THE CHYMIATRIC PRACTICE | OF DR. JOHANN HARTMANN

PHRENITIS

In Phrenitis an inflammation of the brain membranes accompanied by an acute fever, the common or standard medical treatments are applicable. Therefore, the start of treatment for this very acute disease is most correctly made by Venae section bloodletting. This is done without regard for the time of day or whether the stomach is full, in order to divert and evacuate the humors. If the plethora an excess of bodily fluids, especially blood is great, the bloodletting should be repeated on the same day. Due to urgent necessity, it must be administered immediately and in large amounts if the patient's strength allows and the blood is redundant, even if an emollient or cooling clyster enema has not been given or the stomach is full. If, however, age or a loss of strength prevents this, cupping glasses suction cups used to draw blood to the surface are applied to the shoulders and neck with scarification making small incisions in the skin. Care must be taken so that the patient rests and does not lose strength by tossing about. For those suffering from phrenitis, the juice of consolida comfrey mixed with honey and poured into the nostrils is beneficial.

Right at the beginning, the head should also be moistened with oxyrhodinum a mixture of rose oil and vinegar: this itself drives away the humor and alters the condition. An irrigation should be made over the coronal suture the joint between the frontal and parietal bones of the skull after the hair has been shaved, using 2 ounces of rose oil, 1 ounce of chamomile oil, and 1.5 ounces of rose vinegar, applied while lukewarm. If restlessness is particularly troublesome, especially when laborous insomnia attacks the patient's strength and increases the fever in the first days, 10 grains of Laudanum Opiatum an opiate-based sedative should be given immediately. This should be repeated after 8 hours until they have taken half a scruple about 0.6 grams. Indeed, in the absence of Laudanum Opiatum, one may simply dry opium until it can be reduced to a powder, and 6 grains of it may be dissolved in water lily water, or milk, or 3 scruples of a cooling decoction, adding 1 ounce of syrup of poppies. If the patient desires a drink, as always happens, use 2 ounces of water lily water, 6 ounces each of rose and bugloss water, 2 ounces and 1 scruple of syrup of currants or lemon, and 1 scruple of sal prunellae purified saltpeter or 2 ounces and 1 scruple of the mixture; let this be used as a drink. For insomnia, it is not unsuitable to apply a liquid epithema a medicated poultice to the forehead, frequently renewed with dried linens:

• Nightshade water
• Lettuce water, 2 ounces of each
• Rose vinegar, half an ounce
• Laudanum opiate, 1 scruple
• Camphor, 6 grains.

Mix these. The nostrils can also be anointed with the following ointment:

• Poplar ointment, 1 ounce
• Essence of opium, 3 grains.
  Mix. Alternatively, 1 ounce of oil of nutmeg obtained by expression, 1 scruple of laudanum opiate, and half a scruple of the mixture to induce sleep.

To temper the heat of the bile, 10 grains of salt of pearls should often be given with borage or bugloss water. The legs and arms can also be washed with the following decoction:

• 2 ounces of willow leaves
• Water lily
• White vine
• Strong wine
• Roses, 5 scruples of each
• White poppy heads
• And lettuce seeds as desired.
  Make a decoction. Cooling epithemata should also be applied to the heart, to which it is useful to mix 1.5 scruples of essence or extract of saffron, or the saffron itself, and a few grains of camphor. We also apply epithemata to the soles of the feet, to which a little wine vinegar is added for penetration. The face should be washed often with rose vinegar. Then the body is to be purged with extract of rhubarb or its infusion in chicory water. If the disease does not remit after this, it is better to take a young dog, cut it open from the back and remove the intestines, and apply it warm to the crown of the head, sloping toward the front. Or in its place, apply the warm lungs of an animal, or a chicken cut open from the back. If you feel these have cooled, they should be reheated in hot water in which poppy heads and water lily flowers have been boiled, then wiped with a sponge and reapplied. For that external mild and moist heat tempers the internal heat by moistening: indeed, things similar to our own level of heat mitigate the cause of pain, ripen it, make it uniform, and dissipate the unnatural heat by gently thinning it. Thus, let anyone have this recommended to them as a primary remedy for phrenitis. In other matters, proceed according to the prescription for phrenitis, always adding some solution of pearls to the medicines, and in the decline of the disease, a few drops of aurum potabile potable gold: because this, once nature is strengthened, usually expels the remnants of the disease through sweat.

Caution.

IT SHOULD ALSO BE NOTED that the use of stupefacients numbing or sleep-inducing agents must not be continuous, lest there be a transition from phrenitis into lethargy a state of pathological drowsiness or coma. They should also be applied cautiously in those whose strength is already weak, especially external applications, lest the matter in the head coagulate, which could not later be dissipated or resolved due to the weakness of the patient's strength.

Caution.

In the same way, Paraphrenitis inflammation of the diaphragm or delirium and simple delirium and symptoms are mitigated and removed once the disease that caused them is cured.
However, note that if there are omens of a crisis a turning point in the disease or symptomatic signs, or if a rheuma a flow of watery humor is present again, no stupefacients should be used, but only a single or double dose of Laudanum opiate should be offered.

The same medicines are also administered in Mania insanity or madness, following the rules and method of practitioners, in which it is often beneficial to give flowers of antimony and other antimonials mixed with purgatives. Likewise, prepared extract of black hellebore mixed with its corrigents substances that soften the effect of a drug and other purgatives.

The last refuge in this disease, if it does not yield to other medicines, is to apply a potential cautery a chemical agent used to burn tissue to the head between the coronal and sagittal sutures, which is left until enough erosion has occurred that the bare bone appears. Then the skull should be opened with a trepan a surgical drill, and the place should remain open for a month, and the patient will be healed of Mania. Then let the wound be consolidated according to the art of surgery.

EPILEPSIA IN CHILDREN

Epilepsy and similar diseases, which are infamous for the violence and destruction of their paroxysms, have a twofold indication: 1. that which regards the paroxysm itself, and 2. that which regards the very roots of the diseases.

I. Aqua vitae mulierum Water of life for women, otherwise known as Embryonated Balsam given to a pregnant woman in a measure of one spoonful with 3 or 4 drops of our anti-epileptic spirit once every month at the new moon from the fourth month until birth, preserves the fetus from epilepsy. For greater security, this powder is given: 2 ounces of the backbone of a living weasel, not boiled but raw, cleaned well from head to tail and dried, then pulverized. Mix 1 scruple of this powder with 2 scruples each of magistery a precipitate of coral and pearls. The dose is as much as the tip of a knife can hold, given in the pulp of a roasted apple.

II. Children are preserved from epilepsy, or entirely freed so that they are never seized by such a passion in later age, if sweet almond oil mixed with fine sugar (8 scruples to 1 scruple or 3 drams of each) is given to the newborn before they suck milk or eat food. For thus, after they have rested a little from taking this cleansing dose.

Caution.

Take the dung of a black cow while it is still warm, put it in a new pot, and calcine burn to ash it. Give 1 scruple or half a scruple of this to the newborn infant (this is a secret of the Elector of Saxony). Finally, they vomit up a very large amount of pituitous impurities collected in the mother's womb before birth (especially if they inhaled some menstrual fluid while drawing breath), which impurities are the causes of many diseases in children, specifically epilepsy. If they do not vomit, they are at least purged through the bowels. Afterward, when they are bathed, especially during the period after birth, boil fresh willow bark in the bath. Thus, they are preserved not only from epilepsy but also from tabes wasting away (a specific for the drying up of children).

Anti-epileptic spirit for children (see notes on Croll). Give 6, 8, or 9 drops of this with anti-epileptic waters of linden flowers, peony roots, swallow water, cherries, or lavender. Also, black cherries with Langius’s anti-epileptic water, administered both during and after the paroxysm, wonderfully remove the disease in children, especially if given during the first paroxysm.

I have experienced in a small boy of two years, I believe, who suffered almost continuous convulsive paroxysms, the excellence of the spirit of sal ammoniac ammonium chloride. After other remedies were tried in vain, I gave only 4 grains of it in linden flower water, and immediately the convulsions ceased. After an hour I repeated the same dose, by which the boy recovered excellently and is well to this day. However, the volatile salt of urine is far superior, especially if it is sublimated purified by heat into vapor and back to solid with calx of the moon silver oxide or silver nitrate; after one hour it performs what is otherwise ascribed to it. See my Chymiatric Practice, chapter 5, pages 44 and 45 regarding the mercury of the microcosm.

EPILEPSIA IN ADULTS

I. Universal remedies such as vomitives and cathartics should be given first, especially the specific purgative of Paracelsus. Afterward, specifics should be administered, such as:

You will find no better purgatives in epilepsy than mercurials, for example, Mercurius Dulcis calomel or mercurous chloride, white precipitate, etc. The formula can be as follows: 10 grains of white precipitate mercury, 3 grains of troches of alhandal colocynth or bitter apple or jalap resin, and half a scruple of Craton's amber pill mass. Use a sufficient quantity of essence of castor to make pills, the use of which should be continued for some time.

II. Coral for epileptics.

Anti-epileptic Powder

III. Anti-epileptic powder from cinnabar of antimony mercury sulfide made with antimony, which is as follows: 2 ounces of cinnabar of antimony and magistery of coral and pearls, equal parts of each. Another: 6 scruples of native, transparent, and shining cinnabar, pulverized very finely on marble; add 1 scruple each of magistery of coral and pearls, 1 scruple of saffron, and gold leaf diligently ground on a stone. Reduce this to a powder, of which 7 to 17 grains should be given in sage water and repeated often. See above regarding sudorifics.

An anti-epileptic powder of great power.

Another anti-epileptic powder of great power: take half a scruple of Hungarian cinnabar, well washed and purified; soak it with 3 scruples of spirit of vitriol, half a scruple of scrapings of a human skull that was never buried; soak this with spirit of wine and leave it in a warm place for 15 days. Afterward, distill the liquor through a retort, and keep that which remains separately. Take 1.5 scruples of elk hoof and half a scruple of red myrrh; dissolve them in spirit of salt. Separate the solution from the dregs and keep it. Then take half a scruple of saffron and extract a tincture with spirit of wine. Mix all the liquids together and soak the previously prepared, washed, and pulverized cinnabar in them, always drying with a slow heat until you have soaked up all the liquid and it has turned into a dry powder. The dose is 2 to 4 grains with noble wine, spirit of wine, or anti-epileptic water, before and after the paroxysm.

Spirit of the brain

IV. Spirit of the human brain, which is made thus: take the brain of a healthy young man (an adolescent under 24 years) of good constitution who died a violent death. Collect it in pieces with all its membranes, arteries, veins, and nerves, along with the whole spinal marrow. Mash it in a stone mortar and add it to a cucurbit or rather a large vial with linden flower, peony, betony, cherry, and especially lavender waters. Add diaphoretic sweat-inducing medicine used in acute cases to a height of 4 or 5 fingers (more than you add of the other simple ingredients; add also spirit of wine). Let the vessel be hermetically sealed and left for some time, for 1 or 2 years. Afterward, distill it through cohobation repeated distillation over the same substance in a water bath, so that all (or some) of the substance of the brain passes over together. Carefully keep this water after discarding the dregs. From the dregs, after sixfold cohobation and calcination, elicit a salt, which you then join with the spirit made, and keep the whole carefully. The dose is 1 to 3 scruples in suitable vehicles.

NB. If the simple mixture was not added at the beginning due to lack of it, then after the phlegm watery distillate has been gently drawn off in a water bath, add half a part of the simple mixture and proceed as advised. Dose: 1 to 3 scruples.

V. Frog livers, which are prepared thus: collect the livers of 40 green aquatic frogs (not land frogs). Cut them and remove the livers and place them individually on the leaves of a headed cabbage on the side that faces the ground, so that they touch each other. Afterward, let them be dried over a slow fire in new, unglazed pots (an earthen frying pan), covered at the top, so that they can be ground into a very fine powder. Separate them from the cabbage leaves. Then divide the entire powder into 5 equal parts and keep them.

Give one part to the patient after universal remedies on an empty stomach in a small draft of water or appropriate spirit, when the moon has entered Cancer. In the evening, two hours after dinner, give the second part; and so consequently the next day in the morning the third, in the evening the fourth; and on the third day the last part in the morning.

It must be observed, however, that for 2 hours before and after taking the powder, one must abstain from all food and drink. If the patient, especially an adult, sweats on the forehead and temples after taking this medicine, it is a testimony of its exquisite operation. Therefore, if sweat is provoked after the third, fourth, or fifth administration, either in bed or in a steam bath of the whole body, more abundant effects are to be hoped for.

Let them guard themselves against all terror, anger, water and fire, and wine, and let them not see epileptics falling: for the corruption of these things can cause the disease, which either lay hidden for a long time or was already settled, to return. Furthermore, avoid the firing of cannons. Especially, let them studiously avoid all vehement movements of the mind; let them flee drunkenness as if it were a plague.

Diet and the other six non-naturals environmental factors like air, sleep, and exercise should be observed in a very suitable manner and way, lest anything happen that could bring some impediment to this cure.

NB. 1. Only green frogs and no others must be taken, and indeed living ones. 2. This powder can only be made in the months of May, June, July, and until the middle of August; outside these times frogs are useless. 3. When the livers are dried so that they can be pulverized, the cabbage leaves must be diligently separated and then the livers pounded in a mortar. 4. This powder does not last beyond a year, and therefore must be prepared anew each year if necessary.

It can scarcely be said how much benefit comes from this simple medicine. The cure should be instituted in June around the solstice, and if the effect does not correspond in the first year, this cure should be repeated in the second year. Frederick IV, Elector Palatine, who was epileptic from his 15th to his 26th year, was restored by this remedy.

VI. An amulet a protective charm worn on the body from the fruit of an elderberry found growing on a willow tree. 1. Let it be diligently observed where elderberries grow upon willows, especially old ones, which happens often in willow groves where elderberries have been planted near the garden hedges. Here, the ripe grains are gathered by birds, especially the woodpecker. The woodpecker, depositing its excrement after eating the elderberries upon an old willow (upon which other plants or shrubs sometimes grow, namely bittersweet, nettle, and celandine), thus fixes and places the beginnings of the elderberry that grows there. Because the woodpecker suffers from epilepsy, it makes this a noble periapton an amulet worn around the neck for curing a similar disease. Let the shrub be gathered in any month, but better in September and October, when the elderberries have ripened, two days before the full moon, and let it be reserved for use (it can be kept for 12 years); the more tender shoots alone suffice.

The use is as follows: cut one more tender shoot into a tally.