The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 434 of 653down with the measles. Exactly on the twelfth day after, thenearest neighbors of the sick children are attacked. In this wayschools become the true nurseries of the exanthem, whence it aftewards spreads to families. After the exanthem is once out, itsinfectious nature is decidedly less, and becomes entirely extinctsoon as desquamation sets in. Personally we hold that epidemicmeasles can spread without contagion, although this is not oftencase. We likewise believe in this possibility in the case of scar33 513514 Acute and Chronic Contagious Diseases.latina and small-pox. It would lead us too far, if we would corroborate this assertion by the evidence of facts ; we be8i>eak somuch more urgently tbe attention of our Colleagues to this fact iexisting epidemics.Measles attack individuals of every age and sex, but least frequently very old people and infants. Inasmuch as almost everybodyhas an attack of measles in his early youth, they are on this accseldom met with among old people. One attack of measles generally protects persons against a second one ; exceptions, howeveare not very rare, although it behooves us to guard against mistaing roseola for measles. [In the late war measles raged with greafierceness in many of our regiments^ and, under allqpopathic treament, destroyed a number of lives. H.] No later than two weeksago we treated two little girls in the same family who were downwith the measles, one severely, the younger without any markedconstitutional symptoms, but with the eruption in full bloom.Three weeks after desquamation had taken place, the younger childwas again attacked with all the preliminary symptoms of measles;indeed, they again broke out with much intensity, attended withsevere constitutional symptoms, but in other respects running thecourse regularly.The ordinary season for measles are the months when catarrhsare common, from October till April ; nevertheless measles ragedhere very extensively last summer, which, it is true, so far as ttemperature was concerned, was more like winter. This circumstance alone ought to sufBce to show that the measles are notexclusively propagated by a contagium.Symptmns and Course. We have already stated that theincubation-period of the measle-contagium, until the efflorescencbreak out upon the skin, is eleven or at most twelve days. Wheretthe general health does not seem in the least disturbed in the fieight to nine days of this period, definite preliminary symptomsshow themselves in the last two or three days. These preliminarysigns are falsely said to have been noticed at an earlier periodinasmuch as catarrhal affections are very prevalent during epidemmeasles, it is very likely that purely catarrhal symptoms have bemistaken fortheprodromiof measles. The prodromi proper beginwith a slight catarrh of the nose, lassitude and some fever. Thisfever increases considerably on the second day, frontal headachesupervenes, the eyes look red, are sensitive to the light, but thconjiinctiva is seldom puffed up. On the third day there is anothhttp://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt