Mind.- In the mental and moral spheres he is a very selfish person, is entirely wrapped up in himself with no thought of anyone’s wishes than his own; he is ill-humoured, morose, peevish, and quarrelsome; he is idle, has an aversion from all business, left things go, neglects his person, is dirty and dislikes washing and bathing; there is weakness of memory, especially for proper names, confusion of mind and avoidance of conversation; or the patient may be in a melancholy mood, continually dwelling on religious or philosophical subjects, but never putting them to any practical use; the mind may become deluded and the delusions frequently take the form of thinking that everything he possessed is very valuable and beautiful, in which he takes a foolish happiness and pride; a hypochondriacal state may come on with despair of life, which may proceed to impulses to suicide, usually by drowning or jumping out of the window.
The following are mental diseases and states for which sulphur will in many cases be useful. (a) Apathetic states often seen in mental cases, where there is complete loss of interest in cleanliness and appearance. (b) Confusional states, with offensive faeces. (c) Alcoholic toxaemia. (d) Obsessional state; persistent words, phrases, thoughts. (e) Delusions of grandeur; general paralysis of the insane. (f) Melancholia, with delusions of wickedness. (g) Exhaustion psychosis.(h) paranoia (i) Paraphrenia. (j) Self-centredness of many mental diseases. (k) hypochondriasis.
Head.- The sulphur patient is subject to attacks of giddiness from rushing of blood to the head, it is frequent on getting out of bed in the morning, and may be accompanied with nose bleeding, it is worse from stooping, talking and walking in the open air, better from sitting quietly in a warm room; there is a tendency to fall to the left.
Sulphur cures several kinds of headaches, mainly of the congestive sort. They come on after waking in the morning, are aggravated by stooping, jars, light and after eating, and are ameliorated by lying in a warm room in the dark, with the eyes closed and the head high and by warm applications. The face and eyes are red, and the whole head is sensitive. Nausea and vomiting may supervene. These headaches often occur periodically, every week or two weeks, and are apt to come on a Sunday. They may be preceded by zig-zags moving before the eyes. The vomiting is frequently bilious. Another headache is a vertex headache, a sensation of painful pressure, with heat at the top of the head; these headaches are ameliorated by cold air and cold applications. Sulphur is useful when the patient gets up in the morning feeling dizzy, with a red or sallow face, and with a flickering of stars or zig-zags before the eyes, and knowing that these symptoms are premonitions of a headache that will soon come on. The cause is often derangement of the digestion from food or drink taken the previous day. Sulphur is a remedy for purulent eruptions on the scalp, the pus dries into yellow scabs and there is much itching. The hair falls out and there is dandruff. It is useful in tinea capitis.
Eyes.-The diseases of the eyes requiring this remedy are those in which there are much itching, dryness, redness of and burning, made worse by bathing; dimness of vision of varying degree is present. With these symptoms, when the general state of the patient at the same time is indicative to of sulphur, almost any affection of the eyes will be cured by it. Its most frequent employment has been in acute and chronic conjunctivitis, in gouty and rheumatic ophthalmia and in chronic inflammation of the edges of the lids, which are thickened, introverted or extroverted and reddened.
Ears.- Sulphur has been used, rather on general than local indications, for otorrhoea, inflammations of the auricle and deafness caused by repeated catarrh.
Nose.-It is valuable in cases of recurrent nasal catarrh; every time the patient is exposed to a draught or to bad weather he catches cold. The discharges are acrid and excoriate the nostrils and upper lip. There may by much sneezing. The patient is annoyed by a persistent subjective odour as of an old, offensive discharge.
Face.- Comedones and acne of the face call for sulphur, both internally and externally. It has been remedial in facial erysipelas of the slowly advancing variety, without blisters, commencing in the right ear and spreading forwards over the cheek. Dry, papular eruptions and rough patches are amenable to
it.
Digestion.- The tongue characteristic of sulphur is coated white with red tip and edges, it burns, and the whole mouth burns and is sore, painful nodules come on the edge of the tongue, the teeth decay and become loose. Sulphur is a useful medicine for the aphthae and sore mouth o nursing infants, and for the similar condition in the mother during lactation.
It is valuable for chronic sore throats, whether there is ulceration present or not. The tonsils, especially the right, are enlarged and the whole throat is of a dusky, purplish colour. There are dryness, burning and dysphagia. It has been used locally, by insufflation, for diphtheria.
