Acute coryza with much sneezing, burning in the nostril, even bleeding of the nose, and sensation of the air breathed being very cold though the season is hot, will be amenable to this remedy. This coryza may be accompanied by pyrexia and prostration, and the remedy has been found useful in influenza. The muscular pains of the drug in the dorsal and lumbar regions and the “chills running down the back” to the legs would be additional features calling for its use in influenza, when the stress of the disease falls on the larynx, or occasionally when the lungs are affected. The pains and chills are both worse from walking or moving about.
Ulceration of the nostrils, with hard infiltrated base and with or without false membranes in a “bromine subject” requires this remedy. Ulceration elsewhere, with a hard infiltrated base, and a whitish yellow membrane or film, and a pale greyish colour of the face-in chronic cases-may also require it. The red plethoric aspect of bromine cases is absent in the chronic invalid.
Kent recommends it in ulcer of the stomach; there are pain, vomiting like coffee-grounds, eructations and diarrhoea. Aggravation occurs from eating, from acids, oysters, warm foods and from tobacco smoke.
In a chronic patient apathy, forgetfulness, loss of ideas, aversion to mental exertion, sadness and anxiety are conspicuous in acute cases these features are obscured by the local conditions.
Though the chief effect of bromine is on the larynx it is also clear that it causes bronchitis and pneumonia of the lobar type. It has been praised clinically for both these conditions and it may well be that it has not received the confidence it deserves in that serious condition influenzal pneumonia. The cough calling for it is paroxysmal and suffocative, the breathing tends to have a croupous or whistling sound and the voice to be hoarse as well as weak. It is also worse from dust, and the drug has been used for asthma of sailors on coming ashore, relieved at sea.
Whooping-cough is another disease for which bromine may come under consideration should the seasonal and weather modalities be conspicuous in the attack. In laryngeal and pulmonary tuberculosis, too, it must not be forgotten.
Induration of ulcers has been referred to; this feature is found in lymphatic, and salivary glands for which bromine is suitable, inflamed glands harden but do not suppurate and this may indicate the remedy in some cases of parotitis.
To these features of induration and infiltration are added emaciation, weakness, tremor of limbs, faintness and prostration, and the association of all these forms a group present not only in tuberculosis, but also in cancer, and for cancer in such parts it has accordingly been used. Whether more can be hoped for than relief to pain in suitable cases remains to be proved.
Skin.-Acne of face and back has been successfully treated by bromide of potassium in small ponderable doses.
Sexual Sphere.-In men depressed sexual instincts and power may be treated with good prospects if there are a sufficient number of other bromine symptoms in the patient’s case.
In women the curious symptoms “loud emission of flatus from vagina” has been interpreted to mean that the drug has caused some form of physometra. As this rare condition is due to some mechanical imprisonment of gas in the uterus from septic conditions, the symptom if genuine cannot be regarded as an indication for the use of bromide or bromides in physometra, except in the rare event of the totality of the patient’s symptoms coinciding with those of the drug.
There seems no good reason for doubting the power of bromine to irritate the uterine mucosa, though the supposed analogy of “membranous inflammation” in the respiratory tract cannot be regarded as supporting such a power. The false membrane of “croupous” type bears no resemblance to the thickened endometrium of “membranous dysmenorrhoea.” The drug., however, has a reputation in these cases.
Its usefulness for ovarian cysts, if more than a happy coincidence, must probably rest on its (antipathic) sedative effect on the reproductive organs.
The pronounced effects on the nervous system have not been adequately utilized on the homoeopathic principle. In similar mental states, in some functional paralyses, possibly the early stages of spinal organic conditions and of dementia, it should be borne in mind.
Finally, the headaches of bromine may be utilized in the treatment of migraine or headache associated with respiratory or digestive troubles. They are chiefly left-sided and worse from stooping and sometimes follow or are aggravated by drinking milk.
LEADING INDICATIONS.
(1) Ailments in the bromine sphere brought on or aggravated by the patient becoming overheated, or by being in close, overheated rooms; or worse when entering a hot room from the open air, or from excessive clothing. Or alternatively the maladies may be induced by becoming chilled after being in overheated rooms or in hot weather, especially in spring or early summer when changes of temperature are sudden and considerable.
(2) Apathy, sadness and loss of ideas; or anxiety and fretfulness.
(3) Simple laryngitis from “colds” extending down towards the chest, or being part of febrile maladies.
(4) Inspired air feels icy-cold in larynx.
(5) Mobile alae nasi in respiratory affection (ant. t., lyc.)
(6) Diphtheria or diphtheria like complaints arising in the above-named conditions and involving larynx, trachea and pharynx.
(7) Bronchitis and pneumonia.
(8) Asthma of sailors when on shore.
(9) The left side is chiefly affected (lach).
(10) Hard, non-suppurating swelling of lymphatic and salivary glands and thyroid.
(11) Membranous dysmenorrhoea.
(12) The most susceptible subjects are stout blondes with blue eyes and red cheeks.
AGGRAVATION:
Close overheated rooms excessive clothing; mild (headache ); air of seashore (asthma of sailors); dust (cough)
AMELIORATION:
Air over the sea (asthma of sailors).
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,