The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 466 of 653admission. The various affections that will be enumerated in thefollowing paragraphs, have the peculiar characteristic of eithertending to the purulent metamorphosis and consequent destructionof the aflfected parts, or causing atrophy of the attected organsthe formation of adventitious areolar tissue.Diseases of the bones and periosteum most commonly involve theskull, and facial bones, the bones of the lower extremities, andparticularly such bones as are not provided with a thick muscularcovering, such as the sternum, ribs, etc. The disease sets in withorrid pains which have the peculiarity of exacerbating at nightwith terrible fierceness (dolores osteocopi). The pains sometimesprecede the objective symptoms for some time. At the painful spottumors are seen, which seem to be super-imposed on the bone andare of two kinds. Some constitute elastic-doughy, soft, flat swelings, called gummata; they contain a tenacious fluid, and eitherdisappear again gradually, or else, become transformed into abscesses. The other class, called tophi, are infiltrations beneathperiosteum, having all the hardness of exostoses. If these tumorsdo not slowly disappear, they may become real exostoses; theysuppurate only in a few cases. The substance of the bones itselfmuch less frequently the primary seat of inflammation, but is verapt to be invaded by secondary inflammation occasioned by thesuppuration of the above-described swellings. It is more particularly in the bones of the nose and face that the disease developmalignant consequences. These bones are destroyed to a greater orSyphilis. 553less extent, in consequence of which the face becomes horridly difigared. If the aftection is located on the inner surface of theskull, the brain is exposed to great danger, partly in consequencof the pressure exerted upon the brain, and partly in consequenceof the probable or at least possible extension of the disease tomeningeal membranes.Gummata are not exclusively seated on the bones, but likewiseoccur in the interstitial areolar tissue of muscles ; various pectertiary affections of special organs seem likewise to be traceabthe existence of gummata.Syphilitic sarcocele occurs pretty frequently ; it generally attaonly one testicle, very rarely both at the same time, sometimes oafter the other. It is seated in the substance of the testicle itwithout, attacking the epidydimis. Its development takes placeslowly and without pain ; the testicle may gradually enlarge to tsize of a goose-egg, becomes indurated and unequal on its surfaceThe termination in suppuration is a rare occurrence, and mostprobably owing to bad management. A retrograde metamorphosistakes place very slowly, and in a majority of the cases the interstitial infiltration leads to subsequent and sometimes extensiveatrophy of the substance of the testicle. Among the viscera ofthe trunk the liver is first attacked by an inflammatory processthat is exceedingly chronic and sometimes remains latent ; as intesticle so in the liver, this process may result in a contractintrix, and consequent atrophy and callous degeneration of the substance of the liver. For the spleen, heart, lungs and kidneys wehave no forms of disease to which a syphilitic origin might behttp://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt