but Cham. Is not chilly) breaks into violence and tells he does not want to see any of his family. Drinks and talks hastily. Secretions are foul, offensive and easy; the sweat is easy and copious and sour and is night and day, without amel. PAGE 88 Hydrastis canadensis Influenza in cold weak, debilitated persons; dry, harsh cough from tickling in larynx; rawness, soreness, burning in chest. Thick, yellow, stringy sputa which may be tenacious; sneezing with fullness over eyes, dull, frontal headache, dropping down of mucus from the posterior nares into the throat, pain in right breast and down the arm; constipation from debility or inactivity of intestines. Persons cured with Hydrastis often need Tuberculinum for perfect recovery. Persons cured with Tuberculinum need be fed with Hydrastis which fattens them. Iodium Fluent and hot coryza, with general heat of skin. Cross and sulky; hates to be touched. Now that salt has been iodised in most parts of many towns, Iodium might be more often needed, or may be its antidote Hepar or Sulphur are required. Sweat on the feet is acrid. Hoarseness; raw and tickling feeling in throat which provokes a cough which is generally dry. Grasps throat when coughing. Flushes of heat all over; marked fever, restlessness, red cheeks; profuse sweat, Eustachian deafness in influenza requires it. Ipecacuanha
Rattling of large bubbles; convulsive cough, with throwing up of phlegm; dyspnoea; NAUSEA, vomiting diarrhoea; tongue clean; face pale, even bluish. Cold sweat on forehead and thirstlessness; if vomiting occurs, it may not relieve the nauseas. Shivering 4 p.m. Chilly externally, heat internally. Oversensitive to atmospheric changes, heat, cold and touch. Muscles of face seem very stiff during cough. Sleeps after vomiting. Pain between shoulders down back as if it would break, rigors, fever, vomiting of bile, and seldom thirst usher in the febrile state. Those who have abused patent remedies containing quinine e.g. Anacin need Ipec. All secretions are profuse. Spasms on bending body anyway. Spells of prostration. (Ars. always). PAGE 89 Iris versicolor Constant sneezing; sharp boring pains in the centre of the temples; frontal headache with nausea. Burning of whole alimentary canal. Deficient appetite. Profuse flow of saliva; light mushy painless diarrhoea; dry tickling cough, with smarting burning in throat. Expectoration is stringy white (yellow in Kali Bi.). All secretions are acidic. P.M. and nightly aggravations. Heat is followed by chilliness, cold hands and feet. Justicia adhatoda Highly efficacious medicine for acute catarrhal conditions of the respiratory tract (used in the beginning) when there is cough with coryza. The head is hot full and heavy; lachrymation, with coryza which is profuse, fluent with constant sneezing. It soon results in loss of smell and loss of taste. Mouth is dry, throat is dry and the patient complains of pain during empty swallowing and hawks up tenacious mucus which gives relief. It is seen followed by hoarseness. Seems to come between All Cepa and Euph. Tightness across the chest is an indication particularly when dyspnoea is else present. Lachesis mutus Frontal headache, trifling discharge from nostrils; throat sore, especially when touched; as soon as profuse discharge sets in head and throat, feels relieved. Throat first painful on left side then right. Would not permit throat being examined or put a band around the throat; worse hot drinks. Frightful dreams, wakes drenched in hot sweat. Often needed in menopausal women. Patient is agg. after sleep, rather sleeps into aggravation i.e. strangulating cough wakes the patient soon after falling asleep. Chilly in back; feet icy cold; hot flushes and hot perspiration; paroxysms return after acid food. Particularly useful in cases which might appear in early spring. Might be involvement of heart. Patient is loquacious. Red nosed. PAGE 90 Mercurius solubilis
Dry or fluent coryza; frequent epistaxis; cough. Mucous-bilious diarrhoea, rheumatic pains in head, face, ears, teeth and extremities, with sore throat. Dry, violent racking cough, the patient cannot utter a word during coughing bouts. Chill or heat with much sweat, which does not relieve. Sweat is very offensive. Like Baptisia, has very foul breath. Salivation, much with offensiveness; much thirst with moist mouth. Colds extend to chest. Aching, is in the bones and especially where the flesh is thin over the bones; agg. night, just after becoming warm in bed. Sweat is profuse and may even aggravate his condition rather than elevating it. Slimy teeth. Speech quick and stammering. Bread tastes very sweet. Chill, as of water poured over one. More so, on going into open air. Sleep is banished by pain. Mercurius iodatus flavus Thick plugs of nasal secretions, with severe frontal headache, some fever and prostration, especially in old people and children. Nux vomica Hahnemann says, 'Nux in a single dose, and that the smallest possible, will often remove the disease homoeopathically in a few hours. "(M.M. P. 305) After drinking, immediately shivering and chilliness. Chilliness on the slightest movement. On the slightest exposure to the open air, shivering and chilliness for an hour; dreads to go into open air. By slightest draught of air he gets chilled. He cannot get warm. Great coldness not removed by heat of stove, or by bed coverings. Would not expose any part of body at any stage of fever. Attacks, of fever, shivering and drawing in limbs. No wonder, Hahnemann says, "Serious ailments from catching cold are removed by it." Fluent coryza by day but stops at night. Worse in warm room, stopped in open air - a peculiarity worth noting (Opp. Puls). Rough and hollow cough, mucous rales, thick expectoration, and pain in chest as if raw; headache as if bruised, heaviness of head, anorexia, constipation desire for stools little and often, sleeplessness, anxious dreams during sleep. Pain in back; must get up sit and turn, otherwise not possible. Metallic taste. Loss of appetite. (Note that Ars. and Nux are equally chilly but Nux does not have the fear and restlessness and prostration of Ars.) Nux face is flushed, the patient is very irritable. Early cases have been found complaining only of stuffy cold in the head worse in the warm room. If Nux is missed at the beginning, it will take longer to treat it. Also note the symptom of drowsiness very early in the evening or night and 4 a.m. waking for an hour and sleep which is most unrefreshing and depressing. In the conditions of modern world, where wine, woman and coffee and close application of mind, condiments, nostrums are a routine with us, Nux Vom. would be more often needed than any other single remedy. Give here high. You will always find some gastric
irregularity done in Nux cases, before they have been found unwell. Backache; must sit up in bed and take a turn. PAGE 91 Phellandrium aquaticum Hoarseness with roughness in throat; dry cough, with shortness of breath, stitches in chest and oppressing; great thirst, loss of appetite, sleeplessness on account of cough; small black spots like petechiae, disappearing without desquamation; urging to urinate, with scanty emission and violent burning after micturition; urine pale and watery, almost greenish. Profuse offensive, expectoration later on. Taste sweet. Pain in milk ducts. Phosphorus It is a grand remedy that begins with hoarseness and threatens pneumonia. The cough is hard and harsh, dry much worse lying on left side. There is nosebleed and bloody expectoration, the chest is tight and the patient is anxious; worse evenings. Great thirst for big cold drinks. Coryza alternately dry and fluent, frequent sneezing, speech almost impossible. Goneness and faintness in region of stomach, painless diarrhoea. Craving for cold food and ice cold water which are usually vomited as soon as they become warm in the stomach, the vomiting again being followed by intense thirst. You will find the patient lying on right side. (Bry lies on painful side) (Merc. lies on left side). Complains of a delusion of something coming from a corner. If a thunderstorm should come during his fever, it is horrifying for him since it aggravates all his sufferings. Cough is agg. when some stranger enters his room. Rust-coloured sweetish or salty frothy mucus. Says, "Heart has grown too fast." Knees cold in bed at night. Hungry during chill. PAGE 92 Phytolacca decandra Influenza with derangement of the digestive organs; thin, watery discharge from the nose; which increases until the nose becomes stuffed; inability to breathe through the nostrils. Difficulty of swallowing. Dry hacking cough, with hawking excited by tickling in larynx and dryness of pharynx; heart's action weak. Joints seem dislocated. Aching soreness restlessness, prostration are generally symptoms guiding to Phytolacca. Feeling as if heart leaped into throat. Pain in the right arm alternates with shock of pain in the cardiac region. High fever alternating with chilliness. Backache in lumbar region, with stiff back especially in the morning on rising. Pain in legs, patient dreads to get up. Toes are very painful Phytolacca throat is worse by warm but better by cold drinks. Throat is purple in colour. Pulsatilla pratensis
Tells her symptoms weeping. Flitting chilliness : chill in spots. Cold creeps in back. Chilly in a warm room. Coryza worse in open air and better in a warm room although all her other complaints i.e. except chill and coryza are better in open air. This a peculiarity and is opp. here to Nux. Heat as if hot water thrown over him. Profuse morning. One-sided chilliness - heat - sweet. External warmth is intolerable. Worse in a close room. Palpitation with anxiety. Must throw off clothes. Better for slow motion (opp Bry and Eup. perf.). Feet burn and uncovers her feet from bed. Thirstless with a dry mouth. No hunger. Tearful, peevish. Craves sympathy and is better for it. Dry cough at night which disappears on sitting up : but returns on lying down again. (Hyos.) Taste of everything including water is bitter. Earache may supervene. Loss of taste and smell with coryza. Sore nostrils, wings are raw. Distress in bowels. Mucous diarrhoea. Farrington says, give Puls with caution; it might dry up the bronchi very soon and tightness result. As a rule PULS is thirstless evening with dry mouth and high fever. Pyrogenium Suits serious cases. For fever of violent pulsations and intense restlessness. Tongue fiery red, as if varnished. Chilliness no fire can warm. Creeping chills in back, with thumping heart. Hard bed sensation : feels beaten, bruised. Pulse is very rapid : RATIO BETWEEN PULSE AND TEMPERATURE DISTURBED. HIGH TEMPERATURE WITH SLOW PULSE, or the reverse. Better beginning to move (opp. to Rhus), has to keep on moving, rocking, wriggling, for momentary relief. "One very bad 'flu' year, all the cases one came across cleared up in twenty-four to forty hours with Pyrogen 6 six hourly. The symptoms, besides the thumping heart and the fever, were agonising pain in lumbar and upper thigh-muscles that made it impossible to keep still one moment". (Tyler). PAGE 93 Copious urination of clear water with fever. Suits serious and desperate cases. Where septicaemia is suspected, Pyrogen is a sovereign remedy. Opium Opium cures some grave cases, rather like Baptisia but more chesty. The patient is hot, sweaty, sleepy, very ill but strangely uncomplaining. Like Bryonia, he imagines, he is away from home and like Arnica, that there is nothing wrong with him. Inspite of semi-stupor, there is sometimes great, even painful, acuteness of hearing. It is of special value in old folks who fail to react to the infection and who are obstinately constipated. Rhus toxicodendron A valuable remedy in which will be found copious coryza with REDNESS AND OEDEMA OF THROAT, sneezing and coughing, oedema glottis;
puffed translucent uvula; pharynx and larynx feel intolerably raw and rough, full of vesicles; dry cough which is worse from evening till midnight and from uncovering the body slightest uncovering of a part brings on chilliness and cough or sneezing. Severe aching all over body. Tearing pains down thighs during stool. General weakness. Fever with thirst. Says hot water is coursing through veins. It is similar to Pyrogen in its restlessness which is intense and there is sore aching all over especially in small of back. Change of position gives temporary relief. In Ars. the restlessness is more mental than physical. The thirst is also like Arsenic - for small frequent sips. The tip of the tongue is red. A triangular redness. Stiff lame and bruised on first moving (opp. of Pyrogen), passes off with motion, would like to get up and walk about till he becomes weak and must rest : then restlessness and uneasiness drive him to move again. Anxiety and fear are worse at night. Without knowing why, weeps. Typhoid form of Flu cases. Like Eup. per. There is severe aching in bones. A mental symptom of Rhus is fear of poison. Dwells on past disagreeable occurrences after midnight. Hoarse on beginning to talk but when keeps on speaking finds the hoarseness is gone. Hot breath during chill. Low grade muttering delirium. May be there is urticaria, which passes off during sweat. Those who dwell in damp cellers or get their foot sweat suppressed need this remedy often in acute complaints also. Taste of blood in mouth. PAGE 94 Sabadilla VIOLENT SPASMODIC SNEEZING AND LACHRYMATION ON GOING INTO OPEN AIR; fluent coryza, dullness of head, gray, dingy colour of skin; dull cough, with vomiting and spitting of blood, especially when lying down; throat feels as if constricted. Swelling of tonsils going from left to right side agg. on empty swallowing. Agg. in cold weather, noon and evening. Red spots in face and on chest. Chill predominates; from below upwards. Thirstless. Heat in head and face; hands and feet icy cold. Better wrapping up. Sneezing is spasmodic. Produces symptoms like hay-fever. Patient feels nervous, is very sick, parts are shrunken. Eyelids red, burning. Lachrymation. Warm food and warm drinks relieve throat. Sanguinaria canadensis Intense irritation of the nasal mucous membrane; smell in nose like roasted onion; fluid coryza. Frequent sneezing; raw throat; pain in chest; wheezing whistling cough and DIARRHOEA WOULD RELIEVE THE COUGH, but when it slackens Coryza cames back. A right sided remedy. Burning redness of cheeks. Tickling behind sternum.
Senega Constant tickling and burning in larynx and throat with danger of suffocation when lying down; walls of chest are sensitive or painful when touched or when he sneezes. Copious mucus which is tough. Hoarseness, it hurts him to talk. Cough often ends in a sneezing. Urine is greatly diminished. PAGE 95 Spigelia anthelmia Influenza accompanied by facial neuralgia, particularly the left side; fluent coryza, with dry heat and no thirst. Headache with hoarseness and anxiety about the heart; much palpitation which is perceptible even to the onlookers. Dry hard cough at night, with dyspnoea, worse when bending forward. Stannum metallicum Cough dry at first, then moist, copious sweetish expectoration which brings on great weakness of chest. When influenza threatens to assume a consumptive character. Debility is very marked. Talking causes a very weak feeling in the throat and chest. Pains come and go gradually. Heat in evening. Exhausting night sweats, especially towards morning; particularly on forehead and nape of neck which smells musty, or offensive. Paralytic weakness. Spasmodic twitching of muscles of forearm and hand. Sticta pulmonaria Excessive dryness of the nasal mucous membrane, painful with inability to breathe through the nose, worse in the afternoon and better in fresh air, morning hours being nearly free from distress. Dull heavy pressure in forehead and ROOT OF NOSE; soft palate feels like dried leather, with difficult deglutition; incessant cough the whole night, dry and hacking from tickling in larynx; with oppression of chest. INCESSANT SNEEZING, with feeling of fullness in right side of forehead down to the root of nose with tingling in right nostril. CONSTANTLY BLOWING NOSE, but no secretion. Sulphur This wonderful remedy is not usually indicated in the first days, but in some epidemics it might be frequently needed where there is irregular circulation. Hot head, flushes, red lips red ears, red eyelids, hot feet, chills running up the back. The patient is empty and hungry especially in the forenoon and feels a load on the chest. Septic complications, boils, tonsillitis and pneumonia, are apt to occur, and it is one of the first and best remedies when there has been no satisfactory reaction to earlier treatment. Partially recovers and then relapses. Sulphur is dirty looking and feels offense at his own discharges. Frequent flushes of heat. Uneasiness in blood. Very sensitive to
open air : to draughts (opp. Puls) worse for washing and bath. Takes cold. Oppression, burning stitching, congestion of chest. Heat crown of head with cold feet. Soles burn at night, must be stuck out of bed. Starts from frightful dreams. Hungry - starving 11 a.m. PAGE 96 Tuberculinum bovinum kent Like Sulphur might be needed in relapsing unsatisfactorily treated cases. There is great changeability, restless weakness, pungent sweat and breathlessness. A family background of Tuberculosis. Caution - please do not give it where heart is unsound. Do not give it low. Veratrum album Comes in like Carbo veg. for a collapsed cold case but the perspiration is excessive in Veratrum Album especially so on the forehead; vomiting and diarrhoea remarkably copious. Patient faints on rising. Veratrum viride Red streak down the center of the tongue and a bad, sweetish taste. Thirst resembles Phosph; so does the tendency to pneumonia. Must be given with caution. See heart symptoms. PAGE 97 Influenzas By dr. d.m. borland (The following lectures on Influenzas are being reprinted. They were given by Dr. D.M. Borland at the London Homoeopathic Hospital in 1939.) The drugs are not arranged alphabetically, but in the order in which Dr. Borland considered them likely to be of value to the physician and his patients. Gelsemium sempervirens VISUALISE the ordinary, typical influenza case, probably developing over six to eight hours. The patient feels a little out of sorts the day before, possibly a little headachy, a little feverish, has a little indefinite pain, is probably a little catarrhal; he goes to bed, does not sleep awfully well, and next morning feels rotten. Fortunately there is a drug in the Materia Medica which produces exactly that picture and which will cover a large percentage of the cases of straight forward influenza. The drug is Gelsemium. It develops its symptoms fairly slowly and produces exactly the symptom picture given above. Other influenza drugs will be dealt with in due course. Gelsemium is somewhat slow in onset, and produces primarily a feeling of intense weariness. The patients are very dull and tired, look heavy and are heavy eyed and sleepy; not wanting to be disturbed but to be left in peace,
and yet - the first outstanding symptom - if they have been excited at all, they spend an entirely sleepless night, inspite of their apparently dull, toxic state. PAGE 98 The patient is definitely congested, the face sightly flushed - rather a dull kind of flush - the eyes a little injected, the lips a little dusky; the skin generally is a little dusky, and the surface is definitely moist - hot and sticky. Another Gelsemium symptom is that with the hot, sticky sensation, the patients have a very unstable heat reaction. They feel hot and sticky, and yet have the sensation of little shivers of cold up and down their backs - not actual shivering attacks but small trickles of cold, just as if somebody ran a cold hand, or split a little cold water, down their back. With their general torpor, Gelsemium influenza patients always have a certain amount of termulousness, their hands become unsteady much more quickly than you would expect from the severity of their illness; they are definitely shaky when they lift a cup to try to drink. Frequently linked with the shakiness is a feeling of instability, and very often a sensation of falling. They feel as if they are falling out of bed, particularly when they are half asleep; they wake with a sudden jerk and feel as if they have fallen out of bed. As one would expect with anyone in this toxic state, the Gelsemium patient does not want to make any effort at all; discomforts of every kind are aggravated by moving. With their unstable circulation they are definitely sensitive to cold draughts, which make them shiver. As a rule, their mouths are intensely dry and the lips very dry; very often dry and cracked, or dry with a certain amount of dried secretion on them. The patients complain of an unpleasant taste, and there is frequently a sensation of burning in the tongue. The tongue itself usually has a yellowish coating --though, sometimes, it is quite red and dry. Gelsemium influenzas always include a very unpleasant, severe headache. Typically, there is feeling of intense pain in the occipital region, spreading down into the neck with a sensation of stiffness in the cervical muscles, and as it is a congestive headache, it is usually throbbing in character. PAGE 99 The patient is most comfortable when keeping perfectly still, propped up with pillows, so that the head is raised without the patient making any effort. With these headaches, the patients often complain of a sensation of dizziness, particularly on any movement. There is another type of headache sometimes met with in Gelsemium. Again it is congestive in character, but the sensation is much more a feeling
of tightness - as if there were a tight band round the head, just above the ears from the occiput right forward to the frontal region. This, also, is very much aggravated by lying with the head low. Peculiarity, these patients often find relief from their congestive headaches by passing a fairly large quantity of urine. In nearly all Gelsemium influenzas there is a sensation of general aching soreness, an aching soreness in the muscles. This is worth remembering : there are other drugs which have similar pains but are much more deep-seated than the Gels., pains. Now a few details of actual local disturbances. Most Gelsemium patients have that appearance of intense heaviness of the eyelids that is associated with this dull toxic condition. But there is also a good deal of sensitiveness of the eyes themselves, a good deal of congestion, definite sensitiveness to light, probably a good deal of lachrymation and general congestive engorgement. There is an apparent contradiction here : despite this ocular sensitiveness occasionally a Gelsemium patient becomes scared in the dark and insists on having light. These patients get very definite acute coryza, with a fluid, watery discharge, accompanied by very violent sneezing and a feeling of intense fullness and pressure just about the root of the nose. It is not uncommon in Gelsemium influenza - where there is this feeling of blockage at the root of the nose - to find a story of epistaxis on forcible clearing of the nose. This again is worth remembering, for certain Mercurius cases tend to run in the same way. PAGE 100 With their acute coryzas, Gelsemium patients, despite a general sickness, very often complain of very cold extremities. (This appears to be a contradiction and might mislead you when you consider the general heat of the typical Gelsemium patient). As a rule, in Gelsemium influenzas, there is no very marked localized tonsillitis, but much more a generalized puffiness, red congested throat. There may be a certain amount of enlargement of the tonsils, but it is not the spotty throat that some of the other drugs have. Inspite of the absence of acutely localized symptoms there is often acute pain on swallowing. Swallowing may be actually difficult - with a feeling of constriction or of a lump in the throat - and it is much more difficult when the patients take cold fluids than warm; this is unexpected, considering the dryness of their mouths. Associated with these conditions of nose and throat, Gelsemium influenzas quite frequently have an involvement of the ears. But, inspite of what is
recorded in the Materia Medica, I have not observed the acute stabbing pains that are described under Gelsemium and where I have tried to clear up such pains with Gelsemium, I have not had any success. Gelsemium is given as one of the drugs that has stabbing pain into the ear on swallowing : in my experience it has not been effective. Gelsemium does get a good deal of roaring in ears, a feeling of blockage and obstruction and you very often get dullness of hearing, and giddiness; but I have not seen acute earaches respond to Gelsemium. Quite frequently there is an extension downwards, with involvement of the larynx and loss of voice. Associated with the laryngitis, there is liable to be an intensely croupy cough which is almost convulsive in character, coming in spasms and associated with very intense dyspnoea. PAGE 101 Typical patients, despite their sweatiness and dryness of mouth, are not usually very thirsty. Occasionally a patient is intensely thirsty, but the typical one is not. They hardly ever have an appetite - they do not want anything at all. They very often complain of a horrible empty sensation in the region of their chest, often near the heart. This sometimes spreads down into the epigastric region, and they may describe it as an empty feeling; but it is not really a sensation of hunger, and is not associated with any desire for food. Associated with the digestive system, Gelsemium patients often have a definitely yellowish tinge, and actual jaundice may develop. Again, the patient quite frequently develops very definite acute abdominal irritation accompanied by diarrhoea. Usually, the stool is very loose and yellowish but not particularly offensive. There is quite often a story of intense feeling of weakness in the rectum - an incontinence, or a feeling of prolapse - after the bowels have acted; and there is sometimes a definite prolapse associated with the diarrhoea. Baptisia tinctoria BAPTISIA runs very closely to Gelsemium in symptomatology. Personally, I look at Baptisia as Gelsemium exaggerated more intense. In contrast to Gelsemium patients, Baptisia patients are definitely more dusky. They give you the impression that their faces are a little puffy and swollen; their eyes are heavy, but with a congested, besotted look rather than the drooping lids of Gelsemium; and lip congestion present in Gelsemium, makes Baptisia lips rather blue. PAGE 102 Mentally, Baptisia patients are more toxic than Gelsemium patients; they are less on the spot; they are confused, finding it difficult to concentrate on
what they are doing. They grow a little confused as to the sensation of their body; they may feel that their legs are not quite where they thought they were. Their arms may have definite disturbed sensations; some patients feel their arms are detached and they are trying to re-attach them, others say their arms are numb. Associated with this is the general Baptisia confusion. The patients themselves are not quite clear why they are there, where they are, what they are talking about or trying to discuss; and they are not quite clear whether there is somebody else talking to them, somebody else in the bed. They are simply more fuddled than Gelsemium patients. As you would expect with the slightly more intense toxaemia, all the local conditions are definitely worse. The tongue is definitely dirtier - the typical tongue is in a pretty foul state. In the early stages it usually has a central coating of yellow, brown or black with a dusky red margin all round. The patient's breath is always foul. With this very foul mouth, there tends to be a lot of ropy, tough saliva which is apt to dribble out of the corner of the mouth when the patient is half asleep. In consequence the lips tend to crack and become very foul, and may actually bleed. Contradictions arise. The Baptisia patient is obviously much more ill. He appears to be much more toxic and more drugged; at the same time he is much more sensitive with more sensitive arms, legs, back - he is tender all over. He complains of his bed hurting him; any pressure painful. And, in spite of his toxicity, he is very often restless, constantly on the move, trying to find a comfortable position. The Baptisia patient always sweats a lot, but the sweat, in contrast to the somewhat sourish odour of Gels; is definitely offensive. This is true of anything in connection with Baptisia : it is all offensive. Mouth, breath, sweat, diarrhoea (which Baptisia patients incline to) sputum, all are offensive; much more so than one ever finds in Gelsemium. PAGE 103 Baptisia mouths and throats, as contrasted with those of Gelsemium, are a very much more dusky red - a dusky, dark red. In Baptisia there is a strong liability for definite ulcerative conditions to develop about the tonsils and spread up to the soft palate. And again here, strongly noticeable is the accumulation of the filthy, glairy mucus, and the extreme offensiveness. Occasionally, you find a Baptisia throat with fairly extensive ulceration that is strangely insensitive. Commonly, however, the Baptisia throat is painful; there is great difficulty and pain on swallowing, a feeling of obstruction, and the swallowing of solids is almost impossible.
As you would expect with this very foul infective condition, there is liable to be an extension into the ears, with a sensation of fullness, obstruction and pain. Very often there is a middle-ear abscess, and not infrequently a tendency to very early development of mastoid infection. In Baptisia, it is much more commonly the right ear and the right mastoid region which is involved. If a mastoid does occur, the prognosis is very serious indeed. Thrombosis occurs very early - and I mean astonishingly quickly - and the prognosis becomes correspondingly worse. In a Baptisia influenza with obvious mastoid developing - tenderness and slight bluish over the mastoid region - it is astonishing how the case alters completely within two or three hours of giving Baptisia. The patient, from being obviously toxic - so toxic that all the signs of starting meningeal irritation are developing - is equally obviously recovering, as a result of even the first dose of Baptisia. In contrast with Gelsemium, Baptisia patients are always thirsty. They have a constant desire for water, but if they take much at a time it often produces a sensation of nausea. Taking a little at a time, they are all right, but their thirst is always one of their troublesome features. PAGE 104 Usually, there is not much of a cough in Baptisia. There is a good deal of dyspnoea, a feeling of oppression in the chest, which is very much worse when they are lying down, and rather better for a current of air; when there is a cough it is usually induced by a sense of irritation in the throat rather than a definite accumulation of sputum in the chest. In their influenzal attacks, Baptisia patients are very liable to have a gastric or liver disturbance. Very often it is associated with acute diarrhoea accompanied by violent tenesmus, a good deal of colic and a bileless stool. Baptisia patients always have intense aching paint all over. Any part they press is painful and tender; they also have acute pains in their joints, a feeling as if they were sprained or had been bruised; moving is very painful. Bryonia alba THE TYPICAL Bryonia influenza develops, like Gels. Case, over a period of six to twelve hours. And the appearance of Bryonia patients is not unlike that of Gelsemium patients. They give the impression of being rather dull, heavy, slightly congested, with a rather puffy face. Although they are definitely heavy-looking, they do not have the sleep appearance that you find in Gelsemium, not yet the besotted look of the Baptisia patient - something between the two. Mentally, as stated, Gelsemium patients are dull, sleepy, heavy and do not want to be disturbed. Bryonia patients are dull, definitely and do not want to
be disturbed - but if they are disturbed they are irritable. Irritability is always cropping up in Bryonia patients. They do not want to speak, and do not want to be spoken to. They do not want to answer because speaking annoys them, not because they are too tried to do so. PAGE 105 As a rule, Bryonia influenzas are very depressed they are despondent and not a little anxious as to what is happening to them; they feel they are ill and are worried about their condition. To their worry about impending illness they add a very definite anxiety about their business. They talk about it; if they become more toxic, they are apt to dream about it, and it is an underlying thought in the back of their minds throughout their illness. It is also typical of Bryonia influenzas that the patients are difficult to please. They are very liable to ask for something and refuse it when it comes. They want a drink and, when it comes, do not want it. Or, they may ask for a fruit juice drink and, when that comes, say they would much rather have had a drink of plain cold water - they are very difficult to satisfy. Typically, they have a good deal of generalized, aching pain. They will tell you that it hurts them to move, and yet, very often, Bryonia patients are constantly on the move. They are restless and uncomfortable, and move about in spite of the fact that the movement increases their pain. Get hold of this fact very clearly, because it is so definitely laid down in text-books that Bryonia patients are aggravated by motion. Apparently it does not hurt them, but they get into this restless state when will not keep still. When the patients are restless, find out whether it eases them or not. If it does not they are probably Bryonia cases. If it does case them consider one of the other drugs - possibly Baptisia or one of the restless drugs, such as Rhus Tox. It is a point that needs early clarification. Bryonia patients feel hot, and are uncomfortable in a hot stuffy atmosphere; they like cool air about them. This can be linked with their thirst. They are always thirsty and their desire is for cold drinks - large quantities of cold water - though, as mentioned above they may ask for cold, sour things and then refuse them when they are brought. PAGE 106 As a rule, Bryonia patients sweat a fair amount, sometimes profusely, with a damp, hot sweat. Although these patients are sensitive to a hot-room, you occasionally find a Bryonia influenza with definite rheumatic pains - one or other joint becoming very painful - and who claims that the joint is relieved by hot
applications. This is a local contradiction to the general heat aggravation. (V. Impt. being a peculiarity). There are one or two points which help in differentiation, in connection with local condition. There is a very typical tongue. It is usually a thickly coated white tongue. The white coating is liable to become dirty in appearance, and may become brown if the disease condition has lasted long, particularly if there is much respiratory embarrassment and the patient is breathing through the mouth. With that dry tongue, the patients complain, not unexpectedly, of an unpleasant taste in their mouths, very often of a bitter taste, accompanied by fairly intense thirst. As a rule, these patients have rather swollen puffy, dry lips which tend to crack and may bleed very easily. In the typical Bryonia throat there is the same sensation of extreme dryness, heat and burning. On examination, the tonsillar region and the back of the throat are usually found to be pretty deeply congested; the tonsils are liable to have small, usually white, spots. The throat is also unduly painful on swallowing which is, of course the ordinary Bryonia aggravation from movement. All Bryonia influenzas have very intense headaches. Usually, the headache is intense, congestive and throbbing; the most common situation for it is the forehead. Patients often say they feel as if they have a lump in their foreheads, which is settling right down over their eyes. The pain modality of the headache is that it is very much relieved by pressure - firm pressure against the painful forehead affords great relief to the Bryonia headache. PAGE 107 As one would expect, the headache is very much worse from any exertion - talking, stooping or movement of any kind. It is worse if the patient is lying with the head low; the most comfortable position is seminsitting up in bed, just half-propped up. Definite neuralgic headaches are found sometimes in Bryonia influenzas : general neuralgic pains about the head, with extreme sensitiveness to touch. The whole surface of the scalp seems to be irritated; and it may spread down into the face, on to the malar bones, again with extreme hyperaesthesia. All Bryonia influenzas tend to more or less congestion of the eyes which may go on to a definite conjunctivitis. The eyeballs themselves are sensitive to pressure; patients sometimes say that it hurts even to screw their eyes up - not an uncommon influenzal symptom.
As a rule; Bryonia patients do not have a very profuse nasal discharge. More commonly, they complain of feelings of intense burning and heat in the nose, or of fullness and congestion. There is liable to be a very easy extension of the catarrhal condition into the larynx, with a very irritating tickling, burning sensation and very definite hoarseness sometimes actual loss of voice. Also feeling of rawness and a very suffocative tight sensation rather lower than the larynx, with a very irritating, bursting, explosive cough. I have not observed much tendency to acute ear involvement in Bryonia cases. There is much more a feeling of blockage and stuffing up of the ears, possibly a certain dullness of hearing, but little more than that. Bryonia influenzas do not show any very marked tendency to extend into the digestive tract. There are, of course, Bryonia abdominal symptoms in other conditions, but I have never seen Bryonia indicated in an influenza with definite abdominal symptoms. PAGE 108 There is nearly always troublesome constipation and a definite lack of appetite which, considering the state of the Bryonia mouth, is not surprising. There may be a certain amount of general abdominal discomfort, a feeling of heaviness - almost of solidity - in the epigastrium. The patients do not want any food and, if pressed to eat are very often more uncomfortable after it. But as a rule, I have not seen acute gastric disturbances associated with Bryonia influenzas. The are much more likely to have a chest disturbance, even a definite pneumonic attack, than a gastric attack. Of course, if the patient does have a pneumonic attack, it will be the typical Bryonia pneumonia with violent stabbing pains in the chest, a feeling of acute oppression, extreme pain on coughing, pain in the chest on movement with the desire to keep it as still as possible. But this is rather going beyond the uncomplicated influenzas. Eupatorium perfoliatum The outstanding point which leads to the consideration of Eupatorium is the degree of pain which the patients have. There are very intense pains all over - of an aching character - which seem to involve all the bones of the skeleton, arms, legs, shoulders, back and particularly, the shin bones. As a rule, Eupatorium influenzas develop rather more quickly than others, and the pains develop very rapidly. The patients say it feels as if the various joints were being dislocated - it is that type of very intense, deep-seated pain. Associated with the pain, there is incessant restlessness; the patients are always moving to try to ease the aching pain in one or more of their bones.
PAGE 109 In Eupatorium influenzas - useful differentiation point - the sweat is very scanty. Other drugs which have a very similar degree of bone aching all tend to sweat. The patients are always depressed, but with a different depression from that of Bryonia. They are acutely depressed and definitely complaining; they complain bitterly about the intensity of their pain and, if they are not complaining, they move around in bed, groaning and moaning; and are very sorry for themselves. In appearance, they usually have a fairly bright flush and a dryish skin, with rather pale lips, in contrast to the deep congested appearance in the other drugs already described. They tend to have a white-coated, thickish fur on the tongue and, instead of the bitter taste of Bryonia, they simply have a flat, insipid taste. Eupatorium patients are always chilly; they feel cold and shivery, are sensitive to any draught of air and very often have a sensation of chilliness spreading up the back. They usually suffer from quite intense headaches. Typically, they complain of extreme soreness of the head, very often most marked in the part that is resting against the pillow. There is one exception to this : they complain of extreme soreness in the forehead, where there is no pressure at all, and a sensation of pulsation in the occipital region, accompanied by a feeling of intense heat on the top of the head. They sometimes have a strange surging feeling in the head and, oddly, the surging seems to go from side to side across the top of the head. Coryza in Eupatorium is rather distinctive. The patient has a feeling of intense obstruction - as if the nose is completely stopped - up - and this is accompanied by most fluent discharge with violent and incessant sneezing. With this coryza there is always marked involvement of the eyes. The margins of the lids look red and inflamed there is intense lachrymation and a feeling of generalized soreness. They look congested; and there is some degree of photophobia, but not very marked. PAGE 110 Eupatorium patients sometimes develop an extreme hyperaesthesia to smells of any kind. Any odour induces a sense of irritation, aggravates the coryza and, very often, makes them feel sick. Case : They suffer from an intensely dry throat, which is just generally congested. With it they are very thirsty, with a desire for ice-cold drinks. I remember a
Eupatorium patient whose one desire was for ice-cream. He did not swallow it but held it in his mouth to cool the burning at the back of his throat. Care must be taken, however; if Eupatorium patients have too much ice water, ice cream or cold drinks, they are very prone to gastric attacks. Liable to a good deal of eructation of wind anyway; irritation of cold fluids in the stomach may cause a definite bilious vomit. The catarrhal condition usually avoids the larynx but the patients complain of intense heat and burning in the trachea. This is accompanied by a very trying cough, which again is accompanied by intense soreness in the chest walls. There are intense aching pains all through the chest muscles, pains which feel as though they are actually in the ribs. The Eupatorium cough is very violent, with scanty sputum, and it seems to hurt the patients from head to toe. It makes their head burst and increase the chest pains, so that they try to restrain the cough and control the chest movement, even while they are coughing, because of the pain. It is a generalized aching pain-as if they were being broken; not the sharp stabbing pain of Bryonia, which is equally as sensitive. Rhus toxicodendron The onset of Rhus influenza is usually gradual and without a very high temperature; it is a slowly progressing feverish attack, which is accompanied by very violent generalized aching. PAGE 111 The aching in Rhus Tox is very typical indeed. The patients are extremely restless; their only relief lies in constant movement, constant change or position. If they lie still for any length of time, their muscles feel stiff and painful, and they turn and wriggle about in search of ease. This constant restlessness is the most noticeable thing about Rhus Tox patients on first sight. They are very chilly, and very sensitive to cold. Any draught or cold air aggravate all their conditions, and is enough to aggravate their coryza and start them sneezing; an arm outside the bed covers becomes painful and begins to ache, and so on. Understandably, Rhus Tox patients are extremely anxious; they get no peace at all, and are mentally worried, apprehensive and extremely depressed. The depression is not unlike that of Pulsatilla; the patients go to pieces and weep. With all the restlessness and worry, they become very exhausted and, considering that their temperature is quite moderate, unduly tired out, almost prostrated.
