Calcarea carbonica
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 45 of 180
Source pages 954–1019 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)
If you were about to produce a Calcarea subject to order you could do so by feeding him lime or lime water until the digestive organs were so debilitated that they could no longer digest lime; and then the tissues would be increasingly deprived of what they need, and give us the lime subject, the “bone salt inanition” case, for that is really what it is. Infants that are fed lime water in the milk will in a little while be lime subjects.
They will soon get in such a state that they cannot take the lime from their natural food, and the result will be a Calcarea subject such as we are about to describe.
But the natural cases are those that have a natural sickness, are born so, born with an inability to digest the lime that is in their natural food, and they grow fat and flabby, and produce deficient bones.
There is a greater proportion of cartilaginous material in the bones than lime, and the bones bend, and take on diseases and destructive troubles. Deficient teeth, or no teeth at all. The bones simply stop growing, and the patient goes into marasmus.
What a foolish notion it is to feed that infant lime water because he cannot digest lime! Is it not just as reasonable as anything else in allopathy? And yet our homeopaths use allopathic medicines. They use the lowest potencies they can get and it would seem strange if those substances cured any better in the hands of the homeopath than in the hands of the allopath.
Nor, it is astonishing that one single dose of the potency suitable to meet the state of disorder will make that infant commence to digest its food, and appropriate from its food the lime substance that it needs in its bones, and wherever else it needs it.
All at once the teeth begin to grow; the bones begin to grow, and the legs get stiff enough for him to begin to walk, and they will hold up. It is astonishing what changes will take place under the various medicines that are suitable for the disturbances of the hair, and the bones and nails.
The remedy must be sufficiently potentized to correspond with the wrong. It certainly must not be crude because the child is already stunted by the crude material. You will see within a month or six weeks after giving a solitary dose of the sufficiently potentized remedy the nails that were corrugated and uneven and spotted and irregular will form a margin and will grow out smooth.
You will see the ugly little crowns upon the teeth, distorted, and black things as they come up out of the gums; but when they have been under the suitable homeopathic remedy you will see them form a margin line, and from there on the teeth look healthy, and from there on the little body of the tooth is smooth and round; just as if that child bad had an impulse to grow better teeth.
That same thing probably takes place where the bones exist. The periosteum takes on healthy work.
This is the Calcarea state when the patient needs lime and he cannot get it because he has been cloyed; or, because he has an indigestion, he is unable to assimilate the lime that is in his food, and it goes through him and does not affect him.
So it is with much of the sickness we have, an inability to extract from the food and assimilate such things as the body needs. Would not anyone be a simpleton to suppose that he had been the cause of the building of a tooth?
You do not build mole hills out of our high potencies; they simply establish a state of order, so that digestion and assimilation go on, order is established and the tissues are improved.
Health comes, beauty, a growth of hair, better skin, better nails.
The Calcarea constitution is what we want to know. We do not need to know that the individual has been poisoned by lime; it is not worth much to know it, because that is not the index to the remedy. If indigestion of lime has been brought about by lime, it may need one of ten other remedies to overcome that indigestion for lime.
It is not always Calcarea that covers the symptoms. The medicine that covers the symptoms is the one that will change the economy from an abnormal to a normal state, and digestion will become orderly, and we will have growth and prosperity in the economy.
Aspect: The Calcarea case is to be known by the symptoms, and not by the fact that the patient has been poisoned by lime; the chances are that those we have to treat have never had any lime. Many of them have never been poisoned by lime but have been unable to assimilate lime from birth.
Calcarea is full of congestions, determination of blood to the head cold feet; hot head; congestion of the chest. Calcarea corresponds in a very high degree to the chlorotic and anaemic, pale and waxy, and in spite of this plump. It has both fat, flabby and pale patients and it has emaciated states, too.
Muscles emaciate. Emaciated about the neck; emaciated about the neck and from there downwards. Anemic conditions; pale, waxy, sickly; pale lips; pale ears; pale fingers; pale and yellowish.
Chlorosis is a word especially relating to the anemia of girls. A large number of remedies is indicated in those conditions, but Calcarea produces the kind of anemia known as chlorosis. It produces most pernicious anemia.
Great relaxation in the tissues everywhere; relaxation of muscles; relaxation of veins; relaxation of the walls of blood-vessels to such a great extent, especially in the lower limbs and anus, that there are marked hemorrhoidal manifestations or marked varicose veins in the legs. Distended veins, burning in these varicose veins. Burning and smarting. Bleeding and oozing. Inflammation and painful swelling of joints.
Glands: Another marked feature running through the remedy is its tendency to attack glands, the glands of the neck, all of the glands of the body, especially the lymphatic glands.
The lymphatic glands in the abdomen become hard, inflamed and sore, like great nodules, like hickory nuts; tubercular. Calcarea is useful in tubercular formations.
Calcareous degenerations, calcareous glands, induration of glands. It is useful in indurations in ulcers, and the base of ulcers, and round about ulcers, hence its wonderful use in palliating and restraining the growth of malignant ulcers, as malignant ulcers always have an indurated base.
Old cancerous ulcers are greatly restrained in their growth, that is, the constitutional state is much improved, the patient himself has more endurance and the ulcers will take on healing. In cancerous affections that would kill in sixteen months the patient will live five years with Calcarea, if Calcarea is indicated.
That is something, and in any times that is all that can be expected in a cancerous growth.
In glandular affections where the glands round about are infiltrated and hard, where there is much burning and stinging pain, where the growth has invaded and appropriated the surrounding tissues so that there are adhesions, matters are serious.
There is malignancy in almost all these cases. They differ entirely from glands that are loose from the skin, glands that roll under the skin, and have no fibrous attachment. Cancerous affections burn and sting. Calcarea cures many tumors, fatty, cystic, if the symptoms agree, so strongly is it related to this building tip process in glands. It builds up glands and bone.
Another thing running through the remedy is a pyoemic state, in which there are abscesses in deep muscles. Abscesses deep in the neck, deep in the thigh, in the abdomen.
You will be astonished to learn that Calcarea will take care of the abscess (when the symptoms agree), and it will not break. I have many times seen an abscess disappear when fluctuation was most positive. I have seen those abscesses disappear when pus was shown to he present by the needle; I have not only seen the abscesses go away, but also the pyoemic state which was prior to it. We have but a few medicines that will do that.
There is something singular about this. Why does Calcarea favor the resorption of that fluid and encourage the part to become calcareous?
It is more than I am able to explain, but it does it when the symptoms agree. But Sulph. and Sil., when their symptoms agree hasten suppuration. But Calcarea has that peculiar action of concentrating and contracting.
One may be indicated in one case, the other may be indicated in the other. There are times when Sil. is indicated and the abscess is in such a dangerous place. Then if Sil. is given the result that naturally belongs to the spreading of that abscess is dangerous; in such an instance the surgeon must be called to drain the abscess in a safe manner, even when we know that if that abscess were located in a safe place, it would be far better for that patient to have the remedy he needs.
Sometimes the periosteum is injured by a hammer striking it through muscles, injuring or contusing the periosteum. Inflammation will set in, pus will form rapidly, and if Calcarea is indicated by the constitution of the patient the surgeon’s knife is entirely useless, and a most detrimental thing.
But in thinking from the old standpoint, the physician who knows nothing about Homoeopathy, and the wonders of our homeopathic remedies, would hold up his hands in horror.
“Why, if you produce a resorption of that pus into the system you will have blood poisoning and death.”
But under Calcarea this resorption does take place in some manner, and the patient improves every moment, he stops his sweating, his rigor has disappeared, he becomes perfectly comfortable, his appetite improves, he is stronger by the time it is over, and remains well.
Judging from the old standpoint, we cannot conclude anything about the problems that will come up under Homoeopathy. We can only judge from our standpoint, and from what we know.
And if you hear that somebody has tried this and tried that without success, remember that somebody has only demonstrated his own failure. Homoeopathy is capable of demonstrating itself in all intelligent hands; wherever the physician has intelligence and makes use of the law and applies the remedy in accordance with the symptoms he will see the case turn out as described.
Polypi: Another grand feature running through this remedy is its ability to grow polypi. Those who need Calcarea will grow polypi in the nose and ears, in the vagina, in the bladder, and here and there. Cystic growths also and strange little papillomata.
Exostoses: Another strange thing that it does is to cause exostoses. This state of disorder comes from the irregularity in the distribution of the lime. You would think that nature would try to distribute it around evenly where it can do the most good.
But when this bone salt inanition has commenced the lime may be piled up in one place, and almost absent in another. One bone will be cartilaginous and another will have bony growths on it. Softening of the bone.
Defective formation of bone. A keynote has grown out of this, viz:
“Late learning to walk,” because the legs are so weak.
It is not late learning to walk, but it is late walking.
It knows how to walk, but it can’t walk. Natrum mur. has brain trouble, in which the child is late learning to do things.
“Tardy development of bone tissues. Curvatures.”
Muscles flabby, joint affections, like hip-joint disease. It is full of rheumatism. Rheumatic and gouty conditions of the joints.
The Calcarea patient is a chilly patient. Sensitive to the cold air. Sensitive to the raw winds. Sensitive to the coming of a storm; sensitive to the coming of cold weather, and when the weather changes from warm to cold it seems impossible for him to keep warm; he wants the body kept warm.
Head: The head is sometimes congested; and it is hot to the touch; but it often feels cold to him. His scalp feels as if it were cold. But the body is nearly always cold to the touch and he feels cold, and he wants plenty of clothing.
The feet are cold. He sweats in various places, sweats in spots. Sweats upon the forehead, or upon the face, or upon the back of the neck, or the front of the chest, or his feet.
Sensitiveness to cold and weakness run through the remedy. Weakness in the legs. Inability to endure. Worse from every kind of exertion. Out of breath. Fat, flabby anemic subjects, sometimes they look plump, often flushed in the face, but they have no endurance, and if such a patient undertakes a little exertion he is down sick with a fever, or a headache.
Calcarea is full of complaints brought on from lifting, from exertion, from walking, from walking enough to get into a sweat; and these come very suddenly, because he cannot stop that perspiration by keeping still without getting sick.
If he gets into a sweat, and stops long enough to be comfortable, the perspiration will stop so suddenly that he will have a chill, or he will have a headache. Weak, tired, anxious.
Difficulties of breathing. Weak heart. Weak all over. No ability of the muscles to sustain prolonged effort, and it is the same way with the mind. No ability of the mind to sustain prolonged mental effort. Calcarea is a tired patient.
He is suffering from want of lime. He has been unable to digest lime, and he goes into a state with enlarged glands, emaciation of the neck and of the limbs, while the fat and the glands of the belly increase. Especially is this noticed in children. A big bellied child, with emaciated limbs and emaciated neck.
Enlarged glands. Pale, and flabby, and sickly. Those that take on flesh without any increase of strength. They take on flesh and grow flabby. Remain feeble. Those that get up from sickness take on flabby flesh, and in a little while they become dropsical.
The Calcarea patient can’t go upstairs; he is so tired in his legs, and so tired in the chest; he pants and suffocates from going upstairs. He has every evidence of muscular weakness and flabbiness. Nutrition is impaired everywhere.
This is the kind of patient that used to be called scrofulous; now we call the condition psora; and Calcarea is one of our deepest anti-psorics. It is a medicine that goes deep into the life, and takes a deep hold of every part of the economy.
Mind: Now we will take up the mental symptoms. All the mind symptoms represent Calcarea as in a state of great weakness; in ability to prolong mental operation.
Becomes very tired from mental work. Full of anxiety. He is tired mentally, and tired physically, from mental work and breaks down in a sweat, and becomes excited and irritable and disturbed. Great disturbance of the emotions; complaints lasting for days and weeks from excitement of the emotions; from worrying, from vexation, or a general emotional disturbance is prostrated.
“Inability to apply himself.”
Inability to do good thinking for some time after such excitement, disturbance or worry. It is very useful in complaints from prolonged worry, from prolonged application to business, from excitement.
It is full of a peculiar kind of mental feeling, differing quite considerably from most remedies; he feels his exhaustion of mind, and it seems to him that this weakness, and this inability to do and to think connectedly, must be going towards insanity, he broods over it, he is convinced that he is insane, or about to become insane, that he is getting weak-minded, and he looks it, too, because what he has in his mind is this: that he is becoming insane or weak-minded and he thinks people will observe it.
He thinks people look at him suspiciously, and he looks at them suspiciously, and he wonders why they do not say something to him about it.
He thinks he is going insane, and that other people are observing his state of mind, and he keeps that in his mind most of the time. He thinks of it day-times, and he gets greatly roused up over it; he thinks of it nights, and it keeps him awake.
He lies awake late at night thinking. Calcarea leads to little ideas, that is, it compels the mind to littleness, to little ideas, or to dwell on little things, but his mind, as it were, is forced to dwell upon things that he cannot put aside.
When the Calcarea patient begins to relate to his friends how he feels they all naturally say to him,
‘Why don’t you put that aside; that doesn’t amount to anything,”
but to him it is a big thing, and he cannot put it aside; all these little things combine to convince him that he is going crazy. he cannot calculate, he cannot do deep thinking, he cannot dwell upon deep things; he may have been a philosopher, and he has lost his ability to think out things in philosophy.
He has lost his mental depth. he forms conclusions out of his emotions rather than from his intelligence. He forms conclusions about things as he wants them to be. You would almost think he wants to grow crazy, he keeps talking about it so much.
He is unable to accept any sort of argument, and this grows worse and worse. He is unable to accept the assurance of his physician, in whom he has always had confidence. It is no use, it seems, to try to reason with him; yet he is not so far gone but he can reason about other things except his own mental state.
He imagines things; and the things he imagines you will really wonder at his dwelling upon them so, because they are such little things. And so it is when he goes into insanity, or imbecility, or a general breakdown.
It is a passive state, in which he sits and thinks about his little affairs, and his little things that amount to nothing at all, and he sits and sits, the text says,
“Sits and breaks sticks, or bends pins all day long with his fingers.”
Does little things, and in this way he keeps himself busy, wears himself out more and more. Any amount of thinking be comes impossible. It is almost impossible for him to come to a conclusion, for he never figures it twice alike.
He cannot add and subtract even in the simplest forms. Now, he thinks about this matter so much and thinks everybody else is watching him, until finally the instant he closes his eyes he has visions, just as soon as he gets down quiet and thinks
“Now I will go to sleep, I will get rid of all this,”
and he closes his eyes to sleep, then he must get them open as quick as possible, he is in a state of excitement, for he sees horrid little spooks; he cannot keep his mind clear.
He cannot go to sleep because his thoughts trouble him, and he sees all sorts of things. There is no congruity in his mind. We know that strong intelligence puts aside such follies, but these are just the things that Calcarea patients dwell upon.
Talking to himself. He lies in bed, or sits, when be is alone, and carries on a general conversation with every conceivable individual he has had to do with, on every conceivable subject; and it multiplies and it grows, and he imagines it is all real.
We see how far that is removed from the healthy mind, and yet he is not fit for the insane asylum, with all of these strange things, for when he is roused he does carry on a conversation, and he does as ordinary people do.
When he is alone, when he has nobody to talk with him, he does these strange things. He is controlled and dominated when he is in company, to a great extent, and hence these things are not brought out.
He carries out that same idea when he becomes delirious or insane. Picks his fingers, and does all sorts of peculiar little things. Sees visions and faces of persons when eyes are closed.
“Imagines some one is walking beside her.”
In the proving of Sil. that was observed very strongly. It has been observed in Petroleum, and in Calcarea. In a perfect state of health, with a strong, vigorous intelligence, it is not likely to be felt, but in nervous people, and especially in women, it is common.
“Mental aberration with horrid visions. Sees dogs crowding around him, fights them off.”
Here is a sensation, occurring in nervous women,
“Feels as if she would like to run up and down, and scream.”
Feels as if she could not help it, she must scream. That occurs in persons overwrought, dreadfully excited from a loss in the household by death. The mother loses her child, or husband; or a young girl loses her intended. She is broken-hearted, and greatly excited. It is a hysterical state. And yet I have seen the same in men.
I remember one. It came upon him from business cares. He had that same feeling; he would walk up and down the house, he said he felt as if he must fly or jump out of a window, or do some thing. That is analogous to the mental state found in hysteria, or a great state of nervous excitement.
“She thinks and talks of nothing but murder, fire, rats, etc.”
That is that same idea of talking about little things and foolish things. Things that are not interesting to anybody, And yet I have seen these things in patients and I would ask them why they did it. It is generally said,
“I tried a good while to stop it, and when I could not I just kept right on at it, for it seemed to do me good.”
“She thinks and talks of murder, fire, rats, etc.”
Your patient may talk about other foolish things, but it is only to il lustrate the idea that she sits and talks about foolish things, and can not control herself; thinking, thinking, or expressing it, talking, talking, talking.
Violent screaming spells. And then the Calcarea patient will refuse to talk, will say nothing. She may talk to herself when alone, but will decline to enter into conversation, and will sit perfectly silent.
A Calcarea patient sometimes takes an aversion to work, and quits work. He will quit a most thriving business, and go home and do nothing, after being fatigued in carrying on the business until it- reaches a most thriving condition. He says business is not good for him.
He is tired of business, and when he goes to his business again it seems as if it would drive him crazy. He does not want to see it, he does not want to know anything about it.
Of course, you can readily see that it is not so much in the Calcarea patient that he is driven to, weakness and fatigue from distress in business, although it has that, but that which I am speaking about is that he has overworked until he has given out, and right in the midst of his success he quits his business and goes home, and leaves all-it looks just as if he were lazy.
If you look at him you come to the conclusion that he is lazy. Yet it is an insanity; not the laziness that belongs to tramp nature, though that also might be cured many times. He has been industrious, and all at once takes a turn. A great change occurs in the mind, and he takes on symptoms. It is not such persons as were born that way, born lazy, never would work; but those that become lazy.
It is like the symptom in a pious upright man, whose walk and conversation has been upright but all at once he turns and commences to swear. Of course we know that individual is insane. On the other hand, we have patients that have been only ordinarily industrious that develop an insanity for work, and it seems they have ability in that insane industry to work almost night and day; they are up early and late.
It is a sick state. So when we see in the Repertory “Industry” it does not mean an ordinarily industrious state but one that is exaggerated into a symptom. He has become so industrious that he has a mania for work.
“Whimpering. Low-spirited and melancholy.”
It is a strange thing to see a bright little girl of 8 or 9 years old taking on sadness, melancholy, and commencing to talk about the future world, and the angels, and that she wants to die and go there, and she is sad, and wants to read the Bible all day.
That is a strange thing; and yet Calcarea has cured that. Ars. has cured that state, and also Lach. They are a little inclined to be precocious, and they have attended the Sunday-school, and they have taken too seriously the things they have learned.
Children sad and unhappy, and old people who take on a loathing of life, become weary of life. That is a good deal like Aurum. In going over Aurum I explained that, and dwelt upon it, that the highest love is the love of life; and when an individual ceases to love his own life, and is weary of it, and loathes it, and wants to die, he is on the border line of insanity.
In fact, that is an insanity of the will. You have only to look with an observing eye to see that one may be insane in the affections, or insane in the intelligence. One may remain quite intact, and the other one be destroyed.
We find in Calcarea both equally disturbed. One patient may be insane in his voluntary system, so that all of his loves are perverted; he has no affection that is like what it used to be, like it was when be was well.
Antipathy to his family or some member of his family.
Or, he may have the affection fairly intact, but no intelligence, and does all sorts of strange things.
He is full of fear.
Weary of life; hopelessness, anxiety. The world is black.
“Fear that something sad or terrible will happen. Fears that she will. lose her reason, or that people will observe her confusion of mind.”
“Fear of death; of consumption; of misfortune; of being alone.”
Fear abounds, especially when the voluntary system is disturbed. She is startled at every noise. He can’t sleep sq that the body rests or the mind rests. He is disturbed in his sleep with horrible dreams. His sleep is a restless one.
“Great anxiety and oppression. Restlessness and palpitation. Despairing; hopeless.”
These symptoms have to be coupled and connected with that leucophlegmatic, pale, flabby, sickly individual.
“Child cross and fretful. Easily frightened.”
Many complaints after exertion of the mind. Many complaint after excitement, chagrin or fright.
He is so weak in his circulation, so much disturbed in the heart, it palpitates from every excitement. He is out of breath from every physical exertion; and these take part so much in the circulation of blood in the body, have so much to do with circulation of blood in the brain, have so much to do with the intellect, with the sensorium, that we see at once vertigo on almost all occasions, intermingled with all sorts of symptoms.
Fear, anxiety, and vertigo. If his. emotions stir him up he becomes dizzy. From going upstairs the blood mounts to the head, and he becomes dizzy. Confusion of mind and vertigo from mental exertion. If he becomes shocked, or has bad news, or has any mental excitement or chagrin, this vertigo will come out.
Confusion of mind, determination of blood to the head, cold extremities, covered with sweat, with vertigo.
“Vertigo, when climbing into high places;”
that is the effort of going up. The blood rushes to the head and he becomes dizzy.
“On going upstairs or up a hill. On suddenly rising, or turning the head, even when at rest.”
Head: One of the most striking symptoms of the head of the Calcarea patient is the sweat, the sweat of the head upon the slightest exertion. He will sweat on the face when he sweats nowhere else, and his head is covered with cold sweat when he is comfortable in other places about the body.
The same thing is true about the feet. When his feet become very cold they will sweat. When they are warm they will sweat. You would naturally think that a person going into a cold room would stop his sweating. But sometimes the Calcarea patient will break out in a sweat, upon the head, and upon the feet, in a cold room,
He sweats upon the forehead, so that every draft of air makes him chilly, and this brings on headache. Coldness of the whole scalp, so he has to wrap up the head. Yet during congestions, the head is hot.
So it has at times great heat in the head. The Calcarea headaches are stupefying, they are benumbing; they bring on confusion of mind.
The Calcarea patient has a catarrh in the nose, with more or less discharge; at his best he has considerable discharge. But he goes into a cold place, the discharge is slacked up, and he gets a headache. Headache over the eyes. Congestion of the head; back of the head.
“Tearing headache above the eyes down to nose,” is a strong symptom of Calcarea.
It seems sometimes as if a great wedge were lip in there. This is relieved by very hot applications. It is relieved in the dark; it is aggravated in the daylight. He must go into dark room and lie down for relief.
Sometimes this headache is ameliorated by lying down in the dark. This headache continues to grow worse during the day, until in the evening it becomes so severe that it is at tended with nausea and vomiting.
It is one of the forms of constitutional headache, is a headache that sometimes occurs once in two weeks. Headache every seven days, or headache once in two weeks. Periodical headaches. Sick headache, the old-fashioned American sick-headache.
There is commonly a periodicity belonging to it, of seven to fourteen days, but again, it comes on whenever he is exposed, by riding in the wind, for he is a very chilly patient, if he becomes really chilled or very cold, he gets a headache, a sick-headache.
Then, again, it has pain in the left side of the head. One-sided headache. Headache worse from noise, from talking, but ameliorated in the evening, from lying in the dark. It has headache in the temples, and this headache seems to draw through to the root of the nose.
The headaches from the supraorbital region draw through to the nose. Headaches in the temples seem to produce a feeling of tightness, a feeling of great tension in the forehead. Headaches worse from motion, from walking, from talking.
Most of the Calcarea headaches, as soon as they become severe, are attended with pulsation. The pulsation is so strong that the patient is not satisfied by merely saying it is a pulsation, he describes it as hammering. Most of the pains are pressive or tearing.
“Concussive headaches.”
Stitching, pulsating pains in the head, as if it would split. Headaches worse from walking, and from a jar. Sometimes he feels a coldness in the head, it seems as if the cold head is numb, cold as if made of wood. He sometimes feels this numbness, and describes it as if he had a cap, sometimes as if there were a helmet, on the head.
Now, all of these sensations are difficult to describe, but sometimes they are one and the same thing. All the headaches of Calcarea, are more or less congestive. It is a peculiar feature of Calcarea, that the more marked the congestion of internal parts, the colder the surface becomes.
With chest troubles, and stomach troubles, and bowel troubles, the feet and hands become like ice, W covered with sweat; and he lies in bed sometimes with a fever in the rest of his body, and the scalp covered with cold sweat.
That is strange. You cannot account for that by any process of reasoning in pathology, and when a thing is so strange that it cannot be accounted, for, it become very valuable as descriptive of the remedy, and is one that cannot generally be left out when prescribing for a patient.
That is almost a general state, it is so marked. It has burning in the vertex, and this is often present coldness of the forehead, or the whole head may feel cold except a burning spot on the vertex. Calcarea will again have cold head and icy cold feet when walking in cold air or in very cold weather; but as soon as the feet get warm, they go to the other extreme, and burn so that he puts them out of bed.
This has often led inexperienced prescribers to prescribe Sulph., because that is a keynote of Sulph. All keynote prescribers give Sulph. whenever the patient puts the feet out of bed, but a number of remedies have burning feet, hot feet, so we are not limited to Sulph. Calcarea has affections of the bones of the skull, the outer part of the head.
Slow formation of bone. The fontanelles remain open a long time. It has hydrocephalic conditions, effusion in the membranes, and the bones do not grow and keep pace with the growth of the head, and hence the sutures commence to separate and the head grows wider, and larger all the time, with hydrocephalus.
In hydrocephalic children this sweating head is a common feature. The child lies at night upon the pillow, and the sweat pours from the head and wets the pillow all around; especially sweating at night.
In persons suffering from softening of the brain, the pillow is wet all around the head. Children going through difficult dentition have dreadful times in their dreams, they screech out in the night, and the pillow is wet all around their head.
Old plethoric patients, broken down constitutions, fat, flabby, lymphatic patients, with enlarged glands, with sweating of the head, cold sweating of the head. The hair falls out, not in the regular way such as occurs in old ago bit in patches here and there.
You see a bald spot on the side of the head, or the back of the head; a tuft of hair has come out, or in two or three places. Then it has eruptions upon the head and face; eczema that we find in children and infants.
“Thick scabs on the head, with yellow pus.”
Eyes: Offensive eruptions. The eye comes in for a share of troubles, and Calcarea is one of the best friends the oculist has, if he knows how to use it. It is not especially suitable for every inflammation, but in those fat, flabby constitutions, where every cold settles in the eyes, and produces an inflammation, and this goes on for a few days, and ulceration begins, then study Calcarea.
Vesicles are formed and break and spread into an ulcer. From exposure of the feet in water, from riding in the wind, from cold, damp weather he gets eye troubles. Ulceration of the cornea. In all of the complaints of the eyes and of the head the photophobia is so marked that the Calcarea subject when he is at all disturbed cannot even stand ordinary light, and to be out in the sunlight is extremely painful, and many times inflammations are started from merely going into a bright sunlight, from steady looking, and from straining the eyes.
All kinds of exertions bring on headaches and eye troubles. Tension, because one muscle is weak. There is a disturbance of accommodation. Worse from every exertion of the eyes; you see that is like its generals, that is, aggravated from exertion.
He cannot endure any prolonged exertion; you see that is just as true of his parts as the whole. You know that reading, writing and looking at one thing all are marked exertions. With Calcarea, the part itself is worse from exertion, and the whole body is worse from exertion.
Calcarea has cured cataract. Calcarea has other disturbances of the eyes, in connection with head troubles, in connection with fevers, and when he is out of sorts from great exertion; he so easily gets into a fidgety state, confusion of mind that is almost a delirium, and on closing the eyes he sees the most horrible visions, specters, ghosts.
Long before any disturbance can be observed in the tissues, or in the retina, or any disturbance of the eye by looking into it with the ophthalmoscope he will complain of seeing smoke, or steam in the air before his field of vision, as if looking through a veil, as if looking through a cloud, all meaning the same thing.
“Dim vision.” His vision is weak.
The muscles are weak. He suffers from dim vision, which is going on gradually to blindness as he grows increasingly weak. All of his eye symptoms, and his headaches, and his nervous symptoms arc aggravated from reading, from writing, from looking steadily at one thing.
He is very much exhausted after such an exertion and will have tearing pains over the eyes, behind the eyes in the head. That is a peculiar kind of a headache, such as he is in the habit of having. It may be in any part of head.
Called eye-strain. It is a wonderful remedy for eye-strain (Onosmodium). Calcarea has cured many cases of opacity of the cornea (Bar, iod.). In an old case a cure can never be promised. It is one of the results of disease, and we never know when we are going to remove the results of disease, because the intelligent homeopath never prescribes for the results of disease. He prescribes for the patient. An opacity itself, when it is present, is not a symptom, but a result of disease.
Often when a patient is prescribed for on his general symptoms, such a state of opacity of the cornea will, after a while, begin to pass away. The patient grows better, feels better himself. His symptoms commence to subside, and after the symptoms have subsided pathological conditions will commence to subside.
Do not be discouraged in prescribing if the pathological conditions do not go away; but if all the symptoms of the patient have gone away, and the patient is eating well, and is sleeping well, and doing well, do not feel that it is impossible for that opacity of the cornea to go away, for sometimes it will.
I have known patients to come back, years later, even after I had given them up as cured, as their symptoms had all disappeared, and I was foolish enough to say to the patient,
“Well, I do not suppose this condition will ever go away, but you are all well, there is nothing to prescribe on, there is not much use of your taking any more medicine,” but in six months from that time the patient would come back to me and say:
“Doctor, do you suppose the treatment you gave me had anything to do with this trouble going away? It has nearly all disappeared.”
I only tell you this to give you an idea how long it takes to restore order, for nature herself to replace the bad tissue and put healthy tissue in that same place, to restore an organ. It takes time, and it is best that we should not be surprised. it may be that the medicine has done all it can do.
Here is another thing I have seen: even when there were no symptoms left, and after waiting a considerable time and there were no symptoms, I have seen another dose of the same medicine that was given on the last symptoms give the patient a great lift, and pathological conditions commence to go way.
So Calcarea is a great friend to the oculist, and every physician ought to be just as good a prescriber as the oculist can be, for he prescribes for the patient. So must the oculist. In prescribing I am in doubt whether there can be any such thing as a specialty, because the homoeopathic physician prescribes for the patient. He prescribes for the patient, whether he has eye disease, or car disease, or throat disease, or lung disease, or liver disease, etc.
Ears: In the ear we have a great deal of trouble. It produces thick yellow discharge from the ears. Cold, chilly weather brings on ear trouble; quite likely from becoming cold or chilled, from an exposure, or from a sudden change of cold damp weather he has additional complaints in the ears.
While he is at his best the idea holds good here as in other catarrhal conditions, there is copious discharge. But from exposure and cold this slacks up a little, and when it does there is a little inflammation, and like enough throbbing, and headache. That occurs every time from exposure.
Whether the catarrh is in the nose, the eyes, or the ears, there will be headache. The Calcarea patient is so easily disturbed from cold weather and exposure, he is so sensitive to the cold, that it is next to impossible for him to dress and protect himself. He is flabby and soft, easily disturbed, sensitive to his surroundings.
If it is an ear trouble, he may have difficult hearing, abscess of the middle ear, catarrh of the Eustachian tubes, etc., but all of these bring on headaches; and around about the ear the glands are all affected.
Nose: The catarrh of the nose is extremely troublesome. Old lingering stubborn catarrhs, with thick yellow discharge; great crusts from the nose. In the morning he blows out enormous blackish, bloody chunks.
He breathes part of the night through the nose, and then his nose clogs up so that he breathes, through the mouth. It has cured a great many times polypi of the nose.
The homeopathic physician, trusting so much to his symptoms, knows so well the remedy after studying the case, that be very likely will prescribe for the patient on the symptoms alone. He says:
This patient needs Calcarea, there is no doubt about it. He prescribes for him and sends him away.
After three or four weeks the patient comes back with a gelatinous looking tough thing on a handkerchief, and says:
“Doctor, look there at what came out of my nose.
Do you suppose your medicine had anything to do with that?”
Perhaps you did not know he had polypus, it does not make any difference, your prescription cannot be any different if he has polypi in the nose, and you do not know it is there; you cannot by any process of torsion remove it before you prescribe, so you will have to leave that torsion to those that do not know about Homoeopathy; and hence the examination is not so important as it is to those who prescribe for the polypi, and forget about the patient.
Affections of the bones of the nose. That is, the catarrhs go on so long, and they are so deep-seated, that the bones of the nose and the cartilage of the nose are infiltrated, any they break down.
Then operators cut out bones, remove cartilage, and perform operations too numerous to mention; and every one must have the same operation; but in order for him to be cured, he must even after that go to an homoeopathic physician. He should first be cured and then if there is anything to be removed let him be operated on.
Face: The face is sickly, cold, covered with sweat. Sweats on the slightest exertion, and sometimes it sweats in the night, on the forehead.
“Cold sweat on the face. Face pale and cachectic,” such as we see in advanced cases of cancer, and consumption.
Face sallow, pale, sickly, dropsical. Eruptions on the face. Eruptions about the lips; and the lips are chapped and the mouth is raw. The lips are cracked and bleeding. Painful swelling on the parotid glands; painful swelling of the sub-lingual and sub-maxillary glands.
The glands all take part in the Calcarea troubles.
Throat: Calcarea is a medicine for chronic sore throats. The throat appearance itself is not always sufficient to prescribe on, but the complaints in the throat are those that come on in persons taking cold so frequently that the patient has not time to get over one before be goes into another, and this engrafts upon him a chronic sore throat.
It may in the beginning be a Bell. throat, which is quite likely, but before he gets over it he has taken another cold. Remember that this is a part of the Calcarea patient, that he takes cold so easily; he takes cold from every, draft, from very exposure, and from damp weather.
When getting over a Bell. sore throat – about the time he thinks he is over it he takes a new cold. Perhaps it has been relieved two or three times with Bell., and then it settles down into a chronic state, and there are little red patches, perhaps little ulcers in the throat, this extends all over . It extends to the roof of the mouth, a sore tongue, and a constant dry, choking feeling in the pharynx, covering the tonsils and extending, up into the posterior nares, filling with thick, yellow mucus.
