The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 291 of 653asthmatic symptoms; afterwards dropsical swellings that mayalready have set in, together with the febrile motions, disappearand lastly the absorption of the effusion itself is effected." Wedare not decide whether Wurmb still adheres to these statementsthat were written down a good many years ago.Sulphur holds the same relation to pleuritis as to pneumonia. Itsemployment depends more upon inferences drawn from its generaleffects than upon a rigid application of the law of similarity; iuse is moreover substantiated by a vast number of practical successes. Here, too, we first transcribe Wurmb's views which seemto us strikingly correct in the main points: "In a case of seroplastic eftusion Sulphur is powerless; if a plastic effusion hasexisted for sometime, Sulphur is less eflicacious than Hepar ; onother hand, in pleuritis plastica, after first giving Aconite, orwithout Aconite at the very outset of the attack. Sulphur is a trs'pecific remedy. If the fever is not sufficiently violent to reqthe use of Aconite, I commence the treatment at once with frequently repeated drop-doses of the tincture of Sulphur which isgenerally sufficient to remove the disease in a short time. If thfever runs high, and Aconite which seems indicated, does not verysoon effect an abatement of the febrile symptoms, I at once resorto the administration of Sulphur and so far I have not yet hadthe least cause to regret this course of proceeding. If pleuritiscomplicated with pneumonia, if the disease has already lasted afew days and the stage of hepatization has already set in, Aconite cannot do the least good although the fever may seem toindicate it; everything, on the contrary, may be expected fromSulphur" This very warm recommendation which is indeed substantiated by practical results, seems to be liable to several obtions. In the first place it is evidently too general. Taking thephysiological effects of drugs and their applications in practiceour guide we are indeed authorized to draw conclusions fisir beyothe rigid boundaries of similarity; but Wurmb's mode of reasonPleuritis, Pleurisy. 341ing would lead us to general, not individual specifies, and ourthei-apeutic opponents show us every day where the former wouldlead us. In the next place we are of opinion that all more violenfebrile symptoms preclude the use of Sulphur, no matter whetherthe febrile phenomena arise from reactive endeavors of a moreintense but normal character, or from reactive efforts that are esive and incline to adynamia. Again, the symptoms of an incipientpurulent metamorphosis are decidedly antagonistic to Sulphur.Finally, we think that Sulphur is adapted to every form of pleuriexudation except perhaps an exudation depending upon septicaemia,because this agent is more than any other capable of stimulatingthe absorption of the plastic exudation. We know that in all morecopious, even serous exudations, a thick plastic deposit very oftlines the surface of the pleura, causing almost without an exception adhesions at the boundary-lines of the inflammation and encling the fluid as it were within a capsule. This newly-formed capsule is undoubtedly the cause why the fluid is not reabsorbed.Hence we see an exudation continue for weeks without change,after which it disappears very rapidly for the reason that the pltic fluid has disappeared and the pleuritic effusion is again undgoing a normal process of absorption. In such cases we have ahttp://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt