Arsenicum Album - General symptoms

GENERAL

General

(Morning), When waking, ill-humor.

in bed, indignation. heaviness of head, etc.

on waking, headache, etc.

on rising, headache, when waking, dull headache.

after rising, heaviness in head, etc.

when rising bruised pain in side of head.

gum on the eyelids. agglutination of lids.

pus in eyes. *slight lachrymation, etc.

stitching in the ear. *discharge from nose at 5 A.M., etc.

*Teeth loose, etc.

on waking, coryza, etc.

swelling of face.

on rising. slight toothache.

stitching in gums. bitter taste.

putrid taste. roughness, etc., in throat.

when swallowing first mouthful, scraping in throat.

when waking, feels qualmish, etc.

on getting up, vomiting of bile.

an hour after getting up, vomiting.

bloatedness, etc. on waking, rumbling in bowels.

after rising, pain in the intestines.

*before and during diarrhoeic stool, pinching in hypogastrium.

diarrhoea. early, at commencement of micturition, burning in forepart of urethra, erections.

violent cough. green, etc., expectoration.

in bed, jerking on stitching in thumb, etc.

tearing in metacarpal bone.

*drawing-tearing pain in hips, etc.

on rising, attack of pain in things.

sweat on legs. early, heaviness, etc., in legs.

cramp-pain in legs. heels painful.

trembling of whole body.

muscular stiffness. fatigue.

on rising general malaise.

on waking,. pains all over, etc.

on waking, attack of chilliness.

from the time of waking to time of rising, sweat.

when waking, sweat only in face.

*feels as though had not slept enough..

(Evening), Anxiety, etc.

confusion of head. swelling of frontal eminences.

frontal heaviness. headache over left eye.

*feeling of sand in eyes.

feeling of burning, etc., in eyes.

burning in outer ear. heat in left nasal fossa, etc.

pain in molar teeth. swelling of submaxillary gland.

pain in throat. thirst.

pain in stomach. after eating, feeling of repletion in stomach.

*when sitting, pain from pit of stomach round left ribs.

after lying down, spasms, etc., in abdomen, etc.

after lying down, pains in the intestines.

shortly after lying down, lancinations in left side of abdomen.

*before going to sleep, smoky feeling in larynx, etc.

*directtly after lying down, cough.

*cough, without expectoration, etc.

*when getting into bed and lying down, loses breath.

chilliness in chest. *constriction of chest, etc.

violent burning of chest.

stiffness of cervical muscles.

in bed. pain in finger and foot.

pain in wrist. in bed, contraction of muscles of things.

chilliness of legs.

*when falling asleep, starting in affected part.

general feeling of fatigue.

pains in whole body. boil on hand painful.

while asleep, loud moaning.

after going to bed, violent chilliness.

attack of chilliness..

(Night), *Delirium.

talked senselessly. headache.

tearing, etc., headache.

throbbing in whole head, etc., headache over left eye.

pain in left eye. pressive pain under right eye.

alternate dilatation and contraction of pupils.

*stitching pain in left ear.

toothache. regularly recurring tearing in teeth.

pain in gums. thirst. hiccough.

when rising, hiccough, etc.

vomiting. vomiting and diarrhoea.

*anxiety in pit of stomach.

colic pains. burning of the haemorrhoids.

*sudden catarrh. *cough.

*violent palpitation. *strong, etc., palpitation.

pain in back, etc. itching, etc., back.

in bed, tearing in arms.

crawling in hands. in bed, cramp in fingers.

tearing in lower limb, etc.

in bed, cramp in calves.

when lying in bed, tearing in the corn.

when waking, burning in all the veins.

smarting and itching. itching on the head.

during sleep, the pains are felt.

in bed, cannot get warm.

*heat, without thirty or sweat.

*heat, etc. short-lasting coldness, etc.

*sweat. *profuse sweat about the lower limbs..

(Mania; headache; excessive anguish; noise before the ears, as of many large bells, and when opening his eyes he constantly saw a man who had hung himself in the garret, and who requested the other by signs to cut him down; the former ran up to the latter with a knife, but not being able to cut him down, he became desperate, and attempted to hang himself; this attempt being foiled, he became so restless that he could scarcely be kept quiet; he lost his speech, though he had his full understanding; and when attempting to express himself in writing, could only write down unintelligible signs, trembling and weeping all the while, the forehead covered with the sweat of anguish, kneeling down and raising his hands as if praying),.

Her disposition has changed very much since the poisoning (four months ago).

the slightest cause was sufficient to put her into anger and rage, which especially occurred when one spoke of her complete recovery, which she considered wholly impossible. At times also an indescribable melancholy attacked her..

Neuralgia. often have I found this lady with her face closely wrapped up in flannel, as if she dreaded an attack with sharp ice-spears or burning needles.

it came with throes of violence over the left eyebrow, and into the bones of the face, crept up the spine, and settled in the vertex, making her feel as if she could go mad, or rush out anywhere.

noise was intolerant,.

On the forehead, about the eyes, on the cheek bones, the shoulders, the upper part of the arm, and the chest, an eruption of white pustules, in large number, which, in form and progress, were similar to small-pox.

these pustules were partly isolated, partly confluent, were very easily torn, changed to thick crusts, and left very perceptible scars behind,.

Eruption like intense scarlet rash, covering nearly the whole body, except the face.

it began on the anterior surface of the body, and spread rapidly, without disappearing from its primary seat. The skin was intensely red, much swollen, covered with numberless fine blisters. The eruption was associated with the most violent itching and burning, disturbing the sleep, reaching its height in five or six days, and then fading.

followed by desquamation.

the desquamation was very slow, in large and small scales,.

The workmen are subject to irritations which produce itching, blotches, rawness, and perhaps boils. In one factory where one hundred women are employed in marking artificial flowers, hardly any of them escaped skin diseases. The hands, face, neck, roots of hair, flexure of arms, axilla, and in a most distressing degree the genitals, were affected.

the pudendal eruptions being often so severe that they could not bear to sit down,.

Several small superficial ulcers extending along the inner surface of each lip, varying in size from mere specks, the largest being 1/12th inch in diameter. The smarting and annoyance were intolerable, and much increased in the evening , when the lips swelled and became so painful that eating or even speaking could scarcely be indulged in. He got better, but returned worse than ever.

all the old ulcers had reopened, several new ones formed, lips much swollen, with profuse ptyalism,.

Inflammation of the skin of the lower part of the abdomen, penis, scrotum, and upper part of thighs.

in some places the inflammatory action had gone on to ulceration. The pain was severe and burning. There were signs of considerable constitutional derangement. The evening of the same day on which he washed the sheep he had smarting and pain in the affected region.

this increased, and the next morning the parts were red and inflamed. It was more than a fortnight before he was able to resume his work,.

Arms and legs quite strong and mobile.

hands and feet, on the contrary, extremely wasted, so that, without organic changes, all the articular processes protruded unnaturally, and, in regard to sensation and mobility, so paralyzed that nothing could be held securely.

the feet would not permit his rising.

on stepping he always planted down the flat sole, and on walking his feet were dragged along like weights,.

In the lower limbs the muscles of the thigh were feeble and soft, and the calf formed only a flabby bundle of fibres.

the foot of the patient remained in an extended position, so that the back of the foot formed a line with the spine of the tibia, while at the same time the inner margin of the foot was turned somewhat inward and upward, and the plantar surface looked inward and backward.

the instep formed an angle with the tibia directed inward and forward, and the articulations of the ankle and foot were weak, and on flexing the leg the foot could be moved in a very loose manner.

the toes were also flexed and motion very much restricted,.

She had three attacks of intermittent fever.

the first in November, 1875, lasting three days.

the second in December, 1875, lasting seven days, and the third from 14th to 16th of January, 1876. The symptoms of the attacks were as follows.

Between 8.30 and 9 A.M., after getting out of bed, chilly, with chattering of teeth, nails and lips blue, sometimes sickness on waking, bad taste in mouth, desire for much cold drink, pulse feeble, wants to lie down and to be quiet, and wrapped up, breath offensive, tongue brown.

this lasts till 1 P.M., then fever comes on. During the fever there is full pulse, frontal pain, not much thirst, especially hot to touch on abdomen, with pain there, feet and hands cold objectively, not subjectively, cannot bear the least draught, breath offensive, tongue brown.

this lasts till 4 or 5 P.M.

she then seems well for one or two hours. Then about 6 P.M. she is slightly chilly till about 8 P.M., then there is heat again, cannot sleep, bad dreams, cannot sleep after 3 A.M. She is losing flesh very, fast, and getting very weak. The second attack was the most severe, and the third (which occurred after she had been removed to another room) was the slightest,.

tongue clean, not dry.

abdomen not sensitive to pressure, but drawn in.

hollow gurgling in the abdomen.

no diarrhoea, and involuntary urination,.

The female's healthy, well-fed body had changed, in eight weeks, so that it was scarcely more than a feeble skeleton covered with skin.

and the healthy red and white of the complexion had become a pale bluish-gray. The abdominal walls were olive green.

the back ecchymosed. mouth and nose covered with scabs, and the hair had almost all fallen out,.

Convulsive fit. first she jerked her arms outward, after this she lost her consciousness, lay like one dead, pale but warm, clenched her thumbs, twisted her fists, drew her arms up slowly, lowered them again slowly.

after ten minutes she drew her mouth to and fro, as if working her jaws.

breathing imperceptible.

in a quarter of an hour the fit ceased, terminating in a jerk through the whole body, a sort of starting forward of the arms and lower limbs.

consciousness returned at once, but there was great weakness,.

Found ill at 3 P.M., but she would not at first speak or take anything. Afterwards she took what was offered. There was great pain in stomach, frequent severe vomitings.

occasional hiccough. She continued about thirty-eight hours in this state.

was then seized with occasional slight convulsive attacks, and died in a convulsion, upwards of forty hours after she was first seen by the neighbors,.

In about an hour she was brought in in a state of exhaustion.

pulse scarcely perceptible.

skin cold. pupils fixed.

in capable of answering when spoken to.

pressure in epigastric region gave excessive pain, under which she would writhe and utter some imperfect sound.

tongue dry. appeared to wish for drink constantly. The washings of the stomach returned tinged with blood.

died,.

Great pain and burning heat in the stomach, headache, immediate thirst, vomiting and purging, with olive-green alvine discharges, tension of the abdomen, the face swollen, cold chills, alternating with flushes of heat.

light painful to eyes.

bearing pains more or less constant in the loins (first day). Unable to endure a strong light.

pulse 130. this rapid circulation was accompanied with constant sensations of fainting.

a numbness extending from the right side down to the foot.

the burning sensation of the stomach was excited and increased by the motion of the child in utero.

the face was flushed and swollen, and the tongue and lips sore, which extended along the course of the oesophagus (third day). Violent headache, and to the light she had still great objection, as it immediately on accession increased the headache.

at times the heart palpitated strongly, the thirst was considerable, the pulse 100, the tongue less charged and moist, the child in utero moved with vigor, and whenever this occured the pain in the stomach was increased, with nausea (fourth day). Pulse continued at or about 100 for a fornight afterward. She went her full time, and a very fine girl was born, after a safe but lingering labor,.

Urgent thirst somewhat allayed by frequently washing mouth with cold water (first day). All passed a restless night.

the vomiting in each had greatly abated, the pain in the stomach still violent, which they all compared to a furnace, or hot irons.

alvine discharges changing to a proper color, but intermixed with streaks of green, and highly offensive.

skin hot and dry. the pulse quick, varying in each case from 100 to 130, great thirst, and violent headache.

tongue white and moist (second day). Face swollen, with a fixed redness, more or less under the eyes and on the cheek-bones.

vomited two or three times in the course of the night, by drinking too copious draught of the diluents, and each complained of the tongue and lips being sore and swollen. In the evening the febrile symptoms had a little abated, the pain in the stomach was intense, occasionally remitting, and again returning with increased violence, with nausea and vomiting, much pain in the head, considerable thirst, and bowels open (third day). Febrile symptoms subsided. They complained of a variety of singular nervous affections, tingling and burning sensations in the hands and feet (fourth day),.

Burning sensation in the stomach, vomiting, inordinate thirst, headache, face swollen, tension of the abdomen.

purgative symptom moderate.

countenance flushed, particularly on the upper part of the cheeks (first day). Pulse 90, skin temperate, tongue moist and cleaner.

the vomiting had subsided, but the stomach was in great pain.

he complained of extreme lassitude.

face flushed (second day). Pain in stomach occasionally troublesome, appetite returning, face less swollen, but flushed and red under the eyes and on the cheek-bones, extending towards the ears (third day),.

Some restlessness during the night, with watch-fulness and slight pain in stomach. In morning she became sick and complained of great thirst.

the pain in stomach had become much more intense. During the day sickness increased, and she was repeatedly purged.

countenance looked pinched and extremities cold. From this state she soon rallied, and next night (Wednesday) she became cheerful and slept comfortably, though she was distressed once or twice by the thirst, which still affected her. Thursday morning she was worse, being cold and drowsy.

she was evidently dying.

face pale and anxious.

extremities cold and bedewed with clammy sweat.

pulse hardly perceptible.

and she lay in a state of incipient coma. From this time (9 o'clock) she became more and more comatose, and gradually sank at 12,.

Eyes a little suffused, with slight lividity of the inner portion of the under lids.

skin moist, pulse accelerated, small and feeble.

vomited several times freely, and in the meantime had a copious natural dejection.

at first formed, and afterwards liquid, without blood.

while at stool vomited upon the floor about two ounces of porridge-like matter, tinged yellow with bile,.

Vomiting and purging. vomiting at first very violent and frequent.

occasional purging, sometimes of blood.

soreness of the mouth, and pain of the throat, stomach, and bowels.

hoarseness and oppressed breathing (up to fifth day).

pulse 120, full, soft, and regular.

skin hot and dry. tongue parched and excoriated.

throat spotted inwardly with little white ulcers.

voice hoarse and feeble.

breathing hurried and laborious.

swallowing painful and difficult.

the belly round, swollen, and painful, but not tender to the touch.

very exhausted, and complained of general soreness (fifth day).

pulse 120, and throbbing.

breathing difficult. tongue red and parched.

gums tender and shining, without salivation.

soreness in the throat, descending along the gullet into the chest, and there was an excoriation on each side of the uvula, a white ulcer on the left tonsil, and redness and tenderness of the rest of the throat and back of the palate.

she swallowed with such difficulty that a small quantity of any liquid caused violent gasping, hurried cough, and much pain.

she complained further of sickness and dull pain, and tenderness in the stomach and bowels, and likewise of pain in the feet and legs. The vomiting continued to recur throughout the day. In the evening the fever had increased.

the pains in the feet and legs were more severe.

and she complained of soreness and tenderness of the labia prudendi.

though in neither situation could any unnatural appearance be discovered (sixth day).

some delirium in the evening (seventh day).

fever lessened in the morning and increased at night (seventh and eighth days).

about midnight taken with labor pain, and in three hours brought forth a stillborn foetus, weighing nineteen ounces, and apparently between the fifth and sixth month. The delivery was difficult and distressing.

and although there was no flooding, she was so feeble she was not expected to live (eight day).

fever continued with morning remissions and evening exacerbations (ninth to twelfth day).

pain in hands like those in feet (eleventh day).

want of power in the feet and hands, and so severe pain in them that she could not sleep without opium (twelfth day) headache, restlessness, fever, loss of appetite (twenty-seventh day).

her sufferings went on increasing steadily, her strength decayed, and she died on the forty-fifth day, with symptoms of low fever,.

but unless they gradually give up the practice invariably die suddenly at last. In some Arsenic works near Salzburg, the only men who can stand the work for any time, are those who swallow daily doses of Arsenic.

the fumes, etc., soon killing the others,.

About an hour after taking my first dose (I took the same quantity, 3 grains, daily for three months), there followed slight perspiration, with griping pains in the bowels, and after three or four hours a loose evacuation.

this was followed by a keen appetite, and a feeling of excitement. With the exception of the pain, the same symptoms follow every increase of the dose. I subjoin as a caution, that it is not advisable to begin Arsenic-eating before the age of twelve or after thirty years. Evil consequences only ensue from a long-continuing interruption. From circumstances I am often obliged to leave it off for two or three days, and I feel only slight languor and loss of appetite, and I resume taking Arsenic in somewhat smaller doses. Once on the third day of the second week, after leaving off the dose, I was attacked with faintness, depression of spirits, mental weakness, and a total loss of the little appetite I still had.

sleep also entirely deserted me. On the fourth day I had violent palpitation of the heart, accompanied by profuse perspiration. Inflammation of the lungs followed, and I was laid up for nine weeks, the same as on the first occasion of leaving off Arsenic. Had I not been bled I should most likely have died of apoplexy. As a restorative I resumed the Arsenic-eating in smaller doses,.

First appeared irritation of the mucous membrane, causing diarrhoea and vomiting, with various other symptoms of severe gastric derangement, resulting in permanent indigestion.

also incessant severe cold in the head, which in one instance, lasted for several years without being touched by any remedy.

ulcerated throats, with acute inflammation, resembling diphtheria and quinsy.

severe spasmodic cough, spasmodic asthma, bronchitis, and congestion of the lungs.

soreness of the mouth, lips, and tongue, which appeared as if scalded in patches.

inflammation of the eyes and eyelids (the conjunctiva invariably being bright red), in one case threatening absolute loss of sight.

congestion and torpidity of the liver, with the various symptoms resulting therefrom, and severe bilious and feverish attacks. There was, in short, irritation of every organ. In many cases, if not in all, the action of the heart was weakened, and in some palpitation frequently occurred. There were pains in various parts of the body, especially across the shoulders, down the spine and limbs, also in the joints, which were often stiff and swollen.

scaling of the skin and irritating eruptions, which no remedy ever relieved except Turkish baths. The effects upon the nervous system were most remarkable, producing a thoroughly shattered constitution.

great irritability, depression, and tendency to tears. These latter symptoms were especially marked in the children, and also in servants who had come to the house in ordinarily good health, and who each became affected by degrees as above described. The list also includes giddiness, headache, acute earache, and neuralgia.

bleeding at the nose. frightful dreams.

faintness. cramps, rigor and numbness of the limbs.

rigid spasms and convulsions. The last symptoms developed in the worst cases were loss of memory, and threatenings of paralysis.

also spasms, with twitching of the body and limbs,.

After about twelve hours, when on the stool, he suddenly felt great difficulty in breathing, with cramp in the chest, hands, and arms.

immediately afterwards the cramp attacked both calves, and he became very cold all over and stiff, so that he became completely helpless, and had to be entirely lifted into bed. Violent vomiting very soon set in, and the cramp became more severe in the calves, though it did not again affect the chest and arms. The breathing, however, continued to be much oppressed for two hours. He was by this time in a state of great prostration.

countenance strangely anxious, and very restless.

skin cold and clammy. pulse very feeble and frequent.

eyes deeply sunken and surrounded with a well-marked dark border.

lips and tongue parched, with great thirst.

breathing slow and much oppressed.

sometimes sighing. burning pain in stomach, increased on pressure, and inclination to vomit.

extremities icy cold in spite of hot applications.

had had severe vomiting, with griping pain in bowels, and purging.

also cramps, first in chest and arms, and afterwards in calves. After a few minutes most violent cramps came on in both calves, causing intense suffering, and rendering the muscles hard and knotty. The cramp came on almost every fifteen minutes, lasting a few minutes each time.

the slightest movement, such as turning in bed, seemed at once to excite the spasm. Violent vomiting of a greenish-yellow fluid also occurred at intervals. Brandy and all warm drinks were almost immediately rejected, but a little cold water was retained. Mustard plasters applied to the spine, chest, and calves, were scarcely felt by him,.

One man got a sore mouth.

another had every symptom of a cold, and felt a general stiffness of the limbs.

a woman was in the room for half an hour, and her throat became rough and remained so for some days. A paperhanger in the same neighborhood remarked that his mouth was always sore when he put on green paper, and his men often spoke of their eyes becoming inflamed and their hands ulcerated,.

The symptoms commenced within a half to three-quarters of an hour after eating dinner. They had faintness, nausea, and incessant vomiting, with a burning pain in the epigastrium, increased on pressure, and gradually extending over the whole abdomen, followed by headache and severe diarrhoea, with a sense of constriction and heat in the fauces and throat, great thirst, and in some painful respiration. Pulse quick and very feeble, from 100 to 180.

cold, clammy skin, with very severe cramps in the legs in those who had diarrhoea. Some of the men had tumefaction of the penis. The above symptoms were found in all the men. Some were collapsed. A great many had severe cramps in their legs until 11 o'clock at night, and some little pains in the abdomen for several days. Ten of the men had slight gastritis. One man had and still has paralysis of the left arm and leg, and the sensibility of the skin is impaired.

he complains of coldness in his limbs,.

Three or four years after occupying the room, or perhaps a little earlier, she began to have a feeling of general malaise. The first thing she recalls is a sensation of exhaustion. It was especially difficult for her to rise in the morning, although awake at a very early hour. The debility increased as the illness went on. She would feel quite well and strong for a time, and would at once experience the sense of prostration on making any attempt at movement, and at times, on any unusual mental exertion, making the duties of a housekeeper particularly onerous. She speedily increased considerably in weight, from about one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and sixty pounds. This condition lasted for some months, and then gave place to emaciation. At certain intervals afterwards the various symptoms of the digestive, nervous, and circulatory systems, which I shall mention, appeared and increased in severity up to the time I saw her. The precise date of the access of each symptom is unknown, but each had shown itself, either continuously or at intervals, for a number of years before. I found her in bed, perfectly prostrated, hardly able to move hand or foot.

with skin very dry and rough.

hands and feet cold or cool to myself and to the patient. Emaciation was marked.

a countenance naturally rosy had become sallow.

tongue inflamed, dry, cracked, with a brownish coat in centre.

gums also dry and angry. The sensation of dryness was apparent to herself, with a feeling as if the mouth were lined with flannel. No sensation of dryness or pain in the throat or oesophagus. Nausea often about 10 P.M., and nearly always when she awakened, but not during the night, unless she happened to be up and about for any purpose. At times pressure in the stomach.

frequent thirst in the evening, seldom during the day.

capricious appetite. During her early years she had often had diarrhoea, but she had been free from it for some years. Two or three years ago it came on at intervals.

of late it had been more marked, the discharges watery and painful. Her eyes had for some time shown signs of weakness and congestion. They had previously been very strong. At last she could not open the lids at night without lifting them with her fingers. At the time I saw her there was marked conjunctivitis, as if from some external irritation. No headache, but an "aching tired sensation" in base of brain. At times, during the past few years and never before, a tenderness in the neighborhood of the liver, which would pass away after slight diarrhoea. A carbuncle or perhaps a large boil on the back was reported as having occurred three or four years before. The sleep was more easily disturbed than when in health, and she had often wakened chilly or feverish. The feet and legs, to the knees, were frequently cramped, and had been relieved by warm applications and frictions. The symptoms detailed had always been, to a certain extent, relieved during absence from home.

but in about ten days after her return the exhaustion and other evidences of disease would recur, and soon be as bad as ever,.

The little boy had been in convulsions, and was then in a semicomatose state. The child had felt chilly, and had been sick. In the evening the symptoms seemed somewhat relieved by the remedies administered, but during the night he became worse.

and his sister was also seized with convulsions, followed by dysenteric discharge from the bowels,.

In twelve hours he began to feel a stiffness of neck, with slight difficulty in swallowing.

the cuticle of scrotum peeled off entirely, leaving the cutis vera exposed, inflamed, and bleeding.

both testes were enlarged, and could not be touched.

great thirst and headache.

the most distressing symptom was an indescribable sensation as if the hair was standing on end, and being pulled up by the roots. Stomach was irritable with vomiting, and epigastrium was painful on pressure. He had been purged twice freely, and said he felt as if his bowels were on fire,.

He appeared to be nearly in articulo mortis.

his face, which had been swollen, having assumed the appearance of the true facies hippocratica. On examining the contents of the utensils in which he had vomited, a fluid was perceived of a yellowish and greenish color, and in two of them stercoraceous matter.

the pulse was gone, his voice faint and tremulous.

and he pointed to the abdomen in great agony. On examination I discovered a very remarkable irregularity of surface, occasioned by the spasmodic contractions of the muscles of the abdomen, and even of the viscera.

this unevenness extended from the epigastric region to the pubis, and to the right and left hypochondrium. He complained of extreme faintness, and dreadful sickness. He had been violently purged.

the alvine secretions were all of a bright homogeneous green color, like paint. Each effort of vomiting and purging was preceded and followed by these painful gripings and spasmodic contractions of the abdominal muscles. He also complained of great heat in the stomach, which he compared to a furnace, or red-hot irons, which sensation commenced at the tongue, and was felt throughout the course of the oesophagus to the cardia, or upper orifice of the stomach.

insatiable thirst, violent headache, the eyes impatient of light, but the pupils sensible, and the extremities cold. The patient attempted in this dreadful state to get out of bed, to walk to the night table.

he was directly seized with vertigo, dimness of sight, and palpitation of the heart.

he fell down, and went off into an epileptic fit.

he was assisted on the bed, and in a few minutes recovered from the fit (first day). In the early part of the morning he had another attack of epilepsy.

the symptomatic fever ran high, the pulse 120.

he complained of spasmodic twitchings about the chest and abdomen, palpitation of the heart, great languor, accompanied with a constant sensation of fainting, tongue white but not dry, occasional chills, followed by an increase of heat, headache, and vertigo (second day). Skin moist and more temperate, tongue less coated, not dry, but sore and swollen, the burning heat in the stomach rather less violent, and he expressed a degree of hunger.

the pulse 98, spasmodic twitches in the arms and legs, with a cold sensation in the latter (third day). Tingling and burning sensations, beginning at the extremity of the fingers and gradually creeping to the shoulders, sometimes one foot, and at others both affected with a burning feel, commencing at the toes and gradually rising above the ankle-joint.

palpitation of the heart, great depression of the spirits, with a perpetual sensation of swooning, and frequent twitchings of the muscles of the chest and abdomen, and of the upper and lower extremities (fourth day). Owing to eating a free portion of animal food he suffered a slight relapse of the fever and much pain in the stomach, also passed a restless night, with much thirst, and was again attacked with spasmodic twitchings in the chest and upper and lower extremities (fifth day). He complained of a very singular affection in the upper and lower extremities.

the arms were several times in the course of the day seized with a numbness and prickly feeling, accompanied with a sense of great weight, like what is commonly called being asleep.

and this symptom continued daily, more or less frequently, for six weeks, but upon raising the arms in an upright position, it immediately subsided. The same feeling almost as constantly attacked the legs, but occasionally with and sometimes without the corresponding affection of the arms.

the legs were some minutes longer affected, by reason of his not being able, as he himself observed, to place them in the same position as the arms (ninth day),.

Burning heat in the stomach, much nausea, with vomiting and severe gripings, with purging, extreme faintness, palpitation of the heart, headache, trembling of the right arm, and right lower extremity (first day). Four epileptic fits in the course of the night, preceded by violent palpitation of the heart, accompanied with a peculiar tremulous action of the right arm and lower extremity.

a considerable degree of symptomatic fever insatiable thirst, a white but moist tongue, the face flushed, the respiration hurried. Pulse 126, irregular and contracted, frequent gripings in the bowels, and spasmodic twitchings in the muscles of the chest and abdomen (second day). Much fever, respiration hurried and great thirst, violent and incessant palpitation of the heart.

the fits had recurred twice in the night.

he had had no sound sleep.

if he went into a doze, he woke suddenly and much agitated.

the pulse 120. spasmodic twitches, with tremor in the right arm and lower extremity, violent headache, and the eyes painfully affected by light.

constant vertigo, which was increased if he attempted to sit up in bed, or upon the slightest exertion (third day). Only one attack of the epileptic fit in the night, and had slept three or four hours towards the morning.

pulse 100, breathing less hurried and more natural (fourth day). A relapse of the fit in the night, preceded by palpitation of the heart and tremulous agitation of the right arm and lower extremity.

the fit lasted nearly two hours (fifth day). On the eighth day an epileptic fit at 8 P.M., and it returned daily and periodically about the same hour every evening for a fortnight afterwards.

the fit generally lasted nearly two hours, and he required, from the violence of his struggles, the assistance of several persons to hold him whilst the epilepsy continued. On recovering he looked wild, forgot where he was, and talked incoherently, and as he gradually emerged from this state, complained of extreme languor, with great prostration of strength. Towards the latter end of the second week, the fit became shorter and less severe, and he sooner recovered when out of it.

and at the expiration of a fortnight from the first effects of the poison, he enjoyed and interval of seven or eight days without a relapse.

hopes were then entertained that he would recover, "the fits becoming every day shorter, and recovery from each more rapid and complete." But they again returned with the same or even greater degree of violence, and he has been afflicted with fits up to the present time.

he appears to have outgrown his strength, possesses very delicate stamina, and serious apprehensions are still entertained of the result,.

Vomiting in the course of half an hour.

soon afterwards, several dejections. Vomiting and purging, at short intervals, continued through the day. Evacuations consisting mostly of a serous fluid and bile. Quantity vomited during the day amounted to six or eight quarts by estimation. In the afternoon, on attempting to walk from one bed to another, he fell down senseless, was convulsed, had cramp in extremities, and was cold. At 7 in the evening, seventeen hours after taking the medicine, found him as follows Extremities cold, bathed in perspiration.

skin blue and corrugated, feeling as if parboiled.

no pulse perceptible at wrist.

pulsations of carotids rapid and fluttering.

eyeballs retracted in orbits.

countenance livid. voice husky and guttural.

extreme thirst. distress at epigastrium.

frequent vomiting. mind clear.

