Drosera rotundifolia

Volume II — Main text

Drósera rotundifolia, L. Sun-dew. Nat. Ord., Droseraceæ.

I. Provings.-1 . HAHNEMANN, Mat. Med. Pura, vol. vi of original, vol. i of translation. Contains 132 symptoms from self, 152 from 3 tellow- observers, and 3 from authors. III. Experiments on animals.- 1 . a. I chose for the subject of my experiment the cat, as that is of all our domestic animals the one least liable to exhibit spontaneous tubercular lesions ; indeed, it is not certain that tubercles have ever been found in them, for I am informed by competent authorities that in this class of animals lobular pneumonia has been mistaken for phthisis. Thus the results should be all the more conclusive, and the quality of the subjects experimented on will in some measure make up for their small number-three only. b. The first I killed (by means ofether) at the end of six weeks , having made him swallow daily 15 ctgrm. of D. triturated with sugar of milk. The second I killed after one year of treatment ; he took at first i dr. , gradually increased tilldosereached 1600 dr. daily, of alcoholic tinct. The third is still alive, and has been under the drug for 6 months. As he presents the same symptoms as the two others there is every probability that the same lesions will be found post mortem. As regards functional symptoms, all three had diarrhea at commencement, and very marked weakness of voice was observed after 6 weeks of treatment, although in the two animals dissected there was no perceptible lesion in trachea. The first, on being opened, showed beneath pleura some almost gelatinous deposits, surrounded by an anomalous redness ; on the whole there was but little to be seen, and the characters detectable by the naked eye were not sufficient to prove the existence of tubercle, had not the microscope removed all doubt about the matter. Dr. Gratiolet kindly verified my examination, and satisfied himself that these deposits were of tubercular nature. Besides the pulmonary lesion I found in this cat a very considerable enlargement of the mesenteric glands . The second animal showed much more characteristic lesions in the lungs, though they were not of great extent. These lesions consisted of small white granules, the size of a pin's head, situated beneath the pleura, and surrounded by a very red injection of the neighbouring tissue, tothe extent of several millimetres an injection that penetrated into the pulmonary tissue, but was unaccompanied by induration. I only found these granulations under the pleura ; if there were others in the middle of the pulmonary parenchyma they completely escaped my observation. They were moderately hard ; could be crushed on theglass ; and showed under microscope as irregular corpuscles, granular internally and externally-latter brilliant. Most of the corpuscles were 양이 of a millimetre in diameter. They were almost unaffected by acetic acid. Besides this pulmonary lesion I may mention the enormous development of the submaxillary glands, and the hypertrophy of the glands of Peyer, and of the shut vesicles of the large intestine, containing an opaque fluid that showed under the

microscope glandular corpuscles. In conclusion I may allude particularly to the development of the acini in the spleen. They were so enlarged that they could be seen through the exterior covering ; and the spleen, when cut into, seemed to be formed entirely of them. They were larger than a large pin's head, and contained in the interior a mass of glandular corpuscles. But, unlike what I had observed in the first cat, the mesenteric glands were not appreciably enlarged. (EuG. CURIE, Bull. de la Soc. Méd. Hom. de Paris, Nov., 1861.)