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154

AMEKE'S THERAPEUTICS FOUNDED ON

HUMAN CHEMISTRY.

[SCHUESSLER'S therapeia, as our readers are aware, consists in the administration of the chief mineral constituents of the different organs and tissues for the diseases of these organs and tissues. Though not homoeopathy in Hahnemann's sense of the word, it may be considered as a kind of homoeopathy, or, perhaps, we might rather call it " organopathy," and the experience of many practitioners testifies to its success in many instances. Dr. Ameke, of Berlin, a professed adherent of homœopathy, seeks to found a therapeia on the administration of the chemical compounds that are formed or increased in pathological states for the corresponding diseases. He lays down the following axioms: 1. The chemical compounds occurring in the human organism may in certain circumstances be efficacious remedies. 2. The chemical compounds found in certain organs or tissues may in certain circumstances when these are diseased be employed as remedies. 3. The chemical compounds occurring or present in in-. creased quantity in a certain diseased part may be useful as remedies in that disease.

The chief substances he has experimented with are urea, xanthin, hippuric acid, allantoin, mucin, neurin, leucin, cholesterin and lactic acid. The results of his experiments are detailed in the Zeitschrift des Berliner Vereines homöopathischer Aerzte, vol. i, pt. v. As his paper has excited much attention and a good deal of criticism among German homœopaths, we think it will interest our readers to know what he says.]*

occurs:

UREA, CH,N,O.

A. Physiologically.

A chief component part of urine, in which it is excreted to the extent of 25-40, o pro die. The quantity of the urea is dependent on the mass of the body, on the nitrogenous * The author airs some very heretical opinions on the subject of homœopathy proper, which we refrain from noticing here.

contents of the food, and on the quantity of fluid that flows through the body in a given time. Moreover, it has been found in the blood, in the chyle, in the lymph, in the liver, in the spleen, in the lungs, in the brain, in the ocular fluids, in the lens and vitreous body, in the bile, in the amnion fluid. Warm baths considerably increase the excretion of urea, so also hypodermic injections of phosphorus. Sulphate of quinine diminishes the excretion of urea. Urea is not exclusively produced by the oxydation of the albuminous matter, it may arise also from simple fission.

B. Pathologically.

In all acute febrile diseases (pneumonia, typhus, &c.) the course of the excretion of urea is usually as follows.-At the commencement and until the acme of the fever is past, the quantity of urea, in spite of low diet and of diminished quantity of urine, is generally increased, sometimes to a very considerable extent, to 50, 60, or even 80·0 in 24 hours. But this increase of the urea does not always advance pari passu with the increase of the temperature of the body. Later on, as the fever declines and the increased changes of material have stopped, while the disturbance of the appetite has caused a diminished ingestion of food, the quantity of urea declines below the normal. During convalescence it gradually rises to the normal again. The regular course is greatly modified by individual peculiarities. In intermittent fevers the quantity of urea is decidedly increased. This increase commences before the invasion of the chill. In pathological conditions urea has been found in the sweat, in the saliva, in the vomited matters, and in dropsical transudations. In the last-named states it is frequently considerably diminished in the urine because a portion of the urea produced, dissolved in the dropsical fluid, is retained along with this fluid in the body. With a spontaneous or artificial increase of renal activity, the excretion of urea is again immediately increased.

Urea forms thin, long, one-sided, often internally hollow, colourless semi-transparent prisms, which dissolve in warm water in every proportion, in cold water and boiling alcohol

in equal parts, and in cold alcohol in the proportion of one to five.

I have generally given Urea in doses of three to five drops of the third or fourth centesimal dilution. It was employed by me in the following diseases, in acute affections every hour or two hours, in chronic, two or three times a day.

Catarrhal gastric fever.-In many cases the proportion of successes to failures appeared to me to be three to one.

Febris Typhosa.-In two cases when Urea was employed a rapid decrease of the fever occurred. A typhus abdominalis, which had been treated three weeks without benefit, terminated fatally after eight days' use of Urea, though in the first twenty-four hours the temperature fell temporarily 1.5°.

Rheumatism. articul. acutus.-In three cases the pains were allayed in from six to twenty-four hours; in as many cases the result was unsatisfactory. In one of these cases Hippuric acid gave rapid relief, and when, after two days, its good effects ceased, Xanthin relieved. In the two others Xanthin was useful.

Scarlatina without diphtheritic complication. In five cases the febrile symptoms declined after from twenty-four to fortyeight hours.

Pharyngitis acuta.-Seven successful, one unsuccessful. Tonsillitis acuta with threatened but not actual suppuration.-Four failures, abscess occurred in all.

Erysipelas faciei.-Two successes.

Conjunctivitis catarrhalis.-Three successes, one failure. Conjunctivitis et blepharitis scrofulosa.-Three successes, two failures. In one of these cases a cure occurred under Hippuric acid, the other ceased attendance.

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Keratitis scrofulosa. Four successes from Urea, in three no, or at least unsatisfactory, results. In the first case I substituted Kreatin, in the second Leucin, both unsuccessful. In the third, a child aged four, Xanthin, Glycogen, Chlorrhodin acid and Nuclein, which had all proved useful in similar cases, did no good. Kreuznach baths cured.

Conjunctivitis tars. et blepharitis chr.-One success.

Otitis med. acuta.-Two successful cases. In one case, in spite of suppurative perforation of the drumhead, violent

pains persisted; in this there was great injection of the vessels of the malleus without apparent exudation. In both cases the pains were allayed in a few hours after half-hourly administration.

Otitis med. chronica.-Two successes.

In one patient, a boy, æt. 3, there remained, as a sequela of scarlatina a year ago, moderate power of hearing; he recovered after eight weeks. The other case, æt. 10, had hardness of hearing for nine years, with perforation of the drumhead following suppuration, which only occurred rarely and in slight degree. Hearing power: the words "three" and "six," when pronounced in a loud whisper, could only be heard close to the ear. After sixteen days the hearing power had increased to three metres.. I can remember several failures.

Laryngitis acuta.-Two cases of swelling of the mucous membrane of the arytenoid cartilages and false vocal cords. One failure in the same affection (hoarseness for two days), in which Uric acid was also useless. The patient ceased attending.

Laryngitis chronica, with swelling and bluish-red injection of the false vocal cords without ulceration.-One failure. Lymphadenitis acuta.-Two tolerably rapid cures. No redness of the skin.

Eczema acutum.-Two successes.

Eczema chronicum.—One apparent cure, two failures. I lost sight of both cases.

Combustio.-In four cases of slight burns of the skin I gave Urea 3, three drops every half minute; the pain went off in two or three minutes.

Synovitis of the knee-joint.-Two successes.

In one case the process, complicated with peri-arthritis, had been treated for thirteen weeks with Iodine, ice, &c., without advantage. The patient was an otherwise healthy girl of 20. The slightest movement caused intense pain, on account of which the knee was put in splints. Urea °°3, five drops four times a day. After nine days the splints were removed and the leg could be moved, when the knee was not flexed, pretty strongly without pain. After continuing the Urea for four months she could walk without crutches. Complete ankylosis remained.

The other case was that of an otherwise healthy woman, æt. 36. She came under my treatment on 11th October, 1878, on account of chronic hydrarthrosis of the left knee, which she had had for seven years. Fly blisters, Iodine, strong compression bandages, had produced amelioration for days or weeks but no permanent cure. Even in her days of amelioration the leg was put down unsteadily when walking and was somewhat dragged. Aurum stibic. °°3, five drops three times a day, caused the exudation to diminish as much as painting with Iodine had done previously; in four weeks it was quite gone. Then the right knee, that had hitherto been well, showed signs of commencing synovitis; under Bryonia 1 the inflammatory symptoms increased so much in two days that the agonising pains caused the patient to shriek. The knee was much swollen and hot, without redness of skin; the intense pains extended up to hip-joint, which, however, was not involved in the inflammation. Urea 003, five drops every hour. The next day the pains were still violent but somewhat slighter; the second day considerable amelioration; the fourth day after commencing the Urea the knee could be moved a little without pain; after fourteen days the patient left her bed; after twenty days there only remained a feeling of weakness alternating with drawing pains in both knees. These symptoms continued for three months, during the continued use of Urea. (The hydrarthrosis had not returned after half a year, whether owing to the Aurum stib. or the Urea I cannot say.)

Gonorrhea acuta. From twenty to thirty cases

were

cured within six weeks. At first Urea 5 was given in doses of five drops every two hours. On the decline of the inflammatory symptoms (not before), when necessary, Acid. tart. 4, or Alloxan °°4 was given, four doses per diem. I have not yet met with a failure in the way of complication, gleet, &c. The patients had to avoid spirituous drinks, and the cure was quicker the greater the rest maintained.

Ulcus syphiliticum durum.-Two cases cured in six and seven and a half weeks by Urea °°3.

Ulcus syphiliticum mole.–Several cases cured in from three to eight weeks by Urea °°o3.

K—, æt. 25, had suffered for four weeks from ulc. molle

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