The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 485 of 653of any use in this cachexia.,There is no special diet that can be recommended for fever andague. It depends in every case upon the state of the digestiveorgans and the necessity of guarding the stomach against everypernicious influence, for it is upon the normal functions of thestomach that depends the possibility of the patient's sinking strbeing restored to its natural tone. If possible, the patient hadbetter leave the malarious district, and remove to the mountainswhere recovery takes place most rapidly.676 Epidemic and Endemic Infectious Diseases.Typhus occurs in two forms that do not differ much from eachother, namely: typhus abdominalis and typhus exanthematicus.More recently this last-named form has become much less frequentthan the former. In spite of these differences the etiology of boforms is pretty much the same ; up to this period we have not succeeded in discovering tlie reasons for the appearance of either othe other form.Typhus originates in some infectious agent ; all that is knownof this agent is that it is caused by the decomposition of animalsubstances. Hence typhus occurs most frequently where the decomposition of animal matter is most favored by circumstances, namelin large cities and hospitals ; likewise in localities which arefavorably situated for carrying away the products of decompositiosuch as cities built in a flat country and with imperfect drainagThe infectious principle at times seems to act with great intensiat other times very mildly, so that typhus in crowded localitiessometimes breaks out with an extraordinary virulence, and at othetimes with comparative mildness. According to all probability, agraduated difference of this kind is chiefly owing to the quantitof the infectious agent that acts upon the organism, not to itsquality. The contagium is reproduced by the patient. We cannotshare the views which prevail concerning the formation of a contagium. We do not consider any form of typhus contagious. Anapparently contagious transmission of typhus only takes placeamong those who have been for some time exposed to the emanations from the infected individual, not among those who have onlybeen in contact with the patient for a short period of time. Thesremarks likewise apply to exanthematic typhus which is consideredas decidedly contagious, but which only appears so for the reasonthat it produces a larger quantity and a more infectious qualitycontagious matter. Physicians in private practice are seldom attacked, notwithstanding they are brought in closest contact withthe patients when exploring their chests ; hospital-physicians annurses, on the contrary, are taken down very often. More recentlythe level of the surface-water has been more particularly examinewith reference to typhus and cholera ; a high lev^ is supposed tofavor the breaking out of these plagues. We are still without anyreliable data in this respect. In large cities the construction owells and water-closets deserves great attention ; where both areTyphus. 677http://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt