Homeopathic Materia Medica

Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica, James Tyler Kent

Generals: The symptoms that indicate this remedy show themselves especially in the muscles, in the tendons, in the joints, along the course of the nerves, in rheumatic complaints.

Pains: The pains change about, wandering pains, and they axe aggravated from motion. The sharp pains spread from the centres to the extremities, the wandering pains go downwards, down the arms, down the back and down the legs; from the shoulder to the fingers, and from the hips to the toes.

These pains sometimes shoot like lightning, again they tear along the nerves, along the sciatic and crural nerves, down through the calves. In rheumatic constitutions the pains are dull, tearing, crushing and pressing, and are aggravated by motion and go from the lower to the upper limbs. Motion will bring on the pain or aggravate it when it is present. The head pains are very severe. They often begin in the back of the neck or back of the head, and extend to the top of the head. There are also pains in the front of the head, pains over one or both eyes, tearing neuralgic pains aggravated by heat and motion.

Pains come and go with the sun, that is, they begin in the morning at the rising of the sun and increase till noon, then gradually decline and disappear at sunset. He is incapacitated for mental work when in motion and even when sitting up, but, when lying upon his back perfectly quiet, making no motion, the mind works well and with clearness; with the slightest motion, however, even of the hand, on comes vertigo and confusion of mind.

Moving about disturbs makes him incompetent. The pains are also worse the first half of the night. With these symptoms there is cardiac trouble of rheumatic origin. The condition has increased until organic disease has come, even hypertrophy of the heart and valves.

Heart: This remedy has cured that state. Palpitation very marked when lying on the left side, > when lying on the back, sometimes > when sitting erect, < when bending forward.

These symptoms alone cause this remedy to stand out in relief. It is useful in rheumatic patients where syphilis is at the bottom, syphilitic rheumatism that has taken the course described until finally the heart has become affected and there is thickening of the valves. Shooting pains through the heart, pains in the chest, intermittent pulse, pulse skipping a beat now and then.

Either the arterial or venous system, or the valves of the heart, or both, may be affected. Dyspnoea from any kind of exercise, cardiac dyspnoea. You have in this a remedy for such complaints. It goes to the bottom in old cases of rheumatic syphilis, and has cured many a cardiac complaint that was the result of syphilis.

You will be guided to it especially if the pains wander from place to place, and if they go from above down wards, if they go from the shoulder down toward the fingers, from the hips toward the feet, or down the spine. It is also suitable in old cases of gonorrhoeal rheumatism when the symptoms agree.

The slightest motion, the slightest effort or exertion brings on the vertigo, and this is due to disturbance of the circulation. The heart is so susceptible to any exertion that disturbance of the circulation of the blood in the brain comes on from the slightest motion.

"In a recumbent posture mental faculties and memory perfect, but, on attempting to move, vertigo."

If the patient persists in moving, nausea and vomiting will follow. It has palpitation, shaking the whole frame, audible, vehement palpitation. He cannot lie on his left side.

It is suitable in old, troublesome, recurrent headaches associated with cardiac affections. A headache will come on daily if the sun comes out, but it will not come on if the day is clouded. He is aggravated from the light of the sun and the increasing brightness of the sun's rays.

In addition to these there are paroxysms of pain that are nightly. These are the bone pains, pains in the shin bones as if the periosteum would be torn off; these pains come on at night, or the first half of the night. It is well known in syphilis that the < is at night. It is an antipsoric, antisycotic and antisyphilitic, it can be selected when the symptoms agree with any of the three miasms. Pains in the pericranium, pains in the bones nearest to the surface. In bed at night the pains become very severe and last all night.

This night aggravation, is especially true of the marked antisyphilitic medicines. It is found under Hepar and Mercurius; but in none of the remedies do we find it so strikingly manifested as in the disease, or miasm, syphilis itself.

In syphilis the < comes with the setting of the sun. It is one of man's enemies that does its work in the night. Many of the complaints of sycosis conform to the day hours, and the pains are < from the rising. to the going down of the sun.

Medicines also have such I queer whims. We must study remedies as we would human character. Some of them seem to be extremely whimsical, and it is by knewing these whimsical, strange and peculiar things that we are able to mark the character of the remedy, When we know these peculiari ties we have found the circumstance under which the remedy Works

Kidneys: There are kidney affections.

All the organs are related. to each other but especially the heart and kidneys. When the kidneys are not working well, the heart is very often troublesome. All through the varying forms of Bright's disease the heart is troublesome.

Difficulties of breathing, difficult heart action, with albuminuria. It will relieve the breathing. Again, associated with kidney affections, we have many eye complaints, difficulties of vision, and these also especially call for this remedy. It is often indicated in Bright’s disease, with disturbance of vision, occurring during pregnancy.

Pains: For the pains in the eyes, the stitching, tearing pains that occur during kidney disturbance in pregnancy, or during albuminuria, Kalmia becomes a remedy,

This remedy is useful in neuralgia; neuralgia of the eye, neuralgia of the face, violent, tearing pains in the face. Sometimes it takes the form of a nightly < and sometimes it takes the form of daily <. The aggravation in the daytime comes and goes with the sun. The < at night time comes with the lying down.

"Anxious expression of countenance" associated with rheumatism of the heart.

"Flushing of the face, with vertigo."

After the disappearance of a herpetic eruption, violent neuralgic pains, shooting, tearing pains in those nerves that supply the part where the eruption was. When shingles, ring-worm, cold sore, or isolated vesicular eruptions disappear, suddenly from some violent cause or inappropriate treatment, or from catching cold, violent neuralgias come in their place and continue until the eruption comes out again.

This remedy becomes suitable if the symptoms agree; that is, if the whole patient is in agreement with the state of the remedy.

The pains are stitching and tearing, very severe, sometimes cutting and shooting when this remedy is mw useful. The pain will seem to take hold of a nerve and will hold on to it for many minutes, Coming with violence, coming suddenly and letting loose suddenly. Pains come in the extremities in the same way, taking hold as if the nerve were being pinched by nippers, or as if it were being torn to pieces.

"There, now it is gone!" says the patient.

Pretty soon, again, you will see his face in a state of horrible distress. The pain is there again and he cannot move a muscle, and "there, it is gone!" he says, and it remains away for some minutes and sometimes for hours.

Heart: The heart has many symptoms which should be studied.

"Fluttering of the heart, palpitation of the heart."

"Palpitation up into the throat, after going to bed, trembling all over."

Very slow pulse. I remember a patient, an old syphilitic, who was told if he ever made a violent move he would die, the valves of his heart were so badly affected. He had all the murmurs that it seemed possible from the heart valves.

He had traveled all over and had taken large doses of Mercury, and his syphilitic condition had to a great extent been suppressed, until finally the whole trouble had located in the heart. Kalmia removed all the dyspnea and palpitation in a few months, and it was nearly two years before there was a marked return of the symptoms and a repetition put him in a state of health, so that be needed no more medicine.

This shows what a deep-acting remedy Kalmia is, how long it may act, what wonderful changes it may effect. A remedy must be capable of going deep into the life to do such things.

"Wandering rheumatic pains in the region of the heart."

"When articular rheumatism has been treated externally and cardiac symptoms ensue."

Rheumatism that goes from the lower to the upper limbs. Not uncommonly you will meet such things. These "rubbers" that go around the streets with a strong liniment and considerable magnetism frequently do cause a rheumatism to leave the knee joint, and when it does that, the heart is likely to be the organ that suffers.

Then Kalmia, Aurum, Bryonia, Rhus tox., Ledum, Calc. and Abrotanum, and sometimes Cactus, are remedies that prove suitable for such cardiac affections. Rheumatic affections that are driven away in this manner are changed without being cured. The people cannot realize the danger, of merely removing symptoms. Every removal that is not in accordance with cure affects the centres of man, that is the heart and brain.

Rubbing is a dangerous thing. When you are importuned with the question,

"Doctor, will it hurt me to have this rubbed?" you reply, "If rubbing does not affect any change in the symptoms, it will do no harm."

In proportion as it mitigates the symptoms or relieves, just in that proportion it does the patient harm, for the whole vital economy is weakened. There are instances where rubbing is of benefit, but not in rheumatism.

In paralyzed muscles it is a beneficial exercise, for then rubbing can take the place of exercise of the patient himself, of the muscles. But rubbing is not admissible if it is used to reduce pain. The more agreeable it is, the worse, it is for the patient.

In a Phosphorus patient you would be astonished what wonderful relief they can get from rubbing. There is no person more inclined to be weak in the vitality, in the internal economy, than the Phosphorus patient. He is an excitable, weakly patient, and feels better by rubbing and craves it, but if he has rheumatism in the knees and the knee is rubbed the rheumatism may go to the heart, The Phos. patient loves to be rubbed, because rubbing relieves the symptoms; he loves to be magnetized.

"Weariness of all the limbs; shuns all exertion."

"Weakness the only general symptom with neuralgia."

This weakness is a state that you can glean something from. When severe pain is fatiguing the economy the heart is threatened. A general weakness, prolonged weakness after confinement, or from the pain, as we find in Hepar, but with the weakness, these pains are threatening to leave their parts and go to the heart. He is perfectly exhausted and continuously tired.

The text speaks only of Aconite and Belladonna as the antidotes. Spigelia follows this remedy very well and antidotes it. Benzoic acid is a natural complement to it. Calc., Lith. carb., Lyc., Nat. mur., and Puls. are the remedies that are closely related and should be compared.

A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica, John Henry Clarke

Ledum floribus bullatis. Cistus chamaerhododendros. Mountain Laurel. American Laurel. Calico Bush. (Rocky sterile hills, near water, in New England States. Flowers May and June.) N. O. Ericaceae. Tincture of fresh leaves when the plant is in flower.

Clinical.─Angina pectoris. Blindness. Bright's disease. Dropsy. Dysmenorrhoea. Gastralgia. Globus hystericus. Gout. Headache. Heart, disease of. Herpes zoster; neuralgia after. Keratitis. Leucorrhoea. Locomotor ataxia. Lumbago. Neuralgia. Paraplegia. Ptosis. Pregnancy, albuminuria of. Retinitis albuminurica. Rheumatism. Rumination. Scleroderma. Sclerotitis. Somnambulism. Sun-headaches. Syphilitic sore throat. Tinnitus. Tobacco, effects of. Vertigo. Vomiting.

Characteristics.─Kalmia is the name of a genus of heathworts, natives of North America. K. latifolia, which has large and showy flowers, is found in the northern parts of the United States. Its flowers "yield a honey said to be deleterious, and its leaves and shoots certainly are so to cattle. K. angustifolia, probably for the same reason, has received the name of Lambkill. The powdered leaves of some are used as a local remedy in some skin diseases. The hard wood of K. latifolia is used in the manufacture of various useful articles. The Canadian partridge is said to become poisonous as human food after feeding on Kalmia berries" (Treasury of Botany). Hering introduced Kalmia into homoeopathic practice, himself and his friends being the first provers. The head, including eyes and face, shows the chief intensity of its action, and scarcely less so, the heart. A number of skin symptoms confirm the popular use of the leaves; and among them a "stiffness" of the skin (especially of the eyelids) is the most remarkable. Neuralgias (especially of right side); wandering rheumatic pains which tend to travel from above downwards; tumultuous action of the heart and slow pulse─these are the cardinal features of Kalm. Though Kalm. acts most markedly on the right side of the head, it acts very markedly on the left (heart-) side of the chest and left arm. Von der Luhe cured with Kalm. 200 an intercostal neuralgia of left side, so intense that the patient could not lie down or sleep at night. The chief guiding symptom was a concomitant numb sensation of whole left arm (H. W., xxxiii. 503). With the same potency I cured in a married woman the following symptoms: "Sick feeling and pains flying about, especially down left side; headache at vertex; chilliness"; and in a case of hypertrophied heart in an unmarried woman, "pain through heart region with inability to lie on left side." Lambert has recorded (H. W., xxx. 64) the case of a gate-keeper, 54, who had smoked since he was seven years old, and who suffered from "tobacco heart," palpitation, occurring on least exertion or fright, and sometimes awakening him in the night; pulse intermittent; no valvular lesion; tingling in left arm and leg and sensation as if the blood did not circulate in them. He could walk all right, but not far. The chief thing he complained of was sharp pain in right temple like pins and needles, of eighteen months' duration. It was induced by touch and turning head quickly. Kalm. 3x cured the temporal neuralgia and greatly alleviated all the other symptoms. Kalm. also relieved an old ataxic patient (man) of "vertigo and pains in legs which shoot and shift their position frequently." In connection with this spinal case the effects on animals are worth recalling. Meadows (C. D. P., quoting Southern J. of H., Apr., 1890,) says cattle eat Kalm. in the latter part of the winter when they are in want of something green. The first symptom is intense thirst; then follow trembling, weakness, staggering, and jerking, the abdomen being full of wind. Then clonic spasms, every fifteen to twenty minutes, increasing to violent convulsions, which are renewed if the animal tries to rise in the intervals between the seizures. Eyes become fixed, pupils turned up, head drawn back, limbs rigid, abdomen bloated, bowels loose. If the animal recovers there is prostration for a week or more, and for three or four months it is weak, nervous, and walks as if intoxicated, tottering as if unable to control its limbs. The spinal action is unmistakable here, and the provings give "weakness and paralytic condition of limbs"; "shuns all exertion, can hardly go upstairs"; and many symptoms of pain in back. Neuralgias appear in almost all regions─in eye; in uterus (dysmenorrhoea); in stomach as well as head, chest, and limbs. Pains in the periosteum preventing sleep. The rheumatic pains proceed from above downwards, but some of the sensations ascend: as if a ball was rising in the throat. Sensation of weakness in abdomen extending to throat. Every heart-beat has a strumming as if it would burst, along sternum to throat. Pain between shoulders coming up over head. Also in rheumatism, the lower limbs are affected first, then the upper. Other peculiar sensations are: As if something loose in head diagonally across the top. As if the body was surcharged with electricity, a shuddering without coldness. As if something would be pressed off below pit of stomach. As if the stool was glazed. As if one squeezed throat with thumb and finger. Pain in chest (in hands, in feet) as from a sprain. Pressure like a marble from epigastrium to heart. Cracking in head frightens him, ending in sound in ears like blowing a horn. As if something was being pressed away from under sternum. The pains and conditions requiring Kalm. frequently have nausea and slow pulse as concomitants. Among noteworthy symptoms are: Dry throat. Dry, stiff, swollen, cracked lips. Tingling in salivary glands immediately after eating. Stitches in tongue. Vomiting with ruminating action; without the least nausea. Pressure on rectum after stool. The sensation of "rigidity of the skin" should make us think of it in scleroderma. There is much external sensitiveness: Face, pit of stomach, muscles of neck sore, < by touch. Rubbing eyes = stinging in them. The pains are < during early part of night, or soon after going to sleep. Pain in forehead conies on in morning on waking. The headache is < again in evening, when eye-symptoms and pains generally are <. Kalm. has a "sun-headache," < and > with the sun. (H. G. Grahn cured in a girl, 18, a headache "beginning in occiput, going over forehead; comes on at sunrise, gets < towards noon and declines as sun sets," with Kalm. 2x. A few weeks later exposure to the sun brought on another attack, which was promptly cured with the same remedy.) A sudden chill, or exposure to a sudden wind = the pains. Heat < and cold > pain in head. Open air < headache and eyes. Every summer there is roughness of cheeks. Mental effort < headache. Motion <. Lying down, mental faculties and memory perfect, least motion = vertigo. Lying on back > breathing; on left side < palpitation. The < from motion is very marked, almost equalling that of Bry.; even motion of eyes and eyelids is painful. The pains in the stomach are < sitting bent, though he feels impelled to do so, > sitting or standing upright. But symptoms of vision are < in erect position. Vertigo is < on stooping; on looking down; on rising from a seat. Palpitation is < on bending forward; and < by mental effort. (Proell cured with Kalm. 1, 2, and 3 headache and weakened memory preventing him from continuing his studies, in a boy of 13 who had insufficiency of the mitral valve.) The neuralgic pains are > by food; wine > vomiting. Symptoms < during leucorrhoea. A leading concomitant of the Kalmia neuralgias is a paralytic weakness and trembling.

Relations.─Antidoted by: Aco., Bell. Antidote to: Tab.? Follows well: Nux, Thyroidin, Spigel. Compare: Tab. (slow pulse and heart; nausea; blindness); Puls. (wandering rheumatism; but Puls. has > by motion); Led. (botan.; rheumatism affects first lower then upper parts; but Led. pains shoot up, Kalm. pains shoot down); Rhod. (botan.; rheumatism); Abrot. (metastasis of rheumatic pains to heart); Arbut. (rheumatism < by movement; urinary symptoms); Aesc. g. (paralytic symptoms); Aesc. h. (rectal symptoms); Urt. ur. (gout); Rhus (rheumatism; numbness of l. arm; but Rhus is > by movement); Act. r. (headache; eyes); Ced. (supraorbital neuralgia; Ced., l.; Kalm., r.); Aco. (heart; numbness of l. arm and fingers); Ars. (neuralgia, burning pains); Dig. (chest rheumatism, pains so sharp, take away breath, shoot down into stomach, slow pulse; Kalm. more suited to gout or rheumatism shifting from joints to heart); Gels. (ptosis─Kalm. muscles and lids are stiff; Gels., heavy); Bell. (throbbing head, erysipelas, symptoms travel down); Benz. ac. (gout); Calc. (cardiac hypertrophy); Diosc. (gastralgia); K. bi. (catarrhs, shifting rheumatism); Lith. c. (heart); Lyc. (rheumatic gout; urinary symptoms); Spigel. (rheumatism, neuralgia, eyes, heart, tobacco antidote; < and > with sun; but Spigel. more left side, and often affects whole head, pains stitching, run back, < by least jar or noise); Cact. (heart, pains shooting down); Alo. (cracking in head); Sang. (headache < and > with sun). Led., Rhod., and Uva ursi are close allies.

Causation.─Chill. Exposure. Wind. Sun.

SYMPTOMS.

1. Mind.─When lying down mental faculties and memory perfect, but on attempting to move, vertigo.─Anxiety and palpitation.─Cross.

2. Head.─Vertigo: with headache (and nausea), blindness, pains in limbs, weariness; while stooping and looking down; with aching in face.─Every motion = vertigo.─Aching in forehead, followed by rending in bones of r. and l. side of face; shooting down into teeth, moving backward down neck and outwardly on both sides; followed by pains in l. shoulder; rending in bones of legs and feet.─Pain in r. eye; giddiness; eyes weak and watery.─Pressing pain on a small spot r. side of head.─Headache internally, with sensation when turning of something loose in head diagonally across top.─Pain between shoulders coming up over head to temples (not affecting eyeballs).─Neuralgia every afternoon and night; begins back of neck and runs up; affects also face, < r. side.─A cracking in head frightens him; it ends in a sound in ears like blowing a horn.─Drowsy feeling, followed by raging headache in temples and occiput.─A shuddering without coldness commences with cracking as if surcharged with electricity.─Severe pressing headache < and > with sun.─Sensation of heat in head, morning.─Dulness in head, headache; backache; preceded by nausea.─Neuralgic paroxysmal pains.─Headache < in evening and in open air.─A shock towards occiput from back of neck, with heat.─Rheumatic pain in scalp (r.).

3. Eyes.─Glimmering before eyes.─Almost complete blindness when in erect position.─Blindness < in erect position; < during paroxysms of vomiting; < looking down.─(Retinitis albuminurica; pain in back as if it would break.).─(Sclero-choroiditis anterior, with glimmering before eye, < on reading with the other.).─Severe pain in r. eye extending over forehead; begins at sunrise, increases till noon, and leaves at sunset (cured after Aco. and Bell. failed).─Pains in eyes; < turning them; < evening and in open air.─Stiffness in muscles round eyes and lids.─Pressure (r.); stitches; itching in eyes.

4. Ears.─Stitches in and behind r. ear; in neck and thighs, at night.─Acute inflammation of meatus.─Sound like blowing a horn, after cracking in head.─Menière's disease.

5. Nose.─Coryza; with increased sense of smell; with sneezing, dulness, headache, and hoarseness.─Tearing in root of nose and nasal bones, with nausea.

6. Face.─Face: red, with throbbing headache; pale.─Anxious expression.─Flushing with vertigo.─Pressing pains, r. side of face, esp. between eye and nose.─Prosopalgia (r.); pains, rending; agonising; stupefying or threatening delirium; with alkaline taste in mouth.─Neuralgia involving upper teeth, but not from caries.─R.─sided neuralgia after exposure to cold, going down r. arm; attended or succeeded by numbness in the parts; pains shooting downward, irregular; < by worry or mental exertion, > by food.─Face itches at night.─Cheeks rough in summer.─Lips swollen, dry, stiff.─Cracked lips, with dry skin.─Stinging in jawbones.─Tired feeling in masticator muscles.─Stitches and tearing in lower jaw.

7. Teeth.─Teeth tender with neuralgia of face.─Pressing pain in molars, late in evening.

8. Mouth.─Bitter taste with nausea, > after eating.─Tongue: white, dry; sore l. side; hurts when talking.─Stitches in tongue.─Cutting pain r. side of tongue > by biting on it.─Tingling in salivary glands, immediately after eating, with sense of fermentation in oesophagus and copious salivation.─Sublingual salivary gland inflamed.

9. Throat.─Throat feels swollen, sensation as of a ball rising.─Sensation of dryness in throat (and actual dryness with aching pains, dryness causing cough), difficult swallowing, thirst.─Pressure in throat, stitches in eyes and nausea.

11. Stomach.─Pains > by food.─Eructations.─Nausea, everything black before eyes, pressure in throat, incarcerated flatus, oppressed breathing, pains in limbs.─Vomiting with ruminating action, without the least nausea.─Wind > vomiting.─Pressure in pit of stomach, like a marble; < sitting in stooping position (yet a feeling as if this was necessary), > sitting erect; sensation as if something would be pressed off behind pit of stomach.─Rumbling and sense of emptiness in stomach, as if he had had no breakfast.─Pit of stomach sore to touch.

12. Abdomen.─Pains in region of liver.─Incarcerated flatus with nausea.─Sensation of weakness in abdomen extending to throat; > by eructation.─Sudden pains in paroxysms, across abdomen, above umbilicus, from lower border of liver downward towards l., then ceasing in r. side; < from motion and from lying on either side, obliged to lie on back; > sitting up.─Neuralgia of bowels in married women.

13. Stool and Anus.─Stool like mush, easily discharged, as if glazed, followed by pressure on rectum.─Diarrhoea, with dulness, dizziness, weariness, nausea, and bellyache.

14. Urinary Organs.─Frequent micturition of large quantities of yellow urine.─Profuse micturition > headache.─Frequent micturition in small quantities; it feels hot.─Albuminuria: with pains in lower limbs; with dropsy, casts, triple phosphates, sallow complexion, skin very dry.

15. Male Sexual Organs.─Frequent, spontaneous, lasting erections, without desire.─Pain in r. testicle, morning; changed to l., afternoon.

16. Female Sexual Organs.─Menses too soon, regular but painful.─During menses, pains in limbs, loins, back, and interior of thighs.─Suppressed menses, with severe neuralgic pains throughout body.─Leucorrhoea yellowish; one week after menses; symptoms < during leucorrhoea.

17. Respiratory Organs.─Pressure as if one squeezed throat with thumb and finger.─Noise as from spasm of glottis when breathing.─Hoarseness with coryza.─Tickling in trachea.─Frequent cough caused by dryness or scraping in throat.─Expectoration easy, smooth, grey; tasting putrid; saltish.─Difficult and oppressed breathing; throat feels swollen, nausea.─Oppressed breathing with palpitation, anxiety; with pain (angina pectoris).

18. Chest.─Feverish heat with great pain in chest; < when breathing and from slightest motion.─Pain in chest as from a sprain.─Shooting through chest above heart into shoulder-blade; pain in l. arm.─Stitches in lower chest.─Stitches below breast.─(False pleurisy of winter season.).─Rheumatism of muscles of thorax and back; < from every motion.

19. Heart.─Fluttering of heart.─Palpitation; with anxiety, suppressed breathing; with faint feeling; with dyspnoea, pain in limbs, stitches in lower chest; r.─sided prosopalgia.─Palpitation up into throat, after going to bed, trembling all over; < lying on l. side; > lying on back; anxiety.─Severe pain in cardiac region, slow, small pulse (hypertrophy, dilatation, aortic obstruction).─Paroxysms of anguish about heart, dyspnoea, febrile excitement; rheumatic endocarditis, with consequent hypertrophy and valvular disease.─Pressure like a marble from epigastrium towards heart, with strong, quick heart-beats; every beat has a strumming as if it would burst, along sternum to throat; third or fourth beat louder, followed by an intermission.─Wandering rheumatic pains in region of heart, extending down l. arm.─Shooting stabbing from heart through to l. scapula causing violent beating of heart.─Quickened but weak pulse.─Pulse: slow, weak; arms feel weak; scarcely perceptible, limbs cold; irregular; remarkably slow; 40 to 48; slow, very feeble.

20. Neck and Back.─Muscles of neck sore to touch and on moving them.─Stiffness in neck, greatest at vertebra prominens.─Pain in sterno-mastoid muscle.─Tearing in nape.─Pains from neck down arm to little and fourth finger; neck tender to touch; pain, paroxysmal, < in early part of night, and attended by stiffness; slow pulse.─Violent pain in upper three dorsal vertebrae, extending through scapulae.─Constant pain in spine, sometimes < in lumbar region, with great heat and burning.─Sticking in lumbar region < on motion; comes and goes.─Pain in back during menses.─Lameness in lumbar region.─Sensation as if spinal column would break with an anterior convexity.─Feeling of paralysis in sacrum.─Aching across joints.

21. Limbs.─Rheumatic pains, mostly in upper arms and lower part of legs, < when going to sleep.─Joints hot, red, swollen.─Pains shift suddenly.

22. Upper Limbs.─Pain in shoulders.─Deltoid rheumatism, esp. r.─Stitches in lower part of l. scapula.─Paroxysmal pains in r. arm.─Pain in l. arm.─Cracking in elbow-joint.─Stitching in hands; hands feel as if they had been sprained.─Pain in l. wrist, causing hand to feel paralysed.─Erysipelatous eruption on hands extending further.─Weakness in arms, pulse slow.

