January 20. Awoke this morning in a shivering fit. Trembling, giddiness and headache, but not very severe. Cold arctic feeling. Pulse 68. Temperature 97 1-5. My feet, 8 a.m., cold. Severe pain in left testicle, extending through to the back to anus. Bleed very much from old piles. An aching at end of penis, and no sexual desire. A feeling as if the testicles were swollen and painful, as in orchitis; this is only a transient pain, and comes and goes at infrequent periods, or remittent in their character. I notice my urine is taking on the greenish-yellow again, and my right arm is chilly from the arctic rays. My feet are cold, and the coldness creeps up higher in my legs. A great deal of arctic feeling in and around my heart. My breath is cold. Headache, but mind clear. Cold chills run over me in various parts of my body. My hands tremble very much at times, so that I can not write. Pain in testicles and coldness, as if they were frozen. Pass a large quantity of urine. * *
January 21. 8 a.m. Did not get up before, owing to the pressure in my skull, as if it were too full; dropsy or some swelling of my brain; giddiness, and a numbness down my left leg, and a jerking upward in both of them. Some trembling and coldness around my heart, and in my lungs and down my arms. My feet were very hot in the night until 5 a.m., when they became cold, numb and jerky, upwards. My pulse rate is very slow this morning, only 56 beats. Temperature is slowly forced up to 98. I have a sensation as if my left cheek were swollen, but it is not so. Trembling very much in my hands.
2:30 p.m. Have not been warm yet to-day; very intense arctic sensation in my body and heart and lungs. Slight cough. Numbness in my right arm. Much trembling, and a sensation of inward trembling in all parts of my body. Generative organs frozen cold, and this coldness extends up my back. My feet so cold that I have burned my boots, and yet cannot get them warm. Coldness extends up to my knees. Stiffness and pain in left thigh. Cold arctic band round my head, with fulness in skull. Pulse 60. Temperature 97 4-5. Good appetite. Mentally clear, although very weak; very tired and discouraged that these feelings last so long. They seem to be all beginning over again; worse now than they were a week ago. I feel more like giving up and going to bed sick, but I cannot afford to do so, so I brace up and resist this temptation to try and find an antidote for these recurring series of feelings. * * *
January 23. Slept well until 5 a.m.; then awoke with pains in head and burning in my feet, with some trembling and stiff feeling in my lungs and heart, as if they were tied or unable to move. As I lay awake I could hear my heart pounding away, but, oh! so slow. Felt very weak and wanted to stay in bed, but after some hard thinking I got up. 7 a.m. Very weak; staggered about while dressing. Pains in the base of the brain. Pulse 64 and irregular in its beats, some of them failing altogether to declare themselves only by their absence to respond. Temperature, after being held under my tongue ten minutes, 97 2-5. Very cold in my back and over my shoulders; hands and feet are blue with cold. Itching all over my body, and as if I was bitten with fleas or bugs were crawling over me. Skin of my hands very rough and cracks are in them. My ears have a feeling as if wax were running out of them. * * *
January 26, 10 p.m. It has required a mighty effort to keep up this day. My pulse 56, slow and irregular; temperature 98. Headache, yet mind clear; backache. Weakness in all my body; my limbs so weak in walking that it was difficult to keep going, and felt as if I could lay down or drop down anywhere. What heart failure symptoms are I do not know, but fear I came very near it and yet I have resisted this feeling, and kept awake and about. Have felt very ill all the day, and am so now on retiring, 11 p.m. * * *
January 29. 9 a.m. Just after breakfast, pulse 68, temperature 99; slept very heavy, but dreamed of treating many cases of black diphtheria. Awoke, slept, dreamed the same dream again, and again the same dream, three separate times. How very singular! During these provings, I have done this three separate times. Three dreams in one night—the same dream, the same disease, the same families in my dream. This singularity caused me to lay awake wondering what this can mean. I have not any patients suffering from this disease, and I do not know of any in the town, and nothing that I know of to bring this disease to my mind. Awoke feeling very stiff and sore. * * *
January 30. Head pains again, the same old character. Sensation of swelling in my face and pain in nerves of teeth, molars. Hot feeling. Pulse, 68. Temperature, 99. Very weak, but my mind clear. Much trembling and the oppression round my heart and chest producing a suffocating feeling that makes me afraid, and I must now seek some means to arrest this difficulty and give me some relief. I know it looks cowardly to give up, but my family compels me to do something to enable me to keep about. I cannot do any more; this heart oppression makes me think of heart failure. Pulse, 56, and temperature 96. Very weak. I hope it will wear away and this trembling improve. They have been caused by this drug, one of the most powerful. I gave up and went to bed very ill. I had to keep it from my family, but I was afraid my heart would stop beating and had a very restless night. I took acetic acid, as vinegar I had in some pickles I thought changed or relieved the first class or effort of provings and caused me to stop and begin again. I think it did help me. Next day very prostrated but did not take any note of my pulse or temperature, because I had began to try to find an antidote, and this vinegar and lemon juice has relieved many of them. I fear sometimes that the trembling in my hands may never fully leave me now.
February 12, 1893. Copying my notes has brought so vividly to my memory that I can almost feel the old arctic rays through my body, and the giddiness and staggering gait of the Heloderma hor. days. I hope that you may have many others more courageous than I have been, whose provings will compare or improve upon this poor effort of mine.
Clinical.
The case of paralysis that I spoke of, whose staggering gait was called to my mind by my feelings, is now taking Heloderma.