Homeopathic Materia Medica

Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica, James Tyler Kent

Anxiety: This remedy in all of its complaints whether acute or chronic, has a peculiar kind anxiety that is felt both in mind and body.

It seems also that this state of anxiety is attended with a thrill that goes throughout his frame unless he removes it by motion or change of position. The anxiety comes on when trying to keep still, and the more he tries to keep still the more the anxious state increases. While attempting to keep still, he is overwhelmed with impulses, impulses to tear things, to kill himself, to commit murder, to do violence.

He cannot keep still and so he walks night and day. This remedy carries the same feature with it into the Iodide of Potassium, so that it makes the Iodide of Potassium patient walk. But there is this difference, the Kali iod. patient can walk long distances without fatigue, and the walking only seems to wear off his anxiety, whereas in Iodine there is great exhaustion; he becomes extremely exhausted from walking and sweats copiously even from slight exertion.

Iodine corresponds to those cases in which it seems that there is some dreadful thing coming on; the mind threatens to give out. Insanity threatens, Or the graver forms of disease are threatening, such as are present in the advanced stages of suppressed malaria, in old cases of chills, in threatened phtysie, especially abdominal.

Hypertrophy: runs through the remedy.

There is enlargement of the liver, spleen, ovaries, testes, lymphatic glands, cervical glands, of all the glands except the mammary glands. The mammoe dwindle while all other glands become enlarged, nodular and hard.

This enlargement of the glands is especially observed among the lymphatic glands of the abdomen, the mesenteric glands.

There is this peculiar circumstance also in Iodine, viz., that while the body withers the glands enlarge. That is peculiar and will enable you to think of Iodine, because the glands grow in proportion to the dwindling of the body and the emaciation of the limbs. We find this state in marasmus. There is withering throughout the body, the muscles shrink, the skin wrinkles and the face of the child looks like that of a little old person, but the glands under the arms, in the groin and in the belly are enlarged and hard.

The mesenteric glands can be felt as knots. We see the same tendency in old cases of malaria coming from the allopaths in which Quinine and Arsenic have been extensively used and the chills have kept on; the face and the upper part of the body are withered, the skin looks shriveled and yellow; a diarrhoea has come on, the liver and spleen are enlarged and the lymphatic glands of the belly can be felt. Even in the earlier stages, when these states are only threatening, we may look forward and see that the case is progressing toward an Iodine state.

Now take a patient that is suffering from intermittent fever brought on from malaria, or damp cellars. The patient grows increasingly hot; it is not always a febrile heat, but a sensation of heat; he wants to be bathed in cold water, wants the face and body cooled by cold sponging; he suffocates and coughs in a warm room, dreads heat, sweats easily and easily becomes exhausted. It is in this kind of a constitution that acute complaints will come on, such as acute inflammatory conditions of the mucous membranes and gastritis, inflammation of the liver, inflammation of the spleen, diarrhoea, croup, inflammation of the throat.

The throat even becomes covered with white spots and is tumid and red, and ibis extends down into the larynx; it may even have a deposit upon it like diphtheria. Iodine has cured diphtheria, when the exudation resembling the diphtheria exudations, was present in the stool. A constitution tending this way may bring on croup with an exudate, and we can see that it is going towards Iodine. In every region of the body peculiar little things come out. If we do not see to the full extent the constitution of the remedy, we will not recognize the tendency of the patient, when progressing unfavorably.

Mind: The mental state of this patient is that of excitement, anxiety, impulses, melancholy; he wants to do something, wants to hurry; he has impulses to kill. In this it is very closely related to Arsenicum and Hepar.

The Arsenicum and Hepar patients also have impulses to commit murder without being offended and without cause. The sensitiveness to heat will at once decide, for while Iodine is warm-blooded the Arsenicum and Hepar patients are always chilly.

The impulse to do violence is sudden. There are remedies that have peculiar impulses, impulses without any cause. These impulses are seen in cases of impulsive insanity; an insanity in which there is an impulse to do violence and strange things, and when the patient is asked why he does these things he says he does not know.

The patient may not be known to be insane in anything else; he may be a good business man. Remedies also have this. These things are forerunners. It is recorded under Hepar that a barber had an impulse w cut the throat of his patron with the razor while shaving him.

The Nux vomica patient has an impulse to throw her child into the fire, or to kill her husband whom she dearly loves. The thought comes into her mind and increases until she becomes actually insane and beyond control and the impulse is carried into action.

A Natrum sulph. patient will say,

"Doctor, you do not know how I have to resist killing myself.

An impulse to do it comes into my mind."

Iodine has the impulse to kill, not from anger, not from any sense of justice, but without any cause. An overwhelming anger is often a cause for violence but the impulses are not of that sort in Iodine.

While reading; or thinking placidly at times a patient may have an impulse to do himself violence, and this finally grows until the end is a form of impulsive insanity.

The Iodine patient becomes weak in mind as well as in body; he is forgetful, cannot remember the little things, they pass out of the mind. He forgets what he was about to say or do; goes off and leaves packages he has purchased.

The forgetfulness is extensive. But with all these states, do not forget one thing, that the patient is compelled to keep doing something in order to drive away his impulses and anxiety.

The anxiety is wearing and distressing unless be keeps busy. Though mentally prostrated, he is compelled to keep busy and to continue the work, which increases the prostration of mind. You tell a man who is threatened with softening of the brain, from overwork, from anxiety and labor in literary work,

"You must stop working, you must rest."

"Why," he will say,

"If I do I would die or go mad."

Such a state comes under Iodine and Arsenicum, but there is one grand distinction by which the two remedies are seen to part company at once.

The Iodine patient is warm-blooded, wants a cool place to move in, and to think in, and to work in, whereas the Arsenicum patient wants heat, wants a warm room, wants to be warmly clothed, and suffers from the cold.

Iodine suffers from the heat. So that while the restlessness and anxiety, which are both of body and mind in each remedy, loom up before the mind as one, if the patient is a hot-blooded patient we would never think of Arsenicum; if a cold-blooded and shivering patient we would never think of Iodine.

Among the generals we first mentioned was the tendency to enlarged glands. Iodine has often cured a group of symptoms coming in the constitution that I have named, viz.; enlargement of the heart, enlargement of the thyroid and protruding eyeballs.

Now, if you have one of these patients (suppose it has been sent to you by somebody who knows no better than to call it exophthalmic goitre), those things that are so essential to the name of the disease, as they call it, would not be an indication for the remedy, but the indications would be found among those circumstances that I have given you that are outside of the projection of the eyes, the enlargement of the thyroid, the hypertrophy of the heart and the cardiac disturbances.

If the patient is emaciated, is sallow, suffers from heat, has enlarged glands, and the other symptoms of this medicine, you may expect after its administration an ultimate cessation of the group of symptoms that are selected to name the disease by. Brain troubles, acute and chronic, sometimes call for Iodine.

Head: The head throbs, the body throbs, there are pulsations all over, and the throbbing extends to the finger ends and the toes; throbbing in the pit of the stomach, heavy pulsations felt in the arms, pulsations in the back, throbbing in the temporal bone. There are congestive head aches with violent pain.

The head pains are aggravated from motion, but the patient is relieved from motion. The patient moves because his anxiety is relieved by motion, but every motion increases the head pains and the pulsation. Such distinctions are necessary. To distinguish between what is predicated of the patient and what i s predicated of a part is an essential in the study of the Materia Medica.

Everything that is predicated of the patient is general, everything that is predicated of a part is particular. The two may be opposite, and hence the student of the Materia Medica will sometimes be worried because he will find aggravation from motion and relief from motion recorded under the same remedy. It is only from the source of the Materia Medica, i.e., the provings, and from the administration of the remedy that we may observe what is true of a part and what is true of the whole.

We find at times a patient wants to be in a hot room with the head out of the window for relief of the head. In that case the head is relived from cold and the body is relieved from heat. This is a typical symptom of Phosphorus, which has relief from cold as to the head and stomach symptoms, but aggravation from cold as to its chest and body symptoms.

Eo, if the Phosphorus patient has vomiting and head symptoms, he says:

"I want to go out in the open air and I want to take cold things into my stomach;" but if he has chest symptoms and pain in the extremities, he says:

"I want to go into the house and keep warm."

And just as we see this in patients it is so in the study of a remedy; we must discriminate.

Eyes: As you may except, all sorts of eye troubles are present in this debilitated constitution.

The so-called scrofulous affections of the eyes, with ulceration of the cornea, catarrhal troubles, discharge from the eyes, enlargement of the little glands of the lids, come along with the emaciation and yellow countenance in the constitution described. Optical illusions in bright colors. An oedematous state is in keeping with Iodine.

There is oedematous swelling of the lids and oedematous swelling of the face under the eyes. Iodine has also oedema of the hands and feet, and carries this tendency with it into the Iodide of Potassium, which has oedematous swellings like those we find in kidney affections. it is capable of putting a stop to cases of Bright's disease in the early stages.

Hunger: Another grand feature that runs through the complaints of Iodine is hunger.

He is always hungry. The eating of the ordinary and regular meals is not sufficient. He eats between meals and yet is hungry. Moreover the complaints are better after eating.

All the fears, the anxiety and distress of Iodine increase when he is hungry. There is pain in the stomach when the stomach is empty, and he is driven to eat. While eating he forgets his complaints, because it is like doing something, it is like moving, his mind is upon something else. He is relieved while eating and he is relieved while in motion. In spite of the hunger and much eating he still emaciates.

"Living well yet growing thin," was one of Hering's key-notes of Iodine.

As in Natr. mur. and Abrotanum, he emaciates while he has at the same time an enormous appetite. The nutrition is so disturbed that there is no making of flesh, and hence the emaciation.

Nose: The catarrhal condition of the nose is worthy of notice.

The Iodine patient has loss of the sense of smell. The mucous membrane is thickened; he takes cold upon the slightest provocation; is always sneezing and has from the nose a copious watery discharge.

Ulceration in the nose with bloody crusts; he blows blood from the nose. The nose is stuffed up so that he cannot breathe through it.

This increases every time he takes cold, and he is continually taking cold hence he becomes a confirmed subject of catarrh. I have described the general state. The patient is the first to be thought of. His constitution is the first thing to know, i.e., what is true of the patient as a whole. After that we can find out what is true of each of his parts.

The mucous membrane of the nose is constantly in a state of ulceration, or has a tendency to ulceration. Sometimes these little ulcers are deep.

There are aphthous patches along the tongue and throughout the mouth. The whole buccal cavity is studded with aphthous patches.

I have mentioned already the tendency to exudation; white velvety, or white-grayish or pale ash-colored exudations come upon the sore throat, all over the mucous membrane of the nose and all over the pharynx.

The pharynx seems to be lined with the velvety, ash colored appearances. With these throat symptoms and the tendency to ulceration it has a wide range of usefulness in throat affections. It is useful in enlargement of the tonsils when the tonsils are studded with exudations and in the constitution described.

Enlarged tonsils in hungry, withered patients. We often see one who is subject to quinsy progressing toward the Iodine state. He is always suffering from the heat like a Pulsatilla patient; at times in the earlier stages, before any organic changes have taken place, you may mistake Iodine for Pulsatilla. But if you watch the patient you will observe the tendency to emaciation and see that the two remedies soon part company.

They are both hot, they are both irritable, they are both full of notions. The Pulsatilla patient is far more whimsical, more tearful, has greater sadness, and has constant loss of appetite, while the Iodine subject wants to eat much.

The Pulsatilla patient often increases in flesh, although growing increasingly nervous. The Iodine patient becomes thin, has a ravenous hunger, cannot be satisfied, suffers from his hunger; he must eat every few hours and feels better after eating; he has also great thirst. If he goes long without eating, no matter what the complaints are, the suffering will increase. Any of the complaints of iodine will likely be increased by fasting.

Iodine has also an indigestion that comes from overeating. The food sours, he is troubled with sour eructations, with much flatulence, with belching, with undigested stools, with diarrhoea, watery, cheesy stools, and he digests less and less. The digestion becomes more and more feeble until he digests almost nothing of what he eats, and yet the craving increases. He vomits and diarrhoea comes on and so he increasingly emaciates; because it is like burning the candle at both, ends. It is not surprising that he is extremely weak because lie is assimilating very little of what he takes.

The articles of food act as foreign substances to disorder his bowels and stomach. Now, with this trouble going on, the liver and spleen become hard and enlarged, and the patient becomes jaundiced. The stool is hard, lumpy and white, or colorless, or clay colored, sometimes soft and pappy; there seems to be little or no bile in it.

This stage gradually increases until hypertrophy of the liver comes on. Finally the abdomen sinks ill and reveals this enlargement of the liver and the enlarged lymphatic glands.

These are very knotty and as hard as in tabes mesenterica. Iodine is indicated in the tubercular condition of the mesenteric glands with diarrhoea, emaciation, great hunger, great thirst, withering of the mammary glands, a dried beef-like or shriveled appearance of the skin and sallow complexion. If the remedy is given early enough, before the structural changes have occurred, it will check the progress of the disease and cure.

Diarrhea: This is a very useful remedy in the chronic morning diarrhea of emaciated, scrofulous children.

When the constitutional state is present it is primary to the varying kinds of stools that it is possible for the patient to have.

So if you have a marked state of the constitution, a case in which there are a great number of general symptoms for you to associate the remedy with, the little symptoms of the diarrhoea cease to be important. The constitutional state in that patient is that which is "strange, rare and peculiar."

Almost any kind of diarrheic stool will be cured if the constitutional state is covered by the remedy.

When it is an acute diarrhoea and it occurs in a vigorous constitution, and there is nothing but the diarrhoea, then it is necessary to know all the finer details, and the characteristics of the diarrhoea become the rare,

"strange and peculiar" features.

Incontinence of urine in old people. In the male with all these constitutional symptoms iodine is especially suited when the testes have dwindled, when there is impotency, when there is flowing of semen with dreams, when there is loss of sexual instinct or power, or with an irritated state, an erethism of the sexual instinct; also when the testes are enlarged and hard, indurated and hypertrophied like the other glands, or when there is an orchitis, an inflammation and enlargement of the testicles.

Swelling and induration of the uterus and ovaries. Iodine has cured tumors of the ovaries in such a constitution as I have described. It has cured the dwindling of the mammary glands and caused them to grow plump with an increase of flesh upon dwindling patients.

Its nature to produce the catarrhal state is illustrated in the leucorrhea that it produces. Uterine leucorrhoea with swelling and induration of the cervix. Uterus enlarged, tendency to menorrhagia. Leucorrhea rendering the thighs sore.

The discharges of Iodine are acrid. The discharges from the nose excoriate the lip, the discharges from the eyes excoriate the cheek, the discharges from the vagina excoriate the thighs. The leucorrhoea is thick and slimy and sometimes bloody; "chronic leucorrhoea, most abundant at the time of the menses, rendering the thighs sore and corroding the linen."

This remedy has a cough that is violent; it has grave and severe difficulties of respiration, dyspnoea, with chest symptoms.

Croupy, suffocating cough in this delicate constitution. Again we say if you do not hold in mind the constitutional state while reading these very numerous respiratory symptoms, you will not be able to apply them because they are extensive and include a great many so-called complaints and would give you difficulty in individualizing them.

Now, there is one more complaint that I wish to call your attention to. In old gouty constitutions, with enlargement of the joints, the history is that the patients were once in a good state of flesh, but they have become lean, and although they are hungry, the food does not seem to do them good. The joints are enlarged and tender.

Many gouty constitutions want a warm room, but the Iodine patient wants a cool room. His joints pain and are aggravated from the warmth of bed. He cheers up in a cool place and likes to be in the open air.

He is growing increasingly weak; he is generally ameliorated on moving about and eating, he has the anxiety of body and mind.

Iodine will put a check on his gouty attacks and cause him to go on comfortably for a while.

A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica, John Henry Clarke

Iodium. Iodine. An element. l. (AM. 126.53). Tincture.

Clinical.─Appetite, disordered. Atrophy. Brain, atrophy of. Breasts, affections of. Cancer. Chilblains. Chyluria. Constipation. Consumption. Coryza. Cough. Croup. Debility. Diabetes. Diarrhoea. Diphtheria. Emaciation. Enteric fever. Galactorrhoea. Goitre Haemorrhoids. Headaches. Heart, hypertrophy of; affections of. Hiccough. Hydrocephalus. Iritis. Jaundice. Joints, affections of. Lactation, disordered. Laryngitis Leucorrhoea. Liver, affections of. Lymphatic swellings. Melancholia. Mollities ossium. Ovaries, affections of; dropsy of. Ozaena. Prostate gland, enlarged. Rheumatic gout. Rheumatism. Salivation. Scars. Seborrhoea. Sterility. Syphilis. Tabes mesenterica. Throat, affections of. Uterus, affections of. Voice, affections of. Vomiting. Worms.

Characteristics.─The most prominent feature of the action of Iodium is its power of causing absorption. It is this power which has made the drug such a favourite among old-school practitioners as a paint in all kinds of swellings. Given internally its power is much greater: the absorbents are stimulated to fresh activity; muscles, fat, tissues, and glands waste away, and general emaciation is the result. When new growths and hyperplasias are present, these come under the action of Iod. before the normal tissues. I have seen it given with excellent effect in the lower attenuations, when swollen and deformed joints have been left behind after an attack of acute rheumatism. Scrofulous and syphilitic indurations, effusions and tumours, and especially goitre, are equally amenable to its resolvent action. Emaciation of single parts. In this connection must be mentioned its power to set up a ravenous appetite. "Eats ravenously, yet emaciates," is a keynote. It seems as if the waste of tissue set up the desire for absorbing great quantities of food. Absence of appetite is also among the effects of Iod., and either condition may indicate it. I once used it with excellent effect in the case of a young woman who had had a nervous shock, and had lost all appetite and desire to live. She was much emaciated, and had quietly made up her mind to starve herself to death. I gave five drops of Iod. 3x in a wineglass of water half an hour before meal-times, and her appetite returned with such vigour she could not choose but eat, and was soon restored to a normal mental and bodily state. I have recorded another similar case of nervous shock producing rapid emaciation and vomiting cured by Iod. in my book on Indigestion. Both these patients were somewhat dark, and Iod. is specially suited to persons of dark hair and complexion; dark, yellow, tawny skin. Herein it is the antipodes of Bromium and Spongia. Its mental symptoms are more marked than those of Brom. There is increased erethism, patient very excitable and restless, moving about from place to place. Fears every little occurrence will end seriously. In his anxiety shuns every one, even his doctor. Fixed ideas are among the Iod. effects; also sudden impulses. A patient of mine had once been given Iodine for goitre by an allopath. She was compelled to discontinue it because it produced this inconvenient symptom: impulse to run; she felt she must fall if she walked. Iod. produces atrophy of nerve and brain tissue, as well as of other tissues (Allen mentions that it is valuable in persistent headaches with vertigo in old people); and it also has a place in acute hydrocephalus; and in pleuritic effusions. In tubercular disease of all kinds it may be called for: tabes mesenterica; pulmonary phthisis. In rheumatism and heart affections it has a large sphere. It is indicated by indurations or atrophy of testes, ovaries, and uterus. The salivary glands and pancreas are especially affected by Iod., and a diarrhoea of milky, whey-like stools, often indicative of pancreatic disease, is especially amenable to its action. In pneumonia and phthisical affections with lung consolidation it is of great service. The chief indications are: Dyspnoea; cough with blood-streaked expectoration; tickling all over chest; weakness and emaciation; < of symptoms in a warm room. This last, "< by warmth," is a leading modality of Iod. In defects of growth, curvature of bones, and in children's ailments, it follows well upon Calc. In phthisis of rapidly-growing young people, thin and dark, it is especially indicated. There are many marked symptoms in the heart sphere: palpitation from slightest cause; sensation as if being squeezed; hypertrophy. With the heart symptoms there is a "gone," exhausted feeling, and the patient is scarcely able to breathe or walk. C. S. McKay noticed lumbrici passed by an infant who had tasted Iodine accidentally, and used the experience in another case, giving a dilute solution (one part of the Ø to three of water; of this three drops every three hours), and produced the expulsion of lumbrici when Santonin had completely failed. An Ioduretted solution of Kali iod. (Kali iod. gr. xxxv., Iod. gr. iv., Aqua one ounce; ten drops for a dose) has been used with success as a taenicide, expelling the tapeworm, dead. Erethism is marked in Iod.: nervousness; restlessness; twitching; subsultus tendinum and trembling; also sense of trembling in inner parts. Facial paralysis and epilepsy have followed suppression of goitre by large doses of Iod. Weakness is excessive. Fainting on going upstairs. (General weakness and loss of appetite and pain in temples, and pain in left chest as if something were being torn away: heart large.─Cooper). Motion and exertion of all kinds <. Sitting up >, and lying down < dyspnoea and heart affections. < By warmth; by wrapping up; in warm room. < In wet weather. Drinking cold milk > constipation. > By eating, of hunger and other symptoms, is another marked character of Iod. Iod. is a sensitive remedy, and many symptoms are < by touch and pressure. Nash thinks Iod. one of the remedies affected by the moon's changes. In cases of goitre where it is indicated he gives a powder of Iod. c.m. every night for four nights after the moon has passed the full.

Relations.─Iod. must be compared with Iodoform and Kali iod. The febrile, inflammatory, and skin symptoms of Iodf. are more violent and pronounced than those of the other two. K. iod. has less erethism than Iod., has > from external warmth (though both have > in open air); and K. iod. has not the excessive appetite of Iod. or the general > from eating. Iod. is antidoted by: Starch or wheat flour mixed with water (to large doses). Antidotes to small doses: Ant. t., Apis, Ars., Bell., Camph., Chi., Chi. sul., Coff., Hep., Op., Pho., Spo., Sul. It antidotes: Merc. Follows well: Merc.; Hep. (croup); Ars. Followed well by: Aco., Arg. n., Calc., Merc. sol., Pho., Pul. Complementary: Lyc. Compare: Brom. (Brom. has light hair and complexion; Iod. dark; Bro. carrion-like odour of ulcers); Chlorum; Nat. m. (ravenous appetite yet gets thin─Nat. m. especially about the neck); Kali iod. (talkative as if from alcohol); Bar. c. (tabes mesenterica, extreme hunger, emaciates, talkative, averse to strangers; Bar. c. suited to dwarfish persons; has not the intolerable crossness of Iod., which is < than that of Ant. c.); Alumina (apprehensive, fears); Apis (joint effusions, sensitiveness, hydrocephalus); Cact. and Spig. (heart); Hydrast. (uterine affections); Ars., Calc., Cin., Sil. and Staph. (ravenous hunger); Hyo. (loss of voice; Iod. antidotes this); Sul.

Causation.─Nervous shock. Disappointed love.

SYMPTOMS.

1. Mind.─Lachrymose disposition and mental dejection.─Melancholy hypochondriasis, sadness, heart-ache, and anxiety.─Fear: shuns persons.─Anxious apprehensions.─Restless agitation (with inclination to move about), which will neither permit the patient to remain seated, nor to sleep.─Irresistible impulse to run; feels she will fall if she walks.─Cross, irascible, peevish.─Heart palpitates "like lightning" when thinking of real or imaginary wrongs.─Sudden maniacal impulses; to murder.─Excessive mental excitement, with great susceptibility.─Illusions of moral feeling.─Loquacity and immoderate gaiety.─Hesitation and irresolution.─Indolence of mind, with great repugnance to all intellectual labour.─Fixedness, immovableness of thought.─Delirium.─Effects of amorousness; of disappointed love.

2. Head.─Confusion of the head (with aversion to earnest work).─In the morning, dizziness.─Vertigo; throbbing in the head and all over the body.─Vertigo with red face, palpitation, hysteria, nervousness.─Headache, in hot air, as well as from the prolonged movement of a carriage, or from a long walk, and < by noise and speech.─Pain, as from a bruise, in the brain, with want of strength in the body, as from paralysis.─Acute pressive pains in the forehead.─Headache, as if a tape or band were tightly drawn around the head.─Pressure on a small spot, above the root of the nose.─Congestion in the head, with beating in the brain.─Throbbing in the head at every motion.─Hair falls out.

3. Eyes.─Pains in orbits.─Feeling of depression above the eyes, as if they were deeply sunken, in the evening.─Pain, as from excoriation, in the eyes.─Inflammation of the eyes, sometimes after taking cold.─Watery white swelling of the eyelids.─Dirty yellowish colour of the sclerotica.─Protrusion of the balls.─Lachrymation.─Convulsive movements, and quivering of the eyes; of the (lower) eyelids.─Weak sight.─Dimness of vision following upon application of Iodine to any part of body.─Choroido-iritis.─Diplopia.─Sparks and scintillations before the eyes.

4. Ears.─Buzzing in the ears.─Hardness of hearing.─Sensibility to noise.─(Chronic deafness with adhesions in middle ear.─Deafness from Eustachian catarrh, inflamed tonsils, roaring in the ears, etc.).

5. Nose.─Small scab in the r. nostril.─Epistaxis.─Red, burning spot on the nose, below the eyes.─Stoppage of the nose, or secretion of mucus more abundant than usual.─Dry coryza, becoming fluent in the open air (< evening).─Fluent coryza with much sneezing.─Violent coryza with lachrymation and frontal headache; discharge hot, nose sore, fever.─Blowing of much yellow mucus from the nose.

6. Face.─Complexion pale, yellowish, or easily tanned; or greenish.─Acneous eruption on r. side of face, with burning, and itching, twitching of r. upper eyelid, and twitchings in other parts.─Sallow, distressed countenance.─Bluish lips, with swelling of the superficial veins.─Frequent and sudden redness of the face, with sensation of burning in the ears.─Face sunken with eyes cast down.─Starting of the muscles of the face.─Suppurating ulcer on the l. cheek, with swelling of the contiguous glands.─Swelling of submaxillary glands.

7. Teeth.─Pressive pains in the molars.─Teeth yellow, and covered with mucus, in the morning; easily blunted by vegetable acids.─Inflammatory swelling and bleeding of the gums, with swelling of the cheek; the gums are painful to the touch.─Teeth loose.─Softening of the gums.

8. Mouth.─Aphthae in the mouth.─Ulcers in the mouth.─Pain and swelling of the glands of the interior of the mouth.─Exhalation of putrid odour from the mouth; after Mercury.─Salivation.─Tongue loaded with a thick coating.─Dryness of the tongue.

9. Throat.─Swelling and elongation of the uvula.─Sore throat, with pressive pain, when not swallowing.─Permanent constriction of the gullet and impeded deglutition.─Increased secretion of watery saliva.─Inflammation of the gullet, with sensation of burning and scraping; burning in the fauces.─Ulcers in throat, with swelling of glands of neck.

10. Appetite.─Disagreeable, saponaceous, sourish, or bitter salt taste.─Increased thirst day and night.─Appetite variable; at one time bulimy, at another, absence of appetite.─Unusual hunger, with amelioration after a meal (after having eaten a good deal).─Great weakness of digestion.─Eats too often and too much; rapid digestion, but losing flesh all the time.

11. Stomach.─Risings, generally acid, with burning sensation.─Heartburn, after heavy food.─Hiccough.─Pyrosis, esp. after indigestible food.─Qualmishness, nausea (with spasmodic pain in the stomach).─Frequent nausea.─Violent vomitings renewed by eating.─Vomiting of bilious matter, or of yellowish mucus.─Excessive pains in the stomach, with bilious evacuations.─Aching in the stomach after every meal.─Cramp-like, gnawing, or burning pains in the stomach.─Inflammation in the stomach.─Pulsations in the epigastrium.─Gastric derangement with constipation.

12. Abdomen.─Abdominal pains, which return after every meal.─Inflation of the abdomen.─Incarceration of flatulence (l. side of abdomen).─Enlargement of the abdomen, which renders it impossible to lie down without danger of suffocation.─Region of liver sore to pressure; swelling and hypertrophy of liver; jaundice.─Hard, painful swelling of the spleen.─Cramp-like pains in the abdomen.─Violent colic.─Pains in the abdomen, like those of parturition.─Swelling and inflammation of the mesenteric glands.─Pancreas enlarged; whitish, whey-like diarrhoea.─Abdominal pulsations; throbbing of abdominal aorta.─Trembling in the abdomen, from the pit of the stomach to the periphery, with increased heat.─Hard swelling of the inguinal glands.

13. Stool and Anus.─Hard, knotty, dark-coloured faeces.─Constipation.─Loose, soft evacuations, sometimes whitish, alternately with constipation.─Evacuations copious of the consistence of pap.─Violent, frothy diarrhoea, or composed of sanguineous mucus.─Dysenteric evacuations of thick mucus, or sometimes purulent, with retention of faecal matter.─In the evening, sensation of itching and burning in the anus.─Piles protrude and burn; < from heat.

14. Urinary Organs.─Suppressed secretion of urine.─Copious and frequent flow of urine.─Involuntary emission of urine at night.─Urine of a deep colour, turbid, or yellowish green; or milky; or acrid and corrosive.─Parti-coloured cuticle on the urine.─(Incontinence in old people with prostatic enlargement.).─(Diabetes.)

15. Male Sexual Organs.─Complete loss of sexual power, testicles atrophied.─Violent and constant erections.─Sexual desire increased.─Painful pullings in the anterior part of the penis.─Aching, pressing, twisting, or forcing pain in spermatic cords; after sexual dalliance.─Swelling and hardness of the testes.─Hardness of the prostate gland.─After stool, milk-like fluid runs from urethra.─Hydrocele.─Offensive sweat of genitals.

16. Female Sexual Organs.─Catamenia at one time too late, at another too early.─Menses premature, violent and copious.─Metrorrhagia.─Weakness, palpitation of the heart, and many sufferings, before, during, and after the catamenia.─Atrophy of ovaries and breasts, with sterility.─Pain (dull, pressing, wedge-like) commencing in r. ovary passing down broad ligament to uterus.─Great sensitiveness of r. ovarian region during or after menses.─Inflammation of r. ovary with an itching eruption on head and hands following application of Iodine to os uteri.─Chronic oöphoritis (l.) with thick, yellow, burning leucorrhoea, > after eating (H. N. Martin.).─Pain in lower abdomen; < l. ovarian region; > by motion and by eating.─Induration and swelling (cancer?) of the uterus.─Uterine haemorrhage renewed after every stool.─Leucorrhoea, corroding the limbs and the linen; acrid; profuse; worse at time of menses.─Flaccidity and atrophy of the breasts.─Mammary hyperaesthesia.─Heaviness of breasts as if they would fall off.─Acute pain and soreness in breasts with metritis.─Bluish red nodosities size of hazel nut; in both breasts; dry, black points at tips.─Galactorrhoea; thin, watery milk; weakness; emaciation.─Milk suppressed; breasts atrophied and relaxed.

17. Respiratory Organs.─Insupportable hoarseness and tingling in the throat, esp. in morning.─The voice becomes deeper.─Membranous croup, with wheezing and sawing respiration; dry, barking cough, esp. in children with dark eyes and hair; child grasps throat with hand.─Croup, with much mucous expectoration, sometimes streaked with blood.─Inflammation of the throat, of the larynx and trachea, with contractive pain of excoriation.─Pain in the larynx, with discharge of hardened mucus.─Contraction and heat in the larynx.─Increased secretion of mucus in the trachea, with frequent hawking.─Dry cough, with pressure, shooting, and sensation of burning in the chest.─Cough in the morning.─Cough, with expectoration of abundant, and sometimes sanguineous mucus, pains in the chest, and fever.─Rattling of mucus in the chest, with roughness under the sternum and oppression of the chest.─Cough, resembling whooping-cough, excited by an insupportable tickling in the chest, with anguish before the paroxysm, and excessive emaciation.─Hepatization; worse upper part of r. lung.

18. Chest.─Difficulty of respiration, and dyspnoea.─Difficulty of expanding the chest on taking an inspiration.─Suffocation.─Shooting in the l. side, on breathing.─Loss of power to breathe, esp. on going upstairs.─Weakness of the chest.─Congestion in the chest.─Burning, shooting tension in the integuments of the chest.

19. Heart.─Sensation of weakness in the chest (and heart).─Violent palpitation of the heart; increased by the least exertion (from walking or going downstairs).─Sensation as if the heart were squeezed together.─Constant, heavy, oppressive pain in region of heart, with sharp, piercing, movable pain.─Great precordial anxiety, obliging him to constantly change his position.─(Hypertrophy of heart, very like that of Arn., and like that often met with in housemaids and others from over-exertion.─Fatty degeneration of heart.─Cooper.).─Pulse rapid, small, weak, with tumultuous, irregular, at times intermittent action of heart.

20. Neck and Back.─Tension in the neck.─Swelling of the exterior of the neck.─Swelling of the neck when speaking.─Swelling of the glands of the neck, of the nape of the neck, and of the armpits.─Hard and large goitres.─Constant sensation of constriction in the goitres.─Yellowish spots on the neck, and redness, as from ecchymosis.─Cramps in the back.─Pain in sacrum and coccyx.─Spinal complaints, with gressus vaccinus.

21. Limbs.─Chronic arthritic affections; with violent nightly pains.─Stiff and enlarged joints after acute rheumatism.─Subsultus tendinum.─Cold hands and feet.

22. Upper Limbs.─Pains in the bones of the arms, < when lying down, and disturbing the sleep.─Lassitude in the arms in the morning, in bed.─Convulsive movements and trembling of the arms, of the hands, and of the fingers.─Numbness of the fingers.─Tearing pains in the fingers.─Startings of the tendons of the fingers.─Panaris.─Constant coldness of the hands, which are covered with a cold sweat during labour.─Carphologia.

23. Lower Limbs.─Cramp-like pains in the legs when seated.─Heaviness, swelling, trembling and paralysis of the legs.─Rheumatic pullings in the thighs and knees.─Inflammatory swelling of the knee, with tearing pains, and suppuration.─Hot, bright-red swelling of the knee, with inflammation, pricking and burning; < by touch and pressure.─Dropsical swelling of the knee.─White swelling of the knee.─Cramps in the feet, esp. at night.─Startings of the tendons of the feet.─Oedematous swelling of the feet.─Chilblains.─Acrid and corrosive sweat on the feet.─Pain in the corns.

24. Generalities.─Erratic pains in the joints.─Chronic rheumatism in the joints, with violent pains at night; without swelling.─Sensation of torpor in the limbs.─Convulsive starting and twitching of the tendons.─Distortion of the bones.─Pains in the bones at night.─Swelling and induration of the glands.─Haemorrhage from different organs.─Powerful over-excitement of all the nervous system.─Ebullition of blood, and pulsation over the whole body, increased by the slightest exertion.─Trembling of the limbs.─Tottering walk.─Great weakness; even speaking excites perspiration.─Plastic exudations.─Atrophy and emaciation till reduced to the state of a skeleton (with good appetite).─Emaciation; ending in marasmus; of glandular tissues (mammae, testicles, thyroid gland, etc.).─Oedematous swelling, even of the whole body.

25. Skin.─Skin rough, dry, or clammy, moist, and of a dirty yellow.─Tetters.─Furfur.─Panaris.─Itching and itching pimples on an old cicatrix.─Papulous eruptions tending to pustulation.

