Bacillinum Tuberculinum And Aviaire The Viruses Of Tuberculosis
PREPARATION.--Triturate in the usual way.
(The literature on these several preparations is so
extensive that we must confine ourselves to the paper
read by Dr. Francois Cartier, Physician to the Hospital
St. Jacques, Paris, at the International Homoeopathic
Congress, 1896, it covering the ground more completely
than any other. For fuller information on Bacillinum
the reader is referred to Dr. J. Compton Burnett's book,
the New Cure for Consumption.)
I must disclaim any intention of traversing afresh the pathogenesy of
Tuberculin, or of instituting an examination into the various
treatises put forth on the subject of the virus of tuberculosis by the
allopathic as well as by the homoeopathic school.
The materia medica of Tuberculin takes its rise in the complex result
of the use of Koch's lymph, in experiments upon animals, and in certain
symptoms observed by those who have experimented upon themselves with
different products of tuberculous nature. I shall therefore indicate the
published sources, and I specially desire to place before the
Homoeopathic Congress of London the tuberculous virus under certain
aspects which are perhaps new; and if my conclusions seem somewhat
paradoxical I am content to accept, with a good grace, the criticisms of
my colleagues.
Fourteen years anterior to the researches of Koch, Hering, Swan and
Biegler availed themselves, as a homoeopathic remedy, of the
maceration of tuberculous lungs, and of the sputa of tuberculous
subjects.
Dr. J. Compton Burnett in his book, "A Cure for Consumption," several
years before Koch's experiments, noticed symptoms resulting from taking
the preparation which he calls Bacillinum.
Drs. de Keghel[C] and J. H. Clarke[D] instituted an inquiry into the
symptoms produced by the employment of Koch's lymph in the case of
tuberculous and non-tuberculous patients.
[C] L' Union Homeopathique, vol. v, No. 3.
[D] Homoeopathic World, vol. xxvi, No. 304.
Dr. Mersch[E] published a pathogenesy, based to a large extent upon that
of Dr. de Keghel; it is an excellent work.
[E] "On Tuberculin," an extract from the Journal Belge d'
homeopathie, 1895.
Dr. d'Abzen,[F] of Lisbon, sent to the Tuberculosis Congress of 1895, at
Coimbra, a study of the works of Koch and Pasteur, and an enumeration of
the treatises published by homoeopathists.
[F] Pathogenese, sua importancia.
We must notice also an English translation of Dr. Mersch's pathogenesy,
by Dr. Arnulphy, of Chicago, in which special attention is paid to the
symptoms observed in healthy and non-tuberculous persons, with some
original remarks about Tuberculin. It is published in the Clinique
for this year (February, 1896).
Nor must we overlook a series of writers who have published isolated
observations of the cases of persons cured with Tuberculin. Such are
Drs. Lambreghts, Joussett, Zoppritz, Horace Holmes, Richardson, Young,
Clarke, Pinart, Youman, U. H. Merson, Snow, Lamb, Clarke, Ebersole, W.
James, Kunkel, A. Zoppritz, Steinhauf, Van den Berghe, &c.
Finally, for my own part, in my articles in L'Art Medical, published
three years ago, and in the Hahnemannian Monthly (July, 1894), I have
insisted on homoeopathic action of the viruses of tuberculosis.
In certain of the pathogenesies of Tuberculin we find thrown pell-mell
together symptoms appertaining to Koch's lymph, as well as others which
belong to the product baptized by several names, such as Bacillinum
and Tuberculin, in the recommendation of which Hering and Swan, and
Dr. J. Compton Burnett, in England, have made themselves conspicuous.
Bacillinum--since it must be distinguished from Koch's
Tuberculin--is a maceration of a typical tuberculous lung.[G] Koch's
lymph is an extract in glycerine of dead tuberculous bacilli. The former
is compound natural infection; the latter is a product of laboratory
experiment. In the one, various bacteriological species are associated
which give, clinically, an appearance of cachexia and of hectic fever;
from the other we may sometimes observe vascular, cardiac, renal changes
having no connection with the clinical "syndrome" of pulmonary
tuberculosis. To place these products together in the same pathogenesy
gives an absolutely wrong sense, and the fact that both contain Koch's
bacillus gives no excuse for confounding them. In my opinion there are,
from a homoeopathic point of view, distinct differences between
Bacillinum and the Koch's lymph.
[G] Dr. J. Compton Burnett, in his book, "New Cure for
Consumption," p. 129, makes this remark: "The best way to get
some really good Bacillinum is to take a portion of the
lung of an individual who has died of genuine bacillary
tuberculosis pulmonum, choosing a good-sized portion from the
parietes of the cavity and its circumjacent tissue, as herein
will be found everything pertaining to the tuberculous
process--bacilla, debris, ptomaines and tubercles in all
its stages (such was practically the origin of the matrix of
my Bacillinum) and preparing by trituration in spirit. In
this way nothing is lost."
Experimentally Koch's bacillus, like many other microbes, does not
reproduce a clinical symptom-group; and we homoeopaths must have an
assemblage of clearly-defined symptoms before prescribing a poison on
homoeopathic principles. Such is unfortunately the case with many
other microbes in pure culture. The experimental diphtheria does not
resemble clinical diphtheria. The pneumococcus, pathogenetic of
pneumonia, is met with in many other diseases, such as pleurisy,
salpingitis, meningitis, etc. Koch's bacillus, too, sometimes remarkably
mild in its effects, and seeming to meet with no reaction in the system,
evolves aside as in the verrucous tuberculosis; while at other times
nothing is able to arrest the action of this terrible microbe, and the
world still waits in vain for the man who shall find the means of
combatting it. The toxins of tuberculosis are far from reproducing
clinical tuberculosis; yet even here we find a curious aspect sometimes
assumed by certain poisons drawn from the pure cultivation of microbes.
We cannot produce with Tuberculin symptoms analogous to those of real
tuberculosis--as it is possible, for instance, to produce tetanus with
the toxine alone, Tetanin.
As a general rule, in the case of a healthy man, Koch's lymph would not
develop any reaction, its effects manifesting themselves in a febrile
congestion, which betrays the presence of tubercles. In our pathogeneses
(those of Mersch-Arnulphy), we note the following symptoms--"catarrhal
pneumonia with soft hepatisation, and tendency to abscess formation; at
post-mortems it is not a gelatinous or fibrinous exudation which oozes
out from the alveoli, but an opaque and watery fluid; 'never,' so says
Virchow, 'is there found the characteristic lesion of croupous
pneumonia.'" A pneumonia from which issues an aqueous and opaque
liquid! I confess I do not understand it.
Experimentally this same lymph of Koch gives symptoms of inflammation of
the arteries which are not found in clinical tuberculosis.
Animals inoculated with progressive doses of Avian tuberculin, or with
serum of tuberculous animals, undergo wasting and loss of appetite, and
other general symptoms. They may die of cachexia, or may develop an
isolated abscess; but they do not present characteristic symptoms as
they would under the action of Cantharis, of Phosphorus, or of
Lead.
Finally, inoculation with dead bacilli may produce real tuberculosis.
In the pathogenesy put forth by homoeopathists, pulmonary symptoms do
not occupy a prominent place. Dr. Burnett, who has experimented on
himself with Bacillinum, notes at the end of his symptoms, after the
headache, a slight and almost insignificant cough.
In explaining the clinical forms of infectious complaints, we are
frequently forced to admit the increasingly preponderant part played by
association of microbes--as it is the frequent case in diphtheria--and
especially the modifications which depend directly on the disposition of
the organ attacked, and not upon the action of the microbe itself.
An examination of the above considerations leads me to the following
conclusions:
1. That the importance of the materia medica of the tubercular virtues
ought not to be exaggerated. There are few characteristic symptoms to
take off; it is more wise to guide oneself in the homoeopathic
application of the therapeutics by the clinical symptoms of the
evolution of the various tuberculosis, rather than by the intoxication
produced by their active products, the Tuberculins.
2. Koch's lymph, Bacillinum and Avian tuberculin must be studied
separately, clinically as well as experimentally. Bacillinum presents
symptoms very different from those of Avian tuberculin, and
especially from those of Koch's lymph; and I intend to divide my remarks
into three parts, corresponding to these three substances, which have
actually become homoeopathic remedies.
* * * * *
At the time of the introduction of the ever-memorable Koch's lymph,
there were included under the head of poisonings by this drug vascular
lesions, as I have mentioned above, acute arteritis, arterio-sclerosis,
changes in the vessels of the heart and the kidneys, and acute
nephritis. Apropos of acute nephritis, the supposition was that the
kidney became congested because of the presence in that part of certain
tubercular islets, and that the kidney responded, like the tuberculous
lung, under the influence of the Tuberculin, by acute congestion.
However this might be, these vascular lesions drew attention to the
homoeopathicity of Koch's lymph in nephritis. Dr. Jousset has
experimented in it with encouraging results, using homoeopathic
dilutions, in Bright's disease; and at the meeting of the Societe
Homoeopathique Francaise on April 18, 1895, Drs. Tessier, Silva and
Jousset, father and son, mentioned the diminution of albumen in cases of
chronic and incurable nephritis, and the appearance of that substance in
acute cases.
Dr. Arnulphy, in a series of articles in the Chicago Clinique, which I
have read attentively, speaks favorably of Koch's lymph in
homoeopathic dilutions in cases of tuberculosis. Personally I have not
used it, and I am loth to pass judgment on observations recorded in
every good faith. I would merely remark to my honorable colleague that
Koch's lymph was used in our school in all the homoeopathic dilutions
possible at the moment of its far-resounding discovery--a fact which he
should know as well as myself. To mention only one instance--Drs. Simon,
V. L. Simon Boyer and Chancerel used the drug at the Hahnemann Hospital
in Paris at the time of the arrival in France of the first consignment
of lymph from Germany; and I am nearly certain that there is not at this
time a single country where homoeopathists have not used this remedy
in all the infinitesimal dilutions. Homoeopaths and allopaths have
actually taken pretty much the same side as regards the primitive
formula put forward by Koch (I am not now speaking of trials of new
tuberculins); and Dr. Arnulphy would be fortunate enough were he able to
revive its credit after its several years' oblivion as a cure of
tuberculosis.
Clinically this lymph of Koch has led to wonderful cures in lobular
pneumonia, for it produces pneumonia, broncho pneumonia, and congestion
of the lungs in the tuberculous patient. Its homoeopathic action would
thus appear more trustworthy than its isopathic, and Dr. Arnulphy makes
this remark: "I make bold to state that no single remedy in our materia
medica, not excepting Ipecac, Iodine, Tartar emetic, and even
Phosphorus, approaches the singular efficacy of Tuberculin in
well-authenticated cases of that affection (broncho pneumonia, be it) in
the child, the adult, or the aged. Its rapidity of action in some cases
is little short of wonderful, and all who have used it in this line are
unanimous in their unbounded praise of its working."
The four cases quoted by Dr. Mersch (Journal Belge d' Homeopathie,
November, 1894, January and May, 1895) are very instructive:
The first is that of a member of the Dutch Parliament who had contracted
a pneumonia which reached a chronic stage. While undergoing a relapse
his expectoration assumed a rusty-red color, which color disappeared
completely in three days on treatment with Tuberculin 30th.
The second case is that of a person who was seized, after an attack of
measles, with broncho-pneumonia. On the fifth day Dr. Mersch prescribed
Tuberculin 6th. In a day or two the condition of the chest was
completely altered.
In the third case an old lady was likewise attacked with
broncho-pneumonia, together with digestive troubles, and was for a long
time in a serious state. After the lapse of a single night, which was a
rather distressing one, under the action of the remedy the amelioration
was great, and it was with difficulty that Dr. Mersch found a touch of
bronchitis in the very place where the day before he had heard nothing
but the tubular souffle. The prescription ran: Tuberculin 6th, eight
packets of ten globules each, one to be taken every two hours.
Finally, in a fourth case, the patient was a lady of vigorous physique,
and twenty-five years of age, who had capillary bronchitis, combined
with the symptoms of angina pectoris. Dr. Mersch had once more had an
opportunity of viewing with astonishment the rapidity with which the
therapeutic action of Tuberculin may be manifested in such cases.
* * * * *
Bacillinum deserves study from two points of view, isopathically in
the treatment of tuberculosis, homoeopathically in the treatment of
affections of the respiratory organs without tuberculosis. To fully
understand its action it is necessary to know with exactness its
composition. Dr. J. Compton Burnett has christened it Bacillinum,
because he recognized in its lower dilutions the presence of Koch's
bacilli. As a matter of fact, Bacillinum contains in its elements
everything that a cavity of a tuberculous lung is capable of containing;
that is to say, many other things besides Koch's bacillus. The bacillus
of Koch is feebly pyogenetic, and the purulent contents of the cavities
include pyogenetic staphylococci and streptococci, to say nothing of the
organic products which play a large part in the production of the hectic
fever of tuberculosis. It is a combination of toxins, then, which
constitutes Bacillinum, and especially of toxins of a purulent nature.
I lay stress upon this last fact, as it goes to sustain the opinion that
I hold on the action of Bacillinum.
The infinitesimal dose of Homoeopathy is in no way inimical to the
entrance of all the elements constituting a substance into its materia
medica. The salts of potassium owe their effect to their base as well
as to their acid; Graphites is analogous to Carbo and Ferrum,
because it contains both carbon and iron; Hepar sulphuris calcareum
acts by reason of its sulphur as well as of its lime. Bacillinum,
then, combines in its action all its constituent products, owing its
efficacy to its suppurative microbes as well as its inclusion of Koch's
bacillus.
This method of viewing the matter, which is peculiar to myself, permits
me to include in one and the same category the action of Bacillinum in
consumption and its action in non-tuberculous bronchitis.
I have studied conscientiously the action of Bacillinum in
tuberculosis, and I must confess that I am looking out still for an
authentic case of cure by this remedy. Nevertheless, in the midst of the
paucity of drugs for the treatment of tuberculosis, I am happy to state
that Bacillinum has produced in my hands considerable amelioration of
the symptoms of this disease. Perhaps in certain cases it produces what
Bernheim would call "la treve tuberculeuse." But sooner or later the
drug, after ameliorating the symptoms, loses its effect, and the disease
again gets the upper hand. I wish I could be as optimistic as Dr. J.
Compton Burnett in his interesting book, "A New Cure for Consumption;"
but that is impossible.
In looking over my observations I find that the symptom which has always
undergone the greatest mitigation has been the expectoration. When
Bacillinum acts on tuberculosis the sputum is less abundant, less
purulent, less green, and more a[=e]rated. It is this which has always
struck me most in the action of Bacillinum. It is rarely that a
patient satisfied with the remedy fails to remark, "I expectorate less."
In cases of dry cough at the beginning of tuberculosis I have noticed
that the drug evidently arrests the tubercular process.
I would most severely criticise, as well for myself as for others, cases
of so-called "cure of tuberculosis." There certainly are persons in whom
the disease does not develop. These may have been accidentally
infected, and their phagocytes may have struggled against their microbe
foe. But in the case of an individual in whom the tubercle finds a
suitable field for development, it is the merest chance that he entirely
recovers without ulterior relapse; mostly it is a seeming cure, caused
by a time of pause in the microbian pullulation.
Last year I had under my care, at the Hospital St. Jacques, a truly
extraordinary case. It has been followed out by Dr. Jousset, by Dr.
Cesar, head of the hospital laboratory, and by the house-physicians. It
was that of a woman who entered the hospital suffering from influenza,
and who, a few days after a slight amelioration of her symptoms, was
attacked with a pulmonary congestion, clearly localized in the top of
the left lung, and accompanied by all the clinical symptoms of
tuberculosis--rales and moist crepitation, dulness, exaggeration of the
thoracic vibration, nummular expectoration, fever, perspiration,
spitting of blood--everything was there. Examination of the sputa showed
distinctly the presence of Koch's bacilli. Everyone at the hospital
diagnosed tuberculosis, myself the first. I gave her Avian tuberculin
and in three weeks all the symptoms had disappeared. That woman left the
hospital completely cured, and a year afterwards her health was still
perfect. In my opinion this patient never had consumption; she was
attacked with pseudo-phymic bronchitis, a complication which is very
often found with influenza, and which may very easily be mistaken for
tuberculosis; and in spite of the presence in the sputa of Koch's
bacillus I would not register it as a case of tuberculosis, because, in
contradistinction to that single case, I could mention twenty cases of
tuberculosis whose symptoms neither Avian tuberculin nor any other
such drug has cured.
There is absolutely no connection between the clinical evolution of real
tuberculosis and observations based on the autopsies of old persons
whose lungs contain cavities, but whose death was not due to
tuberculosis. To admit, with Professor Brouardel, that three-fourths of
those who have died a violent death are possessed of tuberculous
lesions, whose existence was not suspected while the subject was living,
would be running absolutely counter to clinical experience. The time is
probably at hand when the different kinds of tuberculosis will be
distinguished and separated, as we distinguish and separate the varieties
of serious pleurisy and purulent pleurisy, of broncho-pneumonia arising
from the presence of pneumococci, of streptococci, or of staphylococci.
Malassez has already described cases of pseudo-tuberculosis, or
zoogleic-tuberculosis, whose existence has only been acknowledged of
late years. Courmont has discovered a pseudo-bacillosis of a bovine
origin. We have a pseudo-bacillosis of a strepto bacillar origin, not to
mention the "professional" tuberculoses, such as that to which persons
are exposed who have to breathe the fumes of charcoal.
To return to Bacillinum, I consider this remedy as a powerful
moderator of the muco-purulent secretion of consumption. While
diminishing the secretion it modifies the auscultation; there is less
thick sputum, the cavities are drier, the peri-tuberculosis congestion
less intense. The clinical symptoms follow those of the auscultation; as
the patient expectorates less he is less feeble, coughs less, gains
strength, and regains his spirits; but the tubercle remains untouched.
The peri-tuberculous congestion only is diminished, as one may observe
with the naked eye when Koch's lymph is employed in the amelioration of
lupus. The peri-tuberculous inflammation disappears; the skin seems
healthy, but the yellow tubercle remains as it was, and the patient is
still uncured. Such are the limits I assign to Bacillinum in its
action on consumption.
Far more potent is the part played by Bacillinum in non-tuberculous
pulmonary affections, for the simple reason that the struggle is with a
less redoubtable opponent. Ebersole, Young, Zoppritz, Burnett, James,
Holmes, Jousset, Steinhauf have published cases of the cure of acute
bronchitis, influenza diarrhoea, syphilitic eruptions, cystitis,
ringworm of the scalp, nephritis, idiocy, retarded dentition, cretinism,
gout, rheumatism, etc., with Tuberculin or Bacillinum.
If we wish to prescribe Bacillinum successfully in non-tuberculous
affections, we must observe, on auscultation, symptoms analogous to
those which are perceptible in tuberculosis. The peculiar
characteristics which indicate Bacillinum for non-tuberculous maladies
of the respiratory organs are, in my opinion, the two following: The
first is oppression; the second, muco purulent expectoration. These
two phenomena show themselves always in the last stage of tuberculosis;
that is to say, together with the products contained in the preparation
of Bacillinum. Dyspnoea resulting from bronchial and pulmonary
obstruction caused by a super-abundant secretion from the mucous
membrane is marvellously relieved by Bacillinum. I put forward this
fact, not on the evidence of a single isolated observation, but on that
of several cases conscientiously studied. Such expectoration leads to
the auscultation of sub-crepitant rales, sounding liquid and gurgling,
having some analogy to the moist sounds of tuberculosis.
This power of Bacillinum to relieve oppression in pulmonary catarrh is
in no way surprising from the point of view of the law of similars; for
in the acute and infectious stage of tuberculosis the dyspnoea is a
characteristic symptom, and is far more distressing than the cough. I
have read with pleasure in the work of Dr. Mersch, of Brussels, on
Tuberculin, of a fact which corroborates my statement as to the
influence of Bacillinum over catarrhal dyspnoea. After the sixth
dose the patient, who was suffering from bronchial asthma, was seized
with violent intercostal pains, with augmented cough; but the oppression
entirely disappeared after the first day, and did not return even three
months after the treatment had ceased.
In L' Art Medical of January, 1894, and in the Hahnemannian Monthly
of July, 1894, I published the case of an old man of eighty years of
age, suffering from broncho-pneumonia, who, in the last stage of
asphyxia, had been saved by Bacillinum. Two years ago I was called
upon to treat another octogenarian who, as the result of a cold,
developed an obstruction in the bronchial tubes, and at the basis of the
lungs. He passed sleepless nights in a sitting posture, striving to draw
deep inspirations. Phosphorus, Arsenic, and Stibium produced no
relief. I gave him Bacillinum 30th, and he slept the whole night
through. Doses of this remedy, administered at longish intervals,
always produced a remarkable amelioration. Last year I was called to the
house of an upholsterer. He preferred not going to bed at all to passing
the night in bed without closing his eyes. He had humid asthma with
incessant cough, which ended by causing him to eject thick yellow and
puriform mucus. For eight days he took Arsenic and Blatta, and for a
whole week he passed the nights without sleeping. From the day he took
Bacillinum he was able to sleep. I saw him again this year in good
health. Once or twice he was attacked with the same bronchorrhea, and
had my prescription made up at the chemists, with the same success. This
year, too, I have given Bacillinum to several patients at the Hopital
St. Jacques for the same symptoms, and it has never yet failed me.
When I am called upon to treat a patient suffering from an obstruction
of the bronchial tubes occasioned by mucus, which is frequently thick
and opaque and puriform--an obstruction extending to the delicate
bronchial ramification, and causing oppression more frequently than
cough, I turn my thoughts at once to Bacillinum. Bacillinum is a
drug for old people, or, at any rate, for those whose lungs are old; for
those chronically catarrhal, or whose pulmonary circulation is enfeebled
without regard to the age of the subject; for those who have dyspnoea,
and who cough with difficulty from inaction of the respiratory ducts;
for the humid asthmatic, the bronchorrheal, who feel suffocated at
night; and, finally, for those who, after taking cold, are straightway
attacked with pulmonary congestion. Here, I believe, is the exact
sphere of action of Bacillinum as a homoeopathic remedy.
Bacillinum has been stigmatized as an unstable product. I consider
this reproach ill-founded. Bacillinum is no more unstable than
Psorinum, which is an approved remedy in Homoeopathy. Typical
tuberculous lungs contain practically almost invariable elements. Do not
the microbes produced by cultivation and the animal extracts show any
variation in quality, and do they not change in the long run?
Like most homoeopathists who have made use of Bacillinum, I think it
is best given in the high dilutions and at long intervals. Dr. J.
Compton Burnett and Van der Berghe recommended the higher potencies--the
1000th, 100,000, etc., whereas I content myself with the 30th, which
satisfies every requirement. As regards the intervals which must elapse
between the doses, certain writers recommend from one to two weeks. In
acute cases I generally give six globules of Bacillinum 30th every two
or three days; and in chronic cases of tuberculosis, etc., one dose
about twice a week.
We are no longer permitted to include in the same description the
tuberculosis of birds and that of mammals. Although the two bacilli, as
far as form and color are concerned, are absolutely identical, the
evolution of the two forms of tuberculosis presents characteristics so
different that we are forced to study them separately. At this day the
debate is a question of words, and experts discuss whether there are two
distinct genera or merely two different species.
It is this characteristic of non-transmissibility from mammals to birds,
and vice versa, which forms the chief difference between the two kinds
of tuberculosis. Strauss failed in his endeavor to inoculate a fowl with
tuberculosis by injecting fifty kilogrammes of tuberculous human sputa,
whereas the fowl, absolutely impervious to human tuberculosis, became
infected when treated with a very slight quantity of the avian
tuberculosis. The guinea-pig, so sensitive to the human microbe,
presented encysted abscesses when treated with the virus of birds; it
dies of cachexia, but never, as far as the naked eye can discern, of
generalized tuberculosis. Rabbits are more sensitive to the avian
infection. Dogs are absolutely refractory. The monkey, so delicate in
our climate, and which almost invariably perishes from tuberculosis, is
uninjured by inoculation from avian virus. The parrot is a remarkable
exception to the general rule; it is the only bird which resists avian
tuberculosis, while, on the other hand, it is sensitive to that of man.
Such facts as these irrefutably differentiate the two kinds of
tuberculosis.
[H] Tuberculosis of Birds. Tuberculosis of Mammals.
Aspect of Extreme softness on Human tuberculous
cultures. glycerine jelly or growths are adherent,
on serum. hard and difficult to
break up even with a
strong platinum wire on
glycerine jelly as well
as on serum.
Medium of Transferred from a Cultivation more difficult.
cultures. solid to a liquid
medium the bacillus
grows rapidly,
having the appearance
of rounded
grains.
Temperature. Develops at a Ceases to develop at
temperature of 45 deg. C. temperatures under 41 deg. C.
Odor. Somewhat sour. More subtle and fresh odor.
Duration. Takes longer to develop, Is with difficulty generated
and may remain again at the end of six
for a year or months. At the end of
thereabouts. eight or ten months loses
its vegetable character.
Seat of the In animals usually In the lung, generally in
tubercles. on the liver, the men, and in certain animals;
spleen, the intestines, in the spleen, the
and the peritoneum. liver, and the glands in
rabbits and guinea-pigs.
Transmissibility.
Only from one bird Mammals are unaffected by
to another, except the tuberculosis of birds,
in the case of the and vice versa.
parrot.
[H] I have tabulated shortly their various characteristics.
Ever since this variety of tuberculosis has been distinguished,
attempts have been made to inoculate or cure human tuberculosis with
that of birds. In our school the thing has been attempted at the Hopital
St. Jacques, where Aviaire has been administered in homoeopathic
dilutions, in potions or through punctures in cases of consumption. As a
matter of fact, neither allopaths nor homoeopaths have succeeded in
obtaining a formula which will cure consumption with the virus of birds.
Amelioration has been noted as with other remedies, but never a series
of authenticated cures. Nevertheless, in every country experiments are
continually being made; we must hope that they will end in a more
decisive success than is at present the case.
Hoping to profit by the homoeopathicity of an active virus, I was, I
think, one of the first who employed Aviaire in non-tuberculous
respiratory affections on the lines of Bacillinum, and I am bound to
say that up to the present my faith in the law of similars has not been
shaken by my experiments.
In L'Art Medical (August, 1895) I published a number of cases in which
I successfully treated localized bronchitis, generally the result of
influenza, and reproducing the symptoms of tuberculosis, with Aviaire.
The most characteristic of all these observations is that of which I
have spoken above. The patient was restored to health as if by magic
with Aviaire within three weeks. Dr. P. Jousset, anticipating my
observations, thus expressed himself in the number of L'Art Medical
preceding the one which contained my remarks: "A young woman entered the
Hopital St. Jacques at the end of January, 1895, with feverish
influenzal bronchitis. At first the patient was treated with small doses
of Sulphate of Quinine, and a little later she took Ipecac and
Bryonia alternately. The fever disappeared and the general condition
improved considerably, and the sub-crepitant rales became confined to
the top of the left lung. The patient continued to expectorate thick
nummular and puriform sputa, as in the influenza. After some days the
disease resumed its sway, the bodily forces diminished, the emaciation
made great progress, and local and general signs indicated rapid
consumption. Bacteriological analysis led to the detection of numerous
Koch's bacilli. I gave over the case at this time, and some weeks
afterwards I learnt with surprise that the patient was well and growing
fat, and that the inoculation of the sputa had produced no effects. The
cure has been maintained for three months, and the young woman has
resumed her employment." I had prescribed Aviaire 100th, five drops a
day, during the whole period of the disease, unaccompanied by any other
remedy.
As I have said before, more than a year afterwards the young woman
continued in good health.
Following this case, Dr. Jousset quoted two analogous instances in his
practice, both of influential bronchitis, in which the sputa contained,
for a certain period, Koch's bacillus. One was cured with Aviaire 6th
and strong doses of Sulphate of Quinine, and the other with Aviaire
6th and twenty drops of Tincture of Drosera, a day.
"What conclusions must I draw from these facts?" says Dr. Jousset. "That
the avian tuberculosis cured the consumption? I have failed too often in
the treatment of ordinary consumption with this remedy to admit that."
That is my opinion also.
Koch's bacillus has been found in the nasal secretions of healthy
hospital nurses, and of students of medicine, as noted by Strauss. Would
it not be possible to come across it accidentally in certain kinds of
expectoration, just as the pneumococcus is found in saliva?
