Crotalus Horridus

Croton chloral received its name from the supposition that it contained

Crotonic acid (C4 Hs Oz). According to Hale it is said to possess the singular property of

producing anésthesia of the brain and nerves of the head without affecting the sensibility of the

rest of the body. It has been given allopathically in substantial doses in cases of trifacial

neuralgia. The patients who were helped by it had carious teeth and some of them ancémia. In two

cases the pains were aggravated by it. In some it caused sleep; others were eased but did not

sleep.

• ▸Weeping mood; clouded perception and memory; impatient.
• ▸Loquacious, with desire to escape.
• ▸Sadness.
• ▸Delusions of cerebral decay.

Memory weak; stupid, cannot express himself; makes ridiculous mistakes; with

coldness of skin.—Inability to hold her mind to a subject; perception clouded, on walking street

would have been run over but for her sister's watchfulness; entering a shop she forgot what she

came to purchase.—Torpid, sluggish, incoherent, hesitating, quiet indifference.—Delirium: with

drowsiness; with wide-open eyes; loquacious with desire to escape; delirium tremens.—Sadness;

thoughts dwell on death continually —Oppression of brain, as if from carbonic acid.—Excessive

sensitiveness, easily moved to tears by reading —Weeping, with timidity, fear,

anxiety.—Snappish temper.

• ▸Vertigo, with weakness and trembling.
• ▸Dull heavy occipital pain, on right side and right eye.
• ▸Headache with pain in heart on lying on left side.
• ▸Headache; must walk on tip-toe to avoid jarring.

Vertigo: with faintness; with weakness and trembling; with pale face; epileptic;

auditory cardiac with soft, weak pulse; > resting head; with venous congestion and degraded

blood; with dilated pupils from lightning, anzemia, or sunstroke; from fright—Fainting on

assuming upright position.—Dizziness and fainting with occipital headache.—Apoplectic

convulsions: at outset of zymotic diseases; in inebriates—Awakes in morning with headache

over eyes.—Headache extending into eyes.—Dull, heavy pain and heat over eyes and in sides of

• ▸nose; > walking in open air.
• ▸—Severe pains in r.
• ▸eye and top of head, on r.
• ▸side down back of neck

at intervals.—While sitting in chair, heaviness of head came on so much that head felt as if it

would tumble about, as if muscles of neck were too weak to support it, and needed the help of

the hands. —Dull, heavy throbbing occipital headache, faint spells; pain as from a blow in

occiput.—Violent itching of scalp; eruptions, pustules; falling off of hair.

• ▸Very sensitive to light, especially lamp light.
• ▸Yellow color of eyes.
• ▸Illusions; blue colors.
• ▸Ciliary neuralgia; tearing, boring pain, as if a cut had been made around eye.
• ▸For absorption of intra-ocular haemorrhages, into the vitreous, but particularly for non-inflammatory retinal haemorrhages.
• ▸Diplobia.

Illusions; blue colours; vanishing of sight while reading.—Blood exudes from

eye.—Yellow colour of eyes.—Tearing, boring pain, as if a cut had been made round the eye,

sometimes sticking, < morning and evening.

Auditory vertigo. Blood oozes from ears. Feeling of stoppage in right ear.

Full sensation in ears —Deafness; illusions of hearing; auditory

vertigo.—Otorrhcea.—Blood oozes from ears.

Epistaxis, blood black and stringy, ozaena, after exanthemata or syphilis.

Epistaxis; in zymotic diseases; blood thin, dark, uncoagulable; with flushed face,

vertigo or fainting —Ozena after exanthemata or syphilis.

• ▸Acne.
• ▸Lips swollen and numb.
• ▸Leaden-colored and yellow face.
• ▸Lockjaw.

