– TESTE A, GROUP REMEDIES,  GROUP I,ARNICA MONTANA
 – Genus Croton, family euphorbiaceae, class monoecia monadelphia.
 – The fruit of this tree, which grows in the East-Indies, consists of small, oblong, blackish and rugose seeds, which are known in commerce under the name of croton tiglium, or pineus nucleus Moluccanus.
 – A yellowish oil is extracted from them, of a nauseous odor, an acrid, burning, horrible taste, and which Alloeopathic physicians pretend to use as a drastic and rubefacient.
 – Empirical applications,–Although mentioned in the Materia Medica of Ferrein, which was published in 1770, yet this oil, which was imported in Europe by a merchant of the East India Company, named Cromwell, was scarcely used in France previous to 1824, if we may credit the report, which, on the 13th of January, 1824, was read by M. Friedlander, before the Royal Academy of Medicine. *
 – Like the juice of rhus, the croton, if applied to the skin, causes a vesicular eruption, and, having been absorbed, a similar eruption on the mucous membranes of the intestines, or at least of the rectum.
 – “It often happens,” say Messrs.
 – Trousseau and Pidoux, “that the person who has to make the frictions, is attacked with a vesicular eruption on the face although these parts had not been touched by the oil.
 – Doctor Ernest Boudon, has seen an eruption develope itself on the scrotum, when different parts of the body were rubbed with the oil.
 – It is probable that this eruption arises from the oil having been transferred to these parts.” *
 – These gentlemen, who cannot deny the facts, do not seem to comprehend that an eruption may be produced without any direct application of the irritating agent to the real part.
 – The negroes of Bourbon employ the croton against dropsy, a practice which the English and French physicians have hastened to imitate.
 – This drug is used as a drastic for lead colic; taenia, which it is said to kill, which must sometimes be of dangerous consequences to the patient; and lastly, as a derivative (in the shape of an embrocation,) in acute and chronic cystitis, and in urethritis.
 – Happily, the blessings which a wise use of the croton is capable of rendering, are proportionate to the dangers which this agent exposes patients to, when treated by the opponents of Homoeopathy.
 – I know of no other pathogenesis of the croton than that published by Jahr, to which the reader is referred. *
 – Homoeopathic applications.–But few Homoeopaths so far seem to have employed the croton.
 – In Beauvais’ Clinique, not a single case treated with croton can be found.
 – I am, perhaps, one of the first, who has employed it in infinitesimal doses.
 – The croton is a precious drug, whose effects are intermediate between those of rhus and sulphur.*
 – I have proved it on myself for a few days only.
 – For want of precise indications, I only use it in very few cases; but since these cases occur most frequently in practice, the consequence is, that, in reality, I employ the croton, perhaps, more frequently than any other remedy.
 – The itching which is caused by the croton, is, at first, less burning than tingling, (the contrary takes place with rhus;) there is, to my knowledge, at least, no more intolerable itching than this.
 – It resembles perfectly the itching which is caused by the power sold by certain jugglers, under the name of scratching powder.
 – But this itching changes to a burning pain, like the itching of Rhus, if the drug is taken in large doses or applied externally.
 – Then the skin becomes inflamed, red, burning-hot, and a yellowish and coagulable serum exudes from it, especially in the palms of the hand, at the genitals, on the abdomen, chest, between the shoulders and behind the ears.
 – Small vesicles, resembling those of urticaria, break out on the inflamed parts, and this eruption may spread rapidly over the whole body.
 – Guided by a knowledge of the phenomena, which I knew resulted from the alloeopathic use of the croton, I first tried it homoeopathically, but without much success, in erysipelas, and afterwards with very great success in, 1st, urticaria,* especially when the skin of the abdomen was the seat of the disease; 2d, against large copper-colored spots, likewise on the abdomen, itching, especially all around, and resembling very nearly hepatic spots, which the patient, (probably correctly,) took for syphilitic spots, although sepia, mercurius, sulphur, sulphuric and nitric acid had no effect upon them; 3d, against small red blotches, not very apparent, on the thighs, abdomen and genitals, of upwards of fifteen years standing, and causing an intolerable itching, especially at the vulva, in the case of a young lady who was driven to despair by them; 4th, against recent itch in a great many person, but conjointly with lobelia inflata, and mercurius corrosivus; 5th, in the case of a little girl of four years old, of a delicate, cachectic, and essentially psoric constitution.
 – After a vesicular eruption on the chest and neck, and which, I was told, had disappeared of itself in three or four days; the child was attacked with a fetid coryza, or rather, discharge from the nose, which had remained ever since, a period of two years, without interruption.
 – During the winter season, this discharge became less copious and fetid, but as soon as the hot weather set in, it returned with all its unpleasant features.
 – Sulph., Merc. salub., Calc. carb., which I tried first, had no effect whatsoever.
 – The eruption which had existed previous to the discharge, led me to try croton, but with very little hope.
 – The result was contrary to my expectations; in less than a fortnight, the symptoms lost threefourths of their intensity, although we were in mid-summer, at which period the symptoms had always been the most troublesome.
 – It took about six months to complete the cure.
 – Croton, Lob. infl., Kreasot., prescribed alternately, and at convenient intervals, were the only remedies employed.
 – The most decisive result which I have yet seen of the croton, is the following :–
 – In the month of March, 1850, I was consulted by a merchant of about forty years old, and very fleshy, who, for fifteen years past, had been subject to attacks of the gout, which returned invariably every spring.
 – Only twice, at an interval of four years, the attack had not come on at the usual period; but without being of any use to the patient, who, in the place of the gout, was troubled with a most fatiguing and obstinate exanthem.
 – This exanthem consisted in an intense redness of the whole body, accompanied with a burning itching, especially in the hollow of the hands, at the chest, and behind the ears.
 – These parts were the seat of a yellowish, plastic exudation, emanating from a multitude of small vesicles, in close contact with each other, and which were only distinctly perceived in places where they were less numerous, and where a greater degree of resistance on the part of the epidermis, imparted to them a certain persistence.
 – Each time when this eruption broke out, it remained three months, in spite of purgatives, the baths of Bareges, and a season spent at the baths of Aix, in Savoy.
 – At the period when I saw the patient, he had neither his gout nor his eczema, but a dry, racking, almost convulsive and unceasing cough.
 – The skin was rather hot, he was thirsty, had a little headache, heat in the chest, without dyspnoea; sometimes, especially in the evening, but only for a few days, he showed a tendency to syncope, which was a very remarkable circumstance in a person as robust as he was; there was little or no fever, (the pulse was from 60 to 65 in the minute).
 – I first prescribed Nux vomica, then Bryonia, Coral. and some other drugs, but all in vain, for at the end of three weeks there was no change whatsoever.
 – Weary of waiting any longer, and it must be admitted that the patient had sufficient reasons of growing tired of my treatment, he took it into his head one day to suspend my treatment, and to swallow, of his own accord, three or four tablespoonfuls of the sirop of white poppy, before going to bed in the evening.
 – The effect of this preparation was really curious, and was not slow in manifesting itself.
 – The cough ceased entirely for some hours, and then returned with the same intensity.
 – But during this intermission, the malady had come out upon the skin, and, at day-break, the patient found himself covered from head to foot with this horrible eczema which he had been afflicted with before.
 – I must say, that I scarcely recognized him, and that I found him in a state of anxiety and despair, which it is impossible to describe.
 – From experience, he knew that the prospect before him was three or four months of intolerable tortures.
 – In this condition I gave him the croton, and in less than five or six days there remained not a trace, either of the cough or the eruption; the horrible itching disappeared almost on the same day.*
 – What is remarkable in this case is, that the same malady is presented under three different forms : gout, eczema, bronchitis, and that this multiform malady yielded to the same drug.
 – I doubt not, that croton, if given in time, would have prevented the exanthem, and cured the cough from the commencement.
 – It is to be hoped that a great many facts similar to the preceding one, will soon determine the practical value of the somewhat vague indications which the pathogenesis of croton seems to contain.
 – According to the statement of a very conscientious and intelligent person, who has had the kindness to prove a great number of drugs for me, dulcamara is the antidote of croton.
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