SPHERE OF ACTION
Acts especially upon the ganglionic vegetative nervous system, affecting particularly the osseous system, producing imperfect ossification, difficult and slow dentition, rachitis, &c. Also affects the mucous, serous, fibrous, and cutaneous tissues and lymphatics. It especially affects the reproductive organs of women, through the lymphatic system.
Marcy and Hunt say: In constitutions in which we see defect in the reproductive system; obstructions, deposits, intumescence in the lymphatic and glandular systems; dyscrasial affections of the membranous structures; of all the white structures, which have but little vitality or blood, and are nourished chiefly by lymph. Obstructions in cartilages, tendons, serous membranes, where development is arrested; obstructions in the lymphatics. In early infancy these structures predominate, and in them Calcarea carbonica is specific where there is any arrest of the development of the organs; imperfect formation of the blood, as in scrofulosis.
The only cases of hemicrania curable by it are those caused by disease in the reproductive system, or in whom scrofula was visible in early life. CHARACTERISTICS: large head, bloated abdomen; narrow chest; flabby, poorly-developed muscles; bones containing but little phosphate of lime.
R. Hughes says: It is in the large class of disease due to disorder of the secondary assimilation that Calcarea carb. finds its curative place; where the assimilation of the digested food to blood and tissue does not proceed as it should do, there are few agents more powerful than Calcarea for restoring healthy functions. The three great forms of assimilative derangement are scrofula, tuberculosis and rachitis; in all these cases it is a principal remedy. It is the constitutional tendency that it controls, rather than the local manifestations.
It has a special and profound influence through the lymphatic system over the generative organs of women; in fact this is Calcarea’s greatest sphere of usefulness.
GRAND CHARACTERISTICS.
Especially adapted to the constitutional diseases of scrofulous women and children, of leuco-phlegmatic temperament, prone to affections of the mucous membranes.
The assimilation of the digested food to tissue does not proceed as it should do.- HUGHES.
Children with dry and flabby skin; large, open fontanelles; much perspiration in drops on the head, which wets the pillow far around where the child is sleeping.
Pale and fair children; their muscles soft and flabby; their hair dry and looking like tow.
She is very weakly in general; walking produces great fatigue; in going up stairs is out of breath, has to sit down.
Her feet feel as if she had on cold, damp stockings, continually; they are cold in bed.
Head.-Vertigo on running up stairs.
Fear of going crazy or that people will observe her, and suppose her to be crazy..
Anxiousness, shuddering and awe, as soon as the evening comes near.
Despairing; hopeless of everything, with fear of death; tormenting all round him day and night.
Extremely peevish.
As often as the patient falls asleep the same disagreeable feelings rouse him.
Head too large, the fontanelles not closing.
The head and upper part of the body sweat profusely.
Headache, with an unusual accumulation of dandruff on the top.
Excessive mischievousness.
Cannot sleep after 3 a.m.
Vertigo on ascending a height.
Chronic headache, depending on brain fag; the pain is dull, worse in the morning; the head is often cold.
Itching of the scalp; children scratch when their sleep is disturbed or they are awakened.
With much dandruff on the scalp.
Troubled about an absent son; imagines he saw him at the bottom of the river; could not rest but constantly walked about.
Great fear, as if located in the upper epigastrium, causing a sensation as if from shock.-JAHR.
Eyes.-Excessive secretion of mucus in the eyes.-MARCY and HUNT.
All objects look as if seen through a mist.-JAHR.
Long-lasting super-orbital neuralgia.-JAHR.
Pupils inclined to dilate.-MARCY and HUNT.
Dimness of the cornea, with mist before the eyes.
Digestive Organs.-Sour taste in the mouth or of the food; sour vomiting, especially with children during dentition; also, sour diarrhoea.
Longing for eggs, particularly with children, in sickness, or during convalescence.
The tongue is sore on the tip, sides, or dorsum, so that she can scarcely eat.
Vomiting of the ingesta, which tastes sour.
In cholera infantum, excessive acidity of the stomach, and a partial or total deficiency of biliary secretions.-BAEHR.
Swelling over the pit of the stomach like a saucer turned bottom up.
Cannot bear tight clothing around the hypochondria.
Diarrhoea worse towards evening.
Diarrhoea of sour smell; putrid; during dentition; generally painless.
A copious watery, sour-smelling diarrhoea, is the surest indication for Calcarea carb.-BAEHR.
Chronic diarrhoea, clay-like stools.
White, chalk-like stools.
Feeling of coldness in the abdomen and thighs.
Much crawling and itching in the anus.
Urine.-Involuntary emissions of urine on walking.
Urine has a brown, bloody or white sediment.
Generative Organs of Women.-The history of the case shows that the menses have been too profuse, and return too often and to soon.
The least excitement causes the menses to return.
Finds it difficult to stand on account of a pressing down, as if the internal organs would press out.
Albuminous leucorrhoea, from the cervical canal, with great lassitude, debility, sinking and trembling at the stomach, and burning pains in the cervical canal.-MARCY and HUNT.
Profuse leucorrhoea, like milk.
Inflammation, redness, and swelling of the vulva, with purulent discharge.
Much moisture between the labia and thighs, with biting pain.- With much aching of the vagina.
Breasts are distended; milk scanty; she is cold, and there seems to be a want of vitality to bring the milk forward. Healthy women, with defective lactation; children die early, with diarrhoea and convulsions. GOULLON.
Respiratory Organs.-This is the most useful remedy in the Materia Medica for consumption.
Dry, tickling cough, aggravated by speaking.
Cough, with rattling of mucus in the bronchi; the cough is worse in the morning.:.
Chronic hoarseness.
Haemoptysis, with ulceration of the lungs, accompanied with great debility, emaciation, and constant inclination to take cold from the least exposure.
Great emaciation; abdomen bloated, and the least cold goes through the patient.
Hectic fever, with copious perspiration of the head and chest.
In children enlargement of the glands of the neck, with dry, flabby skin and cold, damp feet.
The pains are aggravated by the slightest touch, as from a current of air, cold or warm; noise, excitement, etc.
Cold, damp, east wind is sure to bring on a fresh cold.
Adapted to cold, leuco-phlegmatic people, especially if inclined to grow fat.
(1836-1897)
Characteristic materia medica Published 1873
Physiological materia medica, containing all that is known of the physiological action of our remedies; together with their characteristic indications and pharmacology. Published 1881