Hi Karin,
III.
The Picture of the Disease -
An elaborate picture of Hooping(sic) Cough, completely finished even to the finest shadings will hardly be expected in a work like the present. such a picture would be superfluous, fo the reason that every one who may resort to these pages of counsel, will already have learned to recognise this cough, which occures, alas, onlt too frequently; or if, by good fortune, he has not yet had hte opportunitly of learning to know it, he can easily do so, through the symptoms, which are herein present in great abundance and in a form which admits of easy reference. On the other hand, a complete description would require an expansion of work which would be out of place.......to lose in comprehensibility and facility for reference. Our purpose, then, will be sufficiently attained by a detail of the following principal features of the affection.
The true peculiarity of Hooping cough, and which distinguishes it most definitely from all other varieties of cough, consists in the following, viz.:
The cough appears in
paroxysms, which last a longer or shorter time,
are distinct from each other and independent, and
are repeated, more or less frequently, by day as well as at night.
During these paroxysms of cough, the indiviudual coughs follow each other more or less quickly in a spasmodic manner and cease, only to admit of long and deep
inspirations which are labouriously effected and are accompanied by
various but, generally,
peculiar tones whereupon the cough is resumed in a similar manner until the paroxysm there follows a longer or shorter
pause, during which, especially in the beginning of the disease, the patient recovers himself and a period of relative health ensures which endues until the next paroxysm.
Only when the malady has already lasted weeks and months does a higher degree of ill-health ensue, in consequence of the repeated parosysms; the patients then, no longer enjoy the benefit of recovering their vigour during the pauses between paroxysms of cough; the entire organism is sympathetically affected; the patients keeps growing sicker, weaker and more wretched, and either he passes away during a paroxysm or selse the seed of one of the various, but for the most part, malignant diseases is deposited which often fatally undermine health and life.
It is cutomary to assume three stages of Hooping Cough, which nevertheless, are seldom very distinctly marked, but generally pass gradually into one another and are seldom, if ever, sharply defined.
The FIRST (emphasis mine) stage, which is called the
catarrhal stage, resembles, altogether, an ordinary catarrh, and gives no special indications of the threatening danger, which is generally to be suspected only from the prevailing epidemic character of disease at the time.
The SECOND (emph mine) stage begins with the commencement of the
spasmodic symptoms, which begin to accompany the paroxysms of cough, and which then increase from day to day, in an ever-advancing ratio until the above dscribed condition is fully developed.
The THIRD (emph mine) stage, so called, is the period in which if the patient live to reach it, the paroxyxms decrease in duration and violence and the health gradually returns; or else the disease undergoes a transition into a
chronic malady which then gradually comes to
bear some other name.
The
duration of the proper Hooping Cough disease, when left to itself, is various and may be from two months to a half year. But there are also cases which last still longer and in these, as a general rule, the sequelae are extremely deplorable. Allopathy has seldom succeeded in abridging this duration.
**Skipping some long sections about statistics, and other things...
into Section VI.
.......
How entirely different are the prognosis and terminations of Hooping Cough, when the patients are so fortunate as to fall under the care of a skillfull and experienced Homeopathician!
Fatal cases are hardly to be reckoned among the possible terminations. There must be a rare concurrence of the most unfavourable conditions, as well in the constitution of the patient as in the external influences to which he is subjected when the disease terminates fatally. But, in such cases, death is not to be ascribed to the Hooping Cough
alone, to which only a greater or less share f this unfavourable termination, rare as it is, can be attributed; and death would probably, in such a case, have been the result, in like manner, of
any serious disease whatever its nature might be.
From the
sequelae too, so frequent and so lamentable, little is to be dreaded under the homeopathic treatment. For, on the one hand, the power and enrgy of the disease are broken in a few days; and, on the other, the chronic miasm which is being aroused by it (call it scrofula, psora, or what we may) and in which the roots of these sequelae generally resy, may be speedily and surely removed by remedies which Homeopathy, likewise, has in her possession.
In
all cases, however, without exception, a great and incontestable advantage of Homeopathy is found in the fact that it very considerably abridges the duration of the disease and, to speak with the utmost moderation, equieres for a complete cure, not so many
weeks, as Allopathy requires months.
.........
Please read what I typed before on the School's Forum - HOMEOPATHIC TREATMENT (VIII)
but just a recap of what is important:
From "1. The choice of the remedy".......
In accordance with these requirements, we have endeavoured so to arrange the first part of this work that under the name of each of the remedies which follow in alphabetical order, should be comprsied the following items:
FIRST: a brief but accurate diagnosis of the cough.
a. General character of cough
b. exciting cause of cough
c. expectoration - manner of it raising and to its character.
SECOND
a. period of the day
b circumstances that are especially observed to exist as conditions which exercise a greater or less influence upon the provocation and agg of the paroxysms of coughing - and which often very materially contribute to give the cough an individual character.
THIRDthe third heading called
concomitants, comprises a selection of concomitant sx, some of which occur simultaneously with the cough, while others are observed as something abnormal or morbid, affecting the patient at other times.
These taken collectively, serve, by exclusion of other remedies which either do not present these symptoms or present them but incompletely, to assure the choice of the most appropriate remedy for the case in hand. (emphasis mine)
.....For here are found the majority of the sx, which taken collectively, belong to, and constitute
the characteristic, and which furnish the means of coming to a definite conclusion. If, for example,
lachrymation, epitaxis, or vomiting in general, does not serve to give an available indication, yet these symptoms maybe of the greatest use, when the
rarer perculiarities which are recorded in connection with them are found to correspond in the case of certain individuals, and when, at the same time, no
clearly contradictory indications are found in other symptoms.
The more accurately all these sx, which are easily found under the various rubrics, are reflected by the case under treatment, the more assured may be feel of the propriety of the choice of the remedy we have made, and the more confidently may we expect a happy result.
In general, however, the tyro of Homeopathy cannot too earnestly take to heart the caution to avoid the great error of regarding a large nuerical quantity of sx that are
general in their character and that do not
individualise the case, as a sufficient guide in the choice of the remedy. The keen perception and appreciation of those sx which,
at the same time, correspond to the nature of the disease, and aslo designate that remedy which is exclusively, or at least, most decidedly indicated - this alone betokens the master-mind. For it is easier-very much easier- to select the right emedy after a picture of the disease, complete in every respect and full meeting all requirements, has bee drawn up, than oneself to obtain the materials for such a picture and to constuct it.
The second part of the homeopathic treatment, viz.:
2.
Administration of the remedy might be treated with still greater brevity, but we fear to give offense to some amond the younger Homeopathicians if we pronounce for the
higher and
highest potencies and for the
smallest doses, with more decision and confidence in this disease than in many others, without giving our reasons for so doing. Like so much which the honest and experienced found of the Homeopathic School left as a precious legacy to posterity of fruits of his careful observation, the warning seems to have been forgotten to which he called the attention of his followers in a note to the preface of Drosera.
**It goes on to warn about not repeating Dros too quickly (not immediately after 1st dose) as it not only stump the case but cause problems).
Then it goes on to say (coincidentally about CINA!):
He uses altogether similar language with reference to another remedy which likewise stands in the front rank in the treatment of Hooping Cough, viz, Cina, and gives the assurance that "the thirtieth potency manifest, most completely, the curative power of the drug."
It goes on to say:......
we surely need not hesitate frankly to declare that the very
smallest doses, viz, two globules, moistened with the two hundredth potency of the properly selected remedy, and
dissolved in a few spoonfuls of pure cold water and directed to be
suitably succussed before each dose - a spoonful of this to be taken morning and evening - has always fully answered our expectations; and that we have never had occasion to descend to lower dilutions and more massive doses. It need scarely be said that this remedy must not be interferred with in its action by any other drug and tehrefore the well-known
homeopathic diet, the sole object of which is to accomplish this end, must be observed.
END.
Some of this was typed into our School's Forum - but I thought it important to recap anyway
.
Hope this helps out. Let us know how he is getting on - and give him a wee hug from me
,
Lisa
[ 04 October 2001: Message edited by: LisaAnnan ]