Acne; of all varieties; of masturbation; of drunkards.—Face, puffed; yellow;

red.—Neuralgia of a dull character, chronic or periodic.—Parotitis—Lips swollen, stiff,

• ▸numb.
• ▸—Lockjaw.
• ▸—Copious, red, itching, papular eruption on face, esp.
• ▸chin, with delayed

menses.

• ▸Tongue red and small, but feels swollen.
• ▸Tongue fiery red, dry in center, smooth and polished.
• ▸Moldy smell of breath.
• ▸Fills up with saliva.
• ▸Tongue when protruding, goes to right.
• ▸Spasmodic grinding of teeth at night.
• ▸Cancer of tongue with haemorrhage.

Grinding of teeth during sleep.—Tongue and all round throat during sleep feels tied

tip, cannot speak a word.—Tongue very red, smooth and polished, feels swollen —Tongue:

enormously swollen; protruded; inflammation of; cancer of, with much tendency to hemorrhage;

syphilis of —Fetid breath; peculiar mouldy smell.—Putrid sore mouth.—Salivation, bloody or

frothy.

Tight constriction of throat.—Sensation of a plug to be swallowed; as if uvula

• ▸swollen or stiff; as of a dry spot or tickling, esp.
• ▸1.
• ▸side; < on waking.
• ▸—Impossible to swallow

solids.—Gangrenous or diphtheritic throat with much swelling; much swelling of glands, head

thrown up and backwards.

• ▸Dry, swollen, dark red.
• ▸Spasm of oesophagus; cannot swallow any solid substance.
• ▸Tight constriction.
• ▸Gangrenous, with much swelling.

• ▸Intolerance of clothing around stomach.
• ▸Unable to retain anything; violent vomiting of food; bilious vomiting, vomiting of blood.
• ▸Constant nausea and vomiting every month, after menstruation.
• ▸Cannot lie on right side, without vomiting dark-green matter.
• ▸Black or coffee-grounds vomiting.
• ▸Cancer of stomach with vomiting of bloody, slimy mucus.
• ▸Trembling, fluttering feeling below the epigastrium.
• ▸Intolerance of clothing about epigastrium.
• ▸Faintness and sinking at stomach.
• ▸Ulceration of the stomach.
• ▸Atonic dyspepsia.
• ▸Gastritis in chronic alcoholism.
• ▸Hungry, craves stimulants, sugar; averse to meat.

Hunger with trembling, weakness, and occipital headache.—Unquenchable

burning thirst—Eructations, sharp, sour, rancid.—Nausea on movement, bilious vomiting.—Dark

• ▸green vomiting immediately on lying on r.
• ▸side or back.
• ▸—Black vomit.
• ▸—Frequent faint sinking,

hungry sensation about epigastrium with trembling and fluttering sensation lower

down.—Craving for stimulants.—Agonising pain, restlessness, coldness, weak pulse—Cannot

bear clothes round stomach or hypochondria.—Heematemesis, blood does not coagulate.

Distended, hot, and tender. Pain in region of liver.

Stitches in region of liver on drawing a long breath, < by pressure.—Aching in

• ▸liver, vomiting, coldness.
• ▸—Violent pain in 1.
• ▸side near last ribs as if in diaphragm.
• ▸—Jaundice;

malignant jaundice with hemorrhage.—Heat and tenderness of abdomen, can scarcely bear

• ▸clothes on.
• ▸—Swelling.
• ▸—Violent pain in course of colon; in region of appendix.
• ▸—Bubo.

Black, thin, offensive, like coffee-grounds. Intestinal haemorrhage; blood dark, fluid, non-coagulable. Blood oozes from rectum when standing or walking.

