Inquest on the death of Agnes E. Lottimer before Dr. George C. Ball, coroner, Brooklyn, N.Y.
- Date:
- 1854
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Inquest on the death of Agnes E. Lottimer before Dr. George C. Ball, coroner, Brooklyn, N.Y. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![peculiarity, she would not take the diet prescribed, which was gruel, and took nothing until her father told her she must take it. This was for some two days or more. She then took arrow-root or gruel and gum water. She took it after the disease assumed an intermittent form. She took no meat until the intermissions became complete, and then took delicate game birds, &c. and when she became further improved, mutton chop, &c. Some of the medicines, the mix vomica, arsenic, veratrum, rhus toxico- dendron, dr., are active poisons. I have never experimented with any of these medicines, except the cedron, on persons in health. The dose of any medicine, which produced the symptoms recorded, is not retained in the materia medica I use. The tincture of nux vomica is prepared by put- ting twenty parts of the powdered bean to one hundred of the alcoliol. To twenty grains of the powder I would put one hundred drops of alcohol. I do not know what a high dilutionist means. It is not our theory of disease that all diseases have one of two origins, either syphilis or itch. [To a juror.] I am regularly educated for the practice of medicine. I was educated at the New Hampshire Medical College, and practiced seven years as an allopathic physician. I do not know whether it is uncommon for a child who has chills and fever to die of convulsions. This is the first case of the death of a patient where chills and fever were in progress at the time of the death. There was no evidence of disease of any of the internal organs during the progress of the fever and ague. I always examine all points that show disease. The correct homoeopathic practice is based upon a knowledge of all the facts that constitute the difference between the sick and the well. I arrive at those facts by the use of my senses, and by inquiries of the attendants and of the patients themselves. Sometimes I feel the patient's pulse; sometimes I look at his tongue. A metastasis of mumps to the membranes of the brain would produce congestion of that organ in a very short time ; and other organs may be suddenly congested by the mechani- cal obstruction of the circulation of the blood through the lungs, as hap- pens in violent convulsions—all this might take place from the mumps. Quinine is not a specific remedy for the ague and fever, it is only specific for such forms as it produces—it will not cure all forms. The form of ague that quinine is appropriate to, is not very frequent here. I have given it a few instances, and it only cured one. I gave it a powder, either the first or third centesimal, in a dose of about a grain or a grain and a half, and the ague did not appear after the first dose. The headache appeared on Saturday morning, as the coffee and lemon juice was given on Friday. I think the effect on venous congestion would be to relieve it by the law of contrarieties. DR. DUNHAM'S TESTIMONY. Carroll Dunham, sworn. I reside in Clinton street, near President; I am a physician practicing in the city, and practicing what is known 'as Homoeopathy. I graduated at the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons. I pursued the regular practice in hospitals, but never in private practice on my own responsibility. I saw Miss Lottimer in consultation with Dr. Wells. I saw her first either on the 10th or 11th of August. I considered her to be laboring](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21132021_0016.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
