Iodum


Dr. S.R. Phatak describes the clinically confirmed symptoms of the homeopathic remedy Iodum in his Concise Materia Medica, published in 1977….


Generalities

      Iodine has great absorbent action, which is rapid and intense; muscles, fat, tissues and glands waste away and general emaciation is the result. GLANDS; THYROID, testes, mesenteric and mammary, first get SWOLLEN, HARD and heavy, then begin to dwindle. New growths and hyperplasias come under its action when their growth is rapid. Trembling of limbs or whole body. Weak and rapidly losing flesh; even with a good appetite. FEELS ALWAYS Too HOT. Great debility, the slightest effort induces perspiration; cannot talk, becomes out of breath going up stairs. Acute exacerbations of chronic inflammation. Arthritic deformans with swollen joints; after acute attack of rheumatism. Secretions are hot, acrid or watery, persistent or salty. ACUTE CATARRH of THE MUCOUS MEMBRANES esp. LARYNX and lungs, pneumonia with rapid extension. Vasoconstriction, causing oedema, ecchymoses, haemorrhages. Vascular degeneration. Atrophy or induration of testes, ovaries, uterus. Wasting diseases of scrofulous patients. Adenoids. Goitre. Pancreatic diseases. Arthritic affections. Tuberculosis. Affections of connective tissue, with torpidity and little pus. General pulsations or local throbbings in large arterial tracks. Burning. Infiltration. Internal tickling. Ill effects of nervous shock, disappointed love. Plastic exudation. Facial paralysis or epilepsy, from suppression of goitre. Emaciation, with glandular enlargement. Only feels well while eating; in any diseased condition. Sluggish reaction, hence chronicity of many affections. Suitable to over-grown boys, with weak chest and aged persons.

Worse

      HEAT OF; room; air; wraps. Exertion; ascending, talking. Fasting. Night. Rest. Touch. Pressure.

Better

      COLD; AIR; bathing. Walking about in open air. Eating. Sitting up.

Mind

      Anxiety; about the present (no reference to the future); when quiet. Dejected, with tendency to weep or intolerably CROSS AND RESTLESS. Excited. Sudden impulse to run and do violence, but motion worse and exhausts, better if busy. Thinks he is well. Fear; of people; of physician; shuns everyone. Suicidal tendency. Fretful; forgets what is to be spoken or done, does not know what. Does not understand why he has done some particular thing. Tendency to do some strange things without any cause, to kill somebody, to kill himself. Heart palpitates when thinking of real or imaginary wrongs.

Head

      Reverberations in head. Throbbing, rush of blood and feeling of a tight band. Vertigo; chronic congestive. Headaches of old people, worse in warm air, fatigue, walking fast, riding in car. Brain as if stirred round with a spoon.

Eye

      Protruded. Convulsive movements and quivering of the eyes; of lower eyelids. Profuse lachrymation. Acute dacryocystitis. Staring with wide open eyes; eyelids seem to be retracted.

Ears

      Chronic deafness with adhesions in the middle ear. Eustachian catarrh.

Nose

      Pain at the root of the nose and frontal sinuses. Coryza worse open air. Nose red and swollen; much and sudden sneezing, with dripping of hot water. Acute nasal engorgement associated with high blood pressure. Alae as if spread wide apart. Descending colds.

Face

      Withered, brownish, sallow or dusky; miserable look. Coldness of face in fleshy children. Facial paralysis, after reduction of goitre.

Mouth

      Profuse foetid, soapy saliva. Metallic taste. Foul ulcers; aphthae.Offensive odour from the mouth. Tongue; hypertrophied, painful, nodular or fissured.

Throat

      Constriction, impeding deglutition. Burning and scraping in throat. Goitre; hard, with sensation of constriction. Uvula swollen. Submaxillary glands swollen.

Stomach

      Ravenous hunger; yet emaciates; or variable appetite; with thirst. Gets anxious or worried if he does not eat. Drinking cold milk better constipation. Pulsation in the pit of the stomach. Bitter taste to solid food, not drinks. Hiccough. Empty eructations.

Abdomen

      Liver and spleen enlarged and sore. Stools; frothy, wheyey, fatty, cheesy, or lienteric; pancreatic affections. Trembling in abdomen. Chronic morning diarrhoea of emaciated, scrofulous children. Jaundice; eyes, skin, nails yellow. Swelling of mesenteric glands.

Urinary

      Urination frequent and copious; urine; dark, yellow-green, milky, with variegated cuticle on its surface. Sediment like red pepper. Incontinence in old people with prostatic enlargement. Milky white fluid runs from urethra after stool.

Male

      Testicles swollen and indurated. Twisting in spermatic cord. Atrophy of testes; with loss of sexual power. Sarcocele. Hydrocele.

Female

      Great weakness during menses. Menses; brown; renewed after every stool. Mammae dwindle away and become flabby. Wedge-like pain from ovary to uterus. Nodosities in the skin of mammae with black points. Leucorrhoea; acrid, eroding thighs and linen; worse during menses. Mammae heavy; as if would fall. Sterility from atrophy of ovaries and mammae.

Respiratory

      Painful, choking hoarseness; child grasps the throat while coughing. Laryngitis. Diphtheria. Dry, tickling, croupy cough. Short breath esp. on going upstairs. Oedema glottis. Expectoration, of cast of larynx; or of blood streaked mucus. Voice rough. Tickling all over chest. Bronchi raw. Violent pulmonary congestion. Pneumonia, hepatization spreading rapidly with high temperature and absence of pain. Pleuritic effusion. Asthma, breathes heavily when quiet. Itching low down in lungs behind sternum.

Heart

      Feels squeezed; as if by an iron band followed by great weakness and faintness. Palpitation worse least exertion. Feeling of vibration or purring over heart. Tachycardia. Myocarditis. Pulsation in large arterial trunks.

Neck and Back

      Swelling of the neck when speaking; grows thick.

Extremities

      Chronic arthritic affections; stiff and enlarged joints. Synovitis. Cold hands and feet. Acrid sweat on back of feet. Oedema of the feet. Back of hands; brown; as if swollen; painful when turning hand, not when closing fingers. Painful corns.

Sleep

      Restlessness in blood, prevents sleep.

Fever

      Hyperpyrexia; or external coldness with anxiety or stupor. Hectic fever. Flushes of heat all over the body; heat waves to head. Sweats easily. Early morning sweat better.

Skin

      Hot, dry, dirty; brown spots on. Nodosities on skin. Anasarca of cardiac disease. Itching and itching pimples, in old cicatrices. Scars break open.

Related

      Ars; Fl-ac; Phos; Spongia

Complementary

      Lyc; Silicea

S.R. Phatak
A pioneer of Homoeopathy in Maharashtra, Dr Shankar Raghunath Phatak was born on 6th September, 1896. He did his MBBS from Grant Medical College, in 1924. Started his practice but somehow not satisfied with Allopathic Treatment.

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'.