Category: Kent Materia Medica

Rumex Crispus
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 153 of 180
Source pages 2752–2766 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

Rumex, the yellow dock, is a neglected remedy, and one that has been only partially proved.

The mental symptoms have not been brought out, but the catarrhal symptoms have been well expressed by provers.

There is a state of sadness, low spirited; aversion to work; irritable mental excitability. This includes about all the mental state we know of this remedy, as the provings were made with the lower potencies and tincture.

The yellow dock has been used in domestic practice, as a blood medicine, to cure eruptions and boils. When used in this way it is a mild substance, and hence the provings are somewhat in this form.

The catarrhal tendency is very striking. The nose, eyes, chest and trachea, the whole respiratory tract, gives forth a copious flow, copious mucous discharge. I have seen it so copious from the nose that it seemed as one continuous flow; so copious from the trachea and bronchial tubes that the patient continually hawked up, by the mouthful, thin frothy, white mucus, so that in a little while as much as half a pint of thin mucus, as thin as water, would be in the cuspidor. It also has marked dryness of the larynx and trachea with hard, dry, spasmodic cough.

At times it has taken the form of grippe, with a copious mucous discharge; thin, watery, frothy expectoration by the mouthful. This is only the first stage. Following this the discharge becomes thick, yellow, tough or thick, white and tenacious; so ropy and stringy and tough that in spite of blowing the nose and coughing he fails to get it up. Completely exhausted from his efforts to expectorate the tough, stringy, tenacious even gluey mucus. This catarrhal state is commonly accompanied by a morning diarrhea, and these constitute the leading features.

“Catarrhal headache with great irritation of the larynx and trachea, clavicular pain and soreness behind sternum.”

Catarrhal headaches are headaches that come on during spells of dryness, alternating with a copious flux. Extreme rawness in the larynx and trachea; burning and smarting; unable to endure pressure on the throat pit.

Tickling in the throat pit causing cough. Must sit without motion; cannot breathe deeply, hurriedly or irregularly because the burning is so much increased by any change in breathing.

If he steps into the open air a paroxysmal cough takes his breath away; or if he passes from the open air into a warm room the same paroxysmal cough comes on. The paroxysm is so violent that in the morning, when he has a loose stool, he will pass it involuntarily with the cough. The urine also passes away with the cough. The headache returns when the discharges slack up. A striking feature is pain under the clavicle; a sense of rawness under the clavicle; as if the parts inside were raw; as if the air came directly under the clavicle, producing rawness and burning. Rawness and burning from the inhalation of air.

“Nose obstructed; dry sensation even in posterior nares.”

Many times the coryza starts out by a marked dryness in the posterior nares, so that he is constantly hawking; the irritation is so great that he cannot let it alone. There is a sensation of thickening in the nasopharynx, and he produces a peculiar noise in trying to get rid of it.

“Sudden sharp tingling sensation in Schneiderian membrane.”

This is intense; tingling, sometimes described as an itching extending from the end of the nose to the pharynx; sometimes forces sneezing, blowing the nose and this peculiar noise, and sometimes a hawking to get the mucus when it is a little lower in the pharynx; hemming to get rid of it when in the larynx. The inflammation passes to the smallest bronchi, producing a capillary bronchitis and finally a pneumonia.

It suits acute and chronic catarrhal states. In old phthisical cases every time be takes a cold, he is so sensitive to cold air and change of air that he sleeps with the bed clothes over his mouth. Every breath of air causes a spasmodic cough.

The early expectoration is thin mucus, and then it becomes thicker and tenacious, and he cannot expectorate it; he hears the rattle, after many efforts which exhaust him; he expectorates a little with hardly any relief. This is a great remedy to do patch work with in phthisis. Soreness, rawness and burning, especially down the trachea and tinder the sternum.

“Violent sneezing, with fluent coryza, worse in the evening and at night.”

Many symptoms are worse in the evening.

“Coryza, fluent, with sneezing, with headache, worse evening and night.”

Some symptoms are worse in the early morning. Certain kinds of cough are worse at 11 P.M. Lachesis and Rumex furnish a puzzle in this cough and each has to be understood.

In Lachesis young children cough in their early sleep, but if kept awake they will not cough. Therefore in Lachesis the 11 P.M. cough is an aggravation from sleep. In Rumex the cough will come on at 11 o’clock whether the child is asleep or not.

“Accumulation of mucus in posterior nares.”

“Yellow mucous discharge through posterior nares.”

“Epistaxis, violent sneezing and painful irritation of nostrils.”

“Influenza with violent catarrh, followed by bronchitis.”

“Scraping in the throat;” whenever this catarrhal state goes into the larynx and trachea, there is this continual scraping in the throat.

Hoarse; cannot speak because the vocal cords are covered with tough mucus. Chronic cases have often been cured.

Phosphorus has this hoarseness, but especially aphonia relieved by hemming up a little mucus from the vocal cords. The Causticum hoarseness is due to a weakness of the vocal cords. Phosphorus has an inflammatory state and the continual accumulation of mucus impedes speech. Rumex has the accumulation of tough, gelatinous, gluey mucus, and he continually scrapes the larynx.

“Sensation of a lump in the throat, not relieved by hawking or swallowing, it descends on deglutition, but immediately returns”; this is also a strong feature in Lachesis.

“Aching in the pharynx, with collection of tough mucus in the fauces.”

“Catarrhal affections of throat and fauces.”

This remedy shows the various stages of severe cold, but is especially indicated in constitutions that are constantly taking cold worse from change of the weather; always shivering about the fire want much clothing, want even the head covered up.

Many complaints are worse in the evening, from a bath, from becoming cold, from inhaling cold air. Rheumatic complaints are common and are aggravated by cold. Every cold seems to affect the joints. This is a marked feature of Calcarea phos .; every change to cold is felt in the joints; from bathing and getting chilled afterwards.

“Tight, suffocative, heavy ache in epigastrium, through to back clothes seem too tight; weak feeling in epigastrium, all aggravated when talking; frequently takes a long breath.”

“Shooting from pit of stomach to chest; sharp pain in left chest; slight nausea; dull aching in forehead.”

“Aching and shooting in pit of stomach and above it on each side of sternum.”

Stomach: The stomach will not digest food, or only the, simplest food; the mucous membrane of the stomach is affected by this remedy like other mucous membranes.

Various pains in the stomach; aching, shooting pains in the pit of the stomach.

“Aching pain in the pit of stomach gradually becoming very severe; sharp stitching pains in stomach extending into chest, and below a sensation of pressure like a lump in pit of stomach, sometimes rising up under sternum, greatly aggravated from motion and somewhat from taking a long breath; generally aggravated after eating, ameliorated by lying perfectly quiet.”

It is strange how the stomach symptoms are aggravated by talking.

The stomach feels sore, aggravated by talking, walking, inhaling cold air; wants warm things. Very flatulent; full of flatulent pains; pains relieved (Carbo veg.) by belching and passing flatus. Stomach and abdominal pains aggravated by talking, irregular, breathing; must sit in a chair and breathe with perfect regularity. Irregular breathing will cause cough or suffocation.

In the morning hurried to stool like Sulphur.

“Stools, painless, offensive, profuse; brown or black, thin or watery; preceded by pain in abdomen; before stool sudden urging, driving him out of bed in morning.”

“Morning diarrhea with cough from tickling in throat pit.”

It is common for phthisical cases to have a morning diarrhoea, and many of them look like Sulphur. When the morning diarrhea is gushing, Rumex will palliate; it will allay the extreme sensibility of the lungs, will ward off the sensitiveness to cold and will patch him up.

Rumex is not so deep as Sulphur, but it is an antipsoric. It is limited however, to the early stages; will carry a chronic case so, far, but it will require to be followed by another antipsoric. Calcarea follows it well.

Rumex is as sensitive to cold, to baths and chilly surroundings as Rhus, but it is aggravated by motion. Bryonia may be confused with it in this aggravation from motion and from talking, but Bryonia is not so sensitive to cold air, is often relieved from cold air and worse in a warm room; the complaints subside if the room becomes cool. In Rumex the nerves are sensitive to the open air; a nervous sensitiveness to open air as marked as Nux.

“Brown, watery diarrhoea, chiefly in morning, having stools from 5 to 9 A.M.”

“Serious attack of diarrhea in an old man of seventy, after failure of Sulphur“.

The Sulphur patient with a cough, especially in phthisis, commonly wants cool air, cooling things; though the stomach symptoms are sometimes ameliorated from hot drinks, yet he wants cool, refreshing air.

“Aphonia after exposure to cold.”

“Tenacious mucus in throat or larynx, constant desire. to hawk.”

“Tickling in throat pit causing cough.”

He fights off the cough as long as he can because of the burning and rawness. In the most violent coryza there is a lack of the febrile symptoms of Bryonia, Rhus and Aconite. It has not the constitutional symptoms, the aching of the limbs, the general soreness, the high fever and thirst. The condition seems to have localized itself.

“Hoarse, barking cough, in attacks, every night at 11 P.M. and at 2 and 5 A.M. (children).”

“Cough, with pain behind midsternum.”

“The most violent cough occurs a few moments after lying down and at night, in some cases, complete aphonia”.

“In women, every fit of coughing produces the passage of a few drops of urine.”

Rumex is one of the most valuable palliatives in advanced phthisis it will often carry a case through another winter. With Rumex, Pulsatilla, Senega, Arsenic and Nux vomica you can patch up the last years of a phthisical patient.

I would caution you also about the diarrhea that occurs in most cases of phthisis.

You will see Acetic acid recommended for the diarrhoea in phthisis. You had better let such conditions alone, unless they are very marked. If the diarrhea is very exhausting use some simple medicine, like this one, to slack it up. But the phthisical patient is better off with a little diarrhea, a loose morning stool. It is the same with night sweats; if he does not have them he will have something more violent.

The allopath stops the diarrhea and night sweats, and then has to feed Morphine to his patient because of the consequent sufferings. The more you undertake to relieve these outward conditions, these vents, the more harm you will do the patient, and if you go on you will have to abandon your Homoeopathy and give Morphine, which is really a crime.

You will remove the sore, bruised, aching all over the body of a consumptive by Arnica, and it will suit the cough and gagging and retching, and make him sleep.

Later Pyrogen may be needed for the aching in the bones and distressing cough. You patch him up year after year; sometimes Arsenic is the remedy, and it has to be more frequently repeated; sometimes it is Lycopodium, Pulsatilla, Pyrogen or Arnica.

These medicines help him along and they have often to be changed, but finally the break down occurs, and these medicines are no longer suitable. An awful dyspnoea gradually creeps on the patient; there is craving for air; the breathing space is becoming diminished.

Dropsy comes on in the extremities. The heart gives out; there is emaciation; the hippocratic countenance is seen; there is cold sweat, blue face, sinking. Even now we can palliate with Tarantula Cubensis. Sometimes it has to be repeated. It will relieve for days and give an euthanasia, not a stupefaction as produced by Morphia, benumbing his senses, but an actual comforting.

Editorial notes

• “when it isi a little” corrected to “when it is a little” (transcription error in the digital source text).

Petroleum
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 139 of 180
Source pages 2495–2508 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

Generals: It is one of the abused remedies.

It is used externally in rheumatism, bruises and all sorts of troubles, and the amelioration that comes is the result of establishing a disease on the surface, by counter-irritation, and not by homoeopathic action. Crude Petroleum is extensively used in the oil regions on both man and beast as a “cure all.”

Mind: It is a counter-irritant and, on the skin, produces irritation, eruptions and disturbances, like Turpentine.

Among the early things that Petroleum does to a prover is that it puts him in a state of confusion of mind and dizziness; he is dazed so that he loses his way in the street. She has strange imaginations that there are people near her who are not present; that the atmosphere is full of strange forms; that her limbs are double; that another person is in the bed with her.

Such things are found in the fevers. A woman after childbirth imagines there is another child in bed with her, and she wonders how she will take care of the two. These ideas are found in many diseases, have been often verified. In typhoids and low forms of sickness; in diarrheas; when just awakening he is in confusion; in his dreams he had the idea of being two or more and the impression remains with him while he is in a semi-conscious state. He cannot reconcile the state, but when aroused to consciousness he is able to reason it away, and when semi-conscious again it returns. This annoys him day and night.

Skin symptoms. The surface symptoms are striking. The tendency is to throw out vesicles, herpetic vesicles which are isolated, and the tendency of the vesicles is to form thick yellow crusts, with considerable moisture. The vesicles break early.

At times the vesicles do not form crusts, but break early and ulcerate underneath, and this changes into a phagedenic ulcer; this condition occurs about the fingers, scrotum, face and scalp. There is a special tendency to produce vesicular eruptions about the back of the neck.

Papular, pustular, vesicular, dry, mealy eruptions, but most commonly moist; eruptions which extend deeply. It builds up eruptions on the site of old eruptions, with an increasing hardness in the base of the old eruption.

When the crust dries down it indurates, and this induration takes place at the margin and builds up little rings about the margin. The induration cracks, bleeds, looks purple. Apply this to salt rheum, and eruptions about the hands. It is suitable when there are cracks about the ends of the fingers and on the backs of the hands.

The skin is rough, ragged, exfoliates, cracks, bleeds; the tissues are hardened; this occurs sometimes about the palms of the hands and nails. This tissue ulcerates, and the ulcers eat and spread. All eruptions itch violently. He can not rest until he scratches the skin off, when the part becomes moist, bloody, raw and inflamed.

There is also itching with no visible eruption. He scratches the skin until moisture oozes forth, and keeps on scratching until the skin bleeds and the part becomes cold.

(This word makes me remark here that coldness in spots is quite a feature of this remedy. Coldness in spots; coldness in the stomach, in the abdomen, in the uterus; coldness in a spot between the scapula; coldness in the heart – sensation as if the heart were cold.).

Various forms of eczema. Eczema of the scalp, especially of the occiput. Herpetic eruptions about the mouth (Nat. m.), about the genitals, lips, face, and the patches become crusty and ooze much.

The mucous membrane, or internal skin, has little patches of ulcers, with induration about the patch, and hence Petr. is useful in syphilitic ulcers. Ulcerous patches in the throat; aphthous patches in the mouth. There is inflammation of the mucous membranes everywhere, producing watery and finally thick yellow discharges.

The nose is filled by tumefaction of the Schneiderian membrane. Old catarrhal complaints of the nose, crusts, thick yellow discharge, foetid odor from the nose.

The nose, posterior nares and pharynx become thickened and there is an accumulation of thick mucus, especially in the morning.

The larynx is involved and there is loss of voice, and the trouble extends to the chest, causing a catarrhal condition with cough. He coughs especially at night, and there is emaciation of the body with pain and soreness of the chest. Dry, hacking cough, alternating with copious expectoration; emaciation about the chest. A striking feature of this drug is that the cough is worse at night, and the diarrhea is worse during the day.

Catarrh of the stomach and bowels. Catarrh of the rectum, much mucus with the stools. Diarrhœa during the day time, ameliorated at night, while the patient is quiet and at rest.

He cannot eat without pain, but he has a gnawing hunger which drives him to eat. (Lach., Graph.) There is an “all-gone,” hungry feeling after stool, which drives him to eat. With the diarrhea there is constant hunger, yet he cannot eat without pain; emaciation, skin eruptions, unhealthy ragged fingers which never look clean; he cannot wash them, as this causes them to chap.

Urinary and genitals: Catarrh of the bladder and urethra; chronic catarrhal discharge chronic gonorrhea. Itching is common to the internal skin, and a striking feature in gonorrhea is the itching in the posterior half of the urethra with the discharge. It almost drives him wild, keeps him awake at night. He rubs and manipulates the perineum to relieve this itching. The gonorrheal discharge is white or yellow. It is useful in that “last drop.”

Also in the early stages of gonorrhea when the itching is troublesome.

Sore bruised feeling all over the body, especially in the joint Rheumatic pain in the joints on motion; sore to touch; sensation as if bruised. It is analogous to Arnica in relation to bruises.

Petroleum is suitable in old stubborn occipital headaches. Silicea is the routine remedy for offensive foot sweat and periodic occipital headaches. Petroleum has also offensive foot sweat; offensive sweats all over, and especially so in the axilla, where it is so pungent that it can be observed on the patient entering the room.

The pain often remains in the occiput, but when very severe it extends up over the top of the head to the eyes and forehead (Silicea has that condition). Petroleum is not so closely related to Silicea as it is to Graphites and Carbo veg., which are carbonaceous substances; and all carbonaceous products affect the back of the head.

“Pain from occiput over head to forehead and eyes, with transitory blindness; he gets stiff; loses consciousness.”

“Circumscribed pain in the occiput, aggravated on shaking the head.”

This remedy, unlike Carbo veg., has oversensitiveness of the senses, bearing, touch and smell.

Ears: The Petroleum constitution produces a peculiar vertigo which comes on under regular circumstances, when on ship-board, or riding in a carriage, or on the ears.

It suits occipital headache from riding on the ears, or from such motions, with nausea like seasickness. Seasickness is a trouble we cannot always meet, yet most people, when constitutionally treated, can be directed into a better state, so that they will not be troubled under ordinary conditions, such as riding on the cars or in a carriage.

To a great extent the above condition is due to a lack of accommodation, a visual trouble; coming on, for example, from focusing the eyes on the waves as they retreat from the rear end of the ship, or on passing objects, the patient being relieved while in a dark state-room. Occipital headache, with the vertigo above mentioned, and an all gone hungry feeling or pain in the stomach, driving him to eat, will be mitigated by Petroleum.

The most common form of seasickness I have found to be the following:

Awful deathly nausea pallor, cold body, profuse sweat and exhaustion, ameliorated by fanning, by the open air, by closing the eyes, by quiet and darkness, and aggravated by warmth. Tabacum is generally the remedy of such cases.

In Petroleum there is much disturbance of vision, but the catarrhal the eyes is striking. Vesicular formations, ulcerations, inflammation, redness and copious discharge; granular lids, thickening mucous membranes, cracks in the lids, fissures in the corners eyes with great itching.

This itching is present in all congestions of the mucous membrane. Eustachian tubes. The mucous membrane is thickened, and deafness results. It is a catarrhal state, attended by great itching in the tube, which be cannot reach method; itching deep in the ear. He rubs the ear and tries to it, but he cannot reach it. Itching in the pharynx; also in the I canal of the ear. Ear discharges.

Induration and inflammation of the glands of the body. In ear troubles, the parotids enlarge; in troubles about the jaw, the sub-maxillary and sub-lingual glands are involved; they become hard and tend to remain so.

Face pale or yellow; sickly.

“Nausea and qualmishness all day”.

Stiffness in the back. Pain in the back on rising from a seat.

Heat and burning. Skin hot in places; with sensation of coldness. Burning and itching of palms and soles; face and scalp. The itching and burning often go together; parts that burn much. Feet burn and have a sensation as if frozen. Chilblains itch, burn and become purple. Parts frozen will, years after, itch, burn, sting and become red and hot. The patient can tell when it will thaw because of the itching in the chilblains.

Petroleum cures the itching and burning in frozen parts, but not as prominently as Agaricus leads all other remedies, especially when the condition affects parts where the tissues are thin over the bones, as over the back of the toes.

Paretic conditions, especially left-sided., Weakness of muscles, weakness of the lower extremities, especially left-sided.

The eruptions on the surface and the state of induration are like Graphites, but the oozing in Petroleum is thin and watery, and in Graphites it is gluey, honey like, sticky, viscid. You have indurations and cracks of the fingers, and rhagades in both remedies, but the horn-like warty growths, lifting up the quick of the nails, you will find only in Graphites.

It is of wonderful use and competes with Rhus in eczema of the genitals of either male or female. Eruption on the scrotum, penis, vulva.

Rhus produces violent inflammation of the skin of the genitals in male and female; erysipelatous inflammation; nodules vesicles and large blebs. Petroleum produces small vesicles which itch, sting and burn.

Herpetic eruptions which tend to become erysipelatous. Petroleum and Rhus are the most common remedies for eruptions on the scrotum and genitals.

“Herpetic itching, redness and moisture on scrotum; skin cracked, rough and bleeding; extending to perineum, and thighs.”

“Obstinate dry eruptions on genitals and perineum.”

“Sweat and moisture of external genitals of both sexes.”

Scurfy nipples; white, bran-like scurf; itching; always peeling off. If the woman is in run-down health, then the nipples inflame and become oversensitive to the touch of clothing.

Very sensitive to change of weather, like Phos. and Rhod.; aggravated before a thunder storm. Often sensitive to air and cold. Lean, emaciated subjects; threatening consumption. Eruptions disappear of themselves or are suppressed. Hands and feet burn; wants the palms and soles out of bed.

Do not be too sure Sulphur because the soles burn, or too sure of Silicea because the feet sweat. Sweating of single parts. Eruptions in patches. Itching in patches. Coldness in parts. Complaints come in single parts.

The most striking offensiveness is about the feet and in the axillae. There are many strange sensations which are peculiar and striking. Study closely the skin symptoms and compare with Graphites and Sulphur.

Sabadilla
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 155 of 180
Source pages 2767–2779 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

Generals: The Sabadilla patient is a shivering patient, sensitive to the cold air, a cold room, cold food.

He wants to be well wrapped up; wants hot drinks to warm up his stomach. He is subject to catarrhal conditions, and in these he wants hot air. The catarrhal conditions of the throat require hot drinks and food. Warm things are grateful to him. It is difficult to swallow cold things; they increase the pain and difficulty in swallowing.

We often study remedies by contrast. This remedy travels from left to right, and at once a good prescriber connects it with Lachesis. The soreness, pain and inflammatory conditions of the throat commence on the left side and spread to the right in both Sabadilla and Lachesis. But warm things aggravate the pain in Lachesis; they cause a spasmodic condition, with a sensation of choking, and therefore he wants cold things, which relieve; they are swallowed more easily and ameliorate the pain in the throat. Sabadilla on the other hand is relieved by heat, either outside or inside.

Nose: Catarrhal condition of the nose, with constant sneezing; sensation of great rawness in the nose; burning; stuffing up of the nose.

Discharge at first of thin mums and later thick mucus. It has all the appearance of a coryza. The coryza is ameliorated from inhaling hot air. He sits before an open grate or register, with the head close to it, inhaling the hot air. Especially useful when the catarrhal state of the nose is prolonged; a prolonged coryza, which does not yield to ordinary remedies; a lingering coryza, and the discharge is exaggerated by the odor of flowers. Even thinking of the odor of flowers makes him sneeze and increases the flow from the nose. So thinking of various things aggravates his complaints.

Many hay fever patients are sensitive to the odor of flowers, to the, odor of the hay field, to dying vegetable matter; so oversensitive to the odor of fruit are some that apples have to be removed from the house. Inhalation of odors that are beautiful, as that of the lavender, some hay fever patients cannot tolerate; such things may bring on an attack out of the season. Now Sabadilla is of this sort oversensitive to surroundings, to odors; these increase the catarrhal state of the throat and posterior nares.

Sneezing and a flow of mucus from the nose; goes on even to ulceration. Periodical attacks; a rose cold in June; in autumn about August 20 as a hay fever. Hay fever is often an easy thing to palliate with short acting remedies; they will cut short an attack in a few days. But the cure requires years, and the patient must be treated in the interim and according to his symptoms. When the hay fever symptoms are present he has no others; one group is manifested at one time, and another group at another time. But the patient is sick and all the symptoms must be gathered together and the case treated accordingly.

Mind: Many of the annoyances of this individual seem to be imaginary.

His mind is filled with strange things. Imaginations concerning persons or himself are strange. Imagines the body is withering, that the limbs are crooked, that the chin is elongated, and larger on one side than the other. She feels that this is so and believes it even in spite of her vision. It is a sensation which she believes, a delusion, an insanity.

“Erroneous impressions as to the state of his body.”

“Imagines himself sick; imagines parts shrunken; that she is pregnant when she is merely swollen from flatus; that she has some horrible throat disease that will end fatally.”

The imaginations are groundless; nothing is visible, and the suffering is greater than if there was something to be seen. These patients often get no sympathy; they should really have a remedy. Thuja has erroneous impressions as to the state of the body; thinks she is made of glass; the idea is not that of transparency, but rather of brittleness fears that she would break in pieces.

There are but a few remedies which have fixed ideas; these ideas may be concerning religion, politics, clothing, things of the family and life. I once had an insane patient who would get out of the street, ear if anyone entered who wore a certain color, because she had a fixed idea that this was of evil import to her.

The Pulsatilla mental state in a man is that a woman would be a detriment to his soul; it is a delusion, a fixed idea. Iodine is full of fixed ideas. Anacardium has a fixed idea that a devil is sitting on one shoulder talking into his ear, while an angel sits on the other shoulder talking into the other ear, and he halts between the two and says nothing.

“Delirium during intermittents.”

“Mental exertion aggravates the headache and produces sleep.”

A sleepiness comes on from thinking, meditating, reading. While meditating in a chair he falls asleep like Nux moschata and Phosphoric acid.

Head: Dizziness; vertigo.

He wakens up at night with vertigo. Vertigo, in the open air; under all sorts of circumstances. Full of headaches. Headaches on one side of the head. The meditation which drives him to sleep brings on headache.

Headache in school girls. Feeble children, who have to be taken from school because of headache, come home with strange imaginations concerning school and themselves. Headache stupefying and associated with coryza; in the frontal sinuses, above the eyes.

Fullness, bursting, stupefying, aggravated by jarring, sneezing, walking. Stupefying headaches with coryza. Often gets up with it in the morning, increases during the forenoon. Head covered with a cold sweat. Many of the symptoms are closely related to Veratrum, especially in the cold sweat on the forehead with complaints.

Hay fever when there is spasmodic sneezing, fluent coryza; nostrils stuffed up; inspirations through nose labored; snoring; itching in the nose; profuse bleeding from the nose; bright red blood comes from the posterior nares and is expectorated; very sensitive to the smell of garlic; coryza with severe frontal pains and redness of eyelids; violent sneezing; copious watery discharge from the nose.

A peculiar kind of itching coming on in some hay fevers is an itching in the roof of the mouth, on the soft palate, and for relief the patient must draw the tongue back and forth over the soft palate, with this coryza, sneezing, etc. Wyethia will cut the attack short.

When the itching extends to the larynx and trachea, with great irritability and sensitive to cold: Nux vomica.

When the discharge burns a red streak over the upper lip and about the wings of the nose, with sneezing and profuse, watery nasal discharge: Arsenicum.

Copious acrid lachrymation, and copious bland flow from the nose with sneezing: Euphrasia.

Copious, bland, watery discharge from the eyes and copious, acrid, watery discharge from the nose: Allium cepa.

But these are not the constitutional remedies; they do not cure, but only palliate during the severe attacks. These symptoms are the outcome of the psoric constitution, and this constitution must be treated by antipsorics. Sometimes the hay fever is so severe that it seems to be the only manifestation of psora in the patient, but if it is restrained or stopped up by bad treatment he is not well during the whole year.

If let alone he has good health during the rest of the year. Many a time the hay fever goes through the whole winter and only by constitutional up building can it be mitigated. But with constitutional treatment each yearly attack is lighter, and at the end of treatment he is able to live in his own climate unaffected.

He must not go to the mountains to mitigate it. If to any place, he should go where the affection would be worse, so that all its manifestations would be apparent. The hay fever will only be cured if the patient is curable, but if not, if his constitution is so broken down that he is incurable, his hay fever will not be cured.

The most striking place of attack is the mucous membrane of the nose, throat, trachea and larynx. Violent acute inflammation of the mucous membrane of these parts.

Stomach: Great thirst for hot drinks.

The appetite is singular; it is commonly seen in pregnant women. She says she is never hungry; never wants anything to eat, and often there is an aversion to food; but when, from a matter of reason, she concludes to eat, and she takes a mouthful, it tastes good, it recalls the appetite, and she makes a good meal. At other times not only a loss of appetite, but a disgust and loathing of food.

“Disgust for all food, for meat, for sour things, for coffee, for garlic.”

“Morbid hunger or loathing for food.”

A routine remedy in pin worms, seat worms, all sorts of worms stomach and tape worms. A careful prescriber never thinks of prescribing for worms. He takes all the symptoms of the patient and these guide him to the remedy. I remember one time in a lady’s house seeing a dog drag his hinder parts over the carpet as if to scratch the anus. She said:

“Doctor, can’t you give the dog a remedy?”

I put a dose of Sabadilla in its mouth. Some time afterwards she asked me:

“Doctor, what did you give the dog that medicine for?”

I inquired why she asked.

“Why,” she said, “in a few days it passed an awful lot of worms.”

Sabadilla and Sinapis nigra are well adapted to cases in which pin worms are present. Often a remedy restores the patient to order in general and then all his particular parts are set in order. Female sexual organs.

“Nymphomania from ascarides.”

“Cutting pains, as from knives, in ovary.”

“Menses too late, with painful bearing down a few days previous; decreased, How by fits and. starts, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker; blood bright red.”

Hysterical patients; a patient with a strangely unbalanced mind, accompanied by various nervous manifestations.

“Twitchings, convulsive tremblings, or catalepsy from worms.”

It is true that worms will not prosper in a perfectly healthy stomach, intestine or rectum. They can only thrive in the unhealthy. Many a time I have had a patient bring me a tape-worm in a bottle after I had put them on an antipsoric, even when I did not suspect its existence.

Turn the economy into order and the parasites go. The same applies to germs. They only exist as a result of disease. They have never been known to exist without the disease having first existed. If you ignore the worm, but select the remedy on the totality of the symptoms, the patient will be restored to health, and, so far as the worm is concerned, go without a symptom.

The worm becomes smaller, shrivels and finally departs. It is rarely the case for the worm to disappear inside of six weeks after the remedy. If, on the other hand, you eject the worm by violent means, the patient may go for years with troublesome symptoms, and you do not know why you fail to cure him.

Prescribe for the patient first. No results of disease should be removed until proper constitutional treatment has been resorted to, and be sure that it is proper.

Editorial notes

• “inflarnmatory” corrected to “inflammatory” (transcription error in the digital source text).

Phosphorus
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 141 of 180
Source pages 2509–2551 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

The complaints of Phosphorus are most likely to arise in the feeble constitutions, such as have been born sick, grown up slender, and grown too rapidly.

Its complaints are found in such as are emaciated, and in those who are rapidly emaciating; in children who are going into marasmus, and in persons who have in them the foundation of consumption fairly well laid. Delicate, waxy, anemic and emaciated subjects. In persons who are vehement, irascible.

This expresses the person’s disposition somewhat as well as his internal constitutional state. Internally he is in a turmoil. Subject to violent pulsations, complaints from electric changes in the atmosphere; violent palpitations and orgasms. In chlorotic girls who have grown too rapidly and have suddenly taken on weakness, pallor, green sickness, with menstrual difficulties. Ebullitions and congestions. Hemorrhagic constitutions.

Blood: Small wounds bleed much; the prick of the needle will bubble forth much bright red blood.

Hemorrhage from small wounds, from the nose, from the lungs, from the stomach, from the bladder and from the uterus. Bleeding from ulcerations. False granulations that bleed. Purpura hoemorrhagica. Black and blue spots.

Blood settles beneath the conjunctiva, or beneath the skin anywhere.

Bloody saliva; evidences of disorganized blood, or that the blood seems to become fluid. Small bruises take on broad blue spots. Blows much blood out of the nose. Petechiae all over the body, such as are found in typhoid fever, low forms of continued fever with hemorrhages. Fungous growth. Fatty degeneration is a marked feature of Phosphorus, and can be found in the liver, heart or kidneys.

General dropsical condition. Bloating of the hands and feet, especially dropsical conditions after scarlet fever. The mucous membranes are all pale, such as is found after bleeding or in low forms of disease. A marked state of anemia and relaxed condition of the muscles. Muscles flabby. Fatty degeneration of the muscles.

The genitals hang down. In the woman, relaxation of the pelvic organs, prolapsus and other displacements. Stiffness is a marked feature of Phosphorus. Stiffness on beginning to move. Limbs stiff like a foundered horse, especially in the morning. Rheumatic stiffness in all the limbs. Phosphorus has tearing, drawing pains in the limbs. Drawing, tearing pains in affected parts. Phosphorus complaints are worse in cold weather.

The patient himself, generally considered, is sensitive to cold. All his complaints are worse from cold and cold applications, and better from beat and warm applications, except the complaints of the head and stomach, which are ameliorated from cold as will hereafter be described. Phosphorus has been very useful in weak, relaxed conditions of the joints following sprains, when the symptoms agree.

Necrosis is another feature of Phosphorus, especially of the lower jaw, but may be useful in necrosis of any of the bones. Exostoses of the skull with tearing pains. Tearing, boring pains, especially at night. Phosphorus has cured polypi of the nose and cars. Scrofulous and glandular swellings. Glands enlarge, especially after contusions like Bellis.

Glandular affections of weak, pale, sickly individuals, such as suffer from diarrhea, such as suffer from exhaustive conditions, abscesses, fistulous openings, with hectic fever. Abscesses with copious discharge of yellow pus. Malignant growths are greatly restrained by the use of Phosphorus, when the symptoms agree. Burning pains are observed everywhere. Burning in the brain, burning in the skin. Burning in the stomach, in the chest, and in various parts.

The Phosphorus patient is very sensitive to all external impressions slight odors, noises, touch. Slight causes lead to exhaustion of either body or mind. Trembling throughout the body from slight causes, using the bands, from slight exertion, from debility, from coughing. Weakness prevails in a marked degree, finally becoming paralysis or paralytic weakness such as occurs in most forms of typhoid fever, with sliding down in bed, trembling and jerking of the muscles. Paralysis with formication and tearing in the limbs.

Paralysis that comes with apoplexy. Jerking and twitching of the muscles such as has been found in paralysis. Spasms of the paralyzed parts. Tearing, drawing, burning pains throughout the body.

The Phosphorus patient wants to be rubbed. He is generally better after sleep. Always wants to rest. Always tired. The Phosphorus patient undergoes great excitement. Tremulousness. Wild thoughts. Excitability, keeping him awake at night. Violent imaginations.

Mind: Excitability even to ecstasy and clairvoyance.

The mind may be overactive or may be extremely passive with loss of memory. Irritability of mind and body and great prostration of mind after slight mental effort, and of the body afar slight physical exertion.

Anxiety, gloomy forebodings. Fear that something will happen. Anxious at twilight. Anxious when alone. Apprehensiveness. Apprehensive during thunder storms, which brings on many complaints; palpitation, diarrhea and trembling. Trembling of the whole body.

Attacks of indigestion from fear. Fear in the evening, fear of death. Fear of strange old faces looking at him from the corner. Full of strange, insane imaginations. On the border land of insanity. Inability to sustain a mental effort. Fear of apoplexy. Reflecting brings on headache and difficult breathing associated with apprehensiveness or sinking at the pit of the stomach. His fear seems to begin ‘at the pit of the stomach.

Apathy or indifference; indifferent to his friends and surroundings. Indifferent to his children. Answers no questions, takes no notice of his family and things about him, answers slowly, thinks sluggishly, seems dazed or in a stupor. Everything looks dark, he is weary of life, gloomy and says nothing.

Dejected; a most marked case of hypochondriasis. Weeping, sad, hysterical; will uncover the body and expose his person. Violent, loquacious; delirium. Delirium of low forms of fever, or delirium of mania a potu.

Maniacal attacks come on during sleep with fury and extreme violence, so that no one dares approach him, and this progresses to imbecility, silliness, weak brain, idiocy. Brain fag from mental overwork and constant strain of eyes. Vertigo is a very common symptom throughout all of the complaints of Phosphorus. Staggering while walking as if intoxicated. Vertigo when in the open air; vertigo after eating; vertigo in the evening. Heaviness and confusion in the head and things go round; great weakness of the head.

All of these mental symptoms are worse in the dark; worse when alone; sometimes worse from music; worse from excitement; worse from playing the piano.

Head: The headaches of Phosphorus are congestive and throbbing.

The blood mounts to the head. The headaches are ameliorated from cold and worse from heat, worse from motion, and better from rest, worse lying down. The patient is often compelled to sit upright, with great pressure upon the head and cold applications. The face is flushed and hot; burning in the brain.

The warm room, warm surroundings, warm food, putting the hands into warm water will increase the headache. The complaints of the head like the complaints of the stomach are worse from heat, warm applications and from warm food, and better from cold things; while the complaints of the body are better from warmth and, worse from cold.

The headaches are most violent and are often attended with hunger or preceded by hunger; headaches with vomiting, red face, and scanty urine; uraemic headaches; violent neuralgic pains darting, tearing, shooting through the head; pressing pains in the head. Periodical headaches, headaches brought on from mental exertion.

Great heat in the head and stiffness in the muscles of the face and jaws. This is sometimes attended with coldness in the back of the head. Shocks through the brain. The headaches are worse from noise, from light; apoplectic congestion of the head. It has cured acute hydrocephalus and hydrocephaloid symptoms.

Chronic inflammation of the meninges of the brain; softening of the brain; imbecility; insanity. Violent head pains; atrophy of the brain; medulla oblongata. The scalp is covered with dandruff; the hair falls out in patches, leaving bald places here and there. Great heat in the scalp; tension in the scalp and face and forehead as if bound by a bandage. Scaly eruptions on the bald places of the head; exostoses on the skull.

The complaints of the head are brought on from becoming overheated. Sensation as if the hair were pulled; great soreness of the scalp; must let the hair hang down during headaches.

Eyes: The eye symptoms are very numerous; burning, redness, congestion, enlargement of the blood-vessels.

Objects look red and often blue in the field of vision, or objects sometimes look green and gray as is observed in incipient cataract. Colors, also, appear black before the eyes. Vision is vague; the eyes give out while reading; sees better in the morning, in the twilight.

The eye symptoms, like Phosphorus in general, have amelioration after rest. Momentary blindness like fainting; seems to suddenly become blind; paralysis of the optic nerve; blindness after electric shocks, or after a stroke of lightning. It has cured glaucoma. It has cured inflammation of the retina in Bright’s disease.

It has cured opacity of the vitreous humor. It has cured paralytic weakness of the various muscles of the eyes. It has cured paralysis of the third pair of nerves where there is falling of the lids; sub-acute inflammation of the eyes.

Burning, redness, and smarting ameliorated from cold applications. The eyelids twitch and tremble; swelling of the eyelids; dropsical swelling of the eyelids; great darkness around the eyes; great circles around the eyes. It is a very useful remedy in malignant growths involving the eye, restraining very much the progress of the disease.

The eye symptoms like the head and mind symptoms are such as often come on in brain workers; working under a bright light causing much determination of blood to the head in which the eyes as well as other parts suffer.

Ears: Phosphorus has a peculiar deafness.

One of the most striking features of Phosphorus is inability to understand the articulations of the human voice. Hearing is difficult. He sometimes feels as if there were something over the ears; as if the ears were covered, obstructing the waves of sound.

Violent itching in the ears; congestion of the external ear; itching, tearing, throbbing, burning pains within the ear, It has cured polypi in the ears.

Nose: The nose symptoms are also very numerous; inveterate nasal catarrh.

He takes cold in the nose, but the most common seat of the Phosphorus cold is in the chest, and most of his difficulties begin in the chest, but Phosphorus cures nasal catarrh and coryza.

There is painful dryness in the nose; constant sneezing and running from the nose of bloody water.

Frequent alternations of fluent and stopped-up conditions of the nose; coryza with sore throat; stoppage of the nostrils; much sneezing and stopping of the nose alternating with dryness of the nose in scarlet fever; nostrils filled with green mucus; a copious nasal discharge of greenish-yellow, blood-streaked mucus, worse in the morning; bad odor from the nose; frequent blowing of blood from the nose; copious hemorrhage from the nose of bright red blood; swelling of the nose, redness and shining; very sensitive to touch; necrosis of the bones of the nose.

It has cured polypi of the nose, especially bleeding polypi. Fan-like motion of the nose, like Lycopodium.

Face: The Phosphorus patient presents a sickly face, earthy, sunken and pale, such as we find in consumption and those about to go into consumption those suffering from deep-seated constitutional conditions; haggard, anemic.

The color is changeable; swollen, oedematous face; puffed under the eyes; lips and eyelids swollen. Again, red spots upon the checks, which appear in hectic fever; the hectic blush. Tension of the skin and of the face; tearing, shooting pains all through the face and about the eyes, from the temples and vertex down to the zygoma. Jerking, tearing pains in the teeth.

The pains of the teeth are often ameliorated by warmth, while those of the head are ameliorated by cold. The pains of the teeth are worse when talking and eating, and worse after eating It has violent neuralgias of the face involving the jaw and temples, with hot, bloated face, worse from talking and from eating.

It has caries of the lower jaw, with great heat, burning and fistulous openings. Neuralgia of the face and teeth; has to be wrapped up at night; worse in windy weather.

The countenance is sickly, sunken, declining, as if a serious sickness was coming.

The lips are parched, dry and bleeding. The lips become black, brown and cracked as in low forms of fever, and with necrosis of the lower jaw. Inflammation of the parotid gland, especially when it suppurates or there are fistulous openings. Rapid decay of the teeth. The gums bleed and settle away from the teeth.

Phosphorus is very useful for the bright red hemorrhage after the extraction of teeth. The tongue is swollen and speech is difficult. It is difficult to articulate. The taste in the mouth is bitter or sour, especially sour after taking milk; sometimes salty or sweetish; bitter after eating.

Taste of hydrogen sulphide in the morning. The tongue is coated like fur; sometimes chalky-white, sometimes yellow; dry, cracked and bleeding; sordes on the teeth. Crusts form upon the mucous membranes of the mouth, gums, lips and tongue. The tongue is swollen and the papillae are engorged.

Throat: Dryness of the mouth and throat; sore, excoriated mucous membranes of the mouth and throat.

The mouth may be covered with thrush, as in nursing sore mouth; bloody erosions of the mouth; nursing sore mouth. Much watery saliva and bloody saliva flows from the mouth. The saliva is copious, tasting sweetish, saltish or foul. The mucous membranes of the throat are like those of the mouth. Great dryness, roughness, rawness, excoriation, bleeding, and inflammation of the tonsils; inflammation of the throat; sensation of cotton in the throat; sensation of velvet in the throat.

The tonsils are much swollen. Intense pain in the throat and burning in the throat that extends into the oesophagus. Inability to swallow any nourishment because of paralysis of the oesophagus or acute inflammation of the mucous membranes of the throat and oesophagus; constriction of the oesophagus.

In Phosphorus there is violent hunger and very soon after eating the hunger returns again. Must eat during the chill. Must get tip in the night to eat. Feels faint and is driven to eat. Ravenous hunger during headache; he knows that the headache is coming on because of his violent hunger; in periodical headaches.

The hunger is often spasmodic, because at times there is aversion to food. Again, he wants to eat and as soon as the food is offered he does not want it. Thirst is one of the most constant features of Phosphorus.

In acute and chronic complaints there is violent thirst; thirst for ice-cold drinks. Wants something refreshing; is ameliorated momentarily by drinking cold things, but the thirst appears as soon as the water gets warm in the stomach. Vomiting comes on as soon as the water becomes warm in the stomach, but there are many conditions where the ice-cold water agrees.

Unquenchable thirst. When the water is vomited there is always unquenchable thirst. He wants cold food as well as cold drinks; refreshing, spicy things, juicy things; desire for wines and sour things. Phosphorus often cures the violent’ longing in inebriates for alcohol.

It simply resembles the congestion of the mucous membrane of the stomach. Aversion to sweets, to meat, to boiled milk, to salt fish, to beer, to puddings, to tea and coffee.

Many of the complaints of Phosphorus are ameliorated by eating. The nervous symptoms of Phosphorus drive the patient to eat and he feels better for a little while, and then he must eat again or the nervous symptoms will come on. Often he can sleep better after eating and cannot go to sleep until he eats something.

Stomach: The stomach symptoms are numerous: pains, nausea, vomiting, burning.

The stomach symptoms are ameliorated by cold things and aggravated by warm things. The nausea and vomiting are brought on by putting the hands into warm water, from being in a warm room, from warm things and from taking warm things into the stomach. The nausea of pregnancy is cured when the woman cannot put the hands into warm water without bringing on vomiting. Another marked feature of Phosphorus is eructations of food.

The food is eructated by mouthful until the stomach is emptied of the last meal. Constant nausea except when something cold is in he stomach. As soon as water becomes warm in the stomach it comes up. This very much resembles the vomiting and nausea of Chloroform, and Phosphorus is a great friend to the surgeon because he can nearly always antidote the stomach affections of Chloroform by Phosphorus. Vomiting of blood and violent vomiting of sour fluids; vomiting of bile and mucus; vomiting of black substances, coffee-ground substances. Awful sinking, gone feeling in the stomach.

This sometimes comes at 11 o’clock like Sulphur. Pressing pains, burning pains, tearing pains in the stomach; pain in the stomach after eating; sensitiveness in the pit of the stomach; inflammation of the stomach. It has been a very useful remedy in cancer of the stomach, with coffee-ground vomiting and burning; coldness, as if freezing, in the pit of the stomach; paroxysms of knife-like pains in the stomach.

The pains in the stomach are ameliorated by ice-cold things for a moment; spasmodic contractions of the stomach; hemorrhage from the stomach; vomiting of great quantities of clotted blood; long-standing dyspepsia; much flatulence; regurgitation of food; distended stomach and abdomen; ulceration of the stomach.

The liver furnishes us many symptoms of Phosphorus. Congestion of the liver, fullness, pain, hardness, fatty degeneration of the liver, hyperemia of the liver. Phosphorus is one of the most useful liver remedies; hard, large liver. With the stomach and liver symptoms there is commonly jaundice.

Abdomen: Very sensitive abdomen, painful to touch, rolling and rumbling.

Sensation of emptiness in the abdomen; sunken feeling in the abdomen. The abdomen feels as if relaxed; hanging down sensation and sensation of great weight in the abdomen. Tympanitic abdomen such as occurs in typhoid fever.

A marked feature in Phosphorus is the peculiar gurgling which begins in the stomach and gurgles along down through the intestines, attended with involuntary stool. This occurs in typhoid fever. The gurgling that occurs in Arsenicum is down the oesophagus.

Flatulence; colic; rending, tearing, cutting pains throughout the abdomen; stitching pains in the abdomen; violent neuralgic pains in the abdomen; inflammation of the bowels, of the peritoneum; appendicitis. Yellow, brown spots on the abdomen; petechiae over the abdomen during typhoid fever.

Phosphorus is rich in symptoms of the rectum and stool; involuntary discharges from the bowels; copious emission of fluids; foetid, gushing stools; horribly offensive, yellow, watery stools. The patient lies as if dying, the stools passing involuntarily; stools of white mucus; stools of slime intermingled with little specks like tallow; involuntary oozings from the constantly wide open anus.

Hemorrhage from the bowels in typhoids, in low forms of disease; bloody discharges like meat washings, involuntary, on every motion. Burning in the rectum during stool. Protrusion of the rectum; protrusion of hoemorrhoidal tumors. Sharp, stitching pains from the coccyx up the spine to the base of the brain drawing the neck backward, and this symptom occurs during stool. It has occurred during involuntary stool.

After stool painful cramps in the rectum; burning in the anus; violent tenesmus; sinking feeling in the abdomen; obliged to lie down; exhaustion and fainting. The copious diarrhea is like the profuse flow of water from a hydrant. It is useful in cholera times and in cholera morbus. It is a useful medicine for chronic diarrhea with soft, thin stools. It has been a very useful remedy in cholera infantum. It has also cured dysentery with bloody mucus, scanty stools with violent tenesmus. It also cures inveterate constipation.

The stool is hard, long, and slender, described in the books as like that of a dog. Alternating diarrhea and constipation in old people. Spasms of the rectum. Paralysis of the bowel, so that it is impossible to strain at stool, Hemorrhage from the bowels. It has cured polypi of the rectum; inflammation of the rectum. It has many times cured bleeding, protruding hemorrhoids; hemorrhoids that burn. It has cured fissures of the anus. Among many of these bowel symptoms the anus feels as if wide open.

Kidneys: Phosphorus is a useful remedy in diseases of the kidneys, especially diabetes, with sugar in the urine when there is great thirst for ice-cold things and ice-cold water. Gradual emaciation; gradual weakness; considerable heat of the head; coldness of the extremities, and sugar in the urine. Phosphorus will cure fatty degeneration of the kidneys. Renal calculi. No desire to pass urine though the bladder is full.

There is a paralytic weakness which resembles the paralytic weakness throughout all the muscles of the body. He is unable to strain to pass the urine because such straining increases pain in the region of the bladder.

Profuse, pale, watery urine; frequent and scanty or completely suppressed urine. Turbid, whitish urine; curdled like milk. Albuminous urine. Involuntary urination during sleep.

Tearing in the urethra; twitching and burning in the urethra. Periodical sick headaches sometimes are preceded by scanty urine and sometimes by a copious watery flow of urine.

Men: The male sexual organs furnish many symptoms of Phosphorus.

Violent sexual desire driving him frantic. Erections frequent and painful day and night. Seminal emissions at night even without lascivious dreams. Sexual debility from the inordinate use of table salt. Impotence after excessive excitement and secret vice, preceded by over-excitement of the sexual organs.

Frequent discharges day and night of thin, slimy, colorless fluid from the urethra. Sexual abuse with spinal disease. Discharges of prostatic fluid during a hard stool. Chronic urethral discharges due to hypertrophy of the prostate gland gleety discharge, Swelling and soreness of the testes and cord; inflammation of the testes and cord. It has cured hydrocele following gonorrhea.

Women: In the woman it is equally useful.

Phosphorus has cured many cases of sterility supposed to depend upon violent sexual excitement. Violent sexual excitement with aversion to coition. Violent pain in the ovaries extending down the inner side of the thighs during menstruation caused by inflammation of the ovaries.

Inflammation of the uterus during menstruation and during pregnancy or during pyoemia. Copious hemorrhages from uterus, bright red, clotted blood after confinement, during menstruation or during the climacteric period. Frequent and profuse hemorrhages from the uterus caused from cancerous affections.

The menstrual period is too early, flow bright red, lasting too long, is copious; during the menstrual period ice-cold feet and hands; nausea; pain in the back, as if broken; blue rings around eyes; loss of flesh; much fearfulness. It has also menstrual suppression in consumptives with cough, bleeding from the nose, and spitting of blood. Violent sexual excitement driving to secret vice.

Copious yellow leucorrhoea with great weakness; leucorrhoea instead of menses; white, watery leucorrhoea, acrid, excoriating; milky leucorrhoea, copious when walking. The leucorrhoea is so excoriating that blisters form upon the genitals. Burning and smarting in the vagina. Stitching pains upward from the vagina into the pelvis. While there is violent sexual excitement during coition there. is lack of sensation in the vagina, as if it were numb.

Condylomata appear like fig warts and excrescences about the genitals and in the, vagina. Bleeding warts. Erectile tumors on the external genitals.

Dropsical swelling of the labia. Cauliflower excrescences with much bleeding. Painful, hard, large nodosities in the female mammary glands. Fibroid tumors of the breast. Fibroid tumors of the uterus with copious hemorrhages

During pregnancy and lactation violent sexual desire; vomiting of pregnancy. Much prostration, sinking, and trembling, puerperal convulsions; pain in the back, as if it would break. Increased secretion of milk out of season. Inflammation of the mammary glands with much heat, weight, and suppuration. Erysipelas of the breasts or of the genitals.

Larynx: Inflammation of the larynx with hoarseness in the morning; husky voice; great sensitiveness of the larynx to touch and cold air; pain and burning in the larynx on talking; weakness in the vocal cords; violent tickling of the larynx while talking; constriction and spasms of the larynx; constant irritation to cough in the larynx; tuberculous condition of the larynx; bleeding; loss of voice; cannot speak a word on account of pain in the larynx; sensation of velvet in the larynx; rawness and smarting in the larynx.

Phosphorus has cured many cases of croup, membranous croup, when all the symptoms were present. Every change of weather, from becoming overheated, and colds settle in the larynx, producing loss of voice and hoarseness, especially in public speakers and singers. Hoarseness and loss of voice; great dryness in the larynx and all of the air passages. Hard, dry, rasping cough that shakes the whole body from irritation in the larynx.

The irritation travels down the air passages, affecting the trachea, along with difficult respiration; asthmatic breathing; clutching in the larynx; suffocation; dyspnoea; spasms and constrictions of the chest.

Violent, stridulous inspiration in the evening on falling asleep; fear of suffocation; labored breathing. Paralysis of the lungs; fullness in the chest after eating, much irritation in the larynx; difficult breathing; scraping of mucus from the larynx after eating.

Chest: In the chest, Phosphorus produces oppression; anxiety, weakness and constriction going along with its chest complaints. Heaviness as if a great weight were lying upon the chest. With the cough, bronchitis, pneumonia and cardiac symptoms there is always more or less constriction of the chest as if bound, or as if bandaged, or as if tied tight with a string.

Tightness felt over the sternum, and with all complaints great weakness of the chest; pressure as of a weight over the middle of the sternum; feeling of a rush of blood to the chest with or without violent pulsations. Sensation of heat in the chest mounting to the head; flushes of heat in the chest extending upward. Stitching pain in the chest; spasmodic pains in the chest; violent stitching pains in the left side of the chest better by lying on the right side. These are pains likely to occur ig pleurisy or in pleurisy with pneumonia.

Complaints of chest, worse in cold air. Rawness in the trachea extending into the lungs; burning in the chest; acute pain in the lower part of the lungs; violent pain in the chest with coughing. The patient is compelled to hold the chest with the hand. Inflammation of the lungs with anxiety, oppression, and expectoration of bright red blood.

The Phosphorus patient suffers from copious hemorrhages from the lungs in phthisical conditions, in inflammation, inflammation of the bronchial tubes with intense fever and violent shaking cough; the body trembles with the cough; tearing pains in the sternum with the cough; suffocation and constriction of the chest. Pain in the larynx. The expectoration may be blood-streaked or rust-colored as it is in pneumonia. It may be purulent. In the later stages it becomes thick, yellow, sweetish.

Phosphorus is a useful remedy in old bronchial catarrhs, in complaints that date from pneumonia or from bronchitis. Every cold settles in the chest. The lungs seem to be weak. Again, in hepatization during pneumonia with hard, dry, hacking cough; in hepatization of the lungs during pneumonia Phosphorus, Sulphur and Lycopodium are the most frequently indicated medicines.

Phosphorus is often the remedy to follow Arsenic when Arsenic has been suited to the restlessness, prostration, and anxiety that comes to a place where because of hepatization it is capable of accomplishing no more toward the cure of a case. If, then, the patient has thirst for ice-cold water, constriction of the chest, dry, hacking cough, paralytic weakness of the lungs, and expectoration of blood or frothy mucus Phosphorus is the best remedy.

In pneumonia, there may be burning in the chest, burning in the head, hot cheeks, and fever; gesticulation and delirium; violent thirst for ice-cold water; fan-like motion of the nose; difficult breathing; catchy inspiration; lying on the back with the head thrown far back; short, dry cough.

The carotids pulsate. Rawness in the chest; bruised feeling in the chest; pains are cutting; burning or sharp and tearing in the lungs when coughing. Suffocation, or inspiration almost impossible, especially at the beginning of hepatization when the face becomes livid and the features pointed with cold sweat and quick, hard pulse. Frothy expectoration in low forms of pneumonia known as typhoid pneumonia.

Threatened paralysis of the lungs. Again, Phosphorus is a useful remedy when tuberculosis is about to make its appearance, in persons who are narrow-chested, slender, and of feeble vitality. All colds settle in the chest. After each cold, much rattling, hard cough that shakes the whole body, in persons who are feeble, pale, sickly, and disposed to hemorrhages.

Cough comes on in cold air. Emaciation; emaciation of the chest and neck. Along with these conditions comes hectic fever in the last stages of phthisis; intense fever, red face, and night sweats; fever coming on in the afternoon and lasting until after midnight.

A powder of Phosphorus very high will reduce this fever and make the patient comfortable until death. In all incurable cases after the fever has been reduced, Phosphorus should not be given, as it will intensify the fever and do just what it was given to avoid. It is not uncommon for a crisis to follow the administration of Phosphorus. Prolonged sweat and diarrhea, these should never be interfered with as they will soon stop of their own accord and the patient will be left in a state of quietude.

Phosphorus is a dangerous medicine to give very high in some cases of phthisis, in the last stages of phthisis. In this case they should have received Phosphorus when they were yet curable. In these cases Phosphorus 30 th may sometimes be used with safety and it will act as a test in doubtful cases to see whether reaction can be brought about. In such cases where reaction can be brought about the administration later of a still higher potency may be found useful, but in the beginning with Phosphorus in phthisical cases far advanced it is better not to go higher than the 30 th or 200 th.

Phosphorus very low will act as a poison in really Phosphorus cases and the only safety some patients have had who have received Phosphorus so very low was due to the fact that the Phosphorus was not similar enough to either kill or cure.

Heart: Phosphorus has violent palpitation; worse from motion, and from lying on the left side especially in the evening; worse at night on waking, with orgasms of blood in the chest, accompanied by much suffocation.

Tightness in the chest and palpitation over the body; pressure in the region of the heart. Phosphorus has cured endocarditis. Phosphorus has cured enlargement of the heart and dilatation and also fatty degeneration. With fatty degeneration where there is much venous stagnation, puffiness of the face, particularly under the eyelids, Phosphorus is often the remedy.

In all of these cardiac affections thirst for very cold water will always be present. Internal heat; he wants something cold to cool his insides.

Violent orgasms of blood in the chest from every excitement, from worry, and from anticipation. Phosphorus has many neuralgic pains upon the outer chest and yellow brown spots.

Back and spine: There are many symptoms in the back; stiffness in the back and in the back of the neck, between the shoulders, and in the small of the back.

Stiffness on rising from a seat. Sensation of intense heat in the back running up the back. The patient complains of a hot spine.

Soreness in places up and down the spine; soreness to touch between the! shoulders; pulsations in various places in the back and in the whole spine.

The coccyx is sensitive to pressure; pain in the coccyx as if ulcerated, preventing motion. Pain in the back during menstruation and during confinement as if the back would break. Spinal affections and inflammations, Weakness of the limbs after mental exertion, prolonged physical exertion, being overheated, sunstroke and sexual excesses; paralytic weakness. Myelitis; softening of the spine; progressive spinal paralysis.

Phosphorus has been a useful remedy in locomotor ataxia, palliating many of the symptoms; the pains; restoring the reflexes. Phosphorus is often suitable and restrains the progress in multiple sclerosis where there is much weakness and trembling of the extremities. Phosphorus has cured caries of the vertebrae in scrofulous children. Phosphorus is a broad remedy in various diseases of the spine.

Limbs: In the limbs we have paralytic weakness extending to both arms and legs, with trembling and numbness; paralysis of one or of both lower extremities or of the upper extremities with trembling and numbness.

The hands and arms become very cold. The limbs emaciate and the veins become distended; the arms burn; periodical constriction of the fingers; numbness increasing to complete insensibility of the fingers; finger tips feel numb and insensible.

Great restlessness in the lower limbs; weariness in the lower limbs; weakness in the lower limbs, especially observed on walking, unsteady and trembling gait; paralysis of the lower limbs. Acute inflarnmation of the joints of the knees and hip joint.

Burning, tearing pains in the limbs from exposure to cold, Rheumatism of the joints and muscles; stiffness of the joints on becoming cold. All complaints of the limbs are ameliorated by heat, while complaints of the head and stomach are ameliorated by cold. The complaints of the chest are ameliorated by heat. The lower limbs are covered with foetid sweat, The lower limbs are gangrenous. Inflammation of the periosteum of the tibia. Ulcers upon the lower limbs; feet icy-cold.

The Phosphorus patient wants to lie down; exhausted; he is unable to walk; staggers when walking from weakness and from vertigo. A gradual progressing weakness creeps over him; weakness; trembling; faintness.

Jerking and twitching of the muscles; spasms of the paralyzed parts. Epilepsy; convulsions; neuralgic pains of the various parts of the body and of the limbs especially, ameliorated by heat. It has cured multiple neuritis.

Sleep: Restless sleep; starts in sleep; feels in the morning as if he has not kept enough, yet most of the complaints and aches are ameliorated by sleep, especially the head symptoms; walks in his sleep.

He sleeps on the right side. Lying on the left side causes anxiety and pain in the heart and palpitation. Late falling to sleep in the evening; lies awake thinking about the affairs of the day and borrowing trouble. Phosphorus is a usual remedy in low forms of typhoid fever on the symptoms previously mentioned.

Skin: There are many eruptions in Phosphorus.

The eruptions are dry and scaly; dry furfuraceous herpes; blood blisters; purple spots; yellow spots on the chest and abdomen; formication and itching in the paralyzed parts; numbness of the skin; irregular brown spots upon the body; psoriasis of the knees, legs, elbows, and eyebrows; hives and blood boils; phlegmonous inflammation.

Chronic suppurating openings with hectic fever; fistulous openings; ulcers bleed on appearance of the menses; deep eating ulcers; indolent ulcers; malignant ulcers.

Very useful in cancerous ulcers that bleed and take on fungous appearance and in low forms of scarlet fever where the rash is very dusky or disappears and suppuration begins in various places about the neck or upon the extremities or upon the ends of the fingers and there is violent thirst for cold water, purple appearance in the throat, and dry, hacking, shaking cough.

Sabina
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 156 of 180
Source pages 2780–2791 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

Generalities: The use of this remedy is generally confined to symptoms of the kidneys, bladder, uterus, rectum and anus; inflammatory and hemorrhagic symptoms principally of these parts.

Sabina establishes a turmoil in the circulatory system, with violent pulsations all over the body. The patient is disturbed by heat, is worse in a warm room or from too much clothing. Wants the windows open and to be in the open air (Puls.). This turmoil in the circulatory system is such as might be expected in a hemorrhagic remedy.

Inflammation and bleeding: Tendency to bleed from all the mucous membranes, especially of the kidney, bladder and uterus. It has a decided effect in diminishing knots, enlargements, or varices in veins. The principal action is on the lower bowel, about the anus. Hoemorrhoidal tumors which bleed copiously. Constipation with bleeding hemorrhoids. A sense of fullness in these parts.

A sense of fullness in all the veins of the body, a sense of distension, fullness, puffiness, bloating, with pulsations all over, associated with repeated hemorrhages from the mucous membranes.

Great burning and throbbing. Severe suffering, attended with inflammatory symptoms; bloody urine; inflammation of the bladder with continuous urging to urinate, with the general aggravation from heat and the throbbing all over.

Inflammation of the urethra, with a gonorrhoeal discharge, or a catarrhal discharge in the male. The most important sphere is in menstrual symptoms, and its relation to uterine hemorrhage. In the menstrual symptoms the woman suffers from bearing down, labor-like pains. Most distressing in dysmenorrhoea.

Women: The menses last too long and are too copious, and at times in some subjects the flow does not stop before the next period begins.

Too frequent and prolonged copious menses. A striking feature in this drug, as in a few other remedies, is that the flow is liquid, bright red, intermingled with clots. It suits many cases in which the flow slackens up and remains away for a while and then labor-pains come on, and an enormous, partially decomposed clot is passed and this is followed by a bright red flow. This occurs over and over again.

Such a state comes on after abortion, after labor and in dysmenorrhoea. Accompanying the labor-like pains is a violent pain in the sacrum, to the uterus or pubes. Another striking feature is itching, shooting, knife-like pains, causing the patient to scream out, shooting up the vagina to the uterus, or up as far as the umbilicus. These two features, shooting pains from the back to the front and from. below upwards, with hemorrhages, are striking corroborations.

Belladonna and Sabina are the two most important remedies in abortion at three months. Bell. has the same bearing down pains which expel a clot followed by a copious, bright red flow. But the Bell. state is not like that of Sabina. In Bell. it is a hyperesthesia, oversensitiveness to touch and jar; the patient will not allow the nurse to jar the bed, and the bright red flow is hot, so much so that it is noticeable; the parts over which the flow passes are so sensitive that the blood feels intensely hot to her.

This is in keeping with the oversensitiveness of Bell., to touch, light, motion, jar. If the physician jars the bed a scowl will immediately come over the patient’s face. Bell. has many pains, not only shooting up but in every direction, irregular pains and bearing down pains. They come and go like lightning, appear suddenly and disappear suddenly, shooting in every direction. If these symptoms are present you will never need Ergot for its physiological effects.

It has often been argued that in these cases of haemorrhage you “won’t have time to get the symptoms.” The expert physician will often see all these symptoms in the twinkling of an eye. The actions of the patient, a word dropped by the nurse, and what he has observed himself, will have shown him the remedy.

Abortion: As a medicine to prevent abortion it is one of the first to consider, because the symptoms we know are such as come during abortion, and it is most useful after the membranes have ruptured, or the ovum passed, or when the placenta is about to be expelled.

It establishes the normal activities of the uterus so that it will expel whatever is left behind of these membranes. The curetting is never necessary with the homeopathic remedy. It suggests that there is something defective about the woman’s organs.

“Inflammation of the ovaries or uterus after abortion or premature labor.”

Violent pains through ovaries and uterus. Aching in the sacrum. as if broken, as if the bones would separate. Most violent, tearing, rending, burning pains, with throbbing in the sacrum, with burning and throbbing all over the body, especially throbbing in parts, whether it be the uterus or bladder.

“Copious hemorrhages, accompanied by uterine colic.”

Contractive labor-like pains extending from back to pubes and great urging to urinate.

Women again: The uterine colic described is labor-like, drawing up like colic, but also bearing down as if to expel the clot.

Metrorrhagia, resulting from false plethora; clotted and fluid blood; pain extending from sacrum or lumbar region to pubes, with severe bearing down, extending from lower part of back around abdomen and down thighs; blood bright red, thin, liquid; labor-like pains in lumbar and uterine region, discharge of large clots of blood, bright red, coming in gushes, particularly profuse on motion, etc.

This describes the symptoms from abortion or menstruation.

“Menses too profuse, too early, last too long, partly fluid, partly clotted and offensive; flow in paroxysms; with colic and labor-like pains; pains from sacrum to pubes.”

At another time, during the climacteric period, a woman is run down by overwork and much child bearing; she has repeated uterine hemorrhages of this character, bright red intermingled with clots; pain from sacrum. to pubes; she becomes exhausted and anemic, but after a while she again builds up, her face becomes plump and she becomes plethoric, only to be broken by another hemorrhage. Uterine hemorrhage in fibroids.

Chronic catarrh of vagina with granulations, copious leucorrhea. Bloody leucorrhea. Old, prolonged, psoric cases. This medicine especially suits gonorrhea in women. It has all the wart-like excrescences found in Thuja, and found in sycosis.

The Thuja wart is a little sensitive wart, appears to be covered with a thin film, and bleeds from the slightest touch. Sabina cures warty excrescences about the anus, cauliflower excrescences, gonorrhoeal warts about the vulva and about the male genitals.

In the uterine hemorrhages compare it with Ipecacuanha, which has a gush of bright red blood fully as copious as Sabina, but at the beginning of that gush, before it has kept on long enough to produce exhaustion, the face becomes pale, there is nausea and a feeling of faintness, syncope, all out of proportion to the amount of blood lost.

Millefolium produces a gushing flow, but it has a continuous dribbling day after day, a continuous flow of bright red blood.

Secale looks like Sabina, and when it is indicated it should never be given in large quantities. it has the expulsive, bearing down, labor-like pains, with the expulsion of large clots and copious flow, but the flow is dark and offensive and after a short time it becomes thin and watery, leaving a brown stain difficult to wash out; at times tarry, copious and continuous, as if the uterus had no ability to contract.

If you observe the cases in which during labor or abortion crude Ergot had been used, you will notice that the patient has feeble uterine contractions as a resultant condition, and this will be seen during the menses or in the next labor.

The symptoms of Ergot last for years; it is another psora. Large doses may kill the foetus and cause abortion, but she will continue to bleed; the uterus will not contract when she most needs contractions. It produces a paralytic condition, and this is the state we prescribe Secale for. We seldom prescribe it for its primary effect, but rather for the state of sub-involution, when the uterus retains the secundines.

There is a continuous oozing of dark and offensive flow. The picture is more complete if we find that no matter how cool the room is, she does not want heat, but wants to be uncovered, and she is a lean, shrivelled, scrawny, hungry patient with dusky skin; she never takes on fat; is not robust. It produces varicoses of the skin and the skin about the toes becomes dusky, and over the shin bones are dark spots, and she wants to lie with the extremities uncovered. Such patients lose flesh and become shrivelled.

In old, troublesome, lingering hemorrhages, starting up fresh on the slightest provocation, Sabina will stop the gush, the acute stage, but it does not hold, the haemorrhage recurs, and then an antipsoric is needed.

Sulphur is very commonly the remedy, but Psorinum, though not laid down in the books for hemorrhages, after Sulphur has exhausted, itself, will often follow for this oozing and frequent recurrence.

Phosphorus is somewhat like Sabina. it has a copious bright red flow, which may or may not contain clots. The striking features are outside the flow. There is pinched countenance, extremely dry tongue and mouth; violent, unquenchable thirst, craving ice-cold water. The haemorrhage is bright red, in a gush or continuous oozing.

In this way we must study well the hemorrhagic remedies. The physician must be acquainted with the emergency remedies, such as belong to the violent diarrheas, cholera, violent sufferings and hemorrhages. He must have them at his finger ends, and he must be able to compare instantaneously. Blood must be stopped.

Atony of the uterus is a striking feature of Sabina. The uterus will not contract on itself until it has something to contract on, like a clot or mole. Hemorrhages from other parts as well. But other remedies have taken its place in these regions because the individualizing symptoms have not been brought out.

Rheumatism: Much rheumatism and gout; gouty nodosities in the joints; they burn so and are so hot that the patient is compelled to put the hands or feet out of bed.

Gouty cases, especially when the constitutional state changes; an alternation; when the gout is present there will be no hemorrhages, and when there are hemorrhages the gout will be relieved.

An alternation of states The gouty condition of the veins is often a hemorrhagic state.

Phosphoricum Acidum
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 140 of 180
Source pages 2552–2566 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

Mind: “Mental enfeeblement” is the thought that will come into the mind when considering what the Phosphoric acid patient says, does and looks.

The mind seems tired. When questioned he answers slowly or does not speak, but only looks at the questioner. He is too tired to talk or even think. He says:

“Don’t talk to me; let me alone.”

This state is found in both acute and chronic diseases. He is so tired in mind, perfectly exhausted.

In chronic diseases when brought on from long study; prolonged worry in business men; in feeble school girls, when become relaxed from very little effort. In acute diseases he, especially in typhoid fever, is averse to speaking or answering questions. He merely looks. Finally he rouses up and says:

“Don’t talk to me, I am so tired.”

He cannot think what he wishes to say, cannot frame his answers to questions. Another cause is sexual excesses in young men, or in those guilty of secret vice. Weakness; lack of reaction; state of stupor, with impotency; mental prostration, and as if the spine had given out.

In every case we find the mental symptoms are the first to develop. The remedy runs from the mental to the physical, from the brain to the muscles.

This is so striking that it is contrasted with Muriaticum acid. in the latter remedy the muscular prostration comes first, and the mind seems clear until long after the muscles are prostrated. In Phosphoric acid the muscles seem strong after the mind has given out. The patient seems vigorous physically.

He says he is all right physically, can work, can exercise even violently; but the mind is tired, there is mental apathy, he can not add up a column of figures, can not read the newspaper and carry the trend of thought, can not connect circumstances. He forgets the names of those in his family; a business man forgets the names of his clerks; he is in confusion. Yet he can exercise, can go out and walk; the weakness in the muscles will come later.

Phosphoric acid has also great physical weakness; so tired in the back; so tired in the muscles; so tired all over; a paralytic weakness. Later there is sexual impotence; aversion to coition; loss of sexual desire; no erections; penis becomes relaxed in the midst of an embrace and he cannot finish the act, (Nux v.)

Ailments from business cares; prolonged grief; young women suffering from unrequited affection, or from the loss of a loved one. Some suffer more intensely than others; some seem more philosophical.

“Ailments from care, grief, sorrow, chagrin, homesickness or disappointed love; particularly with drowsiness; night sweats towards morning; emaciation.”

The patient pines and emaciates, grows weaker and weaker, withered in the face; night sweats; cold sweat down the back; cold sweats on the arms and hands more than on the feet; cold extremities; feeble circulation, feeble heart; catches cold on the slightest provocation and it settles in the chest; dry, hacking cough; catarrhal conditions of the chest; tuberculosis; pallor with gradually increasing weakness and emaciation.

During this weakness there is vertigo. Vertigo while lying in bed seems like floating while lying in bed. Limbs seem to be lifted up while the head does not seem to move, as if the limbs were floating. Congestive headaches; in school girls from slight exertion of the mind and use of the eyes. Periosteal pains; bones ache as if scraped ameliorated by motion; when lying the pain shifts to side lain on.

Modalities: Most of the complaints are ameliorated from keeping warm, from absolute quiet, from being alone at peace. There is aggravation of the complaints from exertion, mental or physical, from being talked to. Morning headaches. He must lie down with the headaches. Headache aggravated from being talked to. He is sensitive to cold weather. He is sensitive to a warm room.

In the headache the pain often begins in the back of the head and spreads to the top of the load; feels as if a crushing weight were on the top of the head; worse from motion, talking and light.

“Pressure as from a weight in head from above downward.”

These headaches are associated with mental weakness, brain-fag; so tired and exhausted. Vertigo with ringing in the ears and glassy eyes.

Its use in low fevers must be studied. The complaints come on slowly, slow decline, slowly increasing prostration. Such appearances as are found in advanced typhoid. It has the prostration, tympanitic abdomen, dry, brown tongue, sordes on the teeth, gradually approaching unconsciousness; little thirst increasing to intense thirst with craving for much water during perspiration; wants to be let alone; looks at the questioner with glassy eyes as if slowly comprehending the question; pupils contracted or dilated; eyes sunken; hippocratic countenance; continued fever; bleeding from the nose, lungs, bowels; hemorrhage from any mucous membrane; sunken about the eyes; discolored lips, covered with sordes, becoming very black; prostration gradually increasing.

From the beginning the mental state been most marked and finally comes the muscular weakness, which increases until the jaw drops and it seems that the patient must die of exhaustion.

Such states of weakness may come on from hemorrhages (China was the routine remedy among the older homoeopaths).

It checks the hemorrhage and causes a rally, prevents the dropsy. There is a state like anemia; pale lips and tongue; face, hands and feet waxy.

Pains and aches all over the body, ameliorated from motion and ‘worse from cold. The pains seem deep-seated, often along the nerves, but especially along the long bones, as if the bones were scraped; as if a rough instrument were dragged over the bones. The pains are commonly worse at night. Severe bone pains.

The stomach refuses to do its work. The food remains in the stomach and sours. Sour vomiting. Old dyspeptics with brain-fag. Complaints from acid drinks, cold drinks and rich foods. Singing sensation in the abdomen after a normal stool.

In most of the complaints of Phosphoric acid a marked feature is milky urine. Sometimes it is milky when passed; milky flakes in the urine. At times the male urethra seems to clog up and examination will show these little milk-like-flakes. The urine becomes milky on standing, like flour, chalk or phosphate deposits stirred up in it.

Diarrhea: In Phosphoric acid there is often an amelioration of complaints by their ending in a diarrhea. Copious, thin, watery stool. From the quantity it would seem that the patient would be exhausted. Child with copious, watery, stool in summer; so copious that the napkin seems of no use; the stool runs all over the mother’s dress and on the floor forming great puddles; the stool is almost odorless, thin and watery, and the little one smiles as if nothing were the matter. The mother wonders where it all comes from, and yet the child seems well.

The Phosphoric acid diarrhea often ameliorates many of the symptoms and the patient feels better. Chronic diarrhea, copious, thin and watery, whitish gray, and the patient feels comfortable, free and, happy. If the diarrhea slacks up the patient is worse and on come symptoms of tuberculosis, weakness, prostration, brain-fag.

Some patients say they ate never comfortable unless they have diarrhea. Podophyllum is the very opposite. Take the same child; the stool is very copious and runs all over the floor, the mother wonders where it all comes from, but the stool is offensive, a horrible stench, and the patient looks as if dying; mouth and nose drawn, countenance hippocratic; almost unconscious.

There is painless stool in both, but Phosphoric acid has not the great prostration. In Phosphoric acid the stool is whitish gray, like dirty white paint; in Podophyllum it is yellow. Gratiola has a similar state of prostration, but the fluid is green water; when seen it looks like light shining through a green glass, sometimes thicker, like green-bile.

Abdomen: much bloated, tympanitic; great soreness of the bowels as if in a typhoid state.

“White or yellow, watery diarrhea, chronic or acute, without pain or any marked debility or exhaustion”.

It is uncommon for the stool to be yellow when watery. It is yellow when it is mushy; when watery it is light colored, sometimes milky. When yellow it is like corn meal mush, pappy; as in the typhoid state, thin like thin mush.

“Diarrhea; not prostrating; after catching cold during heat of summer; water; chronic; violent, bilious or mucous of twenty months standing; has the appearance of an old man; from acids in young persons who grow too rapidly; after eating, undigested; greenish white; painless.”

When we have a diarrhea from adds we sometimes find symptoms running to Phosphoric acid. In the diarrhea from sour wine, such as claret, from acids, vinegar, lemons, be sure to study Antimonium crudum. This is a very striking feature of that remedy. Useful in cholera.

Male sexual organs. Sexual weakness, prolonged exhaustion, impotency; masturbators; nightly pollutions with great exhaustion,

“Prostatorrhoea; immediately after every erection discharge of prostatic fluid.”

Even when passing a soft stool the prostatic fluid is discharged.

Falling-out of the hair is a striking feature; falling of the hair from the genitals, whiskers, eyebrows, head. It is closely related to Natrum, mur. and Selenium in falling out of the hair. Selenium has falling out of the hair from the head, eyebrows and lashes, beard and genitals, from all over the body. Natrum mur. causes the hair to become very thin; during confinement the hair falls from the genitals.

Phosphoric acid produces a troublesome leucorrhoea; yellow, mostly after menses, with itching; profuse, yellow; thin, acid mucus; with chlorosis.”

It suits the woman who has been nursing her child a long, time, or nursing twins, and who gives much milk. She becomes tired and weakly. Loss of fluids, blood; prolonged nursing, and weakness from such causes.

The tendency of the Phosphoric acid patient at the end of the brain fag and weakness is to run into chest troubles. If a diarrhea comes on then the chest trouble is averted. Most awful results will ensue from the use of astringents, or any remedy that does not correspond to the patient, that will stop that diarrhea. He goes into tuberculosis, difficult respiration; coughs and suffers in the chest, and the trouble culminates in structural changes in the lungs.

The indications for Phosphoric acid are seldom found in the tissue changes, but they will be found in the early states of the patient, the nervous conditions, the milky urine and the diarrhea, which have existed a long time. Chest complaints are acute; typhoid pneumonia; low forms of fever ending in chest troubles; not unlike Phosphorus.

Prolonged pneumonia with the mental symptoms, lack of reaction, infiltration at the end of pneumonia. Haemoptysis.

Prolonged fever ending in feeble heart, with palpitation and the. mental symptoms. Palpitating during sexual excitement. Tendency to abscesses after a prolonged fever.

Limbs and joints become affected. Pain in the hip joint. Pains in the long bones between the joints, better by motion. Old gouty constitution. Tissues become weak. Red spots appear wherever the flesh is thin over the bones, and these spots become inflamed and form open ulcers.

After fever, abscesses in the muscles, and state of molecular weakness about the ankles; over the tibia where the flesh is thin. Phosphoric acid has a special relation to the periosteum. Periostitis.

Pains in the tibia at night. Bone feels as if scraped. Cold hands and hot feet. Ulcers on the legs with watery, offensive discharge.

Boils, abscesses, pustules and other moist eruptions. Suppurating eruptions; tissues become weak.

Nervous state; marked indifference; weak and trembling; fainting; great nervous exhaustion; hysterical affections. Creeping, tingling and crawling all over the body, especially where there is hair, as if in the roots of the hair; formication; especially in those debilitated from sexual excesses.

“Formication over whole body.”

Sore spots in the spine; lame back. Backache.

“Itching between the fingers or in the bend of joints or on hands.”

Herpes; eczema, erysipelas. Large purple spots form on the skin, an extravasation of blood front the capillary veins; ecchymoses.

Ulcers on the skin; carbuncles; warts; chilblains; wens; corns with stinging and burning, and parts become black; feeble circulation in the skin. Skin withered, old and gray, and the patient emaciates.

Sanguinaria
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 157 of 180
Source pages 2792–2807 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

Generalities: Blood root is an old domestic remedy. A great many eastern farmers’ wives will not go into the winter without blood root in the house.

In the cold winter days, when the coryzas come on, a “cold” in the head, throat and chest, then they get the blood root ready and make a tea of it. With them it is a routine remedy for “colds.” They give it to combat all complaints, and there is no doubt but that even in this crude form it does break up “colds,” because the provings show its relation to chest troubles and “colds” that go to the chest.

Head: Periodic headaches, when the headache comes once in seven days it begins in the morning on waking or wakes the patient up.

It begins in the occiput and travels upward and settles over the right eye and in the right temple. It gets worse during the day and is aggravated by light, so that he is driven into a dark room and compelled to lie down.

Vomiting comes on and the vomited matter is bile, slime, bitter substance and food, and then comes relief of the pain. The headaches are, relieved from passing flatus up or down. If the patient suffers when he goes to bed with hot palms and soles, so that he must put them out of bed, this is an additional striking feature.

Take an individual who has missed his chronic headache, by some means, for a considerable time, but since then he has become increasingly sensitive to cold, and “colds” settle in the nose, throat and bronchial tube and these parts feel as if on fire, with rawness and burning; the expectoration is thick, tenacious mucus; disturbance of the belly, with much belching, and the belching is especially noticed after a violent attack of coughing.

It is not a very long acting remedy. When a periodic sick headache is interrupted by Sanguinaria, if a deeper drug, an antipsoric, is not given, the headache will return or something worse will come on, as Sanguinaria does not go deep into the nature of the case. I remember a case in which the patient missed his Sanguinaria headache and an epithelioma developed, which was cured by Phosphorus.

I am convinced that if Phosphorus had been given at the end of the attack the cancer would not have developed, as Phosphorus was his constitutional remedy. If a chronic sick headache is interrupted the patient will tend to phthisis.

Chest: Chest troubles come on and grow worse and worse. Its ability to palliate phthisis is very well known.

A patient much debilitated with bronchial catarrh; susceptible to cold, to every change in the weather, from change to damp weather, to every draft, to change of clothing; always taking new “cold.”

There is burning in the chest behind the sternum; thick, tough, ropy expectoration; spasmodic cough, and every cough ends in belching; eructations of gas; empty eructations. If to the burning in the chest, the severe pains in the larynx and trachea when talking, and cough ending in belching, you add heat in the palms and, soles, Sanguinaria will patch him up and mitigate the trouble.

