THE HYDROGENOID AND OXYGENOID.
[It will be noted that while the cause may be found in the digestive organs, Grauvogl draws graphic pictures of the bodily conditions resulting therefrom. These studies are complementary, it would seem.]
Hydrogenoid. I always recognize this constitution of the body (distinguished by too great a proportion of water, or by hygroscopic blood) by the circumstances accompanying any disease, and for these I always inquire as soon as the patient has told his complaints:
If he feels worse in cold and damp weather and in rain, then I know I have to choose among the remedies similar to his disease, e.g., such as contain a greater percentage of O with C and H, consequently that produces more heat and thereby diminishes the influence of water.
The symptoms of disease in this hydrogenoid constitution are aggravated by everything that increases the atoms of water in the organism; by baths, for example, whether they are mineral baths or simple water baths, or whatever increases the attraction of the organic molecules for water, as, for example, the eating of fish, etc.
All diseases in this constitution are increased by cold, also by cold and cooling food and drinks, for example, sour milk, hard eggs, even cucumbers and mushrooms, but chiefly by living near water, especially near standing water.
This knowledge is to me of inestimable worth, for I have cured simply and solely on this experience many, very many, patients who have for years been sent by other physicians from one bath to another, and where thy never found any relief, but often the most marked exacerbation of their sufferings.
Another sign that a disease has occurred in such a bodily constitution I find in the periodicity of its phenomena, and chiefly in its irregular and paroxysmal course. For even the nervous system, which, next to the brain in proportion to other parts of the body, possesses by far the greatest percentage of water, reacts upon a plus of water with an energy commensurate with that which it carries over its reflex influence upon the blood and other organic formations. [The experiences of Rademacher and Hahnemann agree with this also and should stand much higher in the estimation of practicing physicians than the researches of experimental physiology.] I do not mean by periodicity one, two, three, four or eight day exacerbations and remissions, but even those periods during which, for a still longer time, no disease seems to exist, and this extends even over months. Hence for the sake of brevity, I distinguish this constitution of the body, according to its causes and conditions, as the hydrogenoid.
[These people (and children) will suffer most in wet, cold years. The description of the carbo nitrogenoid constitution is omitted, being less definite in the young. The interested reader is referred to text book of Homoeopathy, Vol. II, p. 270. Every scientific physician should read that great work of Dr. Von Grauvogl. T. C. D.]
Oxygenoid. Our organism first changes nutritive substances into other chemical combinations, and then effects their combustion. What is no longer oxidizable is excreted. The substances of our bodies the least oxidizable are milk and semen. These stand so low in the scale of oxidation that they are not only used for the nutrition, but even for the formation of other organism.
There is always more C and H given off from the organism in the form of CO2HO, or other combinations, so that products richer and richer in it remain. The last and richest in Nitrogen is urea. The Carbo hydrates are soon changed into Glycogen, Grape sugar, Inosit, etc., and transformations of that sort are well known. The neutral atmospheric oxygen finds sufficient points of attack only when our food and the constituent parts of our bodies, similar thereto, have undergone further transformation. Hence even blood supersaturated with oxygen cannot make more active the destruction of the body. Yet this occurs at once, as soon as processes are introduced, willingly or unwillingly, by which the transformation of food into those combinations more accessible to combustion is more fully brought about. ( 27.)
The constitutional conditions to final diseases, in consequence of the increased influence of oxygen, cannot hence arise from an absolute excess of oxygen in the atmosphere, but rather from the resistance of the organic structures against the influence of the oxygen being so much diminished that these structures, from a deficient absorption of oxygen, especially in consequence of the already weakened organs of respiration, are consumed in a far higher degree than in the normal condition of life.
As the nitrogen of the organic structures presents the greatest resistance to the operation of oxygen, still more than their carbon, hence it is the want of nitrogen and carbon which permits the consuming predominance of oxygen. Therefore, we may designate the frequently occurring connection of such conditions, so long as no pathological form has been developed therefrom, as the oxygenoid constitution of the body.
This constitution will be accordingly recognized (1) by want of albuminates and fat (leanness), and especially by the energetic consumption of oxidizable substances wherein (2) the diminished accumulation of the solid constituents of our body, generally connected therewith, are to be brought into calculation, which constituents must essentially serve to maintain a vigorous life.
The development of this (oxygenoid) constitution might and should very often be prevented, for, according to practical experience, it is often nothing but the degeneration of the hydrogenoid constitution of children and youths protracted beyond the waking up of sexual life. Thus from scrofulosis, not cured, a form of tuberculosis develops; as is well known as from some, neglected chorosis–because the domestic medical care did not recognize the danger, or at any rate did not know how to prevent it. What, moreover, in a very imperfect manner was recognized by the professors under the forms of anaemia, leukaemia, oligocythaemia in the diseased child and not removed belongs here (to oxygenoid constitution) as well as atropha infantum, rachitis, difficult dentition, etc. These pathological forms of the physiological school (or accidentally) are able to scatter, without at the same time removing, all of the conditions of disease, although the uniformed may be deceived with the appearance of cure. From these forms, in later years, even the conditions for hyperaesthesia and consumption arise.
Those who enjoy apparent health, under such conditions, feel well or relieved in an atmosphere saturated more than usual with nitrogen, even with carbon, with burnt resins and fats, with empyreumatic substances and the like. Such individuals frequently refuse all animal food, proof that their organs cannot longer elaborate in a concentrated form what they require, and that to them the carbohydrates are more beneficial, as they offer them so many substances slowly oxidizable.
A characteristic symptom of this constitution consists, further, in this, that persons endowed therewith, hours and even days before the weather changes from dry to moist, are uncomfortable. If they happen to be sick their condition is aggravated, also immediately before a thunderstorm; that others do not notice in the least, while the actual fall of rain or snow removes all their pain. They feel best in foggy weather, even in the fogs that arise in the forests, especially in an atmosphere not cold, in which men of a hydrogenoid constitution feel the worst, and thereby, as in England, may be driven to the blackest melancholy, even to suicide.
REMEDIES FOR THE BODILY CONSTITUTIONS. (1) If it is true that there is a hydrogenoid constitution (alkaline), then those substances must be curative to it which prevent the influence of water upon the blood and liver. Above all others, I reckon Glauber’s Salts (Natrum sulph.)
If we know that the alkalies essentially promote the operation of oxygen by means of the respiratory process, it is clear that, if we compare the various localizations of the pathological processes in these constitutions and their specific forms with the results of the homoeopathic drug provings, that even Natrum nitricum, Natrum carbonicum, Acetate of soda, and Sal. ammoniac especially belong here (to the hydrogenoid); moreover, in this series we may mention as nutrition remedies Calcarea carbonica, Magnesia carb. and phos, Silicea, then, and for other reasons adduced, Iodine, Bromine, Chlorine, Nitric acid, Natrum muriaticum, Borax, Antimony, Alum, Thuja, Carbo, Arnica, Aranea diad., Pulsatilla, Nux vomica with Ipecac or Arsenic in alternation, Conium, Apis, Spigelia and animal food.
[The carbonurogenous constitution, which, aside from a relative lack of ozone, is rich in nitrogen and carbon (and indicated by Rademacher as appropriate to the copper series), finds in ozone or ozone water itself its most powerful remedy. Here belong also all substances which expel carbon and nitrogen and take up ozone or transfer it to others and excite oxygen, or stand in similar chemical or physical relation to it, viz : Copper, Phosphorus, Sulphur, Gold, Silver, Lead, Platina, AEthereal oils, Turpentine, Rhus, Dulcamara, Chamomilla, Lycopodium, Bovista, Belladonna, even Nux vomica, but given alone, Digitalis, Hyoscyamus, Opium, Lobelia inflata.]
Editor of The United States Medical Investigator. Member of the Chicago Paedological Society. First President of the American Paedological Society Author of: Diseases of infants and children, with their homoeopathic treatment. Published 1878 and Hand book on the diseases of the heart and their homeopathic treatment. by Thomas C. Duncan, M.D. Published 1898