PULSATILLA. [Puls]
These are the “warm-blooded” drugs starting with PULSATILLA which is the most commonly indicated drug in children of this type.
PULSATILLA children are very typical. There are two main types. One is the very small, fine type, with a fine skin, fine hair, unstable circulation, liable to flush up from any emotion very often going pale afterwards; definitely shy, sensitive; always affectionate very easy to handle, and always very responsive.
The other PULSATILLA type, is much fatter with definitely more colour, usually rather darker hair, a little more sluggish in reaction, a little more tendency to weep than to be bright and gay as the smaller, finer type, craving for attention without much response to it, always asking for a little more.
If you get one picture clear you are apt to forget the other. The factor common to both types is their temperature reaction, all PULSATILLA children are sensitive to heat, they flag in hot weather lose their liveliness, lose their sparkle and energy.
They hang about, become either tearful or irritable, and are likely to get digestive upsets. But they are much more liable to be upset a sudden change to cold in a hot spell-that is to say they often get an attack of acute sickness or diarrhoea from being chilled in hot weather.
They tend to get cystitis, or to get earache. Sudden chilling during hot weather causes their troubles. Whilst generally they flag in hot weather, their acute conditions are much more liable to be brought on by chilling. In the same way they are upset by taking ice-cream in hot weather, this factor is quite as common as the ordinary PULSATILLA aggravation from too rich food.
Something one misses a case because of the odd reactions in a feverish attack. The PULSATILLA children get acute colds in the head, acute coryza, and with this they are shivery, and very chilly. With the coryza, there is a certain amount of gastric catarrh, a feeling of nausea, and they may actually vomit.
But, in spite of their chilliness, their sense of blockage in the head is better in the open air and worse in a stuffy room. A PULSATILLA cold always has a bland discharge.
There is sometimes an apparent contradiction they are very apt to get conjunctivitis, and in the PULSATILLA conjunctivitis the eyes are very sensitive to any cold draught, and water profusely in the open air. There is usually marked photophobia with itching of the eyelids, and PULSATILLA children are apt to get styes, affecting the lower rather than the upper lid.
A point that is sometimes a help in PULSATILLA earaches, which are very intense and usually brought on from exposure to cold, is a very violent pain, which spreads all over the side of the face as well as into the throat.
If the condition has gone a little further, there is feeling as of something bursting out of the ear, as if something were pressing right through the ear drum. Another thing is amelioration from cold-their earaches are better from cold applications.
PULSATILLA children are very often tired, edgy and sleepy during the day, and they become more lively as the day goes on, they are liable to get the PULSATILLA nervousness about sunset the ordinary sunset aggravation of PULSATILLA.
They become very lively towards bedtime, are slow in going to sleep, and once asleep tend to get nightmares, night terrors usually some kind of strife dreams-not necessarily being chased by the black dog of PULSATILLA-but always something worrying, terrifying. Most of these PULSATILLA children are afraid of the dark, afraid of being left alone, as one would expect in the shy nervous type of child.
One thing that will almost always produce a night terror in these children is listening to ghost stories in the dark before going to bed; you can be sure that will give a PULSATILLA child a nightmare.
Another useful pointer is that these children are very liable to become giddy from looking up at anything high. The only other drug that I know in which this is so marked is ARGENTUM NITRICUM which has an aggravation from looking down, but it has also an aggravation from looking up, but this is very much more marked in PULSATILLA.
The PULSATILLA child often lies with the hands above the head and this is a useful pointer, although it is by no means constant.
Kali Sulphuricum. [Kali-s]
When considering the hot-blooded child of PULSATILLA type, the next thing to consider is whether it is PULSATILLA or KALI- SULPHURICUM. Kent says that KALI SULPH. is merely an intensified PULSATILLA. I do not think it is.
The KALI SULPH temperature reactions are identical with the PULSATILLA ones, the child is sensitive to heat it flags in the hot weather, cannot stand stuffy atmospheres, is better in the open air, tends to stagnate if keeping still, and is better moving about. It has an aggravation from rich food; and is liable to be upset by sudden changes of weather. But there is a distinct difference.
