Editor’s note: Calcarea carbonica is a commonly used homeopathy remedy for children and females. It is prepared from Calcium carbonate and was originally proved by Samuel Hahnemann.
Calcarea carbonica is often prescribed in children for dentition, constipation, diarrhea and obesity. It is also used in females for menstrual irregularities and weight loss.
It’s constitution is often termed as fat, fair and flabby and the personality of Calcarea carbonica is said to be mild yet obstinate.
It is a wide and deep acting homeopathic medicine which is used for many other complaints on the basis of symptom similarity. It has no reported side effects and is safe to use.
Generalities
Calcarea carbonica is the chief representative of Calcium compounds. Calcium metabolism is active during childhood and becomes defective after middle age.
Improper assimilation of calcium gives rise to defective NUTRITION of GLANDS (cervical and mesenteric in children); BONES and SKIN.
It alters the BLOOD causing anaemia. GLANDULAR SWELLING below the jaw and in the neck; faulty development of bones. OPEN FONTANELLES. Curvature; exostosis; rickets.
Muscles and skin become lax or flabby; patient grows FAT, but not strong SWEATING IS EASY; partial-on HEAD; CHEST; DURING SLEEP. DISCHARGES ARE PROFUSE; OFTEN SOUR, stools, sweat, odour of the body; saliva etc. It is suitable to BLONDES of soft and sluggish habit.
Calcarea carbonica has complaints of teething children like convulsions, sour diarrhoea; tardy teething and late walking – children do not put their feet down on the ground.
Emaciated children, with big head and big belly. Patients are susceptible to COLD; Cold moist air chills through and through; takes cold easily esp. in chest. Tendency to sprain the muscles easily. Parts lain on become numb. Tendency to the formation of calculi.
Malnutrition. Muscular atrophy. Early stage of tuberculosis of lungs; with tickling cough; fleeting chest pains; nausea; acidity and dislike for fats.
A fatigued mental and physical stage due to over work.
Cramps in muscles which draw limbs. Abscess deep in muscles. Polypi; nasal, uterine etc. cysts.
In short Calcarea carbonica patient can be described as fat, flabby, fair, forty, perspiring, cold and damp.
In epilepsy the aura spreads up from solar plexus or as of a mouse running up the arm or down epigastrium to uterus or limbs.
Twitching, trembling, chorea; neuralgias, horrible phantasies, paralysis are among the Calcarea effects. Varicose veins; burning in veins. Osteomyelitis.
Ill effects; of alcohol; loss of vital fluids; excessive venery, masturbation; strains; over lifting; suppressed sweat, eruptions, menses; fright, egotism. Affections of stone cutters.
Dull lethargic children who do not want to play. Pituitary and thyroid dysfunction. Diarrhoea, tremors, after burns.
Better
Dry climate and weather. Lying; on painful side, on back. Sneezing (headache). Rubbing, scratching. Wiping or soothing with hands. After breakfast. Dark.
Worse
COLD; RAW AIR; BATHING. Cooling off. Change of weather to cold. EXERTION–physical, mental. Ascending Eye strain. DENTITION. Puberty.
PRESSURE OF CLOTHES. MILK. Anxiety. Awakening. Full moon. Standing. Looking up. Climaxis. Turning head.
Mind
Forgetful; learns poorly. Depressed. Melancholic or Doubting Mood. Fears; disease, misery, disaster, insanity; of being observed.
Fear excited by reports of cruelties. Cautious. Confused, misplaces words and expresses himself wrongly. Sad. Apathetic. Taciturn. Indolent; suddenly. Visions; of fire, murder, rats and mice, in delirium. Melancholy; desire to weep, to go home.
Hopeless of ever getting well. Suspicious; thinks people look at him suspiciously, and he looks at them suspiciously.
Inability to apply himself. Sits and thinks about little affairs, that amount to nothing. Sits and breaks sticks etc. all day long.
Imagines someone walking behind her. Feels as if she would run up and down and scream. Easily frightened or offended.
Calcarea carbonica children are self willed. Child is afraid of everything it sees. Mischievous. Obstinate. Irritable, cries about trifles; borrows trouble.
Head
Vertigo; with many conditions, worse ascending or turning head, scratching head; after epilepsy.
Rush of blood to the head. Icy cold in, and on the head; much perspiration worse occiput; wets the pillows. Scratches head; on waking.
Deep head pains, beating, shattering worse wind, better dark; closing eyes, pressure; with eructations. Headache from overlifting or other muscular strain.
Thick foul, milk crusts; with swollen cervical glands. BIG HEAD WITH LARGE HARD ABDOMEN. VERTEX ICY COLD. Head hot with mental exertion. Cold spots on head.
Hydrocephalus; chronic. Burning in vertex; after grief. Sweat, with palpitation. Falling of hair.
