Materia medica is a Latin term from the history of pharmacy for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing. The term derives from the title of a work by the Ancient Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century AD. The term materia medica was used from the period of the Roman Empire until the 20th century but has now been generally replaced in medical education contexts by the term pharmacology. The term survives in the title of the British Medical Journal’s Materia Non Medica column.
Given a Merc. base and diphtheria, when the membrane is greenish and inclined to spread through the nose and involve a large surface, the Cyanide of Mercury is needed.
It has exudation more marked than any other form of Mercury.
Malignant forms of diphtheria, rapidly forming, and with phagedenic ulceration.
Antidote: Everywhere in this remedy we observe the striking oversensitiveness of the patient; it is brought out in all the symptoms.
Irritable; oversensitive to noise, to light, to the least current of air, to his surroundings; extremely touchy in regard to his food; many kinds of food disturb, strong foods disturb; he is aggravated by meat; craves stimulants, pungent, bitter, succulent things, something to brace him up.
Oversensitive to medicines. One reason why there are so many Nux patients is because people have been overdrugged by the old school. When a patient comes from the old school and had prescribing, having had stimulants and tonics to brace him up, wine and stimulants of all sorts, it is sometimes impossible to get reliable symptoms, to get the patient settled down, until we give Nux as an antidote.
It is useful in those overdrugged by tea, coffee, wine. Old coffee drinkers become sensitive, oversensitive to noise, their symptoms are flitting; they do not give their symptoms well. Such patients will do well for a few days on Nux; some of their symptoms will drop out and they will settle down.
Mind: The mental state is varied, but they all show oversensitiveness irritable, touchy, sensitive conditions.
They are never contented, never satisfied; disturbed by their surroundings, and the become irritable, so that they want to tear things, to scold. Impulses are strongly marked at times. The woman has impulses to destroy her husband or to throw her child into the fire; the impulse is intermingled with violent temper, cannot be contradicted or opposed; if a chair is in the way he kicks it over; if, while undressing, a part of his clothing should catch on a button he would pull it off because he is so mad at it. (Like Nit. ac.).
An uncontrollable state of irritability; it is a weakness and is accompanied by physical weakness; a lack of balance. For example, a business man has been at his desk until he is tired out, he receives many letters, he has a great many irons in the fire; he is troubled with a thousand little things; his mind is constantly hurried from one thing to another until be is tortured. It is not so much the heavy affairs but the little things. He is compelled to stimulate his memory to attend to all the details; he goes home and thinks about it; be lies awake, at night; his mind is confused with the whirl of business and the affairs of the day crowd upon him; finally brain fag comes on.
When the details come to him be gets angry and wants to get away, tears things up, scolds, goes home and takes it out of his family and children. Sleeps by fits and starts; wakens at 3 A.M., and his business affairs crowd on him so that he cannot sleep again until late in the morning when he falls into a fatiguing sleep and wakens up tired and exhausted. He wants to sleep late in the morning.
Melancholy, sadness, but all the time he feels as if he could fly to pieces, jerks things about, tears things up; wants to force things his own way. Driven by impulses to commit acts that verge upon insanity – the destruction of others. Natr. sul. has a strong impulse to destroy himself. Arg. nitr., also, particularly by jumping from a height, but he avoids placing himself in such a position.
He is oversensitive to the open air, to a draft of air; always chilly, always taking cold and it settles in the nose and extends to the chest.
Skin oversensitive to touch, to draft. Full of pains and aches. He sweats easily on the slightest provocation. Brain fag, fatigue, neuralgias; on the verge of insanity and this goes on to convulsions. Convulsions of single muscles and those of the whole body; muscular twitchings; weakness, trembling, and paralysis. This paralytic weakness and disordered state of the activity of the muscles and nerves are prominent.
Another state running through Nux is that actions are turned in opposite directions. When the stomach is sick, it will empty its contents with no great effort ordinarily, but in Nux there is retching and straining as if the action were going the wrong way, as if it would force the abdomen open; a reversed action; retches, gags, and strains and after a prolonged effort he finally empties the stomach.
The same condition is found in the bladder. He must strain to urinate. There is tenesmus, urging. The bladder is full and the urine dribbles away, yet when he strains it ceases to dribble. In regard to the bowels, though the patient strains much, he passes but a scanty stool.
In the diarrhea at times when he sits on the commode in a perfectly passive way, there will be a little squirt of stool, and then comes on tenesmus so that he cannot stop straining, and when he does strain there comes on the sensation of forcing back; the stool seems to go back; a kind of anti-peristalsis.
In constipation the more he strains the harder it is to pass a stool. In diarrhea and dysentery there is straining without relief, but as soon as he passes a little stool there is relief. In dysentery, Merc. has the constant urging; Merc. cor. tenesmus with great desire to urinate.
Pains: The reversed action of the various functions shows the spasmodic nature of this remedy. Pains shoot from the rectum up; burning.
Neuralgias about the eyes, face, and head; neuralgic headaches the pains stick, and tear; they cause weeping, fainting; they burn and sting. Pains in the head and face and in the extremities, that sting and tear, but especially draw. Sensation of tension in the muscles. A drawing in the back like a pulling or tension in the muscles.
The pain feels as if drawing, a spasm of the muscles; a drawing pain in the back; drawing pain in the back of the neck, forcing the patient to let the head go back; drawing pain down the spine; lumbago. Backache worse as soon as she lies down (pregnancy) as if it would break (Bry., Phos – as if broken, Kali c.) must get up and walk.
Neurities with great soreness of skin. Pains in the regions of the kidneys and liver. Pains draw so that he cannot turn over in bed, and the only way he can get over is to lift himself up by his hands and then turn over and lie down. Drawing pains in the sacrum and hips; drawing pains in the sacrum in connection with dysentery. Rending pains in the bowels and every pain causes desire for stool. Such is the characteristic of all the abdominal pains.
Drawing pains in the extremities causing spasms in the calves, feet, and toes. Cramps in the abdomen cause desire for stool; after pains in the form of cramps urge to stool; menstrual colic, with urging to stool; pains in the stomach, after eating, urge to stool. After much straining no stool passes, but after going several times a small stool passes with relief. It is scanty and with reversed peristaltic action.
Oversensitive to stimulants. It ii a routine remedy in men trying to sober up; even in delirium tremens. Old debauchees, broken down with stimulants sexual excesses and the worry and fret of business; they work half an hour and then go out and get a drink, and this goes on until finally they must give up, go home and go to bed. He is on the verge of insanity, irritable, fatigued, sweats much, is aggravated. from the air, sensitive to noise and light; broken down. He must have Nux, rest and no stimulants.
In those drinking too much tea, coffee and stimulants, they stay awake day and night until the end must come; there is tension in all the nerves; he feels as if he must fly, as if he could no longer hold together; his muscles and hands tremble; there is jerking of the limbs on going to sleep and in sleep.
Full of anxiety, despair, and hypochondriasis;
“oversensitive to impressions; “all the senses are in this condition; cannot bear reading or conversation; irritable, and wishes to be alone.”
Everybody displeases or does something to annoy him. Everybody that attempts to soothe only angers him. He dreads the business affairs of the day. Finally this state comes on: “he quarrels, reproaches, scolds, insults from jealousy, mingled with unchaste expressions; soon afterwards howls and weeps aloud.”
Patient is broken down sexually because he is unusually endowed with sexual desires and he indulges until broken down; sexually exhausted, impotent. Mental erethism but relaxation on intromission. Driven to suicide.
Nux is an old dyspeptic, lean, hungry, withered; bent forward; premature age; always selecting his food and digesting almost none; aversion to meat, it makes him sick; craves pungent, bitter things, tonics. Weak stomach; after meals pain in the stomach, nausea, retching; stomach sinks in; withers and loses flesh.
Nose: Tendency to take cold; gets coryza.
Colds settle in the nose, throat, chest and ears. Takes cold from the least provocation; perspires easily and the least current of air causes headache with coryza. If he is in a heated room and is disturbed in his equilibrium he gets a coryza.
Cepa coryza is also worse in a warm room. Much stuffing up of the nose in the house at night; nose feels completely filled up, particularly out of doors, but fluent in doors; thin, watery discharge during the day. Sensitive to the least draft; sneezing caused by itching in the nose. This itching goes to the throat and trachea.
Cough; burning in the air passages; all the mucous membranes in a state of irritation; nasal tone to voice; loss of voice; sore throat; tickling cough. Dry, teasing cough with great soreness of the chest, like Bry., the head feels as if it would split.
Coryza goes to the chest. Grippe with fever and bone pains; must pile on clothing; the only relief is by keeping unusually hot, yet a warm room aggravates the coryza before the fever comes on; but after the fever comes on he must have heat; aggravated even from the movement of air under the bed clothes; lifting the covers aggravates the pains, cough, etc.
Sharp fever and sweat, or a hot sweat like Opium (but Opium in a hot sweat wants the covers off, while Nux cannot raise the covers). Chills and fever; heat and sweat intermingled. In chills the fingers and hands are cold, and purple; cold from head to foot; the chill begins in the extremities or back, and extends over the whole body and, the patient must be covered up. Shortly there is a reaction and heat and sweat come on, but he must be covered through all the stages. Thirst is not a marked feature; sometimes it is found in the heat.
Tendency to jaundice in all the febrile states. Sclerotics become yellow. Skin becomes very yellow. Old intermittents with yellow skin. Runs close to Bry. in abdominal complaints with jaundice.
Nux suffers from a disordered stomach. A stasis of the portal system is present, portal congestion; stasis in hoemorrhoidal veins with hemorrhoids; constipation; dysentery; paralysis of the rectum.
Stomach symptoms like Puls.; worse in the morning; foul mouth in the morning also like Puls. Bursting sensation in the head as if a stone crushed the vertex after disordered stomach.
Full of paralytic conditions. The bowels are in a state of excitement but this passes away and the time comes when the faeces remain in the rectum with no warning. This extends to the bladder, so that it becomes full of urine which cannot be voided; dribbling of urine in old men with large prostrate, or in gonorrhea.
Paralysis of the extremities; of the face; one arm; one hand; single muscles; facial paralysis not uncommonly cured by Nux. The sticking pains in paralysis are important.
At times false plethora, with flushed face; excitement of face blushing; great weakness and exhaustion, with irritability and the mental condition. When under no exertion with nothing to think of, patient appears to be well, but the thought of doing something exhausts him in a moment.
Headache from sweating; in wine drinkers; in those staying out at night; from night watching. The greatest relief in headaches as from perfect quiet. Headaches as if a stone pressed upon the vertex.
Most symptoms better from heat, but the head is worse from heat. Acne from eating cheese. It has most violent convulsions with opisthotonos; convulsions of all the muscles of the body, with purple face and loss of breath from the movements; conscious or semi-conscious during the whole spasm, aware of the sufferings and contortions which are horrible; worse from the slightest draft of air; tickling of the feet; the merest touch of the throat causes gagging.
It is given as a routine remedy for loss of appetite. It will increase the appetite but do dangerous work to the patient.
“Aversion to meat, usual food and drink, and customary tobacco and coffee, to water, ale, food just eaten.”
Abdomen: Pains particularly of the abdomen; pains cutting, causing the patient to bend double, with nausea from overeating; bearing down; spasmodic pains in the abdomen, often extend into the limbs, but more often towards the rectum; colicky pains which urge to stool and urination; renal colic, especially when each pain shoots to the rectum and urges to stool.
Renal colic is caused by a stone in the ureter, which by its irritation causes a spasmodic clutching of the circular fibres of that canal; the proper medicine relaxes these fibres and the pressure from behind forces these calculi out at once.
The same is true of gall stone colic. The remedy that ameliorates, or some of its cognates, will overcome the tendency to form stones. Healthy bile dissolves gall stones in the sac; healthy urine does the same to a stone in the pelvis of the kidney.
Nux runs close to Bry. in abdominal complaints with marked yellowness of the skin. Bry. is worse from motion and not better from heat – Nux is both and is more suited to portal congestion, the neuralgias, etc.; is worse from slightest pressure (Coloc. is better from the slightest pressure, Mag. ph. is better from pressure and heat).
Bry. indicated more in peritonitis, lies with limbs drawn up. Hemorrhoids, portal congestion, cutting pains to rectum causing urging to stool.
Cupr. has cutting pains from front to back as if transfixed.
Abdomen sunken in Nux, while in Calc. and Sepia it is engorged. Inula resembles Nux; has colic with urging to stool and to urinate.
“Milk sours on the stomach.”
“Heat in the head when eating.”
Bad effects from coffee, alcoholic drinks, debauchery. Sensation of phlegm in the throat; worse from eating. Aloe has diarrhea from leaving off beer. Nux has diarrhea from leaving off alcoholic drinks.
Sensation of a lump in the stomach (Bry.). In chronic cases Sepia is more apt to be indicated and follows Nux well, but quarrels with Bry.; associate this with the pressure in the vertex and you have the typical Nux condition.
Sensation of stone comes an hour after eating, showing that there has been an attempt at digestion, but in Abies nig. it comes at once. Kreos. pains do not begin until three hours after eating and then the food is vomited.
It is closely related to Sulphur and often antidotes the overaction of Sulphur. It seldom goes to the bottom and antidotes the constitutional action of Sulphur, but it will remove its exaggerated action, its superficial action.
Women: Menses too soon; too long; flow copious; more strikingly prolonged; flows and dribbles just enough to stain the linen, starting up now and again with clots.
One menstrual flow is prolonged into another. This will be accompanied with the mental state; excitable; oversensitive to medicines.
“Menses too early and too profuse; occur too soon and last too long; flow dark.”
At times attended with violent pains, cramps in the uterus, extending over the body, ameliorated from heat and pressure; aggravated by the slightest current of air or cold; pains and spasms ameliorated by the hot water bottle, clothing, and heat.
Labor pains with soreness like Arnica, urging, etc. Bearing down as if contents would protrude, with teasing to urinate and urging to stool. The flow may be scant and fitful. Itching of the vulva is prominent.
Full of hysterical manifestations. Europeans develop symptoms more often calling for Nux in their hysterical manifestations, while Americans oftener need Ignatia.
Has troublesome asthma. Useful in persons who say they have asthma from every disordered stomach. They may go free for a year after Nux is given, and then they eat something that disagrees, and they sit up all night with asthma. They need Nux. Asthma associated with cough; rattling in the chest; chest fills up with mucus; cough with gagging, retching; appears as if he had taken a fresh cold.
Coryza every time he disorders his stomach. I have a patient who has a coryza every time she eats sausage; there is no cure for her because she places her coffee, wine, and social matters above her health. She can eat steak; some cannot eat any meat. After a disturbed stomach coryza which goes to the chest and then asthma comes on.
Palpitation and excitement of the heart and circulation. Much throbbing, Worse in the morning – mentally and physically. The coryza and some head symptoms are worse from the warmth of the bed like Merc., yet worse uncovering; worse from eating and from-motion; head is worse from heat.
Pressure and sense of weakness in, the left inguinal ring – hence cures hernia in babies (Lyc., right side). Arn. relieves soreness, etc. Conium also – it competes with Nux in sense of goneness in the groin.
Chills are riot better from any amount of covers; Ign. chills are better uncovering. In intermittents, the chill and heat intermingle, the heat is short and dry, and followed by hot, sweat and intense heat worse in the morning, but the chill comes at any time.
There are sore throats that especially call for the proto-iodide.
When in sore throats the inflammation and pain predominantly affect the right side, and there is a tendency to remain on the right side, or if the Merc. state is present and the sore throat goes from right to left, it is the proto-iodide you want.
The patient that needs this remedy for constitutional troubles will be worse during rest and from a warm room and better in the open air.
This is especially true when the patient needs Merc. prot. in neuritis of the right arm that comes on in writers.
The arm then is very painful when writing, from passive motion, from rubbing, from pressure, from both beat and cold, but better from walking in the open! air.
Complaints are nearly all worse on the right side of the body.
Generals: Among the striking features of Opium is a class of complaints marked by painlessness, inactivity, and torpor.
Many of the provers taking small doses had torpor, inability to realize or feel their surroundings, or to take in the nature of states and judge of things.
Deception in vision, taste, touch; deception of the state he exists in; in his own realization; a perversion of all the senses with much deception.
The general characteristic is painlessness, but now and then an alternate state is produced, in which a small dose of Opium will cause pain, sleeplessness, inquietude, nervous excitability; the very opposite state from that produced in the majority of cases.
The majority are constipated, but in some there is dysentery and tenesmus. The patient is sleepy, yet at times the drug is characterized by sleepless nights, anxiety, increased sensitiveness to noise, so that he says ho can almost hear the flies walking on the wall, and hears the clock striking in the distant steeple.
It is generally supposed that in these opposite conditions one is primary and the other is secondary. This is true, e. g., those exhibiting stupor and painlessness will go into a state of increased insensibility, inquietude, anxiety, and irritability, and also one who has a state of increased sensibility first will have a docile state following.
Head and mind: Some oversensitive provers will get a basilar headache in the first hour after taking a dose, so that they cannot raise the head from the pillow; they are paralyzed from it; the pain holds them down. This does not come on in most provers until the waning of a large dose. This has been debated over as the primary and secondary actions. What is the action in one is the reaction in another, but all are the effects of the drug, and all the actions that follow are the symptoms of the remedy.
The sluggishness and painlessness are most striking. The inaction is shown in the lack of reaction to the properly selected homeopathic remedy. It here competes with Sulphur. On studying the case you may find many Opium symptoms, and when given thus indicated, it rouses the system out of the state of sluggishness and causes reaction.
Ulcers which are perfectly painless, which do not granulate, and do not eat or spread, with numbness or lack of sensibility in the ulcer that ought to be sensitive; Opium will often heal insensibility in parts that are in a high grade of inflammation.
Paralytic conditions or paresis, partial paralysis; inactivity, sluggishness. Such a condition is found in the bowels so that they do not move, and rectum fills with round, hard, black balls, which can be dug out with the finger or spoon. There is no activity, no ability to strain at stool.
The bladder is in a similar state. There is no ability to use the abdominal muscles; he cannot strain to urinate retention of accelerator muscles are in a state of paresis.
When drinking the oesophagus seems to have no action and the fluid does not go down but passes out through the nose; a paresis fluids go down the wrong way or out through the nose.
Weakness of limbs and muscles; weakness and paralysis.
Often there is a state of peace. Wants to be let alone. She tells you she is not sick; and yet she has a temperature of 105-106°, is covered with a scorching hot sweat, has a rapid pulse; is delirious. You ask her how she is and she says she is perfectly well and happy; no pains or aches; wants nothing and has no symptoms. But the nurse tells you that the patient has passed no stool or urine.
Face: The face looks besotted, bloated, purple; the eyes are glassy and the pupils contracted. The brain is in a state of confusion, yet she can answer questions. Or the mental symptoms may be more marked and the physical condition less prominent; there is confusion of mind, delirium, loquacity, but this is rare, more commonly only talks when aroused; a condition of stupor in which the patient will say nothing and do nothing. Delirium with a happy turn of mind.
The stomach is in a state of undue warmth, sinking, all-gone, hungry, and this is not relieved by eating. He fills the stomach full and yet the faint feeling remains. The food sours in the stomach and is vomited. He can take no more food. He becomes covered with a cold sweat; great exhaustion; nausea, retching and the vomiting continues. This nausea is a troublesome symptom following the administration of Opium or Morphine. It is a prolonged vomiting and nausea. He can take nothing into the stomach and nothing will stop the vomiting for him.
The homoeopath knows the use of Chamomilla and one dose will give wonderful relief at once and stop the deathly sinking and nausea.
