Homeopathic Materia Medica

Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica, James Tyler Kent

The Kali carb. patient is a hard patient to study, and the remedy itself is a hard one to study.

It is not used as often as it should be, and the reason is that it is a very complex and confusing remedy. It has a great many opposite symptoms, changing symptoms, and thus it is related to patients that withhold their symptoms and have many vague symptoms.

Mind: The patient is whimsical, irascible, irritable to the very highest degree, quarrels with his family and with his bread and butter. He never wants to be alone, is full of fear and imaginations when alone, "fear of the future, fear of death, fear of ghosts."

If compelled to remain alone in the house he is wakeful, sleepless, or his sleep is full of horrible dreams. He is never at peace, is full of imaginations and fear.

"What if the house should burn up!"

"What if I should do this or that!" and

"What if this and the other thing should happen! "

He is oversensitive to everything, sensitive to every atmospheric change; he can never get the room at just exactly the right temperature; he is sensitive to every draft of air and to the circulation of air in the room. He cannot have the windows open, even in a distant part of the house. He will get up at night in bed and look around to see where that draft of air comes from. His complaints are worse in wet weather, and in cold weather.

Pains: He is sensitive to the cold and is always shivering. His nerves feel the cold; they are all painful when it is cold. The neuralgias shoot here and there when it is cold, and if the part affected be kept warm, the pain goes to some other place. All his pains change place and go into the cold part; if he covers up one part, the pain goes to the part uncovered.

This remedy is full of sticking, burning, tearing pains, and these fly around from place to place. Of course Kali carb. has pains that remain in one place, but usually the pains fly, around in every direction, Pains cutting like knives. Pains like hot needles, sticking, stinging and burning.

These pains are felt in internal parts and dry passages. Burning in the anus and rectum, described as if a hot poker were forced into that passage; burning as with fire. The hemorrhoids burn like coals of fire. The burning of Kali carb. is like that of Arsenicum.

Again from studying the text it will be seen that it is a common feature of this medicine to have its symptoms come on at 2, 3 or 5 o'clock in the morning. In Kali carb. the cough will come or have its greatest < at three or four or five o'clock in the morning.

The febrile state will occur from 3-5 in the morning. The patient, who is subject to asthmatic dyspnoea, will have an attack at 3 o'clock in the morning, waking him out of sleep. He will wake up with various symptoms and remain awake until 5 o'clock in the morning, and after that to a great extent they are relieved.

Of course, there are plenty of sufferings at any time in the twenty-four hours, but this is the worst time. He wakes up at 3 o'clock in the morning with fear, fear of death, fear of the future, worries about everything and is kept awake for 2-3 hours and then goes to sleep and sleeps soundly.

His body is cold and requires much clothing to keep it warm, but in spite of the fact that he is cold he sweats copiously; copious, cold sweat upon the body. Sweats upon the slightest exertion, sweats where the pain is, sweat over the forehead; cold sweat on the forehead with headache.

Neuralgia of the scalp and the eyes and the cheek bones in association with the nervous shooting pains. Violent pains here and there in the head, as if the head would be crushed. Cutting and stabbing, in the head. Violent congestive headaches as if the head were full. Head hot on one side and cold on the other; forehead covered with cold sweat.

Head: It has catarrhal congestive headache.

Whenever he goes out in the cold air, the nose opens up and the mucous membranes become dry and burn; when he returns into a warm room the nose commences to discharge, and the nose stuffs up so that he cannot breathe through it, and then he feels most comfortable; so that it has stuffing up of the nose in a warm room, and opening up of the nose in the open air. When the nose is open so that he can breathe through it, that is the time the head is most painful; it is painful to the cold air and the cold air makes it burn.

The cold air feels hot. All these patients suffer from a chronic catarrh and when they ride in the wind the catarrhal discharge ceases and then will come on a headache, and thus he has headache from riding in the cold wind.

Whenever the discharge ceases from taking cold in a draft on comes headache, and as the discharge becomes free again the headache is relieved. Neuralgic pains in eyes and scalp and through the cheek bones from a cessation of chronic catarrhal discharge, and when the discharge starts up again, these pain cease.

With the chronic catarrh of the nose there is a thick, fluent, yellow discharge; dryness of the nose, alternating with stuffing up. The one who suffers from a chronic catarrh will also have the discharge in the morning, which will fill up the nose with yellow mucus. In the morning he blows out and hawks up dry, hard crusts that fill up the nasal passage, clear over into the pharynx and down into the throat.

These crusts become dry as if they were partly formed upon the mucous membrane and when they are blown out there is bleeding. The bleeding starts from where the crusts are lifted up. He is subject to sore throat, is always taking cold, and it settles in the throat. He is also subject to enlarged tonsils and with these has enlargement and chronic hardness of the parotid glands-one or both. Great knots below the ear, behind the jaw.

These grow and become hard, and at times, painful; shooting, darting pains when he is moving about in the open air. When air strikes these enlarged glands they are sore and painful, and he is ameliorated by going into a warm place.

The acute colds extend into the chest, but Kali carb. has been found most suitable in the chronic catarrh of the chest, chronic bronchitis.

Chest: The chest is very often affected in just the same way as the nose.

There is the dryness and dry barking, hacking cough in cold air, but a copious expectoration of mucus when it becomes warm, and that is the time he is most comfortable, for the expectoration seems to relieve him. He suffers mostly from a dry, hacking cough with morning expectoration. The cough begins with a dry, hacking, increases gradually and sometimes very rapidly to a violent. Spasmodic cough with gagging or vomiting, and when coughing it feels as if his head would fly to pieces.

Face: The face becomes puffed, the eyes seem to protrude and then there is seen that which is commonly present in Kali carb., a peculiar sort of a swelling between the eyelids and eyebrows that fills up when coughing.

Your attention is called to that peculiar feature, for although there may be bloating nowhere else upon the face that little bagging will appear above the lid and below the eye brow. It fills up sometimes to the extent of a little water bag.

Such a swelling has been produced by Kali carb., and sometimes that symptom alone guides to the examination of the remedy for the purpose of ascertaining if Kali carb. does not fit all the rest of the case.

Boenninghausen speaks of an epidemic of whooping cough in which the majority of cases called for Kali carb., and this striking feature was present. No remedy should ever be given on one symptom. If you are led to a remedy by a peculiar symptom, study the remedy and the disease thoroughly to ascertain if the two are similar enough to each other to expect a cure. Any deviation from that rule is ruinous and will lead to the practice of giving medicines on single symptoms.

Dry, hacking incessant, gagging cough with whooping, blowing of blood from the nose, vomiting of everything in the stomach, and expectoration of blood-streaked mucus, is a whooping cough that will be commonly cured by Kali carb., but especially if there is present that peculiar and striking feature of a bag-like swelling below the eyebrow and above the lids, puffiness of the eyes.

There are some cases of pneumonia that need Kali carb, in the stage of hepatization (like Sulph.). Again, when pneumonia has passed away think of Kali carb. if every time the patient takes a little cold it settles in the chest with these symptoms that I have described.

There is sensitiveness of the body to weather changes, to cold air and to wet, a continuous dry, hacking cough, with gagging, the aggravation from three to five the morning, and the patient, has flying neuralgic pains. These symptoms gradually increase and the patient dates them back to his pneumonia. He says:

"Doctor, I have never been quite well since I had pneumonia."

The catarrhal state has settled in his chest and there is a chronic tendency to take cold. These cases are threatening to go into phthisis and will hardly be likely to recover without Kali carb. In this tendency for catarrhal states to locate in the chest, Kali carb. should be thought of as well as Phosphor., Lycopod. and Sulphur.

Dropsies: Another general state that belongs to this remedy is a tendency to dropsies.

It has dropsies all over the body. The feet bloat and the fingers puff; the back of the hands pit upon pressure, the face looks puffy and waxy. The heart is weak. I can look back upon quite a number of cases of fatty degeneration of the heart in which I could have prevented all the trouble with Kali carb. if I had known the case better in the beginning.

These cases are insidious, and the indications calling for Kali carb. must be seen early or the patient will advance into an incurable condition. That peculiar state of weakness and feeble circulation that finally ends in dropsy and many other complications has its likeness in Kali carb.

There is an insidiousness about Kali carb. in the approach of all of its complaints.

He has a sort of nondescript appearance, he is withered, has much dyspnoea upon going up hill or even walking on the level. Examination of the lungs shows them to be in very fair condition, but finally complications come on, there is a break down and organic changes and you look back over these cases and say, if I had only seen in the beginning of this case what I see now it seems as if the patient ought to have been cured.

We learn the beginnings of remedies as we learn the beginnings of sickness. It is a prudent thing for a homoeopathic physician to glance back over a case that he has failed on, or someone else has failed on, to study its beginnings and see what the manifestations were. This kind of study to the homoeopathic physician is as delightful as post mortems are to the old school.

Teeth: The teeth present a peculiar state. The gums take on a scorbutic or scrofulous character. The gums separate from the teeth and the teeth decay and become discolored and loose, so that they have to be extracted early in life.

He suffers from pain in the teeth whenever he takes cold from riding in the wind and raw weather. The pains come on even when the teeth are not yellow or decayed: stitching, tearing, rending pains in the teeth. Offensive smell from the teeth; pus oozing out from around the teeth. The mouth is full of little ulcers, little aphthous patches. The mucous membrane is pale and ulcerates daily. The tongue is white with offensive taste; coated gray, with sick headaches.

