Introduction
Cinnamonum Camphor, Fr. Nees; Laurus Camphora, Linn. Natural order: Lauraceae. Preparation: Tincture of the gum.
Mind
Emotional. Agitation. Great excitement. Excitement, as of intoxication (after three hours). Great excitement, almost amounting to frenzy (after two hours). Rage, with foaming at the mouth. (*During unconsciousness. See S. 61*) Often felt as if he ought to kill people, when in the street; never felt a disposition to kill any of his own family, but thought he ought to kill somebody. Delirium. Slight delirium, attended with somnolency and a small, languishing pulse. A little delirium. Active delirium. Most furious delirium, being with difficulty restrained in bed by two men (after one hour). Delirium, with pain in stomach. Delirious, but when spoken to gave rational answers (after three hours). Gestures and conversation very strange and wild. Talked wildly, constantly repeating the same sentence (after one hour). He talks irrationally, and proposes absurd things. He beats himself on the chest, and falls into a faint. Strips himself, and tries to jump out of window. Stripped naked, he danced wildly about, and tries to jump out of window. He is averse to all external objects, they excite in him a repelling fretfulness. Aversion to all kinds of work. Calm opiate effect on mind and brain (after two hours). Voluptuous ideas (after eight days). Lively mood (after half an hour). Greatly exhilarated (soon after). Disposition to cry frequently, he knew not what for, but would frequently find himself crying when at work or when walking about. The child creeps into a corner, howls and cries; everything that is said to him is taken as if one were ordering him, and he were considered naughty and would be punished. Uttered a strange scream, a sort of howl, leaped from bed, apparently in great agony, and bent on something desperate (after half an hour). Depressed, sad, out of humor. Depressed, irritable, despondent. During the first day the disposition was indolent and depressed during the coldness and chill; but after twenty-four hours his disposition became continually better, even during the pains. Indescribable wretchedness. Anxiety. Great anxiety. Very great anxiety. Great anxiety and extreme restlessness, tossing about in bed; attempted to stand, but he lay down again. Excessively fearful, especially in the dark. Dread of being alone in the dark. Indescribable dread of being drawn upwards. Afraid of the mirrors in the room, lest he should see himself in them; so excessive was this fear at times in the night that he would have got up and broken the mirrors, only that he was still more afraid to get up alone in the dark; was never afraid of anything before, either by night or day. Was found much excited, screaming loudly, “I shall not faint! I shan’t faint, for if I do, I will have fits and never come out of them!. Children irritable. Very irritable and fretful, every word irritates and excites him; during the first days. Fretful, anxious, at night, with frightful visions. Desire to dispute; self-willed. In a few moments after taking I awoke with an indescribable feeling of uneasiness and most deadly nausea produced by the taste and smell of the Camphor. I could not lie; the thought continually occurred, as in delirium, “I am dead! No, I am not dead! but indeed I must be dead!” and thus I flew round about myself like a top, with no other feeling than for the strong smell of the Camphor. The external world existed for me no longer. My thoughts were gone; one single fearful one remained; I imagined myself transferred to another world; for me all else was extinguished. I sat up in bed, but all about me had indeed disappeared. I was alone in the great universe, the last of all things. My ideas of the world, God and religion, now seemed to me to have existed only in my imagination; the earth, upon which yesterday I lived and moved, had run its appointed course, and I was the final and solitary fragment of the whole creation. There was no other feeling in my soul than that of my hopeless, endless damnation. I sank back upon the bed, believing that I was the spirit of evil in a world forsaken of God. Faith and hope were gone. There was here no longer any God, or rather the Infinite himself, like all his works, had ceased to be. My misery was boundless; time itself was no more; in short, I suffered such fearful anguish as no fancy can comprehend. What soul could paint to itself my everlasting dwelling as the Evil One, alone in a vast universe, without faith or hope, and my heart forever broken by unimagined tortures? I rose suddenly from the bed, rushed to the window, and threw it up. It was a night in September; all nature lay quiet, illuminated by the moon, with the clear stars looking down. The sight increased my despair; poor nature extinguished; the sky transparent and lifeless; the earth was still in the dim, dead light. I could not bear it. The sense of touch was gone, and my eyes protruded from their sockets. For a moment I resolved to throw myself from the window and sweep through the domain of my infernal kingdom, but a weak glimmer of reason held me back. I tried to weep, but my eyes were dry; my hands could no longer grasp anything, and I felt no moisture in my eyes. I tried to pray, but the words sounded hollow from my chest, like reverberations from a cracked vessel. A fearful terror seized me, and I knew not whither to fly. I cried out aloud, “And so I am indeed dead; that hell I used to think about is no fiction, but a reality which I am doomed to experience forever. And yet I confessed this very morning, and no heavy sin rests upon my conscience. “And then came doubts about my doctrinal views, for I had never been of strong faith. Thus hopelessly devoted to everlasting damnation I recollected some syrup, a sort of stomachic elixir, which was in my closet, an felt for it in the dark; but, oh, horror! my hand no longer perceived resistance, my whole body was insensible and dry as marble, and I was conscious of no internal warmth. In my ever- growing terror I sought to recall sensation, even if it were pain, and tore the skin of my face and hands, but it was useless; I felt no more. I ran to the mantle-piece and struck a light. I saw it, came to myself, and the thought came over me that after all it might be only a dream, a horrible vision of the night. I felt the light burning, again lay down, and took a book, that I might drive away the fearful images; but scarce was I in bed before they returned, and with them a renewed desire to throw myself from the window. I started up, ran out, and fell prostrate, with a loud shriek for help, not far from the door of a neighbor. Persons came out, and seeing my desperate condition, were about to bring me a cordial, but I could not bear to be alone. Fearing some new misfortune, I seized my neighbor and held him fast, that he might not leave me. They gave me a few swallows of Moldavia water, which were followed by nausea and efforts to vomit. Next day they told me they could not stay in my room for the smell of camphor; on this account they brought me down stairs into the street, that I might breathe the fresh air, while they were making some tea for me. The sight of the sky, the pale moonlight, renewed my torturing fancies. I pressed close to my neighbor, and implored him to talk to me, that I might be freed them, but terrified at my terror, he could find no topic for conversation. We went upstairs again, and tea was given me to drink. It tasted cold, though the woman next day assured me it was fairly boiling. Violent vomiting then came on, without any relief to my mania; they read to me, but I could not follow the train of ideas; my own thoughts absorbed me. After the vomiting I began to feel a little cold; I became more quiet, was put to bed and fell asleep. Next morning I visited again the scene of my night visions, and attempted to drive away my morbid impressions by force of will. I went to my business in town, but the attacks returned. Again I felt my sense of touch disappear; my eyes started out of their sockets, convulsive movements attacked my head, and I could not get warm A physician prescribed some quieting mixture. In the evening I attended the theatre; but scarce could the excitement of the crowd, the music, and the play beguile my thoughts. What I have related took place, not in a half-walking state, but clear distinct, with full conviction of their reality, and so vividly that I perfectly recollect the smallest incident. I suffered all, not only in a higher degree than I can express, but also in an inconceivably longer duration. As I lay stretched on my couch, as the evil demon, and suffered all the anguish of condemned and God-forsaken soul, the time seemed an eternity, and the most painful thought was that I was forever deprived of the Divine protection, and of every consolation and every hope. Nothing remained to me but the conviction of my everlasting damnation. Since that time I have been subject to these attacks of terror at night, when I am alone. I feel a tendency to self-contemplation; outer things vanish, and I behold myself in spirit freed from matter. I am constrained to this agonizing self-contemplation, in spite of every effort of the will, and every opposition which my thoughts can make. In consequence my nervous irritability is greatly increased, and I steep but little and very restlessly, which is quite the reverse of my former habit. The pollutions have much diminished in frequency, but I often wake terrified by nightmare; I shriek and call for help, because it seems that a murderer stands at my bedside. I dare not drink either tea or coffee, lest the phantasms of that fatal night return; I cannot then sleep at all. My temper is irritable and peevish, with an inclination to despair and suicide. I am afraid to go to sleep; and when I think it near it suddenly flies from me, my eyes open wide, and I fall into self- contemplation and mystical and dismal trains of thought. The source of my annoyance is not the presentation of images, but of feelings simply, without any mixture of the visible; it is my personal self, my unembodied spirit. By day I am quite quiet; night and solitude are my terrors. I still have faith and reason enough left to see in all this nothing but the phenomena of a morbid state. An indifference whether the world uses one well or ill (after two hours). Intellectual. Thought. Unusually clear-headed (soon after). Never felt better; ideas never more lively or clearer; it appeared as if the intellectual powers were increased; champagne never brought on a more pleasing intoxication (after half an hour). Intellectual dulness. The intellectual powers became much disturbed. A tumult of crude ideas floated through his mind. The ideas were confused, delirium. Memory. Want of memory. Complete loss of memory, after an attack of catalepsy, with loss of consciousness, followed by vomiting (after three hours). Cognition. Stupefaction of the senses, like fainting. Unconsciousness. Unconscious for several hours. Falls down, without consciousness, with howling cries. Loss of consciousness. Loss of consciousness. (*Original corrected by Dr. Hughes*). Loss of consciousness, during which he was attacked with violent convulsive fits, and maniacal frenzy. Sometimes complete loss of consciousness, at others recovered senses. Insensibility. The senses vanish. The senses disappear (after a few minutes). Coma. Coma (after half an hour). Stupid coma and delirium. (*Quoted from authors only to question it*).
Born in 1837in Westminster, Vermont. . He was an orthodox doctor who converted to homeopathy
Dr. Allen compiled the Encyclopedia of Pure Materia Medica over the course of 10 years.
In 1881 Allen published A Critical Revision of the Encyclopedia of Pure Materia Medica.