There is never any use for the crude Opium in the sick room. In surgery at times it is admitted that something seems necessary, and we will not quarrel with the surgeon. But in disease, in sick people, it is not necessary. It performs no use and in the end it is an injury; it prevents finding the homoeopathic remedy. It has masked the symptoms and spoiled the case, and you cannot do anything for days.
Opium has been much abused and much has been learned about it, but this abuse has not helped much in its proving, for the individualizing symptoms are not obtained. Big doses cause gross effects, and the symptoms thus obtained are sometimes useful, e. g., in cerebral apoplexy with stertorous breathing, jaw dropped, pupils dilated or contracted, generally the latter, face mottled, purple, or hot, hot sweat, one sided paralysis.
You would wonder on seeing such a case whether be had been paralyzed, had Opium, injured himself in a fall or bad been indulging in the bottle, and you would.. examine the case to distinguish. This is a mechanical trouble, there is pressure of blood on the brain. This alone may not kill but later on inflammatory action is set up around the clot.
Opium causes a flow of blood to the brain, and when given homeopathically it checks this, and in six hours he will become rational, his skin cool, face normal color, pulse normal. We thus see the usefulness of the crude effects of Opium in giving us a picture of apoplexy.
Nervous headaches beginning in the back of the head and spreading over the whole face; worse in the morning. He feels as if his head were held down to the pillow by the intense aching pain in the base of the brain and yet when he gets up he is unable to lie down again.
Women: This is common in women; a false plethora; excitable; going through pregnancy or menstruation; headache. The patient sits up and is unable to lie down. The pain begins in the morning and is so violent that the patient cannot move, cannot wink the eye, turn the head, cannot bear the least jar or the ticking of the clock; face is mottled, purple, blue; eyes injected. It is difficult to get symptoms from her. Opium will relieve at once.
But most of the complaints are painless.
It takes on the appearance of drinkers, besotted; fever with besotted countenance. Delirium tremens with awful anxiety, vomiting, congestive headache, contracted pupils; violent headache after drinking, exhaustion; not able to get out of bed; delirium. Most of the complaints are attended with stupor; lies in a stupor like apoplexy, cannot be aroused.
Convulsions: The Opium patient is full of convulsions. The patient wants to be uncovered, wants the cool air, the open air. Convulsions if the room, is too warm. Opisthotonos; head drawn back, cerebro-spinal meningitis.
In a case of cerebro-spinal meningitis we find convulsions approaching, opisthotonos, head drawn back, kicks the covers off, wants a cool room; skin red; face red and mottled, pupils contracted. Now if the mother puts that child into a hot bath, to relieve the convulsions, it will become unconscious and cold as death. If you are called to see such a case be sure to give Opium, and in twelve hours you will be astonished to see the state of quietude. It competes here with Apis. Puerperal convulsions.
A mental state appears in these constitutions. Fear and its results. The Opium patient, when not too stupid, rouses up as if startled, rouses up with the appearance of awful fear or anxiety. The old Opium eater is overwhelmed with anxiety and fear. If a dog jump at him suddenly, he will be thrown into convulsions, have diarrhea, fits of some sort, and it will be days and weeks before that fear is gone.
Complaints from fear when the fear remains, or the idea of the fear remains, or the cause of it comes before the eyes. A pregnant woman is frightened and an abortion is impending, and the object of the fright continually looms up before her eyes. Epilepsy dating back, to a fright, and that object comes up before the eyes before the attack comes on, and the fear of the fright remains.
Hysterical attack; physical shock with diarrhea and sometimes constipation; retention of urine or return of the menstrual flow as results, or it may stop the menses for months. In these conditions there is great fear and the object of the fear remains before the eyes.
An Opium prover, when coming out from under the influence of the drug, sees frightful images, black forms, visions of devils, fire, ghosts, someone carrying her off, murder. Imagines that parts swell and that he is going to burst.
There is also a sensation of bodily well being; great happiness great state of confidence in the first hours of the drug. Hence, complaints from sudden joy, anger, shame, sudden fright. Coffea has a similar state of beatitude. It is both a physical and mental beatitude in Opium. Opium and Coffea are related; they antidote each other.
Opium eaters like whisky drinkers are constitutional liars. They have no conscience left. “Great sensibility to sound, light, and faintest odors.”
“Drowsiness with headache, amounting almost to stupor.”
“Marasmus; child wrinkled and looks like a little dried up old man; stupor.”
Old cases of lead poisoning. Pulsatilla cures the diarrhea following the abuse of Opium.
Again, if in a Merc. patient with diphtheria, tonsillitis, etc., the inflammation and pain begin on the left side, and incline to remain there or spread to the right, the bin-iodide is indicated.
These two iodides have more rapid and greater induration beneath ulcers and chancres than Merc., and in old syphilitics the iodides are sometimes more useful.
Merc. sulph. will sometimes help, when you have a case of hydrothorax with quick, short breathing, etc., and burning of the chest.
If you go to an old case of hypostatic congestion, with dropsy, or a case of dyspnoea from hydrothorax, when the Merc. base is present. you will be astonished at the action of this sulphate.
The principal use of this remedy is in eruptions and ulcerations.
The most violent and important of its symptoms are those of mucous membranes, skin and periosteum. The outer surfaces of the body are in a constant state of irritation; nervous feelings, biting, tingling, itching, changing place from scratching. Even when there is nothing to be seen, there is violent itching and the patient rubs and scratches until the part becomes raw and then burns; itching changes place; the part becomes cold after scratching, cold in spots. Itching changing place after scratching, especially when associated with no visible cause.
As soon as he gets warm in bed or as soon as he goes into a warm room, the itching begins. Formication, itching, biting. The patient is so nervous that he is compelled to move, to change positions.
Vesicular eruptions upon the skin, running a certain course, itching, burning like fire; dries into a crust and disappears; a new crop appears near or in the same place. Vesicles form crusts beneath which is ulceration; these crusts turn white, chalk-like, are thick, tough and leathery.
They are often elevated; fluctuation beneath the crusts; pressure causes thick, white pus, sometimes yellow-white, to ooze forth; violent itching. The pains are aggravated by cold, but the itching and restlessness are worse from beat. A child tears. at the eruption with its fingers when the crusts are present.
Scald-head; thick, white, elevated crusts; copious, white or yellow white pus, often offensive, putrid; vermin are often found among the crusts. Acrid pus eating away the hair; the eruption spreads to any part of the scalp, especially to the top; it is also found beneath the ears, and about the face and chin.
Eruptions with much itching; dark, red rash with violent itching, biting, tingling, crawling, changing place by pressure, rubbing or scratching. Cases with a history of suppressed eczema or syphilis. Eruptions upon the legs and arms, on parts with poor circulation as the ears, wrists, backs of the bands; skin eruptions followed by ulcers; discharging a thick, white, offensive matter.
Especially useful where eruptions have been suppressed by zinc ointment, mercurial salve, etc. Eruptions on the face, eyes, ears and scalp in child or adult, which have disappeared under the use of some ointment and inveterate catarrhal conditions have resulted, or in which eye symptoms have developed; conjunctiva chronically swollen, ectropion, granular lids, conjunctival surfaces like raw beef; fissures in the comers of the eye; red cicatrices about the eyes where the eruptions have been; dry spots and enlarged veins about the eyes and nose; skin feels indurated.
Ear troubles from suppressed eruptions; thickening of the mucous membranes of the ears; degeneration of the drum of the car; deafness, otorrhoea.
Offensive and troublesome catarrh of the nose; incrustations, thickening of the mucous membrane, ulceration; he hawks thick, yellow matter out of the throat; has been cauterized, atomized, etc., and yet the offensive ozoena remains. The periosteum is affected so that it breaks down. Advanced state of atrophic degeneration of the mucous membranes of the throat and nose.
In the throat, thickening, burning, chronic redness, tumefaction, smarting, soreness on swallowing; granulations and ulcerations of the throat.
Perforating ulcers of the soft palate, all due to suppressed eruptions. Give the remedy and you will have a copious eruption in the original place; if not, there will be no relief. Often the deafness cannot be cured, because the drum of the ear or the whole ear is destroyed, is white, chalky, and contains no blood-vessels; a state of atrophic catarrh, so that there is too much structural change for hearing to be restored, yet the patient can be cured.
Has all the catarrhal states, the ulcerations and patches of copper colored eruptions found in syphilis.
When outward manifestations are pronounced, its internal manifestations are scanty. It tends to manifest the sufferings of the body on the skin; it throws the physical evils to the surface, hence, the Mez. patient is in fairly good health when the eruptions are out; when they are suppressed, then catarrhal affections, bone diseases, nervous disorders, strange mental symptoms constipation, rheumatism, and joint symptoms appear; he becomes a mental wreck.
Religious or financial melancholy; melancholy which shapes itself upon the patient’s business; indifference to everybody and everything; irritable; thought is difficult; memory weak; absent minded; has no rest when alone, yet averse to talking. Insanity with melancholy, sadness, and a history of eruptions that have called for Mez.
Violent headaches and brain affections; pains rending, tearing; boring; head painful to touch; syphilitic affection of the brain; headaches through the sides of the head as if in the bone; feels as if the head would be crushed (closely related to Merc. and Kali iod.).
Headache extending from the root of the nose to the forehead (Merc. and Hepar). Pains in the head cause faintness (Hepar). Pains in the bones of the skull aggravated by touch; bones feel as if scraped.
The hair mats together.
“Head covered with thick, leather-like crusts, under which thick, white pus collects here and there, and glues the hair together.
Scabs on the head look chalky and extended to the eyebrows and nape of neck.
Elevated, white, chalk-like scabs with ichor beneath, breeding vermin.”
Neuralgias, sciatica, pain in the spine, in the brachial plexus and down the arms; neuralgia of the face; all following suppressed eruptions.
The Mez. patient is sensitive to warm air as far as the skin and. eruptions are concerned, but very sensitive to damp or cold weather as to the neuralgias. After the eruptions have given place to internal manifestations, the patient is chilly, sensitive to the changes of the weather, worse in stormy weather; worse after a bath, because he takes cold and his internal complaints are aggravated. The eruptions are aggravated after washing.
