Homeopathic Materia Medica

Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica, James Tyler Kent

Generals and aspect: Salt is so common an article of diet that it has been assumed that it could be of no use in medicine.

This is only the opinion of men who, operate entirely on the tissues. There are no constitutional effects from crude salt.

One may find an individual growing thin with all the symptoms of salt; he is taking salt in great quantities, but digesting none of it. Salt will be found in the stool, for it does not enter into the life. There is a Natr. mur. inanition, a starving for salt. The same is true of lime. Children can get plenty of lime from their food and that is better when the salt or the lime is given in such shape that it cannot be resisted by the internal man - aimed not at the house he lives in, but at the individual himself-then the bone, salt inanition, the Natr. mur. inanition, will soon pass away.

We do not with our small dose supply the salt that the system needs, but we cure the internal disease, we turn into order the internal physical man, and then the tissues get salt enough from the food. Drugs must all be administered in suitable form. We may need to go higher and higher until the secret spring is touched.

Natr. mur. is a deep acting, long acting remedy. It takes a wonderful hold of the economy, making changes that are lasting when given in potentized doses.

A great deal is presented that can be seen by looking at the patient, so that we say: this looks like a Natr. mur. patient. Experienced physicians learn to classify patients by appearance. The skin is shiny, pale, waxy, looks as if greased. There is a wonderful prostration of a peculiar kind. Emaciation, weakness, nervous prostration, nervous irritability.

Mind: There is a long chain of mental symptoms; hysterical condition of the mind and body; weeping alternating with laughing; irresistible laughing at unsuitable times; prolonged, spasmodic laughter.

This will be followed by tearfulness, great sadness, joylessness. No matter how cheering the circumstances are she cannot bring herself into the state of being joyful. She is benumbed to impressions, easily takes on grief, grieves over nothing.

Unpleasant occurrences are recalled that she may grieve over them. Consolation aggravated the state of the mind - the melancholy, the tearfulness, sometimes brings on anger. She appears to bid for sympathy and is mad when it is given.

Headache comes on with this melancholy. She walks the floor in rage. She is extremely forgetful; cannot cast up accounts; is unable to meditate; forges what she was going to say; loses the thread of what she is hearing or reading. There is a great prostration of the mind.

Unrequited affection brings on complaints. She is unable to control her affections and falls in love with a married man. She knows that it is foolish, but lies awake with love for him. She falls in love with a coachman. She knows that she is unwise, but cannot help it. In cases of this kind Natr. mur. will turn her mind into order, and she will look back and wonder why she was so silly. This remedy belongs to hysterical girls.

In a mental state where Ign. temporarily benefits the symptoms, but does not cure, its chronic Natr. mur. should be given. It is as well to give Natr. mur. at once if there is an underlying constitutional state too deep for Ign.

Modalities: Aversion to bread, to fats and rich things.

The Natr. mur. patient is greatly disturbed by excitement, is extremely emotional. The whole nervous economy is in a state of fret and irritation, < from noise, the slamming of a door, the ringing of a bell, the firing of a pistol, < music.

The pains are stitching, electric-like shocks, convulsive jerkings of the limbs on falling asleep, twitchings, shooting pains. She is oversensitive to all sorts of influences, is excitable, emotional, intense.

Complaints come on in the warm room, worse in the house, she wants the open air. The mental complaints are > in the open air. She takes cold easily from sweating, but is generally > in the open air, though worse on getting heated; < by sufficient exertion to heat up, but > by moderate exertion in the cold air.

Both Natr. carb. and Natr. mur. have the general nervous tension of Natrum, but one is a chilly patient, the other warm, blooded.

Face: The face is sickly looking, the skin greasy, shiny, sallow, yellow, often chlorotic, covered with vesicular eruptions around the edges of the hair, the ears and back of the neck.

There are scaly and squamous eruptions, with great itching, oozing a watery fluid, or sometimes dry. An exfoliation takes place, a shining surface is left. In the meatus, scales form, and peel off, leaving an oozing surface.

Watery vesicles form about the lips and wings of the nose, about the genitals and anus. Vesicular eruptions, white, oozing a watery fluid, come and go. Great itching of the skin is present,

The skin looks waxy, dropsical. There is great emaciation, the skin looking dry, withered, shrunken. An infant looks like a little old man. There is a down on the face that passes away when improvement sets in. Emaciation takes place from above downward.

The collar-bones become prominent and the neck looks scrawny, but the hips and lower limbs remain plump and round. Lyc. also has emaciation from above downward. The directions of remedies will often enable us to distinguish one from another.

Discharges: The characteristic discharge from the mucous membranes is watery or thick whitish, like the white of an egg.

There is a marked coryza with a watery discharge, but the constitutional state has thick, white discharges. He hawks out a thick, white discharge in the morning. There are gluey oozings from die eyes. From the ears flows a thick, white, gluey discharge. The leucorrhoea is white and thick.

With the gonorrhoea the discharge has existed a long time and become gleety. There is smarting m the urethra only after urination.

Head: The headaches are awful; dreadful pains; bursting, compressing, as if in a vise; the head feels as if the skull would be crushed in. The pains are attended with hammering and throbbing. Pain like little hammers in the head on beginning to move.

Hammering pains in the head on waking in the morning.

The pain comes on in the latter part of sleep. There is great nervousness during the first part of the night; she falls asleep late and awakes with hammering in the head. There are also headaches beginning at 10 to 11 A.M., lasting until 3 P.M. or evening.

The headaches are periodical, every day, or third day, or fourth day. Headaches of those living in malarial districts, > from sleep; the patient must go to bed and be perfectly quiet, > from sweating, headaches associated with intermittent fever.

During the chill it seemed as though the head would burst; he is delirious and drinks large quantities of cold water. There is no relief to the head until after the sweat. Sometimes all the symptoms are relieved by the sweat except the headache.

In another form of headache; the greater the pain the more the sweat; sweating does not relieve; the forehead is cold, covered with a cold sweat. When the head is covered warmly he is > moving about in the open air.

Headache due to disturbance of vision where there is inability to focus rapidly enough. Headache < from noise.

Headache involving the whole back of the head and even going down the spine in troubles following the brain diseases, hydrocephalus.

Spine: In spinal troubles, when there is great sensitiveness to pressure an irritable spine.

The vertebrae are sensitive and there is a great deal of aching along the spine. Coughing aggravates the pain in the spine, also walking makes it worse, but it is > from lying on something hard, or pressing the back up against something hard; they may sit with a pillow or the hand pressed against the back. In menstrual troubles, you find the woman lying with some hard object under the spine.

A general nervous trembling pervades the body. There is jerking of the muscles, trembling of the limbs, inability to keep the limbs still, as in Zincum.

Stomach and liver: The stomach and liver are closely related.

The stomach is distended with flatus. After eating there is a lump in the stomach. It seems to take a long time for food to digest. < from eating. Whitish, slimy mucus is vomited attended with relief.

There is great thirst for cold water, sometimes there is relief from drinking, sometimes the thirst is unquenchable. We find fullness in the region of the liver with stitching, tearing pains.

The bowels are distended with gas. There is slowing down of the action of the bowels, the stool being very difficult, in hard, agglomerated lumps.

Bladder: There is slowing down of the action of the bladder.

Must wait before the urine will start, and then it comes slowly-dribbles; there is not much force in the flow.

After urination there is a sensation as if more urine remained in the bladder. If anyone is present he cannot pass urine, cannot pass it in a public place.

There is also continued urging, he must pass the urine often.

This remedy and Natr. sulph. were used by the homoeopaths to clear up chronic diarrhoea, the old army diarrhoea.

Natr. mur. is useful in the complaints of women, in troublesome menstruation. There is a great variety of menstrual complaints: menses too scanty or too free, too late or too soon. We cannot individualize from the menstrual symptoms, we must do it from the constitutional state.

Examine every possible function to be sure you have all the symptoms. Examine every organ, not by examining it physically, for results of diseases do not lead to the remedy, but examine the symptoms.

Observe the rapidity with which remedies affect the human system there are some that are long acting, deep acting. Natr. mur. is one of these. It operates very slowly, bringing about its results after a long time, as it corresponds to complaints that are slow, that are long in action.

This does not mean that it will not act rapidly; all remedies act rapidly, but not all act slowly; the longest acting may act in acute diseases, but the short acting cannot act long in chronic diseases. Get the pace, the periodicity of remedies.

Some remedies have a continued fever, some a remittent, others an intermittent fever. In Acon., Bell. and Bry. we have three different paces, three different motions, three different forms of velocity; so in Sulph., Graph., Natr. mur., Carbo veg. a different form, a different development.

Some would not hesitate in a continued fever to give Bell., but its complaints come on in great haste, with great violence and have nothing in their nature like a continued fever. This is not like typhoid. Bell. and Acon. have no manifestations of typhoid, even if the symptoms are present.

Be sure that the remedy has not only the group of symptoms, but also the nature of the case. The typhoid case has a likeness in Bry. or Rhus, but not in Bell. We owe no obedience to man, not even to our parents, after we are old enough to think for ourselves. We owe obedience to truth.

Natr. mur. is a long acting remedy; its symptoms continue for years; it conforms to slow-coming, long-lasting, deep-seated symptoms. It requires a long time for a man to be brought under the influence of it, even when moderately sensitive.

The chill comes in the morning at 10-30; every day, every other day, every third or fourth day. The chill begins in the extremities which become blue; there is throbbing pain in the head, the face is flushed; delirium, talking of everything, constant maniacal actions.

They grow worse until a congestive attack comes. During the entire attack there is thirst for cold water. During the coldness he is not > by heat, not > by piling on the clothing, but wants cold drinks.

We would naturally suppose that a person freezing to death would want warm things, but the Natr. mur. patient cannot bear them.

The teeth chatter, he tosses from side to side, the bones ache as if they would break, and there is vomiting as in congestive conditions. In the fever he is so hot that the fingers are almost scorched with the intense heat, and he goes into a congestive sleep or stupor. The sweat relieves him; the aching all over is > by the sweat, and in time the headache passes away.

There is intense chill, fever and sweat. Sometimes the attacks are in robust, strong people, but usually in the anaemic, in emaciated people full of malaria; lingering, chronic cases.

Complaints do not always have this long prodrome. Its most striking use is in cases that have been living a long time in malarial swamps; saturated with the malarial atmosphere; they are anaemic, often dropsical; in old cases that have been mixed with arsenic and quinine, the crude drugs used by the Old School to break the fever as long as the patient is under their sway, but the patient is sick internally even more than before, and when the condition comes back, it is generally in its original form; the crude drug is usually unable to change the type of an intermittent fever.

Remedies only partly related to the case will change the character of the sickness so that no one can cure the case. The homoeopathic remedy will cure intermittent fever every time if you get the right remedy. If there is a failure the case is mixed up so that no one may be able to cure it. First of all a master must realize the case and turn it into order so that it can then be cured. There are few men who never spoil a case of ague, because many cases come from partly developed, marked cases, the symptoms not being all out, especially in cases that have taken homoeopathic remedies. The homeopathic failures are the worst failures on earth.

Natr. mur. is irregular enough in its nature to develop the chills into regularity. When it has come into better order, wait: either the whole case will subside, or another remedy will be clear. There are other remedies that can turn cases into order. Often cases spoiled by homoeopaths can be turned into order by Sep. Marked cases with congestion of the head, aching in the back and nausea are turned into order by Ipecac.

The cure is permanent after homoeopathic prescribing; the chills do not return.

Natr. mur. not only removes the tendency to intermittents, but restores the patient to health, and takes away the tendency to colds, the susceptibility to colds, and to periodicity. It is the susceptibility that is removed. We know that every attack predisposes to another attack.

Each attack of ague is more destructive than the previous one. The drugs used increase the susceptibility; the homeopathic remedy removes$ the susceptibility. Homeopathic treatment tends to simplify the human economy and to make diseases more easily managed.

Unless this susceptibility be eradicated, man goes down lower and lower into emaciation, emaciation from above downwards.

Children born in a malarial region are likely to go into, marasmus. They have a voracious appetite, a wonderful hunger, eating much, but all the time emaciating.

Pregnancy: Conditions of pregnancy.

The mammary glands waste, there is wasting of the upper parts of the body. The uterus is intensely sore.

The leucorrhoea, which is at first white, turns green. Women take cold in every draft of air.

There is pain during sexual congress with dryness of the vagina, a feeling as though sticks pressed into the walls of the vagina; pricking pains.

There is dryness of all mucous membranes; everywhere the membranes are dry. The throat is dry, red, patulous; a sensation of a fishbone jagging into it when swallowing; there is inability to swallow without washing down the food with liquids; there is sticking all the way down the oesophagus.

Throat: Most prescribers give Hep. for every sticking or fishbone sensation in the throat; this is the old keynote, the old routine.

Nitr. ac., Argent. nit., Alum. and Natr. mur. all have it, but all differently.

Hepar sulfur: The tonsils are swollen, full, purple-quinsy.

The patient is sensitive to the slightest draught, there is pain in the throat even on putting the hand out of bed; he sweats in the night with no relief; he is sensitive to every impression; feels everything ten times amplified.

Nitricum Acidum: There are yellow patches in the throat; ragged, jagged ulcers in the throat, or it is inflamed and purple.

The urine smells like horses' urine.

Argentum nitricum: There is much hoarseness, the vocal cords being disturbed.

The throat is swollen, patulous; the patient wants cold things, cold water, cold air. Adapted to those cases that have had ulceration of the os uteri with cauterization.

Natrum Muriaticum: There is extreme dryness of the mucous membranes, as if they would break; chronic dryness without ulceration.

There is much catarrhal discharge like the white of an egg, with dryness of the mucous membranes when not covered by this mucus. The patient is extremely sensitive, sensitive to a change of weather.

Every remedy has its own pace, its order or succession. We must bear in mind the order of succession.

Natr. mur. is useful in old dropsies, especially dropsy of cellular tissues. Sometimes there is dropsy of sacs, dropsy of the brain following acute diseases. In acute spinal meningitis with extreme nervous tension, where there is chronic drawing back of the head, chronic jerking of the head forward.

Acute diseases that result in hydrocephalus, or in irritation of the spine. Sometimes useful in abdominal dropsy, but more often in oedema of the lower extremities. Acute dropsies after scarlet fever; the patient is oversensitive, starts in his sleep, rises up in the night with confusion; there are albumen and casts in the urine,

In dropsy after the malaria, Natr. mur., when it acts curatively, generally brings back the original chill. The only cure known to man is from above down, from within out, and in the reverse order of coming. When it is otherwise, there is only improvement, not cure. When the symptoms return there is hope; that is the road to cure and there is no other.

The skin symptoms are sometimes very striking. In old lingering cases where the skin looks transparent as if the patient would become dropsical, a waxy, greasy, shiny skin; other remedies with greasy, shiny skin are Plumb., Thuja, Selen.

These remedies go deep into the life. Any remedy that can produce such wonderful changes is long-acting.

Useful after labor when the mother does not progress well; she is feeble and excitable; the lochia is prolonged, copious and white; the hair falls out from the head and genitals; the milk passes away, or the child does not thrive on it.

Useful in after pains where there is subinvolution of the uterus, the uterus is in a state of prolonged congestion.

She is < noise, music, the slamming of a door. She craves salt and has an aversion to bread, wine and fat things. Sour wines disorder the stomach. Natr. mur. will clear up the case, restore the milk, turn the case into order.

Natr. mur. is needed by those chlorotic girls who have a greasy skin, a greenish, yellowish complexion; who menstruate only once in two or three months.

The menses are copious, or scanty and watery. Where the symptoms agree, this remedy can eradicate this chlorosis and turn the countenance into a picture of health, but not in a short time.

It takes years to establish health in a typical chlorosis; the cut finger bleeds only water; the menstrual flow is only a leucorrhoea; there is pernicious anemia. Natr. mur., goes deep enough into the life to restore the pink complexion.

A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica, John Henry Clarke

Sodium chloride. Common Salt. NaCl. Trituration. Solution.

Clinical.─Addison's disease. Anaemia. Aphthae. Atrophy. Brain-fag. Catarrh. Chorea. Constipation. Cough. Cracks in the skin. Debility. Depression. Diabetes. Disparunia. Dropsy. Dyspepsia. Epilepsy. Erysipelas. Eyes, affections of. Eye-strain. Face, complexion unhealthy. Gleet. Glossopharyngeal paralysis. Goitre. Gonorrhoea. Gout. Headache. Heart, affections of. Hemiopia. Hernia. Herpes. Herpes circinatis. Hiccough. Hodgkin's disease. Hydroa. Hypochondriasis. Intermittent fever. Leucocythaemia. Leucorrhoea. Lips, eruption on. Lungs, oedema of. Menstruation, disorders of. Mouth, inflammation of. Nettlerash. Pediculosis. Ranula. Seborrhoea. Self-abuse. Somnambulism. Speech, embarrassed. Spermatorrhoea. Spinal irritation. Spleen, enlarged. Sterility. Stomatitis. Sunstroke. Taste, lost; disordered. Tongue, blistered; white coated; heavy. Trifacial-nerve paralysis. Ulcers. Varices. Vaginismus. Vertigo. Warts. Whooping-cough. Worms. Yawning.

Characteristics.─If Nat. carb. is the typical salt of the Natrum group (as Kali carb. is of the Kalis), Nat. m. is the most important. In power and range it stands in the first rank of homoeopathic remedies, but it has an additional significance, in that it exemplifies the power of attenuation in a remarkable way. The problems involved in Nat. m. may be regarded in a sense as the pons asinorum of homoeopathy. Those who are able to grasp in a practical way the homoeopathic uses of this remedy are not likely to meet with any insuperable difficulties elsewhere. Those who can see nothing but "common salt" in Nat. m. may conclude that they have not "the root of the matter" in them. It may be inconceivable to some that the attenuations of Nat. m. should act independently, as curative or pathogenetic, at the same time that crude salt is being ingested in quantities; and it may seem that an infinitesimal amount of a substance which is a necessary constituent of our tissues cannot possibly have any action at all; but this problem is constantly before the homoeopathist, and if he cannot master it in respect to Nat. m. he need not trouble his brains to try elsewhere. Nat. m. has been extensively proved, both in the lower triturations and in the 30th and higher attenuations, and the latter produced the most marked effects. I have mentioned in the Preface an experience of my own, which I will give here in more detail. For a common cold which had proved troublesome I took eight globules of Nat. m. 200. The next day the cold was not better, but I felt ill, and presently a copious, gushing, watery, light-coloured diarrhoea set in, and persisted for some days, draining all my tissues and reducing my weight by half a stone before I could think of the cause. Then the dose of Nat. m. flashed on my mind, and I at once began to smell at a bottle of Sweet Nitre, the antidote. The diarrhoea and all other symptoms vanished in a way I have never forgotten; and the lesson was well worth all the suffering I had undergone. My weight came back as rapidly as it had disappeared. In Nat. m. is illustrated the antidotal action of a substance of high attenuation over the effect of a lower. A large number of people are steadily poisoning themselves by taking excessive quantities of salt with their food; and it is generally useful to ask patients if they are fond of salt. Without restricting the amount of salt taken, Nat. m. 30 will antidote most of the effects of the crude, and enable the patient to cut down the quantity taken afterwards. But the effect of a high potency can also be antidoted by a higher. A patient to whom I gave Nat. m. 1m developed this new symptom: Aching pain deep in left shoulder and down the arm; < lying on right side; no tenderness. A single dose of Nat. m. c.m. quickly removed it. Nat. m. is one of the remedies adopted by Schüssler from homoeopathy. Though arrived at by a different route, his indications are for the most part identical with Hahnemann's, and a recital of them will serve to emphasise some points; and there is no need to accept Schüssler's semi-material theories as an all-sufficient explanation of the remedy's action, for they do not anything like cover the field. Says Schüssler: "The water which is introduced into the digestive canal in drinking or with the food enters into the blood through the epithelial cells of the mucous membrane by means of the common salt contained in these cells and in the blood, for salt has the well-known property of attracting water. Water is intended to moisten all the tissues, i.e., cells. Every cell contains soda. The nascent chlorine which is split off from the Nat. m. of the intercellular fluid combines with this soda. The Nat. m. arising by this combination attracts water. By this means the cell is enlarged and divides up. Only in this way can cells divide so as to form additional cells. If there is no common salt formed in the cells, then the water intended to moisten them remains in the intercellular fluids, and hydraemia results. Such patients have a watery, bloated face; they are tired and sleepy and inclined to weep. They are chilly, suffer from cold extremities, and have a sensation of cold along the spine. At the same time they have a strong desire for common salt. (The cells deficient in salt cry for salt.) The common salt, of which they consume comparatively large quantities, does not heal their disease, because the cells can only receive the common salt in very attenuated solutions. The redundant common salt present in the intercellular fluid may in such cases cause the patients to have a salty taste in their mouth, and the pathological secretions of the mucous membranes, as also of excoriations of the skin, may be corrosive (salt-rheum)." Disturbances in the distribution of salt in the cells cause: Lachrymation; salivation; toothache with salivation; watery diarrhoea; mucous diarrhoea; lack of mucus; catarrh of stomach with vomiting of mucus; water-brash; vesicles clear as water on skin or conjunctiva; constipation.─Thus far Schüssler. But whilst using his theory as a useful means of stringing many characteristics of Nat. m. together, it is necessary to free oneself from them entirely in order to see the remedy in all its range of action. A complete view of the symptom picture can alone give that. In old-school practice Nat. m. is used chiefly in solution as a douche or spray in nasal and other catarrhs, and in the mixture of "Brandy and Salt," in which large quantities of salt are given for pulmonary haemorrhages. The relation to catarrh, which Schüssler brings out, is specific. Excessively fluent coryza, with much sneezing; sore nose, especially the left wing; cold sores on lips and nose; loss of smell and taste, are indications which I have verified repeatedly in acute colds and the tendency to them. With the coryza there is copious lachrymation; and whether or not Schüssler is right on the chemistry of the process, Nat. m. is indicated by tears. ("Flow of tears with cough" is Burnett's keynote of Nat. m. in whooping-cough, H. W., xviii. 179.) The characteristic of the tearful Nat. m. patient is that she (or he) wants to be alone; any attempt to console irritates beyond endurance. "Wants to be alone to cry." "Very much inclined to weep and be excited." There are even tears with laughter. For in addition to the sadness there is hysterical laughter; laughs till she weeps at things not at all ludicrous. The excitement of Nat. m. is always followed by melancholy. The hypochondriasis and hysteria of Nat. m. generally go pari passu in the degree of constipation; and Nat. m. is one of the most commonly needed remedies in that complaint. The most characteristic symptom in this connection is a sensation of "contraction of the rectum during stool; hard faeces at first evacuated with the greatest exertion, which causes tearing in anus, bleeding and soreness; afterwards thin stools also passed; constipated every other day." There is also retention of stool; and a feeling after stool as if there were more to pass. Nat. m. answers equally well to constipation and diarrhoea when the collateral symptoms correspond. The constipation is often found associated with anaemia; with chilliness, cold feet and chills down the back; with indigestion such as is met with in victims of masturbation: Nat. m. is one of the most helpful of remedies in such cases. The unclean complexion of earthy line, "dirty face" in spite of any amount of washing, is a still further indication. The skin is greasy from excess of sebaceous secretion. Nat. m. corresponds to affections due to loss of fluids. This recalls China, with which it has a very important antidotal relation. Both correspond to the effects of masturbation, haemorrhages, and loss of fluids; both are remedies for intermittent fever, and Nat. m. is the chief antidote to the effects of over-dosing with China and Quinine. Another important antidotal relation of Nat. m. is to Arg. n. And here another interesting fact appears-namely, the parallel between chemical and the dynamic action. Salt is the best antidote to poisoning with nitrate of silver, as it changes the soluble nitrate of silver into the insoluble harmless chloride. Nat. m. in the attenuations is also the best remedy for the ill effects of Arg. n. whether used as a cautery or administered as a medicine. Whenever there is a history of cauterisation and Arg. n. has been used, Nat. m. will do great good. Scrofulous ophthalmia which has been treated locally in vain with Arg. n.; sore throats that have been cauterised; the effects local and remote of uterine injections of Arg. n., or cauterisings of the os uteri. W. J. Guernsey (H. P., vii. 127) relates a striking instance of the last. Mrs. P., 32, complained of "lump" in the throat which could not be swallowed, and yet required constant efforts to do so. < On empty swallowing; yet on swallowing food it seemed to pass over a sore spot. Bar. c., Lach., Bell. were given in succession in vain. Remembering the injunction of the Organon, § 207, to inquire as to what allopathic treatment a patient has been subjected to in order to discover if there is anything to correct, Guernsey discovered that the patient had had a severe ulceration of the womb which had been "burnt out" several times and was "now well." She had had a very profuse discharge, but that had stopped, and on the same day she had commenced to "choke" with the throat trouble. Nat. m. 295m (F.) was given. In a few days the throat was better and the discharge had returned, much to the patient's horror. Without further treatment throat and vaginal discharge were both cured. Lambert has recorded (L. H. H. Rep., vii. 144) several cases of headache associated with errors of refraction and consequent eye-strain cured with Nat. m. 30. The headaches were noticed on waking. In one case it was like a cloud over brain with intense depression and had lasted ten years. It disappeared before the vision was corrected. The effect of living too exclusively on salt food in producing scurvy gives a key to the use of Nat. m. in many conditions of blood degeneration, haemorrhage, and skin disorder and ulceration. In aphthous and ulcerative conditions of the mouth it is a leading remedy. The characteristic tongue of Nat. m. is either a mapped tongue, with red islands; or a clean shining tongue with froth along each side. There are many characteristic symptoms in connection with the tongue: hair sensation; numbness and stiffness of one side; heavy, embarrassing speech. Nat. m. corresponds to children who are late in talking. The tongue is blistered; sticks to roof of mouth. Dryness of mouth and throat. Unquenchable thirst. Nausea. Vomiting. The drying-up property of Nat. m. is general. One very characteristic effect is dryness of vagina, with painful coitus; aversion to coitus (in the female); aversion to men. Menses may be early and profuse; or scanty and delayed. Nat. m. corresponds to many cases of anaemia, and especially to delay in the first appearance of the menses. Much bearing down and much leucorrhoea. Backache generally accompanies these, and the backache has this peculiarity, that it is > by pressure; by lying down with the back on something hard. There is also sensitiveness of the back and spinal irritation. With the menses there is generally headache, both before, during, or after. The headaches of Nat. m. are intermitting. They come on in the morning on first waking up and last throughout the day; or else they come on at 10 or 11 a.m. They are < from mental exertion. Nat. m. is one of the first remedies for headaches of schoolgirls. Headache with partial blindness. Headache much < by coughing. Throbbing; beating as with little hammers; pain as if the head would burst. The throbbing headache has its analogue in palpitation of the heart. Nat. m. is a great heart remedy. Fluttering palpitation with faint feeling, < lying down. In one case of huge hypertrophy with degeneration of most of the valves, the patient told me nothing gave her so much relief as Nat. m. (which I had given for some incidental condition). Very characteristic is sense of coldness at heart or precordia with trembling of heart. Constrictive sensations run throughout this remedy: in heart; chest scalp; throat; rectum; of anus (sensation as if anus were closed) cramps in uterus; vaginismus; contraction of hamstrings. Paralytic symptoms with numbness are the counterpart of these. Nat. m. has the sinking sensation of the antipsorics. Great hunger, with no appetite. Eats heartily but emaciates. Heartburn after eating. Emaciates whilst living well. Ravenous appetite but grows thin, especially about neck. There are some very characteristic desires and aversions: Desires: bitter things; beer; farinaceous foot; sour things; salt; oysters; fish; milk. Aversion to: bread; meat; coffee; tobacco. While eating, sweat on face. Is > when stomach is empty. After eating: empty eructations; nausea; acidity; sleepiness; heartburn; palpitation; epigastric pressure and heat radiating up to chest. Violent hiccough. The nausea and vomiting of Nat. m. have been turned to account in the morning sickness of pregnancy. One patient, who said she could "eat the brine out of a mackerel kit," was cured with a single dose of Nat. m. (Amer. Hom., xxiii. 385). Nat. m. is a great periodic remedy. It not only antidotes Quinine, but it causes intermittents on its own account. Chilliness predominates. Chill 10 to 11 a.m. with thirst, drinks after a meal; fever blisters round mouth. Fever with violent headache; great thirst; nausea; vomiting; blueness; faint; averse to uncover. Fever may come on without chill 10 to 11 a.m. Sweat > headache and other symptoms though it weakens; averse to uncover. There are many eruptions, herpes, hydroa, eczema. Eczema on hair margins, especially at back of head. Warts on palms of hands. Corns. Painful scars. Nat. m. is suited to: Cachectic persons; old people; teething children; anaemic, chlorotic people with catarrhal troubles; tuberculous; scrofulous; dropsical; emaciated persons. Among Peculiar Sensations are: As if head too heavy and would fall forward; as if some displacement in head had taken place; as if cold wind blowing through head; as though forehead would burst on coughing; as if head in a vice; pain like a rope round head drawing tighter and tighter; as if nail driven in left side of head. As if eyeballs too large; as if foreign body in eyes; as if eye being torn open. As if a small worm squirming in nose. Of hair on tongue. Splinter in throat. Plug in throat. As if one had to swallow over a lump. Difficulty of talking, as if organs of speech weak. As if foreign body sticking in cardiac orifice behind sternum. When walking, as if abdominal viscera loose, dragging. As if rough, hard, foreign substance in rectum. As if there was a string between uterus and sacrum in hind part of fornix. Back as if beaten; broken. Nat. m. corresponds to effects of going to seaside; and if patients say they are always < at seaside or cannot stay by the sea, Nat. m. will probably be the remedy. Constipation at seaside. But > at seaside may also indicate it. There is great desire for open air and washing in cold water. < Heat of stove; of room; of sun. < In summer. Warm food < toothache. Drawing in air < toothache; cold drink < toothache. Likes to be covered but it does not >. Lying down > vertigo, headache, constriction of scalp; < cough; fluttering of heart. Lying on left side <. Moving, least exertion <. Exercising arms > breathing. Walking <. In back troubles, can stoop readily but it hurts to straighten. < Mental exertion; talking; writing; reading. < After sleep. Coitus <. Most symptoms are < in morning; < after sleep. < 10 to 11 a.m. < During full moon. < By eating. < From bread, acid food, fat, wine. < After breakfast. > Going without regular meals. < Touch and pressure. Full sensation is > by tight clothes. Back > lying on something hard. > Rubbing.

Relations.─Antidoted by: Smelling Nit sp. dulc.; Phos. (especially abuse of salt in food); Ars, (bad effects of sea-bathing). Nux will relieve headache if persistent, or prostration if prolonged after Nat. m. Antidote to: Arg. n. (abuse of, as cautery); Quinine (when diseases continue intermittent and patients suffer from headache, constipation, disturbed sleep); Apis (bee-stings). Nat. m. should not be given during the paroxysm of fever. Complementary: Apis, Sep., Caps. Nat. m. is the Chronic of: Ign. (its vegetable analogue); also of Apis and Caps. Compatible: Before─Sep., Thuja; after─Kali m., Kali p., Kali s., Nat. sul., Calc. ph., Fer. p. Compare: Borax, Nat. c., Nat. hyp., K. chl. In mapped tongue, Ars., Rhus, K. bi., Tarax., Ran. s. (acidity). Hypochondriasis with indigestion, Nat. s. (Nat. m. melancholy keeps step with the constipation; Nat. s. melancholy with degree of indigestion). Lachrymose, Puls. (> consolation), Sep., Ign. Schoolgirls' headache, Calc., Calc. p. Headache coming and going with sun, Spi., Gels., Glo., Sang. Headache with partial blindness, K. bi., Ir. v. Half sight, Aur., Lith. c., Lyc., Titan. Headache with cough, Caps., Bry., Sul. (Sul. occiput, Nat. m. forehead). Spurting of urine with cough, Fer., Scill., Caust., Pul. Ravenous yet wastes, Iod. (Nat. m., especially neck). Distended stomach > tight clothing, Fl. ac. (opp. Lach., Hep.). Hydroa labialis, Hep., Rhus, Ars., Camph. Herpes circinatus, Sep., Bar. c., Tell. Chill 10 a.m., Stn. (Stn. hectic, Nat. m. intermittent). Paralysed by emotion, Gels., Staph. Amenorrhoea, K. ca. (acts when Nat. m. fails). Backache, spinal irritation, K. ca. Cold feeling about heart, Petrol. Spinal irritation, Act. r. (Nat. m. > lying flat, Act. r. < from touch). Oily sweat on face, Bry. Intermittents, chill beginning in small of back, Eup. pf.; Rhus (chill begins in one leg, or thigh, or between shoulders), Gels. (runs up spine). Prolapsus uteri, Sep., Lil. t. Sensation of foreign body in anus, Sep. (ball). Constriction in anus, Lach., Bell., Caust., Nit. ac., Ign., Op., Pho. Sadness during menses, Lyc., Nit. ac., Sep. (Nat. m. < or > 10 a.m.). Stitches in heart, Spi., Ars., K. ca., Carb. v. < After sleep, Lach., Sul. Ripping-up sensation of anus after stool, Sep. Stomatitis, Caps., Sul. ac. Dreams persist after waking, Chi. Chilblains on feet only, Lyc. Sinking 11 a.m., Sul. Breasts painful before menses, Calc., Con. Umbilical hernia with absence of urging, Bry., Ver. (with urging, Nux, Cocc.). Laughs at serious things, Anac., Pho., Lyc., Plat. Weeps if looked at, Kissingen. Hair sensation on tongue, Sil. Head and face > uncovering, Nat. c., Lyc. Headache from eye-strain, Onos. (Teste includes Nat. m. in his Lycopod. group, with Viol. t. and Ant. c.)

Causation.─Disappointment. Fright. Fit of passion. Loss of fluids. Masturbation. Injury to head. Quinine. Lunar caustic. Bread. Fat. Wine. Acid food. Salt.

SYMPTOMS.

1. Mind.─Melancholy sadness, which induces a constant recurrence to unpleasant recollections, and much weeping; all attempts at consolation <.─Obliged to weep.─Hypochondriacal, tired of life.─Joyless, taciturn.─Great tendency to start.─Hurriedness, with anxiety and fluttering of heart.─Prefers to be alone.─Anthropophobia.─Anxiety respecting the future.─Anguish, sometimes during a storm, but esp. at night.─Indifference, laconic speech, moroseness, and unfitness for labour.─Impatient precipitation and irritability.─Timidity.─Hatred to persons who have formerly given offence.─Irascibility and rage, easily provoked.─Inclination to laugh.─Laughs so immoderately at something not ludicrous that tears come into her eyes and she looks as if she had been weeping.─Alternate gaiety and ill-humour.─Laughs immoderately and cannot be quieted.─Difficulty of thinking; absence of mind.─Weakness of memory and excessive forgetfulness.─Heedlessness and distraction.─Tendency to make mistakes in speaking and writing.─Brain-fag, with sleeplessness, gloomy forebodings.─Exhaustion after talking, embarrassment of brain.─Incapacity for reflection, and fatigue from intellectual labour.─Distraction; does not know what he ought to say.─Awkwardness.

2. Head.─Painful confusion in head.─Emptiness of head with anguish.─Weariness in head.─Vertigo, during which everything seems to turn round before eyes, with tendency to fall forwards, esp. on walking and getting out of bed.─Vertigo: in forenoon; pressing head down when sitting; on rising from bed and on waking; on stooping; on turning round (on turning in bed from r. side to l.); everything seems to turn in circle; with flickering before eyes and dulness of head; and nausea woke her 5 a.m., > lying with head high; on crossing a stone bridge the stones seemed to sink under feet; > lying down; keeping quiet; by cold applications.─Intermittent reeling like vertigo; < moving head, like a thrust from vertex to forehead, for the moment depriving him of his senses.─Burning on the vertex.─Vertigo, with shocks in head and dizziness.─Violent headache, as if the head would burst.─Sensation of congestion of blood to head; head feels heavy.─Stitches through head, extending to neck and chest.─Heat in head, with redness of face, nausea and vomiting.─Periodical headaches during, after, or before menses.─Headache in morning, on waking; on turning, and while moving body or head; when running; or in cold air; or after being thwarted.─Heaviness of head, every day, esp. in occiput, forcing eyes to close; < in the morning; from warmth and motion; > when sitting, lying, or perspiring.─Headache, as if head were about to split; or as if it were tight and compressed, esp. when writing.─Fits of headache, with nausea and vomiting (eructations, colic, and trembling of limbs).─Aching and compression in head, esp. in temples and above eyes, < by frowning.─Acute pullings and shootings in head, esp. above eyes, with want to lie down, and clouded sight.─Lancinating shocks across head.─Throbbing, pulsation, and hammering in head, esp. during movement, > when lying with head high; > by perspiration.─Rheumatic (tearing) pain in head, from root of nose extending to forehead, with nausea, vomiting, vanishing of sight; < in morning when waking from sleep, from mental exertion and motion; > sitting still or lying down.─Throbbing and drawing pains in forehead.─Sensation on moving head as if brain wavered.─Painful sensitiveness of scalp, as if excoriated.─Contraction and mobility of scalp.─Tendency of head to become easily chilled.─Sweat on head, esp. in morning and at night.─Scurf on scalp.─Great sensitiveness of scalp; with greasy, shining face; sensitiveness of forehead and the borders of hair; < in warm room, > in open air.─Itching eruption of margins of hair at nape of neck.─Abundant falling off of hair (as soon as it is touched, more on forepart of head and temple), even of whiskers; and on the genitals, esp. during child-bed.

3. Eyes.─Itching in eyes.─Shootings, smarting, and burning in eyes.─Inflammation of eyes.─Corrosive lachrymation (morning).─Frequent lachrymation.─Secretion of humour in external canthi.─Nocturnal agglutination of eyes.─Eyelids continually red and ulcerated.─Inflammation of eyes with ulcerated lids and glutinous mucus in (external) canthi.─Spasmodic closing of lids, esp. in morning, in the evening (during twilight) and at night.─Eyes give out on using them.─(Headache associated with eye-strain; esp. headache on waking.).─Feeling as if balls were too large and compressed.─Pressure in eyes on looking intently at anything.─Sensation of sand in eyes, mornings.─Cloudiness of sight when stooping and walking, as well as on reading and writing.─Sight confused, as from down before eyes, or looking through a veil.─Letters appear confused, when reading.─Diplopia.─Hemiopia (perpendicular).─Presbyopia.─Weakness of sight, as from incipient amaurosis.─Black specks, luminous marks, and sparks before eyes.─Fiery, zigzag appearance around all things.─Affections of r. eye; angles of eyes; momentary loss of sight.─Myopia.