Rhus tox. patients invariably have extremely bad nights. It is very difficult for them to get to sleep because of their constant discomfort; when they do sleep their sleep is very disturbed, full of all sorts of laborious dreams - either that they are back at work, or making immense physical effort to achieve something. They sweat profusely. And the sweat has a peculiar sourish odour, the sort of odour one used to associate with a typical case of acute rheumatic fever. These patients always have intensely dry mouths and lips, and very early in their disease they develop a herpetic eruption which starts on the lower lip - small crops of intensely sensitive vesicles that spread to the corners of the mouth. They usually develop within the first twelve hours of their illness. PAGE 112 The typical Rhus Tox tongue is very characteristic. It has a bright red tip and a coated root, the coating varying from white to dark brown. Instead of the typical triangular red tip, some patients have a generalized dry, red tongue which tends to crack, is burning hot and very painful. Associated with the sensitiveness of their lips and tongue, these influenza patients, tend to have acute dental neuralgia; their teeth become very sensitive and are painful if touched. They develop extremely sore throats - dry and burning. On examination, the throats appear to be oedematous. They are very sensitive on swallowing, particularly empty swallowing; and it is easier for them to take solids than fluids. Rhus Tox patients have very violent attacks of sneezing. They describe them as usually more troublesome at night, and so violent as to make them ache from head to foot. As a rule, the nasal discharge is somewhat greenish in colour. They get very troublesome tickling irritation behind the upper part of the sternum. This produces a persistent and very racking cough, with which they develop a raw, burning sensation in the larynx, which very often progresses into definite hoarseness. This hoarseness is very characteristic : the patients complain of a feeling as if their larynx were full of mucus. They feel that they cannot clear their voices until they have coughed the mucus out, and yet the effort of coughing feels as if it is almost tearing or scalding their larynx. As a rule, there is a good deal of congestion of the eyes - generalized congestion, with very marked photophobia and a good deal of lachrymation. They suffer from rather severe occipital headaches, with a sensation of stiffness down the back of the neck and, very often, marked giddiness on
sitting up or moving. They often complain of a sensation of weight in the head, as if it were an effort to hold it up. PAGE 113 Rhus tox patients often complain of a feeling of intense heat inside, and yet their skin surface feels the cold. They are sweating profusely and any draught seems to chill them - they feel the cold on the surface - but they feel burning inside. In these influenzas, the patients are very apt to have violent attacks of nodular urticaria, scattered anywhere over the body and intensely irritable. The patients are not usually markedly thirsty, though they do like sips of water to moisten their very dry mouths and throats. I have seen a Rhus tox influenza go on to a definite enteritis with violent abdominal pain; pain down in the right side, down in the caecal region, with extreme restlessness, tenderness and very striking diarrhoea. Case : But I have seen only the one case. It responded very well to Rhus tox. There was the typical tongue and general anxiety and restlessness general aching pain sweating and chilliness; and it was more on the general than on the local abdominal symptoms that I prescribed Rhus tox. Pyrogenium Pyrogenium influenza patients usually run a fairly high temperature. Typically, they are flushed, hot, sweaty and somewhat congested looking. They very often complain of a sensation of burning heat, and feel horribly oppressed by it. Most of the Pyrogenium patients that I have seen have been over active mentally. They tend to be very loquacious and chatter away readily, and become definitely excited in the evening, may be even delirious. They are very much troubled with sleeplessness, due again to excessive mental activity, if they become toxic; they may get a slight degree of delirium with a sensation of uncertainty as to where they are. They quite frequently wake up bright and clear and describe unpleasant dreams of having to try and collect themselves from all over the bed - but that is more in their sleep than when they are awake. PAGE 114 A constant Pyrogenium indication is that, though the patients feel so very hot and uncomfortable, they are sensitive to any draught. It makes them shiver at once - very much as in Mercurius - and they quite frequently get little shivers, almost little rigors, intermingled with their feeling of intense heat. Very often the patient feels chilly for a moment, gets a little shiver,
turns horribly hot and then breaks out into a definite sweat. As a rule, sweat in Pyrogenium is definitely offensive. Always, in influenza, they complain of intense, generalized aching pains; they ache from head to foot, and are very uncomfortable with it; they are sensitive to pressure and often move restlessly about in order to ease the painful part. They suffer from very violent congestive headaches; either severe occipital headache or, much more commonly, intense throbbing headache in the temples, with a sensation of heat and pressure in the head and often, a damp hot sweat. These congestive headaches are definitely relieved by pressure. A dry mouth is always found in a Pyrogenium case, with a good deal of thirst for small quantities of cold water. The tongue tends to become dry, the mouth offensive. There are two types of tongue in Pyrogenium patients. Much the most common is a dry tongue with a somewhat brown coating. Occasionally - less commonly in influenza than in some of their conditions - the tongue has no coating at all; it is deep red and dry, very sensitive, painful and hot, and it tends to crack. This tongue is found in the more frankly septic fevers of Pyrogenium; than in the catarrhal influenzal fevers. These patients tend to have very violent attacks of sneezing, which are brought on by any cold draught. Uncovering them for examination is enough to start the sneezing; sometimes they actually sneeze if they put a hand out of bed - it is cold that always sets them going. PAGE 115 As a rule, the nasal discharge in Pyrogenium is thick and gluey, which is difficult to expel. Patients complain that first one side of the nose and then the other gets blocked up; they have great difficulty in clearing them. The right side is blocked more commonly than the left, but it does tend to alternate. The typical appearance of the Pyrogenium throat is relaxed and unhealthy - looking, probably with a certain amount of superficial ulceration of the tonsils and a good deal of offensive gluey postnasal discharge. In Pyrogenium influenza there is liable to be involvement of larynx with a feeling of intense rawness and burning, and an accumulation of the same kind of glairy sticky mucus which they have difficulty in expelling. There is a very troublesome cough and a good deal of mucus to clear away; and the patients cough up sticky, yellowish-coloured mucus. Most Pyrogenium influenza patients have intense ringing in the ears, with a feeling of obstruction, marked tenderness behind the ears, and a severe
pressing sensation as if the ears were going to burst. The right ear is much more commonly affected than the left. Associated with the ear condition is a very similar sensation in the accessory nasal cavities. There is a feeling that the frontal sinuses are blocked, and an intense pressing pain just above the eyes - more commonly above the right eye. There is likely to be a similar sensation in the upper jaw from involvement of the antrum, with again the same pressing pain. The antrum pains are liable to go from one side to the other, or to spread right across. While the condition is acute, the pains are very much aggravated by cold or any active movement of the patient. Coughing, too, increases the pains; the forehead feels as though it would burst, and there is often intense throbbing in the affected area. PAGE 116 There is liable to be an extension further back in the accessory sinuses, very often accompanied by an intense pressing pain deep in the skull. It would seem to be an involvement of the sphenoidal cells. The patients very often complain, at this time, of very severe distressing headache. These patients have a certain amount of pain and tenderness on pressure. It is usually accompanied by acute photophobia. In fact, there is often photophobia without any acute inflammatory condition in the eyes; the patient seems to be disturbed by light quite apart from the local condition. As a rule the eyes are gummy and sticky rather than showing profuse lachrymation. Pyrogenium patients always complain of an unpleasant taste - just a feeling of flatness or lack of taste or a definite putrid taste. They very often say that a lot of stuff accumulates at the back of their throats and, when they spit it out, it has a foul taste. This gives then complete aversion to food, they have no appetite at all. And their very painful throat makes it difficult for them to swallow. Pyrogenium influenza patients are liable to acute digestive disturbances - enteritis rather than gastritis. They have quite acute abdominal pains accompanied by very violent diarrhoea, always a very offensive and rather profuse watery stool. Useful for diagnosis is the point that this stinking profuse diarrhoea is not accompanied by a great deal of urging; there is no marked degree of tenesmus. But there is marked abdominal pain, very often in the caecal region, on the right side of the abdomen, and the pain is very much aggravated by motion. The abdomen is sensitive to touch and the patients rather more comfortable lying on the right side.
There are two other indications for Pyrogenium that should be mentioned. Firstly, before the patients develop any signs of cold at all, they are conscious of extreme pains starting in the legs and spreading gradually upwards. Secondly, there is always a marked discrepancy between pulse rate and the temperature of a Pyrogenium patient. PAGE 117 The discrepancy can go either way : rapid pulse and comparatively low temperature or high temperature and comparatively slow pulse. The typical Pyrogenium influenza is quite a serious case. However, the patients do respond astonishingly quickly. Mercurius solubilis The appearance of the typical Mercurius influenza is much the same as Pyrogenium, though the patients look a little more puffy. There may be a localized hectic flush, but it is more common to see a generalized flush in Mercurius, often with the face bright red. And there is a damp sweat - peculiarly oily-looking, so that the patient looks greasy. In contrast to the loquacity of Pyrogenium, Mercurius patients tend to be hurried; their speech is hurried and they rather tumble over their words. There is much more anxiety and restlessness. Pyrogenium patients, although very ill, are singularly un-worried about it. Mercurius patients are, however, usually extremely distressed, restless and anxious. Very often, they are definitely depressed in a Pulsatilla way - they weep when shown kindness. Linked with the hurried outlook is a tendency to impatience and irritability. Their general temperature reaction is another distinguishing point. Mercurius patients feel just about as hot as Pyrogenium cases, they have the same sort of hot sweat, and are uncomfortable if covered too much and chilly if they uncover; but there is never the same intense sensitiveness to cold as in Pyrogenium - the state is one of alternating between too hot and too cold. If a Mercurius patient is kept in a still atmosphere at a moderate - temperature, he is fairly comfortable. PAGE 118 Mercurius patients, unlike Pyrogenium, have a very marked nightly aggravation; they are very uncomfortable all night, liable to have a marked rise of temperature and apt to sweat more, which only increases their discomfort. It is very difficult to distinguish between the headaches of Pyrogenium and Mercurius patients. Both suffer from exactly the same type of pressing headache, in just the same situations; both have the same feeling of heat in
the head; both seem to get involvement of the frontal sinuses, antrum and ear; and the symptoms are very similar. Possibly, Mercurius patients are a little more sensitive to draughts on the painful areas. More helpfully, they find rather more relief from firm pressure over the painful area than do Pyrogenium cases. As far as thirst is concerned, there is little to distinguish between the two drugs; both are thirsty and want cold drinks. But the actual state of the mouth gives definite indications. The Mercurius mouth always shows a swelled, flabby, palish, coated tongue, with a nasty greasy feel about it, and there is always troublesome, sticky profuse salivation. (CF. the dry, brownish tongue of Pyrogenium). The Mercurius tongue is tremulous; it shows a definite fine tremor when protruded. The excessive salivation makes their tongues sticky and they find it difficult to speak and articulate. The Mercurius throat is acutely inflamed, and there is early marked enlargement of the submaxillary glands. The throat itself is very much swollen, dusky, dark red, very tender; it feels hot and burning. The whole of the tissues round the back of the throat seem to be inflamed and any movement hurts; swallowing is very difficult and may cause stabbing pains that spread out into the ears. The same feeling of soreness and burning extends down the throat, involving the larynx, trachea and bronchi. Any cough is extremely painful; the whole centre of the chest feels raw and as though the mucus membrane had been stripped. The intense inflammation causes hoarseness and very often, complete loss of voice. PAGE 119 Mercurius influenza patients always have an intense conjunctivitis, with profuse lachrymation of hot, burning tears which seem to excoriate the cheeks. They have severe photophobia, and are peculiarly sensitive to radiant heat - the heat of the fire - which makes their eyes smart and burn. These patients have a profuse nasal discharge, acrid and watery, which tends to excoriate the upper lip. With it there is intense burning pain in the nose and very violent attacks of sneezing. These attacks will be induced either by going into the open air or coming into a warm room - either heat or cold will set them going - and any draught is liable to precipitate a violent bout of sneezing. There is a tendency for the watery discharge to become thicker, and greenish in colour. It is then that the patients are liable to have intense pain radiating out into the antrum, underneath the eyes or up into the frontal sinuses.
