“Trembling: internal; head and hands.
“Thick eruptions like pocks, often pustular; as large as a pea.
“Relief from expectoration.
“Both ends of life, childhood and old age.
“Child clings to those around; wants to be carried; cries and whines if anyone touches it; will not let you feel the pulse.
“Nausea as intense as that of Ipecac., but less persistent, and with Ant. tart. there is relief after vomiting.”
And Nash says, “If Antimonium tart. possessed only the one power of curing, that it does upon the respiratory organs, it would be indispensable. No matter what the name of the trouble, whether it be bronchitis, pneumonia, whooping cough or asthma, if there is a great accumulation of mucus with coarse rattling, or filling up with it, but, at the same time, there seem to be inability to raise it, but, at the same time, Tartar emetic is the first remedy to be thought of. This is true in all ages and constitutions, but particularly so in children and old people”.
“There is one symptom that is very apt to be present in these cases, i.e. great drowsiness, sometimes amounting to coma.”
“In pneumonia, both Tartar emetic and Opium may have great sleepiness, but there is no need for any confusion here as to choice for in Opium the face is dark red or purple, and there may be sighing or stertorous respiration. With Tartar emetic the face is always pale, or cyanotic, with no redness, and the breathing is not stertorous.”
He also says, “Antimonium tart. is also one of our best remedies for hepatization of lungs remaining after pneumonia. There is dullness on percussion, and lack, or absence of respiratory murmurs, and the patient continues pale, weak, and sleepy.”
KENT gives a wonderful picture of Ant. tart. We will quote, condensing. He says, “About the first thing we SEE in an Ant. tart. patient is expressed in the face. The face is pale and sickly– the nose drawn and sunken–the eyes are sunken with dark rings around them–the lips are pale and shrivelled–the nostrils dilated and flapping, with a dark sooty appearance inside them. The expression is that of suffering. The atmosphere in the room is pungent it makes you feel that death is there.”
He says, “We find this state and appearance in catarrhal patients, in broken down constitutions, in feeble children, in old people: in catarrhal conditions of trachea and bronchial tubes. And we HEAR coarse rattling and bubblings in the chest– coarse, like the `death rattle’. The chest is steadily filling up with mucus. At first he may be able to throw it out, but finally he is suffocating from the filling up of mucus and the inability of chest and lungs to throw it out. It is a paralytic condition of the lungs. The first few days of the sickness will not point to Ant. tart. So long as reaction is good and strength holds up you will not see this hippocratic countenance–sinking–and coldness, and cold sweat. You will not hear this rattling in the chest, because these symptoms are symptoms that indicate a passive condition. Antimonium tart. has weakness and lack of reaction.”
He contrasts it with Ipecac. which may come in for the first period. He says, “Ipecac. has some of this coarse rattling, but it is attended with great expulsive power of the lungs. Ant. tart. has the coarse rattling that comes after many days. It has, like Ipecac., the coughing and gagging and retching, but only in the later stage of great relaxation, prostration and coldness. When you hear him cough you are impressed with the idea that there must be some profound weakness in his lung power. The lungs have lost the power to produce an expulsive action with deep inspiration. Here the chest is full of mucus and it rattles: the cough is a rattling cough,, but the mucus does not come up, or only in such quantity as does not relieve. His chest is full of mucus, and he is really passing away, dying from carbonic acid poisoning due to lack of expulsive power.”
He says, “Unlike Aconite, Belladonna and Bryonia, which come down with violence, the very opposite is present in Ant. tart., where you have little fever, cold sweat, coldness, relaxation, hippocratic aspect. Most of these severe cases of bronchitis and pneumonia die in the Ant. tart. state. In very old people who have had catarrh of the chest for years, where every sharp cold spell brings on catarrh of the chest with thick white mucus– dyspnoea- -must sit up and be fanned–cannot lie down because of the difficult breathing and filling up of the chest, Ant. tart. will ease him over a number of these attacks before he dies. `When the expectoration is yellow, Ammoniacum will pull him through, and Ant. tart. when it is white, and attended with prostration, sweat, coldness, pallor and blueness of the face.'”
