Milz/Spleen

 

Vergleich: Siehe: Organen

 

[Hpathy]

Spleen – a large organ in the upper abdomen on the left side, located close to the left side of the stomach. It is the largest structure of the lymph system. The spleen causes disintegration of old red blood cells in adults, manufactures red blood cells in the fetus and newborn, and serves as an important reservoir of blood.

The spleen may enlarge for many reasons, since one of its main functions is to break down old and worn out blood cells, those conditions where blood is broken down faster than normal are associated with an enlarged spleen,. These diseases are called hemolytic anemias, and many of them, such as sickle cell anemia or thalassemia, are inherited. Hemolytic problems can also have other causes; for example, some drugs such may cause hemolysis and thus a large spleen. Other blood diseases also cause the spleen to become enlarged. In some cases of leukemia, for example the spleen grows so much that it stretches from the top left-hand of the abdomen to the bottom right-hand corner.

There are two other diseases that are associated with enlarged spleen, malaria and the parasitic disease known a kala azar, in which the parasites actually inhibit the spleen, because it is involved in the body’s immune mechanism against infection. Many other infections can cause enlarged spleen.

A common disease associated with the enlargement of the spleen is glandular fever. Occasionally, the large spleen found in this illness can rupture as a result of a comparatively minor injury to the abdomen.

[Dr. Morris Weiner (quoted in New, Old, and Forgotten Remedies)]

Suc-ac. = prepared Amber by dry distillation. The fumes of the crude acid inflammable and asthma, cough, sneezing, weeping, dropping of watery mucus from nostrils,

pain in chest, and headache. On this indication he treated 30 persons suffering from hay-fever, and cured them all, saved them the necessity of making an annual exodus.

He gave one or two grains of the 3x trit. of Succinum itself diluted in 12 teaspoonfuls of water.

A teaspoonful every two hours. Burnett (Disease of Spleen) used the non-rectified oil as an organ remedy in spleen affections (+ nervous and hysterical phenomena).

The crude oil is a thick brown liquid having a strong empyreumatic odour. It is a powerful local irritant, and has been used with success as such in lumbago, rheuma and sciatica. It enters into the composition of "Roche's Embrocation," and "Haarlem Oil," and has a popular reputation as a remedy for whooping-cough, the directions being

for it to be rubbed into the spine night and morning (Murrell, in British Medical Journal).

 

[Willibald Gawlik]

Eichhornia: Intermittierende Oberbauchschmerzen mit Obstipationsneigung, Blähungen, Völlegefühl und Übelkeit. Der Patient fühlt sich sehr schlecht.

◊ Ist vor allem bei chronischer Pankreatitis indiziert.

Carb-v.: Abklingende Pankreatitis mit Kreislaufstörungen, venöse Stauungen. Der Körper ist blass, zyanotisch und eiskalt. Reichliches Aufstoßen, heftiger Meteorismus. Eiskalte Hände und Füße, aber Verlangen nach kühler Luft.

Chion.: Völliger Appetitverlust, bitteres Aufstoßen. Erbricht dunkelgrüne Galle und hat kalte Schweißausbrüche. Der Stuhlgang ist dunkel und stinkt wie der Harn übel.

>: Ruhe/liegend/nach dem Essen; <: Kälte/Bewegung; ◊ Indikationen: abklingende und rezidivierende Pankreatitis.

Chin.: Völlegefühl nach dem Essen mit Blähsucht, Aufstoßen ohne Besserung. Bitterer Geschmack im Munde. Verlangt Süßigkeiten, verträgt weder Milch noch Hülsenfrüchte. >: Wärme und Ruhe; <: Kälte/Bewegung/Berührung; ◊ Indiziert bei Abklingen einer akuten Pankreatitis, häufiger bei der chronischen Pankreatitis.

Quassia amara: Mitunter Ödeme der unteren Extremitäten. Großer Appetitverlust. >: Wärme/Strecken der Wirbelsäule; <: Kälte/Alkohol; ◊ Indikationen sind vor allem chronische Pankreasaffektionen im Zusammenhang mit Leberschäden und Aszites.

 

[Farokh Master]

Quercus in case of vertigo (+ alcoholics/vertigo of people who have some spleenic affections).

Homeopathic treatment for spleen diseases

Homeopathy is one of the most popular holistic systems of medicine. The selection of remedy is based upon the theory of individualization and symptoms similarity by using holistic approach. This is the only way through which a state of complete health can be regained by removing all the sign and symptoms from which the patient is suffering. The aim of homeopathy is not only to treat spleen diseases but to address its underlying cause and individual susceptibility. As far as therapeutic medication is concerned, several remedies are available to treat spleen diseases that can be selected on the basis of cause, sensations and modalities of the complaints. For individualized remedy selection and treatment, the patient should consult a qualified homeopathic doctor in person. There are following remedies which are helpful in the treatment of spleen diseases:

Ars.: induration and enlargement of spleen; drawing, stitching pain under left hypochondrium, burning in stomach, followed by vomiting of blood; soreness to touch in region of spleen; frequent bloody diarrhea; softening of spleen.

Chin.: swelling and hardness of spleen, painful and tender, with aching and stitching pains in spleen when walking slowly; pains ext. long axis of spleen; enlarged spleen.

Cean.: the only sphere of action of this remedy seems to be splenic troubles, its indications are deep seated pain in the splenic region, deep stitches, worse in damp weather, with enlargement of the spleen; chronic pains in the spleen.

Con.: enlargement of spleen with melancholia and torpid action of bowels; sensation of heaviness through abdomen.

Aran-d.: enlarged spleen, especially useful for chronic effects of malarial poisoning or in those who live in damp, wet places.

Chin-s.: congestion, inflammation and enlargement of the spleen.

Calc.: enlarged spleen; soreness about hypochondria, cannot bear anything tight around there; stitches in left side on bending towards it; abdomen distended.

Sulph.: stitches in spleen, aggravation when taking a deep inspiration and when walking; stitches in left side of abdomen when coughing; dropsical swellings of external parts.

Sulph-ac.: spleen enlarged, hard and painful, when coughing; diarrhea with great debility, hemorrhage of black blood from all outlets of body; weak and exhausted from some deep-seated dyscrasia.

Nat-m.: produces stitches, pressure and congestion in the spleen. swollen spleens resulting from malarial fever.

 

[TCM]

Milz-Leere ist ebenfalls eine wichtige Ursache von Osteoporose. Die Milz und der Magen sind das Zentrum zum Heben und Absenken des Qi; sie sind das

Verbindungsglied zwischen oben und unten. Die Milz bewässert die 4 Richtungen» und stellt dadurch sicher, dass sich Qi, Essenz, Blut und Flüssigkeiten

gegenseitig transformieren. Ist die Funktion von Milz und Magen (= Zentrum des Körpers) gestört, werden Qi und Blut nicht mehr aufgebaut.

Das Zentrum ist blockiert, Blut transformiert keine Essenz. Weil Essenz nicht bewässern kann, ist Blut leer und kann nicht aufbauen;

Qi ist leer und kann nicht auffüllen, nicht bewegen oder transportieren. Es wird kein Mark produziert, die Knochen bleiben ohne Nahrung.

Deshalb entwickelt sich Osteoporose.

TCM: Worry

 

[Farrington]

Phos.

[Farokh Master]

Quercus in case of vertigo (+ alcoholics/vertigo of people who have some spleenic affections).

[Dr. Subrata K. Banerjea]

Organopathic Remedies for the Spleen: Cean. Cedr. Chinin-s. Chion. Heli. Polymnia uvedalia. Querc. Senna. Tinospora cordifolia

Spleenomegaly: Nat-m.

[Dr. Rademacher]

His article on Acorn tincture and through his experiment he found those brandy drinkers who had a painful affection of the spleen with anasarca (= widespread

swelling of the skin due to effusion of fluid into the extracellular space)

[Jahr]

Acon.: the chief remedy in inflammations of this organ, often arresting the disease in a short time (patient vomiting blood) or which modifies the disease so that Arnica

will remove the rest.

[Matthew Wood]

Generally yellowness and sweetness are indicators for the spleen, yellowness and bitterness are the best signatures for the liver.

 

Cean.: Dr. Hale considers the spleen as the special seat of action of this drug. Dr. Burnett recommends it to be given whenever there is complaint of deep-seated pain in

the side, even when no tenderness or enlargement of the spleen can be made out. other abdominal organs subsequently affected. Enlarged with extreme dyspnoea;

Pain – of spleen/pressing/cutting/stitching. < Pressure.

Arn.: Remedy following injuries; splenitis with typhoid tendency. Apathetic and does not consider himself very sick, vomiting of blood pains in the spleen.

Ars.: Splenitis, acute or chronic, induration of the spleen (malarial fever). Diarrhoea, stools watery, bloody, undigested.

Bel-p.: Region of spleen so swollen that the false ribs seem forced out.

Bry.: [Bayes] Severe pain in the region of the spleen, < movement (walking), subsiding when at rest.

Caps.: [Jahr] In chronic splenitis, both if the spleen is simply very sensitive and likewise if it is swollen and indurated (after fever and ague).

Carb-v.: [Lilienthal] Pressing pinching in the region of spleen; quick, lightning-like stitches; abdomen bloated. So weak can hardly walk.

Nux-m.: [Lilienthal] Enlarged spleen, loose bowels; stitches in spleen, must bend double; abdomen enormously distended ; dropsy.”

Ran-b.: [C. Von Bonninghausen and C. Dunham] Sensation of soreness in the hypochondrium, (to the touch); pulsation in left hypochondrium; abdomen sore and bruised.

Squil.:

[A.R. Kalesh]

I believe it is difficult to separate the liver from the pancreas (and the gall bladder), especially in a homeopathic context because whatever will benefit the liver will assist the pancreas and also the gall bladder. The web becomes even more tangled as the Thyroid gland, in its general manager capacity, is also implicated because of its significant hormonal say in glucose metabolism, so support remedies perhaps would be needed further up the endocrine hierarchy as well.

 

Syzyg.: in herbal tincture/low potency is another reputed hypoglaemic, and the remedy Iris. noted for its action on the pancreas. Treatment would be accompanied by miasmatic +/o. constitutional remedies, along with self-management measures mentioned above to avoid stress and weight gain.

[Burnett]

Cean.: 1x dilution 3x daily, 5 drop doses, is the “organ remedy” for the spleen, which ills by the way are very often attributed to the heart.

[Farokh Master]

Mill.: supposed to be the best remedy (spleenic rupture) due to an injury

 

Bruc.

Iris:

 

Doctrine of Signatures. William Coles' Table of Appropriations Spleen:

Dodder, Black Hellebore, Tamarind, Spleenwort Fern, Hartstongue Fern, Fern, Capers, Tamarisk, Germander, Calamint, Mountain Mint, Lupine

Phytology: SOLUNAT Nr. 18 Splenetik “Steinleiden”, Sklerosen. und “verhärtend-ausfällende” Erscheinungen/Erkrankungen die “in ursächlichem Zusammenhang mit

der Milz stehen”/Immunschwäche/“Verschleimend”-entzündliche Magen-Darm-Erkrankungen (ergänzt SOLUNAT Nr. 20 Stomachik II)

Edelsteine.: Achat. Amethyst. Citrin. Jaspis.

 

Organs. and plants

Agri. = Odermennig/= Bubenläuse/= Fünfblatt/= Kaiser-/= Leber-/= Magen-/= Stein-/= Klettenkraut/= Natternzunge./= immortal Crane/= Brustwurz/= Schafklette/= Kirchturm/= Milzblüh.

Anthrac. = Milzbrand/= remedy in epidemic spleen diseases of domestic animals.

Ceterach officinarum = Milzfarn/= Rustyback Pteridophyta.

Chrysosplenium alternifolium = Gold-Milzkraut/= Krätzenblume/Saxifragales.

Heli.: Dr. Burnett

Rub-t.

Scill. Squilla is known as a spleen remedy, also important in heart and kidney complaints.

Scolo-v. = Milzkraut/= Hirschzunge

Succ.

Quercus robur glandium Spiritus.

 

"Lien/Plumbum" wa bei Milzund Blutleiden [Lien (= Milz) bovis/Plumbum metallicum]

 

Vergleich: Anthroposophical understanding highlights the importance of spleen activity for complete assimilation of food in the human organism. R.S.'s picture of the significance and pathology of this organ-activity is remarkably congruent with what is observed in hyperkinetic children with food intolerances and addiction to sweet or incompatible foods. This aspect also has therapeutic implications (see below).

In practical terms, one may proceed as follows with this group of patients:

• ascertain the compatible diet by careful anamnesis, elimination diet and dietary counseling; this is

time-consuming, but absolutely essential for each child. N.B.: The proof of a positive result is that it

is experienced by parents, teachers and the child.

• stool diagnosis (intestinal flora/pancreatic function), promotion of symbiosis and mycosis treatment

(if necessary).

• medicinal therapy addressing particularly: food breakdown; border surface function of the intestinal

mucosa; liver and pancreas.

Sulphur LM6 Dil. Arcana, 5 drops in the morning is indicated chiefly for vacillating blood sugar levels

with the typical sudden sweet-craving and associated aggravation of behavior. It can often rapidly stabilize the blood sugar level.

Lycopodium comp. Glob. wa, 5 – 7 glob. 3x daily

indicated particularly when toxic stress is a consideration.

Lien Gl D6 or Lien/Plumbum Amp. WALA

strengthens spleen function and the immune system associated with the intestinal mucosa (ontogenetically

related to the spleen).

Spleen embrocation with Oxalis 10% Ointment w,

Plumbum met. 0.1% Ointment w – possibly in alternation with Cuprum met. 0.4% Ointment w

A midday nap with a warm liver compress (e.g. yarrow tea) also has a beneficial action on the entire

digestive and metabolic function; it is supported by

Hepatodoron Tbl. w

1 tbl. after both lunch and dinner

Cichorium/Pancreas comp. wa

Lien Gl D6 or Lien/Plumbum Amp. WALA strengthens spleen function and the immune system associated with

the intestinal mucosa (ontogenetically related to the spleen).

Spleen embrocation (= Einreibung) with Oxalis 10% Ointment WELEDA,

 

https://archive.org/stream/diseasesspleena00burngoog/diseasesspleena00burngoog_djvu.txt

[Johann Gottfried Rademacher]

The strength of a chain is equal to that of its weakest link, and similarly the value of a person's life may be equal to that of his weakest vital organ: here the particular organ

is equal in importance to that of the entire organism.

Even where the tissue state of the entire organism is everywhere equally bad, it may be a life-saving act to relieve the particular organ that first gives way, so that time may

be gained to alter the entire crisis or the quality of the stroma.

Death itself is often at the start in a particular organ, i. e., local, and if the part be saved in time life may be preserved. In the acute processes the value of a particular organ strikes one often very forcibly, there may be no need of any constitutional treatment; the one suffering part may be the whole case. And in many chronic cases certain organs

claim, and must have, special attention. This is my standpoint in the following pages on Diseases of the Spleen. As Forget says, ''Entre la nature medicatrice et la nature homicide, il n'y a souvent que I'ipaisseur d'une oponivrosef*

I deem it necessary to guard myself against misapprehension in one or two particulars. In the first place, I understand by organ-remedy ^not a drug that is topically applied

to a suffering organ for its physical or chemical effects, but a remedy that has an elective affinity for such organ, by reason of which it will find the organ itself through the blood. For instance, an astringent applied to a mucous surface to get rid of a catarrh is no organ-remedy in my meaning, it is no example of Rademacher's organopathy.

Then I do not put forward organopathy as an idea of my own, or as something new, but as that of Hohenheim, and of his co-doctrinaires, as resuscitated» extended, elaborated, and systematized by Rademacher, in the early part of this century.

Honor to whom honor is due; poor Hohenheim has been maliciously befouled and meanly robbed long enough, and it is high time he should have the credit of his own genius, as well as of his own folly.

The modem father of organopathy is Johann Gottfried Rademacher, who was born on the 4th of August, 1772, and died on the 9th of February, 1850. His great life-work bears this title: "Rechtfertigung der von den Gelehrten misskannten verstandesrechten Erfahrungsheillehre der alten Scheicekunstigen Geheimaerzt und true Mittheilung des Ergebnisses einer 25-jahrigen Erprobung dieser Lehre am Krankenbette, von Johann Gottfried Rademacher." The preface to the 1st edition is dated ist April, 1841.

This is the work I so often refer to herein, and from which I translate the part on diseases of the spleen, though slightly condensed.

Further, I do not regard organopathy as something outside of homeopathy, but as being embraced by and included in it, though not identical or coextensive with it.

I would say Organopathy is homeopathy in the first degree. And, finally, I would emphasize the fact, that where the homoeopathic simillimal agent covering the totality of

the symptoms, and also the underlying pathologic process causing such symptoms, can be found, there organopathy either has no “raison d*etre” at all, or it is of only temporary service to ease an organ in distress.

[J. C. Burnett]

SOME OF THE LITERATURE RELATING TO ORGANOPATHY WHICH I HAVE CONSULTED.

1. "Der Bücher und Schriften des Edlen Hochgelehrten und Bewehrten Philosoph und Medici Philippi Theophrasti Bombast von Hohenheim Paracelsus genannt: jetzt aufs neue auss den Originalien und Theophrasti eygener Handtschrifft so viel derselbigen zu bekommen gewesen auffs trewlichst und fleissigst an Tag gegeben; Durch Joannim

Huserum Brisgoium, churfiirstlichen Colnischen Raht und Medicum." In 2 vols. Franckfort, Anno MDCIII.

2. Numerous writings of the Paracelsists CroUius, etc.

3. Rademacher's Work.

4. "Zeitschrift fiir Erfahrungsheilkunst." Von Dr. A. Bemhardi und Dr. F. Loffler. 1847-48.

5. "De la generalite et de Tunite de la maladie." Par le Professeur Forget de Strasbourg. Reprint from L'Uftion Medicale, December 25, 27, 29, 1855.

6. "De la Doctrine des Etats Organopathiques; de la nomenclature organopathologique." Par M. Piorry. Paris, 1855.

7. "De L'Element Specificite en Therapeutique." Par le Professeur Forget. Paris, 1858.

8. "De Tautonomie ou Independence de la Medecine. Ce qu'il faut entendre par Doctrine Holopathique." Par M. Marchal, de Calvi. Paris, i860.

9. "Holo-iatrie et topo-iatrie. Discussion entre MM. Fleury et Marchal (de Calvi)." Paris, 1860.

10. "Discours sur Organicisme, le vitalisme et le psychisme." Par M. P. A. Piorry. Paris, 1860.

11. "Continuation de Thistorie et de la critique

11. "Continuation de Thistoire et de la critique Marchal, de Calvi. Pinel. Paris, 1861.

12. "Die direkte Kunstheilung der Pneumonieen." Von Dr. Carl Kissel. Eilenburg, 1852.

13. "Handbuch der physiologischen Arzneiwirkungslehre." Von Dr. Carl Kissel. Tiibingen, 1856.

14. "Handbuch der speciellen Pathologie und Therapie." Von Dr. Carl Kissel. Erlangen, 1863.

15. "Dreissig Jahre Praxis. Erfahrungen am Krankenbett und im arztlichen Kabinet mitgetheilt von H. L. von Guttceit." 2 vols. Wein, 1873.

Diseases of the Spleen.

From the time of Morgagni's De Sedibus, etc., but more particularly with the introduction and generalization of physical and regional diagnosis by Auenbrugger, Laennec, Skoda, Piorry, and the mighty host of their disciples, practical medical men have been led to consider each organ by itself much more than ever before, and this often apart

from medical doctrines. We may say the first half of this century thoroughly established the absolute essentiality of regional diagnosis. This separatist practice has gone so

far that the organism has not unfrequently been lost sight of altogether.

 

Piorry in his Traite de Plessimitrie et de Organographisme, etc. (1827 to 1851), very justly remarks: ''Le pathonomisme n'a done ete possible qu'a cause de la doctrine sur laquelle il est fond" With the direct diagnostic delimitations of the various organs by palpation, percussion, and auscultation came the coining of the words organopathy,

organogeny, organography, and such like terms, which, we must say, are both sensible and useful, though organopathy had with and ever since Hohenheim constituted the backbone of the medical practice of certain, in their days mostly heterodox.

 

2 DISEASES OF THE SPLEEN.

Practitioners, and some of them great masters of healing.

If it be asked, What is here meant by Organopathy? my reply is, that organopathy is the specific local action of drugs on particular parts or organs, as first systematized by Rademacher in the early part of this century. It is thus, a very convenient term in therapeutics as well as in aetiology and pathology. In pathology the term organopathy has

long been in general use, particularly on the Continent of Europe. The French understand by Organopathy, an organ disease, and as such it is an accepted term in pathology. The same is true of Organleiden in the German language. All this by the way.

In this little work, therefore, the word organopathy is used as a technical term of drug therapeutics; it was copied in this country some years ago from Rademacher, and from the Rademacherian writers of Germany, without a single word of acknowledgment. But the real father of organopathy in essence and substance is Hohenheim, an eminent

and learned physician commonly called Paracelsus, for proof of which see his works, and hereafter in this little volume on Diseases of the Spleen, if space permits. Organopathy is included in the wider generalization known as homoeopathy; for whereas organopathy claims only that certain drugs

 

3. DISEASES OF THE SPLEEN.

affect certain parts curatively, preferentially, or specifically, as, for instance, Digitalis the heart (therapeutic organoapthy), homoeopathy claims that not only does Digitalis,

e,g,, affect the heart specifically (therapeutic organopathy), but to be curative the natural disease of the organ (nosological organopathy) must be like in expression to the therapeutic organopathy or drugaction.

Homoeopathy may be said to be based upon organopathy, for a drug to cure the heart of its disease specifically must necessarily affect the heart in some manner. But the homoeopath specializes, and says further: The drug that is to cure the heart must affect the heart, certainly that is one of the foundations of our whole therapeutic edifice,

but that is not enough ; the nosological organopathy and the therapeutic organopathy must be and are similar. And inasmuch as we can know disease only by its

subjective and objective symptoms (its language), it follows that the two organopathies must be symptomatically alike, though possibly antipathic in their mode of action as against one another.

My reason for considering Diseases of the Spleen from the organopathic standpoint lies not only in the fact that I already worked on the same subject ten years ago, but because I believe my experience in this field is somewhat unusual, and likely to be instructive to my readers; and incidentally I wish

 

4 DISEASES OF THE SPLEEN.

Particularly to emphasize the fact that organopathy was a well-established system of medicine long years ago, and is no child of our time.

No doubt it wants precisioning and developing, and I trust this little volume will work a little in this direction; but for any man to come forward nowadays and pose as the discoverer of organopathy, in either name or substance, presupposes an amount of ignorance that makes one fairly stagger with amazement. I am not maintaining that treating

an organ affection by an organ remedy after the manner of Hohenheim, Rademacher, and their respective co-doctrinaires, will stand as a medical system sufficient in itself,

but that it is eminently workable, and is largely of the nature of elementary homoeopathy, is, in fact, specificity of seat.

Neither am I unmindful of the part played by the universalia in Hohenheim medicine, or of the gemus epidemicus morborum. I leave them here largely out of consideration,

on the principle of doing one thing at a time.

Finally, I am very far from supposing that in the vast majority of cases an organ disease exists primarily and permanently by itself independently of the organism; on the contrary, I know well from close observation of nature that the part and the whole are commonly qualitatively the same. The organ which, to my mind, is the most systemic

is the skin.

 

5. DISEASES car THE SPLEEN.

Skin; and, on the other hand, the spleen has clearly a very distinct life of its own, and its own sufferings may be, and are well pronounced.

Whether any particular value is to be attached to the doctrine lately proclaimed by certain clear seeing people that the spleen is the storehouse of vital energy I am unable to say; but I am much struck with the teaching of Rademacher, that a very large percentage of dropsies are curable by spleen remedies.

I beg no one of my readers will confound what I here say with local treatment of disease. I am thinking and writing about self-elective specific treatment, not local treatment.

The whole organism may suffer, or a part of it, and when such part or organ is wrong in its life and being, it generally speaks and lets its owner know, and that in its own way. The altered state of the organ sometimes produces a sense of tightness, or fullness, or pain in its own immediate vicinity; at other times, it expresses itself vicariously through another neighboring or distant organ. First come first served is a good maxim, and is generally acted upon also in diagnostics. If a man coughs, his lungs are wrong; if he gets palpitation, his heart is at fault, always to the extent of being the seat of the symptom, though not necessarily its primary one, for the symptom cough palpitation may arise

 

6 DISEASES OF THE SPLEEN.

From the prompting of another organ or part either near or distant. In other words, an organ may speak out complainingly, either because it is wrong itself organopathically;

or it may be moved to express itself on behalf, or at the instigation of another organ synorganopathically; or of the entire organism holopathically.

Thus I desire to approach the subject of Diseases of the Spleen from the standpoint of organopathy.

From the earliest childhood of healing it has always been more or less known that, e.g. to cure a liver disease you will want a liver medicine, the organ suffering being the organopathy.

But, as I have already said, we must ascribe to Hohenheim the honor of a real practical organopathy;* that is to say, that certain internal organs of the body seem at times to be afflicted by themselves primarily, as it were, on their own account organopathically, whereby the very existence of the organism itself may be threatened, other organs or

parts being, or not being, consecutively involved synorganopathically; and that there are in nature certain remedies that have a more or less pronounced elective affinity for these self-same organs or parts which, indeed, have long borne the name of organremedies. But of this more further on.

 

7. DISEASES OF THE SPLEEN

Rademacher himself, as we have just seen, is due the formulation and actual clinical demonstration of this organopathy, for which see his work published some 60 odd

years ago. Rademacher began to investigate organopathy in the year 1815, and practiced organopathically with immense success for about 30 years and to the end of his life.

Rademacher had a number of disciples who followed him in practicing, developing and defending organopathy. These disciples formed a school, and are known in literature as Rademacherians -that is what I call themfor it were almost more in accordance with fact to say that literature has misunderstood or ignored them, though here and there

a literary freebooter has "discovered" from their store house. For a time these disciples of Rademacher held together, and published a journal, entitled Zeitschrift fiir Erfahrungsheilkunst, which began in 1847 at Eilenburg, being edited by Drs. A. Bernhardi and L. Loffler, and carrying as motto -"Medicina ars experimentalis"which is very old, very hackneyed, and still as true as ever! I do not know how many years it ran, but not many, for as soon as the Rademacherians began to try to gain fixity for their indications they wandered off into the field of experimental pharmacology, but found it already occupied by whom? by the homoeopaths!.

and as in the case of so many wanderings, the wanderers never came back, but remained in the field of provings side by side with the followers of Hahnemann. Of course, before Hahnemann's time no arrangement of drugs based on provings could be made.

Hohenheim's organopathy, as interpreted by Rademacher, differs, therefore, somewhat from the organopathy of Rademacher's followers, in as much as these practically gave up the idea that remedies are per se friendly to the organs, and brought into their organopathy the Hahnemannic proving of drugs on the healthy, and this being done, the

organopaths (Rademacherians) and the homoeopaths marched side by side, the former giving up their journal.

Rademacher's work has been both ignored and criticised, but it remains classic for all time; I believe his direct art-cures of disease are unsurpassed, nay, never equalled, in

the written history of medicine so far as the same is known to me.

I sometimes regret that the disciples of Hahnemann and those of Rademacher became so closely assimilated, for it seems to me that drug provings are not everything, and

I cannot help thinking that had the Rademacherians kept by themselves, they would have taught us much of the higher physiology of the various organs that we still have

to learn.

And I am bound to say that some of the organ remedies of Rademacher possess a direct healing power over organ diseases that their provings in no way explain. Perhaps further knowledge will throw light on this; we must accept the fact, and wait for the explanation.

In daily life we make certain acquaintances with our fellow-beings, and some of these pass out of sight for a time, or for ever. Months or years roll by, and we meet with some of them again, and as So-and-so is with us, we introduce our friend to him, remarking that we have known him ever since a certain memorable event. We find that with a

physician diseases and drugs stand out as so many individual acquaintances along the path of his professional life; if he meet a congenial brother chip he will very soon nm off the first subject of conversation and begin to "talk shop." Most people will join in a very hearty condemnation of "talking shop," but, nevertheless, the genuine man will not

be long with you before you can form a pretty correct opinion of his walk in life. Let two medicees meet for a little social chat, and you will not have to wait long for the sign of the leech. And why should it be otherwise? Do we really expect a plant-loving botanist to prefer astronomy as a subject of conversation?

Some time since I was casually sitting in a pretty garden with a gentleman. Left a few moments together we began to chat, and the gentleman asked if I could discern a bar across the attic window.

No, was my reply. "I can," said he, and almost immediately he inquired whether I had been to the Academy. No, I had not. And then in a twinkling he exclaimed: "Oh, what lovely tints, just look the shade of the plum-tree across the path, and that green, I mean there just by the nut-tree." Need I say he is an artist?

I had not noticed any of the pretty things to which he called my attention, but I had seen a small issue a tiny aperture in his skin covering his larynx.

As a striking clinical acquaintance, there stands out in my professional path a remedy called Ceanothis americanus, which acquaintance has increased with years, till it and

I have become fast friends, to the advantage of not a few. Through my clinical friend Ceanothus americanus, I have perhaps paid much more attention to the spleen than

I otherwise should, and it is of the spleen that I am about to discourse.

As an introduction to "Diseases of the Spleen," I cannot do better than reproduce a portion of what I wrote on the subject of this Ceanothus americanus in 1879.

 

On Ceanothus americanus in Its Relations to Diseases of the Spleen.

For several years I have been in the habit of using this drug in true Rademacherian fashion as an organ remedy. The perusal of Rademacher's Magnum Opus is one of the greatest literary treats that ever fell to my lot; based on Hohenheimian bizarries, avowedly and obviously merely an attempt at reducing his genial erratic pretended

mysticism to the concrete form of a practice of medicine, by depolarizing it, if I may so speak, it is nevertheless the most genial and most original production it is possible

to find in medical literature. It is the most bare-boned, lawless empiricism that one can conceive, and yet there are two leading ideas running through the entire work, and

these are the genius epidemicus morborum and organopathy; and, considered from the pharmacological side, the other two ideas of universal (general) and particular

medicines. For Paracelsus there were only three universal remedies, and so also for Rademacher and for their followers. Hahnemann has but three fundamental morbid states:

psora, syphilis, and sycosis. Von Grauvogl has three constitutions of the body they might have all been working out the fatherlandish proverb „Aller guten Dinge sind drei”

 

12 DISEASES OP THE SPLEEN.

The genius epidemicus morborum is beyond question a fact in nature, but it is dreadfully eel-like, hard to get a grip of. The same may be said of Hahnemann's tripartite pathology and of Grauvogl's three constitutional states.

Rademacher's organopathy (that an otherwise able modem writer appropriates with child-like naivety) is no more and no less than the homoeopathic specificity of seat, with just a dash of a mystic psychic something in the several organs; if we set aside this little particular soul for each organ, it is only local affinity, or elective affinity. And it is

quite true in nature, and the mind that cannot, or will not, recognize it, is wanting in catholicity of perception; and in practice will often go a mile when 3 paces would have reached the goal. Whatever else Cantharis may be, it is first and foremost a kidney medicine; whatever else Digitalis may be, it is primarily a heart medicine; and let Belladonna

be what it may, it is before all things an artery medicine, and just in this sense Ceanothus americanus is a spleen medicine.

The spleen constitutes a dark comer in the human economy, whether considered physiologically or therapeutically.* I have heard it professorially very able argued that the spleen is the principal manufactory of our blood corpuscles. I have heard that theory equally ably and professorially refuted, and in its stead the thesis set up that the spleen is, as it were, the ultimum refugium of the old and effete blood corpuscles, wherein they are broken up, and their debris sent off again in the circulating

medium. A third argued that all this was veritable nonsense, as the spleen had nothing whatever to do with either making leucoc)rtes or breaking up their reddened descendants, that in fact the spleen had no other function than to act as a reservoir for the blood being, indeed, a kind of living sac in the side, to swell or shrink according as the circulation required more or less of the circulating fluid.

I fondle this latter theory myself, and like to call it mine; whose it really is I do not know. Perhaps some of my readers will be able to say what they think the spleen is good for beyond serving as the anatomical something that supposedly sends our dear fellow-countrymen in shoals off London Bridge into the Thames on a rainy or foggy day

I mean, of course, the spleen! This great bugbear of our Gallic and Germanic brethren as applied to ourselves bien entendu! for they consider it essentially a morbus Angelicus, just as we like to think it is principally those naughty French who commit suicide is really only another name for being "hipped," or suffering from an attack of hypochondriasis, and there cannot be any sound reason for refusing it a habitat under the left ribs, since so many have welcomed it under the right ones.

My first and only literary acquaintance with Ceanothus americanus is the very short empirical account of it in Hale's New Remedies, which I read some five or six years ago. Previously I had frequently felt a difficulty in treating a pain in the left side, having its seat, apparently, in the spleen.

Myrtus communis: pain in the left side, but that is high up under the clavicle; the pain that is a little lower is the property of Sumbul;

still lower of Acidum fluoricum; a little further to the left of Acidum oxalidum; more to the right of Aurum; right under the left breast of Cimicifuga racemosus.

These remedies promptly do their work when these left-sided pains are a part of the disease picture, but they will not touch the pain that is deep in behind the ribs of the left side; more superficially Bryonia has it; a little deeper than Bryonia, Pulsatilla nuttal. will touch it; and so will Juglans regia, which Miller proved as a student.

But the real splenic stitch requires China, Chelidonium, Berberis, Chininum sulphuricum or Conium, or Ceanothus americanus.

Some years since I treated a lady for "violent vomiting, pain all up the left side, cough with expectoration, profuse perspiration, and fever." She was not a native of the place, but came only for a short visit, and took lodgings in a small house facing a meadow on the banks of the river; the locality was at one time a part of the port, but was many

years ago reclaimed. At my first visit she told me she often got inflammations on the chest with cough, and finding considerable fever, cough, pain in left side, and dullness

on percussion of the same side, I quickly ticketed it pleuro-pneumonia sinistra, and gave Acidum oxalicum, which seemed to cover all the symptoms, and to correspond also

to the supposed pathological state within. Oxalic acid somewhat relieved the vomiting, but nothing more, and I then gave various remedies, such as Aconite, Bryonia, Phos., Ipec, and thus clasped about three weeks, but patient remained as ill as ever. Then I went into the case with very great care, and examined my patient very thoroughly, and, see, there was inflammation of the spleen. I gave her Ceanothus americanus in a low dilution, and all the symptoms, subjective and objective, disappeared right off, and my previously ill-treated patient was sitting up in a week, and quite well in a few more days. I had never before met with splenitis in the acute form, and, indeed, it is a very rare disease in this country.

Cases of chronic pains in the spleen occurred subsequently in my practice, and they rapidly yielded to Ceanothus, one of which I will remember; it is this:

Chronic Splenitis, a young lady of about 26 consulted me for a chronic swelling in the left side under the ribs, with considerable cutting pain in it. She stated that it was worse in cold damp weather, and she always felt chilly; the chilliness was so severe and long lasting that she had spent the greater part of her time during the previous winter sitting at the fireside, and now she was looking forward to the winter with perfect dread. In the summer she had felt nearly well, but the liunp and the chilliness and pain nevertheless persisted, but it being warm, she did not heed it much, it being quite bearable.

Ceanothus americanus quite cured her of all her symptoms, and subsequent observation proved its permanency. Often during the following winter she called my attention

to the fact that she was not chilly and felt well.

Another case which I treated at a later date was that of a young man somewhat similarly suffering.

Chronic Splenitis. This young man had been sent to my dispensary, and was occupied in the postoffice in some light but ill-paid employment. His whole trouble consisted

in severe pain in the left side in the region of the spleen, and he had long vainly sought relief of many, probably at dispensaries.

He therefore put in an early appearance at my new dispensary to try the new doctor, probably on the well known principle of the new broom. He had become quite low-spirited and began to fear he would become totally unfit for work, and naturally that was a very serious matter for a young married man. He told me he had formerly helped his wife

in her household matters, doing the heavy rough work, but the pain in his side had now become so bad that he could not carry a bucket of water into the house or even sweep up their little yard, as handling the broom pained him so dreadfully. I was pressed for time, and prescribed Ceanothus americanus in pilules of a low dilution, and promised to go into his case that day week, meaning to percuss the part and ascertain whether the spleen was enlarged. He returned that day week almost well, and the following week

was quite well. At my request he again reported himself some time afterwards, and he still continued well.

Chronic Hypertrophy of the Spleen. A middleaged lady consulted me, shortly after the above case, for a severe pain in the left side and a large swelling in the same position. Remembering the last case, I said I must examine the side. She objected, so I declined to treat her; then she said she would think about it and consult with her husband

on the subject. In a fortnight or so she returned (driven by the severe pain in the side), and I examined the side and foimd an enormous spleen occupying the entire left hypochondrium and reaching inferiorly to about an inch above the crest of the ilium; it bulged towards the median line and ran off to an angle laterally. It was of long standing.

Gave Ceanothus Americawus in a low dilution.

This lady being very intelligent I begged she would allow me to examine the side again after I had finished the treatment. She promised to comply.

Fourteen days after this she came full of gratitude, and reported that the swelling was smaller and the pain considerably less.

To continue the medicine. She never consulted me again, but as she was a near neighbour of mine I often saw her, and somewhat six months afterwards she called to pay my fee, and then informed me that she had soon got rid of the pain entirely and the swelling was much smaller, so she had discontinued the medicine altogether, and did not

deem it needful to trouble me again.

This is the usual thing. People will not be at the trouble of seeing the doctor as soon as they are better, they seem not to understand any interest one feels in the case.

We can only make periodical, reliable examinations of patients in a hospital; in private practice it is extremely difficult, as all practitioners know to their chagrin.

Still, faute de mieux, we must put up with these fragments. This patient has had no children, and had a very fresh complexion.

My next case is also one of Chronic Hypertrophy of the Spleen, though only about half the size of the one just narrated. Subject: a poor woman of about 30 or 32 years of age, whom I was requested to see by a very kind-hearted benevolent lay minister. She is the mother of several children, very poor, ill-fed, and over-worked, but withal a good, respectable woman, and very clean. She had a considerable and very painful swelling in the left side under the ribs, that had been there for some time, and latterly she could not get up on account of the severe pain.

I carefully examined the tumor and satisfied myself that it was a very much swelled spleen, and the pain seemed to me to be due to its pressing against the ribs. I marked its size on the skin with ink, made her engage not to wash off the ink mark, and promised her I would call in a week, having first prescribed Ceanothus as in the other cases.

But the fates were against my laudable plan, for I received a message, the day before my next visit was due, to the effect that Mrs. felt herself so much better that she was up at her housework, and begged me not to call again, as she thought it unnecessary.

Since then I have at times had cases of deepseated pain in the left side to treat, and have mostly found it yield to Ceanothus, though not always. In one case in which it failed the pain was cured with Berberis vulgaris.

In one case of jaundice, characterized by very severe pain in the left side, I gave Ceanothtis, with very prompt relief of the pain only; Myrica cerifera then finished the icterus. Before giving the Ceanothus I had given Chelidonmm majus.

In one case of severe metrorrhagia characterized by pain in the left hypochondrium, Ceanothus gave, instant relief to the pain, and checked the haemorrhage. It failed me in a subsequent similar attack in the same person, when Conium was effective.

 

Chronic Splenitis, Chills, and Leucorrhoa. - Some four years since, perhaps a little more, I treated a lady of about 55. She complained of rigors at frequent intervals, and pain in left side, both of long standing.

The leucorrhoea had lasted some twenty years, and was profuse, thick, and yellow. She had been for years under the best allopathic physicians of her native city, and finally given up as beyond the reach of medical art, evidently on Moliere's principle that "Nul n'aura de Tesprit que nous et nos amis."

ENLARGED SPLEEN MISTAKEN.

Nevertheless, the patient be thought her of Homoeopathy, and came under my care. Her last physician had finally suspected cerebro-spinal mischief, and hinted at incipient paralysis. The pain in the side was the most prominent and distressing symptom, and for this I prescribed Ceanothus, In a month the pain was entirely cured, and also the leucorrhoea, while the cold feeling was very much diminished, but not quite cured. I have also never succeeded in quite curing it with any subsequent treatment. I watched the case for nearly four years, and am thus enabled to state that the pain in the side and the leucorrhoea never returned, and the chilliness never again became very bad, but still

she had it a little when I saw her last.

Cases of Enlarged Spleen Mistaken for Heart Disease.

A few years ago I was attending some of the members of a family of position in London, and at my various visits I occasionally heard of an invalid daughter of the family suffering from a hopelessly incurable disease of the heart, for which she was said to be under a West-End physician, who was thought to devote himself especially to diseases of the heart. The heart was said to be enormously enlarged, and the patient had had to give up first dancing and then hurrying, and finally she was only

allowed to walk very slowly and carefully, lest the hugely enlarged heart should rupture. Several physicians had examined the case, and all were agreed as to its cardiac nature. I had never seen the young lady, and took no particular interest in the frequent narrations of her heart troubles; they are common enough. Time went by, and the mother used to speak of her "poor invalid daughter" with increasing despondency, finishing up one day with the remark that the unfortunate girl was no longer allowed even to walk, as the doctor considered even that now fraught with danger. "Is it not sad?" said she. "Would you like to see her?" I declined, saying, I never cared about seeing other physicians' patients.

More time clasped, and finally I was requested to take the case in hand. I demurred at first, because such hopeless cases are as unsatisfactory as they are painful.

At last I consented to take over the case, and I appointed a time to call and examine the patient.

During all my professional life, I have rarely been more taken aback than I was after I had made my examination of the patient, for I found the heart not only not enlarged,

but of the two rather abnormally small, although apparently the cardiac dullness extended a foot down the left side. But this dullness on percussion was due to an enlarged

spleen which pushed up the diaphragm and left lung by Its bulk, till the heart and the spleen gave one continuous dull percussion note. Patient had many genuine symptoms

of real heart disease - dyspnoea, palpitations, inability to lie on the left side, faintness but these were due to the mechanical hindrance to the heart's action produced by

the spleen bulking upward so much.

That young lady I met three weeks ago looking blooming, and as agile as possible, and she has done her share of dancing, tennis, etc., for some years.

Ceanothtis americanus cured the enlargement of the spleen for the most part, though it swelled again two or three times at some months' intervals, and Ferrum phosph,, Conium, Thuja, Berberis, and other splenics, came into play before patient was really well. Looking at the case now with the advantage of wider experience and more matured views of biopathology, and with the patient fully six years under my observation, I regard the affection as a primary disease of the leucocytes due to vaccinial infection, the spleen being disturbed secondarily, and then the heart mechanically. I am confirmed in this view by the fact that the spleen would not leave off swelling up at certain times till I had cured the vaccinosis. That prince of splenics, Ceanothus americanus, readily cured the splenic engorgement, but did not touch the blood disease which caused it. This is the inherent defect of organopathy, that it is not sufficiently radical in its inceptive action, but the like remark applies to every other pathy more or less, because the primordial cause is more or less elusive, and generally quite beyond positive science, which only admits of what it knows, and will not seek to encompass the unknown by the processes

of thinking and reasoning. Because in former times philosophy made science impossible, the votaries of science now round upon philosophy, and sneer it out of view. To trace back proximate effects to remote causes is now ridiculed in medicine because mere science is productive of gross-mindedness, incapable of following the fine threads of the

higher perception.

It was also about the same time that I was at the house of a patient in London, the wife of a general officer and the conversation fell upon the general's heart affection, and also upon that of their charwoman. I learned that the lady of the house took a certain interest in her charwoman because she had seen better days and had an invalid husband depending on her labor more or less. This charwoman was, it was said, suffering from an incurable disease of the heart, causing her terrible distress; on rising in the morning

she would have to fight for her breath, so that it would take her often three-quarters of an hour to get dressed, having to pause and rest from the dyspnoea and its effects, nevertheless she persisted in thus getting up and dressing, and did as much charring as she could get. Her pride would not allow her to beg of her friends. Such was the story,

and I really felt curious to see the charwoman, and promised to do what I could, though from the account given me by the general's wife, I certainly thought it quite a hopeless case.

Calling a few days later, I saw the lady and the charwoman, and having duly examined the latter, I promised to cure her! She was to come to my city rooms, and report herself every fortnight. On returning from the bedroom to the drawing room, the general's wife accused me of cruelty in thus raising the poor old woman's hopes "when," exclaimed

she, "you must know it is impossible." I tried to explain that it was a case of enlarged spleen, and not the heart disease at all, that the charwoman was suffering from, and that the palpitations and fighting for breath were the mechanical sequels of the splenic engorgement, but my patient evidently did not believe it, for she wound up by saying,

"As you will treat her for nothing, I hope you may succeed, and it is very kind of you, but you must know that the poor woman has been under various doctors, and all have declared it incurable heart disease, and I merely wanted you to tell me of something to relieve and ease the poor old thing."

This was towards the middle of October. A careful physical examination showed that the heart-sounds were normal, but there was much beating visible in the neck, and the heart's action was labored. In the left hypochondrium there was a mass corresponding to the position of the spleen, and a dull percussion note was elicited not only in

the left hypochondrium, but also in the right, and all across the epigastrium, or pit of the stomach, from side to side.

The following notes were put down at the time: "Heart-sounds, normal; apex beat, exaggerated; splenetic dullness extending up to the left mamma;

the whole region very tender, so much so that she cannot bear her clothes or any other pressure." The prescription was: Ceanothus americanus five drops in water 3x daily.

November 14. Has been taking the Ceanothus five weeks to-day, and has taken altogether three bottles of it, viz., 3vj. *It has nearly stopped the pain in the left side,

which had lasted for quite 25 years. This pain came on suddenly, especially if she drank anything cold. She would get an indescribable pain under the left ribs, and she would have to fight for breath, and the dyspnoea would be so severe that it could be heard in the next room, frightening everybody. She had ague thirty years ago in Northamptonshire. Repeat.

November 29. - Not much pain left; the cold feeling still there, but nothing as it was. Repeat.

December 20. - Has the pain in the left side, but very little; has not had any of those attacks of fighting for breath; she can walk better, and the side is much smaller, which she knows from her dress. In her own opinion she is less in the waist by two inches. Before taking the medicine, for very many years she was compelled to pause in the morning when dressing, and lie down on account of the beating of the heart, but this has all gone; on examining by palpation and percussion I find the dullness diminished by four inches in the perpendicular, and by about the same from side to side. However, there is still some tenderness on pressure, and the swelled spleen can still be felt towards the mesian line and inferiorly. She can now do her work (charing) very much better.

Ceanothis americanus. I, four drops in water 3x daily.

January 10. - The pain is gone; has now no pain in walking, and she is a great deal stronger and better. The coldness in the pit of the stomach has gone. Repeat.

February 7. - In the left hypochondrium there is now nothing abnormal; the old ague-cake has disappeared, there being no dull percussion note. Her own conception of the size of that portion of the enlarged spleen that used to stretch across the pit of the stomach to the liver is thus expressed by her:

"I used to say it was as big as a half-quartern loaf."

Not only is the lump gone, but she is much stronger; she now wears and fastens her clothes with comfort. She again gets some cold feeling in the pit of the stomach, but not much. Her liver seems considerably enlarged, and there is still too much beating of the blood-vessels (veins) in the neck. In my opinion the condition of the bloodvessels calls for Ferrum 6, which I now prescribe, and when that has done its duty -as it surely willthe liver will call for attention. But what I wanted to bring out was the specific affinity of Ceanothus americanus for the spleen, and its consequent brilliant effects, as the simile only grounded on the homoeopathic specificity of seat, which some say has no existence.

This poor woman thus took Ceanothtus during about four months in small appreciable doses: at first the IX and then the i centesimal. The existence of the hypertrophy was ascertained by percussion and palpation; and subsequently I ascertained by the same means that it had ceased to exist. Although patient took the drug for four months I could not find that it affected any other organ save and except the spleen.

The dyspnoea and palpitation were cured certainly, but these arose, I submit, from the engorged condition of the spleen itself.

As far as I could ascertain, the secretions and excretions were not affected in the least degree; the remedial action must, therefore, be considered specific. My conception of the cure is simply this, that the specific Ceanothus stimulus persistently applied restored the spleen tissue to the normal. This homoeopathic specificity of seat suffices only in

simple local disturbances; it is only a simile, not a simillimum. The latter would, I apprehend, have affected the liver also and the right heart, and I should then not have needed further detail treatment.

This charwoman continued to attend at my rooms for some months, and Ceanothus americanus and other indicated remedies cured her of her "incurable heart disease;" and

I saw no more of her for some time, when one day she was ushered into my consulting room. She came up to where I was sitting, told me she was perfectly well, could do

any work with ease, and -then occurred one of the sweetest things in my whole professional lifethe old lady (and what a lady I) put a tiny packet on my desk, tried to say something, burst into tears, and rushed out!

I never saw her again, and have often since wished I had kept that particular sovereign and had it set in diamonds.

Supposed Consumption: Chronically

Enlarged Spleen.

The case I am about to relate is not without practical interest. The subject is a fine young Anglo-Indian of about 21 or 22 years of age, who a couple of years since, commenced preparing for the study of medicine in London. His father was my patient, and told me, as he left for the East, that one of his boys, whom I had casually seen, was going to remain in London to study medicine as a profession, rather than as a hobby, as said father has done for many years.

Two years elapsed, and then my patient returned from the East, and came to see me on his own account, and I incidentally inquired about the medical student. "Ah! he is better now, but he had to give up the study of medicine, as the professor said he was going into consumption. He had spitting of blood, and they sent him to America.

He has returned, and is better; but I am still anxious about him, as his breath is very short. He looks very well,"

The young man came in due course, and a very careful percussion and auscultation of the chest revealed nothing but a very large spleen filling up the left hypochondrium, and clearly impeding both lungs and heart in their action.

I ordered Ceanothus in five drop doses.

He took the drops for a month or so, and came again on the 16th February, 1887, telling me he breathed easily and comfortably, and demonstrated to me that he was inches smaller round the body, by showing me his waistcoat and trousers that were previously tight, but now uncomfortably loose, so much so that he laughed at their bagging.

Evidently his pulmonary symptoms had never been phthisical at all, but were merely mechanical from the engorgement of the spleen.

Splenalgia.

A lady came to me complaining of the following series of symptoms: . . . Pain in the left side corresponding to the region of the spleen, so bad that she cannot lie on the left side; with this pain in the side there are two other disturbances, indicating that a kind of vascular turgescence -an orgasmus humorumunderlies the whole, viz., palpitation of the heart and piles. With these also some indigestion, and a feeling as if the visceral contents of the abdomen were being pulled down.

Ceanothus Americani 3x Siv. Three drops in water 3x daily.

She came from the country, so I did not see her again, but as I asked for a report in a fortnight, her husband wrote at the end of that period to say that she was well and needed no further attention.

The case of this lady rather interested me, as some six years previously she came under my care for chronic headaches that seemed climacteric; I treated her for these headaches, but could not make any impression upon them, and then, on going over the various organs, I found that the urine contained a small quantity of albumen. This our ordinary remedies removed in about two months, and the headaches disappeared. About a year later the albuminuria again returned in a very slight degree, and with it some cephalalgia; both yielded at once to the same remedies, and she had remained well till she came with the splenalgia and haemorrhoids. I suspect, therefore, that the old albuminuria was not due to any kidney mischief, but to venous congestion of the kidneys.

Painful Engorgement of Spleen With Varicosis.

Some cases of varicosis will not get well till you cure the spleen of its -perhaps slightenlargement.

Thus, a hale gentleman of 70 odd consulted me early in 1887 for varicose veins, particularly below the knees. The veins on the surface of all four extremities get knotty and painful. There is a pain under the left ribs, which is worse when he has urinary urging. The splenalgia he has had these ten years.

I prescribed Ceanothus i. It cured the splenalgia and painful vein-knots in a few weeks. He is now comfortable under left ribs for the first time for ten years. He is also not so short of breath. The stricture of the urethra, of which he also suffers, was not affected by the Ceanothus, and he remains under my care to see if the stricture will also yield

to treatment.

Chronic Enlargement of Spleen With Heart Symptoms.

An unmarried lady of 49 came to me in January, 1887, for a supposed affection of the heart. Being rather stout, she was thought to have a fatty heart. She complained of numbness and heaviness down the left arm for a considerable time, also of a pain under her left ribs at times ever since her childhood, and over which part she had had blisters

and poultices from most of her many physicians, generally with relief for the time being. An examination showed the heart to be normal, but disclosed an enlargement of the spleen. Patient has suffered from whites all her life.

She took Ceanothus Americanus i, five drops in water night and morning, for two months: I had ordered it for one month only, but she found herself so much better from the medicine that she got a second bottle of it on her own account, and continued taking it for just two months, when she came to inform me that she felt quite well and

percussion showed that the spleen had returned to its normal size. The leucorrhoea was a trifle better, but not much, and for this affection she remained under treatment.

The spleen engorgement had been cured by the spleen remedy, but the constitutional state had remained unaltered; but with this I am here not concerned.

Vomiting - Chronic and Severe Hypertrophy of Spleen.

On June i6, 1881, an unmarried lady of 23 years of age, residing on high ground in London, came to me saying she suffered from chronic and severe vomiting, debility and emaciation. The vomiting began about midsummer, 1880, at first once or twice a week, and it has been gradually getting worse, so that she now vomits generally about half

an hour after every meal, though occasionally she will miss a meal and not vomit. She has lost 13 lbs. in weight since January last. Menses are getting scant. There is a very considerable area of dullness on percussion in the left hypochondrium, and when she is sick she feels pain under the left ribs. She often gets caught with a pain under left ribs; and besides this left hypochondriac pain, she gets a clawing pain in the pit of the stomach, not seemingly connected with it, and apt to last the whole of the day.

 

HYPERTROPHY OF SPLEEN. 35

cause their pressure hurts; she dons them, but is compelled to put them off every few hours. There is a clear space of about an inch between the area of dullness on percussion of liver and spleen respectively. She flushes at times. She is generally chilly, sitting by the fire when others do not, and she goes to sit by the kitchen fire when there is no

fire anywhere else in the house. Cannot walk up-stairs other than very slowly, because of dyspnoea.

The vomit is sometimes nearly black, as if she had been drinking coffee; at times it is watery, at others just the food.

]?. Cecmothus Americanus i, 3v. Five drops in water three times daily.

She took no other remedy, and was discharged cured in about seven weeks. The patient had previously been under an able homoeopathic practitioner,

who had treated the case purely symptomatically, and thus failed, for the very sufficient reason that the symptoms which he treated were secondary to the engorgement of

the spleen, and so his remedies all failed. God forbid that I should say one disparaging word about symptomatic treatment as such, for we but too often have only the subjective symptoms to go by, but where an exhaustive physical diagnosis is possible, it should always be made, and should stand in importance far before merely subjective symptoms, as these may be, and often are, consequently in this sense delusive.

 

36 DISEASES OF THE SPLEEN.

Chelidonium i cured the swelling of the liver, and reduced the spleen a trifle. Ceanothus americanus I restored the spleen to the normal, but did not touch the neuralgia.

Thuja occidentalis 30 cured the neuralgia, and I am now endeavoring to go deeper into the case to find out the etiologic x of her constitution, which causes me to state that

she is poitrinaire the anatomic basis of which is a sodden,

QUASI-HEART DISEASE. 37

This case also illustrates both the insufficiency of the organopathic conception and also its practical utility.

Quasi-Heart Disease.

A city gentleman between 30 and 40 came to see me on November 25, 1885, for heart disease, from which he had suffered for fifteen years. He has been under quite a number of -eminent physicians, tried changes to spas, and been for climatic benefits east, west, north, and south, at all times and seasons. Cruising about in a yacht does him most

good. For the past several years he has been under Sir for his heart.

I find his heart rather small, its action irregular an endocardial bruit most audible below and to the left of the left mammilla. He gets very chilly, and his fingers often go dead in the early morning: the so-called "poor circulation" so frequently accused. He is languid, anaemic, seemingly barely able to rise in the morning. Has been vaccinated three times, but only took very slightly the first time.

The lungs are fiat; the spleen notably enlarged.

The most distressing S3rmptom is his nocturnal palpitation.

Ceanothus 5 drops in water 3x daily.

 

38 DISEASES OF THE SPLEEN.

After taking the Ceanothus thus for a fortnight, the cardiac and splenic dulness no longer ran into one another, and the palpitation and numbness were much better.

Regarding the case causally as partly from vaccinosis, I gave Thuja 30 infrequently, which did him so much good that he stayed away for a month.

But a very ugly patch of eczema had come out in the right axilla! and he subsequently got shingles on left thigh.

The quasi-heart disease was gone, and has not returned, and the further course of the case presents

no relevancy to my present thesis. Strange to say, the endocardial bruit had also quite disappeared.

The foregoing being entirely chips from my own workshop, I think it would be well to give an example of what Rademacher's organopathy really is, by reproducing in rough and ready translation the bulk of his chapter on Diseases of the Spleen from his great life-work, the Rechtfertigung, already referred to.

 

It is difficult to find good spleen remedies, because the spleen, as compared with the liver, is seldom painfully affected in its substance. When it pains, the pain is most commonly at the margin of the epigastric and left hypochondriac region rather than in the hypochondrium itself. But, alas! just at this very spot liver affections also often express themselves, so this symptom is uncertain. The comfortable lying on the left side, and the impossibility of lying without distress on the right side, certainly speaks for

a spleen affection, provided always that the left lung be not affected. So it is very well to pay attention to this symptom, but it is an uncertain one. People whose spleen is much affected like to lie on their backs, just as do those who have the right lobe of the liver much ^enlarged, and neither can lie comfortably on their sides. When we further

bear in mind that the spleen (so far as we know at present) is neither an excretory nor a secretory organ, it follows that we cannot have any symptoms indicating a disturbance of such-like functions. When we further consider that the gall ducts are sometimes sympathetically affected in spleen complaints, with the urine discolored as in gall affections that, in fact, the menstrua digesHonis in general are qualitatively altered; and that to fill the cup of difficulties to overfilling, abdominal plethora will simulate painful spleen disease; it is easy to see that the finding of good spleen medicines is, indeed, a very difficult affair.

The states and symptoms that, during my medical career, I have known to arise more or less frequently from spleen affections are the following:

Pain in the stomach (often).

Cough, and that oft, violent, and suffocative.

Bellyache (at times).

Chronic diarrhoea, and rather more frequently.

Constipation.

Asthma (seldom).

Disturbed renal functions and their consequent dropsy.

And with regard to such dropsies, in so far as they are not due to organic affections, I ascribe, according to a rough calculation, about one-third to the spleen.

In women the spleen affects the womb and the vagina, causing emission, or eccess flow, and leucorrhoea. [This I (Burnett) have myself observed very frequently, and also a very distinct sympathy between the male urethra and the spleen, which Rademacher does not appear to have noticed, since probably peccant urethrorrhoese were not very common in a place like Goch.]

 

Not a few acute fevers of a secondary nature (Consensueller Art-synorganismie) and agues are the mere concomitants of spleen disease. When abdominal affections are prevalent, we at times meet with splenic fever. But in this one year differs from another. At one time, when liver affections were prevailing, I have not had to treat a single case

of spleen fever in a whole year, and at other times, liver affections still prevailing, I have had here and there an intercurrent case or two of spleen fever.

[Johann Gottfried Rademacher]

Brain affections, such as mania and melancholia, eye diseases, such as diplopia, amblyopia, chronic inflammations, I have seen arise from the liver, but thus far not from the spleen. If I had ever witnessed an epidemic of spleen affections, I should know more about the organ. As it is, what I have to say about spleen medicines can only be imperfect.

 

Carbo vegetabilis.

 

Rademacher speaks of the difficulty of really diagnosing a primary spleen disorder, and then says:

Continuous asthma, < at night, is not a common complaint. It may be, like the cough, of a synorganic (consensueller) nature, and depending upon a spleen affection. Not long since I witnessed an instructive case of the kind. A man who, in his youth, had had a moist eruption all over his body, which eruption was fruitlessly treated with medicines, but went away of itself in adult life, but left behind an ugly fish-skin-like epidermis, began to complain of tension in the left hypochondrium, becoming at times a little painful. He did not, however, consult me for this, but for shortness of breath. I soon ascertained that he had had the tension in the hypochondrium much longer than the asthma, and so thought he was suffering from a disease of the spleen, and which I thought the more likely, as he had never had the least the matter with his lungs. Well, I did not give this man Carb-v., but another remedy, and the complaint got visibly better. When it had reached a certain stage of improvement, he was hard hit by a then prevailing liver fever, which in his case implicated the chest. This chest affection, however, did not consist in the previous asthmatic attacks, but in pain in the side, with cough and bloody expectoration. He got well, but hardly was he able to be up all day when the old asthma came back worse than ever. Thinking the liver complaint might not be quite cured,

I gave him Scilla., a good hepatic, but the asthma remained. Here I gave him the spleen remedy -‘the splenic’- ^which had done him so much good before the acute affection came on. The man asked for it himself, but it did no good at all. Asthma and cough remained, and instead of picking up after his acute disease with good nights' rest, the asthma drove him every night out of bed. I now gave him Carb-v. which soon altered the face of things. Cough and asthma lessened; the latter soon disappeared altogether,

so that the man was able to make the hour and a half walk home to his friends, who had given him up.

But not every case of asthma, due to the spleen, will yield to Carb-v. Those stomach pains that, as they pass off, lose themselves in the left hypochondriiun, and which I put down to the spleen, I have at times cured with Carb-v.; more frequently, however, with other spleen remedies.

Kidney affections, with dropsy, due to primary spleen disease, I have never tried to cure with Carb-v., because I thus far have managed to cure them with other remedies, and I do not hold it to be right to try experiments from mere curiosity.

In my youth I used Scilla, like so many other physicians, as a pectoral and diuretic. But finding it thus used so little helpful, I gave it up in contempt. During the last twenty years, in which I have taken more interest in the affections of single organs, I came to recognize the necessity of finding out good and reliable remedies proper to the various organs, and as I had indeed such a very poor stock of spleen medicines, I read one day in an old Galenic author (I really don't remember now in which) that Scilla was a very good splenic.

Dioscorides also reckons it to the spleen medicines, but he has put down so many drugs as organ remedies that one's whole life would not suffice to try half of them. All things considered, I thought the the old Galenic's idea not a bad one, and from that time on I have used Scilla as a spleen remedy, and I have never given it up since.

Although I may be in some doubt as to whether Carb-v. really acts healingly upon a diseased spleen, I am, on the contrary, very sure about Scilla, I have found it quickly and surely help ful in such painful spleen diseases - affections painful and beyond any doubt in and of the spleen.

In those dull pains on the border of the left hypochondriac and epigastric regions, there being no signs of any liver affection (a rather uncertain and negative) , I have used Scilla as a remedy with advantage. I have also used Scilla with very striking results in those so-called stomach pains that are made so much > lying on the left side, and which in all probability depend upon a primary affection of the spleen.

Finally, I have used it with good results in one case of continuous asthma from a spleen affection, with nocturnal exacerbation, and in which Carb-v. has been used in vain, but in this case the spleen engorgement was of such long standing that I hardly believe in its being radically cured.

As to the dropsy that depends upon a diseased spleen, I no doubt gave it in former years in such also, for I dare say I gave Squilla to nearly all my dropsical patients; and that may account for my having found it so useful in dropsy, but I am not so very sure. But since I have had the habit of trying to find out in all diseases the primarily affected organ (provided the to-be-cured disease be not a primary one of the whole economy) I have not used it, for the very sufficient reason that I have not needed it, but of which more anon.

The preparation I prefer is the tincture 15 to 30 drops 5x daily. In cases where it caused diarrhoea in these doses, I have had to come down to 5 drops 3x daily.

 

Aqua vel Tinct.                .

I became acquainted with this remedy in a wonderful way. Many years ago (I do not remember the exact time) a working carpenter, who had previously lived in Credfeld, came to seek my advice for his bellyache, which was of long standing. According to his own statement, he had long been under Sanitary Councillor Schneider in Credfeld, who was not able to help him, and so sent him to Professor Günther in Duisberg. Ten journeys thither were likewise in vain.

I tried my usual remedies for seemingly such cases, but to no good; and as I noticed he was a good cabinetmaker, and dabbled a bit in upholstery, I told him it would be a good plan if he were to hire himself out to a country squire as joiner, thinking that the food of the servants' hall would suit his sick stomach better than the beans, black bread, and potatoes of the master carpenter. The good fellow followed my advice, and lived with a squire for many years; and I heard nothing more about him.

Finally, he married the parlor maid, and settled here in this town as a joiner. One day when visiting his sick wife I remembered the old story of his bellyache, and wanted to know how it then was. "All right," said he, "I have not had it for years." It seems that a local surgeon, being one day at the squire's, told him to get some acorns, and scrape

them with a knife, and then put the scrapings into brandy, and leave them to draw for a day, and then to drink a small glass of this spirit several times a day. He did as he was advised, and was forthwith relieved, and very soon entirely freed from his old trouble.

 

Quercus glandium spiritus = Spiritus Glandium Quercus

[nervous/depressed/taciturn/teary/face flushed/chronic malaria + flatulence/spleen/liver/alcohol abuse (FOUL breath/swelling of legs +/o. spleen/+ gout)/giddiness and unsteady walking].

From what I knew of the surgeon, I was very sure he could not give me any intelligent reason for his prescription. I should only have heard that acorn scrapings in brandy were good for the bellyache, or, at the most, I may have ascertained from what doctor, or peasant, or old wife he had got the tip.

But this would have done me but poor service; and as I had in the meantime become much more cunning, I questioned the joiner himself afresh as to the kind of his old pain, particularly as to the part of the belly where the pain was last felt when he had had a bad attack. He was in no doubt about it, but at once pointed to the part of the belly nearest the left hypochondrium. So I very shrewdly suspected that the abdominal pains were really owing to a primary affection of the spleen, in which notion I was strengthened by remembering that the best pain-killing hepatic and enteric remedies had done him no good.

To get as soon as possible to the bottom of the thing, I set about preparing a tincture of acorns, and gave a teaspoonful five times a day in water to an old brandy drunkard, who was sick unto death, and of whom I knew that he had suffered from the spleen for a very long time, the spleen being from time to time painful. He had likewise ascites, and his legs were dropsical as far as the knees. It occurred to me that if the acorn tincture were to act curatively on the spleen the consensual kidney affection and its dependent dropsy would mend. I soon saw that I had reckoned rightly. The urinary secretion was at once augmented, but the patient complained that each time after taking the medicine he felt a constriction of the chest. I ascribed this to the astringent matter of the* acorns, and thinking the really curative principle thereof would most likely be volatile, I caused the tincture to be distilled. This acorn spirit caused no further constriction, and the urinary secretion was still more markedly increased, the tension in the praecordia became less and less, and this hopelessly incurable drunkard got quite well, much to the surprise of all who knew him, and, honestly speaking, much to my own surprise also.

Having thus put the spirit of acorns to such a severe test, and that in a case that I already knew so well, in which it was impossible to make a mistake as to the primary affection, I went further, and used it by degrees in all sorts of spleen affections, and that not only in painful ones, but in painless ones, in the evident ones, and in those of

a more problematical kind. Gradually I became convinced that it is a remedy, the place of which no other can take. More particularly is it of great, nay, of inestimable value in spleen-dropsy. Later on I found that the volatile curative principle of acorns may be still better extracted with water with the addition of alcohol. [The aqua glandium is thus

prepared: - One pound of peeled and crushed acorns to the pound of destillate.] Perhaps water alone might extract the healing principle, but it would not keep, and so the cures would be uncertain, not to mention the fact that such-like decaying medicines are a great trouble to the chemists. The dose of the spirituous acorn-water (the only preparation

I have used of late years) is half a tablespoonful in water four times a day. It has not much taste; some would even say it has none, but the doubter may make a solution of alcohol and water in the same proportions, and he will soon find that it has quite a taste of its own.

I must make mention of two of its peculiar effects. Few people feel, as soon as they have taken it, a peculiar sensation in the head, lasting hardly a minute or two, which they say is like being drunk.

With a few people, particularly with those who have suffered from old spleen engorgements, diarrhoea sets in after using it for two or three weeks that makes them feel better. It seldom lasts more than a day, and it is not weakening, but moderate. Hence it is not needful either to stop the acornwater, or to lessen the dose.

I could add many instructive cases of spleen dropsies and other spleen affections, in which the volatile principle of acorns proved curative, but as

I have SO much more to say on other subjects, I dare not be too discursive on this one point; besides, what I have already said will suffice for common

sense physicians. Still I cannot forbear noticing a few bagatelles. For instance, I have found that the acute spleen fevers that occur intercurrently with

epidemic liver fevers, are best cured with aquaglandium - at least that is my experience.

I am of opinion that the 3 splenics which I have made mention are curative of 3 different morbid states of the spleen, and I know well from my own experience that acorns

are indicated in the most common spleen affections; and, finally, I am not acquainted with any positive signs whereby those three separate morbid states of spleen can with certainty be differentiated from one an other.

There are other spleen remedies to which I must allow a curative action in diseases of the spleen, but I have not used them so often as those, because the morbid states of which they have been more particularly curative have not occurred so often to me.

Those I have tried are: Gdiopsis grandiflora, a celebrated spleen remedy of the old time, and not to be despised; and Rubia tinctoria, which is also undoubtedly justly credited with being a splenic, but I have not used it often enough myself to be able to say anything satisfactory about it

 

Bacc-e juniperi = Wacholderbeeren.

These berries are a good spleen medicine which I have often ordered for the poor, and sometimes with good effect. The berries must be crushed, and a handful left a long time to draw in four cupfuls of boiling water if you want to see any effect from them. I do not think it is the aethereal oil, but a non-volatile principle of the berries, that acts as a

splenic.

 

Oleum Succini non rectificatum. = Oleum succinum, Succini aetheroleum

This is a good spleen remedy. It must be given in small doses, and as people often make a mess of the dropping, it is best to give it in some other fluid. I order it in acorn-water and formerly in acorn spirit. To six ounces of acorn-water I add half a scruple or a whole scruple of the oil. They do not mix chemically, but if the mixture be well shaken our object is attained; the patient does not get more into his stomach than we intend to. The giving them together contains no virtue; at least I have no reason to think so.

The Oleum Succini does good service in painful spleen affections wherewith there are convulsive attacks, such as the hysterical and hypochondriacal often have.

Only once did I observe its smell cause hysterical convulsions in a woman, but that is a very rare exception to the rule.

[Oswald Crollius]

Lays great stress on the importance of rectifying the oil of amber, but what he says therein is not true. The rectified oil is nothing like so serviceable as the unrectified.

In general Crollius is the most honorable and the most straight forward of all the jatro-chemists, but a man of but small understanding.

 

Conium maculatum:

The late Professor Günther, of Duisberg, used to give for chronic cough a powder composed of one grain of Conium and ten grains or a scruple of oak mistletoe. He had once cured an old gentleman with it. A colleague of mine, an out-and-out sceptic, who had in vain patched away at the old gentleman, did not deny the cure, but ascribed it to

chance, to the particular faith the patient had in Günther, and not to the action of the powder. But I could in no wise agree with his opinion, for although I had at the time but very little experience of Conium, still I knew Günther was a sensible physician, who wrote simple prescriptions, and so must have understood the curative action of his medicines. I once met Giinther over a patient, about whom there was little to say, as he was evidently dying. In the course of our conversation, I begged him to tell me what he thought about Conium. He was willing, but, being interrupted by the anxious friends of the patient, only gathered that he set great store by it. I had several times easily

cured patients of his of liver coughs, and to whom he had in vain given Conium, as I saw from the prescriptions of his that they brought with them;

from which I concluded that it was not a sure liver remedy. I had before fruitlessly used Conium in painful spleen affections, and hence too hastily concluded, because I was still stupid, that it was not a spleen remedy. Now that I had become wiser, and understood that nature could produce different sorts of spleen affections, I began also to see that while Conium might be quite useless in one kind of spleen affections, it might nevertheless be remarkably curative in another kind of spleen disease. Thus I once used it in a case of consensual cough arising from a primary spleen disease. This is hard to cure; all the lung medicines do no good. Of the belly medicines, the only one that would occasionally be of any service was the Semina cardui, I now put Conium to a very severe test, that is to say, I gave it in cases in which the Cardui Maria semina failed me, and lo! and behold! I saw the most beautiful and most astonishing curative action from it. Since then I have never given it up, and as I make no unreasonable demands upon it, it has never disappointed me. I stated earlier on that Gunther gave it in combination with oak mistletoe, but there is nothing in that; I have found it just as active with sugar of milk or sweetwood, as when triturated with oak mistletoe.

 

Magnesia tartarica Quelle: remedia.at.

My readers will not much care to learn how I became acquainted with this remedy. So I may just say that I neither stole it from a brother brush, nor did one very kindly communicate it to me, neither did I find it in a book. Still it is manifestly a remedy with which a spleen affection may be ousted. I confess, however, that I knew nothing of

it till four years ago, and, from want of opportunity, have not used it much. But as I have got rid of painful spleen disease with its aid, and that such as would not obey other remedies, I am bound to conclude that there must be a spleen affection in nature which is peculiarly subject to the healing power of this remedy. It does not follow that be

cause this particular disease has come comparatively seldom under my observation that this will necessarily be the case in the future.

I have not yet given this remedy in those spleen diseases that are evidenced by consecutive cough or dropsy, for the very good reason that other and twice better known remedies sufficed. I never try experiments with new remedies until the old ones leave me in the lurch.

The average dose of the remedy is one scruple 4 – 5x dayly. In this dose it has no laxative action. Should one, however, meet with very sensitive bowels, whose movements are increased by this dose, less must be given, for I have observed that the laxative action does not hasten the healing.

 

Rademacher also favorably mentions Cic. and Acidum pyroligneosum as topic splenics.

 

 

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