Apis Mellifica; or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent. C. W. Wolf
gastritis. 445: quantity of thick, tenacious mucus deep in the throat, obliging him to hawk. 447: tenacious, frothy saliva. 450: dryness in the throat, without thirst. 452: loathing, as if out of the throat. 459: sense of fulness, constriction and choking in the throat. 474: loss of taste. 475: complete loss of appetite. 488: no thirst, with heat. 492: very thirsty when waking at night, after diarrhœa. 495: eructations tasting of white of eggs. 501: nausea and vomiting. 504: fainting sort of nausea from the short ribs across the whole abdomen. 512: vomiting of the ingesta. 513: vomiting of bile. 516: vomiting and diarrhœa. 517: nausea, vomiting of the ingesta, and diarrhœa; repeated vomiting, first of bile, afterwards a thin, watery fluid, having a very bitter taste, with violent pains across the abdomen. 518 to 525: oppression, pressing, creeping, drawing and gnawing, pricking, soreness, heat and burning in the stomach. 528: painful sensitiveness in the pit of the stomach, with burning, like heartburn, with bilious diarrhœa, rather greenish, and almost painless. 530: violent pain and sensitiveness in the region of the stomach and epigastrium, with vomiting, coated tongue, fetid breath, costiveness, and sleep disturbed by muttering and dreams, with frequent, wiry pulse. 533: sense of numbness under the right ribs. 532: sense of compression, squeezing, bruising, under the ribs, worse on the left side. 535: violent burning pains under the short ribs on both sides, worst and most permanent on the left side, where the pain is felt for weeks, preventing sleep. 543: rumbling in the abdomen, with violent urging to stool. 545: nausea in the abdomen, has to lie down. 546: weight in the abdomen. 547: dull pain in the bowels. 552: occasional attacks of colic, with a feverish, tremulous sensation. 553: violent, cutting pains in the abdomen. 555: slowly pulsating, boring pain above the left crest of the ilium, relieved by eructations. 556: pain in the abdomen, from the hips to the umbilical region. 560: soreness and pressure in the lower abdomen. 563: feeling of soreness, burning and numbness below and on the side of the right hip, deep-seated. 566: the inner abdomen feels sore and as if excoriated, painful when pressed upon. 567: feeling as if the bowels had been squeezed, with tenesmus during stool. 576: fulness and sense of distension in the abdomen, as if bloated. 589: frequent urging to stool, with pain in the anus on account of the frequent pressing. 590: violent tenesmus. 593: several thin, yellow evacuations, accompanied by excessive prostration; the stools set in at every motion of the body, as if the anus were wide open. 598: copious discharges of dark brown, green and whitish excrements. 599: dysenteric stools. 608: blood and mucus with stool. 611 and 612: painful and also painless diarrhœa, especially in the morning. 617: retention of stool for one week. 646: disagreeable sensation in the bladder, with pressing downwards in the region of the sphincter, and frequent urging, so that he voids urine frequently in the day-time, and ten or twelve times at night; burning and cutting during urination. 668: the urine is dark colored. 730: hoarseness and distress of breathing. 733: roughness and sensitiveness in the larynx. 738: violent cough, especially after lying down and sleeping. 754: hurried and difficult breathing, with heat and headache. 803: sense of soreness, lameness, bruised and contusive feeling in the chest. 812: trembling and pressure in the chest, with embarrassed breathing. 818: pulse scarcely perceptible. 822: pulse accelerated. 833: swelling of the cervical glands on the injured side. 968: extreme sensitiveness of the whole body to contact, every hair is painful when touched. 971: excessive nervousness. 979: general lassitude, with trembling. 994: in the afternoon he becomes extremely restless and exhausted. 1011: paroxysms of great weakness. 1021: sudden weakness, he had to lie down, and lost his senses. 1025: complete loss of recollection, with vomiting, desire for sleep and rest, slow beating of the heart and scarcely perceptible pulse. 1032: excessive drowsiness. 1039: starting during sleep, as if in affright, with some cough. 1046: sleeplessness. 1047: restless sleep, frequent waking and constant dreaming. 1064: chattering during sleep (in the case of a child). 1081: chilly every afternoon at three or four o'clock, she feels a shivering, worse during warmth; chilly creepings across the back, the hands feel numb; an hour after, feverish heat, with rough cough, hot cheeks and hands, no thirst; these symptoms pass off gradually, but she feels heavy and prostrated. 1089: chill after a heat of thirty-six hours. 1090: sudden chilliness, afterwards heat and sweat. 1124: alternate sweat and dry skin. 1198: thick urticaria, itching a great deal (very soon). 1224: swelling and erysipelatous redness. 54: unable to concentrate his thoughts. 57: dulness of the head, it feels compressed. 62: vertigo and weakness. 79: dizziness."
Whosoever compares the totality of these effects of Apis to the symptoms of the prevailing abdominal typhus, will admit that Apis is homœopathic to this disease. He will even admit that this homœopathicity of Apis to abdominal typhus extends to the minute particulars of the disease in their totality. Even the course which Apis pursues, in developing its effects in the organism, is similar to the progressive development of typhus. Any one who has witnessed, as I have, the course which this disease pursues, will admit that mucous membrane of the alimentary canal is first affected by the disease, in the same manner as Apis affects it; that this irritation of the mucous membrane is followed by gastric catarrhal symptoms, which are speedily succeeded by symptoms of disintegration of the animal fluids and typhoid phenomena; that the gastric irritation is generally characterized by boils, urticaria, erysipelas of the skin, and the nervous irritation by symptoms of abdominal typhus; that the internal and external development of the disease is determined by a striking sympathetic derangement of the organic functions of the liver, and still more of the spleen, and likewise by a more striking prominence of the intermittent type of the fever; and that all these varied disturbances finally culminate in abdominal typhus.
Owing to this remarkable similarity, Apis will effect striking cures of all these different derangements.
If, after more or less distinctly felt premonitory symptoms—after a sudden cold, excessive exertions, prostrating emotions or enjoyments—a more or less violent fever is developed, accompanied by dulness and painfulness of the head, retching and vomiting, distention and sensitiveness of the pit of the stomach, and soon after of the whole abdomen, with urging diarrhœa, pappy and foul taste in the mouth, loss of appetite and thirst, feeling of dryness in the mouth and throat, tongue sore, as if burnt and swollen, with antagonistic change of symptoms, suspicious and extraordinary prostration, and feeling of fainting; a few spoonfuls of the above-mentioned solution of Apis 3, will afford such speedy relief, that it may seem incredible to those who have not witnessed it. The nausea, the vomiting, the diarrhœa, and the painfulness of the abdomen, disappear; quiet sleep sets in, with general perspiration, which terminates the fever, and affords great relief; after waking, the patient is comforted by the internal sensation of returning health; a natural appetite is again felt, the strength returns, and in a few days the healthy look of the tongue and buccal cavity shows that the mucous membrane of the stomach and bowels has recovered its normal quality. The longer help is deferred, the longer time the morbid process has had in making its inroads upon the system, the more frequently will it be necessary to repeat the medicine, until a cure is achieved.
The same good result is perceived, if the morbid process is accompanied by furuncles, urticaria, erysipelas—the latter principally on the head and in the face, less frequently upon the extremities, and inclining to shift from one place to another. Such a combination of symptoms not only shows a higher degree of intensity of the disease, but also shows that the organism is still capable of battling against the internal disease, by compelling it to leave the interior tissue, and to develop itself externally. It is the first business of the physician to support the organism in this tendency, and to guard the brain and bowels from every destructive relapse. Apis, employed as above, accomplishes this result more speedily than any other drug. Of course, a few days are required for this purpose, although the rules of using the drug and the course of treatment are the same.
The same observation applies to the not unfrequent complication with organic disease of the spleen and consequent dropsy. Apis, used in the same manner, effects, in as short a period as the intensity of the symptoms will permit, a mitigation and gradual disappearance of the painfulness of the spleen, restores the normal action of the spleen more and more, and neutralises the tendency to dropsical effusion at the same time as it expels the accumulated fluid by increasing the secretions from the bladder and bowels, and the cutaneous exhalation.
If the liver is organically diseased, Apis is no longer sufficient. In such a case, the action of the liver has first to be restored to its normal standard. In dropsical diseases, I have effected this result most frequently, for years past, by means of Carduus mariæ, less frequently by Quassia, still less frequently by Nux vomica,