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only terminated fatally. Their mean duration was a fortnight, during which the disease ran through its stages rapidly, but went through them all, sometimes bringing the patient to the last degree of cerebral excitement, or of marasmus and debility. The finest result of the treatment is not the arrest, the destruction of the disease, but the rapidity of its course; the great proportion of cures, the quickness of the recovery. These short convalescences are what I admired most. It is very striking to compare the homœopathic cures with those effected by the old school, so slow, so precarious, so full of complications.

"When the typhoid patient has meteorism of the abdomen, pains in the right iliac fossa, general burning sensation, extreme dryness of skin, tongue dry and black, sordes on the teeth, which is the most ordinary form of the disease, Fleischmann administers arsenic. Under the influence of this medicine, I have seen this morbid state abate with wonderful quickness. The heat and dryness of the skin are relieved, it becomes moist, the tongue cleans, the abdomen becomes free from pain, and the patient soon becomes convalescent. When the cerebral symptoms are predominant, the expression animated, restlessness of limbs, great loquacity, &c., stramonium is given." (Histoire de la Doctrine médicale Homœopathique, t. ii, p. 305.)

The employment of arsenic in typhoid fevers does not seem to have crossed the Rhine and become naturalised in France. The French homœopaths as far as I am aware have published nothing on the subject.*

it would follow that the expectancy of the former is much superior to that of the latter, which is of course a reductio ad absurdum.

When will the majority of practitioners understand that hitherto they have been mistaken on the question of homœopathy? Would that they opened their eyes and refused evidence on this point to all the princes of our science, and to all those learned bodies which have taken it into their heads to condemn the doctrine of Hahnemann, without ever having studied it!

* However I ought to mention the following note of Dr. Cretin, which I find among the works of Petroz, recently published :- "My excellent master, Dr. Cabarrus, administers with success mercury in variola, and arsenic in typhoid fever. In several cases of typhoid fever I was entrusted by him with seeing that his prescriptions were carried on during the whole duration of the

Though my own trials of arsenic in typhoid fever have not hitherto been on a great scale, I am not the less convinced after some very decisive proofs that this medicine is of great value in the treatment of this disease. What M. Boudin,what the German homœopaths have seen, that have I also witnessed. Hence I am inclined to consider arsenic in a general way as the radical remedy for severe typhoid fever.

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I recently had to treat a young person, who for a fortnight had been labouring under this disease. Besides the febrile symptoms there had been from the commencement copious watery fetid stools, occurring twelve or fifteen times a night. I administered arsenic in the 6th dilution; the diarrhoea was instantly checked, and from that moment the fever gradually declined, and recovery followed.

Brennfleck,* a German homœopath, says that he has often seen in typhus the liquid stools stop after the first dose of arsenic (2nd dilution). Bojanus advises it expressly when there are involuntary and bloody stools.

Moreover, it seems to me that arsenic ought to be used successfully in the ulcerations of the sacrum which are so frequent in the course of the disease. Last year I was consulted for a case of this kind; after typhoid fever the patient in question had two holes in the sacrum with considerable detachment of the skin. The medical man who treated the case said it would be several months before he was cured. I gave arsenic internally in the 4th trituration, and arsenicated glycerine (2 drops of Fowler's solution to 100 grammes) to apply to the wound; a perfect cure was effected in a fortnight. This case will not seem extraordinary to any one who knows the history of arsenic, seeing that tradition holds it to be one of the best remedies we possess for curing ulcers.†

disease, so that I am in a position to appreciate their great success. (Etudes de thérapeutique et de matière médicale d'Antoine Petroz, publiées par le Dr. Cretin, Paris, 1864, p. 277.)

* Hygea, B. xvii.

In my trial I have given arsenic in all doses, from material quantities up to infinitesimal. I usually prefer the latter. In my Etudes sur quelques symptômes de l'Arsenic (Gazette Médicale, 1862) I have sufficiently proved the truth of the efficacy of infinitesimal doses. If some of my readers should

CONCLUSIONS.

1st. The study of the physiological or pathogenetic properties of arsenic prove it to be typigenic; hence by the law of similars it ought to be typifuge, which it has long ago been demonstrated to be in the case of intermittent fevers and neuralgias; and in a large number of other periodical complaints for which it is daily used. Therefore Hahnemann was justified in saying sixty-nine years ago—“In typical affections of all sorts (periodical headache, &c.), this faculty of arsenic to produce periodical symptoms becomes of great value, and will be of still greater value, I am sure, to our successors, who will perhaps be more venturesome, more attentive, more circumspect."

2nd. Arsenic is pathogenetically typhogenic, hence it may be employed usefully in typhoid fever, as the numerous facts I have quoted seem to prove.

Let us, in conclusion, quote the opinion of two German allopaths. Schwartze,* a German compiler, in reporting the trials of Dr. Hill, who recommends arsenic in typhoid fever, gravely says that such conduct should be punished as criminal, whilst Vogt, author of a good treatise on Materia Medica, judging by comparison with the action of quinine in asthenic continued fevers, appeals to futurity with a kind of presentiment to decide if arsenic will not some day be the principal remedy for typhus.

I can pass over with contempt Schwartze's ridiculous judgment, and reply to Vogt's appeal: that is just the reason why I have attempted to fix the attention of observers on this important point of therapeutics.

be disposed to look upon me as a dreamer on this subject, as homœopaths are alleged to be every day by the incredulous majority, all that I ask is that they should read what I have written and repeat my experiments. On this point I defy all misbelievers.

*Pharmakologische Tabellen, oder systematische Arzneimittellehre, Leipzig,

1833.

† Lehrbuch der Pharmakodynamik, Wien, 1831.

ON THE EARLY STAGES OF THE CATTLE PLAGUE.

By GEORGE MOORE, M.D.

I PROPOSE in this paper to describe from nature the early symptoms of the cattle plague, and some of the characteristic external appearances which denote its existence.

1. The stage of incubation.-This stage begins when the "poison" of the disease, in a communicated case, for example, is received into an animal's body, and ends when febrile symptoms appear. The duration of this stage averages from seven to twelve days, as observed in natural and inoculated cases; the period may, however, be longer or shorter, according to the previous state of health, the mode of origin of the disease, and the virulent or benign type of the prevailing epizootic. At this time, the disease is latnet; in other words, the poison has not as yet set up any special disturbance of health recognisable to outward observation. It is assumed in this cattle disease, as in human diseases of the same class, that the blood is the primary seat of disorder and of deterioration, and that the subsequent symptoms express the alterations of structure which this blood poisoning produces. It may yet come to pass that chemistry or microscopy, or both, will reveal to us the special changes which the blood itself undergoes, and, by such means, enable us to differentiate the plague at its earliest stage. But, at present, in default of such diagnostic aids, we are obliged to content ourselves with an accurate observation and correct interpretation of the general symptoms, and these, in the present instance, are all of the objective class. They present the additional difficulty of being neither fixed, nor invariable, nor distinctive. During the incubatory stage, some animals, the majority of them, indeed, retain all the appearances of usual health, eating well, milking freely, and placidly ruminating; the most wide-awake observer can discover nothing amiss. Others, however, show certain indications not con

sistent with a healthy condition. For example, a cheerful and frisky cow becomes dull and stupid looking; another moans or bellows, contrary to habit, in a peculiar manner, as if, by such action, to express a feeling of languor, or of depression, or of being out of sorts; a third shows something unusual or unnatural in its general appearance, or in its manner of eating; a fourth grazes in the field with indifference and without relish, or, when in the stall, leaves some of its fodder untouched; a fifth creeps about the hedges, sneaks away from its companions, remains separated from the herd, or lies down and gets up with unusual and objectless frequency; a sixth chews the cud lazily, languidly, without contentment and without enjoyment. These, and other symptoms of a similarly ambiguous character, though present, one or more of them, in some cases, are almost always unnoticed and even unheeded, except, perhaps, when the owner is more than usually observant, and has his eyes quickened by the prevalence of plague in his stock or neighbourhood. No person, however, not even an expert, can say of these symptoms that they are distinctive of plague, or of any other particular malady, for they are common to almost all cow complaints. They show, in fact, nothing more than that something is amiss, but not what that something is, as distinguished from everything else.

At a later period, we assume that the poison has largely multiplied itself in the blood, and that it has still further deteriorated that fluid. And we expect, consequently, to find still graver indications of depression of the great nervous centres. All the previous symptoms are more pronounced, and stand forth in bolder relief. The depression of animal spirits and the prostration of muscular power are exhibited in a more marked degree. The disposition to eat is less, and the desire to drink, greater than before. There is a peculiar look of heaviness, and of stupor. The animal is indifferent to sound, or really dull of hearing, instead of being, as all herb-eaters are, quick and sensitive of ear. The head is held down low and kept in one position, the neck is outstretched to its greatest extent, the fore-legs are spread out, and the

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