Generally, a feeling of ease is experienced shortly after taking Apis. The painful sensitiveness of the pit of the stomach and of the abdomen, together with the troublesome, disagreeable and oppressive distention and weight, soon disappear; the tongue gradually loses its swollen and cracked appearance, its dirty redness, its slimy coating, its sore spots, tardy indentations along its edges, the burnt feeling at its tip, which is dotted with very fine vesicles, that cause a good deal of soreness; the pappy, sour, bitter, metallic, foul taste disappears; the appetite is again normal; both the previous aversion to food and the excessive craving disappear; the absence of thirst, which is so common in this condition, again gives place to a natural desire for drink, the bluish-red color and swelling of the palate and throat, and the incessant urging to hawk, decrease visibly: the distress after eating; the sour stomach with or without nausea or heartburn; the excessive rising of air; the regurgitation of the ingesta; the eructations which taste of the food that had been eaten long before; the yawning; the irresistible drowsiness when sitting; the general loss of strength; the vacuity of mind, the aversion to talking and to company, decrease more and more every day; the whole abdomen feels easier and softer: the excessive and irresistible urging to urinate, especially after rising from a chair or from bed, and accompanied by a distressing nervousness, abates; the diarrhœic and abnormally colored evacuations, together with the frequent and irresistible urging, increased after eating, early in the morning and after sour and flatulent food, and accompanied by various sore pains in the rectum, diminish more and more, and give place to normal evacuations, first for days, next for weeks, although they continue to alternate more or less with constipation, or painful, insufficient, hard stool, until they terminate sooner or later, according as the disease is more or less deep-seated, and had lasted more or less long, in permanent restoration of the normal secretions and excretions of the digestive organs. At the same time the many distresses which the abnormal condition of the bowels and stomach had occasioned in the head and heart, disappear; the poor patient who had been a prey to so many sufferings, feels like one born again.
This is the general result, unless psoric, sycosic, syphilitic or vaccinine complications should be present. Unfortunately the abuse of cathartics excites these miasms if they exist in the organism, and at the same time prostrates the reactive powers of the organism, and enables its enemies to rise against it. The distress becomes more and more complicated; disorganizations, alterations of the fluids, disturbances of the assimilative sphere, nervous derangements from simple illusions of the sentient sphere, and occasional trembling and twitching, to spasmodic and convulsive movements, and final extinction of nervous power, marasmus of the spinal marrow or a ramollissement of the brain; these are the consequences of such miasmatic complications.
In such a case Apis alone is not sufficient. We have to employ such antidotes as Sulphur, our most powerful anti-psoric which, unless it had been abused previously, never leaves us in the lurch in the presence of psora; iodine which, under similar circumstances, becomes indispensable wherever psora and sycosis are combined; bichromate of potash or fluoric acid, if psora, syphilis and mercurial poisoning are united; and lastly, tartar emetic, or again fluoric acid, if the vaccine poison alone, or in combination with the other poisons, occupies the foreground.
This is not the place to treat of these special forms of human distress, and to individualize their treatment; I shall endeavor to do this on a more suitable occasion. I shall have to limit myself here to a superficial sketch of the treatment, adding merely that a single dose of the specific antidote will act best if given highly potentized, and that the improvement should afterwards be allowed to progress as long as a trace of it remains visible. But as soon as the improvement stops and an exacerbation sets in, which is not speedily followed by another improvement, or which seems to require our aid, we use Apis 3, one drop every day, until the improvement is again perceived, after which we wait until another exacerbation demands our interference. One dose of Apis is often insufficient; if not, from three to five doses will be found sufficient to mitigate the pains, and to advance the cure which Apis will complete in conjunction with the high potency that should not be repeated, and which is not interfered with by the Apis. What more precious boon for the physician and patient in these serious moments? It is only a physician who has instituted provings upon himself, that is capable of comprehending this harmonious blending of the two therapeutic agents. He sees the well known effects of a well known cause go and come at alternate periods. What man of common sense would be willing to repudiate such evidence?
But even in a case where Sulphur and Iodine had been given to excess, and a sort of Sulphur and Iodine diathesis had been established in consequence, Apis is still the best remedy to meet this complicated derangement.
Although we may believe that the time is at hand when this kind of ignorance shall no longer be tolerated, it unfortunately is still a prevailing sin of the profession. Even if we should be unable to effect a perfect cure, yet we may afford essential relief to such patients; we may often arrest their sufferings for a longer or shorter period, and shorten the paroxysms until they become almost imperceptible. Apis is particularly instrumental in effecting this end. Diseases of the
RESPIRATORY ORGANS
are likewise successfully combated by Apis. The American Provings contain the following symptomatic indications:
1. No.'s 731, 733, 736, 742, 743, 749, 760: "Hoarseness and difficulty of breathing, roughness and sensitiveness in the larynx, each time after he smells of the poison; talking is painful, sensation as if the larynx were tired by talking; drawing pains in the larynx; cough when starting during sleep; rough cough during evening; heat; difficult breathing, every drop of liquid almost suffocates him; labored inspirations as during croup."
2. 737-740: "Violent paroxysms of cough, occasioned by a titillating irritation in the lower part of the larynx near the throat-pit, with increase of headache when coughing, on the left side, superiorly; in half an hour, some phlegm is detached, after which the coughing ceases; on the first day, when waked from his sleep before midnight, he had a violent cough, especially after lying down and sleeping, with titillation at a very small spot, deep down on the posterior wall of the thorax, which wakes him; he feels better as soon as the least little portion of mucous is detached; cough particularly during warmth, during rest, and rousing him from his first slumber for several evenings."