In one of the numbers of La Medecine Moderne of last year there
appeared a short article on the "Influenzas known as pseudo-phymic." The
writer remarked on the strong analogy which certain complications of
pulmonary influenza presented to acute tuberculosis. He observed, among
other forms: 1st, the influenzal bronchitis which affected one of the
summits of the lung, the most difficult form to diagnose from
tuberculosis; 2d, the broncho-pneumonic form; 3d, the pleuro-pneumonic
form, bearing a close resemblance to tuberculous pleurisy. I might
remark that this last form is still little known and ill-defined. The
influenza microbe always imitates to a remarkable degree the microbe of
tuberculosis in certain instances; and if we wish to effect a cure on
the laws laid down by Hahnemann in certain forms of influenzal
bronchitis, we must frequently seek for the simillimum in the virus of
tuberculosis.
I have mentioned oppression as one of the characteristics of
Bacillinum. Now influenzal bronchitis is markedly accompanied by an
incessant cough and by grave general symptoms. There is more frequently
acute than passive, obstructive and dyspnoeic congestion. I am
inclined to prefer Aviaire to Bacillinum in such cases, and I should
like to briefly touch upon certain cases in my practice.
I have under my care a little girl of twelve years of age who has for
two years developed an influenza which rapidly leads to pulmonary
symptoms, always distinctly localized in the top of the left lung. The
mother is tuberculous, and the child, who was born with forceps, has her
left chest less developed than her right. The congestion which
accompanies the influenza is sudden and severe; within twenty-four hours
the lung is invaded, and fine rales are soon heard. Twice running, at
intervals of a year, Aviaire 100th has stifled the symptoms in a few
days. I have seen an analogous case, only with congestion of the base of
the lung.
In my clinical report of the Hopital St. Jacques (in August, 1895) I
note ten cases of acute influenzal bronchitis with incessant cough,
fever, and expectoration, rapidly cured with Aviaire. This year I have
prescribed it with the same success as at the Hopital St. Jacques in
cases of influenzal bronchitis, with active congestion. I will mention
two cases of the pulmonary complications of measles which were rapidly
dissipated by this remedy; but I must also mention a third case of
measles in which Aviaire failed and Bryonia proved successful. The
child had an acute rubeolic laryngitis, and few pulmonary symptoms.
Bryonia was in this case more decidedly indicated than Aviaire.
The dilution of Aviaire which I have always used is the 100th. I give
usually five drops a day.
It seems that Aviaire does not act in diminishing the cough like an
anodyne or a narcotic, but braces up the whole organism. The relief of
debility and the return of appetite are the phenomena which I have
observed in conjunction with the diminution of the cough.
I have given Aviaire 100th for weeks, and even for a month, regularly
every day, without having observed excitement or aggravation. It would
thus appear to be a remedy of long-lasting action, capable in certain
cases of modifying the organism, and of bracing a constitution which has
become enfeebled from the effects of influenza or of suspicious
bronchitis.
In contrast with Bacillinum I have noted, in my observations on
Aviaire, considerable cough and little dyspnoea--an acute
inflammatory, extremely irritating cough, such as one meets with in
acute diseases or sub-acute affections in young people; a cough which
fatigues, and which leads to enfeeblement and loss of appetite--in a
word, a suspicious cough. To conclude my remarks, the utility of
Aviaire in suspicious bronchitis--an expression on which I again lay
stress--I will recall certain indubitable examples of the cure (at the
Hopital St. Jacques) of bronchitis or of pulmonary congestion at the top
of one of the lungs, or of bronchitis on one side only, or of congestion
predominating on one side. These localizations on one side are
sufficiently grave symptoms to warrant apprehension of the hatching of
tuberculosis.
If I were myself attacked, as the result of influenza or measles, or of
some weakening malady, with an incessant tickling and stubborn cough,
with certain closely localized pulmonary symptoms; if I lost my strength
and appetite; if, in a word, I were attacked by bronchitis whose upshot
was highly doubtful, and which caused apprehension of tuberculosis, I
should not hesitate a single moment, with the examples which I have had
before me, to try Aviaire 100th upon myself.
Such is the conclusion of my clinical observations made at Hopital St.
Jacques in August, 1895.
What I said last year I can only repeat with renewed confidence in this;
and I hope that the years which follow will not cause me to alter my
opinion.