The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 226 of 653number of the beats, or at least only to some extent.Every homoeopath can testify that collateral hypersemia in pneumonia does not very frequently occur in a threatening form. If itexists, its intensity may be diminished by venesection; but thiswould be followed by the bad consequences to inflammation thatwill soon be enumerated. In such a case the question still is, whpathological process is worse, the hyperaemia which is a transitocondition, or the pneumonia which is liable to such unfavorableterminations. If, as is often the case, hyperaemia sets in aftervenesection, it is very questionable whether the venesection is nin a great measure the cause.The phenomena of cerebral hyperemia are, at all events, theworst indication. They may be very marked and persistent, butthey do not imply the presence of danger, and still less frequentof so great a danger that it has to be met by such an energeticremedy as blood-letting.Let no one imagine that our views on blood-letting which are sodirectly antagonistic to those of other physicians, are mere vaguassertions. No true homoeopath will ever bleed either in pneumonior in any other disease ; hence only a homoeopath is able to judgwhat course pneumonia takes with or without bleeding.In the case of vigorous individuals, the course of pneumonia frequently remains unaffected by mild blood-letting, but full convalcence is always retarded by it. To many vigorous individuals, andthe less vigorous the more so, venesection is decidedly injurious262 Diseases of the Lungs.and superinduces one or the other unpleasant consequences thatwill be enumerated by and by. Niemeyer accounts for the rapidsinking of strength by the anaemic condition which is occasionedby a profuse exudation associated with an increase of waste by thfever, and a diminution of the supply ; it is his opinion that mopatients succumb to this acute marasmus. If this be so, nobodycan comprehend how a sanguineous depletion and consequent increase of the loss of animal fluids can act favorably, and everymust see that the necessity of first repairing the waste, delayscomplete restoration of strength.The apparently or momentarily favorable effecta of bloodscarcely ever last longer than twenty-four hours^ and are very frquently succeeded by the transition of the fever to the adynamicform, or by an increase of the symptoms ; the French method ofexcessive venesections has occasioned these results.The exudation is never arrested by venesection, much less cutshort or entirely prevented, but the possibility of oedema of thelungs is considerably aggravated by it. This results from thecircumstance that the inflammatory exudation and the loss of bloodiminish quite considerably the plastic portions of the blood, anthat hence the blood contains much more serum and becomes muchmore disposed to serous exudations.The resolution of the exudation is delayed, or is incomplete, orhttp://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt