Part 23

Experience has taught me that to give it in smaller doses is a waste of time and disappointing to the patient. Two such doses, _i. e._, 60 drops a dose, are almost absolutely sure of giving the patient a natural and refreshing sleep. The old school seem to have been forced to resort to _Sulfonal_ (whatever that may be) as the only thing capable of producing sleep, and yet, judging from the reports in their journals, it does not seem to "fill the bill." Were they ever to give this a trial we would not hear so much of _Morphine_, _Chloral_, _Bromides_, and the like.

I have never used _Passiflora_ in erysipelas, having always been able to discharge my patients in from two to four days by giving them _Jaborandi_.

In neuralgia and headache it has acted with wonderful rapidity, even the headache of uterine displacements being brought under its influence. It is almost a daily occurrence to have people whom I never saw before come miles to my office for that "sleeping medicine made from the passion flower."

In conclusion let me say to the brethren, try it. But give it in appreciable doses. Don't be afraid of it. I would not hesitate to give it in four drachm doses, if required. But why give four when one will do?

P. S.--Since writing the foregoing I have used _Passiflora_ in two cases of delirium tremens. It acted like a charm in both cases; sent them to sleep in half an hour, and when they awoke, twelve and fourteen hours after, they were themselves again. Sixty drops of tincture a dose, two doses in each.

(The following was reported by Dr. Joseph Adolphus, in _American Medical Journal_:)

A lady who had for several months suffered untold agonies, as she described her sufferings; her pain was described as if a weight of many pounds was lying on her brain; the sense of pressure and tearing inside the skull was fearful; her head felt as if enveloped in ice; the pains ran down the back of her neck, and finally reached the lower end of sacrum, so that a slight touch of the coccyx caused exquisite agony. This was a case in which coccygodinia was associated with the cerebral and spinal disease. I failed to relieve the pain for more than a few hours at a time with all other remedies I had tried; at this juncture, when despair was taking the place of hope, I thought of _Passiflora_, which I then administered in teaspoonful doses every two hours; the result was something to be remembered, for she enjoyed excellent and refreshing night's rest the following night, waking up in the morning much refreshed, nearly free from pain, with a good relish for breakfast. I continued the medicament every four hours for several days, for no further uses for medicine seemed indicated, as there was a rapid and complete recovery.

A lady complained of pain in her rectum continuously; the coccyx was also quite tender to the touch. There were several erosions on the lips of the os uteri; leucorrhoea and severe pain in the small of the back when a certain spot (over last dorsal and first and second lumbar vertebræ) was pressed on. I found she had been treated secundum artem for the uterine trouble, locally and constitutionally, to no certain satisfactory result. Her respirations were often twenty-eight to thirty per minute, much wakefulness, and at times feeling of constriction across her breast and a sense as if her heart would stop beating. Teaspoonful doses of the _Passiflora incar._ was the specific in her case. She continued it every four hours two weeks, but from the outset of treatment she felt the right remedy was administered.

These rectum troubles in women are frequently met with in practice. I find the _Passiflora incar._ the best single remedy I have for them.

Recently a man consulted me for a constant pain in his heart; he described it as sharp and like a pang--often causing a sense of immediate dissolution, and fear of death was on him all the time; pulse irregular in rhythm, now rapid, next slower, occasionally a beat missing; sounds very normal, but accentuated and sharp. _Passiflora incarnata_ was a specific in this case; no doubt the center and probably the local ganglia were irritated from some cause, and, whatever it was, the medicament removed both.

By the way, I must not forget to say you will find it a valuable medicament in sleeplessness and tossing restlessness in your fever patients. I use the tincture in teaspoonful doses every four hours. It appears the remedy has a soothing effect on the whole nervous system, without any appreciable narcotic properties.

(From the Transactions of the Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting of the Maine Homoeopathic Medical Society we take the following from a paper by Dr. A. I. Harvey on _Passiflora_:)

It does no good where the inability to sleep is due to pain or distress of any kind; but in cases where we find that the nervous erethism is not controlled by the action of _Coffea_, _Opium_, _Sulphur_, or other apparently indicated remedy. _Passiflora_ is in its place as a succedaneum for _Morphia_ or other sedatives. The dose varies from ten drops to one dram of the tincture, according to the age of the patient. I do not hesitate, in the case of an adult, to give dram doses of the tincture every hour until the patient sleeps, and have seen it act in the happiest manner in restoring the rhythm of the heart's action, when that organ has been deranged in its movements by the combined effects of exhaustion and loss of sleep.

_Passiflora_ has also given me much aid in a case of morphine habit of six years' standing, which I cured wholly and entirely by the use of this remedy. It is recommended in the above mentioned doses for delirium tremens, trismus, tetanus and kindred diseases of the nervous system, repeated every hour or half-hour until relief is obtained. The remedy leaves no after effects, is incapable of creating an appetite, and, so far as my observation extends, it is perfectly harmless even in large doses, often repeated.

(Dr. Scudder claimed that the one great indication for _Passiflora_ in all cases is _a clean tongue_; when the tongue is foul the remedy will do no good.)

PENTHORUM SEDOIDES.

NAT. ORD., Crassulaceæ.

COMMON NAME, Ditch Stone Crop.

PREPARATION.--The whole fresh plant with the root is macerated in two parts by weight of alcohol.

(The _Medical Advance_ for June, 1887, contains a paper by Dr. D. B. Morrow, from which the following is taken.)

The object of this paper is to call attention to the fact that the only proving of _Penthorum_ was made on scientific principles, as these verifications demonstrate. If the pathogenesy is carefully studied, it will be seen to meet all the conditions of "common colds," or acute catarrhs, so prevalent in all sections of North America, from the symptoms of chill, malaise, headache, soreness, cough, coryza, dry and flowing, with their secondary consequences of disturbed digestion, constipation, debility, etc. and it will probably cure any or all of these conditions when indicated by correspondence to the pathogenesy.

A medicine having such a catarrhal range is probably a remedy for female troubles equal to _Pulsatilla_ or _Calcarea_, and is worthy of a careful proving by women. It cures where antipsoric medicines have failed, and possibly may possess antipsoric qualities.

_Authorities._--1, Dr. D. B. Morrow, U. S. Med. Inves., N. S., 3, p. 565 (_Eclectic Med. Jour._, 1875); effects of tincture, doses of 10 drops, and after one hour 20 drops; on second day, 40 drops; third day, 60 drops at 9 P.M., and 50 drops at 1 P.M.; 1 A.M. same, effects of 100 drops. 2, Dr. Scudder took 20 drops ("a young man took same dose and had similar effects").

MIND.--During both provings the mind was dull and exceedingly depressed and desponding; everything wrong but dinner; reading interfered with because of mental dullness (second day), 1.--Mind became so dull I gave up reading and lay upon the lounge (third day).

HEAD.--On closing my eyes felt like I was floating; vertigo (third day), 1.--Headache continued, could not read; went to hear Boutwell, followed his argument with difficulty, was much annoyed by the little noises made by the audience (second day), 1.--Headache came on again (third day), 1.--When commencing the proving, had a dull, heavy headache, with heat and soreness in the sacrum; this was cured (third day), 1.--An unpleasant heavy pain in the forehead, about the edge of the hair (after four hours), 2.--Catarrhal aching in the forehead, 1a.--[10] The fullness in the sinciput became an ache, as though a weight were pressed down upon it (second day), 1.--Itching of the hairy scalp (second day), 1.

EYE AND EAR.--The inner superior tarsal border of both palpebra itched and burned (third day), 1.--A full sensation in supra-orbital region (a hearty supper), (first day), 1.--Ringing and singing in both ears, 1a.

NOSE.--Discharges from nares thick, pus-like, streaked with blood, and an odor as from an open sore (third day), 1.--A peculiar wet feeling in my nares as though a violent coryza would set in, which did not; the secretion from the nose became thickened and pus-like, but not increased. Wet feeling in trachea and bronchia, passing from above downward, as if a coryza would set in, followed by a slight feeling of constriction, which passed from above downward through the chest (first day), 1.

Catarrhal feeling repeated itself (third day), 1.--Nose felt stuffed, as if swollen (second day), 1.--Sense of fullness of the nose and ears (after four hours), 2.--[20] A secondary symptom, a drawing or contractile feeling of the muscles of the side of the nose affected with catarrh, 1a.--Itching in the nares, 1a.

MOUTH.--Prickling burning sensation on the tongue, as if scalded (first day), 1.--Increased flow of saliva (first day), 1.--The bloody sputa continues, 1a.

THROAT.--The posterior nares feel raw, as if denuded of epithelium, 1a.

STOMACH.--Appetite increased (third day), 1.--Eructations and dejections of little collections of odorless flatus expelled with force (second day), 1.--An unpleasant sensation of disgust and nausea, lasting for three hours, but not interfering with the following meal, which was eaten with greater relish, 2.--Soreness in epigastrium; this symptom appeared at first, not recorded because thought idiopathic, 1a.

ABDOMEN [30].--Borborygmus (second day), 1.--Parietes of abdomen felt thickened (second night), 1.--A clawing, uneasy sensation about the umbilicus, which gradually passed to lower bowel (second day), 1.--Twitching of the muscles in the abdomen (second day), 1.

RECTUM AND ANUS.--A crawling sensation in lower rectum, as though a worm tried to escape (second day), 1.--Burning in rectum at stool, continuing through afternoon, 1a.--Itching of anus; hemorrhoids with aching in sacrum and in sacro-iliac symphysis (some weeks after proving), 1a.

STOOL.--Semi-fluid evacuation of the bowels next morning, having been somewhat constipated, 2.--Some weeks after proving suffered from constipation, an atonic condition of bowels and rectum, 1a.--Was costive when commencing proving; had two natural stools from yesterday's medicine (third day), 1.

URINARY ORGANS [40].--A dull aching in kidneys (third day), 1.--The bladder becomes sore to pressure (third day), 1.--Urine still increased in flow, with burning along the urethra when micturating (third day), 1.--Urine clear, passed more frequently (second day), 1.--Urine actively acid, as shown by litmus; no cloud on boiling; threw down a sediment with _Sulphuric acid_, _Ammonia_, and _Argentum nitrum_ and _Nitric acid_, when boiled; the next day after the dose it was alkaline, as shown by litmus, and only precipitated with _Argentum nitricum_; slightly cloudy, with caloric; unloaded, but increased in quantity, 1a.

SEXUAL ORGANS.--Sexual orgasm (second night), 1.--Erythismus of the sexual system, almost a satyriasis; a slight variocele of long standing was apparently cured (some weeks after proving); this condition was succeeded by a corresponding depression of sexual function, approaching impotency, after months of time returning to the normal condition, 1a.

RESPIRATORY ORGANS.--In the morning a cough seemed to come from deep in the chest, with soreness throughout the chest (third day), 1.

CHEST.--Slight feeling of constriction, which passed from above down through the chest, followed the wet feeling in trachea and bronchia (first day), 1.

PULSE [50].--Pulse regular at 58 (first day), 1.

NECK AND BACK.--Aching through basilar region, from back to front, 1a.--The aching in sacral region reappeared, but subsided as the medicine was eliminated, 1a.--Aching in sacrum and in sacro-iliac symphysis, with the itching of anus, hemorrhoids, 1a.--(When commencing the proving, had heat and soreness in the sacrum, with a dull, heavy headache; this was cured), (third day), 1.

EXTREMITIES.--Arm went to sleep (numb), 1.--Hand felt swollen (second night), 1.--A trembling feeling of legs for several days, with soreness of knees, 1.--While on the lounge the muscles of the leg were suddenly contracted, jerking up the foot as in stepping; in a moment the right one performed the same manoeuvre (third day), 1.

SKIN.--A long-cured impetiginous eczema reappeared on both legs, 1a.--[60] A few hot prickings in the skin (second and third days), 1.--Itching of the face and forehead, 1a.--The itchings repeated themselves (third day), 1.

SLEEP AND FEVER.--Fantastic dreams (second night), 1.--Voluptuous dreams and increased sexual desire, sympathetic with urinary excitement, 1a.--A few cold chills rushed up the spinal column (first day), 1.

(In addition to the foregoing we quote the following from same authority):

Prover cured a severe acute flowing coryza, headache, vertigo and cough, with sticking pains throughout the chest, heaviness and trembling of the lower limbs; pulse, 110. _Penthorum_ 3x quickly cured.

Miss P----, a blonde of 17, had a severe cough of several weeks duration; worse from talking or singing. Frothy greenish sputa. _Pulsatilla_ and afterwards _Phosphorus_ were given without benefit. _Penthorum_ soon cured.

In the prover it produced a general malaise, headache, weakness of limbs and inability to attend to business, a feeling as though he must give up and be sick. I have promptly relieved several patients having these symptoms with _Penthorum_. It produces a soreness throughout the chest, with a severe dry cough, "as though I would cough my insides out," worse in the morning. Have speedily cured several such coughs with it.

PHASEOLUS NANA.

NAT. ORD., Leguminosæ.

COMMON NAME, Dwarf Bean.

PREPARATION.--The crushed beans are macerated in five parts by weight of alcohol.

(In 1896 and 1897 Dr. A. M. Cushing wrote several articles on this new remedy, and among them the following, which appeared in the _Homoeopathic Recorder_, 1897.)

While making a proving of the above remedy I felt a sudden curious sensation in the region of the heart, and immediately felt of my pulse and found it _very weak and fluttering_. I have been asked what that sensation was, but I can't describe it, for, to tell the truth, I believe I was frightened and failed to remember it. Although it is unpleasant to be badly frightened, the nice results I have seen from the use of the remedy and the kind words I have received from the profession in regard to it has more than paid for the little fright. As so little is known of the remedy, I wish to report one case that was not at all indicated by the proving and two cases under the care of an old school doctor. My case was that of a lady aged about forty, who for two years was under the care of a homoeopathic doctor for some trouble, I don't know what; then two years under the care of another homoeopathic doctor for a fibroid of the uterus. She had twice consulted a specialist in Boston, who said it could not be removed. Then she came under my care with a fibroid as large as a fetus at full term. Suffice it to say, I gave remedies in a higher attenuation than I believed she had taken, and in a few months the tumor had greatly diminished and gave her no trouble. Still she was nervous and had neuralgic pains almost all over her. As remedies did not seem to relieve her for any length of time, I decided to give her _Phaseolus_ 9x, as it probably would do as well as what I had given her. The next time I called she met me with "I want a whole bottle like what you gave me last." She does not have to take any medicine now.

I was called in consultation with an old school doctor to a case of confinement. Patient, 26; first child; had been in pain forty-eight hours, but not severe till the last twelve hours. Patient, fleshy; urine heavily loaded with albumen. I knew that trouble was ahead, as she became blind. I found the head jacked firmly in the superior straits, face presentation which I could not change. I decided to wait a little, help what I could and watch the results. In a little while she went to sleep, the first quiet sleep in forty-eight hours; but when she moved it was in a fearful convulsion. I expected the convulsions, but felt that if I applied the forceps, before they appeared some might say if he had let her alone she would not have had them. I immediately turned her upon her left side, well covered up, and adjusted my forceps and soon had the head through the bony parts; and as it is my custom to remove the forceps till the soft parts are dilated to prevent rupture I commenced to do so, when a fearful expulsive convulsion threw forceps and a thirteen-pound child into the bed with a complete rupture of the perineum--my first such case in forty-one years. While she was unconscious I took the necessary stitches, the doctor attending to the medical part. One hour later, when I was in the kitchen helping the nurse and a few damsels dress the baby, the doctor came to me and said her heart was failing in its action fast. I gave him a vial of No. 25 globules medicated with 9x _Phaseolus_, and told him to give her a dose about the size of a bean (being a bean remedy). Ten minutes later he said: "That is wonderful, her heart is all right." Three times during the night he had to repeat it with the same results. Afterwards she had no trouble.

One week later the same doctor came to me saying: "I want a bottle of that remedy." Yesterday I was called to see a lady who was unconscious, pulseless, breathing ten times a minute, beyond hope as I supposed. I gave her three doses of _Phaseolus_, and she is all right.

P. S.--If not too late, I would like to add a little to the paper I sent you not long ago. The same old school doctor to whom I referred in that paper tells me he has used _Phaseolus_ in another case of heart disease with a success similar to the others reported.

A few weeks since a lady aged 50, nurse by profession, came to me saying, at times, she had fearful time with her heart palpitating and feeling as if she should die. Being in great haste, I made no examination, but gave her a vial of _Phaseolus_ 15x to take a dose three or four times a day, as needed. Yesterday she called, saying she was going out of the city, but did not dare to go without some more of the medicine, for she _never took anything in her life that did so much good as that_.

(Dr. Cushing also read the following paper before the Massachusetts Homoeopathic Medical Society, which we take from the _New England Medical Gazette_. January, 1897:)

By request I appear before you to-day, and I presume you will be disappointed if my paper is not on some new remedy; and such it is,--a remedy, I think, worthy the careful investigation of every homoeopathic physician,--phaseolus nana, or the common white bean. It is unnecessary for me to say to you that Boston is called a bean-eating city, or refer to the many sudden deaths there or in its vicinity from brain or heart trouble, nor how in a certain way young men grow old. Can you tell me the cause? I shall not take the time to report the proving I made, nor why I began it, nor how I prepared it, nor its wonderful effects upon the nervous system, the genital organs, stomach, bowels, or kidneys, in the provings, referring only to three symptoms. A medical student has made a short but interesting proving of the remedy, confirming some of my symptoms. While my proving was going on nicely, I suddenly felt a curious sensation in the region of the heart. It was so sudden and strange I immediately felt of my pulse and found it very irregular and feeble, so much so I think I was frightened, at least I did not take any more of the medicine. Never before had I had any irregular action of the heart. Soon after, I read that foreign physicians were using a decoction of the growing bean and pod for dropsy.

About that time I was called to see a hopeless case of uterine cancer with severe general dropsy. I prescribed the best I knew and decided to try the bean remedy. Several days elapsed before I could get any, and then only the dry pods, as it was in December. I steeped them and gave it with apparent relief. I report this case more especially to speak of the final result. I called one day expecting to find her quite comfortable, but found her dead. She suddenly screamed, "Oh, my head!" grasped it with both hands and was dead.

Months later, after an experience with another patient which I will report later, it suddenly dawned upon me that possibly the bean decoction might have hastened her death.

I was called to see a man about forty-five, suffering from general dropsy with heart and other complications, who had been under the care of a homoeopathic physician some time. Although he had taken _Digitalis_, _Strophanthus_, _Strychnia_, _Nitroglycerine_, salts, etc., he had been unable to lie down for two weeks. I prescribed for him, but as soon as I could I prepared and gave him the bean-pod decoction. In about one week he was able to lie down in bed, and his legs, which at my first visit measured over twenty-one inches in circumference, measured fifteen inches. Then hay fever appeared, and by the advice of nineteen or twenty-five women an old-school expert from New York was called and I was left out.

The following cases, having symptoms similar to those developed in the proving, were given the same preparations as those used in the proving.

A man aged sixty-nine, a retired clergyman on account of a heart disease that had troubled him many years, yet no physician had been able to satisfactorily diagnose, came home from a trip where he had unwisely preached twice, greatly exhausted. The heart's action was weak and irregular, growing weaker each day for a few days, when he was entirely pulseless at both wrists, which continued four days in spite of my best efforts. I then gave him _Phaseolus_ 9x, and in a few hours there was an improvement, and in thirty-six hours his pulse was regular and strong, about seventy per minute; and it remained so till my last visit, one-half hour before his death, two weeks after beginning the medicine. I was called to New York and returned too late to make a _post-mortem_ examination. Among his children were a public school teacher and a college professor. I told them what I was giving, and they watched the case very closely and were surprised at its effects. Later they asked me if I would send some of the same medicine to a friend in Connecticut who had no money but a bad heart, said by the doctor there and an expert in Boston to be a weak heart. I sent the medicine and two weeks later they wrote: "His breath is not as short, his limbs were not as badly swollen, could walk and sleep better, but they did not know as he was any better." I sent more medicine and have not heard from that.