Translated from the _Correspondenzblatt_ by T. C. Fanning, M. D.,
Tarrytown, N. Y.[M]
[M] Literalness rather than elegance has been sought in the
translating.
Because the odor is quite like Mephitis it is considered a so-called
anti-spasmodic.
_Abstract of symptoms from Hering, Humphreys, and Lingen._
So absent-minded and thoughtless that he enters the sick rooms without
knocking; pays no attention to those speaking to him. Irritable,
inclined to contradict; violent.
Headache of brief duration, in single spots, now here, now there, with
confusion. Pressure in both temples, harder on one side than on the
other alternately, with violent pulsation of the temporal arteries.
Drawing in the forehead in two lines from the frontal eminences to the
glabella, where there is a strong outward drawing as if by a magnet.
Red swelling, like a saddle, across the bridge of the nose, painful to
the touch, especially on the left side near the forehead, while the
cartilaginous portion is cold and bloodless; with red spots on the
cheek, on the left little pimples; swelling of the cervical and
sub-maxillary glands.
Unpleasant numb sensation in the tongue; cannot project it against the
teeth; papillae elevated; tongue redder, with sore pain at point and
edge.
Burning sensation from the fauces down through the chest. With the
desire to smoke, tobacco tastes badly.
Pain in the scrobiculus cordis as if something broke loose, on stepping
hard.
_Inflation and tension in the abdomen_; bellyache here and there in
single spots; on walking, feeling as if the bowels shook, without pain.
Stool earlier (in the morning), frequent, softer.
Urging to urinate; very dark urine.
Painful, voluptuous tickling in the whole of the glans penis.
Violent sneezing, causing pain in the roof of the mouth, the fauces and
oesophagus all the way to the stomach, followed by long-continued
pains at the cardiac orifice.
Pain in chest and _mediastinum posticum_, less in the _anticum_, with
pain under the shoulders, which seems to be in connection with burning
in the oesophagus. Pressing pain on the sternum.
Sudden feeling of anxiety, with difficult (or oppressed) respiration and
sweat, followed by stool and the subsidence of these and other pains.
Inclination to take deep inspirations with hollow feeling in the chest,
later with contraction in the fauces and chest.
The difficulty of breathing is better in the open air.
Pain in the crest of the right tibia.
Rheumatic troubles increased.
Sleepy early in the evening.
All troubles disappear in the open air.
In attempting to analyze this "abstract of symptoms," to see if the
internal evidence tends to show that the recorded effects are genuine
results of the drug, it is well to remember that these provings--for we
infer that three observers participated therein--were made in the light
of the empirical history of _Pothos foet._ The said history was on
record before the date of these provings, and it cannot have escaped
Hering's eye; he was too wide a reader for that. He was, beyond doubt,
aware of the pathogenetic effects observed by Bigelow--_headache_,
_vertigo_, _temporary blindness_, _vomiting_, _even from small
quantities_. Having, then, this clue to its physiological action, these
symptoms should reappear in his proving _if his imagination furnished his
symptoms_. As only a mild headache is noted in the _Correspondenzblatt_,
it is evident that these provers did not _work from a pattern_. It is
also evident that the _usus in morbis_ did not suggest the Allentown
symptomatology, for the anti-asthmatic virtue of _Pothos foet._ is one
feature on which the greatest stress had been laid, and yet the only
_pathogenetic_ suggestion of its applicability in asthma is: "_Sudden
feeling of anxiety with difficult_ (or oppressed) respiration and sweat,
followed by stool and the _subsidence of these and other pains_." Who
ever heard of an asthma relieved by stool? Who could have _invented_
such an odd modality? As it stands it is an _unicum_, and by every rule
of criticism this single symptom-group gives the stamp of verity to the
Allentown "abstract of symptoms." But there is other and singularly
convincing evidence of the genuineness of this abstract. As the reader
is aware, Thacher had emphasized the efficiency of _Pothos foet._ as an
anti-spasmodic in hysteria, although the "key-note" that indicates it in
hysteria had wholly escaped his discernment.
Now this very "key-note" appears in the Allentown pathogenesis, but so
unobtrusively as to show most conclusively that the prover who furnished
it did not recognize its singular import and value. Such testimony is
absolutely unimpugnable by honest and intelligent criticism.
It is also apparent that some of the less pronounced of its empirical
virtues are reflected in the proving. For instance, Thacher found it
efficacious in "erratick pains of a spasmodick nature." Is not this
"erratic" feature reproduced in such conditions as:
"Headache, of brief duration, in single spots, now here, now there?"
"Pressure in both temples alternately, harder on one side than on the
other?"
"Bellyache, here and there, in single spots?"
Brevity of duration and recurrence "in single spots, now here, now
there," are phenomena at once _spasmodic_ and _erratic_. It must be
admitted that the trend of its pathogenetic action and the lines of its
therapeutical application are parallel, and, therefore, that the latter
are confirmatory of the former.
With such an anti-hysterical reputation as the empirical use had given
to _Pothos foet._, it might fairly be anticipated that its
pathogenesis would be distinguished by a paucity of objective _data_,
for only a tyro in pharmacodynamics, or a "Regular," would expect to
find a full-lined picture of hysteria in any "proving." And so we have
in the "abstract" a flux of subjective symptoms, "erratic" enough for
hysterical elements, and still further characterized by an apparent
evanescence, as if its phenomena of sensory disturbance were as fleeting
and unsubstantial as those of an hysterical storm.
The _will-o'-the-wisp-like_ character of its subjective symptoms, and
its physometric property (hinted at in the pathogenesis and emphasized
in Thacher's case) are the features that will chiefly impress one in
studying this distinctively American remedy.
That the "abstract of symptomes" evinces a cautious trial of this drug,
and that more heroic experiments will add to our knowledge of its
pathogenetic properties, are plain deductions from the absence in the
"abstract" of such pronounced effects as Bigelow observed and also from
the evidence of the _usus in morbis_. The remedy needs an efficient
proving, especially in the female organism.