Dear Rochelle,
Studying variolinum only for acne might be construed by some as tending to allopathy. There is one more reference to acne Intl Hahnemannian Assoc 1887 WJ Guernsey.
Better to study Variolinum in entirety.
Regards.
Sarvadaman Oberoi
H 485 FF Ansals Palam Vihar
Gurgaon 122017 Haryana INDIA
Mobile: +919818768349 Tele: +911244076374
Website:
http://www.freewebs.com/homeopathy249/index.htm
email:
manioberoi@gmail.com
________________________________
Rochelle wrote August 07, 2007 4:07 PM
Subject: [Minutus] Allen's Nosodes
Has anyone got Allen's nosodes on their computer and can paste me the MM of Variolinum? It is the only reference apparently to Variolinum and acne and I would like to read it.
EXTRACTS
Variolinum
ALLEN H. C., The Materia Medica of Some Important Nosodes (al2)
Variolinum
Description
- Dr. Fellger gave Variolinum reports, giving Variolinum to hundreds of people, and none of them were ever attacked with small-pox.
- In one family where the father had confluent small-pox, he gave Variolinum as a prophylactic, and of the others, although not one had been vaccinated, not one of them took the disease.
- He reports case of a broker in Philadelphia who was well pitted from small-pox; when a child he was vaccinated, and he became idiotic in consequence. When sixteen years old he had a violent attack of small-pox, after which he recovered his reason.
- Variolinum is indicated in small-pox where there is not much pain; the patient can even eat fairly well; the skin looks natural between the pustules; the appearance of the eyeball is white and natural; the mild uncomplicated cases of small-pox are the ones calling for Variolinum.
Mind
- Delirium with initial fever.
- Fear of death; wild excitement and begging to know if he was to die, and before the sentence was complete drops into a heavy sleep with loud breathing.
Head
- Vertigo.
- Syncope in attempting to rise.
- Forehead very hot, face red and bloated, carotids pulsating violently.
- Headache: with or after a chill; all over head; particularly in forehead; severe in vertex; as if a band tightly encircled head; severe lancinating, throbbing; aggravated with every pulsation.
- Intolerable pain in occiput.
- Crazy feeling through brain, hard to describe.
Eye
- Keratitis, with small-pox and after vaccination.
- ||Chronic ophthalmia with loss of sight.
- ||Pupils contracted.
Ear
- Deafness.
Face
- Skin of face and neck deep dark-purple hue.
- Jaw falling when asleep, with trembling when aroused.
- I once made a beautiful cure of a most intractable case of acne with Variolinum, which I was led to prescribe because the man's face was so disfigured by cicatricial marks so as to resemble one who had been afflicted with small-pox.
- W.J. Guernsey.
Teeth
- Teeth covered with thick brown slime.
Mouth
- ||Thick, dirty yellow coating on tongue.
- ||When asleep tongue protruded, black coating, when raised it is with difficulty drawn back; looks like a mass of putrid flesh;
- |Tongue coated white, as with a piece of white velvet, in variola with headache, backache and high fever.
Throat
- Throat very sore, redness of fauces.
- ||Pharynx and fauces deep purplish crimson, with gangrenous appearance; breath horribly offensive.
- Painful deglutition.
- Sensation as if throat were closed.
- Sensation as of lump in right side of throat.
- Diphtheria with horrible fetor oris.
Appetite
- Food, esp. water, tastes sickish sweet.
Stomach
- Soreness in pit of stomach and across epigastric region.
- Severe pain in precordial region, frequent nausea and vomiting of bilious and bloody matter.
- ||Frequent bilious vomiting.
- As soon as he drinks milk he vomits it up.
Stool
- Thin, bloody stools.
- Several brown, green, at last grass-green stools, painless, loose, of intolerable fetid odor; no thirst; last stool slimy, with small quantity of blood.
- ||Dysentery.
- Constipation.
Urinary organs
- Urine: high-colored, like brandy; turbid and offensive; stains a rose tea-color, difficult to remove.
Male sexual organs
- Enlargement of testicle.
- Hard swelling of left testicle in consequence of a contusion.
Respiratory organs
- Oppressed respiration.
- ||Asthma.
- Troublesome cough, with serous and sometimes bloody sputa.
- Hawking up thick, viscid slime, smelling bad.
Back
- Stiffness of neck, with tense drawing in muscles, aggravated on motion; Pain in base of brain and neck.
- Chills like streams of ice-water running down from between scapulae to sacral region.
- Intolerable aching in lumbar and sacral region.
- Pain in muscles of back like rheumatism; aggravated on motion.
Upper limbs
- Hands icy cold during invasion.
- Swelling of arm which had been half-paralyzed.
Lower limbs
- Muscular rheumatism; aggravated on motion; Petechial eruptions, erythematous, on lower abdominal region, apex of triangular form being at pubis, and the base crossing the abdominal transversely, in neighborhood of umbilicus; also on lateral surface of trunk to axilla, invading folds of axilla, corresponding portion of arm and pectoralis major.
- ||Terrible pains in back on right side of spine, and over and below shoulder blade;
- muscles sore to touch, nausea, pains all over especially in legs; tongue clean; pulse 120; Variolin. cm.; body completely covered with large pustules, face one mass of confluent pustules, pulse still high, constant expectoration of viscid mucus, mouth and fauces lined with pustules, even tongue covered with them; bowels constipated, mild delirium at times; eight days later temperature 104 1/2; pulse 120, very weak and stopping at intervals; great fear of death; begging to know if he must die, and before sentence was completed would drop into a heavy sleep with stertorous breathing, jaw dropped on breast, pupils contracted, teeth covered with thick brown slime, centre of tongue perfectly black, mucous membrane of mouth and pharynx of a deep purplish-crimson, with gangrenous appearance and breath horribly offensive; skin of face and neck of a deep dark purple; odor from body like a fetid stream; little control over tongue or jaw, later hanging down, and tongue protruding like a mass of decayed liver when asleep; an effort to speak when roused up caused violent trembling of jaw and tongue, which was drawn back into mouth with difficulty, was stiff, but looked like a mass of putrid flesh; urine dark colored, passing free through whole attack; had continued the cm.
- till now, gave one dose cmm. dry on tongue; next day almost convalescent; made a good recovery with but few marks.
- ||Severe chill followed by high fever; severe pain in back as if broken; pain all over head, very severe and constant in occiput; frequent bilious vomiting; thick, dirty, yellowish coating on tongue; wild delirium and spasms; night before eruption appeared obstinate constipation; on third day very thick eruption of small-pox pustules, soon assuming confluent form, Variolin, cmm.
- ||Small-pox; peculiar smell causes intense sickness of stomach;
- congestion toward head, palpitation of heart; two hours after took a dose Variolin.
- 30; and hour later crawling in back and feeling of coldness in lower extremities; cold feet; lame, heavy feeling in left arm; no appetite; sleep disturbed by heat; toward morning some perspiration over body; next day continuous pressing headache, especially in occiput; pulse somewhat irritated; disinclined to mental work; when reading heat in head and forehead; weak when walking; pain in joints of upper and lower extremities, as if lame; toward evening again feverish; pressing pain in small of back down to sacrum (Glonoin. 3 relieved headache); in bed, drawing in upper jaw and teeth; sleep full of dreams; toward morning again perspiration; urine smells ammoniacal; on fourth day red pimples on back of left hand, staying for several days without filling with pus; me=ntal work still causes heat in forehead and pressure in head; escaped small-pox.
- ||On third day of eruption, when pustules had filled, and were confluent on face, intense itching;
- Variolinum in water, every two hours; on second day itching nearly gone, pustules shrinking; third day drying; fifth day crusts fell from face; seventh day other crusts fell off, and tongue clean.
- Have used and seen it used in many and severe cases, and when treated with Variolin. 200 disease is shortened nearly or quite one-half, sufferings of patients much mitigated, secondary fever either absent or very much lighter, pustules do not burst, but wither or wilt and fall off, suppurative stage immeasurably hastened and shortened, and patients are not marked.
- Mrs. and Miss took Variolinum m. (Fincke), one dose, Nov. 22 and another dose Nov. 23.
- On the 24 a vesicle appeared on left side of neck, which became sore and itched severely where top was broken.
- It was red and angry, with a sharply defined areola about an inch in diameter; from the inflamed base were light-yellow, ray-like scales, like psoriasis.
- It ran its course in about two weeks.
- Several similar spots appeared on different parts of the body, with intense itching at times, but without systemic symptoms.
- On both, the eruption was similar in character and ran the course.
- Both had been vaccinated years before, but neither had any eruption of any kind.
Skin
- Exanthema of sharp, pointed pimples, usually small; seldom large and suppurating, dry, resting on small red areola, frequently interspersed with spots of red colour, sometimes severe itching.
- Petechial eruptions.
- Var. 30 warded off an attack of small-pox after intense sickness of stomach had been caused by the smell of a case.
- Var. in water every two hours, given on third day of eruption of a confluent case, cut short the attack.
- Shing.
Fever
- Very severe chill, followed by hot fever.
- Intense fever, commencing with chills running down back like streams of cold water, causing shivering and chattering of teeth.
- Fever with intense radiating heat, burning hot to touch.
- Hot fever, no thirst.
- Very profuse, bad-smelling sweat.
ANSHUTZ E. P., New Old and Forgotten Remedies (ah1)
Variolinum
- (This paper, by Dr. Charles Woodhull Eaton, of Des moines, Ia, was read before the American Institute of Homeopathy at the meeting held at Jamestown, Va., in the year 1907.
- It really gives the basis of what is known as " Homeopathic Vaccination ", which was ulpheld by the Supreme Court of Iowa.
- It, Variolinum, might be said to be the advance guard of "vaccine therapy", though given by mouth and in potency, omstly the 30th.
- The appended paper is slightly condensed, though it omits nothing that is essential.
- Variolinum is not a "new" drug, having been in more or less use for the past 70 years and, though it is an "old", one it is not "forgotten".
- In theory it is the same as the prevalent prophylactic, typhoid for instance, but in practice it differs in the fact that it is not given hypodermically, but by mouth and does not produce "reactions", or homoeopathically speaking, "aggravations", while affording a more certain protection.)
- The entire matter of internal vaccination by means of Variolinum is comprised in the answer to three simple questions :
- First-What is Variolinum?
- Second-Is its use, as a greatly improved form vaccination, reasonable?
- Third-Has the test of actual experience demonstrated its effectiveness?
- First-What is Variolinum?
- A pertinent and necessary inquiry it would seem; for the leading editorial in a recent issue of one of our ablest journals refers to it as "a drug".
- As a matter of fact, Variolinum is the contents of a vaccine pustule.
- It is the virus of variola; not the virus of vaccinia.
- It is the virus of small-pox; not the virus of cow-pox.
- There has been some confusion on this point.
- Our pharmacies afford both Variolinum and Vaccininum with the result that the two preparations have been mistaken for each other.
- The importance of this distinction is evident when it is remembered that any immunity conferred by cow-pox virus is indirect; conferred by small-pox virus; is direct.
- Second-Is the use of Variolinum reasonable?
- It is reasonable-
- (a) If an individual may be rendered immune to a given disease by inoculation with the virus of that disease, in the proper preparation and amount; and
- (b) If the virus of disease is effective when administered by the mouth, as distinguished from administration hypodermically or by scarification.
- These two propositions demand close attention and exact thinking.
- For just here is the very core of the whole matter.
- No loose and hazy "general impressions", and no half-and-half conclusions will do here.
- We must advance cautiously; weigh our words; reach definite and clear-cut conclusions; and then stand by them.
- In this spirit of unbiased precision let us take up each in its turn.
- (a) May then an individual be rendered immune to a given disease by the administration of the virus of that disease in the proper preparation and amount?
- Behind this question lies an enormous amount of experimental research which bears upon it as directly as if instituted for the sole purpose of determining the answer.
- For you will not fail to observe that all the work done in the entire field of serum therapy rests absolutely upon the proposition that immunity is obtained by the administration of the virus of the disease.
- I am especially anxious not to be misunderstood just here.
- We have nothing to do just now with the question of the demerits of serum therapy as a mode of treatment.
- We are not concerned with the question what these serums accomplish, but solely with the question how these serums are obtained.
- Stop and think closely for a moment.
- These serums are all obtained from animals rendered immune to a disease by the administration of the virus of that disease.
- Every animal that ever furnished a serum is an affirmative answer to this question.
- Every animal is an evidence that immunity is obtained by the administration of the virus of the disease.
- (b) Now, for the second question; and again i invite that pointed attention which has in it the decisive quality.
- Is the virus of disease effective when administered by the mouth as distinguished from administration hypodermically or by scarification?
- Must it be by the hypodermic syringe, or may it be by the mouth?
- Is disease virus absorbed, actually taken into the system when swallowed?
- Are its characteristic reactions and its immunization impress upon the system, obtained only when it is injected?
- Or are they also so obtained when it is ingested?
- Never mind the theory, what we want is the fact.
- And again i avoid trespass on your time by citing at once an established and conspicuous fact, namely, the danger from ingestion of tuberculous milk and meat.
- Why dangerous?
- Because disease products do make their impress on the system when ingested.
- The protest of the medical world when Koch maintained that bovine tuberculosis was not transmissible to man, and the quick and earnest demonstration that he was in error, are still fresh in your minds.
- In Great Britain this assertion of Koch caused the appointment of a Royal Commission to investigate.
- I have before me their "Second Intermediary Report", an extended and elaborate document published this year.
- They say, "Of the total sixty cases (of human tuberculosis) investigated by us, twenty-eight possessed clinical histories indicating that in them the bacillus was introduced through the alimentary canal.
- *** These facts indicate that a very large proportion of tuberculosis contracted by ingestion (italics mine) is due to tubercle bacilli of bovine source".
- But the comparative amount required by the two methods of inoculation in order to produce toxic effects, does not now concern us.
- The question is not one of size of dose, but simply whether actual inoculation results from swallowing disease products in any dose.
- And the answer furnished by the investigations of the British Royal commission, and by the establishment of our own systems of meat and milk inspection is so undeniable and so pointed that it would seem to be a waste of your time to indulge in its further consideration.
- So again, i ask you to come squarely to the scratch.
- If your answer is "yes", let it be clear and decisive.
- Reverting now to the original query, is the use of Variolinum reasonable?
- There seems to be no escape from an affirmative answer.
- We have seen that it is the virus of small-pox; we have seen how complete is the demonstration that an individual may be rendered immune to a given disease by the proper administration of its virus; we have seen how experience has so amply demonstrated inoculation by swallowing, that the fact has compelled the enactment of food inspection laws.
- How then can we escape the verdict that the use of Variolinum is reasonable?
- In a word, we have first the virus, second the law of immunization, and third, the fact of inoculation by ingestion.
- Is internal vaccination reasonable?
- The answer is inevitable.
- So much for the scientific basis.
- It remains to inquire whether the test of actual experience has demonstrated its effectiveness.
- The small-pox epidemic of five years ago (which, indeed has not yet wholly disappeared) afforded a rare opportunity for just such a test.
- Up to the time of this epidemic, most physicians had never seen a case of small-pox, much less had they any chance to test its prophylaxis.
- But with its onset, all this got changed, and experience with both methods of vaccination accumulated rapidly.
- What was the verdict of this experience regarding the internal method?
- How did Variolinum stand the rest in actual practice?
- This a simple question of fact and should be answered by the actual figures.
- So i asked some of my Iowa colleagues, who i knew, were the users of the new vaccination, to contribute their experiences in the following particulars:
- I. Number whom you protected by Variolinum. . . .
- II. Number that you know to have been exposed to small-pox after taking Variolinum. . . .
- III. Number who had small-pox after taking Variolinum.
- In making this request, i was careful to write, "I trust that reference to your case book, ledger and other records will enable you to make your figures on these three points definite and exact.
- May i ask that in any uncertain cases such be omitted from your report, to the end that the figures may be conservative, and an understatement rather than an overstatement".
- This suggestion was cordially received, all those reporting their experience being careful to have their figures well inside the facts.
- So much so that the total number they vaccinated by the internal method was much larger than the figures given, because their records were not complete enough to enable them to report the full number.
- One of the most careful observers wrote that he presumed he had used Variolinum is twice as many cases as he reported, but had not got the records to verify the figures.
- Because of this care on their part to make the report of their experiences conservative, i take pleasure in presenting the following combined experiences :
- Number protected by Number known, to have been Number who had smallpoxVariolinum exposed to smallpox after taking after taking Variolinum. Variolinum 2806 547 14
- * As already noted, the total number of Variolinum vaccinations was, in fact, materially greater than the figures indicate, because of rigid conservatism in reporting.
- But to a still greater degree are the reported number of exposures less than those which actually occured, for the terms of the report were severe, namely, "Number that you know to have been exposed to small-pox", Necessarily the number known to have exposed must have been far less than the number actually exposed.
- And here again the scientific caution of the reporting physician is conspicuous and commendable.
- For example, one of them who reports only eight known exposures, expresses the opinion that 100 were "doubtless exposed."
- Many of these reported Exposures" were of severe character, as for instance the following:
- "Mrs. A.R. , aged 64 had never been vaccinated.
- Found her nursing her son who was in the pustular stage of small-pox.
- Gave Variolinum 12x five disks every four hours.
- On the fifth day had a severe general headache with a temperature of 102.5 f.
- The next day one vesicle appeared on the face.
- The temperature subsided on the fifth day.
- She had sole care of her convalescing son and herself all the time". (Dr. Royal).
- "I had three different houses where one of the inmates had smallpox.
- In one house there were six inmates.
- One of their number had small-pox.
- The other five had never been vaccinated.
- I used the Variolinum on three, the other two scarified.
- None of them took small-pox.
- In the other two houses there were four and five inmates besides the one stricken.
- I gave Variolinum to all of them and none of them took the disease." (Dr. Laird).
- One case began atypically, was taken to the hospital where he was visited by a number of relatives, was worked over by interns and nurses by the hour to relieve a severe pain in an old appendicular scar, thus fully exposing to, at least twenty people.
- To every one of them Variolinum was given and not one of them contracted the disease.
- This was a marked case and was in the pesthouse for about four weeks". (Dr. Hazard.)
- "I know positively of eleven persons that were exposed to small-pox and were continuously in the room with the sick.
- Of that number, two had what i thought to be the initial fever of small-pox, but no eruption appeared and in three days all the trouble had subsided". (Dr. Humphrey.)
- "Family of J.S. Three cases of small-pox developed in family before i was called in.
- Four other members of family, two young men who had never been vaccinated, and the parents who had been vaccinated.
- Administered Variolinum to all four and none of them developed small-pox, though in constant and direct contact with the sick members of the family". (Dr. Adams.)
- "February, 1901. V. H. developed small-pox.
- His wife who had been vaccinated, and three children who had not been vaccinated were given Variolinum.
- They lived in the same house, and slept in the some room with him during all of his sickness, yet none of them contracted the disease". (Dr. Adams).
- "March 1902.
- D.L. Four of family developed small-pox.
- His wife and five children, none of whom had been vaccinated, were given Variolinum.
- Within forty-eight hours the eldest son developed symptoms of small-pox, but his attack was very light.
- all other members of the family, though living in the same house and directly exposed through attendance on the sick, escaped all symptoms of the disease". (Dr. Adams)
- "March, 1902. F.R. , a young man aged thirty, developed small-pox.
- His mother and an adult sister who lived with him, never of whom had been vaccinated, were given Variolinum.
- They attended and nursed him through a very virulent attack and neither contracted the disease". (Dr. Adams.)
- "March, 1902. C.S. A young man, aged 24, developed small-pox.
- His father and mother were given Variolinum and both escaped the disease, though in constant attendance upon him".(Dr. Adams.)
- "Given Variolinum 30x for one week.
- That day her brother came home with a well developed case of small-pox.
- The girl nor her mother had neither ever been vaccinated before.
- I at once gave the mother Variolinum.
- They were quarantined 35 days with the case of small-pox and neither of them contracted the disease". (Dr. Bywater.)
- "Girl. Given Variolinum in October 1904.
- Was quarantined 35 days this spring with three cases of small-pox and did not contract the disease.
- Was of that type that takes everything that comes along but escaped this time". (Dr. Bywater.)
- "Ethel Stevens.
- Then aged six, was given Variolinum 30 x in January 1902.
- Have had small-pox in the family three times since the Variolinum was given, was never vaccinated or protected in any other way, has been exposed, at least, each of these three times and has never showed a symptom of the disease.
- Her grandfather died of it, her brother was very sick with it (the worst case of small-pox i ever attended) in March 1903, and some cousins had it a year later, and she had been with them all and never contracted the disease". (Dr. Brown.)
- "Two children who had never been vaccinated, i protected by Variolinum.
- An uncle had small-pox some two or three months after, and they were exposed, but did not got the disease". (Dr. Brown.)
- Of the fourteen who had small-pox after the use of Variolinum, one was a mild case of small-pox occurring two years after; three were not strictly within the limitations of the test, as they "had also been vaccinated by scarification a short time previous to the attacks of small-pox".
- In addition to the fourteen cases reported, there were three others, but "in each of these cases the symptoms appeared within 72 hours after the first dose, thereby proving that infection had occured before the administration of the remedy".
- The evident deduction to be drawn from these few cases is that the protection afforded is not absolute and without a single break; but that in exceptional instances, small-pox will occur in spite of the fact that Variolinum has been used.
- But the same is true of the scarification method; and experience shows that small-pox occurs after scarification with much greater frequency than it occurs after the use of Variolinum.
- That the old vaccination often fails to protect, has been the personal observation of all those who have had to do with small-pox epidemics; while the numerous deaths in the army of the Philippines, in spite of the Government's painstaking vaccination and re-vaccination of the troops, is fresh in the minds of all.
- The same fact is indicated in the reports of the Registrar-General for England and Wales, which show for the year 1879 to 1884, a total number of death from small-pox among those who had been vaccinated were 1648 persons.
- With these few words of comment i have the honour to place before the Institute the above figures of actual experience with the internal method of vaccination by the administration of Variolinum.
- The 2806 cases, the 547 known exposures, and the fourteen instances of small-pox, should constitute a sufficiently extended test to satisfy all scientific requirements.
- Further than this, it must be remembered that the figures submitted represent the experience of only a few of the Iowa physicians using Variolinum, and constitute but a fraction of the total Iowa experience.
- And with striking unanimity the physicians using it have come to be strong adherents of the Variolinum method though many began its use with decided skepticism.
- My own personal experience is not, included in the above reports.
- It seems to me so important that this inquiry be scrupulously judicial in its spirit, that i omit my personal figures, so that this presentation of the matter shall have in it nothing of the bias of the advocate.
- Proceeding then to the test of actual experience, we have passed in review a series of 2806 vaccinations with Variolinum, including 547 exposures and 14 cases of small-pox.
- Shown thus by clinical test to be remarkably effective in actual practice, as well as scientifically correct in principle, the demonstration stands complete.
- The use of Variolinum is sound in theory and conspicuously successful in practice.
- It, therefore, does not ask our acceptance, it demands it.
- As scientific men, we are at liberty to indulge our whim about the matter.
- It is not something that asks our support.
- The demonstration is placed squarely before us, and a demonstration never requests, it demands.
- We must not do Homeopathy the injustice of giving this, one of its most successful and useful outgrowths, a partial and equivocal recognition, just because it happens to be strange to us.
- This splendid piece of practice is not new, it has its roots in the past, though we may not have known it.
- And we must not injure the cause by refusing to recognize its value just because we happen not to have been conversant with it.
- We cannot afford to play with the question and temporize with it, and half way repudiate it, until in the course of time some one of our opponents shall make a wonderful discovery, and cultivating the small-pox virus through old horses or prolific guinea pigs, produce an uncertain and inferior product combined with some secret antiseptic to preserve it, which yet shall retain sufficient activity to make possible the announcement of another great advance, to be used for the good of humanity-and the discomfiture of Homeopathy.
- Variolinum is distinctly our own, as distinctively as is Aconite or Lachesis or Lycopodium, and its immense value should be gladly recognized and vigorously claimed.
- It is a high honour to Homeopathy, and we cannot, and must not let our individual lack of familiarity with it bar it out from its place.
- An unfamiliarity that cots Homeopathy so much is a heavy responsability.
- When so much is at stake, it is not optional with us whether we will know or remain uninformed.
- In such circumstances we are under the highest obligations to know; and failure to inform ourselves is, in the words of the Organon, "a crime".
- Let us take to ourselves the earnest admonition which a shrewd old Sioux Indian woman impressed upon her grandson-"when you see a new trail, or a footprint that you do not known, follow it to the point of knowing."
BRADFORD T.L. , Index of Homoeopathic Provings (bft3)
Variolinum
Hering: Guid. Symptoms, V. 10. Macfarlan: High Pot Provings.
Macfarlan: Hom. Phys., V. 12, p. 142.
Swan: Hom. World, V. 17, p. 166.
Fincke: Zeit. Berliner Ver. hom Aerzte, V. 5, p. 26.
CHOUDHURI N. M., A study on Materia Medica (cda1)
Variolinum
Variolinum is prepared from the pus obtained from small-pox.
Its provings are very fragmentary, but clinical experience attests to its efficacy and usefulness.
It has been extolled very highly in small-pox, both as a prophylactic and as a remedial agent.
This much is certain, that it does not produce the bad effect of vaccination nor does it anywhere or to any extent produce the usual sequelae of vaccination.
The cardinal symptoms of Variolinum are -
Morbid fear of taking small-pox.
Intolerable pain in the occiput.
When asleep tongue protruded, black coating; when raised it is with difficulty drawn back; looks like a mass of putrid flesh.
Intense backache, worse in the lumbar region.
Pharynx and fauces exhibit deep purplish crimson, with gangrenous appearance.
Breath horrible and offensive.
Jaw falling when asleep, with trembling when aroused.
The following experience of Dr. Clarke clearly proves the prophylactic nature of the remedy - " Var. 6 (three pilules) was given to the mother and children of a family, one of whose members was taken with small-pox and removed to an insolation hospital, with his mother to nurse him.
The patient (who did not receive Var.) was dangerously ill for a month.
Neither the mother who nursed him nor any of the other children took small-pox. [Page 794. ]
Vaccine was sent by the Government and all the family were vaccinated, but it did not take with any of those who had taken Var., although the vaccination was repeated.
Dr. H.C. Allen advocates the application of Var. in those types of small-pox that are comparatively free from pain and where the patients do not show symptoms of sepsis, in short in mild types of small-pox.
CLARKE J. H., Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica (c1)
Variolinum
Description
- Variolinum.
- Nosode of Small-pox.
- Trituration of matter from small-pox vesicle.
Clinical
- Asthma.
- Backache.
- Chill.
- Fever.
- Headache; occipital.
- Herpes zoster.
- Neuralgia.
- Small-pox.
- Testicle, swelling of.
Characteristics
- The cardinal symptoms of small-pox are the keynote symptoms for the use of Variolinum.
- The backache of small-pox is about the worst backache known, and Var. has cured in my practice a number of bad backaches that nothing else seemed to touch.
- Var. was Burnett's chief remedy in shingles; it generally, as he expressed it, wiped out the disease, eruption and pain as well.
- It will also cure neuralgia left by herpes.
- Var. has aborted many cases of small-pox, and has proved an efficient preventive against small-pox contagion and vaccinal infection.
- G. M. H. (H. W., xxxii. 546) records this experience : Var. 6 (three pilules) was given to the mother and children of a family, one of whose members was taken with small-pox and removed to an isolation hospital, with his mother to nurse him.
- The patient (who did not receive Var.) was dangerously ill for a month.
- Neither the mother who nursed him nor any of the other children took small-pox.
- Vaccine was sent by the Government and all the family were vaccinated, but it did not take with any of those who had taken Var., although the vaccination was repeated.
- More-over, G. M. H. himself, who had taken a dose of Var., submitted to vaccination, but "although four thorough inoculations were given, they healed up immediately, and did not even itch or smart."
- These are cardinal indications for Var. : Severe cold; chill; chilly creepings as if cold water were trickling down the back; violent fever with extremely hot skin, with or without high pulse.
- Violent headache.
- Nausea.
- Pain in epigastrium.
- Pain in limbs as if in bones.
- Severe backache.
- There may be rash or there may not.
- Here is a case of Swan's, who is a pioneer with nosodes (H. W., xviii. 205) : Miss H., 21, healthy, hearty; complained of the following symptoms : Confusion of head as if going crazy, with a sensation as if it was all in the back of the head and running down spine, followed by intense, heavy, hot headache in back of head and neck and region of medulla; sensation as if head weighed a hundredweight, with a tendency of it to fall backwards; deathly nausea in throat-pit during headache.
- During headache hands and feet icy cold, particularly the hands; tongue coated yellow in morning, with bad, disgusting taste in mouth; no appetite; knees feel weak as if they would give way, especially on going down stairs; pains in thighs and hips; severe aching, burning pain in small of back; skin hot and dry; pulse not feverish.
- Var. cm (Swan), in water, cured in six hours, the confusion of the head ceased after the pain did.
- A school of two hundred children was "internally variolated" with Var. cmm (Swan) on the evening of February 18th and the morning of February 19th.
- Of two schoolmistresses one was not at all affected; the other was two days in bed ill.
- On 21st many of the children were ill; by the 23rd all except forty were, the symptoms being the usual preliminary symptoms of small-pox, and later Swan found pustules on many.
- After the varioloid had passed off, but before the patients had recovered their vitality, twenty-three children were vaccinated without Swan's knowledge.
- All but one took and had terrible ulcers on the arms, and had to be remedied by Vacc. (cmm, Swan).
- Sensations of Var. are : As if a band tightly encircled head.
- Crazy feeling through brain.
- As if throat were closed.
- As of a lump in right side of throat.
- Like streams of ice-water running down back.
- Pain as if back were broken.
- The symptoms are agg. By motion.
Relations
Antidoted by
- Malan., Thuj., Ant. t., Vacc., Sarr.
Compare
- Herpes, Mez., Rhus, Ars.
Causation
- Contusion (enlarged testicle).
Symptoms
Mind
- Delirium with the initial fever.
Head
- Vertigo.
- Syncope in attempting to rise.
- Forehead very hot, face red and bloated, carotids pulsating violently.
- Headache : with or after a chill; all over head; particularly in forehead; severe in vertex; as if a band tightly encircled head; severe lancinating, throbbing; agg. with every pulsation.
- Intolerable pain in occiput.
- Crazy feeling through brain, hard to describe.
Eye
- Keratitis, with small-pox and after vaccination.
- Chronic ophthalmia with loss of sight.
- Pupils contracted.
Ear
- Deafness.
Face
- Skin of face and neck deep dark-purple hue.
- Jaw falling when asleep, with trembling when aroused.
Teeth
- Teeth covered with thick brown slime.
Mouth
- Thick, dirty yellow coating on tongue.
- When asleep tongue protruded, black coating, when raised it is with difficulty drawn back; looks like a mass of putrid flesh.
Throat
- Throat very sore, redness of fauces.
- Pharynx and fauces deep purplish crimson, with gangrenous appearance; breath horribly offensive.
- Painful deglutition.
- Sensation as if throat were closed.
- Sensation as of a lump in right side of throat.
- Diphtheria with horrible fetor oris.
Appetite
- Food, esp. water, tastes sickish sweet.
Stomach
- Soreness in pit of stomach and across epigastric region.
- Severe pain in praecordial region, frequent nausea and vomiting of bilious and bloody matter.
- Frequent bilious vomiting.
- As soon as he drinks milk he vomits it up.
Stool
- Thin, bloody stools.
- Several brown, green, at last grass-green stools, painless, loose, of intolerable fetid odour; no thirst; last stool slimy, with small quantity of blood.
- Dysentery.
- Constipation.
Urinary organs
- Urine : high-coloured, like brandy; turbid and offensive; stains a rose tea-colour, difficult to remove.
Male sexual organs
- Enlargement of testicle.
- Hard swelling of left testicle in consequence of a contusion.
Respiratory organs
- Oppressed respiration.
- Asthma.
- Troublesome cough, with serous and sometimes bloody sputa.
- Hawking up thick, viscid slime, smelling bad.
Neck and back
- Stiffness of neck, with tense drawing in muscles, agg. on motion.
- Pain in base of brain and neck.
- Chills like streams of ice-water running down from between scapulae to sacral region.
- Intolerable aching in lumbar and sacral region.
- Pain in muscles of back like rheumatism; agg. on motion.
Upper limbs
- Hands icy cold during invasion.
- Swelling of arm which had been half-paralysed.
Lower limbs
- Muscular rheumatism; agg. on motion.
Skin
- Exanthema of sharp, pointed pimples, usually small, seldom large and suppurating, dry, resting on small red areolae, frequently interspersed with spots of red colour, sometimes severe itching.
- Petechial eruptions.
- Var. 30 warded off an attack of small-pox after intense sickness of stomach had been caused by the smell of a case.
- Var. 1m in water every two hours, given on third day of eruption of a confluent case cut short the attack.
- Shingles.
Fever
- Very severe chill, followed by hot fever.
- Intense fever, commencing with chills running down back like streams of cold water, causing shivering and chattering of teeth.
- Fever with intense radiating heat, burning hot to touch.
- Hot fever, no thirst.
- Very profuse, bad-smelling sweat.
COWPERTHWAITE A. C., Text book of Materia Medica and Therapeutics (cp1)
Variolinum
A Nosode _. - Lymph from the Smallpox Pustule. _ Preparation _. - Alcoholic dilutions.
Therapeutics
The chief use of Variolinum is to ptotect against, modify and cure smallpox. It has also been used successfully in the treatment of herpes zoster and the subsequent neuralgia. It has been successfully proved that the oral administration of Variolium is just as efficient a protection against smallpox as the old time scarification method, and any homoeopaths now employ this method exclusively. The state of Iowa has legalized "internal vaccination." It is certainly a safer plan, as if avoids the possibility of infecting the system with live disease germs and producing in the innocent victims lockjaw, paralysis and other serious conditions, such as sometimes follow the use of impure virus.
Characteristic symptoms
Head
Morbid fear of smallpox. Pain in occiput. Inflamed eyelids. Deafness. Chronic catarrh.
Respiratory organs
Breathing oppressed. Cough with thick, viscid, bloody mucus. Sensation as if throat were closed. As of a lump in the right side of throat.
Limbs
Excruciating bachacke, with great restlessness. Pains shift from back to abdomen. Rheumatic pains in wrists. Aching in legs. Tired all over.
Fever
Hot fever with intense intense radiating heat. Profuse bad smelling sweat.
Skin
Hot, dry. Eruption of pustules. Shingles.
Hahnemannian Advocate (_Hahn_Advocate) 1896 Volume XXXV Chicago No 5
Variolinum (Maybelle M. Park)
Remedy
Variolinum
This remedy is an animal substance, the potentized lymph from a small-pox vesicle, which acts deeply upon the vital economy. Like Medorrhinum, Syphilinum, Psorinum, etc., it is a nosode, a disease product, yet when applied according to Homoeopathic laws it is of inestimable value.
Variolinum has been partially proven by Swan and Fincke. Some clinical symptoms have also been collected. Given in a potentized form to a healthy person Variolinum causes symptoms resembling a kind of small-pox. After a few days prodrome the symptoms may begin with a severe chill, nausea and vomiting; then intense congestion of the brain and spinal cord comes on with severe pains down the back, especially in the occiput lumbar region, radiating from these points to the extremities and around the waist, like streams of ice water down the back and intolerable pains as if the back would break; drawing, aching stiffness of muscles preventing motion, as all pains are aggravated from motion. Nervous and restless but worse from motion.
PAGE 293
There is malaise and lassitude. The patient is irritable and goes into a state of delirium with anxiety and fear of death. Great congestion to the head with violently pulsating carotids, the face is hot, red or dark-purple, bloated, puffed up. Intense throbbing, lancinating headaches all over head; in forehead, vertex and occiput; a sensation of a band tightly encircling the head.
The eyes are swollen, inflamed, the conjunctiva red, and inflammation of cornea. It causes deafness. Chronic catarrh of eyes and ears has been cured.
The tongue is coated thick, dirty yellow; looks like a piece of white velvet, or white coating with points of pustules showing through. Sordes on the teeth. Breath horribly offensive. Sore throat with redness of fauces. It has cured where the pharynx and fauces were purplish, crimson, gangrenous in appearance, the tongue black, looking like a mass of putrid flesh. Diphtheria with horrible fetor oris.
All the secretions and excretions of Variolinum are offensive saliva, expectoration, sweat, the whole body exhaling a peculiar odor that can be detected by an experienced physician.
The appetite is gone; the taste depraved, even water tastes sickish, sweetish; aversion to meat, to all kinds of food; little or no thirst. Nausea and vomiting continue through the disease, bilious, bloody vomiting.
The stools are thin, bloody, green, of intolerably fetid odor. There is the usual scant, dark urine of fever, but it is also offensive. The heart is irritable and the circulation depressed from the septic condition of the body.
Intolerable aching, bruised feeling in the muscles, sore to touch; bones feel as if broken, as if comminuted. aggr. motion. The chill at the beginning is soon followed by nausea, vomiting and high fever, burning hot to touch, but no thirst, no appetite, aversion to food. Then a profuse bad smelling perspiration.
The skin is at first dry and hot, soon the characteristic red papules appear, hard and feeling like shot in the skin, which go on to umbilicated vesiculation and pustulation. The Variolinum pustules do not break as in small-pox, but like the pustules in chicken-pox they dry down, from yellow scabs which soon fall off and rarely leave any scar.
This looks like small-pox, but it is only one kind. We cannot follow the practice of Allopaths who are giving Diphtherinum in every case of diphtheria. We must individualize in this as in every other case. Where indicated Variolinum has given wonderful results. After seeing many and severe cases one physician reports that "the disease is shortened nearly one-half, suffering of patient much mitigated, secondary fever either absent or very much lighter, pustules do not burst, but wither or wilt and fall off, suppurative stage immeasurably hastened and shortened and patients are not marked."
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As yet we have but few chronic symptoms of Variolinum. It has cured chronic eye troubles, boils and ring worms which have followed small-pox, varioloid or vaccination.
J. P., 8 years.
Case
Vaccination
Variolinum
Case
Aug. 9.
1894.
Vaccinated in early spring on left arm, does not heal, forms one scab after another. Now has large pustule on side of nose, styes, run-arounds on fingers.
Has spells of headache, left temple, nausea.
amel. pressure.
amel. moisture.
aggr. noise.
Was blind a year when a child from iritis, eyesight good now.
Crops of styes one after another for years.
Does not play, always at work, sewing, housework.
Awakes and walks around at night she is so hot all over.
Aversion to meat, desires sours, ice cream.
Timid; screams when startled, had St. Vitus' dance last summer.
amel. open air, amel. cold weather.
A little deaf at times.
Constipated.
Variolinumcm
Aug. 16.
Boils on face healed, vaccination mark dryer, less inflamed, arm not swollen.
S. L. Feels better.
Aug. 23.
Vaccination scab was knocked off this week.
S. L. Feels better.
PAGE 295
This case reported but twice and we have not been able to find her since to learn the full effect of the remedy, but in that short period the improvement was marvelous, the child's skin became clear and pink and all eruptions had disappeared.
Remedy
Variolinum
A far greater and even more important use of Variolinum is in the prevention of small-pox and the doing away of the barbarious custom of vaccination - making a wound and inserting a heterogeneous mass of debris taken from some psoric, syphilitic or sycotic individual or from some "mediocre cow" (when there is room for doubt that the cow-pox and small-pox are one and the same disease). The dangers of vaccination are great and its benefits doubtful, while the protection by Variolinum has been proven certain in many cases where vaccination was not proof against the dread disease, for Variolinum high brings out symptoms even after vaccination.
Fincke reports the following provings:
Mrs. St. (German), oetat. 30. Blond. Blue eyes. Large figure. Vaccinated. Received Variolin. 900 (F.)
On succeeding day, headache. Frightful pains in the back and sacrum; so tired in the legs that she must lie down. Fever day and night, with many dreams. Doesn't want to eat.
On third day all was gone.
Miss C. S. (American), oetat. 30. Brunette. Desired to be re-vaccinated; instead she received on Dec. 28th, 1871, Variolin. 30 (F.), seven powders, one to be taken dry each evening.
Dec. 29 - 31. Pains in all the limbs, and particularly above the knees; a steady, dull pain as if in the bones.
Dec. 31. Same as if the limbs were broken. During the night sharp pains in the left mamma, from above downward, occurring frequently after going to bed; and a stitching pain early in the morning.
Jan. 2, 1872. Slight inflammation of the throat on the left side, with pains on swallowing. Could not sleep during the night on account of the stomach-ache. Received Variolin. 100 (F.), three powders, one to be taken dry each evening.
Jan. 4. Violent pains during the entire night in the back and in every bone, so that she could not sleep until towards morning. The pains were principally located in the tendons; and all the limbs ached - aching as if in the bones. Vomited a small quantity of bile, which was preceded for a long time by a bitter taste.
PAGE 296
Jan. 5. Very weak during the whole day, as if recovering from a severe illness.
Jan. 10. Sleepless all night.
Jan. 14. The same. Frequent sharp, shooting pains; also dull pains in the abdomen throughout the day.
Jan. 15. Sleepless for half the night, with some pains in the abdomen.
Jan. 16. Has been lying awake in bed for the last three nights, with bitter taste which is speedily followed by vomiting of small quantities of bile. Much constipation. During the night sore, bruised feeling through the region of the stomach - running towards the back. Slight attack of nausea like sea-sickness. From over exertion last evening a fluttering sensation about the heart (pericardium). Cramping pains in the stomach, and region of the abdomen day and night. She fell asleep at 5 o'clock in the morning, and after a repetition of the bitter taste, vomit of bile.
Jan. 17. The same pains continue; the back being very painful; a pressing sensation between the shoulders. The cramps recurred with nausea and unabated fainting spells.
Jan. 18. The same. During the night cramps in the abdomen; a liquid stool following with relief; but was chiefly awake during the night.
Jan. 19. The same kinds of cramps continue, though better upon going out. She feels very sick and depressed.
Jan. 20. The same cramps, which, though not quite so severe still tend to induce fainting spells. They impress her as in two places; sometimes only in one place - through the stomach.
Jan. 21. Menstruation sets in. Weakness so great that she must lie down. No appetite. It seems frequently as if she must vomit bile. She vomited a part of the supper taken last night - the vomit occurring two hours after eating; not very sour tasting. Occasionally there is the bitter taste, with a feeling as if she must vomit. Painful sensation in the stomach. She desires to rest; everything tries her.
Jan. 24. Couldn't get to sleep for a long time, and then slept heavily; not refreshing to her. Itching on the place of vaccination. Severe pains in the back. Received Bryonia700, seven powders, one to be taken dry each evening.
Feb. 1. The cramps in the abdomen, and the pains in the back disappeared gradually within three or four days after taking the last remedy. This prover was not supersensitive, nor was she hysterical; but a cultivated lady from the upper classes.
PAGE 297
Even if given after exposure to infection Variolinum ameliorates the attack in length and severity. Some time ago Fincke reported a case in the Journal of Homoeopathics, of "a man with confluent small-pox, breaking out all over the body as in one mass, with tremendous swelling. He received Variolinum1m (F.) in half a tumbler of water, one teaspoonful every two hours.
The eruption began to dry up at once. The desquamation took place on the ninth day, and no pits or spots remained."
Variolinum is never dangerous. if the patient is susceptible the symptoms are light and wear off in a few days. It is within our power to modify the dose and potency, we can go higher and higher or repeat the dose at sufficient intervals to protect individuals and never leave bad results.
Fincke says: "Variolation is the similimum of the infection with Variola. Even the Vaccinin is a 'simile' as its provings show, and may be used as a prophylactic. Potentization makes a similimum."
The time is coming when all will have courage to say to the health officer as did the young son of a Homoeopathic physician, "I have been vaccinated through my stomach."
President - Any remarks upon the paper?
Dr. Gladwin - When the doctor was saying that Fincke gave several powders, I was glad I was not his prover.
Dr. Park - I think from that we are taught to give one dose and see what that will do.
President - I believe that Fincke does that at present.
Dr. Park - It was in 1871 that this proving was made.
President - Dr. Kent, cannot you relate your experience with this remedy?
Dr. Kent - Oh! I have not had much of any experience with it. I really cannot recount anything that would be of any value.
President - I myself have only seen it used once, in a case here in the Clinic last summer, the symptoms coming on after vaccination; the remedy saved the child from death without doubt. I would like to known if there is any relation between Vaccininum and Melandrium?
Dr. Kent - Well, if the horse gets small-pox, the product is supposed to be what we call Melandrium. If the cow gets small-pox you know what that is called. Vaccininum is the product from the cow-pox, and Melandrium is the product from the horse-pox and Variolinum is the product from the human-pox - small-pox. It is not an uncommon thing for cows and dogs and cats to get small-pox when it is in the house. I know an instance of small-pox when the cow in the back yard, not within one hundred feet of the house, was milked by the nurse who took care of the patient, and the cow took small-pox. She broke out extensively over the back and various parts of the body, not very sick. Well, that was small-pox. To suppose that it is any better by coming from the cow or the horse is only a matter of supposition; there is no good reason to suppose that it is made any more similar, and why we should be more anxious to use it if it is taken from the horse-pox, and from the cow than from the human pox, is more than I am able to say. Dr. Guernsey, who has been a strong advocate of the use of Melandrium on all occasions, recommends it as a prophylactic. He feeds it to all of his patients instead of vaccinating them. It seems to me to be a sort of tweedle dum and tweedle dee.
PAGE 298
Dr. Low - In potentizing the contents of the pustules from a small-pox patient who had syphilis, would the syphilitic miasm be held in abeyance, so that there would be none of the syphilis in the lymph?
Dr. Kent - That is a question that has been extensively discussed and not decided. A class of pathologists several years ago, when I read up the subject more fully than lately, argued that the lymph was perfectly pure at that time, and that syphilis could not be conveyed, but it has been known that syphilis has been conveyed by vaccination several times, but to satisfy all argument it was affirmed that the blood must have been taken from the pustules and not the pure lymph, but the blood around the pustule. Well, these are hair-splitting distinctions that have not been settled, and I suppose never will be. But that syphilis has been conveyed by vaccination is quite true; that the very life of the patient is in that lymph I think is highly probable, that the very life substance, the simple substance of the individual himself is in that lymph is highly probable. All of his chronic miasms are probably represented, they have their ambassadors. This I think is highly probable.
Dr. Gladwin - If we should take a pustule and prepare some Variolinum, should we be likely to get the same results as from the Variolinum that was proved?
PAGE 299
Dr. Kent - Not absolutely the same. In a general way you would get the same proving, but not absolutely the same proving as there are no two cases alike. If a preparation has been proved that preparation should be used for ever.
Dr. Gladwin - Then we would not be likely to have the same proving from the cow and horse.
Dr. Kent - No, not exactly the same, there would be at least the difference between individuals, but whether the difference would be greater than that between human individuals, I am unable to say. There is a general impression abroad that the result of the vaccine virus upon the human economy is much milder than the small-pox virus. There seems to be some ground for it. But it does engraft itself upon the constitution in a way that is most difficult to find out.
Dr. Park - In these provings of Dr. Fincke's he also reported a case of a man broken out with pustule resembling pustules taken from the cow, from milking. He was a herder. He was given Variolinum, one or two doses, and cured.
Dr. Kent - Yes, I remember that case.
President - Yes, I think he also reports, either he or Swan, by the use of Vaccininum in a child, I believe in several cases, that although afterwards they were vaccinated a number of times, there was no effect whatever.
Dr. Park - The other day Dr. Pierce spoke of a case of pneumonia with distressing backache and headache with these bone-breaking pains, where he gave Variolinum with great relief to the patient.
Dr. Hinds - I would like to ask Mr. President, in using Vaccinin in vaccination, whether you are to look for symptoms after you give the remedy to vaccinate the child through the stomach, as they say. I have given it in three or four cases and can never get any symptoms from it.
Dr. Kent - How did you give it, doctor?
Dr. Hinds - I used it internally, the 20th in single dose.
Dr. Kent - If you give Variolinum that is good and genuine, and you use the 30th or 200th, and in the single dose, if that patient is susceptible enough to take small-pox, you will see symptoms. If the patient is not susceptible enough to take small-pox the possibility is that you will not see symptoms. If you repeat the dose, one powder every night in the 30th potency you will be likely to have symptoms, though the susceptibility is not marked with the one dose. You will be likely to get a few symptoms, and if not a pustule or two, you will get such febrile reaction as you would from vaccination.
PAGE 300
President - Are you likely to create a susceptibility by repeated vaccination, as you would by using the potency?
Dr. Kent - You might, probably would. The very best protection, for mere protection, for a homoeopathic physician, for instance, who wants to protect his own family or himself, is a good high attenuation of Variolinum. And if patients want to be protected it is the best possible protection, because if they would take small-pox it would probably protect them. That is something that ought to be known, of course, where there is an epidemic of small pox about. If there is no susceptibility, then there will be no action. A question might arise from this as to the very best form of vaccination. When we take into consideration the prejudice of the people at the present time and the prejudiced attitude of the Board of Health, and that we desire to be law-abiding citizens and at the same time conserve our principles, there is no better plan than to deceive the patients; as we deceive them with sugar, so deceive them by a process of vaccination, which is vaccination without any vaccine virus, only a quill is used, and at the same time put up three or four powders of a potentized Variol. It will protect the patient. It is not well for the patients ever to know these things any more than they should know the remedy they are taking. It is none of their business. It is a very mischievous thing that the patients know anything about vaccination. The physician's matters should be wholly secret in his own hands and in his own mind, and these things should not become public property. The patient, of course, is looking for some great swelling of the arm, and vesicle, or something of this kind, and if told that the vaccination has not worked very well, they may be vaccinated again; it can be repeated, and if this were done by homoeopaths, I believe in course of time we would be enabled to find out more particularly to what extent it is protective. I believe this to be protective because it is in accordance with principle, in accordance with the law of susceptibility, which all you who are pupils in this Post-Graduate School will understand. The doctrine of susceptibility will explain it.
Dr. Hinds - One great trouble seems to be in vaccination that it does not satisfy the Board of Health. They examine the school children, and if they find no cicatrix there they send them home. I had that occur with one of my patients.
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Dr. Kent - Patients are not entitled to any lengthy explanation about things, and I do not recognize that the Board of Health has any right to go behind my signature. It is none of their business. They make it their business, I know, to a great extent. But you have got to face it and keep your feet on the earth. I have had scores and scores of children in the schools this winter and I have not had any trouble or any arms examined.
Dr. Hinds - I know it to be a fact because it happened in the case of my own daughter.
Homoeopathic Recorder, The (_Hom_Rec) 1926 April Vol XLI No 4
Vaccination-an epidemic-a study (A. Pulford)
A. Pulford, M.D. , Toledo, Ohio.
The greatest curse affecting humanity today is that trinity composed of ignorance (the mother) and fear and superstition (the children). That trinity is the modern doctors chief stock in trade and the foundation on which vaccination so firmly stands. We act as though man had no natural immunity and therefore must depend on artificial means. Can you conceive of anything more ridiculous than that?.
Creighton shows in the ninth English edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" that at Leignitz, in 1870, 224 vaccinated persons came down before the first unvaccinated. Can you find a parallel in the last twenty years since sanitation has become more widely practiced. where 224 unvaccinated people came down before the first vaccinated person? If vaccination protects,why cant you ?.
Surgeon General Cumming (who just knows that pollen causes hay-fever), reports (according to "Squibs Memoranda") the following: "A careful study was made of an outbreak of malignant smallpox,beginning in Duluth in January,1924. The first case was that of a male nurse who had never been successfully vaccinated,and who died within a few days. A total of 182 cases developed. Of these 139, or 76 per cent. had never been successfully vaccinated. Of the remaining forty-three individuals who had had smallpox, thirty-nine had not been successfully vaccinated within seven years".
In this Duluth epidemic you have not a single individual who had never been vaccinated. Can you produce a single parallel to that where the firebrand and every individual composing the epidemic had never been vaccinated and which epidemic occurred during the last twenty years? If vaccination protects, why cant you?.
That Duluth epidemic was vaccinations very own and refutes vaccination as a protection from every angle. What made that epidemic "malignant"? What difference did it make if the 76 per percent. were "unsuccessfully vaccinated"? did the other 24 percent. who were fully protected share any better fate? Vogt found that out of 4000,000 cases of smallpox but 1.6 per cent. repeated, while in Duluth in that epidemic all forty-three of those who had small pox repeated, even though four of them had been successfully vaccinated., Why? Simply because the vaccine virus had rekindled the latent predisposition. Here we have four men fully protected by vaccination and by having had the disease, coming down with smallpox as nonchalantly as their "unsuccessfully vaccinated" brothers. The firebrand in that epidemic was a men whose natural body defenses had broken down by vaccination and who in the natural order of things came down with the disease.
Why vaccine virus cannot protect
That vaccine virus is impossible is not hard to see,but that "there are none so blind as those who will not see" is a sad truth. The present-day vaccine virus, we are informed, "is a mixture of the malanders virus, Greys virus and Bordeaux virus (all akin to syphilis) and the virus of a Russian vaccine producer in 1838, who claimed to have passed smallpox through a cow.
The Germans mixed all of them and that is our present source." A fine mixture, dont you think,. to pollute a healthy blood stream with?.
There are two immutable laws governing all therapeutic agents-the laws of similars and the law governing the relation of action to reaction. The law of governing action and reaction is that the re-or curative action of the drug is capable of eliminating or preventing only such pathogenetic results as the action of the same drug is capable of producing on the healthy human being. Therefore, if the agent does not produce a pathogenesis similar to smallpox in its action on the healthy human being its reaction is incapable of either preventing or curing smallpox. The very fact that Malandrinum or Vaccininum may have been prescribed or vaccination performed as a preventive and the patient having escaped the disease thereafter is not positive proof that they were the cause of this escape. The deduction is merely an assumption as they are entirely dissimilar, besides,how did you know they were not already immune? Vaccine virus conforms to neither of these two laws. Creighton says the results of vaccine virus are similar to syphilis, Osler, to cowpox, both of which are dissimilar to smallpox, therefore vaccine virus is not similar as a nosode, is not similar in its action to smallpox virus and therefore its re- or curative action cannot prevent a dissimilar disease. The only thing that vaccine virus can do is to suppress the trouble physiologically which it too often does only to crop out latter in a more virulently destructive form.
Again even though the vaccine virus were the similar and logical agent, its mode of application is in direct violation of natural law. Only men who have a wrong idea of human physiology can condone its method of application. The body, like the builders of King Solomons temple, has no means of shaping the crude material put directly into it. the creator sealed the body against outside intrusion and gave the digestive apparatus to perform the task of preparing everything that enters therein, knowing full well the injury that would accrue from foreign matter, let alone septic matter. The digestive apparatus has the power to reject this, but not so after it has once circumvented this apparatus. Again, this agent in its crude state could only be pathogenetic and not eliminative. So that from every angle vaccine virus is ruled out as valueless in the protection against smallpox.
Variolinum, the real logical protection
While we have always doubted that there would ever be universal protection from any disease, Variolinum complying with the laws of similars and action and reaction is the only logical agent for the protection against smallpox. Give in the 30x or cc potencies it is taken away from its pathogenetic state and goes right down to the predisposition, which it will either allay or remove entirely. It is logical, sanitary, prompt in its action and, above all, effective. It does away with the unsightly syphilitic scar that mars the beauty of any arm. It is devoid of all evil after effects. In those not predisposed to smallpox it seems to have little or no action, its action increasing in those whose predisposition is more active, Where the predisposition is extremely active vaccination will not take and inserting vaccine virus in such cases is likely pouring oil on a raging fire.
Homoeopathy is to prevention what it is to cure-the only effective method. We challenge any doctor to produce its equal. Its opponents and others have accused its supporters of making it a fetish. A fetish is something made by art, artificial, factitious. Homoeopathy is a stern reality built on the firm rock of natural law and as firm as the rock it stands on. Homoeopathy is indeed exotic. If it has become esoteric it is because its enemies have made it so. The term fetish is applicable not to homoeopathy but to allopathy which the modern homoeopath bows down to in worship to the extent of annihilating homoeopathy for its (allopathys) favor. When looking for a curative or a preventive agent, to look upon homoeopathy as either a fetish or as esoteric and to outside the object sought is true admission of ones lack of knowledge of homoeopathy. Homoeopathy is the truth of God or it could not survive the follies employed by modern homoeopaths o defend it.
In conclusion-as we have sop often stated before-it is one thing to be vaccinated,but quite another thing to be protected against smallpox.
Homoeopathic Recorder, The (_Hom_Rec) 1931 February Vol XLVI No 2
Carriwitchets (A.D. Sutherland)
SIT DOWN, DOCTOR, AND WRITE US YOUR ANSWERS TO THESE. QUESTIONS.
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS IN OCTOBER ISSUE.
Malandrinum and Variolinum are both recommended as prophylactics for smallpox, but in any given epidemic how is one to know which to give? And re potency, should a prophylactic be given in low potency often repeated or in a single dose of the high potency?.
-Malandrinum and Variolinum are used widely as prophylactics for smallpox. In India, and especially northern India, we always face the epidemic mostly at the end of the winter season and to some extent after the rains at the approach of winter. This is especially true on the plains. Malandrinum has proved very useful in localities which are damp, due to excessive winter rains, or where the summer rains are short. It seems more effective when used for the type which is stout, healthy, fair colored, neat and tidy, non-vegetarian. Variolinum has been more successful in localities where the climate is dry during the summer, with sufficient rain during the rainy season and a winter which is not very cold. It seems more useful in the type with a medium or weak constitution, dark, skinned, and vegetarian.
Malandrinum has proved more successful as a prophylactic in those localities which have severe epidemics every year, while Variolinum serves the purpose in localities with the average type of smallpox. As Malandrinum is a very deep acting remedy I always use the 200th potency, once a fortnight. Generally 2 or 3 doses are sufficient. I use the 30th potency of Variolinum once or twice a week for a month, according to the constitution of the patient and the locality in which he lives.- G. S. VARMA.
The homoeopathist has the most certain criteria and precautions at his command, by means of which he will not easily be exposed to the danger either of injurious haste or of hurtful delay.-BOENNINGHAUSEN.
Homoeopathic Recorder, The (_Hom_Rec) 1950 September Vol LXVI No 3
Variolinum (T. Douglas Ross)
Read by Title, Bureau of Materia Medica,.
I.H. A., July 7, 1950.
Variolinum
The recent smallpox scare in Glasgow, Scotland, has drawn
the attention of the local homoeopathic doctors to Variolinum.
The fatal cases in this outbreak were in non-vaccinated people and so there was a great rush to get vaccinated. Some got "done" who should never have had it and were seriously upset in consequence.
But the other side of this medal is that most people appeared to suffer no ill effects from the ordinary vaccination, and had gained at any rate a measure of protection from a dread disease.
It was natural that some doubt should arise in minds of several doctors, especially those with little experience, as to the exclusive use of Variolinum in the prophylaxis of smallpox. Had they been able to test it in the treatment of actual cases they might have gained confidence, but such an opportunity was defined them.
In these circumstances one gets help and strength from the writings of our doughty champions who have faced such difficulties in past.
Dr. H.C. Allen's challenge1 to test Variolinum and publish the failures to the world has always inspired me, and Dr. Bonnell's experience with Variolinum and Vaccininum in prophylaxis and treatment during a bad smallpox epidemic in Oklahoma gives us the strength of actual facts. 2 You will remember he had to appear in court for not vaccinating with cowpox, but his proof of the power of these homoeopathic remedies both in prevention and cure was so sound that he emerged with colours flying. He started off by convincing his lawyer who asked for the powders! All the cases treated homoeopathically lived, whereas 20% of those treated by other methods died. Allen also states3 that Dr. Fellger gave Variolinum to hundreds of exposed people and none of them were ever attacked by smallpox. Not even the unvaccinated members of a family whose father had the confluent disease.
My experience is more limited than that of these masters and I have never had the chance to treat smallpox. So my contribution is of small value compared to theirs.
But I have noted a few of the effects of VARIOLINUM 30. given prophylactically. Most people taking the powders were affected to some degree, and some quite severely. In fact one of out hospital staff desired ordinary vaccination because "these homoeopathic smallpox powders upset the nurses so much!".
In the Homoeopathic Hospital we gave Variolinum 30. , three powders 4-hourly, to all the patients and Staff; most doctors did the same with their patients. As we do not know how long Variolinum gives protection, it was intended to repeat the dose every two weeks during the epidemic but it died down within that time.
Cowpox vaccination was not refused to those who demanded if, but its dangers were pointed out and Thuja 30. given on the 5th day after it. EFFECTS OF Variolinum 30. , THREE DOSES 4-HOURLY.
General
Tiredness was the most usual symptom. It began from 12-48 hours after the doses and lasted as a rule one or two days; one case felt quite exhausted for a week.
This experience of a healthy young woman was common:.
"I began to feel tired 24 hours after the powders; the following morning felt as if recovering from an illness; that forenoon wanted to leave the office and lie down as the legs felt weak; felt all right a few hours later". Fever chill.
Chills up and down the back with considerable malaise, in a healthy much vaccinated woman.
Chills like water down back (one case).
Head
Intense frontal headache.
Dull headache, fuzzy head, pressing all round head; difficult to describe.
On the 4th night after the powders frontal headache over the left eye with chilliness.
Headache was common and varied from slight to severe.
Eyes
Eyes feel weak. Purulent conjunctivitis with weeping, crossness in a girl of 9; required Pulsatilla to antidote.
Nose and throat
Dry throat, dull singing in ears; coryza for 3 days with sleepiness and aches all over; sore throat recurred in 8th day.
Skin
Skin of back irritated, large wheals back after hot bath.
Irritation of old vaccination scars.
Itch all over agg. in bed.
Spots like large flea bites on back and left thigh.
Digestive
Nausea was common, and occurred soon after the dose. Bad taste in mouth. One or two loose stools occurred in several provers on the first or second day.
Loss of appetite
Recurrence of an old right epigastric pain a few hours after Variolinum 30. in a man who had had duodenal ulcer but had had no pain for over a part.
Nervous system
Vertigo for three day, things swimming round, with nausea.
Back and limbs
Sore back, stiff, pains all over.
Aggravation of old sciatic pain.
Stiff right side of chest to back, where previous trouble had been, as if the side were being stretched when rising from bed or after sitting long; gradual amel. from the 6th day but the soreness in right side persisted longer.
Menses
In one woman who suffered considerable-malaise the menses were early and profuse and she and engorged breasts before hand which she never had had before.
The scale of proving is small but is has convinced me that Variolinum in the 30th centesimal potency acts powerfully on many people, producing an illness rather like influenza. The tendency to rouse up told lesions was noted on several occasions and in line with the effects of influenza.
In conclusion it would be of great help to homoeopathic doctors all over the world if the known facts about the power of homoeopathic remedies to prevent and cure smallpox were collected together and published in the Recorder.
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND.
International Hahnemannian Association (Int_Hahn_Ass) 1887
Variola - small-pox (W. J. Guernsey)
Philadelphia, Penn.
Smallpox
Definition.-An acute, specific and extremely contagious disease, characterized by an initial fever, with general constitutional disturbance, which is succeeded after forty-eight hours by an eruption of papules, the fever at once abating. The forehead, face and wrists first exhibit the exanthema, which gradually invades the entire surface of the skin and even the mucous membranes. During the next two weeks it passes through vesicular and pustular stages, and develops crusts which desquamate, leaving pigmented scars that eventually fade into whitish cicatrices or "pits."
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History.-Much diversity of opinion has been expressed as to the first appearance of small-pox, which may be accounted for by the imperfect description of it by early writers. It is not improbable that its existence dates back centuries prior to any record of it. The following data will suffice as a brief resume of its ravages.
B. C. 1500: It is supposed by some to have inflicted China at this time "as boils sent from heaven."
B. C. 453: Dionysius, an historian of Halicarnassus, of the First Century B. C., is authority for its raging in Rome about 453 B. C.
B. C. 323: The army of Alexander the Great is said to have suffered much from it on the return march from India.
A. D. 581: St. Gregory, or "Gregory of Tours," the ancient French historian, gave a fairly clear account of it.
Sixth Century: There are records of its presence in Europe at this time, yet there is no evidence that it was known to the Greek or Arabian writers of that age.
Eighth Century: The disease was spread throughout the various lands of Europe by the success of the Saracen arms in Spain and Sicily.
Ninth Century: It reached England about the close of this century.
A. D. 907: An epidemic in England.
A. D. 910: An accurate description of it by the Arabian physician, Rhazes of Bagdad.
Tenth Century: "We find in the British Museum a manuscript attributed to the Tenth Century, which contains a prayer for protection against the disease, Nikasius being the saint appealed to for protection in England."-Neumann.
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A. D. 1241: After the Crusades, it became epidemic through most of the temperate countries of Europe, and in this year pest-houses were first erected to prevent its further spread.
Fifteenth Century.-It was brought to America shortly after its discovery. In Hayti, all the inhabitants were carried off by it. It started in the Netherlands and invaded Germany and Sweden at the close of this century.
A. D. 1517: It was carried from Europe to St. Domingo.
A. D. 1520: It is said to have been taken into Mexico by a negro slave in this year, when, according to the historian Robertson, three and a-half millions of people were destroyed.
A. D. 1649: It appeared in Boston.
A. D. 1675: Sydenham first definitely separated the disease from measles.
A. D. 1707: More than a quarter of the entire population of Iceland suffered from the disease.
A. D. 1721: A severe form of the scourge visited Boston, where four per cent of the population died of it, one-half of the people having it.
A. D. 1767: It reached Greenland, when it nearly depopulated the country; out of two thousand patients but seven escaped death. It also raged at this time in Siberia and Kamtchatka. In the latter it was particularly fatal. In Iceland, 20,000 of the 50,000 inhabitants succumbed to it.
A. D. 1787: During the sixteen years following this date, about one-tenth of the mortality in Berlin was due to variola.
A. D. 1824: An epidemic in Sweden.
A. D. 1825: It reappeared in England.
A. D. 1826: It spread to France.
A. D, 1828: About this time several epidemics of it occurred in Copenhagen, also in Italy.
A. D. 1838: The Mandans, a tribe of North American Indians, was almost entirely destroyed.
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A. D. 1848: During the five years following six per cent. of the mortality of all diseases was from small-pox.
A. D. 1870: Raged in Europe.
A. D. 1871: Appeared to some extent in Philadelphia.
A. D. 1881: In New York, Chicago, and in Quebec, and several other large cities of the United States and Canada.
Its epidemics, like those of all the exanthemata, occur at irregular and capricious intervals. But few countries have escaped. It is stated that more than half a million of human beings fall victims to it annually in Europe. In India its ravages are greater than any other disease, and it is said that in Delhi two-thirds of all children under two years of age who die of disease succumb to small-pox. As the people of that country over three thousand years ago worshipped a goddess who was believed to be a protectress from the disease, so now, near the city of Delhi stands a misshapen piece of wood, of hideously deformed appearance, which represents the goddess "Situla," who is thought to preside over and govern it, and to whom children are brought from far and near with prayers and-money.
Etiology.-Although some writers insist upon its parasitic origin, the precise character of the poison, which is of specific nature and markedly virulent, is unknown. Neither is it definitely known when the disease begins and ceases to be contagious, it is assuredly so however at the appearance of the eruption, and possibly even during the incubation. It is most likely to be spread at suppuration. It affects all races, particularly the Indian and the Negro; both sexes; and every age, but especially children from the seventh to the fourteenth year. No climate is exempt. The contagious element may be retained and conveyed to others by the clothing of the patient and attendants, also the bedding and furniture trimmings, as well as by the expired air and cutaneous exhalations. It is supposed that a patient in whom the odor is strongly marked is more apt to communicate the disease. It may be contracted from bodies of those who have died of it.
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It usually attacks a person but once, but this rule has very many exceptions. Some individuals are found entirely insusceptible to it. A person may be capable of resisting its contagion at one time and the reverse at another.
Varieties.-There are six varieties: I. Discrete; II. Confluent; III. Hgaemorrhagic; IV. Malignant; V. Inoculated; VI. Modified. It may also be primary, secondary, etc., according to the number of the attack from which the patient is suffering.
1. Discrete Variety.-This is also designated by some the distinct or moderate form. It may be divided into five stages: 1. Incubation; 2. Invasion; 3. Eruption; 4. Maturation; 5. Decline.
1. Incubation.-This period is not usually accepted as a stadium of the disease, but the word implies that the poison is at work upon the system, consequently it should be acknowledged as such. The period of incubation is from ten to fourteen days. It has been variously estimated at from five to twenty days. The average is about twelve days.
2. Invasion.-The prodrome, or what is often spoken of as the initial stage of the disease is manifested by a shaking chill or repeated rigors, followed by heat, more or less violent, and dryness of skin, accelerated, full pulse, anorexia, nausea, vomiting, furred tongue, occasionally an erythematous rash, severe lumbar pains, frontal headache, restlessness, copious sweat, pains in throat, stomach and joints and general body, in some cases delirum and convulsions and debility. The backache is peculiarly characteristic. The fever rises during each day with slight remission in morning, and evening exacerbations which are of greater severity each day. This stage lasts from twentyfour hours to three days, not often longer, and is rarely absent. The pulse may rise to 100 or 120, perhaps to 140, and in a child to 160. The temperature ranges as follows: On first day about 104° F.; on second day about 105° F.; on evening of third day about 105.8° or 106° F.
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3. Eruption.-On the evening of the third day an eruption appears on the lips, forehead and wrists where it is quite abundant, then upon the trunk and lower extremities, where it is less so. This consists at first of small red spots, which rapidly grow into papules, which will be found to be acuminated, having a hard "shotty" feel, the size of hemp seeds and at first distinct from each other. The skin of the entire body is involved, usually in twenty four hours, and the eruption appears on the mucous membranes simultaneously. The febrile symptoms at once become markedly lessened. The temperature falls rapidly, either continuously reaching its minimum in twenty-four hours, or interruptedly by evening exacerbations in two or three days. By the second or third day of the eruption it begins to assume a vesicular character commencing at the apex of each papule which gradually increases until complete. The vesicles are of a grayish-white hue, rounded, flattened and with central depression or umbilications which gradually increase, and having inflamed circumferences. Vesicles are also found in the mouth, pharynx, etc., accompanied by soreness in these parts. Lachrymation and photophobia are caused by implication of the conjunctiva; salivation, dysphagia, hoarseness, etc., from the affected mouth, pharynx and larynx. And numerous subjective symptoms of these parts as well as of the general skin.
4. Maturation.-About the sixth day of the eruption the stage of suppuration begins. The vesicles are converted into pustules which enlarge from their bases until the umbilications are obliterated and we have full, globular, yellow, perfect pustules. About the eighth day of the eruption is noticed a marked constitutional disturbance and what is known as "secondary fever" occurs. The eruption is completely pustular at this time, having first become so on the face, and following up the course of its first appearance. The surrounding skin is much swollen and the redness deepens about the pustules, which redness and swelling coalesce from all directions. The face is greatly tumefied and distorted, and much tension and burning are complained of, which symptoms may also be duplicated in the mucous membranes.
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The secondary or suppurative fever has no positive period of duration, but usually continues from three days to a week, at least until the rupturing of the pustules. The temperature ranges from. 103° F. to 107° F. The pulse from 120 to 160, and quite full and hard.
A peculiar sickly and most characteristic odor is noticed proceeding from the bodily exhalations and breath of the patient. Headache and delirium and all the general symptoms may return during this stage of maturation.
5. Decline.-About the eleventh or twelfth day after the appearance of the eruption, the secondary fever subsides and all general symptoms abate. The pustules rupture and their contents being evacuated they rapidly dessicate and solidify into hard yellowish-brown incrustations. The swelling subsides and the dry scabs fall off in three or four days. They are usually gone by about the twenty-first day of the disease. During desquamation we have a return of appetite and strength and all symptoms of improvement.
II. Confluent Variety.-This form is so called from the confluent character or "running together" of the vari. The earlier symptoms are the same as those in the discrete variety, but somewhat intensified, with wild delirium alternating with or followed by stupor. The eruption appears at about the same time or sooner, and perhaps less regularly. When not of severest type it may remain discrete, or coherent (closely packed), until the vesicular or pustular stage, but when seen in its worst form it is confluent from the first appearance of the eruption, with intense swelling of the skin, especially of the face. At the time of the eruption the fall of temperature is not so marked and may not go below 103° F. or 104° F. The secondary fever is intense, often simulating typhoid, may appear a day or two later than in discrete form and last longer. About the eleventh day the severity of the disease is reached and the pustules discharge their contents and become encrusted. The temperature will now fall if favorable, and by about the fourteenth day the general symptoms will be gone and convalescence well assured. The vari are often so confluent as to develop, especially upon the face, almost a continuous mass of incrustation. The crusts may remain for weeks. The confluent and discrete forms are sometimes found on different parts of the same patient.
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III. Hoemorrhagic Variety.-This form is characterized by haemorrhage from any or all of the mucous membranes, which usually occurs in the stage of maturation, and may be accompanied by subcutaneous haemorrhage.
IV. Malignant Variety.-This is also known as purpura variolosa, or black small-pox, and is decidedly the worst form the disease can assume. The initial symptoms may not differ materially from the ordinary variety, but sometime before the fourth day a scarletinous or roseolous rash is noticed, which is accompanied by petechia. This may involve the entire skin, but is worse about the lower abdomen and thighs. It is often confluent upon the chest and abdomen. The mind is generally unimpaired, at least until just before death. The temperature may not be higher than 102° F., or it may reach 104° F., but is often normal throughout the whole case. The pulse is frequent and ranges from 140 to 160. The eruption is meagre. Suppuration is imperfect if that stage is reached. Haemorrhages from the mucous membranes may occur. Some patients die as early as the third day or sooner; some will survive nearly a week.
V. Innoculated Variety.-This mode of protection (?) from small-pox is dangerous to both patient and attendants, and is, therefore, to be condemned. About thirty-six or forty-eight hours after innoculation a papule is noticed, which in two days develops into a vescicle, and by the end of a week is a well marked pustule. At this stage, rigors are complained of, and the axillary glands may become painful and swollen. About the eleventh day an eruption occurs, which develops the several stages. By the end of two weeks we have incrustations. Its symptoms are all usually mild.
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VI. Modified Variety.-Also called varioloid or variola spuria. The symptoms are similar to variola, vera although generally milder, and usually abort at some period of the disease, perhaps on the first development of the eruption, which of itself may be sparse, or before maturation. The patient may present somewhat violent symptoms at the onset suggesting a confluent case, followed by an abundant eruption, but it is cut short of its usual course before all the stages have developed.
Diagnosis.-Uncertain until the eruption appears. If the fifth day passes without eruption variola is unlikely to result. The fall of temperature at appearance of eruption, or later the secondary fever will designate variola from the other exanthemata. Scarlatina has distinct hue of skin, strawberry tongue, and no secondary fever. Measles may simulate it somewhat at first but in that disease the eruption appears in crescentic patches with intervening healthy skin; scant desquamation of fine scales; constant coryza; and possibly a trifling increase of fever at cessation of eruption. Varicella is thought by some writers to bear close relationship to variola, but the following points have an opposite showing: Varicella has a shorter course; it attacks children almost exclusively; has no premonitory symptoms; the eruption is scant and nearly all out in twenty-four hours; it is said to be incapable of innoculation; the eruption does not have the "shotty" feel in the papular stage; it usually begins at the mouth; there is little or no areola about the vesicles; they do not maturate; they attain their height in at least three or four days; there is no umbilication. Pyoemia, acute rheumatism, erythema, eczema, acne, urticaria and syphilides can be singled out by the absence of concomitant symptoms of variola or study of the history of the case. The odor of small-pox is characteristic and as soon as present becomes an infallible sign.
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Prognosis.-The discrete variety is rarely fatal, except with children under one year of age. The confluent, haemorrhagic, and malignant forms are dangerous, and comparatively so in the reverse of the order in which they are named. Many assert that the latter is always fatal. The most perilous day is the eighth, and the most dangerous week is the second. Death during the first week shows marked malignancy. In confluent cases, death is most apt to occur at secondary fever. Sudden irregular fluctuations of temperature are dangerous; a patient may die with a moderate temperature. If the pustules cease developing, and the face remains flat and of a putty hue, especially in confluent cases, death will probably result. Death is often preceded by typhoid symptoms. Isolated cases are usually milder than those occurring in an epidemic, or when it appears for the first time in a place. In very malignant cases the patient may succumb to the virulence of the poison, and die at once; the skin is livid and the eruption barely noticeable in the skin, or it appears only after death. It is particularly grave in women during pregnancy, in whom it causes abortion; and to infants and the aged; also, to Indians and Negroes, and the inhabitants of warm climates. It is unfavorable for the period of invasion to be prolonged; the intensity of the symptoms of this stage does not denote the severity of the attack. The danger is never fully passed until decrustation is complete. If papules are closely packed at first, the eruption will probably be confluent. All complications (q. v.) are grave.
Complications.-Laryngitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, broncho-pneumonia, conjunctivitis, abscesses, acute fatty degeneration of kidneys; serous, mucous and articular inflammations; delirium tremens (in inebriates); scarlatina, measles, pregnancy.
Sequelae.-Bad nursing; mal-hygiene and non-Homoeopathic treatment, are, in a great degree, responsible for the sequelae of any. disease. Erysipelas, abscesses, gangrene of extremities, glandular enlargements, conjunctivitis, iritis, perforating ulcer of cornea; and perhaps, orchitis, ovantis, parotitis, otitis and pyaemia. Reddish-brown spots remain for months after small-pox and pitting or cicatricial scars, more or less in all cases.
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Anatomy.-The first cutaneous lesion is the macule or red spot or undeveloped papule, which is simply a congested condition of the papillary layer of the skin. As this condition is intensified the papillae become more and more prominent pushing before them the epidermis. There is also an increase in size of the rete malpighii or mucous layer, and the vessels of the corium are distended. Thus papules are developed. They are chiefly about the hair follicles or sweat glands. Gradually the serous fluid is poured out raising the horny layer from the enlarged cells below but so imperfectly as to cause several small intercommunicating chambers or lacunae in each papule or vesicle as it now is; each lacuna containing some eight or ten cells, so that a single puncture will not evacuate a vesicle. Umbilication is due either to the more rapid enlargement of the peripheral cells or the presence of a sweat gland or hair follicle, the connection of which with the corium has not been destroyed. Maturation takes place in the subjacent rete-mucosum and the pus-corpuscles are rapidly diffused. The umbilicated vesicle is found to have softened down into pus, becomes yellowish instead of white and a pustule is formed which is called the "pock" or varus. These pustules now either rupture or evacuate themselves and crusts are formed. Umbilication, which had disappeared with the rounding out or filling up of the pustule, is again noticed, due now to the more rapid drying of the centre than the periphery of the pock. The crusts fall off from inflamed surfaces which in turn desquamate leaving red marks, the deposit of coloring matter of the red corpuscles of the blood. Pitting is now noticed whenever the suppuration has been prolonged inward along the hair folicle and implicated the corium. If the true skin has not been thus involved, no cicatrix results, hence no scar or "pit" is left. In haemorrhagic cases extravasations of the blood are found in the lungs, heart, kidneys and liver, as well as in the skin and mucous membranes. In malignant cases ecchymosis of serous and mucous membranes is found. The blood is found to be dark in color; deprived of fibrin, and imperfectly coagulated, or in malignant cases not at all so.
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Therapeutics
(The following is a revision of an article by myself, that appeared in "The American Homoepathist," of December, 1885. Since that date a few corrections have been made, and very many remedies added to the original notes, from which that paper was prepared; and it is from this corrected and improved record that the following is copied.)
In the treatment of small-pox, the cardinal points to be borne in mind are the safety and comfort of the patient, and the protection of others.
I. Safety of patient.-The room should be large, well ventilated, and at a temperature of 65° F. A competent nurse should be secured, better still two of them, to attend successively day and night, so that the patient may not be lost sight of for a moment. His mind should be free from annoyance, and all draughts or chances of cold zealously guarded against, without hindering a free admission of air. It is not safe to permit the patient to sit up until the skin has thoroughly healed. The diet should be light; oat meal, rice, corn starch and milk foods. Beef tea must not be used too early. During convalescence, a nice broth can be made of equal proportions of beef, mutton and rice. Raw eggs beaten up in milk or with sugar, spread on slices of bread may be given at this time, but no alcohol. Where acids are craved, an egg-lemonade will be beneficial; (juice of one lemon, one egg, four teaspoonfuls of sugar, and a sufficient quantity of water to fill the tumbler.) Of treatment we will speak further on.
II. Comfort of patient.-The bedding should be of the After this the windows and doors must be opened and the room thoroughly aired and sunned.
