Atropinum purum

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

{The active principle of Belladonna.)

Officinal Preparations. — Triturations, (centesimal) up to the third, then the dilutions.

[No complete provings of Atropine have been made. Allen's new Encyclopedia of Materia Medica contains the most complete pathogenesis yet collected. The symptoms obtained are all like those of Belladonna. We do not bel ieve Atropine can produce all the symptoms of Belladonna, because it does not contain all the forces and medicinal constituents of that plant. To the mere chemist, who cannot discern anything left in the plant after the Atropia is extracted, this assertion may seem absurd; but the chemist looks at drugs from a point of view widely divergent from the physiological experimenter. There are intangible remedial forces in plants which escape the subtlest analysis of the chemist, and can only be evolved by careful provings. One object of giving this pathogenesis is to give an idea of the scope and sphere of action of this isolated constituent. While we should never think of prescribing Atropine in febrile states, acute exanthemata, inflammations, erysipelas, glandular diseases, etc., where we usually use Belladonna, we have a high opinion of its value in neuralgia, acute congestions, painful spasmodic affections, especially of the sphincters, nervous jactitations, hyperaesthesiae, and other affections due to purely functional nervous derangements. — Rale.']

Pharmacology. — The Sulphate of Atropine is the best preparation to use in making triturations. The pure alkaloid is too insoluble. An "Atropine," or so called active principle is sold and used by a class of Eclectic physicians, but it is unreliable, and should not be used in homoeopathic therapeutics. The pure Atropine is composed of slender fasciculated crystals. The sulphate is a white crystalline powder. The spurious " Atropine " is a powder.

Analogues. — Belladonna and its analogues.

Mind.

• Rambling, incoherent speech, spectral illusions, with frequent

fits of wild uncontrollable laughter. 0 Furious delirium, especially at night. Quiet, dreamy delirium, with nervous startings. Muttering and smiling, with sleepiness.

Delirium, with picking, and other motions of the hands and fingers in the ;.ir, as if they were in contact with real objects.

He carries on conversations with imaginary beings.

When conversing, had to stop in the middle of a sentence and

inquire what he had been talking about. Imagines he has epilepsy.

He lost the power of estimating distances; he reached at objects which were across the room, and stumbled on objects which he supposed were far off.

Head.

• Beating and throbbing of the carotids, with red face, etc. Fnllness&of temples and of forehead, with dizziness. Feeling as if the brain was being pressed out in all directions.

• Feeling as if the head was screwed up; walking caused

the most severe sticking fains; relieved toward 11 a. m., and disappeared toward evening.

• Fine, drawing, very sensitive stitches across the forehead

and temples, recurring every four to ten minutes, and lasting several seconds.

• Dull pain in the temples, coming on at intervals of perhaps a quarter of an hour, and lasting a few minutes.

• Very sensitive sticking in the left temporal region on

waking in the morning; it extended to behind the ear, and scarcely permitted him to open the left eye; disappeared after moving about in the open air.

• Neuralgic pains commencing under the left orbit, and run

ning back to the ear. Vertigo upon turning the head suddenly. Vertigo, with staggering, and inability to walk. 0 Neuralgic hemicrania, of the severest character. 0 Symptoms simulating cerebral meningitis. 0 Cephalalgia, generally nervous or congestive. ° Headaches of a nervous or neuralgic origin.

Face and Eyes. Dark red, livid and puffed face, with burning heat in face.

• Twitching of the facial muscles, especially around the mouth

and eyelids.

• Congested eyes and eyelids, with feeling of dryness in eyes.

• Deep-seated, dull pain in the back part of the eye.

• Bright flashes before the eyes immediately upon closing then Intolerance of light (rare.)

Dimness of vision; can neither read nor thread a needle. Pain in the eyes; dull, or sharp and increased at each cardiac pulsation.

Eyes fixed and glassy; cannot compare objects or estimate

their distances. Dilated pupils, to an extent not caused by any other drug. Can read well for a few moments, when the words run together

and become indistinct.

When reading, the words seem to contract and expand with the action of the heart.

Spasmodic winking. Eyelids feel heavy and difficult to open.

Double vision; all objects seem elongated.

Dryness of the conjunctiva. (Apparent dryness.)

When closing the eyes he sees all kinds of spectres and unpleasant objects. (See Allen's Encyc. of Mat. Med.)

The field of vision is covered with colored phantasms.

Everything looks yellow. (See Santonin^)

° Neuralgia of the eyes, and orbital regions.

° Used extensively (and sometimes abused) by oculists to dilate the pupil in cases of iritis, cataract, etc., and to assist in examinations with the ophthalmoscope. Ears.

Hearing morbidly sensitive — at night, (p.)

Illusions of the sense of hearing, ringing, roaring, etc. (p.)

Dullness of the sense of hearing, deafness, (p.)

Nose.

Redness and heat of the nose.

Great dryness of the mucous membrane of the nose.

Mouth.

Intense dryness of the mouth, tongue, fauces, soft palate, and the lips and throat, followed by a sensation of a viscid, sticky, acid secretion of a peculiar and very sickly, offensive odor.

The mouth becomes foul and clammy, and the tongue covered

with a sticky white fur. Smoking does not excite the secretion of saliva. Mucous membrane of mouth dark and mottled. 3 Mercurial salivation. (It arrests the profuse secretion.)

Tongue.

Loss of sensation in the buccal cavity Tongue dry, with red tip and edges.

Tongue sticky and coated white.

Cannot move the tongue around in the mouth.

Difficulty of protruding the tongue.

Tongue feels thick; cannot articulate distinctly.

Teeth feel " on edge."

° Dry, parched and cracked tongue, in typhus. 0 Paralytic symptoms of the tongue.

Throat.

Dryness of the pharynx, making it almost impossible to

swallow.

No natural sensation when drinking; the water did not seem

to touch the mucous membrane. Cannot swallow solids without washing them down with

liquids.

Mucous membrane of throat feels raw and irritated; it looks

darker than usual, and mottled. Swallowing appeared to give pain.

• Great difficulty in getting the child to swallow. Each attempt to do so produced paroxysms of suffocation, which appeared to threaten its existence.

Taste and Appetite.

Loss of taste; nothing tastes natural.

Everything tastes salt.

No appetite/ partly owing to the dryness of the mouth and throat, which obliges him to wash his food down.

Gastro-Enteric.

Nausea, from the foul, sticky saliva.

Vomiting, profuse, hurrying him out of bed at night.

Easy vomiting of bitter liquid at first, afterwards tasteless.

Eructations, tasting like the yolk of eggs.

° Gastralgia, purely neuralgic: (very prompt cures.)

Violent, severe sticking pains in the umbilical region, during

attacks of vomiting, at night. Diarrhoea, hurrying him out of bed at midnight, preceded by

urgent desire.

Stools copious and watery, coming out with a gush, relieving

the pain at the umbilical region. 0 Spasmodic or neuralgic colic.

° Constipation, cured permanently by very minute doses continued for some time. {Allopathic authority.) Urinary Organs.

The kidneys are active in the elimination of Atropine from the minute when it enters the blood until it is entirely removed from the system.

It causes an excess of uric acid in the urine.

It causes an increased ■flow of blood through the kidneys, and thus increases the urea.

The phosphates are increased by its administration.

Profuse and frequent urination, (p.)

" It is a most powerful diuretic" (Harley.)

Retention of urine; the catheter has to be used daily.

c Nephritic colic, from passage of calculi.

• Violent, irresistible and ineffectual urging to urinate, with

agonizing tenesmus. (Hale.)

• Paralysis of the bladder — probably the sphincter. ° Dysuria; it relieves the pain in many cases.

° Dropsy from Bright’s disease.

° Chronic albuminuria/ the albumen decreased rapidly.

Generative Organs. ° Neuralgia of the testes, with extreme sensitiveness to touch. ° Irritable uterus, with neuralgic pains in it, in paroxysms. ° Uterine colic, neuralgic and paroxysmal. ° Ovarian neuralgia, acute pains, in paroxysms. ° Vaginismus, a spasmodic disorder of the vagina, often an undoubtedly neuralgic disease.

• Hyperesthesia of the vagina and uterine cervix. {Hale.) [In these cases give the 6tb + trit., and apply a cerate of 1 gr. to 1 oz.,

of cocoa butter or lard.]

Respiratory Organs.

Dryness of the larynx, causing a constant inclination to cough.

• The tough mucus in the larynx causes paroxysms of coughing, very severe, occurring every fifteen or twenty minutes, attended with difficult expectoration of thick, tenacious mucus, and followed by burning in the larynx.

° Whooping-cough, cured by the 3d centesimal trit.

5 Spasmodic cough, in adults, after influenza. (Hale.)

Sensation of a glow of heat in the lungs.

• Violent and suffocative constriction of the chest.

° Spasmodic asthma (by hypodermic injection).

Heart.

Pulse feeble and heart's action almost imperceptible.

Pulse rising from 60 to 140 beats, but no increase in th«

respirations. (Harley.) Fluttering sensation in the cardiac region. (Ib.) ° Nervous palpitation of the heart, with red face and throbbing

in the carotids. (Hale.) 0 Palpitation at night, with debility and distress.

