The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 496 of 653Treatment. Among all possible diseases there is no diseaseof which it is so difiicult to decide whether the treatment thatbeen pursued hitherto has been of any, or of how much use. Ouropponents cannot be blamed for doubting our successes; the expectant method often furnishes equally favorable results; at noperiod during the course of typhus can a positive prognosis be seup, and the diagnosis is likewise exposed to a good many uncertainties. After all, the superiority of the two methods of treatityphus can only be decided by comparing the number of deaths inthe same epidemic, and in a number of epidemics. In this respect,Homoeopathy has a decided advantage, for the number of deathstinder homoeopathic treatment never exceeds seven to eight per cewhereas under other methods of treatment this number amountsto twenty and more per cent. These figures cannot be impeachedby accusing us of errors in diagnosis, which our opponents are juas capable of committing as we are.590 Epidemic aiid Endemic Infectious Diseases*We omit casting an inquiring glance at the manner in whichtyphus is treated by the Old School, and by the adherents of theNew and Newest School of Homoeopathy ; an inquiry of this kindwould not be very profitable ; we cannot help wondering, however,that the rational physicians who consider typhus inaccessible toremedial agents, should combat it with such a mass of heterogeneomedicines. However, we must dwell upon two points that are ofimportance to us homoeopathic physicians who are so often calledupon for aid in the later stages of typhus. In the first place wewish to point out the consequences of a revulsive or derivativetreatment. Sanguineous depletions which are so often resorted toeven now, have a bad eflfect, not only immediately but likewise aa later period ; the patients lapse more speedily into sopor, theprostration becomes more excessive, they perish in larger numbersor, if convalescence sets in, it takes place more slowly and incopletely. Cathartics have likewise a permanently bad effect, and wfeel prompted to regard venesection and the use of purgatives intyphus as acts of wickedness. In the second place, we generallynotice that patients who have been fed on large doses of Chlorateor Quinine, have the functional power of their stomachs impairedfor weeks, and that the integrity of their cerebral functions isrestored very slowly.Regarding the homoeopathic treatment of typhus, we do notshare the views of all our Colleagues in this respect. They quotelarge number of remedies for typhus with the most minute anddelicate indications, whereas it is our belief that we as yet posonly a small number of real remedies for typhus, by which wemean remedies that have it in their power to modify the course ofth^ disease, and that most of the other remedies that have beenrev*.ommended for this disease, only correspond with a few prominent symptoms. Our opinion is based upon the proposition thattyphus owes its existence to some definite toxical agent that penetrates the organism from without, as is the case with acute exanthems. It is for this reason that in no epidemic disease the curavirtue of one or more remedies as genuine epidemic-remedies, hasbeen so thoroughly tested as in typhus; and in our opinion themost important task which a physician has to fulfil in every epihttp://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt