Today while studying Vipera I came across this symptom in Boerick Materia Medica.
“Violent pain in enlarged liver, with jaundice and fever; extends to shoulder and hip”
I would like to show here, another way materia can be studied and applied.
Here we are assuming a more pathological approach and would apply knowledge of medicine to study materia medica.
This symptom mentioned above is a triad of pain fever and jaundice. Which is a charcot’ s triad of cholangitis (if the pain is right hypochondrial pain).
Let us now see a differential diagnosis of conditions where this triad of fever, jaundice, and abdomen pain can be present (in all of these conditions vipera can then be thought of based on patient presentation and pathological symptom similarity):
- Cholangitis- this inflammation of the bile duct causes the classical triad of charcot. It Can be diagnosed on ultrasound and blood picture will generally show neutrophilia. Primary or secondary, it can be associated with ulcerative colitis. The picture is very similar to that present in vipera.
- viral haemorrhagic fevers- contracted from rodents, bats or insects, these fevers can present with all the features of pain fever, jaundice, coagulopathies, renal involvement etc. Vipera can be a very useful medicine in these fevers.
- Scrub typhus- caused by bite of an infected mite with eschar formation at bite site, this presents as fever myalgias, enlarged spleen, pain abdomen. Rash, injected eyes and hepatomegaly may or may not be present.
- Leptospirosis- contracted from infected rats, it presents with fever, pain and jaundice. It also affects kidney function and may cause haematuria.
- Enteric fevers- caused by salmonella typhi from contaminated water or food, this will present with diarrhoea, constipation, fever with lower pulse rate than expected, low WBC counts. Bilirubin will however may not be raised.
- Malaria- chills and fevers present in intermittent way depending on type of malarial parasite. There may be enlarged liver and abdomen pain. The bilirubin doesn’t rise unless haemolysis occurs, causing black water fever.
- liver abscess- fever, chills and painful hypochondria(rt) are common findings, however jaundice is not a common presentation. It can be easily diagnosed on USG.
- viral hepatitis- these can present with fever, pain and jaundice. However it is the liver enzymes that are raised markedly in comparison to raised bilirubin.
- Other acute abdomens such as pancreatitis appendicitis, diverticulitis etc can present with fever and pain abdomen though each will have their own characteristic and jaundice may or may not be present.
(Please note that this similarity is found only while studying the medicine from a pathological point of view. The confirmation can only be done by applying this knowledge in such a clinical condition in a patient.
This kind of approach is especially helpful when:
- one is not able to find any characteristic symptom or
- the attendants are not able to give one,
- there is time constraint or
- the physician has not seen the patient but has received a diagnosis from attendants.
The results in such prescriptions would nonetheless depend on the accuracy of diagnosis and its pathological similarity to chosen medicine.
References
www.medscape.com
Harrison’s Principles and Practice of Internal Medicine, 12th edition.
Pocket Manual of Homeopathic Materia Medica & Repertory by William Boericke
Shivangi Jain
BHMS, MD, PGDMLE, PGDHHM
drshivangijain79@gmail.com
https://drshivangihomoeopathy.com