BROMIUM


BROMIUM symptoms of the homeopathy remedy from Homeopathic Drug Pictures by M.L. Tyler. What are the symptoms of BROMIUM? Keynote indications and personality traits of BROMIUM…


Introduction

      AMONG the drugs one has long desired to study is Bromium; so we will attempt its portrayal for the benefit of all of us.The one occasion on which its effect was dramatic enough to stamp it on the memory, was the case of a sailor on shore with asthma. In the Repertory one finds it, thus: “Asthma of sailors as soon as they go ashore, BROM.”, in black type, and no other remedy given. Anyway it worked promptly. And one has added it as a second remedy in that other rubric, “Seashore ameliorates, Medorrhinum”, which some of our prescribers find an absolutely straight tip to the successful use of Medorrhinum. When a case halts, Nosodes (potentized disease products) do help one out in a very marvellous way: or, on the other hand, they may make the subsequent use of the simpler, apparently indicated drug, operative.

With Bromium, deep forcible inspirations are necessary from time to time. He cannot inspire sufficiently. The glottis may close with a spasm.

Bromium, again, cannot stand dust or draughts. The two “Worse dust” remedies one has been able to discover are Bromium and Lyss.

Asthma is a very interesting condition, which many doctors find difficult to cure; and the chemists must appreciate the income it affords them, its palliation. A second of the halogens, Chlorum (Chlorine) has asthma with a very definite indications, DYSPNOEA; CAN’T EXHALE. Another suggestive symptom is “Great dyspnoea” inspiration through the nose, while expiration was blown from the lips as in apoplexy”. Among its modalities are, “Worse lying. Better from motion and in the open air.”

In the asthma of Iodum, a third of the four halogens, it is the inspirations that are difficult (Bromium); and Iodum is markedly better for cold in every form, and worse for heat. It has also “emaciation with a ravenous appetite.”

The respiratory symptoms of Fluorine, which we use in the form of Fluoric acid, or rather hydrofluoric acid, appears to affect, in a minor degree-in that combination-the organs of respiration, and vents its spleen on scalp, glands, veins, bones and nerves. In regard to its pains, a queer modality was once obtained from a brilliant homoeopathic chemist, “Pain better by shaking the part”. It was an unconscious memory, as he afterwards traced it, from a burn when etching on glass. the pain in question was a sciatica which had resisted all the prescribing of light and learning: only to yield to that “intuition or unconscious memory and a few doses of Fluoric acid.30.

Where bromides are long used, to induce sleep in chronic sleeplessness, or for the suppression of epilepsy, the patient is gradually reduced to what one calls a “pimply idiot”. In Bromism the skin is first involved, with papules like acne. Then comes a lowering of cutaneous sensibility and of the pharynx; with loss of powers, general and sexual. The intellect is dulled: the patient is depressed; easily fatigued and unfit for work. The higher functions of the brain are depressed, before the lower-“in the reverse order of physiological development of the functions- (the Law of Dissolution).”

Apply all this, in potencies, to just such a patient and you will be able to use Bromium curatively.

We are told that “if Bromium is introduced into a cut it becomes unhealthy looking; a green decay forms about it, with an offensive odour.” If you come across such a condition, again use Bromium in potency and cure. It will go straight to the spot.

It has pimples on nose, on tongue, on fingers, on anus: boils on arms, etc. It has “continued yawning with dyspnoea” and vivid dreams, of climbing, journeying, quarrels, fighting.

We will now let others, wiser and more experienced, take up the tale.

GUERNSEY says, Bromine affects particularly the internal head, left side. Important in diphtheria and croup, especially in children with thin, white, delicate skins, very light hair and eyebrows.

Mood cheerful, with desire for mental labour. (Primary action.)

Diphtheria begins in larynx and runs up. He talks of croupy sounds, loose rattling in larynx, but no choking with the cough, as with Hepar.

Affects chiefly eyes, chest and heart. In females it has a curious symptoms, “escape of flatus from vagina”. [We have used this symptom, in prescribing Bromium in the “Gynaec. Dept.”]

KENT gives many pages to Bromium. We will extract, condensing. He says: “It is so seldom indicated that most homoeopaths give it up as a perfectly useless medicine.

They give Bromium for diphtheria, and when it does not work, they give Merc-cy., and when that does not work they give something else ‘for diphtheria’, always for diphtheria. They do not take the symptoms of the case, and prescribe in accordance with the individualizing method. They do not prescribe for the patient, but for the disease. You may not see more than half a dozen cases of diphtheria in the next twenty years, but when you see a Bromium case, you want to know Bromium. An underlying feature, of Bromium is especially for individuals that are made sick from being heated. Also complaints that come on after a very hot day in summer. Getting overheated But after the complaint comes on, no matter where it is, he is so dreadfully sensitive to cold that a draught of cool air freezes him to the bones; but he cannot stand being over-heated.

