Report on the yellow fever of 1867 : made by request to the American Institute of Homoeopathy / by William H. Holcombe.

  • William Henry Holcombe
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the yellow fever of 1867 : made by request to the American Institute of Homoeopathy / by William H. Holcombe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    Another test of their efficacy will be found in the comparative success of homoeopathic physicians who take the more correct the- ory of the jaundice of yellow fever; viz., that it is due to chemical changes in the coloring matter of the blood, resembling those produced by serpent virus, and not necessarily or even fre- quently caused by functional or organic disturbances of the stomach and liver. Those who take the latter view, and pre- scribe Bryonia, Nux vomica, China, Mercurius, &c.,in the second stage, ignoring Lachesis and Crotalus. will have a longer list of deaths to show; for, in homoeopathy as in allopathy, a sound pathology is the surest basis for a successful practice. When the virus of serpents is introduced into the circulation of pigeons or of other small animals, it sometimes destroys life in a few moments. They merely stagger and die; and the phy- sician, armed with scalpel and microscope, cannot discover the least organic lesion. Some terrible cases of yellow fever, known as walking cases, have ended — or rather begun — with this sudden death. In all cases the poison seems first to strike the nervous system with its paralyzing or stunning influ- ence. Now the fever, and all the phenomena of the first stage, are simply the reactionary efforts of nature to throw off the morbid poison. The heart would be paralyzed at once, but the fever stimulates it to overcome the tendency to death. The fever keeps the man alive, as the whiskey keeps the snake-bitten vic- tim alive. In mild cases it succeeds, and health is restored. In bad cases the fever subsides in two or three days, not because the disease is cured, but because nature is exhausted, and the patient sinks into a fearfully adynamic condition. The blood is disintegrated: then come haemorrhages, jaundice, delirium, and black vomit. This reactionary fever is severe. It is attended with frightful pains, and threatens congestion to almost all the viscera; some- times to one, sometimes to another. It is dangerous, but it must
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