When the eruptions are not out, the skin is hot and he wants something to cool it; he is better from cool water; there is simply a redness at this time. The itching is aggravated from bathing in warm water.
Ulceration about the roots of the teeth; a scrofulous condition of the gums, which bleed, settle away from the teeth; the teeth decay suddenly.
The face is sickly, full of ulcers, old scars, boils, etc. The anaemic face may flush up at times, but it is usually pale, gray, and waxy, expressive of a cachexia met with in some bone diseases.
Sensation of goneness, fear, apprehension, faintness in the stomach, as if something would happen; every shock, pain and hearing bad news, cause this apprehensive, hungry, faint, weak, all-gone feeling in the pit of the stomach. It comes on when the door-bell rings, if the patient is expecting the postman, while waiting at the depot for the arrival of a friend or the departure of the cars; on being introduced to some one, he experiences a thrill beginning in the stomach is “frightened in the stomach.”
Cal., Kali carb., Phos. and Mez. have this. These “solar-plexus” individuals often have a deep cracked tongue and are hard to cure.
Worse from the warmth of the bed (hence related to Merc. and syphilis). Neuralgia worse in bed and at night, relieved by the external application of heat, but worse afterward; better in the open air.
Inflammatory rheumatism, worse from the warmth of the bed and at night; worse from touch; pains run down the bones; bursting sensation in the bones. They feel enlarged; tearing pains in the periosteum, necrosis, caries, fistulous openings discharging briny particles and large ulcers surrounded by pustules.
Veins: This is a most useful remedy in varicose veins; especially are the capillaries spongy and enlarged.
Veins break easily when congested. Wounds bleed easily and much. It favors apoplexy. Ecchymoses of the skin and eyes. It favors local congestions. Hemorrhage from any part, from wounds, from ulcers.
Atony of the blood vessels. Haemorrhage from the lungs, stomach, rectum, nose, after extraction of teeth. The blood is generally bright red. Varicose veins on the limbs during pregnancy when painful. Haemorrhage in malignant ulceration.
After an operation and the wound has been properly closed the skin forming the edges of the wound continues to ooze a bright red blood. When a general haemorrhagic condition prevails. These features are often associated with heart troubles that will be expected.
Bleeding: If there has been a history of bleeding it should be given before a surgical procedure (Lach.).
Violent congestion after haemorrhage. No tendency to repair of vascular tissue. Hyperaemia of the brain and red face.
Head: Fullness and heat in head, but no fever.
A rush of blood from: chest to the head like a surging. Violent headache. Dull occipital pain. Pain in head aggravated by stooping.
Eyes, nose and ears: Blood-shot eyes.
Sharp pain in eyes and root of nose. Eyes red and congested. Foggy vision.
Noise in left ear startles her; later when laughing. Sensation as of cold air passing out of ear. Sensation as though ears were stopped. Sharp pain in ear. Earache.
Epistaxis, with congestion to head and chest.
Face red, without fever. Venous face. Flushes to face.
Pain in teeth from hot things. A haemorrhagic patient should have a dose of Mill. or Lach. before having teeth extracted. The throat is red, ulcerated and bleeds easily.
Empty hungry feeling in morning. Burning in stomach, aggravated bending forward. Burning in stomach and abdomen extending to chest. Vomiting blood.
Abdomen distended with flatus. Haemorrhage from intestines and rectum. Haemorrhage in typhoid fever. Internal haemorrhage from lifting and from injuries. Prolonged bleedings. Bleeding piles. Bleeding condylomata of anus.
The urine is bloody, clots in the urine after standing. Pain in kidneys followed by bloody urine lasting many days. Incontinence of urine.
Want of ejaculation in coition. Haemorrhage, from bladder and urethra. Bleeding wounds.
Profuse menses, protracted, with cramps in uterus and abdomen. Uterine haemorrhage after slight exertion from abortion, or during labor; continuous, bright red blood.
Varicose veins of legs ulcerate and bleed in pregnant women. After hard delivery prolonged obstinate bleeding.
A woman predisposed to hemorrhage should have a dose of Millefolium before going into confinement. Suppressed lochia. No milk in breasts. Inflammation of the uterus after a uterine hemorrhage.
Oppression of the chest; palpitation; surging of blood from chest to head. Hemorrhage from lungs, Congestion of lungs following bleeding of lungs. Bleeding from lungs from suppressed menses.
Expectoration of blood 4 P.M. daily. Bleeding from the lungs in phthisis. Bleeding from lungs after exertion. A man thrown from a carriage had continued to cough up blood for many weeks was cured by this remedy very high.
Orgasm of blood about heart.
Mind: Moschus cures many hysterical girls who have come to adult age without ever learning what obedience means.
They are self-willed, obstinate and selfish. When they have been encouraged to resort to crafty cunning, to have every whim gratified from infancy to eighteen years of age they become fit subjects for Mosch., Asa f., Ignatia and Valer.
They not only have volumes of real and imaginary symptoms, but they become adepts at producing at will a kaleidoscopic complex of symptoms, increasing in quantity and intensity until all their own desires are attained, and the onlooker, be he or she nurse, physician or bewildered mother, is overwhelmed, dismayed and in retreat.
However much they pretend to be honest and truthful their reported sensations are untrustworthy. They have traded upon their sensations and imagination so long that a direct effort to give a truthful statement is unsuccessful. The most erratic and unexpected neuropathic phenomena are always in appearance.
The physician cannot measure these cases by his experience and say what is common and uncommon. He is compelled to fall back upon the one word that covers a multitude of these manifestations, viz., “Hysteria.”
Moschus is often indicated in these constitutions and cures much that is morbid, when its own peculiar symptoms agree. When one of these girls becomes sick from taking cold the acute symptoms will be told with a host of her imaginary sensations.
The globus hystericus is generally present, hyperesthesia of the skin, quivering of the muscles, wakefulness, palpitation, excitement, fainting and trembling.
“Dreadful” pain all over the body, rush of blood to head, cramps in hands and feet, convulsions of whole body. It is not generally known that the morbid sensations and functions correspond with the mental state of the individual. When the functions and tissue symptoms are hysterical or erratic the mental state will be found to be correspondingly hysterical.
When the peculiar Moschus symptoms of the face is present, viz.: one cheek red and cold, the other pale and hot, there is certainly some hysterical perversion in the mind of that patient. Many times it is possible to suspect morbid mental states by knowing morbid sensations and functions. There is a kind of order in all morbid expressions seen in sick people.
Sensitive to cold, and complaints come on from becoming cold. In addition to numerous hysterical mental symptoms she has violent fits of anger with rage and scolding until she is blue in the face and falls in a faint.
Dread of death, and talks only of death when there is no serious complaint. Anguish and palpitation. Peevishness and quarrelsomeness. In a constant hurry, and lets things fall from her hands. Foolish gestures and complaint of pain. Apprehension, trembling and palpitation. Fear of lying down lest she die. Sensation of falling from a height, or as if rapidly turned around.
Head: Vertigo on moving head or eyelids, ameliorated in open air; with nausea and vomiting and fainting.
The headaches are ameliorated from becoming warm, and in the fresh air. Tension in back of head and nape. Aching in head, with cold feeling. Pressive, stupefying headache, mostly in forehead, with nausea, aggravated on motion, ameliorated in fresh air.
Hysterical headaches, with copious colorless urine. Constriction as with cord. Pain as if a nail in occiput, aggravated in room, ameliorated in fresh air.
Eyes: Eyes staring. Sudden blindness or dim vision, coming and going. Eyes turned up, fixed and glistening.
Ears: Rushing sounds in ears as from wind, or fluttering as the wing of a bird. Detonation in ears as from the report of a cannon, with a few drops of blood. Nervous deafness in paroxysms, or after a mad fit,
Face: Epistaxis and illusions of smell.
One check is red and cool, the other is pale and hot. Heat in the pale face and dim vision. Tension in face. Pale face with sweat. Earthy pale face. Moving of lower jaw as if chewing.
Mouth and throat dry and hot; bitter, putrid taste; great thirst, especially in hysterical conditions.
Stomach: Craves beer or brandy.
Aversion to food. The sight of it makes her sick. Vomiting. Pressive, burning pain and distension of stomach. Fainting during meals. Waterbrash. Hysterical hiccoughing. Nausea when thinking of food. Drawing in at the umbilicus (Plb.).
Prolonged vomiting of food. Fullness in stomach after eating. Vomiting blood. Stomach easily disordered.
Abdomen: Tympanitic distension of abdomen with sharp pains. No flatus up or down, yet greatly distended. Cramping pains.
Involuntary stools during sleep. Copious watery stools during night. Stitching in anus to bladder.
Copious colorless watery urine. Urine passed during the night is offensive and full of mucus.
In the male, violent sexual excitement. Emissions without erections.
In the female, violent sexual desire. Menses too early and profuse, with drawing pains; tingling in genitalia and fainting. Bearing down sensation.
Erratic nervous phenomena during pregnancy.
Respiration: Laryngismus stridulus in self-willed girls when they fail to have their own way.
Constriction of larynx as from vapor of sulphur. Spasms of larynx when becoming cold. Spasmodic croup in nervous children after punishment.
Dyspnoea and oppression of chest and heart. Spasmodic asthma in extremely nervous women and children.
Constriction of chest. Spasms of chest and diaphragm, turns blue in face and foams at mouth on becoming cold. Paralysis of chest, rattling, cannot expectorate; fainting.
Palpitation in hysterical girls, Palpitation, oppression of chest, fainting, excitement, with copious colorless urine. The heart seems to quiver when the pulse is normal.
Limbs: Aching in limbs. Restlessness in legs, and tibia cold. One hand hot and pale, the other cold and red.
Heat in evening in bed, on right side only; wants to uncover. Perspiration smelling like musk in the morning.
Cold skin, trembling, fainting and palpitation.
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.