The KALI SULPH child is much more flabby than the PULSATILLA child, it certainly does not approach the thin fine type of PULSATILLA although it approaches more to the sluggish heavier type of PULSATILLA. Its muscles are flabby, it is easily exhausted by muscular effort. It is more liable to sit about, and has a much more sluggish reaction generally.
There is more obstinacy in the KALI SULPH. type than in the typical PULSATILLA. The PULSATILLA child may be irritable, it may flare up in a temper but it is over; KALI SULPH. is much more liable to be obstinate.
Also the PULSATILLA children are shy, but the KALI SULPH. children tend much more to have a lack of confidence in themselves-it is not shyness. They are lazy, they dislike work and there is not the keenness and interest of the PULSATILLA children.
The KALI SULPH children are not bright they get tired out by mental exertion, whereas the PULSATILLA children are very often bright and sharp and do quite well at school.
There is a certain similarity in that they are both nervous, both afraid of the dark, are very easily frightened, easily startled at strange noises, strange surroundings.
The typical KALI SULPH child tends to be more sickly than the typical PULSATILLA child. The PULSATILLA child may not be strong, but the KALI SULPH. child tends to have less colour and if flushed it is much more a circumscribed flush on the cheeks rather than the variable circulation of the PULSATILLA.
Another thing that indicates KALI SULPH rather than PULSATILLA is that nearly all KALI SULPH children have a yellow-coated tongue, particularly the root of the tongue although the coating may spread right over.
Another point which helps is that there is a slight difference in the type of discharges. The typical PULSATILLA discharge is a thick, creamy, non-irritating discharge. The typical discharge in KALI SULPH. is a much more watery, more stringy, yellowish discharge.
As far as liability to actual acute illness is concerned, PULSATILLA is more often needed for acute gastric catarrh, acute gastritis, acute colic and diarrhoea; but if the gastritis has gone on to a jaundice in a PULSATILLA child the indications are more for KALI SULPH than for PULSATILLA.
With a PULSATILLA type of child who has caught cold and developed bronchitis which has gone on to a broncho-pneumonia with the ordinary PULSATILLA indications, that is to say, aggravated from stuffy room, relief from air, sense of suffocation possibly a loss of voice, very dry mouth without much thirst, with a yellowish, watery sputum and probably patches of consolidation at the left base-left base more commonly-the response is better from KALI SULPH than from PULSATILLA.
With a PULSATILLA child who has whooping cough with a lot of rattling in the chest, and the ordinary PULSATILLA modalities, KALI SULPH. does more good than PULSATILLA.
That is perhaps what kent means by saying KALI SULPH is PULSATILLA intensified-in these acute conditions the symptoms are very similar and yet the more severe the condition the more definite are the indications for KALI SULPH.
It is sometimes useful to remember that the heavy PULSATILLA child is liable to go on SULPHUR whilst the finer PULSATILLA child is much more liable to become chilly and go on to SILICEA or PHOSPHORUS.
I usually give PULSATILLA in low potency in chronic cases. They are mostly sensitive children, and where you are dealing with the sensitive type you do not want a high potency. When dealing with bovine types I go high, but in a sensitive type like PULSATILLA they blossom on a 30 potency. PHOSPHORUS is exactly the same, PHOSPHORUS children respond beautifully to lower potencies.
I have found very good results from ANTIMONIUM CRUDUM 12, repeated three times a day for two days, in impetigo. With CALC CARB or GRAPHITES I would give a high potency every time-a 200, or higher, as one is dealing with an insensitive type.
Sulphur. [Sulph]
From the point of view of children, there are two definite SULPHUR types. Much the commonest is a fairly well-nourished, well-grown child, always with a definitely big head. They are usually fairly heavy in build and rather awkward and clumsy in their movements.
He wrote a number of books: Children's Types, Digestive Drugs, Pneumonias
Douglas Borland died November 29, 1960.