Arsenical ointment was applied (to cure chronic inflammation) to the breast of a woman, aged thirty-nine, the cuticle having been removed. The first application was May, 21st, and was immediately followed by severe violent burning in the breast. Violent headache, thirst, sickness, and occasional retching, numbness in arms and legs, sleeplessness, and loss of appetite supervened in a short time. The application was repeated daily till 25 th. On this day the pain in the breast became intolerable.

there was faintness and palpitation. Inflammatory action extended from the breast to the shoulder and arm. On the evening of the 26th she had severe pain in belly. On the 27th the points of the sore not sloughing were smeared with ointment. About 2 P.M., she was seized with a kind of fit, with lividity of the face, foaming at the mouth, and moaning. She continued unconscious for several minutes, and on regaining consciousness, said she had been in a queer place, that she felt as it were a dart go through her, that she then became insensible, and had no further recollection of what happened to her during the fit. In the afternoon she felt more comfortable. Between 9 and 10 P.M., she suddenly said, "There it is again," was off in a fit, and died immediately,.

Cramp attacked his legs and stomach.

the muscles of the former were spasmodically contracted, and the abdomen was also rigid and tender. In the intervals of the paroxysm of the pain he lay with his eyes half closed.

tongue covered with a creamy fur. The breathing soon became more rapid and rather difficult, and accompanied by an increasing lividity of face. The spasms continued, but never attained to anything like general convulsions,.

In about five minutes a peculiar tingling sensation commenced in left arm, lasting about forty-five minutes. Fifth day, numbness of thighs and calves. Eleventh day, anaesthesia of fingers, and partial paralysis of flexors of forearm.

a similar condition shortly afterwards attended the lower extremities, and was accompanied in both by pain persisting for a few days. In five weeks from the commencement of the illness, skin of entire body had desquamated.

most remarkably so on hands. In six weeks the paralysis of flexors of both extremities was unabated, and accompanied with soreness on pressure. In two months and a half he was still unable to stand without support. In eight months the paralysis of sensation and motion and the soreness on pressure still continued, though less. In twenty-three months nearly well,.

In about an hour he had nausea, feeling of distension of stomach, with great pain, as if there were a fire within him, burning in mouth, and subsequently vomiting of a greenish fluid.

to these were speedily added burning in throat and along oesophagus, urgent tenesmus, with slight discharge of mucus, excoriation of anus. During the latter part of his illness he had bloody discharges from his stomach,.

Found him lying on the bed with a basinful of watery, frothy fluid near him, which he had just thrown up. He had begun to vomit in ten minutes, after swallowing the water, and it had continued till now (nearly two hours). Nothing would stay on his stomach.

water being thrown up immediately after swallowing. The vomiting was painless,.

A profoundly acting remedy on every organ and tissue. Arsenicum Album's clear-cut characteristic symptoms and correspondence to many severe types of disease make its homeopathic employment constant and certain. Arsenicum Album's general symptoms often alone lead to its successful application. Among these the all-prevailing debility, exhaustion, and Restlessness, with nightly aggravation are most important. Great exhaustion after the slightest exertion. This, with the peculiar irritability of fibre, gives the characteristic Irritable weakness. burning pains. Unquenchable thirst. Burning relieved by heat. Seaside complaints (Nat Mur ^Nat-mur.; Aqua Marina ^{Aqua Marina}). Injurious effects of fruits, especially more watery ones. Gives quiet and ease to the last moments of life when given in high potency. Fear fright and worry. Green discharges. Infantile Kala-azar ( Dr. Neatby). Arsenicum Album. should be thought of in ailments from alcoholism, Ptomaine poisoning, stings, dissecting wounds, chewing tobacco; ill effects from decayed food or animal matter; odor of discharges is PUTRID; in complaints that return annually. Anaemia and chlorosis. Degenerative changes. Gradual loss of weight from impaired nutrition. Reduces the refractive index of blood serum (also China ^China and Ferrum Met ^Ferr. Phosphorus ^Phos.). Maintains the system under the stress of malignancy regardless of location. Malarial cachexia. Septic infections and low vitality.

lung

Sudden, intense effects

Restless, anxious and very weak

Anxious

Maddening pains; BURNING LIKE FIRE, hot neddles or wires, better heat, felt, even during sleep; exciting shortness of breath (Natrum Sulphuricum ^Nat-s---- ) or chilliness

Inveterate neuralgias

Multiple neuritis

VERY RESTLESS, worse affected part

Increasingly irritable (Cimi---- ) or SUDDEN GREAT WEAKNESS, from trivial causes

Rapid emaciation ACRID, SCANTY, THIN SECRETIONS; coryza, saliva, sweat, etc

PUTRID, CADAVERIC ODORS

Destructive processes

Malignancy

Sepsis

Low vitality

Pale, puffy, baggy SWELLING

Dropsy

Anaemia

Oversensitive Fastidious EXACTING

Fault-finding ANGUISH; despairs of recovery (Aco)

VIOLENCE; self-torture; pulls her hair; bites her nails

Suicidal impulses

Restless and suspicious

Congestion to head, better cold, but neuralgia, better heat

Pain alternates between head and stomach or body

Pain over l

Restless head

Early grayness

Falling hair

Spasm of eyelids

Burning tears

Scrophulous ophthalmia

Takes colds

Nose colds descend to chest

Cold sores; in nose

Sneezing, with biting, watery coryza; but stopped nose

Hay fever

Sensitive smell; loathes odor, sight or thought of food

PALE, anxious, sunken, haggard or distorted countenance; with cold sweat

Black lips

Bluish white tongue

Nightly toothache

INSATIABLE BURNING THIRST; CRAVES ICE COLD WATER, BUT IT DISTRESSES STOMACH (Nux Vomica ^Nux-v---- ) AND IS VOMITED AT ONCE; with anorexia; during heat

DRINKS LITTLE AND OFTEN

Gastritis

Swelled spleen

Vomiting, with purging, from ptomaine poisoning Foul, rice water or small, acrid, burning, black, mucous or lienteric stools; worse cold drinks

Scanty urine

Uraemia (Piper Methysticum ^Pip-m)

Profuse acrid leucorrhoea

As of a vapor in larynx

SHORT BREATH; felt in nose; must sit up; worse odors, receding eruptions or ascending

Whistling inspiration

Wheezing breathing

Cough alternately dry and loose; must sit up

Frothy expectoration

Acute pain through upper third of r

Asthma

Pulmonary oedema

Cough; dry, nightly; worse drinking

Heart; weak; trembles; palpitates; worse slight causes

Stiffness, ascends from coccyx to nape

Alternate internal and skin symptoms

SKIN; LOOKS SEARED; dry, rough, dirty or shrivelled (Op)

Free desquamation

Eczema

Acuminate eruptions

Hives after eating fish

Ulcerative tendency; chronic; with burning

Phagedena

Gangrene

Shocks on dropping to sleep

COLD, externally, with internal, burning heat; in spots; sensitive to, yet better in open air (Aurum Metallicum ^Aur)

Chills; irregular; shaking; craves hot drinks; and can't get his breath

Heat, as of hot water in veins or they burn like lines of fire; burning or coldness in chest (Bryonia ^Bry)

Hectic

Sweat; with insatiable thirst, dyspnoea or exhaustion; cold

Atypical or larval malaria

Old case of malarias

Waves of icy coldness in blood-vessels or intense boiling heat

Yellow fever (prophylactic)

The white oxide of Arsenicum Metallicum ^{Metallic Arsenic}, As2 O3. Solution and trituration.

epithelioma of. Locomotor ataxy. Lung affections. Lupus. Malignant pustule. Measles. Melancholia. Menstruation, disorders of. Miliary eruptions. Morphoea. Myelitis. Nails, diseased. Nettle-rash. Neuralgia. Neuritis. Nonta pudendi. Numbness. Peritonitis. Perityphlitis. Pityriasis. Plethora. Pleurisy. Pleurodynia. Pneumonia. Psoriasis. Purpura. Pyoemia. Pyelitis. Remittent fever. Rheumatic gout. Rheumatism. Rickets. Ringworm. Scaldhead. Scarlatina. Sciatica. Scrofulous affections. Sea-bathing, effects of. Sea-sickness. Shiverings. Stomach, affections of. Strains. Suppuration. Thirst. Throat, sore. Tabacum ^Tobacco-habit. Tongue, affections of. Trachea, affections of. Traumatic fever. Typhus. Ulcers. Vomiting. Whooping-cough. Worms. Wounds. Yellow fever.

Arsenic is the horse's remedy.

as Pulsatilla ^Puls. is the sheep's, and Antimonium Arsenicicum ^Antim. crud. the pig's. The reprehensible fashion of "doctoring" horses with Arsenic is merely an abuse of a therapeutic fact. The horse is an animal on whose power of endurance and "wind" enormous demands are made, and Arsenic is the remedy for the effects of feats of prolonged endurance. The Arsenic habit of the Styrian mountaineers has arisen from the discovery of its power of strengthening the muscles both of the limbs and of the breathing apparatus. But in another way the horse typifies the Arsenic temperament. The mental symptoms of my drug, when pronounced, carry precedence of all others. The horse is an exceedingly nervous animal, constantly moving about, restless to a degree, and very prone to take fright.

quite a picture of the Arsenic temperament.

According to Teste Arsen. acts much more powerfully on vegetable-eating animals than on carnivora (opp. Nux Vomica ^{Nux v}.); and it is suited to the effect's of excess of vegetable diet, melons, strawberries, and fruits in general, especially watery fruits.

The arsenic-eaters of the Tyrol can take as much as six grains of white arsenic, or the sulphide, every two days.

They maintain that it imparts a sense of invigoration and enables them to carry enormous loads up perpendicular mountains.

According to one account it is resorted to by populations who live on vegetable food almost exclusively. "It strengthens the muscles," an old indulger in the habit is reported to have said, "helps to digest our coarse bread and potatoes, and allows us to breathe freely and easily.

Meat-eaters have no need for such a thing, but with us it is a necessity." It is difficult to say how far this is a directly "tonic," effect, and how far curative of the dyscrasia generated by the conditions of life.

The fine skin and glossy hair of the young women among the arsenic-eating populations is remarkable, and is comparable to the fine coats of arsenic-fed horses.

On the other hand, "staring coat" in animals, and "dry, rough, scaly, unhealthy-looking skin" in human beings are keynote indications for the remedy.

In this connection may be mentioned the effects on the crew of the ship Zion, which carried arsenic as a portion of its cargo.

Arsenicum Album was exposed somewhat to the sun's rays, and the crew noticed a peculiar smell.

Soon they all began to notice themselves growing stout, and on reaching Philadelphia from England they had all gained much, one to the extent of two stones in weight.

Restlessness is one of the grand characteristics of Arsenic.

Even the stupor of Arsenic is interrupted by fits of restlessness with anxious moaning.

Hence the applicability of the drug in many nervous affections, notably chorea.

Jerks and starts on falling asleep.

Irritability, desperately angry; almost furious.

Despair, hopelessness, unutterable misery.

Inflammations of great intensity with tendency to destruction of tissue.

Burning, lancinating pains.

Burning is another of the leading characteristics of Arsenic.

No other remedy has it in more pronounced degree.

The peculiarity of the "burnings" of Ars. is that they are amel. by heat (herein comparing with Capsicum Annuum ^Capsic.).

The burning in the throat is amel. by eating or drinking hot things.

On the other hand cold food and cold drinks agg. stomach irritations; hence Ars. is of signal use for effects of eating ices and drinking ice-water.

Arsen. affects the entire alimentary tract.

The lips are so dry and parched and cracked that the patient often licks them to moisten them.

The mouth is aphthous, ulcerated, or gangrenous.

The stomach is so irritable that the least food or drink causes distress or vomiting, or stool or both together.

Abdominal pains are intense, causing the patient to turn and twist.

Hćmorrhoids are exceedingly painful as if burning needles plunged in.

States of lowered vitality.

The Prostration of Arsen. is remarkable.

With it there is the desire to move or be moved constantly.

The patient is exhausted from the slightest exertion.

Exhaustion is not felt while lying still, but as soon as he moves he is surprised to find himself so weak.

The prostration seems out of proportion to the rest of his illness.

Must lie down. Exhaustion from hill-climbing, breathless, sleepless.

Thirst for little and often (Antimonium Tartaricum ^{Ant. t}., Lycopodium ^Lyc.), wants it very cold and immediately rejects it (Phosphorus ^Phos. as soon as it becomes warm).

Before and after the cough of Arsenic there is an attack of asthma (Phosphorus ^Phos.) Arsen. has a great place in acute coryza and hay-fever.

The fluent coryza is corrosive, reddening the upper lip, and has more burning than either Merc Viv ^Merc. or Allium Cepa ^Cepa.

Also it is agg. out of doors, and amel. in warmth, which distinguishes it from Allium Cepa ^Cepa especially.

Arsenic is predominantly right-sided.

The neuralgias affect the right side most; the right lung ("acute, sharp, fixed or darting pain in apex and through upper third of right lung") is more affected than the left; also the right side of the abdomen, hence typhlitis.

Many dropsical conditions are controlled by Arsen.

Especially has it done brilliant work in cases of hydrothorax.

It has been called the "liquid trochar," on account of the expeditions way in which it will remove a watery effusion.

The patient cannot lie down; must sit up to breathe; anxious; restless; agg. about 1 a.m.

It is suited to the full plethoric habit.

Puffiness in one of its characteristics; and from this to dropsy.

All mucous membranes are irritated.

The skin is cold and clammy.

Scurfy eruptions. Bran-coloured scales on head coming down to forehead.

When the subjective symptoms of Arsen. are present, it will cure in the potencies.

Arsenic is a hćmorrhagic it acts on both blood and blood-vessels.

Varices burn like fire.

Anćmia, chlorosis, pyćmia all come within the scope of Arsenic, which corresponds also to states resulting from losses of blood, as venesection, metrorrhagia, hćmoptysis.

The Conditions, especially of time and temperature, are all-important with Arsenic.

Unless these correspond in the patient, failure will be more frequent than success.

Arsenic is one of the greatest of periodics.

I once treated some members of a family who all had attacks of fever of short duration, recurring regularly every six weeks, from living in rooms papered with arsenical papers.

Its periods are every day; every third or fourth day; every fortnight; every six weeks; every year.

There is pronounced night aggravation, the pains are unsupportable with restlessness. agg.

Midnight and after (Aconite ^Acon. is rather before midnight); agg. 3 a.m.

There is agg. from cold and damp; amel. warmth.

Arsen. loves warmth like Nux Vomica ^Nux v., Psorinum ^Psor., Hep Sulph Calc ^Hepar, Silica Marina ^Silic., Magnesia Muriatica ^{Mag mur}. and other hydrogenoids, and herein is differentiated from Sulphur ^Sul., Antimonium Crudum ^{Ant. crud}., Iodium ^Iod., Apis Mel ^Apis, and Pulsatilla ^Puls.

Arsen. hugs the fire and likes warm wraps. agg.

Lying on affected side, or with head low. amel.

Lying with head high.

WHITE ARSENIC.

(The semi-oxide of metallic arsenic in diluted and potentized solution.)

As I write down the word Arsenic, momentous memories seize upon my soul.

When the All-merciful One created iron, the granted to mankind, indeed, to fashion from it either the murderous dagger or the mild ploughshare, and either to kill or to nourish their brethren therewith.

How much happier, however, would they be, did they employ His gifts only to benefit one another! This should be the aim of their life; this was His will.

So also it is not to Him, the All-loving One, we must impute the wickedness practiced by men, who have dared to misemploy the wonderfully powerful medicinal substances in diseases for which they were not suitable, and besides this in doses so enormous, guided only by frivolous ideas or some paltry authorities, without having subjected them to any careful trial, and without a well-grounded selection.

If now careful prover of the effects of medicines arise, they inveigh against him as an enemy to their comfort, and do not refrain from the most dishonest calumnies.

The ordinary medical art has hitherto employed the most powerful medicines, such as arsenic, Argentum Nitricum ^{nitrate of silver}, corrosive sublimate, Aconite ^{aconitum napellus}, Belladonna ^belladonna, Iodium ^iodine, Digitalis Purpurea ^digitalis, opium, Hyoscyamus Niger ^hyoscyamus, etc. Homoeopathy cannot employ stronger substances, for there are none stronger. Now, when ordinary physicians employ them, they evidently vie with one another who shall prescribe the largest possible doses of these drugs, and even make a great boast of their mounting to such enormous doses. This practice they laud and approve in their fellow practitioners. But if the Homoeopathic medical art employ the , not at random, like the ordinary method, but after careful investigation, only in suitable cases and in the smallest possible doses, it is denounced as a practice of poisoning. How partisan, how unjust, how calumnious is such a charge made by men who make pretensions to honesty and uprightness!

If Homoeopathy now make a fuller explanation, if she condemn (as from conviction she must) the enormous doses of these drugs given in ordinary practice, and if she, relying on careful trials, insists that very much less of them should be given for a dose, that where ordinary physicians give a tenth, a half, a whole grain, and even several grains, often only a quadrillionth, a sextillionth, a decillionth of a grain is required and sufficient, then the adherents of the ordinary school, who denounce the Homoeopathic healing art as a system of poisoning, laugh aloud, abuse it as childishness, and declare themselves convinced (convinced without trial?) that can do nothing at all, and can have no effect whatever, is, indeed, . They are not ashamed thus to blow hot and cold from the same mouth, and to pronounce the very same thing to be inert and ludicrously small, which they had just accused of being a system of poisoning, whilst they justify and praise their own enormous and murderous doses of the same remedies. Is not this the grossest and most wretched inconsistency that can be imagined, invented for the very purpose of being shamelessly unjust toward a doctrine which, they cannot deny, possesses truth, consistence and agreement with experience, and which practices the most delicate cautiousness and the most unwearied circumspection in the selection and administration of its remedies?

Not very long ago a highly celebrated physician spoke of pounds of opium being eaten every month in his hospital, where even the nurses were allowed to give it to the patients according to their fancy.

Opium, mind! a drug that has sent several thousands of men to their graves in ordinary practice! Yet this man continued to be held in honor, for the belonged to the dominant clique to which everything is lawful even if it be of the most destructive and absurd character. And when, a few years since, in one of the most enlightened cities of Europe almost every practitioner, from the physician of lofty title down to the barber's apprentice, prescribed arsenic as a fashionable remedy in almost every disease, and that in such frequent and large doses in close succession, that the detriment to the health of the people must have been quite palpable, yet this was held to be an honorable practice, though not one of them was acquainted with the peculiar effects of the semi-oxide of this metal (and consequently knew not what cases of disease it was suited for). And yet all prescribed it in repeated doses, Which of these two opposite modes of employing medicines best deserves the flattering appellation of a "system of poisoning" -the ordinary method just alluded to, which attacks with tenths of grains the poor patients (who often require some quite different remedy), or Homoeopathy, which does not even give a little drop of tincture or Rheum ^rhubarb without having first ascertained whether rhubard is the most suitable, the only appropriate remedy for the case.

Homoeopathy which, by unwearied, multiplied experiments, discovered that it is only in rare cases that more than a decillionth of a grain of arsenic should be given, and that only in cases where careful proving shows this medicine to be the only one perfectly suitable? To which of these two modes of practice does then the honorary title of "thoughtless, rash system of poisoning" properly apply?

Marcus, of Bamberg.

On how high a stage of lack of art must the medical art of our whole continent be, when in a city they are as yet in such a state, which city nevertheless has hardly an equal in all other departments of human knowledge!

* *

There is yet another sect of practitioners who may be called hypocritical purists. If they are practical physicians, they, indeed, prescribe all sorts of substances that are injurious when misused, but before the world they wish to pose as patterns of innocence and caution. From their professional chairs and in their writings they give us the most alarming definition of poison.

to listen to their declarations it would appear unadvisable to treat any imaginable disease with anything stronger than quick-grass, Taraxacum ^dandelion, oxymel and raspberry juice. According to their definition, poisons are absolutely (, under all circumstances, in all doses, in all cases) prejudicial to human life, and in this category they include (in order to prejudice against Homoeopathy), as suits their humor, a lot of substances which in all ages have been extensively employed by physicians for the cure of diseases. But the employment of these substances would be a criminal offence had not every one of them occasionally proved of use. If, however, each of them had only proved itself curative on only one occasion -and it cannot be denied that this sometimes happened- then this blasphemous definition is at the same time a palpable absurdity. Absolutely and under all circumstances injurious and destructive, and yet at the same time salutary, is a contradiction in itself, is utter nonsense. If they would wriggle out of this contradiction, they allege, as a subterfuge, that these substances have more frequently proved injurious than useful. But did the more frequent injury caused by these substances come from these substances themselves, or from their improper employment, from those who made an unskillful use of them in diseases for which they were not suitable? These medicines do not administer themselves in diseases, they must be administered by men.

and if they were beneficial at any time, it was because they were at one time appropriately administered by somebody.

it was because they might always be beneficial, if men never made any other than a suitable use of them. Hence it follows that whenever these substances were hurtful and destructive they were so merely on account of having been inappropriately employed. Therefore all the injury is attributable to the unskillfulness of their employers.

These narrow-minded individuals further said "Even when we attempt to tame arsenic by means of a corrective, by mixing it with an alkali, it still often enough does harm."

Nay, I reply, the arsenic must not be blamed for this.

for, as I before observed, drugs do not administer themselves, somebody administers them and does harm with them. And what can the alkali do as a corrective? Is it merely intended to weaken the arsenic, or to change its character and covert it into something else? In the latter case the neutral arsenical salt produced is no longer arsenic proper, but something different. If, however, it be merely made weaker, then surely a simple diminution of the dose of the pure solution of arsenic would be a much more rational and effectual mode of making it weaker and milder, than leaving the dose in its magnitude and by the addition of another medicinal substance endeavoring to effect some, nobody knows what, alteration in its nature, as takes when a pretended corrective is used. If you think one-tenth of a grain of arsenic too strong, what is to prevent you from diluting the solution and giving less, a great deal less, of it?.

"A tenth of a grain," I hear some one say, is the smallest quantity the etiquette of the profession allows us to prescribe. Who could write a prescription to be made up at the apothecary's for a smaller quantity without making himself ridiculous?"

So, indeed! a tenth of a grain sometimes acts so violently as to endanger life, and the etiquette of your guild does not allow you to give less, very much less. Is it not an insult to common sense to talk in this way? Is the etiquette of the profession a code of rules to bind a set of slaves without rationality, or is it the rule among men having a free will and intelligence? If it is the latter, who hinders them from giving a where a greater might be injurious? Obstinacy? the dogmatism of a school? or what other dungeon of the intellect?

"Arsenic," "they protest, would still be hurtful, though given in a smaller quantity, even if we should be willing to descend to the ridiculous dose of a hundredth or of a thousandth of a grain, a minuteness of dose unheard of in the posologics of our materia medica. Even a thousandth of a grain of arsenic must still be hurtful and destructive, for it remains an uncontrollable poison, as we supposed, affirm, conjecture and assert."

Even if this convenient asserting and conjecturing should here for once have blundered upon the truth, still it is evident that the virulence of the arsenic cannot increase but must decrease with every further reduction of the dose, so that we must at length arrive at such a dilution of the solution and such a diminution of the dose as no longer in any way possesses the dangerous character of your regulation dose of one-tenth of a grain.

"Such a dose would, indeed, be a novelty! What kind of a dose would it be?" Novelty is indeed a capital crime in the eyes of the orthodox school, settled down upon her old lees, a school which subjects its reason to the tyranny of hoary routine.

But what pitiful rule should hinder the physician, who ought by rights to be a learned, thinking, independent man, a ruler of nature in his own domain -what in the world should hinder him from moderating a dangerous dose by diminishing its size?

What should hinder him, if experience should show him that the thousandth part of a grain is yet too strong a dose, from giving the hundred-thousandth part, or the millionth part of a grain? And should he find this last too violent in many cases, (as medicine itself is nothing but a science of experience), what should hinder him from reducing the millionth to a billionth? And if also this prove too strong a dose in many cases, who could prevent him from diminishing it to the quadrillionth of a grain, or a smaller dose still? Methinks I hear vulgar stolidity croak out from the quagmire of its thousand-year-old prejudices Ha! Ha! Ha! A quadrillionth! Why that's nothing at all!

Why ? Can the subdivision of a substance, be it carried ever so far, bring forth anything else than parts of the whole? Must not these portions, reduced in size to the very verge of infinity, still continue to be -something substantial, a part of the whole, be it ever so minute? What man of sound reason could contradict this?

And if this (quadrillionth, quintillionth, octillionth, decillionth) continue still to be really an integral portion of the divided substance, as no rational man can deny, why should even so minute a portion, seeing that it is really , be unable to do , considering that the whole was so tremendously powerful? . It belongs to experience alone to determine if this small portion has become too weak to avail anything against diseases, too weak to remove the disease for which this medicine is in general suitable, and to restore the patient to health. This is a matter to be settled not by the dictatorial dictum from the study, but by experience alone, which in this case is the only competent arbiter. But experience has already decided this question and continues to do so daily before the eyes of every unprejudiced person.

But when I have done with the wiseacre, who ridicules the small doses of Homoeopathy as a nonentity, as effecting nothing, and who never consults experience, I hear on the other side the hypocritical stickler for caution, with as little investigation and with the same recklessness, still inveigh against the danger of even the small doses used in homoeopathic practice.

A few words then shall be added here for him.

If arsenic in the dose of a tenth of a grain be, in many cases, a dangerous dose, must it not become milder in the dose of a thousandth of a grain? And, if so, must it not become still milder with every further diminution of dose?

Now if arsenic (like every other very powerful medicinal substance), can, by merely diminishing its dose, be rendered so mild as to be no longer dangerous to life, then all we have to do is merely to find by experiment how far the size of the dose must be diminished so that it shall be small enough to do no harm, and yet large enough to fully effect its office as a remedy of the diseases for which it is suitable.

Experience, and experience alone, not the pedantry of the study, not the narrow-minded, ignorant dogmatism of the schools, which does not prove anything practically, can decided what dose, of such an extremely powerful substance as arsenic, is so small that it can be taken without danger, and yet remains so powerful as to be able to effect all that this medicine (so invaluable when sufficiently moderated in its action and selected for a suitable case of disease) was from its nature ordained to do by the beneficent Creator. It must, by dilution of its solution and diminution of the dose, be rendered so mild that the strongest man can be freed by such a dose from a disease for which it is the appropriate remedy, while this same dose will be incapable of altering perceptibly the health of a healthy infant. This is the grand problem that can only be solved by thousandfold experiments and trials, but not settled by the sophistical dogmatism of the schools with its guessing, its assertions and its conjectures.

A medicine homoeopathically chosen, a medicine capable of producing a morbid condition very similar to the disease to be cured, touches only the diseased side of the organism, therefore just the most excited, extremely sensitive part of it. Therefore its dose must be so small as only to affect the diseased part just a little more than the disease itself did. For this the smallest dose suffices, one so small as to be incapable of altering the health of a healthy person, who has not such points of contact sufficiently sensitive for this medicine, or of making him ill, which only large doses of medicine can do. See , §277-279 and at the beginning of the

No rational physician can acknowledge any such limitation to this treatment as would be dictated to him by the rusty routine of the schools, which is never guided by pure experiment combined with reflection. His sphere of action is the restoration to health of the sick, and the countless forces of nature are given to him unreservedly by the Sustainer of Life as implements of healing.

nothing being excluded. To him whose calling it is to vanquish the disease that brings its victim to the verge of corporeal annihilation and effect a kind of recreation of life (a nobler work than most other, even those most vaunted of mankind), to him the whole broad expanse of nature with all her creative powers and substances must be available in order to enable him to perform this curative act, if we may so call it. But he must be at liberty to employ these agents in the exact quantity, be it ever so smaller or ever so large, that experience and trials show him to be most adapted to the end he has in view.

in any form whatever that reflection and experience have proved to be most valuable. All this he must be able to do without any limitation whatsoever, as is the right of a free man, of a deliverer of his fellow creatures, and a restorer of life, equipped with all the knowledge pertaining to his art and endowed with a god-like spirit and the tenderest conscience.

From this God-serving and noblest of earthly occupations let all hold aloof who are deficient in mind, in the judicial spirit, in any of the branches of knowledge required for its exercise, or in tender regard for the weal of mankind and a sense of their duty to humanity.

in one word, who are deficient in true virtue! Away with that unhallowed crew who merely assume the outward semblance of health-restorers, but whose heads are full of vain deceit, whose hearts are stuffed with wicked frivolity, whose tongues make a mock of truth and whose hands prepare disaster.

The following observations are the result of doses of various strength on persons of various sensitiveness

An intelligent homoeopathic physician will not give his medicine, even in its minimum dose, before he is convinced that its peculiar symptoms have the greatest possible similarity with those of the disease to be healed. But if this is the case it will surely cure. But if in any case, from human fallibility, he should not have made his selection appropriately, smelling once or several times of Ipecacuanha ^Ipecacuanha, or Hep Sulph Calc ^Hepar sulphuris calcareum, or Nux Vomica ^{Nux vomica}, according to the circumstances, will remove the ill effects.

Such a use of arsenic has shown its curative powers in numberless acute and chronic (psoric) diseases, and has then also at the same time healed the following symptoms if present

heaviness in the forehead.

headache after dinner.

scurf on the hairy scalp.

. drawing and stitches in the face here and there.

ulcers like warts on the cheek.

tumor-like swelling in the nose.

eruptions on the lips.

bleeding of the gums. fetid odor from the mouth.

vomiting of brownish matter, with violent colic.

. pressure in the stomach.

. induration of the liver.

. abdominal dropsy. ulcer above the umbilicus.

swelling of the inguinal glands.

burning evacuations, with violent colic.

green, diarrhoeic stools.

constipation. paralysis of the bladder.

dysuria. strangury. swelling of the genitals.

menses too copious, ailments of various kinds during menstruation.

acrid, corrosive discharge from the vagina.

stoppage of the nose. coughing of blood.

suffocative fits, in the evening after lying down.

tightness of the chest, on ascending an eminence.

angina pectoris. stitches in the sternum.

pressure in the sternum.

drawing and tearing, at nigh, from the elbow to the shoulder.

whitlows on the tips of the fingers, with burning pains.

tearing and stitches in the hip, the thigh and the groin.

tearing in the tibia. pain as of a bruise in the knee-joint.

itching herpes in the hough.

old sores on the legs, with burning and stitches.

weariness of the feet.

ulcers in the soles of the feet.

. pains as from soreness on the balls of the toes, as if rubbed open from walking.

varicose and swelled veins.

. drowsiness in the evening.

at night, slow in going to sleep again, after waking up.

. shivering in the evening, with twisting of the limbs and anxious restlessness..

The inclusion of Arsenic among the antipsorics seems to have been an afterthoughts, as it comes in the original German edition, at the end of the alphabetical list of medicines, instead of appearing in its proper place -to which in this translation it has been restored. Arsenicum Album's pathogenesis had already appeared in the , where it contains, 1,079 symptoms, of which 697 are from Hahnemann himself and seven fellow-observers, and 382 from authors. Of the two additional contributors mentioned here, "Hartlaub u. Trinks," stand for some cases of poisoning, the symptoms of which they had extracted, in the first and third volumes f their.

and "Hering," for a number of aggravations and medicinal symptoms occurring in leprous patients taking the drug (., XI., 2, 19). These account for 112 out of the 202 additional symptoms recorded here.

the remainder are Hahnemann's, obtained in his later manner, and Wahle's (eighteen in all) -a prover unnoticed in the preface, but whose name frequently occurs among the second series of the Master's followers. .

ARSENICUM.

Eber's observations are to be found in part 3, p. 46, and part 4, p. 3, of this volume. Effects of arsenite of potash in ague patients. This symptom not found.

Poisoning of a woman. For p. 172, read part I, p. 149.

Poisoning of adults. For "LIX" read Book IV., Ep. 59, §§3, 5, 6, 7, 8.

From the vapor.

Poisoning of adult. For Obs. 211 read "." C. 4.

Symptoms observed in a fever patient after taking arsenite of potash.

( note). From drawing solution of A. into nostrils for coryza; add. Dec. 3, . 9, 10, C. 220. (To Neue Med., etc.) Not accessible. (To .). Poisoning of girl by black oxide.

Poisoning of a whole family by Ars.

Poisoning of a woman by orpiment. This symptom is not found.

From application of Ars. to a diseased breast. With vomiting. Add p. 143.

Not accessible.

Poisoning of adults.

(For BUETTNER). Poisonings. Add p. 179.

Not found. -Hughes.

A woman took Ars. with a suicidal purpose. The calmness was rather mental, owing to her determination, than physical.

Result of suppression of ague by Ars.

Doubtful how much is ague, and how much Ars.

Poisoning of adult. -Hughes.

Poisoning of adult. -Hughes.

Same case as Myrrhen's (Sympt. 14).

Insanity. first headache, excessive anguish, noise before the ears, as of many large bells, and when the opened his eyes, he always saw a man who sometimes before had hanged himself in the garret of the house, and who incessantly motioned to him entreatingly that he should cut him down.

the ran there with a knife, but as he could not cut him down, the grew desperate and wished to hang himself.

being hindered in this, the became so restless that he could hardly be kept in bed.

the lost his speech, though with full understanding, and when the wished to express himself by writhing, he could only make unintelligible marks, whereat he trembled, wept, and with the forehead covered with the sweat of anguish, knelt down and raised his hands entreatingly.;.

Poisoning of a youth. This symptom not found. -Hughes.

Effects of arsenite of potash in an epileptic. -Hughes.

Poisoning of adults with black oxide. After antidote. -Hughes.

Not found.

(For THOMSON) Poisoning of a woman. (For SENNERT) From inhaling realgar.

From black oxide, in an adult. Add., 7, 8.

Not accessible.

(For JACOBI) From suppression of ague by Ars in a young man. (For Rau) From application of Ars. to scalp. (For KNAPE) From powdering hair with Ars.

As sympt. 98.

General statement from authors.

Effect of Ars. sprinkled on hair.

Should be "of the veins." It occurred after violent vomiting.

Effect of dressing pustular scalp with mixture of Ars. and cinnabar.

From powdering hair with Ars.

From the vapor, mingled with that of tobacco.

Frequently recurring.

As in symp. 160.

The eyelids also were made sore.

General statement. The symptom not found.

Poisoning of adult.

Or "eyes distorted in a horrid manner."

Poisoning with Ars., realgar and orpiment.

With Sympt. 73.

As Sympt. 81.

With headache and vertigo.

With headache and vertigo.

Not found in THOMSON.

From smoke of wax tapers impregnated with Ars.

Symptoms observed in miners.

See Sympt. 185.

With violent vomiting.

During vomiting.

In Eph. Natrum Carbonicum ^{Nat. Cur}. the phrase is "face livid and lurid."

Not accessible.

Effects of arsenite of potash in ague patients.

Not accessible.

General statement.

Not accessible.

(For KOPP). Poisoning of adult.

From a plaster of Ars. applied for a quartan.

Poisoning of a boy.

Effects in a patient with scirrhous breast.

Effects of realgar.

Not found.

Not found.

Effects of arsenite of potash in ague patients.

Not to be found at reference.

Poisoning by cobalt, "fly-powder," a mixture of metallic arsenic with arsenious acid.

Not found.

As sympt. 267.

Literally, "Vomiting of greenish matter at night, of whitish stuff next morning.

Poisoning of a girl of twenty.

From orpiment.

Reference should be KAISER, [left] c.

Cited from CARDAN.

Poisoning of two women. For "pains" read "anxieties", anxiety.

Add "returning later with great violence."

Goertz should be GOERITZ.

Not found at reference.

Not found.

Poisoning of an adult.

, indescribable, is in the Latin "inexplicabilis."

Poisoning of adult.

Add "p. 260".

"Abdomen was also painful."

Not found.

Instead of tearing more literally in the original "lancinating."

Not found.

The Latin is "tormina circum umbilicum."

In Rau's case, "for four days."

Observations on a patient.

Not found.

Not found.

Instead of "tallow," we may translate "falt."

"Sometimes," FOWLER says

but of §623, he says, "often."

but of §623, he says, "often."

From inhaling sublimated Ars.

Effects of applying solution of Ars. for itch, in two men.

The "Brand" mortification, is . Poisoning of two adults.

It was the scrotum, not the testicles, that was swollen.

* * * * *

As sympt. 81.

As sympt. 267.

See sympt. 625.

Literally, "breathing difficult, and often interrupted by sighs.

For a long time.

Latin is"anxietates pectoris."

Both these are SCHLEGEL'S, see §183.

Both these are SCHLEGEL'S, see §183.

In self, from inhaling vapors.

Latter part of symptom should be "With much lassitude and oppression in breathing in walking."

Same case as MYRRHEN'S (see S. 14), and same symptom as S. 740.

Not found.

Observations on miners in Ars.

For a long time.

From carrying Ars. in the pocked.

As sympt. 183.

As in symp. 183.

Not found.

Poisoning of a woman.

As sympt. 183.

General statement from authors.

As sympt. 183.

"Bluitigem Eiter" (bloody pus), is "ichorose stoff" in the original; , ichorous matter.

No reference for Gabezius, and he cannot be traced.

Arsenicum Album recurrence took place once only.

With vomiting.

As symptom 81.

As symptom 81.

With symptom 987.

As symptom 81.

From application of ars. to a fungus on the head.

As symptom 81.

As symptom 81.

Convulsive paroxysm.

at first she struck outwards with the arms, then she lost all consciousness, lay like a dead person, pale, yet warm, turned her thumbs inward, turned her clenched hands, slowly drew up her arms and then slowly laid them down.

after 10 minutes she drew the mouth hither and thither, as if she waggled her jaw.

at the same time no respiration could be perceived.

after a quarter of an hour the fit ended with a jerk throughout the whole body, like a single thrust forward with arms and feet, and at once her full consciousness returned, only great prostration remained.

As sympt. 183.

As sympt. 183.

As sympt. 183.

Poisoning of a girl of 20.

Not accessible.

Statement that author knows a woman so affected by ars.

Cited from CARDAN; same symptom as 888.

Not found.

Not accessible.

From rubbing ars. into head.

Not found.

Slight.

In a refiner of ars.

Should be "in bed" and not "in sleep", and "after 12" and not "36" hours.

After opium had been taken as an antidote.

Reference ought to be.

Not accessible.

Latin, "exaestuatio."

Stated as effect of antidote, (aniseed).

With violent vomiting. (See S. 19 and 268).

As sympt. 81.

Not found.

Not found.

Latin "exaestuatio" as in S. 1171.

Not found.

Pulse was "irregular," not "intermittent."

Pulse had not been previously counted.

Arsenious oxide. Hahnemann. AS2 O3

From the time of Hahnemann to the present day Arsenicum has been one of the most frequently indicated medicines, and one of the most extensively used. In the Old School it is most extensively abused, in the form of Kali Arsenicosum ^{Fowler's solution}.

Arsenic affects every part of man.

it seems to exaggerate or depress almost all his faculties, to excite or disturb all his functions. When all our medicines have been as well proved we will effect wonderful cures. It is a substance easily proved because of its active nature, and from its very abuse we have learned much of its general nature.

While Arsenic impresses the whole economy and disturbs all the functions and tissues of man, there are certain prevailing and striking features in it.

Striking features Anxiety, restlessness, prostration, burning and cadaveric odors are prominent characteristics.

The anxiety that is found in Ars is intermingled with fear, with impulses, with suicidal inclinations, with sudden freaks and with mania.

It has delusions and various kinds of insanity; in the more active form, delirium and excitement. Sadness prevails to a great extreme. So sad that he is weary of life; he loathes life, and wants to die, and the Arsenic patient does commit suicide. It is a remedy full of suicidal tendencies

The anxiety takes form also in the restlessness, in which he constantly moves. If he is able to get up lie goes from chair to. chair.

the child goes front nurse to mother, and from one person to another. When in bed, unable to sit up, the patient tosses and turns from side to side.

if he is able, he climbs out of bed and sits in the chair, keeps moving from one place to another, and when thoroughly exhausted, he gets back into bed again.

Arsenicum Album state prevails in all diseases intermingled with prostration. An uneasiness comes in the early stage of disease, and lasts but until the prostration becomes marked. While lying in bed, at first he moves his whole body, moves himself in bed and out of bed.

but the prostration becomes so marked that he is able to move only his limbs until at last he becomes so weak that he is no longer able to move and he lies in perfect quiet in extreme prostration.

Running all through the remedy there is the burning mentioned as one of its most marked generals. There is burning in the brain, which makes him want to wash his head in cold water. This sensation of heat in the inner head with pulsation is ameliorated by the cold bathing, but when there is a rheumatic state that affects the scalp and outward nerves, and there is burning, the burning then is ameliorated by heat.

When the headache is of a congestive character, with the sensation of heat and burning inside the head, and there is a feeling as if the head, would burst, and the face is flushed and hot, that headache is better from cold applications and in the cool open air.

So marked is this that I have seen the patient sitting in the room with clothing piled on to keep the body warm and with the window open to relieve the congestion of the head.

Therefore, we say a striking feature belonging to this medicine is relief of all the complaints of the body from wrapping up and from warmth in general, and relief of the complaints of the head by cold, except the external complaints of the head, which are better from heat and from wrapping up. The neuralgias of the face and eyes, and above the eyes, are better from heat.

The burning is felt in the stomach; there is burning in the bladder, in the vagina, in the lungs. It feels as if coals of fire were in the, lungs at times, when gangrenous inflammation is threatened, and in certain stages of pneumonia.

There is burning in the throat and burning in all the mucous membranes. The skin burns with itching, and he scratches until the skin is raw, and then it burns, but the itching ceases.

as soon as the smarting lets up a trifle the itching commences again. All night the itching and burning alternate, burning for a minute, when be scratches it until it is raw, but soon the itching begins again and it seems that he has no rest.

The secretions and excretions of Arsenic are acrid; they excoriate the parts, causing burning. The discharge from the nose and eyes causes redness around the parts, and this is true of all the fluids from the various orifices.

In ulcers there is burning, and the thin, bloody fluid discharged excoriates the parts round about. The odor of the discharge is putrid. If you have ever discovered the odor of gangrene, of mortified flesh, you know the odor of the Arsenicum discharges.

The stool is putrid, like decomposed flesh, putrid blood. The discharges from the uterus, the menstrual flow, the leucorrhoea, the faeces, the urine, the expectoration, all the discharges are putrid. The ulcer is so putrid that it smells like decomposing flesh.

Arsenic produces a tendency to bleeding The patient bleeds easily and may bleed from any place. There is vomiting of blood.

bleeding from the lungs and throat. Bloody discharge from the mucous membrane, at times, when inflammation is running high.

haemorrhage from the bowels, kidneys, bladder and uterus.

anywhere that mucous membrane exists, there may be haemorrhage. Haemorrhage of black blood and discharges that are offensive.

Gangrene and sudden inflammatory conditions like gangrenous and erysipelatous inflammations are common in Arsenic. Parts suddenly take on erysipelas, or parts that are injured suddenly take on gangrene.

Gangrene in internal organs, malignant inflammations, erysipelatous inflammation. No matter how you look upon the condition, no matter what it is called, if it is a sudden inflammation that tends to produce malignancy in the part it belongs to Arsenicum Inflammation will go on in the bowels for a few days attended with a horribly offensive discharge, vomiting of clots of blood, great burning in the bowels with tympanitic condition.

When with this inflammation of the bowels the patient is relieved by heat, it means Arsenic

You should remember that Secale Cornutum ^Secale has a similar state.

it has all the tympanitic condition, all the ulceration and prostration, all the offensive odor and expulsion of offensive clots, and all the burning, but the Secale Cornutum ^Secale patient wants to be uncovered, wants things cold, wants the windows open.

The only distinguishing feature between these two remedies in a case may be that Secale Cornutum ^Secale wants cold and Arsenicum wants heat, but this is the way we individualize in our homoeopathic prescribing.

When there is gangrenous inflammation in the lungs, we find the patient has been taken with a chill, there has been restlessness, prostration, anxiety and fear.

as we enter the room we detect a horrible odor, and on looking into the pan we see the patient has been spitting up by the mouthful, black, foul expectoration.

Look and see if the patient wants to be covered warmly; if he is easily chilled, and heat feels good; then it is a hard thing to cover that case outside of Arsenicum The prostration, the vomiting, the anxiety, the restlessness the cadaveric aspect are present, and where will you find a remedy with that totality outside of Arsenic

I have many times gone a long distance to detect, from the very aspect of things, these symptoms that could be gotten while walking from the door to the bedside. Every symptom is Arsenic.

he looks like in acts like it and smells like it. You may go to a patient with high grade inflammation of the bladder, with frequent urging to urinate, straining to urinate, and there is bloody urine intermingled with clots.

You must give Arsenic, not because there is inflammation of the bladder, but because it is a rapidly progressing inflammation, and because it is gangrenous in character. The whole bladder will be involved in a short time, but Arsenic will stop that.

So it is with all the internal organs, the liver, lungs, etc.; any of them may take on violent and rapid inflammation. We are not now speaking of the particulars, but only illustrating the general state of Arsenic, in order to bring out what runs through the whole nature of it.

We shall find when we take up the remedy and go through it in a more particular way these features will stand out everywhere.

"He thinks he must die."

"There is no use of your coming, I am going to die; you might as well go home; my whole insides are mortifying."

His friend was seated on one side of the bed, giving him a few drops of water, and just about as often as he could get there with it he wanted it again.

That was all he wanted.

his mouth was black, parched and dry. He got Arsenic One of the characteristic features of Arsenic is thirst for small quantities often, just enough to wet the mouth. It is commonly used as a distinguishing feature between Bryonia ^Bryonia and Arsenic for the purpose of memorizing the Bryonia ^Bryonia has thirst for large quantities far apart, but Arsenicum little and often, or violent unquenchable thirst.

"Thoughts crowd upon him; he is too weak to keep them off or to hold on to one idea."

That is, he lies in bed tormented day and night by depressing ideas and distressing thoughts. This is one form of his anxiety; when tormented with thoughts, he is anxious. In the delirium he sees all kinds of vermin on his bed.

"Picks the bedclothes."

"Delirium during sleep, unconscious mania."

"Whimpering and gnashing teeth."

"Loud moaning, groaning and weeping."

"Lamentations, despair of life."

"Screaming with pains."

"Fear drives him out of bed, he hides in a closet."

These are instances of insanity that take on first a state of anxiety, restlessness, and fear. Religious insanity, with the delusion that she has sinned away her day of grace, the biblical promise of salvation do not apply to her, there is no hope for her, she is doomed to punishment.

She has been thinking on religious matters until she is insane. Finally she enters into a more complete insane state, a state of tranquility.

silent, and with aversion to talk. So we see one stage enters into another.

we have to take the whole case together.

we have to note the course that the case has run in order to see it clearly and note that in one stage there were certain symptoms and, in another stage, other symptoms.

For instance, we know that in the acute conditions of Arsenicum there is either thirst for ice cold water, and for only enough to moisten the mouth, or there is thirst for water in large quantities and yet it does not quench the thirst.

but this thirsty stage goes on to another in which there is aversion to water, and hence we see that in chronic diseases.

Arsenicum is thirstless. So it is in a case of mania; in the chronic state he is tranquil, but in the earlier stages, in order to be an Arsenicum case, he must have gone through the Arsenicum restlessness, anxiety and fear.

Fear is a strong element in the mental state, fear to be alone.

fears something is going to injure him when he is alone.

full of horror. he dreads solitude and wants company, because in company he can talk and put off the fear.

but as this insanity increases he fails to appreciate company and the fear comes in spite of it. He has a violent increase of his fear and horror in the dark and many complaints come on in the evening as darkness is coming on..

Many of the mental troubles, as well as the physical troubles, come on and are increased at certain times. While some complaints, pains and aches are worse in the morning, most of the sufferings of Arsenicum are worse from 1-2 P.M. and from 1-2 A.M. After midnight, very soon after midnight sometimes, his sufferings begin, and from 1-2 o'clock they are intensified. Extreme anxiety in the evening in bed.

"Averse to meeting acquaintances, because he imagines he has formerly offended them."

The attacks of anxiety at night drive him out of bed. This is an anxiety that affects the heart, and so the mental anxiety and cardiac anxiety almost seem to coincide. A sudden anxious fear comes over him at night; he jumps out of bed with fear that he is going to die, or that he is going to suffocate.

"Anxiety like one who has committed murder."

Arsenicum Album is one form of his anxiety; he finally works up to the idea that the officers are coming after him, and watches to see if they are coming in to arrest him. Some unusual evil is going to happen to him; always looking for something terrible to happen.

"Irritable, discouraged, restless."

"Restlessness, cannot rest anywhere."

"As a consequence of fright, inclination to, commit suicide."

The Arsenicum patient with this mental state is always freezing, hovers around the fire, cannot get clothing enough to keep warm, a great sufferer from the cold.

Chronic Arsenicum invalids cannot get warm; they are always chilly, pale and waxy, and in such invalids, after they have bad several unusual weak spells, dropsical conditions come on.

Arsenicum is full of puffiness and dropsy.

oedematous condition of the extremities.

dropsy of the shut sacs or of the cavities.

swelling about the eyes.

swelling of the face, so that it pits upon pressure. Arsenicum in these swellings is especially related to the lower eyelid rather than the upper, while in Kali Carb ^{Kali carb} the swelling is more in the upper eyelid than the lower, between the lid and the brow.

There are times when Kali Carb ^{Kali carb} looks very similar to Arsenic, and little features like that will be distinguishing points. If they run together in generals, then we must observe their particular peculiarities.

Periodicity In the headaches we have a striking general feature of Arsenicum, brought out in their periodicity. Running all through Arsenicum Album there is periodicity, and for this reason it has been extensively useful in malarial affections which have, as a characteristic of their nature, periodicity.

The periodical complaints of Arsenic come on every other day, or every fourth day, or every seven days, or every two weeks. The headaches come on these cycles, every other, or third, or fourth, seventh or fourteenth day.

The more chronic the complaint is, the longer is its cycle, so that we will find the more acute and sharp troubles in which Arsenic is suitable will have every other day aggravations and every fourth day aggravations but, as the trouble becomes chronic and deep-seated, it takes on the seventh day aggravation, and in the psoric manifestations of a long, lingering and deep-seated kind there is a fourteenth day aggravation.

Arsenicum Album appearing in cycles is common to a good many remedies, but is especially marked in China ^China and Arsenic These two remedies are similar to each other in many respects, and they are quite similar in their general nature to the manifestations that often occur in malaria. It is true, however, that Arsenic is more frequently indicated than China ^China In every epidemic of malarial fever that I have gone through I have found Arsenicum symptoms more common than those of China ^China

These headaches bring out the interesting point that we mentioned above. Arsenicum has in its nature an alternation of states, and this carries with it certain generals. Arsenicum in all of its bodily complaints is a cold remedy.

the patient sits over the fire and shivers, wants plenty of clothing, and wants to be in a warm room.

So long as the complaints are in the body this is so; but when the complaints are in the head, while he wants the body warm he wants the head washed in cold water, or wants the cold air upon it.

The complaints of the head must conform to the generals that apply to the head, and the complaints of the body must be associated with the generals that apply to the body. It is a difficult thing to say which one of these two circumstances is most general, and it is sometimes difficult to say which one is the general of the patient himself, because he confuses you by saying

"I am worse in the cold," but when his headache is on he says

"I am better in the cold, I want to be in the cold."

It is really only the head, and you have to single these out and study them by the parts affected. When things are so striking you must examine into it to see what it is that brings about modality.

You will see a similar state running through Phosphorus ^Phosphorus.

the complaints of the stomach and head are better from cold, i. e., he wants cold applications upon the head with head sufferings, and wants cold things in the stomach with stomach complaints, but in all the complaints of the body be is ameliorated from heat.

If he steps out into the cool air, he will commence to cough, if he have a chest trouble. So we see that the modalities that belong to the part affected must always be taken into account. For instance, you have a patient suffering from neuralgia or rheumatic affections and these same pains, extend, to the head, then he wants the head wrapped up because they are ameliorated from heat.

But when it comes to cases of congestive conditions of the head, he then is better with his head very cold. Now, as I have said, there is an alternation of these states in Arsenicum

I will illustrate by mentioning a case.

Once a patient had been dragging along with periodical sick headaches. The sick headaches were better from cold water, cold applications to the head, could hardly get them cold enough, and the colder the better. These headaches came every two weeks, and so long as they were present he desired cold to the head.

Then these periodical headaches would be better, for long periods.

but when they were away he was suffering from rheumatism of the joints, which was also periodical, and also more or less tenacious, and when this rheumatism of the joints and extremities, with more or less swelling and oedema, was present he could not get warm enough.

he was at the fire and wrapped up.

he was relieved by heat, and wanted warm air and a warm room.

Arsenicum Album would last for a period and then subside, and back would come his sick headaches and last for a while. That is what I meant by the alternation of states. Arsenicum cured that man, and he never had any of them afterwards.

The alternation of states sometimes means that there are two diseases in the body, and sometimes the remedy covers the whole feature in alternation of states.

I remember another case, which will illustrate this peculiar nature of alternation of complaints, which is shared by other remedies besides Arsenic

A patient suffered from a pressure in the top of the head, such as I recently described to you under Alumen ^Alumen

She would suffer for weeks from that pressure on the top of the head, and the only relief she could get was from hard pressure; she tired herself out with hard pressure and would contrive all kinds of weights to put upon the head.

That would go away in the night and she would wake up the next morning with constant urging to urinate. The irritable bladder alternated with pain on top of the head.

Alumen ^Alumen cured. In many of these anti-psoric remedies we have an alternation of states.

Arsenicum Album illustrates the necessity for getting the symptoms of all the states that present themselves for cure, otherwise you will many times prescribe in a chronic case of psoric character and temporarily relieve it, when back comes another aspect of it.

You have only hastened the disease a little faster than it would go if let alone. But that is not homoeopathic prescribing. Be sure, when a remedy presents one state, that it is a clearly indicated in the other state, otherwise that remedy is not the similimum.

You must hunt until you find the remedy that has both states, or you will be disappointed. We sometimes do not discover this alternation of states until we have brought it back two or three times by incorrect prescribing.

Some people are so reticent and so difficult to get symptoms from that we do not always get these symptoms.

But you examine your record and you find where - you have made a foolish prescription, that you drove a new condition away and back came the first trouble, and you kept on with this see-saw business.

Now remember in doing this your patient is not improving, and that you must re-study the whole case, taking the alternating states into, account. In Arsenic, the head symptoms alternate with physical symptoms.

You will find running through certain remedies, as a part of their nature, that mental symptoms alternate with physical symptoms.

when the physical symptoms are present, then mental symptoms are not trates the necessity for getting the symptoms of all the states that is determined it is a good point, but sometimes you do not find a remedy, because many of our remedies are not well recorded.

they have not yet been observed in their alternations and marked as such.

We find in Podophyllum Peltatum ^Podophyllum the peculiar feature that the headaches alternate with diarrhea; he is subject to sick headaches and to diarrhea, and one or other will be present.

In Arnica ^Arnica the mental symptoms alternate with uterine symptoms. The uterine symptoms, when ob served, look like Arnica ^Arnica, but these go away in the night and mental symptoms come on, the mind being heavy, gloomy and cloudy.

When you have remedies that have these manifestations it requires a greater depth of vision to see the alternation of states, because these things are not always brought out in the proving, for the reason that one prover had one group of symptoms, and another.

Yet a remedy that is capable of bringing out the two groups of symptoms is sufficient to cure this alternation of states. The periodical headaches of Arsenic are found in all parts of the head.

They are the congestive headaches with throbbing and burning, with anxiety and restlessness; hot head and relief from cold, There are headaches in the forehead, which are throbbing, worse from light, intensified from motion, often attended with great restlessness, forcing him to move, with great anxiety.

Most of the headaches are attended with nausea and vomiting. The sick headaches are of the worst sort, especially those that come every two weeks. In some of these old, broken-down constitutions you will find he is cold, pallid, sickly.

he is always chilly and freezing except when the headache is on, and it is better from cold.

the face much wrinkled, great anxiety and no desire for water.

Remember that it was said in the acute state of Arsenic there is thirst, thirst for little and often, dry mouth and desire for water enough to moisten the lips, but in the chronic states of Arsenic he is generally thirstless.

Then there are dreadful occipital headaches, so severe that the patient feels stunned or dazed. They come on after midnight, from excitement, from exertion.

they come on from becoming heated in walking, which produces determination of blood to the head. Nat Mur ^{Nat. mur} is a medicine. analogous to this in its periodicity and in many of its complaints. It has congestive headaches from walking and becoming heated.

especially from walking in the sun.

The Arsenicum headaches are generally worse from light and noise, better from lying down in a dark room, lying with the head on two pillows. Many of the headaches commence in the afternoon from I to 3 o'clock, after the noon meal, grow worse into the afternoon, lasting all night.

violent head pain during the chill of an intermittent fever.

headache as if the skull would burst during an intermittent fever. Arsenicum has this head pain of a congestive character in intermittent fever, as if the head would burst.

A peculiar feature of the thirst is that there is no thirst during the chill except for hot drinks; during the heat there is thirst little and often for water enough to moisten the mouth, which is almost no thirst, and during the sweat there is thirst for large drinks.

Thirst begins with the beginning of the heat and increases as the dryness of the mouth; he desires only to moisten the mouth until he breaks out in a sweat, and then the thirst becomes a desire for large quantities very often, and the more he sweats the more desire he has for water.

The headache is during the chill; it increases, so that it becomes a congestive, throbbing headache during the chill and heat; this grows better towards the end of the heat as the sweat breaks out, it is ameliorated by the sweat.

In chronic headaches, congestive headaches and malarial complaints, a tendency to shrivel is observed upon the skin; a prematurely old, wrinkled appearance of the skin comes on. The mucous membrane of the lips and mouth often shrivels and becomes wrinkled.

Arsenicum Album is also found in the diphtheritic membrane of the throat as a peculiar feature of Arsenic, and belongs, as far as I know, to no other remedy. The exudation in the throat is leathery looking and shriveled.

A shriveled membrane is not a sure indication for Arsenic, but when Arsenic is indicated you would be likely to find this kind of membrane; such cases as are very malignant in character, very offensive, putrid, those with a gangrenous odor.

At times the head is in constant motion when there are complaints in the body, because parts of the body are too sore to be moved; then the motion of the head comes on because of restlessness and uneasiness, and he keeps it in motion even though it does not ameliorate.

The face and head are subject to oedema; dropsy of the scalp and erysipelatous inflammation of the face and head.

