(From “THE HOMOEOPATHIC WORLD”, 1911).
Baryta carb. – Back somewhere “in the dim musty past”, the Baryta carb. parentage had syphilis engrafted upon a very psoric base. He never recovered from it for it was suppressed. The Baryta carb. patient seldom has tuberculosis, yet he seems to have the symptoms of it. This is the secret.
Dr. Ernest A. Farrington, writing on this remedy, says: “It corresponds to the extremes in life, old age and childhood”, which opens another secret, which is this: All miasms and especially syphilis, manifest themselves most conspicuously at infancy and puberty, and then there is usually a pause or resting spell where life is at its best, until the beginning of its decline, at the age of forty-five or fifty. Then we hear from the chronic miasm again, and no miasm can do that act better than syphilis.
The Baryta carb. patient is mentally and physically stunted and dwarfed in growth and development, by the inroads of this powerful enemy to life. He is lazy, slow in his movements and dull in intellect. Sometimes, as Dr. Farrington says, he is almost an imbecile. We can use the word slow as the key note of this remedy, as he is slow to think, to walk, talk and to read and understand. Nothing is up to par but his appetite which is voracious. These people are usually short in stature when matured and inclined to obesity.
Children are usually emaciated, with large head and big abdomen; slow to speak, timid and shrinking from the presence of strangers. They do not have the mental power to rise up in defence of themselves, therefore they are afraid of strangers, and think everyone is laughing at them. These children show the effects of syphilis in their mentality more than in any other remedy, with the exception of Syphilinum and Kali iod., which have syphilis in the transmitted form.
The glandular system shows the effect of this miasm as marked as any of the tubercular grouping, such as Hepar, Iodine, and Cal. carb. These four remedies make a splendid study for differentiation in glandular affections.
Skin Symptoms – I frequently give Baryta carb. after Psorinum in skin trouble. The Psorinum clears up the psoric element often, and thus we have the combination broken between that and the very latent and chronic expression of syphilis and good results follow. I have seen swelling and induration of the glands in the cervical region, the size of a small orange. These enlarged glands may be present at puberty or in old age, and may assume a malignant form. Some young people are subject to frequent attacks of tonsillitis until you give them a few doses of Baryta carb. (Hepar).
Some of its symptoms are soreness and offensive sweat about the scrotum or the perineum in general, offensive foot sweats with soreness and rawness like Silicea. It follows Sulphur, Silicea and Psorinum. They have heat or sweat in single parts. They have also the sensation of white of egg smeared over the face, enlargement of glands after acute diseases, such as scarlet fever, measles, typhoid fever, childbirth, pneumonia or after an eruption of a tooth. It is a remedy to be studied in cystic growths, in fatty tumorous cancers of the glands or enlargement of the prostate in old men.
It is also a remedy for small boils, like Hepar; boils about the nates or perineum. It has throbbing in its lesions like Hepar and splintery pains, yet not so pronounced. the itching of this remedy is burning and biting. Its eczemas have no general local symptoms, we must depend upon the general symptoms of the remedy. Its aggravation is in the morning, and from eating. It is ameliorated in open air, warmth of bed or dry warm applications.
J.H. Allen was a student of H.C. Allen. He was the president of the IHA in 1900. Dr. Allen taught at the Hering Medical College in Chicago. Dr. Allen died August 1, 1925
Books by John Henry Allen:
Diseases and Therapeutics of the Skin 1902
The Chronic Miasms: Psora and Pseudo Psora 1908
The Chronic Miasms: Sycosis 1908