Spinal Symptoms.-We have seen that descending sclerosis is attributed to poisoning by alum. There are a few symptoms which point in this direction and which would indicate the drug as a remedy-a sense of constriction around the limbs- a girdle pain as it were; numbness and tingling of the extremities, especially numbness and coldness of the feet; or alternatively the soles of the feet are sensitive on walking; numbness and clumsiness of fingers. A pain in the dorsal spinal region at the level of the inferior angle of the scapula is another point, and coldness along the spine as if ice-water were poured down it.
Sleep.-Alum patients are very subject to “night-mare.”.
LEADING INDICATIONS.
1) Great sensitiveness to cold (except head) and to change of weather.
2) Muscular weakness-plain or striped muscle, as shown in limbs, viscera, & c., or general.
3) Catarrh with bland yellow discharges.
4) Colic like lead colic; also lead colic itself.
5) Indurations: around ulcers, of glands and glandular organs.
6) Palpitation when lying on the right side.
7) Constipation as described on p. 120.
8) Thirst for ice-cold water.
9) A typical burning and pressive headache, relieved by pressure and ice-cold applications.
10) Constriction pain in the limbs.
11) Numbness of feet (or sensitiveness) and numbness and clumsiness of fingers-letting things drop.
AGGRAVATIONS:
Cold, changes of weather lying down (evening cough).
AMELIORATIONS:
Firm pressure (vertex headache), icy cold applications (vertex headache).
There are few general modalities which will lead to the selection of alum as a remedy, and the literature gives the impression that there may have been some confusion. between that drug and alumina, which has been more fully proved and more extensively used.
Edwin Awdas Neatby founded the Missionary School of Homeopathy and the London Homeopathic Hospital in 1903, and run by the British Homeopathic Association. He died in East Grinstead, Sussex, on the 1st December 1933. Edwin Awdas Neatby wrote The place of operation in the treatment of uterine fibroids, Modern developments in medicine, Pleural effusions in children, Manual of Homoeo Therapeutics,