Apis Mellifica; or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent

Owing to this remarkable similarity, Apis will effect striking cures of all these different derangements.

If, after more or less distinctly felt premonitory symptoms—after a sudden cold, excessive exertions, prostrating emotions or enjoyments—a more or less violent fever is developed, accompanied by dulness and painfulness of the head, retching and vomiting, distention and sensitiveness of the pit of the stomach, and soon after of the whole abdomen, with urging diarrhœa, pappy and foul taste in the mouth, loss of appetite and thirst, feeling of dryness in the mouth and throat, tongue sore, as if burnt and swollen, with antagonistic change of symptoms, suspicious and extraordinary prostration, and feeling of fainting; a few spoonfuls of the above-mentioned solution of Apis 3, will afford such speedy relief, that it may seem incredible to those who have not witnessed it. The nausea, the vomiting, the diarrhœa, and the painfulness of the abdomen, disappear; quiet sleep sets in, with general perspiration, which terminates the fever, and affords great relief; after waking, the patient is comforted by the internal sensation of returning health; a natural appetite is again felt, the strength returns, and in a few days the healthy look of the tongue and buccal cavity shows that the mucous membrane of the stomach and bowels has recovered its normal quality. The longer help is deferred, the longer time the morbid process has had in making its inroads upon the system, the more frequently will it be necessary to repeat the medicine, until a cure is achieved.

The same good result is perceived, if the morbid process is accompanied by furuncles, urticaria, erysipelas—the latter principally on the head and in the face, less frequently upon the extremities, and inclining to shift from one place to another. Such a combination of symptoms not only shows a higher degree of intensity of the disease, but also shows that the organism is still capable of battling against the internal disease, by compelling it to leave the interior tissue, and to develop itself externally. It is the first business of the physician to support the organism in this tendency, and to guard the brain and bowels from every destructive relapse. Apis, employed as above, accomplishes this result more speedily than any other drug. Of course, a few days are required for this purpose, although the rules of using the drug and the course of treatment are the same.

The same observation applies to the not unfrequent complication with organic disease of the spleen and consequent dropsy. Apis, used in the same manner, effects, in as short a period as the intensity of the symptoms will permit, a mitigation and gradual disappearance of the painfulness of the spleen, restores the normal action of the spleen more and more, and neutralises the tendency to dropsical effusion at the same time as it expels the accumulated fluid by increasing the secretions from the bladder and bowels, and the cutaneous exhalation.

If the liver is organically diseased, Apis is no longer sufficient. In such a case, the action of the liver has first to be restored to its normal standard. In dropsical diseases, I have effected this result most frequently, for years past, by means of Carduus mariæ, less frequently by Quassia, still less frequently by Nux vomica, and only in a few cases by Chelidonium: according as one or the other of these agents seemed indicated by the epidemic character of the disease. In all non-malignant cases, if the medicine was permitted to act in time, the whole disease was often cut short by the use of these drugs, and the development of typhoid symptoms prevented. Not, however, in all more inveterate cases, where the prevailing character of the disease, by its more penetrating action upon the tissues, induced a slower and more threatening course of development. As soon as the pains in the right hypochondrium had disappeared, the bilious quality of the fæces had been restored, and the urine had become lighter colored, but the fever still continued, tongue, throat, pit of the stomach and abdomen had become more sensitive; the head duller and tighter, and the prostration more overpowering. In such a case, Apis, prepared as above, became indispensable, in order to remove all danger to life. Its curative action soon became manifest in two different ways.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.