“Glands become hard, indurated; but seldom suppurate. Remain hard. Inflammation with hardness is the idea. It has cured enlargement and great hardness of the thyroid. Goitre. Bromium with some is a routine goitre remedy, and when that does not work, they try eggshell treatment, and when that does not work they try something else, instead of taking the symptoms of the patient.

“Emaciation-and tendency to infiltration: it is not strange that it has been a curative medicine in tuberculosis and cancer. WEakness: legs weak and prostrated; growing prostration with trembling limbs. Membranous exudate. A natural feature of the mucous membrane is infiltration, so that mucous membrane appears to exudate little greyish-white exudations, and beneath them is induration. That is true in ulcers. An ulcer upon mucous membrane will eat in deeper and deeper and build beneath it all the time a hardened stratum of tissue. ‘Icy coldness of limbs.’ ‘Heat of head.’ Dyspnoea with great sweating. Croupy manifestations.

“Palpitation: with nausea, with nervous excitement. Aversion to work, to reading. No interest in household duties. Indifferent; tired. Sad and discouraged. Ear troubles with parotid enlarged and hard. Swelling and hardness of left parotid. Flushed face. Hot-blooded, easily heated. But this is entirely the opposite of the chronic constitutional Bromium condition. Oldish appearance. Chronic Bromium will have the sickly, grey, ash-coloured face. Or plethoric children have red face, and are easily over-heated. Of course, where dyspnoea has lasted for hours, or many days, the patient becomes cyanotic and pale: gasping, and choking, as in diphtheria, in croup, in laryngeal affections.

“Bromium fits the most malignant type of diphtheria. The membrane grows like a weed; shuts off breathing, closes the larynx. Begins in throat and goes into larynx. Great violence: afterwards great prostration. A great many of the cures by Bromium have been in left-sided diphtheria: yet it has cured both sides. You will seldom see Bromium develop in cold, dry weather: but in hot, damp weather.

“Chronic stomach ulcers. Vomiting with signs of ulceration. Vomiting or diarrhoea are worse after eating. Worse acids; oysters; tobacco smoke. Worse warm things, hot tea, hot drinks. ‘Pains from taking hot foods’. Membranous stools. Black, faecal stool; must go to stool after eating.

“Enlarged veins. Protruding haemorrhoids: smart day and night. ‘Blind, intensely painful haemorrhoids, with black, diarrhoeic stool.’

“Jumps up for want of breath: gasping and suffering for breath. Sneezing, and rattling in larynx. Air passages as if full of smoke, or fumes from sulphur, or tar. Tickling, or sensation of coldness in larynx. As if larynx covered with down, or velvet, but it feels so cold. The air breathed feels cold, as if blown off snow or ice sneezing, hoarseness, irritation in respiratory tract from handling dusty things.”.

BLACK LETTER SYMPTOMS

     (Allen, Hering)She does not feel as she generally does, but can’t tell why.

PAROTIDS, mostly left, affected.

Swelling and hardness of left parotid, warm to touch.

Suppuration of left parotid: discharge watery and excoriating: swelling remains hard and unyielding. (Especially after scarlet fever.)

Long-continued obstinate CORYZA, with soreness beneath nose and on margin of the nose.

Grey, earthy colour of FACE.

Stony hard swelling of GLANDS, especially on lower jaw and throat.

Diphtheria or croup.

Periodically much pain in left hypochondrium and iliac regions.

Pain violent, as if a sore inside.

Black, fecal STOOLS.

VARICES, anus, worse application of cold or warm water.

Loud emissions of flatus from vagina.

Cold sensation in LARYNX, with cold feeling on inspiring.

Chronic hoarseness. Hoarseness: loss of voice: he cannot speak clearly.

Margaret Lucy Tyler
Margaret Lucy Tyler, 1875 – 1943, was an English homeopath who was a student of James Tyler Kent. She qualified in medicine in 1903 at the age of 44 and served on the staff of the London Homeopathic Hospital until her death forty years later. Margaret Tyler became one of the most influential homeopaths of all time. Margaret Tyler wrote - How Not to Practice Homeopathy, Homeopathic Drug Pictures, Repertorising with Sir John Weir, Pointers to some Hayfever remedies, Pointers to Common Remedies.