Mezereum

Authorities. 53, Lesser Writings of Hahnemann (Dr. Adolph Gerstel, North Am. Journ. of Horn., New Ser., 9,1878, p. 184); 54, Plural, Oest. Woch., 1844 (ibid.), effects of leaves; 55, Dr. Scheme, Caspar’s Woch. (Lancet, 1849 (2), p. 637), two children, set. four and two years, ate some berries ; 56, J. B. Carruthers, M.D., Lancet, 1859 (2), p. 378, a child, set. three years, ate the berries.

Somebody advised a young, pale girl, set. fourteen years, to use the leaves of Mezereum in order to become fat and rosy. She went into the woods and made free use of them on her cheeks and surrounding parts. Burning pains soon appeared, her whole face swelled up enormously, especially the nose, eyelids, and hairy scalp. Severe and painful sneezing, deliria, dull, unbearable, pressing pains in the forehead, a nauseous dryness in the throat, and a constant irritation to dry cough, showed that the acridity of the poison by its inhalation affected the nose, and through the frontal sinuses the cerebral membranes, also pharynx and larynx. The face soon took on the expression of erysipelas bullosum, the nostrils closed, so that she could only breathe through her mouth ; febrile pulse, burning urine. After external application of oil, cold compresses, and indifferent external remedies, the swelling decreased after the second day, and desquamated in large pieces. But health did not return. Debility, loss of vitality, and mental depression, bordering on idiocy, were since that time observed in her. A typhoid fever, lasting full three months, prostrated her so much that she finally succumbed to it,^\—Dryness and burning of the throat, with attempts to vomit; intense thirst; great heat of skin ; great prostration of strength ; pale countenance ; and a feeble quick pulse,^®.—The eldest complained of a burning sensation in the mouth and nausea ; dryness of the throat and burning at the pit of the stomach ; a reddish mucus was discharged from the mouth. In an hour both were plunged into complete narcotism, with coma, convulsive movements of the eyes and the superior extremities, dilatation and insensibility of the pupils,^.—[1570.] A robust person took some bark of Mezereum for some ailment, and continuing the drug after the disappearance of his troubles, he soon complained of unbearable itching all over the body, so that he could not sleep one moment. Even after leaving it off for thirty-six hours, he assured me that the itching still kept on increasing. A few grains of Camphor removed this itching,^®.