"SI3IILIA SIMILIBUS CUEANTUE." 

RULES FOR THE TREATMENT OP ASIATIC CHOLERA HOMCEOPATHICALLY. 

INTENDED FOR THE PEOPLE. 

BY 

BCSHROO W. JAMES, A.M., M.D., 

I'resident of the Homoeopathic Medical Society of Pa-.j Chairman of Committqc ou Cholera iv Pliilada. Couuty Horn. Medical Society, &c, &a. 

(Bbxtion. 

PHILADELPHIA: {fl (j) P. E. BOERICKE, NO. 635 AECH STBEET. r » II — SEW YOUK: BOERICKE AND TAl'Kl,. 

1872. 





"SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CORANTUB. 

RULES FOR THE TREATMENT OF ASIATIC CHOLERA HOMCEOPATHICALLY. 

INTENDED FOR THE (PEOPLE. 

BY 

BUSHROD W. JAMES, A.M., M.D., 

President of the Homoeopathic Medical Society of Pa., Chairman of Committee on Cholera in Philada. County Horn. Medical Society, &c, <tc. 

€biiiow. 

PHILADBLPH^ ; };:'. F. E. BOEEICKE, NO. 635 ABCH STREET. NEW YOEK: BOEBICKE Asj) TAPEL. J 1872. I 



SHERMAN & CO., PRINTERS. 



ASIATIC CHOLERA. 

Without entering into any theoretical speculation as to the cause, progress, transmissibility or contagious character of "Cholera," and without giving the history of the disease, our object is to point out its symptoms and the practical measures to be observed during an epidemic of it, and the proper mode of managing cases in their early stage, or until Homoeopathic medical advice can be obtained, so that the people may, without alarm, calmly meet the disease, and manage it intelligently and successfully until their physician arrives. Statistics, taken accurately during the prevalence of former epidemics of Cholera both in America and in foreign lands, 



4 

prove without doubt that the "Homoeopathic " treatment of it is eminently more successful in saving life than the "Allopathic" mode. From the results of treatment in former epidemics we can lay down definite rules and the curative remedies which recorded experience has determined to be safe and successful. 

PRECAUTIONS. 

The approach of an attack of Cholera is easily discovered. Usually for twentyfour hours or more before any other symptoms occur, a white tongue may be observed. This is succeeded by a mild and painless diarrhcea ; and this state may last for days before the alarming symptoms set in. In this state, the disease is perfectly curable under proper Homoeopathic treatment. It is because these apparently trivial expressions of the disease are neglected, and the collapse 



5 

stage is permitted to result, that patients find themselves stricken down suddenly. If this condition of the tongue is noticed, consult, under the head of Treatment, Sulph., Ipecac, and if diarrhoea sets in, see Ars., Verat., and Camph. ; and no matter how slight it is, lay down in bed or on your lounge, and stay there with your mind and body quiet until the diarrhoea is checked. 

During the prevalence of Cholera in any locality, the following rules should be strictly observed : 

Avoid fear and other depressing emotions. Do not indulge in any kind of excess, either physical or mental. Do not use any violent exercise whereby you may become much fatigued. Continue your usual healthful habits. Use moderate active exercise. Eat your meals regularly and slowly, masticating the food thoroughly. Strict temperance must be observed, and, in fact, regularity 



6 

in all the habits of life. Be cheerful at all times. Avoid anger or grief. Go to bed early. Do not eat late or hot suppers. Do not stay long in a room crowded with people. Do not sleep in a room with many persons in it. Have the sleeping apartment well ventilated, but guard against dampness of room and bedding. Cleanliness in and about the house, dryness of the cellar and the walls of your dwelling are absolutely necessary ; whitewash them occasionally if they are not papered. Underdrained houses should have some carbolic acid thrown in the water-closet trap, and other traps from sink or bed-room basins, three or four times a day, or if possible after every time they are used. Let no slop or decomposing vegetable or animal matter lie about the yard, in the cellar or kitchen. Sprinkle a pound of chloride of lime or halfpeck of hot lime in the privy-sink once a week, if your house is not underdrained. Slaughtering places and yards where 



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animal matter is likely to decompose (such as hides, bones, plastering hair, &c), must have lime freely thrown around and through the yards and establishments every day or two. Let your diet be simple and nutritious, composed of partly animal and partly vegetable substances, avoiding those articles that are known to produce looseness of the bowels, indigestion, pain or oppression at the stomach. Eat moderately, and do not overload the stomach with food of any kind. Drink no alcoholic liquors, whether distilled or fermented, or any stimulants, unless ordered to do so by your physician. Use pure, cool water as a common drink. Avoid unripe or sour fruits and acids, raw and green vegetables, such as salads, cucumbers, rhubarb, currants, gooseberries, and also such articles as onions, pickles, cabbage, parsnips, horseradish, &c. If you have a tendency to diarrhoea, colic, 



8 

or much flatulency, you must not eat fruit or vegetables that are difficult to digest, nor chicken soup, eggs, fried oysters, fresh fish, lobsters, crabs, clanis, veal, pork, any kind of nuts, highlyseasoned sauces, rich pastry, mince pies, hot bread, and bread and cakes raised with soda, salseratus, pearlash, or fermenting powders. Use no aromatics, perfumery, lemonades, or domestic drugs. While the Cholera exists in your neighborhood or in any adjacent city or locality, you should be constantly on the guard against taking cold — changing your clothing or bed-covering to suit the temperature of the atmosphere and the state of the weather. Persons who have weak stomach or bowels would do well to wear flannel over the abdomen. 

All slight indispositions should be attended to sooner now than at other times, especially affections of the stomach and bowels. Take a cool bath (about 65° to 



9 

80° Fahr., neither a hot nor a cold one) over the whole body, except the head, at least twice a week, to keep the skin in a healthy condition and prevent unhealthy accumulations. Remain in the hath hut three or five minutes, wash yourself quickly, and wipe yourself dry immediately. Some individuals may need to use ablutions oftener. Some may only be able to sponge the body, in which case the room should be warm, and the water used of the temperature above indicated. In regard to visiting or nursing Cholera patients, no fear of contracting the disease need be experienced unless you are obliged to remain shut up with them a long time in an illy-ventilated apartment; for when an epidemic is prevailing, the atmosphere everywhere around you is filled with the elements that produce the disease, and any one susceptible to an inroad of the Cholera, if they become debilitated, will take it 

1* 



10 

whether they visit patients affected with it or not, and also whether they leave home or not. Nurses should be relieved frequently ; they should not be overtaxed. If families living in a city should deem it prudent to seek a residence in the country during the prevalence of the epidemic, I would suggest that limestone localities, or where you are obliged to drink brackish water, or such as is impregnated with limestone or other minerals, should be avoided, as a change in the use of drinking-water, to one unused to it, might induce Cholera or Dysentery. Residents accustomed for a long time to the use of such water of course are not affected. Elevated locations, where pure spring water can be had, where the air is salubrious, where you will not be obliged to reside in an over-crowded boarding-house or hotel, and where you are not too far from a resident homoeopathic physician, should only be selected. 



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If these requisites cannot be obtained, it is far less dangerous to remain at home in the city. 

PREVENTIVES. 

We cannot assert with absolute certainty that medicines will always effectually prevent Cholera. But abundant experience of careful medical observers has conclusively proven that persons who take the homoeopathic preventive remedies arc either very lightly attacked, or are not at all affected by the disease, in a degree nearly equalling the protection from small-pox by vaccination, or scarlatina by attenuated Belladonna. 

Take six pellets, or of the dilution one drop, of Cuprum met., every third night on retiring, until three doses are used. Then take six pellets, or of dilution one drop, of Veratrum album, every third night, until three doses are used. Then. 



12 

use the Cuprum met. again in the same way; then the Veratrum, and so on, while exposed to the influence of the disease. To persons affected with eruptions, scrofula, or those of a pale, thin, delicate appearance, Sulphur must be used in preference to either of the above remedies. Take six pellets, or one drop of the alcoholic dilution, once or twice a week in the morning, two or three hours after breakfast. 

It is well for every one to take occasionally a dose of Sulphur while the epidemic prevails. Never use the crude colored tincture of Veratrum, or the un triturated Cuprum or Sulphur, or you will not receive the preventive benefits of these remedies. Their prophylactic virtues seem to depend upon the particles of the drug being in a state of very fine division. Never use camphor for this purpose in any form, either by chewing the gum or smelling the tincture. It is 



13 

not a preventive, but is only a curative remedy, and is to be taken only when really attacked with Cholera. 

Do not have the smell of camphor about you ; if you carry it for fear of an attack, you must have it secured in a tightly-corked vial. 

SYMPTOMS OP CHOLERA. 

It occurs in different individuals in such varied degrees of violence and mildness, that most persons will be at a loss to know what Cholera is, and what are its premonitory or early symptoms, unless the particular forms it assumes are carefully noted. 

"When an epidemic is approaching or is already existing in a place, and persons are suddenly seized with vomiting and with purging of a thin watery or slimy fluid, accompanied with painful spasms in the limbs and cramps in the abdomen, 



14 

with or without colicky pains in the stomach, great loss of strength, coldness of the feet and often of the whole body ; and a paleness and blueness of the lips, finger nails, and sometimes the whole surface of the skin ; and a hollow op. haggard expression of countenance and change of voice to a deep sonorous or almost imperceptible sound, with oppression and anguish in the chest, we easily know that they have an attack of Cholera. 

But it is not so readily understood when the attack comes on gradually with premonitory symptoms such as white tongue, paleness of countenance, confusion or fulness about the head, disturbed sleep, irritability, languor, looseness of the bowels without pain, loss of appetite and some slight derangement in the stomach, rumbling in the bowels, sometimes with a sensation of pressure or' fulness about the stomach without 



15 

any pain ; oftentimes a slight nausea or feeling of sickness or faintness ; slight exertions seem to produce fatigue easily ; dimness of vision, giddiness and ringing in the ears, and these symptoms lasting for hours and sometimes days and not unfrequently for a Aveek or more before a violent outbreak of the malady is experienced. Especially are these symptoms deceptive since only one, two, or three of them may be noticed in some individuals, and that these symptoms may disappear, and some of the others occur. 

This we term the first or mildest grade of the disease. If all or any of these symptoms are noticed, take six pellets of Ipecac every three or four hours until relieved, and keep at rest. 

But if the case is found in -the second grade of the disease, which is more severe, and is the one in which generally patients are first discovered, the symptoms are these: Whiteness of the tongue, 



16 

oftentimes becoming, subsequently, darker or yellow, nausea or sudden vomiting with a jerk without retching, purging, or with both vomiting and purging at once, the first two or three alvine discharges being dark yellow and natural, and then becoming thin and watery like ricewater, and the evacuation preceded with rumblings and movements in the bowels, urine scanty, sensation as of a great weight in the stomach and oppression at the chest, difficult respiration, feebleness and almost total loss of pulse, great weakness or feeling as if sinking away, cramps in the stomach, calves of the legs, fingers, &c, spasms, muscular tremors or spasmodic twitching of different parts of the body, sunken eyes, cold sweat, headache, noises in the ears and other brain symptoms, livid circle around the eyes, pointed expression of countenance. Then for this state the tincture of Camphor must be given, one drop in a little 



17 

water, every five minutes until the patient is relieved, according to the directions under the head of Treatment. 

The third grade of this malady is the most violent and most frequently the fatal form. It passes through the early stages, rapidly, almost without the patient noticing it, and his vital functions become in a measure paralyzed from the time he first becomes aware of the onset. He may be seized a few hours after his tongue becomes white with an involuntary diarrhoea, suppression of urine, sudden sinking or faintness, confusion of ideas, bewilderment, cold clammy sweat, loss of voice, whispering tone or with hollow sonorous sound, death-like countenance, paleness, blueness, clammy and shrunken appearance of the skin, sunken or upturned eyes, pinched appearance of the nose, loss of pulse, labored breathing, sense of suffocation, sense of constriction about the heart, great difficulty in swallowing, and tongue black or bluish, 



18 

with cramps and spasms of the muscles, and in fact all the symptoms of collapse or those denoting speedy dissolution. Aged persons and those who are highly predisposed to an attack, and persons whose system is much prostrated from any cause, are most prone to have this form of Cholera. Paralysis or apoplexy often complicates and hastens off such cases. In some cases these different grades will be found mingled together somewhat. If there is time for any treatment at all in such neglected cases, use the Camphor as directed every three minutes until free perspiration ensues, then give Arsenicum. 

TREATMENT. 

When attacked with Cholera in any of its forms, before your medical attendant arrives, as soon as you are seized and the disease becomes well marked or developed, 



19 

go immediately to bed and cover up with warm blankets ; use no external applications ; take internally, either in a little cool or iced water or on a lump of sugar, one drop of the tincture of Camphor (prepared in the proportion of one ounce of Camphor to twelve ounces of alcohol), every five minutes, until a free perspiration is produced, or the symptoms are mitigated. This perspiration must not be checked or evil consequences will most likely result. Keep warm until it passes over. Move no oftener than necessary; use a bed-pan; motion is hurtful ; but, if you are compelled to rise, keep thick covering around you all the time, and let no draught of air come in contact with the body either in getting up or lying down. In some extreme cases the dose may be increased to two or three drops. As soon as a decided improvement sets in, the doses must be put much further apart. When the Camphor 



20 

sweat has been kept up two or three hours this remedy must be discontinued. If it has been administered in water the glass that contained it and the spoon with which it has been given, and any article from which the smell of camphor is perceived, must be removed from the room, and then the next remedy and the one which most nearly corresponds with the majority of the symptoms present in the case must be used. Camphor seems essential to arouse up the vital powers of the system. It may be considered the first remedy and the sheet-anchor in all fully developed cases and in all the violent forms of the disease, and must always be given in the third grade of the Cholera, and then given freely and rapidly until the Camphor sweat is produced or a good reaction is brought about, when another remedy may be needed. 

Never trifle with domestic remedies or Cholera mixtures, or the case may 



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sink away into death before you are aware of it. 

Camphor. — Among the special symptoms of Camphor these may be mentioned : Sensation of sinking in the stomach, or contracting pain in the epigastrium, or aching, vertigo, nausea, sudden rigors or coldness over all or parts of the body, followed by faintness and great weakness ; spasms in the legs or general spasms, depressed pulse and anxious features. 

Veratrum album. — This remedy has heretofore in epidemics of Cholera corresponded, after the use of Camphor, to a majority of cases. The symptoms indicating it are as follows : violent diarrhoea, painful and with profuse evacuations like rice-water from the bowels, attended with griping and rumbling and sometimes contraction of the abdomen and oppression at the pit of the stomach ; cramps in the limbs: The skin is very 



22 

pale and of a livid or bluish tinge, blueness of the lips and the roots of the finger nails, and a dark circle around the eyes. Coldness of the skin, and cold clamminess of the forehead and sometimes over the whole body, coldness of the breath ; tongue cold and dry, with a yellow coating upon it ; voice hollow, hoarse, and very feeble ; sunken, haggard expression of countenance, with cold and pointed nose ; anguish and distress at the heart, constricted sensation of the chest ; pulse almost imperceptible ; nausea and vomiting, especially of frothy substances ; confusion in the head, with vertigo and fainting spells and lassitude and extreme prostration of strength ; great thirst, the patient drinking large quantities of cold water at once. Dose : give four pellets, or if the dilution is used a drop, every half hour, until much better ; then two or four hours. 

Arsenicum album. — When this remedy 



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is called for, some of these symptoms will be present : The disease setting in with sudden prostration of strength, great restlessness and agitation, and despondency or delirium, difficulty of respiration, hoarseness, pain and burning in the throat, stomach and bowels ; intense thirst, which drinking does not allay — the patient drinking*but little at a time, and this oftentimes producing vomiting ; frequent desire to pass urine, also complete suppression of urine ; colic in the bowels. Should Arsenicum not relieve these violent colicky pains, an enema of ice-water may, in some cases, be administered. If there are any typhoid or typhus symptoms complicating a case of Cholera, or there should be prevailing at the time fevers of the typhus type, Arsenicum should be the remedy chosen if the other symptoms at all correspond. Tongue cold and dry and livid, with the same sunken countenance and 



24 

hollow voice and anguish at the heart mentioned under Veratrum. Dose: Take four pellets or put twenty-four pellets into six teaspoonfuls of fresh cold water, and take the four pellets or a teaspoonful every ten, fifteen or thirty minutes, according to the violence of the attack. 

Cuprum met. — This is needed where Cholera sets in in the spasmodic form. This is easily known by the prominence of some of these symptoms : Spasmodic twitchings of the muscles in any part of the body ; cramps in the stomach, chest, or calves of the legs, fingers and toes, Avithout the diarrhoea or vomiting ; distortion of the eyes or countenance, spasms of the muscles of the lower jaw like those occurring in lock-jaw, loss of voice, inability to protrude the tongue, paralysis of one side or of only one part of the body, such as an arm or the side of the face or tongue. The lower limbs remain stiff and hard, with excruciating pains 



25 

in them, grating of the teeth, difficulty of swallowing, frequent attacks of sensation of suffocation or strangling, difficult respiration, great fear of immediate death , pulse small and frequent. Dose : Take four pellets, or of dilution one drop, every quarter or half hour until better, then lengthen the time two, three, four or six hours. 

Sulphur. — In addition to its preventive power, this remedy has curative effects. The following are some of its symptoms. Diarrhoea commencing between midnight and morning, ineffectual desire to evacuate, numbness of the limbs, flying shooting pains, cramps in the soles of the feet and calves of the legs, acidity of stomach or sour vomiting, vomiting and purging at the same time. It is especially useful to persons subject to chronic eruptions and attacks of hemorfhoids or piles. Take four pellets every three hours, or oftener if the symptoms are severe. 



26 

Ipecacuanha. — This remedy is useful in the earliest stage, and almost always will prevent the disease from passing into the severe forms. Use it where there is nausea and sickness at the stomach, slight diarrhoea, white coated tongue and indigestion. Infants commencing with this disease, are promptly benefited by this remedy. Take four pellets every two or three hours. 

DRINKS. 

The most suitable drink for a Cholera patient is cold or iced water. If the thirst is great, small pieces of ice taken into the mouth and allowed to dissolve will be better. Small portions of ice may even be swallowed with good effect, if the vomiting does not seem to yield readily to the ordinary remedies. Gumarabic water, toast water, barley water, rice water, milk and water ; pure and 



27 

unadulterated milk, sweet cream in small quantities, black tea, cocoa and plain chocolate, and thin animal broths, may all be used. Warm drinks will not generally agree with the patient. 

POOD. 

A patient needs little or no food while this disease is present in his system ; but as soon as reaction takes place and the Cholera passes off, light nourishment must be given. The greatest care must now be exercised in the selection and administration of food ; for it is to be remembered that the stomach is at this time very weak and the patient in an extremely prostrated condition, and a slight imprudence in this matter may bring on a fatal relapse. Begin by giving gruel made from arrow-root, rice flour, cornstarch or ground cracker ; then follow with toast, first plain, afterwards with 



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"butter or milk-toast, and crackers softened in hot water ; then beef tea or essence of beef; then soups from mutton or beef. Boiled milk thickened with flour, gradually increasing the articles of food to those of a more solid and nutritious character, but such as are easilydigested, until the patient can again partake of his accustomed meal. The violent craving for food in this convalescent stage must be resisted, and only a small quantity given at one time ; and with this stern precaution light food may be given quite frequently at first. But beware of a relapse, for it may prove fatal. Overburdening the digestive functions might bring it about, or after getting up and around, exposure to changes of the weather, or to cold, chilliness, or wet, might produce it.