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AN EPITOME OF THE Homoeopathic Healing Art,

CONTAINING THE NEW DISCOVERIES AND IMPROVEMENTS TO THE PRESENT TIME;

DESIGNED

FOR THE USE OF FAMILIES, FOR TRAVELERS ON THEIR JOURNEY,

AND AS A POCKET COMPANION FOR THE PHYSICIAN.

BY B. L. HILL, M. D.,

Professor of General, Special, and Surgical Anatomy Late Professor of
Surgery, Obstetrics, and Diseases Females and Children, in the W. H.
College, Author of the "Homoeopathic Practice of Surgery," &c., &c.


CLEVELAND, OHIO: JOHN HALL, 72 SUPERIOR STREET.

CHICAGO, ILL. HALSEY & KING, 162 CLARK STREET.

1859.


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859,

By B. L. HILL, M. D.,

In the Clerk's office of the District Court in and for the Northern
District of Ohio.

PINKERTON & NEVINS' Print, Cleveland, O.


       *       *       *       *       *


TABLE OF REMEDIES.


In this table I have affixed to the remedies figures designating the
dilutions or the attenuations, at which, under ordinary circumstances, I
would advise their use. The strongest, or mother tinctures, marked with
an apha (0), the dilutions or triturations to be of the decimal degrees
of attenuation, are marked 1, 2, 3, &c., to designate that they are to
be used at 1-10th, 1-100th, 1-1000th, &c., the strength of the pure
drugs.

The list for a full FAMILY CASE contains all the remedies recommended in
this book for diseases that may be safely trusted to unprofessional
hands.

The TRAVELER'S CASE needs only such medicines as are prescribed for the
diseases which he would be most liable to contract on his journey;
though I have put in the principal ones used in domestic practice, so
that the Case will do for family use.

The CHOLERA CASE is only supplied with such remedies as are particularly
applicable to that disease; useful, however, for many other complaints.

TRAVELER'S CASE.

   1 Aconite                p 3|15 Hydrastus Can.          p 1
   2 Apis Mellifica         p 3|16 Ipecac                  p 3
   3 Arsenicum              p 3|17 Mercurius sol.          p 3
   4 Arnica                tr 0|18 Mercurius cor.         tt 2
   5 Arum triphyllum       tt 2|19 Macrotin               tt 1
   6 Belladonna             p 3|20 Nux Vom.                p 3
   7 Baptisia               p 1|21 Phosphorus              p 3
   8 Bryonia                p 3|22 Phos. acid              p 3
   9 Colocynth              p 3|23 Podophyllin             p 2
   10 China Sul.           tt 1|24 Rhus toxicod.           p 3
   11 Chamomilla            p 3|25 Secale                  p 3
   12 Copaiva               p 2|26 Tartar emetic           p 3
   13 Cuprum                p 3|27|Veratrum                p 3
   14 Eupatorium Aro.       p 1|


CHOLERA CASE.

   1 Aconite                p 3|8 Laurocerasus             p 4
   2 Arsenicum              p 3|9 Opium                    p 3
   3 Belladonna             p 3|10 Merc. cor.              p 3
   4 Camphor               tr 0|11 Phosphorus              p 3
   5 Carbo Veg.             p 5|12 Phos. acid              p 3
   6 Cuprum                 p 3|13 Secale                  p 3
   7 Ipecac                 p 3|14 Veratrum                p 3

FULL FAMILY CASE.

   Tr. is used for tincture, Tt. trituration, P. pellets.

   REMEDIES.                 |CONTRACTIONS.
                             |
    1 Aconitum.              |Aconite       Tr 0 1 p 3
    2 Althaea.                |
    3 Apis mellifica.        |Apis mel.        0 p 2 3
    4 Arsenicum.             |Arsenicum          0 p 3
    5 Arnica.                |Arnica,            0 p 3
    6 Arum triphyllum.       |Arum triphyllum,  0 tt 2
    7 Belladonna.            |Bell.           tr 1 p 4
    8 Baptisia tinctoria.    |Baptisia,         tr 0 2
    9 Bryonia.               |Bryonia,          tr p 3
   10 Carbo. Vegetabilis.    |Carbo. Veg.       tr p 4
   11 Cantharides.           |Cantharides,    tr 0 p 3
   12 Colocynthis.           |Colocynth,     tr or p 3
   13 China Sulphuricum.     |China Sul.          tt 1
   14 Chamomilla.            |Chamomilla     tr or p 3
   15 Copaiva.               |Copaiva         tr 1 p 2
   16 Cauloph. Thalictroides.|Caulophyllum        tr 1
   17 Cuprum.                |Cuprum,              p 3
   18 Cuprum Aceticum.       |
   19 Cornus Sericea.        |Cornus sericea, tr 0 p 2
   20 Conium maculatum.      |Conium mac.     tr 0 p 3
   21 Coffea.                |Coffea               p 4
   22 Eryngium Aquaticum.    |Eryngium Aquaticum     2
   23 Eupatorium aromaticum  |Eupatorium aro. tr 0 p 2
   24 Hepar Sulphur.         |
   25 Hydrastus Canadensis.  |Hydrastin       tr 0 p 2
   26 Hamamelis Virginica.   |Hamamelis Vir.  tr 0 p 3
   27 Ipecacuanha.           |Ipecac        tr 0 p 2 3
   28 Laurocerasus.          |Laurocerasus         p 3
   29 Mercurius solubilis.   |Merc.               tr 3
   30 Mercurius corrosivus.  |Mercurius cor.  tt 2 p 3
   31 Macrotys Racemosa.     |Macrotin,           tr 2
   32 Nux Vomica.            |Nux                  p 3
   33 Opium.                 |Opium                p 3
   34 Phosphorus.            |Phosphorus,     tr 2 p 3
   35 Phosphoric acid.       |Phos. acid,     tr 2 p 3
   36 Podophyllum peltatum.  |Podophyllin,    tt 1 p 3
   37 Pulsatilla.            |Pulsatilla             3
   38 Rhus Toxicodendron.    |Rhus Tox.            p 3
   39 Secale cornutum.       |Secale,         tr 1 p 3
   40 Santonine.             |Santonine,          tr 1
   41 Spongia.               |Spongia,             p 4
   42 Tartar Emetic.         |Tartar emetic   tr 2 p 3
   43 Thuya.                 |
   44 Veratrum alba.         |Veratrum.            p 3




AN EPITOME

OF THE

HOMOEOPATHIC HEALING ART.




Introduction.


This work contains in a _condensed form_ a very large portion of all
that is practically useful in the treatment of the diseases ordinarily
occurring in this country. The symptoms are given with sufficient
minuteness and detail to enable any one of ordinary capacities of
observation to distinguish the complaint; and the treatment is so
_plainly_ laid down, that no one need make a mistake. If strictly
followed, it will, in a very large proportion of cases, effect cures,
even when administered by those unacquainted with the medical sciences
generally. It has been written from necessity, to meet the demands of
community for a more definite work in a concise form, that should
contain remedies of the most reliable character, with such directions
for their use as can be followed by the _traveler on his journey_, or by
families at home, when no physician is at hand. It might seem to some
preposterous to speak of a _demand_ for another _domestic_
Homoeopathic Practice, when half a score or more of such works are now
extant, some having come out within a very short time. The demand
arises, not from the want of Books, but from the defects of those that
exist. There is in most of them, too little point and definiteness in
the prescriptions, and a kind of vague doubting recommendation
noticeable to all, which carries the impression at once to every reader,
of a want of _confidence_ by the author in his own directions.

Again, in some of the works there is too much confusion, the symptoms
not being laid down with sufficient clearness to indicate the best
remedy. Some of the works are unnecessarily large and cumbersome, while
the real amount of valuable practical matter is comparatively meager,
obliging the reader to pay for paper and binding without the contained
value of his money. I do not claim entire perfection for this work, yet
I do claim it to be several steps in advance of the books now extant.

       *       *       *       *       *

This work is my own, being the result of my practical experience and
observation. I have introduced several remedies that, though they are
familiar to me, and have been used in my practice for many years, are,
nevertheless, comparatively strange and new to most of the profession.
Of some we have no extensive provings yet published, still the provings
have been made, both upon the healthy and the sick. Their use, as
directed in this work, is in strict accordance with their
Homoeopathic relation to the symptoms for which they are prescribed.

Some may object to my practice of giving several remedies in alternation
or rotation and in quick succession. To such I would say, When you try
this mode of practice and on comparing it with the opposite one of
giving only one remedy, and that at long intervals between the doses,
find my mode to be less successful than yours, _then_ it will be time
for you to make your objections. _You_ may rely upon the vague
hypotheses of the books, and give your high dilutions singly, at long
intervals, and let your patients die for want of _real_ treatment, while
I will use lower dilutions and give two or more remedies in quick
succession and cure mine. I only speak what is in accordance with
universal observation, where the two modes are compared on equal
footing, when I affirm that, while the former _may_ effect some cures,
_most_ of the recoveries under it, are spontaneous and unaided, the
latter _does_ cure; the disease being arrested by the medicine, and the
proportion of unfavorable terminations is much less under the latter
than the former course. I know many learned and successful practitioners
who have substituted low dilutions and the giving of several remedies in
quick succession for the old mode of high attenuations and long
intervals of single remedies, all of whom still adhere to the low, while
I have yet to hear of the man who has gone _back_ to high single
remedies and long intervals. My reason then, for the course here laid
down, is, that it will _cure_ with more promptness and certainty. If
others are so prejudiced as not to _try it_, they will still remain in
ignorance of the _best practice_, and their patients will be the
sufferers.

In reference to the fear that is expressed that if one medicine is given
too soon after another, it will antidote the former, I have simply to
say, I have no confidence in the hypothetic antidotal powers of the
medicines one over another, as laid down in the books. It has not been
verified by experience, and has no foundation in truth. It is true that
one medicine will remove morbid symptoms that might be produced by an
overdose of another; but both being given in the ordinary medicinal
doses, neither of them to such an extent as to produce sensible
symptoms, if given alone, would not, if given in quick succession,
prevent each other from acting to remove their own peculiar symptoms
that exist in the system at the time. So if we have the symptoms that
are found in two or more different remedies present in the same attack,
as is often the ease, we may give these several remedies one after
another, with confidence in their curative effects for the symptoms they
represent.

This has been my practice, and it has been _eminently successful_, and
therefore I commend it to others, treating with pity the infirmity of
those who ignorantly condemn it, as "They know not what they do."




ADMINISTRATION OF REMEDIES.


The remedies are either in the form of tinctures saturated, more or less
dilute, in Pellets or Powders. The _Pellets_ may be taken dry upon the
tongue, allowed to dissolve and swallowed. The dose for an adult is from
4 to 7; for an infant, from birth to one year old, 1 to 3; from one to
three years, 2 to 4; from three to ten years, 3 to 5 pellets; after ten,
same as an adult. 15 or 20 pellets may be dissolved in a gill of water,
and a tea-spoonful dose given at a time, being particular to stir it
until all are perfectly dissolved, stirring it each dose.

_Powders_ may be taken in the same manner, upon the tongue, a dose when
dry, being about the same bulk as of the pellets as nearly as
practicable. If put into water, to a gill of water add of the powder
about what would lie on a three cent piece. If the liquid medicine is
used, add 1 drop to a gill of water, and use tea-spoonful doses as above
directed. The length of time between the doses should be, in Dysentery
and Diarrhoea, regulated by the frequency of the discharges, giving a
dose as often as the evacuations occur. In acute and violent diseases,
the doses should be repeated oftener than in milder cases--about once an
hour as a general rule is often enough, though in some cases they should
be given in half an hour or oftener. In mild cases, once in two or three
hours is often enough, and in chronic cases, once or twice a day.


Bathing.

The surface of the body should be kept clean, as far as possible, and to
this end, in summer, should be well bathed at least once a day. In
winter, though useful, it is not so indispensable; still no one should
neglect the bath more than a week, and all ought to bathe at least twice
a week, if not oftener, even in winter.

The bath should be of a temperature that is agreeable, and the room
warm, especially for a feeble person. It should be so applied as not to
give a general chill, as such shocks are always hurtful.

The _teeth_ should be kept clean and free from tartar. They should be
cleaned every morning and after each meal. The feet, legs and arms
should be warmly clothed, especially the _arms_, as an exposure of them
to cold is liable to induce affections of the lungs, and to aggravate
any existing disease of those organs.

By exposure of the feet and legs to cold, diseases and derangements of
the female organs, even in young girls, are induced; and one prolific
cause of female weakness is to be found in improper dressing of the feet
and legs, while the _lung affections_ of females, now so fearfully
prevalent, are traceable in a great degree to the fashion that has
prevailed for a few years, of exposing the arms to cold.


Diet.

The diet of the sick should he nutricious, but at all times simple, free
from greasy substances, and from all stimulating condiments whatsoever,
as well as from vinegar, or food in which vinegar is used.

In short, let the food be nutritious, easily digested, small or moderate
in quantity, and free from all "seasoning," except salt or sugar; and if
salt is used at all, let the quantity be very small, much less than
would be used in health.


Diarrhoea.

This disease consists in a looseness of the bowels, generally
accompanied with pain in the abdomen, more or less severe. It sometimes
occurs without pain, but is _then_ attended with a sense of weakness,
and a general feeling of uneasiness. It prevails mostly in the warm
seasons, but may occur at any time. It is not usually considered a very
dangerous affection, except during the prevalence of _Cholera_, or in
children during hot weather.


TREATMENT.

_Veratrum_ and _Phos. acid_, given alternately, at intervals, as
frequently as the discharges from the bowels occur, will generally be
sufficient. If there is nausea or vomiting, or cramping pains in the
bowels, give _Ipecac_ in alternation with one or both the former. If
thirst and a burning of the