With the intensely inflamed throat of Mercurius influenzas there is liable to be pretty acute involvement of the middle ear. It usually starts with a feeling that the ears are choked and stopped-up; and there may be a certain amount of buzzing in the ears. Very quickly the ear becomes painful. There is a feeling of increased tension and the ear throbs. Pain tends to spread right up the side of the head and very often, involves half the head. There is marked tenderness of the mastoid region, very often enlargement of the post auricular glands, spreading down into the neck; extremely injected drums and early rupture. Mercurius patients have complete loss of appetite in influenza. With their acutely inflamed throats they can hardly swallow. Moreover, there is constant accumulation of unpleasant saliva, the swallowing of which is both painful and also liable to cause a feeling of intense nausea. PAGE 120 These patients have generalized muscular pains. They feel stiffness in the back of the neck, down the back in their arms and legs; and it is painful to move. And, not only the tongue but the whole patient becomes tremulous in a Mercurius influenza. Hands become shaky and all fine movements tremulous. Kalium bichromicum KALI BIC. is worthy of mention because of its affinity to accessory sinuses. The typical Kali bic. influenza patient is rather pale, with red blotches about the face. Discharges are irritating, and the upper lip swollen and reddish, due to coryza. The mental state of typical Kali bic. influenza patients is one of mild discouragement. They have difficulty in thinking, any attempt at mental effort is almost impossible, and they are rather discouraged and hopeless. They feel very weak, tired and weary and like to be left in peace. Kali bic. influenzas are generally definitely chilly. The patients have a good deal of generalized, wandering rheumatic pains - the wandering character is important - first in the shoulder, then in the elbow, the back or the knee, and so on. These pains grow worse if the patients are cold; in bed, with plenty of hot - water bottles, they are fairly comfortable. A characteristic of Kali bic., influenza is the patient's really bad period in the morning. They have a temperature aggravation about 2 or 3 in the
morning. Their real discomfort, however, is between 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. very much later than one from a Kali salt. There is a very copious nasal discharge which feels hot and burning. It is usually white, or slightly yellow, in colour; rather stringy, and always accompanied by a feeling of extreme obstruction at the root of the nose. The patient feels as if the root of the nose were completely blocked, swollen, full and hot; he has violent sneezing attacks, with pain spreading out from the root of the nose to the external angle of the eye. PAGE 121 The same blockage occurs in the frontal sinuses or antrum, again with the feeling of tension. The headache or face pain, is very much aggravated by movement, but definitely relieved by pressure. It usually tends to be confined to one side. When the pain becomes intense, it is very liable to produce a sensation of nausea and may actually make the patient sick. It is definitely relieved by hot applications and is sensitive to cold. Occasionally, one meets a case in which the pain is located in one small spot just above one of the frontal sinuses : this is almost diagnostic of Kali bic. As a rule, the mouth is dry; and the tongue has a slight coating either white or yellowish. There may be a certain amount of ropy saliva, but it is much more likely to be a postnasal discharge and stringy in character. The throat in Kali bic. tends to be very read and swollen, with a very definite oedematous appearance. There may be a very much swollen, oedematous uvula and, almost certainly, signs of acute follicular tonsillitis. The throat is always very painful, and - a Kali bic. characteristic - it is very painful for the patient to put out his tongue; the pulling on the muscles at the root or the tongue hurts. Another characteristic is the strange sensation of a hair across the soft palate. There is very early hoarseness in Kali bic. influenzas, with an accumulation of mucus in the larynx. It is same kind of stringy white, or whitish yellow mucus and is coughed up with great difficulty. As a rule, there is a spread downwards from the larynx, with a feeling of great tightness in the chest. Very often, there is accumulation of mucus in the larger bronchi, sometimes spreading into the smaller bronchi, becoming a definite bronchitis and accompanied by wheezing. There is a very violent, difficult cough, and expectoration of large quantities of very stringy, adherent mucus. PAGE 122
Short of that, the accumulation of stuff on the larynx is liable to cause an intensely, irritating, tickling sensation which excites a very spasmodic cough, almost like whooping cough. The patients nearly always say that they are very exhausted by the effort of coughing; they are often sweaty, and get extreme palpitation. There is some involvement of the ear, with blockage of the Eustachian tube and fullness in the ears; it may develop into a definite middle ear abscess. Where this occurs in Kali bic there may be extreme swelling of the external ear as well as the involvement of the middle ear. Most Kali bic. influenzas have gastric catarrh. They may have acute gastritis, with troublesome nausea and vomiting of a quantity of unpleasant glairy mucus. This is very difficult to bring up, and the effort of vomiting is apt to produce a most intense headache. The gastric catarrh may spread down and become a duodenal catarrh, with a certain amount of jaundice. The Kali bic. chilliness is rather "different", it is particularly situated in the back of the neck. Patients hate to have their necks uncovered; they are much more comfortable with a hot-water bottle tucked into the nape of their neck. The chilliness sometimes spreads down the back and they complain of feeling chilly in the small of their back. Some Kali bic. influenzas patients have an astonishing sensitiveness of the hand; they feel as if their hands were bruised. Shaking hands is apt to cause them pain; they describe the same feeling of bruisedness in the soles of their feet if they stand on them. PAGE 123 Biochemic treatment of influenza (adopted from g. w. carey, m. d. - from his (biochemic system of medicine) Biochemic view THE PATHOLOGY of a la grippe is the pathology of bad cold, pneumonia, bronchitis, pleurisy, catarrh, etc., and the same germ or microbe is found in the exudations, name it what you will. Atmospheric electrical changes so operate on the human organism that deficiency in iron and other mineral salts in the blood is caused, which lowers the vitality and allows pores to close. The waste matter is then turned inwards and seeks an outlet; and it must have a vehicle also, so the fluids of the body are called upon - water, albumin, etc., - and these, with the effete matter, start upon their journey to the other world. An abnormal condition now prevails; the negatives are in the ascendance; the circulation is more rapid, for two reasons : First : To throw off the intruders, the irritating decaying organic matter; and, Second :
To try to supply the various tissues of the body, with what little of the vital inorganic material it has been left. Three men who attempt to do the work of six, must move much quicker than the six need to. The deficiency in the cell-salts of blood first occurred because a greater demand was made upon the bloody by atmospheric influences antagonistic to life. If those deficiencies are at once supplied, health is at once restored, microbes and bacilli to the contrary, notwithstanding. What delicate creatures these bacilli and all-pervading microbes must be to give up the ghost when attacked by a few molecules of Ferr. Phos or Kali Sulph, that the seers of medicine declare are "perfectly harmless, you know." I have attended hundreds of cases called la grippe, and find the conditions the same as those heretofore known as severe bad colds, pneumonia, bronchitis, pleurisy, catarrhal fevers, etc. PAGE 124 As to germs, bacilli, microbes, etc., they swarm throughout all nature and adhere to membranes in unhealthy conditions where a lack of some constituents of the blood has caused a decay and the throwing off organic matter. Decaying organic matter produces microbes that exist while the matter exists, feed upon it, and disappear with it. Biochemic treatment The first or the initial condition, calls for the Ferr. Phos; and if throat is sore, or there is white coated tongue, Kali Mur., should be given in alternation. If afternoon aggravation or very chilly, then give Kali Sulph., with the Ferrum. If exceedingly nervous, Kali Phos. should be combined with the Ferrum. If sneezing or watery discharge from eyes or nostrils Natrum Mur., is the remedy, in alternation with Ferrum Phos., which is the chief remedy. The bowels should be kept open with daily injections of hot water - just plain hot water, no soap or anything; just water. The patient should be encouraged to drink freely hot water - it is death to la grippe microbes. The treatment supplies deficiencies, opens the pores of the skin and restores the normal condition as soon as it can be done through the natural operations of the processes of life. The fibrin, albumen, etc., deposited in connective tissues and membranes during the inflammatory stage, of course, must be gotten rid of; and while the process is going on will be a disturbing element; but the only rational way to do is to supply the blood with the vital principle, so that the work may be successfully carried on. Poisons, under whatever name they may be used, are not vital principles of human blood or tissue, and, therefore, are not needed. PAGE 125
The cause of la grippe and all other disease is a lack of some constituent part of the blood. The twelve inorganic salts of human blood, properly applied, cure all curable diseases. Biochemic therapeutics Ferrum phosphoricum In the first or initial stages of La Grippe. For the febrile symptoms, fever heat, pain, etc., - frequent does. 6x. Kalium muriaticum Secondary symptoms sore throat, white coated tongue, rheumatic pains. Kalium sulphuricum Evening aggravations - In alternation with Ferr. Phos., to promote perspiration. Natrium sulphuricum Chief remedy to control the excess of inter-cellular fluids, especially when there are bilious symptoms present. Dark brown coated tongue, bitter taste or vomiting of bitter, bilious fluids. Natrium muriaticum Sneezing, with watery discharges from eyes or nostrils - note colour of tongue (Flabby, indented and showing maps or fissures). * Kalium phosphoricum If severe nervous symptoms are present. Biochemic medicine during convalescence During the period of recovery, there is a lack of certain tissue salts in the system, with the ever-present possibility of relapse. It is, therefore, important to supply the deficient tissue salts, thus shortening the convalescent period and hastening the return of normal strength and vigor. Calcarea phosphorica The principal remedy to restore the quality of the blood, to stimulate the digestive processes and to tone up the system generally. Use 3 X five grains three times a day. PAGE 126 Ferrum phosphoricum In alternation with Calcarea Phos to oxygenize the blood. Here also use 3X every morning and afternoon. Not at night. (Ferrum Phos. used at night causes sleeplessness, use first thing in the morning - Author). Kalium phosphoricum Should there be nervous or mental symptoms or languor, it should be given. Silicea terra Should the debility result in repeated exposures to cold and coryza at the slightest change of weather and sneezing, perspiration on the head and foul
smelling perspiration on foot, feed Silicia 12X one does every morning for a week. (Do not continue it longer. Silicia patient cannot uncover his head without suffering. A sure sign of Silicia having acted is, no sneezing or suffering even with head uncovered, particularly during sleep. - Author). Magnesium phosphoricum Since Mag. Phos., is main constituent of nervous system, those having weak nerves or easy cramps can be given Mag. Phos 3X regularly for ten days t.i. d. four grains at a time. Combination Tablets Biochemic Combination Tablets No. 11 are being sold by the Chemists are "Fever" remedy by many of the Biochemic Pharmacies particularly Schwabe, Madaus (Both German), Economic, Bhattacharya, National all Calcutta firms and now Bhandari (Delhi). This combination is against principles of Homoeopathy but is superior to the Aspirin treatment of Allopaths. Elsewhere we have discussed dangers of Aspirin treatment. Which see. Imp. Note : Biochemic Remedies are in fact Homoeopathic Remedies and should not be used in Combination and secondly used always on their indications.
Influenzas
BORLAND Douglas M.
Influenzas
Gelsemium sempervirens
-VISUALISE the ordinary; typical influenza case, probably developing over six to eight hours. The patient feels a little out of sorts the day before; possibly a little headachy, a little feverish, has a little indefinite pain, is probably a little catarrhal; he goes to bed, does not sleep awfully well, and next morning feels rotten. -Fortunately, there is a drug in the materia medica which produces exactly that picture, and which will cover a large percentage of the cases of straight forward influenza. The drug is Gelsemium. -It develops its symptoms fairly slowly and produces exactly the symptom picture give above. Other influenza drugs will be dealt with in due course. -Gelsemium is somewhat slow in onset, and produces primarily a feeling of intense weariness. The patients are very dull and tired, look heavy and are heavy-eyed and sleepy; not wanting to be disturbed but to be left in peace, and yet - the first outstanding symptom - if they have been excited at all, they spend an entirely sleepless night, in spite apparently dull, toxic state. -The patient is definitely congested, the face slightly flushed - rather a dull kind of flush - the eyes a little injected, the lips a little dusky; the skin generally is a little dusky, and the surface is definitely moist - hot and sticky. -Another Gelsemium symptom is that with the hot, sticky sensation, the patients have a very unstable heat reaction. They feel hot and sticky, and yet have the sensation of little shivers of cold up and down their backs - not actual shivering attacks but small trickles of cold, just as if somebody ran a cold hand, or spilt a little cold water, down their back. -With their general torpor, Gelsemium influenza patients always have a certain amount of tremulousness, their hands become unsteady much more quickly than you would expect from the severity of their illness; they are definitely shaky when they lift a cup to try and drink. Frequently linked with the shakiness is a feeling of instability, and very often a sensation of falling. They feel as if they are falling out of bed, particularly when they are half
asleep; they wake with a sudden jerk and feel as if they have fallen out of bed. -As one would expect with anyone in this toxic state, the Gelsemium patient does not want to make any effort at all; discomforts of every kind are aggravated by moving. With their unstable circulation they are definitely sensitive to cold draughts, which make them shiver. -As a rule, their mouths are intensely dry and the lips very dry; very often dry and cracked, or dry with a certain amount of dried secretion of them. The patients complain of an unpleasant taste, and there is frequently a sensation of burning in the tongue. The tongue itself usually has a yellowish coating - though, sometimes it is quite red and dry. -Gelsemium influenzas always include a very unpleasant, severe headache. -Typically; there is a feeling of intense pain in the occipital region, spreading down into the neck with a sensation of stiffness in the cervical muscles; and, as it is a congestive headache, it is usually throbbing in character. -The patient is most comfortable when keeping perfectly still, propped up with pillows, so that the head is raised without the patient making any effort. With these headaches, the patients often complain of a sensation of dizziness, particularly on any movement. -There is another type of headache sometimes met with in Gelsemium. -Again, it is congestive in character, but the sensation is much more a feeling of tightness - as if there were a tight band round the head, just above the ears from the occiput right forward to the frontal region. -This, also, is very much aggravated by lying with the head low. -Peculiarly, these patients often find relief from their congestive headaches by passing a fairly large quantity of urine. -In nearly all Gelsemium influenzas there is a sensation of general aching soreness, an aching soreness in the muscles; This is worth remembering; there are other drugs which have similar pains but are much more deep-seated than the Gelsemium pains. -Now for a few details of actual local disturbances. -Most Gelsemium patients have that appearance of intense heaviness of the eyelids that is associated with this dull toxic condition. But there is also a good deal of sensitiveness of the eyes themselves, a good deal of congestion, a definite sensitiveness to light, probably a good deal of lachrymation and general congestive engorgement. -There is an apparent contradiction here : despite this ocular sensitiveness, occasionally a Gelsemium patient becomes scared in the dark and insists on having a light.
-These patients get very definite acute coryza, with a fluid, watery discharge, accompanied by very violent sneezing and a feeling of intense fullness and pressure just about the root of the nose. It is not uncommon in Gelsemium influenza - where there is this feeling of blockage at the root of the nose - to find a story of epistaxis on forcible clearing of the nose. This, again, is worth remembering, for certain Mercurius cases tend to run in the same way. -With their acute coryzas, Gelsemium patients, despite a general hot stickiness, very often complain of very cold extremities. (This appears to be a contradiction, and might mislead you when you consider the general heat of the typical Gelsemium patient). -As a rule, in Gelsemium influenzas, there is no very marked localized tonsillitis, but much more a generalized, puffy, red, congested throat. -There may be a certain amount of enlargement of the tonsils, but it is not the spotty throat that some of the other drugs have. -In spite of the absence of acutely localized symptoms there is often acute pain on swallowing. Swallowing may be actually difficulty - with a feeling of constriction or of a lump in the throat - and it is much more difficult when the patients take cold fluids than warm; this is unexpected, considering the dryness of their mouths. -Associated with these conditions of nose and throat, Gelsemium influenzas quite frequently have an involvement of the ears. But, in spite of what is recorded in the materia medica, I have not observed the acute stabbing pains that are described under Gelsemium; and, where I have tried to clear up such pains with Gelsemium, I have not had any success. -Gelsemium is given as one of the drugs that has stabbing pain into the ear on swallowing : in my experience, it has not been effective. -Gelsemium does get a good deal of roaring in the ears, a feeling of blockage and obstruction and you very often get dullness of hearing, and giddiness; but I have not seen acute earaches respond to Gelsemium. -Quite frequently there is an extension downwards, with involvement of the larynx and loss of voice. Associated with the laryngitis there is liable to be an intensely croupy cough which is almost convulsive in character, coming in spasms and associated with very intense dyspnoea. -Typical Gelsemium patients, despite their sweetness and dryness of mouth, are not usually very thirsty. Occasionally a patient is intensely thirsty, but the typical one is not. -They hardly ever have an appetite - they do not want anything at all. -They very often complain of a horrible empty sensation in the region of their chest, often near the heart. This sometimes spreads down into the
epigastric region, and they may describe it as an empty feeling; but it is not really a sensation of hunger, and is not associated with any desire for food. -Associated with the digestive system, Gelsemium patients often have a definitely yellowish tinge, and actual jaundice may develop. Again, the patient quite frequently develops very definite acute abdominal irritation accompanied by diarrhoea. Usually, the stool is very loose and yellowish but not particularly offensive. -There is quite often a story of intense feeling of weakness in the rectum - an incontinence, or a feeling of prolapse - after the bowels have acted; an there is sometimes a definite prolapse associated with the diarrhoea.
Baptisia tinctoria
-BAPTISIA runs very closely to Gelsemium in symptomatology. Personally, I look at Baptisia as Gelsemium exaggerated, more intense. -In contrast to Gelsemium patients, Baptisia patients are definitely more dusky. They give you the impression that their faces are a little puffy and swollen; their eyes are heavy, but with a congested, besotted look rather than the drooping lids of Gelsemium; and lip congestion, present in Gelsemium, makes Baptisia lips rather blue. -Mentally, Baptisia patients are more toxic than Gelsemium patients; they are less on the spot; they are confused, finding it difficult to concentrate on what they are doing. They grow a little confused as to the sensation of their body; they may feel that their legs are not quite where they thought they were. Their arms may have definite disturbed sensations; some patients feel their arms are detached and they are trying to re-attach them, others say their arms are numb. -Associated with this is the general Baptisia confusion. The patients themselves are not quite clear why they are there, where they are, what they are talking about or trying to discuss; and they are not quite clear whether there is somebody else talking to them, somebody else in the bed. They are simply more fuddled than Gelsemium patients. -As you would expect with the slightly more intense toxemia, all the local conditions are definitely worse. The tongue is definitely dirtier- the typical Baptisia tongue is in a pretty foul state. In the early stages it usually has a central coating of yellow, brown or black with a dusky red margin all round. -The patient's breath is always foul. With this very foul mouth, there tends to be a lot of ropy, tough saliva which is apt to dribble out of the corner of
the mouth when the patient is half asleep. In consequence, the lips tend to crack and become very foul, and may actually bleed. -Contradictions arise. The Baptisia patient is obviously much more ill. He appears to be much more toxic, and more drugged; at the same time he is much more sensitive, with more sensitive arms, legs, back - he is tender all over. He complains of his bed hurting him; any pressure is painful. And, in spite of his toxicity, he is very often restless, constantly on the move, trying to find a comfortable position. -The Baptisia patient sweats a lot, but the sweat, in contrast to the somewhat sourish odour of Gelsemium is definitely offensive. This is true of anything in connection with Baptisia: it is all offensive. -Mouth, breath, sweat, diarrhoea (which Baptisia patients incline to) sputum, all are offensive; much more so than one ever finds in Gelsemium. -Baptisia mouths and throats, as contrasted with those of Gelsemium, are a very much more dusky red - a dusky, dark red. In Baptisia there is a strong liability for definite ulcerative conditions to develop about the tonsils and spread up to the soft palate. And again here, strongly noticeable is the accumulation of this filthy, glairy mucus, and the extreme offensiveness. -Occasionally, you find a Baptisia throat with fairly extensive ulceration that is strangely insensitive. Commonly, however, the Baptisia throat is painful; there is great difficulty and pain on swallowing, a feeling of obstruction, and the swallowing of solids is almost impossible. -As you would expect with this very foul invective condition, there is liable to be an extension into the ears, with a sensation of fullness, obstruction and pain. Very often there is a middle-ear abscess, and not infrequently a tendency to very early development of mastoid infection. -In Baptisia, it is much more commonly the right ear and the right mastoid region which is involved. If a mastoid does occur, the prognosis is very serious indeed. Thrombosis occurs very early - and I mean astonishingly quickly - and the prognosis becomes correspondingly worse. -In a Baptisia influenza with obvious mastoid developing - tenderness and slight blush over the mastoid region - it is astonishing how the case alters completely within two or three hours of giving Baptisia. The patient, from being obviously toxic - so toxic that all the signs of starting meningeal irritation are developing - is equally obviously recovering, as a result of even the first dose of Baptisia. -In contrast with Gelsemium, Baptisia patients are always thirsty. -They have a constant desire for water, but if they take much at a time if often produces a sensation of nausea. Taking a little at a time, they are all right, but their thirst is always one of their troublesome features.
-Usually, there is not much of a cough in Baptisia cases. There is a good deal of dyspnoea, a feeling of oppression in the chest, which is very much worse when they are lying down, and rather better for a current of air; when there is a cough it is usually induced by a sense of irritation in the throat rather than a definite accumulation of sputum in the chest. -In their influential attacks, Baptisia patients are very liable to have a gastric or liver disturbance. Very often it is associated with acute diarrhoea accompanied by violent tenesmus, a good deal of colic and a bileless stool. -Baptisia patients always have intense aching pains all over. Any part they press is painful and tender; they also have acute pains in their joints, a feeling as if they were sprained or had been bruised; moving is very painful. Bryonia alba
-The typical Bryonia influenza develops, like the Gelsemium case, over a period of six to twelve hours. And the appearance of Bryonia patients is not unlike that of Gelsemium patients. They give the impression of being rather dull, heavy, slightly congested, with a rather puffy face. -Although they are definitely heavy-looking, they do not have the sleepy appearance that you find in Gelsemium, nor yet the besotted look of the Baptisia patient - something between the two. -Mentally, as stated, Gelsemium patients are dull, sleepy, heavy and do not want to be disturbed. Bryonia patients are also definitely dull and do not want to be disturbed - but if they are disturbed they are irritable. Irritability is always cropping up in Bryonia patients. -They do not want to speak, and do not want to be spoken to. They do not want to answer because speaking annoys them, not because they are too tired to do so. -As a rule, Bryonia influenzas are very depressed; they are despondent and not a little anxious as to what is happening to them; they feel they are ill and are worried about their condition. -To their worry about their impending illness they add a very definite anxiety about their business. They talk about it; if they become more toxic, they are apt to dream about it, and it is an underlying thought in the back of their illness. -It is also typical of Bryonia influenzas that the patients are difficult to please. They are very liable to ask for something and refuse it when it comes. They want a drink and, when it comes, do not want it. Or, they may
ask for a fruit juice drink and, when that comes, say they would much rather have had a drink of plain cold water - they are very difficult to satisfy. -Typically, they have a good deal of generalized, aching pain. -They will tell you that it hurts them to move, and yet, very often, Bryonia patients are constantly on the move. They are restless and uncomfortable, and move about in spite of the fact that the movement increases their pain. -Get hold of this fact very clearly, because it is so definitely laid down in textbooks that Bryonia patients are aggravated by motion. -Apparently it does hurt them, but they get into this restless state when they will not keep still. -When the patients are restless, find out whether it eases them or not. If it does not, they are probably Bryonia cases. If it does ease them, consider one of the other drugs - possibly Baptisia or one of the restless drugs, such as Rhus tox. It is a point that needs early clarification. -Bryonia patients feel hot, and are uncomfortable in a hot stuffy atmosphere; they like cool air about them. This can be linked with their thirst. They are always thirsty, and their desire is for cold drinks - large quantities of cold water - though, as mentioned above, they may ask for cold, sour things and then refuse them when they are brought. -As a rule, Bryonia patients sweat a fair amount, sometimes profusely, with a damp, hot sweat. -Although these patients are sensitive to a hot room, you occasionally find a Bryonia influenza with definite rheumatic pains - one or other joint becoming very painful - and who claims that the joint is relieved by hot applications. This is a local contradiction to the general heat aggravation. -There are one or two points which help in differentiation, in connection with local conditions. -There is a very typical Bryonia tongue. It is usually a thickly-coated white tongue. The white coating is liable to become dirty in appearance, and may become brown if the disease condition has lasted long, particularly if there is much respiratory embarrassment and the patient is breathing through the mouth. -With that dry tongue, the patients complain, not unexpectedly, of an unpleasant taste in their months, very often of a bitter taste, accompanied by fairly intense thirst. As a rule, these patients, have rather swollen, puffy, dry lips which tend to crack and may bleed very easily. -In the typical Bryonia throat there is the same sensation of extreme dryness, heat and burning. On examination, the tonsillar region and the back of the throat are usually found to be pretty deeply congested; the tonsils are liable to have small, usually white, spots. The throat also is unduly painful
on swallowing, which is, of course, the ordinary Bryonia aggravation from movement. -All Bryonia influenzas have very intense headaches. Usually, the headache is intense, congestive and throbbing; the most common situation for it is in the forehead. -Patients often say they feel as if they have a lump in their foreheads, which is settling right down over their eyes. The pain modality of the headache is that it is very much relieved by pressure - firm pressure against the painful forehead affords great relief to the Bryonia headache. -As one would expect, the headache is very much worse from any exertion - talking, stooping or movement of any kind. It is worse if the patient is lying with the head low; the most comfortable position is semi-sitting up in bed, just half-propped up. -Definite neuralgic headaches are found sometimes in Bryonia influenzas: general neuralgic pains about the head, with extreme sensitiveness to touch. The whole surface of the scalp seems to be irritated; and it may spread down into the face, on to the malar bones, again with extreme hyperaesthesia. -All Bryonia influenzas tend to more or less congestion of the eyes, which may go on to a definite conjunctivitis. The eyeballs themselves are sensitive to pressure; patients sometimes say that it hurts even to screw their eyes up - not an uncommon influenza symptom. -As a rule, Bryonia patients do not have a very profuse nasal discharge. -More commonly, they complain of feelings of intense burning and heat in the nose, or of fullness and congestion. -There is liable to be a very early extension of the catarrhal condition into the larynx with a very irritating, tickling, burning sensation and very definite hoarseness - sometimes actual loss of voice. Also a feeling of rawness, and a very suffocative tight sensation rather lower than the larynx, with a very irritating, bursting, explosive cough. -I have not observed much tendency to acute ear involvement in Bryonia cases. There is much more a feeling of blockage and stuffing-up of the ears, possibly a certain dullness of hearing, but little more than that. -Bryonia influenzas do not show any very marked tendency to extend into the digestive tract. There are, of course, Bryonia abdominal symptoms in other conditions, but I have never seen Bryonia indicated in an influenza with definite abdominal symptoms. -There is nearly always troublesome constipation, and a definite lack of appetite which, considering the state of the Bryonia mouth, is not surprising. There may be a certain amount of general abdominal discomfort, a feeling of heaviness - almost of solidity - in the epigastrium.
-The patients do not want any food and, if pressed to eat, are very often more uncomfortable after it. But as a rule, I have not seen acute gastric disturbances associated with Bryonia influenzas. They are much more likely to have a chest disturbance, even a definite pneumonic attack, than a gastric attack. -Of course, if the patient does have a pneumonic attack, it will be the typical Bryonia pneumonia, with violent stabbing pains in the chest, a feeling of acute oppression, extreme pain on coughing, pain in the chest on movement with the desire to keep it as still as possible. But this is rather going beyond the uncomplicated influenzas.
Eupatorium perfoliatum
-The outstanding point which leads to the consideration of Eupatorium is the degree of pain which the patients have. There are very intense pains all over - of an aching character - which seem to involve all the bones of the skeleton, arms, legs, shoulders, back, hips and, particularly, the shin bones. -As a rule, Eupatorium influenzas develop rather more quickly than others, and the pains develop very rapidly. The patients say it feels as if the various joints were being dislocated - it is that type of very intense, deep-seated pain. Associated with the pain, there is incessant restlessness; the patients are always moving to try to ease the aching pain in one or other of their bones. -In Eupatorium influenzas - a useful differentiation, point - the sweat is very scanty. Other drugs which have a very similar degree of bone aching all tend to sweat. -The patients are always depressed, but with a different depression from that of Bryonia. They are acutely depressed and definitely complaining; they complain bitterly about the intensity of their pain and, if they are not complaining, they move around in bed, groaning and moaning; and are very sorry for themselves. -In appearance, they usually have a fairly bright flush and a dryish skin, with rather pale lips, in contrast to the deep congested appearance in the other drugs already described. They tend to have a white-coated, ticklish fur on the tongue and, instead of the bitter taste of Bryonia, they simply have a flat, insipid taste. -Eupatorium patients are always chilly; they feel cold and shivery, are sensitive to any draught of air and very often have a sensation of chilliness spreading up the back.
-They usually suffer from quite intense headaches. Typically, they complain of extreme soreness of the head, very often most marked in the part that is resting against the pillow. -There is one exception to this : they complain of extreme soreness in the forehead, where there is no pressure at all, and a sensation of pulsation in the occipital region, accompanied by a feeling of intense heat on the top of the head. -They sometimes have a strange surging feeling in the head and, oddly, the surging seems to go from side to side across the top of the head. -Coryza in Eupatorium is rather distinctive. The patient has a feeling of intense obstruction - as if the the nose is completely stopped up- and this is accompanied by most fluent discharge with violent and incessant sneezing. -With this coryza there is always marked involvement of the the eyes. The margins of the lids look red and inflamed, there is intense lachrymation and a feeling of generalized soreness. They look congested; and there is some degree of photophobia, but not very marked. -Eupatorium patients sometimes develop and extreme hyperaethesia to smells of any kind. Any odour induces a sense of irritation, aggravates the the coryza and, very often, makes them feel sick. -They suffer from an intensely dry throat, which is just generally congested. With it they are very thirsty, with a desire for ice-cold drinks. I remember a Eupatorium patient whose one desire was for ice-cream. He did not swallow it but held it in his mouth to cool the burning at the back of this throat. -Care must be taken, however : if Eupatorium patients have too much ice water, ice-cream or cold drinks, they are very prone to gastric attacks. Liable to a good deal of eructation of wind anyway; irritation of cold fluids in the stomach may cause a definite bilious vomit. -The catarrhal condition usually avoids the larynx, but the patients complain of intense heat and burning in the trachea. This is accompanied by a very trying cough, which again is accompanied by intense soreness in the chest walls. There are intense aching pains all through the chest muscles, pains which feel as though they are actually in the ribs. -The Eupatorium cough is very violent, with scanty sputum, and it seems to hurt the patients from head to toe. It makes their head burst and increases the chest pains, so that they try to restrain the cough or control the chest movement, even while they are coughing, because of the pain. It is a generalized aching pain - as if they were being broken; not the sharp, stabbing pain of Bryonia, which is equally as sensitive.
Rhus toxicodendron
-The onset of a Rhus tox. influenza is usually gradual and without a very high temperature; it is a slowly progressing feverish attack, which is accompanied by very violent generalized aching. -The aching in Rhus tox. is very typical indeed. The patients are extremely restless; their only relief lies in constant movement, constant change of position. If they lie still for any length of time, their muscles feel stiff and painful, and they turn and wriggle about in search of ease. This constant restlessness is the most noticeable thing about Rhus tox. patients on first sight. -They are very chilly, and very sensitive to cold. Any draught or cold air will aggravate all their conditions, and is enough to aggravate their coryza and start them sneezing; an arm outside the bedcovers becomes painful and begins to ache, and so on. -Understandably, Rhus tox. patients are extremely anxious; they get no peace at all, and are mentally worried, apprehensive and extremely depressed. The depression is not unlike that of Pulsatilla; the patients go to pieces and weep. -With all the restlessness and worry, they become very exhausted and, considering that their temperature is quite moderate, unduly tired-out, almost prostrated. -Rhus tox. patients invariably have extremely bad nights. It is very difficult for them to get to sleep because of their constant discomfort; when they do sleep, their sleep is very disturbed, full of all sorts of laborious dreams - either that they are back at work, or making immense physical effort to achieve something. -They sweat profusely. And the sweat has a peculiar sourish odour, the sort of odour one used to associate with a typical case of acute rheumatic fever. -These patients always have intensely dry mouths and lips, and very early in their disease they develop a herpetic eruption which starts on the lower lip - small crops of intensely sensitive vesicles that spread to the corners of the mouth. These usually develop within the first twelve hours of their illness. -The typical Rhus tox. tongue is very characteristic. It has a bright red tip and a coated root, the coating varying from white to dark brown. Instead of the typical triangular red tip, some patients have a generalized dry, red tongue which tends to crack, is burning hot and very painful.
-Associated with the sensitiveness of their lips and tongue, these influenza patients tend to very acute dental neuralgia; their teeth become very sensitive and are painful if touched. -They develop extremely sore throats - dry and burning. On examination, the throats appear to be oedematous. They are very sensitive on swallowing, particularly empty swallowing; and it is easier for them to take solids than fluids. -Rhus tox. patients have very violent attacks of sneezing. They describe them as usually more troublesome at night, and so violent as to make them ache from head to foot. As a rule, the nasal discharge is somewhat greenish in colour. -They get very troublesome tickling irritation behind the upper part of the sternum. This produces a persistent and very racking cough, with which they develop a raw, burning sensation in the larynx, which very often progresses into definite hoarseness. -This hoarseness is very characteristic : the patients complain of a feeling as if their larynx were full of mucus. They feel that they cannot clear their voices until they have coughed the mucus out, and yet the effort of coughing feels as if it is almost tearing or scalding their larynx. -As a rule, there is a good deal of congestion of the eyes - generalised congestion, with very marked photophobia and a good deal of lachrymation. -They suffer from rather severe occipital headaches, with a sensation of stiffness down the back of the neck and, very often, marked giddiness on sitting up or moving; They often complain of a sensation of weight in the head, as if it were an effort to hold it up. -Rhus tox. patients often complain of a feeling of intense heat inside, and yet their skin surface feels the cold. They are sweating profusely and any draught seems to chill them - they feel the cold on the surface - but they feel burning inside. -In these influenzas, the patients are very apt to have violent attacks of nodular urticaria, scattered anywhere over the body and intensely irritable. -The patients are not usually markedly thirsty, though they do like sips of water to moisten their very dry mouths and throats. -I have seen a Rhus tox. influenza go on to a definite enteritis with violent abdominal pain; pain down in the right side, down in the cecal region, with extreme restlessness, tenderness and very stinking diarrhoea. -But I have seen only the one case. It responded very well to Rhus tox. There was the typical tongue and general anxiety and restlessness, general aching pain, sweating and chilliness; and it was more on the general than on the local abdominal symptoms that I prescribed Rhus tox.
Pyrogenium
-PYROGENIUM influenza patients usually run a fairly high temperature. -Typically, they are flushed, hot, sweaty and somewhat congested-looking. -They very often complain of a sensation of burning heat, and feel horribly oppressed by it. -Most of the Pyrogenium influenza patients that I have seen have been overactive mentally. They tend to be very loquacious and chatter away readily, and become definitely excited in the evening maybe even delirious. -They are very much troubled with sleeplessness, due again to excessive mental activity; if they become toxic, they may get a slight degree of delirium with a sensation of uncertainty as to where they are. They quite frequently wake up bright and clear and describe unpleasant dreams of having to try and collect themselves from all over the bed - but that is more in their sleep than when they are awake. -A constant Pyrogenium indication is that, though the patients feel so very hot and uncomfortable, they are sensitive to any draught. -It makes them shiver at once - very much as in Mercurius - and they quite frequently get little shivers, almost little rigors, intermingled with their feeling of intense heat. Very often the patient feels chilly for a moment, gets a little shiver, turns horribly hot and then breaks out into a definite sweat. As a rule, the sweat in Pyrogenium is definitely offensive. -Always, in influenza, they complain of intense, generalized aching pains; they ache from head to foot, and are very uncomfortable with it; they are sensitive to pressure, and often move restlessly about in order to ease the painful part. -They suffer from very violent congestive headaches; either severe occipital headaches or, much more commonly, intense throbbing headaches in the temples with a sensation of heat and pressure in the head and often, a damp hot sweat. These congestive headaches are definitely relieved by pressure. -A dry mouth is always found in a Pyrogenium case, with a good deal of thirst for small quantities of cold water. The tongue tends to become dry, the mouth offensive. -There are two types of tongue in Pyrogenium patients. Much the most common is a dry tongue with a somewhat brown coating. Occasionally - less commonly in influenza than in some of their conditions - the tongue has no coating at all; it is deep red and dry, very sensitive, painful and hot, and it tends to crack. This tongue is found more in the frankly septic fevers of Pyrogenium than in the catarrhal influential states.
