Category: Materia Medica

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.

Muriaticum acidum
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 127 of 180
Source pages 2312–2319 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

When treating a low form of continued fever with extreme prostration Arsenicum, Muriatic acid and Phos. acid force themselves upon the mind.

With Arsenicum there has been the anxious restlessness; with Phos. acid there has been the mental prostration, and then the muscular weakness; with Muriatic acid the muscular weakness comes first, and there has been history of restlessness and the mind has been stronger than could be expected.

With this great muscular exhaustion with jaw hanging down and the patient sliding down in bed and soon the involuntary stool and urine, this remedy is forced upon the mind. Paralytic weakness is what it must be called.

Soon the tongue is paralyzed, as well as the sphincters of the bladder and rectum. It seems to be eminently fitted for the lowest forms of zymotic fever when the above symptoms are present, He finally becomes unconscious.

There has been some restlessness, but nothing like Arsenicum and Rhus tox. He refuses to talk because it frets him to do so. Phos. acid is slow answering questions because of exhaustion of mind which makes him unable to think.

The vertigo comes on moving eyes, and on lying on the right side. This vertigo is sometimes associated with liver disease. A stout, full blooded jaundiced man about forty had suffered much from pain in the liver, with great soreness, was comfortable only when lying on left side; when he turned on his back or right side an anxious vertigo would come at once and he would break out in copious sweat, and be forced back to the left side. Muriatic acid made a complete cure of this liver trouble, which had been pronounced serious.

The headache is aggravated moving the eyes and rising up in bed. ameliorated by walking about slowly. Occipital headache with dim vision, aggravated by effort to see. Heaviness in occiput. Numbness in forehead. Soreness in occiput. Feeling as if hair were standing on end. Heat in top of head,

Perpendicular half sight. The eye symptoms ameliorated in the dark. Stitching pain. Burning, extending left to right eye, ameliorated washing. Itching in the eyes.

Hardness of hearing; loud crackling sounds during the night. The sound of voices unbearable. Buzzing in the ears.

The nose is stopped. Nosebleed in whooping cough, in zymotic fevers, in diphtheria and scarlet fever. Dark putrid blood from nose.

The lower jaw hangs down in typhoid fever. Margin of lips dry, sore and cracked. Burning lips.

Mouth and tongue coated white.

Sordes on the teeth. Gums swollen and bleeding. Teeth become loose. Tongue dry, heavy stiff and paralyzed. Mouth dry. Ulceration of mouth and tongue. Red tongue. Blueness of the tongue. Mucous membrane of lips denuded.

Sore mouth of nursing infants. Mouth studded with ulcers. Deep ulcers with black base. Violent inflammation of the throat. Dryness of the throat. Dark red throat with ulcers. Grayish white exudations. White exudations resembling diphtheria. Gangrenous sore throat. Hawks out foetid MUCUS. Diphtheria with extreme prostration.

Great thirst. Thirst during chill and thirstless during the fever. Aversion to meat. Craves stimulants. Eructation bitter and putrid. Spasmodic action of oesophagus. Vomiting sour. Involuntary swallowing. Emptiness in stomach, not ameliorated by eating. Empty sensation in stomach and abdomen without desire for food. Emptiness in stomach from 10 A.M. till evening. Emptiness in abdomen in the morning after the usual normal stool.

Indigestion; faintness constipation; confusion; sleepiness after eating. Pressing in the liver. Soreness, and enlarged liver. Fullness and rumbling in abdomen.

Watery stools, involuntary while urinating. Stools pass unnoticed. Dark brown stools, with blood. Much flatus with stools. Urging aggravated by motion. Dysentery, putrid blood and slime. Haemorrhage from intestines of dark liquid blood. Prolapsus ani while urinating. Urging to stool while urinating, Marked relaxation and itching of anus.

Large, dark, purple hemorrhoids, extremely sensitive to touch. Inflammation of the pile tumors, hot and pulsating; must lie with limbs wide apart. Bleeding piles. Burning and cutting during stool.

Burning after stool, ameliorated by warm applications, aggravated from bathing with cool water. Excoriation of anus. Fissures.

The urine flows in a feeble stream. Must wait a long time for urine to start; must press so that anus protrudes. This is in keeping with the general paralytic muscular weakness in the body. Involuntary flow of urine and stool in low fevers. Burning and cutting in the urethra while urinating, tenesmus follows.

Impotency; desire weak. Bloody, watery discharge from the urethra. Scrotum bluish. Itching of the scrotum not ameliorated by scratching. Margin of prepuce sore.

Pressing in genitals as if menses would appear. Menses too early and profuse. Ulcers on genitalia with putrid discharges. Cannot bear least touch, not even of sheet on genitals.

Leucorrhoea with backache. Puerperal fever with extreme prostration, dropped jaw, sliding down in bed, suppressed lochia. Stool and urine putrid and involuntary.

Short breath with rattling after drinking. Breathing seems to come from stomach. Oppression of chest.

Pulse slow and weak, intermits every third beat.

Pressing pain in back. Pressing, drawing, tired feeling in small of back. Burning in spine.

Heaviness of arms. Numbness and coldness of fingers at night. Lower limbs dusky. Putrid ulcers on legs, with burning margins. Swelling of right tendo Achillis. Feet cold and blue. Burning of palms and soles. Swelling and burning of tips of toes.

Tearing in limbs, ameliorated by motion. Pain in the limbs, during intermittent fever.

Evening fever with chill with or without sweat.

Chill mingled with fever. The image of this remedy is found in typhoid and yellow, fever. Perspiration during first sleep. Symptoms worse when perspiring.

Naja
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 128 of 180
Source pages 2320–2328 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

The use of Naja has extended far beyond its proving.

So many of the Ophidian family present symptoms in common with it, that much has been presumed truly so.

Many characteristics run through these remedies, each remedy having its own peculiar sphere. Taken together the family presents a wide range of curative action.

Mure, of Brazil, thought that the snake family presented curative powers for the healing of the nations.

In the mineral kingdom, man may find his remedy when sick, so in the vegetable and animal kingdom. It is possible that the product of the serpent may be everything needed for the healing of man. Extend this to the whole animal kingdom and it is probably so.

There seems to be everything existing in one kingdom that exists in another. The lowest is the mineral, the next the vegetable, and last the animal kingdom. If we had a perfect knowledge of any one kingdom, we could probably cover the entire scope of curative possibilities. But we have only a knowledge of a few remedies in each kingdom.

Another idea has been advanced that in any particular region, the vegetable kingdom provides all that is necessary for curing in that region. If we were acquainted with all the vegetable growths, how much we would know in comparison with what we do know!

It is highly probable that there is a throwing off from the sick human race of something that is absorbed by the plants, The evils that are thrown off by man may be absorbed by the vegetable kingdom. Plants will correspond to men in the region in which they grow, if there is anything in this.

In two thousand years there might be a necessity for some kind of a check upon the growth of plants. The absorption of these evils may cause them to vary in species, and if they continue to grow and each to absorb the evils from the human race, they will continue to differ. This favors evolution and explains it in a sense.

It is important to compare the symptoms of Naja with those of the other snakes. The patient is disturbed by closeness of the collar, < after sleep.

There are exhaustion and trembling, trembling, of the muscles. Its direction is somewhat like Lach., from left to right,, i. e., the ovarian pains, the diphtheria, the joint affections go from left to right.

Naja, like Lach., is < in damp weather. On inflamed surfaces it produces grayish exudations. It does not partake so, extensively of this character as do Lach. and Crotalus. There is only a shadow of the septic in Naja, but it is extensive in Lach. and extremely marked in Crotalus. Naja is not as subject to haemorrhage as either Lach. or Crotalus.

There is trembling of the muscles, a rheumatic diathesis, and tendency of all complaints to settle about the heart. It is used in valvular troubles of the heart, in young persons who grow up with cardiac valvular diseases. The whole trouble settled about the heart. This suggests Naja, and Naja has often cured.

If the valvular trouble is congenital it can not be cured, but if not, it shows that all the disturbing forces have settled about the heart. All the symptoms have settled about the heart; Naja has this. In school boys and girls who have no symptoms this is the generic remedy for this kind of complaint. Always prescribe Naja unless guided away from it by some specific symptom. Naja has more nervous, Lach. more septic symptoms. Naja, marked agitation without sepsis, Lach., all the nervousness. with a tendency to hemorrhage and sepsis; black blood, like charred straw; dark clotted blood.

Naja has surging of the blood upwards, like Lachesis – a distressing symptom. There is marked dyspnoea, cardiac or otherwise. There is stuffing up of the chest; great rawness of the trachea and larynx, the whole passage is raw as if excoriated.

