196 



FLOKA HOMffiOPATHICA. 



" The primitive effect of the Thorn-apple is also to increase 

 the activity of the muscles subject to the will, and to suppress 

 all the secretions and excretions, a state exactly contrary to that 

 which accompanies the secondary effect, when the muscles 

 become paralysed, and the secretions and excretions super- 

 abundant. For the same reason, when taken in a proper dose, 

 it soothes spasmodic muscular movements, and restores the 

 course of the suppressed secretions, in many cases where the 

 absence of all pain predominates ; this plant therefore can only 

 cure homceopathically when the morbid state corresponds with 

 its own primitive effects. 



" The symptoms of reaction, which come on after the admi- 

 nistration of all narcotic medicines, and are much more numerous 

 and decided than after that of other narcotic substances, warn 

 the attentive physician not to employ these means in cases 

 where the patient already shows symptoms analogous to those 

 of this reaction. Thus, a wise practitioner will never give 

 Stramonium either in complete paralysis, inveterate diarrhoea, 

 or in cases where violent pains constitute the chief suffering. 



" But, and here I speak from experience, what incomparable 

 curative power has not the homoeopathic application of the 

 mental derangement excited specially by Stramonium, exerted 

 in analogous mental diseases arising from other causes, and 

 how salutary is this plant in convulsive affections similar to 

 those which it provokes! 



"I have found great benefit from it in certain epidemic 

 fevers, having symptoms analogous, mentally and physically, to 

 its own. 



"But as mania shows various modifications, so we cannot 

 always obtain a cure for it by one remedy. In certain cases 

 we must have recourse to Belladonna, in others to Hen- 

 bane, besides Stramonium, according as the symptoms cor- 

 respond homceopathically with one or the other of these three 

 substances. Moderate doses only keep up their action for 

 thirty-six to forty-eight hours ; that of weaker doses a still 



