“This remedy has two kinds of paralysis of the bladder, one affects the muscles of expulsion and the urine is retained: the other, centering on the sphincter, when the urine passes involuntarily.
“It is a deep-acting medicine: cures phthisis, especially’ quick consumption’. Cough with the sensation ‘cannot cough deep enough to start the mucus’: cough relieved by a swallow of cold water. Cough worse by bending forward. Cough continual, with each cough escape of urine.”
One finds it difficult to stop condensing and quoting from Kent!
Then WARTS. Causticum is one of the great remedies for warts (Thuja, Dulcamara, etc.). Glance down the black-letter symptoms- warts-warts-warts. Old warts on eyelids, eyebrows, nose. Warts on face. One remembers experiences here. One year on our farm in Surrey a number of calves took to sprouting warts about their faces, noses, ears, necks. My father used to go down on Saturdays, and he took Causticum in lowish potency to medicate a tumbler of water with which he soaked bran for their delectation. This soon finished the warts: and the same thing, since, with other animals.
One has proved that Causticum and Thuja can both produce warts and cure them. A horse, accidentally proving Thuja in O sprouted warts amazingly about anus and genitalia-the favourite localities of Thuja for these excrescences: while a girl to whom one gave Causticum with more zeal than discretion in those early days, instead of one or two warts on her hand, produced them by the dozen on hands and arms; but when the drug was discontinued, the whole lot disappeared, including the original ones which were brought for cure.
FARRINGTON records a similar experience. He writes:- “Causticum also acts on the skin, one of its most characteristic symptoms being warts, useful when they occur on the hands and face. I remember once giving Causticum to a child who had two warts on the under eyelid. At the end of the third week after taking the remedy, there was a string of warts mover the inner canthus of the other eye: I believe that these resulted from the Causticum Of course I stopped the medicine. At the end of several weeks more, all the warts had disappeared and the child has had none since. This shows you that Causticum really produces and cures warts.”
NASH says: “If Hahnemann had never given to the homoeopathic school any remedy but CAUSTICUM, the world would still be to him under lasting obligation.”.
ODDS AND ENDS, AND CHARACTERISTICS
“Intense sympathy for the sufferings of others.”
“Apprehension of impending danger, with urging to stool.” (Compare Argentumnit., Gelsemium)
“Cicatrices, especially burns” (Urtica urens)” scalds, freshen up, become sore again; old injuries re-open; patients say they have never been well since that burn.”
“Causticum may be called for in colic, after the failure of Colocynth. The pains are griping, cutting, relieved by bending double. All the sufferings cease entirely at night.”
“Menses too early; too feeble; only during the day; cease on lying down.”
“Better in damp, wet weather; warm air.”
“Coffee seems to aggravate every symptom.”
“Must not be used before or after Phosphorus Always disagrees.”
And Hahnemann gives a curious mental symptom-what we have come to call “Spoonerisms”. Confounds letters and syllables, for instance, says “fluent coryza, instead of fluent coryza” for several days-after proving Causticum
“Haemorrhoids-burning, raw, sore; worse walking, thinking of them, from preaching or straining the voice!” Nash says all these symptoms have been verified over and over again.
BLACK LETTER SYMPTOMS
MENTAL. Hysterical weeping after spasms.
The least thing makes the child cry.
Melancholy mood; sadness, hopelessness, from care, grief or sorrow.
Peevish, irritable, censorious.
Mental and other ailments form long-lasting grief and sorrow.
Excessive anxiety. Full of apprehension in the evening.
Very much vexed.
Indisposed to work.
Weakness of memory. Absence of mind.
Inattentive and absent.
Rheumatic pains in HEAD so severe as to cause nausea.
Tinea capitis in occipital region.
Inclination to close EYES; they close involuntarily.
Sensation of heaviness in upper lid, as if he could not raise it easily, or as if agglutinated to lower lid and could not be easily loosened.
Paralysis of eye muscles, especially if from exposure to cold.
Burning in eyes: visible jerking of the lids.
Sight obscured, as if a thick fog were before the eyes.
Incipient cataract
Pressure in eyes as if sand in them.
Dryness: photophobia.
Words and steps re-echo in EARS.
Deafness.
Accumulation of ear-wax, sometimes offensive.
Dry coryza with stoppage of NOSE.
Fluent coryza with pain in chest and limbs.
Itching tip of nose and alae, as well as inside.