There is much sneezing, with running of water from the nose; inability to lie down at night; dryness of the air passages of the nose, hay fever. The patient has suffocative attacks in August.

The whole chest is in a state of congestion; emptiness of the left side of the chest; low pulse or intermittent pulse. With all the complaints of the chest there is inability to lie on the left side. Numbness of the left arm. There is dyspnoea; if he goes to sleep, he wakes up suffocating, gasping, choking or he starts. from sleep as if from a dream. In most complaints there is inability to lie on the left side.

There is a dry, hacking cough with sweating in the palms of the hands that is cured by Naja. These cardiac cases are often attended by a dry, hacking cough, a cough with every little exertion. It is not catarrhal state, nor is it tubercular. The heart beats slowly and will not be urged to work, and a cough comes on from exertion. Cactus also has a cardiac cough.

The extremities are cold and blue and the head hot. The head symptoms are < in a warm room; the head feels warm, fevered, yet the feet and limb do not become warm. There is copious sweating of the hands and feet causing the gloves and shoes to rot out; but the sweat is not offensive.

There is a sense of fullness and puffiness of the hands and feet, showing a slow circulation in the veins which we might expect.

We might naturally expect that this patient would be intense and excitable, which is the case. There is a suicidal tendency.

The headaches are nondescript; of a congestive character all over the head, especially in the occiput. Headaches accompanied by a quick and nervous pulse.

Profound sleep is consistent with all the makes. There is deep, profound sleep with stertorous breathing.

She wakes with a headache every morning. It is natural for the Naja headache to be present in the morning and wear off with exertion. The other complains are < exertion. The mind symptoms are < exertion of the mind.

There are symptoms in connection with hay fever. The rawness in the throat and larynx; dreadful aching in the throat extending to the larynx, which swallowing does not relieve. The Lach. state is expressed more by a lump in the throat; grasping of the throat with a sense of choking.

The Naja patient is subject to severe attacks of bronchitis. There is rawness between the larynx and trachea, < after coughing.

This is a great remedy in asthma, especially cardiac asthma. The breathing is so bad that he cannot lie down.

Useful in chronic nervous palpitation; palpitation after exertion of any kind. Chronic nervous palpitation with inability to speak on account of choking.

There is a continued, dull, aching pain through the back between the shoulders, associated with cardiac affections.

Sometimes there is little beside this sensation of heat, of aching, to indicate the remedy; he is so tired in that spot that be wants to lie down or lean backwards to test his back.

The palpitation is < lying on the left side, < walking.

This is the most useful of all the remedies we have in a cardiac state with very, few symptoms. It is true that this region is particularly singled out by Naja to produce its symptoms.

Natrum Arsenicosum
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 129 of 180
Source pages 2329–2348 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

Modalities: The symptoms of this remedy appear in the daytime, in the MORNING, in the forenoon, evening, night and after MIDNIGHT.

The symptoms are worse in the cold air, but warm open air ameliorates; the mental symptoms are better in the open air; worse from cold in genera l; in cold air; becoming cold; in cold, wet weather; the patient takes cold easily.

The symptoms are worse ascending. Anemia and weakness and dropsy of the limbs. Complaints worse after eating. The body is losing flesh. The symptoms come on FROM EXERTION. Worse from butter, cold drinks, cold food, fats, fruits, milk, pork, vinegar.

Formication all over the body and in the limbs; induration of glands; inflammation in any part. Marked physical irritability and irritable weakness. Jarring aggravates many symptoms. Lassitude prevails throughout the provings.

Desire to lie down and not be disturbed; yet lying often makes the symptoms worse and aggravation is marked after lying. Still many symptoms are worse from motion; there is a strong aversion to motion.

Mucous secretions are copious. After exposure to cold he becomes rheumatic. Aching, burning and pressing pains; sore pains; stitching pains in all parts; darting pains in all parts; downward and upward. Perspiration does not ameliorate. Pressure aggravates. General pulsation.

Pulse irregular. Rheumatic and malarial patients, oversensitive, internally and externally. Electric shocks in the body. Symptoms predominate on the right side. Wants to sit or lie and not be disturbed. There are symptoms before sleep, during sleep, and on waking; trembling is a strong symptom. Twitching of the muscles.

Walking in the open air increases the physical symptoms, but improves the mental symptoms; walking fast excites many symptoms. Weakness in the morning, during menses, on slight exertion, while walking. Wet weather brings out the symptoms. Worse from wine and in winter.

Mind: Anger at trifles; furious from contradiction; complaints are made worse from anger.

Anxiety in the evening in bed; at night in bed apprehensive anxiety; during fever; on waking.

Concentration of mind difficult in the house, better in the open air; confusion of mind in the evening. Conscientious about trifles. Discontented; discouraged and, at times, in despair. He is easily distracted. Dullness of mind, better in the open air. Easily excited, Mental exertion makes the symptoms worse. Fear in the evening on going to bed; in a crowd; of impending disease; of some evil; that something will happen; of people.

Easily frightened; forgetful; he feels constantly hurried. Hysterical and her mind is very active; ideas very active. Imbecility, irritability, impatience; indifferent to all joy. Aversion to mental work and to business; aversion to reading; indolence; memory weak.

Lamenting, laughing, loathing of life, loquacity. The mental symptoms are all mild. Mirthful, hilarious; prostration of mind. She becomes quarrelsome, Restlessness; nights, tossing, anxious restlessness. Sadness in the evening; during fever. Sensitive to noise; startled easily, by noise, on going to sleep, from sleep.

Suspicious. Indisposed to talk; disturbed by the conversation of people. Timidity with a vacant feeling of mind. Weeping. Vertigo while walking. When the above general symptoms are present in any considerable number the following particulars will yield to this remedy.

Head: Hyperoemia of the brain with heat and fullness; fullness in the forehead.

Subjective heat with objective coldness of forehead. Heaviness in the head, in the forehead. Empty feeling in the head. Numbness in forehead in the evening.

Pain in the head; morning; afternoon; evening; night, night on waking; better in the open air; catarrhal headache; with coryza; worse after eating; from becoming heated; worse from heat; from a jar; from light; before and during menses; from mental exertion; moving head; every motion jars head; FROM NOISE; paroxysmal pains; periodical headaches; from pressure; pulsating; worse in a room; after sleep; from stooping; tobacco smoke; from walking; in a warm room; from wine.

Pain in the forehead; in the morning on waking; during the whole day; above the eyes, extending to the temples. Pain in the occiput; pain in the sides of the head; pain in the temples; right side, from temple to temple; pain in the vertex.

Boring in the temples; right to left; with nausea; bursting in the head, in the forehead; drawing in the head, in the forehead; pressing pain in the head; in the forehead, in the occiput, in the temples; in the vertex; sharp pains above the right eye; shooting pains above the right eye.

Sore and tender scalp; forehead. Stitching pains in the head; stunning pains in the head; tearing in the head; in the forehead; in the sides of the head.

Perspiration on the forehead. Pulsation in the head; forehead, temples, vertex; with fullness in the forehead.

Eyes: The eye symptoms are worse in the morning; lids are stuck together in the morning; congested eyes and blood vessels; discharge of mucus from the eyes.

Dryness. Sensation of enlargement of the eyes in the morning on waking. Granular lids. The eyes feel hot. Inflammation of the conjunctiva from cold or wind; worse in the morning, after night work; of the lids and margins. Injected veins. Lachrymation in the morning on waking, in the open air, on looking steadily, when reading, unable to open the lids.

Pain in the eyes, worse in sunlight, from motion; while reading; while reading by gas light; while writing; better by warmth. Aching in and over the eyes; in the morning on waking.

Burning in the eyes; in the evening, in the open air, while reading. Pressing pain in the eyes; smarting as from smoke; sore and tender when reading; stitching pains in the eyes. Paralysis of the upper lids; of the optic nerve. Photophobia in daylight. Pupils dilated: left eye larger than right.

Redness of THE VEINS. Staring eyes; stiffness of the lids; of the eyeballs. Strabismus. Swollen eyes; LIDS; oedematous lids; supra-orbital oedema. Ulceration of the cornea. Weak eyes and vision; vision blurred; tires out when reading.

Dark colors before the eyes. Vision dim, on looking long; wipes eyes for relief. Flickering, foggy vision. Hemiopia. Myopia. Sparks before the eyes.

Ears: The ears are hot; itching in the ears.

Noises: morning, evening, with vertigo, humming, ringing, roaring, rushing in the right ear; singing. Pain in ears: morning, stitching, tearing, behind the ears. The ears feel stopped. Hearing acute; for noises; impaired.

