ACETICUM ACIDUM

General Action.
Acts primarily as a depressant, producing excessive exhaustion and weakness; anaemia with waxy pallor of the face; intense thirst; burning in the throat; nausea; retching; burning, ulcerative pains in the stomach, as in cancer and debility; profuse exhausting diarrhoea; venous congestion with varicosities and oedema; tendency to hæmorrhages and putrid-typhoid fevers with night sweats; antidotal to narcotics and anaesthetics; local antidote to poisoning by sauces and insect stings .

Mind.
Very stupefied and depressed; irritable; alternates between stupor and delirium; confusion of ideas; frequent sighing; attacks of terrible anxiety with breathing difficulty; vertigo with weakness and fainting.

Head.
Heaviness and dull, bruised pains in forehead and vertex; vertigo on lying down; headaches from tobacco, opium, coffee or alcohol excess.

Eyes.
Black floaters before the vision; burning and smarting as if from smoke.

Ears.
Roaring, ringing and singing noises in the ears.

Nose.
Frequent catarrhal attacks; epistaxis, especially after falls or blows; itching in the nares; discharge thick, pus-like, streaked with blood, with foul odour.

Face.
Wild expression; dilated pupils; pale, waxy, emaciated countenance; cheeks intensely red during fever; localised sweating on the forehead.

Mouth.
Tongue pale and flaccid; white film on buccal mucosa; rotten taste; fetid breath; scorbutic ulcers and odontalgia.

Throat.
Burning in throat; false white membrane in diphtheria; intense thirst in children, who swallow with difficulty even teaspoonfuls of water.

Stomach.
Insatiable burning thirst, screaming for water at night; loathing of salt and cold food; cold drinks lie heavy; bread and butter refused, potatoes excepted; violent burning, ulcerative pain in stomach and chest, followed by cold skin and cold sweat on forehead; sense of pyloric induration and stricture.

Abdomen.
Flatulent distension; colicky pains; ascites; sensation of sinking in supine position.

Stool and Anus.
Profuse diarrhoea with intense thirst; exhausting colic; haemorrhage from intestines; chronic constipation with great thirst and copious pale urine; ascarides; tensive haemorrhoids; painful burning at stool.

Urinary Organs.
Polyuria of pale, phosphate-laden urine; burning along urethra; diabetes with unquenchable thirst and great weakness.

Male Sexual Organs.
Weak emissions; seminal loss on coition; painful, fissured, non-retractile prepuce with intolerable pruritus.

Female Sexual Organs.
Metrorrhagia; post-partum thirst and exhaustion.

Respiratory Organs.
Hoarseness with laryngeal irritation; croup-like barking cough with membranous exudate; hollow inspiration; whistling and rattling in trachea; haemoptysis.

Back.
Myelitis with polyuria; back pain relieved only by lying on abdomen.

Extremities.
Oedematous swelling of feet and legs; bruised, sore sensation.

Generalities.
Convulsions with wild agitation; great emaciation; waxy, anæmic skin; universal anasarca; burning internally and externally.

Skin.
Ecchymoses; urticarial eruptions; nevi, warts and callosities.

Sleep.
Insomnia; restless night with screaming.

Fever.
Cold skin; insidious hectic fever with profuse night sweats; putrid and typhoid types.

Relations.
Compare Apis, Ars (although Acetic acid exhibits more prominent gastric symptoms); Carbol ac., Lac defl., Lact ac., Uran nit. Large overdoses antidoted by Magnesia or Calcarea; for depression and agonising sensation, Tabac., Acon.; for febrile, gastric or pulmonary symptoms, Nat mur., then Sep. Antidotal to anaesthetics, Acon., Asar., Coffea, Euphorb., Ignat., Opium, Plumb (colic), Sep., Stram., Tabac. Counteracts poisoning by sauces. Aggravates following Bell., Merc., Arn., Lach.; incompatible after Borax, Caust., Nux v., Ran b.; Scilla and Colchicum more effective when prepared with acetic acid than with alcohol.