At the very commencement of the disease, a globule of Apis 3 is sufficient to cut short the disease so that the patient feels easy, and sleeps quietly. During this slumber, fever, pain and tenesmus disappear, and the patient wakes with a feeling of health. If this should not take place in three hours, owing to the more advanced state of the disease, another dose of Apis is required, after which the patient soon feels well.
If the dysenteric disease has had a chance to localize itself, and to assume a higher degree of intensity, it becomes necessary to excite the organic reaction all the more frequently. Under these circumstances we repeat the medicine every hour, or every two or three hours, one globule at a time, until all further medication has become unnecessary.
It is well known that epidemic diarrhœa, viz., a diarrhœa resulting from peculiar alterations of the normal condition of the atmosphere, earth, water, indispensable food, or from other still unknown elementary influences inevitably acting upon every body, commences in the form of a simple, apparently unimportant diarrhœa; that it gradually increases in intensity as the processes of nutrition and sanguification become more deeply disturbed, and that it finally terminates in life-destroying cholera. All these different stages of diarrhœa, whether with or without vomiting, watery or papescent, of one color or another, with or without pain, with or without fever, have yielded readily, safely and thoroughly to Apis in my hands. I must except, however, cholera of the epidemic form, where I have not yet been able to try Apis for want of opportunity. As far as my personal observations go, I am disposed to affirm that the best mode of effecting a good result, is to give Apis 3 and Aconite 3, in alternation, one drop of each preparation well shaken in a bottle containing twelve tablespoonfuls of water, and giving a tablespoonful every hour or three hours, if the danger is great, and in milder cases a full drop alternately morning and evening. This treatment is continued until an improvement sets in, after which the organic reaction is permitted to develope itself, which will terminate in a few hours or days, according as the disease is more or less violent, and assistance was sought more or less early, in the perfect recovery of the patient.
This end is not always attained with equal certainty and rapidity, if Apis is not given in alternation with Aconite. In such a case, Apis alone often develops a powerful reaction, which is avoided by the alternate use of Aconite. Wherever the case is urgent, and it is important to shorten the durations of the organic reaction, the two remedies should be given in alternation. In most cases I have seen a few alternate doses give rise to a pleasant perspiration, speedily followed by quiet sleep and recovery on waking. May we not expect the same result at the commencement of Asiatic cholera, and thus arrest the further development of the disease?
Apis is no less effectual against chronic diarrhœa, more particularly if resulting, not from any deep-seated disorganizations, but from some permanent inflammatory irritation of the intestinal mucous membrane, and which causes and fosters so much distress, by rendering all normal digestion impossible and finally bringing on its inseparable companion, the last degree of hypochondria. This misery is so much more lamentable, as it is, so to say, forced upon mankind from the cradle to the grave by the still prevailing and almost ineradicable delusion of cathartic medication.
Scarcely has the little being seen the light of the world, when the process of purgation begins. Nurse, aunt, grandmamma, everybody, hasten to hush the cries which the rough contact of the outer world extorts from the little being, by forcing down its throat a little laxative mixture, and the family-physician, who goes by fashion, approves of all this. It is his habit, in after-life, to combat every little costiveness, every digestive derangement, every incipient disease, by means of his cathartic mixture, and his skill is considered proportionate to the quantity of stuff which the bowels expel under the operation of his drugs. Laxative pills, rhubarb, glauber-salts, bitter-waters, aloes, gin, etc., etc., are in every body's hands, and become an increasing necessity for millions. An ancient prejudice decrees that, to permit a single day to pass by without stool, would be to expose one's life to the greatest danger. Every year we see thousands rush to warm and cold springs that have the reputation of being possessed with dissolvent and cathartic properties. Those who cannot afford to go to the springs, use artificial mineral water in order to accomplish similar purposes. Very seldom a disease is met with, that is permitted to run its course without dissolvent or cathartic means. It is still a profitable business to sell patent purgatives, such as cider in which a little magnesia has been dissolved.
Everybody feels how offensive these things are to nature; how they attack the stomach and bowels; how they derange digestion and nutrition; how slowly patients recover from the effects of such drugs; how chronic abdominal affections, after having been eased for a while by such drugs, soon return again with redoubled vigor; how the dose has to be increased in order to obtain the same result; how the intervals of relief becomes shorter and shorter, and how, in the end, the stomach is totally ruined, and the abnormal irritation and paralysis of this viscus, with the diarrhœa and constipation, corresponding to these conditions, gradually lead to the complete derangement of the reproductive process.
In spite of all this, long habit has secured to these pernicious customs a sort of prescriptive right. The distress consequent upon them, increases in proportion as the reactive powers of the organism decrease, which is more particularly the case in the present generation. The suppression of these abuses has never been more necessary than in our age. Indeed, the old proverb is again verified: "Where need is greatest, there help is nearest."
The world is not only indebted to Hahnemann for a knowledge, but also for a natural corrective of this serious abuse. His provings on healthy persons show this beyond a doubt. Few men, if their attention has once been directed to this abuse, will feel disposed to deny its extent. Nor has a favorable change in this respect been looked for in vain, since homœopathy has now, for half a century at least, shown the uselessness of all regular methods of purgation, and the superiority of the means with which this new system accomplishes most effectually all that those pernicious methods promised to do. It should be considered a duty by every physician, to be acquainted with the new means of cure. The continued use of purgatives should be considered a crime against health. They will soon cease to exist as regular means of treatment, and their pernicious consequences will no longer have to be relieved by remedial means. But until their use is abolished, we shall have to counteract them by adequate means of cure, more particularly the abnormal irritation and the paralytic debility, which are the most common consequences of the abuse of cathartics.
It is a most fortunate thing that we have in Apis one of the most reliable means of removing the evil effects of cathartic medicines. A single globule of Apis 30 is sufficient to this end. It is best to use it as follows: dissolve the globule in five tablespoonfuls of water by shaking the mixture well in a well closed vial, and let the patient take a tablespoonful of this solution. If this dose acts well, no repetition is necessary for the present. If this dose should not be sufficient, we prepare a new potence by throwing away three tablespoonfuls of the former solution and substituting four tablespoonfuls of fresh water, shaking the mixture well. We give a spoonful of this second solution, twenty-four hours after the first had been given, and, if necessary, a third spoonful prepared in the same way, and even a fourth and fifth, after which we await the result, without thinking either of improvement or exacerbation.