Eyes
DILATATION OF PUPILS. Sees; visions on closing eyes; besides field of vision. Spots and ulcers on cornea. Suppurating fistula; lachrymation.
Great photophobia. Itching. Cannot read in gas light. Feels as if she squinted. Ophthalmia; in newborn; after taking cold. Vision dim by constant reading, writing etc.
Easy fatigue of eyes. Ulcers of cornea. Opacities of cornea.
Ears
Deafness; from working in water or quinine. Perversions of hearing. Easily bleeding polypus. Aching, when blowing nose and coughing.
Calcarea carbonica has Purulent offensive discharge, and enlarged glands. Illusory noises, on swallowing, chewing. Throbbing pain, with sensation of something coming out.
Nose
Nostrils; dry, sore, ulcerated. Coryza, with polyuria. Offensive odour in nose; offensive yellow discharge. Swelling of the nose AND UPPER LIP; in children.
Polypus, with loss of smell. Senile catarrh. Sneezes, frequently, without a cold. Epistaxis in children inclined to be fat. Obstruction in nose.
Face
Pale, puffy, pasty. Old, wrinkled. Swelling of upper lip, in the morning; with cracks and bleeding. Submaxillary glands swollen. Chewing, and swallowing in sleep; in children. Itching eruptions on chin.
Mouth
Sour taste. Mouth fills with sour water. Ranula under the tongue. Epulis; soft, painless. Tongue dry, at night, does not like to talk. Tip of tongue feels scalded worse warm food. Teeth pain worse cold air or hot things.
Throat
Swelling of tonsils. Goitre. Parotid fistula. Stitching pain on swallowing. Small ulcers spreading up to palate. Uvula; swollen, oedematous. Hawks salty mucous.
Stomach
Anorexia from over work. Calcarea carbonica has Craving for indigestible things – chalk, coal, pencils, also for eggs, ice-creams, salt and sweets.
Aversion to meat, milk, boiled things, fat.
Sour eructations, sour vomiting of curdled milk. loss of appetite, but when he begins to eat he relishes it.
Thirst for cold water at night. Swelling over pit of stomach like an inverted saucer. Hyperchlorhydria.
Water drunk, if ever so little, causes nausea, but not, if iced. Milk disagrees. Sensation as if rising something to head.
Abdomen
LARGE AND HARD. Colic; with coldness of thighs; after stopped coryza; or with cold feeling in abdomen. Incarcerated flatulence.
Distended better slightest pressure. Liver region painful worse stooping. Gallstone colic. Peritonitis when pain better by cold application. Twisting or cramps about umbilical region. Navel; sore, excrescences like proud flesh in infants.
Mesenteric and inguinal glands swollen and painful. Chalky, grey or green watery stools.
Calcarea carbonica has Children’s diarrhoea with ravenous appetite. Stools; at first hard, then pasty then liquid.
Prolapsus ani, crawling in rectum. Haemorrhoids, painful when walking better sitting. Stools worse eating and drinking.
Undigested stools – substances eaten are passed without any change.
Feels best when constipated. Persistent tenesmus, after dysentery. Worms; tape, round. Diarrhoea; chronic, after burns.
Urinary Organs
Urine; dark; brown, sour, foul or of strong odour. White urinary sediment, with milky urine. Urine bloody. Polypus of the bladder. Renal colic. Enuresis; in bed; when walking.
Male
Increased sexual desire, with retarded erections. Frequent emissions. Burning, with seminal emission. In Calcarea carbonica patient, Coition (sexual intercourse) is followed by profound weakness, vertigo, irritability, lameness of back and knees, headache and sweat.
Itching and burning in genitals. Impotence, from sexual abuse or indulgence. Seminal discharge premature. Hydrocele, of children.
Female
Menses too early (in girls); too profuse, too long; with vertigo, toothache and cold damp feet. Thick, milky, gushing or yellow leucorrhoea, worse during urination, with itching and burning.
Breast tender and swollen, before menses. Abundant milk, but disagreeable to the child. Deficient milk. Sterility, with copious menses.
Uterine polypus. Nipples; cracked, ulcerated; very tender.
In Calcarea carbonica females, Mental excitement brings on dysmenorrhoea or causes menses to return. Cramps in toes, or soles, during pregnancy.
Menses late in fat, flabby girls; with palpitation, dyspnoea and headache.
He was convinced about Homoeopathy while going through Sir William Osler's writings on 'History of Medicine' so switched over to an entirely Homoeopathic Practice in 1932. He also started working on Homoeopathic literature along with his Practice.
He has contributed immensely to homoeopathic literature. He was an ardent follower of Dr Boger. His Repertory is based on Boger's ''A Synoptic key to Materia Medica'.