WORRY OVER A DIRTY HOUSE

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ORIGINAL
ARTICLES

THERAPEUTICS OF DERMATOLOGY.

BY J. HENRY ALLEN, M. D., PROFESSOR DERMATOLOGY, HERING MEDICAL College, CHICAGO, ILL.

AMPHORA. There are two articles that ought to be condemned and driven from every home. They should come under the same label as arsenic, the skull and cross bones. They are camphor and turpentine. Both drugs will readily suppress disease in many patients. I have seen the urine suppressed suddenly in children with one application of terebinth upon the abdomen, and countless cases where pain was suppressed, followed with a stasis to internal organs or the development of a worse form of disease. So frequently have I had to treat abscesses of the mammary gland induced by suppressing the lacteal flow by a few applications of camphor. It dries up secretions everywhere; saliva, urine, menses, leucorrhoea and the secretion of milk. The latter in particular. Eaters of camphor become thin, emaciated and sallow. It will produce collapse, coma, convulsions, spasms, and even frenzy (canth., stram., bell., hyos.). It produces also an icy coldness of the whole body that no other drug yet known can produce (tub.). The patient is a veritable piece of marble to the touch. The whole body is cold as ice, blue, and cyanotic, The red tide of life seems to have become all venus, and all its caloric has departed so that it cannot warm the algid mass, Yet, strange to relate, he wants to be uncovered. This symptom is similar to secale. His coldness, frenzy, convulsions, mania, tearing, burning pains with flashes of heat, seem intermingled, or a medley of suffering.

Look at the cholera patient under the shock of the onset of that plague, with his sunken hypocratic, shriveled face, its cold perspiration, its vomiting, purging, its cyanosis, its paralyzed stupor, its death-accompanying coma, the dark cyanotic

lips, the rigid muscles, the set jaw, the icy breath, then add to these, prostration profound, thirst for cold drinks, the gastric burning, the flashes of heat, and you complete the dreadful picture of camphor poisoning or camphor disease. Like arsenicum and carbo veg., it is a speedometer to the valley of death.

Skin Symptoms.-Much burning and biting on the edge of the eyelids. The lobes of the ear are very red and hot in erysipelas, also in sunburns and frost bites. Face pale, livid, haggard, lips blue, cyanotic. In cholera the skin is shriveled, shrunken and cold as ice. In chronic skin troubles the skin is dry, shrunken, leather-like, cold and insensible, and covered with a cold, clammy perspiration. They are sensitive to cold air and have a desire to wrap up warm. Patient has chills as if cold water was running up and down the limbs; chill with chattering of the teeth and says he is freezing. Skin pale, cold; as heat returns to the body, the face and ears become red; heat with burning dryness follows with the fever; a glowing heat all over the body, but the perspiration is cool. The general itching of this remedy is confined to the hands. Retrocession of the eruption of measles or scarlet fever with convulsions, or coma with collapse and cold sweat. Forehead and face covered with a copious, icy-cold perspiration. The skin in a camphor patient in exhaustive diseases, looks shriveled, hangs loose and flabby and is sensitive to touch, and burns and itches.

Scarlet fever, where the eruption has receded, becomes cold; face bluish, lips blue, rattling in the throat, cold perspiration in great drops on the forehead, yet the child will not endure any covering.

Erysipelas has similar eruptions. Camphor suppresses cold sores or fever blisters and is followed by other symptoms. It hardens the skin in bed sores when applied locally. It was first used to relieve fainting spells, and is a good remedy for that, where the pallor, coldness or cold perspiration is present. It may be useful in gangrene, small pox, erysipelas, bed sores, stings of insects, petechia, snake bites, sunstrokes,

and frost bites. It is relieved by warm air, sitting, uncovering, drinking cold water. Better by rubbing and covering.

CANTHARIS.

The mental symptoms of this remedy may be classed with such remedies as bell., hyos., stram., lyssin, yet outside of lyssin we do not meet with such a frenzy as we do in cantharis. It has confusion and distraction of mind with an inability to concentrate the thoughts. It has paroxysms of rage and frenzy which are aggravated by a bright light and touching the larynx, or from drinking water, that resembles lyssin. Yet no remedy has that fearful combination of the mind with the sexual sphere, as does this remedy. Indeed the whole urinary and sexual tract is ablaze with amorous frenzy and uncontrollable sexual desire. The sexual irritation is so great that the mind, will and judgment are overthrown (can, ind.).

Skin Symptoms.-Dermatitis with great irritation of the bladder; parts dark or bright red; part very painful, sensitive, swollen, covered with large, dark, straw-colored blebs filled with water. Dermatitis with parts very red and covered with large bullae and with intense burning like coals of fire, or as if a flame touched the part. It begins with heat, tingling and increases every minute. It is used for burns of any degree in the first stage, but seldom indicated after forty-eight hours; parts very red with an unbearable painful smarting and burning; parts covered with vessicles, bullae and blebs. Blebs or vessicles full, tense and filled with a dark, straw-colored serum. Pain and suffering greatly aggravated by exposure to the air or by bathing with water or use of wet poultices. Burns followed by a profound shock, hysteria, vessicle irritation, retention of urine, or by painful urination. Urine passes in drops with strangulation; intense burning and continuous urging and straining (merc. corr., nux vom.). Painful urging with passage of but a few drops of bloody urine (nux, apis, merc. corr.) Child screams on urination it is so painful (lyc., sarsa.). Pain felt all over the body, even to the finger tips. Chilly, with shuddering on urination. Urine

turbid, scanty, albuminous after severe burns. Intense vesical spasm (after burns), violent tenesmus with painful urging every few minutes. Urine produces violent burning and itching of the perineum.

Eczema on the hands or between the fingers with intense burning and itching (rhus. tox.); better by warm applications. The perspiration smells of the urine or like urine.

Erysipelas.-Parts dark or bright red, extremely sensitive; vesicles large, contents straw-colored and much painful burning in the part. Erysipelas with the urinary symptoms of this remedy and with great swelling of the affected part; large blebs, and intense burning. Erysipelas of the sexual organs, phlegmonous form, with great swelling, vesication, gangrene with intense burning and great sensitiveness of the part. Burns where pneumonia is threatening is often prevented by a high potency of this remedy. Pemphigus with large, full, tense vesicles or blebs filled with a dark, strawcolored fluid; much burning and a painful smarting (nat. mur., crot. tig., apis, tub.).

Whole body covered with blebs, where a sheet is required every day to absorb the serum, and which is completely saturated. Crusts thin, brownish and covered with scales. Eruptions moist, vesicular, painful, epidermis raised in blisters; much painful burning and smarting. Pustules readily follow vesicular erythema, sunburns, and frost bites with the above symptoms.

Aggravations.-Cool air, drinking, touching and after midnight. Ameliorated by warm dry applications. Local applications which give relief are vinegar, lemon juice, lime water, linseed oil, olive oil, bicarbonate of soda water.

Compare with arum tri., cantharis, doryphora, clemat, rhus tox, and croton tig.

Case I.-Alice H., age 18, a very pretty blonde of Swedish extraction and a servant in the house of a jeweler. Her clothes caught on fire while singeing a chicken. As soon as she realized the situation, she ran out into the air screaming. A man who was passing told her to lie down and she