New, Old, and Forgotten Remedies Part 38

Entire relief from pain after stool,^2.

_Urine._--Symptoms very marked,^3. Characterized from the first by a very profuse flow of clear, or almost colorless urine, nearly the color of water,^3. Three to four times the normal quant.i.ty,^3,^1,^4,^2. When thinking of urinating I had to go at once,^3. No sediment whatever,^3,^1. Pain in the kidneys, hardest in right, with some tenderness,^1. At the expiration of every two or three hours after stopping the remedy, there was an enormous flow of pale, straw-colored urine, and with this would gradually disappear the metallic taste which was so marked,^4. Free urination, dark in color, no distress,^2. Urine scanty, and looked like that of a child troubled with worms, light red-colored stain on bottom of vessel,^2 (second day). Awoke with a heavy pain in the kidneys,^2 (third day). Urine clear on pa.s.sing, but becomes as above described on standing,^2 (third day). During day urine scanty, with considerable irritation, as if the muscles of the bladder were contracting, > moving about,^2.

_Male s.e.xual Organs._--From being naturally of a pa.s.sionate nature, the _desire_ and _ability_ diminished to impotence,^3. No s.e.xual desire or ability,^3. Bruised feeling in the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, beginning in the right and extending to the left--came on after going to bed,^1. Occasional pain, of short duration, in glans p.e.n.i.s,^1. Pain in t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, worse with extension along spermatic cord and down thighs,^1 (third day).

_s.e.xual Organs, Female._--At 1.30 P.M., felt a pain in left ovary, like something grasping or holding tightly for about an hour, then disappeared,^2.

_Larynx._--Slight acc.u.mulation of mucus in the larynx, hard to cough it up,^2.

_Breathing._--Short and quick breathing from the full feeling in the abdomen,^1. Hard breathing, as though lungs and bronchi were closing as the chill pa.s.ses off.

_Cough._--A dry cough, from any little exercise,^3 (eleventh day). A short, hacking cough, with tightness across the chest,^2 (third day).

_Lungs._--Oppression at 9 P.M.,^1 (first day).

_Heart and Pulse._--Palpitation after lying down at night, for 15 to 20 minutes,^1 (seventh day). On going to bed, pain, like a wave, over the heart,^2 (second day), < lying="" down.="" pulse="" 84,="" intermittent,^2="" (2="" p.m.="" of="" third="">

_Outer Chest._--A warm, tingling sensation over left chest, just under the skin,^2 (lasted five minutes).

_Neck and Back._--Neck pains. Pain and stiffness of the muscles of the back of the neck.

_Upper Extremities._--St.i.tching pain in right wrist for half an hour, leaving a tired feeling in joint,^2. At 12:30, a sharp, cutting pain running from point of shoulder down front of chest to point of hip bone, going suddenly,^2. Flesh feels as though she had taken a heavy cold,^2.

Sharp pain, with coldness, from left shoulder-joint extending down the arm < in="" shoulder-joint,=""> sleep; goes away gradually,^4. p.r.i.c.kling sensation in left arm and hand,^4.

_Lower Extremities._--St.i.tching pain in right leg and knee-joint for half an hour, leaving a tired feeling in the joint,^2. Hard pain in the left big toe-joint,^2. Pain inside of left leg from the groin to the knee,^2.

_Extremities in General._--Flesh on under side of limbs sore,^2. Sore feeling of all the muscles of the right side of the body,^2. All the pains come and go quickly, but the muscles remain sore and stiff,^2.

Frequent fine pains all over the body until 3 P.M., when all disappeared and felt as well as usual,^2.

_Position._--All pains better when moving about and when in the cool air,^2. Nausea, heart symptoms and breathing, < lying="">

_Nerves._--At 10 A.M. a very sick, exhausted feeling appeared,^2.

_Sleep._--Not very sound,^3. Dreams of a pleasant or lascivious character,^3. Wakes often,^2. On rising feels sad, weary, despondent,^3.

Twitching of the muscles on falling asleep roused him,^3 (once three or four nights). Dreamed of spiders, bugs,^2 (first night), of swimming in water,^2 (second night--am not in the habit of dreaming).

_Chill._--Chill at 11:40 A.M., beginning in back between shoulders, down over body to feet; stomach feels cold; pains all over body during chill; a peculiar sensation of crawling or contraction of the abdominal muscles, hardest about the navel, lasted about half an hour,^2. As the chill pa.s.ses off a smarting in the throat and a feeling as though the lungs and bronchi would close up, making breathing very difficult; chill lasted until 1 P.M., followed by perspiration of palms of the hands and soles of the feet; the changeable pains remained until 3 P.M., when all disappeared,^2. No thirst in either stage,^2. Felt badly for three days at same hour as chill,^2. For four weeks on every seventh day had a chill with all the above symptoms; the coldness of the spine was continuous for eight weeks, and was then removed by _Gelsemium_,^2.

(Dr. W. D. Gentry, while at Las Vegas, New Mexico, made the following summary of the action of the remedy.

_h.o.m.oeopathic Recorder_, 1895):

For the present I will only give a few of the leading symptoms produced by the _Loco weed_:

Brain and Mind: Stimulation of mind; pleasant intoxicated feeling.

Satisfied indifference to all influences and interests.

Head: Full, warm feeling about the head.

Eyes: Strange feeling of fullness about the eyes, with sight obscured, so that it appears that one is looking through clear water which produces about all of the seven prismatic colors, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and violet.

Paralysis of nerves, and muscles of the eyes, producing amblyopia.

Pupils contracted and do not respond to light.

Eyesight lost with feeling as if in consequence of long exposure to strong, arc-electric lights.

Neck and Back: Numb, pithy or woody feeling about and in the spine.

Lower Extremities: Loss of power to control movements of body or limbs.

Swaying, staggering gait.

Reflex action of tendon-patella lost.

General: Weakness and insecurity of all powers of locomotion.

Feeling of intoxication, with almost entire loss of vision.

Amblyopia: sense of touch greatly weakened.

(From the _Kansas City Star_.)

The loco weed of the Western plains is to vegetation what the rattlesnake is to animal life. The name comes from the Spanish and signifies insanity. It is a dusky green and grows in small bunches or handfuls and scatters itself in a spa.r.s.e and meagre way about the country. It is in short a vegetable nomad and travels about not a little. Localities where it this season flourishes in abundance may not see any of it next year, nor indeed for a number of years to come.

The prime property of the loco is to induce insanity in men or animals who partake of it. Animals--mules, horses, sheep and cattle--avoid it naturally, and under ordinary circ.u.mstances never touch it. But in the winter, when an inch or two of snow has covered the gra.s.s, these green bunches of loco standing clear and above the snow are tempting bits to animals which are going about half starved at the best. Even then it is not common for them to eat it. Still, some do and it at once creates an appet.i.te in the victim similar in its intense force to the alcohol habit in mankind.

Once started on the downward path of loco a mule will abandon all other forms of food and look for it. In a short time its effects become perfectly apparent. You will see a locoed mule standing out on the shadowless plain with not a living, moving thing in his vicinity. His head is drooping and his eyes are half closed. On the instant he will kick and thresh out his heels in the most warlike way. Under the influence of loco he sees himself surrounded by mult.i.tudes of threatening ghosts and is repelling them.

The mind of the animal is completely gone. He cannot be driven or worked because of his utter lack of reason. He will go right or left or turn around in the harness in spite of bits or whip, or will fail to start or stop, and all in a vacant, idiotic way devoid of malice. The victim becomes as thin physically as mentally, and after retrograding four or five months at last dies, the most complete wreck on record. Many gruesome tales are furnished of cruel Spanish and Mexican ladies who, in a jealous fit, have locoed their American admirers through the medium of loco tea. Two or three cases in kind are reported in the Texas lunatic asylum.

OENTHE CROCATA.

PREPARATION.--The fresh root is macerated in two parts by weight of alcohol.

(The following paper on _OEnanthe crocata_ was kindly sent to the editor by Dr. W. A. Dewey, of the Ann Arbor University, Michigan):

_OEnanthe crocata_ belongs to the large family of the Umbelliferae which furnishes us with _Conium_ and _Cicuta_. It grows in marshy localities in England and France. In Botanical works of the 16th and 17th centuries it was often confounded with _Cicuta virosa_, an error which has even been made in more recent times, in fact, only one Botanist of the 19th century described the plant with sufficient exactness for its recognition, and that was DeLobel, who published his Botany in 1851. It is one of the largest plants of the family, being 3 to 5 feet high. Our tincture is from the fresh root.

HISTORICAL.--_OEnanthe_ was known to Galen and Dioscorides, and numerous citations might be made to show that the drug was used from the earliest times in various affections, affections that nearly every drug was tried in, but it is in the "Cyanosura Materia Medica of Boecler, published in 1729," that we first find a hint as to its true action.

"Those who ate much of it were taken with dark vertigos, going from one place to another, swaying, frightened, turning in a circle as Lobilus pretends to have seen."

Hahnemann, in his "Apotheker Lexicon" (Leipzig, 1793), says of the drug: "It is said that the whole plant is poisonous and causes vertigo, stupefaction, loss of force, convulsions, delirium, stiffness, insensibility, falling of the hair, and taken in large quant.i.ties will cause death."

He says further: "That, administered with great circ.u.mspection, it should prove useful in certain varieties of delirium, vertigos and cramps."

This is interesting coming from Hahnemann at the time when he had discovered the law, but had not as yet given it to the world.

_OEnanthe_ was considered in the last century as one of the most pernicious plants of Europe, especially for cattle, who, having eaten it, can neither vomit nor digest it and they soon die in convulsions; this from the root, however, as they eat the leaves with impunity. It is interesting to note that animals poisoned with it decompose rapidly.