-These patients tend to have very violent attacks of sneezing, which are brought on by any cold draught. Uncovering them for examination is enough to start them sneezing; sometimes they actually sneeze if they put a hand out of bed - it is cold that always sets them going. -As a rule, the nasal discharge in Pyrogenium is thick and gluey, which is difficult to expel. Patients complain that first one side of the nose and then the other gets blocked up; they have great difficulty in clearing it. The right side is blocked more commonly than the left, but it does tend to alternate. -The typical appearance of the Pyrogenium throat is relaxed and unhealthy-looking, probably with a certain amount of superficial ulceration of the tonsils and a good deal of offensive gluey postnasal discharge. -In Pyrogenium influenzas there is liable to be involvement of the larynx, with a feeling of intense rawness and burning, and an accumulation of the same kind of glairy, sticky mucus which they have difficulty in expelling. There is a very troublesome cough and a good deal of mucus to clear away; the patients cough up sticky, yellowish-coloured mucus. -Most Pyrogenium influenza patients have intense ringing in the ears, with a feeling of obstruction, marked tenderness behind the ears, and a severe pressing sensation as if the ears were going to burst. The right ear is much more commonly affected than the left. -Associated with the ear condition is a very similar sensation in the accessory nasal cavities. There is a feeling that the frontal sinuses are blocked, and an intense pressing pain just above the eyes - more commonly above the right eye. -There is also likely to be a similar sensation in the upper jaw from involvement of the antrum, with again the same pressing pain. The autumn pains are liable to go from one side to the other, or to spread right across. -While the condition is acute, the pains are very much aggravated by cold or any active movement of the patient. Coughing too, increases the pains; the forehead feels as though it would burst, and there is often intense throbbing in the affected area. -There is liable to be an extension further back in the accessory sinuses, very often accompanied by an intense pressing pain deep in the skull. It would seem to be an involvement of the spheroidal cells. The patients very often complain, at this time, of very severe, distressing headache. -These patients have a certain amount of pain and tenderness in they eyes, very often tenderness on pressure. It is usually accompanied by acute photophobia. In fact, there is often photophobia without any acute inflammatory condition in the eyes; the patient seems to be disturbed by
light quite apart from the local condition. As a rule the eyes are gummy and sticky rather than showing profuse lachrymation. -Pyrogenium patients always complain of an unpleasant taste just a feeling of flatness or lack of taste, or a definite putrid taste. -They very often say that a lot of stuff accumulates at the back of their throats and, when they spit it out, it has a foul taste. This gives them complete aversion to food, they have no appetite at all. -And their very painful throat makes it difficult for them to swallow. -Pyrogenium influenza patients are liable to acute digestive disturbances - enteritis rather than gastritis. They have quite acute abdominal pains accompanied by very violent diarrhoea, always a very offensive and rather profuse watery stool. -Useful for diagnosis is the point that this stinking profuse diarrhoea is not accompanied by a great deal of urging; there is no marked degree of tenesmus. But there is marked abdominal pain, very often in the cecal region, on the right side of the abdomen, and the pain is very much aggravated by motion. The abdomen is sensitive to touch and the patient rather more comfortable lying on the right side. -There are two other indications for Pyrogenium that should be mentioned. Firstly, before the patients develop any signs of cold at all, they are conscious of extreme pains starting in the legs and spreading gradually upwards. Secondly, there is always a marked discrepancy between the pulse rate and the temperature of a Pyrogenium patient. -The discrepancy can go either way : rapid pulse and comparatively low temperature or high temperature and comparatively slow pulse. -The typical Pyrogenium influenza is quite a serious case. However, the patients do respond astonishingly quickly. Mercurius solubilis -The appearance of the typical Mercurius influenza is much the same as in Pyrogenium, though the patient looks a little more puffy. -There may be a localized hectic flush, but it is more common to see a generalized flush in Mercurius, often with the face bright red. -And there is a damp sweat - peculiarly oily-looking, so that the patient looks greasy. -In contrast to the loquacity of Pyrogenium, Mercurius patients tend to be hurried; their speech is hurried and they rather tumble over their words. There is much more anxiety and restlessness. -Pyrogenium patients, although very ill, are singularly unworried about it. Mercurius patients, however, are usually extremely distressed, restless and
anxious. Very often, they are definitely depressed, in a Pulsatilla way - they weep, when shown kindness. -Linked, with the hurried outlook is a tendency to impatience and irritability. -Their general temperature reaction is another distinguishing point. -Mercurius patients feel just about as hot as Pyrogenium cases, they have the same sort of hot sweat, and are uncomfortable if covered too much and chilly if they uncover; but, there is never the same intense sensitiveness to cold as in Pyrogenium - the state is one of alternating between too hot and too cold. If a Mercurius patient is kept in a still atmosphere at a moderate temperature, he is fairly comfortable. -Mercurius patients, unlike Pyrogenium, have a very marked nightly aggravation; they are very uncomfortable all night, liable to have a marked rise of temperature and apt to sweat more, which only increases their discomfort. -It is difficult to distinguish between the headaches of Pyrogenium and Mercurius patients. Bother suffer from exactly the same type of pressing headache, in just the same situations; both have the same feeling of heat in the head; both seem to get involvement of the frontal sinuses, antrum and ear; and the symptoms are very similar. -Possibly, Mercurius patients are a little more sensitive to draughts on the painful areas. More helpfully, they find rather more relief from firm pressure over the painful area than do Pyrogenium cases. -As far as thirst is concerned, there is little to distinguish between the two drugs; both are thirsty and want cold drinks. But the actual state of the mouth gives definite indications. The Mercurius mouth always shows a swollen, flabby, palish, coated tongue, with a nasty, greasy feel about it, and there is always troublesome, sticky, fairly profuse salivation. (Cf. the dry, brownish tongue of Pyrogenium ). -The Mercurius tongue is tremulous; it shows a definite fine tremor when protruded. The excessive salivation makes their tongues sticky and they find it difficult to speak and articulate. -The Mercurius throat is acutely inflamed, and there is early marked enlargement of the submaxillary glands. The throat itself is very much swollen, dusky, dark, red, very tender; it feels hot and burning The whole of the tissues round the back of the throat seem to be inflamed, and any movement hurts; swallowing is very difficult and may cause stabbing pains that spread out into the ears. -The same feeling of soreness and burning extends down the throat, involving the larynx, trachea and bronchi. Any cough is extremely painful;
the whole centre of the chest feels raw and as though the mucous membrane had been stripped. The intense inflammation causes hoarseness and, very often, complete loss of voice. -Mercurius influenza patients always have an intense conjunctivitis, with profuse lachrymation of hot, burning tears which seem to excoriate the cheeks. They have severe photophobia, and are peculiarly sensitive to radiant heat - the heat of the fire - which makes their eyes smart and burn. -These patients have a profuse nasal discharge, acrid and watery, which tends to excoriate the upper lip. With it there is intense burning pain in the nose and very violent attacks of sneezing. These attacks will be induced either by going into the open air or coming into a warm room - either heat or cold will set them going - and any draught is liable to precipitate a violent bout of sneezing. -There is a tendency for the watery discharge to become thicker, and greenish in colour. It is then that the patients are liable to have intense pains radiating out into the antrum, underneath the eyes or up into the frontal sinuses. -With the intensely inflamed throat of Mercurius influenzas there is liable to be pretty acute involvement of the middle ear. It usually starts with a feeling that the ears are choked and stopped-up; and there may be a certain amount of buzzing in the ears. Very quickly the ear becomes painful. There is a feeling of increased tension and the ear throbs. -Pain tends to spread right up the side of the head and, very often, involves half the head. There is marked tenderness of the mastoid region, very often enlargement of the post auricular glands, spreading down into the neck; extremely injected drums and early rupture. -Mercurius patients have complete loss of appetite in influenza. -With their acutely inflamed throats they can hardly swallow. Moreover, there is constant accumulation of unpleasant saliva, the swallowing of which is both painful and also liable to cause a feeling of intense nausea. -These patients have generalized muscular pains. They feel stiffness in the back of the neck, down the back, in their arms and legs; and it is painful to move. -And, not only the tongue but the whole patient becomes tremulous in a Mercurius influenza. Hands become shaky and all fine movements tremulous.
Kalium bichromicum
-KALI BIC. is worthy of mention because of its affinity to accessory sinuses. -The typical Kali bic. influenza patient is rather pale, with red blotches about the face. -Discharges are irritating, and the upper lip swollen and reddish, due to coryza. -The mental state of typical Kali bic. influenza patients is one of mild discouragement. They have difficulty in thinking, any attempt at mental effort is almost impossible, and they are rather discouraged and hopeless. They feel very weak, tired and weary, and like to be left in peace. -Kali bic. influenzas are generally definitely chilly. -The patients have a good deal of generalized, wandering rheumatic pains - the wandering character is important - first in the shoulder, then in the elbow, the back or the knee, and so on. These pains grow ores if the patients are cold; in bed, with plenty of hot-water bottles, they are fairly comfortable. -A characteristic of Kali bic. influenza is the patient's really bad period in the morning. They have a temperature aggravation about 2 or 3 in the morning. Their real discomfort, however, is between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. - very much later than one would expect from a Kali salt. -There is a very copious nasal discharge which feels hot and burning. -It is usually white, or slightly yellow, in colour; rather stringy, and always accompanied by a feeling of extreme obstruction at the root of the nose. The patient feels as if the root of the nose were completely blocked, swollen, full and hot; he has violent sneezing attacks, with pain spreading out from the root of the nose to the external angle of the eye. -The same blockage occurs in the frontal sinuses or antrum, again with the feeling of tension. The headache, or face pain, is very much aggravated by movement, but definitely relieved by pressure. It usually tends to be confined to one side. -When the pain becomes intense, it is very liable to produce a sensation of nausea and may actually make the patient sick. It is definitely relieved by hot applications and is sensitive to cold. -Occasionally, one meets a case in which the pain is located in one small spot just above one of the frontal sinuses : this is almost diagnostic of Kali bic. -As a rule, the mouth is dry; and the tongue has a slight coating, either white or yellowish. There may be a certain amount of ropy saliva, but it is much more likely to be a postnasal discharge and stringy in character. -The throat in Kali bic. tends to be very red and swollen, with a very definite oedematous appearance. There may be a very much swollen,
oedematous uvula and, almost certainly, signs of acute follicular tonsillitis. The throat is always very painful, and - a Kali bic. -characteristic - it is very painful for the patient to put out his tongue; the pulling on the muscles at the root of the tongue hurts. -Another characteristic is the strange sensation of a hair across the soft palate. -There is very early hoarseness in Kali bic. influenzas, with an accumulation of mucus in the larynx. It is the same kind of stringy white, or whitish yellow, mucus and is coughed up with great difficulty. -As a rule, there is spread downwards from the larynx, with a feeling of great tightness in the chest. Very often, there is accumulation of mucus in the larger bronchi, sometimes spreading into the smaller bronchi, becoming a definite bronchitis and accompanied by wheezing. There is a very violent, difficult cough, and expectoration of large quantities of very stringy, adherent mucus. -Short of that, the accumulation of stuff on the larynx is liable to cause an intensely irritating, tickling sensation which excites a very spasmodic cough, almost like whooping cough. -The patients nearly always say that they are very exhausted by the effort of coughing; they are often sweaty, and get extreme palpitation. -There is some involvement of the ear, with blockage of the Eustachian tube and fullness in the ears; it may develop into a definite middle ear abscess. Where this occurs in Kali bic., there may be extreme swelling of the external ear as well as the involvement of the middle ear. -Most Kali bic. influenzas have gastric catarrh. They may have acute gastritis, with troublesome nausea and vomiting of a quantity of unpleasant glairy mucus. This is very difficult to bring up, and the effort of vomiting is apt to produce a most intense headache. -The gastric catarrh may spread down and become a duodenal catarrh, with a certain amount of jaundice. -The Kali bic. chilliness is rather "different": it is particularly situated in the back of the neck. Patients hate to have their necks uncovered; they are much more comfortable with a hot-water bottle tucked into the nape of their neck. The chilliness sometimes spreads down the back, and they then complain of feeling chilly in the small of their back. -Some Kali bic. influenza patients have an astonishing sensitiveness of the hand; they feel as if their hands were bruised. Shaking hands is apt to cause them pain; they describe the same feeling of bruisedness in the soles of their feet if they stand on them.
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