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Vaccination is usually recommended as the best prophilactic from variola, but there are many strong and reasonable objections to it. Furthermore it is no surer protection than a primary attack of the disease, which every one knows to be a fallible rule. Vaccination, even with the best virus attainable, is frequently accompanied by provokingly severe and long-lasting affections. As a substitute for this barbarous remedy, Variolinum and Vaccinum have been recommended; but better than these, and surer than all is Malandrinum, a potentized preparation of the morbid product of the "grease" of the horse (better called Greasinum, for malanders is a slightly different affection). It produces an exact similitude to small-pox, and is without doubt the best protection against the disease. Dr. Herman Boskowitz, of Brooklyn, and Drs. Raue and Stroube, of Philadelphia, have made quite a study of this subject and have reported no failures. Malandrinum has been given to numbers of unvaccinated children who were directly exposed to the contagion of variola, and they have invariably escaped the disease. The writer has given the remedy to many persons (one dose each), directly after vaccination and been unable to make that or a re-vaccination "take" with virus which had proven effectual with others who had not had the medicine. One girl, who sufferred terribly from pain and an enormously swollen and inflamed arm and forearm, following vaccination, I entirely relieved of the pain in a few hours by two doses of Malandrinum, and with an almost complete disappearance of the objective symptoms in twelve hours. Two doses of Malandrinum 30th, given twenty-four hours apart, will answer for at least one season. If the disease appears again the following year, it may be renewed. It is better for the satisfaction of the patient to follow the two doses with Sac. Lac., enough to last the balance of a week, or, perhaps, give seven powders of the medicine.
Boenninghausen recommended Thuja as a prophylactic; Kaczhowsky, a dose of Sul. allowed to act for fourteen days, followed by Vacc. or Variol. Others have suggested Bapt. and Sarac.
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The following is, then, a summary of the drugs suggested for the prevention of small-pox, and those believed to act most favorably in avoidance of pitting.
Prevention of Variola.-Bapt., Cimicif., MALAND., Saracen, Thuja, Vacc., Variol.
Prevention of Pitting.-Cimicif., Hydras., Maland., Thuja, Variol.
Let not the Homoeopathician forget that his treatment of variola is not confined to a few given receipts, but that he has at his command the entire list of medicines, any one of which may be used if symptomatically indicated, and will then meet with assured success, even if never before employed in the disease. Bearing this in mind, it is evident that nothing short of a complete repertory and an unabridged Materia Medica will suffice in a search for the needed remedy. However, the following may be of service.
(Symptoms marked * contain the principal remedies only.)
Subjective symptoms of the skin
Biting sensation in the skin.-Agnus, Alum, Amm. Carb., Am. Mur., Ant. Cr., Ant. T., Arnica., Bary. Mur., Bell., Berber., Bovis., Bryon., Calc. C., Camph., Canth., Caps., Carb. An., Carb. V., Caust., Cham., Chel., China, Coccul., Colch., Coni., Dros., EUPHORB., Euphras., Gratiol., Hell., Ipec., Kali Nit., Lach., Lachnan., LEDUM., Lycopod., Mag. Carb., Mangan., Merc., Mezer., Morph., Mur. Ac., Natr. Carb., Natr. Mur., Niccol., Nit. Ac., Nux V., Oleand., Oleum An., Opi., Petrol., Phelland., Plat., PULS., Ran. Bul., Ran. Scel., Rhod., Rhus, Ruta, Selen., Sepia, Sil, Spong., Stron., Sul., Thuja, Verat., Viol. Tri., Zinc.
--Papular Stage (during).-Dig.
--Vesicular Stage (during).-Calc. C., Caust.
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Burning sensation in the skin.* ACON., AGARIC., AMBRA, ARSEN., BELL., BRYON., CALC., CAPS., Carb. V., Caust., DULC., EUPHORB., Hepar., Kali C., LACH., LYC., MRC., MEZER., PHOS., Rhus, Sep., SILIC.
--Papular Stage.-Alum, Amm. Carb., Arg. Met., Ars., Bell., Bovis., Bryon., Canth., Caust., Cinnab., Digit., Dulc., Graph., Gratiol., Kali C., Kali Chl., Kali Nit., Lach., Lyc., Merc. Acet., Merc. V., Mosch., Natr. Carb., Natr. Mur., Natr. Sul., Niccol., Nit. Ac., Oleum. An., Petrol., Phel., Phos., Ph. Ac., Puls., Ratan., Rhus, Sabad., Squil., Stan., Staph., Stront., Sul., Thuja.
--Vesicular Stage.-Amm. Carb., Amm. Mur., Arsen., Aur., BARY. CARB., Bell., Bovis., BRY., Calc., Canth., Caps., Carb. An., Caust., China, Grap., Hep., Kali C., Kali Nit., Lach., Mag. Carb., Mag. Mur., Mangan., Merc. V., MEZER., Mur. Ac., Natr. Carb., Natr. Mur., Natr. Sul., Nitr. Ac., Phell., Phos., Plat., Ran. Bulb., Ratan., Rhus Vern., Sabadil., Senega, Senna, Sepia, Spig., Spong., Staph., Sul.
--Pustular Stage.-Amm. Carb., Ant. Tart., Apis, Arsen., Berber., Canth., Cicut., Crotal., Eup. Perf., Graph., Led., Mezer., Petrol., Sil.
--Cicatrices. (in the)-Arsen., Carb. V., Graph., Lach.
Itching of the skin.* ACON., Agnus, Ant. C., Apis, Apocy., Arg. Met., Arg. Nit., Bary. Carb., Bryon., Caust., Comoc., Granat., Graph., Kali Ars., Kali Carb., Lach., Ledum, LYC., MERC., Mezer., Oleand., Plat., Psor., PULS., RHUS, Sabad, Sepia, SIL., Spig., SPONG., STAPH., SUL., Thuja, Verat., Viol. T.
--Papular Stage.* Acon., Ambra, Amm. Carb., Ant. C., Bary. Carb., BRYON., Calc., Carb. V., Caust., Cham., Coni., Hep., Kali Carb., Lauro., Lyc., Merc. Acet., Merc. Viv., Natr. Carb., Natr. Mur., Natr. Sul., Nit. Ac., Phos. Ac., Puls., Selen., Sep., Sil., Staph.
--Vesicular Stage.*-Amm. Mur., BRYON., CALC., Canth., Caust., Kali. Carb., LACH., Mag. Carb., MEZER., Natr. Carb., Sil., Sul.
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--Pustular Stage.-Anac., Ant. T., Bell., Berber., China Sul., Dulc., Graph., Hydr. Ac., Merc., Nux, Petrol., Rhus, Sars., Sul.
--Cicatrices (in the).-Flu. Ac., Jodium.
Pain in Skin (indefinite).*-Acon., Ant. C., ARG., ARN., Asaf., CAUST., CICUT., CON., Cycla., DROS., EUPHRAS., Ign., Iod., Ipec., Kali. Carb., Lach., Led., Nitr., NUX MOS., OLEAND., Paris, Phos., PLAT., PULS., Rhod., RHUS, RUTA, Sep., SUL., SUL. AC., Verat., Verbas.
--Papular Stage.-Ant. C., Arg., Arnica, Ars., Coccul., Con., Dulc., Kali Iod., Lach., Mag. Mur., Mur. Ac., Natr. Carb., Nit. Ac., Nux, Phos., Plumb., Puls., Senega, Spong., Squil., Staph., Sul., Verat.
--Vesicular Stage.-Anac., Ars., Bell., Berber., Borax, Chenop., Cicuta, Clemat., Graph., Kali Carb., Lach., Natr. Mur., Natr. Sul., Nit. Ac., Nux, Phos., Puls., Sul., Valer., Zinc.
--Pustular Stage.-Ant. C., Ant. Tart., Arsen., Bary. Carb., Bell., Berber., Cicut., Cistus., Clemat., Crot. Tig., Cycla., Gastein, Kali Bic., Kreos., Merc., Nit. Ac., Nux Jug., Petrol., Piper, Rhus, Secale, Sil., Stram., Sul., Thuja.
--Cicatrices (in the).-Carb. V., Lach., Natr. Mur., Nit. Ac., Nux.
Prickling sensation in skin.-Agaric., Ant. T., Bary. Mur., Bell., Berber., Can. Sat., Cina, Crocus., Dros., Lyc. Mezer, Mosch., Plant., Ran. Sc., Sabad., Sep., Sul., Zinc.
Sensitiveness of skin, (excessive).*-Agaric., Bell, CALC., CHINA, Coff., Con., Fer., IGN., Ipec., Kreos., Led., Mag. Carb., Mosch., Natr. Mur., Nux Mos., NUX VOM., PETROL., PHOS. AC., PLUMB., Rhus., Selen., Sep., SIL., Squil, Thuja, Verat.
Smarting sensation in skin.*-Alum., ARN., Aur., BRY., CALC., CANTH., CAUST., CICUT., Daph., GRAPH., HEPAR., IGN., LYC., MERC., NIT. AC., NUX, PETROL., PLAT., PULS., RHUS., SEP., SUL., SUL. AC., ZINC.
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--Papular Stage.-Agaric., Alum., Arg., Bell., Bovis., Calc., Cham., Coloc., Dig., Guaiac., Hep., Hyos., Laur., Kali. Carb., Kali. Nit., Lyc., Mar. V., Merc., Mezer., Phos. Ac., Rhus, Sabina, Selen., Spig., Stram., Verat., Zinc.
--Vesicular Stage.-Graph., Mangan., Phos. Ac., Platina, Rhod., Rhus, Staph.
Sticking sensation in skin.*-AMM. MUR., ARN., ASAR., BARY. CARB., BELL., BRY., CALC., CANTH., CAUST., CHAM., COCCUL., COLCH., CONIUM., Daphn., FER., GRAP., IGN., KALI. CARB., MERC., NIT. AC., NUX, PULS., RHUS., SABAD., SEP., SIL., SPONG., STAN., STAPH., SUL., TARAX., THUJA.
--Papular Stage.-Alum, Ant. C., Arn., Bell., Calc. Ph., Canth., Caps., Caust., Coccul., Graph., Hell., Kali Carb., Kali Nit., Kreos., Natr. Carb., Petrol., Squill., Staph.
--Vesicular Stage.-Amm. Carb., Calc., Cham., Graph., Mag. Carb., Sil., Spong., Staph.
--Pustular Stage.-Amm. Carb., Berber., Dros., Nit. Ac., Rhus.
Tension in skin (sensation of).*-Ant. C., ARN., BARY. CARB., BELL., Borax, BRY., CARB. AN., Carb. Veg., CAUST., Graph., Nit. Ac., NUX, Phos., PULS., Ran. Scel., RHUS.
--Papular Stage.-Arn., Bovis., Con., Mangan., Natr. Sul.
--Vesicular Stage.-Amm. Mur., Kali Nit., Mag. Carb., Mag. Mur., Mur. Ac., Natr. Carb.
--Pustular Stage.-Ant. T., Coral., Kali Nit., Mag. Sul.
Objective symptoms of skin
Blackish skin.-Acon., Ant. C., Arg. Nit., Asaf., Asar., Lach., Nit. Ac., Secale, Spig., Vip. Red., Vip. Torv.
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--Papules.-Carb. V., Spig.
--Vesicles.-Arg. Nit., Arsen., Lach., Natr. Carb., Natr. Mur., Nit. Ac., Petrol, Vip. Tor.
--Pustules.-Ant. C., ARS., BELL., Bry., Hyos., LACH., Mur. Ac., Rhus, Secale, Sep., Sil., Spig.
Blackish-blue Vesicle.-Ars., Lach., Ran. Bul., Rhus.
Bleeding Vesicles.-Graph.
--Pustules.-Ant. T.
--Cicatrices.-Lach., Phos.
Bluish Skin.-Amm. Carb., Arn., Ars., Bell., Camph., Carb. V., Cup., DIG., LACH., Laur., Natr. Mur., Nux, OPI., Phos., Phos. Ac., Plumb., Samb., Secale, Sul., Tabac., VERAT.
--Vesicles.-ARS., Bell., Coni., LACH., Ran. Bul., Rhus, Vip. Torr.
--Pustules.-Ars., Bell., Carb. V., Lach., Ran. Bul., Rhus.
--Areola to Pustules.-Arsen.
Brownish Skin.-Ant. C., Arg. Nit., Arsen., Carb. V., LACH., Lyc., Mez., Nit. Ac., Phos., Sep., Thuja.
--Papules.-Verat.
--Vesicles.-Ant. C., Carb. V., Lyc., Mez., Nit. Ac., Phos., Sep., Thuja, Vip. Red.
--Pustules.-Ant. C., Ant. T., Crot. Tig., Kali Bi.
--Cicatrices.-Lach.
Coherent eruption.-Agar., Calc., Cham., Phos. Ac., Ran. Bul., Rhus, Sep., Squil., Staph., Thuja, Verat.
--Papules.-Cham., Verat.
--Vesicles.-Ran. Bul., Rhus, Verat.
Confluent eruption.-Agar., Ant. C., Ant. T., Arsen., China, Chlor., CICUTA, Copai., Hyos., Maland., Phos. Ac., Rhus, Valer.
--Papules.-Mur. Ac., Phos., Tarent.
--Vesicles.-Alum., Crot. Tig., Petrol., Phel., Rhus, Rhus Vern.
--Pustules.-Ant. T., CICUTA, Crot. Tig., Ipec., Merc.
Eruption Fails to appear.-Ant. T., Hyos.
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--Irregularly Developed.-Arsen., Phos. Ac.
--Pale.-Bell.
--Recedes.*-Arsen., Bell., BRY., Caust., Cham., Hep., IPEC., Lyc., Nux, PHOS. AC., Puls., Rhus., Sep., Staph., Sul.
--Scant on lower extremities.-Amm. Mur.
Haemorrhagic Cases.-Amm. Carb., Amm. Mur., Arsen., Canth., China, Crotal., Ham., Lach., Phos., Solan.
Malignant Cases.-Amm. Carb., Ant. C., Ant. T., ARSEN., Bell., Bry., Camph., CARB. V., Hyos., Kreos., LACH., Mur. Ac., RHUS, Secale, Sep., Sil., Spig., Variol.
Mouth, Pustules in.-Ant. C., Arsen., Bapt., Hydras.
Offensive exhalations (very).-Maland.
Swelling of skin.-Apis, Bell., Camph., Hydras., Rhus.
Throat, Pustules in.-Ant. T., Arsen., Bapt., Variol.
Concomitant symptons
(As this section must of necessity be very incomplete, the remedies have been given a lower rating than in the preceding sections.)
Absence of mind.-Acon., Amm. Carb., Arn., Bary. Carb., Calad., Caust., Cham., Coccul., Hell., Ign., Lyc., Merc., Nux, Op., Puls., Sep., Verat.
Amativeness.-Ant. C., Canth., Graph., Hyos., Ign., Lach., Lyc., Natr. Mur., Nux, Phos, Plat., Puls., Sil., Stram., Verat.
Anxiety.-Acon., Anac., Arn., Ars., Aur., Bary. Carb., Bell., Bry., Calc., Carb. V., Cham., Coccul., Graph., Ign., Lyc., Nux, Puls., Rhus., Sep., Stram., Sul., Verat.
Backache, (severe.)-AEscul., Berber., Bry., Dulc., Led., Puls., Rhus, Sep., Valer.
Comprehension Difficult.-Ambr., Cann., Cycl., Hell., Ign., Laur., Lyc., Men., Merc., Mezer., Natr. Carb., Nux Mos., Pleand., Op., Ph. Ac., Ran. Bul., Rhus, Selen., Sep., Sil., Spig., Staph., Stram., Thuja.
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Convulsions.-Ambra, Angus., Ant. T., Arsen., Asaf., Bell., Bry., Calc., Camph., Canth., Cham., Cicut., Coccul., Coff., Con., Crocus, Cup., Hyos., Ign., Ip., Lauro., Lyc., Mosch., Nux Mos., Nux V., Op., Pul., Secale, Squil., Stram., Sul., Tabac., Verat.
Covetousness.-Arsen., Lyc., Puls.
Daring.-Ign., Op.
Debility.-See WEAKNESS.
Delirium.-Acon., Ars., Aur., Bell., Bry., Cham., Cup., Hyos., Lach., Lyc., Op., Plumb., Rhus, Samb., Stram., Verat., Verat. Vir.
Ecstasy.-Acon., Agar., Ant. C., Op., Phos.
Excitement.-Agar., Coff., Lach., Op., Phos., Sul. Ac., Valer., Viol. Od.
Fantastic Illusions.-Acon., Ambr., Bell., Cicut., Coccul., Hell., Hyos., Ign., Lyc., Op., Phos., Ph. Ac., Plat., Puls., Rhus, Sabad., Secale, Sil., Staph., Stram., Sul., Valer.
Gayety.-Aur., Bell., Cann., Carb. An., Coff., Crocus., Hyos., Natr. Carb., Opi., Phos., Plat., Spong., Stram., Tarax., Verat., Zinc.
Haughtiness.-Lyc., Plat., Stram., Verat.
Haemorrhage-Bladder (from the).-Ant. T., Arn., Arsen., Calc., Camph., Can. Sat., Canth., Caps., Con., Euphras., Hep., Ip., Lyc., Merc., Mezer., Millef., Nux, Phos., Puls., Sep., Sul., Tereb., Zinc.
--Bowels (from the).-Amm. Carb., Ant. C., Borax, Merc. Cor., Merc. V.
--Lungs (from the).-Acon., Arn., Bry., Calc., Carb. V., China, Con., Dig., Dros., Fer., Kali Nit., Lauro., Led., Lyc., Mag. Carb., Merc., Mez., Natr. Mur., Opi., Phos., Plumb., Rhus, Sul., Sul. Ac., Zinc.
--Nose (from the).-Acon., Ambra., Amm. Carb., Ant. C., Arg., Arn., Aur., Bary. C., Bell., Bry., Calc., Can. Sat., Canth., Carb. V., Cham., China, Crocus, Dros., Dulc., Fer., Grap., Ham., Hep., Hyos., Ip., Ka. Iod., Ka. Nit., Kreos., Led., Lyc., Merc., Millef., Mosch., Nit. Ac., Nux, Phos., Plat., Puls., Ratan., Rhod., Rhus, Sabina, Secale, Sep., Sil., Spong., Stram., Sul., Thuja.
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--Uterus (from the).-Bell., Bry., Calc., Caulo., Cham., China., Coff., Copai., Diad., Crocus, Fer., Ham., Hyos., Ign., Ip., Iod., Lyc., Merc., Millef., Nit. Ac., Nux, Puls., Sabi., Secale, Sep., Sil., Stram., Sul.
Imbecility.-Anac., Ars., Bell., Hyos., Laur., Lyc., Natr. Carb., Opi., Paris, Ph. Ac., Plumb., Sabad., Sep., Stram.
Indifference.-China, Coccul., Con., Ign., Natr. Mur., Phos., Ph. Ac., Puls., Sep., Sil., Viol. Tr.
Irritability.-Acon., Aur., Bell., Bry., Cham., Coff., Fer., Hyos., Lyc., Natr. Mur., Nux., Phos., Sep., Sul., Verat.
Madness.-See Raving.
Maliciousness.-Acon., Anac., Ars., Cup., Hyos., Lyc., Natr. Mur., Nux, Stram., Verat.
Mildness.-Calad., Coccul., Lyc., Pul., Sil.
Mistrust.-Anac., Bary. C., Bell., Caust., Cicut., Dros., Hell., Hyos., Lyc., Pul., Sul. Ac.
Peevishness.-Alum, Anac., Aur., Calc., Caust., Cham., Con., Hep., Ign., Ip., Lyc., Merc., Natr. Carb., Nit. Ac., Phos., Phos. Ac., Plat., Puls., Sars., Sil., Staph., Sul., Viol. Tr.
Petechia.-Arn., Arsen., Bry., Calc., Con., Hep., Hyos., Led., Nux, Phos., Pul, Rhus, Secale, Sul., Sul. Ac.
Pulse Fluttering.-Arsen., Calc., Cicut., Kreos., Rhus, Sabina, Sep., Spig., Staph.
--Imperceptible.-Acon., Ars., Carb. V., Coccul., Cup., Ip., Merc., Op., Secale, Sil., Verat.
--Intermittent.-Acon., Agaric., Bry., China, Dig., Hep., Kali Carb., Merc. Cor., Natr. Mur., Op., Phos. Ac., Samb., Secale, Sep., Stram., Sul.
--Irregular.-Acon., Agar., Ang., Ars., Bry., Caps., China, Hep., Hyos., Lach., Natr. Mur., Op., Phos. Ac., Plumb., Rhus, Samb., Secale., Sep., Stram., Sul., Verat.
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--Slow.-Bell., Camph., Caust., Con., Cup., Dig., Hell., Laur., Op., Stram.
--Small.-Acon., Ars., Bell., Camph., Carb. V., Cham., China, Coccul., Cup., Guaiac., Hyos., Iod., Kali Carb., Kreos., Lauro., Merc., Op., Phos., Ph. Ac., Samb., Secale, Sil., Stan., Stram., Sul. Ac., Venat.
Raving.-Anac., Aur., Bell., Cicut., Cup., Hyos., Lyc., Plat., Stram., Sul., Verat.
Respiration Oppressed.-Acon., Ambr., Angus., Ant. T., Arn., Ars., Asaf., Aur., Bell., Bry., Calc., Camph., Canth., Carb. V., Castor., Cham., China, Cina., Coccul., Colch., Cup., Cycl., Dulc., Fer., Hel., Hep., Ign., Ip., Kali Carb., Lyc., Mezer., Nux Mos., Nux V., Opi., Phos., Plat., Pul., Ran. Bul., Rhod., Rhus, Ruta., Samb., Senega, Sep., Sil., Spig., Stan., Sul., Tabac., Thu., Verat., Viol., Zinc.
Restlessness.-Acon., Anac., Ars.,. Bap., Bell., Bry., Calc., Camph., Can. Sat., Carb. V., Cham., Chi., Cicut., Crocus, Fer., Hyos., Merc., Nux, Op., Plat., Rhus, Samb., Secale, Sep., Staph., Stram., Sul., Valer.
Sadness.-Acon., Bell., Cham., Grap., Ign., Lyc., Natr. Mur., Plat., Puls., Rhus.
Seriousness.-Coccul., Euphorb., Led., Sul. Ac., Ther.
Sleepiness (unusual).-Acon., Anac., Ant. C., Ant. T., Ars., Asaf., Bell., Bry., Calc., Carb. V., Caust., Con., Croc., Gel., Kali. Carb., Laur., Mosch., Natr. Carb., Nux Mos., Nux Vom., Op., Phos., Ph. Ac., Puls., Rhus, Sep., Sul., Verat.
Sleeplessness.-Acon., Ars., Bary. Carb., Bell., Borax, Bry., Calc., Camph., Carb. V., Cham., China, Cicut., Coff., Con., Graph., Hep., Hyos., Ign., Iod., Jalap, Kali Carb., Kreos., Lach., Led., Mag. Carb., Mag. Mur., Mag. Sul., Merc., Natr. Carb., Nit. Ac., Nux, Op., Phos., Pul., Ran. Bul., Ran. Scel., Rhus, Selen., Sep., Sil., Sul., Thuja, Valer.
Subsultus Tendinum.-Arg., Asaf., Bell., Clem., Colo., Cup., Graph., Iod., Kali Carb., Meny., Mez., Natr. Carb., Plat., Secale, Spong.
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Temperature Diminished.-Ant. T., Arsen., Bell., Camph., Carb. V., Caust., Chel. Maj., China, Ign., Ip., Lyc., Mezer., Nit. Ac., Nux Mos., Nux V., Phos. Plat., Rhus, Samb., Sang., Secale, Sep., Sul., Verat.
Typhoid Tendency.-Ant. T., Ars., Bapt., Maland., Rhus.
Unconsciousness.-Arn., Bary. Carb., Bell., Camph., Cicut., Cina, Cup., Hell., Hyos., Kali Carb., Mur. Ac., Natr. Mur., Nux Mos., Opi., Phos. Ac., Stram.
Urine retained.-Acon., Arn., Ars., Bell., Canth., Hep., Hyos., Laur., Lyc., Opi., Plumb., Pul., Ruta., Stram.
--Scanty.-Acon., Ant. T., Ars., Bell., Bry., Can. Sat., Canth., Caust., China, Colch., Dig., Equiset., Grap., Hell., Hep., Hyos., Kali Carb., Laur., Lil. Tig., Merc. Sub., Nit. Ac., Opi., Phos., Plumb., Puls., Ratan., Ruta, Sabi., Staph., Sul., Tereb., Verat.
Variableness, (mentally).-Alum., Aur., Carb. An., Fer., Ign., Plat., Sul. Ac., Zinc.
Weakness.-Agar., Alum, Amm. Carb., Anac., Angus., Apis, Ars., Bary. Cb., Bell., Bism., Bovis., Bry., Calc., Camph., Can. Sat., Canth., Carbo. V., Carbol. Ac., Caust., Cham., China, Colch., Cup., Dig., Fer., Gels., Ign., lod., Kali Carb., Lach., Laur., Lyc., Mag. Cb., Merc. Cyan., Merc. Sub., Merc. Sol., Merc. Viv., Mur. Ac., Natr. Mur., Nit. Ac., Nux Mos., Nux V., Olean., Petrol., Phos., Phos. Ac., Pic. Ac., Plat., Plumb., Puls., Ran. Bul., Rhod., Rhus, Ruta., Secale, Sep., Sil., Squil., Stan., Sul., Sul. Ac., Tabac., Tereb., Therid., Verat.
International Hahnemannian Association (Int_Hahn_Ass) 1894
Vaccination (A. McNeil)
I have long hesitated in entering into a controversy on this subject, as I had already satisfied myself on its efficacy. But I have seen with regret that there appeared to be a desire to make hostility to vaccination a shibboleth of Hahnemannism, and moreover I have seen that these erroneous views going unchallenged might lead some of the profession to be the cause of the loss of many lives. I hope these reasons will be considered ample for bringing this paper before you.
I will endeavor to prove that vaccination is successful, and that too in proportion to the thoroughness with which it is performed and the proper selection of the virus used. To show why it has been apparently unsuccessful in a few cases; to show that none of the substitutes offered have proven reliable; that even if Homoeopaths have a better way, that as far as the rest of the world is concerned we should not agitate against it; that its dangers have been exaggerated and may be easily averted; that it is homoeopathic.
I will endeavor to show the ravages of small-pox before its introduction, and in communities where it is not practiced.
It may be well to say that much of the discontent with vaccination is that it has not absolutely abolished the disease. Let us apply the same line of reasoning to Homoeopathy for instance: Has Homoeopathy banished death? No! but it has reduced the mortality of every disease in which it has been used. While I do not assert that vaccination absolutely prevents small-pox, yet, as I will show in the returns of the Prussian army, it no longer appears in the mortality bills, and it is rational to believe that if vaccination were performed with the thoroughness and skill with which it is performed in that organization, it would cease to be a factor in mortality as it has done in the Prussian army, as I will show hereafter.
Permit me to quote the burning words of England's greatest historian regarding the effects of small-pox in that country. (See his History of England, Vol. III, page 578.) "The small-pox always prevailed, filling the church-yard with corpses; leaving on those whose lives it spared the hideous traces of its power, turning the babe into a changeling, at which the mother shuddered, and making the eyes and cheeks of the betrothed maiden objects of horror to the lover."
In the statistics I here present I have quoted in extenso from "The Handbook of the Medical Science," Vol. VII.
I especially direct your attention to the graphic picture of the disease in Kilmarnock, Scotland, in a time when statistics were not so perfect or reliable. And bear in mind that what is said of Kilmarnock was true of the entire world, except isolated spots like Australasia.
In England seven per cent, to nine per cent, of all deaths were attributable to small-pox. In London an average of from four per cent, to eight per cent, of the total deaths. Captain John Graunt, in his observations on the "Bills of Mortality," of London, (pub. in 1665,) gives the number of deaths from small-pox for twenty years (1629 to 1636, 1637 to 1658) as 10,576 out of a total mortality of 229,250, a mortality of five per cent, of deaths. It was also the seventh in the order of destructiveness upon the population, consumption being first.
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In Berlin, from 1783 to 1797, one-twelfth of all deaths, according to Casper, were from small-pox. M. de la Conda mine estimates that one-tenth of all deaths in France, amounting to 30,000 annually, were from small-pox. Three and a half millions perished from it in Mexico in the sixteenth century. In 1734 nearly two-thirds of the population of Greenland were swept away by it. In Iceland 18,000 out of a population of 50,000 died of small-pox. Catlin, in his "Letters and Notes on the Manners and Customs of the North American Indians," says: "I would venture the assertion, from books that I have read and from other evidence, that of numerous tribes that have already disappeared, and of those that have been traded with, quite to the Rocky Mountains, each one has had this exotic disease in their turn, and in a few months have lost one-half or more of their numbers." Washington Irving, in "Astoria," mentions dreadful outbreaks in which "almost entire tribes" have been destroyed.
These statements are also corroborated in Prince Maximilian's "Travels in North America," in which are detailed the facts relative to epidemics among the Mandans and Assiniboins. Pits were dug to receive corpses of those who died-50 to 100 daily-until the ground froze, and they were thrown into the river in large numbers. One tribe which had been reduced by other disasters to 1,500 persons was nearly exterminated by small-pox, 30 persons only being left. Among the Blackfeet the inmates of more than one thousand tents were swept away. He estimates the mortality from small-pox in that epidemic among the Indians at 60,000.
Wernher says in his work, "Zur Impffrage:" "Before the introduction of vaccination, small-pox had became a permanent disease, which never entirely ceased in one year, and every three or five years became a great epidemic.
"In non-epidemic years one-tenth of all mortality was from variola; in epidemic years one-half. Very few men escaped small-pox until old age; almost every one sickened at least once in his life of this horrible disease. Countless mortals who escaped death were maimed by loss of sight. Of newborn children, one-third died of small-pox before their first year; one-half before their fifth year of life. There was no family which had not heavy losses to deplore. In the country the mortality was greater than in the city.
"Physicians and government possessed no means against this abominable evil. Isolation was impracticable from the general, wide-spread nature of the disease; men accepted the pest as an unavoidable fate.
"The loss which Europe suffered from this one disease amounted to many millions. It was a principal factor which deterred or kept the population from progress, and to lead us back to these conditions are the efforts of many ignorant mortals directed."
In Westphalia the mortality was reduced from 2,643 per million in the early period to 114 in the latter. Comparing cities, we find that in Copenhagen, in the fifty years previous to vaccination, the mortality was 3,128 per million, and in the succeeding fifty years it was but 286 per million. In Berlin. the death-rate from small-pox was 3,422 per million in the twenty-four years before vaccination, and 176 per million in the forty years after that date. In other words the mortality from small-pox in Copenhagen after the introduction of vaccination was only one-eleventh of what it was before its introduction. In Berlin it was but one-twentieth; in Sweden, one-thirteenth, and in Westphalia, one-twenty-fifth.
No complete statistics of American cities for the period before the introduction of vaccination can be obtained. The data contained in the accompanying table are compiled from the most reliable historical sources, with reference to the prevalence of small-pox in Boston. After the settlement of the colony at Plymouth, in 1620, small-pox appeared frequently in Massachusetts, among both the Indian tribes and the English settlers. Such epidemics occurred in 1631, 1639, 1677, 1678 (from 700 to 800 died in this year), 1702 (213 died, which was about 4.4 per cent, of the population), in 1721, with a population of 11,000, there were in Boston 5,989 cases of small-pox, more than half the population taking the disease, of which 850 died. In the words of the historian, "The disease ran riot over the town, feasting on all who were susceptible to its poison."-Dr. Toner, in pub. of Mass. Med. Soc., 1566, Vol. II. In 1730, with a population of 15,000 people, 4,000 were sick and about 500 died. A vessel from London, with smallpox on board, was wrecked in 1751, near Nahant, and spread the disease again, and there were 7,653 cases and 545 deaths. It broke out in the American army, at Cambridge, in 1776, and Dr. Waterhouse wrote, "There were scarcely enough men free from it, or not liable to take it, to keep guard at the different hospitals."
PAGE 272
There can be no doubt, says Dr. McVail, that small-pox caused more deaths, by a long way, than any other disease in old Kilmarnock. The entire number of deaths from smallpox in this little parish for the thirty-six years was 622. There were in all nine epidemics in the thirty-six years, the average time between epidemics being four years. They came with terrible regularity.
Rate per 1000 per year of deaths from certain infectious diseases in Kilmarnock in 1728-64 and in England and Wales in different periods:
Disease. Rate in Kilmarnock. 1728-64. Rate in England. Rate of Decrease.
Measles . . . . . . . . . . 0.615 1861-71, 0.4399 100 to 70
Whooping cough . . . . . 0.7671 " " 0.5273 100 to 68
Fever (including Scarlatina) 3.4722 " " 1.8474 100 to 53
Small-pox. . . . . . . . . 4.1071 1854-79, 0.208 100 to 5
Deaths from small-pox have therefore decreased fourteen times faster than from measles; thirteen times faster than from whooping cough, and ten times faster than from fever. From the instructive comparison given by Dr. McVail the following conclusions are drawn:
1st. The small-pox was every four and one-quarter years (1728-64).
2nd. Its death-rate per 1000 per year was nearly twenty times as great as it is now.
3rd. Its death rate under five years of age was thirty-five times as great as it is now.
4th. The mean age at death from small-pox was two and a half years in the last century, and is now nearly twenty years.
5th. The death-rate from small-pox in the second half year of life is now only a fourth of that in the first half year, while formerly in the second half year it was nearly five times as great as in the first half year.
The principal point shown in this table (omitted) is that, on an average, over eighty per cent. of those who died in one epidemic had been born since the previous one; that its attack these had already met and battled with the disease fiend. On many were to be seen marks of the conflict. Some were blind, some had lost their hearing, many were permanently injured in constitution, and very many were scarred and disfigured for life, and for every one that conquered another had fallen never to rise again. There was indeed a second Kilmarnock under the green sod of the kirkyard. The Kilmarnock which had reason to dread the epidemic's approach was a Kilmarnock the least able to resist it. It consisted of a band of little children, numbering less than 500 in all. Every such group that came into existence had to face, within four or five years of its birth, the most terrible physical enemy that it would ever meet; and having fought the battle, some were added to the maimed and distorted who formed so large a part of the population, and others were laid beside those who had been destroyed in other epidemics. One can barely imagine what must have been the feelings of a mother regarding these fearful visitations. Even when the town was free from the pestilence there would be the constant foreboding of its all too certain coming, and when the first case occurred-when the doctor was called in and pronounced the disease to be the dreaded pox, his words would be heard as a sentence of death to some member of almost every family containing little ones, and as the news spread from house to house, with what a despairing clutch would every mother press her darlings to her breast and beg the Almighty God to command the destroying angel to pass by her door.
After the lapse of a hundred and fifty years one can have little conception of the meaning of a small-pox epidemic. But the old parish register has enabled us to apprehend something of its horror, and I venture to say that if the anti-vaccinationists had their will, we would ere many years be again experiencing somewhat of the awful visitations so familiar in old Kilmarnock.
Wernher reports: "In the years 1873-'74, there died in the East Indies about 500,000, and in 1875-'76, about 200,000 people from small-pox. On the other hand, among the Europeans in the same country, (120,000 of them,) there were only two deaths from small pox. The immunity of the troops was attributed solely to the thorough and vigorous enforcement of vaccination.
Does vaccination cause an increased mortality in other diseases?
The contested points in regard to vaccination may be reduced to three.
1. Whether in an equal number of vaccinated and unvaccinated persons fewer of the former are attacked by small-pox than the latter, (a question of morbidity).
2. Whether, in an equal number of vaccinated and unvaccinated fewer of the former die of small-pox, (a question of mortality).
3. Whether or not vaccination is of itself innocuous, and whether or not other diseases may not be introduced by vaccination.
(Köröse: Nerve Beo-bactungen üeber den Ein-fluss Schutspockenirupfung auf Morbiditäl and Mortalitalat).
In summing up his observations upon the influence of vaccination upon the population of Buda-Pesth, Dr. Köröse collected the data of 20,574 cases of illness from the hospitals in Buda-Pesth.
No. Cases of small-pox. Deaths by small-pox.
1. Protected by Small-pox. . . 2,000 20 4
2. Protected by vaccination. . . 30,000 2,000 20
3. Unprotected. . . . . . . . 8,000 4,000 1,000
Dr. Buchanan, of the local government board, gives the following summary of death rates from small-pox among the vaccinated and the unvaccinated for the year ending May 29, 1881:
Death rate of people Per million of each Per million of each of
of subjoined ages. of vaccinated class. unvaccinated class.
All ages . . . . . . . . . 90 3,350
Under 20 years of age . . . 60 4,520
Under 5 years of age . . . 401/2 5,950
At the date of the British census of 1881, the number of children under 10 years of age in London, was 916,784, which was divided into about 55,000 unvaccinated and 861,000 vaccinated.
In the same year the deaths from small-pox were as follows: 782 among the 55,000 unvaccinated, and 125 among the 861,000 vaccinated, or 1 in 70 of the former to 1 in 6,968 of the latter, a difference of nearly one hundred fold in favor of the vaccinated class.
He also says: "In spite of any greater exposure to small-pox undergone by the poorer half of the vaccinated community, it is seen that the poorer half had actually less mortality from small-pox among the children than the richer half, and the opinion that the escape of the vaccinated from death by small-pox was due to any smaller risk of small-pox infection encountered may be confidently set aside.
A digest of 10,403 cases of small-pox, treated by Dr. Gayton, in the Metropolitan Small-pox Hospital, London:
Ages. Vaccinated. Vaccinated Vaccinated, but Not vaccinated.
Good marks. Imperfect marks. no evidence of vaccination
Cases. Deaths. Per cent. Cases. Deaths. Per cent. Cases. Deaths. Per cent. Cases. Deaths. Per cent
Years.
0-2 4 0 0 32 3 9 22 9 41 276 181 66
2-5 57 0 0 150 18 12 96 38 40 401 201 50
5-10 206 2 1 532 27 5 207 40 19 510 180 35
10-15 439 5 1 930 32 3 214 42 20 317 76 23
15-20 606 12 2 1037 66 2 205 39 10 204 86 42
20-25 389 11 3 843 100 13 167 56 34 174 83 48
25-30 189 12 6 529 80 15 116 35 30 105 56 53
30-40 147 14 10 528 78 15 137 49 36 103 42 43
40-50 29 4 14 186 33 18 85 24 28 49 21 43
50- 19 2 11 80 18 221/2 6 20 43 30 13 43
All ages 2085 62 3 4847 455 9 1255 352 27 2169 939 43
Let us see the effect on the faces. Drs. Buchanan and Seaton examined 50,000 children, some of whom had not been vaccinated. The majority had. Of every 1,000 children without any marks of vaccination, there were not less than 360 who had scars of small-pox; while of those who had evidences of vaccination, only 1.78 per 1,000 had any such traces. He also found that where the vaccine marks were perfect and also when numerous, the evidences of small-pox were proportionately rarer.
Köröse in a "Critical Review," etc., shows that in the Prussian army, from 1874 to 1882 inclusive, that the latter being the latest returns, there was not a death from small-pox. The same author shows that under the more rigid vaccination law of 1874: "In Prussia the deaths per 100,000 of the living population for the years 1874-1881 were 3.6, 3.1, 0.3, 0.7, 1.2, 2.6, and 3.6; while in Austria, which continued under the same law as Prussia, had been the corresponding figures, 57, 39, 53, 60, 50, 64 and 82, and many such cases can be adduced when the stricter law and a more rigid enforcement has been followed by a lessened mortality and vice versa.
Much has been claimed for the better hygienic condition under which we live. Of course this being the case, other diseases would show a proportionate improvement. The mortality of measles had decreased from 100 to 70; whooping cough 100 to 68; fevers, including scarlatina, 100 to 53; while small-pox went from 100 to 5. This is in England. Part of the table showing that in London from 1709 to 1719, the mortality from small-pox per million was 31,416 and in the decade ending with 1886 it had fallen to 2,539. "
Jenner expected that vaccination would extirpate small-pox, but experience revealed that after it had been performed a considerable time that the protection was not complete; that a milder form of the disease in a considerable proportion of cases would occur, and that the liability increased as the interval of time after vaccination did. So that revaccination was tried and found to be successful. After much investigation the conclusion was reached and embodied in the law of Prussia that it should be performed in the first year, the 12th, and that recruits should be revaccinated. The result I have already shown you, viz: that in the people the mortality has been reduced to a mere trifle, and in the army it no longer appears on the death rolls. The conclusion to be drawn is that vaccination should be performed in the 1st, 12th and 20th years.
Several in our ranks whose learning I respect highly have offered substitutes for vaccination, viz; the giving of Variolinum, Vaccininum or Malandrinum in potency peroram. Enough experience has not been accumulated to demonstrate either the reliability of this procedure, or more particularly the length of time this protection extends. Time may solve these difficulties, but they have not yet been met.
The dangers arising from vaccination have been frequently and forcibly urged. The most tangible of these is the danger of infecting with syphilis. This is easily obviated by the use of the bovine virus, as that species is not susceptible to the venereal poison. That of communicating scrofula has been loudly asserted, but no evidence of its communicability of any value has been offered. But, it is urged, how frequently does it occur that bad health dates from it? I grant it sometimes is, but also how frequently are scarlet fever, measles and the like also followed by sequelae. These diseases do not produce the sequelae which are generally of a psoric nature, but only arouse it from its latent condition, and it is so easily aroused, as Hahnemann points out, that it is scarcely possible for it to remain latent through life. In the same way vaccination may arouse the latent psora or sycosis in the system. But as Homoeopaths have such resources in Thuja, Silicia, and perhaps Sulphur, and other remedies that we have no difficulty in curing them. But, I ask, is small-pox an exception to the other fevers that it may not arouse the latent psora and sycosis? We see that scarlet fever excites sequelar more frequently and of a more violent character than chicken-pox or measles; so must small-pox be followed by more frequent and violent sequelae than cow-pox.
Permit me to give a little personal experience, which has caused me to think that the bad results following vaccination are not so frequent or serious as many believe.
When a member of the Board of Health of New Albany, Indiana, I vaccinated for the city 287, and perhaps 40 or 50 of my own patients. I gave strict injunctions to report any failure or bad results. One patient reported herself with an ulcer as large as a silver dollar on the site of the vaccination; a dose or two of Thuja or Silicia was followed by prompt and perfect cure. But, it may be asked, what about those not so fortunate as to have homoeopathic treatment? I reply, the dangers cannot possibly be a hundredth or more likely a thousandth part as bad as those they displace.
I maintain that vaccination is homoeopathic to small-pox, and that only by virtue of its homoeopathicity does it prevent small-pox. I will quote the greatest authority on dermatology of the world, viz: Hebra. See Hautkraukheiten Band I Seite 239. "If we compare the course of vaccine vesicle with that of the moderately developed small-pox efflorescence we perceive that both undergo the same changes in similar periods. In fact, in the modifications in the one case of the shorter course, or in the more protracted of the other, both of the vaccinia of the variola are alike. In like manner the anatomical investigation of the small-pox efflorescence, compared with that of vaccination, manifests the same structure, and we therefore refer to the description we have already given of the variolous efflorescence, as it applies equally to that of vaccination;" and I will also quote what a greater than Hebra said; See "Hahnemann's Lesser Writings," (English edition,) page 370. "It is only in accordance with my well-known maxim (the new principle) that small-pox, to give an example from among many, has an important prophylactic in the cow-pox."
I have now shown by comparison the advantages of vaccination. If I had not given anything but the returns from the Prussian army, wherein I showed that a quarter of a million men under the protection of vaccination and revaccination for eight consecutive years lost not a single man from small-pox, this experience would demonstrate the necessity of systematic vaccination and revaccination. I have shown that vaccination protects from small-pox because it is homoeopathic-because the former is homoeopathic to the latter. I have shown that vaccination prevents the hideous disfigurations of the face which small-pox leaves, and I firmly believe that if it never saved a life, yet by preserving the good looks of mankind it is worth all it costs.
In the face of all this I maintain that as Homoeopaths we should encourage vaccination, and claim that to Homoeopathy belongs the honor of saving the millions of lives that vaccination has accomplished, and that as vaccination has conquered all but the most benighted parts of the world and brought them under her sway, so shall Homoeopathy yet bring the world under her beneficent rule, and that what the former has done for one disease the latter will yet do for all diseases.
International Hahnemannian Association (Int_Hahn_Ass) 1905
Variolinum (J. C. Loos)
March 8. - Patient, with small pox eruption well developed on face, hands and scalp, applied at the office for medicine, for what he considered a "cold".
Circumstances, which include the local quarantine regulations, made it necessary for the physician to stay in the room with the patient about two hours. During this time a dose of Variolinum cm. was taken.
March 10. - Slight dull, headache, which might have been due to business.
March 17 - (10th day) Eruption developed on the face; tiny vesicular spots on inflamed base preceded by itching, which was the first suggestive sign of the trouble. In all spots where vesicles formed, points of burning were felt. Over the forehead, neck, both cheeks, lower part and tip of nose these points appeared as beneath the surface of the skin and others could be felt in the scalp. A few scattered over the face, developed to larger size. Burning developed in one tiny point after another as if touched with hot pins. The sensation of the whole was like that felt after exposure to strong winds.
Eruption began in the afternoon. By evening the skin itself appeared swollen in these spots, which were as close as to cover the left cheek. There was no shotty feeling elicited, but the skin felt rough to the hand. Eyes slightly blood shot with bleared appearance.
March 18. - By morning all inflamnatory appearance had disappeared as well as the subjective features. Skin felt and looked smooth.
March 22 - Face, a few spots, where the largest vesicles had been, presented tiny scabs which could be felt by the finger and were rubbed off, leaving scar points. Forehead presented appearance of fine desquamating scales. No other discomfort was noticed.
PAGE 149
Conclusion - Physician was susceptible to small pox and Variolinum prevented the development of all but the most superficial symptoms.
November, 1904 - A patient in the office asked for a small pox preventative for a friend, who had been collecting bills in the neighborhood where the disease was, at the time, prevalent. Two weeks later she reported that eight or nine days after she gave the powder, the friend showed a vesicular eruption, which proved to be the first symptoms of small-pox. She stated that the body was pretty well covered with eruption and one or two nights the patient had been delirious.
Conclusion - Small-pox was already contracted, one or more days before Variolinnm was taken and if the drug had any effect it was only to bring out the external manifestation more strongly. If Variolinum is taken before the system is under the influence of the miasm it will act as pre-ventative; if taken after, it will not cure unless it be the most similar remedy in its symptom image, to the case in which it is exhibited.
International Hahnemannian Association (Int_Hahn_Ass) 1919
Odds and ends (C. M. Boger)
Variolinum
An operative patient, having taken chloroform badly, came from under the anaesthetic much exhausted with violent vomiting. Her copius supply of milk was entirely suppressed and the breasts completely flaccid for four full days, in spite of message and the usual homoeopathic remedies. Thro' a mistake in the delivery of medicines she now received a single dose of Variolinum DMM; in a few minutes she felt herself getting hotter and hotter, finally breaking out in a profuse general sweat which lasted all night. At the same time she felt the milk flowing into the breasts. The next day there was half a supply and on the third there was the old plenty.
Eczema from vaccination
Variolinum
Case
Some years ago the twin daughters of Mr. A. were vaccinated preparatory to entering the public schools of Pittsburgh. In a short time eczema appeared on the dorsae of their hands and resisted the best allopathic treatment they could procure in that city. Over two years ago they were brought to me. Thuja did nothing, but Variolinum DMM in a few days brought out large blebs which quickly turned to pustules, having the characteristic small-pox odor; they covered both surfaces of their hands, being particularly large on the palms. Recovery was prompt and the eczema gone. They remain well to this day.
MURPHY R., Homeopathic Remedy Guide (mp4)
Variolinum
(small-pox nosode)
Pharmacy
Vario. Variolinum. Small-pox nosode. Trituration of matter from small-pox vesicle. Historical dose: All potencies, sixth to thirtieth potency.
History
The cardinal symptoms of small-pox are the keynote symptoms for the use of Variolinum. The backache of small-pox is about the worst backache known and Vario. has cured in my practice a number of bad backaches that nothing else seemed to touch.
Vario. was Burnett's chief remedy in shingles, it generally, as he expressed it, wiped out the disease, eruption and pain as well. It will also cure neuralgia left by herpes. Vario. has aborted many cases of small-pox and has proved an efficient preventive against small-pox contagion and vaccinosis infection. Planets: Venus, Saturn.
Homeopathic
The Vario. nosode is prepared from Lymph from small-pox pustule. It has proved as an efficient preventive against small-pox and vaccinial infection. Vario. is used for bad effects of vaccinations.
Seems to be efficacious in protecting against, modifying and aiding in the cure of Small-pox. General aching in the muscles worse in back, occiput and legs. Calcareous deposits in the blood-vessels, spinal cord. etc.
These are cardinal indications for Vario. are: severe cold, chill, chilly creepings as if cold water were trickling down the back, violent fever with extremely hot skin with or without high pulse. Violent headache. Nausea. Pain in epigastrium. Pain in limbs as if in bones. Severe backache. There may be rash or there may not.
Clinical
Asthma. Backache. Chill. Eczema. Fevers. Headache, occipital. Herpes zoster. Neuralgia. Pustules. Shingles. Small-pox. Testicle, swelling. Ulcers. Vaccinations, ill effects.
Modalities
Worse from motion. Worse vaccinations.
Symptoms
Mind
Morbid fear of small-pox. Delirium with the fever. Fear of death, wild excitement and begging to know if he was to die.
Abdomen
Tympanities, pouting upwards, she looks pregnant.
Back
Pain as if back were broken. The symptoms are worse by motion. Terrible pains in back on right side of spine. Excruciating backache. Pains from back, shift to abdomen. Breaking backache pain.
Ears
Deafness.
Eyes
Inflamed eyelids. Green vision, on rising.
Head
Crazy feeling in the brain. Headache with icy coldness of feet and hands. Pain in occiput.
Limbs
Aching in legs. Tired all over with restlessness. Wrists pain. Muscular rheumatism, worse on motion.
Lungs
Oppressed breathing. Cough with thick viscid, bloody mucus. Feeling of a lump in right side of throat. Asthma. Troublesome cough, with serous and sometimes bloody sputa. Hawking up thick, viscid slime, smelling bad.
Male
Enlargement of testicle. Hard swelling of left testicle in consequence of a contusion.
Mouth
Tongue protrudes during sleep. Foul, metallic taste. Breath horribly offensive.
Sensations
As if a band tightly encircled head. Crazy feeling through brain. As if throat were closed. As of a lump in right side of throat. Like streams of ice-water running down back.
Skin
Hot, dry. Eruption of pustules. As of bugs crawling under the skin. Eczema of palms. Pustular eruptions, foul. Shingles and pain that follow. Ulcers look scooped out. Profuse, bad-smelling sweat.
Stomach
Even odor nauseates. Wants to regurgitate food. Vomiting of milk immediately after drinking it.
PAGE 1768
Temperature
As of cold water trickling down the back. Violent chill. Intense burning fever. Hot fever with intense radiating heat.
Throat
Throat very sore, redness of fauces. Painful swallowing. Throat feels closed. Pharynx and fauces deep purplish crimson, with gangrenous appearance. Sensation as if throat were closed. Sensation of a lump in right side of throat. Diphtheria with horrible fetor oris.
Comments
G. M. H. records this experience: Vario. 6c was given to the mother and children of a family, one of whose members was taken with small-pox and removed to an isolation hospital with his mother to nurse him.
The patient (who did not receive Vario.) was dangerously ill for a month. Neither the mother who nursed him nor any of the other children took small-pox.
Vaccine was sent by the Government and all the family were vaccinated, but it did not take with any of those who had taken Vario., although the vaccination was repeated.
Moreover, G. M. H. himself, who had taken a dose of Vario., submitted to vaccination, but "although four thorough inoculations were given, they healed up immediately and did not even itch or smart."
A school of two hundred children was "internally variolated" with Vario. (100,000c, Swan) on the evening of February 18th and the morning of February 19th. Of two school mistresses one was not at all affected, the other was two days in bed ill.
On February 21st many of the children were ill, by the 23rd all except forty were. The symptoms being the usual preliminary symptoms of small-pox and later Swan found pustules on many.
After the varioloid had passed off, but before the patients had recovered their vitality, twenty-three children were vaccinated without Swan's knowledge.
All but one took and had terrible ulcers on the arms and had to be remedied by Vac. (100,000c, Swan).
Compare
(1) Herpes, Mez., Rhus-t., Ars., Vaccin. the same action.
(2) Malandrinum - the morbid product of the grease of the horse, a prophylactic of small-pox and a remedy for the ill-effects of vaccination, chronic eczema following vaccination.
Relations
Antidoted by: Maland., Thuj., Ant-t., Vac., Sarr.
Sources
Boericke. Clarke.
Quinquennial Homoeopathic International Congress (~Quinq_Hom_Int_Con)
Transactions of the ninth congress : 1927 - Part 2
London, July 18 to 23, 1927 - part ii
Held in conjunction with the international homoeopathic league
At the connaught rooms London, W.C. 2, England
Original communications and discussions.
London
Published for the organizing committee by
83-91, gt. titchfield street, w. 1.
The science and art of homoeopathy
Vaccination: Variolinum and Thuja
By Dr. F. J. Wheeler, Southport
In the early part of this year (1927) an outbreak of small-pox made its appearance at Southpart, in Lancashire. The epidemic was chiefly of a mild character. There had been, I believe, no cases of small-pox for twenty years, and, needless to say, there was a rush on the part of the inhabitants of the town to be vaccinated. I gave thuja as a prophylactic to over one hundred of those who came to me. Others who for various reasons had to be vaccinated received at the same time a dose of variolinum or thuja. The majority received variolinum. My reason for choosing that was that I wanted to try it as an experiment after an experience I had had with it in 1922. In November of that year I vaccinated a young woman of 20 years some little distance above the knee. At the time I gave her an experimental dose of variolinum cm. There were no ill-effects from the vaccination, which had taken. In November of last year (1926) she fell and injured her knee, and while attending her for this I discovered that the vaccination marks had completely disappeared, although for some time they had presented the usual appearance.
Now coming to this epidemic, from what transpired later I think I should have hesitated to use this remedy in conjunction with vaccination, and more especially if I had studied previously the account given of variolinum in Dr. Clarke's Dictionary of Materia Medica. Fifty-two cases were vaccinated; I gave variolinum to twenty-eight, thuja to nineteen and no potency to the remaining five. The results obtained in the twenty-eight cases were not altogether what I expected. Possibly an unknown factor in the preparation of the lymph had to be reckoned with. In view of the fact that the vaccination reactions among the 13,000 of the town's inhabitants who were vaccinated at the time of the epidemic were so severe that questions regarding them were asked in Parliament, I think I am justified in saying that the lymph used to-day must differ from that of former days. The bad results were ascribed from that of former days. The bad results were ascribed by the Ministry of Health to faulty technique by the doctors. Be that as it may, out of the fifty-two vaccinated patients I only had eight really bad arms.
As it would take up too much time to give full notes of all cases I will give brief notes of those arranged under the headings of :-
(1) Thuja and vaccination.
(2) Variolinum and vaccination.
(3) Thuja as a prophylactic.
Thuja
-Nineteen received thuja. In eleven instances thuja 6 was given in pilules, one three times a day for three days; in eight cases thuja 30 unit dose was given. Even of the nineteen cases were children whose ages ranged from 4 to 16 years. The remaining twelve were adults were adults whose ages ranged from 20 to 57 years. In most of the nineteen cases the constitutional symptoms, if present at all, were very slight. Also the vaccination could be described as imperfect or abortive in all except two instances out of the nineteen.
The following are brief notes of interest among this groups :-
Thuja occidentalis
Case 1
-Male, 57 years, dairyman, vaccinated in infancy. Re-vaccinated January 27, three marks. Thuja 6 given. February 6, felt very ill and depressed; headache all over head. February 9, two marks taking; has pustular papules on back of right ear; on right fore-arm; left side of face; left shoulder and a few above vaccination area. February 17, two imperfect pocket as result.
Case 2
-Female, 4 years, not previously vaccinated. January 25, vaccinated, left arm, four places. Thuja 30, unit dose. February 5, very feverish; arm very red shoulder to elbow. February 8, the four vaccination sores had dark scabs surrounded by a yellow areola. May 2, four red marks but not typical vaccination pocks.
Case 3
-Male, 48 years, twice vaccinated previously. January 22, re-vaccinated, four places. Thuja 30, unit dose. January 30, four clean, well-defined vaccination pocks. January 31, T. 100, pains in lumbar region and joints. February 1, T. 100.2; looks ill; arm inflamed; slight reddish blush to elbow; four dirty, unhealthy grey green pustules. March 30, scabs not yet off.
Case 4
-Male, 10 years, not previously vaccinated. January 21, vaccinated, left arm, four places. Thuja 30. January 29, four papules on red, inflamed surface and between them and extending for two inches all round the whole area was covered with small pustular vesicles a little larger than a pinhead. February 5, the vaccination spots had scabs on; the small vesicles all covered with minute scabs. March 5, vaccination not taken well.
In case No. 3 "grey, unhealthy-looking pustules" were mentioned. These were also a characteristics of the variolinum cases, but were much more intensified. In Case No. 4 the minute vesicles were present in a few other cases. Before considering the variolinum cases I will include here one case where no remedy was given at the time of vaccination.
Case 5
-Male, 13 years, not previously vaccinated. January 31, vaccinated, left arm, four places. February 7, headache and general malaise; four typical pustules. Sulphur 200, unit dose. February 14, pustules with haemorrhagic areas between them. March 7, unhealthy pustules, brownish-green and gelatinous-looking in appearance. Pyrogen 200, unit dose. March 9, slight improvement. March 22, arm still bad; deep-seated, sunken scabs. Axillary glands and arm muscles painful. Thuja 10m., unit dose. Arm cleared up in a few days.
Variolinum and vaccination
Twenty-eight cases were given variolinum at the time of vaccination : Variolinum 6 given to three cases; variolinum 30 given to twelve cases; variolinum 200 given to thirteen cases; variolinum cm. Given to one case. Twelve of the cases were children of ages 6 to 17 years; sixteen were adults of 18 to 55 years.
A point of interest is that nearly all the variolinum cases had very marked constitutional symptoms. Variolinum 6 produced very little ill-effects, but three cases are not enough to definitely decide that; variolinum 30 more marked symptoms and variolinum 200 gave more trouble than the 6 or the 30 potencies. A few of the symptoms taken from among the variolinum 30 cases are of interest.
"Hiccough the day following vaccination; pains in legs, back and shoulders; pains in chest like indigestion, "as if an orange had stuck at the end of the swallowing tube." "Rheumatic pains very much aggravated." In three instances in children, "vomiting all night on the ninth day after vaccination." In two children, "large numbers of minute vesicles around and between the vaccination pockets."
The vaccination did not take well in any case and the vaccination pustules were unhealthy and of a dirty, grey-green appearance, resembling ulcers. Two arms of the twelve were very bad and the following are brief notes of the patients.
Variolinum
Case 6
-Schoolboy, 15 years, not previously vaccinated. Vaccinated January 18. Variolinum 30, unit dose. January 27 arm very inflamed and of a brilliant red; four dirty-looking, flat, ulcerated areas. On January 29, epistaxis; pustules at outer canthus of right eye; upper and lower eyelids very swollen and inflamed; arm, four dirty grey ulcers, and between them and also covering a large area were number of minute vesicles. The whole area looking like a miniature small-pox picture. Sulphur 200 given. By March 5 scabs had formed and fallen off, but fresh scabs were re-forming and over one soft was a raised, soft, spongy-looking growth. Thuja 200, unit dose, was given which cleared up the case in a few days.
The next case was the worst and the most difficult to heal. It is of interest from the bacteriological findings and the fact that thuja cleared up the case. The notes of the cases are as follows:-
Case 7
-Schoolboy, aged 11 years, not previously vaccinated. January 19, vaccinated, left arm, four spots. Variolinum 30, unit dose. January 25, four typical vaccination pustules. February 1, has been ill; nausea and vomiting; faintness some days; arm very painful four deep, ulcerated, irregular sores oozing a creamy liquid. Sulphur 200, one dose. Calendula dressings to arm. February 4, arm slightly better; bellow sloughs on two areas. February 7, arm worse; the whole vaccination area one mass of unhealthy tissue with creamy thin pus. Films were made and sent to London. Report was: "A long-chained streptococcus is present, also a few coocci of a staphylococcal type." In the meantime, before the report came, I gave the boy a dose of tuberculinum 1m. He had previously been operated upon for tubercular glands. The arm continued bad. Some little improvement after tuber., but as bad as ever a few days later. Tuber 10m. given. March 14, the arm was no better and thuja 10m. was given. By March 23 the arm was much better, and by April 9 was healed.
The cases which had received variolinum 200 had more marked constitutional symptoms, such as diarrhoea and vomiting; intense headache; lumbar pains, vertigo, and c. The vaccination pocks were of an ulcerated type or else necrotic, and the arms, which were bad, were similar to those of the variolinum 30 type.
The question naturally arises whether the symptoms were due to the vaccination or to variolinum. I think the answer is that they were due to a combination of both, although there is no doubt that the variolinum aggravated the vaccination reactions. If we refer to Dr. Clarke's Dictionary of Materia Medica w find records of cases where variolinum given soon after vaccination produced account given by Swan.
"A school of 200 children was 'internally variolated ' with variolinum c. mm. (Swan) on the evening of February 18 and the morning of February 19. Of two schoolmistresses one was not at all affected; the other two days in bed ill. On February 21 many of the children were ill; by February 23 all except 40 were, the symptoms being the usual preliminary symptoms of small-pox, and later Swan found pustules on many. After the varioloid had passed off, but before the patients had recovered their vitality, twenty-three children were vaccinated without Swan's knowledge. All but one took and had terrible ulcers on the arms, and had to be remedied by vacc. C. mm. (Swan).
Thuja as a prophylactic
The following are some symptoms experienced by patients who were given thuja as a prophylactic.
Thuja 30, unit dose, given to twins of 7 3/4 years of age. Twenty-four hours after taking it they appeared listless, and kept putting their hands to their heads as if in pain, and said their heads hurt. Forty-eight hours after the thuja they complained that on walking home from school they had pains in the elbows when the arms were hanging down. Both had constitution for twenty-four hours.
A sensitive female, aged 44 years, felt ill soon after taking the dose of thuja 30; was morose and complained of headache. Constipation with acute abdominal pain which passed off after twenty-four hours. Old patches of psoriasis on elbows cleared away. This patient had been much vaccinated in her early life.
In one family of three girls and the mother thuja produced mild headaches and small irritable spots over the body, but more marked on back and legs.
A female of 21 years said she felt as if she had influenza; also complained of pains in her chest; small irritable spots on body. Her sister, who was not subject of headaches, had a dull headache for two days. Also small, red, raised spots, hard to the touch, which itched very much.
A girl of 24 years was very drowsy, and had diarrhoea for twenty-four hours.
Two children, aged 8 and 19 years, had small, red, hard, pinhead spots, chiefly on the chest; one of them, a girl, had a patch on the right side of the forehead resembling ringworm.
A female, aged 26 years, had small, red, raised spots on chest, more marked on right side above breast, which itches very much.
A female, aged 34 years, had similar spots on the left side of the face; the whole of that side of the face was markedly swollen. She said she felt ill.
Thuja given in conjunction with vaccination modified the vaccination, which either failed to take or resulted in very imperfect pocks.
Variolinum aggravated the vaccination reaction. Constitutional symptoms were very marked. The vaccination pocks were either of an ulcerated or of a necrotic type. Thuja 200 or 10m. potency cleared up cases which were slow in healing after variolinum had been given at the time of vaccination.
Thuja as a prophylactic produced symptoms, some of which area confirmation of provings recorded in the materia medica.
Discussion
Dr. STONHAM thanked Dr. Wheeler for his very interesting paper bringing out the relationship of vaccination with thuja and variolinum. The cases he had brought forward of aggravation by variolinum were rather starting, and one would be inclined to put them down to a mixed infection of the vaccine poison and the variolinum. It was well to know that there was an antidote to that condition in thuja.
Dr. F. J. WHEELER, in reply to a question as to the source of the calf lymph which he had used in the cases he had mentioned, said that it was the ordinary calf lymph obtainable from the chemist. He had always thought there was supposed to be a standard lymph in this country, but when the epidemic to which he had referred had broken out the found that there was nothing of the sort. Even the public vaccinators in Southport had had to get their lymph from the chemist. The majority of it had been Renner's lymph, and the rest of it had come from Evans and Co. in Liverpool. He thought the lymph had a lot to do with some of the bad results, although the Ministry of Health had blamed the doctors.
Dr. T. A. NEILL WATSON said he wondered whether practitioners ought not to oppose vaccination more than they did. The easiest thing, of course, was to take the line of least resistance-which he himself did at present-because it seemed to be the law of the land that one must vaccinate people, although if parents objected before the child was six months old that child could go free from vaccination in this country. If a person was going to travel, he thought it was the law in most countries that people could not land unless they were vaccinated. The whole thing was very loose; it just said "vaccination." It did not say that the vaccination must take, but he thought it meant that the vaccination was intended to take. From the homoeopathic doctor's standpoint it seemed to him that vaccination was entirely unnecessary, as there were remedies which would counteract small-pox, as well as remedies which would counteract small-pox, as well as remedies which would cure. That was the claim. Personally he had not had any experience in the treatment, but he had read a good deal about it, and he desired to ask what advice practitioners were to give to patients, because one so often came across people who had to travel. For instance, if a person was going to China, the accounts from China were that if a person went unvaccinated he was bound to get small-pox. He himself was occasionally up against the problem of what to do about recommending vaccinatinn, and he would like advice on the matter.
Dr. F. J. WHEELER said that Dr. Wastson had brought up an interesting point, because vaccination in many cases did not seem to protect against small-pox. Many persons apparently could go about among people suffering from small-pox and never contract the disease. He had an instance of a patient who for years had lived in Morocco with her family. She stated that one could not go among the natives there without seeing somebody either suffering from small-pox sitting out in the sunshine trying to get better or else badly pock marked. Many a time she had been close against such people, but she had never got small-pox, and she had never been vaccinated. He knew of another man who during the war had been in Italy supervising a munitions works there which employed 4,000 work people. An epidemic of small-pox had broken out, and the people. An epidemic of small-pox had broken out, and the 4,000 employees contracted it. The man himself had not been vaccinated; he was a very keen homoeopath and had no use for it; he had been all over the country and had been in contact with people suffering from small-pox, but he had never taken it. Owing to the war measures at the time, the officials in Italy would not allow him to continue without being vaccinated, and he was vaccinated. It had not made much difference. He had no caught small-pox before he had been vaccinated, although he had been amongst all these men who had contracted it.
With regard to the question as to what to say to one's patients, during the epidemic in Southport there had been so-called peaceful persuasion in Southport there had been so called peaceful persuasion resorted to. He had given thuja to 100 people who had come to him; and although some of them had been in contact with small-pox cases, not one of the 100 had contracted the disease. How far one was justified, from the authorities' point of view, in not recommending vaccination he did not know. His own children had not been vaccinated, and it did raise the question of what one was going to do when one travelled abroad. Whether one could be forced to be vaccinated he did not know, but he believed at one time in America in some States they accepted internal vaccination-thuja given by the mouth.
Dr. A. WHITING (Vancouver, B.C. ) said he had been in charge of the isolation hospitals of the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, for several years, and all cases of small pox, as well as other diseases, had had to pass through his hands. Every doctor, nurse and person who had come in contact had been compelled to be vaccinated. He himself had had to vaccinate them, but he had not vaccinated himself. He and a few of his colleagues had taken variolinum 30, and none of them had ever taken small-pox. The homoeopathic physician in Vancouver had gone through ha very severe epidemic, and he had given all his patients with whom he came in contact, and his own family, variolinum as low as 3x, which he (the speaker) personally would not have liked to do, but the physician referred to used it with a 3x potency, and he seemed to have used it quite successfully, because he certainly had had no trouble with the authorities over it. Personally he felt that in variolinum homoeopaths had a splendid remedy to work with as a preventive and also as a treatment medicine for small-pox.
Dr. GRANT HOUSTON (U.S. A.) said he felt that in all things the majority should rule. He had practised homoeopathy for over thirty years. He though one only need to refer to the statistics in all parts of the world as to the results of vaccination for small-pox. The bad effects which were frequently obtained in small-pox. The bad effects which were frequently obtained in small-pox vaccination was from unclean methods of procedure. In the States they had their serum put up in various types of sealed and sterilized packages, and in many cases there were caps furnished with them which were filthy things, but in cases where the skin was properly prepared, and the serum used in a cleanly way, he had never had any serious results from it. The same rule applied to the results of diphtheria anti-toxin. In the early days there had been very much opposition to it by homoeopathic physicians, and he thought the homoeopathic school had done wrong by opposing the vaccination of diphtheria cases by diphtheria anti toxin. They need only refer to yellow fever and see what had been accomplished in the Panama. The same applied to malaria. One had only to look back to see that the death-rate in small-pox had practically been wiped out. Diphtheria was a thing of the past on account of the serum which was used. The same applied to malaria and yellow fever, and it also applied to the treatment of gonorrhoea. He had to acknowledge that he was a poor prescriber of homoeopathic remedies, because he id not rely on anything of that sort for that kind of infection. One was dealing with a live germ, and one had to get at it with a sort of machine gun which was going to kill it, and he was sorry to have in the United States opposition to those things which were universally acknowledged to be right.
He had been very interested in Dr. Wheeler's paper, and from now on, in the matter of vaccination, he was going to use thuja along with it, and try to keep his patients well by means of it.
Dr. STONHAM said the subject was an extremely interesting one which affected all homoeopaths. What the last speaker had said carried very great weight. It was the generally accepted attitude of the medical profession to wards vaccination; but for his own part he always thought there was rather an illogical attitude from one side when vaccination was made compulsory, because if vaccination was a certain preventive of small-pox, all those who wished for it could be vaccinated, and those who liked to take the rise of getting it could do so. It was no argument to say that they were a danger to the others, because they had the remedy in their own hands; they could be vaccinated. There was no doubt that a great deal of illness had been caused by vaccination. A poison could not be put into a human body without its having some effect, and though the effects might not be visible at the time or for years, yet he thought it was found from homoeopathic practice that vaccination did have remote effects.
Many a time one had patients come to one when one could not help thinking that the illness might have been due to the vaccination which they had had done perhaps several years previously. Therefore, from a public point of view, he thought vaccination should be entirely a voluntary act, and that it was quite wrong for the authorities to say to an individual "You must be vaccinated willy-nilly."
Dr. F. J. WHELLER said that in Dr. Boyd's lecture delivered that morning the interesting point had emerged whether there was natural immunity conferred by putting in vaccines. An acquired immunity was introduced and the question was whether the time had or could not come when something happened in the body, and a worse epidemic resulted than would otherwise have been the case if Nature had been left to work with her natural immunities.
ROYAL G., Textbook of Homeopathic Materia Medica (ry1)
Variolinum
Description
Make-up : Nothing definite.
Loc. : Skin; nerves.
Sen. : Aching; lancinating; throbbing.
Mod. : Agg. motion.
Leaders : Backache and other pathognomonic symptoms of smallpox are the characteristics of Variolinum.
In addition to the backache, severe chill and coldness and chilliness as if cold water were trickling down the back; high temperature with extremely hot skin; nausea; violent headache; pains in bones of the limbs.
There is no doubt in my mind about the power of Variolinum to prevent and abort smallpox.
That was proven on the best of authority in innumerable cases.
But failure has also been attributed to its use in as many cases.
The causes of failure are two, 1st preparation, 2nd the patient.
The preparation should be fresh, the potency not too high-6th or 12th.
The dose, three to five grains, repeated three times daily for three or four days.
The patient should report every day for examination, and the symptoms carefully recorded.
The reason Variolinum has been discredited is because many people who do not wish to be vaccinated by the old method get Variolinum from some physician and never take it.
They report symptoms which never existed and by so doing get a certificate from the careless or crafty physician.
Skin
"Small, sharp, pointed pimples, suppurating, dry, resting on small red areolae, frequently interspersed with spots of red color; severe itching; petechial eruption."
The skin condition for which Variolinum has proven most useful in many hands is that of herpes zoster.
The eruption is like that stated above, is usually found on the truck of the body.
The nervous symptoms are marked and the pain and temperature prominent symptoms of the group.
There are neuralgic pains following the eruptions (Mezerium).
I have also found it helpful for scarlet fever with an irregular eruption, a hot, dry skin and high temperature.
One case was of t.b. c. diathesis and had suffered from eczema during dentition.
She was seven years old.
The outset was severe, first a chill, the temperature 104 within 36 hours; severe back and headache; eruption slow in developing; severe sore throat and scanty urine.
Variolinum 6th brought out the eruption; brought down the temperature and improved the patient; within 36 hours.
Brain and nerves
Mind : "Delirium with high temperature.
Head : "Severe, lancinating, throbbing pains through head agg. with every pulsation; intolerable pain in the occiput; crazy feeling through the brain, hard to describe."
Back : "Intolerable aching in the lumbar and sacral region; pain in muscles of the back like rheumatism, agg. on motion."
Most of the above symptoms accompany or follow the skin conditions, especially herpes.
Use from 6th to 30th.
SANKARAN P., The Elements of Homoeopathy (skp9)
Some notes on the nosodes
Remedies
Variolinum
Krynicki describes the treatment of smallpox vaccination reactions. He says both Variolinum and Malandrinum have proved useful. He thinks that it can be given either three times on the first day, twice the second day, and once on the third day, or just one dose a day for three days. He considers that one dose of Variolinum 30x can immunize against smallpox, as also Malandrinum.
Variolinum is indicated in smallpox prophylactically and therapeutically and for the pitting and scarring results of the diseases.
Tyler finds that this pitting of the skin due to the scars left behind after smallpox can be mitigated by Variolinum. She says:
"Cases with histories of smallpox forty to fifty years before, treated by Variolinum with marvellous improvement, till friends have asked, "Why, whatever have you done to your face?"
Samuel Swan proved it on a large scale on 200 inmates of an institution.
Boger describes a patient who had suppressed milk after an anaesthesia who improved very well on Variolinum DMM, which had been given to her by mistake. He also describes two girls who developed eczema after vaccination and were cured by Variol. DMM after Thu. had failed.
Hallman reports 3 cases of smallpox cured and several children immunized with Variol.
McLaren says Variolinum will prevent and cure smallpox.
Dr. Jugal Kishore reports, "In an interesting experiment in a research, healthy young guinea pigs were given Variolinum 200, before and during artificially induced vaccinia by live vaccinia virus. In the control all the stages of vaccinia were noted and lasted for 12 days but in the experimental pretreated animals all stages were arrested except slight erythema in some. From the experiment, it appears that the preventive effect appeared to be more pronounced than its curative effect. This small experiment seems to have given us an evidence of an anti-viral activity of Variolinum. Further experiments are indicated.
I must mention one of my earliest experiences with Variolinum when I had not become a homoeopath.
A child of 4 years in our family had a severe attack of smallpox from which she eventually recovered. But though she recovered she did not regain her original health or vigour. On the contrary she started weakening and emaciating steadily. She became more and more listless and inactive and soon she ceased to stand up or walk. Later on still, she failed to sit up also; she could only lie down. She even stopped speaking; when she wanted anything she would merely roll her eyes. Her condition was most pathetic but none of the several physicians whom we consulted could do anything because all investigations that had been done failed to show the presence or nature of any gross disease. However, it was very clear that the child was declining very rapidly in health and perhaps in another fortnight or a month she would be lost to us.
At this stage, a homoeopath friend of mine arrived and I consulted him about this child. Without thoroughly examining the child but only on hearing the history that the child had been declining since the attack of smallpox, he prescribed three doses of Variolinum 30, 200, 1 000 to be given one dose each on three successive days. I was rather perturbed that this physician instead of taking very active steps, was merely putting his whole faith in three little powders of medicine. But strange to say, within a week the child's condition was reversed; she started regaining all her original activity and also grew a chubby as before, and in the course of a month or two became perfectly normal. In the words of the father of the child, the child regained her original vivacity and vitality and he considered that Homoeopathy had justified its greatness by this single case.
I may also mention another interesting case. Once I had gone to Kota for a private visit.
I was then casually consulted by a gentleman for his daughter aged 16 years. She was very backward in her studies and had failed in the same class for 3 years. I noticed that the girl had deep smallpox scars on her face. On enquiry, I learnt that indeed she had had a severe attack of smallpox and that since then she had become retarded. Without bothering further, I prescribed for her Variol. 1M. Thereafter, I heard reports of her excellent progress. She got a double promotion in school and also came first in rank in her new class!
Indeed our nosodes can produce amazing results in many such cases where allopaths have nothing to offer except tonics which are useless.
Transactions of The Homeopathic Medical Society of the State of New York (~Hom_Med_Soc_NY) 1910 Vol LIV
Proceedings of the fifty-eighth annual meeting of the homeopathic medical society of the state of New York, held at Albany, N. Y., tuesday and wednesday, february 8th and 9th, 1910
Vaccination by the internal method (John B. Garrison)
Some time ago your chairman did me the honor to invite me to present a paper at this time on the "New, or Internal, Method or Vaccination". Why he selected me to write on this subject I do not know, for my practical experience with smallpox is nil. I have never been in contact with smallpox, and therefore what I have to say must be taken entirely as a compilation. I shall, however, endeavor to confine myself to facts which can be demonstrated and may hope to bring to your notice some things in the history of internal vaccination which have heretofore escaped your notice and, perhaps, encourage you to do some investigating of the remedy on your own account.
PAGE 252
Vaccination has ever been a subject of controversy. That it has the power to so influence the system that smallpox may be avoided, or developed in a very mild form, is quite universally accepted, and this paper will not depart from the assumption that such is true. There are many, however, who are antagonistic to the original method of scarification in vaccinating, believing that the danger of introducing germs of other diseases into the system with the vaccine is a menace which should not be forced upon an unwilling public; and to these variolinum, if it can be proven to be as sure a preventative of smallpox as vaccination by scarification, will be hailed with great joy. I shall not endeavor to force my opinions upon you, whatever they may be, but will try to give the principal facts concerning the preparation and use of variolinum and leave you to judge as to its worth and also as to our right to demand its acceptance by the health authorities as a legal form of vaccination.
Whatever, there may be in variolinum of value as a prophylactic in smallpox, homeopathy must claim the initiative for its introduction. The scientists of the dominant school of medicine are quite willing to investigate new ideas emanating from their own school; but, as this has been a theory, as well as a practice, of the homeopathic school, as is evidenced in all of our books, on homeopathic medicine, it has not received any attention from them. In most cases it is to be regretted that members of the homeopathic school seem to willing to let their school have the credit of introducing the method without personally investigating it themselves, being withheld from so doing no doubt because of the expected opposition they would meet with by the health authorities and their dislike to get into legal controversies. If internal vaccination has been, or can be, demonstrated to be as sure a preventive of smallpox as is vaccination by scarification, surely it is superior in every other respect and ought to be popularized; and, whether we believe in it or have faith in it now, or otherwise, it seems to be to be a duty that we owe to our fellow beings to investigate it and prove its action wherever we have the opportunity. If we can see the symptoms from the internal administration of variolinum similar to those which obtain in smallpox, we have good reason to think there is action there; but we should know it for ourselves. If it is a prophylactic to smallpox, there need be no police methods to protect the community in which smallpox is imminent, for there will be no objection made on the part of the people who are now afraid to submit to the poisoning of the system in the inoculation of bovine vaccine matter through an external scarification. For reasons of public policy it would seem proper that we prove or disprove the truth of the assertions of those who assure us that variolinum is prophylactic to smallpox, and settle the question fairly.
PAGE 253
Let us first see what this variolinum is. Variolinum is the contents of the ripened pustule of smallpox. It is the pure virus of smallpox, but it is prepared, by trituration or succession, in various strengths which, when administered internally, produce symptoms similar to those exhibited during the stage of invasion and early fever, and does not produce smallpox. We are not discussing vaccininum, which is frequently confounded with variolinum and which has the same prophylactic power, it is said by some. This is noted here, so that there may be no misapprehension. Variolinum is direct in its immunity, while vaccininum is indirect.
In claiming immunity from smallpox by the introduction of the virus of smallpox into the system we do no violence to the accepted opinions of the scientific world to-day. New vaccines are presented at shorter and shorter intervals by the laboratory workers, and we are led to suppose that the majority of the diseases which afflict the human family will soon be prevented or cured by the introduction of the proper vaccine. The dose of the vaccines, and the interval between them, is as singularly like the rules we are all familiar with in homeopathic literature that we feel that we are treading on common ground and need not fear any captious criticism when we claim action from our small doses. But I believe that the scientists are won to administer their high potency vaccines hypodermatically, and we may be told that our variolinum will not act when given by the mouth. Our health authorities are very insistent on the purity of the milk supply, and that inspection of all meats offered for human consumption shall be made carefully, giving as a reason that great danger to health lies in the ingestion of such foods in an impure state. Physiologists tell us, too, that alcohol and meat extractives do not produce the characteristic changes when given hypodermatically, but must be ingested into the stomach to obtain them. Internal vaccination does seem reasonable. The law of immunization is commonly accepted. That inoculation by ingestion is possible seems to be well authorized. It would seem then that we have only to show the practical side to convince any who may have been sceptical heretofore. I shall now offer what I can, practically, in support of the theory of internal vaccination as a preventative of smallpox.
My first knowledge of the use of variolinum was given to me by that close student and staunch homeopath, the late Dr. Martin Deschere, of New York. He old me of his experience in an epidemic of smallpox at Hoboken, N. J., in the first years of his practice. Quarantine was not really attempt at that time, and cases were all treated in their own homes. He told me that he treated smallpox in over one hundred families, that he used variolinum as a prophylactic in every instance upon those who were exposed, and did not have a second case case in any family where variolinum was give at once. Dr. Deschere was not given to exaggeration, and I have always believed that his observations were worthy of our attention.
PAGE 254
I do not know why there has not been more of this remedy used within the boundaries of our own State to settle more fully the question of its efficiency, and I regret that it is necessary that I quote from a somewhat distant state in order that I may give you prima facie evidence. Iowa has done pioneer work in this direction, thanks to a number of her homeopathic physicians who were not afraid to stand up for their convictions nor to devote the time necessary to take the fight into the courts to legalize internal vaccination. In Iowa there were many homeopathic physicians who believed in the use of variolinum as a preventative of smallpox, and they used it instead of the usual method of vaccinating by scarification. They were met with opposition on the part of the authorities in the health and school departments, but stood their ground. The way they went after their rights is shown as follows. The fight in Iowa commenced on February 17th, 1902.
On February 14th, the City Council of Des Moines, Iowa, sitting as a Board of Health, at the instance of the City Physician, (who, resolution requiring vaccination to be by inoculation.
In the 17th, a certain Mr. Evans, an attorney-at-law, accompanied his daughter to school and presented to her teacher and the principal the following certificate of vaccination :
I hereby certify that I have successfully vaccinated
Miss Doty Evans of 1175 11th St., Des Moines, Iowa.
January 31st, 1902.
C. W. EATON, M.D.
The principal and teacher refused to permit the young lady to attend school, claiming that under the instructions of the school board the certificate could not be recognized.
Mr. Evans at once filed a petition for temporary injunction in the District Court, directed to the School Board, the individual members by name, the superintendent, the principal and the teacher. At the hearing in court both sides were well represented by counsel. The attorneys for Mr. Eaton based their demand for an injunction on the fact that homeopathy is one of the established and recognized schools of medicine in the state, and therefore its practice could not be prohibited; and no Board of health had any power to prohibit the practice of any method of the homeopathic school. In this case you will notice that the resolution of the Board of Health specified that vaccination must be by inoculation. The Judge at once said, "If those certificates are by inoculation, no power on earth can keep the children out of school". The opposition at once saw their mistake in not specifying scarification and withdrew their case.
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While this gave the children of Des Moines the right to enter the public schools on a certificate of internal vaccination, it was not at all satisfactory as it was obtained by a slip. A decision by default was not what was desired. The attorney at once wrote out a certificate of vaccination which showed squarely that it was by the internal method and, handling it to one of the homeopathic physicians present, said "Get that rejected right away". Two children who had been rejected at the school for not having proper certificates were quickly seen at their home and sent to the school with the certificates mentioned. It was not long before they were at the school, but when they arrived the teacher met and welcomed them, saying that it was all right as she had just received a telephone to admit all who might come with such certificates.
It so happened that there was an independent school district in Des Moines which had a separate school board the president of which had been instructed by the city physician that inoculation meant scarification. Some of the scholars of that school were vaccinated by the internal method and their certificates presented to the president of this board. He at once gave a written refusal to accept them because they were not specifically vaccinated by scarification. That made it possible to bring the issue into court squarely. An injunction was granted and costs taxed against the school board. There was no difficulty in having the certificates of vaccination by the internal method accepted for a couple of years in Iowa; but in November, 1904, a boy Roy Marks, was excluded from school on the same ground as the Des Moines cases. Mr. Marks at once filed his petition for injunction against the board and its individual members. They individually filed answer, insisting upon scarification. On November 12th, temporary injunction was granted. On the 13th of March, following, the cases was called for final hearing. As the school board did not appear at all, the court gave permanent injunction, taxing the school board with the costs.
In the spring of the same year there began to be some trouble between the Board of Health and the School Board of Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the question of vaccination. The Mayor of Council Bluffs, was a prominent physician of the old school and, by the law of Iowa, the Mayor is ex officio president of the school board. Mayor MacCrae and his board issued an order that every teacher, pupil and janitor of the Council Bluffs schools should be vaccinated. The school board was opposed to this. Suffice to say that certificates of vaccination by the internal method were presented at the schools and were refused. It was mutually agreed that a test case be presented to the court for adjudication, and on the 19th day of October, 1905, Judge N. W. Macy, of the Fifteenth Judicial District of Iowa, handed down a decision, and I beg your indulgence while I read it. Omitting some at the legal verbiage at the beginning I quote :
"* * and, the case being fully heard, tried, argued and finally submitted on the issues joined, the Court finds :
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1. That Boards of the Health have the power to adopt and promulgate rules requiring those in attendance upon public schools, either as teachers, pupils, employees or otherwise, to be vaccinated, at times when an epidemic of smallpox is threatened or prevailing, and to enforce such rules accordingly; and reasonable latitude should be given to such Boars of Health in their efforts to prevent the spread of disease.
2. That Boards of Health do not have the power to specify and enforce any recognized method of vaccination, to the exclusion of others, recognized and practised by any standard school of medicine authorized or established under the laws of this state.
3. That for many years in has been taught by the homeopathic school of medicine that treatment by the administration of variolinum is equally, or more, effective as a preventative of smallpox than vaccination by the method of scarification, and that vaccination by the administration of variolinum, or the internal method, has for many years been practised by the homeopathic school.
4. That the rules of the State Board of Health, as set forth in the cross-petition of the Board of Health of the City of Council Bluffs, Iowa, and its members, in the case heretofore pending in this Court, entitled, "The Independent School District of Council Bluffs, by its Board of Directors, vs. D. MacCrae, Mayor and others', being No. 14393 of this Court were, and are, void, in that said State Board of Health had no authority under the constitution and laws of this state to make said regulations, and in that the State Board of Health had no power or authority to require vaccination at any time by the method prescribed by any school of medicine to the exclusion of the method approved by any reputable, recognized standard school of medicine.
5. That the rule of the local Board of Health of Council Bluffs, Iowa, set forth in the cross-petition heretofore referred to was, and is, against public policy, unreasonable and void, in that said Board of Health had no power or authority under the laws of Iowa to adopt the same and, in that the same attempted to exclude children from the public schools who were unvaccinated by the scarification method, irrespective of whether and epidemic of smallpox existed or was threatened in Council Bluffs, or vicinity, and in that it attempted to require vaccination by the administration of variolinum, or the internal method as approved, taught and practised by the homeopathic school, which is one of the standard schools of medicine in Iowa and the United States.
6. That, under the record herein, it appears that at this time an epidemic of smallpox is neither threatened or prevailing in this community and there is no reasonable apprehension thereto.
7. THE COURT THEREFORE FINDS that the equities of this cause are with the plaintiffs, Ed. Canning and others, and that they are entitled to the relief prayed.
8. IT IS THEREFORE CONSIDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED by the Court that the decree heretofore entered in said cause, No. 14393, be, and the same is, hereby cancelled and set aside and the mandatory writ of injunction issued thereunder is cancelled and annulled.
IT FURTHER APPEARING TO THE COURT that the defendants, "The Independent School District of Council Bluffs, Iowa, and its Board of Directors did, by their answer, properly filed herein, disclaim all interest in the matter involved in this suit and ask that they be exempt from costs; and it further appearing that said defendants have not resisted the relief sought or made costs herein.
IT IS CONSIDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED BY THE COURT that the Plaintiffs, Ed. Canning and others, do have and recover of and from the Defendants, the Board of Health of Council Bluffs, Iowa, all the costs of this action, taxed at $46.19, and that execution issue therefore.
(Signed) N. W. Macy,
Judge, 15th Judicial District.
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No appeal has been taken from this decision and the present status in Iowa is to accept certificates of vaccination of both scarification and of the internal method. In the mean time, there have been some other cases where the scarification was insisted on. I find a record of one case at the City of Red Oak, Iowa, where a temporary injunction was allowed by Judge Wheeler on petition of L. D. Powell, et al., on January 28th, 1909. I am informed that the injunction was made permanent and that there has been no further trouble about internal vaccination in Iowa.
I have given these cases somewhat in extenso, because it seems to be wise that public notice be given of what these homeopathic physicians have accomplished and so encourage others in following their methods. What the physician of Iowa have done the homeopathic physicians of New York can do, if necessary. I say "if necessary", for I do not know that the Health Departments of this state would offer any objections to the use of variolinum. One thing our State Department of Health might do, and that is to ask its health officers to use variolinum side by side with scarification where exposure to smallpox is known and in this way add to the scientific knowledge of the world. No one school of medicine ought to have the benefit of any form of vaccination; and, if the internal method is even equal to the scarification method, how much more pleasant vaccination will become! Homeopaths will not be able to keep allopaths or any other school from using variolinum once it becomes known that it is effective. Let our Boards of Health permit it where desired, and then get accurate reports of all cases so vaccinated. It will soon be able to decide approximately whether it is valuable or otherwise. It is mainly used in the fresh preparation, in potency from the 12x to the 30x, a dose three or four times daily for a week.
Dr. C. W. Eaton was able to tabulate, through the courtesy of a number of Iowa physicians :
Number treated with variolinum 2806
Number of these known to have been exposed to smallpox 547
Number of these who had smallpox after taking variolinum 14
PAGE 258
Discussion
G. R. Critchlow : Though scheduled to open this discussion, I am at a great disadvantage in not having heard the paper and unfortunately in not having a copy of the paper sent me for previous perusal. I do not know what points Dr. Garrison has made in his paper, and I do not know that I could discuss them intelligently if I did.
What I don't known about internal vaccination would fill a large volume. I never used it. I do not know whether or not it is something that will in time supplant subcutaneous or scarification vaccination. I know I have a lot of patients who will be delighted if it does. Personally, I must say I am sceptical that it ever will. Personally I do not care particularly; because it has always seemed to me that vaccination by the usual method of scarification does not deserve to have the black eye that it as with many people. I have never seen a case of untoward influence that I could trace directly to vaccination. It seems to me only just to except those cases in which, due possibly to impurities in the vaccine, we have had the unfortunate experien=ce of having tetanus. With this exception I do not think vaccine, if properly administered, is open to serious objection. By properly administered, I mean treating the procedure as a surgical operation. I think vaccination is treated too lightly by the medical profession in general. Vaccination is a dangerous operation of done in any but a surgical manner. When the skin is scarified the chances of infection are many, and there is just as much danger in the way of infection from a vaccination wound as there is from a surgical wound in a major operation, and it seems to me that, if the medical profession were more impressed with the necessity of through cleanliness and asepsis in the administration of vaccine virus, a large part of the furore of the anti-vaccinationists would disappear.
It seems to me that it is a kind of commentary on the whole movement of anti-vaccination that the chairman of the National Society of Anti-vaccinationists is a layman. This question ought to be in the hands of the profession. It does not seem to me that laymen are competent to judge of the situation. They grasp upon a few cases that are brought to their attention. They fail to correlate the facts and the data of these cases as a whole, and jump to a rapid conclusion and rush into print with a great hullabaloo in vilification of vaccination. It seems to me the medical profession itself can do a great to overcome the tremendous amount of feeling against vaccination as a procedure.
G. I. Bidwell : This vaccination question is pretty close to the heart of the laity, especially some whose children have been killed through it. I have in mind a fellow-student in my class who came to Chicago from Iowa, where they did not have to vaccinate with vaccine. He had two nice little children who were compelled to be vaccinated. There was a latent tubercular condition in the family, and in less than six months he buried both his children, they having, did from tuberculosis. I think that was pretty close to him, and probably it would be to some others if it had happened in their experience.
PAGE 259
Of course, having heard vaccination by variolinum preached for four years, as we had it in Hering College, we believe in it somewhat. In Chicago, and in many of the states where they compel the use of vaccine, or vaccination by scarification, it is hard to get the statistics that can compare favorably; but, as Dr. Garrison says, the thing to do is to use them side by side, and then note the favorable results. I know I have seen variolinum given in cases that had been exposed to smallpox and had never been vaccinated, and there was no infection following. I remember one case we had when I was in college, a young boy about twelve years of age, who was vaccinated; and, after the vaccination, he developed one of the most perfect rashes all over the body. They called in the city health officer and he said the boy was going to have smallpox, the rash was developing. Under a dose of variolinum, that rash all disappeared, and the temperature went with it.
J. B. Garrison : Dr. Critchlow's point is well taken. Vaccination by scarification should be considered as a surgical measure; but, where it is done by he hundreds and thousands, as in the school districts of the cities, where it is impossible to, or where they do not take proper care in treating it as a surgical measure, internal vaccination would simplify the procedure and all danger of infection would be eliminated. Dr. Critchlow disclaims any personal knowledge of the use of variolinum, or of what the effects would be or had been, and that I think is the status of the majority of the medical profession of this state and of many states. What I would like to see, and what I ask for in my paper, is that we all shall make some personal investigation. It is very easily done, without any harm to any person to whom it may be given. Procure some of the variolinum fresh. It should be a fresh preparation, gotten from some reliable pharmacy and used in some of the dilutions, anywhere from the sixth up to the thirtieth. I should not want to use it under the sixth. Take a phial of tablets, moisten them, and give it to some child two or three times a day and watch carefully for the symptoms that will appear. I have seen, from the thirtieth, the symptoms of fever, headache and backache appear very promptly, within 24, 36 or 48 hours, and continue probably for 24 hours; and sometimes they will be quite severe. Usually, however, after a short time they will die away. My usual practice has been to allow them to consume the full amount of a it were done, in the course of a year or two we could have a record which would be very effective.
Transactions of The Homeopathic Medical Society of the State of New York (~Hom_Med_Soc_NY) 1913
Proceedings
Sixty-first Annual of the Homoeopathic medical Society of the State of New York, held at Albany, Tuesday and Wednesday, February 11th and 12th, 1913.
Variolinum under criticism (R.C. Woodman)
Linn says : "Variolinum is the clear serum of the smallpox vesicle, or, as preferred by some, the contents of the ripened pustule." He states that it is effective from 3x to the 30th potency. Pettet, Fincke, Hoopes, Deschere, Bishop, Linn, Eaton and Garrison are some who have written on this topic recommended variolinum. The claims made in its behalf are :
First, it shortens variola; that, given continuously from the time of the initial chill, it aborts the disease before it reaches the vesicular stage.
Second, that as a preventative to smallpox it is as effective as vaccination by scarification.
PAGE 37
Third, if administered to an unvaccinated person in from three to ten days a chain of symptoms develops described as follows : "Initial chill is followed by aching and fever, nausea, thirst, loss of appetite, diarrhoea and marked prostration. These are constant symptoms.*** The remedy, given in any potency from the third to the thirteenth, repeated at intervals of two of four hours and continued for a week, will awaken the characteristic symptoms. Perhaps not every symptom ill be developed, but the majority of them will appear."
Fourth, that after it has been administered as above, the patient is no longer susceptible to vaccination in the usual manner. Fincke does not make his claim and explains that this is not reasonably to be expected, while Linn declares that one of the advantages of the method is that it thoroughly burns out, so to speak, the susceptibility to smallpox and consumes it completely.
We have had no opportunity to test the validity of the first or second of the claims made, but the third and fourth can readily be tested. Accordingly, at the Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital, with the consent of the Superintendent, Dr. Ashley, I have administered variolinum in the twelfth decimal potency to fifty-four persons who were without visible vaccination marks, and subsequently, usually two to three weeks from the time of starting the variolinum, have subjected them to vaccination by scarification.
Of these vaccinations thirty-nine or seventy-two per cent. took, notwithstanding the previous administration of variolinum, and in fifteen or twenty-eight per cent. no vesicle formed. All the younger and all the more intelligent persons who could give a clear history of never having been vaccinated are found in the number of those in whom vaccination took. The fifteen cases where it did not take were made up of seven persons who said they had been vaccinated before but could show no scar to prove it, and eight who were, because of mental infirmity, incapable of giving any history. It is worthy of remark in this connection that without exception the fifteen cases in which vaccination failed to take were cases transferred from the State Hospitals in Metropolitan district where the custom is to vaccinate freely and where it is the rule for cases to be vaccinated at the time of their commitment. Besides, twelve of these fifteen were natives of European countries where vaccination in infancy was more general than here and doubtless most of them have also been vaccinated at the time of their immigration.
As to the symptoms of the provers, no chills, nausea, diarrhoea or prostration were noticed. Among forty-four patients upon whom charts are available, a temperature of 99.5 or upward while taking the medicine occurred in twenty persons; five times it was present on the first day, five times it appeared on the second day and the other ten times scattered from the third to the ninth day; not the variolinum fever reported to come on characteristically in from three to ten days, but apparently due to a prevalent epidemic of colds rather than the medicine. But eight to those with elevation of temperature were among he twelve upon whom charts were kept and in whom vaccination did not take. Other patients had similar rise in temperature between the time variolinum was discontinued and the vaccination while after vaccination some fever as the general rule.
PAGE 38
No certain effect then could be attributed to the variolinum given and it failed to prevent vaccination from taking. The preparation appear to have been inert.
Bearing on this question of ineptness, the freshness of the preparation should be taken into consideration. Garrison, in his paper before this society in 1910, states that freshly variolinum should be used. I am not able to confirm, however, that this has been the general practice. Linn's paper before the American Institute of Homeopathy in 1904 was freely discussed and neither he nor any of those who discussed the paper said anything concerning the freshness of the preparation to be used, although the possibility of an inert product was brought up as an explanation of unsatisfactory results mentioned by Spaulding. Dr. H. C. Allen, in the course of the discussion, speaks of using variolinum derived from the same source as that used in this test but in potency from the two hundredth to the thousands which he gives two, three or four days until fever symptoms are developed. This vaccine fever is, he says the prophylactic test and shows that the variolinum has worked, while Hallman states that during all his experience he has used out of a bottle marked 500th centesimal which he state produced abundant symptoms. The inference is they used from the same bottle year after year. However, we corresponded with three leading eastern homeopathic pharmacies in an attempt to secure afresh preparation, but none had one to offer. The preparation used was avowedly many years old but believed to be effective because of the many reports had of symptoms produced by it.
In view of these unsatisfactory results as to the effect of variolinum in the sphere in which we can test it, it would seem unwise to recommend it unless with the greatest caution and reserve as a prophylactic for smallpox. A certain wing of the anti-vaccination enthusiasts make much of its efficiency, but the report as I have read them are inconclusive. They are clinical reports by individuals physicians of patients exposed to smallpox who did not take it after variolinum. It has had no test in any way comparable to that by which Jenner proved to the satisfaction of the world the efficacy of vaccination with cowpox, that is by following it repeatedly with direct inoculation of smallpox, and in this he was favoured by the custom in that day of inoculating against the disease. Probably no one could be induced in these times to submit to this experiment after the use of variolinum, but until it is done the physician who tells his patient exposed to smallpox that variolinum will protect him takes a grave responsibility upon flimsy evidence. Indeed, Linn in 1903 writes, "No authenticated instance has come to my notice where a patient thus immunized has subsequently contracted smallpox", while Eaton in 1907 has collected fourteen instances which he argues is not more than would have occurred if they had been vaccinated in the regular way. The variolous test could be made, however, on monkeys. Copman has found them susceptible both to inoculation with vaccine and with variola and that either protects from a second inoculation of itself or of the other.
PAGE 39
Discussion
H.D. Schenck : Has this preparation of variolinum been used extensively and can it be readily secured?
Dr. Woodman : The preparation which we used was gathered (according to the pharmacist) a great many years ago, and an attempt to secure a more recent preparation in each of three leading homeopathic pharmacies was not attended probably the one from which the other pharmacists had derived their supply. There is no difficulty about securing variolinum above the 12th decimal potency, but so far as our inquiry goes no one has a recent preparation. It is conceivable that the new preparation might lack the virtues of the old and the preparation of variolinum used in these tests is the same as that used by several of those who discussed the paper in 1903 before the American Institute. My conclusion from all the evidence offered as to the efficiency of variolinum is that it is not, in any commercial preparation at least, a safe substitute for vaccination, that claims in its behalf are unproven, and that its use may be expected to lead only to a false and dangerous sense of security.
TYLER M. L., Hahnemann's Conception of Chronic Disease, as caused by Parasitic Micro-Organisms (tl8)
Smallpox-variolinum
Mrs. T. Out-patient on and off since 1914.
In January, 1921, because she had had smallpox badly at 9 years old (some thirty years before) and was badly pitted, she got Variolinum 200 1 dose.
PAGE 17
After a month. Looks quite different. Less deeply pitted. More colour. Variolinum 200 1 dose.
After 4 months. Looks V.M. B. Good colour. "You look very much better!" "They all tell me that."
Since the, at intervals, for various ailments, she has been given a dose of Variolinum : which has helped her.
Several doctors have seen her and wondered. Her cheeks are almost smooth : and, at a short distance, one would now notice that she had smallpox.
M.H. A patient with cataract and glycosuria.
In May, 1926, the note is "Smallpox at 3 years old : is now 56". Variolinum 200 1 dose.
This woman had several dose of Variolinum at long intervals.
The sugar varied : but a report, a few months later reads :
Wonderfully well : no thirst or hunger.
Says, eyes clearer.
Looks well : good colour : less pitting.
Says friends notice the change in her face.
Cheeks smooth now : "friends notice it."
Another out-patient (for years under different doctors) for gastric troubles, retching, etc.
In March, 1928, when she was 55 (having had smallpox at 7 years old), she got Variolinum 200, one dose. This was repeated in July and Sept.
She said that she had been very much better at once, from the first dose : "The medicine worked like magic on me."
In one case, whose notes I have not found, after smallpox, some forty years before, when there has been abscesses in both nostrils, she had been unable for al those years to breathe through her nose-till Variolinum : which not only improved the unsightly deformity, but enabled her to breathe again through her nostrils.
WADIA S. R., Homoeopathy in Children Diseases (wda6)
Chicken pox
No sooner the vesicles appear Variolinum 200, 2 doses are given in every case followed by Rhus Tox. 30 in repeated doses which is found very useful when there is a successive crops of eruptions. Very rarely, Sulphur is required to finish the cases.
WHEELER C. E., Introduction to the Principles of Homeopathy (wl1)
Dd nosodes
[TUBERCULINUM]
In this section of the Materia Medica there have to be considered a number of different remedies, but all alike in that they take their origin from actual diseased tissues or (latterly) from bacterial cultures. Long before bacteriology was established as a subject for scientific enquiry it occurred to one or two homoeopathists (notably Dr. Swan) that the obvious manifestations of toxic conditions such as skin eruptions and discharges should contain poisons which could be turned to account as remedies on the basis of symptom similarity. Several such preparations were made and proved so successful that their number has been constantly augmented. The material of the discharge or fluid from an eruption or actual diseased tissue ( e.g. , in the cancer nosodes) was mixed with lactose,triturated for a starting point and potencies prepared therefrom in the usual way. As they were never used below the 6th centesimal and usually in the 30th and upwards, any question of there remaining any repugnant morbid material did not arise. They were (and are) called nosodes, a name implying their origin from actual diseases.
Later, when bacteriology became a flourishing branch of medicine, cultures of specific germs were used as the basis for potentised remedies and the modern Staphylococcin, Streptococcin, etc., are so prepared and also the whole range of bowel organisms.
It is held that influenza virus (and others) can be grown on certain tissues. As the virus cannot be isolated from its medium as a germ culture can, a vaccine of the virus has to include the tissue on which it is grown and this again is analogous to the procedure of the homoeopathists.
This, then, is the mode of origin of the nosodes and the group includes a number of remedies and is extensively used in homoeopathic therapeutics. Although they include the prime agents of the corresponding diseases, the method of preparation and potentisation makes them closely similar to rather than identical with the sickness from which they are derived, just as culture on a culture medium and killing the culture makes a vaccine something less than the actual poison of the disease. It can be regarded in our phraseology as simillimum rather than as idem , so that vaccine therapy has always interested homoeopathists who see in it a procedure analogous to their own. The resemblance has often been admitted by eminent men from Von Behring onwards. It was, of course, developed without any thought of the homoeopathic heresy but that fact makes it all the more deeply significant to the followers of Hahnemann.
Some of the nosodes ( e.g. , Psorinum, Medorrhinum, Leuticum,Tuberculinum) have had some testing on the healthy, but it must be admitted that their symptomatology (in some instances quite extensive) has been mainly worked out clinically on the reactions of patients. Since, however, the clinical evidence has had in the best instances many years to accumulate and has been checked by the experience of many practitioners, it can be relied on to give trustworthy indications for the use of these remedies.
The less well proved ones are associated with their corresponding diseases and characteristic disease symptoms can (with due care) be taken as indications for the use of the nosode in any disease. To the homoeopathist a nosode is a poison to the body just as any vegetable or mineral may be, and the rule of similars should therefore apply to it and make it available as a remedy. For instance, a severe backache might find its remedy in variolinum, backache being a characteristic symptom of small-pox, if other symptoms fitted into the picture.
It would be rash to assume that any, even well marked, symptom of a disease can be read as an indication when it occurs in a case of sickness independent of that disease. The nosode is not identical with the disease toxin in the way, for example,a massive dose taken by a prover of arsenic is identical with the potentised arsenic given to a patient who reproduces the prover's symptoms. If or when the nosodes are symptomatically proved, uses may be found for them. These statements apply particularly to nosodes of acute diseases, and their use in acute disease conditions to which they do not pathologically correspond .
It is true that this use of the nosodes of acute disease is not common;usually there are many other drugs with a more extensive symptomatology to be considered and a more exact choice can be made from among them. It is probable that the acute sickness elicits so specific a reaction that the uses of its nosode, apart from its own disease, are bound to be few. Experience appears to point to that conclusion. One interesting fact emerges from experience in acute diseases. If a case is severe and remedies either poorly indicated from lack of effective vital reaction or failing to produce results from the same reason,then a dose of the nosode may prove to be just the stimulus required and either suffice for cure or carry the patient to a state wherein another remedy will be well indicated and successful. This is particularly true of certain types of pneumonia that were terribly in evidence just after the last great war. The septicaemia was severe, far too often fatal and, although homoeopathists succeeded in achieving a lower mortality than the average, it was far higher than which they usually see in pneumonia, at least in hospital cases. In private patients the results were good, but the onset of the disease was often insidious and far too many of the poorer cases delayed applying to the hospital until there was little chance for them. In these circumstances it was more difficult than is customary with pneumonia to find the simillimum . Much the best results that were personally known to us were achieved by Drs. Teale and Bach with a polyvalent intestinal vaccine prepared from a number of severe infections. At the time of the worst epidemic we did not know of it, but it was used in sporadic similar cases later, and these without exception cleared up quickly and conclusively. It was given hypodermically in small isolated doses, the effect of each being observed before repetition was considered. After injections there would be a brief rise of temperature of half a degree to a degree or more, and then within a couple of hours a fall like that of a crisis.
One country hospital obtained great success with a nosode potentised direct from the sputum of several cases, but this procedure was relatively unsuccessful in London. Probably such a nosode would need more strains of organism than were actually used in order to be generally effective.
In these terrible epidemics the modern sulphonamide preparations were unknown. But as far as pneumonia is concerned Hahnemann's followers have never felt themselves to be ill equipped for cure. On the contrary, they expect success, so that they do not hasten to leave their well-tried and effective weapons for others till the latter have been very well tested, though naturally they do not, and will not, neglect any weapon of proved efficacy .
To sum up the matter so far, nosodes of the acute diseases do not appear to be of great curative value in the course of the actual diseases to which they are related, with the important exception of the polyvalent vaccine (or nosode) in acute septic pneumonia. It is, however, just possible that in other acute diseases they might find a place in very severe and overwhelming cases and if other remedies fail they should then be remembered.
The great usefulness of the acute disease nosodes lies elsewhere in two spheres. First, that of prophylaxis. In any epidemic the corresponding nosode can be given for this purpose, and will be found valuable. Generally speaking, a dose of the 30th potency will protect for at least a fortnight. For more persistent and recurrent infections like influenza, in our judgment the nosode influenzinum is best mixed with one of the T. B. nosodes, either tub. bov. or bacillinum (Burnett). All the tuberculins suit that type of patient who seems to pick up nasal catarrh on the least provocation and the mixture suggested is effective against the common cold as well as against influenza.
The other sphere of usefulness has two divisions. If a case of an acute disease is slow in convalescence, apt to relapse, a dose or two of its nosode will work wonders : e.g. , Pneumococcin fora lobar pneumonia that is slow to resolve, or Morbillinum for a case of measles where chest catarrhal symptoms are persistent. In all such cases the nosode seems to give a fresh impetus to powers of recovery. It is true that great polycrests like sulphur or lycopodium will often work effectively in such emergencies and if any one of them were well indicated by symptoms it should be given. But so often in these cases there is a fundamental deficiency in recuperative power, and that generally means few and uncertain symptoms, since characteristic symptoms are as much (or more) the expression of body reaction as of disease attack. It is precisely where there are no very clear indications for a remedy that the nosode can help.
The other value of these nosodes is one of particular interest. It has been realised by several physicians (notably by Dr. Clarke and Dr. Burnett), but Dr. Tyler of recent years has done great service in insisting on it. In treating chronic cases it frequently happens that enquiry into past history reveals that the patient dates the beginning of trouble to an acute illness,saying, "I have never been really well since I had measles (or diphtheria or whatever)". In such a case it is remarkable how often a dose of the corresponding nosode (preferably in high potency) stars the case on the road to recovery or at least to marked improvement. The indications for supplementary remedies become clearer and the response to them more marked.
It is true that certain remedies have long been regarded with favour for some conditions dating from previous disease poisonings, as e.g. , thuja for ill effects of vaccination, but without forgetting or underrating these,the nosodes of acute disease are most valuable. Even when the association of the acute attack and the chronic condition has not been observed by the patient, the history of a severe experience of this or the other acute disease would warrant an experimental use of the corresponding nosode in a case refractory to obvious remedies.
One of their indications for the "tuberculinique" is a history of a severe attack of measles or whooping-cough, both of them diseases not infrequently followed by tubercular manifestations. In such cases these physicians employ one or other of the tuberculins, but it might be well to remember also the disease nosodes such as morbillinum and perhaps give them the first chance to stimulate effective reactions.
These tow preparations have recently been potentised by Messrs. Nelson and are now available.
Dd tuberculinum
In this study of tuberculinum we propose to approach the subject in the following manner. We shall first enumerate the various tuberculins more generally employed by homoeopathists. Then we shall consider the type and general reactions of the individual who usually benefits from the administration of tuberculin in potency (the "tuberculinique" of the French).
Finally, having taken note of the gross effects on the body of tuberculin injections, we shall give the detailed symptoms of this remedy as known to homoeopathists and refer briefly to the shades of difference in symptomatology between the various potentised tuberculins.
Bacillinum burnett
Dr. Burnett was the first to employ this nosode. His preparation was made from typical nummular sputum and tubercle bacilli were demonstrated in it, but it must have contained as well secondary pus organisms, streptococci, staphylococci of possibly various kinds. Bacteriology was not an advanced study in those days, and we have no details recorded beyond the presence of tub. bac. It may, however, safely be regarded as polyvalent, and this may make it specially valuable in certain cases.
Tuberculinum
Preparations have been made from tubercular abscesses derived from the human body, though the infection was probably a bovine strain.
Tuberculinum bovinum kent
This is the preparation of which Dr. Kent principally writes, though he has not detailed a definite symptomatology that would lead the prescriber to choose this remedy in preference to any of the other potentised tuberculins. Tuberculinum bovinum is made by triturating with sugar of milk the tubercular glands of infected cattle.
Tuberculinum avis
Is prepared from chicken tuberculosis and appears to act most markedly on the apices of the lungs.
Bacillinum testium
Is a nosode prepared from a tubercular testicle and was considered by clarke and Burnett as having a more direct relationship to the lower part of the body than the pulmonary bacillinum.
Tuberculinum koch
This preparation is made from cultures of the human bacillus of tubercle which are triturated with lactose and potentised.
These two preparations have recently been potentised by Messrs. Nelson and are now available .
Tuberculinum denys
Our French colleagues have potentised a filtered broth in which cultures of tubercle bacilli have been grown.
Tuberculinum koch
A culture of Koch's bacilli in broth is filtered and the residual emulsion from which the potency is made contains the different substances which enter into the constitution of the microbe.
These two preparations have recently been potentised by Messrs. Nelson and are now available .
Tuberculinum marmoreck
Is obtained from animals injected with successive doses of tuberculin.
Tuberculinum bovinum kent
Has never become well known to practitioners and has received less fame than perhaps it deserves. In lupus particularly it has helped considerably and under it we have seen a case recover from a condition which presented every symptom of acute pulmonary miliary tuberculosis. We hesitate to make the definite claim that it was a case of this disease, as recovery was complete and permanent, but no symptom was lacking in the picture to suggest that diagnosis. There was temporary amelioration from tuberculin in potency, itself a suggestive sign, and when the Rosenbach tuberculin was given (hypodermically,not in potency) response was immediate and recovery thereafter uninterrupted. It is put on record here for further observation and testing on similar cases. The preparation might be worth remembering in tubercular meningitis.
Is made, we understand, from tub. grown symbiotically with tricophyton and has on occasion been employed, though not in potency.
Comments on the relationship between tubercular and bowel infections
The indications for tuberculinum are perhaps more circumscribed in Britain and U.S. A. than in France. For our colleagues there to all intents and purposes identify tuberculosis and the state they call "tuberculinique" with Hahnemann's psora. It must be emphasised that the "tuberculinique" has not necessarily any obvious recognisable signs of active tubercle; the patient is one in whom tubercle will find a favourable soil so that a manifestations of it is inevitable sooner or later unless fortune is favourable.
Those who use the bowel nosodes believe that there is a very close relationship between this group and the tuberculins. We have only to remember the frequency with which dyspepsia precedes pulmonary developments to realise that the ground favourable to one also favours the other. It may well be that either group may act as effective aids in these conditions and both sides can claim results to bear out their contention. Possibly, too (for we have much to learn about the bowel flora and its possible mutations and their causes), differences of climate and natural dietary may play a part. The French homoeopathists (and to some extent those in U.S. A.) maintain that they find the non-lactose fermenting organisms less persistently than we do. But before accepting this experience as final we have to be certain that the technique employed in the search for them is identical in all countries. Our most expert investigators of these organisms find that even apparently negligible differences in the preparation of the medium may affect certainty in determining the presence of this group of organisms.
The practical conclusion at this stage, in view of the good results obtained by both contestants, is to regard the tuberculin group and the non-lactose fermenting group as both to be considered seriously in obstinate chronic disease. Particularly if one group fails should we be ready to consider the other,since only by very extended and careful observations of both can any valid conclusions be drawn.
General indications for tuberculinum
In studying the application of the nosode to tubercular constitutions and tendencies, it is convenient to recognise two states in which tuberculinum is especially likely to be indicated.
The first is the pre-tubercular state, the "tuberculinique" of the French,a term first employed by Dr. Vannier to imply the type of individual who has a predisposition to tubercular infection. The tendency is manifested particularly by nervous and circulatory disturbances which will be described later in detail. To this Dr. Vannier would add that such individuals show characteristic signs of what he describes as "intermittent elimination", by which he means repeated exacerbations of local symptoms, e.g. , periodic migraine, attacks of diarrhoea, intermittent fever, etc.
The tuberculinique is known or at least suspected first and foremost from the family history. If tubercle has taken toll of near relatives, the patient may be unduly susceptible to it. Next the personal history of previous illnesses, special stress being laid on severe attacks of measles or whooping-cough, both of which infections,if badly met, are significant. Otherwise the general type is one which our ancestors called "scrofulous" and recognised as closely related to tuberculosis.
The other condition where the nosode can so often be looked to for help is one wherein the patient has suffered from a tubercular lesion, has apparently recovered but still retains the toxin in the system to which the body reacts,giving rise to symptoms calling for tuberculinum.
The skin of the tuberculinique is often delicate and complexion attractive,with long eyelashes and fine hair. The appetite is capricious and there is difficulty in putting on weight. They are seldom fat, and bodily exertion easily fatigues them. But they may grow rapidly, shoot up in height without corresponding muscular development. There is an extreme variability in all their symptoms. The emotional state varies and is often unbalanced : for example, there is a tendency to fits of irrational bad temper and a restless changefulness in their approach to life. There is a similar variability in the physical symptoms; for example, the stools may be constipated and hard on some occasions, soft on others.
Superficial disturbances of the circulation are seen; there is a bluish pallor of the skin, a purple condition of the extremities and chilblains are usual. Circulatory derangements are characteristic. Hypotension is usual, though arterial tension is often raised temporarily by taking coffee. Palpitation often occurs on waking, but the cardiac symptoms in general are usually relieved by the taking of gentle exercise.
The gross effects on the body of tuberculin injections
Lewin, writing after the first enthusiasm for tuberculin injections had waned through the manifold disasters which followed the first use of them,but before there was great experience of smaller doses, made his symptomatology therefore as the result of massive doses and (mainly) from their effect on cases already suffering from tuberculosis. But he speaks of the effects also in the non-tubercular, and has no hesitation in attributing all the results that he chronicles to the preparation and not to the original disease that was pre-existent. Thus rise of temperature following rigor is usual with the non-tubercular,and as high a point as 106.7° has been noted. More rarely it becomes persistently subnormal. A marked leucocytosis and jaundice followed in at least one such case. As the tuberculin was given hypodermically, a distinction should be drawn from effects at the point of injection and others more remote. Redness and oedema locally were frequent, but swelling of lymph glands,healthy as well as those already tubercular, was common and noted in the mediastinal region more than once. Swelling of the joints with effusion, again of healthy as well as diseased ones, occurred, and considerable pain which increased at night. Skin eruptions were usual : erythema, urticaria, papular and vesicular eruptions were frequently observed.
In the alimentary canal, glossitis with abscesses of the tongue or suppuration of the gums, acute parotitis, splenic enlargement, persistent vomiting and diarrhoea were objective symptoms observed, and subjective ones included loss of appetite, nausea, gastric and intestinal pain. One case developed acute inflammation round the navel and in some lupus cases the mucous membrane of ileum and lower bowel was found to be attacked. Presumably there was no previous disease in these regions in these cases,but perforation in existing tuberculosis of the bowel also occurred. The kidney was severely affected on many occasions. Polyuria, often with fever, appeared; sometimes oliguria and often death. Acute nephritis was demonstrated in certain cases. Naturally albuminuria with the passage of casts was often observed, and sugar and acetone were noted more than once in the urine.
The effects of material doses of tuberculin on the urinary system is of especial interest to the homoeopathist, for certain physicians have remarked on the value of the potentised tuberculin in renal affections, though they advocate caution in its administration where the skin, intestines and other eliminatory functions do not act adequately.
In a woman suffering from lupus the period was delayed after tuberculin injections and pregnant women have been known to miscarry after its use.
Nerve and brain symptoms include somnolence, even deep, and its obverse sleeplessness. Violent headache was frequently observed, and neuralgic pain in limbs and intercostal regions. OEdema and hyperaemia of the brain were noted post mortem , and serious mental symptoms, delirium with fever and confusion of mind, hallucinations and illusions followed injections on several occasions. In lung cases tubercular meningitis developed more than once after tuberculin. Conjunctivitis was observed, and also disturbances of vision with the subjective experience of seeing colours. This did not disappear for a considerable time after ceasing the drug. The heart was notably disturbed, and not only in tubercular cases. Palpitation, rapid pulse and pain with anxiety were the symptoms. Death followed in some cases with every sign of an acute cardiac crisis. Blood pressure was usually lowered and the haemoglobin content diminished. The lung and larynx symptoms are mainly to be read as aggravations of existing disease in those suffering from tuberculosis of these regions. Lewin makes no mention of these symptoms affecting non-tubercular cases, and latent T. B. is so widespread that it would be difficult in any case to be certain that symptoms that might occur in the apparently healthy were not actually due to the lighting up of a quiescent focus. But of the power of tuberculin to aggravate, even disastrously, pre-existent T. B. there can be no doubt, and from a homoeopathic standpoint that would make the drug suitable for help to similar cases provided the right dosage could be found. When much more cautious administration was adopted, many men in many places believed that favourable results were obtained, but we think to-day that the general judgment would be that the evidence is suggestive rather than conclusive on this point even when small doses are used.
With the possible exception of miliary tuberculosis, the tuberculins are mainly used in this group of patients for such as are becoming chronic, fibrosing rather than cavitating, going downhill but slowly. Here an occasional dose of tuberculin does seem to give a fresh start and enable the other remedies to become effective.
The foregoing is ample evidence of the gross effects of tuberculin. Morbid anatomy when a "similar" drug can be found to it is often a great help to the prescriber, particularly in palliating incurable chronic cases and relieving symptoms. In acute illness a "similar" morbid anatomy, e.g. bryonia in pleurisy and pneumonia, can often prove a good guide to cure, though every homoeopathist prefers a wider symptom resemblance. Therefore this tuberculin symptomatology is here recorded. It will form a good starting point for the finer indications to which we now turn.
General considerations of the homoeopathic use of tuberculinum
There are a number of preparations of tuberculinum employed by homoeopathists. The indications for any one of them are similar, not unnaturally, and it will be most convenient to group the characteristic symptoms in one description and then give such hints as we can for preference of one preparation over another in special cases. Kent's account of tuberculinum bovinum contains few outstanding diversities in symptomatology that would lead the prescriber to the choice of the bovine tuberculinum in preference to any other, and in his study of tub. bov., he has grouped together symptoms from the provings and clinical observations obtained from the records of various other tuberculinum preparations. Our experience over the past ten years is that we prefer the potency of Koch's Tuberculinum.
Tuberculinum should always be considered in the treatment of mentally deficient children. Where there is arrested development, mental or physical, for example, delayed dentition, it is a particularly valuable remedy. Many cases are recorded wherein a backward child has been stimulated to normal development following the administration of tuberculinum.
Mental and emotional symptoms
The predominant characteristics in this sphere are those of mental weakness and depression. This is mirrored on the physical side by a corresponding state of relaxation and debility. The "Spes Phthisica" is rarely present in cases that need tuberculinum. On the contrary, hopelessness and weariness of life are common. The patient seems crushed emotionally and is depressed; he is melancholy and complains on the slightest provocation.
Particularly in children there is peevishness and fretfulness and a tendency to outbursts of bad temper. Indeed, sudden fits of fury in a child from little or no apparent cause would turn the thoughts of most homoeopathists to this remedy.
The variability of the symptoms of tuberculinum has already been mentioned,and this characteristic changefulness is to be found in the emotional state of the patient who becomes irritable and agitated. He has a constant desire to change his place, and nowhere is he able to rest content. The restless condition of the mind of the tuberculinique may show itself in an abnormal urge to travel, a desire to do something different; to change his doctor, and so forth. Dr. Elizabeth Hubbard has described this feature very graphically : "The traveller, the great cosmopolite, ever in search of new people, new ideas;the faddist, the consumer of cults".
As the patient is always frail and tired, exertion brings on intense fatigue,mental and physical, and so he has an aversion to mental work and any intellectual effort.
The tuberculinique when in health may be of a placid, cheerful nature but when a restless agitation develops in such persons this change of disposition naturally is very noticeable to his friends and a valuable indication for tuberculinum, for homoeopathists consider that alterations in outlook and in emotional responses are of the highest importance in guiding the prescriber to a remedy.
Head symptoms
Periodical sick headaches, even the most severe ones, respond to tuberculinum in suitable cases. Recurrence is usually every fortnight, sometimes weekly, and it is characteristic that changes in weather (particularly damp conditions),excitement, overwork, gastric disturbances, may precipitate an extra attack. Intense pain "as of an iron band round the head" is a modality noted by Hering. Burnett described an interesting confirmation of this when he found that tuberculinum had the power to set up pains that seemed to be situated deep in the head.
Gastro-intestinal symptoms
The pre-tubercular type (the tuberculinique) may eat well, but even while so doing there is loss of weight or even emaciation. Later the appetite is poor or absent; there is an aversion to meat but sometimes a desire for cold milk and large quantities of cold water. Now and then there is a sinking sensation in the stomach that causes desire to eat, but there is always loss of flesh with gradually increasing weakness and weariness. Constipation alternates with diarrhoea. In the first case the stools are large and hard, in the second there is a marked morning aggravation so that an early morning diarrhoea may drive the patient out of bed (sulphur; aloes).
Menstrual symptoms
The menses are apt to be too early, too profuse and long lasting.
Respiratory tract
Subjects for tuberculinum are generally martyrs to the common cold and the temperature often rises in the evening, the face becoming flushed, even purplish. Respiration tends to be rapid, but should the attention of the patient be occupied, respirations assume a slower and more normal rate. A hacking cough coming in paroxysms follows and disturbs sleep. In these conditions there is a longing for air, windows must be open and there is an attempt to breathe deeply, for warm rooms cause a feeling of suffocation. Expectoration is thick and profuse, and comes away easily. The left lung is more usually affected in pneumonic conditions, and tuberculinum should be considered in cases of unresolved pneumonia (especially where there is a history of T. B.). Should this remedy be called for and given, a reaction following its administration can be recognised by a transient rise of temperature which lasts a few hours.
Pains in general
The whole body feels sore and aching and pain seems to be in the bones. Warmth and movement relieve the suffering which is intensified by rest and standing and rhus tox. will often be thought of, especially as the pains are aggravated by wet and stormy weather. If rhus has frequently helped attacks but has not prevented recurrence, tub. bov. should be remembered. Heat locally relieves these aches and pains. A more detailed account of the relationship between rhus tox. and tuberculinum will be given under the description of the special symptomatology of the potentised tuberculinum prepared from a residual emulsion of Koch's bacillus.
As with sulphur, the muscular exertion of standing is worse to endure than any other : the patient feels he must move about.
Skin
The skin is apt to itch, but scratching worsens the condition. Eruptions are mostly vague and indefinite but may resemble erythema nodosum. Burnett noted a marked susceptibility to parasitic affections like ringworm,tinea versicolor, etc., in patients that did well on tuberculinum. He generally prescribed and valued it as a remedy for ringworm, using his preparation bacillinum. Clarke stresses an eczematous thickening of the margins of the eyelids as an indication for bacillinum and notes a general time aggravation : worse at night and early morning, but when there is a tubercular background and in actual tuberculosis of the lungs, the sluggish rather than the acute cases,where free muco-purulent bronchial secretion complicates phthisis, he finds it particularly valuable. Tubercle bacilli have been found in old chronic bronchitic cases sometimes with, of course, other organisms. These would be suitable cases for bacillinum, but being a mixed nosode, it would not be contra-indicated by the absence of actual T. B.
Summary of modalities
Tuberculinum is specially indicated in delicate narrow-chested individuals who are easily fatigued, nervous, and have poor power of recuperation. There is a characteristic changefulness in the symptoms both physical and mental, and symptoms tend to begin suddenly and cease suddenly
The subject is very susceptible to changes in the weather, to cold dampness and draughts and particularly to every electrical change in the atmosphere. Though he is chilly he longs for fresh air and opens windows, he feels better for example when riding in a strong wind. Most tuberculiniques feel worse at the seaside and an aggravation from sea air is a feature of the drug.
Being physically slack and easily tired his complaints are worsened by exertion and standing, though there is a general aggravation after sleep. He is sensitive both physically and emotionally, an example of the former is seen in the readiness with which he takes cold on the slightest exposure,of the latter in his sensitiveness to music.
This is a powerful constitutional remedy, and when other polycrests act only for a short period and such remedies have to be changed frequently,tuberculinum is a drug to be considered and given if the symptoms agree.
Outstanding indications for the lesser-known tuberculins
In the above outline of the symptomatology of tuberculinum, the characteristics of bacillinum, tuberculinum prepared from a tubercular abscess and tuberculinum bovinum have been grouped together. Other preparations have been used, however, and some knowledge of their individual indications have accumulated. We propose to outline these briefly.
Dosage
Potencies from 30 upwards are most commonly used for all tuberculins. Burnett used bacillinum mostly in the 200th, many physicians prefer the1 m and upwards especially for the tuberculinique and apyretic cases of phthisis. In phthisical cases complicated with a mixed infection, Nebel advises the administration of a single dose of tuberculinum 1 m which he claims will clear the case so that a syndrome will present which will permit the accurate choice of an antipsoric. Should a relapse occur after the antipsoric treatment, he prefers to follow up the treatment by the administration of a high potency of a nosode corresponding to the most virulent organism found in the sputum,staphylococcin, streptococcin, pneumococcin or whatever. He summarises the treatment of phthisis as follows : "Accurate bacteriological analysis of the sputum is essential; the choice of the nosode (tuberculinum in the first place and later such nosodes as streptococcin if present in quantity in the sputum) clears up the picture, and so proceeding on the one side etiologically, on the other side symptomatically with antipsoric remedies,the disease is dominated".
The repetition of tuberculinum must always be most carefully watched and only infrequently repeated. Tuberculinum is called for to treat many conditions in childhood and here more frequent repetition may be made than on adults. Dr. Fergie Woods believes that tuberculinum needs more frequent repetition in children's complaints than almost any other "chronic" remedy. Dr. Borland recently recorded a mode of administration of tuberculinum to children adopted by some American physicians who recommend the giving of doses of increasing potencies of tuberculinum from the 1 m to the cm - two of 10 m , two of 50 m and two of cm . These are given on successive days, two doses of the 1 m on the first day and so onwards to the end.
Tuberculinum koch
This was one of Clarke's favourite remedies for the after effects of influenza vying with psorinum. He thus endorses Kent's association of the two nosodes. Years ago, before the high temperature treatment of general paralysis of the insane was tried, Jauregg of Vienna gave tuberculin injections to insane patients. There appeared to be a steady clearing up of mental confusion in a number of cases and Clarke thought that potencies of tuberculinum should not be forgotten in insanity if there were any other symptoms suggesting it.
Patients suggesting potencies of Koch's tuberculin do not readily put on weight in spite of all efforts that are made with suitable dietary. There is a tendency to digestive disturbances, accompanied by a bad taste in the mouth and bad breath.
There is an aversion to food, especially sweets, and he experiences nausea at the sight or smell of food, even cold milk, which he desires, nauseates him.
Attacks of offensive diarrhoea are usual and the urine may be offensive, the odour suggesting the presence of B. C. C.
Apart from these special symptoms, there are few other indications which would lead the physician to give Koch's preparation rather than the more familiar bacillinum or tub. bov.
Tuberculinum residuum koch
We are indebted to Dr. Vannier's observations for the record of the special indications for this tuberculinum. He considers this preparation is of more value than others in the subject who has recovered from an attack of tuberculosis but who is still under the influence of the tubercular toxin in the system. In these patients the reaction of the body to the toxin is usually of an arthritic order and results in the production of fibrous formation : for example, induration round the joints or tendon contractions. In such cases, Dr. Vannier believes, should a potency of the residual tuberculinum be given, the body will be stimulated in such a way that symptoms will appear indicating rhus tox., which can then be given with great benefit. Again, he would think of this remedy for old tubercular patients who later on develop a periodic complaint such as migraine, and in general he appears to regard the patient who requires the residual preparation as very much more frail than the average candidate for tuberculinum.
Tuberculinum avis
This is one of the least potent of the tuberculins and has come to be thought of for individuals who display a persistent tendency to "take cold". It has a real value as a prophylactic for this susceptibility to germs of catarrh. The same may be said of the serum of Marmorek which can be repeated with little danger of reaction more frequently than some of the other tuberculins. This may be of advantage when continuous infection is prevalent for people constantly exposed to it. Bacillinum is another excellent prophylactic against colds, and can be combined to advantage with influenzinum. Aviaire has also helped in advanced pulmonary cases where it would be dangerous to use a more active preparation for fear of producing a harmful reaction, but where the patient benefits from a milder stimulus. Its prophylactic virtue is less effective. It has also been regarded as a valuable remedy in influenzal bronchitis and in some cases of bronchitis following measles.
Tuberculinum marmoreck
A potency of this serum may be given with benefit to patients who react badly to other remedies and at the same time show progressive wasting. Not only is it effective as a prophylactic for the common cold but also for the treatment of inexplicable febrile attacks where there are no obvious physical signs to account for them. We recall the case of a young women who suffered from intermittent fever and vague joint and bone pains for several months, but after receiving the apparently indicated remedies without result, a rapid improvement was experienced after the administration of this serum in potency. There is some resemblance to sulphur in its pathogenesis. The skin is rough especially the skin of the back, the lips red and the tongue dry, red and furrowed.
Tuberculinum denys
Of the serum of Denys we have little experience, but our French colleagues have a place for it in the type of individual who, though of tubercular tendency, has good reactions and often does not appear ill. Indeed he may be of a florid, large, even fat, appearance, though he is easily wearied on exertion which may induce pyrexia. Sudden attacks of weakness and great depression at irregular intervals develop or a sudden anorexia and gastric disturbances with nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea.
