Homeopathic Materia Medica

Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica, James Tyler Kent

Mind: We shall find by examining the symptoms of this remedy that the intellectual feature predominates, as in the metal; that the affections are disturbed only in a limited way. There is a predominance of mental symptoms.

First of all, disturbance in the memory, disturbance of reason, he becomes most irrational in his explanations of his actions.

He is irrational and does strange things and comes to strange conclusions; foolish things.

He has all sorts of imaginations, illusions, hallucinations. He is tormented in his mind by the inflowing of troublesome thoughts, and especially at night his thoughts torment him. to the extent that he is extremely anxious and this puts him in a hurry and in a fidget and he goes out and walks and walks, and the faster he walks the faster he thinks he must walk, and he walks till fatigued.

Strange notions and ideas and fears come into his mind. He has an impulse that lie is going to have a fit or that he is going to have a sickness.

A strange thought comes into his mind that if be goes past a certain corner of the street he will create a sensation, will fall down and have a fit, and to avoid that he will go around the block.

He avoids going past that corner for fear he will do something strange, He is so reduced in his mental state that he admits into the mind all sorts of impulses.

There is inflowing of strange thoughts into his mind, and when crossing a bridge or high place the thought that he might kill himself, or perhaps he might jump off, or what if he should jump off, and sometimes the actual impulse comes to jump off the bridge into the water.

When looking out of a window the thought comes to his mind what an awful thing it would be to jump out of the window, and sometimes the impulse comes to actually jump out of the window.

There is fear of death, the over-anxious state, that death is near, and often at times like Aconite he predicts the moment he is going to die.

Looking forward to times he is anxious. When looking forward to some thing that he is about to do, or in the expectation of things, he is anxious.

When about to meet an engagement he is anxious until the time comes.

If he is about to take a railroad journey he is anxious, full of fear and anxiety and tremulous nervousness until he is on the car going and then it passes away. If he is about to meet a certain person on the street corner he is anxious and breaks out often in a sweat from anxiety until it is over with.

Not only is this particular symptom present, but the symptoms come on as a result of his anxiety.

He is excitable, angers easily, and as a result of this pain comes. When he becomes angry he becomes vehement and pain in the head comes on; cough, pain in the chest and weakness follow this anger

The anxiety he has from these circumstances will bring on complaints.

When he is going anywhere, going to a wedding or to the opera, or any unusual event it is attended with anxiety, fear and diarrhea.

So it is we have in this a wonderful medicine. It says in the text that he gave all sorts of queer reasons for his strange conduct, endeavoring to cover up, as it were, his foolishness which he himself realizes.

Sadness, melancholy and confusion. Defective memory. The sight of high houses makes him dizzy, and his vertigo is increased or comes on from closing the eyes; with the vertigo there is buzzing in the ears, great weakness and trembling.

Constitutional headaches from brain fag, from exertion of the mind. In such mental exhaustion, headaches, nervous excitement and trembling, and organic troubles of the heart and liver in business men, in students, in brain workers, in those subject to long excitement; - in actors who have kept up a long time the excitement of appearing well in public.

This state of mind progress until there is a general state of weakness; with trembling, paralysis, numbness, disturbed functions, palpitation, throbbing all over the body, with the mental state.

The nervous state continues until there is disorder of all the organs of the body. The stomach refuses to digest, everything taken, seems to go into gas, and he becomes distended and suffers with pain.

The circulation seems to be greatly disturbed in addition to the palpitation. Fullness of the blood vessels and throbbing all over the body. The blood vessels become diseased.

Atheromatous degeneration and dilatation of the veins, varicose veins.

Upon the mucous membranes and skin ulceration, and this progresses and the heart becomes increasingly feeble, and the extremities become cold and blue and the lips are cold and blue, with aggravation of all these complaints from mental excitement, from going to the opera, from meeting a friend, from keeping an engagement.

The medicine is preeminently a nervous one, full of spinal symptoms, rending, tearing pains down the extremities; such pains are found in locomotor ataxia fulgurating shooting pains.

There is one grand feature running through this patient modifying most of his symptoms, with few exceptions, and that is that he is like a Pulsatilla patient; he wants cold air, cold drinks, cold things; wants ice, ice cream; wants the head in the cold air; suffocates in a warm room.

He suffocates from warm clothing, wants the door and windows open; cannot breathe in a stuffy room, suffocates if other people are in the room; cannot go to church or to the opera, cannot go to places of amusement or gatherings, must stay at home.

He dreads a crowd, dreads certain places.

Ulcerations: Everywhere we find ulceration, but particularly upon the mucous membrane. The throat has ulcers in it, the eyelids, and of the cornea; ulceration of the bladder.

Ulcers of the uterus, of the vagina and of the external soft parts. This tendency of ulcerate seems rather strange, peculiar that it should have in its pathogenesis such a tendency, when the old school has been using it to cauterize ulcers, and yet it heals them up.

We know that Phosphorus will burn and it intensifies the tendency to ulcerate, makes the ulcer go deeper, while Argentum nitricum sets it healing.

Upon mucous membranes we find red elevations, granulations, enlargement of vessels, purplish aspect. Sensitive ulcers.

Female: The complaints in women come on before and during the menstrual period. It is a favorable time for all her complaints to be aggravated; if she have Argentum nitricum symptoms they are likely to be at their worst at this time.

She suffers from most violent dysmenorrhoea, from nervous excitement, from hysterical manifestations, and an unusually increased flow.

A tendency to hemorrhages it belongs to this remedy.

The ulcers bleed; there is bleeding from the nose, bleeding from the chest, the urine is bloody; leucorrhoea copious, menstrual flow copious; menorrhagia; bleeding from the mucous membranes generally, from the uterus. Vomiting of blood. It has cured prolonged and most inveterate ulceration of the stomach, when there has been vomiting of blood.

The aggravation at the menstrual period is a strong feature and she is free from symptoms during the interim.

The palpitation, the trembling, the coldness of the surface, though desiring cold open air, blueness of the lips, coldness of the extremities, blueness and coldness of the lower extremities to the knees and of the hands and arms to the elbows, and yet the patient wants cool things, wants something cold.

This may not be seen at any other time. Here is striking feature:

"Patient cannot lie on the right -side because it brings on so much palpitations."

We have plenty of remedies with palpitation worse lying on the right side are rare (Alumen, Badiaga, Kalmia, Kali n., Lil. t., Platina, Spongia).

It is uncommon, strange, rare and peculiar.

It is such a strong feature in this remedy that to a great extent it becomes quite general, because it is a heart symptom and is intermingled with the general symptoms.

With this sensitiveness he is compelled to get into some other position; must get up and walk, because of lying on the right side.

The patient will say he throbs from head to foot while lying on the right side. Do not forget in this medicine all these general things when we come to apply them in their particulars and the particulars in the generals.

Do not forget that this medicine is one of the most flatulent medicines in the books. He is distended to bursting; gets scarcely any relief from passing flatus or eructations.

He is possessed with the distressing idea that all his undertakings must fail. When walking he becomes faint with anxiety which makes him walk faster. Everywhere you will find the intellectual symptoms predominant.

Headache: The headaches are of a congestive character; considerable throbbing, ameliorated by cold, and tight bandaging. Headache from mental exertion from excitement, with vertigo, nausea and vomiting.

Pains in the right side of the head, jagging, cutting, stitching pulsating. Head feels much enlarged.

Eyes: The eye symptoms are too numerous to mention. They are of a general character such as we find in catarrhal conditions with ulceration, relieved by cold.

All of the eye symptoms are worse in a warm room, worse from sitting by the fire. Wants cold applications, cold washing. Intense photophobia; aversion to light, and this is worse in a warm room; wants it cold, wants it dark.

There is much swelling and tumefaction of the blood vessels of the eye, and redness, and it has a raw denuded excoriated appearance.

"Chemosis with strangulated vessels."

"Cornea opaque."

"Ulceration of cornea in new-born infants; profuse purulent discharge from the lids,"

and this is what the "Regulars" in former days and almost tip to date have been using for the eyes, treating them with Argentum nitricum.

Photophobia: after long looking at fine sewing, fine print. In one who has suddenly taken on far sightedness, it has come on as a congestive condition; not of old age but something that should be cured.

All at once he cannot see print at the usual distance but must hold it away off; if it occurs in someone twenty-five years of age or in a child.

At close distance it is indistinguishable. Such a disturbance of accommodation producing far sightedness it has caused and cured.

"Oedema of lids," etc.

Oedema is a word which runs through the remedy. That is to say, it has a dropsical state wherever dropsy may occur.

Face: The face is the next place we find particulars worthy of note.

"Face: Sweat stood in drops on his face."

"Face sunken, pale, bluish."

"Looks prematurely old."

"Face blue, heavy breathing, pulseless."

Throat: Then come the throat symptoms. Another feature of this remedy is its general tendency to produce warts.

There is a tendency to favor the growth of warts and in the throat there are little wart-like growths polypoid growths in the throat and about the genitals and anus; hence its great use in sycotic constitutions.

It has all the discharge necessary to its use in the sycotic constitution.

Felt as if he had a stick in the throat when swallowing. At once you will see its close relation to Hepar. In inflammatory conditions of the throat with ulceration.

In Argentum nitricum he wants to be in a cold room, wants cold air, and to swallow cold things. In Hepar he wants warm things to drink, warm clothing, warm room, and cannot put even his hand out of bed or his throat will begin paining him.

Things, you see, just exactly opposite, but they both have "sticks" in the throat. In dry chronic catarrh Alumina and Natrum muriaticum have "sticks" in the throat; but in red throat with tumefaction and pain these two remedies give no relief, the former two are better. "Sticks" in the throat like fish-bones.

Nitric acid, Hepar, and Argentum nitricum, are the most striking remedies for the fish-bone sensation. Many remedies have sticking in the throat, but these are the most prominent.

We know how Argentum nitricum has been used for ulceration in the throat, and here it comes in as one of the most useful remedies in congestion of the throat of long standing. Catarrhs with loss of voice. Warty growths, condylomata, etc.

Loss of voice, tumefaction of the mucous membrane round about the vocal cords and paresis of the vocal cords. Condylomata on the vocal cords.

"Loss of appetite" and refuses drink.

Digestion: This is another feature. He feels that he must have it and it makes him sick; brings on eructations, increased flatulence, sour stomach.

He cannot digest it; it acts like a physic and brings on a diarrhea. So marked is the aggravation from sugar that the nursing infant will get a green diarrhea if the mother eats candy.

Then is it astonishing that the baby can get a dynamized dose from the mother, when the dynamized dose can travel like lightning, and sugar takes all day to be digested and dynamized and fed as poison to the baby? I remember a case that I figured and figured on.

The baby had Mercurial stools, sure enough, they were grass green. Well Chamomilla has grass green stools and Arsenicum and Mercurius and lots of remedies have grass green stools.

Routinist that I was in those days I could not get anything but Mercurius out of it, and although the baby had gotten Merc., Ars. and Cham. There was no relief, until I found that the mother had been eating candy.

When she was asked if she ate sweet things, sugar, etc., she said,

"Oh, no."

"Why, yes, you do," said the husband;

"I bring you home a pound of candy every day.

What do you do with it?"

"Oh, that was nothing," she replied.

But the baby did not get well until it got Argentum nitricum and the mother stopped eating sugar.

"Irresistible desire for sugar."

Quite a number of medicines have craving for sweets, but many of them can eat sweets with impunity. It is always a peculiar thing when one of the articles of diet, such as milk, sugar, salt, starch, etc., and the things of the table make sick.

When it is said that "I cannot eat a teaspoonful of anything with starch, egg or sugar in it without being sick.," it is always strange and peculiar, because it is not something that comes in only as a craving and affecting the stomach, but it affects the whole patient.

The patient says:

"I become sick" and hence it becomes a general.

When the patient gets a diarrhea from eating sugar it is not merely a local and particular symptom, because the whole patient is sick before the diarrhea begins; the diarrhea is the outcome. Hence as it is a general it i necessary that it should be examined into.

"The vomited substances tinge the bedding black."

Incessant vomiting of food. He sometimes spits up food by the mouthful until the stomach is empty. Eructations of air accompanied by a mouthful of undigested food, like Phosphorus and Ferrum. Spitting it up; welling up in mouthfuls

"Eructations relieve."

"Flatulence passes upwards, in quantities."

Frequent eructations. Eructations do not always relieve. It is more like China in its eructation.

The eructations of Carbo veg. relieve for some time and he feels better. This is the way with Carbo veg.; he is distended almost to bursting and he cannot get up any wind, but finally after much pain and distension it wells up in empty eructations and then he gets relief.

With China he is distended, and every little while getting up gas, but with no relief. It does not seem to help, and sometimes patients will say they seem to get worse after it.

So it is with Argentum nitricum at times. It evidently has both.

"Most gastric ailments arc accompanied by belching."

"Belching difficult; finally air rushes out with great violence."

"Nausea after every meal; nausea with troublesome efforts to vomit."

I have seen these Argentum nitricum patients vomiting and purging in the same moment, not vomiting one second and purging the next, but gushing out both ways with great exhaustion like cholera morbus, so relaxed, prostrated and weak.

"Vomit; streaked brown, flocculent, like coffee grounds."

The stomach, liver and abdomen are full of pain. The abdomen distended with all this troublesome flatulence. Inflammation of the stomach, ulceration of the stomach, most troublesome diarrhea. Diarrhea with copious flatus. Stool with copious flatus in nursing children, with tormina and viscous sanguinolent stools and tenesmus.

"Diarrhea of children after weaning."

Another feature in connection with the diarrhea and dysentery is that casts are passed with the stool, like diphtheritic membrane or deposit; casts like the rectum, strings of membrane, come with the stool. Stools of green, foetid mucus with noisy flatus at night.

Urinary:

"Urine passed unconsciously and uninterruptedly."

"Urging to urinate; the urine passes less easily and freely."

"Bleeding of the urethra; painful erections; gonorrhoea."

It has most painful gonorrhoea with painful erections in the male. In the female the vagina is extremely sore, and the external soft parts are swollen; tumefaction.

Vagina feels sore on urinating; bloody discharge. In the male, orchitis from suppressed discharge. In the female, ovaritis, inflammation of all the pelvic organs. Great soreness all over the pelvis.

Bleeding from the vagina. Ulceration of the uterus. Coition is painful or impossible.

"Pains like sticks or slivers in and about the womb."

This sensation prevails wherever there are ulcers.

"Prolapsus with ulceration of the os or cervix."

Haemorrhage of short duration; shoot ing pains through abdomen and stomach. Metrorrhagia. Complaints of nervous women and at the menstrual period. Menses suppressed or scanty. Complaints during pregnancy.

Heart: Under the symptoms of the heart and pulse:

"Anxiety with palpitation and throbbing through the whole body."

"Violent palpitation from the slightest mental emotion or sudden muscular exertion. Palpitation obliges her to press hand hard against heart for relief. Heart's action irregular, intermittent," etc.

Pain in the lumbar region comes on while sitting, but is better when standing a walking. Pain in the back from flatulence. Sore pain in the spine. Pain in back at night. Great weight in the lumbar region. It is a very useful remedy in locomotor ataxia.

Great restlessness. The nervous symptoms are very numerous. Periodical trembling of the body. Chorea, with tearing in the legs. Convulsions preceded by great restlessness. Nervous faintish, tremulous sensation, etc.

The sleep symptoms are quite general. Distressing nightmares. The dreams are horrible Wakens in excitement and with starting. All sorts of strange, horrible things in sleep. Dreams of vicious and violent things, and that everything is going to happen to him. Dreams of departed friends, etc.

On waking in the morning limbs feel bruised aching in the chest,

Cannot sleep at night because he is so nervous.

Erysipelatous bed sores. While riding, palpitation and anxiety compelling him to get out of the wagon and walk, and that real fast.

Purplish rash, such as appears in the most serious forms of scarlet and zymotic diseases.

Its most natural antidote is Natrum muriaticum. When you have the ulceration where the throat has been cauterized or the cervix uteri or eyelids have been cauterized by Nitrate of Silver, study Natrum mur. and see if the symptoms of the case would not justify its administration. It is the most common natural antidote for these vicious practices.

A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica, John Henry Clarke

Nitrate of Silver. Lunar Caustic. Ag NO3. Trituration and solution.

Clinical.─Acidity. Addison's disease. Anaemia. Chancre. Dyspepsia. Epilepsy. Eructations. Erysipelas. Eyes, affections of. Flatulence. Gastric ulcer. Gonorrhoea. Hands, swelling of. Headache. Heartburn. Impetigo. Locomotor ataxy. Neuralgia. Ophthalmia neonatorum. Paralysis. Prostate, enlargement of. Scarlatina. Small-pox. Spinal irritation. Syphilis. Taste, altered. Throat, affections of. Tongue ulcerated. Warts. Zona.

Characteristics.─It was the use of Argentum nit. in olden times in the treatment of epilepsy which led to the production of the lamentable cases of lead-coloured pigmentation of the skin called Argyria. Homoeopathic experience has proved the applicability of the drug to many cases of epilepsy and the needlessness of employing a dosage that entails any risk whatever. The cases of epilepsy calling for this drug are those caused by fright, or occurring at the menstrual period. For days or hours before the attack the pupils are dilated, and after the attack the patient is very restless and has trembling of the hands.

Among the leading symptoms of Arg. n. are: Great tremor. Nervous feeling; sensation as if being squeezed in a vice. Feeling of constriction in various parts as of a band of iron round chest or waist. A feeling as if the body or some part of the body were expanding. Migraine, with feeling as if head were enormously enlarged; > tightly bound. Defective co-ordination. Paralyses of motion and sensation; a peculiar numbness accompanied with hyperaesthesia. Sensation of a splinter sticking in various parts. Burning sensations. Gowers has recorded a case in which the use of Arg. n. for stomach trouble caused (like lead), drop-wrist, gout, and albuminuria. In allopathic practice the dyspepsia for which it is given is < before food, when the stomach is empty. The opposite condition is the leading indication in homoeopathic practice. E. P. Brewer (Hahn. Monthly, July, 1883) has recorded a proving, (the prover, a young man, taking on three consecutive days one grain a day of Arg. n. triturated with sugar of milk), in which a number of motor and sensory symptoms were elicited, reminding Dr. Brewer of locomotor ataxy, in which it has been used with success by old-school practitioners. This use also has led to many cases of argyria. Among the symptoms of this proving were. "Mental operations sluggish; continued thought required special effort, but exertion of mind did not aggravate the heaviness and fulness of head. Lower extremities (loins, sacrum, and particularly gastrocnemii) fatigued; as if they would suddenly fail him. Loss of ambition. Building air castles by day: monstrous dreams by night." Another peculiar symptom was: chilly down the back beginning close to occiput extending to extreme tip of coccyx at noon every day; > by warmth; at 5 p.m. chills subsided, no sweat, but profound sleepiness, without sleep but enchanted with vivid imagination: burning heat followed. There was burning in one spot in front of rectum, probably in prostate gland. Micturition more frequent, burning in urethra. The headache was > by Act. r. In a proving by myself one of the most marked symptoms was a kind of numb sensitiveness of the skin of the arms─a hyperaesthetic-anaesthetic state, increased sensitiveness to contact, but diminished power of distinguishing sensations. Other symptoms were sore throat with white patches, rheumatic pains in (left) wrist (which I have since confirmed), and finger joints, with external tenderness of bony prominences, pain on rising in right sacro-iliac notch. Soreness of muscles of neck and back. Urticarious spots in various parts. In poisoning cases complete loss of consciousness, insensibility, and convulsions have occurred. Some of the notable digestive symptoms are: "Irresistible desire for sugar." "Fluids go right through him." Belching accompanies most gastric affections. Green stools are remarkable. "Green mucus like chopped spinach in flakes." "Stool turning green after remaining on diaper." "Stool expelled with much spluttering." "Stool shreddy, red, green muco-lymph or epithelial substance." There is a pain in the small of the back, > on standing or walking, but severe when rising from a seat. (Sul., Caust.) Arg. n. has irresistible desire for sugar, which at the same time < Kent relates a case illustrating this. A nursing infant had a grass-green diarrhoea which failed to yield to Merc., Ars., and Cham. At last Kent discovered that the mother ate a pound of candy a day. Arg. n. was given and the candy stopped and the child soon got well. Intestinal catarrh with shreddy membranous discharges is often cured by Arg. n.

A mental peculiarity is one of apprehension and fear: when ready to go to church, etc., diarrhoea sets in. Fears projecting corners of buildings and high buildings. The sight of high buildings makes him giddy and causes him to stagger; it seems as if houses on both sides of street would approach and crush him. Imagines he cannot pass a certain point (Kali bro.). When crossing a bridge has an almost irresistible desire to jump over. Impulsion to walk very fast (Lil. t.). Mucous membranes affected, purulent and bloody discharges; membranous diarrhoea with agonising pains. Epithelium affected (cancers). Most symptoms are < night; very nervous at night. < At night or in morning on rising (epileptic attacks). Day half more cough, night half more diarrhoea. < On awaking. At 11 a.m. nervous attacks > by stimulants. Chill down back every day at noon. < In warm room; over a fire; in summer; warmth of bed; > by warm drinks. > In cool open air, > washing with cold water; < from cold food; < ice creams. Motion generally <; but walking in open air > back pains, which are < sitting. Lying on right side = pains in abdomen; palpitation. Heat <; but there 19 also < from uncovering; aversion to uncovering. < Rising from sitting. < Inspiration. < Touching the parts. > Bending double. < Thinking intently. < Riding. > Tight bandage (headache).─Suited to: Hysteric nervous persons; headaches from mental causes characterised by dulness of head. Women with menstrual disturbances. Cachetic state. Scrawny, feeble, dried-up-looking women. Guernsey puts it, "withered and dried up by disease. A child looks like a withered old man." It corresponds in lower potencies to Grauvogl's carbo-nitrogenoid constitution (Sul., Cupr.); in higher to the hydrogenoid or sycotic constitution. A large number of symptoms appear on the left side.

Relations.─Antidoted by: Nat. m. (chemical and dynamic), Arsen., Milk. Antidotes to Nit. ac. and Arg. nit.: Puls., Calc., Sep.; next in importance, Lyc., Sil., Rhus, Phos., Sul. It antidotes: Am. caust., effects of tobacco. Inimical: Coff. c. (it increases the nervous headache). Follows well: Bry., Spig. (dyspepsia); Caust. (urethral affections); Spongia (goitre); Verat. (flatus). Is followed well by: Lyc. (flatus). Similar to: Arg. met. (A. met. acts on cartilages, Arg. nit. more on mucous membranes, skin, bone, and periosteum, and is suited to herpetic patients); to Aur., Cup., K. bich., Lach., Merc., Merc. cor., Merc. iod., Nat. m., Nit. ac., Thuj. In complaints from pressure of clothes, like Calc., Bry., Caust., Lyc., Sarsap., Stan. In congestive headaches, like Glon. and other Nit. ac. compounds. In fish-bone sensation in throat, Nit. ac., Hep. (Hep. < by cold; Arg. n. < in warm room). Puls. is its nearest analogue.

Causation.─Apprehension, fear or fright. Eating ices. Intemperate habits. Mental strain and worry. Onanism and venery. Sugar. Tobacco (boys).

SYMPTOMS.

1. Mind.─Mental anxiety.─Very impulsive; always in a hurry but accomplishes nothing; in continual motion; he walks fast.─Hurries restlessly to fulfil engagements, fears to be late when there is plenty of time.─Melancholic; does not undertake anything lest he should not succeed.─Impulse to throw herself from the window.─Frequent errors of perception; mistakes distances; fears house-corners.─Time seems to pass very slowly.─Apprehension when ready to go to church or opera, bringing on diarrhoea.─Easily angered or excited, anger brings on symptoms, cough, pain, etc.─Profound melancholy; imagines if left alone will die; apprehends incurable disease of brain.─Nightly nervousness, with heat and fulness in the head.─Nervous, faintish, and tremulous sensation.─Awful faces appear on shutting eyes.─Apathy.─Mental operations sluggish; thought requires effort.─Complete loss of consciousness.─Memory impaired, cannot find the right word.─Building castles in the air by day: monstrous visions by night.

2. Head.─Vertigo, with headache.─Morning headache (when he awakens).─Excessive congestion of blood to the head.─Stitches in l. frontal eminence.─Cannot walk, talk, or think, the head gets so giddy.─Dulness, mental confusion, dizziness, tendency to fall sideways.─Staggers on stooping; on shutting eyes.─Dizzy at sight of high houses, feels as if they would close or fall in upon him.─Momentarily blind with mental confusion; buzzing in ears, nausea, trembling.─Digging up, incisive motion, through the l. hemisphere of the brain.─Pressing boring pains, in small spots; in bones; in l. temple.─Hemicrania; epileptiform; periodic; boring pain < l. frontal eminence, > tight band; from mental emotion or strain, loss of friends, loss of sleep; sometimes pain so severe he loses senses; paroxysms frequently culminate in vomiting of bile or sour fluid.─Occipital headache.─Occipital headache decreases, frontal headache increasing.─Congestive headache with throbbing carotids, must loosen cravat; head feels much enlarged; as if bones of skull separated, with increased temperature.─Sensation of constriction of scalp; as if something tightly drawn over skull.─Drawing in bands over surface of brain, apparently in membranes or sinuses.─Headache, with chilliness.─Headache relieved by tying a handkerchief tightly around the head.─Headache worse in the open air.─Aching in one side of the head, with enlarged feeling in corresponding eye.─Itching, creeping, crawling of the hairy scalp (as from vermin); roots of hair feel as if pulled upward.

3. Eyes.─Photophobia.─Asthenopia from want of accommodation; even coarser kinds of work strain.─Suddenly becomes far-sighted.─Cloud over l. eye; grey spots and serpent-like bodies before sight; black motes (esp. r.).─Opacity, of the cornea; ulceration of cornea in infants.─Acute granular conjunctivitis, conjunctiva intensely pink, or scarlet red; discharge profuse, inclined to be muco-purulent.─Purulent ophthalmia; pus thick yellow and bland, < in warm room or from fire, > open air.─Ophthalmia neonatorum, pus thick, yellow, profuse and bland (internally; and locally in 2 gr. to ounce solution); after failure of Puls. and Merc.─Blepharitis, thick crusts on lids; canthi red as blood; swollen red caruncula (standing out like a lump of red flesh); clusters of intensely red vessels extend from inner canthus to cornea; granular conjunctivitis; < by warmth.─Iritis.─Sight and eyes seem to suffer as abdominal sufferings increase.

4. Ears.─Deafness; ringing; buzzing noises; feeling of distraction (l.); earache.─Whizzing in l. ear with feeling of obstruction and hard hearing.

5. Nose.─Violent itching, obliged to rub until it looks raw.─Coryza with chilliness, lachrymation, sickly look, sneezing and stupefying headache (over the eyes); has to lie down.─Discharge of (whitish) pus with clots of blood.─Discharge like boiled starch.─Ulceration of nostrils.─Bruised pains in bones.

6. Face.─Sunken, pale, bluish countenance; yellow, dirty-looking.─Sickly appearance.─Dried-up look.─Prematurely old look.─Hard blotches on vermilion border of upper lip, paler than lip and sore to touch.─Lips dry and viscid without thirst.

7. Teeth.─Gums swollen, inflamed, bleed easily, painful when touched.─Gums tender and bleed easily; but neither painful nor swollen.─Prosopalgia, esp. in infra-orbital branch of fifth nerve and nerves going to teeth; pain intense, at its height accompanied by unpleasant sour taste in the mouth.─Face convulsed; jaws clenched.─Teeth sensitive to cold water.─Toothache when chewing; eating cold or sour things.

8. Mouth.─Dry tongue with thirst.─Papillae prominent, erect, feeling sore; tip of tongue red and painful.─Tongue white and moist.─Red streak down middle of tongue.─Fetid odour from mouth.─Ptyalism.─Thick phlegm in mouth.─Mouth coated inside whitish grey.

9. Throat.─Dark red appearance of uvula and fauces.─Sensation as if a splinter were stuck in when swallowing, breathing, or moving the neck.─Thick, tenacious mucus in the throat, obliging him to hawk.─Rawness, soreness, and scraping in the throat.─Burning and dryness in fauces and pharynx.─White patches in throat.─Paroxysms of cramp in the oesophagus.─Ulcers: mercurial, syphilitic, and scrofulous.

10. Appetite.─Irresistible desire for sugar (but it <; in the evening.─Desire for cheese.─Sweetish-bitter taste.─Eating relieves nausea, but < stomach pains.─Warm drinks >; cold drinks or ices < stomach pains.─Eating or a swallow of wine > head: coffee <-The least food < pain of gastralgia; flatulence.─Fluids go right through him (in cholera infantum).─Warm fluids >, cold < pains in stomach.─After heavy meal, epileptic fit.─Nausea after each meal, esp. after dinner.

11. Stomach.─Gastralgia, esp. in delicate, nervous women; brought on by any emotion, loss of sleep, or at menstrual period.─Inflammation of the stomach; gastro-enteritis.─Gnawing pain in the l. side of the stomach.─Pressure with heaviness (sensation of lump) and nausea.─Trembling and throbbing in stomach.─Most gastric complaints are accompanied by violent belching.─Eructations of air accompanied by a mouthful of undigested food (Pho., Fer.).─After yawning, feeling as if stomach would burst; wind presses upwards, but the oesophagus feels spasmodically closed; hence an ineffectual effort to eructate, with excessive strangulation, pressing pain in stomach, faintish nausea, confluence of water in the mouth and inability to stir; the paroxysm ceased after a quarter of an hour, amidst frequent and violent out-rush of wind.─Vomiting of some fluid, of bile, black vomit; with anxiety in precordia.─The vomited substance tinged the bedding black.─Awakens at midnight with oppression at stomach, as from a heavy lump, inducing vomiting; in the morning throws up glairy mucus, which can be drawn into strings.─Warmth at epigastrium.─Gnawing ulcerative pain in epigastrium.─Stinging, ulcerative pain in l. side of stomach, worse from touch and deep inspiration.─Pain increases and decreases slowly.─Small spot between xiphoid and navel sensitive to slightest pressure; pains radiate in all directions.─Pain in l. side of stomach below true ribs, < during inspiration and on touching the parts.─Stomach pains are accompanied by intense spasm of chest muscles and dyspnoea; excessive accumulation of wind; nervous feeling or sensation as if squeezed in a vice.

12. Abdomen.─Sensation as of a ball ascending from abdomen to throat.─Stitches through the abdomen (l. side) like electric shocks, esp. when changing from rest to motion.─Pain in abdomen as if sore; with great hunger; > after eating, but a trembling sets in its place.─Violent attacks of pain at irregular intervals; patient rolls on floor; descending colon tender to touch; tapeworm-like stool passes.─Fulness, heaviness, and distension with anxiety.─Flatulence.─Griping.─Cutting pains.─Constriction as if tightly tied with a band.─Pain in hypochondria.─Intolerance of lacing round hypochondria.

13. Stool and Anus.─Cholera infantum in dried-up, mummy-like children, stools green, slimy, noisy, flatulent, < at night.─Like spinach in flakes.─Green, slimy, shreddy stools, with severe bearing-down in hypogastrium; membranous stool like unsegmented tapeworm; blood, slime, and epithelium; of ten with much flatus; after eating sugar; after drinking; "as soon as the least drink is taken it goes through"; from any excitement.─Advanced dysentery, with suspected ulceration.─Constipation and dry faeces.─Taenia or ascarides with itching at anus.─Piles with burning or tenesmus; bleeding.─Burning in one spot in anterior wall of rectum (probably in prostrate gland).

14. Urinary Organs.─Nephralgia; pain by touching region.─Urine dark red; contains deposit of renal epithelium and uric acid crystals (esp. after Caust.).─Quick urging to urinate; frequent and copious emission of pale urine.─Incontinence night and day.─Urethra from meatus to bladder hot and burning; < at meatus and behind scrotum.─Urine burning while passing, urethra feels as if swollen.─Inability to pass urine in a projecting stream.─Oozing of mucus from urethra: thick, white at night.─Stitches in extremity of urethra; cutting from posterior part of urethra to anus, when emitting last drop of urine.─Inflammation, and violent burning or shooting pains in the urethra, with increased gonorrhoea.─Priapism, bleeding of the urethra.─Stricture of the urethra.─Dysuria, bloody urine and fever.─Ulcerative pain in middle of urethra, as from a splinter.─Stream of urine spreads asunder.

15. Male Sexual Organs.─Chancre-like ulcer on prepuce.─Ulcers on the prepuce; small, covered with pus; later, spreading, bowl-shaped, with a tallow-like coating.─Impotence; erections, but they fail when coition is attempted.─Want of desire, organs shrivelled.─Coition painful, urethra as if put oil stretch or sensitive at orifice.─Painful tension during erection, chordee, bleeding from urethra, and shooting in urethra from behind forward.─Urethra swollen, hard, knotty, painful.─Spasmodic contraction of cremaster muscle, testicle drawn high up.─Pain in testes and scrotum as from pins and needles, < r.─Orchitis.─Burning in spot in anterior of rectum (prostate gland).

16. Female Sexual Organs.─Ovarian pains, feels as if an enormous swelling in side affected.─Prolapsus with ulceration of os or cervix; with copious yellow, corroding leucorrhoea and frequent bleeding from points of ulceration.─Menses irregular; scanty (with asthma).─Menses too copious or too scanty, too soon or too late.─All symptoms < before and during menses.─Coition painful, followed by bleeding from the vagina.─Orgasms at night.─Metrorrhagia.─Metrorrhagia, with nervous erethism at change of life; also in young widows and those who have borne no children; returning in attacks, region of ovaries painful, with pains radiating to sacrum and thighs.─During pregnancy, stomach as if it would burst with wind; head feels expanded.─Puerperal convulsions; just after attack lies quiet, but becomes very restless before another.

17. Respiratory Organs.─Pure nervous asthma; spasm of respiratory muscles; great dyspnoea, < in crowded room.─Muco-purulent sputa seeming to come from wall of larynx.─Expectoration purulent, mixed with light blood.─Internal soreness of the larynx and pit of the throat, worse mornings.─Chronic laryngitis of singers; raising the voice causes cough.─Marked hoarseness, sometimes loss of voice; feeling as if something clogging vocal cords.─Cough with sense of soreness in l. side preventing lying on it.─Evening cough worse from tobacco smoke.─Cough < evening and night.─Suffocative cough at noon.─Cough in paroxysms induced by: phlegm in larynx; irritation under sternum; fit of passion; laughing; stooping; smoking; ascending stairs; lying down; on awaking.─Haemoptysis.

18. Chest.─Aching, tensive pain in various parts of chest in small spots.─Weight as of a stone in middle of sternum.─Burning in chest; sensation of warmth between scapulae and sternum.─Violent cramps and pain in muscles of chest.

19. Heart.─Palpitation of the heart in paroxysms, with nausea.─Violent palpitation of the heart; in afternoon with faintish nausea; caused by any emotional excitement or any sudden muscular exertion; from lying on r. side.─Angina pectoris, intense pain in chest and about heart, can hardly breathe.─Irregular (intermittent) action of heart (with an unpleasant sensation of fulness), < when noticing it, > when moving about in open air.

20. Neck and Back.─Muscles of r. side of neck sore and stiff.─Soreness in lumbo-sacral region.─Heaviness in os sacrum, extending along pelvis with painful drawing.─Heaviness, with paralytic sensation, preventing long sitting, and obliging him, when walking, to stretch the dorsal spine.─Pain in small of back, < rising from sitting; > standing or walking.─Pain in sacro-iliac symphyses, feeling as if bones were loose there.─Fatigue in back.─Pressure in back at night.

21. Limbs.─Trembling.─Lassitude.─Weariness of forearms and legs.

22. Upper Limbs.─Drawing in shoulders.─Pain in l. shoulder and arm.─Rheumatic pain in l. wrist.─Left arm heavy.─Nightly boring pain in ulna.─Hyperaesthetic numbness of arms and shoulders.─Pain in wrist, and finger joints.─Hands tremble.─Numbness of finger tips.

23. Lower Limbs.─Staggering gait.─Lassitude of lower limbs with dizziness as if intoxicated.─Pain in calves all night; weary as after a long journey. (Paralytic heaviness and debility, so that he did not know where to put them.).─Heaviness and debility of the legs.─Limbs, esp. knees, start up at night.─Weariness with rigidity.─Oedema of feet.

24. Generalities.─Insensibility; face and upper limbs convulsed; trismus; pupils dilated.─Epileptic attacks caused by fright, or during menstruation (at night, or in the morning when rising).─Chorea-like convulsive motion of all the limbs.─Fatigue.─Tremulous weakness, accompanied with general debility.─Expanding sensation, esp. in face, in head, with feeling as if bones of skull separated; with increase of temperature.─Anaesthetic-hyperaesthetic condition of surface.─Sticking sensations in various parts.─Emaciation.─Dropsy; oedema of legs and ascites.─Loss of voluntary motion.─Paraplegia from debilitating causes.─Sensation of splinters in various parts, esp. in mucous membranes.

25. Skin.─Wart-shaped excrescences.─Skin blue-grey, violet, or bronze to real black.─Bluish-black eruption; (in scarlet fever).─Itching.─Itching pimple.─Impetigo.─Zona.─Small-pox.─Erysipelas.─Urticaria.─Skin brown, tense, and hard.─Warts.

26. Sleep.─Restless at night; when he does sleep has all sorts of troubled dreams.─Restless, stupefied sleep, with horrid dreams of serpents, etc.─Prevented falling asleep by fancies and images.─Wakes in the morning, dreams he is hungry and wakes with flatulence and spasms and twinges.─Soporous condition.─Nightly nervousness with heat of head.─Restless sleep with stupefaction and headache.

27. Fever.─Chilliness and nausea.─Chills, shifting or constant, are more lasting than the heat and return quickly on uncovering; both stages without thirst.─Chilliness.─Chilly down back, at noon, extending from occiput to tip of coccyx up back and over shoulder.─Night sweat.─Morning sweat.─Scarlet fever.

Keynotes and Characteristics with Comparisons of Some of the Leading Remedies of the Materia Medica (Allen's Keynotes), Henry Clay Allen

The Silver Nitrate (AgO,NO5)

Acute or chronic diseases fro unusual or long-continued mental exertion. Always think of Argentum nit. on seeing withered, dried-up, old-looking patients (thin, scrawny, Sec.). Emaciation, progressing every year; most marked in lower extremeties (Am. m.); marasmus. Apprehension when ready for church or opera, diarrhoea sets in (Gels.). Time passes slowly (Can. I.); impulsive, wants to do things in a hurry; must walk fast; is always hurried; anxious, irritable, nervous (Aur. Lit.). Headache: congestive, with fullness and heaviness; with sense of expansion; habitual gastric, of literary men; from dancing; hemicrania, pressive, screwing in frontal eminence or temple; ending in bilious vomiting; < from any exhaustive mental labor; > by pressure or tight bandaging (Apis, Puls.). Acute granular conjunctivitis; scarlet-red, like raw beef; discharge profuse, muco-purulent. Ophthalmia neonatorum: profuse, purulent discharge; cornea opaque, ulceration; lids sore, thick, swollen; agglutinated in morning (Apis, Mer. s., Rhus). Eye strain from sewing, < in warm room > in open air (Nat. m., Ruta); diseases due to defective accommodation. Craves sugar; child is fond of it, but diarrhoea results from eating (craves salt or smoked meat, Cal. p.). Belching accompanies most gastric ailments. Flatulent dyspepsia: belching after every meal; stomach, as it it would burst with wind; belching difficult, finally air rushes out with great violence. Diarrhoea: green mucus, like chopped spinach in flakes; turning green after remaining on diaper; after drinking; after eating candy or sugar; masses of muco-lymph in shreddy strips or lumps (Asar.); with much noisy flatus (Aloe.). Diarrhoea as soon as he drinks (Ars., Crot. t., Throm.). Urine passes unconsciously day and night (Caust.). Impotence: erection fails when coition is attempted (Agnus, Calad., Selen.). Coition: painful in both sexes; followed by bleeding from vagina (Nit. ac.). Netrorrhagia: in young widows; in sterility; with nervous erethism at change of life (Lach.). Great longing for fresh air (Amyl., Puls., Sulph.). Chronic laryngitis of singers; the high notes cause cough (Alum., Arg. m., Arum.). Great weakness of lower extremities, with trembling; cannot walk with the eyes closed (Alum.). Walks and stands unsteadily, especially when he thinks himself unobserved. Convulsions preceded by great restlessness. Sensation of a splinter in throat when swallowing (Dolch., Hep., Nit. ac., Sil.); in or about uterus when walking or riding. Chilly when uncovered, yet feels smothered if wrapped up; craves fresh air.

Relation. - Natrum mur, for the bad effects of cauterizing with nitrate of silver. Coffee increases nervous headache. Boys' complaints after using tabacco (Ars., Ver.). Similar: to, Nat. m., Nit. ac., Lach., Aur., Cup. After Ver.; Lyc. follows well in flatulent dyspepsia.

Aggravation. - Cold food; cold air; eating sugar; ice cream; unusual mental exertion.

Amelioration. - Open air; craves the wind blowing in his face; bathing with cold water. The 200 or 1000th potency in watery solution as a topical application in ophthalmia neonatorum has relieved when the crude Silver nitrate failed.

Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics, Eugene Beauharnais Nash

Impulsive: time goes too slow; must walk fast.

Apprehension, on getting ready for church, opera, etc., has an attack of diarrhoea.

Vertigo, with buzzing in the ears and weakness and trembling.

Canthi, as red as blood; swollen, standing out like a lump of red flesh.

Irresistible desire for sugar; gastric ailments, with violent loud belchings.

Stool; green, mucous, like chopped spinach in flakes; turns green on remaining on diaper; expelled with much spluttering.

Profuse, sometimes purulent, discharges from mucous membranes, generally.

Dried-up, withered patients, made so by disease.

Craves fresh air.

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Guernsey says: "We think of this remedy on seeing a withered and dried up person, made so by disease." This especially in children. "He looks like a little withered old man." (Fluoric acid, young people look old.) Argentum like Gold profoundly affects the mind. Like Gold it is one of the best remedies for hypochondriasis. The symptoms are so many in this trouble that we can only call attention to them as found in Guiding Symptoms. I will only mention a few more prominent and peculiar symptoms that have been frequently verified. "The sight of high houses makes him dizzy and causes him to stagger. It seemed as if the houses on both sides of the street would approach and crush him."

"When walking in the street he dreads to pass a street corner, because the corner of the house seems to project and he is afraid he will run against it." Impulsive, must walk very fast, always hurried. (Lilium tigrinum.) "Apprehension when ready to go to church or opera; brings on diarrhea." (Gelsemium).

The hurried feeling of both Argentum nitricum and Lilium tigrinum have occurred mostly in uterine troubles; while the diarrhoea on excitement seems to depend upon a general nervous condition. Unless the indications pointed strongly to one in preference to the other remedy it might be well to try the vegetable first. The minerals are generally longer and deeper in their action, and would perhaps be preferable the more chronic the case.

Some of the very curious symptoms found under this and other remedies are not found in everyday practice, but when found are all the more valuable because the cases presenting them are rare and not easily understood or cured by the ordinary remedies. Some of our most brilliant cures have been made in just such cases, and they are very gratifying to both physician and patient.

Argentum nitricum is sometimes the best remedy for hemicrania; this kind of headache is often very distressing and hard to cure. One peculiar symptom belonging to Argentum nitricum in headache is a feeling of expansion, feels as though head were enormously enlarged, and like Pulsatilla and Apis, feels better when tied up tight. This feeling of expansion is also a general symptom, feels as though the whole body or part of it were expanding, some express it as a feeling of fullness. (Aesculus hipocastanum). It is found under other remedies also, but very prominently under this.

Argentum nitricum has a great deal of vertigo, which is often accompanied with buzzing in the ears, general debility and trembling. Cannot walk with the eyes closed; the sight of high houses makes him dizzy. These symptoms call to remembrance Gelsemium. Both remedies have much vertigo; great tremulous weakness, accompanied with general debility, actual trembling and tremulous sensation, and both have been found useful in locomotor ataxia. I should, other things being equal, give the preference to Gelsemium in recent cases, or in the beginning, and Argentum nitricum further along. But there are generally diagnostic indications which enable us to choose between them. In eye affections Argentum is one of our most valuable remedies, and like all remedies which are very valuable for anything has been woefully abused by the old school. It is a pity that they do not know enough to get the good and to avoid the bad effects of such valuable agents, for many times the disastrous results of their misuse brings the remedies into such disrepute that others are afraid to use them at all. It was for this reason that the old botanics rejected all mineral remedies. Mercury had so scared them. It falls to the Homoeopath to teach how to use all such a way as to get the good, while avoiding the bad effects. In eye troubles Allen & Norton write as follows: "The greatest service that Argentum nitricum performs is in purulent ophthalmia. With large experience, in both hospital and private practice, we have not lost a single eye from this disease, and every one has been treated with internal remedies, most of them with Argentum nitricum of a high potency, 30th or 200th. We have witnessed the most intense chemosis, with strangulated vessels, most profuse purulent discharge, even the cornea beginning to get hazy and looking as though it would slough, subside rapidly under Argentum nitricum internally. The subjective symptoms are almost none. Their very absence, with the profuse purulent discharge, and the swollen lids from a collection of pus in the eye, or swelling of the sub-conjunctival tissue of the lids themselves, indicates the drug. (Apis; Rhus.)", Later Norton writes: "I do believe that there is no need of cauterization with it except in the gonorrhoeal form of purulent conjunctivitis." Such testimony from such sources ought to shame the abuse of this agent in the hands of old school physicians, and sometimes bogus Homoeopaths. In ophthalmia neonatorum in my own practice as a general practitioner I have had very often better success with Mercurius solubilis, especially where there was much purulent matter pouring out on opening the eyes. In blepharitis Graphites and Staphisagria have served me oftener than Argentum nitricum, but this may not be the experience of others, for in eye troubles, as in all others, the indications are to be studied and carefully recognized in their entirety. (Borax must not be forgotten in blepharitis.) Specialists are apt to lose sight of this and be led to local treatment when constitutional would be infinitely better. The symptom, "red, painful tip of the tongue, papillae erect, prominent", has guided to the cure of many different kinds of cases. There are also some valuable symptoms in the digestive organs; for instance, "Irresistible desire for sugar; fluids go right through him; most gastric ailments are accompanied by belching; belching after every meal, stomach as if it would burst with wind, belching difficult; finally air rushes out with great noise and violence." All of these are characteristic, and there is no doubt that this remedy is sometimes indicated when Carbo veg., China or Lycopodium are given because they are generally so much better understood. Dyspepsia, gastralgia and even gastric ulcer have sometimes found a powerful remedy in Argentum, and it has also done great good in very obstinate cases of diarrhoea of various kinds.

"Green mucus like chopped spinach in flakes."

"Stool turning green after remaining in diaper."

"Stool expelled with much spluttering."

"Stool shreddy, red, green muco-lymph, epithelial substance."

"During stool emission of much noisy flatus."

Now there are other remedies which have some of these symptoms in a marked degree, notably: Calcarea phos., which has the spluttering stool with much noisy flatus, and it is also a fact that both remedies are very valuable ones in hydrocephaloid consequent on the long-continued drain from intractable cases of entero-colitis. If the bone development should be slow with open fontanelles and sweaty head of course Calcarea phos., would win. Then in Calcarea phos. the child wishes smoked meats, bacon, etc., in Argentum nitricum sugar or sweets. Yet both have great emaciation, the child looking old and wrinkled, and it will sometimes be close individualizing to choose between them. Argentum nitricum has its place in the treatment of throat affections. There is thick, tenacious mucus in the throat obliging him to hawk and causing slight hoarseness. Rawness, soreness, scraping in throat, causing hawking and cough. Sensation as of a splinter lodged in the throat (Nitric ac., Hepar sulph., Dolichos). and wartlike excrescences, which feel like pointed bodies when swallowing. This kind of throat may extend downward until it involves the larynx, especially in singers, clergymen, or lawyers who are using their voice very much. Then it is doubly indicated. When we come to the back and extremities we again find our remedy in the field for a share of the honors. "Pain in the back (small of) relieve when standing or walking, but severe when rising from a seat", is a condition often found in practice. I have often relieved it with Sulphur or Causticum, but remember also Argentum nitricum. If in back troubles we find great lassitude (Kali carbonicum), with weariness, especially in forearms and lower legs, especially calves, or if in addition to this we find vertigo and trembling of the extremities, we may be sure Argentum nitricum will do us good. In paraplegia from debilitating causes or paralysis after diphtheria we may find this remedy indicated. Also in epilepsy or convulsions; in the former (epilepsy) one characteristic symptom is that for hours or days before the attack the pupils are dilated; in the latter the convulsions are preceded for a short time by great restlessness.

Cuprum metallicum has great restlessness between the attacks. Finally Natrum muriaticum is the best antidote for the abuse of Argentum nit., especially upon mucous surfaces.

FERRUM METALLICUM or ACETICUM.

Anaemia with great paleness of all the mucous membranes; with sudden fiery-red flushing of the face.

Profuse haemorrhages from any organ; haemorrhagic diathesis; blood light with dark clots; coagulates easily.

Local congestions and inflammations, with hammering, pulsating pains; veins full, flushed face, alternates with paleness.

Canine hunger, alternates with complete loss of appetite.

Regurgitations or eructations, or vomiting of food at night that has stayed in the stomach all day; undigested painless diarrhoea.

Red face during chill.

Modalities: < after eating and drinking; while at rest, especially sitting still; > walking slowly around.

This is another one of the abused remedies. It stands with the old school for anaemia, as does Quinine for malaria. Each can and does cure its kind of both conditions, but can cure no other; and each, when it is the true curative, is capable of doing its best work in the potentized form. Dr. Hughes writes "The treatment of anaemia by Iron is one of the few satisfactory and certain things in modern medicine. From whatever cause this condition may arise, whether it be the chlorosis of defective menstruation, or the simple poverty of blood induced by haemorrhages, deficiency of air, light, and suitable food, or by exhausting diseases, Iron is the one great remedy". I must say that I think that a man who would write like that of any remedy is not to be blamed for talking of the few satisfactory and certain things in modern medicine. Iron is no more of a panacea for anaemia than is Quinine for malaria or Phosphate of Lime for deficient bone development. My experience has taught me that there are several other equally efficient remedies for these conditions and that when they are not indicated they not only cannot cure but do injure every time they are prescribed, especially in the material doses in which they are generally recommended by such teachers. I must here state my experience founded on abundant practice and observation that such prescribing is not only un-Hahnemannian, but in every sense un-homoeopathic, and I warn all beginners not to practice along that line or they too will come to talk of the few satisfactory and certain things in modern medicine. Now we have given this quotation from Dr. Hughes, it is only fair to him to quote him again, inasmuch as he, in this latter quotation, talks more sensibly. Talking about anaemia, he says "The malady does not ordinarily arise from any failure of the quantity of iron supplied in the food. If the element is deficient in the blood the fault lies in the assimilative processes. But Reveil has ascertained that in anaemia there is no change whatever in the amount of iron present in the blood. However few the corpuscles they contain within them the full proportion of the metal normal to health, and though under the influence of iron itself they increase to double and triple their number they yield no more iron". Then Cowperthwaite adds: "It is also true that when irons is introduced into the system in large quantities with a view to supplying a deficiency of iron in the blood that it is not assimilated, but may be almost entirely obtained from the faeces, having been eliminated by the intestines. It is evident, therefore, that iron does not act as a curative agent by virtue of its absorption as a constituent of the blood, but rather, as we are led to conclude, from its physiological effects upon the organs and tissues of the body, that it owes its therapeutic virtues to the same essential dynamic agency possessed by other drugs, and its application is subject to the same therapeutic law." Sound words, these; then let no man prescribe Iron or any other remedy for anaemia, or any other disease, without indications according to our therapeutic law of cure. I have seen better cures of bad cases of anaemia by Natrum muriaticum in potentized form than I ever did from Iron in any form, although Iron has its cases, as have also Pulsatilla, Cyclamen, Calcarea phos., Carbo veg., China and many other remedies. We will now call attention to the symptoms that indicate Iron in anaemia or any other condition where Iron is the remedy.