Chronic inflammation. The uvula may be puffed; swollen.
“Parts swollen, red, tumid,” but it patches.
The throat very painful on swallowing; dry, choking feeling.
Stomach: The stomach in Calcarea is slow in its action.
“Food taken into the stomach remains.”
It does not digest, it turns sour.
“Sour vomiting.”
Milk sours. Milk disagrees; the digestion is also slow, feeble. He has a feeling of tumefaction and fullness; enlargement after eat ing; and everything sours in the stomach; everything disorders the stomach.
Weak digestion. The Calcarea patient has a very strong longing for eggs. Little children crave eggs; at every meal they will eat eggs, and eggs, will digest better than anything else. It is very seldom that little children naturally long for eggs; children with cold feet, emaciated extremities, large heads, enlarged abdomen; stomach distended like an inverted saucer, rounded out; bloated abdomen, and slender extremities; cold and sensitive to cold; pale skin; pale, waxy surface.
Then, there is complete loss of appetite, no desire for any kind of food. If any desire at all, it is for eggs. Aversion to meat; aversion to warm food.
This with enlarged glands, with goitre. Flatulency. Sour vomiting; sour diarrhoea; that is, it has a pungent, sour odor, especially in children.
In infants living on milk, the milk passes in an undigested form; the stool is so sour that it is pungent. It excoriates the parts, and keeps the nates raw in infants where the diaper comes in contact with the parts.
There are times when the abdomen is emaciated; the gases go out and the abdomen sometimes becomes flabby; but most of the time it is distended with flatulence. When it is flabby it can be observed that there are nodules in the abdomen.
The lymphatic glands are hard, and sometimes can be felt through the emaciated abdomen. There is a tubercular tendency, and tabes mesenterica is one, of the natural endings of the lime constitution, with this we get the glandular affections of the bowels.
Tubercular deposits in the mesenteric glands. Diarrhoea comes on sour; watery diarrhoea; gradual emaciation, especially of the extremities. Every cold brings on more indigestion, and more sour vomiting.
Diarrhoea that can’t be stopped, because every time he gets a cold it renews the diarrhoea. When it, is an acute attack Dulc. often relieves it but when it has recurred several times Dulc. can no longer relieve it and Calcarea then becomes one of the remedies.
Again, it is one of the most useful medicines in old, lingering, stubborn cases of constipation. When there is only a moderate diarrhoea the stool is white; and when this constipation is present, the stool is white, or like chalk.
In infants taking milk you can account for the white or pale stool, because of the milk; but when the patient does not live on milk, and lives on ordinary substances, the stool becomes bileless and is very light colored; is yellow or white; and in the constipation, often the stool is very light colored and hard.
Calcarea has a kind of indigestion, a fermentation that favors the formation of worms, so that Calcarea babies are sometimes wormy.
Pass worms in the stool, and vomit worms. Calcarea so corrects this indigestion, when the symptoms agree, that worms no longer hatch out. The symptoms disappear, and we really wonder what becomes of the worms.
The idea with the homoeopathic physician is not to give vermifuges, but to so correct the digestion that worms will not thrive; and it is true that worms will not thrive in the healthy stomach and intestines. Whether they leave by expulsion or whether they are destroyed, or what becomes of them, I do not know.
To remove them by physicking them out, and by vermifuges, only makes a bad matter worse, because it increases the indigestion, it increases the turmoil. So it is with all worms in the stomach and rectum; all those worms will come if they are favored with just exactly the right kind of fluids to hatch out in.
They come, and they grow. I suppose at least twenty-five times in the last twenty years have I known Calcarea to bring away tape worm, and in most instances I did not know it was present; but I simply prescribed for the patient. I was not aware of its existence. It is so with many remedies, but this more than others.
Genitals: The Calcarea patient is weak sexually, with general relaxation and weakness. Sometimes an inordinate carving, sometimes an overwhelming desire keeps him awake at nights. But weak; weak in this way, that any indulgence is followed by weak back, sweating, weakness in general, so that he is compelled to abstain because of the sufferings.
The woman is affected in a similar way. You need not be surprised, when you hear all of the constitutional weakness, that it is a common, thing for Calcarea women to be sterile. So tired, so relaxed; wholly unfit for reproduction.
And the same as in the male, she suffers from lassitude, swelling, wakefulness, and weakness in general after every coition. The parts feel relaxed. The uterus drags down. Sensation as if parts would be forced out. State of general weakness and general relaxation of the sexual organs of both male and female. Calcarea has a tendency to grow warts and polypoid growths, pedunculated growths, that bleed easily, that are soft and spongy.
The woman flows too much at the menstrual period; too long, and, of course, this naturally brings her around too soon. Often every three weeks, lasting a week, with a copious flow. Menstrual period too soon, lasting too long, and profuse. Calcarea is not always indicated; not unless all of the symptoms go together to make up the Calcarea patient.
Sometimes it may occur to your mind to say, that with five or six key-notes, certainly you would give Calcarea; but suppose you did have five or six key-notes of Calcarea, and the patient should be a Puls. patient, would you expect to cure her with Calcarea?
Suppose the patient always avoided warm things and much clothing, and wanted the cold open air, and still had a dozen key-notes, you would find every time that Calcarea would fail. Unless you combine the particulars with the things that are general, and the generals with the particulars, unless the remedy fits the patient from within out, generally and particularly, a cure need not be expected. That is why I say, do not prescribe on key-notes, but upon the symptoms of the patient.
This great state of relaxation which we always have in every Calcarea patient is also manifested in leucorrhea, copious, thick, constant leucorrhea, discharging day and night. Leucorrhea that is acrid, keeping up an itching, and smarting, and burning,
“Leucorrhoea thick and yellow,” from one menstrual period to another, and some times it intermingles with the menstrual flow.