Nose: Catarrh with pain in forehead and root of nose, post-nasal with viscid mucus.

Coryza: worse in open air, with cough, fluent or dry, fluent alternating with dry; discharge copious, crusts, dry bloody crusts, hard bluish mucus, offensive, purulent, suppressed, thick, viscid, WATERY, yellow.

Dryness in nose. Epistaxis after removing crusts from nose; bright red blood. Obstruction of nose at night (right); morning on waking; mucous membrane thickened and it is difficult to breathe through the nose. Ozoena.

The nose is red. Pain in the nose, in the roof of nose; burning, pressing at root of nose; rawness in nose. Smell acute at first, later wanting. Frequent, violent sneezing.

Face: Corners of lips cracked and indurated.

Discoloration of the face; bluish, around eyes; earthy; PALE; red; yellow; liver spots. Face is drawn. Eruptions on the face; forehead and lips; AROUND THE MOUTH; on the nose; comedones; herpes on lips; moist eruptions; pimples; vesicles. The face is hot and itching.

Pain on moving the jaw. The face feels puffed. Stiffness of muscles of mastication. Swelling in the morning on waking; molar bones feel swollen; oedematous; swollen parotids. Twitching of face. Ulcer en the lips.

Aphthae in the mouth; bleeding gums; cracked and corrugated tongue. Discoloration: redness of mouth and tongue; white tongue; yellow tongue. Dryness of mouth; tongue; flabby tongue. Inflammation of mouth and tongue. Salivation and saliva is viscid.

Stammering speech. Taste bitter in the morning; metallic, saltish, SOUR, Sweetish. Ulceration in mouth. Vesicles in mouth and on tongue; burning. The teeth become loose. Pain in the teeth; night; pulsating; warmth ameliorates; jerking pains, tearing pains.

Throat: Choking; constriction of oesophagus; dryness in throat; worse in the morning; after a cold.

Throat red and glossy, purple red; hawks frequently to raise white mucus, worse in the open air. Inflammation; dark red, covered with yellow mucus.

Sensation of a lump in the throat; gray exudation in the throat. It is said to have cured diphtheria. Mucus in the throat; tough gelatinous, grayish, yellow, white, from posterior nares. Pain in throat on swallowing, on empty swallowing, but no pain on swallowing food or drink; burning, sore, stitching.

Roughness in the throat; scraping in the throat. Swallowing difficult. Swollen pharynx, uvula and tonsils; oedematous. uvula hangs down like a water bag. Constriction in the region of the thyroid gland. Stiffness in the sides of the neck.

Appetite: increased, ravenous, wanting; aversion to fats, to, meat, to his cigar; sensation of constriction in the stomach.

Desires beer, bread, cold drinks, sweet things. Disordered stomach; by milk. Stomach is distended; sensation of emptiness; eructations afternoon, after eating; empty, tasting of food, SOUR after, eating, waterbrash.

Fullness in the stomach after eating. Heartburn. Flushes of heat, heaviness after eating. Hiccough after eating, indigestion is very marked. Loathing of food. Nausea; after eating; constant; during cough; after cold drinks; with headache; during menses.

Stomach: Pain in the stomach: AFTER EATING; burning after warm things; cramping; CUTTING; gnawing; pressing after eating; soreness; stitching.

Pulsation in the stomach. Retching when raising mucus from the throat. Sinking sensation. Sensation of a stone in the stomach. Tension in the stomach.

Thirst: morning; evening; night; burning thirst; extreme thirst; unquenchable thirst; drinks often but small drinks. Thirstlessness. Vomiting: on coughing; after eating; bile; bitter; blood; mucus; sour; watery.

Abdomen: Distension of abdomen after eating; flatulence; fullness, gurgling, hardness.

Heavy feeling in abdomen. Inflammation of liver; spleen. Liver affections. Pain in the abdomen; at night; after eating; from flatus; before a diarrhoea; before stool; better after stool and after passing flatus; in hypochondria; hypogastrium; in region of umbilicus.

Cramping; before stool, better by passing flatus and stool. Cutting; before stool. Drawing in abdomen; in hypochondria. Sore, tender abdomen; in hypochondria. Stitching in abdomen; in hypochondria; in inguinal region; in spleen. Nervous feeling in abdomen. Rumbling in abdomen; as if a diarrhea would come on. Affections of the spleen. Swollen inguinal glands. Tension in abdomen, in hypochondria.

Constipation, alternating with diarrhoea; stool hard. Diarrhoea: evening daytime; morning; drives him, out of bed; NIGHT; after midnight; frequent stool during daytime; from becoming cold; from cold drinks; from taking cold; worse after eating; during menses; AFTER MILK; after vegetable; stool: bloody, copious, frequent, mucous, painless, pasty, scanty, soft, thin, watery, yellow.

Excoriation of anus. Flatus copious and offensive. Itching of anus. Pain: BURNING during and after stool; cramping, better after stool; cutting, during stool and in the hypogastrium; before stool; soreness and stitching; tearing during stool; tenesmus during stool. Urging to stool; ineffectual; after stool.

Urinary: Sore pain in bladder relieved by urging; urging to urinate at night; constant; frequent.

Urination difficult; frequent; involuntary at night in sleep; unsatisfactory. Burning and aching in the kidneys.

Burning in the urethra when passing urine. Urine: ALBUMINOUS; burning; dark; pale; copious at night; clear as water; offensive, scanty; with mucus and phosphate, Specific gravity decreased; 1050.

Genitalia: Morning erections; incomplete.

Inflammation of glans penis, prepuce and testes. Stitching of the genitals, penis, scrotum. Sore ness left testis. Seminal emissions. Swollen penis and testes.

In the female the desire is increased. Leucorrhea; copious; offensive; thick; yellow. Menses: copious; too soon; protracted; scanty. Metrorrhagia. Pain in the uterus.

Larynx: Dryness and constriction in the larynx; scraping slate-colored mucus from the larynx; mucus is detached with difficulty; burning and soreness in the larynx; roughness in larynx.

The symptoms of the larynx are worse from dust, smoke or cold air. Voice: hoarse ness with coryza; lost; weak. Respiration is fast and deep; miner’s asthma from coal dust; difficult on ascending, short.

Cough: morning; afternoon; evening; night; from deep breathing, dry at night; in the morning and from exertion; dry teasing cough all day; exhausting; hacking; from irritation in larynx and trachea loose; racking, short, spasmodic; from tickling in larynx and trachea violent; worse in a warm room. Expectoration: morning, evening, bloody, difficult, mucous, OFFENSIVE, PURULENT, tasting bitter, flat, putrid, viscid, yellow.

Chest: Anxiety and constriction of the chest. Eruptions, pimples. Sensation of fullness in the chest. Hemorrhage from the lungs. Pneumonia and phthisis in miners from dust of coal. Irritation in the bronchial tubes in the morning.

Oppression of chest on exertion and deep breathing; heart.

Pain in the chest, during cough; in the heart; burning, cutting below the seventh rib; pressing; rawness; sore from coughing; stitching. Palpitation of the heart; night; anxious; ascending steps; exertion; tumultuous. Sensation as if he had inhaled smoke.

Back: Coldness of the back at night.

Stitching of the cervical region. Pain in the back, evening; night; worse walking; in the scapulae; between the scapulae; on bending forward and on breathing; in the lumbar region when stooping and walking; in the sacrum both while walking and sitting; aching in the back; drawing pain in the back; sore pain in the back; sore pain in the sacrum when walking and stooping; sore pain in cervical region; sore pain under scapulae; sore pain in spine on pressure.

Stiffness in the cervical region, weakness in the back.

Limbs: Awkwardness of the limbs; cold hands and FEET; cramps in calf in soles.

Eruptions on limbs; thin white scales; vesicles. Excoriation between the thighs. Formication of the feet. Heaviness, a tired feeling in lower limbs, in feet. Itching of all the limbs. Jerking in the lower limbs. Lameness in the limbs.

Numbness in the feet. Pain in the limbs; in the joints, during chill; neuralgic pain in limbs; RHEUMATIC; gouty pains; upper limbs; right arm rheumatic; shoulder; rheumatic pain in shoulder and elbow; palms painful; pain in fingers.

Pain in lower limbs; sciatica worse walking; in the hip; thigh when walking; knee. Aching down front of legs; bruised pain in limbs from continued motion; burning feet and soles, crampy pain in calf; flying pains in fingers, palms and forearms; drawing pains in lower limbs, thigh, knees, calf; neuralgic pain from axilla to little finger; stitching pain in hip, thigh, hip to knee on motion; knee, leg; tearing pains in upper limbs, in lower limbs, in thigh, legs ankles, foot.

