Sulphuric acid and Sulphur are themselves in the first rank of periodic remedies, and combined with the chief alkaloid of China they enhance the powerful periodic properties of that drug. In old-school practice the Sulphate of Quinine has almost entirely taken the place of the crude Bark as a remedy.
Chin. sul. closely resembles China in its effects, but as it has been proved separately, and as observations of the effects of over-dosing have supplied many additional symptoms, the homœopathist has plenty of guidance in the selection of one in preference to the other. Chi. sul. is even more powerful as an antiseptic than China, and it is probable that it is in virtue of its property of antagonising the malarial poison that it suppresses intermittent fever when it does not cure. It only cures when the fever corresponds to its own type.
When a fever is “suppressed” there is generally air unholy alliance between disease-force and drug-force, which is expended on some part of the organism, resulting at times in lifelong ill-health. The “Quinine cachexia” is well known─sallow complexion, emaciation, deafness and singing in the ears, enlarged spleen, disposition to shiver, and great debility. Periodicity is extremely well marked, the attacks returning at the same hour each day. In intermittents the onset may anticipate. Skin flaccid and sensitive to touch. Red rash over whole body, with severe stinging, followed by desquamation. Other prominent symptoms are: Headache extending from occiput to forehead. Whirling in the head like a mill-wheel. Twitching of left eyelid, < in the evening. Aphthæ in weakly people. Tartar on teeth. Hunger at night. Prolapse of rectum, especially in children. Hæmaturia and hæmoglobinuria. (“Black-water fever” has been developed through administering Chi. sul. in intermittents. Koch deserves much credit for showing that the worst features of African fevers are due to over-dosing with Quinine and not to the disease). E W. Sawyer (Med. Advance, 1887) relates this instructive history: He learned from his cook that her brother (æt. 16) could not take a particle of Quinine without causing a profuse flow of blood with the urine, sometimes within half an hour, always without pain. This had followed every time his doctors had tried to “break his ague” with Quinine. A year later a farmer’s wife, æt. 60, came to Dr. Sawyer to be treated for bloody urine unattended with pain or uneasiness. She attributed it to strain from walking two miles on a slippery road. She had been for months under Hygienist treatment without benefit, and was alarmingly weak from loss of blood. Rhus 200, Ham. 1x, Erig. 1x, Chi. 1x, Fer. mur. 2x were given in succession in vain. At last, calling to mind the case of the youth, he gave Chi. sul. in 1 / 16 gr. doses three times a day, and a prompt cure was effected.
Chi. sul. causes painfulness and swelling of varicose veins during a chill. (Julius E. Schmitt cured a case on this last indication.) Great sensitiveness to external influences. All discharges debilitating. Weak and nervous; a little exercise = sweat from least exertion. Head gradually breaks into sweat when perfectly quiet. Chi. sul. is one of the medicines which have the “sinking sensation.” Tyrrell had a patient in whom in any potency it caused her to become “deathly sick and faint, thought she would die, could not raise her head, felt she would sink through the bed.” Sacch. alb. produced in her the same symptoms, and she accused the doctor of having given her Quinine. (Arsen. has “sinking sensation,” “as if bed had gone from under her and she had alighted on the floor.” Bell., Dulc., Rhus, Lach., have “sinking through the bed.”) Palpitation. Touch <; pressure >. Wants to lie down. Motion = chilliness. Stooping = giddiness. Bending forward >. Sleeplessness and over-stimulation of nervous system.
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