Many such cases get Sulphur, but to their destruction. There is a class of remedies that suits these phthisical patients better than Sulphur, Silicea and Graphites; remedies such as Pulsatilla, Sanguinaria, Senecio gracilis and Coccus cacti, which palliate, mitigate his sufferings, and may even build him up so that he could take a medium potency of a deep remedy.

But the deeper remedies ought to be avoided if the vital force is low, if the body is too much damaged to be repaired. Hahnemann warned against the use of Phosphorus in such cases of deficient vitality. Sanguinaria is a surface remedy; it does excellent palliation.

Nose and throat: Catarrhal conditions of nose and throat, especially those due to colds and to poisonous plans; also rue colds.

The Sanguinaria patient has “rose colds” in June. Sensitive to flowers and odors; subjects with bay fever. Hay fever patients with burning in the nose, in the throat, as if dry; as if the mucous membrane would crack open.

Dryness and burning in the larynx, with hoarseness; dryness and burning throughout the chest, with asthma; associated with burning of the palms and soles. Examination shows the palms to be dry, wrinkled and hot to the touch; so, also, the soles, where the skin is thickened and indurated. Corns that burn; the toes burn and the patient puts the feet out of bed for relief.

Head again: When the headache is present it seems to be a general congestive headache; although beginning in the morning, coming up the back and extending to the right eye, the whole head is hot and aches.

Sulphur, Silicea and Sanguinaria have periodic weekly headaches. Arsenicum has a headache every two weeks. Not that these remedies will not cure other headaches, for Sanguinaria has also a headache every three days. The majority of headaches coming every two weeks are cured by Arsenicum or greatly mitigated in broken down constitutions. The attempt to cure a chronic sick headache should be made before the senile decline.

“Pulsations in the head with bitter vomiting; aggravated by motion.”

The headache is generally aggravated by motion, but not so strikingly as in Bryonia. When the Sanguinaria headache increases. towards the afternoon or night, it becomes so severe he must go to bed; and the head becomes sore, and then a step or jar is extremely painful. A severe headache is likely to be disturbed by light, noise, motion, etc.

“Headache as if forehead would burst with chill, and burning in stomach.”

“Headache over right eye.”

This is a characteristic feature.

“Periodic sick headache; begins in the morning, increases during the day, lasts till evening; head feels as if it must burst, or as if eyes would be pushed out; throbbing, lancinating pains through brain, worse on the right side, especially in the forehead and vertex; followed by chills, nausea, vomiting of food or bile; must lie down or remain quiet; ameliorated by sleep.”

Some of these things are not found in every case, but they all go to make up a Sanguinaria headache.

Pains: All sorts of neuralgic pains; cutting, tearing, lacerating pains; as if the muscles were torn, or put on a stretch.

Tearing pains anywhere, neuralgic or rheumatic. Pains about the scalp, but more particularly about the shoulder and neck; stiff neck; cannot turn over in bed; cannot raise the arm, though he can swing it back and forth.

Pain streaks up the neck; pain in the deltoid. It prefers the right side, but also cures the left side. Rheumatic pains in the right shoulder so that ho cannot raise the arm, and all the muscles of the neck and back of the neck become involved; stiff neck. If the pain comes on in the day it increases as the day advances to night. Complaints are worse at night in Sanguinaria.

A patient comes to you after exposure to cold; he cannot raise the arm; it hangs by his side; pain worse at night in bed, worse turning over (as he uses the shoulder muscle to turn over). It is probably in the deltoid, but you need not speculate on the tissues involved.

It competes with Ferrum. All red-faced, highly-flushed people, who cannot raise the arm and have pain which is worse in the daytime, not night, and ameliorated by slow motion need Ferrum. Sanguinaria is not relieved by motion; it is aggravated by such motion as calls the arm into use. Ferrum has relief from slow motion, aggravated from rapid motion and the pain comes in the daytime.

While Ferrum has a uniformly red, plethoric face, Sanguinaria has a pale face. In the chest complaints Sanguinaria has a circumscribed red spot over the malar bones, such as seen in hectic patients.

Headache from stomach disturbances, overeating, rich food, drinking wine. Almost as useful as Nux in old drinkers. Those who disorder their stomachs and weaken their digestion by beer drinking; they cannot eat; vomiting of even a teaspoonful of water.

No food or drink stays on the stomach. Headaches associated with such troubles. Vomiting and diarrhea with complaints.

Catarrhal affections are prominent.

Chronic catarrh of the throat apparent thickening of the mucous membranes of the throat. Nose and pharynx fill with mucus. He hawks it out; there is a dry burning sensation, but the burning is most marked every time he takes a fresh cold.

Acridity of discharges is another feature. Acrid mucus forms in the nose, causing burning in the throat. Acrid, hot fluids eructated from the stomach, excoriating the throat and mouth. The diarrhea is accompanied by an acrid watery stool; especially in infants; the nates become raw and red. This burning extends all through the bowels; burning in the abdomen and stomach in old gastric troubles; vomiting of even a teaspoonful of water with burning; old gastric irritation; dyspepsia; all sorts of disorders of the stomach.

Tongue red and burns as if in contact with something hot. Burning in pharynx and oesophagus, burning in roof of mouth. Tonsillitis with burning.

“Heat in throat, ameliorated by inspiring cold air; throat so dry it seems as if it would crack.”

This burning excoriated feeling applies to all the mucous membranes affected.

Patient suddenly taken w bed with a chill; burning in the chest symptoms of pneumonia; rusty expectoration; violent cough; every cough felt as a concussion at the bifurcation of the trachea; as if a knife were in the parts; as if torn asunder; and after the cough copious, loud, empty eructations. No other remedy has this.

“Nausea with burning at the stomach, with much spitting.”

Nausea not relieved by vomiting. Keeps on vomiting and retching. Burns as if on fire. Arsenic is often given by mistake, because of the great burning.

“Vomiting of bitter water; of sour, acrid fluids; of ingesta; of worms; preceded by anxiety; with headache and burning in stomach; head relieved afterwards; with prostration.”

Such symptoms occur in headache, disordered stomach, sour stomach. The sour stomach is manifested by sour eructations or sour vomiting. A patient often speaks of “a sour stomach,” and you must find out whether be means sour eructations or sour vomiting.

He says he “spits up” sour food.

With the headache and many complaints Sanguinaria has a faintness; like a hunger, yet not for food. A sinking, faint, “all gone,” empty feeling. It is like Phosphorus with its “hungry headache.”

Psorinum leads all others in “hungry headaches,” but Psorinum wants to eat and cannot get enough.

Sanguinaria has a hunger, but it is not for food; aversion at the thought and smell of food. Psorinum can eat a wolf meal, and so can Phosphorus. It is a false hunger with the headache in Sanguinaria.

“Burning in stomach; with headache and chill.”

Belching up of acrid fluids in asthma; hay asthma. Sanguinaria palliates asthma associated with stomach disorders. Do not forget Nux in asthma from stomach troubles.

Liver complaints; pains and aches and sense of fullness. Bilious trouble described in general terms. It seems as if the liver makes an enormous quantity of bile, but there is a gastro-duodenal catarrh, so that the bile is regurgitated into the stomach instead of going down, and it is eructated as bitter, green, yellow fluid; vitiated bile.

This is a peculiar thing. If you watch a chronic Sanguinaria patient you will notice that the stomach will be disordered for a week; spitting up bile much flatulence; sour hot eructations; then all at once this will disappear, and a diarrhoea, which fairly floods him, comes on suddenly; a bilious, liquid, gushing stool. Natrum sulph., Sanguinaria, Pulsatilla and Lycopodium cure this alternation of diarrhoea and constipation.

“Os uteri ulcerated; foetid, corrosive leucorrhoea.”

“Distension of abdomen in the evening and flatulent discharges by vagina from os uteri, which was constantly open; at same time a pain passing in rays from nape of neck to head.”

“Chronic dryness in throat, sensation of swelling in the larynx and expectoration of thick mucus when associated with dryness, rawness, burning and smarting.”

“Whooping cough; constricted, spasmodic across throat beneath jaws; cough worse at night with diarrhoea.”

Cough worse at night with diarrhoea is the feature this remedy is prescribed for.

“Severe cough occurring after whooping cough when patient takes cold, which partakes of the spasmodic nature of whooping cough.”

An adult takes cold and has a spasmodic cough, like whooping cough. He says it is a stomach cough, because there is a gagging with it. In all there is burning and diarrhoea.

“Distressing, dry, spasmodic, exhaustive coughs, especially in children; worse towards night, lying down, going into a cold room to. sleep, feeling of rawness and burning in bronchi.”

The trachea seems so sore, and it is sore; a bolus of food passing down the oesophagus can be plainly felt; he can outline the part where the food passes.

Phytolacca
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 142 of 180
Source pages 2567–2577 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

This is a very imperfectly proved remedy, and it is only possible to present fragments of it.

The mental symptoms have not been brought out, but the remedy has some striking features.

You will notice the resemblance of this drug to Mercury, and it is an antidote to mercury. In those lingering mercurial bone pains, where the patient has been salivated; the pains come on at night from the warmth of the bed; the body aches; a chronic, sore, bruised state; soreness of the periosteum where the flesh is thin, over the tibia; joints; soreness of the muscles; drawing and cramping; drawing in the muscles of the back; backache, worse at night; worse from the warmth of the bed.

The patient suffers from these symptoms in cold, damp weather, as in Mercury. Tendency to ulceration, hence its usefulness in syphilis; old, chronic, syphilitic ulcers; the patient has been salivated; had Mercury rubbed in; he became saturated with it, but it no longer helps. Ulcers in the throat; on the skin; on mucous membranes anywhere.

Spasmodic conditions; drawing in the muscles; this may extend to violent spasms; opisthotonos; sometimes the cervical region is affected and the head is drawn back; jerking and twitching of the muscles.

Glands: Phytolacca is a glandular remedy.

The glands become inflamed, and hard. It produces sore throats, with inflammation of the glands of the neck, particularly the sub maxillary and parotid. Inflammation of the throat with the accumulation of thick, tenacious mucus; swelling of the tonsils. Low grade inflammation like erysipelas.

The symptoms are aggravation at night, on cold days, in a cold room, and from the heat of the bed; so that there is a controversy between heat and cold.

It seems that the remedy centres in the mammary glands. Soreness and lumps in the breasts from each cold, damp spell; becomes chilled and a sore breast results; sore breast in connection with the menses; a nursing woman is exposed to the cold, the breast inflames and the milk becomes stringy; coagulated milk.

This comes out in the proving, but poke root has been extensively used by cattle raisers when the cow’s milk became thick and there were lumps in the bag, and when the condition was brought on from the cow standing out in the rain.

Almost any excitement centers in the mammary gland; fear or an accident; lumps form, pains, heat, swelling, tumefaction; even violent inflammation and suppuration. No other remedy in the Materia Medica centres so in the mammary gland. Mercury is similar; when the patient takes cold the glands become sore. If every tribulation makes the glands sore in a nursing woman, give her Phytolacca.

When a mother says she has no milk, or that the milk is scanty, thick, unhealthy; dries up soon; Phytolacca becomes then a constitutional remedy if there are no contra-indicating symptoms. A bloody watery discharge which continued for five years after weaning the infant was cured by Phyto. The breast is so sore that, when she nurses the child, she almost goes into spasms, with the pain extending down the back and limbs all over the body.

Diphtheria. In certain epidemics; great tumefaction of the throat; swelling of the glands of the neck, parotid and sub maxillary; aching in the bones; fetor from the mouth, with heavily coated tongue; great aching in the back; nose bleed; soreness of the muscles.

Analogous to Mercurius; they are closely related in diphtheria. At times in diphtheria we can only obtain the fetor, loaded tongue, exudation, swollen glands and stiff neck.

This looks like Mercurius or one of the Mercuries. The Protoiodide is right sided, and stays there or may go to the left side. The Biniodide goes from left to right. The Merc. cyanide has a thick, green membranous cast, extending from the nose to the throat. In Phytolacca we have many features of Mercury.

It has cured syphilitic nodes on the skull and shin bones.

Skin: Many eruptions.

“Squamous eruptions; Pityriasis, psoriasis.”

“Ringworm.”

“Barber’s itch.”

“Rash on body; measles; scarlet eruptions all over the body.”

It is not surprising that it cures scarlatina, as it has this scarlet rash, the sore throat and glandular involvement.

It has the ability to delay the formation of malignant growths, especially in the breast; glandular tumors that become hard and scirrhous. Until this remedy was known there was but one remedy for the old cicatrices in the mammary gland. Women who were confined years before, had abscesses of the breast which were poulticed and lanced had a cicatrix left, and now in the present confinement they have trouble; inflammation in the old cicatrices; ulceration which eats off the lacteal glands or turns the ducts aside and twists them; high inflammation – throbbing and pain; milk bloody.

Graphites was the old routine remedy, but Phytolacca, is a better remedy and suits the general concomitants oftener. The symptoms usually found in an inflamed breast after confinement are: aching in the back and bone pains; fever and shivering.

Phytolacca has these and falls into the very nature of the case. Graphites has it only in a limited way. if there is high fever; congestion to the head; throbbing carotids; much redness, and the redness radiates from the nipple, Belladonna is the remedy.

When the entire gland is as heavy as a stone, and hard, and the patient is sensitive to motion and touch, Bryonia. Mercury when the general symptoms agree. Hepar and Silicea after suppuration is inevitable, especially when the only comfort is obtained from heat. Hepar when there is extreme pain and soreness, irritability and this relief from heat; it limits the extent of the suppuration and opens the part without pain.

Nose: The most distressing, lingering, inveterate, old catarrhs with destruction of the bones of the nose.

“Total obstruction of the nose: when riding, must breathe through the mouth.”

“Coryza and cough, with redness of eyes and lachrymation; photophobia; feeling of sand in the eyes, with soreness and burning.”

“Syphilitic ozaena, with bloody, sanious discharge and disease of bone.”

“Noli me tangere and cancerous affections of nose.”

It is somewhat like Graphites, in that it seeks out fissures in which to establish inflammation, induration and eruptions. Where the circulation is feeble it has the tendency to establish induration.

