Such brilliant results are obtained by means of a single drop of Apis, third attenuation. I mix a drop with seven tablespoonfuls of water, and give a dessert-spoonful every hour, or every two or three hours; the more acute the attack, the more frequently the dose is repeated; this method generally suffices to effect a cure more or less rapidly. As long as the improvement progresses satisfactorily, all we have to do is to let the medicine act without interfering. If the improvement is arrested, or the patient gets worse, which sometimes happens in the more intense grades of this malady, the best course is to give a globule of Apis 30, and to watch the result for some twenty-four hours. After the lapse of this period the improvement will either have resumed its course, or else it will continue unsatisfactory. In the latter case we should give another dose of the above-mentioned solution of Apis 3. Not unfrequently I have met with patients upon whom Apis acts too powerfully, causing pains in the bowels, interminable diarrh[oe]a, of a dysenteric character, extreme prostration and a sense of fainting. In such cases the tumultuous action of Apis is mitigated, and the continued use of this drug, rendered possible by giving Apis in alternation with Aconite in water, every hour or two hours.
Except such cases, I have never been obliged to resort to other accessory means.
_Apis is no less efficacious against the higher grades of ophthalmia._
It is particularly rheumatic, catarrhal, erysipelatous, and [oe]dematous ophthalmia, which is most rapidly, easily, and safely cured by Apis, no matter what part of the eye may be the seat of the disease.
The symptoms 188-307 distinctly point to the curative virtues of Apis in ophthalmia: "Sensitiveness to light, with headache, redness of the eyes; he keeps his eyes closed, light is intolerable, the eyes are painful and feel sore and irritated if he uses them; weakness of sight, with feeling of fullness in the eyes; twitching of the left eyeball; feeling of heaviness in the eyelids and eyes; aching, sore-pressing, tensive, shooting, boring, stinging, burning pains in and around the eyes, and above the eyes in the forehead; redness of the eyes and lids; secretion of mucus and agglutination of the lids; the lids are swollen, dark-red, everted; the conjunctiva is reddened, full of dark blood-vessels which gradually lose themselves in the cornea; the cornea is obscured, smoky, showing a few little ulcers here and there; profuse lachrymation; stinging itching in the left eye, in the lids and around the eye; sensation of a quantity of mucus in the left eye; sensation of a foreign little body in the eye; soreness of the canthi; styes; [oe]dema of the lids; erysipelatous inflammation of the lids."