Strychninum arsenicosum

Volume I — Appendix

Description. — Acids easily dissolve Strychnia., forming neutral solutions, having an intensely bitter taste, and being virulently poisonous. The Arsenate is a salt, forming in monoclinic prisms, soluble in fifteen parts cold and five parts hot water.

The Arsenite is in the form of dull white cubes, efflorescing in air. Preparation. — Triturations.

(No Proving.)

° Chronic diarrhoea in a child with paralytic conditions of bladder, rectum, and lower extremities.

° Certain forms of paralysis where Arsenic and Strychnia both appear to be indicated.

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

Several months ago the Liebig Manufacturing Company of New York sent me, among several new and unique drugs, a small quantity of the Arseniate of Strychnia, from which I had prepared triturations up to the 6th centesimal.

It occurred to me that cases might occur in which both remedies might be so strongly indicated that I would feel justified in giving this combination. These powerful remedies affect the human organism in a very different manner. Arsenic affects profoundly the fluids of the body, the glandular organs, and the mucous system. Strychnia has as great an affinity for the nervous system, especially the spinal cord — the motor and trophic nerves.

My first case was one of chronic diarrhoea in a child. The diarrhoea choradentes were all covered by Arsenicum. But there were many symptoms which called for Nux, or its alkaloid, Strychnia, namely, paralytic conditions of the bladder, rectum, and lower extremities.

I might have given Arsenicum until its symptoms were cured, then followed it by Nux to cure the remainder. This would be following the strict Hahnemannian doctrine as taught by some of our school. But I doubt if Hahnemann himself would have done so in this case, for the condition of the patient was such as to cause serious anxiety, and it would not answer to lose time in treating him secundum artem. Therefore, I prescribed Ars. Strych. 4th,

one grain every three hours. The result was all that could be desired — a rapid recovery followed.

This case will afford an example of the class of diseases for which this remedy is indicated. I cannot imagine a bigotry so narrow as to deprive one of using a drug because it has not been proven, especially when we are well acquainted with the pathogenetic action of its constituents, as in this case. Some of our remedies, which have made the best cures and have served most to make Homoeopathy popular, have not been proven.

I recommend a trial of this remedy in complicated disorders, when the mucous, glandular, and nutritive system is deranged, and the nervous system is seriously implicated ; in the various forms of paresis, paralysis , chronic ulceration, wasting diseases, and even cholera, typhus, and malignant dysentery.