Respiratory symptoms are not prominent in this drug. The cough it produces and relieves is liable to occur in paroxysms having the peculiarity that the first is severe and the subsequent attacks progressively diminish in violence. It has therefore been recommended in whooping cough. Here again it would only be indicated if associated with the characteristic gastric symptoms. Reference should be made to what has already been said on this sphere higher up.
Skin Symptoms.-Little more need be stated than that is recorded as experienced by workers in antimony (p.145). The curative virtues of this drug are not limited to pustules-pimples (papules) and vesicles occur and are commonly accompanied by itching. The itching of ant. crud. is followed by soreness after rubbing. Callosities on the soles of the feet are reported to be amenable to this drug, and the chief local indication for it is tenderness of the area involved when walking.
Genito-Urinary Effects.-Clinically but little use has been made of the drug in these spheres. The depressing and atrophic effects on the sexual organs felt by workers are preceded in provers by a stage of excitability, and this is more employed therapeutically. In old people for whose ailments this drug is indicated the atrophic features may be utilized.
In women there is a bearing-down feeling as if the internal organs would be forced out at the vaginal or anal orifices. If found in connection with diarrhoea, piles, or the gastric symptoms of antim. crud. it would confirm the use of the drug. Under similar circumstances irritability of the bladder, in either sex, might be relieved by it.
Mental Symptoms.-Antimonium crud. is specially suited for ailments found at the extremes of life and the mental state finds different expression at the different ages. Infants show some of the irritability and peevishness found also under antim. tart, they resent interference and do not like to be touched or looked at. Adults on the other hand are dull and sulky. After severe illness, before convalescence is established, there is sometimes found a lack of “will to live” which may really prejudice a patient’s chance of recovery. Weakness and a desire to die may help to bring about the fatal result. In two ways this may be effective, by some metabolic inhibition probably brought about by endocrinal disturbance and more directly by preventing the patient from following instructions or taking means to secure recovery. Antimonium crud. has been useful in stiffening the morale of such patients.
It is also reputed to be of use in mental depression following disappointment in love, and for ecstatic conditions in hysterical girls who become sentimental in moonlight.
LEADING INDICATIONS.
Certain features are prominent in subjects requiring antim. crud. and run more or less through the cases. They are:-
(1) Sensitiveness to warm rooms and particularly to the direct rays of sun or fire (especially in headache and respiratory affections). Attention must be paid to the relief obtained by local warm applications to some of the pains-a “particular” contrasting with a “general” symptom.
(2) On the other hand depressing influences such as cold weather and cold bathing bring on a variety of ailments, digestive, “gouty,” &c.
(3) Dryness and cracks at angles of mouth and at anus are common.
(4) Children with a tendency to become too fat are subjects likely to develop antim. crud. symptoms in the digestive or respiratory sphere.
(5) Cessation of symptoms in one sphere is liable to be followed by the development of others elsewhere, the so-called metastases, e.g., of gout, &c., or alternation of weakness and depression with excitability and hysterical instability may exist.
(6) The left side is more frequently affected than the right.
(7) Absence of relief from vomiting, passing of stool or flatus.
(8) Drowsiness in the day time, especially after meals.
(9) Cough worse on entering a warm room (also bryonia).
AGGRAVATION:
Generally speaking antim. crud. patients are likely to be upset in different ways by acid drinks (especially wines) or food, by over-eating, by extreme of temperature, but especially wines) or food, by over-eating, by extremes of temperature, but especially by exertion in hot weather, and by direct heat rays; by movement (rheumatic pains and acute gastric attacks); worse at night, worse from damp, by looking at the fire (cough), cold bathing.
AMELIORATION:
Relief from rest and lying still, from open- air; local warm applications.
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,