Cases of Itch

A 7 month old baby boy was seized with epilepsy. The parents were unwilling to acknowledge that he had had the itch.

But when the physician enquired more particularly the mother confessed that the little boy had some vesicles of itch on the sole of the foot, which had soon yielded to lead ointment.

The child, as she said, had no other sign of the itch. The physician correctly recognized in this the only cause of the epilepsy.

Two children were freed from epilepsy by the breaking out of humid tinea, but the epilepsy returned when the tinea was incautiously driven off.

88Five-year-old itch passed away, and this, after several years, produced epilepsy.

89 The itch in a youth of 20 years was suppressed by a purgative, which was allowed to act violently for several days, after which he for two years suffered the most violent convulsions, until, through the use of birch-juice, the itch was brought back to the skin.

90A young man of 17 years, of vigorous constitution and good intelligence, was attacked three years ago, after itch had been driven out, first by hemoptysis and then by epilepsy, which grew worse through medicines until the fits came on every two hours.

Another surgeon, through frequent blood-lettings and many medicines, effected that he remained free from epilepsy for four weeks, but soon afterwards the epilepsy returned while he was taking his noon-day nap, and the patient had two or three fits in the night; at the same time he was attacked with a very severe cough and suffocating catarrh, especially during the nights, when he expectorated a very fetid fluid.

He was confined to his bed. At last, after much medicine, the disease increased so much that he bad ten fits at night and eight during the day. Nevertheless he never in these fits either clenched his hands or had foam at his mouth. His memory is weakened.

The attacks come at the approach of meal-time, but more frequently after meals. During his nightly attacks he remains in the deepest sleep without awaking, but in the morning he feels as if bruised all over. The only warning of a fit consists in his rubbing his nose and drawing up his left foot, but then he suddenly falls down.

Apoplexy. Cummius in Eph. Nat. Cur. Dec. I., ann. 1, obs. 58. Mobius, Institut. med., p. 65. J. J. Wepfer, His-tor. Apoplect. Amstel., 1724, p. 457.

Paralysis, Hoechstetter, Obs. med. Dec. VIII., obs. 8, p. 245. Journal de Med., 1760, Sept., p. 211. Unzer Arzt VI., St. 301.91 Hundertmark, as above, p. 33.92 Krause. Schubert, Diss. de scabie humani corp., Lips., 1779, p. 23.93 Karl Wenzel, as above, p. 174.

Melancholy, Reil, Memorab. Fasc., III., p. 177.94

Insanity, Landais in Roux, Journ. de Medicine, Tom. 41. Amat. Lusitanus, Curat. med. Cent. II., Cur. 74. J. H. Schulze, Brune, Diss. Casus aliquot mente alienatorum, Halle, 1707. Cas. 1, p. 5.95 F. H. Waitz, medic.-chirurg.

91A woman, after having the itch driven out, had paralysis of one leg and remained lame.

92After driving off the itch with sulphur ointment, a man of 53 years had hemiplegia.

93A minister, who for a long time had in vain used internal remedies against the itch, finally grew tired of it and drove it off with ointment, when his upper extremities were, in a measure, paralyzed and a hard, thick skin formed in the palms of the hands, full of bloody chaps and insufferable itching.

In the same place the author mentions also a woman whose fingers contracted from an itch driven out by external means; she suffered from them a long time.

94 He found an idiotic melancholy arise in consequence of suppressed itch; when the itch broke out again the melancholy disappeared.

95 A student, 20 years old, had the humid itch, which so covered his hands that he became incapable of attending to his work. It was driven off by sulphur ointment. But shortly after it appeared how much his health had suffered from it. He became insane.

Aufsatze, Th. 1, p. 130.96 Altenburg, 1791. Richter in Hufel. Journal, XV., II. Grossmann in Baldinger’s neuem Magaz., XI, I.97

Who, after meditating on even these few examples which might be much increased from the writings of the physicians of that time and from my experience, great evil hidden within, the Psora, of which evil the eruption of itch and its other forms, the tinea capitis, milk crust, tetter, etc., are only indications announcing the internal, monstrous disease of the whole organism, only local external symptoms which act vicariously and mitigatingly for the internal disease? Who, after reading even the few cases described, would hesitate to acknowledge that the Psora, as already stated, is the most destructive of all chronic miasmas? Who would be so stolid as to declare, with the later allopathic physicians, that the itch-eruption, tinea and tetters are only situated superficially upon the skin and may, therefore, without fear, be driven out through external means since the internal of the body has no part in it and retains its health?

• would remain so thoughtless as to ignore the sang or laughed where it was unbecoming, and ran until he sank to the ground from exhaustion. From day to day he became more sick in soul and body, until at last hemiplegia came on and he died. The intestines were found grown together into a firm mass, studded with little ulcers full of protuberances, some of the size of walnuts, which were filled with a substance resembling gypsum. A man of 50 years with whom, after driving away the itch by ointments, general dropsy had set in; when the itch re-appeared and drove away the swelling, he drove it away again, when he fell into raving madness, while head and neck swelled up to suffocation; at last blindness and complete suppression of urine were added. Artificial irritants applied to the skin and a strong emetic brought back the itch again; when the eruption extended over the whole body all the former accidents disappeared.

*An opponent, of the old school, has reproached me that I have not adduced my own experience to prove that the chronic maladies, when they are not of syphilitic or sycotic origin, spring from the miasma of itch, as such proofs from experience would have been convincing. Oho! If the examples here adduced by me from both the older and from modern non-Homoeopathic writings have not yet enough convincing proof, I should like to know what other examples (even my own not excepted) could be conceived of as more striking proofs? How often (and I might say almost always) have opponents of the old school refused all credence to the observations of honorable Homoeopathic physicians, because they were not made before their own eyes and because the names of the patients were only indicated with a letter; as if private patients would allow their names to be used! Why should I endure the like? And do I not prove my point in a manner most indubitable and most free from partisanship through the experience of so many other honest practitioners?