IX. NEURALGIA OF THE INFRA-ALVEOLAR NERVE OF THE LEFT SIDE. F. H. KREBS, M.D., BOSTON, MASS. FEB. 22, 1880, I was called to see Mr. M., eighty-two years of age, who had been suffering for two weeks from neuralgia of the left jaw. The patient had been under the care of a prominent allopathic physician, who treated him secundum artem with hypodermic injection of morphine, the different bromides, and chloral, without permanent relief. At last he ordered sulphuric ether to be inhaled during the paroxysms of pain. In this way two weeks passed, and the patient found himself worse than before. His wife, who had formerly tried homœopathic treatment for herself, at last induced him to have me sent for, to which he reluctantly consented. I found the patient lying on a sofa, with his throat and face bundled up. His face was purple, the conjunctiva discolored yellow, and the eyes suffused; tongue thickly coated; breath foul, and smelling strongly of ether; loss of sleep and appetite; bowels constipated; pulse 90, hard and troubled. On examining the jaw, I found the space where the most pain was experienced completely toothless, but extremely sensitive to the touch. This sensitiveness extended from the chin to the ramus of the jaw. Mastication brought on the pain at once; otherwise he had three or four attacks in twenty-four hours. Each of these paroxysms would throw him into a 102 NEURALGIA OF THE INFRA-ALVEOLAR NERVE. profuse perspiration, and at times the pain was so severe that his groaning could be heard in the neighborhood. The seat of the pain, the fetid breath, and the profuse perspiration without relief, gave me the indications for the remedy. I dissolved a small powder of the third centesimal trituration of mercurius solubilis in a tumbler a quarter full of water, with the direction to take a teaspoonful every two or three hours until relieved. Diet, rye-flour gruel. FEB. 23. — The patient had passed a comfortable night: he had but one attack of pain, less in severity, and of shorter duration. Continued the same remedy at longer intervals. FEB. 24. Had but one slight paroxysm of pain. Omitted the medicine. FEB. 25. After a comfortable night, he had a severe attack of pain soon after breakfast. He was still in agony at the time of my call. I heard him groan before entering the house. The pain extended to the left temple, affecting the glands of the ear; in cther respects he was improving, had less perspiration, tongue cleaning, and more appetite. Seeing no indication for a change in the medicine, I left the same prescription, a teaspoonful to be taken after each paroxysm of pain. FEB. 26. — Immediately after breakfast he had a slight return of the pain. Continued the same medicine. MARCH I. I found the patient up and dressed. His eyes looked natural, tongue clean, and appetite good. No more medicine. This case, in itself quite insignificant, is nevertheless worthy to be reported. Hahnemann's method accomplished in a few days what the so-called scientific treatment had been unable to do in two weeks. AN INTERESTING CASE. BY M. V. B. MORSE, M.D., MARBLEHEAD. On the seventh day of February, 1883, I was called to attend Mrs. R., who was suffering from an attack of pneumonia at about the eighth month of gestation. She had been the mother of five children, and was now forty-four years of age. Her health had been extremely poor when compared with her previous periods of gestation. She had not been able to work, or even to take exercise, for at least three months previous to this attack, without quite an effort on her part. She was sick about three weeks, and then began to improve; which improvement continued until the twenty-eighth day of March, when she commenced to complain of a cold, heavy, dead feeling in her bowels (as she expressed herself), accompanied by extreme dyspnoea. This prevented her from lying down, and continued until five o'clock on the morning of March 31, when the membranes suddenly ruptured, unaccompanied by any pain. She now commenced to have short labor pains, associated with more or less nausea. This condition continued until about five o'clock P.M., when she was delivered of a dead male child which weighed five pounds and a half, and, about twenty minutes later, of a boy weighing four pounds and a half. The child was in a very feeble and exhausted condition, with a slight abnormal fulness of the abdomen. The nurse also noticed the enlargement, and called my attention to the matter, wishing to know the cause. I could assign no other cause than a changed condition of the blood, caused by the death of one fœtus nearly three days previous to delivery, as both received their blood-supply from the same placenta. I was not apprehensive as to the result, as I considered it of such a nature that it would soon disappear. The mother was also very much exhausted, having a number of faint spells during the night, without the least desire for nourishment. The next day, while in this feeble condition, she was attacked with severe pains, accompanied by extreme swelling and soreness of her left limb, which proved to be a source of much suffering for the first week, when she commenced gradually to improve. The child for the first week did not have strength enough to nurse the mother; but the milk was drawn, and the child fed with it. During the first week the child gained strength enough to nurse, after which its appetite began to improve, and the child to increase in weight. But there was no increase in the size of its limbs in fact, they began to diminish. When the abdomen commenced to increase in size, the limbs became more and more attenuated; and, as the bowels enlarged, the child began to be troubled with dyspnoea, which increased to such extent that it could not lie down in any position with any degree of comfort. The distention of the bowels became so great, and the dyspnoea so extreme, the father and mother were obliged to hold him in their arms at least sixteen hours out of twentyfour. The infant was in this condition when I obtained the consent of the family to have its photograph taken, as it did not seem possible for it to live but a short time. It was ten months old when it had its photograph taken, weighing seventeen pounds, and measured twenty-five inches and a half around the abdomen at the navel. In one week from this time, it was taken with a lung fever, which aggravated the dyspnoea, and increased the respiration to an alarming extent. For a number of days its respiration continued for at least seventy-five times per minute, when it seemed impossible for the child to live from one hour to another. At this stage of the disease, Dr. N. R. Morse visited the child, with a number of other physicians, all of whom decided there was no possible help for it. It continued in this way five or six days, when its respiration began to be a little improved, although the dyspnoea was quite extreme. From the time it was sick with the fever, until it was one year old, the abdomen increased in size until it measured twenty-seven inches and a half. One day there would be a distention of |