A treatise on nervous derangements and mental disorders : based upon Th. J. Rückert's Clinical experience in homoeopathy / by John C. Peters.

  • Peters, John C. (John Charles), 1819-1893.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on nervous derangements and mental disorders : based upon Th. J. Rückert's Clinical experience in homoeopathy / by John C. Peters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    ters, and immediate relief follows full action on the bowels. I have seen several cases of great despondency, obstinacy and in- vincible taciturnity attended with, and caused by excessive cos- tivcness, cured at once by a single dose of purgative medicine. NARCOTICS. Of these Opium is the most important. In acute mania, if there is much excitement, many physicians have great confi- dence in Grave's combination of Opium and Tartar-emetic, and in the proportions originally proposed by him. Afterwards if the head be not very hot, full and repeated doses of Opium are given; also in cases marked by extreme irritability, rest- lessness and want of sleep, with moist, flabby and tremulous tongue, natural or dilated pupils, frequent, irregular and weak pulse, cold and relaxed skin ; then commonly with wine, and always with excellent effect. See Galt's Opium treatment, page 52. Wood says, independently of the advantageous in- fluence excited by narcotics in quieting irritation, controlling excessive nervous excitement, and producing sleep, they prob- ably operate in another mode in the.cure of insanity. When kept steadily under their influence, the brain is rendered in some measure insensible to those morbid impressions which have a constant tendency to disturb it. Though the patient may notbe restored to reason, yet the irregular mental move- ments are much repressed, the proverbially cheering influence of the drug restrains the tumult of the feelings, and a condition of the brain is induced, in which a continued presentation of ra- tional objects of reflection, and sources of a healthful interest, may gradually accustom the organ to a sound mode of action ; while the morbid trains of reflection, and the perversions of the passions are gradually obliterated from want of renewal. After the removal, therefore, of physical derangement, no medicine is so efficient as Opium in favoring a return to a healthy state of function. It must be given in such quantities as to produce and maintain a decided impression, and must consequently be increased with its continued use. After the brain has been re- stored to a perfectly healthful state of action, the Opium should be gradually diminished, and the patient should not be con-