The scalp pits upon pressure and there is a little crepitation under it from pressure. The scalp is subject to eruptions and is very sensitive. So sensitive is the scalp that the hair cannot be combed; it seems as if the touch of the comb or brush when rubbing over the scalp went into the brain.

Sensitiveness is a feature of Arsenic; sensitiveness to smell and touch; over sensitiveness of all the senses. A peculiar feature that perhaps I have not brought out is the over sensitiveness to the circumstances and surroundings of the room.

The Arsenicum patient is an extremely fastidious patient. Hering once described him as "the Aurum Metallicum ^gold headed cane patient." If this is carried out in a woman who is sick in bed she is in great distress if every picture on the wall does not hang perfectly straight.

Those who are sensitive to disorder and confusion and the disturbed and made worse until everything is placed in order have a morbid fastidiousness which has its similimum in Arsenic

There are discharges from the eyes. It may be a conjunctivitis, in a general way involving the lids and the globe, going on sometimes to ulceration with thin, bloody discharge, increasing to thick, acrid discharge that excoriates the eye, making the canthi red and causing granulation with burning.

The burning is better from washing in cool water and also better from dry heat. Very often ulcers appear on the globe of the eye, often upon the cornea.

It has various kinds of hypertrophy beginning in patches that will form scars, and in old ulcerated patches little growth similar to a pterygium growing towards the centre of the eye and threatening blindness.

The inflammations are sometimes attended with swelling, burning and excoriating discharge; this swelling is bag-like in character, and so we find "baggy" lids and little bags forming under the eyes.

The face is waxy and pale, presenting the appearance of a broken down constitution or a dropsical condition.

The catarrhal state involves throat and nose, and it is sometimes difficult to separate the nose symptoms, from the throat symptoms.

The Arsenicum patient is always taking cold in the nose, always sneezing from every change in the weather. He is always chilly and suffers from drafts, and is worse in cold, damp weather; always freezing, chilled through.

These pale, waxy, broken down constitutions with catarrhal discharges from the nose on looking at a bright light become blind.

Sneezing and coryza with inflammatory conditions through the whole nasal cavity, throat, larynx and chest.

The cold begins in the nose and goes down into the throat, very often causing hoarseness with dry, tickling, hard, rasping cough.

It is a difficult matter to find remedies for a coryza that begins in the nose and extends into the chest with bronchial troubles; very often you require a change of remedy, as the chest symptoms often run to a different remedy. It is difficult to find a remedy that covers the symptoms of both nose and chest.

Arsenicum is the remedy for old, chronic catarrhal troubles of die nose where the nose bleeds easily, and he is always sneezing and taking cold, always chilly and pallid, tired, restless, full of anxiety in the night and has troublesome dreams.

The mucous membrane is easily inflamed, producing patches of red and ulcers that bleed easily. Great crusts form in the back of the nose.

There is a striking tendency too ulcerate in Arsenicum If it is a sore throat it ulcerates; if colds settle in the eyes, they may end in ulceration; catarrhal troubles in the nose end in ulceration; and this ulceration tendency, no matter where the troubles locates, is a very strong feature of Arsenicum

Now let some of these discharges slack up and you have a chronic state apparently from retained secretions, but it is a form of blood poisoning. So it is with suppressed ear discharges, suppressed throat discharges, suppressed leucorrhea and ulcerations.

Arsenicum is one of the medicines that will conform to the anaemic state that follows each suppression. At the present day it is fashionable to use the cautery, to make local applications to stop leucorrhoea and other discharges and to heal up ulcers.

Now, when these external troubles go there is an anaemic state established in the economy, the patient becomes waxy and pallid, sickly looking, and these catarrhal discharges come on as a means of relief because of the suppression of some other condition.

For instance, since the suppression of a leucorrhoea the woman has had thick, bloody or watery discharge from the nose. It is frequently suitable to the constitution when an ulcer has been dried up by salves, or an old car discharge has been stopped by the outward application of powders. The doctor thinks he has done a clever thing in stopping such discharges, but he has only succeeded in damming up the secretions which are really a relief to the patient.

Such medicines as Sulphur ^Sulphur, Calc Carb ^Calcarea and Arsenicum are suitable for the catarrhal discharges that come from these suppressions, in broken down constitutions.

Arsenic is also like unto the condition that has been brought about from the absorption of animal poisons. It goes to the very root of the evil, as it is similar to the symptoms brought on from a dissecting wound. Arsenic and Lachesis ^Lachesis are medicines that will go to the cause at once and antidote the poison, establishing harmony and turning things into order.

The nose symptoms, then, of Arsenic are very troublesome and furnish and extensive part of the symptom image of an Arsenicum patient. They always take cold easily, are always sensitive to cold and the catarrh is always roused up on the slightest provocation.

When an Arsenicum patient is at his best he has discharge more or less of a thick character, but when he takes a little cold it becomes thin; the thick discharge that is necessary to his comfort slacks up, and then he gets headache and on comes thirst, restlessness, anxiety and distress.

Arsenicum Album goes on to a catarrhal fever of two or three days duration, and then the thick discharge starts up again and he feels better; all his pains and aches disappear. It has been of great service in epithelioma of nose and lips.

Inflammation of the throat and tonsils with burning, increased by cold and better by warm drinks. There is redness and a shriveled condition of the mucous membrane.

When there is blood poisoning going on, as in diphtheria, and exudate appears upon the mucous membrane and it becomes gray and shriveled, ashy colored, and this sometimes covers the whole of the soft palate and the arches. It looks withered. He is prostrated, anxious, sinking, weak, not a great deal of fever, but much dryness of the mouth.

The catarrhal state goes down into the larynx with hoarseness, and into the trachea with burning, worse from coughing, and then comes constriction of the chest, asthmatic dyspnoea and dry, hacking cough with no expectoration.

Arsenicum Album testing cough is attended with anxiety, prostration, restlessness, exhaustion and sweat, and the cough does not seem to do any good.

The cough is the early part of it and keeps on as a dry, rasping, harsh cough for several days without doing any good; and then asthmatic symptoms come on, when be expectorates great. quantities of thin, watery sputum.

There is constriction about the chest a great sense of tightness and wheezing, and he feels he will suffocate. Bloody mucus is expectorated at times, but the symptoms are more generally of a catarrhal character.

Symptoms of pneumonia sometimes appear with the rusty expectoration. The expectoration is excoriating. There is in the chest a sense of burning, as if coals of fire were in the chest, and it goes on to bleeding and liver-colored expectoration.

Arsenicum is a bleeding medicine, one that predisposes to haemorrhage, and bleeding takes place from all mucous membranes; commonly of bright red blood, but in this region the parts take on a gangrenous state and the hemorrhages become black and there are little clots like portions of liver.

The same are found in the vomited matter and in the stools. The expectoration is horribly offensive, so much so that you soon get the idea that there is a state of gangrene.

The patient is at this time going into a state that perhaps cannot be any better described than a gangrenous inflammation; there will be signs to indicate the inflammatory condition, and there will be the smell of the expectoration which you will detect as soon as you open the door,

The expectoration is a thin, watery fluid intermingled with clots. In the pan you will find this watery expectoration looking like prune juice, and in the midst of it will be clots of blood.

the offensiveness is horrible. He has gone through the period of restlessness and is now prostrated, sinking, pallid, and likely enough covered with a cold sweat.

Extreme sensitiveness of the stomach is present.

he does not want to be touched. Heat applied externally relieves, and there is a temporary relief from warm drinks.

the heat is grateful. In the bowels we have much trouble.

Arsenicum Album has all the symptoms of peritonitis.

distension of the abdomen, a tympanitic state.

cannot be handled or touched, yet he will keep moving because he is so restless, he cannot keep still, but finally he becomes so weak that exhaustion takes the place of restlessness.

Dysentery is likely to come on, with involuntary passages of urine and faeces, one or both, with haemorrhage from the bowels and bloody urine.

As the bowels move, we get the cadaveric odor to the stool, a smell like putrid flesh. The stool is bloody, watery, brown like prune juice, or black and horribly offensive.

Sometimes dysenteric in character with dreadful straining and burning of the anus; every stool burns as though there were coals of fire in the rectum; burning it! the bowels, burning all the way through. The pain in the abdomen is better from the application of hot things. The tympanitic condition is extreme.

A thick, bloody discharge is passed with a horrible odor, all substances are vomited, the patient desires to be in a very warm room, wants to be well covered, wants hot applications and warm drinks, looks cadaveric and smells cadaveric, with a dry, pungent odor that penetrates everything, but if he wants the covers off, wants a cool room and windows open, wants to be sponged with cold water, and wants ice cold drinks then he must have Secale Cornutum ^Secale

Bowels I want to warn you against the too promiscuous use of Arsenic in the summer complaints of young babies, for dysentery and cholera infantum. It has so many little symptoms that are so common to these complaints. that if you do not look out and are not warned you will be likely to give your patient Arsenic, suppress some of the symptoms, changing the aspect of the case so that you cannot find a remedy for it and yet not cure the case with Arsenic

There is a strong tendency to be routine and give Arsenic without a sufficient number of generals being present; i.e., if you give it on particulars and not on the generals of the case.

Arsenicum Album medicine is full of diarrhea and dysenteric symptoms; in these conditions there will be the pallor, the anxiety, the cadaveric aspect and the cadaveric odors.

In the dysentery there is most distressing and frequent urging to stool, scanty, slimy, black, fluid, inky stools with cadaveric smell, great prostration, restlessness and pallor. In the bowel troubles, in low forms of disease, the stool becomes involuntary.

Purging is sometimes present in Arsenic, but generally be does not have much purging, such as we find in Podophyllum Peltatum ^Podophyllum, Acid Phos ^{Phos. ac} Usually there will be little, frequent gushes, little spurts with flatus and the great exhaustion that occurs in cholera, little spurts with mucus, slimy, whitish stools.

Arsenic is not so commonly indicated in cholera, i. e., during the gushing period, but sometimes after the gushing is over and the vomiting and purging have passed, leaving a state of extreme exhaustion, we have a state that appears like coma, the patient looks almost as if dead, except that he breathes. We find, then, that Arsenicum will establish reaction.

The passages from the bowels are acrid, excoriating, causing redness and burning. Very often the burning extends into the bowels.

This, like all other complaints, is attended with restlessness, and when not at stool he is walking the floor, going from bed to chair and from chair to bed. He will get on the stool and then back to bed, then he is hurried to stool again, sometimes he loses it.

Sometimes there is a chronic hoemorrhoidal state with burning, and the hemorrhoids protrude when at stool, he is much exhausted after getting back into bed after a stool, with these protruding lumps which are like grapes and feel like coals of fire. They are hot, dry and bleeding. Fissures of the rectum that bleed at every stool, with burning Itching and eczematous eruptions about the anus with burning.

Arsenicum Album kind of pain may be felt anywhere in the body.

burning is characteristic of Arsenic, stitching is characteristic of Arsenic Now, put these together and the patient often describes it as being stuck with red hot needless all over him. This red hot sensation, which is a common feature all over, is felt at the anus, and especially when there are hemorrhoids, burning and sticking like hot needles in the hemorrhoids.

At times when a patent is coming down with the early stage of a violent attack he will have all the rigor and chill that it is possible to find in the Materia Medica and that can be found in disease. Rigors and chills of violent character, and at such times he describes a feeling as if the blood flowing through the vessels were ice water. He feels a rushing through the body of ice cold waves.

When the fever comes on, he is intensely hot from head to foot, before the sweat has appeared, he feels that boiling water is going through the blood vessels. Then comes on the sweat and dyspnoea and all complaints in which he is prostrated and becomes cold.

While the sweat some times relieves the fever and pains, yet it is prolonged and attended with great exhaustion and does not relieve his exhaustion.

Many of his complaints are increased with the sweat; for instance, thirst is increased, the drinking is copious and does not relieve, it seems he cannot get enough and patients will say

"I can drink the well dry," or

"Give me a bucket of water."

Such things are indicative of the state of thirst. During the fever he wants little and often; during the chill he wants hot drinks.

Arsenicum is a very useful medicine in the eruptions of the genitals with burning.

In little ulcers that burn, even when they are syphilitic.

herpetic vesicles that appear upon the foreskin and upon the labia.

chancre or cancroids with burning, smarting and stinging, but especially in those that are weak, that offer no willingness to heal, but that do the very opposite, that spread, those that we call phagedenic, those that eat from their outer margins, become larger and larger.

Ulcerations Arsenic and Merc Viv ^Merc corr. are the two principal medicines for spreading ulcerations such as eat in every direction, very offensive. Such ulcerations as follow the opening of a bubo in the inguinal region where there is no tendency to heal.

A little, watery, offensive discharge keeps coming and extending, ulceration keeps spreading round about the opening, no tendency to heal.

Or the patient has been in the hands of a surgeon who has passed his knife down the threatening suppurating bubo and it has been followed by red, angry, erysipelatous appearance and shows no tendency to heal.

The edges have been removed by ulceration, and now the surface has cleared off, leaving a surface the size of a dollar; sometimes becoming serpiginous. These ulcers are sensitive to touch and burn like fire.

In the female the labia are enormously swollen with burning, stinging pains, hard and swollen. Erysipelatous inflammation of these organs, ulcerations, of a syphilitic character; these when such symptoms burning, smarting and stinging are present.

In the female, violent, burning pains in the genitals with or without swelling, burning that extends up into the vagina, with great dryness and itching of the vagina.

The leucorrhoeal discharge excoriates the parts, causing itching and burning with great suffering. Whitish, watery, thin discharges that excoriate; so copious sometimes that it will run down the thighs.

The Arsenicum menstrual flow is very often excoriating in character. Copious leucorrhoeal flow intermixed with menstrual flow, very profuse and very acrid.

Suppressed menstruation going on for months; amenorrhoea in prostrated, nervous patients, wrinkled, careworn, haggard facet.

Of course, Arsenic has a wonderful reputation in the old school for anaemia, and it is said to be as good as Ferrum Met ^Ferrum for anaemia.

Ferrum Met ^Ferrum and Arsenic are the strong drugs for anaemia, so that it is not to be wondered at that these pallid mortals find benefit from Arsenic

"During menstruation, stitches in the rectum."

"Leucorrhoea acrid, corroding, thick and yellow," etc.

After parturition the woman does not pass the urine; no urine in the bladder; suppression, or the bladder is full and it does not pass.

In connection with this subject you will find Causticum ^Causticum the most frequently indicated remedy when you go back and the woman has not passed the urine and it is time that she should.

you will frequently find it indicated when you have no other symptoms to go on. Aconite ^Aconite will be more frequently indicated than any other remedy if the infant has not passed the urine.

Arsenicum Album is keynote practice and is to be condemned when there are other symptoms to indicate a remedy.

If there are no other symptoms study Aconite ^Aconite and Causticum ^Causticum and see if there is any reason why they should not be given.

Burning, stinging pains have entirely disappeared, in incurable cases, of course. It becomes one of the palliatives.