26. Sleep.─Agitated dreams.─Restless sleep with vivid or anxious dreams.─Nocturnal sweat.

27. Fever.─Shivering, even in a warm room.─Chill alternating with heat.─Cold feet all night.─Internal dry heat, with external coldness.─Profuse night-sweat.─Increase of bodily heat.─Fugitive heat.─Acid perspiration in the morning.─Pulse quick, small, and hard; weak, threadlike.─The pulse becomes much quicker as soon as one moves about.─Fever, with consumption.─(West Indian and African fevers; ague.)

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

Iodine (The Element)

Persons of scrofulous diathesis, with dark or black hair and eyes; a low cachetic condition, with profound debility and great emaciation (Abrot.). Great weakness and loss of breath on going upstairs (Calc.); during menses (Alum, Carbo an., Coc.). Ravenous hunger; eats freely and well, yet loses flesh all the time (Abrot., Nat. m., Sanic., Tub.). Empty eructations from morning to nigh, as if every particle of food was turned into air (Kali c.). Suffers from hunger, must eat every few hours; anxious and worried if he does not eat (Cina, Sulph.); feels > while eating or after eating, when stomach is full. Itching: low down in the lungs, behind the sternum, causing cough; extends through bronchi to nasal cavity (Coc. c., Con., Phos.). Hypertrophy and induration of glandular tissue - thyroid, mammae, ovaries, testes, uterus, prostate or other glands - breasts may dwindle and become flabby. Hard goitre, in dark haired persons (light haired, Brom.); feels > after eating. Palpitation, worse from least exertion (compare, Dig.- from least mental exertion, Cal. ars.). Sensation as if the heart was squeezed together; as if grasped with an iron hand (Cac., Sulph.). Leucorrhoea: acrid, corrosive, staining and corroding the linen; most abundant at time of menses. Cancerous degeneration of the cervix; cutting pains in abdomen and haemorrhage at every stool. Constipation, with ineffectual urging > by drinking cold milk. Croup: membranous, hoarse, dry cough, worse in warm, wet weather; with wheezing and sawing respiration (Spong.). Child grasps at larynx (Cepa); face pale and cold, especially in fleshy children.

Relations. - Complementary: to, Lycopodium. Compare: Acet. ac., Brom., Con., Kali bi., Spong. in membranous croup and croupy affections; especially in overgrown boys with scrofulous diathesis. Follows well: after, Hep., Mer.; is followed by Kali bi. in croup. Acts best in goitre when give after full moon, or when moon is waning - Lippe. Should not be given during lying-in period, except in high potencies- Hering.

Aggravation. - Warmth; wrapping up the head (reverse of, Hep., Psor.).

Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics, Eugene Beauharnais Nash

Always hungry; eat or wants to all the time, yet emaciates; > while eating.

Hypertrophy of all glands except mammary, which dwindle; while body withers glands enlarge.

Mentally anxious, anguish, wants to move, do something, hurry, kill somebody, etc. (Arsen.)

Warm blooded notwithstanding emaciation; wants a cool place to move, think, or work in.

Pulsations all over, stomach, back, even arms, fingers and toes (Bell.)

Especially suitable to dark haired, dark eyed, dark skinned persons of scrofulous habit.

Modalities: < fasting, in warm air or room; > while eating; moving, and cold air.

Great weakness and loss of breath on going up stairs.

Hard goître in dark haired persons; also tumors in the breast.

Sensation as if the heart was squeezed together; as if grasped with an iron band. (Sulph.).

Croup; membranous; in scrofulous children; child grasps the larynx; face pale and cold; in fleshy children.

* * * * *

This is another so-called anti-scrofulous remedy. Here are a few characteristic indications:

First: "Scrofulous diathesis; low cachectic condition, with profound debility and great emaciation."

Second: "There is a remarkable and unaccountable sense of weakness and loss of breath on going up stairs."

Third: "Ravenous hunger; eats often and much, but loses flesh all of the time."

Fourth: "Feels relieved after eating or while eating."

Fifth: "Dwindling of the mammae and soreness."

Sixth: "Profuse uterine haemorrhages; cancer of uterus."

Seventh: "Chronic leucorrhoea, which is abundant and so corrosive as to eat holes in the linen."

Eighth. "Swelling of glands, especially mesenteric and thyroid."

Ninth: "Membranous croup, wheezing, sawing respiration, dry, barking cough, especially in children with dark eyes and hair; child grasps the throat with the hand when coughing."

Tenth: "Aggravations in general from warm room."

Here is Iodine in a nutshell. The remarkable hunger relieved by eating, with progressive emaciation, is the first in importance. This relief by eating is not only of the sensation of hunger, but his sufferings in general; he only feels well while eating, or always feels best while eating. It makes no difference whether it is phthisis pulmonalis, mesenteric, or general, that this symptoms well developed rules out everything but Iodine in almost every case and it has made many remarkable cures. I have cured many cases of goître with Iodine c. m., when indicated, giving a powder every night for four nights, after the moon fulled and was waning.

I have only failed in one case either to check the further development or cure. Some will sneer at this, but the cured ones do not. The local application for glandular enlargement is foolish and dangerous.