The Philadelphia Journal of Homoeopathy (Volume 1) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CLINICAL CASES. BY A. B. SMALL, -.1.11. Case I.?A peculiar case of Eczema, that occurred in this city in the autumn of 1851. The subject was an Englishman, aged 30, of industrious habits, who was employed in an iron foundry. The first intimation of the approach of the disease was a disagreeable itching and smarting of the skin, covering the entire body. This itching and smarting continued to increase, until the patient was nearly frantic. He called in an allopathic physician, who ordered him a drink made of water and cream of tartar, and a copious external application of sulphur mixed with lard. This prescription, however, contributed nothing to the abatement of the disease. An eruption began to make its appearance, which, from the description given by the patient, was somewhat pustular in its character, and the prescription was changed. An ointment, made of lard and the red oxide of mercury, was substituted for that of sulphur, and used ad libitum. This latter treatment drove the patient almost mad; he became sore from head to foot; the pustules running into each other so perfectly as to form almost a continuous scab. For eight successive days he obtained not a single hour's rest. There being no mitigation of the disease, he discharged his allopathic physician, and I was called upon to attend him. I found him in a sad condition, covered with dark-greenish scabs, nearly as hard as horn, with here and there a crack, from which was oozing a greenish, sanious fluid. He was very much prostrated, and suffering literally as if immersed in burning embers. I had him sponged from head to foot with warm water and milk, for the purpose of softening the scabs, and of relieving him of the torturing effects of the ointment he had been using; after which he seemingly complained of nothing ...