“Vaginal polypi. Burning soreness in the genitals” from leucorrhoea.
“Itching and rawness” from leucorrhoea.
Hemorrhage of the uterus from over-lifting; from excitement; from shocks; from anything that greatly disturbs; from fear, from any great emotion, or from straining the muscles. Such are the conditions of relaxation and weakness. Inability to strain the muscles, or to exert himself mentally or physically.
The complaints of pregnancy are generally those of great relaxation and weakness. Threatened abortion. After delivery, weakness and prostration; sweating. Weakness from nursing.
Voice: The Calcarea voice is that of painless hoarseness. The vocal cords are tired, and cannot endure strain; almost a paralytic weakness. Sometimes a copious flow of mucus from the larynx. Much irritation in the larynx, but weakness. Not that burning and rawness that we find in Bell. and Phos., but painless hoarseness. In Phos. it is painful, in Bell. it is very painful. He cannot speak without pain.
But in Calcarea he wonders why he has so much trouble in the larynx, because he has no feeling in it. This goes on from bad to worse, and with the tubercular tendency, look out for tubercular laryngitis. Given early it may keep off such a tubercular tendency. It has cured tubercular laryngitis.
Much rattling of mucus; rattling breathing; coarse rattling; that is, much mucus in the trachea, in the larynx, in the bronchial tubes, in the chest. Great dyspnoea.
The dyspnoea comes on from going up stairs, from walking against the wind. Anything that has any exertion in it will bring on the dyspnoea. We find this in asthma, weak heart, weak chest and in threatening phthisis.
That state of the lungs you will know very often by the kind of breathing; because all that are going into phthisis are tired and weak. He is too tired and weak to make any effort at breathing, so that he has difficult in going up stairs, climbing a hill, walking against the wind.
Chest: The chest troubles furnishes one of our best fields for Calcarea.
We having spiting of blood prolonged cough; copious expectoration of thick yellow mucus, or even pus; ulceration, or abscess. Tickling cough. We have, in threatening chest trouble, the beginning emaciation, the pallor, the sensitiveness to cold, changes, and to the cold air and to wet weather and to winds.
He takes colds and they all settle into the chest; gradual emaciation in the limbs; always so tired. It corresponds to just such constitutional weakness as precedes, or is present in the first stages of phthisis. It stops the patient taking cold, which is the very beginning of it. The patient will begin to feel better after taking Calcarea, and it improves his general state, and it will even encyst tubercular deposits.
It turns them from a caseous into a calcareous form, and cysts have been found in the chest long afterwards. Patients have lived a long time and improved, and gone into a general state of health, when quite well advanced with tubercular deposits. Of course, when any person is well into a tubercular condition, it may be expected that he will go.
Do not believe or think favorably of cure for consumption. Every little while we have some one. Coming out with something or other that cures consumption, a new cure.
Every one who know much about the real nature of phthisical conditions, cannot have much confidence in such things, and I certainly lose respect for an individual who has a consumption cure. He must either be crazy or something worse.
Generally he is after the money that may be in it. Hardly any one who knows anything about it can conscientiously present a consumption cure to the world.
To prevent those things is what we want to do, and this is the great sphere of Calcarea. The expectoration is sweetish very often, like Phos. and Stannum. White, yellow, thick.
We might go over all the general symptoms here, the soreness, the tenderness, the kind of pains, the lassitude, and a great many symptoms of that sort, they are too numerous to mention, but they are non descriptive, for the reason that after you get these pains and study them carefully, you are no better off. You must study the constitution of Calcarea, the nature of Calcarea, its character.
There are spine symptom s; plenty’ of them. Weak; all degrees of weakness. The Calcarea patient is so weak in the back that he slides down in the chair while sitting; cannot sit right in his chair.
Rests on the back of his head. The back of his chair and the back of his head come in contact. A weak spine, a sensitive spine, and the glands of the neck are swollen. Again, a marked condition of the spine is where the lime element is deficient, and we soon get deformity; curvature.
It may be surprising to you to hear that Calcarea is a great help, and has sometimes cured that without any brace or support whatever, when taken early.
You take infants manifesting a weakness of the spine, let them lie flat on their back in bed, put them on the indicated remedy – it is sometimes Calcarea – and in a little while that knuckling will cease, and the little one will sit up straight.
Such wonderful things occur under the use of Calcarea, when the symptoms agree. In the extremities we have all the rheumatic conditions that it is possible to describe.
Gouty affections of the joints, with enlarged joints; gouty conditions, especially of the small joints, of the toe and finger. Rheumatic complaints of the joints from every exposure, from every change of the weather to cold, especially if it is cold and damp.
The feet are always cold, or cold and damp, except at night in bed after piling clothing upon the feet more than any other part of the body, then the feet begin to get warm, and then they often go to the other extreme and burn; and so they burn at night in bed.
But the feet are so cold that the patient has to put more clothing on the feet than the body will endure. Cold, damp feet. Late walking. Clumsiness; awkwardness; stiffness.
Rheumatic conditions. Stiffness belongs to Calcarea all over. Stiff on beginning to move; stiff at night on rising from a seat. Stiffness in all joints on beginning to move; and if it turns cold or there is a cold rain, the Calcarea patient always suffers; suffers from coldness, stiffness, rheumatism has rheumatism in every cold change in the weather.
The sleep is greatly disturbed. Late going to sleep, sometimes not till 2, 3 or 4 o’clock. Full of ideas; when closing the eyes horrible visions. Grinding the teeth. A child in sleep, chews and swallows and grinds the teeth. Sleeplessness a good part of the night. Cold feet at night in bed.
Editorial notes
- “Anything that bas” corrected to “Anything that has” (transcription error in the digital source text).
