The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 211 of 653rhal form, the first-named of which, however, is the only one thais, strictly speaking, entitled to be classed among inflammationsthe lungs.On account of its frequency and the importance of the affectedorgan, pneumonia is one of the most important diseases. To thehomoeopath it becomes so much more important on account of circumstances which we shall endeavor to explain at the commencement of the paragraphs devoted to the therapeutics of pneumonia,although this proceeding may render us liable to the charge ofinconsistency in not avoiding, according to promise, every specieof polemics. But in the present instance the dispute about the firank must be settled and is, therefore, unavoidable.Ktiology* An affection like pneumonia, which has at all timesand more especially during the last decades, since the introductiof a physical exploration of the chest and the development of patological anatomy, commanded the fullest attention and the mostcareful investigation on the part of all physicians, must necessahave led to the most diversified views concerning its origin. Toavoid prolixity we shall only mention the most important etiological causes. The two principal kinds of pneumonia are -the primarand the secondary form.Primary pneumonia may occur at any age, but attacks moreespecially individuals between the ages of twenty and forty yearsvery rarely children in the first years of infancy. No constitutiis exempt from the liability to an attack ; if a robust and plethconstitution is generally regarded as more susceptible, it is, moprobably, because robust men are more frequently exposed to theexciting causes of pneumonia. This circumstance is most likely th244 , Diseases of the Lungs.reason why men are bo much more frequently attacked than women ;the occupations pursued by men expose them more fully and more,frequently than women to the deleterious influences productive ofpneumonia. Infants at the breast, and children who have not yetpassed through the first period of dentition, are seldom attackedwith croupous pneumonia. The nature of the country does notseem to exert anr palpable influence; for pneumonias occur in alevel country as well as on mountains, in sunny districts as wellin exposed places. The seasons, on the contrary, exert a decidedinfluence. Our statistical tables show to a demonstration that thtransition from cold to warm seasons is the most fruitful sourcepneumonia; the transition from warm to cold seasons is less productive of this disease, winter still less and summer least of anThat there must be other causes at work than the mere temperature, is self-evident. The great changes of temperature in Apriland May being at the same time attended with the most markedchanges in the electric conditions of the atmosphere, it is conclnot without reason that these conclusions are correct, and thatelectricity exerts a powerful influence as one of the exciting caof pneumonia. The influence of electricity likewise accounts in tmost natural manner for the frequent occurrence of epidemic pneumonia which, though not always very extensive, yet is often veryintense, and which, owing to the peculiar course it takes, has ofvery characteristic features. We doubt very much whether a merehttp://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt