The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 347 of 653Treatment. A treatment for a single paroxysm cannot wellbe arranged ; we might even inflict injury if we would violentlyinterfere with the position the patient may have selected instinctively for his relief. Even the use of local applications, especisevere cutaneous irritants, to which we might feel tempted, mayprove dangerous ; in no case is the people's rule, not to touch aindividual seized with a nervous spasm, more appropriate than inangina pectoris. Such precepts as may be found in every therapeutic treatise, are unpractical, for the reason that the attacknot last long enough to test their clinical value. This remark liwise applies to the use of remedial agents which we might not evebe afforded sufficient time to procure before the attack is endedIf the attacks ]ast long enough, we may try Arsenicum^ and nextto Arsenic Laurocerasus and perhaps Ignatia.We have a number of remedies that seem homoeopathic to thedisease, but we confess that our clinical records are exceedinglyscanty and unreliable ; in view of the great rarity of this diseathe scantiness of our clinical cases cannot well surprise us.The only case which we have ever been called upon to treat inour own practice, and which had already been going on during anumber of not very violent paroxysms, we have cured with notvery often repeated doses of Digiicdin^ 2d and 3d trituration. Thpatient has now been free from the disease for the last six yearsIt was a purely nervous angina pectoris. It would not be safe torecommend a remedy upon the strength of a single experiment, ifthe symptoms and the whole therapeutic range of the drug did notcorrespond with the disease. Whether Digiialin and the Tincture408 Diseases of the Heart.of Digitalis would have an equally favorable effect in angina pectoris accompanied with heart-disease, we are unable to decide.Hartmann recommends Digitalis and bases his recommendationupon the ground of practical experience in the use of this drug.Next to Digitalin Arsenicum undoubtedly promises the mostsuccessful results in the treatment of this disease. Hartmann hasthe following remarks : " Not only the actual paroxysms, but thedisease generally finds in Arsenicum its appropriate remedy, provided the disease is not complicated with structural changes of theart and the large arteries, or other extensive disorganizationsis indicated if the patient can only breathe very gently with hischest stooping forward, and if the least motion causes a completeloss of breath ; if oppression and stitches in the praecordial reare associated with anxiety and a fainting sort of weakness ; ifbreath gives out even while the patient is getting into bed, andtakes him a long time to recover his breath ; if the paroxysm iscited afresh by a simple change of position in bed. In my opinionand according to the experience I have had, Arsenicum is the chieremedy, more especially if the angina is a pure neurosis ; its cuative power is of course problematical, if the angina is complicawith disorganizations which we can never expect to cure and wherewe can only exert a palliative influence. In this respect no remecan be more certainly relied uj on than Arsenic." We will add afew suggestions bearing upon the dose. There is not the remothttp://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt