The most remarkable effect of the use of the remedy I have had was in the case of goitre in a lady of about thirty-five, blonde, who had for over a year noticed a gradual increase in the size of the thyroid gland, until it was as large as a good-sized fist, when she came to me. Both halves of the gland seemed to be equally involved. It did not appear to be of the encapsulated variety. This patient had received previous homœopathic treatment, having had Spongia, Iodine, Thuja, as well as some other remedies. Lapis albus 6 was prescribed, a dose every three hours. The swelling began to disappear at once, and continued to diminish in size until it completely disappeared, and at the present time over five years have passed with no return of the trouble.
LATRODECTUS MACTANS.
Preparation.—The spiders are triturated in the usual way.
(The following paper by Dr. Samuel A. Jones appeared in the Homœopathic Recorder, July, 1889, under the title, "Latrodectus Mactans: a Suggested Remedy in Angina Pectoris"):
"The great result of the grim doctor's labor, so far as known to the public, was a certain preparation or extract of cobwebs, which, out of a great abundance of material, he was able to produce in any desirable quantity, and by the administration of which he professed to cure diseases of the inflammatory class, and to work very wonderful effects upon the human system."—Dr. Grimshawe's Secret.
I do not know that the doctor who is the direct occasion of this paper was grim, nor do I imagine he ever dreamed of such an application of his paper as I purpose to make. I never met him; though he wore the gray and I the blue during a struggle wherein fate might easily have thrown us together. It was not until the autumn of '76 that I became aware of his existence, and then by a contribution of his to a medical magazine—the special copy of which was found amongst the multifarious waifs of a bookstall. I could not "decline the article," although I was then entering upon a field of labor that would leave little time for such quiet research as the old doctor's paper so powerfully suggested, so I bought the odd number, and fourteen years later I am making such use of it as my sense of its significance enforces.
It is due Mr. A. J. Tafel to state that but for his most efficient services this paper of mine would never have been written. To his endeavors, stretching through some years, I owe the identification of the remedy, without which I should not have put pen to paper; and having secured this, from unimpeachable authority, too, he never rested from his labors until he had put in my possession dilutions of the poison itself. If, then, this magis venenum shall prove itself magis remedium, most assuredly the pars magna of its introduction is his.
From the days of Dioscorides and Pliny to the present a venomous quality has been ascribed to "the fluid emitted from the orifice in the fangs of the arancidæ." That this quality was even lethal has been both believed and questioned. Insect Life, Vol. I., No. 7, pp. 204-211, Washington, 1889, contains "A Contribution to the Literature of Fatal Spider Bites," in which the credulity of mere medical observers and the emphatic incredulity of professed "entomologists and arachnologists" are dwelt upon, and concerning which its author cautiously concludes as follows:
"It will possibly appear to the reader that after collecting this testimony we are as far from the solution of the question—'Do spider bites ever produce fatal results?'—as we were before; but it seems to us, after analyzing the evidence, that it must at least be admitted that certain spiders of the genus Latrodectus have the power to inflict poisonous bites which may (probably exceptionally and depending upon exceptional conditions) bring about the death of a human being. Admitting in its fullest force the argument that in reported cases the spider has seldom if ever been seen by a reliable observer to inflict the wound, we consider that the fact that species of the Latrodectus, occurring in such widely distant localities as South Europe, the Southern United States, and New Zealand, are uniformly set aside by the natives as poisonous species, when there is nothing especially dangerous in their appearance, is the strongest argument for believing that these statements have some verification in fact. It is no wonder that a popular fear should follow the ferocious-looking spiders of the family Theraphosoidæ; but considering the comparatively small size and modest coloring of the species of Latrodectus so wide-spread a prejudice, occurring in so many distinct localities, must be well founded." P. 211.