A case of Vertigo and Nausea

Mr. W., a weak, pale man of forty-two years, whose business was at the writing desk, consulted me on the 5th of December, 1815 ; he had been sick five days.

1. On the first evening he was attacked with nausea and vertigo, without any visible cause, accompanied with eructations.
2. Sour vomiting at two o'clock in the night.
3. Violent eructations in the three nights following.
4. On the sixth day eructations of a putrid and sour taste.
5. Sensation in the stomach as if the food lay raw and undigested in the stomach.
6. The interior of the head seemed to him enlarged, hollow, gloomy, and sensitive to pain.
7. The least noise affected him painfully.
8. He is of a mild and placid temper. Remarks to : Symptom No. 1. Some drugs cause vertigo with nausea, among which Pulsat. (2), which causes vertigo in the evening (4), which only a few drugs do. No. 2, Vomiting of sour and sour-smelHng mucus is caused by Stramonium and Nux v., but not in the night. Valerian and Cocculus cause vomiting in the night, but not sour. Iron is the only drug which causes vomiting in the night (54, 55), and may even cause sour vomiting (59), but it does not corre spond to the other symptoms of this group. Pulsatilla not only causes sour vomiting in the evening (312, 316), and nightly vomiting generally (317), but it corresponds also to all the other symptoms of the present group. No. 3. Nightly eructations indicate Pulsat. (263, 264). No. 4. The fetid, putrid (230), and the sour eructations (268, 269), likewise indicate Pulsatilla. No. 5. Only a few remedies cause a sensation as if the food remained raw and undigested in the stomach, but none so completely and strikingly as Pulsatilla (286, 287, 291). No. 6. Ignatia (2) produces this symptom, but none of the other symptoms. Puls. has this symptom likewise (35, to compare with 38, 80, 81). No. 7. Pulsat. produces this symptom (905), as well as an excessive sensitiveness of all the other organs, for example, of sight (90). Nux Vom., Ignat., and Aconite, produce likewise intolerance of noise, but they correspond to none of the other symptoms of this case, and least of all to No. 8. Pulsat. is, more than any other drug, capable of producing mildness of temper. This patient could not have been cured more easily, certainly, and permanently, by any other remedy than by Pulsat. Being weak and worn out, he only took half a drop of the 16th potency of Puls. towards evening. On the day following he was restored; his digestion was good, and he has remained well ever since.