LEADING ACID AND ALKALINE REMEDIES.
For children the selection of the remedy is made from the objective symptoms chiefly and these are here emphasized.
Aconite will be indicated in acid children who are feverish, restless and frightened; clings to the nurse and wants to be held and then does not lie quiet, but tosses about.
The Arsenicum child is also restless and wants to change its position, but is not feverish but rather cold; kicks off the covers and has the peculiar thirst for small quantities of water often, which may be vomited or passed as thin, watery stools. The emaciation of the Arsenicum child is extreme and rapid.
Antimonium crudum. The Sulphide of Antimony is classed by Hering as an acid drug, but it has a cracked and crusty nostrils and corners of the mouth” indicating digestive disturbance. “The child cannot bear to be looked at or touched.” This is the spirit of the alkaline child that has become run down in constitution — the hydrogenoid, alkaline.
The Bryonia child is active, nervous, restless in sleep, talks about play. “In hydrocephalus throws left leg about.” The thirst is for large quantities of water. Child usually quiet when sick.
The Benzoic acid child wets the bed. The urine has a strong urinous odor and stains the diaper a dark brown.
The Capsicum child is described as “light, with blue eyes, nervous, but stout and plethoric.” That would place it in the alkaline class. “Children dread open air, always chilly, refractory, clumsy, fat, dirty and disinclined to activity (work or thinking, study). “Inclined to be jovial, but gets angry at trifles.”
The Cepa child suffers with “acute catarrhal inflammation of eyes, nose and mucous membranes,” especially in the spring of the year. “The discharge corrodes nose and upper lip” like any other acrid (acid) discharge from acute coryza.
The Bromine child has “light blue eyes, flaxen hair, light eyebrows, fair, delicate skin, blonde, red-cheeked.” Scrofulous girls, nervo-sanguine. Has croupy symptoms, with hoarseness, with whooping cough. Swelling of glands, stony, hard; lymphatic glands obstructed.
Graphites belongs to the alkaline (or neutral group of Hering) “Eruptions behind the ears, which ooze an albuminous, sticky fluid.” “Children impudent, teasing laugh at reprimand.” “Lymphatic oedema, blonde hair, pale face, low spirits.”
This Iodine child has dark or black eyes and hair–a brunette, bilious temperament. “Has ravenous hunger; eats often and much, but loses flesh all the time from diarrhoea.” In marasmus the child has a brownish face and copious, papescent stools; seems better after eating. Overgrown boys with weak chest. Low, cachectic condition, with profound debility and great emaciation.
The Lactic acid child is intensely acid. Smells sour as a swill barrel. Vomits food after partially digested Diarrhoea thin, watery, acrid, excoriating, later intensely green. Soft cranial bones and great emaciation. Large doses disagree with melancholic, choleric constitutions. Dark hair and eyes, anaemic (nursing) women.
The Mezereum child is light haired, irresolute, of phlegmatic temperament, decidedly alkaline. Eczema of head and face, with thick, leather-like crusts with pus beneath. Child scratches face until it is covered with blood. As Grauvogl notes, this constitution is made worse by cold air (winter), cold washing, and at night.
The Muriatic acid child has dark hair, dark eyes, dark complexion. Is acid, irritable, peevish, restless, disposed to anger from acidity. Fever rapidly takes on severe typhoid type; moaning, sliding down in bed (when not due to brain disease).
The Nitric acid child is acid, decidedly thin and dark complexion, nervous. The urine smells like horse’s urine (hippuric). When sick it runs down rapidly; has sore, cracked lips. Diarrhoea, cries after stool, which excoriates.
The Podophyllum child is a small, nervous, bilious, dark- skinned acid child subject to bilious spells, with yellow meal- like stools that are attended with prolapsus ani. Teethes with difficulty and subject then to attacks of diarrhoea; stools looking like dirty water, and worse in the early morning. The poisonous principle is the irritating podophyllic acid–a coloring principle.
The Phosphorus child is acid, tall and slender (nervo- sanguine), with a feebly developed lymphatic system. It has bright pearly eyes, fair skin, blonde, soft or red hair, delicate eyelashes, precocious and restless. The active brain robs the nutritive system, and hydrocephaloid, or, later, tuberculosis, cuts short a promising career.
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