Perspiration of hands, of feet. Pulsation of limbs. Restlessness of the limbs, upper limbs, lower limbs, legs. Stiffness of limbs, joints, wrists. Swelling of limbs: dropsical; legs; feet. Trembling hands; lower limbs. Twitching upper limbs; thighs. Weakness of the limbs; upper limbs; hands; lower limbs; thighs; legs; ANKLES; feet.

Sleep: The sleep is deep.

Dreams: amorous; anxious; frightful; of murder; nightmare; pleasant; vexatious; vivid. Late falling asleep; restless sleep. Sleepiness in the afternoon. Sleeplessness before midnight; after midnight; with sleepiness. Unrefreshing sleep. WAKING EARLY, frequently.

Chill morning; forenoon; evening in bed; in cold air; coldness comes on at night in bed; chilliness, internal chill, shaking chill in the morning; chill at -2 A.M.; 1 P.M.; 2 P.M.; the chill is relieved in a warm room.

Fever at night; dry heat, flushes of heat, perspiration absent.

Perspiration: morning; nights; from anxiety; in bed; cold; on coughing; on slight exertion; following the fever; on motion; profuse, at night; symptoms worse while perspiring; aversion to uncovering while perspiring.

Skin: Burning skin; cold skin desquamation.

Liver spots, red spots, yellow skin; dryness of the skin.

Eruptions: blisters; boils; burning; moist; herpes; itching in warmth; painful pimples; scaly thin white scales; stinging, suppurating tubercles; urticaria; nodules vesicular erysipelas, with swelling, worse after scratching; formication of skin; itching, crawling, worse after scratching. Swelling of skin with burning.

Ulcers, burning; deep; yellow discharge; spreading; stinging.

Editorial notes

• “gIands” corrected to “glands” (transcription error in the digital source text).

Natrum Carbonicum
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 130 of 180
Source pages 2349–2360 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

Proved by Hahnemann, Hering and others.

Persons who are in the habit of taking carbonate of soda for sour stomach get a proving of this remedy. I have met some of these people and been able to confirm many Natrum symptoms.

Old dyspeptics who are always belching and have sour stomach and rheumatism; after twenty years they are stoop-shouldered, pale, sensitive to cold, chilly, aggravated by the least draft; require much clothing; unable to resist the cold or the heat; require a medium climate; are worse from the changes of the weather; their digestive, rheumatic, and gouty troubles are all worse from the weather changes.

Mind: A state of trepidation from the slightest noise, the slam of a door; nervous excitement and palpitation with great prostration; nervous weakness with trepidation; weakness from slight exertion of mind or body; internal and external trembling.

The rattling of paper causes palpitation, irritability and melancholy. Estrangement from family and friends. Aversion to mankind and to society; to relatives, to strangers; feels a great division between himself and them; sensitive to, certain persons.

Music causes a tendency to suicide, melancholy, weeping and trepidation; playing the piano is so exhausting that she must lie down; music causes great sadness which increases to religious insanity.

This is true of all the Sodiums, but especially so of Natrum carb.; aggravation from the slam of a door, a pistol shot, which causes headache and complaints in general, aggravated from music.

Digestion: The more soda these patients take, the more flatulent do they become; they are stoop-shouldered; digestion is difficult, and finally milk will not digest at all, bringing on a diarrhoea with undigested, lienteric stools; also, starch causes flatulence and looseness of the bowels, Many symptoms from drinking cold water when overheated.

Urine offensive like that of a horse, from a vegetable or milk diet. This is not so marked as in Nitric ac., but resembles it.

Skin: Natrum carb. throws out eruptions upon the knuckles and fingertips; also the toes; vesicular eruptions open up and form ulcers on the joints of finger-tips.

Borax, Sepia, Ars., and Natrum carb. are the remedies most inclined to produce ulceration of the tips and knuckles of the fingers, and also the toes.

Vesicular eruptions on the body in patches and circles; the herpes family is especially, related to Natr. carb.; zona, herpes labialis, herpes preputialis; patches as large as a dollar on the hips, thighs and back. Smaller patches show vesicles containing a white serum, burning, smarting and itching, better from scratching.

The eruption passes away with a crust, but will often ulcerate, it does not heal and an ulcer forms. Circulation feeble; wounds suppurate. Feet and skin burn. Crusty eruptions on the skin that have not been vesicular; but most Natr. carb. and Natr. mur. eruptions are of the vesicular form. Tingling, biting, itching, changing place, now here and now there; cold skin; sweaty body.

Mind: Nervous exhaustion, physical exhaustion, weakness of mind and body.

Book-keepers lose the ability to add up figures. In reading a page, the one previous to, it soon goes out of the mind. The memory will not hold out from the beginning to the end of a sentence. Forgets what he reads.

Confusion of mind follows and then he is unable, to perform any mental labor. Men become so fatigued from the details of business that a confusion of the mind comes over them, they get brain fag.

Oversensitive to heat, especially after sunstroke, even some years after; has to be well shaded when walking in the sun, must seek a cool or dark place the patient has not had the proper acute remedy during the attack the remedy is aggravated by both cold and heat, but this is a special aggravation from the heat of the sun; head troubles are not worse from cold in Natr. carb.

Old cases of brain fag with weakness and trepidation. The body troubles are aggravated from cold and in the winter; as cold as if he had no blood in the body, extremities cold, and he cannot get them warm; cold as ice to, the knees and elbows.

The body and extremities are worse in winter, the head in summer.

Anxious trembling and sweating during pains.

The senses are all disturbed; oversensitive to light pain in the eyes from a bright light.

Oversensitive hearing; little noises seem enormous, like thunder; the crumpling of paper seems like the crashing of a waterfall.

Taste perverted, too sensitive, so that the tasting of things ordinarily grateful becomes painful; sometimes loss of taste.

Loss of smell. Hay fever, catarrhal fever; where catarrhal conditions are present there is copious, thick, yellow, purulent discharge from the eyes, nose, vagina.

The vesicles are filled with thin, white serum, but the pustule, when it ruptures, throws out a thick, yellow discharge. Leucorrhoea thick, yellow, ropy; gonorrhea of the same character; thick, yellow, ropy, purulent discharge from the bladder which clogs up the urethra when urinating.

Otalgia, with sharp, darting, piercing pains when the mental state, the chilliness and other generals are present. The discharges are commonly offensive.

Coryzas trouble much; always has a cold in the head the watery discharge is of short duration and is soon followed by a thick copious flow of yellow mucus.

Ulceration, thick crusts; sleeps at night with the month open; dry, yellow crusts are blown out with pain and bleeding. The catarrh increases with each fresh cold, until it becomes foetid; the bones of the nose are affected; almost a constant headache over the eyes, in the forehead, at the root of the nose; congestive headaches, worse from change of weather, cold room, damp weather; increased by every storm.

Most foetid ozoena, mucous membranes ulcerated and destroyed.

Pale face with blue ring around the eyes, yellow blotches on the forehead, puffiness. There is puffiness in general; the hands, feet, face pit on pressure; infiltration of the cellular tissue; those states of the heart and kidneys that favor dropsies; old malarial cases, flesh doughy; urine albuminous.

Enlargement of the glands with induration, axillary, inguinal, abdominal, salivary. Especially suitable for enlargement of the prostate in old men. Chronic enlargement of the parotids, slow and of long duration; of the tonsils.

Ulcerations of the mouth; nursing sore month in women; thrush in infants; little white aphthous patches, especially in nervous, withered infants who cannot stand any kind of milk, who have diarrhoea from milk; they thrive better on cereals; when asleep the child jumps, cries, springs up and grasps the mother; a nervous, cold baby, easily startled like the Borax baby.

So are the Natrum babies in general.

Accumulation of mucus in the throat and posterior nares, generally yellow in color, while with Natr. mur. it is white; the latter spits up copious, thick, white mouthfuls.

Natr. carb. is ameliorated by eating; when chilly, he eats and is able to keep warm; the pains are ameliorated after eating; he has an all gone feeling and pain in the stomach which drives him to eat; he gets hungry at 5 A.M. and 11 P.M. 5 A.M. is the favorite time for the Natr. carb. aggravation; he becomes so hungry at this time that he is forced out of bed to eat something, which also ameliorates the pain.

Headache, chilliness, and palpitation better from eating (Ignat., Sepia, Sulph.).

Nervous hunger in pregnant women, who cannot sleep unless they get up at night and eat crackers, calls for Psorinum.

Locomotor ataxia with its fulgurating pains, amel. by eating; gnawing, all-gone, hungry feeling in the stomach. Soles numb, in males erections and priapism, sensitive thighs, hypersensitive spine; the results of too much excitement.

Emissions; ejaculation of semen premature.

Thirst in the afternoon, incessant; thirst between chill and heat great desire for cold water a few hours after dinner. Extreme aversion to milk.

Flatulency and accumulation of wind in the bowels; diarrhoea; stool yellow, soft with violent tenesmus and urging; a yellow substance like the pulp of an orange in the stool; diarrhoea from milk.

The most troublesome constipation; stool hard, dark, smooth and crumbling. All the Natrums take away the desire to go to stool; no ability to bear down; stool large and hard, great effort to pass it.

Prostatorrhoea after urinating and a difficult stool.

Sterility, a constitutional state in a woman where she is unable to, conceive; she is nervous, cold to the knees and elbows; cold body in winter, hot head in summer; always tired; relaxation of the sphincter vaginae causing the seminal fluid to gush out as soon as ejaculated by the male, thus causing sterility.

There may be a spasm of the sphincter, producing the same effect, or a clot of blood or mucus shoots from the vagina with noisy flatus. Nervous, fidgety, excitable, lean, dyspeptic women, not hysterical. Menses too soon or too late; neuralgias, oversensitive to drafts and dampness, sensitive spine, legs numb; leucorrhea yellowish-green, copious.

Paralytic states; ptosis or spasms of the lids; difficult swallowing, must drink much water to wash the food down on account of paralysis of the pharynx; paralysis of the bowels, cannot bear down at stool; stool like sheep’s dung; paralysis of the left lower extremity with tingling.

Palpitation at night when ascending and while lying on left side. Many spinal symptoms. Goitre.

Stiffness of the neck, violent backache after walking. Rheumatic pains in the extremities. Jerking in all the limbs. Stumbling while walking. Weak ankles in children. Heaviness of the legs. Pains in the hollow of the knees on motion. Tension in the bend of the knee. Easy dislocation of the ankle.

The soles burn while walking. Ulceration of the heel from blisters. Icy cold feet. Weakness of the legs. Vesicles on tips of fingers and toes. Spots and tubercles on the skin. Skin dry and cracked. Itching and crawling.

Natrum Muriaticum
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 131 of 180
Source pages 2361–2383 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hammering pains in the head on waking in the morning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pregnancy: Conditions of pregnancy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The urine smells like horses’ urine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Editorial notes

• “subinvolutîon” corrected to “subinvolution” (transcription error in the digital source text).

Natrum Phosphoricum
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 132 of 180
Source pages 2384–2405 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

We are not dependent upon Schüessler alone for indications for this remedy, as we have many pathogenetic symptoms.

Schuessler’s indications were good and mostly confirmed by clinical observations. The author has given this remedy for twenty years to many patients whose nerves were in a fret from mental exertion and sexual excesses and vices.

Modalities: The symptoms are worse in the morning, EVENING, and night, and after midnight. There is marked anemia and aversion to the open air.

He is aggravated from a draft, from open cold, from becoming cold and after becoming cold, and there is a tendency to frequent taking cold.

He is worse from changes weather. Chlorosis. Aversion to bathing. Many symptoms after coition. He may be a sexual debauche.

Many symptoms come on from fasting, and he is generally ameliorated after eating aggravated from any physical exertion. His muscles are flabby, he is losing flesh.

He is disturbed by butter, cold drinks, fats, fruit, MILK, sour things and vinegar.

Formication externally and internally. There is great physical irritability, and later a marked lack of reaction. Many symptoms are aggravated from a jar, or stepping. There is marked lassitude in the morning in hot weather. desire to lie down.

Prolonged weakness from loss of fluids. Lying on left side aggravates many symptoms. Worse before and after menses. During menses the symptoms are aggravated afternoon and evening. Numbness in single parts. Orgasm of blood. Stitching, tearing pains aggravated during a thunderstorm.

Pulsation all over the body. Sensation as though a shot was forced through the arteries is a verified symptom. Oversensitive in general, and to pain. Shocks through the body, in night while awake.

Sitting aggravates. General aggravation during a thunderstorm. Tension in muscles and tendons. Trembling in thunderstorm. Twitching of muscles. Nervous and paralytic weakness aggravated in morning, and after exertion. The body smells sour (like Hepar, Sulph., Lyc.).

Mind: Anger over trifles, and complaints from vexation.

Anxiety and night; in bed; before midnight; after eating; with fear fever; about the future; about his health; on waking.

Complaints from bad news. Aversion to company. Concentration difficult. Confusion of mind in the morning; in the evening; after eating; from mental exertion; on waking.

Delusions, frightful; thinks he sees dead people; imagines; thinks he is going to have typhoid fever; hears footsteps in the next room.

Discontented, discouraged and easily distracted. Dullness of mind while reading. Mental exertion brings on many complaints.

He is very excitable. Fear at night; of impending disease; that something will happen; of misfortune; on waking.

Fears bad news. Forgetful. Easily frightened, and heedless. She is hysterical, and in a hurry. No one works fast enough suit him. Sometimes his ideas are abundant, and again deficient and his mind grows sluggish.

Impatience. He is indifferent to every thing, even to his family. A gradually increasing indolence; a mental and physical work. Irritability; in the morning menses; about trifles. Memory weak.

Times of mirthfulness. GREAT PROSTRATION OF MIND. Restless and anxious, evening and night. Sadness in evening, after emission, during fever, and from music.

He is extremely sensitive to music and noise and to his surroundings. He grows serious and silent, and sits by himself quite still for a long time. He is easily startled, from fright, from noise, on falling asleep, and during sleep.

Spells of stupefaction creep over him. His friends call him suspicious. Indisposed to talk. His thoughts wander. He is growing timid and bashful. Weeps easily. Mental work becomes impossible and he seems to be approaching imbecility.

Vertigo and head: Vertigo in the morning; aggravated from mental exertion while sitting and walking. Tendency to fall.

Congestion in the evening. Heat in head in evening, in forehead and vertex. Flushes of heat after sweat. Tension in the scalp.

Eruptions on the head of golden yellow scabs; eczema on the forehead. Fullness in forehead; over the eyes; in the morning; aggravated by, mental exertion. Heaviness of the head, and the hair falls out.

Pain in the head, morning, afternoon, evening and night, aggravated binding up the hair; after eating; must lie down; aggravated from light; lying; before, during and after menses; MENTAL EXERTION; after sour milk; motion; motion of head; noise; rising from lying; in a room, sexual excesses, after sleep; after stooping; straining eyes; during a thunderstorm; while walking; warm room; ameliorated in open air; by pressure.

The headaches are periodical, pulsating. Pain in forehead aggravated from MENTAL EXERTION; from motion; over eyes; in occiput; sides of head; temples; in vertex on waking in morning; in vertex and forehead.

The pains are bursting, cutting in temples and sides of head; drawing in head and occiput; pressing with sour slimy vomiting; pressing in forehead, outward, over eyes; pressing in occiput, and sides of occiput; pressing in temples; pressing in vertex as if it would open.

Stitching in head, in forehead, in sides of head, in temples. Stunning in head and forehead. Tearing in head. Perspiration of forehead. Pulsating in head, forehead, temples and vertex. Shocks in the head. Twitching. Uncovering the head brings on the symptoms.

Eyes: Dryness of the eyes.

Creamy yellow discharges. Heaviness of the lids. Inflammation of the eyes. Scrofulous ophthalmia, and granular lids. Itching and burning of the lids and margin of the lids.

Burning lachrymation, must rub the eyes.

Pain in the eyes, when reading. Burning and cutting. Pressing during menses. Pain as though sand in eyes. Sore, bruised feeling when reading. Stitching pain in eyes.

Paralysis of the optic nerve. Photophobia. Pupils dilated. One pupil dilated. Quivering of right eyelid while reading. Staring. Strabismus. Swollen lids. Yellow sclerotics.

Colors before the eyes, dark. Halo around the light. Dim vision for distant objects. Foggy vision; blindness.

Exertion of vision aggravates many symptoms. Flickering before the eyes morning on rising, at 5 P.M. Mist before the eyes aggravated in gaslight at 8 P.M. Myopia. Sparks before the eyes.

Ears: Eruption on the ears.

Creamy yellow crusts on the ears. Fullness in ears. Heat and redness of one ear. Itching in the ears. Lobe of right ear burning and itching, must scratch it until it bleeds. Noises in ears, with vertigo, humming, ringing, roaring, rushing, singing, whizzing.

Pain in ear. Aching in right meatus. Burning. Stitching in and behind ear. Tearing. Pulsation. Stopped sensation. The hearing is acute, acute for voices; impaired, lost.

Nose: The patient is subject to fluent coryza, and catarrh of the nose with thick yellow-purulent discharge.

Epistaxis on blowing the nose. Fullness at the root of the nose. The nose is obstructed with mucus and crusts, but the discharge is generally scanty.

Offensive odors in the nose in the morning. Ozoena. Pricking in the left nostril brings tears to the eyes.

Smell is acute. Soreness in the left nostril. He picks the nose constantly and scales form. Frequent sneezing. Tension over the root of the nose.

Face: Discoloration of the face, bluish circles around the eyes; earthy, PALE; red blotches but not feverish red alternating with paleness; yellow, liver spots, white about nose and mouth. Eruptions on the face, on the chin, forehead, lips, about the mouth, ON THE NOSE. Pimples on the forehead. Pustules on the face. Heat in the evening during chill. The face burns. Itching of the face and nose.

Pain in the face, burning, neuralgic. Shooting in the right cheek. Soreness in the right lower jaw at angle, darting through it. Stitching. Swelling of the glands of the lower jaw. Swelling of the sub-maxillary gland.

Mouth: Bleeding gums.

The tongue is coated yellow. Yellow at the base, or dirty white. Roof of mouth coated golden yellow or creamy. Dryness of mouth and tongue.

Salivation. Sensation of a hair on the tongue, followed by prickly numbness of whole mouth.

Speech difficult. Stinging on the tongue. Taste bad on waking, bitter, metallic, saltish, sour. Vesicles in mouth and on tongue.

Caries of the teeth. Grinding the teeth during sleep in children. Looseness of the teeth. Pain in the teeth, at night, ameliorated by pressure and external warmth. Burning, pressing and pulsating.

Throat and tonsils: coated yellow.

Dryness of the throat. Mucus forms in throat. Tough clear white mucus in posterior nares. Thick yellow mucus drops from posterior nares, aggravated at night, must sit up to clear the throat. Sensation of a lump in throat. Much hawking.

Inflammation of throat. Pain in throat on swallowing. Sore throat on right edge, aggravated swallowing. Burning, pricking, stitching. Pulsation in left tonsil. Scraping mucus from posterior nares. Swallows liquids better than solids in sore throat.

Stomach: The appetite is increased, ravenous or wanting.

Aversion to food, to meat, to milk, to bread and butter. Desires alcoholic drinks, beer, pungent food, eggs, fried fish, cold drinks. The stomach is disordered by fat and milk. Emptiness, aggravated after eating. Eructation after eating, empty, SOUR; waterbrash.

Fullness after eating. Heartburn, heaviness and pressure. Heat in the stomach. Nausea in the morning, evening, during cough, and during headache.

Pain in the stomach; after eating; two hours after eating; cramping; gastralgia, several attacks every day with vomiting sour fluids; over-secretion of lactic acid. Gnawing in the stomach. Pressing after eating. Soreness and stitching. Retching. Extreme thirst.

Ulceration of the stomach. Sour vomiting. Creamy coating on the tongue. Sour odor of the body. Vomiting on coughing, with headache, of bile, bitter, frothy with headache, OF MUCUS, SOUR in infants fed on milk, sour cheesy masses in intermittent fever; in pregnancy; vomiting yellow, green.

Abdomen: Distension of the abdomen after eating.

Sensation of emptiness, after stool. Flatulence, obstinate, after eating. Fullness gurgling and hardness. Pain afternoon and night, after eating, paroxysmal, before stool. Pain in hypochondria. Burning in abdomen. Cramping before stool, causing urging to stool, while walking. Cutting in abdomen. Pressing in the hypogastrium. Soreness in the whole abdomen.

Stitching in the abdomen and in liver. Torpid liver. Rumbling. Tension.

Constipation with difficult hard stool. Inactivity of the rectum; one day constipated, next day diarrhoea.

Diarrhoea morning, night, with colic, after eating, in summer, with flatus.

Anus: The anus is excoriated; much flatus; involuntary stools, involuntary when passing flatus.

Sore, itching anus, aggravated in the warmth of the bed. Pain in the rectum after stool. Burning during and after stool. Painful contraction of anus. Cutting during stool. Stitching on walking. Tenesmus. Urging to stool after coition, in a man.

Urging ineffectual, unsatisfactory. Weak feeling in the rectum before stool. The stool is bloody, cheesy, crumbling; light colored, bileless stool; green; jelly-like masses; pasty; sour-smelling.

Stools; thin yellowish brown stool; watery; yellowish green; yellowish brown. Worms with the stool.

Bladder: Paralysis of the bladder.

Pressing pain in the bladder before urination. Urging to urinate at night, after coition (man); after eating; constant; frequent. Dysuria. Urination frequent, at night, during perspiration, involuntary, night, during sleep.

Must wait for urine to start. Must press a long time before urine starts. Unsatisfactory urination. Stitching pain in the kidneys. Emission of prostatic fluid during stool. Enlarged prostate. Burning in the urethra during the flow of urine.

After stool burning and itching of the meatus. The urine is albuminous, burning, cloudy, dark, pale; copious; night and morning, offensive, scanty, with mucous sediment.

Men: Erections are troublesome morning and night, continued, frequent, incomplete, painful, without desire, violent, wanting.

Vesicles upon the genitalia. Itching of the scrotum, prepuce and anus. Pain in the spermatic cords and testes. Drawing in spermatic cords. Pressing in testes.

Seminal emission after coition, without dreams, without erections, frequent, unconscious. Sexual passion diminished, or increased, without erection, vomiting. Swelling of penis and testes.

Female: Desire increased in the female.

Leucorrhoea after menses, acrid, copious, creamy, honey colored, sour smelling, yellow and watery.

Menses absent, copious, too frequent, late, pale, painful, protracted. Prolapsus of the uterus with a weak sinking feeling after stool. Sterility.

Respiration: Soreness in trachea.

Hoarseness and loss of voice. Respiration is asthmatic, difficult, short and sighing.

Cough afternoon, evening in bed, night, during chill, constant, with coryza, after drinking. Dry evening cough with expectoration in the morning. Hacking, hallow, short, racking cough, with irritation in chest or larynx.

Loose morning cough. Tickling in larynx and chest, Violent cough. Cough aggravated while sitting. Expectoration in the morning bloody, greenish, mucous, offensive, purulent, thick, viscid, yellow; tasting flat, putrid, salty.

Anxiety in the chest; a bubble starts from the heart and passes through the arteries. Constriction of the chest. Empty sensation in the chest after eating. Pimples on the chest. Sudden feeling of fullness in the upper part of the chest. Oppression of the chest. Pain in the chest after dinner, from deep breathing, during cough.

Pain in the heart. Aching, pressing in the chest. Burning deep in the chest, aggravated on the right side, evening in bed. Cutting, pressing. Rawness in chest on coughing. Soreness in chest. Stitching in the chest, sides of chest aggravated in left side.

PALPITATION, anxious, after, eating; aggravated from noise, lying on the left side, during a thunderstorm. Phthisis florida in young people. Trembling of heart, after menses, on ascending stairs.

Back: Heavy dragging in the back. Itching of the skin of the back.

Pain in the back at night, during menses, on motion, from sexual excesses, while sitting. Pain in the dorsal region; left scapula, between scapulae. Pain in lumbar region, during menses. Pain in sacrum, during menses.

Aching in back during menses in lumbar region. Sore bruised back and spine. Spinal irritation.

Burning in lumbar region and in the spine. Drawing in the back. Sharp pain in right sacro-iliac junction. Stitching in lumbar region.

Perspiration of the back. Stiffness both sides of neck. Swelling of the glands of the neck. Weakness of the back toward evening, in the lumbar region, after emissions.

Limbs: COLD HANDS, legs and feet.

Feet icy cold during menses, in daytime, burn at night in bed. Contraction of extensors in forearm while writing. Sore stinging corns. Cramp in calves and feet. Cramp in hands, while writing. Cracking in joints. Eruption on limbs, vesicles; pimples and vesicles on lower limbs; pimples on nates, eczema of ankles. Formication of upper limbs and of feet.

Heat of hands and feet Heaviness of limbs, of lower limbs, legs and feet. Itching of limbs, upper limbs, lower limbs, ankles. Numbness of limbs, upper limbs, right hand and arm, of fingers, right fingers, of feet. Pain in the limbs. Gouty, rheumatic joints, wrist. Rheumatic pain in shoulder (right). Pain in leg, calf, ankle, ball of foot, first toe. Bruised pain in limbs, lower limbs, knee, leg. Burning hands and soles.

