Cimex Lectularius

It has one characteristic symptom which has been verified. “Sensation as if the tendons were too short.” There is sometimes actual contraction as if the legs cannot be stretched out. This has been verified in intermittent fevers, and only the other day (a short time ago) Dr. Brewster, of Syracuse, told of a case in which he was guided by this symptom.

A man was driving a fractious horse that started to run away with him. Thinking to give him enough of it he let the horse run, and when tired of running whipped him into running more until he had run him up a hill several miles long. The road over which he passed was very rough, and the man was so bruised and sprained about the buttocks and legs that he was confined to the house for a long time in consequence. It finally settled into what seemed likely to be a permanent contraction of the tendons of the lower limbs. No remedy relieved, until the good doctor bethought him of a case of intermittent fever which he had cured twenty years before, being guided by this symptom. He gave the patient a dose of Jenichen’s 600th potency of Cimex, with immediate result, and cure of the case. “Honor to whom honor is due,” even if it be a bed-bug.