Kent says further, “He does not want to be meddled with or disturbed. Everything is a burden. The child when sick doesn’t want to be touched, or talked to, or looked at. Wants to be let alone. The infant is always keeping up a pitiful whining and moaning. Always in a bad humour, that is, extremely irritable when disturbed.”
Note that with Antim tart. the sputum is WHITE.
“In most complaints this remedy is thirstless. Generally in these attacks of dyspnoea the friends of the patient will stand around with a very strong desire to do something, if it is only to hand a glass of water. This patient is irritated by being offered a swallow of water. He is disturbed and shows his annoyance. The child will make an offended grunt when offered water. Thirstlessness with all these bronchial troubles, with copious discharge of mucus and great rattling in the chest.
“Desire for acids and sour fruit, and they make him sick. Stomach troubles from vinegar, sour things, sour wine, sour fruit. Aversion to milk and every other kind of nourishment, but milk especially makes the patient sick, causing nausea and vomiting.
“With the stomach symptoms and bowel symptoms there is this constant nausea, but it is more than a nausea, it is a deadly loathing of every kind of food and nourishment, a nausea with the feeling that if he took anything into the stomach he would die; not merely an aversion to food, not merely a common nausea that precedes vomiting, but a deadly loathing of food. Kind-hearted people very often want him to take something, for perhaps he has not taken any food all day, or all night; but the thought of food only makes him breathe worse, increases the dyspnoea, increases his nausea, his loathing and his suffering.”
In the same way that expectoration is difficult with Ant. tart. vomiting”is not an easy matter with this remedy. It is not merely to open the mouth and empty the stomach of its contents. The vomiting is more or less spasmodic. `Violent retching. Gagging and retching and straining to vomit. Suffocation, gagging, through great torture.’ The stomach seems to take on a convulsive action, and it is with the greatest difficulty, after many of these great efforts, that a little comes up, and then a little more, and this is kept up. `Vomiting of anything that has been taken into the stomach, with quantities of mucus.’ Thick, white, ropy mucus, sometimes with blood. Old gouty patients, old drunkards, old broken-down constitutions. In children also that have broken-down constitutions, as if they had grown old. These take cold in the chest, with great rattling of mucus, and require this remedy. All the forms of Antimony have that dropsical tendency, relaxation and weakness, Ant. tart. is full of it.”.
PECULIAR AND CHARACTERISTIC SYMPTOMS
Pitiful whining and crying before and during the attacks, or paroxysms, whatever they may be. Despair of recovery.
A child coughs when angry. (Important symptom is whooping cough, etc.) Coughs and yawns alternately.
In pneumonia, when the edges of eyelids are covered with mucus: also, eyes inflamed, staring, dull, half-open, or one closed. Sees only as through a thick veil.
Nostrils flap (Lycopodium).
Face a perfect picture of anxiety and despair. Cold, distorted, pale, with bluish spots, bathed in cold sweat, livid. Face- muscles twitch.
Sickly, sunken pale bluish or twitching face, covered with cold sweat.
Tongue covered with a thick, white, pasty coat; open, parched upper lip drawn up; or tongue very red; in streaks; or dry down middle; brown, dry.
Craves apples, fruits, acids, cold drinks, refreshing things. Aversion to milk. Thirstlessness, or intense thirst. Continuous anxious nausea with great effort to vomit, and sweat on forehead. The smallest quantity of drink is vomited, with eager desire for more. Nausea with great faintness.
Waves of nausea with weakness and cold sweat.
Violent pain in abdomen; seems stuffed full of stones, but it does not feel hard.
Child at birth pale, breathless, gasping, although the cord feebly pulsates.
Rapid, short, difficult and anxious respiration;seems as if he would suffocate without sitting erect the whole night; spell may come on at 3 a. m. (or 4 a. m.) and has to sit up. Great rattling of mucus in the bronchia, especially just below the larynx, like a little cupful about to run over, but very little is expectorated.