23. Lower Limbs.─Tearing pains from hip (r.) down leg to feet.─Stitches: externally on knee; in feet, soles, toes, big toe.─Sensation of weakness in calves.─Feet feel sprained.─Unable to walk; ankles swollen; pains, though mostly confined to ankles, shift about from joint to joint.

24. Generalities.─Rheumatism often attacks heart, and generally goes from upper to lower parts; pains shift suddenly.─Weariness in all muscles; shuns all exertion, can hardly go upstairs.─Weary and giddy, with diarrhoea.─Weakness the only general symptom with neuralgia.─Trembling, thrilling, strumming, with palpitation.

25. Skin.─Sensation of rigidity of skin.─Pricking sensation in skin, with moderate sweat.─Dry skin.─Erysipelatous inflamed eruption on hand (like that of Rhus), with oppressed breathing.─Eruption like itch.─Red inflamed places here and there, exceedingly painful, as if boils would form.

26. Sleep.─Restless sleep, turns often.─Periosteal pains prevent sleep.─While sleeping stands up and walks about; talks in sleep.─Dreams: racking his brains; fantastic; of murder.

27. Fever.─Chilliness with coldness; shaking chill in cold air; chills run over back.─Febrile excitement.─General heat; with burning and pain in back and loins.─Cold sweat.

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

Mountain Laurel (Ericaceae)

Adapted to acute neuralgia, rheumatism, gouty complaints, especially when heart is involved as a sequel of rheumatism or gout. In heart diseases that have developed from rheumatism, or alternate with it. Pains sticking, darting, pressing, shooting in a downward direction (Cac. - upward, Led.); attended or succeeded by numbness of affected part (Acon., Cham., Plat.). Severe stitching pain in right eye and orbit (left eye, Spig.); stiffness in muscles, pain < when turning the eyes (Spig.); begins at sunrise, < at noon and leaves at sunset (Nat. m.). Rheumatism: pains intense, change places suddenly going from joint to joint; joint hot, red, swollen; worse from least movement. Vertigo when stooping or looking down (Spig.). Pulse slow, scarcely perceptible (35 to 40 per minute); pale face and cold extremities.

Relations. - Similar: to, Led., Rhod., Spig., in rheumatic affections and gout. It follows Spig. well in heart disease.

Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics, Eugene Beauharnais Nash

Ought to be noticed just here, because it seems, at first sight, so much like Spigelia, and Hering says it follows Spigelia well in heart disease.

Both remedies have severe neuralgia of the face, but Kalmia is oftenest right-sided, Spigelia left. Both have pains in eyes, worse on turning them, but Kalmia has a sense of stiffness (Rhus tox. and Natrum mur.). Spigelia eyes hurt as if too large for the orbit. Both affect strongly the heart, and are useful in heart troubles of rheumatic origin. Both have violent, visible, tumultuous action of heart; Spigelia is invariably so, while Kalmia has at times remarkable slowness of the pulse (like Digitalis). The Kalmia form of rheumatism, like Cactus, goes from above downward (Ledum from below upward), and the pains in Kalmia shift suddenly. If we were called to a case of migratory rheumatism, and the heart seemed to be suffering, we would think of Kalmia before Pulsatilla, of course all the other symptoms taken into consideration. The pain of Kalmia often extends down to left hand (Rhus).

So far as the neuralgic symptoms of Kalmia are concerned, they are not much like Spigelia, except that they locate in the face, and are very violent. The sides and time of aggravation are different, and Kalmia is not often found involving the whole head, like Spigelia. Hering mentions that with Kalmia "weakness is the only general symptom with neuralgia" The neuralgic pains of Kalmia are sometimes attended with, or followed by, numbness of de parts affected, in this resembling Aconite, Chamomilla, Gnaphalium and Platina. It is to study up the points of resemblance of remedies having a particular affinity for the same region or organ, and to note ado more particularly the differences, that perfects the true homoeopathic prescriber. No kind of labour will bring better returns.