The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 444 of 653the disease. What is still more dangerous is the supervention ofdiphtheritic ulcers during the inflammation. Although the diphtheritic ulceration very seldom spreads* to the larynx, it communcates itself so much more frequently to the nose, the Eustachiantube and the inner ear, to the cervical cellular tissue and glandif it does not destroy life by its direct action, the patients suslowly to the suppurative process, or are attacked with an incura526 Acute and Chronic Contagious Diseases.deafness. Not too much attention can be paid to this malignantangina, especially in the case of children, an examination of whothroats we are very apt to neglect in consequence of the difficulattending such an operation. A discharge from the nose which isat first thin and has no smell, is almost always a sure sign thatdiphtheritis has set in ; it should never be regarded as a favorasymptom, for the reason that a simple nasal catarrh never occursin scarlatina.Inflammations of the joints, pleura, pericardium most commonlyonly occur in cases of great intensity, and do not present any paticular features, although they render the prognosis much moredubious and complicated.Nephritis occurring at this stage, is never very acute, and is somuch inferior to the other morbid phenomena that it is allowed topass unperceived.The most obstinate and most dangerous anomalies occur in thestage of desquamation. They do not always date from this period,but are most generally developments of former disturbances thathad remained unnoticed during the violence of the fever. Thisapplies to inflammations of the joints, pleura, pericardium, inneear. Enteritis occurs very rarely ; on the other hand, diarrhoeamay set in, which, within certain limits, is not a dangerous occurence. The worst symptoms are the suppurating inflammations ofthe cervical cellular tissue and lymphatic glands, to which alluswas made previously, and inflammation of the kidneys. Duringthe process of desquamation nephritis becomes a more prominentcomplication, probably because a suspension of the cutaneous functions, as in extensive burns for example, excites the action of tkidneys in an extraordinary degree, in consequence of which a slirenal catarrh, during the stage of efflorescence, changes to a gecroupous inflammation during the stage of desquamation. Thevarious reasons which have been adduced to account for the supervening nephritis, do not stand the test of a rigorous examinationin some epidemics there is no nephritis at all, in other epidemicoccurs in every case, no matter how the patients were managed inhygienic and dietetic respects. "What is certain is, that nephritis more easily excited by excessive warmth, especially by too mucclothing, which precludes the access of air, than by the patientbeing kept in a cool room and accessible to the influence ofpure air. The renal affection sets in almost imperceptibly ; thepatients have felt quite well for several days ; but, without shoScarlatina* 527http://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt