The more dyspnoea there is the more likely his thumbs will be clenched and the fingers cramped. Whenever the respiratory organs are affected there is SPASMODIC BREATHING, dyspnoea. Cold water especially will relieve the spasm, and so the mother soon gets into the habit of hurrying for a glass of cold water, and the child also knows, if it has tried it once, that a glass of cold water will relieve it. If the mother can get there quickly enough with a little cold water she will stop the cough. In addition to what the mother says you may also observe a few things, but the whole makeup of such a case, its whole nature, shows that it is a Cuprum whooping-cough. You have here all the violent features of a convulsive whooping-cough. To bring it down to the language of the mother, the description which she gives of the little one, which will probably make you remember it better than if I use the text, she says that when the child is seized with a spell of this violent whooping-cough, the face, becomes livid or blue, the finger nails become discolored, the eyes are turned up, the child coughs until it loses its breath, and then lies in a state of insensibility for a long time until she fears the child will never breathe again, but with violent spasmodic action in its breathing, the child from shortest breaths comes to itself again just as if brought back to life. This is often one of the leading features in WHOOPING- COUGH when Cuprum is indicated. Convulsive conditions sometimes terminate in a state of stasis during which the mind ceases to act and the muscles remain quiet or only quiver. This drug has the ability to produce a group of spasms followed by the APPEARANCE AS IF THE PATIENT WERE DEAD, or in a state of ecstacy. In one place it is spoken of as bellowing like a calf. Between the convulsive attacks there is incoherent talk, delirium, during which the patient is spiteful, violent, weeping or shrieking. There is bleeding from the nose and the vision is disturbed. The eyes roll in various directions, but commonly upwards and outwards or upwards and inwards. During its different complaints, such as cholera, some forms of fever, the puerperal state, dysmenorrhoea, congestion of the brain, etc., there is delirium, unconsciousness and jerking and twitching of the muscles. It has produced a variety of mental symptoms: delirium, incoherency of speech, loss of memory. It has a great variety in its delirium, incoherent prattling, talking of all sorts of subjects incoherently. Often the contractions assume a clonic form, with jerking and twitching.Ĭuprum has many MENTAL SYMPTOMS. Tonic contractions, the limbs being drawn up with great violence and it seems as if the frame would be torn to pieces by the violent contractions of the muscles everywhere.

In the fingers and toes and in the extremities the spasmodic condition increases and extends until the limbs are in a state of great exhaustion. In this condition the thumbs are first affected they are drawn into the palms and then the fingers close down over them with great violence. It has twitching, quivering, trembling, and it has also tonic contractions, so that the hands are closed violently. When these are coming on the earliest threatenings are drawings in the fingers, clenching of the thumbs or twitching of the muscles. It has convulsions in every degree of violence, from the mere twitching of little muscles and of single muscles to convulsions of all the muscles of the body. The convulsive tendency associates itself with almost every complaint that Cuprum creates and cures. Cuprum is pre-eminently a CONVULSIVE medicine.

Cuprum metallicum