Study its relation to asthma and difficult breathing, dyspnoea. Arsenic has cured some long standing cases of asthma of a nervous character.

asthma that comes on after midnight, in patients who suffer from the cold, those who are very pallid, dry wheezing cough, must sit up in bed and hold the chest, anxious restlessness with prostration.

The heart symptoms are troublesome to manage when they get to be like Arsenic.

the symptoms correspond to a state of great weakness, great palpitation, palpitation from the least exertion or excitement, great anxiety, anguish, weakness.

he cannot walk, he cannot go upstairs, he can hardly move without increasing the palpitation.

every excitement brings on palpitation.

"Severe paroxysms of palpitation or attacks of syncope during endocarditis."

Arsenicum corresponds to most serious complaints of the heart, corresponds to many of the incurable complaints of the heart; i. e., when you see Arsenic corresponding in all of the symptoms with these marked cardiac affections, dropsy of the pericardium, etc., you have a class of cases that are very serious,

"Angina pectoris," etc.

"Rheumatism affecting the heart," etc.

"Hydropericardium with great irritability," etc.

"Pulse frequent, small, trembling."

"Pulsation through whole body," etc., etc.

Again this goes on to another state when the heart becomes weak, pulse thread-like, patient pale and cold, covered with sweat, pulse very feeble. When this is not a state of the heart itself then Arsenic becomes a wonderful remedy; that is, it is capable of cure.

You can read the general state of intermittent fever and fevers generally and apply what has been said.

Arsenic has all the violence of the chill that you can find in any remedy, with excitement, headache, prostration, dry mouth, desire for hot drinks and to be covered up warmly, with all the anxious restlessness and prostration that you can find in any medicine; but the time of the Arsenic case is an important thing.

A striking feature of the Arsenic time of chill is its irregularity, coming not twice alike, coming at any time. It has afternoon chill and after midnight chill, sometimes in the morning, sometimes at 3 or 4 P.M., sometimes at 1 P.M.

It has a striking periodicity in its nature. Hence it has an intermittent nature. It has a striking feature of thirst.

During the chill, while there is sometimes great thirst, he has aversion to cold things, hence can take only hot drinks, hot teas, etc.

During the fever the thirst increases because he has dry mouth, and he drinks little and often, just a teaspoonful to wet his dry mouth.

Water does not quench his thirst, for he wants but a tablespoonful, little and often. This runs on into the sweat with prostration, increased coldness, desire for copious drinks, unquenchable thirst for cold drinks.

The chill is attended with great aching in the bones, likely to commence in the extremities, and during the chill there is a great head congestion with purple fingers and toes.

Put these things together and the prostration that occurs with the awful anxiety, and you can most always in a general way pick out the Arsenic case.

But it has so many details in its chill, fever and sweat that if you take the details of symptoms and leave these general features out you will be likely to be able to cover almost any case of chills, i.e., you may think you will, but unless some of these general nates are present that stamp it as Arsenic you will fail.

It is one thing to stamp the whole case as Arsenic and another thing to say that these are Arsenicum symptoms.

So it is with China ^China and Quinine; they have numerous particular symptoms, and yet to make the case a China ^China or Quinine case the striking general features must be present.

aches There are headaches on one side of the head involving the scalp, one-half of the head, worse from motion, better from cold washing, better from walking in the cold air, though very often the jar or stepping starts up a feeling as of a wave of pain, shaking, vibration or looseness in the brain.

such are the sensations and these are conditions of pulsation.

and bowels When we come to the stomach we find everything that may be called a gastritis, vomiting of everything taken, even a teaspoonful of water, extreme irritation of the stomach, great prostration, horrible anxiety.

dry mouth. a very little hot water will sometimes comfort him for a minute, but soon it must come up.

cold fluids are vomited immediately. The whole oesophagus is in a state of inflammation.

everything burns that comes up or goes down. Vomiting of bile and blood.

Great anguish and restlessness, driving from place to place.

Great and sudden prostration, sinking of vital force.

Intense burning pains.

Intense thirst; drinks often, but little, as cold water disagrees.

Dyspnoea worse on motion, especially ascending.

Vomiting and stool simultaneous; worse after eating or drinking.

Modalities worse in cold air, from cold things, cold applications; and 1 to 3 A. M. Movement; better by warm air or room and hot applications, relieved by sweat.

The mental restlessness is as great as the bodily. He has attacks of anxiety that drive him out of bed at night. Even when there is no pain at all he wants to be continually changing place, walking about if strong enough, without any other reason than that he can't keep still. Often the first beneficial effect to be observed in cases calling for Arsenicum Album is that the anxiety grows less, the patient lies still, his pain is not so much less, but it does not make him so restless; he can bear it better. This is a good sign and is generally followed by amelioration of all the symptoms. It makes little difference what the disease, if this persistent restlessness and especially if great weakness is also present, don't forget Arsenic.

Arsenicum leads all the remedies for burning sensation, especially in acute diseases. It is not by any means confined to acute diseases, but is often found in chronic affections, especially of a malignant character or tending to malignancy. I think perhaps Sulphur ^Sulphur outranks it generally for burnings in chronic affections. There is hardly an organ or tissue in the human system where these burnings of Arsenic are not found. This burning, strange as it may seem, is greatly ameliorated by heat. Hot applications if they can be gotten in contact with the part, also heat of a warm stove or warm room. This is the exact opposite of Secale Cornutum ^{Secale cornutum}, for while the part is objectively cold, it still burns, but hot applications are intolerable; they cannot even bear to have it covered.

Arsenic profoundly affects the alimentary canal from lips to anus. The lips are so dry and parched and cracked that the patient often licks them to moisten them. The tongue is affected in various ways. It may be dry and red, with raised papillae; or red, with indented edges.

The pains in stomach are terrible and aggravated by the least food or drink, especially, if cold. The abdominal pains also are intense, causing the patient to turn and twist in all possible shapes and directions. Diarrhoea of all kinds of stools, from simply watery to black, bloody and horribly offensive, and finally the end of the tract is reached and we have haemorrhoids. Now in every one of these affections, ranging along the whole length of the canal, and from the lightest grade of irritation to the most intense inflammatory and malignant forms of disease, we will be apt to find everywhere present the characteristic burning of Arsenicum Album, in greater or lesser degree; and the not less characteristic amelioration from heat, and also, though not quite so invariably, the midnight aggravation.

Arsenicum also has its sphere of usefulness in diseases of the respiratory organs. First, for acute coryza it stands in the front rank, the choice often having to be made between Arsenicum Album, Allium Cepa ^Cepa and Merc Viv ^Mercurius. Arsenicum has the fluent discharge which corrodes the lips and wings of the nose and more burning than the other two remedies. It often follows well after Merc Viv ^Mercurius if that remedy only partially relieves.

Arsenicum is particularly efficacious in many affections of the lungs, where the breathing is very much oppressed. Respiration is wheezing, with cough and frothy expectoration. Patient cannot lie down; must sit up to breathe, and is unable to move without being greatly put out of breath. The air passages seem constricted. It is especially useful in asthmatic affections caused or aggravated by suppressed eruptions, like pneumonia from retrocedent measles, or even chronic lung troubles from suppressed eczema. I remember a case of asthma of years' standing to which I was called at midnight, because they were afraid the patient would die before morning. Found that her attacks always came on at 1 A. M. Gave Arsenicum alb. 30th, and she was completely cured by it.

The symptom by Rollin R. Gregg, "Acute, sharp, fixed or darting pain in apex and through upper third of right lung," is a gem, and has enabled me to cure a number of cases of obstinate lung troubles. In the last stage off pneumonia of old people, with gangrenous expectoration, if the other symptoms correspond, Arsenicum Album has often saved life. The burning is often found here as elsewhere. Arsenicum is also one of our best remedies in pleuritic effusions.

Here is a picture that shows a condition of things in chronic trouble calling for Arsenicum Album. "From climbing mountains, or other muscular exertions, want of breath, prostration, sleeplessness and other ailments." This shows how weak the patient is, and this weakness may be coupled with various forms of disease. You may say it is common for sick people to be weak. True, but the Arsenicum patient is weak out off proportion to the rest of his trouble, or apparently so; and it is a general prostration, not local like the sense of weakness in the chest of Acid Phos ^{Phosphoric acid}, Stannum Iodatum ^Stannum and Sulphur ^Sulphur.

When we come to the tissues we find our remedy almost universally present.

It attacks the blood, causing septic changes, exanthemata, ecchymoses, petechiae, etc.

It attacks the veins; varices burn like fire, worse at night.

It attacks the serous membranes, causing copious serous effusion.

It attacks the glands, which indurate or suppurate.

It attacks the periosteum.

It attacks the joints; causing pale swellings, burning pains, etc.

It causes inflammatory swellings with burning lancinating pains.

It causes general anasarca; skin pale, waxy or earth colored; great thirst (Apis Mel ^Apis none).

It causes rapid emaciation; atrophy of children.

It causes ulcerations, constantly extending in breadth. The ulcers burn like fire, pain even during sleep, discharge may be copious or scanty, the base blue, black or lardaceous.

Anthrax burning like fire; cold blue skin dry as parchment, peeling off in large scales.

"Sphacelus," parts look black or burn like fire.

"Gangrene," better from heat (worse, Secale Cornutum ^Secale).

"Parchment" like dryness, or dry scaly skin.

The skin troubles of Arsenicum Album are mostly dry and scaly, and almost always burning. It is one of our best remedies for affections caused by retrocedent or suppressed exanthemata, also for suppressed chronic eczema, etc.

But it is impossible and outside the scope of this work to mention by name all the affections of the tissues in which Arsenicum Album is useful.

Notwithstanding this, Arsenic is not a panacea. It must, like every other remedy, be indicated by its similar symptoms or failure is the outcome. Arsenicum Album's great keynotes are Restlessness, Burning, Prostration, and Midnight Aggravation.

Region

MUCOUS MEMBRANES

MIND

RESPIRATION

Lungs; R apex

Blood

Heart

Nerves

SPLEEN

Lymphatics

Muscles

SKIN

Serous cavities

Organs

Sensations

Sensation as if an eruption was about to appear all over face,

Pains in the face, teeth, and gums,

Increase of pain in face on touching the painless side,

The left side of the face feels colder than the right,

Heat and redness of face,

Violent burning and itching in the face for half an hour, during which the pain in face diminishes,

Flushes of heat in face, with anxiety,

Tearings in face of a quotidian type,

Tearing pain in left half of the face,

Throbbing in face and head as if the boiling blood would burst the veins,

Itching in the face; he scratches it until it is red,

Red spot on right cheek,

Extensive tumefaction of the right cheek, with violent pain in the whole of that side of the face; smooth, shining, scarlet redness of the skin over the swelling,

Corrosive ulcer on the lip, painful in the evening after lying down a sort of tearing and smarting pain; the pain is worst when touching the part and exposing it to the air; prevents sleep, and wakes him at night (after fourteen days),

White-powdered lips,

Lips livid,

Bluish lips,

Lips and tongue bluish,

A brown strip of shrivelled, almost burnt, epidermis extends through the middle of the vermilion border of the lower lip,

Lips spotted, black,

Lips covered with small black spots,

Painful blotches in the upper lip,

Swelling of the lips,

Swollen, cracked lips,

Lips swollen, with two large blisters, as if from a cold, one on the right edge of the upper lip, the other at the left edge of the lower lip; the former afterwards discharges lymph, the latter pus,

Lips convulsively distorted, as with risus sardonicus,

Bleeding of the under lip, after a meal (after one and a half hours),

Lips somewhat dry, and pale red,

Lips dry, and covered with herpes,

Sore lips, and ulcers in the mouth,

Pricking twitching or jerking in one side of the upper lip, especially when going to sleep,

Itching in the upper lip, as if pricked with innumerable hot needles, extending as far as under the nose; next day, swelling of the upper lip, above the vermilion border,

Jaws clenched,

Jaws closed tightly,

Jaws firmly locked,

Spasms in jaws; can scarcely separate the teeth,

When drinking, can only open mouth a little, and with difficulty,

When trying to drink, she bites the edge of the tumbler,

She swallows the offered drink with a convulsive motion of the jaws, so as to almost break the glass,

Abscesses of the jaw,

Pressure in the left upper jaw,

Twice in the space of five minutes he felt severe pains along the course of the right inferior maxillary nerve, each time five or six very painful and distinct lancinations; while lying down, some time after, very severe headache, and the same painful lancinations along the maxillary nerve,

Unusual lightness,

He felt thick,

General uneasiness,

General discomfort,

Great anxiety in the whole body with cold sweat,

Obliged to go to bed early in the evening, with general malaise; could not get warm, although the weather was quite mild; had to be covered with bed-clothes as if it was winter,

Great malaise,

General malaise, followed by vomiting,

On rising in the morning, general malaise,

General depression and sick feeling,

The pains seem intolerable, and drive the patient mad,

Pains all over,

Pains in the whole body, mostly in the evening (Sr.).

A numb pain is perceived in the whole side of the body,

The paroxysm of pain is frequently accompanied with other symptoms,

Frequent return, at regular hours, of the pains and uneasiness, as in fever and ague,

Return of the same Arsenic symptoms at the same hour, after a period of four days,

There are, at times, remissions or even intermissions in the symptoms, which may lead to a deceptive hope of recovery, or (by the recurrence of symptoms) to the erroneous supposition that a fresh quantity of poison had been administered,

Mustard plasters cause pain, but neither redness nor swelling of the parts where they are applied,

Burning pains, , (and others).

Burning pains, especially in the inner organs, skin and ulcers,

Burning, corrosive pains,

Burning pain where applied,

The burning, stitching, tearing pains, especially in the extremities, affected the patient more, as the energy of the body decreased and sensibility increased,

Day and night, fearful pains, which were generally burning, as when one has been burned, and the injured part is exposed anew to the fire; at times also stitching, and then again gouty tearing, with which, at times, an endless rapid twitching and pulling appeared at one spot. In general, the affected limb was constantly twitching,

Violent pains,

Violent pains over the whole body, as if he lay on fire or needles; external application or Arsenic,

Occasional violent pains in different parts of the body, in the knee-joint, in the soles of the feet, and in the region of the heart,

Burning in all the veins, when waking in the night, which happens frequently,

Pain in the affected part, as if the bone in that part were swollen and excoriated; felt when sitting,

Sensation as if the whole left half of the body were drawn together,

Violent anguish, as if everything became constricted, with anxiety in the pit of the stomach,

Feeling as if pressed on by a heavy body,

On awaking, every morning, sharp pains all over the body, and aching pains across the shoulders and back of the neck,

Sharp pains all over the body, especially in the genitals,

Fine stitches over the whole body,

Tearing pains in the bones,

Ulcerative pain in the affected part, as if had passed into the stage of suppuration and were about to open; felt when sitting,

Pain in the whole trunk, mostly in the small of the back and back, especially after riding on horseback (in a practiced rider),

Beating in all the limbs and also in the head,

Pains in the joints,