Crampy pain in left hand and index finger. Drawing in forearm, wrist during menses, hand, joints, left shoulder, hip and knee. Pressure in shoulder. Stitching in shoulder and fingers, in hip, thigh, knee, soles, heel. Tearing in limbs, joints, upper limbs, shoulder, upper arm, elbow, fingers; lower limbs, hip, knee, leg, foot, toes.

Perspiration of hands and feet. Restless legs. Shortening of tendons in hollow of knee, also, after menses. Stiffness of joints. Swelling of fingers; of lower limbs, of feet. Tension in hamstrings and calf Trembling in hands, in knees after emissions.

Twitching of muscles. Weakness of upper limbs, of hands, of right wrist and left ankle after menses; of lower limbs, thighs, ANKLES. Weakness of ankles in children (Nat. c.). Sudden giving way of legs while walking.

Sleep: Very deep sleep.

The patient is a great dreamer. Dreams anxious, amorous, of dead people, distressing, of previous events, of fire, frightful, nightmare, pleasant, vexatious and vivid.

Falling asleep in the chair. The sleep is restless. Sleepiness all day and after dinner, most in forenoon. Sleepless before midnight, after midnight, from crowding of thoughts. Sleepiness, yet cannot sleep. Unrefreshing sleep.

Wakeful from 12 to 3 A.M. Waking early, 5 A.M., unrested. Waking late.

Coldness in evening in bed, in cold air. Chilliness in evening, during menses, after eating. Shaking chill. One-sided coldness. Internal chill. Fever, flushes of heat and headache every afternoon. Cannot get to sleep, feels so hot. Fever with sweat during sleep. Intermittent fever with vomiting of sour masses.

Skin: Perspiration in the daytime, morning, afternoon, during the night.

Anxious sweat. Cold sweat. Perspiration on coughing, on slight exertion. Profuse sweat in the morning and during the night with great nervous weakness. Sour smelling sweat. The infant smells sour.

Biting, burning, or coldness of the skin. Liver spots red spots, yellow spots and jaundiced skin. Dry skin. Dry, burning eruptions; blisters, boils, burning, desquamating, moist, dry, herpetic, painful, phagedenic, pimples, golden yellow scales; suppurating, urticaria, vesicular. Eczema with honey colored discharge. Erysipelas. Excoriation. Formication. Freckles.

Gnawing pain in skin. Inactivity of the skin. Itching, biting, burning, crawling, creeping, stinging, ameliorated by scratching, aggravated by warmth of bed. Sensitive skin. Sore feeling in the skin. Sticking in skin. Swelling of skin, of affected parts.

Dropsical skin. Ulcerative pain. Ulcers; biting, burning, crawling, deep; discharge offensive and yellow; fistulous, inflamed, red areola, sensitive, stinging, suppurating, swollen, unhealthy. Unhealthy skin. Warts.

Natrum sulfuricum
From Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica by James Tyler Kent, A.M., M.D. – Lecture 133 of 180
Source pages 2406–2424 of the Nalanda Digital Library edition (public domain)

This is one of our most frequently indicated constitutional remedies. The symptoms appear in the morning, evening and during the night, especially before midnight.

Some symptoms are better after breakfast, during the daytime and after midnight, except the sweat. It is a very useful remedy for complaints following neglected gonorrhea. The symptoms and the constitutional state of the patient are worse in wet weather.

It is useful in patients who live near waterways and have suffered long from malarial influences. It is useful as an antidote to the abuse of quinine. It especially belongs to patients of the naturopathic and bilious constitution.

He is extremely sensitive to the night air. He suffers from universal catarrh and the discharges are generally greenish. It cures dropsically conditions. Sensitive to touch and pressure; oversensitive mentally and physically. Very sensitive to pain.

The pains are very numerous; dull pains, sharp pains, all better from motion. Bruised feeling:all over. Strong desire for open air and better while walking in the open air. Sensitive to a warm room, though he is sometimes sensitive to cold and must have warm loathing. The feeling of fullness or distension is found in many places; in the head, in the ear, in the abdomen, in the veins generally.

Complaints all worse in the spring and in warm weather. General, physical restlessness and anxiety. Marked weakness and trembling with internal pulsations and rapid heart. Twitching of muscles. Complaints from injuries of head and spine. The symptoms all worse during rest. Rheumatic complaints all over the body.

He is compelled to lie on the back. Convulsions from injuries of the head. Sycotic conditions with a history of warts and condylomata. Anxiety in the morning which passes off after breakfast; in the evening in bed; at night before midnight; during fever; about the future; anxiety and loathing of life with suicidal impulse, must use all self-control to prevent taking his life, A woman during gestation attempted several times to hang herself, after this remedy she was cheerful and there was no return of the suicidal disposition. Cheerful after stool. Music makes her sad. Sadness in the morning, which passes off after breakfast.

Mind: Extremely irritable in the morning.

Violent anger which is followed by jaundice. Aversion to company. Dislikes to speak or to be spoken to. Dullness of mind and excitability. Mental exertion brings on mental symptoms. Mental troubles come, on from injuries of the head.

A young man became very sad and subject to attacks of vertigo, and neglected his business after being hit on the side of the head by a base ball. He was entirely free from all symptoms after taking this remedy.

Fear of a crowd; of evil; of people. Forgetful, easily frightened, hysterical; indifferent; indolent; insanity. She is oversensitive and suspicious. Starting from fright or noise and in sleep.

Head: Subject to vertigo, congestive headaches with fullness and heat.

Pressing outward in the head with pulsation. Periodical headaches with vomiting bile. The pains are worse when thinking of them and better by pressure, in the open air and when lying. Pulsation in the temples when walking. Splitting pain in the vertex. Heat of the vertex.

Headache in the morning on waking. Mental exertion brings on headaches. Sensation as of brain falling to side lain on. Headache with intermittent fever. Violent occipital headache with pain in the nape of the neck. Headache from injuries of the head. Itching of the scalp. Formication. Eczema of the scalp with much moisture.

Eyes: Photophobia and head complaints from looking, into the light.

Lachrymation and dim vision, jaundiced eyes; inflamed eyes with many blisters. Burning in the eyes morning and evening. Greenish discharge from the eyes. Lids stuck together in the morning.

Granular lids. Scrofulous inflammation of the conjunctiva. Redness, swelling and burning of the margins of the lids. Heaviness of lids. Pressing in eyes when using eyes. Itching of the eyes in the morning.

Ears: Chirping in the ears in the evening; during chill and fever.

Flapping sensation in the ears. Ringing in the ears. Pressing out feeling in the ears. Earache as if something was forcing its way out. Stitching pains in ears, worse entering warm room from cold air; in damp weather.

Earache. Complaint worse on right side. Heat in right ear in evening. Catarrh of right ear. Stopped sensation in right ear. Purulent discharge from the ears.

Nose: catarrhal discharge from nose, yellowish green.

Epistaxis before and during menses; in afternoon and evening. Dryness and burning in the nose. Obstructed with mucus in the night. Mucus drawn from posterior nares tasting salty. Sneezing with fluent coryza and influenza. Epidemic influenza. Chunks of dried mucus blow. from high up in nose.

Face and mouth: Itching of the face with eczema.

Sickly expression and jaundiced skin. Vesicles and pimples on the face. Vesicles on the lower lip and around the mouth. Pimples on the chin burning on touch.

The teeth become loose and fall out in sycotic constitution. The gums separate from the teeth, Pain in the teeth worse from warm things, better from cold drinks and the cold air.

Gums red, ulcerate and burn. Blisters on the gums. The mouth is always slimy. Much mucus forms in the mouth and throat. Taste is better and tongue is heavily coated a dirty greenish brown.

Blisters on the tongue and roof of the mouth. Burning in the roof of the mouth during menses. Numbness in the mouth. Salivation.

Throat and stomach: Chronic inflammation of the throat with copious viscid white MUCUS.

Dry sensation in throat. Pain in throat on swallowing food. Choking feeling in the throat when walking. It is often needed in goitre.

Great thirst in the evening; for very cold drinks; during chill and fever.

Aversion to bread and meat. Qualmishness after farinaceous foods; hiccough after bread in evening. Eructations of sour water of bitter fluid.

Nausea before breakfast. Constant nausea. Vomiting of sour or bitter fluid. Vomiting of green bile with colic. The stomach feels distended and heavy. Pulsation in the stomach after breakfast. Extreme cases of gastric weakness with acidity.

Can digest only the simple foods. Digestion very slow. This remedy has cured many complaints of the liver; congested, enlarged, sore liver.

Liver: Pain in the liver from lying on the right side.

Dragging in the right hypochondrium when lying on the left. side (Mag. m., Card. m., Ptel.), soreness and itching in the liver when walking.

Sharp pains in the liver on deep inspiration. The liver is disturbed by mental exertion and anger. The liver seems to manufacture an excess of bile. Perverted viscid bile that readily forms gall stones. It causes the liver to make healthy bile which is the natural solvent of gall stones, when given in homoeopathic doses at long intervals. It has cured many cases of gall stone colic. It has removed gall stones in many cases. Sensitive to clothing over the hypochondria. The following three cases will testify:

Case I.

Woman, married, grown children. Aged 37. Headache followed by vomiting of bile for several years. Face purple. Heat ameliorates the pain.

Pain begins in right eye, spreads over the forehead with a dragging feeling in back of head. Pain in sacrum extends to thighs, aggravated on right side. Nervous, easily startled, apprehensive. Intensely fastidious. Had gall stone colic three months ago. Cold feet. Headache at menstrual period for sixteen years. Menstrual flow thick, clotted, dark, lasts one day, Stool, light color when sick, darker when in better health. Must restrain herself or she will commit suicide. Slow pulse at times. Tired, all the time. Condemned to an operation by the surgeon for gall stone. Fissured tongue. Natrum sulphuricum cured the gall stones disappeared.

Case 2.

Man actively engaged in business, weight 180 pounds. Age 40.

Pain in region of gall bladder. Gall stone colic. Came on after indigestion. Dull aching in that region. Must walk about the room, not ameliorated in any position. Only once has stool become light colored. Pain in region of kidneys, also through pelvic region and legs with a cloudy condition of the urine; dribbling of few drops of urine after urination.

Dull heavy pain in right side behind the lower ribs, continuous pain; pain extends up right side as far as nipple; stabbing pains in breast. Pain in duodenum aggravated after eating. Natrum sulph. cured. The patient is in perfect health.

Case 3.

Woman. Age 64. Diarrhea; stool watery, sometimes chalky; enlarged liver; clawing feeling in gall bladder; gall stone colic.

Had been condemned by a surgeon to the operating table. Sinking spells after stool; cold spells; vertigo, stooping, lying or walking; spells of rapid beating of heart; mental depression; thirstless; temperature sub-normal; sensitive to jarring abdomen; flatulence and rumbling in abdomen; cold legs to knees; cold hands much belching, aggravated after meals; sensitive to weather changes nervous and sleepless before a storm; sore dragging feeling in the liver; bowels sluggish; slow digestion; heaviness of arms and legs; chilliness down the back; unable to he on right side with comfort; urine copious; strong; late going to sleep.

Natrum sulph. made a radical change in her condition and there are no more signs of gall stones.

Abdomen: Distress in the abdomen relieved by displacing flatus.

Emptiness relieved by passing flatus and by eructations. Cramps and many pains from obstructed flatus. Pain and distension in the ascending colon from flatus.

Pain in the region of the caecum. It has cured many cases resembling the first stage of appendicitis. Pain and tenderness in the whole abdomen. Dull heavy pain from abdomen to back. Burning in the abdomen. Feeling in the abdomen as it a diarrhea would come on, ameliorated by eructations and passing flatus.

Distress in the abdomen that hurries him to stool but only flatus passes. Pain in the abdomen during menses. Cramp in morning before breakfast. Pain in abdomen, 4 to 8 P.M., and in evening. Constant distress in bowels and urging to stool.

Fullness, rumbling, motions, gurgling with or without diarrhea. Pain in right ascending colon when lying on the. right side. Bilious colic with vomiting of bile. It has cured many cases of syphilis. It has cured enlarged abdominal glands. Morning diarrhea with copious flatus soon after rising or soon after standing on the feet. Diarrhea in wet weather.

Stools gushing; copious; greenish; thin; very offensive; slimy, bloody; cramps in the abdomen before stool. Smarting in the anus during stool. Sometimes cheerful after stool. Often the diarrhea is painless.

Diarrhea after farinaceous food; from vegetables; fruit; pastry; cold drinks; ice cream. Diarrhea alternating with constipation. Diarrhea with stools at any hour of the day or night, but especially morning and evening.

It has cured many cases of chronic diarrhea with stool involuntary and lienteric.

Itching and crawling in the anus. Condylomata at the anus. It cured an ulceration in the rectum with copious bleeding in a lawyer who had long struggled with suicidal impulses. It has often cured bleeding piles.

Kidneys and urines: It has cured parenchymatic inflammation of the kidneys following scarlet fever and from malarial influences.

It has cured sugar in the urine and polyuria. It has cured brick dust sediment many times also where copious white sandy sediment was present. It has cured copious deposits of phosphates with copious jelly-like mucous sediment. Must rise often in the night to urinate. Burning during and after urination. Urine loaded with bile. Where these symptoms appear after neglected gonorrhea.

Male: In the male strong sexual desire and troublesome erections.

Gonorrhea when the discharge has a greenish yellow color and there is burning during and after urination. It has cured enlarged prostate many times. Condylomata, soft fleshy with greenish discharge.

Oedema of the scrotum and prepuce. Itching of the penis and scrotum with burning after scratching.

Female: The menstrual flow is copious, acrid and clotted.

Leucorrhoea acrid greenish, purulent, excoriating the parts. It has cured milk leg.

Larynx, trachea and chest: Much thick, viscid white mucus forms in the larynx and trachea.

Dyspnoea on exertion and while walking; with sharp pain in left chest. Stitching on deep breathing. Dyspnoea in damp weather. It is a most useful remedy in humid asthma in children of sycotic parents. Humid asthma with copious viscid mucus in every spell of hot weather. Chronic catarrh of the bronchial tubes.

Frequent attacks of paroxysmal cough from irritation in larynx ending in copious white, viscid expectorations.

Expectoration bloody; greenish yellow; purulent; white; viscid. Oppression of the chest from damp evening air and in the morning on waking.

Emptiness in the chest on inspiration. Soreness in the chest on coughing, better by holding the chest with the bands.

Bronchitis and pneumonia are sometimes hard to cure in sycotic patients until they have received this remedy. Muco-purulent expectoration in old people. Eruptions on the chest every spring in sycotic patients. Swelling and suppuration in the axillary glands.

It has been the epidemic remedy in this country in cerebro-spinal meningitis, where the pain in the back of the head and neck was marked, “as the gnawing of a dog” and the head was drawn backward.

Back and limbs: Piercing pain between the scapulae in the evening while sitting.

Tenderness of the spine. Sore pain in the small of the back and sacrum. Pain in the small of the back during the night compelling her to lie on the right side; it passes away in the morning after rising. Pain in the small of the back from retaining the urine. Itching of the back when undressing. Pain in the sacrum, cannot lie on either side.

Trembling, twitching and weakness in the limbs, twitching in hands and feet during sleep. Pains in the limbs during rest. Rheumatic pains in the limbs in wet weather. Cracking in the joint. Warts on the arms and hands. Pains in the limbs during chill and fever, better by motion and walking. Worse in the lower than in the upper limbs.

Weakness in the hands; flexors pain on grasping anything. Trembling in the hands in the morning on waking and when writing. The tendency to suppuration around the nails is a marked symptom in this remedy. Palms raw and sore and exude a watery fluid. It has cured bad cases of psoriasis of the palms. Fingers swollen and stiff.

Panaritium, pain more bearable in the open air. Ulceration, pain under the nail and in the tips of the fingers.

Pain in the right hip joint on motion. Stitching in the left hip. Pain in the hip extending to the knee. Swelling in the left leg.

Sciatica better in motion. Dull, aching in the lower limbs during chill and fever, better when walking. Restlessness of the limbs at night in bed. Ulcers on outer side of thighs. Stiffness of knees. Weakness in lower limbs. Burning of feet and legs to the knees. Dry heat in feet at night. Oedema of the feet. Sharp pain in soles and heels.

Drowsiness in the forenoon when reading. Frightful dreams. Chill from 6 to 9 P.M., with fever, than dry heat until 1 A.M., sweat absent.

Chill with icy coldness and gooseflesh from 4 to 8 P.M. during menses. Shaking chills. Chilliness with fever in the evening from night air. Perspiration after midnight or toward morning. Fevers with vomiting bile. Remittent and intermittent fevers. It is a much neglected remedy in chronic intermittent fever.

Eczema with watery oozing. Water blisters. Yellow scales after breaking the vesicles. Jaundice. Intertrigo. Wart-like, red excrescences all over the body.

Red, knotty eruptions on head above the ears; on the forehead and left side of nape of neck; in the middle of chest. Itching when undressing.

Editorial notes

• “evening apd during” corrected to “evening and during” (transcription error in the digital source text).
• “from Iying on” corrected to “from lying on” (transcription error in the digital source text).