The report from school is that they are backward and that they have very, poor memories. One of the odd things about them is that, in spite of being dull, depressed, miserable, lifeless sort of creatures they do respond to contradiction; the child has no go in him and he makes some statement which is contradicted and he flies into an absolute rage; it is the one thing that stirs them up.
Another constant factor which is rather surprising in this type of child despite the impression of being sluggish, is that have a weird hyperaesthesia to pain, they are terrified of it and extremely sensitive to it. And, in spite of their sluggishness, they are very sensitive to noise and have a very acute sense of taste and smell.
They are liable to very persistent very troublesome catarrh.They have very definitely infected hypertrophied tonsils, practically always with a lot of offensive secretion in the tonsils, practically always with a lot of offensive secretion in the tonsillar crypts. They get hypertrophied adenoids, again with very offensive nasal discharge; with this they get attacks of acute otitis with perforation of the drum, and very often a stinking, purulent ear discharge.
If they are forced to exert themselves they very easily get out of breath and suffocative attacks with acute difficulty in breathing, without any obvious physical cause.
Another odd characteristic of the AURUM children is that they are frightfully sensitive to any disappointment; they will grieve over it for days, quite out of all proportion to the normal child’s reaction. And associated with that is the other typical AURUM symptom that the child sobs in his sleep without waking up, and apparently without having been distressed the night before.
Carbo vegetabilis. [Carb-v]
A drug which also has a very definitely sluggish condition and is sometimes a little like AURUM is CARBO VEGETABILIS although the cause is entirely different.
CARBO VEG. children are definitely sluggish but it is more a physical that mental sluggishness and results from physical stagnation, not from any lack of brain capacity.
They are slow in thinking they are dull mentally; they have a slow reaction time; and they are lacking in go of any kind. They are very easily discouraged, rather dispirited and miserable sore of children, and if they are pushed they become peevish, but it is a futile sort of peevishness without much bite in it.
Associated with the general mental sluggishness there is always sluggishness of circulation. They are very often heavy sallow complexioned children, and they have bluish extremities bluish fingers, bluish toes, and the extremities are always cold.
The next thing about them is that if they are pressed at all at school made to work, they are almost certain to develop of a dull, occipital headache. They may get the same kind of headache from wearing a tight hat. With these dull, occipital headaches there is complete inability to work, to concentrate, almost to think.
Often the child has been pushed at school, is developing headaches, seems dead tired in the evening, and gets the most violent nightmares, so much so that the child is almost terrified to go to bed, particularly in the dark.
In these nightmares they see ghosts, faces, all sorts of terrifying spectres. These cold, sluggish children get very hot and sweaty at night, particularly the extremities, but it is mainly general, and the CARBO VEG children usually have a sour smelling sweat.
Another thing linked with the CARBO VEG sluggishness of circulation is that they very easily get a pretty persistent epistaxis; very often these children have a severe epistaxis in the night.
Another symptom associated with the general sluggishness is constipation. They mostly have digestive difficulties and tend to have big bellies; they get a lot of flatulence. In spite of being constipated they very easily get attacks of diarrhoea – a very offensive, watery diarrhoea – and then they return to their constipated state again.
With these digestive difficulties they have marked likes and dislikes of food. They like sweet things – which often upset them – and they like to have their appetite stimulated with something tasty, so they like salt things. With their general sluggish digestion they are upset by fat things rich food of any kind; very often they develop a definite aversion to fat and frequently have a marked aversion to milk.
A fairly constant feature of all these CARBO VEG children is that they are not primarily CARBO VEG. children; this condition has developed as the result of some preceding illness, sometimes it is a case of measles; sometimes an illness like bronchitis or pneumonia very often influenzal in origin, and it often dates from an attack of whooping cough.
He wrote a number of books: Children's Types, Digestive Drugs, Pneumonias
Douglas Borland died November 29, 1960.