Stools: black, thin, like coffee-grounds, offensive; dark green, followed by

debility; yellow, watery with stinging in abdomen; low spirits and indifference to

everything —Shuddering with diarrhoea; aphonia.—Diarrhcea from noxious effluvia; from septic

matter in food or drink; from high game; summer diarrhoea.—Dysentery; septic; from foul water,

food, &c.; excessive flow of dark fluid blood, or involuntary evacuations; great debility and

faintness.—Constipation with congestion to head and headache.—Vomiting, purging and

micturition simultaneously caused by spasmodic contractions with tenesmus and

strangury.—White stools Hemorrhage, dark, fluid, uncoagulable-—Heemorrhoids: great

tendency to bleed, on using paper, on straining a little at stool, or on standing; in pregnant

women; with menstrual irregularities; with heart or liver disease; in inebriates.

Hematuria.—Suppression or painful retention of urine.—Urine: scanty,

dark and red with blood; jelly-like; green-yellow from much bile; copious and light-coloured.

• ▸Dark, bloody urine.
• ▸Casts.
• ▸Inflamed kidney.
• ▸Albuminous, dark, scanty (Merc cor).

• ▸Prolonged menses.
• ▸Dysmenorrhoea; pain extends down thighs, with aching in region of heart.
• ▸Uterine haemorrhage with faintness at stomach.
• ▸Puerperal fever; offensive lochia.
• ▸Phlegmasia alba dolens.
• ▸Sensation as though uterus would drop out.
• ▸Painful drawing in uterine ligaments.
• ▸Cannot keep legs still.

Menses a week too soon, first preceded by weight in head and

ears, accompanied by pains in abdomen and back, and cold feet.—The pains last some hours

longer than usual, and go off after two days with intense frontal headache, which lasts from 10

• ▸p.
• ▸m.
• ▸to | a.
• ▸m.
• ▸—Five days before menses much pain in hypogastrium and down thighs; in region

of heart, 1. arm and shoulder-blade; with cold feet.—In evening, severe sharp shooting, rather

burning pain, repeated at short intervals; apparently starting 1. side of womb, passing up to region

of transverse colon, there shooting or cutting across from both sides to centre; thence passing up

1. side of trunk to 1. side of face and temple as a sharp, cutting, intermittent, neuralgic pain; and

across middle of forehead there was a heavy, dull, continuous pain; the sharp pain in temple

lasted an hour; the dull pain only ceased on going to sleep.—Flushing and sinking of

menopause.—Puerperal fever, or convulsions, with albuminous and septic conditions.—Offensive

lochia.—Inflamed breasts.—Phlegmasia alba dolens, < from slightest touch.

Sexual instinct increased with entire relaxation of penis.—Sharp

cutting in glans.

Cough, with bloody expectoration. Tickling from a dry spot in larynx.

Hoarseness, with weak, rough voice.—Bruised pain from larynx to

• ▸chest.
• ▸—Cough with stitch in 1.
• ▸side and bloody expectoration.
• ▸—Dry cough on speaking, < in dry

or cold air—Nervous cough, esp. laryngeal; dry tickling, constant choking, as if from dry,

irritating vapours, or salt or pepper, or from dry spot in larynx, < |. side; provoked by: cold or dry

air; deep inspiration; speaking; by external pressure, which cannot be borne, < on

waking.—Whooping-cough, with blueness or pallor which is long in passing off, attacks followed

by puffiness of face and hemorrhagic spots, bloodshot eyes, epistaxis, frothy, stringy, bloody

expectorations; threatened cedema and paralysis of lungs.—Excessive oppression of

• ▸chest.
• ▸—Burning in chest with heat in forehead.
• ▸—Pneumonia with tendency to gangrene.
• ▸—Lungs

seem passive.—Stitches in r. chest near sternum.

Action feeble, pulse tremulous. Palpitation, especially at menstrual period. Trembling feeling of heart.

• ▸Much pain in heart, through |.
• ▸shoulder-blade and down |.
• ▸arm.
• ▸—Palpitation with

sore pain in and about heart; feeling as if heart tumbled over.—Heart tender when lying on 1.

side.—Pulse hardly perceptible.—Phlebitis; varicosis; varicocele.

Tearing pains from (r.) shoulder to neck, < on moving arm.—Pain on top of

shoulder and in ascending aorta.—Aching in r. kidney and in stomach.

Bruised pains in bone of shoulder in paroxysms.—Large inflamed furuncle

• ▸on r.
• ▸upper arm near elbow.
• ▸—Tight, cord-like feeling extending from front of |.
• ▸elbow down front

of forearm, with "round spots" of pain here and there along front of forearm.—Tubercle on wrist,

near end of radius, size of large split-pea, and rather blue from sting of insect some years before,

more pronounced in summer months.—Vesicular and pustular eruption about wrists.—Trembling

• ▸of hands.
• ▸—Hands (esp.
• ▸|.
• ▸) go dead on least exertion.
• ▸—Violent spasmodic pains in |.
• ▸palm as from

bee-sting.—Itching and heat of palms.—Oozing of blood from under nails.

Starting, jerking, trembling, cramps, numbness.—Drawing suddenly from 1.

hip to foot —During and after walking, feels as if a tendon was drawing from sole of r. foot

through bone of leg. —Small purple spots on legs.

Hands tremble, swollen. Lower extremities go to sleep easily. Right-sided paralysis.

• ▸Swelling and discoloration, skin tense and shows every tint of color, with excruciating pain.
• ▸Vesication.
• ▸Sallow.
• ▸Yellow color of the whole body.
• ▸Great sensitiveness of skin of right half of body.
• ▸Purpura haemorrhagica.
• ▸Haemorrhage from every part of body.
• ▸Bloody sweat.
• ▸Chilblains, felons.
• ▸Dissecting wounds.
• ▸Pustular eruptions.
• ▸Insect stings.
• ▸Post-vaccination eruptions.
• ▸Bad effects of vaccination.
• ▸Lymphangitis and septicaemia.
• ▸Boils, carbuncles, and eruptions are surrounded by purplish, mottled skin and oedema.
• ▸Anthrax.
• ▸Sore sensation relieved by pressure.

Itching stinging all over; urticaria—Skin dry, stiff like thin parchment; usually

cold.—Y ellow colour of whole body (hzmatic rather than hepatic

jaundice).—Petechiz.—Vesicles; herpes; pimples; boils; carbuncles; burns; stings; pemphigus;

ulcers; gangrene; felons; anthrax.—Old cicatrices break out again.—Peliosis

rheumatica.—Dropsies.

• ▸Dreams of the dead.
• ▸Starting in sleep.
• ▸Yawning.
• ▸Smothering sensation when awaking.

Y awning; torpor; sopor.—Drowsiness with inability to sleep.—Starting in

sleep.—Dreams of travelling, of quarrels; of the dead——Symptoms < after sleep.

• ▸Malignant fevers of a haemorrhagic or putrescent character.
• ▸Low bilious remittents.
• ▸Yellow fever.
• ▸Bloody sweat.
• ▸Cerebro-spinal meningitis (Cicuta; Cup acet).
• ▸Cold sweats.

• ▸Surface cold, esp.
• ▸extremities.
• ▸—Flushes of heat all over.
• ▸—Sweat: cold; coloured, esp.

axillary; bloody.—Malignant scarlatina, with infiltration of tissues, esp. of throat—Low, bilious

remittents of South—Yellow fever, hemorrhagic, oozing of blood from every pore, vomiting and

purging bloody and bilious; fainting.—Septic or purpuric fevers —Cerebro-spinal meningitis.

Croton Chloral.

• ▸Croton Chloral-hydrate.
• ▸Butyl-chloral-hydrate.
• ▸C4 H3 Cls OH2O.
• ▸Trituration.
• ▸Solution in

alcohol and glycerine.

• ▸Antidoted by: Lach.
• ▸Its effects are modified by Ammon.
• ▸, Camph.
• ▸, Opium, Coffea,

Alcohol, and radiant heat. Compare: C. Cascavella (thoughts dwell on dead and dreams of the

• ▸dead); Tarent-cub.
• ▸, Arsen.
• ▸, Lauroc.
• ▸(tetanus, whooping-cough); Apis.
• ▸, Carb.
• ▸v.
• ▸, Silic.

(vaccination effects); Camphor (coldness; Crotal. has more marked genuine collapse with

• ▸confused speech), Hyos.
• ▸Op.
• ▸, Nux v.
• ▸, Cupr.
• ▸, Bell.
• ▸(sleepy but cannot sleep); Cad.
• ▸s.
• ▸(yellow

fever).

Compare: Bothrops; Naja (more nervous phenomena); Lachesis (more markedly worse on left side); Elaps (preferable in otorrhoea and affections of right lung); Crotalus cascavella (thoughts and dreams of death. Paralysis of articulation, embarrassed stertorous breathing and semi-consciousness. A magnetic state is produced; cutting sensation all around eyeball).

Bungarus-Krait--(poliomyelitis).

Antidote: Lach; Alcohol. Radiant heat; camphor.

Third to sixth potency.

CROTALUS HORRIDUS, (RATTLESNAKE)

<

The first impression would be to rlbel against the use of such su^

stances as Crotalus. Lachesis, Apis attd! other animal poisons, and it is

true that the lay mind must look with something like horror upon their

administration ; but when they arc properly used and when we consider the dreadfuincss of the necessity demanding them, and also when

we have ascertained that there can be no substitute when demanded,

and again that they are potentized and changed until they are perfect.y

pure, because reduced to a state of simple substance, the horror passes

away from the mind. It is true that the diseases that call for the use

of such substances as Crotalus are very grave. When at the bedside

of a Crotalus patient one feels that death is very near, the subject is

horrible to look upon, and the mother in regard to her child, or the

husband, would immediately say, “Doctor, use anything in order to

save the life ; resort to anything in order to heal this sick one.

The symptoms are peculiar in Crotalus. The remedy stands out

by itself. There can be no substitute for it, as there is no other

remedy, taken as a whole, that looks like it. The odier snake poisons

form the nearest resemblance, but this one is the most dreadful ot

all, excepting, perhaps, the Ancistrodon contortrix (Copperhead).

In the case of snake bites we get the most dire effects ; we see death

itself, we see the ending after a very rapid course, the very highest

4i6

type of zymosis. These snake poisons are supposed to be cyanhydrates of soda and other salts. It is known that alcohol is the

natural solvent of the cyanhydrates, and because of this alcohol has

been used in great quantities in snake bites, and it has frequently prolonged and even saved life. If he lives through the violent attack he goes on forever manifesting the chronic effects, and from

these we have collected symptoms. Dogs that have been bitten manifested the chronic effects of rattlesnake bite, and in them a peculiar

periodicity has been manifested, viz., every spring as the cold weather

subsides and the warm days begin. I once had the privilege of tracing

up a dog that had been bitten by the Cenchris and had survived. It

was bitten in the region of the neck, and in that region a large abscess

formed every spring as long as that dog lived, until old age, when he

died from that disease. The periodicity in the snake poisons is related to the spring, to the coining on of the warm weather.

Another marked general feature in Crotalus, as in most of the other

Ophidians, is that the patient sleeps into the aggravation.

The poison of the Crotalus horridus, in its earliest manifestations,

is like unto the zymotic changes that we find in scarlet fever, in diphtheria, in typhoid and low forms of blood poisoning, those cases that

come on with great rapidity, breaking down of the blood, relaxation

of the blood vessels, bleeding from all of the orifices of the body,

rapidly increasing unconsciousness like one intoxicated and bcvSotted in

appearance. A mental and physical prostration that is almost paralytic in character. Scarlet fever when it becomes putrid ; typhoid when

it becomes putrid, diphtheria with much bleeding and putridity. The

body appears mottled, blue intermingled with yellow. Jaundice comes

on with astonishing quickness, and the eyes become yellow, and the

skin becomes yellow and mottled. Blue in spots. Black and blue

spots as if bruised, intermingled with yellow. After haemorrhages the

skin becomes extremely anaemic. It is yellow, pale, bloodless. The

body looks like wax. Haemorrhage from the ears, eyes, nose, lungs,

from the mucous membranes everywhere, from the bowels, from the

uterus. A haemorrhagic constitution. Crotalus is indicated in disease

of the very lowest, the most putrid type, coming on with unusual

rapidity, reaching that putrid state in an unusually short time. One

who has been poisoned rapidly sinks into this besotted, benumbed,

putrid, semi-conscious state. There is a feeling as if death were coming

over him. As the blood oozes out it becomes black. It is sometimes

fluid.

An awful state of nervousness prevails. Trembling of the limbs,

• ▸tremulous weakness.
• ▸On protruding the tongue it comes out quivering.
• ▸Tired by the slightest exertion.
• ▸Sudden prostration of the vital

powers. A paralytic weakness prevails throughout. Twitching of

the muscles, trembling of the limbs. Sliding down in bed occurs in

the typhoid conditions where this remedy has proved of benefit, the

forms of yellow fever with great prostration. This species of yellow

fever has been cured by this remedy. Convulsions and paralysis. It

has twitching of muscles something like chorea, trembling, localized

spasms, hysterical manifestations.

The mental symptoms are well worth examining. The low form

of delirium, muttering, talking to himself is a peculiar form of

loquacity. It differs somewhat from Lachesis. Both have loquacity.

The Lack, loquacity is so rapid that if anyone in the room commences

to tell something the patient will take it up and finish the story,

although he has never heard anything about it, so active is his mind.

No one is permitted to finish a story in the presence of a Lack, patient.

One will commence to tell something. He will say, “Oh, yes ; I understand it,*’ and he will go off on another line and finish up with something entirely different. Crotalus does that, too, but Crotalus will

take it up and mumble and stumble over his words in a clumsy manner. It is a low passive state like intoxication ; in Lack, it is wild

excitement. “Delirium with languor, drowsiness, stupor.” That tells

it. “Loquacious delirium with desire to escape from bed.” It is

passive, however. Ilis motions are slow. “Muttering delirium of

• ▸typhus.
• ▸Sadness.
• ▸” His thoughts dwell on death continually.
• ▸“Excessive sensitiveness.
• ▸Moved to tears by reading.
• ▸Melancholy with

timidity, fear. Anxious and pale, with cold sweat. Irritable, cross,

infuriated by least annoyance.” On. motion there is vertigo, dizziness.

On keeping still there is pain. On going to sleep there is pain, and

he is roused by violent pain. The longer he sleeps the more severe

that pain in the head.

He sleeps into his symptoms. All the snake poisons more or less

sleep into troubles. The head troubles come on after sleep. He sleeps

into headache. The longer he sleeps the harder are the headaches.

The headache is so hard in the back of the head that it is almost impossible to raise it from the pillow. The muscles become so tired he

has to take hold of it with his hands. This belongs also to Loch. A

congestive headache with waxy face, yellow, purple, mottled face, as

if there had been bruises. “Headache extending into the eyes. Bilious

headache every few days.” Severe sick headache, together with

dizziness, throbbing in the top of the head. Dull, pulsating headaches.

hecruy^ throbbing, occipitah headaches/^ or the whole head is in

a state of congestion* He is confused and dazed. Head feels too

large. Head feels full, feels as if it would burst. Headaches that

come on in waves as if they came up the back, a singing of blood upwards, an orgasm described as if the blood rushed upwards. Headache with surging in waves and excited by motion or jar, by turning"

4i8 crotalus horridus

over in bed, by rising up in bed, or by lying down. Change of position will cause this surging. In Lack, it is described, and I have seen

it verified, as beginning away down in the spine and surging upward

coincident with the pulse.

Haemorrhage from the eyes. Yellow appearance of the eyes. ‘‘Blood

exudes from the eye, burning in eyes ; redness with lachrymation.’'

Pressure in the eyes as if the eyes would be pushed out from the head.

Paralysis of the upper lids. Inflammation of the mucous membrane

of the lids.

Surging in the ears. “Sensitive to noises.'* Dull aching and throbbing in the ears. Foetid, copious, yellow, offensive, bloody discharges

from the ears. Blood oozing from the ears in drops in zymotic diseases, low forms of scarlet fever, or of diphtheria where there is

oozing from the eyes and cars, and copious bleeding from the nose.

The nose is the most common organ to bleed in zymotic diseases.

The rush of blood seems to get relief from bleeding from the nose.

In this medicine the congestion to the head is violent with bleeding

from the nose. It has cured all forms of foetid discharge. Horrible,

foetid, putrid discharges from the nose. Ozaena.

Inflammation of the parotid gland. Blueness and discoloration of

the face. Yellow appearance of the face, a marked condition of jaundice, In girls who appear waxy or anaemic, yellowish green, have for

a long time missed the menstrual period and break out in pustules

and pimples.

This patient often wakes up during the night grinding the teeth.

Tlie taste is bad, putrid. Inflammation of the gums. Bleeding from

the mouth. Inflammation of the throat with bleeding of the throat.

Burning in the throat and mouth. Trembling, quivering and swollen

tongue. Trembling of the tongue when it is put out. Trembling of

the hands when they are moved. Those cases of diphtheria that ooze

blood from the nose and mouth are very low types, and arc sure to

die without a well-selected remedy. The throat will be filled up under

such circumstances with a diphtheritic membrane that looks dark.

There is bleeding all around it. Sore mouth with bleeding. Ulcers

in the mouth. Ulcers after Merc, in those who are pouring forth

saliva on the pillow at night. Bleeding ulcers in the mouth. Difficult

swallowing. Malignant diphtheria. Cannot lie on the right side or

back without instantly producing black, bilious vomiting. This is a

wonderfully bilious remedy, sick headaches, vomiting of bile in great

quantities. The various low forms of disease calling for Crotalus

often begin with vomiting great quantities of bile, sometimes bile

mixed with blood.

Pain in the stomach, coldness as if a piece of ice were in the

stomach or in the abdomen. Stomach irritable, unable to retain any^

CROTALUS HORRmUS

thing, constantly throws up blood. Crotalus has cured ulceration of

the stomach. It has greatly restrained the growth of carcinoma when

there is much vomiting of bile and blood. Vomiting in many instances

where the blood has no tendency to coagulate. iNow, with all these

ulcerations of the stomach, cancerous allections, low zymotic disease,

jaundice is nearly always present ; jaundice and more or less of bleeding; fever seldom runs high; sometimes the temperature is subnormal,

but with oozing and bleedings, with dark haemorrhage irom the nose

and mouth and dark, scanty, bloody urine containing albumen. The

abdomen is greatly distended like the tympanitic abdomen of typhoid

and the low zymotic diseases. Ulceration of the bowels, haemorrhage

• ▸from the bowels.
• ▸Much pain and soreness in the abdomen with numbness.
• ▸Feeling in it as if it were made of wood.
• ▸‘‘Stool black, thin,

like coffee grounds. Dysentery of septic origin from foul water, food,

etc. Diarrhoea from noxious efiluvia.’" Inflammation of the ovaries

and of the uterus. Low form of putrid fever, tiaemorrhages. Either

dark clots or blood that has no tendency to coagulate and keeps on

flowing. There is great trouble at the climacteric period. Hot Hashes.

Jaundice. Haemorrhage from the uterus or from other parts. Cancer

of the uterus with much bleeding. Great offensiveness. Patient becomes yellow, jaundiced, great exhaustion, mottled appearance of the

skin, swelling of the face, of the leg, especially along the course of the

veins. Phlegmasia alba dolens. Worse from the slightest touch.

Worse from jar, from motion.

There is some reason to think that this will be more or less a heart

remedy from the great cardiac weakness it produces. But the other

snake poisons like Naja, Lack, and Elaps have had more clinical application than this one. This one seems to prostrate the heart, but

also to prostrate the whole hody, and its complaints arc more general.

Mottled appearance of the limbs. Gangrenous appearance of the

extremities.

Boils, carbuncles and eruptions are surrounded by a purplish condition of the skin, a mottled, blue, splotched or marbled state. It

produces boils, abscesses and a condition somewhat resembling a carbuncle, with burning and violent pains, but the peculiar feature is the

doughy centre. Around the boil or carbuncle for many inches there

is oedema, with pitting upon pressure. The boil, or abscess, or carbuncle will bleed a thick, black blood that will not coagulate. Car*

buncles that come upon the neck and upon the back begin with a

(pustule, tod then several come and they are surrounded by little

pustules and papules and there is pitting upon pressure. For these

carbuncles you will need to study particularly Arsenicum, Anthracinum, Lachesis, Secale and Crotalus. They are the medicines that

have in their nature malignancy and manifestation.

CROTON tlGLlOM

In puerperal fever there is a continued oozing of black offensive

blood that will not coagulate ; bleeding from every orifice of the body

as well as from the uterus. Imagine a woman who is pregnant suffering from typhoid fever. She aborts and a low zymotic state comes

on with the symptoms that I have described and with all the appearances as if she would bleed to death after the abortion. The blood will

not coagulate and the flow continues. Or in a woman during a

typhoid fever menstruation comes on. It is not a true menstrual flow,

that is, it does not resemble the ordinary flow, because it is copious,

dark and liquid, a continuous oozing with all the grave symptoms described, and especially the besotted countenance, the comatose state,

the appearance as if she were intoxicated, lying as one dead. When

aroused every muscle trembles ; if the tongue is protruded it trembles,

and there is inability to articulate. Crotalus may save her life. Would

it be possible to think of graver states of sickness than such as are

produced by the ophidia? When a physician sees these symptoms

coming on he immediately thinks of a class of remedies that can cover

such a state, remedies like Baptisia, Arsenicum, Secale and the

Ophidia, and sometimes Arnica, Phosphorus and Pyrogen,

In the more chronic conditions the individual manifests a terrible

state as to his sleep. He rises from sleep as in a fright ; has horrible

dreams of murder, of death, of dead bodies and dead people, of associating with the dead and with corpses, of being in graveyards ; even

the smell of the cadaver is dreamed of. While he is awake he is

tired, he is stupid, he cannot add figures, he makes mistakes in writing,

he transposes sentences, and in words he transposes letters. He is

unable to take care of his own accounts, for he cannot add up things

that are at all particular. Sleep alternates with long and tedious

periods of wakefulness. He is disturbed by any change to warm

weather. Great irritability, sensitive to spheres, easily disturbed by

his surroundings, and easily wrought up into a pitch of excitement are

also features of this remedy. Following this up he is suspicious of

his friends and is unable to reason upon a rational basis. He craves

intoxicating drinks and is unable to resist the craving. This wonderful resemblance to old inebriates has led to the use of Crotalus in delirium tremens ; it has the besotted countenance, the purple aspect of

the face, the peculiar kind of hunger in the drunkard, the craving by

spells for stimulants. There is every reason to believe that in fat,

robust, besotted drunkards it may, if properly used, be a remedy deep

enough to remove the appetite for strong drink.

Painful paralytic sensation.—Rheumatic and neuralgic pains —Bruised pain in joints

and bones.—Heaviness, as if bones were made of heavy wood.—Numb pain as after cramp in

anterior of fingers and in toes —Contraction of flexors.