IODUM children are very liable to get all sorts of abdominal disturbances. Most of which are associated with very typical diarrhoeic attacks, with very frothy, fatty, whitish stools, and may be associated with enlarged mesenteric glands; they may be associated with a general enlargement of the liver and spleen without any very definite blood change; or with definite pancreatic dysfunction, with the typical pancreatic fatty stool, and there may be glycosuria.
The IODUM children with a fair amount of colour, quite bright red cheeks, are very liable to get rheumatic symptoms. It is usually an acute rheumatism, with violent pains which are eased by moving, and are very much worse from heat. The pains are usually very sharp and stabbing in character, and there may be a pericarditis with very acute sharp pericardial pain.
One thing about the pericardial cases, is apparently a contradiction to the ordinary IODUM restlessness and relief from motion, the chest pains are aggravated by moving, the pains are brought on and are made more acute by movement.
It is very easy to confuse the rather dark skinned, flushed type of patient, rather depressed, with sharp, stabbing pains which are worse from motion, with a BRYONIA case. They are both worse from heat, but there is not the typical BRYONIA tongue in the IODUM patient, not the intense thirst as a rule. Most BRYONIA cases are more dull and heavy whilst the IODUM patients are more mentally alert. There is usually a complete aversion to food in the BRYONIA cases, and very often a surprising amount of hunger even in the acute IODUM condition.
There is certain similarity between the IODUM child and the BROMIUM child, but it is an entirely different type. The various symptoms are very much alike, but once the type of child is recognised it is not possible to confuse them. IODUM can easily be confused with SULPHUR but there is not the intense irritability of skin, the intense itching, in a similar type of SULPHUR.
One other feature of IODUM quite frequently met with in rheumatic cases, is a history of an acute diarrhoeic attack immediately preceding the rheumatic attack.
Abrotanum. [Abrot]
The clinical picture of the ABROTANUM small baby is characteristic of a congenital pyloric stenosis. The child is emaciated with a dehydrated wrinkled skin which when pinched up, does not return to its normal state. It has an inordinate appetite because it is vomiting all its food, and is hungry all the time. It has a comparatively big abdomen and spindly legs, it is always cross and peevish as it is being starved. It is usually chilly, is very often sensitive when handled, and it is tender to touch.
In these ABROTANUM babies there is not infrequently a delay in the healing of the umbilicus after the cord has dropped off from lack of vitality and lack of nourishment. Several cases who either had a pyloric stenosis or spasm, recovered perfectly on ABROTANUM. Another had a pyloric stenosis, lost all symptoms for a period of four weeks after receiving ABROTANUM, but relapsed and was operated on, had a typical pyloric stenosis and completely recovered. Whether the others were really a spasm, or a true stenosis is not known, but three with a diagnosis of pyloric stenosis did recover with ABROTANUM.
An older type of ABROTANUM child is also a hungry child, with an inordinate appetite, and again it is thin child. it always has a tendency to recurring attacks of diarrhoea, usually attacks of diarrhoea alternating with rheumatic pains, and always with a certain amount of in co-ordination, clumsiness, tremor, probably a certain amount of numbness in the hands, feet or legs.
The child cannot be trusted with any valuable china or it will knock it over or drop it; it is verging on a chorea. They are usually rather peevish and bad-tempered, and very often have a strangely cruel streak in their make-up. These children are definitely chilly; they are aggravated by cold, and by damp; and their rheumatic pains are liable to be very worse at night than during the day.
Fluoricum Acidum. [Fl-ac]
The last of the hot-blooded drugs mentioned earlier is FLUORICUM ACIDUM. The majority of FLUORICUM ACIDUM types, both children and adults, are fair haired and fair skinned. At first sight they are not unlike the SILICEA children. They are rather thin, underweight, usually fairly fine-boned, fine-skeletoned.
Not unlike the SILICEA types they have a yielding disposition, but none of the SILICEA irritability. They are very often extremely patient, and unlike most of the drugs in the Materia Medica they often have a strange enjoyment of life, and find it very pleasant indeed; quite simple things seem to give them an inordinate amount of pleasure. That is the normal peaceful state.
Mentally they are not unlike the SILICA children in that they are very easily tired by mental concentration. They get headaches or brain fag at school, and are not exceptionally bright as far as book work is concerned.
A surprising feature of the FLUORICUM ACIDUM type of child, is that they are liable to get quite pointless and unreasoning hatreds of one or other individual in school. It is weird difference from the ordinary child’s make-up which is striking. It applies to adults as well.
Unlike the SILICEA children, they are better from physical exertion. Playing games does them good, it wakes them up, they are better for it. The SILICEA child will be tired out by it. Like the SILICEA children, if they are kept standing for any length of time they get faint, headachy, and tired out. Again, unlike the SILICEA children, they usually have a good appetite, and get hungry between meals, with hunger headaches.
Quite a number of these FLUORICUM ACIDUM children need extra food at school in the middle of the morning or they finish the morning with a headache. They wake up hungry in the middle of the night unable to sleep unless they have something to eat, and in spite of the amount of food they eat they are still fairly thin. But many FLUORICUM ACIDUM children are not markedly thin or under-weight. Their type is small and fine but not definitely under-weight.
With their big appetites, they have a desire for highly-seasoned food, it does not matter very much what it is as long as it has a strong taste.
All the FLUORICUM ACIDUM patient are sensitive to heat; they are worse from hot rooms, from hot sun, from too many clothes and from too many blankets at night. A FLUORICUM ACIDUM child who comes home school with a slight headache, rather a flushed face feeling extremely hot, can very often get rid of the headaches by putting his head into a basin of cold water, or by bathing his face with cold water.
Another factor in FLUORICUM ACIDUM children is that they get a headache if at all constipated. These children also get the typical FLUORICUM ACID headache from being unable to get out of school to pass urine; again it is the same type of congestive headache.
Some of these FLUORICUM ACIDUM children have the fine hair associated with the SILICEA child, but with a tendency to patchy bald areas, without an definite skin disease. It is patchy areas of thinning of the hair rather than actual baldness.
Another feature associated with the FLUORICUM ACIDUM child is very faulty dentition, very poor enamel of the teeth, liability for the teeth to decay early, and very often abscesses at the roots of the teeth. FLUORICUM ACIDUM children rarely have a really sound dentition and associated with that is the other important characteristic-unhealthy finger nails which are brittle cracked and splintered.
Another feature is that they have red, sweaty palms to their hands and very offensive foot sweat, which tends to make the feet hot and sore. Another pointer to a possible FLUORICUM ACIDUM patient is a dry, red, fissured tongue.
The majority of these children have digestive upsets or a tendency to a breakdown at school, or rheumatic conditions. The outstanding point about the digestive upsets is a tendency to attacks of diarrhoea; there is a liability to acute gastritis, and jaundice, and all these digestive upsets are very much aggravated by any hot drinks.
The typical FLUORICUM ACIDUM child with diarrhoea will get a violent attack after any hot drink, which is very often a useful pointer to the FLUORICUM ACIDUM case. In acute attacks they are liable to run a fairly high temperature, with a feeling of intense heat and complete intolerance of any bedclothes.
In their breakdown at school, apart from headaches from concentration-the type of congestive headache which is better from cold bathing-one constant feature is that they make mistakes in writing. They transpose words, transpose letters and the mistakes seem most senseless. The teachers complain it is pure inattention, and say the child could not make such mistakes if it were paying attention; but the child cannot help it.
Their rheumatic complaints have the ordinary FLUORICUM ACIDUM temperature aggravation, and the pains are very much worse when keeping still and better by moving about.
He wrote a number of books: Children's Types, Digestive Drugs, Pneumonias
Douglas Borland died November 29, 1960.