While many of the symptoms of Kali carb, are aggravated after eating, some symptoms are relieved after eating. There is throbbing in the pit of the stomach when the stomach is empty. There is also throbbing all over the body, pulsation to the fingers and toes; there is no part that does not pulsate, and he is kept awake by this pulsation. Pulsation even when there is often no feeling of palpitation in the region of the heart. It has also violent palpitation of the heart.

Stomach: Kali carb. fits many old dyspeptics.

After eating be feels as if he would burst, so bloated is he. Great flatulence; belches wind upwards and passes flatus downwards; offensive flatus. The belching up is also attended with fluid eructations, sour fluids that set the teeth on edge; they excoriate, or cause smarting in the pharynx or mouth. Pain in the stomach after eating; burning in the stomach after eating.

Gone feeling in the stomach, that is not even relieved by eating. A peculiar condition in Kali carb. is a state of anxiety felt in the stomach, as though it were a fear. One of the first patients I ever had expressed it in a better way than it is expressed in the books; she said,

"Doctor, somehow or other I don't have a fear like other people do, because I have it in my stomach."

She said when she was frightened, it always struck to her stomach.

"If a door slams, I feel it right here" (epigastric region).

Well, that is striking, that is peculiar. It was not long before I developed another feature of Kali carb.

By a little awkwardness on my part my knee happened to hit the patient's foot as it projected a little over the edge of the bed, and the patient said, "Oh"

Sure enough that was Kali carb. again, for you will find in Kali carb. a patient that is afraid and everything goes to the stomach and when touched upon the skin there is an anxiety or fear or apprehension felt in the region of the stomach.

You might imagine that it is connected with the solar plexus, but the symptom is the all in all to the physician.

Feet: A Kali carb. patient is so sensitive in the soles of the feet that the mere touch of the sheet brings a sensation of thrill throughout the body. Hard pressure is all right, it does not disturb, but something that comes unawares excites.

The Kali carb. patient is over sensitive to all the surrounding things, over sensitive to touch; shivering from the simplest and lightest touch, even when hard pressure is agreeable. Violently ticklish in the soles of the feet. I have often examined the feet when a patient would shiver and draw up the feet and scream out,

"Don't tickle my feet."

I had probably touched it so lightly that I did not know that I had touched it at all.

In Lach. also gentle touch is painful, while hard pressure is agreeable but here it is not so much the ticklishness. In Lach. the abdomen is so sensitive that the touch of the sheet is painful. I have seen Lach. patients using a hoop to keep a light sheet from touching the abdomen. You may know then that you are in the realm of Lachesis, and that it is like those persons who are unable to bear the slightest touch upon the neck and suffer from uneasiness on wearing a collar.

All that, however, is different from this state of ticklishness. I have seen patients who are really so sensitive in the skin that I would not dare touch it, unless they knew just where I was going to touch.

"Now I am going to feel your pulse, hold still."

If I were to touch the hand, or reach out to feel the pulse without warning there would be a thrill.

Such a state is in keeping with Kali carb. These things often have to be dug out by observation in studying the nature of provings, and associating things. These things that run into the oversensitiveness of patients are of great value clinically. The capabilities of our Materia Medica are something wonderful, but they could be developed much more rapidly if a number of homoeopathic physicians would make application of the Materia Medica with accuracy and intelligence, observing what they see and relating it literally.

At the present day there is only a very small number of homoeopathic physicians that can come together in a body and say things that are worth listening to, a shamefully small number when we consider the length of time Hahnemann's books have been before the world.

Liver: There are many old chronic liver subjects who talk about nothing else but the liver.

Every time they go to the doctor's office they talk about the liver, and about a condition of fullness in the region of the liver and pain through the right shoulder blade and up through the right side of the chest, with a good deal of oppression and distension; vomiting of bile and a good deal of stomach disorder, fullness after eating; attacks of diarrhoea, alternating with constipation lasting for many days with great straining at stool.

Periodical bilious attacks, when a constipated state is present; cannot lie down at night; difficult breathing at night or at 3 o'clock in the morning, especially when it is in a patient over-sensitive to cold, damp weather, one who wants to sit by the fire all the time.

These liver subjects are often thoroughly cured by Kali carb. Sometimes they have been resorting to all sorts of liver tappings, taking such medicines as purge or cause vomiting, drugs that really aggravate the trouble. Kali carb. goes to the bottom of these cases, and roots out the evil.

Abdomen: In the abdomen we have many Kali carb. symptoms.

Persons subjected to repeated attacks of colic, cutting pains, with distension, with pain after eating, constipation or diarrhoea. Colic, with cutting, tearing pains, doubling him up, coming on every little while. Tremendous flatulence. When the attack of colic is on it might remind you of Colocynth or of some other of the acute remedies that cure colic in two or three minutes, but you will find that these acute remedies that relieve colic so speedily when given the second or third time do not produce so marked an effect.

You will find it necessary to hunt for an antipsoric, a remedy that will control the whole case. In the study of the colic alone during its attack you only get a one-sided view of the case, and after the colic is over (say he has been cured by Colocynth) you now study the patient and go over the case, and behold all the symptoms are covered by Kali carb. After giving that remedy you may expect that the patient will not have another attack.

Such is the nature of Kali carb. It is deep-acting, long-acting, goes deep into the life. It cures conditions due to psora, or to the suppression of eruptions in childhood, or to the closing up of old ulcers and fistulous openings with a history of troubles ever since. All these wandering pains and the chilliness are again relieved by eruptions, by the outbreak of discharges, by haemorrhages, by ulcers that eat in deep and flow freely and fistulous openings.

"Cutting in abdomen, as if torn to pieces."

"Violent cutting, must sit bent over pressing with both hands, or lean far back for relief; cannot sit upright."

"Cutting and drawing like false labor pains."

There is great coldness with the pains, with the cutting in the abdomen; he wants heat, hot drinks, hot water bags. A chronic coldness is felt in the abdomen, cold externally and internally.

It would sometimes be cruel to give a dose of Kali carb. when the colic is on, because if the remedy fitted the case constitutionally, if all the symptoms of the case were those of Kali carb., you would be likely to get an aggravation that would be unnecessary.

There are plenty of short acting remedies that would relieve the pain speedily, and at the close of the attack the constitutional remedy could then be given. If the patient can bear the pain to the end, it is better to wait until it passes off without any medicine.

That sometimes is cruel, and then the short acting medicines should be given. All recurrent troubles, those that come periodically, or after eating certain articles, or from exposure, or with a periodicity that belongs to time - all these states are chronic; they are not acute troubles.

They are simply a small portion of a chronic miasm, a side view and all such cases must have a constitutional remedy sooner or later. You can, it is true, relieve violent pain at the first visit, but then you must look deeper and prevent your patient having more trouble.

Otherwise, if you should give Bell. or Colocynth or any medicine that simply fits the colic, the trouble will come back again; you have not cured your patient; you have only palliated. But, on the other hand, you take such a colic as is described here and Kali carb. fits just these symptoms alone and does not fit the whole constitution of the patient.

Then it is that a constitutional and long-acting remedy like Kali carb. acts in fullness. It does not take the usual long time to act and is not attended with an aggravation.

"Abdominal muscles painful to touch; swelling of glands."

In the abdomen, also following troubles in the bowels, or following peritonitis, we have effusion into the peritoneal sac, which is usually associated with dropsy of the extremities, but not always. In liver dropsies especially is that remedy useful.

Rectum: It has a great many complaints of the rectum and anus and of the stool.

It has most persistent and enormous hemorrhoidal tumors that burn, that are extremely sensitive to touch, that bleed copiously, that are extremely painful, making it impossible for him to sleep. He is compelled to lie upon the back and hold the nates apart, because the pressure is very painful to the external piles.

The piles cannot be put back; there is great distension and swelling inside. Haemorrhoids that come out after stool and bleed copiously and are very painful; they must be pushed back, and long after going to bed they burn like fire.

There is great aggravation from stool, which is hard and knotty and requires great straining to expel. Fistulae of the anus. Burning temporarily relieved by sitting in cold water.

It has chronic diarrhoea and also diarrhea alternating with constipation. Many times where there are numerous particulars, we have to rely upon the generals that are characteristic of the remedy. The text gives much less of diarrhea than has been developed by clinical uses.

"Diarrhoea painless, with rumbling in the abdomen and burning at stool, only by day; chronic cases with puffiness under the eyebrows."

It gives few symptoms, but it is a large and extensive remedy in diarrheas that are chronic. In old, broken down subjects, in weakly, pallid subjects, with poor digestion, with great flatulence, with much distension, with disordered liver.

Kidneys, Bladder: Then the kidney, bladder and urethra come in for their share of trouble, which is of a catarrhal nature.

Discharges from the bladder, purulent discharges of a thick, tenacious, copious mucus deposited in the urine. In keeping with this there is much burning; burning in the urethra, during and after micturition.

"Urine flows slowly with soreness and burning."

Kali carb. runs very close to Natr. mur. in many of its old, long-standing bladder troubles, In old cases of gleet and long-standing cases of urinary troubles that follow gonorrhea these two medicines are useful, both suitable in the scanty, white, gleety discharge that remains. In both the urination is painful.

In Nat. mur. the burning is after urination. Where there is scanty, gleety discharge and the burning is very marked and only after urination, and the patient is extremely nervous and fidgety, Natrum mur. will cure.

If the burning is during and after urination and you have the broken down constitution we have described then the remedy may be Kali carb. Some of these old cases are entirely painless, having no pain either during or after micturition.