The sulphur patient has a very variable appetite, be is either ravenously hungry or has an aversion from all food. He is often thirsty and drinks much but eats little. he craves sweets and alcoholic liquors, both of which disagree with him. Almost all food causes indigestion, oppression of the chest, nausea, a feeling of weight in the stomach, sometimes pyrosis and vomiting, or acid and bitter eructations, which taste of rotten eggs. The abdomen is distended. There is often a weak, faint hungry sensation in the stomach some hours after food, notably at about eleven in the morning; the patient cannot go long without food, which nevertheless causes fresh discomfort.
Sulphur is a remedy for congestion of the liver and for gall-stones. The liver feels large and hard and is tender, with dull aching. Jaundice of varying depth occurs, symptoms are renewed by every fresh cold and by bathing. ” Bilious vomiting ” and ” bilious headaches ” may be features of the liver affection.
In the abdomen there are great distention and soreness; gripings, as if the intestines were strung in knots, and other pains occur, chiefly at night, and are caused or made worse by eating sugar or sweetened food: they are mostly on the left side and are relieved by bending forwards. There is pressure downwards towards the anus, and diarrhoea may come on, especially in the early hours of the morning; it is considerable urgency, compelling the patient to leave his bed to pass a thin, usually small, acrid, offensive stool, which causes the anus to smart and burn. Foetid flatus frequently escapes. Sulphur is the principal remedy for this early morning diarrhoea (aloes, nat, sulph., bry., rumex). It is useful for dysentery when the stool is of bloody much, passed with constant straining (merc.).
The more usual action of sulphur on the bowels is to cause constipation, with frequent and often ineffectual effort to evacuate, chiefly at night. The stools are insufficient and hard, like black balls; prolapsus ani often occurs with the stool and there is tenesmus after wards. Sulphur is a most useful remedy for chronic constipation with this kind of stool and unsuccessful urging. It is also valuable for haemorrhoids when they protrude, bleed slightly, are very painfulness itch immoderately. There is much burning at the anus, as well as itching, and the parts are swollen and covered with red blood-vessels. It is also indicated for colic, palpitation, backache and congestions to the lungs brought on by suppression of haemorrhoids.
Sexual.- Sulphur is an intercurrent remedy for gonorrhoea when there are redness, burning and itching of the urethral orifice; the urine causes burning pain during and after micturition. The male genital organs are weakened, they hang down relaxed and there is much foul smelling perspiration on the scrotum and between the thighs.
It is a good medicine for amenorrhoea, dysmenorrhoea, menorrhagia and metrorrhagia, if chosen because the general symptoms indicate it and not merely on account of the local trouble. It is, with sepia and lachesis, one of the three most frequently employed remedies for the flushings of the menopause. Burning in the vagina, so bad that the patient can hardly keep still, is a valuable indication for sulphur when taken in conjunction with other symptoms. “Troublesome itching in the genitals with pimples all round,” suggests it for pruritus pudendi. It has been successfully used in recurring haemorrhage from the uterus after abortion and even for mild puerperal septicaemia, when the general symptoms of sulphur are present.
Respiration.-It is a remedy of wide usefulness in respiratory affections, especially in the second stage of inflammation of the lungs, after aconite or bryonia has controlled the initial symptoms and exudation is taking place;; it may abort the whole process. It is equally of advantage in later stages when hepatization has occurred, as it promotes absorption of inflammatory products and so clears the lung. It is a valuable aid in the bronchitis and broncho-pneumonia which so frequently complicate whooping cough and measles, favouring restoration of the respiratory organs to their normal condition. Laryngitis, bronchitis, pleurisy and pneumonia are all subject to its influence, and its administration will often check an incipient tuberculosis. The general symptoms of the drug will be the chief guide, but certain leading symptoms referable to the respiratory system help to confirm the choice of the drug. Such symptoms are “oppression of the chest with a sense of heaviness,” “feels suffocated, wants doors and windows open, especially at night,” “sense of weakness in the chest when talking,” stitches and shootings through the left upper chest towards the back and into the left scapula, worse from lying on the back, from motion and from “deep breathing,” “burning in the chest, rising to the face,” “great orgasm of blood to the chest, with burning in the hands.”
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,