REPORT ON HEMATICS. BY E. H. HYATT, M. D., DELAWARE, OHIO. Mr. President and Gentlemen: At our last assembly I had the honor to read a paper on the action of Hæmatics, or blood medicines; which also forms the topic for discussion to-day. We took occasion then to speak simply of one division of this important branch of therapeutics, (viz) Restorative Hæmatics: those medicines which act in the cure of diseases by supplying or restoring to the blood a natural and wanting material; which want or deficiency forms the basis of morbid or diseased action. At this meeting, (having had the honor to be continued upon this subject,) we propose, briefly, to consider the second division, or Catalytic order of Hæmatics. It is a fact, now well authenticated, that there is a large class of diseases which depend on the presence in the blood of a morbid material, or on a constant working of a morbid process in that fluid, which can only be met, and successfully combated in a direct way by Catalytic Hæmatics; the action of which we now propose to consider. The term Catalytic is derived from the Greek verb kataluo, which signifies to destroy or unbind. Catalytics, therefore, act by destroying the morbid material of the blood, or by counteracting the morbid process which may be going on in that fluid, and then pass out of the body, being unnatural to it. In this they are unlike restoratives. Each restorative has in healthy blood a substance analogous to, or identical with itself, and replaces this when wanting. Their office is supply or substitution. Whenever, then, the action of a morbid poison causes any derangement in the proportion of the normal constituents of the blood, a restorative may supply this defect. Catalytics, on the other hand, encounters the enemy at once, in a most positive and direct way, routs and destroys it, and together, are carried away through the glandular outlets of the body. Catalytics, then, being foreign to the blood, or there being nothing in the blood corresponding to them, do not remain in it to supply a want; but just long enough to perform their work, and then pass out of the system. Another peculiarity in their action is, that even in health they work out their peculiar process in the blood; while restoratives, in that case, exercise no particular influence. Such is the difference between Restorative and Catalytic medicines. Each Catalytic has peculiarities and affinities which distinguish it from all others; and each tends to work out a peculiar process in the blood. And the fact that Catalytic medicines do produce distinct actions in the blood, has proved a stumbling-block to the disciples of Hahnemann. For, in some cases, their action may, to a certain extent, simulate the disease which they tend to cure, and has thus been confounded with it, by this imaginative observer. Their partial resemblance is probably due to the fact that both disease and remedy produce a series of changes in the same set of particles in the blood. If it were not so, the remedy could not meet the disease. But that their actions are essentially different is sufficiently proved by the fact that they counteract or destroy each other. Thus, an acid and an alkali are so far similar that they may both produce heat when mixed with water, and both prove corrosive and destructive to organized tissues; but they are practically contrary, and when brought together they neutralize each other. Catalytics, therefore, produce certain actions, which are contrary or anti to diseased actions, inasmuch as they neutralize them and cannot exist with them. Of the actions of these medicines two things are well known. When they cure a disease they do so definitely, so that it does not, in general, tend to return; and, when they only alleviate it, the improvement effected is more or less permanent; as ague, for example, a truly zymotic disease. The paroxysms may be interrupted by the use of Quinine on the restorative principle, by supplying the wanting and needful material to the blood, and thus restore the lost balance. But the tendency (as is well known,) to a return of the chill still exists, because the poison yet remains active in the blood. But, when ague is cured by the administration of Arsenic, a true anti-periodical Catalytic agent, it does not tend to return, because the poisonous miasma is neutralized by the Catalytic action of the Arsenic. In the second place, Catalytics are found to produce, when long administered, a change in the blood for the worse-a diminution in the amount of fibrine in the red corpuscles. Thus, they are blood impoverishers when given in excess. These considerations alone, when combined with the proof of absorption, are conclusive as to the fact of their being Hæmatic medicines.. Catalytic remedies are chiefly drawn from the mineral kingdom, and consist of metalic salts and other substances which are poisonous when given in large doses. They all have an action in the blood, in some cases similar, in many different, in most distinctive. Antimony, for example, wastes the blood, at the same time it affects the nervous system. Mercury attacks the plastic element of the blood with still greater vigor, produces a fetid material out of it, and often causes a peculiar rash upon the surface. Iodine wastes the body. Saline medicines dissolve the fibrine and waste the blood-as do also the Alkalies. Arsenic, Sulphur, Silver, Zinc, Lead and Copper, have many curious and peculiar blood actions. They deteriorate that fluid and cause eruptive disorders. Each works out a certain and peculiar process in the blood, and materially affects the condition of that fluid. From these considerations, it is apparent that the diseases |