ATROPA BELLADONNA. 79 
rigor over the head and arms, and paralytic stiffness of the 
joints. Her sleep was restless during the night, with frightful 
dreams and general perspiration, excepting the head. I found 
her in the morning with pressive headache, dimness of vision, 
slimy tongue, some ptyalism, the submaxillary glands hard, 
swollen, and painful to the touch, and shooting pains in the 
throat when attempting to swallow. She was free from thirst; 
pulse quick and small; breathing hurried and anxious; very 
pale, though feeling hot; horripilation ; leaning forward to lessen 
the pain; she complained of stiffness, with an air of much 
_ dejection, and shunned conversation, feeling that she could only 
speak in a whisper. Her look was dull, yet staring; her 
eyelids widely stretched, face pale, and features sunk. 
“Knowing too well the ineffectual nature of the ordinary 
favourite remedies, I resolved in this case of incipient scarlet 
fever not to act with reference to individual symptoms, but 
(agreeably to my new synthetical principle) to obtain, if possible, 
a remedy calculated to produce in a healthy person most of the 
morbid symptoms I now observed ; and my memory and written 
_ remarks suggested no remedy so appropriate as Belladonna, 
which I had observed to produce precisely the above-mentioned 
symptoms. 
*T therefore gave the girl, who was already affected by the 
first indications of scarlet fever, a dose of Belladonna (1) 
432,000th part of a grain of the extract, which, according to my 
subsequent experience, is too large a dose. She remained 
quietly seated all day, without lying down; the heat of her 
body diminished; she drank but little; none of her symptoms 
increased, and no new ones appeared. She slept quietly, and 
the following morning, twenty hours after taking the medicine, 
most of the symptoms had disappeared without any crisis; the 
sore throat only continued, but in a less degree, till the evening, 
when it went off. The following day she was lively, and ate 
and played as usual. I gave her a second dose, and she 
remained perfectly well; while two other children of the family 
H 2 
