Extremities: Pain at the shoulder-blade when turning the head to the left side. Pain in the right forearm. Trembling of the right hand. Numbness of the left hand. Cramp from the index-finger to the elbow. Cramps in the legs. Sensation as if the toe-nails were torn off. Pain at left shoulder as from a blow. Spasmodic yawning. Shuddering all over. Shuddering in the open air. Heat followed by cold. Weariness. Fainting turn.
SOLANUM TUBEROSUM ÆGROTANS.
SOL. T. ÆG.—DISEASED POTATO.
A description of the potato in a work destined for European pharmaceutists and physicians, would be entirely useless; so well and so universally known is this plant in Europe. However, since our work will get into the hands of persons who are less familiar with the productions of the European continent, we deem it advisable to subjoin a drawing and a short description of this plant. The potato is a native of Chili; it is an herbaceous plant, with a branchy stem about one or two feet high. Its leaves are pinnatifid, with leaflets that are oval, entire, slightly hairy on their lower surface and almost opposite. Smaller folioles sometimes arise between the larger ones. The flowers constitute corymbs either erect or inclined; calice in five parts; corol of a white violet with five equal divisions; five stamens attached to the basis of the corol; one style and stigma, fleshy berry with two chambers. The roots develop tubercles of different sizes and called potatoes. The potato-rot first reveals itself by brown spots irregularly distributed through the interior of the tubercles; gradually these spots are transformed into white points of a cottonny appearance which may be compared to the cryptogamia termed byssus, and found on damp wood. From this point a general process of decomposition sets in, and the potato exhales an insupportable nauseous odor. In our provings we have made use of a potato in an entire state of decomposition, without, however, being completely rotten; there were brown portions intermingled with those byssus-shaped parts described above.
HOMŒOPATHIC TREATMENT OF THE POTATO-ROT.
Human pathology is not the only field of the homœopathist. He should take an interest in every species of suffering, and endeavor to restore the harmony of the organic kingdom wherever it has been disturbed by some accidental cause. Homœopathy is a vast, unitary science. The healing art is one; there is no such thing as one healing art for man and another for the animal, though it is on man that we should prove our drugs because he is the complex of the various kingdoms of nature.
The question now occurs, how is the potato-rot to be treated? It is evident that the great point is to prevent the disease, and, for this purpose, we must endeavor to remove the cause. Principiis obsta, has ever been the fundamental rule of medical treatment.
In order to attain this end, we have deemed it necessary first to ascertain the effects which the diseased potato would produce on a healthy person and afterwards to find out what drugs produce similar effects. We might have instituted our provings on the potato itself, and, among a number of drugs, might have discovered the one that would produce a disease similar to the rot. But this mode of investigation would have been too long and uncertain, whereas the proving on the human body is simple and direct, and is, we think, the true mode which Providence has designed we should pursue even in regard to the potato-rot.
It is true, man cannot be assimilated to the myriads of organized beings that surround us; man constitutes the highest link in the chain of beings; he is the complex of the animal life on our globe, and the most perfect type to which all inferior existences can be referred; he is a microcosm containing all the wonders of the universe; he is the responsible administrator of this earth. Man alone is able to produce a true pathogenesis by revealing the most evanescent as well as the most characteristic and most permanent symptoms, or lesions of sensation. On plants and animals we can only perceive disordered functions, disorganizations of tissues, or acute pains as manifested by gestures or cries; but the truly dynamic action can only be properly perceived and described by man.