The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 285 of 653period of suffering. Death scarcely ever takes place suddenly inconsequence of asphyxia; most commonly it takes place in consequence of one of the above-mentioned changes. As importantconsequences of pleuritis, we have in the first place to keep inthe displacement of important organs which, during a long continuance of the exudation, is very apt to become stationary. A dilocation of the heart may become particularly pregnant with disastrous consequences. Next we have malformations of the thoraxand consequent malformations of the vertebral column. Such malformations result if the lungs, which the effused fluid had compressed, are unable to expand again to their former size. If themalformation had not lasted too long, the prospect of a completePleuritis, Pleurisy* 833cure is not entirely unfavorable. An important consequence is thevery common appearance of tubercles after the reabsorption of thepleuritic effusion.To establish a prognosis in the higher grades of pleuritis isalways a very hazardous thing, since unfavorable complications toreadily annihilate the best founded hopes. As long as no pus hasformed, we need not let our spirits flag; even empyema, if thepatient has kept up a tolerable supply of strength, very often admits of a cure under homoeopathic treatment. All complications,however, which diminish still more the breathing capacity of thelungs, are decidedly unfavorable to a successful treatment of thedisease. In the front rank of such complications, we have pneumonia, whether it sets in simultaneously with pleuritis or supervenes during the course of the latter disease. Here the pleuritisinterferes with the normal course of pneumonia, and the pneumoniaprevents the rapid absorption of the pleuritic effusion. Even anordinary catarrh, acute as well as chronic, is a serious matter,the reason that it very much adds to the possibility of the supervention of acute cedema of the lungs. Inflammatory affections ofthe heart as well as chronic heart-disease constitute dangerous cplications in pleuritis as well as in pneumonia. We need scarcelystate that pleuritis arising from morbid alterations of the bloodfrom pysemia, etc., is exceedingly unpromising.It is sometimes impossible to arrive at a reliable diagnosis ofpleuritis, more e8j)ecially if the effusion only consists of coaglymph. The more the serous exudation, preponderates, the morereliable becomes our diagnosis. What is of particular importanceis to distinguish pleuritis from pneumonia with which, however,only the acute form of pleuritis with sero-plastic exudation, andwhich is of much less frequent occurrence, can be confounded. Pleritis is diagnosed from the absence of the characteristic sputa opneumonia, the different form of respiration, from the absence ofall vocal vibrations which are considerably increased in pneumonifrom the dulness at the lower parts of the thorax with sharply defined boundaries. Bronchial respiration is an unreliable diagnostsign; however it is to be observed that in pleuritis bronchial reration is the weakest in the region where the dulness is the mostmarked and complete, whereas the reverse is the case in pneumoniaThe dislocation of the heart and liver, the projection of the intcoBtal spaces and the expansion of the afiected side taking placeonly after the exudation has become very copious, cannot be rehttp://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt