Cholesterinum

Cholesterine is a substance crystallising in leaflets with a mother-of-pearl

lustre and a fatty feel. It is soluble in alcohol and ether. It occurs in the blood and brain, yolk of

eggs, seeds and buds of plants, but most abundantly in the bile and biliary calculi. Ameke, who

did much to introduce the proximate principles of the tissues as remedies, anticipating the

practice now so much in vogue in the old school, recommended Cholesterine as a remedy in

cancer of the liver. Burnett has recently adduced conclusive evidence in support of the

correctness of this assertion; and I have myself cured, mainly with this, a case described to me (I

did not see the patient, a man over 50) as in the last stage of liver disease. He had been given up

by his medical attendant, who ordered him to make his will without delay. Burnett uses the 3x or

the 3 trit. and substantial doses. He commends it in "obstinate hepatic engorgements, which by

reason of their obstinacy make one think interrogatively of cancer," also in "cases in which there

appears to be a semi-malignant affection, involving the left lobe of the liver and what lies

between it and the pylorus and the pancreas." In such cases Burnett gives alternately Cholest. 3x

and Jodoform 3x. It has been used with success in the removal of opacities of the vitreous.

Compare: Taurocholate of soda in Homeopathy.--Dr. I. P. Tessier, in an interesting study of the action of bile and its salts, in hepatic affections, analyzes a number of experiments by leading authorities, with the object of determining this action, and concludes that in the Taurocholate of Soda, homeopathy has a useful remedy against certain forms of hypoglobular anaemia. The claim that its pathogenesis and toxicology clearly indicate its value, and that it should also serve us as a remedy in cases of hypertrophy of the spleen and ganglia. He calls our attention to the fact, that it produces dyspnoea, the Cheyne-Stokes rhythm, acute pulmonary oedema, and intense exaggeration of the cardiac pulsations, offering a good field for clinical studies and experimentation of great interest, which may give fruitful and important results.

Third trituration.