Stibium Sulphuratum nigrum.
Antimonium crudum Introduction
HAHNEMANN says Antimonium crudum is found in nature, in the shape of black parallel needles, having a metallic lustre; is composed of twenty-eight parts of sulphur and one hundred parts of antimony. The different triturations are prepared according to the method which has been already pointed out. The smallest dose, he says, is sufficient to produce the desired effect, in chronic diseases. He says:–
Antimonium crudum is useful when the following symptoms are indicated:
A child cannot bear to be touched or looked at.
Rush of blood to the head; troublesome itching on head: with falling off of hair.
Redness and inflammation of the eyelids. Sore nostrils: heat and itching of cheek. Pain in hollow teeth.
Chronic loss of appetite: eructations tasting of ingesta.
Nausea, loathing, disposition to vomit consequent upon a spoiled stomach, etc., etc.
One has, perhaps unfortunately, a certain limited number of remedies that have become such friends that they are always at hand, tendering their services; while a host of others remain mere names and need to be laboriously looked up. Antimonium crudum has, with us, remained more or less in the latter category. Indeed, one’s ideas of the Antimonium crudum personality resolve themselves into this:–Greedy, fat, sentimental, with sore corners to mouth, and crippled feet.
But the drug ought to be considered in cases of “rheumatic inflammation of muscles. In arthritic affections, with swelling and nodosities. In rheumatic contraction of muscles, with curvature of limbs: (JAHR). Then, together with its sentimentality, it has the irresistible desire to talk in rhymes, or to repeat verses: and with its “ecstatic love”, it is said to be useful for the bad effects of disappointed affections (Nat. mur., Calcarea phos.). Allen’s Keynotes tell us that its symptoms change locality, or go from one side of the body to the other. (Compare Lachesis, from left to right: Lycopodium, from right to left: or Lac. can. when they cross and then go back. One has verified this in the diphtheria of a Lycopodium case: and (again curatively) with Lac. can. in ovarian pain.).
BLACK LETTER SYMPTOMS
Allen, Hering; also Hahnemann’s stressed symptoms in his Chronic Diseases, where no black type is give.
Peevish. Sulky. Loathing of life.
Child fretful and peevish, turns away and cries when touched.
HEADACHE: after bathing; from deranging stomach; alcoholic drinks; after a chill; suppressed eruptions; from a cold.
EYES: soreness of outer canthi.
Redness and inflammation of eyelids.
Chronic blepharophthalmia of children.
Sore, cracked and crusty NOSTRILS.
Suppurating and long lasting eruption on CHEEKS.
Toothache, in hollow TEETH: pain sometimes penetrates into head. Worse at night, after eating and from cold water: touching tooth with tongue causes pain as if nerve were torn: better walking in open air.
Gnawing pain in carious teeth; after every meal.
TONGUE coated; thick white; milky white, yellow.
White tongue.
Lips dry. Cracks in the corners of mouth, painful like sores.
Gums detach from teeth and bleed easily.
STOMACH: violent thirst, with dryness of lips.
Thirst in the evening with desire to drink.
Gulping up of food, tasting of the ingesta.
Vomiting after sour urine.
After vinegar or acid wine, loose stools.
Constant discharge of wind, up and down, immediately reproduced, for years; (cured case).
Belching with taste of what has been eaten.
Loathing, nausea and desire to vomit.
Gastric symptoms predominate: disgust for drink and food, bitter mouth and vomit.
Vomiting.
Stomach weak. Easily disturbed digestion.
Gastric catarrh: white tongue: nausea and vomiting.
Very liquid STOOLS.
Antimonium crudum Diarrhoea: watery with undigested food: watery with little hard lumps. Worse from vinegar–acids–sour wine; overheating; after cold bathing; at night and early morning.
Diarrhoea of old people.
Alternate diarrhoea and constipation of old people.
Difficult, hard stool: faeces too large.
Elderly people with diarrhoea, all at once get costive.
Mucous piles, pricking, burning; continuous mucous discharge, staining yellow. Sometimes ichor oozes out.
Antimonium crudum COUGH: first attack is always most severe, subsequent ones weaker and weaker; (whooping cough).
Pain in chest with heat.
Blenorrhoea pulmonum, or phthisis mucosa.
Severe continual itching on chest the whole day.
Violent itching on BACK.
Arthritic pain in FINGERS.
Drawing pains in fingers and their joints.
Drawing pain in the left hip-joint.
