Homeopathic Materia Medica

Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica, James Tyler Kent

General features: The pathogenesis of Mercury is found in the provings of Merc. viv. and Merc. sol., two slightly different preparations, but not different enough to make any distinction in practice.

Mercury is used in testing the temperature, and a Merc. constitution is just as changeable and sensitive to heat and cold. The patient is worse from the extremes of temperature, worse from both heat and cold. Both the symptoms and the patient are worse in a warm atmosphere, worse in the open air, and worse in the cold.

The complaints of Mercury when sufficiently acute to send him to bed are worse from the warmth of the bed, so that he is forced to uncover; but after he uncovers and cools off he gets worse again, so that he has difficulty in keeping comfortable. This applies to the pains, the fever, ulcers and eruptions and the patient himself.

He is an offensive patient. We speak of mercurial odors. The breath especially is very foetid, and it can be detected on entering the room; it permeates the whole room. The perspiration is offensive; it has a strong, sweetish, penetrating odor. Offensiveness runs all through; offensive urine, stool and sweat; the odors from the nose and mouth are offensive. When Merc. is used in large doses and the patient is salivated he gives off these odors.

One who has once smelt a salivated patient will remember the mercurial odor. I remember when I was a student, almost every room had the mercurial odor. Mercury was given till the gums were touched and salivation was produced. That odor is often an index to the use of Merc.

He is worse at night. The bone pains, joint affections and inflammatory conditions are all worse at night and somewhat relieved during the day. Bone pains are universal, but especially where the flesh is thin over the bones. Periosteal pains, boring pains, worse at night and from warmth of the bed.

The glands are inflamed, and swollen; the parotids, sub-linguals, lymphatic glands of the neck, groin and axilla are all affected; the mammae swell and there is inflammation and swelling of the liver. It is pre-eminently a glandular remedy. Induration is also a general; inflamed parts indurate. If the skin is inflamed it is hard. Inflamed glands are hard.

There is induration with ulceration. A tendency to ulcerate runs through the remedy. Ulcers are found everywhere, in the throat, nose, mouth, and on the lower limbs. Ulcers sting and burn and have a lardaceous base, an ashy-white appearance looking as if spread over with a coating of lard. It looks like a diphtheritic exudate, and Merc. has diphtheritic exudations on inflamed surfaces.

Ulcers in the throat have this appearance. The mucous membrane sometimes inflames without ulceration, but with exudation, and hence it is useful in diphtheria. It has the same condition in ulcers; when the system is run down they exude a grey lardy or ashy deposit. Chancres take on that form, a whitish cheesy deposit on the base. When you realize that the complaints of Merc. are worse at night, and think of the bone pains, periosteal inflammations, etc., it is not surprising that Merc. sometimes cures syphilis. It is wonderful that the allopath hit upon it for this disease, and he cures or suppresses enough cases by similarity to justify its continued use. When given suitably it cures.

Another marked feature is the tendency to the formation of pus. With inflammation there is burning and stinging and the rapid formation of pus and the part is aggravated by both warmth and cold. Abscesses burn and sting; inflammation of joints is attended with pus formation; in inflammation of the pleura the cavity fills up with pus. The discharges of pus are yellow-green. The Merc. gonorrheal discharge is thick greenish-yellow, with stinging and burning in the urethra.

Rheumatic inflammation of joints and catarrhal inflammation of mucous membrane are features running through the remedy, and these are attended with sweat, and an astonishing feature is that the sweat does not relieve, and there is even an aggravation while sweating.

Rheumatism in old syphilitic, gonorrhoeal and gouty patients. It is similar enough to relate to some cases of psora, syphilis and sycosis. It partakes of the nature of all three miasms.

After a prover has taken Merc. a long time he emaciates. This is seen in old mercury takers and in syphilitics who have been mercurialized. It is a great remedy in this condition-steady emaciation with trembling, worse at night and from the warmth of the bed, great restlessness, can't find peace in any position. These miserable wretches, who are breaking down, are great sufferers, whether psoric, syphilitic or sycotic.

A strange feature is repeated swelling and abscess formation without any heat. An abscess or swelling in a joint forms, and he sweats from head to foot, is worse at night, loses flesh, trembles and is weak, but there is no heat while the abscess goes on. Abscesses form when the life force is so low that there is no tendency to repair; a slow and prolonged pus formation, no irritability in the abscess, no tendency to granulate, it opens and keeps on discharging and seems dead. Merc. will warm it up, stop the sweat and favor granulation.

The superficial ulceration is inclined to spread and become phagedenic; it is not deep but grows larger. These open ulcers are especially seen in old syphilitics; lardaceous base; not much irritability, they are even numb, and if pus is discharged it is greenish-yellow; false granulations appear. Merc. cor. is a greater remedy for the superficial, eating, phagedenic ulcer.

At times Merc. takes on a gangrenous condition. This may be seen anywhere, but especially on the lips, cheeks and gums. Cancrum oris. Gangrenous chancre, foetid and black; a sphacelus forms in the chancre and the part sloughs off. All these conditions are aggravated by beat.

A patient with a typical Merc. abscess rebels at times against the poultice, for it makes the trouble worse.

Trembling runs through the remedy, quivering all over. It has been used with benefit in paralysis agitans. Tremor of the hands so that he cannot lift anything or eat or write. Merc. is a great remedy in children with epileptiform fits, twitching and disorderly motions. It will help children to grow out of these in coordinate angular movements of the hands and feet.

Jerking, twitching and trembling. The motions of the tongue are disorderly and the child cannot talk. Convulsions. Involuntary motions which can be momentarily controlled by volition. The restlessness is extreme.

The trembling, weakness, sweat, foetor, suppuration and ulceration, the aggravation at night and from heat and cold, give the earlier impressions of the remedy.

Mind: The mental symptoms, which still more deeply show the nature of the medicine, are rich.

A marked feature running all through is hastiness; a hurried, restless, anxious, impulsive disposition. Coming in spells, in cold cloudy weather, or damp weather, the mind will not work, it is slow and sluggish and he is forgetful. This is noticed in persons who are tending toward imbecility. He cannot answer questions right off, looks and thinks, and finally grasps it. Imbecility and softening of the brain are strong features.

He becomes foolish. Delirium in acute complaints. From his feelings he thinks he must be losing his reason. Desire to kill persons contradicting her. Impulse to kill or commit suicide; sudden anger with impulse to do violence. She has the impulse to commit suicide or violent things, and she is fearful that she will lose her reason and carry the impulses out. Impulsive insanity, then, is a feature, but imbecility is more common than insanity.

These impulses are leading features. The patient will not tell you about his impulses, but they relate to deep evils of the will, they fairly drive him to do something. Given a Merc. patient, and he has impulses that he tries to control, no matter what, Merc. will do something for him. During menses, great anxiety, great sadness. Anxious and restless as if some evil impended, worse at night, with sweat.

Al these symptoms are common in old syphilitics, broken down after mercurial treatment and sulphur baths, at the springs, with their bone pains, glandular troubles, sweating, catarrhs and ulcerations everywhere.

Head: Merc. is suitable to rheumatic troubles of the scalp, and neuralgias and brain trouble when there are burning, stinging pains and pains affected by the weather, and when there are head troubles that have come on from suppressed discharges, such as suppressed otorrhoea after scarlet fever, or when there are head troubles in scarlet fever.

Think of Merc. if you are called to a child with sweating of the head, dilated pupils, rolling of the head, and aggravation at night, who has had scarlet fever or a suppressed ear discharge. Merc. cures lingering febrile conditions analogous to the typhoid state, but caused by suppressed ear discharge. I have cured cases that were due to packing the ear with borax, iodoform, etc., the patient having first a remittent and later a continued fever.

This would go on for five or six weeks and be relieved only when the discharge returned after a dose of Merc. I remember a case of this type. It was called cerebro-spinal meningitis; the head was drawn back and twisted and held to one side.

It began as an otitis media with discharge which was suppressed. Two or three doctors were called and could do nothing. In the night I went to the bedside and got the history and symptoms of Merc. Merc. re-established the discharge in twenty-four hours, the torticolis passed away, the fever subsided and the child made an excellent recovery. I can recall many such cases.

There is a tension about the scalp as if it were bandaged. Nervous girls have headache over the nose and around the eyes as if tied with a tape, or as if a tight hat were pressing on the head. Pressing, tearing pain in the eyes. Burning pains in the temples ameliorated by sitting up and moving about, worse at night.

Periosteal pains worse in cold, damp weather, in rheumatic and gouty constitutions, with sensitiveness in the eyes and ears, sore throat and glandular swellings. Headaches in old mercurialized syphilitics; they become barometers; sensitive to the weather. The catarrhal headaches are very troublesome; headache in those suffering from chronic catarrh with thick discharge.

The thick discharge becomes watery and the pain in the forehead, face and ears very distressing. These headaches are violent. Chronic rheumatic headache from the suppression of a discharge from any part, or from foot sweat suppressed; alternation of foot sweat and headache. When the foot sweat is gone he has pain and stiffness in the joints.

Silicea has that also. Sil. and Merc. do not follow each other well, when well selected; but if crude Mercury has been taken for a long time, Silica, like Nitric acid, is a good remedy to eliminate it when the symptoms agree.

With all headaches there is much heat in the head. Bursting headaches, fullness of the brain, and. constriction like a band. Vise-like pressure. He is sensitive to the air when he has headache. This is true of Merc. all through. He is relieved in the room, but worse in a warm or cold room, and violently worse from a draught. He wants to be covered but is worse from heat. The hoop-like sensation is worse at night.

Merc. is a wonderful remedy to ward off acute hydrocephalus after measles and scarlatina; the child rolls the head and moans, and the head sweats. It is closely related to Apis, which is also a great remedy after scarlet fever to ward off or cure hydrocephalus. Exostoses in old syphilitics.

Lacerating, tearing pains in the pericranium.

The whole external head is painful to touch. The scalp is tense and sore. Foetid, oily sweat on the head. Children have moist eczema, an excoriating, offensive eruption.

Eyes: Merc. is a wonderful eye remedy, especially for "colds."

Every cold settles in the eye in gouty and rheumatic patients. Catarrh of the eyes worse from looking into the fire or rather from sitting close to the fire; the radiated heat causes smarting. Eyelids forcibly drawn together as if long deprived of sleep. Fog or mist before the eye. Merc. cures iritis in syphilitics.

The rule now-a-days is to use a mydriatic in iritis to prevent adhesions. I have treated many cases and I have no desire to dilate the pupil. I believe it is unnecessary. The homoeopathic remedy will stop the iritis speedily so that no adhesions will form, and if they have begun the remedy will remove them. Pains tearing and burning around the eyes, in temples, etc. Tension of the scalp as if it were a tight fitting cap, or tension as from a tape.

Ulceration and inflammation of the cornea. Vascular appearance of the cornea; inflammation, especially confined to the cornea, sometimes pustular, sometimes diffused. There is copious lachrymation with all eye symptoms, and the tears excoriate, causing a red line down the cheeks. Greenish yellow, or a green discharge. Lids spasmodically closed. Great photophobia. In inflammatory conditions of all the tissues of the eye lids, conjunctiva and deeper structures. Colds settle in the eye like Dulc.

Sometimes you will see a little fine growth on the iris, growing across the pupil and attached by a pedicle. It is really a syphilitic condylomata. Merc. cures it in a few days. Inflammation of the retina and choroid and of the optic nerve. All sorts of disturbed vision. It is useful in purulent ophthalmia, with swollen lids. Two kinds of constitution need it, the syphilitic and the rheumatic or gouty. He can not open the eyes; they are spasmodically closed, and there is great tumefaction.

Ears: Ear troubles. Horribly stinking greenish discharge. Green, thick, acrid pus from the ears like the discharge from the nose and other parts. Stinking otorrhoea. In otitis media with ruptured drum, Merc. is a frequently required remedy. In Spring after a long, cold Winter, the cold, damp weather causes many cases of otorrhoea; it is almost endemic in large cities. The ear drum heals like any other place if the patient is put in good condition by the remedy. It not well treated a hole will be left. Ears inflamed, with cramp-like pains.

Merc has stinging pain like Apis. All routinists will give Apis for stinging pains, and yet it often is Merc. that the patient needs. Purulent, offensive otorrhoea. Enlargement of the parotids and cervical glands with all inflammations of the ears. Parotids sore and enlarged, neck stiff, and head sometimes drawn back., Furuncles in external canal. Fungous excrescences and polypi.

The nose troubles would take a long time to describe.

Old syphilitics, with nasal bones affected, thick, greenish, yellow, acrid, stinking discharge. Nosebleed and bloody discharge from the nose. Coryza acrid, watery, with pressure through the bones of the face, worse from heat or cold, worse at night; sensitive to every draught; must get up and walk the floor. It has coryza with much sneezing with an opposite state, ameliorated lying, not at all during the night while lying in bed, only in the daytime while up and about.

The inhalation of hot air feels good to the nose, but the heat aggravates the body. Incessant sneezing. Bleeding, scurfy, red nostrils. Old catarrhal smell in the nose. Rawness, burning and swelling. Inside of the nostrils smarting and burning. Aching, tearing and pressure in the bones. Bones of the face painful, feel as if pressed outward, and be wants to press, but it is painful.

Merc. is not deep enough to cure the whole constitution in psoric cases that are constantly taking cold. It cures the cold at once, but implants its own nature and the patient catches cold oftener. It should not be given often, not oftener than twice in a winter. Kali iod, is better for the same burning in the face, running coryza, and aggravation from heat and warmth of the bed, and it will cure the coryza in a night when apparently Merc. is indicated. it is also an antidote to Merc. Don't give many doses of Merc. in psoric cases; look for a deeper medicine.

Face: It has syphilitic eruptions and neuralgias of the face with or without catarrh. It is a great medicine for mumps; it is a routine remedy for this condition, which shows that it must be frequently indicated. It cures where the symptoms agree.

Scorbutic gums in those who have been salivated. Rigg's disease; purulent discharge from around the teeth. Toothache; every tooth aches, especially in old gouty and mercurialized patients. Looseness of the teeth. Red, soft gums. Teeth black and dirty. Black teeth and early decay of the teeth in syphilitic children, like Staph. Copious salivation.

Gums painful to touch. Pulsation in the gums and roots. Gums have a blue red margin, or purple color, and are spongy and, bleed easily. Gums settle away, and the teeth feel long, and are elongated. Teeth sore and painful so that he cannot masticate. Abscesses of the gums and roots of the teeth.

The taste, tongue and mouth furnish important and distinctive symptoms. As the tongue is projected it is seen to be flabby, has a mealy surface, and is often pale. The imprint of the teeth is observed all round the edge of the tongue. The tongue is swollen as if spongy, and presses in around the teeth and thus gets the imprint of the teeth. Inflammation, ulceration and swelling of the tongue are strong features.

Old gouty constitutions have swollen tongue; the tongue will swell in the night and he will waken up with a mouthful. The taste is perverted, nothing tastes right. The tongue is coated yellow or white as chalk in a layer. Offensive mouth; putrid odors from the mouth especially the mercurial odor of the salivated patient. The tongue becomes clumsy; difficulty in talking; his speech is hardly intelligible. Awkwardness of the tongue as in persons intoxicated. Ulcers flat; eating ulcers; holes are eaten through the cheek. Eating away of the soft palate and the bone of the bard palate is often eaten away.

Purulent formation in the antrum of Highmore and fistulae from the mouth to the antrum. Fluoric acid and Silicea are more frequently indicated in these fistulae, especially if the bone is involved. Copious flow of foetid saliva. Sore mouth of children and nursing mothers; little aphthous patches with the mercurial odor and flabby, spongy appearance of the mucous membrane and tongue. General diffused inflammation of the mouth. The whole mucous membrane is sensitive and painful, burning, stinging and smarting; dryness with or without aphthous patches. Thrush of children. Scorbutic gums.

Throat: Sore throat. It is a remedy for inflammation of the throat, with spongy appearance, general diffused tumefaction swelling of the parotids, fullness and stiffness of the neck. Lardaceous base in ulcers; flat ulcers, spreading ulcers. Great dryness in the throat. The swelling impairs the motion of all the ' muscles that take part in swallowing.

Swallowing is attended with difficulty, pain and paralytic weakness, and the effort to swallow forces the bolus up into the nose, and liquids come out through the nostrils. The mercurial odor is a strong feature, but Merc. often cures when that odor is not perceptible; it has such an affinity for the throat. it has chronic throat troubles and syphilitic ulcers and patches.

The inflammation extends upwards and downwards, red and pale patches, the red looking as if they would suppurate or ulcerate. The red spots become quite purple, but the more purple they are the more they are like Lach. Tonsils dark red with stinging pains. Quinsy, after pus has formed. It is useful in diphtheria, and most cases are diffused, extensive patches or patches here and there, with spongy appearance, but no ulceration. Tumefaction; and the exudations are upon a tumefied base. Stiff neck. Erysipelatous inflammation of the throat. Dark, sloughing, eating, corroding ulcers in the throat.

Stomach: He has aversion to meat, wine, brandy, coffee, greasy food, butter.

Milk disagrees, and comes up sour. Sweets disagree. He is turned against his beer. The stomach is chronically disordered; eructations, regurgitations, heartburn, etc. Sour stomach; it is foul. He has nausea with vomiting and regurgitation of food. In such a stomach food is like a load. Bad taste; bitter mouth; be tastes the food; it comes up sour.

With all this the saliva constantly runs from the mouth. It does not improve as digestion goes on. The half-digested substances are vomited. It is like the state in persons who have destroyed their stomach from crossing liquors, beer, wine and whisky.

Liver: The liver furnishes much trouble.

Our forefathers for years took blue mass every Spring to regulate the liver. They physicked themselves with it and tapped their liver every Spring with it, and as a result they had worse livers than they would have had if the doctors had stayed at home. Constipation, bilious habits and disordered stomach.

The fullness in the region of the stomach, coming in spells, worse in cold, damp weather and warm, damp weather, worse in the Spring, jaundiced condition, disordered stomach, the aggravation at night and from the warmth of the bed, nightly feverishness and foul mouth, will give you the Merc. state.

Stitches in the liver. Liver symptoms worse lying on the right side. Many complaints of Merc. are aggravated by lying on the right side. The lung symptoms and cough, liver, stomach and bowel symptoms are all worse while lying on the right side.

Abdomen: In the abdomen we find colic, rumbling, distension, aches and pains, stinging and burning.

It has a great variety of stools, of diarrhoea and constipation. It has a well-defined dysenteric condition. Slimy, bloody stools with much straining, he feels as if he could never finish, even when no more is passing, a "never-get-done" feeling.

This is the very opposite of Nux and Rhus in dysentery. These are relieved if a little stool is passed, but Merc. and Sulph. will sit and strain, and all the salts of Merc. have the same state. Merc. cor. has a more violent attack, with violent urging to stool and to urinate, and intense suffering, with burning in the parts and the passage of pure blood.

Merc., Ipec. and Acon. are frequently indicated in epidemic dysentery that comes in hot weather, and Ipec., Dulc. and Merc. are frequently indicated in the dysentery of cold weather.

You should go to the bedside of a case of dysentery with the repertory or go home and send medicine. Your first prescription should cure in epidemic dysentery, and if you work cautiously you will cure every case. It is a very simple condition to cure, but a very bad thing to get mixed up. Do not give Arsenic just because it conforms to the dysenteric condition, for if it does not cure it will mix up the case. Hesitate about giving Ars. in dysentery until you are perfectly sure it is indicated.

A few days ago I saw a patient who could not lie down because, of pain in both hypochondria; he had incessant vomiting, inflammatory rheumatism of the ankles, hands, arms and shoulders, he had purpuric spots on the arms and legs, he had inflammation of the stomach, and was a perfect museum of diseases. He had had Phos. and Ars. and many remedies very high, all supposed to be well selected but Cadmium sulph. put him to sleep in fifteen minutes.

The point was that he wanted to keep perfectly still, and hence it was unlike Ars., although all the other symptoms were like Ars.

That is a strong feature of Cadmium sulph; he wants to keep as still as Colch. and Bry. For many years I have used it for such cases. I saw another case of cancer with coffee-ground vomit, and Cadmium sulph. stopped her vomiting, and she ate quite well until she died six weeks later. The doctor in charge had given her Ars. and Phos. and Morphine till she could take no more.

Urines: The urine burns and smarts.

Frequent urging to urinate, dribbling a little; bloody urine, great burning. Haemorrhage from the urethra. Itching worse from the presence of urine. Gonorrhoea which has existed for some time; discharge thick, greenish-yellow, and offensive. Smarting and burning in the urethra when urinating. Loss of sexual power.

Genitals: Lascivious excitement with painful erections.

Ulcers on the prepuce and glans, making it suitable in chancre and chancroid. Flat ulcers; ulcers with lardaceous base. Inflammation of the inner surface of the prepuce. Balanitis, offensive pus. In chronic balanitis when pus forms behind the glans and under the foreskin, gonorrheal or psoric, consult jacaranda caroba.

The woman has much tribulation. Burning, stinging in ovaries. Screaming from pain. Stinging, tearing, cutting pains in the ovaries, patient covered with sweat. Copious, excoriating leucorrhoea, parts raw, sore, inflamed and itching.

Stinging, itching and boring pains in the uterus. Pains in the uterus and ovaries at the menstrual period. Milk in the breast of the non-pregnant woman at the menstrual period. Milk in the breasts instead of the menstrual flow. I once had a freak in a sixteen-year-old boy, who had milk in his breasts. I cured him with Merc.

Menstrual flow light red, pale, acrid, clotted, and profuse or scanty. The menses are sometimes suppressed. Women who have been in the habit of taking mercury for biliousness remain sterile. (Coffee drinkers often remain sterile also and you must stop their coffee.)

Amenorrhoea with ebullitions. Chancres on the female genitals. Aged women have denuded genitals, rawness, soreness and false granulations, which are always bleeding. Burning, throbbing and itching in the vagina. Itching of the genitals from the contact of the urine; it must be washed off.

In children, boys or girls, the urine burns after urinating and they are always carrying the hands to the genitals. Little girls have acrid leucorrhoea causing burning and itching and much trouble. Phlegmonous inflammation of the genitals. Boils and abscesses at the menstrual period; little elongated abscesses along tho margin of the mucous membrane and skin, painful, aggravated by walking, forming during the flow and breaking after the period. This with itching, causes great suffering.

Morning sickness. A woman, while pregnant, has oedematous swelling of the genitals. Diffused inflammation, soreness and fullness of the genitals and pelvis, causing difficulty in walking, and she must take to bed.

In pelvic cellulitis in the early months of pregnancy Merc. is an important remedy. Repeated miscarriages from sheer weakness Merc. is a wonderful strengthener when properly used. Prolonged lochia. Milk scanty and spoiled.

Merc. is one of the best palliatives in cancer of the uterus and mammae. It will restrain and sometimes cure epithelioma. I knew one case cured by the Proto-iodide, an ulcerated, indurated lump in the breast, as large as a goose egg with knots in the axilla, blueness of the part, and no hope.

The stooth attenuation, given as often as the pains were very severe, took it away and she remained well. The effect observed on the nose is not all of the Merc. coryza.

Respiratory: Most Merc cases begin in the nose and travel down the throat, creating rawness and scraping of the larynx, and rawness and soreness in the chest; laryngitis, tracheitis and bronchitis.

Loss of voice, complete aphonia. The course of the Merc. cold is downwards, even going on to pneumonia, with sweat, restlessness and aggravation from the warmth of the bed. Of course many of the colds remain in the nose.

There are various conditions in the chest. Coughs; colds that remain in the chest, lack of reaction and tardy recovery. The colds finally settle in the bronchial tubes; the chest feels as if it would burst and the cough is worse lying on the right side. I look back over many cases of patients who took cold from exposure and now look sickly and sallow, with a dreadful cough and rattling on the chest; every change of the weather gives them a new cold, and they cannot lie on the right side; their tendency is to go into mucous phthisis or quick consumption.

The cough is worse in the night air. There are many pains in the chest. He has a rheumatic constitution, is always sweating, worse while sweating and from the extremes of heat and cold. Stitching stabbing, rheumatic pains in the chest with night sweats. Bloody, thick green expectoration. Suppuration of the lung, great quantities of pus form.

Tremendous orgasms, bubbling and flushes of heat in the chest. With many complaints there is sore throat and rheumatism and stiffness of the neck; stiff neck with swollen glands and goitre. Stiff neck with every cold; stiffness of the side and back of the neck. Induration and soreness of the cervical glands along with other complaints.

Limbs: Merc. especially affects the joints; inflammatory rheumatism with much swelling, aggravated from the heat of the bed and from uncovering.

It is difficult to get just the right weight of clothing. Rheumatic affection with sweat, aggravation at night, from the warmth of the bed and while sweating, with sickly countenance. It especially attacks the upper limbs, but is also found in the lower.

Tremulous condition of the extremities, like paralysis agitans. Trembling of the hands with great weakness. Paralysis of the lower limbs, and twitching, jerking and quivering of the paralyzed parts. Arg. n., Phos., Stram., Secale and Merc. have twitching of the muscles of the paralyzed limb.

Soreness between the thighs and genitals. Ulcers on the legs; abscesses. Oedematous swelling of the feet. Cold perspiration. Copious sweat during sleep. Pain and sweat come on when comfortable in bed; bone pains. He covers up because he feels cold, but when he becomes warm the pains are aggravated.

Fever: Merc. is full of fever. Very seldom, however, has it a true, idiopathic, continued fever. It stands very low for continued fever alone, but it is especially indicated in surgical fevers, at first remittent, but later continued, such as come on from the suppression of discharges.

The Merc. patient about to go into a chill is chilly even when the chill has not yet come on; sensitive to the moving air in a warm room; violently sensitive to a draught. Cold hands and feet. The sweat is profuse and offensive.

The complaints in general are worse while he sweats, and the more he sweats the worse he is. He sweats copiously and his greatest sufferings are in the sweat. Merc. does not have a clear intermittent.

Between the paroxysms be has liver disturbances, diarrhoea, fever. In surgical fevers, bilious fevers, worm fever in children, and remittent fevers there is much aching in the bones, great sensitiveness to the air, aggravation at night in bed when the fever runs highest, mercurial breath and sallow skin. The fever does not go so high. and the skin is not so hot as in Bell. The loaded tongue and the bilious fevers fade out after Merc.

It is useful in hectic fever in the last stages of consumption, and in exhausting diseases with hectics, and in cancer when there is the aching, foul sweat, etc. It acts wonderfully in catarrhal fever, grippe, etc., and when colds extend to the chest and there are the copious discharges everywhere. It is suitable in quasi-typhoids that have come out of remittents, symptomatic typhoids, when the patient is icteric, low, prostrated, tremulous, with quivering muscles, great exhaustion and continued fever.

Skin: There are many skin symptoms; scurfy eruptions, vesicular eruptions, eruptions discharging pus.

Vesicles burn and smart, with excoriating discharges, especially on the head. Much itching of the skin, violent, in all parts of the body, as from fleas, especially when warm in bed at night. Copper-colored eruptions as. in syphilis, and mucous patches. The scurfy eruptions are especially marked.

Ulcers on parts where the skin and flesh are thin over the bones. Offensive forms of eczema. Most eruptions are moist with copious oozing. It cures shingles.

The skin is sallow. Excoriating wherever two parts come together. Rawness between the thighs and between the scrotum and thighs. Eruptions in such places. it has fissures at commissures, at the corners of the mouth and eyes; rawness and bleeding of the perineum rendering walking difficult.

This furnishes a basis for the Salts of Mercury.

The Salts of Mercury: After studying Merc., corrosive mercury, the proto-iodide and the bin-iodide, we may from some specific symptoms in the case say that we prefer one of the salts of Mercury.

When we go to rheumatic and gouty cases with the aggravation from sweat, aggravation from the warmth of the bed, the mercurial odor, etc., we can commonly say that one of the Mercurius will cure this case.

A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica, John Henry Clarke

(1) MERCURIUS OXYDULATUS NIGER.

Mercurius solubilis Hahnemanni. Dimercuros ammonium nitrate. 2(NH2Hg2) NO3H2O. [A mercurial preparation devised by Hahnemann as a substitute for the corrosive mercurial salts in use at the time, and at once adopted in all countries on account of its much milder and more efficacious anti-syphilitic qualities. It was prepared by precipitating Mercury from its solution in nitric acid by means of caustic ammonia. This is the preparation Hahnemann used in his proving.] Trituration.

(2) MERCURIUS VIVUS.

Hydrargyrum. Argentum vivum. Chamaeleon minerale, etc. Metallic Mercury. Quicksilver. Hg (A. W. 199.8). [Although Hahnemann proved Mercurius solubilis, he recommended the use of triturations of the pure metal in practice as being the simplest mercurial preparation, and more easily obtained and equally available with Merc. sol. for prescribing on the symptoms of the latter.] Trituration. [Decoction: water in which quicksilver has been boiled for half an hour.]

Clinical.─[The letters s and v indicate the preparation─Solubilis or Vivus─mentioned in the Prescriber in connection with the malady the name of which they follow; they are not intended to indicate a preference of one over the other.] Abscess (s). Anaemia. Aphthae. Appendicitis. Balanitis (s). Bone, disease of (s). Brain, inflammation of. Breath, offensive (s). Bronchitis (s). Bubo (s). Cancrum oris. Catarrh (s). Chancre. Chicken-pox (s). Cold (s). Condylomata. Cough (s). Dentition, abnormal (s). Diarrhoea (s). Dysentery. Dyspepsia (s). Ecthyma (s). Eczema. Emaciation. Excoriation (s). Eyes, affections of (s); gouty inflammation of. Fainting. Fevers. Fissures. Glandular swellings (s). Gout (s). Gum-boil (s). Gums, unhealthy (s). Heart, affections of (s). Herpes (s). Hydrophobia. Jaundice (s). Joints, affections of (s). Leucorrhoea; in little girls. Liver, affections of (s). Lumbago (s). Mania. Measles (s). Melancholia (s). Meningitis. Mollities ossium. Mucous patches. Mumps. Noises in the head (s). Odour, of body, offensive (s). Ovaries, affections of. Pancreatitis (s). Parametritis (s). Parotitis. Peritonitis. Perspiration, abnormal (s). Phimosis (s). Pregnancy, affections of (s.). Prostate, disease of (s). Purpura (s) (v). Pyaemia (s). Ranula (s). Rheumatism (s) (v). Rickets. Rigg's disease. Salivation (s). Scurvy (s). Small-pox (s). Stomatitis. Suppuration (s). Surgical fever. Syphilis (s). Taste, disordered (s). Teeth, affections of (v). Throat-deafness (s). Throat, soreness of (v). Tongue, affections of (s) (v); mapped (v). Toothache (s). Tremors (s). Typhus fever (v). Ulcers (s). Vaccination (s). Vomiting (s).

Characteristics.─No pains have been taken to keep distinct Merc. sol. and Merc. viv., and I do not find it practicable to attempt to separate them. Though Merc. sol. was the preparation Hahnemann proved, he recommended Merc. viv. as a superior preparation for homoeopathic prescribing in his preface to the proving. Mercurius solubilis Hahnemanni was invented by him in his pre-homoeopathic days in response to a general desire for a mercurial preparation which should be at once soluble and non-corrosive, and it at once took its place in pharmacy, a place it has never lost. The method of developing the medicinal power of metallic mercury by graduated trituration was a later discovery, though there was a suggestion of it in the well-known Hydrargyrum cum creta. To the symptoms of Hahnemann's pathogenesis of Merc. sol. are added observed effects of Mercury in those engaged in working with the metal, in patients taking Mercury, and effects in those applying mercurial inunctions to patients─many having been severely affected by absorbing it through their hands. There is no difference between these effects and the symptoms of the proving so far as the general characteristics are concerned. In the finer characteristics there must be differences. The symptoms of the proving are in general more particularly characterised than the effects of Merc. viv. For instance, "At night severe toothache, and when that went off great chilliness through the whole body," belongs to the Merc. sol. proving; and so do these: "Vertigo: when sitting at his desk there was whirling in the head, as if he were drunk, he rises up and walks about the room staggering, then anxious heat breaks out over him, with nausea but not to the length of vomiting; at the same time some headache." "From occiput a strong, tearing, continued pain, which went into the forehead and there pressed." The symptoms of nose-bleed and the more finely characterised throat symptoms ("stitches on tonsils"; "stitches into ear on swallowing"; "something hot rises into throat.,"), were produced by Merc. sol., so were the majority of the symptoms in the male and female sexual organs. But this is not to say that Merc. viv. will not answer equally well, or even better, for curing them. The only bit of comparative experience I have in the action of the two is this: in a case of cold in which Merc. seemed indicated, Merc. sol. 30 was given and failed, and Merc. viv. 30 promptly cured.─We of the present generation can hardly form a conception of the havoc wrought by Mercury in the days when it was considered necessary to "touch the gums" in all cases for which Mercury was prescribed before any good could be hoped for. The motto, "Salivation is Salvation," tells its own tale. "It was quite an event," says Teste, "when in the sixteenth century the discovery was made that Mercury will cure syphilis without the patient being salivated. One error, however, being substituted in place of another, it was supposed that the sweat, the diuresis, or the diarrhoea which followed the exhibition of Mercury, replaced the absent salivation; the gross humoralism which prevailed at that period did not allow of another explanation. For a graphic picture of a practice which was part of the ordinary routine until recent times, I quote the following from Bransby Cooper's First Lines of Surgery, 6th ed., p. 348: "Mercury acts upon some individuals like a poison [!] they are seized with palpitations of the heart, tremblings of the limbs, oppression of the breathing, and irregular pulse. When such indisposition takes place in a person employing Mercury we conclude that this mineral is actually producing a deleterious impression on the system [!]. It was noticed by the late Mr. Pearson that every year, when it was the custom to salivate freely, a certain number of individuals thus treated died suddenly in the Lock Hospital. They were first affected as I have described, and, on attempting to make the slightest effort they dropped down dead. Mr. Pearson learned from experience [!] that these deaths arose from the deleterious action of Mercury on the constitution, and the derangement of the system thus excited he proposed to call the Mercurial erethismus." Homoeopathy has filled out this picture in full detail, and turned this deadly blundering to curative account. There was a fitness in naming this metal after the volatile deity. It provides us with weather-glasses and thermometers, and it turns those who are under its influence into weather-glasses and thermometers likewise. [An electrician, who at one time was required to work with his hands frequently in a trough filled with quicksilver, thereafter could not bear the slightest shock of electricity, though before he could stand very strong ones.] And herein lies one of the grand characteristics of the remedy: as the thermometer is sensitive to changes either to hot or cold, so is the Merc. patient. Other remedies are predominantly one or the other: Merc. is both─ < by heat and < by cold. This is keynote No. 1. No. 2 is "< at night." This is a strong point of correspondence with syphilis. Especially is this noticeable in the bone pains. No. 3 is: Profuse sweat accompanying nearly all complaints and which does not relieve; it may even aggravate. Guided chiefly by these two indications: "Profuse sweat with no relief" and "< at night," I have cured many cases of rheumatic fever with Merc. viv. 12, without any other remedy. Keynote No. 4 is: The mercurial odour. The mercurial patient is offensive; breath excessively fetid; sweat offensive, mawkish, sweetish. Keynote No. 5 is tremor. This symptom is so pronounced and universal that it renders Merc. the best general remedy in paralysis agitans. There is tremor of head, of hands, of tongue. Tremors commencing in the fingers. It is the tremor of weakness and paralysis; and as described by B. Cooper it may attack the heart and cause sudden death on the smallest effort. Short of this there is great tendency to fainting; extreme exhaustion after a stool. The tremors may become jerkings and even convulsions. Extreme restlessness. The mind is as weak and tremulous as the body; everything is done hastily. Hurried and rapid talking. On the other hand: slow in answering questions; loss of memory; of will power. Embarrassment. Absent-minded. Imbecility. Time seems to pass slowly. Desire to flee. Homesick. Suicidal. Murderous. Merc. is Hahnemann's typical antisyphilitic remedy, as Sul. is the typical antipsoric, and Thuja the typical antisycotic. In selecting Merc. as the remedy for syphilis the old practitioners were so far right, but they did not know how to give it. Merc. so far corresponds to syphilis that many undoubted cases of mercurial poisoning have been diagnosed by experts as syphilis. Bones, glands, and skin are affected. Inflammation leads to induration, induration to ulceration. Merc, corresponds accurately to the true Hunterian chancre. Merc. ulcers have a grey, lardy, ashy, or cheesy base. There are burning or stinging pains in them. Another great feature of Merc., almost constituting a keynote, is the tendency to the formation of pus. In the suppurative stage of small-pox it is specific. Flow of pus, and particularly bloody pus, from any orifice calls for Merc. Pus forms in cavities in abscesses, which burn and sting. Discharges are yellow-green in colour. Gonorrhoea. Fetid ear discharge. Merc. is a great solvent: it dissolves metals out of their ores and it dissolves living tissues, inducing excessive emaciation. Lowly organised tissues as indurations, exostoses, and some tumours are melted first. Oedema and dropsies are absorbed; rheumatic swellings. If the doses of Merc. are large and dropsies disappear rapidly under them, the tissues themselves may disappear also in offensive rapidly decomposing ulcers. The bones soften so that they will bend. Whilst Merc. intensifies the action of the absorbents, it may also paralyse them, hence enlargement of glands, with pricking pains, inflammation, suppuration. Next to syphilis, the liver has been the chief excuse for mercurialism, in the past, and Merc. certainly has a powerful liver action. The liver is congested, enlarged, inflamed, stitches in the liver, sensitiveness in the liver and inability to lie on right side. This "< lying on r. side" is a very characteristic condition of Merc., and when present Merc. should always be considered. Along with the liver the stomach is disordered. Sweets disagree; aversion to meat, wine, brandy, beer, coffee, greasy food, butter. There is the characteristic flabby, coated, teeth-indented tongue, foul breath, and intense thirst. Throat dry and forepart of tongue moist. Merc. is rarely indicated when the tongue is dry. Sliminess is a general characteristic. Slimy stools; stools acrid, knotty, containing pus, viscid. Just before stool a sick, painful, faint feeling comes on. During stool there is tenesmus, or tenesmus and no stool. Dysentery with much straining; never-get-done feeling when there is no more to come. Diarrhoea with slime. "Merc. is rarely indicated in these troubles where there is no slime" (Guernsey). Merc. affects profoundly the generative organs of both sexes. It has stinging, cutting pains in ovaries; cutting pains from l. to r. in lower abdomen. "Stinging" is very frequent in mercurial pains, and "stinging pain in ovaries is just as likely to need Merc. as Apis" (Kent). Almost all kinds of eruptions are produced by Merc. Scurfy, syphilitic, pustular, moist, oozing, offensive eczema. Shingles. Small-pox. They are all < by warmth and at night and < by cold. In olden times it was recognised that a patient under a "course" of Mercury must be very careful not to catch cold. This gives one indication for Merc. in abnormal tendency to catch cold. But for this condition it must not be too frequently repeated, as it will aggravate it. The patient needing Merc. is sensitive to every draught and yet < by warmth the nasal secretion is acrid, and the nose red and excoriated; dirty-nosed children" (Guernsey). Old catarrhal smell in the nose inside nostrils smarting and burning. Aching, tearing, and out-pressing in the bones. "Kali iod. is better for the same bursting in the face, running coryza, and < from heat and warmth of the bed" (Kent). [I find that a much larger percentage of cases of acute cold come under the indications of Cepa and Chlorum than under those of Merc. or any other related remedy. In chronic colds I think first of Psor.] The eyes are very markedly influenced by Merc.; also the bones round the eye: "Whenever cold settles in the eye in gouty and rheumatic patients" (Kent). Every degree and kind of inflammation and ulceration is produced by Merc. and its salts. J. J. Hirsch, of Prague (H. R., vii. 220), relates some striking experiences with a preparation of Merc. viv. which he learned from an old allopath. Quicksilver is boiled in water for half an hour, two teaspoonfuls being given every two hours. Hirsch's cases were those of acute inflammation of the brain, in which Bell. was indicated, and in one of which Merc. (in the ordinary homoeopathic preparation) had already been administered in vain. This is the case: A black-haired girl, 9, had malignant scarlatina, which commenced six days before Hirsch (who came as consultant) saw the case, signs of brain inflammation having set in on the third day. Hirsch found her unconscious, sharply defined redness of cheeks, pulse 120, hot skin. Piercing screams were emitted from time to time; boring head in pillows; chewing motion of jaws; gnashing teeth. Lips brown and dry; not much thirst; water not accepted readily; but milk seemed to be relished. Reddened patches here and there, especially along neck. Under the "decoction," which was given to the girl on Hirsch's suggestion, she slowly but steadily improved, and in a week was convalescent.─Among the Sensations of Merc. are: Vibration in forehead. Head as if in a vice; as if growing larger. As of sparks being emitted from eyes; as of a body underneath lids; as if feathers came from corners of eyes. As if a wedge driven in ear; as if ice in it; as if cold water running out of it. Cracklings in head as from metal plates. As if weight on forehead; as if weight hanging on to nose. As if teeth were loose; were fixed in a mass of pap. As if hot vapours rising into throat; of worm rising into throat, must swallow it down; of apple core sticking in throat. As if mammae would ulcerate. As if everything in chest was dry.─Stabbing pains and stitches, burning, boring, digging, stinging, and dragging pains. Soreness and sensitiveness. Itching; voluptuous itching. Merc. is more particularly suited to: Light-haired persons with lax skin and muscle; women and children. Scrofulous children. (Merc. has relation to psora and sycosis as well as syphilis.) The symptoms are < by touch or pressure. < At night; before falling asleep. < Blowing nose. < During a catarrh. < From cold air. < From taking cold. < From lamplight; firelight. < During perspiration; on getting warm in bed. < Before stool. < During urination and after. < Lying on right side. < Motion; walking; slightest exertion. < Evening. Rest >. Coitus >. Weeping >. < Touching anything cold (= pain in abdomen). < Bending forward (digestion immediately disordered). < After eating (if he eats ever so little it causes a dragging down in stomach).

Relations.─It antidotes: Bad effects of sugar; stings of insects; ailments from Arsenic or Copper vapours, Aur., Ant. t, Lach., Bell., Op., Phyt., Val., Chi., Dulc., Mez., Thuj. It is antidoted by: Aur. (suicidal mania; caries of bones, especially of patella and nose); Hep. (mental symptoms-anxiety, distress, suicidal and even homicidal mood-bone pains, sore mouth, ulcers, and gastric symptoms); Nit. ac. (periostitis, bones and fibrous tissues; bone pains < at night; aching in shins in damp weather; ulcers in throat, especially of secondary syphilis); Chi. (chronic ptyalism); Dulc. (ptyalism < by every damp change); K. iod. (syphilis and mercurialism, combined, bones, periosteum, glands; ozaena; thin, watery discharge, upper lip sore and raw; repeated catarrhs after Mercury, every little exposure to damp or wet air = coryza; eyes hot, watery, swollen; neuralgic pains in one or both cheeks; nose stuffed and swollen and at same time profuse watery, scalding coryza; sore throat < every fresh exposure); Kali mur. (scorbutus, fetor); Asaf. (bone affections.─Asaf. is distinguished by extreme sensitiveness of diseased parts; extreme soreness of bones round eye); Staph. (depressed system; wasted, sallow, dark rings round eyes, spongy gums, ulcers on tongue); Iod. (glands); Mez. (nervous system; neuralgia in face, eyes, anywhere); Bell., Caps., Carb. v., Fer., Guaiac., Stilling., Sul., Thuj "all symptoms agreeing, Merc., high" (Guernsey). Incompatible: Sil. (Merc. and Sil. should never be given immediately before or after each other). Compatible after: Aco., Bell., Hep., Lach., Sul. Before: Ars., Asaf., Bell., Calc., Chi., Lyc., Nit. ac., Pho., Pul., Rhus, Sep., Sul. Compare: Bell. (very close analogue, often complementary; commencing abscess; difficult swallowing fluids; sharp pain through tonsils; pains come suddenly); Hep. (chilliness; something sticking in fauces); Meny. (coldness in ears); Puls. (thick yellow nasal discharge─but that of Puls. is always bland; otitis); Nux (coryza and sore throat─Nux has scraped feeling; Merc. is always smarting, raw, or sore.─Dysentery: with Nux tenesmus ceases after stool; with Merc. not, there is the never-get-done feeling); Aco. (dysentery of hot days and cold nights; often precedes Merc., and Sul. follows in like conditions); Lept. (bilious troubles, horribly offensive stools─the griping of Lept. continues after stool but not tenesmus); Dig. (gonorrhoea); Euphr. (eyes); Ars. (Merc. < by heat of, but > by rest in bed─Ars. > by heat of, but < by rest in bed); Sul. (itch, pustulous, eczematous eruptions); Spo. (orchitis); Pho. (profuse sweat without >); Ant. c. (dirty tongue; inflammation of eyes < glare of fire or sunshine); Arg. n. (eyes); Kali i. (stitching pains through lungs; Merc. right or left and shooting in different directions; Kal i., from sternum to back < from any motion); Borax (sore mouth); Coloc. (dysentery─Col. > after stool, Merc. <); Chel. (bilious pneumonia); Cham. (diarrhoea; dentition); Caust. (gonorrhoea); Mag. m. (liver pains < touch, < lying right side); Plumb. and Chi. s. (testes); Syph. (syphilis; < heat of stove or bed; < night): Lyc. (hepatitis; tenderness; right to left, wash-leather tongue; sinking immediately after meals); Sul., Puls., and Cham. (< in bed at night); Nit. ac. (dark persons; Merc. fair); Crocus (nose-bleed in tough strings); Sang. (tongue as if burnt); Bry. (wash-leather tongue; < motion; stone in stomach); Apis (stinging pain; fetid breath; ovarian affections); Sabal. (stinging pains in ovaries); Dolichos (itching of gums; jaundice); Magnt. aust. (ulceration of nails); Psor. and Medorrh. (foul body smell); Arn. (foul breath); Mez. (decay of teeth─Merc. of crowns; Mez. of roots); Led. and Sars. (bloody seminal emissions); Sul. (pruritus vulvae < night, < from contact with urine, which must be washed off); Lac c. and Con. (breasts painful, as if would ulcerate at every menstrual period); Chel. and Kal. c. (affect lower lobe right lung; stitches through to back); Kal. c. (suppuration of lungs after pneumonic haemorrhages); Pic. ac. (boils in auditory meatus); Teucr. and Thuj. (polypi); Can. i. (time passes slowly); Dulc. (sensitive to cold and damp; cold settles in the eyes; furfuraceous eruptions); Graph. (coryza during menses; Mag. c. coryza and sore throat before and at menses; Merc., dull pain on forehead, with coldness, especially in women, with coryza < before or at menses).

Causation.─Fright. Suppressed gonorrhoea. Suppressed foot-sweat.

SYMPTOMS.

1. Mind.─Great anguish, restlessness (is constantly changing from place to place), and agitation, with fear of losing the reason, or with excessive internal torment, principally in evening, or in bed at night, as if conscious of having committed some crime.─(Post-partum mania; wants to throw child on fire.).─Inclined to sopor, coma.─Moral dejection, with great listlessness, discouragement, dread of labour, and disgust to life.─Great indifference to everything.─Does not even care to eat.─Apprehensions.─Desire to flee with nightly anxiety and apprehensions.─Ill-humour, disposition to be angry, and to fly into a passion, great susceptibility, humour quarrelsome, mistrustful, and suspicious.─Moroseness and repugnance to conversation.─Groans.─Continuous moaning and groaning.─Excitement, and great moral irritability, with a tendency to be easily frightened.─Bad effects from fright, leaving one in a state of great anxiety and < at night.─Home-sickness with nightly anxiety and perspiration.─Distraction, inadvertence, difficulty of conception.─Entire-unfitness for meditation, and tendency to make mistakes while speaking.─Answers questions slowly.─Weakness of memory; and will-power lost.─Instability of ideas, which constantly drive away each other.─Raving.─Delirium; mental derangement of drunkards.─Intellect weak; imbecile.─Low muttering delirium.─Fits of mania or dementia, with disposition to shed tears.─Hurried and rapid speech.─Loss of consciousness and of speech.─Fury, with dread of liquids.

2. Head.─Cloudiness, intoxication, and dizziness, principally in morning, on waking, and on getting up.─Vertigo, principally on getting up, or on raising up head, or when seated, or when lying on back (vertigo with headache); as well as during or after a walk in open air, or in evening, and often with nausea, cloudiness of the eyes (everything becomes black before eyes), distressing heat, and want to lie down.─Vertigo as if one were on a swing.─Dull and stupid feeling with dizziness.─Heaviness, fulness, and aching in head, as if forehead were squeezed by a bandage, or as though cranium were on the point of bursting (with fulness of brain).─(In the evening) painful sensibility of brain, with fatigue of head by noise, > by resting head upon the arm.─Compressive headache, the head feels as if it were in a vice, with nausea; < in open air, from sleeping, eating and drinking; > in room.─Violent headache, which forces compression of head between the hands.─From occiput a strong, tearing, continued pain which went into forehead and there pressed.─Heat and burning, or tearing and drawing pains, or shootings in head, often only semi-lateral, and extending to ears, teeth, and neck.─Burning in head, esp. in l. temple, < at night when lying in bed, > on sitting-up.─Inflammation of the brain with burning and pulsation in forehead, with sensation as if head were in a hoop; < at night, > after rising.─Weakness in head like a dulness, as if there was a vibration in forehead and turning about in a circle.─Constant rotary motion of head, even when lying.─Ebullition, boring, and digging shocks, and throbbings in head.─Pain, as from a bruise, in brain, while in bed, in morning.─Nocturnal cephalalgia.─Pains in bones of head, and exostosis in the cranium.─Sutures open; large head; precocious mental development.─Swelling of head; soreness of the scalp; sharp and burning pains in integuments of cranium.─Sensation of subcutaneous ulceration in whole head, < at night when becoming warm in bed; > after rising.─Tearing in one (l.) side of head and temple, extending from neck, with insupportable heat and perspiration, < at night and in heat of bed, > towards morning and while lying quiet.─Tension over forehead as from a tape or hoop, < at night in bed; > after rising and from laying hand on it.─Congestion of blood to head with heat in it.─Hydrocephalus.─Sensation of tension of scalp.─Scalp is painful to touch; < when scratching, which is followed by bleeding.─Tearing and stinging in bones of skull.─Itching on hairy scalp, and forehead and temples; < from scratching, when it bleeds and becomes erysipelatous.─Dry, stinging, burning, fetid eruption like yellow crusts, on forepart of head and temples, when scratching inflammation and erysipelas.─Exostoses, with sensation of subcutaneous ulceration on touching them, < at night in bed.─Open fontanelles with dirty colour of face, restless sleep, and sour-smelling night-sweat.─Falling off of hair; mostly on sides of head and temple; with humid eruptions on head or after clammy perspirations of head; with itching at night in bed; < from scratching; with burning, with great tendency to perspiration.─Great chilliness with contractive tearing pain of the scalp, extending from forehead to neck.─Fetid, sour-smelling, oily perspiration on head, and on icy-cold forehead, with burning in skin: < at night in bed, > after rising.─Dry eruption on head; small scabs in hair, sometimes with burning itching; moist scabs, with excoriation of scalp, and destruction of hair.─Sweat on head and forehead, sometimes cold and viscid.

3. Eyes.─Eyes confused, dull, and surrounded by a livid circle.─Pressure in eyes, as from sand, principally when fixing the attention on any object.─Shootings, itching, tickling and burning in eyes, principally in open air.─Eyes red, inflamed, with redness of conjunctiva or sclerotica, and injection of vessels of sclerotica, or of external canthi.─Profuse lachrymation, principally in evening.─Blear-eyedness.─Amaurotic dimness before l. eye.─Twitching of lids.─Excessive sensitiveness of eyes to light, and to brightness of the fire.─Firelight dazzles eyes greatly.─Eyes inflamed, with swollen inverted tarsi.─Pupils dilated.─Inability to open eyes well, as if agglutinated to balls.─Pustules in conjunctiva, and ulcers in cornea.─Eyelids red, inflamed, swollen, ulcerated on margins, and covered with scabs.─Sensation as if a cutting instrument were under eyelid.─Tumour in eyelid, like a stye.─Nocturnal agglutination of eyelids.─Spasmodic closing of eyelids, with difficulty in opening them.─Scabs round the eyes.─Amblyopia and confused sight, as in looking through a mist (periodical loss of sight); momentary loss of sight; black points, hovering flies, flames and sparks before eyes.─Apparent motion of letters, when reading.

4. Ears.─Tearing, shooting and drawing pains in ears, sometimes with a sensation of coldness, as if there were ice in ear, increased by heat of bed.─As if ice-cold water running out of ears; comes suddenly, lasts a few minutes and recurs; violent itching in ears in intervals.─Ear and auditory tube inflamed, with cramp-like and shooting pains.─Soreness of internal ear.─Meatus swollen with much earache when chewing.─Small ulcers in front of l. membrana tympanis.─Discharge of pus from ear, with ulceration of external ear.─Excoriation and ulceration of the concha auris.─Purulent otorrhoea and fungous excrescences in ear, with tearing in side of head affected, and in face.─Flow of blood from ears.─Discharge of cerumen.─Subcutaneous tumour, and furfuraceous and moist pimples on the lobe.─Hardness of hearing, sometimes with obstruction of ears, which ceases when swallowing or blowing nose (or the obstruction is caused by enlargement of tonsils), or with an extraordinary reverberation of all sorts of sounds in ears.─Tinkling, roaring, ringing, and buzzing in ears, principally in evening.─Obstinate tinnitus.─Painful sensitiveness, and inflammatory swelling of parotids.─Inflammatory swelling of the r. parotid gland with stinging.

5. Nose.─Swelling of the bones of the nose (external nose, as bridge of the nose, may swell up very large on both sides), with painful sensitiveness to touch.─Itching in nose.─Tension, pressure, and sensation of heaviness in nose.─Blackish colour of nose.─Inflammatory swelling and shining redness of nose, with itching.─Scabs in nostrils (bleeding when cleansed).─Discharge of a greenish fetid and corrosive pus from the nostrils.─"Dirty-nosed children.".─Frequent and profuse bleeding from nose, even during sleep, and sometimes when coughing.─Obstruction and dryness of nose.─Frequent sneezing.─Dry coryza, with obstruction in nose, or fluent coryza, with copious discharge of corrosive serum.─Putrid smell from nose.─Painful pustule in nose.

6. Face.─Face, pale or yellowish, or lead-coloured, or earthy (with dull eyes without lustre).─Features discomposed and drawn.─Circle of bluish red round the eyes.─Feverish heat and redness of cheeks.─Bloatedness and swelling of face, principally round eyes.─Swelling of one (r.) side of face with heat and toothache.─Swelling of cheek.─Tearing in bones and muscles (of one side) of face.─Aching and pricking in zygomatic process.─Sensation of tension of skin on face and head.─Sweat on face.─Red and tettery spots on face.─Yellowish scab on face, with discharge of a fetid humour, constant itching day and night, and bleeding of the part after having been scratched.─Crusta lactea.─Lips rough, dry and blackish, with burning when they are touched.─Salt taste on lips.─Swelling and ulceration of lips.─Yellowish scabs, purulent pustules, and small ulcers on the lips and round the chin.─Burning pimples with yellow crusts on lips.─Fissures, rhagades, and ulceration in (lips and) corners of mouth.─Distortion of mouth and convulsive movements of lips.─Masseter muscles contracted so that speech was difficult.─Atrophy and exfoliation of alveolar processes.─Clenching and immobility of jaws, with inflammatory swelling of lower jaw, and tension in muscles of neck.─Lockjaw with stinging pains and engorgement, and inflammatory swelling of submaxillary glands, with shooting or pulsative pains, or without pain.─Caries of jaw.─Facial paralysis from cold, r. or l. side: almost specific (R. T. C.).

7. Teeth.─Tearing, shooting, or pulsative pains in carious teeth, or in roots of teeth, often extending to ears, and over whole cheek of side affected, sometimes also with painful swelling of cheek or of submaxillary glands, salivation, and shivering.─The nightly pulsating toothache extends to ear.─Appearance or aggravation of toothache, principally in evening, or at night, in heat of the bed, where it is insupportable; renewed by fresh air, as well as by eating, and taking anything hot or cold into mouth.─The teeth are set on edge, grow black, loosen (they are painful when touched by tongue), denuded of gum, and fall out.─Itching, burning, and redness of gums.─Gums are fungous, and bleed easily.─Bleeding of gums when touching them ever so little.─Retraction and swelling of gums, principally at night, with burning pain and sensation of excoriation, on touching them, and when eating.─Gums livid, discoloured, and very sensitive.─Upper border of gums looks indented, the indentation being white and ulcerated.─The swollen gums have white, elevated, ulcerated, pointed edges.─Ulceration of gums.

8. Mouth.─[This remedy covers in general, affections of mouth and fauces; r. side of fauces; r. side of neck; nape of neck (i.e., affections appearing in any of the mentioned places); rarely give Merc. if the tongue is dry.─Guernsey].─Putrid smell from the mouth.─Bluish colour, excoriation, and inflammatory swelling of inside of mouth.─Burning pain, vesicles, blisters, aphthae and ulcers in the mouth.─Stomacace.─Sensation of dryness in mouth and palate, or accumulation of tenacious mucus.─Ulceration of orifice of salivary duct, and profuse discharge of excessively fetid saliva, which is sometimes bloody (or tenacious).─Tongue moist, coated with white and thick, or dry, brown, or blackish mucus.─(Excoriated patches like islands on tongue in children, with craving for fat, v.).─Hardness, inflammatory swelling (suppuration), and ulceration of tongue, with shooting pains.─Longitudinal furrow on tongue with pricking pains.─Needle pricks in tip of tongue.─Tongue swollen, soft flabby, the edges become indented by the impression of teeth.─Tongue red and swollen; ulcerated; black, with red edges; moist with intense thirst; grey patches on edges, dirty-yellow coat on upper surface.─Aphthae in the mouth; bluish and spongy; ulcers spread without penetrating the flesh.─Inflammation and superficial ulceration of the mucous membranes of mouth.─Salivary glands swollen and painful; saliva foetid or tastes coppery.─Rigidity, insensibility, and immobility of tongue.─Sensation in tongue as if burnt.─Quivering of tongue.─Rapid and stammering speech; entire loss of speech.─Loss of speech and voice; she hears everything well, but can only reply by signs and grimaces; sunken features, weeping about her condition; cannot sleep, feels very exhausted; good appetite, thirst for beer; faeces and urine passed easily; lasted three days; (almost complete relief by Hyo.).─Ranula.─Ulceration and caries of palate.

9. Throat.─Continuous painful dryness of throat; the mouth being full of water.─Painful dryness of throat, which impedes speech.─Pain, as from excoriation and smarting in throat, or sensation of heat, which ascends into gullet.─Shooting pains in throat and in tonsils, principally when swallowing.─Elongation and swelling of uvula.─Suppuration of tonsils.─Pressure and pains as from excoriation and ulceration, in oesophagus.─Syphilitic ulcers in mouth and throat.─Inflammatory swelling and redness of back parts of mouth and throat.─Erysipelatous inflammation of all soft parts of mouth and throat.─Inflammation and redness of palate.─Angina esp. with stinging pains < by empty deglutition at night and in cold air.─Throat and fauces of a coppery red colour and swollen.─Accumulation of thick and tenacious mucus in throat.─Sensation as if there were a tumour, or some foreign body in throat, which it is necessary to swallow.─Constant want to swallow.─Sensation as if a worm rose up so that he must always swallow, whereby it goes off somewhat though he does not feel anything go down.─When swallowing shooting in tonsils, stitches into ears.─Painful, difficult, and sometimes spasmodic deglutition, with danger of suffocation.─Burning in throat as if from a hot vapour ascending from stomach, with dryness in throat when swallowing, and continuous desire to swallow, with accumulation of water in mouth.─Inability to swallow the least liquid, which escapes through nostrils.─The pains in throat commonly extend to ears, parotids, submaxillary, and cervical glands; they are < for the most part by empty deglutition, as well as at night, in fresh air, and when speaking, and they are often accompanied by salivation.

10. Appetite.─Putrid, salt, sweetish, or metallic taste.─Bitter taste, principally when fasting, in morning.─Rye-bread has a bitter or sweetish taste.─Acid and mucous taste during a meal, also at other times.─Saltish taste on lips.─Violent burning thirst, day and night, with desire for cold drinks, and principally for milk and beer.─Desire for wine and spirits.─Insatiable appetite and craving (or complete loss of appetite), with apparent insipidity of food.─Appetite only for bread and butter; aversion to butter.─Bulimy, with great weakness.─Canine hunger, even after eating.─Want of appetite.─No wish for food, which, however, is agreeable to the taste when eaten.─Thirst more decided than appetite.─Speedy satiety when eating.─Stomach feels replete and constricted.─Dislike to all food, principally solid nutriment, meat, sweetmeats, cooked victuals and coffee.─Has no appetite for dry food, likes liquid food.─Great weakness of digestion, with continued hunger, and pressure in stomach, frequent risings, pyrosis and many other inconveniences after a meal.─Bread is heavy on stomach.

11. Stomach.─Excessive nausea and inclination to vomit, often with incisive and pressive pains in stomach, chest, and abdomen, anxiety and inquietude, headache, vertigo, cloudiness of eyes, and transient heat.─The nausea often increases after a meal, and is accompanied by a sensation in throat, as if things sweetened with sugar had been eaten.─Rising of air.─Risings, principally after eating, and often of a putrid or bitter or sour and rancid taste.─Violent empty risings.─Regurgitation (of ingesta) after eating and drinking.─Pyrosis, regurgitation of a rancid liquid, and hiccough during and after a meal.─Retching and vomiting of mucous or bitter matters, or of bile.─Violent vomiting with convulsive movements.─Burning, violent pain, and excessive sensibility (esp. to touch) in the stomach, and in the precordial region.─Tension, fulness, and pressure as from a stone in pit of stomach, principally during or after a meal, however little may have been eaten; stomach hangs down heavily.─Sharp constrictive pain in precordial region.─Cramp-like pains in stomach, even after a very light repast.

12. Abdomen.─Painful sensitiveness of hepatic region, with shooting, burning pains, < by every movement of body, or of the parts affected.─Region of liver swollen, painfully sensitive to contact; cannot lie on r. side.─Chronic atrophy of liver, with emaciation and dessication of the body.─Swelling and hardness of liver.─Complete icterus.─Abdomen hard and inflated, with soreness when touched, principally in umbilical region.─Colic which only passes off in a recumbent position.─Violent colic (with diarrhoea), with cuttings, lancinations as if by knives, painful contractions and pinchings in abdomen, principally at night or in cool of evening, esp. when he touches or takes hold of anything cold.─Tension, distension, and pressure, as by a stone, principally in umbilical region (and painfulness to contact).─Burning in abdomen, round the navel.─Excessive and insupportable pains in abdomen, which cease only on lying down.─Pain in abdomen, as if caused by a chill.─Sensation as if intestines were loose, and moving about in abdomen, when walking.─Intestines feel bruised if he lies on r. side.─The pains in abdomen are often accompanied by shivering, or by heat and redness of cheeks, as well as by great sensitiveness of abdomen, and of precordial region, to all contact, and to least pressure.─Sensation of emptiness in the abdomen.─Sufferings from flatulency, principally at night, with distension of abdomen, borborygmi, and rumbling.─Cutting stitch in lower abdomen r. to l.; < walking.─Tension, aching, and lancinations in groins as by knives.─Inflammation of peritoneum and of intestines.─Boring pain in r. groin.─Obstruction and inflammatory swelling of inguinal glands, with redness and painful sensitiveness, when walking and standing.─Affections of inner region of liver; external belly, which may be hard and sensitive to touch; inguinal ring, either one (H. N. G.).─Painful hard, hot, sensitive swelling in ileo caecal region.─Ulceration and suppuration of inguinal glands.─Buboes.─Abdomen externally cold to touch.

13. Stool and Anus.─Stool: acrid; bloody; knotty; containing pus; viscid.─Complaints before stool (a sick, painful, faint feeling comes on just before).─Complaints during stool; tenesmus; tenesmus without stool; diarrhoea with slime (Merc. is rarely indicated in these troubles where there is no slime.─H. N. G.).─Constipation, with hard, tenacious and knotty faeces, which cannot be expelled without straining.─Faeces of small shape; ribbon-like.─Ineffectual, but frequent want to evacuate, esp. at night, and sometimes with tenesmus, protrusion of haemorrhoids, and nausea.─Loose and dysenteric evacuations, principally at night, with colic and violent cuttings, urgent want to evacuate, tenesmus and burning in anus, pyrosis, nausea and risings, anguish, heat or cold sweat on face, shivering and shuddering, exhaustion and trembling of all limbs.─Diarrhoea (preceded by colic), caused by the fresh air of evening.─Chilliness between the diarrhoeic stools.─During a diarrhoeic stool nausea and eructations.─Scanty evacuations of sanguineous mucus.─Evacuations which are mucous, or bilious, or putrid, or acid, or of a greenish or brownish colour, or reddish, or yellow, like sulphur; or a greyish-white.─Faeces of consistence of pap, or frothy, or like hash.─Evacuation of corrosive and burning faecal matter.─Discharges of bloody mucus accompanied by colic and tenesmus; dysentery.─Discharge of blood, or of mucus, from rectum, even with evacuations that are not loose, and when not at stool, sometimes with tenesmus in anus.─Protrusion of haemorrhoids.─Ejection of ascarides and lumbrici.─Itching, shootings, and excoriation in anus.─After stool prolapsus ani; or when pressing and straining to stool.─Prolapsus recti, which, when it protrudes, appears black and bloody.─Evacuation of substances undigested, or black, and like pitch; blood and mucus, undigested, smelling sour, excoriating anus.

14. Urinary Organs.─Urine acrid; turbid; too frequent; complaints while passing, and after.─Affections of urethra.─Continued want to urinate, day and night, sometimes with abortive efforts, or with scanty emission.─The stream of urine is excessively small.─Irresistible, sudden desire to urinate.─Frequent and copious emission of urine, as in diabetes, with great emaciation.─Involuntary emission of urine.─Urgent want to urinate, with incontinence of urine.─The quantity of urine emitted is greater than the quantity of fluid drunk.─Wetting the bed at night.─Emission of urine drop by drop.─Urine of a deep colour, or red, or brown, or white, as if mixed with flour or chalk, or of the colour of blood.─Offensive, turbid urine, which forms a sediment.─Sanguineous, pungent, or sour-smelling urine.─Corrosive and burning urine.─Thick sediment from urine.─White and flock-like clouds in urine (or as if containing pus; scanty, fiery red).─Emission of hard mucus, or of flocks, and white threads during or after the emission of urine.─Discharge of blood from urethra.─Incisive and contractive pains in renal region, at night.─Pulsation, incisive pains, burning and shooting in urethra, even when not urinating.─Inflammation of orifice of urethra, and discharge of thick, yellowish, or serous, whitish matter.─Thick greenish (or yellow) discharge from urethra, more at night, (gonorrhoea) with phimosis; chancroids.

15. Male Sexual Organs.─Increase of sexual desire, and great lasciviousness, with frequent erections and pollutions.─[Erections: little boys may have this, lasting all night, causing emaciation; boys often pull and tear at the prepuce all the time, which may cause great emaciation, and result in death; adults often have this pulling, a kind of itching being the cause, and a feeling as if he "must do so"; collection of smegma behind glans.─H. N. G.].─Total loss of sexual power.─Painful nocturnal erections, and sometimes sanguineous pollutions.─The penis is small, cold, and flabby.─Glans cold and shrivelled.─Voluptuous itching, tingling, tearing, and shooting in glans and prepuce.─Puffing, or inflammatory swelling of prepuce, sometimes with burning pain, fissures, rhagades, and eruptions.─Burning in urethra during coitus.─Purulent secretion between prepuce and glans, sometimes with swelling, heat, and redness of front part of penis.─Swelling of the lymphatic vessels along the penis.─Vesicles and phagedaenic ulcers (chancres) with lard-like, or cheesy, bases, and raised margin, on glans and prepuce.─Sensation of coldness in testes.─Testes, hard and swollen, with shining redness of scrotum, and dragging pain in testes and spermatic cords.─Itching, tingling, and shooting in testes.─Profuse perspiration of parts when walking.─Excoriation between the parts and thighs.─Sloughing of scrotum.

16. Female Sexual Organs.─Suppression of catamenia.─Catamenia too copious, with uneasiness and colic.─Metrorrhagia.─Discharge of blood in an old woman, eleven years after menses had ceased.─Before catamenia: dry heat, with ebullition of blood, and congestion in head.─Congestion of blood to uterus.─Inflammation of ovaries and uterus.─During catamenia: redness of tongue, with deep-coloured and burning spots, salt taste in mouth, teeth set on edge, and gums blanched.─Leucorrhoea in general; complaints concomitant to leucorrhoea.─Leucorrhoea always < at night; greenish discharge; smarting, corroding, itching, burning after scratching.─Purulent, corrosive leucorrhoea, with itching in the parts, > by washing in cold water.─Hard tubercles on labia majora.─Itching pimples, and nodosities in labia.─Itching of genitals, < from contact of urine.─Inflammatory swelling in vagina, with a sensation as if it were raw and excoriated.─Swelling of labia, with heat, hardness, shining redness, great sensitiveness to touch, and burning, pulsative, and shooting pains.─Prolapsus uteri et vaginae; feels > after coitus.─Sterility with too profuse menstruation.─Easy coitus and certain conception.─Hard swelling in breasts, with pain as from ulceration (at every menstrual period), or with suppuration and actual ulceration; ulcerated nipples.─Milk in breasts instead of menses; in breasts of boys or girls.─Excoriation of breasts.─The infant rejects the milk.

17. Respiratory Organs.─Catarrh, with febrile shivering, hypochondriacal humour, dislike to all food, and constipation.─Catarrh with cough, hoarseness, fluent coryza and sore throat.─Continual hoarseness and loss of voice.─Nasal voice.─Burning and tickling in the larynx with hoarseness.─Dry cough, sometimes fatiguing and shaking, principally in bed, in evening, or at night, also during sleep, and on waking in morning, excited by a tickling, or a sensation of dryness in chest, and < by speaking.─Cough, as if caused by irritation in stomach.─Convulsive cough, with retching.─Spasmodic cough (whooping-cough); two paroxysms follow one another rapidly, from tickling in larynx and upper part of chest, at night, without cough during day, with expectoration of acrid yellowish mucus, which is sometimes mixed with coagulated blood, tasting putrid or salty.─Cough < in night air, at night and when lying on l. side.─Dyspnoea (sensation of spasmodic contraction when coughing or sneezing).─Pains in head and chest when coughing, as if these parts were about to burst; or shootings in occiput; or pain as from excoriation in chest, and pain in loins.─Inclination to vomit and fits of choking, when coughing.─Cough with expectoration of pure blood.─Bloody sputa in tuberculosis.─Hoarse cough, with sensation of dryness and shootings in throat.

18. Chest.─Difficult respiration, as from want of breath, or short and loud respiration.─Breath having a bad smell.─Shortness of breath when going upstairs and when walking quickly.─Anxious oppression of chest, and difficulty of respiration, with want to take a deep inspiration, chiefly after a meal, or with attacks of suffocation at night, or in evening in bed, when lying down (on l. side).─Sensation of dryness in chest.─Want of breath, with squeezing and tension in chest, and sensation, on least movement, or attempt to speak, as if life were coming to an end.─Sharp pains, and sensation as if muscles of chest were bruised.─Aching in chest, sometimes penetrating to back, with inability to take a full inspiration.─Burning in chest, sometimes extending to throat.─Soreness and burning in chest.─Lancinations (as if caused by knives) in chest and sides, or as far as the back, principally when breathing, sneezing, and coughing.─Stitches in r. chest through from scapula; inflammation of lungs.─Sensation as of a contraction and of swelling, and pain as from excoriation and ulceration, in chest.─Suppuration of lungs after haemorrhages, or after pneumonia.─Emphysema of lungs.

19. Heart.─Palpitation of heart; on slightest exertion.─Fainting.─Fatal syncope.

20. Neck and Back.─Burning and drawing pain in back and in nape of neck.─Indurated lymphatics.─Rigidity and rheumatic swelling of nape of neck, and of neck.─Shootings in muscles of neck.─Engorgement and inflammatory swelling of glands of neck, with shooting and pressive pains.─Shooting pains, instability, and weakness in loins.─Pain as from a bruise in sacrum, back, and shoulder-blades.─Erysipelatous inflammation extending from back like a girdle around abdomen (zona).

22. Upper Limbs.─Sharp (rheumatic) pains in shoulders and arms, principally at night, and when moving them.─Jerking in arms and fingers.─Hot and red (arthritic) swelling of elbow, as far as hand.─Itching miliary eruption on arms.─Furfuraceous and burning tetters on forearms and on wrist.─Tremor of hands, with weakness; could neither feed nor dress himself.─Cracking, weakness, and sensation of paralysis in hand.─Sweat on palms.─Eruption like moist itch on hands, with violent nightly itching.─Cramp-like contraction of hands and fingers.─Swelling of joints of fingers.─Deep and bleeding fissures and rhagades in hands and fingers.─Cramp-like pains, and tendency to become stiff in hands when using them.─Swelling of wrist, with pain on touching or moving it.─Rigidity of wrists.─Painful stiffness of r. wrist-joint.─Ulceration at the nails.─Exfoliation of fingers (of finger-nails).─Deadness of fingers.

23. Lower Limbs.─Sharp and lancinating (rheumatic) pains in hip-joints, as well as thighs and knees, chiefly at night, and during movement, and often with a sensation of coldness in diseased parts.─Tearing in the hip-joint and knee, < at night, or with pulsating pain, suppuration commencing.─Burning in nates.─Soreness between thighs and genitals.─Burning in periosteum of tibiae.─Drawing in tibia.─Great weakness, heaviness, and painful weariness in thighs and legs.─Weakness and giving way in knees, could scarcely stand.─Sensation of rigidity, of torpor and cramps in thighs.─Itching pimples on thighs.─Oedematous, transparent swelling, of thighs and legs.─Dropsical swelling of legs.─Tension in hams, as if tendons were too short.─Itching miliary eruption in legs.─Tetters on thighs and legs.─Contraction of legs, and cramps in calves of legs and toes.─Swelling of instep or heels, with sharp or shooting pains.─Wrenching pains in foot.─Coldness and sweat in feet.─Painful swelling of metatarsal bones.─Swelling of toes.─Ulceration at nails.

24. Generalities.─Oedema of face, hands, and feet with anaemia.─Cellulitis with lumpiness in any region.─Periostitis then necrosis.─Tearing and drawing, or shooting pains in limbs, chiefly at night, in heat of bed, which renders the pain insupportable.─Red and shining inflammatory swellings.─Inflammations ending in exudations and suppurations.─Nocturnal pains in bones.─Softening of the bones, so they will bend (rickets); enlargement of; caries of; inflammation of; prickling of; tearing in.─Affections of shoulder-blades; shin-bones; bones of the leg.─Sufferings < at night, or in evening, also from fresh (evening) air.─Throbbings, sensation of dislocation, and arthritic pains in joints, with swelling.─Rheumatic and catarrhal inflammations.─Rheumatic pains, with profuse sweat, which affords no relief.─The patient feels much better in morning and during repose, and esp. when lying down than when seated or walking.─Whole body feels as if bruised, with soreness in all bones.─Great agitation in limbs, with pains in joints, principally in evening.─Great fatigue, weakness, and rapid loss of strength, with great uneasiness of body and mind.─Ebullition of blood, and frequent trembling, even after least exertion.─Sanguineous congestions (to head, chest, and abdomen) and haemorrhages.─Great tendency of limbs to become numb.─Contractions of some parts.─Cramps, convulsive movements, and nocturnal attacks of epilepsy, with cries, rigidity of body, distension of abdomen, itching in nose, and thirst.─Sensation of coldness in outer parts; burning pain of inner parts; cutting in inner parts; darting pains in outer parts; darting in bones.─Sallow-coloured face.─Eructations; vomiting of bile.─Blackness of outer parts; bleeding from inner parts; restlessness of body; inflammation of inner parts, also of mucous membranes; secretion of mucus increased from any of mucous membranes.─Scurvy, particularly where there is much salivation; wasting away of soft parts; strictures after inflammation; inflammatory swellings, parts which are usually white turn red; zona or shingles.─Tonic spasms and tetanus.─Cataleptic rigidity of body.─Fainting fits.─Paralysis of several of limbs.─Emaciation and atrophy of whole body.─Excitability and sensitiveness of all the organs.─Cannot lie on r. side.

25. Skin.─Yellow colour of the skin, with perspiration which imparts a yellow colour to linen.─Skin dirty yellow, rough and dry.─(Jaundice.).─Engorgement, inflammation, and ulceration of the glands, with pulsative and shooting pains, hard swelling, red and shining, or without any perceptible alteration in skin.─Miliary, urticarial, pimpled, or pustular and purulent eruptions.─Exanthema burning; pock-shaped (hence, think of this remedy in small-pox); of scarlet colour; with swelling; purulent exanthema, i.e., ulcerating; ecchymoses appear, of black and blue spots, without receiving any external injury.─Erysipelas.─Spacelus; brown mortification.─Tetters in general; burning suppurating.─Ulcers in general; with burning on edges; hard on edges with bloody pus; with corroding pus; with ichorous pus; having too little pus; too thin pus; thin, tenacious, sticky pus; swollen, inflamed; looking like lard; prickling; pulsating; painful on the edges; swollen on edges.─Flat, painless ulcers, pate, covered with phlegm-like pus; on scalp, skin of penis, etc.─Primary and secondary syphilis; round coppery red spots shining through skin.─Itching pimples, which burn after being scratched.─Eruptions which resemble scabies, and which bleed readily.─Wounds ulcerate easily (and become gangrened).─Erysipelatous inflammations.─Spots red and raised, or maculae hepaticae, or which resemble scorbutic spots.─Small and very itchy pimples, which ulcerate, and become encrusted.─Tettery, excoriated, and oozing spots, or dry, itching, and mealy tetters.─Desquamation of skin.─Phagedenic ulcers, or bluish, fungous, and easily bleeding, or superficial, and appearing as if bitten by insects, or secreting an ichorous and corrosive pus.─Chancrous ulcers.─Violent and voluptuous itching over whole body, principally in evening, or at night, < by heat of bed, and sometimes attended by burning after scratching.─Thickening of periosteum; exostosis and caries; abscess in joints; great brittleness of bones.

26. Sleep.─Excessive sleepiness, day and night; deep and prolonged sleep.─Great sleepiness during day.─Inclination to sleep without the power to do so.─Sleep retarded in evening, and too early awakening in morning.─Failing asleep late; complaints preventing sleep (as toothache, or any severe pain or trouble, etc.); sleeplessness in general before midnight.─Very light and unquiet sleep, with frequent awaking, starts, and fright.─Sleeplessness from nervous excitability.─Frequent, anxious, horrible, fantastic, historical, vivid and voluptuous dreams; dreams of robbers, of dogs that bite, of rebellion, of floods, of discharges of firearms, etc.─At night, restlessness, anxiety, agitation and tossing, uneasiness, pains, heat or sweat, ebullition of blood, cries, tears, palpitation of the heart, vertigo, and many other affections.─On going to sleep: < of the pains, starts, and frightful spectres before the sight.─During sleep: talking, groans, sighs, short respiration, with mouth open and hands cold; on waking, sweat, cries, tears, and incoherent expressions.

27. Fever.─Chilliness early in morning, when rising, but more so in evening after lying down, as if cold water had been thrown over him, and not > by heat of stove.─Chilliness at night with frequent micturition.─Chilliness between the diarrhoeic stools.─Internal chilliness with heat of face.─Heat while in bed; as soon as one rises chilliness.─Heat after midnight with violent thirst for cold drinks.─Heat with anxiety and constriction of chest alternating with chilliness.─Perspiration towards morning, with thirst and palpitation of heart; from least exertion even when eating.─Perspiration in evening before going to sleep.─Very debilitating night-sweats.─Perspiration gives no relief, and accompanies all ailments.─Intermittent fever.─Chilliness in evening in bed, afterwards heat with violent thirst.─Chilliness and heat without thirst, towards morning thirst; during perspiration, palpitation of heart and nausea, the perspiration smells sour or fetid.─Coldness, shivering, and shuddering over whole body, principally after having slept, either by day and night, or only at night, or in evening, and in morning in bed, and sometimes with bluish colour of skin, icy coldness in hands and feet, muscular palpitations, convulsive movements of head, arms, and legs, contusive pain in limbs, and inclination to lie down, trembling in limbs, sharp pains in head, want to urinate, somnolence, etc.─Ebullitions with trembling from slight exertion.─Heat in face and head, with redness and burning of cheeks, and coldness, or shivering, or shuddering over whole body; or heat, mingled with shiverings or sweats.─During the heat, insatiable thirst, great desire for milk, and < of pains when uncovered.─Febrile attacks at night, or in evening; fever, with inflammatory symptoms, or with putridity; slow and hectic fever.─Pulse, irregular, or quick, strong, and intermittent, or weak, slow and trembling (generally full and fast, with violent beating in arteries).─Copious, excessive, and colliquative sweats, both day and night, in morning, in evening after lying down, and when eating, and sometimes fetid, clammy, sour, or oily, giving linen a yellow colour, and burning the skin.─Sweat, with nausea and inclination to vomit, great fatigue, thirst, anxiety, obstructed respiration, stitches in side, etc.

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

Quicksilver (The Element)

Best adapted for light-haired persons; skin and muscles lax. In bone diseases, pains worse at night; glandular swellings with or without suppuration, but especially if suppuration be too profuse (Hep., Sil.). Cold swellings; abscesses, slow to suppurate. Profuse perspiration attends nearly every complaint, but does not relieve; may even increase the suffering (profuse perspiration relieves, Nat. m., Psor., Ver.). Great weakness and trembling from least exertion. Breath and body smell foul (Psor.). Hurried and rapid talking (Hep.). Catarrh: with much sneezing; fluent, acrid, corrosive; nostrils raw, ulcerated; yellow-green, fetid, pus-like; nasal bones swollen; < at night and from damp weather. Toothache: pulsating, tearing, lacerating, shooting into face or ears; < in damp weather or evening air, warmth of bed, from cold or warm things; > from rubbing the cheek. Crowns of teeth decay, roots remain (crowns intact, roots decay, Mez.). Ptyalism; tenacious, soapy, stringy, profuse, fetid, coppery, metallic-tasting saliva. Tongue: large, flabby, shows imprint of teeth (Chel., Pod., Rhus); painful, with ulcers; red or white. Intense thirst, although the tongue looks moist and the saliva is profuse (dry mouth, but no thirst, Puls.). Mumps, diphtheria, tonsillitis with profuse offensive saliva; tongue large, flabby with imprint of teeth; mapped tongue (Lach., Nat., Tarax.). Diphtheria: tonsils inflamed, uvula swollen, elongated, constant desire to swallow; membrane thick, gray, shred-like borders adherent or free. Dysentery: stool slimy, bloody, with colic and fainting, great tenesmus during and after, not > by stool, followed by chilliness and a "cannot finish" sensation. The more blood, the better indicated. Quantity of urine voided is larger than the amount of water drunk; frequent urging to urinate. Nocturnal emissions stained with blood (Led., Sars.). Leucorrhoea: acrid, burning, itching with rawness; always worse at night; pruritis, < from contact of urine which must be washed off (Sulph.). Morning sickness; profuse salivation, wets the pillow in sleep (Lac. ac.). Mammae painful, as if they would ulcerate at every menstrual period (Con., Lac. c.); milk in breasts instead of menses. Cough: dry, fatiguing, racking; in two paroxysms, worse at night and from warmth of bed; with utter inability to lie on right side. Affects lower lobe of right lung; stitches through to back (Chel., Kali c.). Suppuration of lungs, after haemorrhages of pneumonia (Kali c.). Ulcers on the gums, tongue, throat, inside of the cheek, with profuse salivation; irregular in shape, edges undefined; have a dirty, unhealthy look; lardaceous base surrounded with a dark halo; apt to run together (syphilitic ulcers are circular, attack the posterior parts of mouth, throat, and have well-defined edges, are surrounded with coppery hue, and do not extend from their primary seat). Trembling extremities, especially hands; paralysis agitans. Ailments from sugar, insect stings, vapors of arsenic or copper. Diseases occurring in winter.

Relations. - Follows well: after, Bell., Hep., Lach., Sulph., but should not be given before or after Silicea. If given in low (weak) potencies hastens rather than aborts suppuration. The bad effects of Mer. are antidoted by Aur., Hep., Lach., Mez., Nit. ac., Sulph., and by a strong (high) potency of Mer., when the symptoms correspond. Compare: Mezereum, its vegetable analogue for bad effects of large doses or of too frequent repitition.

Aggravation. - At night; wet damp weather (Rhus); in autumn, warm days and cold, damp nights; lying on right side; perspiring. Mercury is < by heat of, but > by rest in, bed. Arsenic is > by heat of, but < by rest in, bed.

Hahnemann’s Soluble Mercury (Black Oxide)

Nervous affections after suppressed discharges especially in psoric patients (Asaf.).

Glandular and scrofulous affections of children.

Otorrhea: bloody, offensive discharge, with stabbing, tearing pain; < right side, at night and lying on affected side.

Furuncles and boils in external meatus (Pic. ac.).

Polypi and fungus excrescences in external meatus (Teucr., Thuj.).

Acrid nasal secretion, having odor of old cheese; nostrils, red, raw, ulcerated.

Epistaxis: when coughing; at night during sleep; hangs in a dark clotted string from the nose, like an icicle.

Gonorrhea: with phimosis or chancroids; green discharge, < at night; urging to urinate; intolerable burning in fore part of urethra when passing last few drops; prepuce hot, swollen, oedematous and sensitive to touch; of a torpid character, with threatening or suppurating bubo.

Chancre: primary; regular indurated Hunterian, with lardaceous base; with cheesy bottom and inverted red edges; with phimosis or paraphimosis; deep, round, penetrating, eating through fraenum and prepuce; bleeding, painful; yellowish, fetid discharge.

Hahnemann’s remedy for syphilis and diseases of the genito-urinary tract. Is rarely indicated if the tongue is dry.

Diseases of the skin; intolerable biting, itching, over body, as from insect bites, < in evening and from warmth of bed; becomes pleasant on scratching.

Weakness and weariness of limbs: sore, bruised.

Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics, Eugene Beauharnais Nash

Swollen, flabby tongue, taking imprint of the teeth; gums also swollen, spongy or bleeding; breath very offensive.

Sweats day and night without relief in many complaints.

Creeping chilliness in the beginning of a cold, or threatened suppuration.

Sliminess of mucous membranes.

Moist tongue, with intense thirst.

Glandular swellings, cold, inclined to suppurate; ulcers with lardaceous base.

Modalities: < at night in warmth of bed, while sweating, lying on right side.

Bone diseases; pains worse at night.

Dysentery: stools slimy, bloody, colic, fainting; great tenesmus during and after, followed by chilliness, and a "cannot finish sensation“. The more blood and pain the better indicated.

Affects lower lobe of right lung; stitches through to back (Chel., Kali c.).

Intense thirst, although the tongue looks moist and the saliva is profuse.

In low potencies, hastens suppuration; in high, aborts suppuration, as in quinsy.

* * * * *

As in Antimonium crudum, so in Mercurius, the leading characteristic is found in the mouth, or, I might rather say, characteristics, for the gums are swollen, spongy, sometimes bleeding; the tongue is also swollen, flabby, taking the imprint of the teeth (Arsenicum, Chelidonium, Podophyllum, Rhus tox. and Stramonium), generally moist, yet with intense thirst; the whole mouth is moist with salivation which is soapy or stringy, and the odor from the mouth is very offensive; you can smell it all over the room. No remedy has this condition of mouth in any degree equal to Mercury. It is found in very many complaints, and if anything corroborative of the truth of "similia", etc., were desired the curative power of Mercury, when indicated by these symptoms, ought to be satisfactory. Many a time have I given great relief to my patient, and great credit to Homoeopathy, by brilliant cures of that painful affection, quinsy, guided by these symptoms. Of course, in addition to the above symptoms the tonsils were greatly swollen and often apparently on the verge of suppuration. Right here let me warn against giving Mercurius too low, for if you do, it will hasten suppuration instead of aborting it. If anyone is skeptical as to the efficiency of the very high potencies, I invite him to a test in just such a case. Give a single dose, dry upon the tongue, or if you must seem to do more, dissolve a powder in four tablespoonfuls of water and give in half-hourly doses. Then Wait. I have done in many times and am convinced. If the patient has that other strong characteristic of Mercurius, viz., profuse perspiration, without relief of the suffering, success is doubly sure. (Sweat relieves, Arsenicum, Natrum mur., Psorinum.) I wish right here, as perhaps the most appropriate place, to disclaim being an exclusive high-potentist. The questions of dose is, and I believe must remain, an open one as long as different degrees of susceptibility are found in different diseases and persons. I have experimented along the whole line and know that both the high and the low are efficacious in certain cases. The preponderance of evidence, however, is greatly in favour of the high and the highest. This is my opinion. You may differ, and are welcome to do so.

The fever symptoms of Mercurius are notable, especially in the sweats. The chill also is peculiar as I have observed it. It is not a shaking chill, but is simply creeping chilliness. Often when this creeping chilliness is felt it is the first symptom of a cold that has been taken, and, if left alone, the coryza, sore throat, bronchitis of even pneumonia may follow; but, if taken early, a dose of Mercurius may prevent all such troubles. The chilliness is felt most generally in the evening and increases into the night if not removed by Mercury. It also alternates with flashes of heat; first chilly, then hot, then chilly, etc., like Arsenicum. It is often felt in single parts. Then again it is felt in abscesses and is the harbinger of pus formation. If pus has already formed, especially much of it, the only thing Mercury can do is to hasten its discharge; but if little or none is actually formed a dose of Mercury high will often check the formation and a profuse sweat often follows with a subsidence of the swelling and a rapid cure of the disease.

Now the sweats. They are very profuse and do not relieve like the sweats of inflammatory diseases generally do, but no the contrary the complaints increase with the sweat. (Tilia.). In what diseases is this condition found? It may be found in almost every disease: In sore throat, bronchitis, pneumonia, pleuritis, peritonitis, abscesses, rheumatism, etc., to the end of a long list. In short in any disease in which this profuse and persistent sweating without relief is present Mercurius is the first remedy to be thought of. Worse at night, and especially in the warmth of the bed, is another strong characteristic of Mercurius. (Ledum pal.) There is a long list of remedies that have aggravations at night, but not so many from warmth of the bed. I have cured many skin diseases of various names guided by this modality.

The glands and bones also come strongly under the influence of this remedy. The glandular swellings are cold, inclined to suppurate, having these chilly creepings aforementioned. These with the bone-pains in the exostoses and caries are all aggravated at night in the warmth of the bed.

The mucous membranes are everywhere affected; the discharges from them are at first thin and excoriating, even from the catarrh of the nose to the diarrhoeic, or dysenteric, discharges. Afterwards they become thicker or more bland, like the Pulsatilla discharges. Where are worse at night also, even the leucorrhoea.

Hahnemann ranked Mercury (first) for syphilis, as he did Sulphur for psora and Thuja for sycosis, and no doubt justly so, for Mercury in its various forms symptomologically covers more cases of that disease than any other remedy. but it must be remembered that Mercury is no more a panacea for syphilis than is Sulphur for psora or Thuja for sycosis, else there would be no truth in similia similibus. The case in hand must simulate Mercury, or that remedy is not "in it", but some other remedy is. Experience abundantly corroborates this and proves the truth of the law, Similia Similibus Curantur.