Extremities.

Trembling of the limbs.

Anaesthesia of the extremities; the sense of touch seems blunted and sometimes almost abolished; numbness and prickling of the hands, extending to the tips of the fingers.

Cannot tell when the hand touches an object. Continued desire to open and shut the hands. Jerking of the muscles of the extremities. While drinking, the arm suddenly contracted, causing him to spill the water.

While walking, the flexor muscle would contract suddenly,

throwing him to the ground. Staggering, tottering gait.

On picking up a pin, it feels as if there were five or six of them.

Spasms of the muscles of the extremities. Spasmodic contractions of extremities at night. Coldness of extremities.

Skin.

[Dr. Sadler, of London, (Med. Times and Gazette,) reports an interesting case showing some of the physiological effects of Atropine, and the smallness of the dose capable of affecting a child.

He gave a child, three months old, a mixture containing l-200th of a grain of Sulphate of Atropine. In a few minutes the tliild turned a deep red, "like scarlet fever," over its face and upper part of its body; the perspiration was checked, and the skin became hot and dry. This continued for five hours. The next morning only half the quantity was given; the same effect was produced, but only lasted for two hours. The third morning only four drops were given (60 drops contained l-200th of a grain) and this time without any effect. Six drops were given the next morning; the same redness appeared, but this time only lasted for half an hour. The six drops contained l-800th of a grain. No narcotism was produced, even by the larger dose first given. The paroxysm of whooping-cough, for which it was given was slightly but not decidedly improved.] Dark red or mottled efflorescent redness of the skin, like that

in scarlet fever. Dark red or purple redness of the face.

Scarlet red, hot and dry skin, on the upper half of the body. Ancesthesia of the skin : the sense of touch is lost or perverted.

Thrusting pins into the skin causes no pain. Water poured over the skin produces no sensation. Skin seems unnaturally smooth, like glass. Cold, pale and clammy skin. ° Useful in some cases of scarlet fever.

0 In cases of retarded or suppressed eruptions, it will cause their re-appearance. {Hale.)

Sleep.

Sleepiness, or drowsiness with inability to sleep.

Deep, heavy, comatose sleep.

Heavy sleep, with muttering, incoherent talking.

He sits in a dull, apathetic or drowsy condition, and frequently

gives a prolonged yawn. Deep sleep, with red, bloated face.

Fever.

Continual chilliness all over.

Chills alternating with flashes of h eat.

It stimulates the action of the heart, causing the pulse to rise from 60 to 140, with flashes of heat, red-hot skin, dry mouth and throat, with throbbing all over; a kind of erethistic fever, with general ebulition of blood, (p.)

Chilliness, with cold skin, pulse feeble, action of the heart feeble, cold extremities, (s.)

Fever, with low muttering, incoherent delirum.

° Useful in some typhoid fevers.

Generalities.

General anaesthesia of the skin and extremities, (p.)

Hyperesthesia of the whole organism. (*.)

° Tetanus:

[In a late number of the British Medical Journal is a case of Tetanus successfully treated by Atropia. On the fourth day of the attack one-sixteenth of a grain was administered every three hours.

Within twenty-four hours the clonic spasm became less severe and of shorter duration, and the tonic rigidly gave way, first in the legs and neck, then in the back, and last of all in abdomen and masseters. On the sixth day of treatment by Atropia, rigidity of masseters only remained. He was kept under the influence of Atropia for three weeks, and made a good recovery. The patient was " a healthy -looking lad, aged 14, who was seized with lockjaw and severe pain in the cervical and dorsal region, with fever, a few days after jumping from a coal wagon."

The reporter asserts that it cures on the theory of Brown-Sequard, namely: "Reducing congestion of the blood vessels of the spinal cord." It was certainly homoeopathic to the condition, for the primary effect of Atropine is to cause spinal anaemia, the secondary, spinal congestion. For this reason the large dose cured.]

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

It may seem out of place to call this drug a new remedy, when Belladonna is so old, but Atropia was not used in homoeopathic practice until about the year 1860, or about the time the new remedies began to appear in our school.

No complete provings of Atropia have been made, but the symptoms which have been obtained, both from provings and cases of poisoning, are identical with many of the symptoms of Belladonna.

Atropia cannot cause all the symptoms of Belladonna, any more than Quinia can cause all the symptoms belonging to China, for the reason that it does not contain all the medicinal forces residing in the plant. To the mere chemist, or the crude experimenter, there seems nothing of value left in the plant after the extraction of its active principle. But they do not appreciate the fact that there are intangible or atomic forces in plants which do not reside in any alkaloid or resinoid, and will escape the subtlest analysis of the chemist. These medicinal forces can only be evolved by careful physiological provings on the healthy.

Atropia, therefore, cannot represent the Belladonna in the treatment of disease, except in its own limited sphere.

I cannot advise the use of Atropia in the febrile diseases, in acute or chronic exanthemata, inflammations of organs and tissues, or certain cerebral disorders, for which we have in Belladonna such an admirable remedy.

Its sphere of action appears to me to include the nervous system , affecting alike the nerves of sensation, motion, and the sympathetic. In functional disorders of these nerves, especially when hypercesthesia and irritation obtain, Atropia will prove a valuable remedial agent.

In neuralgia. , certain acute congestions of a nervous origin, painful spasmodic affections, especially of the sphincters, and nervous jactitations, hypersesthesia, spinal irritation, etc., Atropia will often do better service than Belladonna.

Its action is analogous to Solan um, Stramonium, Agaricus, and many of the analogues of Belladonna.

I cannot accept the assertion of allopathic experimenters that Atropia contracts the bloodvessels of the brain and spinal cord. We have abundant evidence that it causes death by acute congestion of the brain. As to its action on the bloodvessels of the spinal cord, I am not prepared to dispute the statement of Brown-Sequard, who says that “ it is a powerful excitant of bloodvessels, and especially those of the spinal cord and its membranes. In consequence of this influence, it diminishes the amount of blood in the vertebral canal, and in so doing produces a relative diminution of the vital properties of the spinal cord and its nerves.”

But granted that this is its primary action in toxical doses, its secondary action is directly opposite. In death from poisonous doses, the surface of the body is pale and cold, and the internal organs all congested. But death must in such cases occur from its secondary action. Death rarely occurs from its primary action.

In homoeopathic practice, we usually prescribe Atropia for symptoms similar to its secondary effects, for all the morbid conditions which I mentioned as indicating Atropia are due to such secondary action, or for symptoms of irritation of the motor , sensitive, and vasomotor or nutritive nerve fibres of the spinal cord, or of the roots of its nerves; or, in other words, in cases of congestion, meningitis, myelitis, and cerebro-spinal meningitis.

Pain anywhere in the body is not properly a primary effect of Belladonna (Atropia) any more than of Opium (Morphine.)

Contraction of the bloodvessels of the spinal cord and brain correspond to painlessness in the parts supplied by the nerves having their origin in such locations.

I

Atrop5a causes 'primarily such conditions, but secondarily it causes congestion, and even inflammation, bringing with it pain, spasm, hypersesthesia, etc., — all the consequences of irritation of nerve-tissue.

In diseases of the brain I rarely find Atropia of service. If we use it at all, it must be used cautiously, and Belladonna is to be preferred in all but purely functional disturbances.

Certain it is that in hemicrania , facial neuralgia, neuralgic cephalalgia, and other very painful affections of the nerves of the head, the 2d c. trit. of Atropia is one of our most successful remedies.

In acute congestion, however, when the face is red, temples throbbing, eyes bloodshot, ears ringing, and wild delirium, who would dare to give any but the high attenuations of this drug or of Belladonna?

In typhoid fever, particularly typhus-cerebralis, when nightly delirium, spectral illusions, wild, uncontrollable laughter, obstinate insomnia, and often furious delirium and redness of the face occurs, the 6th of Atropia will often dissipate the troublesome symptoms, due in this case to irritation of the brain from congestion.

On the other hand, we meet with cases of advanced typhoid, where, with the general prostration, there is insomnia, with rambling, incoherent muttering, coma vigil, with picking at the clothes, very dry tongue, pale, cool face, «etc., due to cerebral anaemia with, irritation. Here we find Atropia - 2d c. trit. an admirable remedy.

I will briefly enumerate the disorders in which Atropia has been found efficacious in our practice, when used in the 2d or 3d centesimal triturations :

Neuralgia, especially of the head, face, and eyes.

Gastralgia, purely neuralgic.

Enteralgia, a neuralgia of the abdominal nerves.

Nephralgia, neuralgic, or owing to passage of calculi. Violent, irresistible, and ineffectual urging to urinate, with agonizing tenesmus, both vesical and rectal.

Nocturnal enuresis, from paralysis of the sphincter.

Ovarian neuralgia, and uterine colic.

Vaginismus, when purely spasmodic and neuralgic (internally in the 6X trit., and apply a cerate of gr. i to §j of simple cerate).

Whooping-cough, with violent paroxysms very frequent, and expectoration of very tough mucus.

Chorea, tetanus, and even convulsions.

I would advise you to carefully study not only the symptoms I have collated in “New Remedies,” but the careful experiments recorded in the best allopathic works on toxicology. In Wood and Stille you will find most of value.