Part 38

I hope these few cases may be of some benefit to the readers of the Recorder: 1. Be careful to observe the rule that if remedy should nauseate cease giving for twelve or twenty-four hours. 2. Always give on sugar or in tablets. 3. Remove it immediately from room after administering. 4. Cover joints to exclude air and keep them warm. 5. Give any other indicated remedy.

HELODERMA HORRIDUS.

PREPARATION.--The virus, obtained by irritating the animal and allowing it to bite on glass, is triturated in the usual way.

(Dr. T. L. Bradford furnishes us with the following classification of this reptile):

The heloderma is classed as follows: Order: Saurii. Lacertilia. Lizards. Sub order: 5. Fissilinguia. Family: Lacratidae. Heloderma horridum of Mexico; the crust lizard; the Mexican Caltetopen. Called heloderma from its skin being studded with nail or tubercle-like heads. The Gila monster is a native of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. It is smaller than the Mexican variety, and is called, by Cope, Heloderma Suspectum. It is the only lizard whose character is not above reproach, hence the name. Zoology says: An esquamate-tongued lizard with clavicles not dilated proximally, a postorbital arch, no postfront-osquamosal arch, the pre and post frontals in contact, separating the frontal from the orbit, and furrowed teeth receiving the different ducts of highly developed salivary glands.

(There has been considerable difference of opinion as to whether the Heloderma is poisonous or not; but the following abstract from a paper on the subject read before the College of Physicians, Philadelphia, 1883, by S. Wier Mitchell, together with the provings made later, ought to very effectually settle all dispute on this point; the conclusions are the result of experiments on animals):

The poison of heloderma causes no local injury. It arrests the heart in diastole, the organ afterwards contracts slowly--possibly in rapid rigor mortis.

The cardiac muscle loses its irritability to stimuli at the time it ceases to beat. The other muscles and nerves respond to irritants.

The spinal cord has its power annihilated abruptly, and refuses to respond to the most powerful electrical currents.

This virulent heart poison contrasts strongly with serpent venom, since they give rise to local haemorrhages, causing death chiefly through failure of respiration and not by the heart unless given in overwhelming doses. They lower muscle and nerve reactions, especially those of the respiratory apparatus, but do not cause extreme and abrupt loss of spinal power. They also produce secondary pathological appearances absent in heloderma poisoning.

The briefest examination of the lizard's anatomy makes it clear why it has been with reason suspected to be poisonous, and why it poisons with so much difficulty. Unless the teeth are entire, the poison abundant, and the teeth buried in the bitten flesh so as to force it down into contact with the ducts where they open at the crown of the teeth, it is hard to see how even a drop of poison could be forced into the wounds. Yet it is certain that small animals may die from the bite, and this may be due to the extraordinary activity of the poison, and to the lizard's habit of holding tenaciously to what it bites, so as to allow time for a certain amount of absorption.

(The provings and the clinical cases that follow were from the virus of the Gila monster obtained by Dr. Charles D. Belden, of Phoenix, Arizona, in 1890, who suggested it as a possible remedy for paralysis agitans and locomotor ataxia. He obtained the virus from a captive monster by irritating it and then letting it strike, or bite, a piece of heavy glass; by this means he obtained a few drops of a pasty yellowish fluid. In his letters Dr. Belden quotes Sir John Lubbock as follows):

This animal does not bite frequently, but when it does it is understood that the result is a benumbing paralysis like to paralysis agitans or to locomotor attaxia. There is no tetanic phase, being, as I apprehend, a condition almost reverse in objective symptoms to hydrocyanic acid or strychnia.

(Dr. Belden also writes):

It seems to me that it (the poison) differs in so many points from all present known venoms that it is worth our having. In the first place it is alkaline, and all other poisons of reptiles are acid. Second, its effect is not always sudden but is lasting--causing sickness for months and death even after a year. Again, although it does not produce paralysis it is not the tonic spasm, but rather the slow creeping death from extremities. It does not seem to excite but to depress.

(A supply of this poison was sent to Dr. Robert Boocock at his request for proving, and he made three different trials of it, the results of which were published in the Homoeopathic Recorder for March and April, 1893; but as Dr. James E. Lilienthal has arranged the matter in schema form we will here only give fragmentary quotations from Dr. Boocock's papers, which are quite long, covering nearly thirty pages. The following is from Dr. Boocock's paper):

I am in my sixtieth year, sanguine, bilious temperament, fair complexion and weigh 160 pounds; height, 5 feet 6 inches. My normal pulse rate is 72, full, round and regular. I am in very good health. I do not drink alcoholic beverages of any kind, neither do I smoke nor drink strong coffee, or tea, or cocoa. My usual and favorite beverage is hot water with a little milk and sugar in it. If much sugar or salt is used my stomach gets very sour, and water-brash is the result. I therefore use very little of either, though I am very fond of sweetmeats.

When I received the first bottle of Heloderma horridus, I took a one drachm vial and filled it with the 6x trit., and dissolved it in four ounces of diluted alcohol, of which I took a few drops, dried my fingers on my tongue, and a severe feeling of internal coldness, so intense as to cause me to fear being frozen to death, ensued. I had some twitches about my heart, as if the blood was hard to get in or out. I was somewhat alarmed, but as I had no trembling I sat over the register and tried to get warm. The day was a very cold one, but my office was comfortably warm, and I had no consciousness of having taken cold.

I was not surprised at feeling this so soon after taking the few drops, for I know that I am very sensitive to any medicine and have a bad habit of tasting medicine, but never without being conscious of its effects, sometimes very unpleasantly so.

Now, to-day is warm and damp, thunderstorm this morning, although it is December 9th. The storm lasted three or more hours; lightning very vivid. I had already taken one drop of the 30th, with a very severe nervous headache, but I forgot that when I took the medicine. I have medicated 2 oz. No. 35 globules with 30th dilution, and having taken six globules as a dose before they were dry.

A feeling of heat in head and face, some headache over the right eyebrow. Cold feeling in my legs; after two hours a numb feeling around and down my left thigh; feeling very drowsy, so took a short nap in my chair. Was awakened suddenly with a jerking in my head. Central part of frontal bone so queer as to awaken me.

When my office bell rang it threw me into a startled and trembling condition, something new to me. At 5:30 took four globules more.

8 P.M. The pressure at my heart and in my head and scalp is very great. A feeling of great heat and some pressure. Not so much burning in my face, but a feeling on my left cheek as if being pricked with points of ice. A very severe and tired feeling, with coldness of legs and feet. A slight dryness of my lips, with a tingling feeling and great dryness in my throat. Gurgling in the region of the spleen.

9:30 P.M. The pressure and heat on the top of my head appears like an inflammation of the meninges. It does not affect my mind; that remains clear, and I can think and read as well and as long as ever. No more medicine. * * *

December 29, 1892. No medicine. Some trembling, but not so great or so extensive; it does not now extend along the whole limb. Parts of right arm and left thigh hemiplegial; no acute feeling. But some muscles will twitch and tremble for a few seconds. Just enough to arrest my attention and amuse me, and feel like saying, "Hello, Heloderma hor! have you not done with me yet?" For it is a great surprise to me how these feelings will come on and creep over me. And I am inclined to ask myself, can it be that all these strange and to me new feelings can be the effects following the taking of these few doses? And yet, if it were necessary, I could swear they were. I have my fears if I will ever be free from these nervous trembling spells, and the feeling in my head and heart.

(The foregoing gives the gist of the first trials. The third and last now follows. It was made with repeated doses of the 30th potency.)

12 meridian. Sensation as if a cold, freezing wind were blowing upon me from the bend of my knees. Head feeling as if the scalp were being drawn tight over my skull, and my facial muscles were being drawn very tight over the bones. A giddiness and a cold pressure from within the skull. A cold, running chill from superior maxillary down to the chin. Trembling of limbs. Coldness extending from the knee into the calf of the leg. Pain and pressure within the skull from crown to occiput, and from back forward over the left eye. A very drowsy feeling. I could sleep if I gave way to the feeling. * * * *

January 4, 1893, 7:45 A.M. Took another dose of six globules. Pulse, 72. Temperature, 97 3.5. A flush of heat in my face. A feeling as if I were walking on sponge or as if my feet were swollen. Dull headache. The arctic cold feeling is more in my right arm, elbow joint, and right thigh and left foot. A great trembling of my arm. It is hard work to steady my hand, which holds my book, enough to continue reading or writing.