The appetite is often excessive and yet the patient emaciates (iod.), but he feels full and uncomfortable after food and is most easy when the stomach is empty. He is averse from bread, coffee and smoking; there may be violent thirst, and hiccough is common.
In the abdomen are borborygmi and pricking pains, mainly in the region of the umbilicus, which are relieved by watery, copious diarrhoea. But more frequently there is constipation with a sensation of contraction of the anus and difficult expulsion of a hard, dry, crumbling stool, with pain as of splitting of the anus. Natrum muriaticum is one of the leading remedies for constipation coming on at the seaside, for constipation in anaemic subjects and in those who have malaria.
Urine-In the urinary sphere there is characteristically cutting and burning in the urethra after urination (canth.); the urine alternates between being scanty and high coloured with sediment and being profuse, frequent and colourless. The former predominates. Weakness of the sphincter, which allows urine to escape while walking or from any sudden jar, like coughing or laughing (puls., caught, sep.) is noticeable. A curious symptom with regard to micturition, very distinctive of natrum muriaticum when it occurs, is inability to pass water if another person is present. This is really a mental not a bladder symptom.
Sexual-In the male sexual organs it has been most used for spermatorrhoea and seminal emissions, and it meets both the local affection and the general feebleness resulting from it.
In the female sexual organs the most prominent symptom indicating natrum muriaticum is a pressing down sensation of the uterus after rising in the morning; the patient feels she must sit down to prevent prolapse (sep.). The menses are scanty or absent, or they may be too early, too profuse, and last too long. Headaches of the characteristic natrum muriaticum variety often accompany the menses.
Respiratory-In the respiratory system it is the larynx that is chiefly affected; in it there is an accumulation of mucus, with hoarseness and hawking, or it is dry, with an irritating, tickling cough, excited by sensations in the throat or epigastrium; it causes pain in the forehead at each cough, and also an escape of urine from the bladder; it comes on in the morning or in the evening on lying down in bed, is relieved by sitting up (puls.), and there are stitches and sore pains in the chest. Sometimes there is lachrymation with the cough, which would be an indication for this remedy in whooping cough.
Circulation-The symptoms referable to the heart that indicate natrum muriaticum are a fluttering over that region, sometimes described as like the beating of a bird’s wing, palpitation on exertion or on lying on the left side (nat, carb., phos), painful stitches in the cardiac region, a cold sensation in this part, and an intermittent pulse (digit., kali carb.). It is a good remedy for palpitation of the heart in anaemic persons, but is also valuable in organic cardiac disease, and in the functionally disturbed heart of exophthalmic goitre.
Neck and Back-In the neck, natrum muriaticum causes rapid emaciation and weakness of the muscles that support the head. In the small of the back there are aching pains, as if the back would break, which are relieved by lying down on something hard (rhus tox.), and are sometimes associated with violent throbbing in the affected part.
In the limbs there are pains as if sprained in the shoulders and hips, and tension in the bends of the limbs, especially in the hams, where the tension seem to be painfully contracted; various drawing and stitching pains; muscular weakness, restlessness of the legs, and a lame feeling in the ankle-joints. Disturbances of sensation occur in the limbs, they feel as if they had gone to sleep, there is tingling, especially in the tips of fingers and toes, the skin of the hands and about the nails is dry and cracked, and the joints crack on movement, are stiff and swell. Natrum muriaticum is useful for weak, paralytic conditions of the limbs occurring from fevers and debilitating diseases, and also for rheumatic and gouty affections.
Sleep is disturbed by vivid dreams, especially of robbers, the patient wakes in fright from a dream, which seems so real that he will not rest till the house has been searched. This liability to dream of thieves and burglars is a prominent feature for this remedy in illness.
Fever-One of the chief complaints for which natrum muriaticum is useful is chronic intermittent fever, especially when it has previously been suppressed by quinine. The natrum muriaticum intermittent commences with a chill occurring usually about 10 to 11 a.m., and begins in the feet or the small of the back, with cold, blue extremities, great thirst, nausea or vomiting, and a bursting headache. With the heat the headache increase, and thirst is still violent. Profuse perspiration follows and relieves all the symptoms, but leaves the patient prostrated. During apyrexia there are stitches about the liver region, emaciation, a sallow complexion, loss off appetite, and herpes on the lips.
The skin complaints for which this drug has been employed are and oozing, scabby eruption on the nape and forehead at the margins of the hair, and a similar one in the bends of the elbows and hollows of the knees. One the broad flexure surfaces the eruption is scaly. It is useful for an itching nettle rash coming on from violent exercise. The hair falls out.
Natrum muriaticum antidotes nitrate of silver, quinine, and bee sting. It is antidoted by spir. nit. dulc of no medicine is it more true to say that a prescription should not be made from a single symptom or because it has been found useful in a named disease, but if several of the characteristics of the drug are present in a case there is no medicine that can be given with greater confidence. It acts best in potencies from thirty upwards.
LEADING INDICATIONS
(1) Craving for salt and salt food; and to be alone.
(2) Ailments begin or are worse at 10 a.m., or in the evening.
(3) Relief of complaints from perspiration.
(4) Depression of spirits and weeping aggravated by consolation.
(5) Dreams of robbers; dreams seem real on waking.
(6) Better when the stomach is empty.
(7) Exhausted in the heat of the sun and in summer.
(8) Cachexia, with skin sallow-looking, greasy and dirty.
(9) Cracks or fissures in the middle of the upper or lower lip.
(10) Cold sensation over cardiac region, fluttering, palpitation.
(11) Sensation of a hair on the tongue (sil)
(12) Eruption at the flexures of the joints and at the margins of the hair.
(13) Periodical throbbing headaches (before, during or after menstruation). Headaches; on waking, from sunrise to sunset.
(14) Secretions, watery and white; fluent coryza.
(15) Late learning to walk and talk.
(16) Dryness of mucous membranes, with splinter-like pains and tendency to erosion.
(17) Chronic catarrhs of the head and throat.
(18) Herpes round the mouth and on the lips.
(19) Anaemia from loss of vital fluids.
(20) Emaciation, especially about the neck.
(21 Diseases resulting from malnutrition; infantile marasmus.
(22) Ailments from grief and distressing emotions.
(23) Intermittents and fevers that have thirst during the chill and bursting headache; intermittents after treatment with quinine; also non-malarial periodicity.
(24) Exophthalmic goitre.
(25) Ailments caused by excessive taking of salt.
AGGRAVATION:
Though a chilly subject, from heat of the sun, warm, stuffy rooms, from sunrise to sunset, exertion after food, 10 to 11 a.m. or in the evening, at the seaside and from sea air, at the menstrual period (headaches), and from draughts.
AMELIORATION:
From open air an washing in cold water lying down on something hard (backache) (sepia), while fasting, from perspiration.
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,