Apis mellifica

CEREBRAL TYPHUS AND ITS REMEDIES

APIS MELLIFICA, HELLEBORUS NIGER AND ZINCUM METALLICUM IN BRAIN TYPHUS

Apis mellifica has again and again rendered me such good service in advanced cases of cerebral typhus that I have learned to prize it very highly. Aside from anything laid down in the text-books in connection with this disease, I place apathy, or stupor, interrupted with occasional sharp screams, first and have frequently found it useful; or this may alternate with long continued spells of whining. Another characteristic is general trembling. This trembling is continuous and violent; shakes the bed; hands have to be held they tremble so. It comes late in the course of the disease, like the trembling of Zincum metallicum.

This is different from Gelsemium, which comes early and is aggravated on motion, or does not show unless they undertake to move or do something with the hands, or feet. My attention was first called to this whining and trembling of Apis mel. by a case cured by Dr. Ad. Lippe in one of the first volumes of the “Hahnemannian Monthly,” and afterwards vouched for by the doctor himself by word of mouth; and as I have verified it several times since, myself, I think it is very reliable. In addition to this the abdomen may be distended, sore and very sensitive to touch, with foul, bloody, or involuntary stools, the anus sometimes remaining open (Phosphorus); or on the contrary the abdomen may be sunken, even hollowed out like a boat, with no stool, and very scanty or suppressed urine. In either case the patient is very weak, sliding down in bed (Mur. acid), and the skin alternately hot and dry, or profusely sweating. I promised a little way back to give a case in which I found it necessary to alternate as Hahnemann did Bryonia and Rhus toxicodendron—two remedies.

CLINICAL CASES

Case. A boy 12 years of age (in a family in which one had already died of hemorrhage of the bowels and another lay sick of the same disease in the abdominal form) was taken with typhoid fever and grew steadily worse until the third week, when the following symptoms were present:

Complete stupor; entire unconsciousness; pupils greatly dilated, with no reaction to light; and hearing gone. All this interrupted by occasional piercing screams; abdomen so sunken and empty that the vertebral column could be felt through its walls; no stool for two weeks and for forty-eight hours at one time not a drop of urine. He would lie for a day or so in this stupor, then would involuntarily begin to jerk his head forward up from the pillow, and with a yell carry it around in a sort of semi-circle and drop it back again, continually trying to talk, which he could not do on account of the stiff or paralyzed condition of the tongue; then again would lapse into the stupor with screams. Apis mellifica alone did not control the whole condition, so I gave the Stramonium, when, with the jerking of the head, and loquacious delirium was on, and between the two remedies he began to improve, the paroxysms becoming shorter and more mild, then ceasing entirely. The urine became abundant, and the boy began to notice his attendants. The first word he spoke ten days after he became conscious was “maw!” (calling his mother), the next “pawidge” (porridge). His diet had been oat meal porridge all through the course.

Two other cases essentially the same, one a school teacher, the other the wife of the professor of mathematics in our State Normal School, were treated the same way and made perfect recoveries. The late lamented Dr. H. V. Miller, one of the best prescribers I ever knew, saw the last one in consultation with me and pronounced a decidedly unfavorable prognosis, but was surprised and delighted at the outcome. I have also prescribed it alone in cases which had the stupor with screaming without the alternate condition described above with equally good results. In almost all cases of the Apis kind look for an increase of urine before the other symptoms improve.

APIS AND SULPHUR

One thing I wish to mention here, viz., that if in such a case Apis mellifica did not act promptly an intercurrent dose of Sulphur often seemed to help it. There must have been psora in such a case, and I know that the two remedies follow each other beautifully when indicated by the symptoms. Now, for fear that some one may accuse me of teaching alternation or rotation of remedies, as is the practice of too many in our school, let me say that the cases which call for even such alternation as was necessary here, are very rare, and you will distinctly remember that this was not the hourly or two hourly rotation practiced by such.

Such alternation and rotation is neither necessary nor scientific. No good prescriber will do it.