The Therapeutics of Fevers

Graphites graph.

Allen (1879)In every bookSave

Characteristic

Adapted to women inclined to obesity, who suffer from habitual constipation, and whose history reveals a tendency to delaying menstruation.

"What Pulsatilla is at puberty, Graphites is at the climac- teric."

Morning sickness during menstruation; very weak and prostrated (Alum., Carbo a., Coc.).

Hears better when in a noise; when riding in a carriage or car, when there is a rumbling sound (Nit. ac.).

Excessive cautiousness; timid, hesitates; unable to decide about anything (Puls.).

Fidgety while sitting at work (Zinc.).

Sad, despondent; music makes her weep; thinks of nothing but death (music is intolerable, Nat. c., Sab.).

Eczema of lids; eruption moist and fissured, lids red and margins covered with scales or crusts.

Sexual debility from sexual abuse.

Menses: too scanty, pale; late with violent colic; irregular; delayed from getting feet wet (Puls.).

Leucorrhœa: acrid, excoriating; occurs in gushes day and night; before and after menses (before, Sepia; after, Kreos.).

Hard cicatrices remaining after mammary abscess, retarding flow of milk; cancer from old scars.

Unhealthy skin: every injury suppurates (Hep.); eruptions, behind the ears, on various parts, from which ooze a watery, transparent, sticky fluid; nails brittle, crumbling, deformed; painful and sore, as if ulcerated; old cicatrices re-open.

Cracks or fissures of ends of fingers and nipples, labial commissures, of anus, between the toes (Nit. ac.).

Burning round spot on vertex (Cal., Sul.—cold spot, Sep., Ver.).

Diarrhœa: stools brown, fluid, mixed with undigested substances, and of an intolerable odor; often caused by suppressed eruptions (Psor.).

Chronic constipation : stool difficult, large, hard, knotty, with lumps united by mucous threads ; too large (Sulph.) ; smarting sore pain in anus after stool.

Children ; impudent, teasing, laugh at reprimands.

Sensation of cobweb on forehead, tries hard to brush it off (Bar., Bor., Brom., Ran. s.).

Phlegmonous erysipelas : of face, with burning, stinging pain ; commencing on right side, going to left ; after application of Iodine.

Decided aversion to coition (both sexes).

Cataleptic condition ; conscious, but without power to move or speak.

Takes cold easily ; sensitive to draught of air (Bor., Cal., Hep.); suffering parts emaciate.

Relations

Complementary : Caust., Hep., Lyc.

Follows well after Lyc., Puls.; after Cal. in obesity of young women with large amount of unhealthy adipose tissue.

Aggravation

Cold or becoming cold; night; during and after menstruation; after eating.

Amelioration

Eructations (Carbo v.); while walking; open air.

Type

Quotidian; double quotidian.

Time

6 or 7 A. M.; morning in bed; 4, 5. 6, 7, 8 P. M.

Chill

Without thirst, in the morning in bed; from 4 P. M. till evening; chilliness and coldness of whole body at 5 P. M., with icy cold feet. Violent febrile chilliness morning and evening, the heat followed by sweat. Shaking chill every day, in the evening; after an hour, hot face and cold feet without subsequent heat. Chill in evening, with headache and tearing in the limbs, great thirst, and profuse perspiration after midnight, lasting till morning. Chill < after meals; > after drinking (Caust.—< after drinking, Ars., Caps., Cimex); > in open air (Apis, Ipec.—< in open air, Ign.). Icy cold feet, alternating with burning.

Heat

At night; with restlessness; unable to sleep, or remain in bed on account of it; when riding in a carriage. Dry heat every evening and night, lasting till morning, with headache on vertex and in nape of the neck till noon. Hands and soles of the feet hot and burning.

Sweat

Profuse at night; from the slightest motion; on front of body and centre of chest (sternum); stains yellow; is sour and offensive (Hep., Lyc.). Profuse sweat on the feet; they swell and become sore (Iod., Sil.). Entire inability to sweat (Hep.).

Tongue

Coated white and sensitive. Taste sour, salty, bitter; like rotten eggs Rotten odor from mouth. Breath smells like urine. Lips and nostrils sore and cracked, as from cold. Averse to meat, fish, cooked food, salt.

Apyrexia

Excessive hunger, or no appetite, with great distension of abdomen, as from accumulation or incarceration of flatulence. Constipation. Urine turbid, and deposits white sediment.

Constitutional symptoms of apyrexia are the best guide for selection of remedy.