Translations from Foreign Journals. PROF. 8. LILIENTHAL, M. D., EDITOR. SARRACENIA PURPUREA. A CONTRIBUTION TO ITS STUDY, BY DR. T. CIGLIANO, NAPLES, ITALY. Several persons re-prove this remedy with the following result: Heaviness of the head, with alternate apathy and intellectual activity. Passive pains in the orbits, so that he could not keep his head erect. Loss of appetite with bad taste; constipation for ten days, with hard and voluminous fæces; light colic. Horripilations between the shoulder-blades, sometimes at 3 or 4 P.M., or in the evening; general chills at the same place. Chills, heat and sweat at 5 P.M. (in a lady). Vague pains; fixed pains in the small of the back-rachialgia; pains in the diaphyses of all the long bones, worst in the humerus, especially the left. Pains in the third and fourth ribs, with great apprehension of heart-disease (these symptoms lasted for about three months after the remedy was stopped). Sleepiness in daytime, sleep disturbed by strange and frightful dreams; sleeplessness. Exacerbation of all symptoms in stormy weather; about midnight and at 3 P.M.; amelioration in fresh air and out of the bed. Eruptions similar to crusta lactea; on forehead and hands papular eruptions, changing to vesicular with the depression, as in small-pox, lasting from seven to eight days. Ist. OBSERVATION. L. C., jeweller, 23 years old, vaccinated in infancy, had a severe chill for two hours, followed by burning heat, pain in epigastrium, nausea, pain in the small of the back, and at the first part of the night delirium and craziness. We found him with very frequent pulse, high tempera 31 October. ture, dry skin, spleen somewhat enlarged. The vomited matter consisted of bile mixed with some blood., B Sarracenia tincture, two drops every two hours. Half an hour afterward the pulse was less frequent, the temperature decreasing, the vomiting less painful. Two hours afterward an aggravation set in, followed in the evening by a general sweat, variola in the face in the stage of efflorescence (two and a-half days after the first febrile symptoms), spreading for the next three days over the whole body, with decided remission of the fever, the vomiting and the backache. The eruption became most confluent on the face, pharynx, larynx, and conjunctiva. Under the continued use of the Sarracenia he had the secondary fever already on the eighth day, and on the ninth day our patient felt quite comfortable. After the crusts fell off, and except some redness there was hardly any pitting. The same Sarracenia was given to every member of the household, and two sisters, nursing their brothers, came thus off with only a very mild attack. 2d. OBSERVATION. G. C., 18 years old, vaccinated in infancy, was taken last February with severe bursting headache, loss of appetite, constipation, general malaise, followed in twenty-four hours by necessity to lie down, intense chill with heat, gastric disorders, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, great thirst. We found him with a red face, pulsating carotids, pulse 120, temperature 41-5, dry skin, spleen increased to double its size. B Sarracenia tincture, two drops every two hours. Under its use the eruption appeared rapidly, scantily over the body, confluent in the face, with decreasing but persistent fever. There was a rapid change to the vesicular stage, but without any hyperæmia nor oedema, and by the ninth day, the eruption ceasing its usual course, the pulse was down to 77, temperature 37. No pitting followed. Every member of the household took Sarracenia 6 as preventative, and all escaped the dire disease. 3d. OBSERVATION. E. C., a baby of one year, and teething, not vaccinated, was taken down last February with vomiting and purging, high fever, great thirst, sleeplessness and restlessness at night. Our usual remedies, as Puls. Cham., failed to bring any relief. The child became steadily worse, till on our fourth visit we observed some small pimples near the lips, and made the diagnosis of variola clear. B Sarracenia 3, five drops in some water, a teaspoonful every half hour. Next day we found the diarrhœa diminished, vomiting stopped, less thirst, eruption developing nicely, fever and pulse better. The eruption steadily progressed during its several stages, but as it invaded the larynx, pharynx, and nose and eyelids, our young patient could only be considered in a very critical state. The secondary fever appeared on the eighth day, and by the eleventh day the child could be considered out of danger. The sixth of Sarracenia was also here given to the household as preventative, and the whole family enjoyed a perfect immunity from it. 4th. OBSERVATION. Dr. Mucci sends us the following cases: J. C., 30 months old, a precocious child, took the small-pox from his sister, who had the varioloid about two weeks before. He became restless, slept poorly and lost his appetite. A few days afterward he got a severe chill for a few hours, followed by violent fever, headache, cough, coryza, sneezing and difficulty of breathing, to which gastric symptoms were soon added -as coated tongue, aversion to food, obstinate constipation, nausea, and vomiting. The allopathic physician, considering it a gastro-rheumatic fever, prescribed a mild purgative and a sudorific potion. But after three days all the symptoms were worse, and convulsions set in. We found him in convulsions, weak pulse, face pale and swollen, skin hot and perspiring, abdomen tense on account of the many oleaginous injections received in order to produce a stool, and we gave him, therefore a few pellets of Belladonna 6, which seemed to quiet the storm for a while, during which we examined it more carefully and found on the forehead and face red spots, the cervical glands engorged, the pulse quick and frequent, and the child manifested pain at pressure on the back and loins. Alternating use of Bellad with Aconite did not prevent the eruption from becoming confluent on the face, where there was not a free point, and it was well out all over the body and extremities, with high fever, great thirst, restlessness and sleeplessness. The catarrhal symptoms were gone R Sarracenia 6, fifteen glob. in water, a teaspoonful every two hours. On the third day of the eruption the pimples appeared to remain stationary and dried up with out becoming converted into pustules, and the child soon recovered its usual health. 5th. OBSERVATION. C. S., 8 months old, was attacked, after the usual prodromal state, with small-pox in the confluent form, and was covered with it from head to foot; but under the continued use of Sarracenia he passed the suppurative fever on the ninth day, and was soon after convalescent. It was remarkable in this and other cases that a great many pimples dried up without going through the different stages. From our own observations and those of other colleagues, whose communications we cannot give for want of space, we draw the following conclusions: 1. Soon after giving the remedy the temperature increases a little, but finally diminishes in direct proportion to the fever ; usually in a few hours. 2. Sarracenia shows its influence at every stage of the disease. In the prodromal stage it breaks up the fever and the disease. 3. In the stage of eruption the temperature oscillates between 37 and 39. The whole disease is over by the ninth day, without any suppurative fever. 4. The pulse always diminishes about ten beats a minute. It does not always coincide with the abatement of temperature, but will always be found in direct ratio of the individual frequency. 5. The variolous papulæ become vesicular, without becoming enlarged at their base. 6. The vesicles never pass in perfect pustules, but dry up, assuming a semi-spheric form, and in consequence of it the suppurative stage does not set in and no depression will be found. 7. The contents of the vesicles are always serous, or at most sero-purulent. 8. Sarracenia not only develops a curative power, but it is also a preventative against the variolous infection, diminishing greatly the individual disposition to catching the disease without entirely extinguishing it.—Il Dinamico, April, 1871, S. L. Hygienic Observations. SUCCESS IN VACCINATION. BY F. L. VINCENT, M.D., Troy, N. y. There is a disposition to undervalue the prophylactic benefits arising from vaccination, and many of the profession perform the operation seemingly indifferent to results. If successful, 'tis well; if failure, they are as apt to attribute the cause to insusceptibility of the child as to the very possible imperfect operation, or the use of worthless material. The result of this has been to augment the ranks of the opponents to vaccination, both among the profession and the laity. They asserting that there are depurating benefits arising from small-pox. That the introduction of vaccination has been attended with the development of new diseases more malignant than the one it strives to prevent. That, moreover, the boasted claims of vaccination as a radical prophylactic are unreliable. Persons even recently vaccinated had attacks of varioloid, and in some instances by confluent, or as Trousseau fitly terms it, un-modified small-pox, from which death ensued. * It is not my purpose to offer any special arguments in refutation of these objections, so readily met by statistical evidence, but the rather to stimulate the profession to greater care in selecting material, and in performing this far from trivial operation. The first cause of failure is in the selection of material. Imperfectly developed scales, that though able to produce local symptoms and even form pustule and cicatrix, are far from effecting the system prophylactically. Lymph extracted after the fifth or sixth day, when most of its activity is gone. Too old ma Trousseau Clinical Record, Vol. II, |