Pimples, ulcers, crusts on tip of nose; inflamed, swollen, scurfy.
Old warts on nose.
Violent bleeding of the nose.
Acne rosacea on cheeks and forehead, in dispersed groups.
Paralysis of one side of FACE.
Prosopalgia and rheumatism of face.
Warts on face. Yellowness of face.
Tightness and pain in jaws; difficult to open mouth and to eat.
Arthritic pains in lower jaw.
Pain lower back tooth extending to nose and eye.
Painful looseness and elongation of TEETH.
Stitching and tearing toothache. Throbbing toothache.
Pain in sound teeth on drawing in cold air.
Swelling of gums, readily bleeding and tedious suppuration.
Frequently recurring abscesses of gums.
Sore place in the upper part of the palate.
Stuttering, difficult, indistinct SPEECH.
Speechlessness from paralysis of organs of speech.
Tongue coated white on both sides, red in middle.
Burning pain in THROAT, not from swallowing; on both sides, seemed to rise from chest.
Rawness and tickling in throat with dry cough and some expectoration after long coughing.
Pain in throat, worse by stooping.
Must swallow continually, throat feels too narrow.
Mucus collects in throat, cannot be raised by hawking; is obliged to swallow it.
Hawking of mucus, with pain in pit of throat.
Dryness of throat, constantly obliged to swallow.
Bread causes pressure in STOMACH.
Violent thirst for many days.
A swallow of cold water relieves spasms (whooping-cough).
Sour vomiting followed by sour eructations.
Cramp in stomach.
Pinching, clawing in stomach on deep breathing.
HAEMORRHOIDS sore, painful; unendurable on walking.
Haemorrhoids: impeding stool: sticking, burning, painful if touched: when thinking of them: from preaching or straining voice.
The STOOL passes better standing.
Frequent ineffectual efforts to stool, with anxiety and redness of face.
Pain and strong pulsations in perineum.
Frequent emission of a large quantity of URINE.
He urinates so easily that he is not sensible of the steam: can scarcely believe in the dark that he is urinating till he makes sure with his hand.
Involuntary passage of urine when coughing, sneezing or blowing the nose; at night when asleep.
Retention with frequent and urgent desire, occasionally a few drops or a small quantity may dribble away.
Itching, orifice of urethra.
Pressive pain in testicles.
NIPPLES sore, cracked, surrounded with herpes.
Sudden loss of VOICE.
Hoarseness, especially evening, with scraping in the throat.
Muscles of larynx refuse to perform their function: unable to speak a word in spite of every exertion.
COUGH with sore sensation in a streak down along trachea, where it pains on every paroxysm of cough.
Shortness of breath.
Cough with sensation as if he could not cough deep enough to start mucus, with tickling and rawness.
Hollow, racking cough.
Cough relieved by a swallow of cold water.
Cough better from bending forward.
Continual annoying cough, with each cough escape of urine.
Influenza with tired sensation, limbs as if beaten; rheumatic pain.
CHEST tight; must frequently take a deep breath.
Soreness in chest.
Stitches in sternum from deep breathing or lifting.
Painful compression of chest from both sides towards sternum.
Sensation (chest) as if clothing were too tight.
PULSE excited towards evening with orgasm of blood.
Stiffness and pain in NECK and throat, pain in occiput: muscles felt as if bound, could scarcely move head.
Painful stiffness of BACK and sacrum, especially rising from a chair.
Pressing cramp-like pain in small of back, region of kidneys.
Bruised or darting pain in coccyx; or dull drawing pain.
Dull drawing and tearing in ARMS AND HANDS.
Paralysis of right arm with glossoplegia.
Paralysis of upper extremities.
Paralytic feeling in right hand.
Trembling of hands.
Sensation of fullness in hand, when grasping anything.
Drawing pains in finger joints.
Contraction and induration of tendons of fingers.
Warts on tips of fingers; fleshy warts close to nails.
Soreness between THIGHS high up.
Drawing and tearing in thighs, legs, knees and feet: worse open air, better in warmth of bed.
Bruised pains in thighs and legs, mornings in bed.
Marbled skin of thighs and legs.
Cracking in KNEES, when walking or descending.
Tendons of knees seem too short.
Gonagra (Gout of knee joint.)
Gouty tearing in region of LOWER LEG, especially in small joints of foot, with swelling.
Cramp in feet, toes and soles.
Emaciation of feet.
