The homoeopathic materia medica : arranged systematically and practically / by A. Teste ; translated from the French and edited by Chas. J. Hempel.

  • Teste, Alph. (Alphonse), 1814-
Date:
1854
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The homoeopathic materia medica : arranged systematically and practically / by A. Teste ; translated from the French and edited by Chas. J. Hempel. 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 observer, only one (Richter) has seen it cause caries. In one case only, it caused cataract; in one other case, jaundice; in one case only, rickets; and in one other case, bone-pains. Now do such isolated facts deserve unlimited credence? Was the cutaneous eruption, the repulsion of which is supposed to have been followed by these diseases, really and truly the itch ? * We will admit, however, (because we cannot prove the con- trary,) that cataract, jaundice, rickets, caries and bone-pains, may, strictly speaking, be considered as signs of the internal psora. The same will prove true with regard to hydroce- phalus, general oedema, redness of the ivhole body, swelling of the cervical glands, retention of urine, hydrocele, purulent collections in the mesentery, sphacelus of the stomach and rickets, all which diseases have been seen once only, and sometimes twice follow the retrocession of the itch. But these are certainly not the pathognomonic signs of psora. Pursuing our statistical review, we find that the other 1 Heaven knows what is often called itch by ancient authors, as the following case may show, to which I could easily add an hundred more: A young woman, who was in her seventh month of pregnancy, consulted me on account of an itch that caused her a good deal of itching and sleepless nights, without any other trouble. I advised her to be bled, to use some cooling beverages, and to await her confinement patiently, etc. The itch resisted all these means of treatment, and the patient, anxious to get rid of her eruption, rubbed herself, by the advice of a woman, with an ointment which is kept ready-made in the shops for the purpose of driving away the itch. The itch disappeared in a few days; but in its place a hard and pain- ful tumor, of the size of a walnut, showed itself between the labia majora, above the meatus urinarius. Consulted a second time by this lady, I had no doubt that her itch was a syphilitic disease which she had caught from her husband. I talked to him, he told me all his former adventures, and asked me to do for his wife's health all that I could possibly do, etc. (Dominique Raymond, traile des maladies qu'il est dangereux de guerir, p. 76.) Raymond treated his patient with mercury, and she recovered. Now, I ask any honest reader that, if Raymond had seen the repulsion of this syphilitic disease followed by bone-pains or caries, would he not have given out these diseases as consequences of repelled itch ? And such an error would have been for Hahnemann an additional symptom of internal psora.