Homeopathic Materia Medica

Lapis albus

Alias: Lap-a., Calcarea silicofluorica

Pocket Manual of Homoeopathic Materia Medica, William Boericke

Silico-fluoride of Calcium

Affections of glands, goitre, pre-ulcerative stage of carcinoma. Burning, stinging pain in breast, stomach, and uterus. Connective tissue about glands specially affected. Fat anaemic babies with Iodine appetite. Ravenous appetite. Remarkably successful in scrofulous affections, except in malarial cases. Uterine carcinoma. Fibroid tumors with intense burning pains through the part with profuse haemorrhage. Glands have a certain elasticity and pliability about them rather than the stony hardness of Calc fluor and Cistus.

Ears.--Otitis media suppurativa. Where Silica is indicated progress is hastened by Lapis (Bellows).

Chest.--Persistent pains in mammary region. Glandular hardening.

Skin.--Scrofulous abscesses and sores. Enlargement and induration of glands, especially cervical. Lipoma, sarcoma, carcinoma. Pruritus.

Relationship.--Compare: Silica; Badiaga; Ars iod; Calc iod; Con; Kal iod; Asterias.

Dose.--First to sixth potency.

A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica, John Henry Clarke

Silico-fluoride of calcium. Calcarea silico-fluorata. (A species of gneiss found by Grauvogl in the mineral springs of Gastein, and named by him Lapis albus, "White Stone." These waters flow over gneiss formations into the valley of the Achen, where goitre and cretinism abound.) Trituration.

Clinical.─Carcinoma. Cretinism. Dysmenorrhoea. Epithelioma. Fibroma. Glands, enlarged. Goitre. Leucorrhoea. Pruritus. Scirrhus. Scrofula. Tuberculosis. Tumours.

Characteristics.─Grauvogl, who introduced this remedy, cured with it a case of carcinoma; and he and others have cured cases of goitre and scrofulous glands. The leading indications are: Burning, shooting, stinging pains: in cardia; in pylorus; in breasts and uterus. It has shown great power over new growths of many kinds. In two cases of cervical glands cured by L. alb. 6, Dewey relates that a ravenous appetite developed while the remedy was being taken. In two cases cured by Dewey the swelling of the glands was elastic rather than of stony hardness. In one of the patients the swelling was as large as a goose-egg in the right sterno-clavicular region. This patient, a young lady, was a blonde; as also was a lady of thirty-five whom he cured of goitre with the remedy. Whiting (Med. Adv., xxvi. 41) records a fragmentary proving of Lap. a. Mrs. X., 40, fair, stout, no children, had a large bronchocele. Averse to all animal food. Craves sweets. Has craved and drunk much ice-water in all seasons since a child. Feet and legs cold to knees. Lap. a. 6x 2 gr. powders, one four times a day. Reported in a month that the tumour was rapidly diminishing in size, but she was having much pain in it. No further medicine was given. Two months later the tumour had diminished one-half, and the patient then stated that since taking the powders she had had no pain at her menstrual period, no dyspepsia, and no sick-headaches. (She had had severe dysmenorrhoea since the menses first appeared.) Since leaving off the medicine the pain in the tumour ceased and also the decrease in size. Lap. a. 6x was again given, and again the pain in the tumour came on; and, in addition, itching of the external genitals. The 30th and 200th caused such intense pruritis that the patient refused to take any more medicine of any kind. Since then Whiting has cured many cases of pruritus and also of dysmenorrhoea with Lap. a. The pains come on before the flow and cause swooning. One patient, 19, had had dysmenorrhoea from the first. Pain so severe she would fall unconscious wherever she might happen to be, the swoon lasting half an hour at times. > When flow established. Lap. a. 200 cured. Miss X., 34, normal till she had measles aet. 20; since then pain at commencement of menstruation, so severe as to cause fainting. "This severe pain would continue less for a day, or until the flow was established." Lap. a. 200 cured in six months. W. P. Wesselhoeft, discussing Whiting's paper, narrated the cure of a case of epithelioma of the lip in a man of seventy with Lap. a. 12x in water. Dr. Gregory cured a young man of a tumour of the lip with Lap. a. 30. It recurred two years later with "burning, stinging pain, which made him jump off his feet". More Lap. a. 30 was given, and cured in a year. There was no further recurrence.

Relations.─Compare: Gastein (effect on scar tissues); Ars., Ars. iod., Bad., Calc., Calc. iod., Con., Cund., Iod., K. carb., K. iod., Sil., Spo.

SYMPTOMS.

2. Head.─Sick-headache.

6. Face.─Opening in cheek as large as a silver dollar (carcinoma).─Epithelioma of lip, crusts coming off leave raw surface.─Tumour of lower lip; with burning, stinging pains that make him jump off his feet.

11. Stomach.─Ravenous appetite (caused in case of cervical glands).

16. Female Sexual Organs.─Burning, shooting, stinging pains in breasts and uterus.─Uterine carcinoma (five cases).─Painful menses: suddenly taken with pain so severe that she swoons.─Faints with pain at menses.─Severe pain preceding the flow.─Pruritus vulvae.

20. Neck and Back.─Goitre, cretinism, and scrofulous diseases.

24. Generalities.─Affections of glands and lymphatics.─Enlarged glands where there is a degree of elasticity rather than stony hardness (Dewey).─Scrofulous affections, abscesses, and sores; enlargement and induration of glands, esp. cervical; glandular tumours where no glands are usually found; goitre, cretinism.─Lipoma; sarcoma; glandular and fibrous tumours; carcinoma as long as ulceration has not set in, based on scrofulosis.─Scirrhus.─Tuberculosis scrofulosa.

Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics, Eugene Beauharnais Nash

This is the name given by Von Grauvogl to a species of gneiss that he found in the spring of Gastein. Goître and cretinism abound among the people who drink this water. Grauvogl experimented with it, and found it to cause burning and shooting pains in the cardia and pylorus, and also in the uterus and mammae. In practice he found it remarkably successful in scrofulous affections, but that it did harm in cases that had previously suffered from malaria. He treated five cases of uterine carcinoma, pronounced true and incurable by allopaths, and cured them all. I have a case now under my care, to which I was called a year ago. She has a very large uterine fibroid. Under various remedies she grew worse, having haemorrhages, frequently repeated, so profuse that it seemed as if she would bleed to death. The tumor, which involved the whole body of the womb, laid across the pelvis, the upper part, in the left sacro-iliac fossa, and the os, of course, exactly opposite in the other side of the pelvic cavity so far up on the other side that it was impossible with the speculum to get the least view of it. After the bleeding had gone on for months in this way the discharges became black and horribly offensive, and the os had a decidedly rough feel to the finger. Finally she began to complain of intense burning pains all through the diseased parts. Arsenicum album effecting nothing for her, I put her upon Lapis albus as an experiment, for I had no hope she could live more than two weeks at the longest. Under the action of this remedy she began to improve immediately, and from the half dead wreck that could not turn in bed without help, a skeleton, white as a ghost, she has steadily improved until she is now doing her own housework, the discharges having all ceased except her natural menses at her regular periods. The tumor grows smaller, and it seems as though she might get well. She takes a dose of Lapis albus 30th once a week.