The Therapeutics of Fevers

Æsculus Hippocastanum aesc.

Allen (1879)In every bookSave

Characteristic

Most suitable to persons with hemorrhoidal tendencies, who suffer from gastric, bilious or catarrhal troubles.

Despondent, gloomy; very irritable; loses temper easily and gains control slowly; miserably cross (Cham.).

Constant backache—severe, dull, aching pain—affecting the sacrum and hips, sacro-iliac articulations, worse when walking or stooping forward.

Back gives out at that point when walking, must sit or lie down.

Venous congestion (portal and hemorrhoidal); fulness in various parts, as from an undue amount of blood; heart, lungs, stomach, brain, pelvis, skin.

Mucous membranes of mouth, throat, rectum are swollen, burn, feel dry and raw.

Coryza; thin, watery, burning; rawness, and sensitive to inhaled cold air.

Follicular pharyngitis, especially in hemorrhoidal subjects; violent burning, raw sensation in throat; dryness and roughness of throat.

Frequent inclination to swallow, with burning, pricking, stinging and dry constricted fauces (Apis, Bell.).

Rectum: dryness and heat of; feels as if full of small sticks; knife-like pains shoot up the rectum (Ign., Nit. ac., Sulph.); hemorrhoids blind, painful, burning, purplish; rarely bleeding; sore, with fulness, burning and itching.

Constipation: hard, dry stool, difficult to pass; with dryness and heat of rectum; severe lumbo-sacral backache.

Aggravation

Backache and soreness from walking and stooping; motion; inhaling cold air; swallowing liquids.

Type

Quotidian; tertian; double tertian. Periodicity marked. Autumnal fevers. Remittent. Malarial.

Time

4 P. M. (Lyc., Puls.). Evening. Fever without chill from 7 to 12 P. M.

Prodrome

Yawning, stretching and bursting headache. Without thirst.

Chill

At 4 P. M., with goose-flesh, relieved by heat of fire (Ign.); along the spine; runs up the back, or creeping up and down the back (Gels.), with heat and burning in the rectum and anus. Severe chilliness, with rigor; cannot get warm.

At 4 P. M. (Anac., Lyc., Puls.); coldness without shivering; thirsty but unable to drink from pain in throat.

Heat

Flushes of heat over the face, occiput, neck and shoulders, or over the whole body. In evening fever from 7 to 12 P. M., no thirst, skin hot and dry, palms and soles burn, disposed to yawn and stretch; head aches as if it would burst. Photophobia. Lungs feel engorged; heart beats violently.

Burning in the mouth and profuse salivation. Burning dryness and constriction of the throat, constant inclination to swallow, profuse saliva and frequent spitting of mucus from the mouth.

During paroxysm burning of throat and pharynx as from a live coal; great thirst with inability to swallow from painful dryness of throat.

With hot sweat of entire body.

Sweat

Profuse, hot, and comes on with the heat, not after it; on head and face. The congestions of head, face and chest decline and abdominal symptoms disappear during sweating stage.

Pulse

Soft, slow and feeble. Functional disturbances of heart from hemorrhoidal complications; heartbeat full and rapid; can feel pulsations over whole body (Nat. m.).

Tongue

Coated white or yellow; tip sore as if ulcerated; feels scalded. Taste sweet with ropy mucus; metallic, coppery, with salivation.

Apyrexia

Constipation and hemorrhoids, with the characteristic backache, dryness and burning of the rectum. Painful dryness and burning of throat and pharynx with difficult swallowing.

In France, during the continental wars of the Empire, the blockade of the European ports by the English navy was so rigid that Peruvian bark—the recognized specific for intermittent fever—was effectually excluded.

It was during this time that a vigorous search by the faculty for a substitute for bark, brought into experimental use many remedies, and among others Arsenic and Æsculus.

The Bulletin des Science Médicales, in 1808, Vol. II, p. 560, published a large number of cures obtained by the bark of the horse-chestnut. Dr. Ranque reports 43 cases; Dr. Cazin 2 cases of tertian and one of double tertian; and Dr. Lacroix in an epi- demic of intermittent fever in the department of Loire et Cher, successfully treated over 200 cases with Æsculus alone.

Analysis

The hemorrhoidal diathesis with lumbo-sacral backache, and the dry, burning throat, pharynx and rectum are most marked.