Then you get an entirely different class of remedies. The old chronic discharges following a gonorrhoea are as troublesome for the young doctor as anything that will ever fall into his hands. The remedies are numerous, the symptoms are scanty, and many times the patient has not been long under the doctor's care, therefore he does not know the patient's constitutional state well and the patient can only tell him of the discharge.

"Nothing but the discharge, doctor."

You cannot get his mind on his symptoms; he has forgotten that he wakes at 3 o'clock in the morning and cannot get to sleep until 5 o'clock, he has forgotten all the nervous manifestations. With the patient you have had under control, whose constitutional state you get before this condition comes, you ought not to have much difficulty.

One of the evidences that the Kali carb. patient is of a weakly constitution and is on the road to a break-down is that all of his symptoms are aroused and brought into action after coition, after sexual excitement. Now you will take notice in practice and remember it, that coition is a natural thing with man, when it is carried on in order, and when that which is natural is followed by prostration, and this has been so for a long time, there is a break in the constitution, there is something radically wrong.

Genitals: All the symptoms are likely to be worse after coition in Kali carb. He has weak vision, weakness of the senses, tremulousness, and is generally nervous; he is sleepless, and weak, and he shivers and trembles for a day or two after coition.

Similar symptoms are observed in the woman. In spite of the fact that the patient is weak, the sexual desire is excessive. It is not orderly. There is a sexual erethism, which is not under the command of the will, and in the male he is subject to copious and frequent pollutions, nightly dreams, sexual prostration. Young men who have abused themselves, or who have indulged excessively in sexual pleasure, go into marriage with weakened genitals, incapacitated; and then there comes a disgust, and it is not strange that there are so many divorces in the world. When the patient is young, some of this trouble can be overcome by living an orderly life and correct Homeopathy.

In Kali carb. there are many complaints affecting the male genital organs; uneasiness and sensitiveness of the testicles. One is in a state of swelling and hardness. Itching and smarting and annoying sensations in the scrotum and sensations that constantly remind the patient that he has genital organs. Constant irritation calling his attention to the genitals, brought on from abuse, from vice, from excesses. Phosphorus is a medicine that is abused in this sphere. Many physicians look upon it as one of the great remedies for the weakness of the genital organs.

In Phos. the genital indications are extreme excitement, too active erections, a disorderly strength of the genital organs. Beware of giving it in impotency or in weakness, as this is often associated with very feeble constitutions, and Phos. not only fails to cure, but seems to add to the weakness. It is a weakness that you will learn is a vital weakness. Phos. will set patients to running down more rapidly who are suffering from a vital weakness, who are always tired, simply weak, always prostrated and want to go to bed.

The female has a great friend in Kali carb. It is full of her complaints and has many symptoms likely to be found in a sick woman. It is useful in cases of uterine hemorrhages that have been incessant in pale, waxy, hemorrhagic women; incessant haemorrhage following an abortion.

She has been curetted and has had all sorts of treatment, but still that oozing keeps right on. At the menstrual period the flow is very copious and clotted, and then after prolonged menstruation of ten days or so, during which she has had a copious flow, she settles back into a state of oozing and flowing until next month and then it rouses, up into another ten days of copious menstruation. Kali carb. has cured a number of cases of fibroid tumor long before it was time for the critical period to cure.

You must remember that there is natural tendency for a fibroid to cease to grow at the climacteric period, and afterwards to shrivel and that this takes place without any treatment, but the appropriate remedies will cause that haemorrhage to cease, will cause that tumor to cease to grow and after a few days there will be a grand shrinkage, in its size.

Pregnancy: Kali carb. is often a remedy for vomiting in pregnancy, but find out when it is the remedy for vomiting of pregnancy we ha to go to the whole constitutional state.

Vomiting of pregnancy is not cured, although it may be temporarily relieved, by Ipeca, as this is a medicine that corresponds merely to the nausea its. In a large number of instances gagging and nausea are only a second or third grade symptom in the remedy that will cure. The condition really depends upon the constitutional state, and the remedy that is to cure must be a constitutional remedy. Sulphur, Sepia and Kali carb. are among the remedies commonly indicated.

Sometimes Arsen is needed. Of course, if a pregnant woman has simply disordered her stomach and has vomited bile a few times the remedy might be Ipeca. When a pregnant woman has no constitutional symptom at all, and upon examining the case you find nothing but the nausea, overwhelming deathly nausea, with continuous vomiting day an night, a single dose of Symphoricarpus rac. will help.

That is prescribing upon very limited information, and should only be done in circumscribed or one-sided cases. It is not a long acting remedy, it is not a constitutional remedy and acts very much like Ipecac.

At times you will go into the confinement room when the woman has pains in the back below the waist line. The pains in the uterus are very weak, they are not sufficiently expulsive to make progress in the labor, the kind of pain that makes the woman utter the cry,

"My back, my back!"

The pains extend down the buttocks and legs. Pain in the back as if the back would break. Under good prescribing these pains are changed into contractions, which prove sufficient to expel the contents of the uterus.

When you hear such things you will look back over the history of the case. You will look back for weeks as the woman has been drawing near the end of gestation and see that the vague things, the chilliness and other features in her constitutional state for which you have been trying to find a remedy now culminate at the time of her confinement into a class of pain. Had you seen that six weeks before and given her Kali carb. you would have prevented the severe labor.

It is a severe labor, a prolonged labor; the uterus appears to be weak, and the pains are feeble they are all in the back, and do not go to the centre of operation as they should. Now, this same kind of a pain may deceive you in taking another form. The pains begin in the back, and appear to go to the uterus and then run up the back, which would turn you aside entirely from the Kali carb. pain into a pain that would indicate Gelsemium.

Sometimes these pains are so severe that they actually seem to prevent rather than encourage the contractions of the uterus; when the contractions of the uterus cease, and the woman screams out and wants her hips rubbed, and screams out with pain in each side of the abdomen rather than in the centre, pains in the region where the broad ligaments ought to be, Actaea racemosa will make the pains regular.

Puls. is the medicine for absence of marked contraction, in cases inclined to do nothing; in a case that is inactive when the os is sufficiently dilated and the parts relaxed, and the prediction is an easy and simple labor, but the patient does not do anything. It is a state of mildness or inactivity. Puls. will very often cause in five minutes a very strong contraction of the uterus, sometimes almost, in a painless way.

"The back aches so badly while she is walking that she feels as if she could lie down on the street," etc.

The pain seems to take the force and vigor all out of the patient. After delivery there is a tendency to prolong the flooding, rousing up at every menstrual period, as described.

Heart: Weakness of the heart, cardiac dyspnea; the breath is short and the patient cannot walk or must move very slowly.

It is the coming on of a fatty heart.

With the suffocation and dyspnoea the breathing is so short that the patient cannot stop to take a drink or eat; the breathing is rapid, not deep, but weak. Dyspnea with violent, irregular palpitation of the heart, throbbing that shakes the whole frame, pulsation that can be felt to the ends of the fingers and toes.

Violent pulsations; patient cannot lie on the left side; accompanied by stitching pain through the chest, and cough. In old asthmatic patients with weak pulse, with the same pulsations and palpitation and cannot lie down.

The only position it seems that be can find any comfort in is leaning forward, with his elbows resting upon a chair. The attack is violent and continuous, especially worse from 3 to 5 A.M., and worse from lying in bed. He is aroused at 3 o'clock in the morning with these asthmatic attacks. Asthmatic dyspnea, when the state is that of humid asthma or filling up of the chest with mucus, course rattling in the chest, loud rattling breathing.

In patients who always have rattling in the chest, rattling cough, stuffy breathing; with every rainy spell or misty spell, or in cold, foggy weather, the condition becomes that of a humid asthma; asthmatic breathing, with much weakness in the chest, worse from 3 to 5 in the morning. The patient is pale, sickly and anemic, and complains of stitching pains in the chest.

The cough: of this medicine is one of the most violent coughs of all the medicines in the Materia Medica. The whole frame is racked. The cough is incessant, attended with gagging and vomiting, comes on at 3 o'clock in the morning, a dry, hacking, hard, racking cough.

"Suffocative cough and choking cough at 5 A.M.

Great dryness in the throat between 2 and 3 A.M."

Think of Kali carb. when, after troubles like measles, a catarrhal state is left behind, due to lack of reaction, the psoric sequelae. The cough following measles is very often a Kali carb. cough. Kali carb. Sulphur, Carbo veg. and Drosera are perhaps more frequently indicated than other medicines in such coughs as follow measles of pneumonia.

The expectoration is copious, very offensive, tenacious, lumpy, blood-streaked or like pus, thick yellow or yellowish-green. Very often it has a pungent, cheesy taste, strong taste, as of old cheese. Catarrh of the chest. Dry cough day and night, with vomiting of food and some phlegm, worse after eating and drinking and in the evening.

Pains: Nothing is more striking in Kali carb. than the wandering stitching, pains through the chest, and the coldness of the chest.

The great dyspnoea, the transient stitches, the pleural stitches are important features of this remedy. A great number of the cases in which Kali carb. is suitable are those where the trouble has spread from catarrhal origin and from the lower portion of the lungs upwards. It is not so commonly indicated in those cases where the dullness has begun at the apex of either or both lungs.

It will very often ward off future sickness where the family history is tuberculous. Do not be afraid to give the antipsoric remedies when there is a history of tuberculosis in the family, but be careful when the patient is so far advanced with tuberculosis that there are cavities in the lung, or latent tubercles, or encysted caseous tubercles.

Your antipsorics might rouse him into a dangerous condition. Do not suppose, however, that it is dangerous to give Sulphur because one's father and mother have died of phthisis. Sulphur might be just the remedy to prevent the child from following the father and mother.

Kali carb. is often suitable, and will act as ail acute remedy in the advanced stages of phthisis in cases in which it was not indicated primarily as a constitutional remedy. In such instances it will act as a palliative in phthisis, whereas if it were indicated primarily as a constitutional remedy it would do damage in the last weeks.

The fortunate thing is that a great many homeopaths are not able to find the homoeopathic remedy. If the patient has yet lung space enough to be cured, Kali carb. will do wonders where the symptoms agree.

Gout: I want to warn you in one respect concerning Kali carb. It is a very dangerous medicine in gout. When you get an old gouty subject who has big toe joints and finger joints, and they are sore and inflamed every now and then, you might think that Kali carb. covers the case very suitably; he is disturbed in just such weather, he is pallid and sickly, his complaints come on at 2 to 3 o'clock in the morning, he has the shooting pains.

But these gouty patients are often incurable, and, if so, to undertake to cure them, would be a dreadful calamity, because the aggravations would last so long. If you give Kali carb. to one of these incurable patients in very high potency it will make your patient worse, and the aggravation will be serious and prolonged, but the 30 th may be of great service. Kali iod., when it is indicated in the gouty state, acts as a soothing and palliative remedy.

But Kali carb. seems to be a dreadful medicine to handle, it is a sharp and a two-edged sword. Do not undertake to give medicine with a view to curing these old cases of gout when the nodosities are numerous. Do not give that constitutional medicine that should have been administered to these patients twenty years ago, because there is not reaction enough in the life of the patient to turn him into order, and he will be destroyed. It seems paradoxical to say it, but to cure him is to kill him.

The vital action that is necessary to restore him to health would practically tear his framework to pieces. You need not believe these things, you are not obliged to. But think about them, and some day after practicing awhile and making numerous mistakes in attempting to cure incurables you will admit the awful power of homeopathic medicines.

They are simply dreadful. In old gouty cases, in old cases of Bright’s disease, in advanced cases of phthisis where there are many tubercles, beware of Kali carb. given too high.

While studying the text book, look over the sensations. They are very numerous. Of course, those most striking are the stitching, and tearing pains, shooting, sticking and wandering pains.

A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica, John Henry Clarke

Potassium Carbonate. Potassic Carbonate. Salt of Tartar. Salt of Wormwood. Carbonate of Potassium. K2 CO3 Solution. Trituration.

Clinical.─Amenorrhoea. Anaemia. Asthma. Axilla, perspiration of. Back, aching. Biliousness. Bronchitis. Catarrh. Change of life. Chilblains. Clavus. Cold. Consumption. Cough. Debility. Dropsy. Dysmenorrhoea. Dyspepsia. Ear, inflammation of. Eyes, inflammation of; oedema around. Face, blotches on. Fear. Freckles. Gastralgia. Haemorrhage. Haemorrhoids. Hair, affections of. Headache. Heart, affections of. Hip-joint disease. Hydrothorax. Hysteria. Kidneys, affections of. Knee, affections of; white swelling of. Larynx, catarrh of. Leucorrhoea. Liver, affections of. Lumbago. Menorrhagia. Metrorrhagia. Pleurisy. Pleurodynia. Pregnancy, disorders of. Proctalgia. Sciatica. Sleeplessness. Spinal irritation. Stomach, affections of. Throat, sore. Toothache. Typhoid. Urine, frequent passage of. Urticaria. Uterus, cancer of. Vertigo. Wens. Whooping-cough.

Characteristics.─Potassium carbonate, sometimes called "Vegetable alkali," exists in all plants, and was originally obtained from the ashes left after burning wood and vegetable structures. Potassium salts play a no less important part in the animal economy. Kali carb. may be regarded as the typical member of the Kali group of homoeopathic remedies, though Causticum has also claims on the title. The Potassium salts have more specific relation to the solid tissues than to the fluids of the body; to the blood corpuscles rather than to the blood plasma. The fibrous tissues are particularly affected, the ligament of joints, of the uterus, of the back. It corresponds to conditions in which these tissues are relaxed-joints give way; the back feels as if broken; the patient feels compelled to lie down in the street. Goullon (translation, H. R., xv. 327) calls attention to the importance of this polychrest in complaints of women, in which it rivals Sepia, differing from the latter in having menstruation "too protracted and recurring too frequently; the pains and troubles occur before the menses. The climacteric flushings of K. ca. are associated with disturbances of the heart. Palpitations are most violent. By quieting these K. ca. often serves as an excellent soporific. In addition to the uterus and heart, lungs, pleura, bronchi, and larynx all come under its action. Chronic laryngeal catarrh Goullon specially mentions as frequently cured by it. He places it in the front rank as a knee remedy. Among the grand characteristics of K. ca., three stand out above the rest: (1) Stitching, lancinating pains, also called jerking pains; < during rest, < lying on affected side. (2) Early morning aggravation: < 2 to 4 a.m. (3) The occurrence of bag-like swellings over the eyes, between the eyebrows and the upper lids. Relaxation of tissues is a great note of K. ca. It is suited to persons of soft tissues with tendency to be fat. Easy sweating may be placed in the same category, and when there is a combination of "sweat, backache, and weakness," the three, according to Farrington, constitute a grand characteristic. The backaches of K. ca. are very important. The pain often extends downwards to the buttock and even to the knee. Pain from hip to knee (more especially if right sided) has led to the cure of many cases of hip-joint disease. This symptom also led me to make a remarkable cure of another kind. A lady, 73, stout, short, pale, and of very soft fibre, had for four months suffered from "rheumatic pains," and an offensive vaginal discharge. A local practitioner of repute was consulted (the patient lived in the country, and I did not see her till a year or two afterwards) and pronounced it cancer of the womb in an advanced stage, and gave her four months to live. She described to me the pain as being all round the lower abdomen, and a "dull, heavy, depressing, dead pain, commencing at the inner part of the top of the right hip (iliac crest) and extending to the knee." The pain was so severe it made her feel quite sick and faint. The discharge was very offensive, like decaying meat. Great weakness and trembling accompanied the discharge; urine was almost like blood at times, and had a sandy sediment. K. ca. 1m. was given and at once improvement set in. In a few months all the bad symptoms had disappeared and never returned. The patient lived ten years after this. In connection with this case I may mention another. A man had an ulcer of right leg with swelling of ankle, and he complained of waking at 2 a.m. K. ca. 30 cured, but meantime he developed this symptom: "Great weakness of right thigh, as if it would give out when walking." This "giving-out" feeling is very characteristic of the remedy. "Constant backache, the patient feeling all the time that the back and legs must give out." K. ca. corresponds to many cases of lumbago, stitching pains, pulsations; > by pressure and by lying flat on the back. "Weakness, sweat, and backache" appear in many conditions of debility as from loss of fluids; after confinement or abortion (puerperal mania, fever, or spasms). Complaints after coition in males, especially complaints of the eyes. Weary and sleepy during and after eating. Yawns continually. The mental state of K. ca. is one of peevishness and irritability. Easily startled by any noise (especially if unexpected). Fear is prominent; fears to be alone. Intellect impaired, does not care for anything. Indifferent, with bodily exhaustion; when questioned does not know what to answer. The "touchiness" of the remedy is very marked: "Cannot bear to be touched; starts when touched ever so lightly, especially on the feet." K. ca. acts profoundly on the tissues. It causes fatty degeneration of the heart and other muscles. It affects the blood itself as well as the circulation, causing anaemia and haemorrhages. Throbbing of blood-vessels all over body and to ends of fingers and toes is a marked symptom. Irregularity of heart's action. A peculiar symptom is: sensation as if the heart were suspended by a thread. The digestion is very much disordered; flatulence, distension, constipation. Many symptoms come on when eating: Drowsiness; toothache only when eating. It has the fishbone sensation in the throat, which is part of the general tendency to stitching pains. Another feature is easy choking; food easily gets into windpipe; pain in back when swallowing. The cough has peculiarities in addition to that of time aggravation 2-4 a.m. It is dry, paroxysmal, loosens viscid mucus or pus which must be swallowed. Or spasmodic with gagging or vomiting of ingesta. The expectoration consists of hard, white, or smoky masses, which fly from the throat when coughing. Globules of pus may be contained in it. Hahnemann said that persons suffering from ulceration in the lungs could hardly get well without this antipsoric. I have frequently had occasion to verify its value in such cases. The stitching pains, sweat, and weakness are leading indications, also the locality of the affection. K. ca. is more a right than a left-side medicine. The base of the right lung is more affected than any other part. Goullon says also the apices. K. ca is a remedy often called for in sick-headache. "Violent headaches about the inner temples; violent stitching or jerking pains, on one side of the head or both." One-sided headache with nausea. One case which I cured was > by lying down, > by a tight band round the head. Pressure and drawing in forehead extending into eyes and root of nose. Congestion to head and heat of face often accompany the headaches. "Drowsy whilst eating" is a very characteristic symptom of K. ca. Ide, of Stettin, Germany, has recorded a case (translated by McNeil, Med. Adv., xxiv. 294) which well illustrates this. A lady, 65, suffered from chronic bronchial catarrh and emphysema. In November, 1886, she had asthmatic complaints, depriving her of sleep, with cough and mucous expectoration difficult to raise. Always when eating she was so weary she fell asleep, and could not finish her meal. After eating still very tired. In the morning passed much flatulence. K. ca. 10 removed the condition in a few days. The following March after a cold there was a recurrence, but without the weariness, and K. ca. failed, whilst Ars. 15 rapidly cured. In the same patient K. ca. manifested its power in another set of symptoms: Toothache alternating with tearing, stitching pain in left breast and under left false ribs. The side pains were < at night, especially in evening as soon as she lay down; < lying down, particularly < lying on right (i.e., painless) side. Not influenced by pressure or motion. K. ca. is a chilly medicine. There is great tendency to take cold, and < of symptoms when body temperature is low; aversion to open air. I have often relieved with K. ca. blotchy eruptions of the face which were < in a wind or cold air. Among the notable sensations of the remedy are: Feeling of emptiness in whole body as if it were hollow. Sensation of a lump rolling over and over on coughing; rising from right abdomen up to throat, then back again. Lump in throat. Feeling as if the bed were sinking under her. Pulsative pains and throbbings. Burning sensation and burning pains. K. ca. appears to have alternating symptoms: it has cured a case of toothache which alternated with tearing, stitching pains in left breast and under left false ribs. It has also pulsations in the back alternating with pains in the back. The pains in the side were < evening, on lying down, and especially on lying on right (painless) side (Med. Adv., xxiv. 295). The nervous excitability of K. ca. may go as far as pronounced hysteria; sudden shrieking; cannot bear to be touched. Spasms (puerperal convulsions) and paralysis. Twitching of muscles; rigidity of muscles; muscular atony, disposition to easy overlifting. Oppression of breathing accompanies most complaints. Anaemia with great debility, skin watery, milky white. Dropsical affections. Ulcers bleeding at night. K. ca. is suited to the aged, rather obese, lax fibre; to dark-haired persons of lax fibre and inclined to be fat; to diseases after parturition; after loss of fluids. The symptoms are: < At rest; < on lying down (cannot get breath). Unable to remain lying at night, > during the day when moving about; < lying on right side (pain in chest; heart feels suspended to left ribs); < by stooping; > raising head. > Sitting bent forward; > raising head (stitches in forehead). Motion = headache with vertigo; < pain in tumours of scalp; wobbling in stomach; stitches in loins. < By sudden or unguarded motion. Walking > obstruction in nose; and < most other symptoms. Coughing < pain in haemorrhoids. Debility = desire to lie down. The chief time aggravation is from 2 to 4 a.m., or any time between. In general the symptoms are < in the morning. > By day; < at night. < Evening on lying down. < After midnight. Heat > most symptoms; cold air and open air <. Open air > obstruction of nose. Change of weather and damp weather <. Washing face = nose-bleed. Cold air < stitching pain in right side. Cold and damp = chronic bronchitis. Warm drinks < sweat. Warm applications = pain to move to other places. Drinking cold water > jerking in head; drinking cold-water when overheated = dyspnoea and pyrosis. Hunger = palpitation. Touch <. Pressure < most symptoms; > pain in abdomen; dull stitches in chest; glandular swelling of neck. < From coitus.

Relations.─Antidoted by: Camph., Coff., Nit. sp. dulcis. It is complementary to: Carb. v., Phos., Sep., Nit. ac., Nat. m. It follows well: K. sul., Phos., Stan., Bry., Lyc., Nat. m. Is followed well by: Carb. v., Phos., Fluor. ac., Ars., Lyc., Pul., Sep., Sul. Compare: The Kalis, especially Caust. (paresis; respiratory affections; haemorrhoids; rheumatism); and K. bi. (catarrh with tenacious secretions; wandering and alternating pains; headache; affections of stout persons; dyspepsia). Bry. (sharp pains; bilious affections; but Bry. is < by motion); Chel. (pneumonia of right base); Merc. v. (pneumonia of right base, but Merc. has sweat without >); Sep. (diseases of women─but Sep. has scanty menses, K. ca. too early and profuse; empty feeling, bloating after eating; chronic laryngeal catarrh); Apis and Ars. (puffing of face and eyes); Spi. (stitches in heart); Bellis, Ars., Nux v., Calc., and Sep. (waking early, 3 am.); Ip. (constant nausea); (K. bi.) and Staph (< after coitus); Ant. t. (capillary bronchitis); Calc. hypophos. (sweat, backache, and weakness─very close analogue); Pso. (debility of convalescence; profuse sweat; hopelessness of recovery); Calc. c. (hopelessness of recovery; irritability; chilliness, < from washing); Puls. (erratic pains; amenorrhoea); Berb. (bubbling sensation in back). Phos. ac. (apathy); Hep., Nit. ac., Carb. v., and Arg. n. (fish-bone sensation). Rhus (pain > motion; affections of ligaments) Hamam. (haemorrhoids). Mag. c. (nervous debility from overstrain) Bry. and Silic. (knee affections). Nat. m. (anaemia; amenorrhoea─"K. ca. will bring on the menses when Nat. m., though apparently indicated, fails." Hahn.─backache: that of K. ca. is, in general, < lying; that of Nat. m. is > by pressure and lying on back); Arn. c., Graph. (obese persons); Chi., Phos. ac., Pho., and Pso. (complaints from loss of fluids); Ars., Bis., and Lyc. (averse to be alone.─Ign., Nux, desire to be alone); Am. c. and Arn. (nose-bleed when washing face); Phos. (fatty degeneration of heart); Lach. (heart as if suspended by a thread).

Causation.─Catching cold. Overstrain.

SYMPTOMS.

1. Mind.─Sadness with tears.─Anxious apprehension and inquietude, esp. about the health, with fear of not being cured.─Irresolute, timid, and apprehensive disposition.─Fear, in evening, in bed.─Peevish humour, discontent and impatience.─Dread of labour.─Changeable humour, at one time evincing mildness and tranquillity, at another time passion and rage.─Tendency to take alarm.─Shrieks about imaginary appearances.─Becomes easily startled; great tendency to start when touched, esp. on feet.─Vexed and irritated mood; trifles vex one; noise is disagreeable.─Irascible and passionate humour.─Loss of memory.─Misapplying words and syllables.

2. Head.─Confusion and dulness in head.─Sudden attack of unconsciousness.─Dulness of the head; confused, stupid feeling, as after intoxication.─Vertigo as if ears were stopped up; with darkness before eyes.─Vertigo in morning, in evening, and after a meal, as well as on turning head or body hastily.─Vertigo, with tottering.─Vertigo, which seems to proceed from stomach.─Headache from motion of a carriage, on sneezing, coughing, or in morning.─Semi-lateral headache, with nausea, and vomiting, < so as to become insupportable, by slightest movement.─Violent headache across the eyes.─Pressive headache in the occiput, esp. during a walk, with irritability, or else in forehead with photophobia.─Tearing and drawing pains in head.─Lancinating headache, chiefly in temples and forehead; < from stooping and moving head, eyes, and lower jaw; > when raising head and from heat.─Violent headaches about inner temples.─Congestion in head, with throbbing and buzzing.─Trembling in head, and sensation as if it contained something movable. (Constant sensation of something loose in head, turning and twisting towards forehead.).─The headaches are > by pressing the forehead.─Sensation as of a blow in the head, which causes it to incline to one side, with dizziness.─Strong tendency to take cold in head, esp. when exposed to a draught after being heated (from it headache or toothache).─Painful and purulent tumours in scalp, like beginning blood-boils; more painful from pressure and motion, and less so from external heat; accompanied by itching, as if in bones of head, with great dryness of hair.─Wens.─Scabby eruption on scalp.─Falling off and dryness of hair, esp. on temples, eyebrows, and beard, with violent burning-itching of the scalp in morning, and evening; the scalp oozes if scratched.─Perspiration on forehead, in morning.─Large, yellowish, and furfuraceous spots on forehead.

3. Eyes.─Pressive and tearing pain in eyes.─Sensation of biting, of smarting, of burning, and shootings in eyes.─Redness and inflammation of eyes, with pain on reading by candle-light.─Swelling of eyes and lids, with difficulty in opening them.─Pimples in eyebrows.─Swelling (like a bag) between upper eyelids and eyebrows.─Excoriation and suppuration in corners of eyes.─White of eye red; capillaries injected.─Sensation of coldness of eyelids.─Agglutination of eyelids, esp. in morning.─Lachrymation.─Eyes dull and downcast.─Propensity to a fixed look.─Spots dancing before sight, on reading and on looking into open air.─Rainbow colours, spots (blue or green), and sparks before sight.─Vivid and painful brightness before eyes, when closed, extending deeply into brain, in evening after lying down.─Photophobia.─Dazzling of eyes by daylight.

4. Ears.─Shootings in ears, sometimes from within outwards.─Inflammatory swelling of ears, with discharge of a yellow pus or of liquid cerumen.─Itching and tickling in ears.─Redness, heat, and violent itching of external ear.─Ulcer in ears.─Excoriation and suppuration behind ears.─Inflammation and swelling of parotid.─Excessive acuteness of hearing, in evening, on lying down.─Weak and confused hearing.─Dulness of hearing.─Singing, tingling, and buzzing in ears.─Cracking in ears.

5. Nose.─Swelling of nose, with redness and burning heat.─Nose red and covered with pimples.─Ulceration of interior of nose.─Epistaxis in morning; when washing face.─Dull smell.─Coryza and stoppage of nose, sometimes with secretion of yellowish green mucus, and constant want of air.─Blowing offensive matter from nose.─Fluent coryza (with excessive sneezing; pain in back and headache), with secretion of sanguineous mucus.─Secretion of purulent mucus from nose.─Dryness of nose.─Sore, scurfy nostrils.

6. Face.─Colour of face, yellow, or pale and sickly, with sunken eyes, surrounded by a livid circle.─Haggard, exhausted look; lifeless expression.─Great redness of face, alternately with paleness.─Drawing pain in face.─Tearing in bones of face.─Flushes of face.─Bloatedness of face.─Eruption of pimples on face, with swelling and redness of cheeks.─Tearing stitches in cheeks.─Swelling between eyebrows.─Pimples on eyebrows.─Warts on face.─Ephelides.─Lips thick and ulcerated.─Lips cracked and exfoliating.─Cramp-like sensation in the lips.─Cramps in jaw.─Swelling of lower jaw and sub-maxillary glands.

7. Teeth.─Toothache, only on eating, or in morning on waking; or else excited by cold things (water) in mouth.─Teeth painful when touched by, either cold or warm substances.─Toothache, with soreness of bones of face, and drawing, jerking, or tearing pains, esp. in evening in bed.─Lancinating pains in teeth, with swelling of cheek (with stinging pain).─Digging, piercing, pricking, and gnawing in teeth.─(Toothache alternating with stitches in l. chest.).─Looseness of all teeth.─Bad smell from teeth.─Inflammatory swelling and ulceration of gums.

8. Mouth.─Bitter taste in mouth.─Fetid exhalation from mouth.─Sensation of dryness in mouth, with copious accumulation of saliva.─Excoriation, with vesicles in interior of mouth and on tongue.─Soreness of fraenum linguae.─Swelling of tongue, covered with small painful vesicles.─Painful pimple on tip of tongue.

9. Throat.─Sore throat, with lancinating pain on swallowing.─Deglutition impeded by inertia of muscles of gullet (the food descends very slowly in the oesophagus, and small particles of food easily get into windpipe).─Copious accumulation of mucus on palate and in throat; difficult to hawk up or to swallow, with sensation as if a lump of mucus were in throat.─Hawking up of mucus.─Dryness in posterior part of throat.

10. Appetite.─Bitter or acid taste.─Unpleasant taste in mouth, as from derangement of stomach.─Putrid, sweetish taste, or as of blood in mouth.─Bulimy.─Strong desire for sugar or acids.─Disgust for brown bread, which lies heavy on stomach.─Milk and warm food are unsuitable.─During a meal, sleepiness.─After a meal, drowsiness, paleness of face, shivering, headache, ill-humour, nausea, sour risings, and pyrosis, colic, inflation of abdomen and flatulency.─After taking hot food (pastry or soup), pinchings and uneasiness in abdomen.

11. Stomach.─Frequent risings.─Sour risings and regurgitation.─Burning acidity rising from stomach, with spasmodic constriction.─Feeling in stomach as if cut to pieces.─Constant feeling as if stomach were full of water, wobbling on motion.─Pressure in stomach like a heaviness after eating.─Sensation as of a lump in stomach the size of the fist.─Pyrosis.─Nausea from mental emotions.─Nausea, as if he would faint; also with anxiety.─Nausea during pregnancy.─Nausea to such a degree as to cause loss of consciousness, sometimes during a meal.─Anxious nausea, with inclination to vomit, esp. after a meal, or after mental emotion.─Retching in evening (for several evenings).─Vomiting of food and acid matter, with prostration of strength, as if about to faint.─Nocturnal vomiting of food.─Fulness in stomach, esp. after a meal.─Pressure on epigastrium.─Tension above stomach.─Contractive cramps in stomach, renewed by all kinds of food and drink, or else at night, with vomiting.─Pinching, digging, and shooting in stomach.─Lancinations in epigastrium and in hypochondria, which suspend respiration.─Pulsations in epigastrium.─Extreme sensitiveness of epigastrium.

12. Abdomen.─Pain in liver, on stooping, as if it were wrenched.─Burning pain, aching, and shootings in liver.─Pressure and shootings in region of loins.─Pains in abdomen, with frequent risings.─Pressure on abdomen, esp. on stooping.─Tension across the abdomen.─Great inflation of abdomen, esp. after a meal.─Inquietude and heaviness in abdomen.─Abdominal pains, contractive and spasmodic.─Colic renewed after each meal.─Colic, resembling pains of labour, sometimes with pains in loins.─Feeling of coldness, as if a cold fluid passed through intestines; during menses.─Lancinations throughout the abdomen.─Inertia and coldness in abdomen.─Dropsical swelling of abdomen.─Drawing and shootings (and painful bloatedness) in groins.─Abundant production and incarceration of flatus.─Incarceration of flatulence, with colic.─Restricted or excessive emission of flatus, sometimes preceded by pressive pain in rectum.

13. Stool and Anus.─Constipation, sometimes every second day.─Constipation during menstruation.─Constriction of the abdomen and difficult evacuation of faeces of too large a size.─Retarded stool from inactivity of rectum.─Obstruction from inactivity of bowels, as a want of peristaltic motion; haemorrhoids.─Resultless inclination to evacuate, and scanty evacuation.─Stool resembling sheep's dung.─Diarrhoea, mostly in evening and at night, with cutting pains and great physical debility.─Discharge of mucus, or of blood, during evacuation.─White mucus before and during stool.─Painless diarrhoea, with rumbling in abdomen.─Discharge of teniae and lumbrici.─Anxiety before the evacuation.─Itching in anus.─Tearing, shooting, incisive, and burning pains in anus (and rectum), esp. after evacuation.─Protrusion and distension of haemorrhoids during stool, with pricking and burning.─Protrusion of haemorrhoids during micturition, emitting first blood, afterwards white mucus.─Inflammation, soreness, stitches, and tingling, as from ascarides, in haemorrhoids.─Haemorrhoidal pimples in anus, painful, bleeding, and with shooting pain.─Sensation of red-hot poker being thrust up rectum, temporarily > by sitting in cold water.─Excoriation and pustulous eruption in anus.─Stitching, pressing proctalgia (during pregnancy).

14. Urinary Organs.─Frequent want to make water, and scanty emission of fiery urine.─The urine is discharged slowly.─After micturition, discharge of prostatic fluid.─Urine pale greenish; turbid.─Frequent emission of urine, day and night.─Incisive pains in bladder, from r. to l.─Burning sensation in urethra, esp. on (and after) making water.

15. Male Sexual Organs.─Tension, tearing, and pulling in glans and in penis.─Itching and pain, as from a bruise in scrotum.─Hot swelling of testes and spermatic cord.─Excessive increase or absence of sexual desire.─Repugnance to coition.─Want of erections, or too frequent and painful erections.─Absence of, or immoderate pollutions.─Pollutions with voluptuous dreams.─After coition and pollutions, weakness of body, but esp. of eyes.

16. Female Sexual Organs.─Repugnance to coition in women.─During coition, pinching and pain, as of excoriation, in vagina.─Constant sensation of bearing down.─Burning pain and shootings in vulva.─Erosion, itching, and gnawing in genital parts, and in interior of parts.─Difficult first menstruation.─Catamenia premature, or too weak.─Suppression of catamenia.─Suppression of menses, with anasarca and ascites.─Haemorrhage of pregnant women (clots of coagulated blood).─Corrosive menstrual flux.─During catamenia (the menstrual blood is acrid) itching eruption, and excoriation, between thighs.─Gastric symptoms, and agitated and anxious sleep during catamenia.─During menses: (morning) headache; cutting pain in abdomen; pain in small of back, like a weight: stitches in ears; coryza; itching of whole body.─Leucorrhoea, sometimes with violent pains in loins, and pains like those of labour (extending from back to uterus).─Yellowish leucorrhoea, with itching and sensation of burning in vulva.─(Uterine cancer with pain round loins extending down r. thigh to knee.).─Tearing stitches in breasts on flow of milk.─During pregnancy: sickness (only during a walk) without vomiting, with feeling as if she could lie down and die;─pulsation of arteries, even down to tips of toes; hollow feeling in whole body; heavy broken-down feeling, only with the greatest effort that any exertion can be made;─back aches so badly while walking she could lie-down in the street;─pressing, forcing pains in small of back as if heavy weight came into pelvis, low down; also stitching, pressing proctalgia.─Impending abortion with pains from back into buttocks and thighs; discharge of Clots (2nd and 3rd month).─Weakness after abortion.─Labour pains insufficient; violent headache, wants back pressed; bearing-down from back into pelvis.─False pains; sharp cutting pains across loins, or passing off down buttocks, hindering labour; pulse weak.─Pains stitching or shooting.─Chills after delivery.─Puerperal fever; intense thirst.─After confinement, haemorrhage, haemorrhoids, peritonitis.─Haemorrhage a week after labour.

17. Respiratory Organs.─Hoarseness and roughness in throat, with violent sneezing.─Aphonia (with violent sneezing).─Easy choking.─Sensation as of a plug in larynx.─Cough on moving arm (when playing the violin).─Cough, excited by a tickling.─Dry cough, esp. at night, and in evening; in morning with expectoration.─Night cough; < from 3 to 4 a.m.─Cramp-like cough, with inclination to vomit, and vomiting, esp. in morning.─Shootings in throat, or chest, while coughing.─Expectoration: difficult; or, small round lumps come flying from mouth without effort.─Spasmodic cough, in short but frequently returning attacks, caused by a tickling in the throat and larynx; during morning and day cough is loose, but the yellow pus and tough mucus has to be swallowed again.─Cough with sourish expectoration, or of blood-streaked mucus, or of pus.─During cough, rough pain in larynx; stinging in throat; stitches in r. side of chest (lower part); sparks dart from eyes; asthma.─Whooping-cough (with inflammation of lungs; with swelling between upper eyelid and eyebrows, and < from 3 to 4 a.m.).

18. Chest.─Difficult respiration.─Shortness of breath in morning.─Respiration impeded on walking quickly, or in morning.─Stitches in sternum and r. side of chest through to back, when taking an inspiration.─Tearing in sides of chest.─Spasmodic asthma (in the morning); > by sitting up and bending forward, resting head on knees).─Anxious oppression at chest.─Obstructed respiration awakes him at night.─Wheezing in chest.─Oppression at chest, as from hydrothorax.─Pain in chest when speaking.─Cramp in chest, sometimes on coughing.─Sensation in chest as if heart were compressed.─Pressure, burning pain, and shootings in chest, sometimes on breathing.─Inflammation of lungs (and liver) with stitches in chest (r. side).─Suppuration of lungs; abscesses of lungs.─Weakness and faintness in chest from walking fast.─Small pimples on chest and back.─Incisive pains in chest.

19. Heart.─Palpitation of heart (sometimes with anguish), esp. in morning on waking, with ebullition of blood.─Frequent and violent palpitation; with anxiety.─Palpitation when he becomes hungry.─Frequent intermissions of beats of heart.─Burning in region of heart.─Crampy pain in region of heart.─Stitches about heart and through to scapula.─Pinching pain in or by heart, as if heart were hanging by tightly drawn bands; < on deep inspiration, on coughing; not noticed on motion of body.─On lying on r. side, heart feels suspended to l. ribs.─Feels pulse over whole body to tips of toes.─Pulse slow.

20. Neck and Back.─Stiffness between scapulae.─Dull pain, like hot water, between scapulae.─Stiffness of nape of neck.─Weakness of muscles of neck.─Goitre.─Hard swelling of axillary glands and of those of neck.─Sweat under armpits.─Pains in loins; also after a fall.─Pain, as from a bruise in back, during repose.─Drawing pains in back, which often proceed from loins.─Burning, tearing near r. side of spine, above small of back.─Sharp stitching pains awaken him 3 a.m., he must get up and walk about; pains shoot from loins into nates.─Stitching and shooting pains in back, shooting down into gluteal region or hips.─Stitches in kidneys.─Back aches as if broken.─Pain across sacrum like labour-pains; feeling of tightening of skin of lower abdomen; feeling of weight in abdomen on walking, and esp. on standing.─Pain in small of back as from flatulent distension, morning in bed, with feeling as if bubbles accumulated at small of back, with urgent desire for stool, all of which disappeared after passing wind.─Violent constant drawing in small of back, alternating with pulsations in it, only > when lying.─Pain as if broken on moving about.─Bruised pain in back only during rest.─Feeling in morning as if small of back were pressed inward from both sides.─Pressure in region of both kidneys.─Gnawing in coccyx.

22. Upper Limbs.─Swelling of shoulder, with pain.─Swelling and sore pain of axillary glands.─Cracking in shoulder-joint when moving or raising arm.─Pain, as from blows and bruises, under r. shoulder-joint, esp. when moving and touching it.─Tearing in l. shoulder-joint.─Pressure on shoulder.─Tension, tearing, pulling, in muscles and joints of shoulders, arms, hands, and fingers.─Cold stiffness and numbness of arms, esp. in the cold, or after violent exercise.─Want of energy in arms and hands, esp. in morning in bed.─Frequent startings in arms.─Stiffness in joint of elbow.─Paralytic pain in wrist.─Shootings in wrist and fingers during movement.─Trembling of hands when writing.─Coldness of hands.─Skin of hands rough and cracked.─Torpor and numbness in extremities of fingers.─Burning pain in extremities of fingers.─Gnawing vesicles on fingers.─Startings in fingers when sewing.─Tearing between thumb and index finger.

23. Lower Limbs.─Acute pullings (rheumatic pains), esp. at night, in joints and bones of hips, legs, feet, and toes.─The limbs fall asleep while lying.─Numbness and great inclination of whole r. limb to fall asleep, esp. lower leg.─Stitches in l. hip-joint while standing.─Tearing in hips and knees even while sitting.─Paralysis of thighs.─Cramp in r. thigh and calf.─Stiff, cramped feeling in both calves, lasting all day and coming on when walking in morning (Cooper─from Potash water.).─Tearing in and on nates not far from hip-joint.─Great weakness of r. thigh, feeling as if it would give way when walking.─Difficulty in knees on going up or downstairs.─Dull pains in side of knee, walking or extending leg.─Frequent tearing in knees.─Pressive pullings and tearings in legs.─Jerking of muscles of buttocks and thighs.─Burning pain and lancinations in legs and feet.─Uneasiness (restlessness) in legs in evening.─Torpor and numbness of legs.─Crawling shuddering on tibia.─Swelling of legs and feet.─Swelling and redness of soles.─Stiffness of joint of foot.─Shootings in joints of foot.─Cold feet, even at night in bed.─Numbness of feet after a meal.─Fetid perspiration on feet.─Burning pain and shootings (red chilblains on toes) in ball of great toe.─Corns on feet, painful when touched.─Stitches in the painful and sensitive corns.─Sensation as if nail of big toe would grow into flesh.─Tips of toes very painful when walking.

24. Generalities.─Affections in general, occurring in r. hypochondriac region; r. abdominal ring; l. chest; l. upper extremity; external and internal ears; of inner surface of liver; inner region of kidneys; lower part of chest; shoulder; shoulder-joint; elbow and elbow-joint; hollow of elbow; wrist-joint; big toe; tips of toes; joints of legs in general; joints of toes.─Disgust of food in general.─Inflammatory swelling of the part, with characteristic (stitching or jerking) pains.─Dryness of the skin.─Painful sensibility of extremities in whatever position they are placed.─Pressive pains in joints.─Spasmodic contraction of some parts.─Drawing, tearing, rheumatic pains in limbs, esp. during repose, with swelling of the parts affected.─Rheumatic pains in back, chest, shoulders, and arms, < on moving them.─Shooting pains in joints, muscles, and internal organs.─Swelling and hardness of glands.─Anaemia, with great debility; skin watery, milky white; muscles weakened, esp. heart; hence weak pulse is a general characteristic.─Dropsical affections of internal organs, or of whole skin of body.─The pains often manifest themselves towards 2 a.m., and are then stronger than by day during movement.─Shiverings immediately after pains.─Remaining in open air greatly < many of the symptoms (esp. the febrile), while some others are > by it.─Hectic fever.─Burning at various places under the skin.─Spasmodic attacks and convulsive startings of limbs and muscles.─Nocturnal epileptic fits.─Tendency to suffer a strain in loins.─Tendency in limbs to become numbed, when lying down.─Paralysis.─Dropsical affections and paralysis of old persons.─General sensation of emptiness in whole body, as if it were hollow.─Heaviness and indolence.─Weakness, as if on the point of losing consciousness, and trembling, esp. after a walk.─A short walk fatigues much.─Attacks of weakness with nausea, sensation of heat and lassitude in pit of stomach, vertigo, and dizziness.─Violent ebullition of blood, with throbbing in all arteries.─Excessive dread of open air and of currents of air.─Great tendency to take cold, esp. after heating exercise.

25. Skin.─Painful sensibility of skin, as if it were ulcerated, when pressing on it.─Skin dry, with obstructed perspiration.─Sensation of burning, or burning and lancinating itching, in skin.─Itching, burning, yellow, or red spots on body (over abdomen and around nipples), sometimes with oozing after being scratched.─Miliary nettle-rash.─Corrosive vesicles.─Chilblains of a reddish blue.─Warts.─Tetters.─Bleeding of ulcers, esp. at night.─Fissure in cicatrix of an old issue.─Ascites and anasarca.─Swelling and induration of glands, after contusions.

26. Sleep.─Drowsiness and yawning.─Great drowsiness during day and early in evening.─Falls asleep while eating.─Half-sleep at night.─Tardy sleep.─During sleep, shuddering, tears, talking, and starts with fright.─Gnashing of teeth while asleep.─Agitated sleep, with frequent, anxious, and frightful dreams.─Dreams of robbers, death, danger, serpents, sickness, spectres, devils, etc.─Fits of anguish at night, gastric sufferings, pains in stomach and precordial region, colic, flatulency, diarrhoea, frequent erections and pollutions, asthmatic sufferings, nightmare and cramps in calves of legs.─Arrest of breath rouses him from sleep at night.─At night l. leg and r. arm go to sleep.─Waking too early, particularly at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning; sleepiness in evening; sleeplessness after midnight; sleeplessness in general.

