A Manual of Pharmacodynamics Volume 2

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1876 edition. Excerpt: ... he has used Carrcre's work, cites these eruptions, diarrhoeas, sweatings, and urinary depositions as pathogenetic effects of the drug. This I conceive to be unwarrantable, unless the same results can be obtained on the healthy, of which there is no evidence. It is therefore very doubtful whether its benefit in the squamous forms of cutaneous disease, so largely vouched for by the older physicians, is of a specific and homoeopathic nature. It neither causes such affection of the skin in the healthy, nor does it cure without evacuation. Its only certain cutaneous action is to excite erythematous and urticarious rashes, and pruritus; and it is in urticaria, and in such forms of impetigo as crusta lactea, that it has found place in homoeopathic practice. But there are other effects of the drug observed by Carrdre which Hahnemann has incorporated into his pathogenesis, and which seem to be truly physiological. This author says that, after seventeen years' use of the drug, he has seen no inconvenience from full doses, save occasionally some twitching of the eyelids and lips, and slight convulsive movements of the hands; heat and itching, with desire, in the genitals; heaviness of the head, with dimness of sight; and sore throat. The critical eruptions, moreover, were often preceded by restlessness, insomnia, and even a febrile state. Of the first-named phenomena--those of the eyelids, lips, and hands--he makes the curious observation that they only occurred when the patient was exposed to cold, damp weather, and that they could be readily removed by external warmth. Hence has arisen one of those happy defining rules which abound in homoeopathic therapeutics, viz. that Dulcamara is indicated for the result of exposure to damp. It is certainly an...