Petroleum – Rock Oil

The attenuations are prepared by retification of naturally-occurring rock oil, a clear colourless liquid boiling between 180 and 220 °C.

Nash describes Petroleum as one of our best antipsoric remedies, its skin eruptions being very similar to those of Graphites, occurring in the creases of joints and in folds of skin, e.g. behind the ears, on the scrotum, on the female genitalia, and on hands, feet and legs. The characteristic leading symptom is the aggravation in win- ter, the hands become cracked, chapped and bleeding, covered in eczema during winter-time and typically healing up in summer. Thus Petroleum is also a good rem- edy for chilblains and, like Hepar Sulphuris, shows an aggravation in cold weather or cold air. The slightest injury or abrasion of the skin suppurates just as in Hepar Sulphuris also.

A further important symptom of Petroleum is nausea and vertigo while travelling, so that it can be used for sea-sickness and train-sickness.

Nash also mentions a particular kind of headache in the occiput, which feels as heavy as lead with a dizzy sensation.

Cracking in the joints can also respond favourably to Petroleum, as it does to Causticum, and there is a pain in the stomach, ameliorated by eating, and diarrhoea and dysentery which are aggravated during the daytime.

Thus Nash includes Petroleum among the main antipsorics, such as Sulphur, Graphites, Causticum and Lycopodium.

Mention must also be made of the nervous irritability which is found in Petroleum patients, also restless sleep with great excitement and internal heat and tossing about in bed (similar to Sulphur), starting up in fear with anxious dreams and phantasies, and also with palpitation and trembling in the limbs; during the day there is sleepiness and fatigue, the patient possibly falling asleep unexpectedly while sitting quietly. There may be restlessness and discontent, an excited manner, easily aroused to out- bursts of temper and displaying strong feelings. The patient can be angry, but may also be gloomy, despondent and anxious, finally becoming dispirited. There may also be forgetfulness and disinclination for mental exertion, with weakness of intellect, and also vertigo, heaviness and swimming in the head, and tinnitus, associated with dull, drawing headaches.

The skin conditions of Petroleum may extend to the mucosa of the eyes, with dacry- ocystitis, lachrymation, easy tiredness of the eyes, weakness of vision and floaters.

Otitis externa with chronic inflammatory discharge, associated with tinnitus and hearing impairment also responds to Petroleum, as does epistaxis with ulcerations of the nasal mucosa.

Also particularly characteristic are the dislocated pains in the shoulder, elbow, hand and finger joints; the lower jaw is also easily dislocated and there may be stiffness in all joints and cramps in the thighs, calves and feet which is intensified during the day. Petroleum can likewise be used to good effect in stomach complaints as part of the duodenal syndrome; there is then often offensive mouth-odour with ulcerative stom-

atitis and a white, mucous coating of the tongue, and accompanying tonsillitis. There may also be flatulent abdominal distension, watery vomiting and large quantities of foetid diarrhoea. Defaecation is often followed by a sensation of great weakness and itching in the anus with burning and stinging in the rectum.

In addition to pruritus of the male and female genitalia with a tendency to eczema, there is also neuralgia of the spermatic cord and testes and burning irritation in the urethra, and in women there is vaginal discharge like egg-white.

Typical of Petroleum is always the aggravation from travelling and in winter, espe- cially of skin complaints, or also from vexation.

If the main symptoms are summed up, the result is the following typical remedy- picture:

1. Chronic rheumatism. Arthritis and arthroses with cracking and grating in the joints. Habitual subluxation of the mandible. Aggravation in winter.
2. Tendency to catch colds easily. Fatigue and shivering. Swimming in the head after mental exertion. Depressive mood.
3. Skin eruptions with moist, sore eczemas in the creases of the joints and behind the ear. Scrotal eczema. Chapped, cracked hands, chilblains. Rhagades. Foetid sweat in the axillae, on head, hands and genitalia. Stubborn ulcers on the toes.
4. 4.   Dandruff on the head. Lachrymation. Fistulae. Ototis externa. Purulent inflamma- tions of the nasal mucosa.
5. Vertigo and nausea when travelling. Sea-sickness. Nausea and vomiting (also in pregnancy).
6. Duodenal syndrome with diarrhoea and consequent weakness. Ravenous hunger with rapid satiety.

The German Monograph-Preparation Commission for the Homoeopathic Field of Therapy has, under the Preparation Monograph for Petroleum rectificatum, published the following indication(s) in the German Bundesanzeiger (German Federal Gazette) for petroleum: various skin diseases; inflammations of the respiratory passages, the gastrointestinal tract, and the urinary organs; rheumatism; vertigo.