27. Fever.─Pulse very variable; frequently more rapid in morning than in evening; strong pulsations in arteries.─Chilliness generally in morning.─Shivering in evening, with thirst, often accompanied by toothache.─The Chilliness in evening is > near warm stove and after lying down.─Internal heat with external chilliness.─Morning perspiration.─Perspiration more on upper part of body and < by warm drinks.─Perspiration is fetid or smells sour.─Intermittent fever; constant chilliness, with violent thirst from internal heat; hot hands; loathing of food.─Long yawning, with heat; pain in chest and head; pulsations in abdomen, 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.─Chills and heat alternate in evening, followed by perspiration during night.─Evening fever; first, chilliness with thirst (for one hour), then heat without thirst, accompanied by violent, fluent coryza; afterwards slight perspiration with sound sleep.─Chill and fever, with oppression of breathing, constriction of chest; pain in region of liver; most of the thirst during chill.─Intermittent fevers, with whooping-cough.─Shivering immediately after pains.─Frequent shuddering during day.─Heat in morning, in bed, with pains in loins and chest.─Want of perspiration and inability to perspire, or else great tendency to perspire during intellectual labour, or during a walk.─Nocturnal sweats, every night.

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

Potassium Carbonate (K2OCO2)

For diseases of old people, dropsy and paralysis; with dark hair, lax fibre, inclined to obesity (Am. c., Graph.). After loss of fluids or vitality, particularly in anaemic (Cinch., Phos. ac., Phos., Psor.). Pains, stitching, darting, worse during rest and lying on affected side (stitching, darting, better during rest and lying on painful side, Bry.). Cannot bear to be touched; starts when touched ever so lightly, especially on the feet. Great aversion to being alone (Ars., Bis., Lyc. - desires to be alone, Ign., Nux). Bag-like swellings between the upper eyelids and eyebrows. Weak eyes; after coition, pollution, abortion, measles. Stomach: distended, sensitive; feels as if it would burst; excessive flatulency, everything she eats or drinks appears to be converted to gas (Iod.)[Lyc.]. Nosebleed when washing the face in the morning (Am. c., Arn.). Toothache only when eating; throbbing; < when touched by anything warm or cold. Backache, sweating, weakness; after abortion, labor, metrorrhage; when eating; while walking feels as if she must give up and lie down. Cough: dry, paroxsymal, loosens viscid mucus or pus which must be swallowed; spasmodic with gagging or vomiting of ingesta; hard, white or smoky masses fly from throat when coughing (Bad., Chel.). Feels badly, week before menstruation; backache, before and during menses. Labor pains insufficient; violent backache; wants the back pressed (Caust.). Asthma, relieved when sitting up or bending forward or by rocking; worse from 2 to 4 a. m. Persons suffering from ulceration of the lungs can scarcely get well without this anti-psoric - Hahnemann. Difficult swallowing; sticking pain in pharynx as of a fish-bone (Hep., Nit. ac.); food easily gets into the windpipe; pain in back when swallowing. Constipation: stool large, difficult, with stitching, colic pains an hour or two before. Heart: tendency to fatty degeneration (Phos.); as if suspended by a thread (Lach.). Very much inclined to take cold.

Relations. - Complementary: Carbo veg. Follows well: after, Kali s., Phos., Stan. in loose rattling cough. Will bring on the menses when Nat. m. though apparently indicated, fails - Hahnemann.

Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics, Eugene Beauharnais Nash

Stitching pains, very characteristic.

Pain in lower right chest through to back.

Anaemia with bloating, especially upper eyelids, which hang down like a bag of water.

Backache, sweat, weakness very great; drops down in chair.

Flatulence great; everything turns to gas.

Heart weak, irregular, intermits.

Modalities: < at 3 to 4 A. M.

After loss of fluids or of vitality, particularly in the anaemic.

Asthma, relieved when sitting up or bending forward, or by rocking (Ars.); worse from 2 to 4 A. M.

Backache, before and during menses.

Complementary to Carbo vegetabilis.

* * * * *

This remedy, like some others, finds its leading symptom in the character of its pains. It leads all the remedies for stitching pains. Bryonia stands next, but there is a very marked difference. The stitching pains of Bryonia come on with every movement, and only exceptionally when quiet, while those of Kali carb. come on independently of movement. Again, the stitching pains of Bryonia are oftenest located in serous membranes, while those of Kali carb. are found anywhere and everywhere, and in almost every tissue, even to the teeth. One of the favorite localities, however, for this remedy is in the lower right chest. This sharp stitching pain is likely to run right through to the back. If in pneumonia or pleuro-pneumonia your Bryonia has failed when you thought it indicated, and further examination reveals that the stitching pains come on independently of the respiratory movement, Kali carb. often helps, and follows well after Bryonia. Often the fact is, that Kali carb. was all the time the remedy and ought to have been given first. Now, these stitching pains of Kali carb. are not by any means confined to the right chest, but we may find them in the left, especially in pleuro-pneumonia, peri- or endocarditis. Remember, also, Mercurius vivus in these lower right-chest pains. If there should be present at the same time sweat without relief, and the mercurial mouth and tongue, neither Bryonia nor Kali carb. are "in it".

Another kind of case in which this remedy has achieved signal success, being indicated by the stitching pains, is puerperal fever.

The pains are so sudden and so sharp as to make the patient cry out loudly, and then they are gone. Kali carb. has saved some desperate cases of this kind. But it makes no particular difference where the disease is located, if these stitching pains are present, Kali card should not be forgotten. We cannot too strongly emphasize this.

Kali carbonicum exerts a profound influence over the blood-making processes. The blood lacks red corpuscles. The patient is anaemic, with great debility, skin watery or milky white. This condition is often found with young ladies at the age of puberty. They do not seem to be able to menstruate because of the poor quality of blood and general weakness. They incline to bloat, particularly in face, around eyes and especially upper eyelids, and have much pain and weakness in the lumbar region as well as general weakness. Kali carb. is in such cases sometimes successful after Ferrum or Pulsatilla have been wrongly prescribed.

This anaemic condition is also found at the menopause, and in old age, when the same dropsical tendencies appear, and the same characteristic bag-like swelling, or rather bloating, in the upper eyelids appears. In all these cases you will generally, or often, at least, find what is called "weak heart". The heart action is irregular or intermittent from very weakness in correspondence with the general muscular weakness. One of the characteristic symptoms which makes us think of Kali carb. in these cases in the constant backache of such a nature that the patient feels all the time that the back and legs must give out. She drops into a chair or throws herself on the bed completely exhausted. This aching often extends into the hips and down into the gluteal muscles. Patient sweats easily. Farrington says: "This particular sweat, backache and weakness as a combination is not found under any other remedy."

I have already spoken of this remedy somewhat while writing of its stitching pains as an indication for its use in diseases of the chest, but I did not there do it full justice. It is not only a great remedy for pneumonia, pleurisy and heart troubles, as there spoken of, but goes much further and becomes very useful in incipient and even with advanced cases of phthisis pulmonalis. I have seen a case pronounced incurable by several old experienced and skillful physicians, Dr. T. L Brown among them, get well under a dose once in eight days of Kali carb. The disease was located mainly in the lower right lung, with profuse expectoration of matter of pus-like appearance, pulse 120, greatly emaciated, no appetite, and quite a large cavity in the lung. This man is still alive (twenty-five years later), hale and hearty. Such service from any remedy makes a man fall in love with it. There is a time characteristic for this remedy which is very valuable in chest affections, viz, aggravation at 3 A. M. It may be found in cough, consumption, hydrothorax, asthma, and dropsies attending heart disease The father-in-law of Dr. T.L. Brown, an anaemic old man, was apparently near his end with hydrothorax and general dropsy Dr Brown was a skillful Prescriber, but in this case had utterly failed to even relieve. In consultation with Dr. Sloan, after carefully reviewing the case, the fact appeared, through de daughter of the patient, who had been his nurse all the time, that all his symptoms were aggravated at 3 A. M. Now Kali Carb. 200 was given, and with such miraculous results that in an incredibly short time the old man was well and never had a return of that trouble. He lived for several years after, and, finally, did nor die of dropsy at all. The day of miracles is not past yet. Hahnemannian Homoeopathy performs them still.

I cannot persuade myself to have this remedy yet, although I have given its chief uses.

I must call attention still further, even at the risk of repearing somewhat, to some very important symptoms. In regard to the nervous system I have already spoken of the great debility which I have called muscular debility, but there is a weakened condition of the nerves which renders them very sensitive which is well described in the symptoms found in the Materia Medica. "Very easily frightened, shrieks abut imaginary appearances; cannot bear to be touched; starts when touched ever so lightly, especially on the feet" these are valuable indication for Kali carb. Then don't forget the "bag-like oedematous swelling in the upper eyelids". It goes with many affections and is invaluable as a guiding symptom. "Sticking pain in the throat (pharynx), as if a fishbone were sticking in it" (see Hepar sulphur, Dolichos, Nitric acid and Argentum nitricum).

"Great sensitiveness of epigastric region, externally."

"Stomach distended, sensitive, feels as if it would burst."

"Excessive flatulency, everything he eats or drinks appears to be converted into gas."

"Fullness, heat and great distention in abdomen immediately after eating a little."

"Abdomen distended with wind after eating."

All these stomach and abdomen symptoms indicate the value of this remedy in dyspeptic conditions. They make us think of Carbo vegetabilis, China officinalis and Lycopodium clavatum, but remember Kali carb. and that it is especially adapted to broken down, aged people who are anaemic. "Sitting up, leaning forward, relieves in chest affections." The patient is also aggravated by lying on the affected side. Don't forget this, for it may enable you to choose between it and Bryonia, which has the reverse.

Now in what I hat written I do not pretend to have told all, and if I thought that any young physician would be led to rely alone upon this work of mine or be led away from thorough study of the Materia Medica instead of to it I would stop writing.