"Ashy, pale or greenish face, with pain or other symptoms the face becomes bright red." (Raue). "The least emotion or exertion causes a red, flushed face." (Guernsey.) "Rush of blood to head; veins of head swollen; flushes of heat in the face." "Hammering, beating, pulsating pains in the head." (Bell, China, Natrum mur., Glon.)

"Great paleness of mucous membranes, especially that of the cavity of the mouth." (Raue.) "Always better from walking about, notwithstanding weakness obliges patient to lie down." (Guernsey.) "Menses too soon, too profuse, too long lasting, with fiery red face, ringing in the ears (China), flow pale, watery and debilitating." Now if in addition to these symptoms you have, notwithstanding the general anaemic condition of the patient, frequent rushes of blood to the head, chest, face, or other local congestions you have a typical Iron case and may confidently expect a cure if given in potency and at proper intervals. But if your patient has been already "loaded up" with Iron on the theory that the blood must be "fed" with it, the fact is, generally that she is suffering from the over-dosing more than from the original disease and you will proceed to find the best antidote, guided by the symptoms here as elsewhere, and, in adapting such remedy to the case as it is, will often be able to cure both the natural and drug disease together.

It is a blessed thing that this is so, for if the Quinine, Iron and other medicinal cachexia stalking about in our midst were not curable, we would be a sorry spectacle as human beings if allopathic dosing were allowed to go on. Now while we are talking about this so-called blood remedy we will speak about its general haemorrhagic tendencies.

These local congestions so characteristic of Iron are attended by haemorrhages from nose, lungs, womb, kidneys, etc., hence it becomes one of our best remedies for haemorrhages in anaemia or debilitated subjects with the peculiar symptoms before mentioned. In the form of Ferrum phos., of which we have already written, taking the fact that both remedies entering into the combination have decided haemorrhagic tendencies, it becomes doubly effective in this sphere.

But Iron is not by any means confined in its usefulness to blood troubles, and we will notice briefly some other uses of this valuable curative agent. In disorders of stomach and bowels it becomes sometimes the only remedy, and has some peculiar and characteristic symptoms indicating it here.

"Canine hunger (China), alternating with complete loss of appetite." "Regurgitation of food, or eructations after eating." "Wants bread and butter; meat disagrees." (opposite Natrum mur.) "Beer or tea also disagrees. Food lies in the stomach all day and is vomited at night." "Bowels feel sore as if they had been bruised, or as if he had taken cathartics; undigested, painless stools at night, or while eating or drinking." (Croton tig., China). These and many other symptoms show its value here, and it is noticeable, the resemblances of this remedy to China. There is sometimes difficulty in choosing between them, but there is more flatulence with China. Both remedies have, markedly, lienteria and painless diarrhoea. These two remedies both antidote and complement each other under certain circumstances. They should be studied in comparison as debility remedies.

Next to the easily flushed and red face as a characteristic symptom stands this – "Walking slowly about relieves". (One other remedy has this general characteristic almost, if not equally strong, viz., Pulsatilla). This is true of the general restlessness, of the great weakness also; he feels better walking slower about, even though he is so weak he has to sit down every little while to rest; pain in the hip joint drives out of bed and is only relieved while walking slowly. I once had a rather pale lady come to me for treatment for pains in the forearms; after prescribing for her for a week, she let drop this symptom, that the only way in which she could get relief nights (when the pain was almost unbearable) was by getting right up out of bed and walking slowly about the room. Ferrum metal. 1000th cured her promptly and she never had a return. Some people think that metals cannot be potentized, but when I make numerous cures like this with Iron, Stannum, Zinc and Platina I don't believe it. Palpitation of the heart, haemoptysis and asthma are also relieved in the same way by walking slowly about. It would seem hardly possible that such complaints could be so relieved, but there are many such curious and unaccountable symptoms in our Materia Medica which have become reliable leaders to the prescription of certain remedies.

Ferrum is one of our best remedies for cough with vomiting of food. It is also one of the very few remedies having a red face during chill, and has more than once led to the cure of intermittent fever on that symptom. Again it is one of the remedies found in intermittents that have been abused by Quinine. In these cases we often find the splenic region sore on pressure and much swollen.

PLUMBUM METALLICUM or ACETICUM.

Abdomen retracted toward the spine, as if drawn in by a string; both objective and subjective.

Distinct blue line along margin of the gums.

"Wrist-drop" paralysis of the extensor muscles.

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Notwithstanding the very extensive provings, this remedy has not been so useful as it would seem it should be. One symptom has proved to be very characteristic and has led to its successful administration in different diseases, viz.: "Abdomen retracted to the spine as if drown in by a string". In this symptom there is both, or either, actual retraction and sensation of retraction in the abdomen. Excessive pain in abdomen radiating to all parts of the body (Dioscorea). It is found mostly in colic, but may be found in uterine troubles, such as menorrhagia, etc. Also in constipation. H. N. Guernsey claimed great powers for it in jaundice; whites of eyes, skin, stool and urine all are very yellow, and I have prescribed it with success. Its power to produce paralysis is well known, and it is owing to this power that lead colic is induced, which is one of the most distressing and dangerous of diseases. I cured one case of post diphtheritic paralysis with it. It was a very severe case in a middle-aged man. His lower limbs were entirely paralyzed, and there was at the same time a symptom which I never met before, nor have I since, in such a case, viz., excessive hyperaesthesia of the skin. He could not bear to be touched anywhere, it hurt him so. After much hunting I found this hyperaesthesia perfectly pictured in Allen's Encyclopaedia, and that, taken together with the paralysis, seemed to be good reason for prescribing Plumbum, which I did in one dose of Fincke's 40m. with the result of bringing about rapid and continuous improvement until a perfect cure was reached. He took only the one dose, for a repetition was not necessary.

The father-in-law of Dr. T. L. Brown, over seventy years of age, was attacked with a severe pain in the abdomen. Finally, a large, hard swelling developed in the ileo-caecal region very sensitive to contact or to the least motion. It began to assume a bluish color, and on account of his age and extreme weakness it was thought that he must die. His daughter, however, studied up the case, and found in Raue's Pathology the indications for Plumbum as given in therapeutic hints for typhlitis. It was administered in the 200th potency, which was followed by relief and perfect recovery.

Plumbum has excessive and rapid emaciation; general or partial paralysis; "wrist drop." Distinct blue line along margin of gums.