Circulation.-Its action in causing fatty degeneration of the muscular tissues of the circulatory system makes it homoeopathic to fatty degeneration of the heart and arteries and to the haemorrhages consequent therefrom. Haemorrhages take place in the skin and subcutaneous tissues, from the nose, stomach, bowels, lungs, uterus, and into the bladder, retina, and, in short, into any organ or tissue, and when occurring always calls for the consideration of phosphorus. Easy bruising, spontaneous effusions under the cutis, purpuric spots, abnormally profuse bleeding from cuts, injuries, ulcers, or tumours indicate it. It has cured cases of Henoch’s purpura, fungus haematodes, persistent and profuse epistaxis and uncontrollable bleeding from the gums following the extraction of teeth. Phosphorus is very useful in the weak hearts occurring in young and debilitated people in whom palpitation is induced by every movement or excitement, with a feeling of rush of blood to the chest; the palpitation is worse from lying on the left side and there is a sensation of suffocation and tightness over the cardiac region. It is valuable in dilation of the heart following acute diseases such as enteric or influenza, in that occurring as a sequel to endocarditis, and in fatty degeneration resulting from these or any other cause.
Bones.-The influence of phosphorus on the bones suggests its employment in caries and periostitis, especially of those bones for which it has a special affinity, viz., the tibiae and jaw bones. Spinal caries has often been benefited by it. It has been used in exostoses, especially of the skull. But the disease of bony tissue for which it is most valuable is that occurring in rickets, and in this complaint it is second only to calcarea in curative power.
Skin.-Brown or yellow spots on the body, petechiae, blood- blisters, ulcers surrounded by small pustules and bruises that have come without the patient’s knowledge of any injury received are indications for phosphorus.
Sleep.-With phosphorus the patient gets to sleep late, wakes in heats and sweats profusely at night.
LEADING INDICATIONS.
(1) Haemorrhages; “slight wounds bleed freely”; blood-strained discharges, petechiae, subcutaneous haemorrhages, &c.
(2) Burnings: sensation of heat rising up spine to head; hot, glowing sensation in epigastrium and chest; burning palms; flushes of heat, beginning in hands.
(3) Thirst for ice-cold water, which at first relieves but as soon as it becomes warm in the stomach is vomited.
(4) Must eat often or he feels faint; ravenous appetite at night.
(5) Great exhaustion after stool.
(6) Paralysis of sphincter ani; “anus always open.”
(7) Sinking feelings in whole abdominal cavity.
(8) Tightness and stiffness: of face, of chest, of joints, of skin.
(9) Fibrillary twitchings of individual bundles of muscular fibres.
(10) Fearful: of illness, of being alone, of the dark, of thunderstorms.
(11) Paralyses; cerebral softening.
(12) Hepatitis: atrophy of the liver; cirrhosis, chloroform poisoning.
(13) Haemorrhages from orifices, lungs, into skin.
(14) Laryngeal (coughs), pneumonia.
(15) Tumours, exostoses, bleeding cancers, fungous growths.
(16) Fatty degeneration of organs and tissues.
(17) Tall, slender persons of sanguine temperament, fair skin, blonde, lively and sensitive.
(18) Young people who grow too rapidly and are inclined to stoop; anaemic, waxy-looking.
(19) Children with rickets.
(20) Tuberculous diathesis.
AGGRAVATION:
From touch, lying on the left side, movement, exertion (physical or mental), laughing (cough), talking (pain in larynx), lifting arms, morning, evening, twilight, warm food and drink, putting hands in warm water (headache, toothache, vomiting of pregnancy), changes of weather, washing clothes, wet weather, open air (vertigo, toothache), wind, thunderstorms, light, noise, music, piano-playing, in the dark, strong odours, cold and cold applications (except head and stomach).
AMELIORATION:
From rubbing, mesmerism, after-sleep, open air (frontal headache, hemicrania), washing with cold water, ice- cream (gastric pains), cold air (headache), heat and warm applications (except head and stomach), eating (temporarily).
Treatment of Phosphorus Poisoning.-As phosphorus is comparatively slowly absorbed from the alimentary canal an attempt should be made in the early stages of poisoning to remove as much as possible by emetics, stomach tube or purgatives. Fats and oils must be avoided as they dissolve phosphorus and promote its absorption. Sulphate of copper is recommended as an emetic as it forms as insoluble compound-copper phosphide-with any of the phosphorus not removed by the above means. Permanganate of potash (1/1000) has been advised to oxidize the phosphorus.
Phosphorus necrosis must be treated surgically by removal of the dead bone.
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,