– TESTE A, GROUP REMEDIES, GROUP II,MERCURIUS SOLUBULIS
– Corrosive sublimate, deuto-chloride or bichloride of mercury
– This salt which is formed of 79.09 parts of mercury, and 25.91 parts of chlorine, is white, transparent when recently prepared, opaque after it had been exposed to the air ; of an astringent, biting and burning taste, soluble in water, and still more in alcohol.
– When heated in the open air, it spreads a whitish vapor in it which it is dangerous to inhale ; when heated in a closed vessel, it suffers no change, volatilizes and crystallizes in the shape of needles on the sides of the vessel.
– It is obtained by the double decomposition of the deuto-sulphate of mercury and the chloride of sodium, taking care to add to the mixture a certain quantity of the binoxide of manganese, by which means the formation of calomel is prevented.
– It is one of our most violent poisons.
– The white of an egg dissolved in tepid water, is the best antidote to this agent.*
– Empirical applications.
– The corrosive sublimate was used as a drug as early as the tenth century, for it was known by Rhazes, Avicenna, and Gerber ; * but it was only in the sixteenth century, that it was more generally used.
– Like other either as a caustic or as a special modifying agent.
– As the latter, it formed the basis of a number of officinal preparations, balms, pomatums, like the pomatum of Cortillo, Cirillo, etc., of aqueous or alcoholic solutions, which were used in general for venereal or non-venereal ulcers, redness, spots, roughness and pustules in the face, (Turquet de Mayerne,) syphilitic ophthalmia (Dussansay,) venereal or phagedenic ulcerations of the nostrils, ozoena, and caries of the nasal bones (M. Lange, Astruc, etc.,) itch (Rulandus,) scald-head (Zac. Lusitanus,) scrofula, venereal tumors (Hier. Rosello, Turquet de Mayerne, etc.,) whitlow (Petiot,) cancer, especially of the nose or lips, and more particularly the lower (Dessault 😉 and lastly, for a large number of cutaneous affections, such as lichen, impetigo, psoriasis, etc.
– Next came the employment of corrosive sublimate in the shape of injections, in doses which were sometimes frightful, into the urethra or vagina, (generally for gonorrhoea) and even into the rectum (Fernand), which often gave rise to the most serious accidents.
– The treatment of syphilis with embrocations, lotions, baths, sublimate injections, and with this poison administered even internally, constituted, so to say, as many individual methods, which were almost equally dangerous, but the origin of which belongs, with a few years’ difference, to the same period.
– At the time when Matthiolus published his work on syphilis, *
– Like other active drugs, the corrosive sublimate is scarcely ever prescribed by Alloeopathic physicians, in any other than a compound form, so that it is almost impossible to tell what effect each of the ingredients which belongs to it, really exercises on the organism.
– Nevertheless, thanks to the water of Van Swieten,* and which, in reality, is a solution of the bichloride of mercury in distilled water, to which a little alcohol is added, and which drug had been long in use, the sublimate is still one of those drugs, the true therapeutic action of which can be most readily and positively ascertained from the records of the Old School.
– In the following diseases the sublimate has undoubtedly effected cures, prior to its as yet very limited use in homoeopathic practice, and save, of course, the accidents which were caused by too massive doses.
– 1st. Venereal disease, in most of its primary or secondary form, namely : gonorrhoea, chancre in the urethra, at the glans or prepuce ; buboes ; red or copper-coloured spots on the skin ; syphilitic scales, gommata, bone-pains ; exostoses on the forehead, at the clavicle, elbow, femur ; ulcerations of the nostrils, ozoena, caries of the nasal bones, palatine bone, inferior maxillary bone ; ophthalmia ; spots and ulcers of the cornea ; cataract ; amaurosis ; deafness ; asthma ; spansmodic cough ; hoemoptysis ; phthisis ; paralysis ; various kinds of neuralgia and nervous diseases ; epileptiform paroxysms.*
– 2d.
– Non-venereal diseases : obstinate ophthalmia, (V. Mueller, D. Corillo, etc.,) ; cataract, (Vogler, Marke, etc.) ; eruptions, pustules in the face, (Fr. Gmelin) ;* obstinate ulceration of the nostrils, and ozoena, (Gmelin) ; furfuraceous tetters, (Ottmann) ; dry itch, (Stoerik) ; humid tetters of various kinds, (Ambr. Hosty, J. Cotton, etc.) ; scrofula and fistulous, phagedenic ulcers, especially at the lower extremities, (Gmelin) ;* acute and chronic articular rheumatism, in consequence of a cold, and gouty rheumatism, with swelling and deformation of the affected part ; * dry obstinate cough, and other symptoms of tuberculous phthisis in several children of from ten to fifteen years, of feeble constitution ; * lastly, dropsy and paralysis.*
– In our time, Alloeopathic physicians, many of whom, it must be admitted, do not even suspect, that the facts which I have mentioned, exist in the works of their school, scarcely employ the sublimate for any other purpose than to combat syphilis.
– According to the, the sublimate is, of all other mercurial preparations, (which they abuse so much,) that which is most certain in its results, and from which, salivation is least to be apprehended during the treatment.
– But if the sublimate has frequently cured syphilis especially recent cases, in alloeopathic doses, (and such cures cannot be denied,) how often has it, on the other hand, substituted pulmonary phthisis in the place of this latter malady.*
– Homoeopathic applications.
– Hahnemann’s proving of corrosive sublimate is very scanty.
– Among the fifty symptoms which he has given us, fifteen belong to alloeopathic observation, (A. Schwarz).
– Homoeopathic physicians, who, like myself, have employed the sublimate outside of the limits of this short pathogenesis, are therefore obliged to admit, that they have used it empirically.
– Dr. Roth has recently published in his Materia Medica Pura, p. 526, a pathogenesis of this drug, containing five hundred and seventy-seven symptoms, which constitutes a most valuable contribution to our art, and for which I am personally obliged to him.
– I must, nevertheless, remark, that this pathogenesis is still very incomplete, and that the reader will have to guard against its leading facts and the general feature of the work, for these reasons.
– Roth, finding that the number of symptoms obtained by pure experimentation, was so very small, has drawn largely from the works of Alloeopathic toxicologists, such as Devergie, Orfila, thenard, etc.*
– What is the consequence of this proceeding ?
– Two-thirds of the symptoms related by Roth, are poisonous effects, which it is indeed useful and indispensable to be acquainted with, but which, after all, only represent very acute affections, and leave us ignorant concerning the chronic maladies to which this drug corresponds.
– It is evidently owing to the fact, that we had no other knowledge of the sublimate than these general toxicological effects, even before they had been collated by Roth, that most homoeopathic physicians have limited the employment of this poison to a very small number of diseases, among which, dysentery is undoubtedly one of the principal.
– This disease seems to be so inseparably connected with the sublimate that it has seemed to me that whenever I dared to propose the use of this drug in such disorders of the digestive canal as were not characterized by tenesmus and a flow of blood, my colleagues got fairly frightened.
– But who does not know, that whenever the sublimate is really indicated, as in recent cases of syphilis, and more particularly among males, a cure is frequently effected even by means of small alloeopathic doses, without any dysenteric symptoms being developed?
– Of course, it has to be given under proper circumstances, otherwise, medicinal symptoms might follow.
– I will indicate in a few lines the general rules which experience has pointed out to me in this respect.
– Corrosive sublimate is indicated in an immense majority of the cases which have been considered until now, as belonging to the sphere of soluble mercury ; provided, that, with a few exceptions, CORROSIVE SUBLIMATE IS GIVEN EXCLUSIVELY IN DISEASES OF MALES, AND SOLUBLE MERCURY EXCLUSIVELY IN DISEASES OF FEMALES.*
– In observing this general principle, the most beautiful results will frequently be obtained from the use of the sublimate in the following affections.
– Syphilis (chancre, gonorrhoea, buboes, ophthalmioe, ulceration of the cornea, cataract, amaurosis, ulcerations of the pharynx, nose, tongue, etc., red or copper-colored spots, pustules, impetigo, psoriasis, falling of the hair, sub-cutaneous tumor, exostosis, caries, falling off or deformation of the nails, hemopthysis, phthisis, asthma, neuralgia, paralysis, chorea, epilepsy, etc.) ; variola (in its natural form,) * some other pustulous diseases, phelgmonous erysipelas, in persons with bad humors ; the itch, especially when communicated by domestic animals, such as dogs ; chronic cutaneous eruptions, of a scaly form, bright redness, and accompanied with a burning itching ; torpid ulcers, with fringed borders, a grayish bottom, especially on the lower extremities ; certain forms of chronic ophthalmia, with predominace or priority of the symptoms of the left eye ; epistaxis in young persons of a lymphatic- sanguine temperament ; chronic ulcerations of the nostrils ; fungous stomatitis and angina, with extreme foulness of the mouth, swelling and ulceration of the gums, tongue and mucous membrane of the pharynx ; haematemesis, with burning pain at the stomach ; dysentery, ascites preceded by diarrhoea, accompanied by tenesmus and burning in the abdomen ; albuminuria, priapismus, hydrocele, induration of the testes, diabetes mellitus, seminal emissions without erection in consequence of venereal excesses, especially of onanism ; impotence, haemoptysis, with a dry cough, violent dyspnoea, and burning heat in the chest ; acute articular rheumatism, with burning thirst, frequent pulse, dry heat on the skin, or profuse and fetid sweat ; chronic articular rheumatism, with soft or osseous tumors in the joints, false ankylosis, etc., in lymphatic subjects, after a cold, particularly at the elbows, wrists, hands, fingers, knees and feet ; gout, where the skin is no longer red ; scrofulous caries, rickets, and, in general, the chronic affections of the osseous system.
– I am well aware that in most of the diseases which I have mentioned, cures have been effected with soluble mercury, independently of the sex of the patient ; but I insist, nevertheless, that these cures would have been more speedy and striking, if the sublimate had been used instead of soluble mercury.*
– Mercurius solubilis, Sepia, and Lobelia inflata are the principal antidotes of Mercurius corrosivus.
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