Lectures on diseases of the heart / by Edwin M. Hale.

  • Hale, Edwin M. (Edwin Moses), 1829-1899.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on diseases of the heart / by Edwin M. Hale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    be soothed by giving them timely repose, but we can do this but very partially with the heart. Belladonna plasters are generally useful. Internally, I have seen most benefit from tinctura digitalis, fifteen minims a day, but I am not alto- gether satisfied how far it is quite safe to give this drug in states of cardiac excitement. In conditions of cardiac languor I have no fear of it, but in the opposite I think we must be cautious. [Digitalis is doubtless homoeopathic to cardiac hyperesthe- sia, but only when it depends on a secondary condition char- acterized by loss of tonicity. In this condition it may be given in the lower dilutions with success.] Dr. Jones also suggests Opium, Xitrate of Silver, Aconite, and Hydrocyanic acid. In another place he says all nerve- tonics tend to decrease and strengthen the action of an excited and weak heart. This is doubtless the case owingr to the fact that primarily all tonics increase and excite the action of the heart to an abnormal degree, while secondarily they cause an irritable and weak condition of that organ. Various remedies have been recommended and used success- fully for this condition. Iron, especially the iodide of iron, has been found useful. The bark of the wild cherry (Prunus v.)has a specific effect on the heart, especially when its action is rapid, weak, and irregular. Lycopus virginicus is useful in moderating excessive action, and will probably be found curative in cardiac diseases, with exophthalmia. Dr. Fenner, above quoted, says the specific remedies for this condition are Cactus grandiflorus, in doses of 10 to 20 drops of the tincture three or four times a day (he acknowl- edges that he gets his information from homoeopathic sources). Pulsatilla, Collinsonia, and Lobelia, in non-nauseating doses, are also claimed to possess specific powers over cardiac irrita- tion. The homoeopathic treatment of irritation of the cardiac nerves has never been fully elucidated, nor the specific indi- cations given for the use of our remedies. It is obvious that we must be guided by the pathological condition, as well as oy the totality of sj^mptoms, modified by those characteristic indications which are sometimes so useful in practice. A careful study of the heart symptoms given in the Rep-