4. Ears.─Shootings in ears.─Pulsations and beatings in ears.─Swelling and heat of ears.─Discharge (of pus) from ears.─Hardness of hearing.─Tinkling, ringing, rumbling, and humming in ears.─Painful cracking in ear when masticating.─Itching behind ears.

5. Nose.─Numbness and insensibility of one side of nose.─Inflammation and swelling of nose, on one side (l.) only, with pain when touched.─Boring in bones of nose. Excoriation of interior of nose, with swelling of interior wings.─Scabs and scurf in nose.─Scurf on the nose.─Loss of smell and taste.─Abortive sneezing.─Obstruction and dryness of nose.─Dry coryza, sometimes in morning only.─Violent coryza, fluent or dry, with loss of smell and taste, and sneezing.─Bleeding of nose (when coughing at night) when stooping.─Blood clotted.─Painful burning pustules below septum of nose, afterwards confluent and covered with a scab.

6. Face.─Face yellowish, pale, livid, earthy.─Face shining, as if greasy.─Swelling of face.─Itching and eruption of pimples on face and forehead.─Heat in face.─Pains in zygomatic process, during mastication, like those of ulceration.─Lips dry, chapped, cracked, or excoriated and ulcerated, with scabs, and burning and smarting eruption.─Fever blisters on the lips.─Ulcer on (l.) cheek.─Tingling and numbness of lips.─Tettery eruption round mouth.─Swelling of lips.─Sanguineous vesicles in internal surface of upper lip, with burning pain when touched.─Granulated and ulcerated eruption on chin.─Frequent swelling of submaxillary glands.

7. Teeth.─Teeth very sensitive to air and touch.─Drawing, like extraction, in teeth, extending into ear and throat, after a meal, and at night, with swelling of cheek.─Lancinations, boring, and pulsation in carious teeth.─Looseness and caries of teeth.─Fistula in gums.─Gums swollen, easily bleeding, and very sensitive to cold or hot things.─Putrid inflammation of gums.─Ulcers in gums.

8. Mouth.─Ulcers and vesicles on tongue and in mouth, with burning smarting, and pain from contact with food and drink.─Blisters like pearls about the mouth; esp. in intermittent fever.─Haemoptysis.─Speech embarrassed in consequence of heaviness of tongue.─One half of tongue numb and stiff.─Tongue stiff and, with hard palate, unusually dry.─Prolonged sensation, as of a hair on tongue.─Dryness of mouth, lips, and esp. of tongue.─Burning at tip of tongue.─Mapped tongue; red insular patches; ringworm on r. side.─Tongue: clean, shiny, bubbles of frothy saliva along sides; clean in front, dirty at back; broad, pallid, puffy, with pasty coat.─Swelling under tongue, with stinging pain; ranula.─Numbness on lips and one side of tongue (trifacial and glosso-pharyngeal paralysis.).─Copious salivation; saliva salty.

9. Throat.─A sensation during deglutition as of a plug in throat.─Spasms in the throat.─Swelling; sensation of constriction and stitches in throat.─Long-continued sore throat, with sensation as if she had to swallow over a lump.─Inflammation of throat, with shooting pain and ulceration.─Expectoration of mucus, on hawking, esp. in morning.─Frequent hawking of salty-tasting mucus.─Swelling of cervical glands.

10. Appetite.─Loss of taste (and smell).─Bitter taste in mouth.─Putrid or acid taste, as when fasting.─Putrid taste of water.─After-taste of food, esp. of acids.─Continual thirst, often with nausea, distension of abdomen, and other unpleasant symptoms after drinking.─Loss of appetite, esp. for bread, and repugnance to tobacco smoke.─(Vomiting of pregnancy with aversion to bread.).─Dislike to food, esp. when fat.─Sufferings from acid food, from bread, fat, and wine.─Immoderate appetite in afternoon and evening.─Bulimy, without appetite, with fulness and satiety, however little may have been eaten.─Desire for acids.─Longing for bitter food and drink.─Sweat on face during a meal.─After a meal, empty risings, nausea, fulness and inflation of the abdomen and stomach, somnolence, head confused, acidity in the mouth, and pyrosis, palpitation, and intermittent or accelerated pulse.─Disagreeable risings after fat food or milk.

11. Stomach.─Risings, with taste of food.─Violent hiccough.─Sensation as if a foreign body were sticking in the cardiac orifice and behind sternum.─Acid and acrid risings, sometimes with taste of food.─Pyrosis, which ascends from stomach.─Nausea, esp. in morning.─Waterbrash, with revolving sensation in stomach, sometimes followed by a sour vomiting of food.─Vomiting of food and bile.─Aching of stomach in morning, or during the day, with nausea, and sudden sinking.─Pressure at epigastrium, as if there were a hard body in stomach.─Epigastrium swollen and painful, when touched and pressed, as if it were ulcerated.─Contractive cramps in stomach, sometimes with nausea.─Shocks and clawing in pit of stomach.─Pulsation in epigastrium.─Red spots on pit of stomach.

12. Abdomen.─Drawing, tension, pressure, pinching, and shootings in hepatic region (chronic inflammation of liver).─Pain, shootings, and pressure in splenic region.─(Reduces size of enlarged spleen.).─Cramp in diaphragm on stooping.─Inflammation of abdomen.─Swelling of abdomen.─Tensive, pressive, and hypochondriacal uneasiness in abdomen.─Pressive pain in abdomen.─Drawing and contractive pains in abdomen, like labour pains.─Daily cuttings and pinchings in abdomen, sometimes in morning, and at night.─Rigidity in l. side of abdomen.─Incarceration of flatus, sometimes at night.─Colic with nausea > by discharge of flatulence.─Loud grumbling and borborygmi in abdomen.─Burning in intestines.─Pain in ring when coughing, extending into testicles, as if spermatic cords would be torn to pieces.─Protrusion of hernia.

13. Stool and Anus.─Constipation, sometimes prolonged, or every second day.─Frequent, urging, and ineffectual effort to evacuate, or scanty evacuation.─Stools difficult to discharge, hard, dry, crumbling, like sheep's dung.─Hard and broken evacuations.─Difficult evacuation of faeces, often with tearing and shooting in rectum and anus.─Evacuations too frequent.─Prolonged relaxation of abdomen.─Diarrhoea like water, with colic.─Alternate constipation and diarrhoea, irregular unsatisfactory stools.─Diarrhoea, with colic, and evacuation of mucous matter.─Painless watery diarrhoea.─Involuntary evacuations.─Discharge of blood during evacuations.─Burning in anus and rectum, during and after stools.─Shootings, excoriation, and pulsation in rectum.─Cramp-like constriction, and feeling of contraction in rectum.─Prolapsus recti, and burning pain in anus, with oozing of sanguineous and sanious matter.─Painful and shooting haemorrhoidal tumours in anus.─Excoriation in anus, and between the buttocks, esp. when walking.─Tetters in anus.─Lumbrici.

14. Urinary Organs.─Frequent and urgent want to urinate, day and night, sometimes every hour, with copious emission.─Involuntary emission of urine, sometimes on coughing, walking, laughing, or sneezing.─Nocturnal emission of urine.─Clear urine, with red sediment, resembling brick-dust.─Discharge of mucus from urethra, after the emission of urine.─Discharge of mucus from urethra during and after urination, causing itching and biting.─Discharge of mucus from urethra, which is sometimes yellowish, as in gonorrhoea.─After micturition spasmodic contraction in abdomen; burning, drawing, and cutting in urethra.─During micturition stitches in bladder, smarting, burning in urethra; smarting and soreness in vulva.─Urine dark, like coffee, or black.

15. Male Sexual Organs.─Itching, tetters, and excoriation between scrotum and thighs.─Itching and stinging on glans and scrotum.─Secretion behind glans, like gonorrhoea balani.─Phimosis.─Excessive excitement of genital organs, and of the amative feelings; or dulness of sexual desire.─Want of energy during coition.─Impotence.─Pollutions after coition.─Strong fetid odour from genital organs.─Hydrocele.─Loss of hair from pubes.

16. Female Sexual Organs.─Pressure and general bearing down towards genital organs every morning; has to sit down to prevent prolapsus.─Prolapsus uteri with aching in loins, > lying on back; cutting in urethra after micturition.─Catamenia premature and profuse; or retarded and scanty.─Sterility, with too early and too profuse menstruation.─Prolonged catamenia.─Suppression of catamenia.─Difficulty in appearance of first menses.─Headache before, during, and after catamenia.─Before catamenia, moroseness and irritability.─At commencement of catamenia, sadness.─During catamenia, cramps in abdomen.─Spitting blood at menstrual nisus; bloody saliva.─Itching in genital organs.─Repugnance to coition.─Coition: painful from dryness of vagina; burning smarting during; in anaemic women with dry mouth and dry skin.─Leucorrhoea, with headache, disposition to diarrhoea, colic, and mucous evacuations.─Acrid (greenish) leucorrhoea (increased discharge when walking), with yellow colour of face.─Abundant discharge of transparent, whitish, and thick mucus from vagina.─Vulvitis with falling off of hair.─Itching of external parts with falling off of hair.─Pimples on mons veneris.─Nausea and vomiting during pregnancy; morning sickness with vomiting of frothy, watery phlegm.─During pregnancy: dysuria; albuminuria; craves salt; congestion to chest; palpitation; haemorrhoids; cough; escape of urine.─Labour slow, pains feeble, apparently from sad feelings and forebodings.─Loss of hair in children or during lactation.─Child refuses breast; nursing sore mouth.─Lancinating pains in breasts.─Stitches beneath nipples.─Dull stitch beneath r. nipple, also in abdomen.─Breasts sensitive to slightest touch.

17. Respiratory Organs.─Hoarseness, and sensation of dryness in larynx.─Dry cough with rattling in chest.─Accumulation of mucus in larynx in morning.─Chest embarrassed with catarrh and cough.─Cough excited by a tickling in throat, or in epigastrium, day and night, esp. on walking or taking a deep inspiration.─Cough in morning.─Choking, spasmodic cough in bed, in evening.─Short, chronic cough, with expectoration of mucus and swelling in chest.─Cough, with expectoration of bloody mucus.─Cough, with sanguineous expectoration, retching and vomiting.─Pains in head, on coughing, as if forehead were about to burst.─Whooping-cough caused by tickling in throat or pit of stomach, with expectoration (only in morning) of yellow or blood-streaked mucus, with violent pain in head, or with shocks; beating and hammering in head; involuntary micturition; stitches in liver.─Tears stream down his face whenever he coughs (whooping-cough). Breath: hot; offensive.─Shortness of breath, esp. when walking quickly.─Obstructed respiration, esp. during manual labour, > when exercising arms and in the open air.─Wheezing respiration in bed, in evening.

18. Chest.─Pains in chest (dyspnoea on ascending stairs and shortness of breathing), as if caused by internal tension.─Stitches in the chest and sides with shortness of breathing, esp. when taking a long inspiration.─Breath short and chest tight, and as if a dry stick of wood were down the throat, with cough.─Lancinating pains in chest and sides of chest, with impeded respiration, sometimes when taking a full inspiration, and when coughing.

19. Heart.─Anxious and violent palpitation of heart at every movement of body, but principally when lying on l. side.─After eating, breath impeded, with violent palpitation.─Jerking and shooting pain in region of heart.─Fluttering motion of heart.─Irregular and intermittent palpitation of heart.─Jerking movement of heart.─Enlargement of heart.

20. Neck and Back.─Aching, rigidity, and tension in nape.─Stitches in neck and back of head.─Painful stiffness of the neck.─Throat and neck emaciate rapidly, esp. during summer complaint.─Goitre of a large size.─Scurf under axillae.─Scabs in axilla; painful soreness of cervical glands when coughing.─Engorgement of axillary glands.─Contusive pain and feeling of paralysis in sacrum, esp. in morning.─Paralytic weakness nearly all day, > from lying, < from eating.─Shootings, incisive pains, and violent pulsation in sacral region.─Tearing across loins and hips.─Nocturnal pains in back.─Over-sensitiveness of spine.─Pain in back > by lying on something hard.─Lassitude, pressive tension, and pulling in back.

22. Upper Limbs.─Wrenching pains in joints of shoulders and fingers.─Lassitude and paralytic heaviness of arms.─Contusive pain in arms and hands, but esp. in shoulder-joints (sensation of lameness and of a sprain), which prevents arms from being elevated or moved.─Digging in arms.─Shocks in elbow.─Lancinations in muscles and joints of hands and fingers.─Brownish spots on back of hand.─Warts on palms.─Skin of hands dry and cracked, esp. round the nails.─Coldness of hands.─Cramp in arms, hands, finger and thumb.─Sweat on hands.─Difficulty in bending the joints of the fingers.─Numbness and tingling in the fingers.─Tingling in the hands (and feet), esp. on joints and tips of fingers and toes.─Trembling of hands when writing.─Swelling of r. hand.─Numerous flaws in the nails.─Hang-nails.─Whitish hives on arms and hands.─Panaritium.

23. Lower Limbs.─Wrenching pain in hips, with shootings.─Drawing pains in thighs, knees, and legs.─Restlessness and jerking in limbs (in legs, compelling one to move them constantly).─Paralytic weakness of legs, and esp. of joint of foot.─Pain as if knees and ankles were sprained.─Weakness and trembling of lower extremities, on rising from a seat, > from continued walking.─Jerking of muscles of thighs.─Tension in bends of limbs and sensation as if the tendons were shortened; painful contraction of tendons of ham.─Wrenching pain in joints of knee and foot.─Lassitude in knees and calves.─Cramps in lower legs and calves.─Tetters in hams.─Tension in legs and calves.─Great heaviness in legs and feet.─Burning in feet.─Swelling of feet.─Coldness of feet.─Pain as from ulceration in malleoli, when putting down foot, and on touching the parts.─Sensation as if limb had gone to sleep (feet, fingers).─Suppression of perspiration of feet.─Redness of great toe, with acute pullings and shootings, when walking, and after standing a long time.─Tetters on malleoli.─Corns on feet, with shooting and boring pains.

24. Generalities.─Pressive drawing in limbs.─Rigidity of all joints, which crack when moved.─Contraction of tendons (muscles shortened).─Jerking in the muscles and limbs.─Jerking of r. side and head.─Tendency to dislocation, and to strain back.─Old sprains.─Paralysis.─Swelling of glands.─Fungus haematodes; polypus; hang-nails.─Fits of uneasiness, esp. in morning or evening, with nausea, weakness, deadly paleness in face, headache, numbness of limbs, want to lie down, etc.─Bad effects of a disappointment.─After fright, chorea.─After fit of passion, paralysis. The symptoms manifest themselves, are renewed, or <, generally when lying down, and esp. at night, or in morning; and are > by rising up in bed.─The nocturnal pains suspend respiration, and occasion a sort of semi-lateral paralysis.─General ebullition of blood, with pulsation over whole body, on slightest movement.─Trembling of whole body, caused by tobacco smoking.─Congestion in head, chest, and stomach, with coldness of legs.─Obstruction from inactivity of the bowels.─Affections of the pit of the stomach; rectum; external belly.─Reddish urine; complaints after making water.─Uneasiness and inconvenience after prolonged speaking.─Great relaxation of all physical and moral powers, after fatigue.─Heaviness and indolence, esp. after having risen in morning, with repugnance to movement and walking.─Excessive soreness and lassitude in limbs, esp. in morning, and when seated.─Hysterical debility; in morning in bed.─Great weakness.─Alternate weakness and agility in limbs.─Great emaciation (more of body than face).─Tendency to take cold.─Inquietude in body, with shivering.

25. Skin.─Miliary eruption, with shooting pain.─Itching and pricking in skin.─Rash over whole body, with stinging sensation in skin.─Red tetter in hollow of knees.─Pain and redness of an old cicatrix.─Skin of hands, esp. about nails, dry, cracked; hang-nails.─Whitish hives on arms and hands.─Itching tubercles.─Nettle-rash after violent exercise (itching).─Tetters.─Furunculi.─Exanthema on mouth; lips; in intermittent fever where there are large exanthematous spots looking like large peas, on lips (cold sores); lips look puffy.─Warts; on palms of hands.─Panaritium.─Varices.─Corns.

26. Sleep.─Great drowsiness during day, with frequent yawning.─Retarded sleep, and sleeplessness at night, with ineffectual efforts to go to sleep.─Difficulty in falling asleep again, at night, after awaking.─Difficulty in waking, and excessively drowsy lassitude early in morning.─Agitated sleep, full of vivid and lascivious dreams, with prolonged erections and pollutions.─Anxious, distressing dreams, with tears and talking during sleep.─Frightful dreams of quarrels, murders, fire, thieves, etc.─Dreams of thieves in the house, making so strong an impression that patient wakes up and cannot go to sleep again until the house has been searched; fantastic dreams.─Dreams of burning thirst; starts and talks in sleep and tosses about.─Dreams which still keep possession of the mind after waking, and which are believed to be realities.─Ebullition of blood at night, with anxious heat (perspiration, violent throbbing of the arteries) and palpitation of heart.─Nightmare.─Somnambulism.─At night, pains in back, quivering, apparently of the nerves, frequent emission of urine, headache, colic, asthmatic sufferings, and great anguish of body.

27. Fever.─Frequent, internal, shudderings.─Continued shivering and want of vital heat.─Chill predominates; chilliness internally, as from want of vital heat, with icy coldness of hands and feet (evening).─Continued chilliness from morning till noon.─Shivering, with and without thirst.─Shivering and shuddering, with drowsiness, followed by slight perspiration.─Flushes of heat and shivering alternately, with headache; chilliness over back and perspiration in axilla and on soles of feet.─Continuous heat in afternoon, with violent headache and unconsciousness; they are gradually > during the perspiration which follows.─Violent perspiration > the painful symptoms present during fever.─Debilitating, somewhat sour-smelling perspiration.─Chilliness with increasing headache in forehead every day at 9 a.m. until noon; afterwards heat with gradually increasing perspiration and thirst, the headache decreasing afterwards gradually.─Heat with burning thirst.─Dejection before fever.─Before shivering, headache; during shivering, short breathing, yawning, and desire to sleep.─During heat, violent headache, dizziness, cloudiness of eyes, vertigo, and redness of face.─Fever, with pains in bones, pains in back, yellowish complexion, headache, weakness, bitter taste in mouth, ulceration at commissures of lips, want of appetite, pressure at pit of stomach, with great sensitiveness of that part to touch; quotidian or tertian fever, generally commencing in morning by shiverings, followed by heat and thirst.─In forenoon chilliness for three hours, with blue nails and chattering of teeth; this is followed by heat, lasting as long, accompanied by obscuration of sight, stitches in head much thirst, pains in back, followed by perspiration.─[Ague, fever at noon, generally 9 to 11 hard chill, great thirst for large quantities of water, longing for salt food, headache during the heat, profuse sweat and complete apyrexia leaving languor and debility.─Spleen and liver enlargement and obstinate constipation.─Pernicious fever and fever with anaemia often benefited by Nat. m. (Majumdar)].─Typhus fever, with debility, dryness of tongue, and violent thirst.─Pulse irregular and often intermittent (esp. when lying on l. side).─Pulse at one time rapid and weak, at another full and slow.─The pulsations shake whole body.─Intermittent fever: chilliness with great thirst; afterwards great heat with violent thirst and excessive headache; at last profuse perspiration.─Intermittent fevers after the abuse of Chininum sulph. (< during hot stage).─During apyrexia: stitches about the liver; languor; emaciation; fever blisters on lips.─Sweat in morning.─Profuse sweat, too easily excited by movement.─After the fever passes off the patient wishes to retain a recumbent position, does not "feel able" to get up or go about anything.

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

Common Salt (NaCl)

For the anaemic and cachetic; whether from loss of vital fluids - profuse menses, seminal losses - or mental affections. Great emaciation; loosing flesh while living well (Abrot., Iod.); throat and neck of child emaciate rapidly during summer complaint (Sanic.). Great liability to take cold (Cal., Kali c.). Irritability: child cross when spoken to; crying from slightest cause; gets into a passion about trifles, especially when consoled with. Awkward, hasty, drops things from nervous weakness (Apis, Bov.). Marked disposition to weep; sad weeping mood without cause (Puls.), but consolation from others < her troubles. Headache: anaemic, of school girls (Cal. p.); from sunrise to sunset; left sided clavus; as if bursting; with red face, nausea and vomiting before, during and after menses; as though a thousand little hammers were knocking in the brain during fever; > by perspiration. Headache; beginning with blindness (Iris, Kali bi.); with zig-zag dazzling, like lightening in eyes, ushering in a throbbing headache; from eye strain. Lachrymation; tears stream down the face whenever he coughs (Euphr.). Hay fever: squirming sensation in the nostril, as of a small worm; brought on by exposure to hot sun or intense summer heat. Sensation as of a hair on the tongue (Sil.). Tongue: mapped, with red insular patches; like ringworm on sides (Ars., Lach., Mer., Nit. ac., tarax.); heavy, difficult speech, children slow in learning to walk. Constipation: sensation of contraction of anus; torn, bleeding, smarting afterwards; stool, dry, hard, difficult, crumbling (Am. c., Mag. m.); stitches in rectum (Nit. ac.); involuntary, knows not whether flatus or faeces escape (Aloe, Iod., Mur. ac., Olean., Pod.). Urine: involuntary when walking, coughing, laughing (Caust., Puls., Scilla); has to wait a long while or urine to pass, if others are present (Hep., Mur. ac.); cutting in urethra after (Sars.). Seminal emission: soon after coition, with increased desire; weakness of organs with retarted emission during an embrace; impotence, spinal irritation, paralysis, after sexual excesses. Pressing, pushing towards genitals every morning; must sit down to prevent prolapsus (Lil., Mur., Sep.). Fluttering of the heart; with a weak, faint feeling < lying down (Lach.). The heart's pulsations shake the body (Spig.). The hair falls out when touched, in nursing women (Sep.); face oily, shiny, as if greased (Plb., Thuja). For the bad effects: of anger (caused by offence); acid food, bread, quinine, excessive use of salt; of cauterization of all kinds with the silver nitrate; to grief, fright, vexation, mortification or reserved displeasure (Staph.). Hangnails: skin around the nails dry and cracked (Graph., Pet.); herpes about anus and on borders of hair at nape of neck (in bend of knees, Hep., Graph.). Warts on palms of hands (sore to touch, Nat. c.). Dreams: of robbers in the house, and on waking, will not believe to the contrary until search is made (Psor.); of burning thirst. Fever blisters, like pearls about the lips; lips dry, sore and cracked, ulcerated (Nit. ac.). Painful contractions of the hamstrings (Am. m., Caust., Guaiac.). Craving for salt (Cal., Caust.); great aversion to bread. Eczema; raw, red, inflamed, especially in edges of hair; < from eating too much salt, at sea shore, or from ocean voyage. Urticaria, acute or chronic; over whole body; especially after violent exercise (Apis, Cal., Hep., Sanic., Urt.). Intermittents: paroxysm at 10 or 11 a. m.; old, chronic, badly treated cased, especially after suppression by quinine; headache, with unconsciousness during chill and heat; sweat > pains.

Relations. - Complementary: to, Apis, acts well before and after it. Natrum mur. is the chronic of Ignatia, which is its vegetable analogue. Is followed by Sepia and Thuja. Cannot often be repeated in chronic cases without an intercurrent, called for by the symptoms. Should never be given during fever paroxysm. If vertigo and headache be very persistent, or prostration be prolonged after Natrum, Nux will relieve.

Aggravation. - At 10 or 11 a. m.; at the seashore or form sea air; heat of sun or stove; mental exertion, taling, writing, reading; lying down.

Amelioration. - In the open air (Apis, Puls.); cold bathing; going without regular meals; lying on right side (on painful side, Bry., Ign., Puls.).

Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics, Eugene Beauharnais Nash

Melancholy, depressed, sad and weeping; Consolation aggravates.

Great emaciation, even while living well, shows most in the neck.

Anaemia with bursting headaches, especially at the menses, also school girls' headache.

Great dryness of mucous membranes from lips to anus; lips dry and cracked, especially in the middle; anus dry, cracked, fissured; constipation.

Heart palpitates, flutters, intermits, pulsates violently, shaking the whole body; < lying on left side.

Itching eruptions, dry or moist; < at the margins of the hair.

Modalities: < 10 to 11 A. M. (many complaints), especially malarial affections; lying down, especially on left side; heat of sun or heat in general; abuse of Quinine, relieved by sweat.

Tongue; mapped with red insular patches.

For bad effects; of anger, nitrate of silver; too much salt; craves salt and salty things.

Hang nails; skin around the nails dry and cracked; herpes about the anus, in border of hair.

Warts on palms of hands (sore to touch, Nat.).

* * * * *

Now that we have introduced the Natrums, we will continue them. Common salt. A gentleman once said to me when I prescribed a dose of Sulphur 30th, "Pshaw, I get more sulphur than that in every egg I eat. How can that do me any good?" My answer was, wait and see. And he was cured of both doubts and disease. There is no remedy in the Materia Medica, I think, that so disgusts the advocates of the low potency, and, low only, as this one. The unquestionable cure of the most obstinate cases of intermittent fever with the 200th and higher potencies demoralizes them. That people eating salt in appreciable quantities right along and can't live without it, don't get well on it, and do get well on the same thing potentized, does not hold to reason, the microscope, molecular theory; spectrum analysis, or anything else scientific (so called) not being able to discover any material in the dose. But there stand the cures, like the blind man whom Jesus healed. It is a hard thing to be confronted by such facts against our prejudices. "Oh, well", said one of these doubters, "people sometimes get well without medicine." so they do with, I replied. Isn't it curious how some physicians will hoot at a potency and fly like a frightened crow from a bacillus varying in size from 0.004 millimeters to 0.006 m.m. They can hardly eat, drink or sleep for fear a little microbe of the fifteenth culture will light on them somewhere, but there is nothing in a potency above the 12th. Oh, consistency! When prejudice gives way to honest, earnest investigation for truth, the world may be better for it. Natrum mur. is one of our best remedies for anaemia. It does not seem to make much difference whether the anaemia is caused by loss of fluids (China, Kali carb.), menstrual irregularities (Puls.), loss of semen (Phos. acid, China), grief or other mental diseases. In these cases of anaemia, to which Natrum is adapted, we may, in addition to the general paleness, have emaciation, notwithstanding the patient eats well. Severe attacks of throbbing headache; shortness of breath, especially on going upstairs, or other physical exertion; scanty menstruation; more or less constipation and generally great depression of spirits. In fact, depression of spirits is characteristic of this drug; the patient weeps much, like Pulsatilla, the difference being that the Pulsatilla patient is soothed and comforted by consolation, while the Natrum mur. patient is aggravated.

There is almost always in these anaemic cases a great deal of fluttering, palpitation, and even intermittent action of the heart. I have helped many such cases with this remedy high, in single doses, only repeating when improvement lagged. I have seen a patient who had lost 40 pounds of flesh (weight, 160 lbs.), though eating well all of the time, under one dose of Natrum mur., tip the scales at 200 lbs. within three months from the time of taking. He was very hypochondriac at the time of the beginning of treatment. I cannot speak too highly of Natrum mur. in these affections. Natrum mur. is one of our best remedies for chronic headaches. They come in paroxysms and would, by their intense throbbing nature, cause one to think of Belladonna, only that they occur mostly in the anaemic, and the face is pale, or at least slightly flushed. If the face is red and burning, eyes injected, and pain of beating or throbbing nature, we would immediately think of such remedies as Melilotus, Belladonna, or Nux vom., and then look for concomitant symptoms to decide between them. The headaches of Natrum mur. are very apt to occur after the menstrual period, as if caused by loss of blood, and you know that China also has throbbing headache in such cases. With Natrum the throbbing headache occurs whether the menses be scanty or profuse. Natrum mur. also cures the headaches of school girls, and here it may be difficult to choose between it and Calcarea phos., both remedies also being particularly adapted to anaemic states. Indeed, I have sometimes missed and had to give Calcarea phos. when Natrum failed and vice versa, because I could not make the choice. These headaches are often brought on by eye-strain, as in long-continued study, close sewing, etc. Then we have asthenopia with the headache, and must study also Argentum nit. and Ruta graveolens. In actual practice such cases do sometimes occur, where the case in hand is not far enough developed in symptomatic indications to enable one to choose between two about equally indicated remedies. If a man hits it well without ever having to try but twice I can forgive him for failing the first time, and am willing to be forgiven myself. In these cases, however, let the physician be blamed, and not Homoeopathy, for that never fails. So-called sick headaches often find their simillimum in Natrum mur. For want of space we cannot give all of the symptoms which might indicate it. Natrum mur. acts upon the whole alimentary tract, from mouth to anus, and has very characteristic symptoms guiding to its administration. The lips and corners of the mouth are dry, ulcerated, or cracked (Condurango). In this it resembles Nitric acid, as it also does at the other end of the alimentary canal; for with both remedies the anus is fissured, sore, painful and sometimes bleeding. Antimonium crudum and Graphites are also to be remembered in this connection; but while Graphites has the affection of both mouth and anus, it is more of an eczematous or eruptive character than either of the other remedies. Natrum has great sense of dryness in the mouth without actual dryness. Now Mercury has thirst with moist mouth, but there is with this remedy swollen tongue, or flabby tongue, with indentations or prints of the teeth upon it, and very offensive breath, all of which is not markedly so of Natrum mur., so there is no danger of confounding the two. You will remember that although alike or similar in their mind symptoms Pulsatilla has the exact opposite as regards this symptom, viz., dry mouth with no thirst, furnishing a very marked contrast where a choice is necessary. Natrum has another similarity to Pulsatilla, in that it has bitter taste, and loss of taste. Again Natrum has a sensation upon the tongue similar to Silicea, viz., sensation of a hair upon the tongue (also Kali bich.). Deep painful fissure in middle upper lip is given in Guiding Symptoms, but I have found it in the lower lip and believe it to be just as characteristic. I made a splendid cure, being led to examination of the remedy by this symptom.

Blisters like pearls around the mouth are found in Natrum mur., especially in intermittents. If the upper lip is much thickened or swollen, not of an erysipelatous character, we would think of three remedies, all of which have it, Belladonna Calcarea ost., Natrum mur. Alone, of course, this symptom would not amount to much but is strongly corroborative if found in connection with other symptoms of any of these remedies. The symptoms of the gums may be summer up in one word, scorbutic. Now study also Mercurius, Carbo veg., Muriatic acid, etc.

There is another curious symptom in which I was helped by the elder Lippe to prescribe Natrum mur. with success in a case that had baffled me for a long time, viz., numbness and tingling of tongue, lips and nose. This came in connection with a chronic soreness of the liver, derangement of digestion, such as is often found in a condition which is popularly termed biliousness. This condition Natrum mur., given very high (said Lippe) c. m., clears up the case in a very short time. Map tongue is found under Natrum mur., Arsenicum alb., Lachesis, Nitric acid, and Taraxacum. I have used Natrum with success oftener than the others. I have not found Natrum mur. a great throat remedy, except in follicular pharyngitis, which had been abused with local applications of Nitrate of Silver. In post-diphtheritic paralysis of the muscles of deglutition Lachesis or Causticum have served me much better. Salivation profuse, watery and salty, is the reactionary or secondary action of Natrum and may find its remedy here. but this is not so often found as the other condition of dryness. Natrum mur has some strong characteristics under the head of appetite, thirst, desires and aversions. No remedy is more hungry, yet he loses flesh while eating well. (Acetic acid, Abrotanum, Iodine, Sanicula and Tuberculinum). Iodine has this canine hunger with emaciation; but after eating the Natrum patient feels weary and sleepy, while the Iodine one feels better. The Natrum patient after eating feels dull, with heavy aching and sense of fullness and discomfort in the region of the stomach and liver, which is relieved as digestion advances (see China); but the Iodine patient wishes to eat all of the time and feels comfortable only when the stomach is full or being filled. There are several remedies which are either hungry or relieved by eating, notably Anacardium, Chelidonium and Petroleum, as well as Natrum mur. and Iodine. One might add also as hungry remedies China and Lycopodium. The Anacardium has pain in the stomach which extends to the spine, and an all gone sensation which must be relieved by eating; and after two hours returns and he must eat again. Chelidonium hunger is accompanied with the characteristic liver symptoms. (See Chelidonium). In China, Natrum mur. and Lycopodium hunger, patient fills up quickly and fullness, flatulence and distress follow until the process of digestion is well advanced, when they are relieved. Again, Natrum mur. is a very useful remedy for an abnormal craving for salt. Patient salts everything he eats. A dose of the c. m. corrects this craving and often cures other symptoms accompanying. Causticum also has this symptom, and if the other symptoms indicate must take the preference. Of course the intense thirst of salt is well known, and keep pace with the hunger. Now this is the case with diabetes, for which Natrum is a curative if otherwise indicated. In all of these cases, of course, it must be used high, for we get the low in our food.

Under the head of stool and rectum few remedies have stronger symptoms. I quote verbatim from "Guiding Symptoms:" – "Constipation; obstinate retention of stool; stools irregular, hard, unsatisfactory; during menses; stools in large masses; stools like sheep dung; from inactivity of rectum; anus contracted, or torn, bleeding, smarting, or burning afterwards; stitches in the rectum causing hypochondriasis or ill humor; great torpor without pain; from want of moisture, dryness of mucous linings, with watery secretions in other parts; difficult expulsion, fissuring anus with flow of blood, leaving sensation of much soreness; with uterine displacements; haemorrhoidal; in Addison's Disease". Now to read this rightly we must entirely separate these symptoms, here separated by the semi-colon, and put the word constipation before each one. That saves the error of supposing that all the symptoms here quoted must be present in a single case of constipation to make Natrum muriaticum the proper remedy.

One of the best possible exercises for a student of Materia Medica is to compare these different symptoms, as follows: Stools dry, crumbling, is also found under Ammonium muriaticum and Magnesia muriatica. Constipation from inactivity of the rectum, Alumina, Veratrum album, Silicea, etc. Anus contracted, torn, bleeding, smarting and pain after stool, Nitric acid. From want of moisture, dryness of mucous linings, Bryonia and Opium. Leaving sensation of much soreness, Ignatia, Nitric acid, Alumen. Then again Natrum mur. may become the only curative for cholera infantum, chronic diarrhoea, and other conditions were loose stools predominate. I will not wait to specify all the symptoms. Emaciation, hunger and thirst are present, especially in cholera infantum, emaciation being most noticeable in the neck. (Abrotanum in the legs, also Ammon. mur. and Argent. nit.) Emaciation, Natrum, Sarsaparilla and Iodine. On the urinary organs I will only call attention to the increased secretion already spoken of, and the involuntary escape of urine, which is also found under Causticum, Pulsatilla, Zincum and others, and a burning and cutting in the urethra after urination. Sarsaparilla has the nearest to this last symptom, and we remember here the resemblance of these two remedies as to emaciation in cholera infantum. This cutting in the urethra may be found in chronic cases of gleet, and in these cases the discharge is almost always, as it is under Natrum mur. in all mucous membranes, clear and watery. This remedy is one of the best for bearing-down pains in women, which are worse in the morning. The patient feels as if she must sit down to prevent prolapsus. This is like the pains of the Sepia patient, who feels as if she must cross her legs for the same purpose. Now if we had the stool and anal symptoms of Natrum present, and especially the hypochondriasis, we would have almost a sure thing in Natrum. These uterine symptoms of Natrum are often accompanied by back pains, which are relieved by lying upon back, like Rhus. I have already spoken of the headaches accompanying, and especially following the menses. They are throbbing and accompanied by great soreness of the eyes, especially on turning them. I have a patient now who has these headaches occasionally. She is inclined to anaemia. Was, when young, very anaemic. She is always relieved by this remedy in the 250m. potency, and under it is regaining her color and general health.

Natrum mur. has strong action upon the heart and circulation, as the following marked symptoms indicate: "Fluttering of the heart with weak faint feeling, worse, lying down. Irregular intermission of beats of heart and pulse, worse on lying on left side. Violent pulsations of the heart which shake the body." (Spigelia). All these symptoms are more markedly present in anaemic subjects, with constitution generally weakened by grief, sexual excess, loss of blood and other debilitating causes. It is especially efficacious in subjects suffering from abuse of Quinine. In fevers it is among Hahnemannians too well known to need much space here. In intermittents it is especially useful in cases suppressed, not cured, by Quinine, and its leading characteristic is in the time of the appearance of the chill.

Natrum appears characteristically at 10 to 11 A. M.

Eupatorium perfoliatum at 7 A. M.

Apis mellifica at 3 P. M.

Lycopodium at 4 P. M.

Arsenicum alb. at 1 to 2 P. M. or A. M.

Without fixing the time just to the hour, there are many remedies which have chills in the morning or in the evening, etc. Now in regard to the time of aggravation in fevers, they occur quite as characteristically in other than intermittents. For instance the Natrum at 10 A. M., the Arsenic at 1 P. M. or A. M., etc.

The fever, headache and all other symptoms of Natrum are relieved by sweating, as are those of Arsenicum also. There are some strong symptoms found in the extremities. "Hang nails." The Natrum subject is always having them. Again, numbness and tingling in fingers and toes, like that also found in the lips and tongue, should make one think of Natrum. The ankles are weak and turn easily, especially in children who are late in learning to walk. Painful tension in the bends of the limbs, as if the cords were too short. This may amount to actual deformity, like Causticum, Guaiacum and Cimex. Then the spine very irritable, sensitive to touch, yet relieved by hard pressure, with weakness of the limbs, fluttering of the heart, even half paralyzed extremities. As far as this spinal weakness is concerned, it may take on a form of general debility, for which there is no better remedy than Natrum mur. The mental and physical powers seem greatly relaxed, and physical and mental labor equally prostrating. This condition may gradually progress to paralysis, and may be the result of badly treated intermittents, sexual excesses, diphtheria, depressing emotions or other causes of nervous exhaustion. The action of Natrum upon the skin must not be overlooked. First and foremost is its eczema, which is raw, inflamed, and especially worse at the edges of the hair. Next for tetters at the bends of the joints. They crack and crust over and ooze an acrid fluid. Finally in urticaria it ranks with Apis, Hepar sulphur. and Calcarea ost. I have used more space for this remedy, as I did for Lachesis and Causticum, than for most other remedies, for the following reasons: First, they are all remedies more efficient in high potencies. Second, they are not appreciated by the general profession. Third, I hope to induce those who do not use them to investigate them. I have found that those who highly value these three remedies are generally good Homoeopathic prescribers.