The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 175 of 653advice of this kind would seem foolish, if it could not be shownharmonize with the explanation we have furnished. Our theorylikewise accounts for the circumstance that the paroxysms mostlybreak out at night during sleep, or that they are easily excitedin addition to the irritation in the air- passages, another irritis caused by crying or laughing.In making these statements, our aim has been to show that thespasmodic character of whooping-cough is not owing to the peculianature of the miasm, but to that of the organism upon which themiasm acts. We may as well observe in this place that, in our opiion, whooping-cough does not commence until the convulsive stagehas set in, and that the previous simple catarrh is not by anymeans a sign that the miasm has now begun to affect the organism.A glance at the Therapeutics of the Old School is in so far important as a comparison of results is best calculated to place thadvantages of our own treatment in a more conspicuous light.Physicians as well as lay-persons are apt to express the opinionthat there is no remedy for whooping-cough, and that it has to ruits course for months. Wunderlich, who generally tries to enumerate the medicines that may cure a disease and who is not apt tobe in favor of a purely negative treatment, declares that any trement is absolutely powerless in the spasmodic stage and that allTussis Convulsiva, Pertussis. 201that can be done is to moderate the violence of the paroxysms bynarcotics. In the case of children, however, the use of narcoticsattended with a good deal of danger for the reason that they areapt to develop dangerous cerebral congestions^ No class of physicians knows how to appreciate such facts better than homoeopathswho derive the most brilliant results from small doses of such drWe care not to inquire why, we simply state the fact that theordinary treatment of whooping-cough is quite ineffectual; thatboth physicians and lay-persons have lost all faith in it ; thatformer give nothing for the cough, and the latter allow the coughto run its course without giving any medicine at all, and that boparties declare themselves satisfied if the cough gradually disappears in three to five months; that finally under this routinemanagement a number of children succumb to the disease or itsconsequences. Whether Oppolzer's treatment which essentially consists in keeping the children in the same temperature, is as succful as Niemeyer would have us believe, is very questionable to ouminds. We doubt whether a majority of the little patients recoverin the promised space of four to six weeks.In opposition to all this, Homoeopathy can boast of favorable andspeedy results without having to resort to such a rigorous mode oliving as Oppolzer recommends. By means of the treatment whichwe have now been in the habit of pursuing for a number of years^we have succeeded in restoring at least ninety per cent, of our lpatients, provided we had charge of them from the beginning,within the space of five and usually even four weeks, so far thatall convulsive paroxysms ceased entirely, although a slight catarmight have hung on for a short time longer. Yet among the largenumber of children whom we have had under treatment, therehttp://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt