Since writing the above chapter on the Treatment of Neuralgia, I have had two fresh and very striking examples, in private practice, of the power of arsenic to break the morbid chain of nervous actions in angina pectoris.
The first example was that of a medical man, aged seventy-five, in whom a neuralgia, originally malarial in origin, and of some years' duration, had fixed itself for some time in the fifth and sixth left intercostal spaces, and of late had become complicated with anginoid attacks of an unmistakable character, though not of the highest degree of severity. The case certainly seemed very unpromising, looking at the patient's age and the consequent high probability that there was much arterial degeneration. However, the use of Fowler's solution (five minims three times a day) was commenced and steadily pushed. The anginoid attacks rapidly diminished in frequency and at the end of ten days' time were entirely gone, and after one month of treatment he still had no return of them, although they had previously been of daily occurrence. It is a curious fact, whether a mere coincidence or not I cannot say, that, some few days after the anginoid attacks ceased, he began to experience somewhat severe pains, rheumatic in feeling, but unattended with heat or swelling, in the elbows, wrists, and fingers, symmetrically. This has nearly disappeared, but he is still free from angina. There is no discoverable heart-lesion in this patient.
The other case was that of a fine old man of sixty-four, who, but for some few slight attacks of gout, a few small calculi, and a troublesome prostatic affection, had always enjoyed remarkably good health, until about five months ago, when he began to notice tightness across the chest, etc., when he walked uphill. About a fortnight before he came to me, he was seized with very violent and alarming paroxysms of pain across the chest and running down both arms, extreme intermittence of pulse, and a sense of impending dissolution. The attack had recurred daily, at the same hour (6 P. M.), ever since; besides which there was an abiding sense of uneasiness in the cardiac region, and a consciousness that the least excitement or exertion would bring on the paroxysm. I put the patient on five minims of Fowler, three times a day, with directions to take ether when the paroxysms came. At the end of the first week there was already much improvement, the paroxysms having been both less frequent and less severe. At the end of a fortnight's treatment he reported that there had been nothing like a paroxysm for the last eight days, although there was still a good deal of uneasiness from time to time. The hour at which the attack was expected passed by absolutely without a trace of angina. It remains to be seen how long this improvement will last, but the altered state of things, and particularly the suddenness of the change, cannot be overlooked, and has very much struck the patient himself. It is now six weeks since he had any paroxysm.