“Face sunken, pale, hippocratic; blue around eyes; yellowish complexion; looking blue and suffering .

Pains in bones of head and face at night.”

“Swelling around left ear and side of face like erysipelas; thence over scalp; very painful.”

“Lips everted and firm. Tetanus.”

“Ulcers on lips.”

“Parotid and sub maxillary glands swollen.”

“Tongue thickly coated on back; coated yellow and dry.”

This is found in all acute complaints and is like Mercury. Phytolacca holds a reputation among the Eclectics, and in their results we see a shadow of its homeopathic action. In Cincinnati they used three drops in a tumbler of water and gave it for ulcers in the mouth. It was a standard remedy with them and they made some homoeopathic cures.

“Ulcerated sore mouth.”

Syphilitic ulcers find a curative remedy in Phytolacca, when the symptoms agree.

Throat: There are several pages in the Guiding Symptoms showing homeopathic cures of the throat; diphtheria; sore throat; inflamed glands; aching bones worse at night, violent cases, with difficult swallowing, pains in the tonsils; enlarged tonsils; tendency to slough. Syphilitic and mercurial sore throats. The sore throats are often aggravated from warm drinks; he wants cool things; and there is an aggravation at night.

Here is a summary:

“Diphtheria; sick and dizzy when trying to sit up; frontal headache; pains shooting from throat into ears, especially on trying to swallow; face flushed; tongue much coated, protruded; thickly coated at back, fiery red at tip; breath foetid; putrid; vomiting; difficulty of swallowing; tonsils swollen, covered with membrane, first upon left; three or four patches; tonsils, uvula and back part of throat covered with ash-colored exudation. Pain in the root ‘of the tongue on putting out.”

Pains: Old gout and rheumatism of the limbs; in acute rheumatism which is prolonged, worse at night, worse from the warmth of the bed, worse from warm applications.

Gouty rheumatism; syphilitic cases; pains as if in the bones.

“Sharp cutting pains in hip, drawing; legs drawn up; cannot touch floor.”

“Syphilitic or gonorrheal sciatica, etc.”

“Ulcers and nodes on the legs.”

A certain class of physicians used to call Podophyllum “vegetable Mercury.”

Phytolacca ought to be called “vegetable Mercury” because it is so full of symptoms analogous to Mercury.

Picricum Acidum
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 143 of 180
Source pages 2578–2584 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

Mind: The weakness of body and mind is the first impression wrought upon the mind of the reader who goes carefully over this proving.

It is progressive, passing from weariness to paralysis. The evidences of softening of brain and cord are strong. He, soon becomes sensitive to heat and desires the cool air which ameliorates his head and bodily condition.

Cold air and cold bathing are grateful to him. He is sensitive to wet weather. Numbness of many parts, trembling, lassitude, heaviness, must lie down, worse from least exertion are marked features. Loss of sleep, mental, worry, mental labor, are the exciting causes of symptoms. Extreme indifference.

It is a typical brain-fag remedy with indifference and lack of will power, aversion to talk, think, or perform any mental exertion. He is quickly prostrated from the least mental work, and it brings on many complaints, such as soreness and lameness, diarrhea, burning along the spine, general weakness and heaviness of limbs and back. He loses all interest in things; becomes irritable from any mental exertion.

Head: In young school children we have a common use for this very valuable but neglected remedy. When the child begins to learn the alphabet, headaches come, and return with every repeated effort, often with dilated pupils. After every examination at school come these violent headaches. A young man at school with the following symptoms was cured promptly.

Student’s headache, vertigo when remaining standing, heaviness in the head, epistaxis, dilated pupils, congestion of conjunctiva, inability to bear artificial light, loss of appetite, bitter taste in mouth, vomiting, jaundice. Vertigo from mental exertion, lameness from stooping, walking, ascending, from raising the head from the pillow, can not sit up, soon nausea comes from it.

It is often associated with the head pains, For headaches of students, teachers, professional men, and overworked business men, it is a most useful remedy. For headaches with great nervous weakness from grief and de pressing emotions, it has been often overlooked.

It has violent pain in vertex, forehead and occiput, extending down the spine with much heat. Congestive headaches. The head must be cool, it is worse from warm room, and wrapping up the head or body, and better from rest of mind and body.

The headaches often begin and increase with the day, and are better by sleep at night. The patient is wholly incapacitated in the daytime, but comfortable from rest and sleep during the night. Extreme prostration often comes with these headaches. Extreme sexual excitement often comes with the headache as with many of its “complaints,” but it is not an essential concomitant.

Eyes: The eye symptoms are due to loss of tone in the eye muscles of such as are suffering from brain fag. Looking, reading We print and exertion of vision will bring on the headache and eye symptoms (Onosmodium).

Sensation of sand in the eye, smarting, acrid tears, sparks, fag before the eyes, near sighted, dim vision, objects confused, pupils dilated, severe pain over eyes. Thick mucus in eyes.

The symptoms from the eye arc worse from artificial light.

Small boils and pustules in external auditory canal.

Digestion: Eructations, abortive, sour.

Nausea in the morning worse on rising and moving about.

There is evidence of liver trouble, and the patient is jaundiced.

Rumbling in the abdomen, diarrhea from mental exertion.

Yellow, watery or thin faecal, oily stool; smarting after stool; stool like yellow cornmeal gruel. Great weakness after stool, in debilitated persons.

Urine contains sugar and albumen, Urine of high specific gravity. Urine heavy with urates, uric acid, phosphates, and poor in sulphates. Dribbling after urination. Weakness of the bladder. Great waste of phosphates.

In the proving it turns the normal sexual sphere into lust, and salacity with violent erections, especially during the night. It has many times cured these symptoms even when of long standing.

Pain in occiput and spine, heaviness of limbs and sexual excitement. Where great restlessness of feet is present the Zincum Picricum acts better. It cures impotency and spermatorrhea when the mind is unable to control the lustful state.

Burning heat in the spine from mental or physical exertion. Weakness of the spine and heaviness of the limbs, especially the lower limbs. The back is so tired that he cannot sit up erect, he must slide down in the chair or lie down. He is relieved while lying. It has been very useful in myelitis, with the weak limbs and a sensation as if body and limbs were bandaged or constricted; also with anesthesia of legs and as if he had on elastic stockings.

In locomotor ataxia where there are tormenting erections and emissions as soon as he falls asleep, Many cases of spinal weakness have been cured by this remedy.

Weakness of the lower limbs with trembling, numbness and constriction. Formication and prickling as from needles. Marked coldness of the feet. Physical exertion greatly intensifies all these symptoms after long rest he is ameliorated.

Tired after least exertion in limbs and whole body; excessive lassitude. Great muscular weakness. Sleepiness in day-time and sleepless at night, especially after mental labor.

Platinum
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 144 of 180
Source pages 2585–2595 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

The Platinum proving represents the woman’s mind perverted.

It is especially suited to hysterical women such as have undergone fright, prolonged excitement, or from disappointment, shock, or prolonged hemorrhages. She becomes arrogant and haughty.

Mind: One of the most striking characteristics of this drug is pride and over-estimate of one’s self. She imagines that she is of a high born family and that her friends and relatives are of lowly origin and looks down upon them.

Her acquaintances are inferior to herself. A strange thing about this remedy is that this imagination extends to the body. She imagines that her body is large and that the bodies of other people are smaller in comparison with her own. She is in a contemptuous mood, anxious and serious over matters that. are not serious, irritable about trifling things, is moody and sulky over slight vexations, anxious, weeping. Palpitation, trembling in all limbs during every little excitement, fears death and loathes life.

Fear is a very prominent feature in this remedy. Fears that something will happen, fears that her absent husband will never return to her, though he comes back regularly. Restless disposition, excitable, walking, moving about, and weeping.

The mental symptoms alternate with the physical symptoms. Strange illusions of fancy. Imagines than she do, not belong to this race and becomes insane over religious matters, sits in the corner and broods and says nothing. Takes on insanity; becomes a sexual pervert, utters unchaste speech and trembles.

Spasms will come on from vexation or anger. Whistles, sings, and dances. Talks constantly about fanciful things. She may go into melancholy or into mania. Any disturbance of her pride will bring on her symptoms.

Sexual excitement will bring on her symptoms. The usual mental symptoms are intermingled with trembling of the limbs, sexual excitement, and numbness of various parts of the body and limbs. Compressing sensations, pressing pains, pressure of the limbs as if bandaged or constricted, tension of the skin of the limbs as if bandaged.

Head: These characteristic features prevail throughout the various regions of the body and modify many particulars.

Sensation of numbness of the scalp with, pressing pain in the head, boring, compression of the head. Tension of the scalp, cramplike constrictions of the scalp gradually increasing to violence, cramplike pains gradually increasing to violence.

Squeezing sensation in the head. These pains may be in the temple, in the top of the head, or in the forehead. Again, there is crawling, creeping, numbness of the scalp. Sudden shocks in the head. There is no symptom in the head more persistent than numbness of the scalp, it prevails throughout all sensations and pains.

All headaches gradually increase until they are severe. Violent neuralgia in the head with sensitiveness in hysterical persons. Sometimes numbness in the head is described as if the brain were numb. Headaches come on from chagrin, from fear, from vexation, from hemorrhages, and from sexual excitement.

Eyes: Sparks before the eyes, spasms of the lids, and objects appear smaller than they really are.

Sensation of coldness in the eyes, spasms, spasmodic trembling and twitching of the muscles of the eyes.

Ears: Cramping pain in the ears, coldness in the ears, numbness of the external ears.

The numbness of the ears extends to the face, nose and scalp. Platinum is a hemorrhagic remedy. Bleeding from various parts of the body and mucous membranes. The hemorrhages wherever observed are black clots with fluid. On examining the symptoms of the nose hemorrhage is observed. Black, coagulated blood from the nose. Oversensitive to smell. Violent crampy pains at the root of the nose with redness of the face.

Face: Sensation of coldness of the face, numbness of the face, cramping, pressing pains in the face. Neuralgia of the face. Coldness, crawling, numbness of the face. Numbness of the malar bone. Tearing boring pain in the face.

Pulsating and digging through the lower jaw, especially the right side, together with numbness and coldness. The pains come gradually and go gradually. Sensation as if the tongue were scalded, crawling in the tongue.

Stomach and abdomen: Loss of appetite on account of the depressed mood or at other times a ravenous appetite; hasty eating, eats everything around her.

Much flatulence, fermentation in the stomach. Jerking of the muscles of the stomach and abdomen. Sensation as if the whole abdomen were tightly constricted or bandaged. Tension of the skin of the abdomen. Violent, cramping pains in the abdomen, drawing pains in the navel as if by a string, which causes a sensation of retraction of the abdomen. Pressing, bearing down pains in the abdomen.

These pains are much like Plumbum and Platinum, has been used as an antidote to Plumbum. Pressing, drawing pains from incarcerated flatus. The torpor of the intestinal canal is much like that which is found in Plumbum. Inveterate constipation, much flatus.

The stool is half digested and papescent or hard as if burnt, or may be scanty and very difficult, or may be glutinous and adherent to the anus like soft clay. Frequent urging to stool and inability to strain at stool, inveterate constipation and unsuccessful urging to stool.

Pain in the abdomen after lead poisoning and colic after lead poisoning. Constipation in travelers. Prolonged efforts to pass a stool. Aching pains, burning pains and protrusion of hemorrhoids during stool. Burning in the rectum during stool. Itching, tickling, and tenesmus of the anus, especially in the evening.

Genitalia: Extreme sexual erethism is found in both male and female.

In the male there is great sexual erethism driving to secret vice. It has cured epilepsy arising from onanism. Sexual erethism is one of the most prominent features of Platinum, in women. Unbearable sexual excitement and voluptuous crawling in the genitals.

Such extreme sensitiveness of the external genitals that it is impossible for the woman to wear a napkin during menstruation. Such extreme sensitiveness of the vagina that it is impossible for the physician to make an examination with the index finger. It is not an inflammation but a hyperesthesia.

Increased sexual excitement in young girls, in hysterical girls. Violent sexual desire in married women with itching, tingling, and voluptuous sensations. Pain in the ovarian region, especially the left. It has cured sterility of long standing, especially sterility that is supposed to come from excessive sexual excitement, Burning, stitching pains in the ovaries.

Inflammation of the ovaries coming with hemorrhage of the uterus, and during the menstrual period. It has cured ovarian tumors and cystic tumors. Inflammation of the uterus, bearing down, as in prolapsus. Prolapsed uterus and dragging in the pelvis.

Polypus of the uterus and uterine hemorrhages. Copious menstrual flow. The flow is dark, even black, and clotted with much fluid blood. These nervous women constantly feel as if the menstrual flow was going to appear.

The menstrual flow comes too early, is too profuse, and then generally of short duration. The hemorrhage is somewhat like the menstrual flow in old women. The menstrual periods sometimes return every fourteen days or the menstrual flow may be entirely absent. The vulva and vagina are extremely sensitive during coition, sometimes preventing the act.

The woman suffers from albuminous leucorrhoea, mostly in the daytime without much sensation. There are many complaints of pregnancy, threatened abortion, exhausting hemorrhages, discharges of black clotted blood.

During labor the contractions are interrupted by sensitiveness of the vagina and internal parts. It is impossible for the obstetrician to make the usual examination. Cramping in the limbs during parturition or profuse hemorrhage; hysterical convulsions, puerperal convulsions.

After every mental exertion palpitation, trembling, numbness, quivering, and excitement in the limbs. Tremulous restlessness in the legs with numbness. Cold feet. Pains in the great toe as if bandaged. This sensation prevails throughout.

The limbs feel as if bandaged about the thigh or leg. The nerves are in a great state of excitement most of the time. The patient is prostrated. Paralytic weakness, which is worse during rest. Numbness, stiffness and coldness. Painful tremulousness all over the body, with throbbing in the blood vessels. Numbness of the scalp, of the feet, of the bands, of the limbs. Shifting, neuralgic pains. Spasmodic affections of hysterical women. Spasms from sexual erethism. Coldness, crawling, and numbness of the skin, especially during fever.