Takes cold easily and has a cough.
Bruised feeling over the whole body after coition.
The whole side of the body on which he is lying is painful, as if ulcerating, with constant chilliness on the slightest uncovering; with intolerable thirst, and frequent flushes of heat in the head.
The whole body is painful as if beaten.
Most of the symptoms of Silica occur at the new moon.
Pain aggravated by motion.
Small wounds in the SKIN heal with difficulty and easily suppurate.
Variola-like pustules on forehead, occiput, sternum and spine: they are extremely painful, and at last form suppurating ulcers.
Several boils come out on different parts of the body: with stinging pain when touched.
A boil on the nape of the neck.
Some boils on the posterior portions of the thighs.
Frequent ulcers about the nails.
A large corrosive ulcer, with violent itching, on the heel.
Sore, painful scabs below the septum of the nose, with sticking pain when touched.
Itching suppurating scabs upon the toes.
Pressive-stinging pain in the ulcerating part of the leg.
Sticking in an ulcer on the leg.
Restless sleep.
Frightful dreams.
Dreams of his youth.
Very CHILLY all day.
Chilliness on every movement.
Chilliness in the evening.
Distressing sensation of chilliness in the afternoon– in a warm room. He feels very chilly even in a warm room.
Cramp-like chill in the evening in bed, so that he shivered.
Icy-cold shivering frequently creeps over the whole body.
Coldness of the legs, as far as the knees, in a warm room.
Icy-cold feet in the evening, even in bed.
Icy-cold feet during the menses.
Cold feet in the evening in bed, preventing sleep.
FEVER with violent heat in the head.
Febrile heat all night, with violent thirst and catching respiration.
Heat of the head.
General sweat at night.
Profuse PERSPIRATION every night, towards morning.
Profuse general nightsweat.
Profuse perspiration every night, with loss of appetite and prostration, as if he would go into a decline.
Perspiration of a strong odour.
Sweat on the head.
Sweat only on the head, running down the face.
Offensive perspiration on the soles and between the toes; they become quite sore while walking.
Offensive perspiration on the feet.
We will now let NASH speak in general to Silica.
Weak, puny children, not from want of nourishment taken, but from defective assimilation. Sweaty-headed children, over- sensitive, imperfectly nourished. The Silica child is not larger than natural except in its “big belly”, which is due to diseased mesentery. Its limbs are shrunken and its face pinched and old- looking. It does not increase in size or strength, learns to walk late: everything seems to have come to a standstill so far as growth and development are concerned strains and strains, the stool partly protruding and then slipping back (Sanicula, Thuja). Or bowels very loose in spite of abundant nourishment, goes on emaciating and growing weaker until it dies of inanition, unless Silica checks this process. Many such cases have I saved with this remedy, and made them healthy children. (I have always used the 30th and upwards.)
Inflammations tending to end in suppuration or refusing to heal : becoming chronic.
Coldness, lack of vital warmth, even when taking exercise; must be wrapped up, especially the head.
Suppressed sweat, especially of feet, which is profuse and offensive.
Weak, nervous, easily irritated; yielding, giving up disposition, “grit all gone”.
Worse from cold or draught, motion, open air, at new moon: better in warm room, wrapping up head.
Disease caused from suppressed foot-sweat; exposure head or back to any slight draught of air : from vaccination (Thuja), dust complaints of stone-cutters, with total loss of strength.
Unhealthy skin: every little injury suppurates.
Ulcers, a curious symptom: Mercury has “shivering in abscesses”, Silica has “a sensation of coldness in ulcers”.
Promotes expulsion of foreign bodies from the tissues : fish- bones, needles, bone splinters.
And among NASH’S TIPS we find :
“In the marasmus of children we may have to choose from among remedies such as Silica, Abrotanum, Natrum mur., Sulphur, Calcarea and Iodine.
“Under all these remedies we may find emaciation of the rest of the body, while the abdomen is greatly enlarged.
“Again, under every one of them the child may have a voracious appetite, eat enough, but grow poor all the time. It is a defective assimilation.”
“There are strong points of resemblance between Baryta carb. and Silica, namely: Offensive sweat on the feet. The head is disproportionally large for the body. Both suffer from damp changes in the weather and both are sensitive to cold about the head.
“But Silica has the important diagnostic difference–profuse swear on the head (equal to that of Calcarea), which Baryta has not. And there is not that weakness of mind in Silica that is found in Baryta: on the contrary the child is self-willed and contrary.”
GUERNSEY says :-
“Feet perspire very much and smell very offensively; feet become sore and blistered between the toes. Head perspires very much in the evening on going to sleep. This looks like Calcarea but in Silica the perspiration extends lower down the neck and is apt to have an offensive smell.
“Worse from getting the feet wet :- when single parts are cold : – from uncovering the head.”
HUGHES, writing of rickets, says, “I am accustomed to prescribe it (Silica) in the earliest manifestations of the diathesis, which are generally unhealthy evacuations, sweats of the head, and tenderness of the surface; with the best results. He gives the classical uses of Silica :- its power over suppurations, once established or long-enduring: for external or internal ulcers. Of its effect on brain and cord, “affecting the centres of nutrition”: in children not able to stand or walk. Of its importance in the treatment of lachrymal fistula-house-maid’s knee-suppressed foot-sweat, and ailments therefrom. To abate the pains of cancer, etc. etc.
And Hughes quotes Dunham, re the Silica mentality: “Silica cannot possibly do a thing!’ but when urged to the doing, goes off in a paroxysm of overdoing.”
Clarke says :-
“A curious symptom, and one of great value, is this: ‘Fixed ideas: the patient thinks only of pins, fears them, searches for them, and counts them carefully.’ This symptom helped me to make a rapid cure of post-influenzal insanity in the case of a man of bad family history, one of whose sisters had become insane and drowned herself, another sister being affected with lupus. The patient’s wife told me one morning that he had been looking everywhere for pins. Sil 30 rapidly put an end to the search for pins and restored the patient to his senses.
“Silica has another link with insanity in its aggravation at the moon’s phases; epilepsy and sleep-walking are worse at the new and full moon.”
Silica is one of the great medicines to be thought of in epilepsy — and in petit mal–in the Silica patient. One has lately had news of a girl–a pale and feeble young epileptic of many years ago–who used to come to Hospital, and improved so much with Silica that (as one hears now) she “has never had another fit.” It is “curses and chickens”– and bad prescriptions–“that come home to roost”!– often one hears of one’s very best work only accidentally, years afterwards,–or never.
And now a few more gleanings from Kent.
“The action of Silica is slow. In the proving it takes a long time to develop the symptoms. It is suited, therefore, to complaints that develop slowly. The long-acting, deep-acting remedies are capable of going so thoroughly into the vital disorders that hereditary disturbances are routed out. “The mental state is peculiar. The patient lacks stamina. What Silica is to the stalk of grain in the field, it is to the human mind (Farrar’s shining siliceous sheath.’). When the mind needs Silica it is in a state of weakness, embarrassment, dread, a state of yielding. A prominent clergyman or lawyer will tell you that he had come to a state where he dreads to appear in public, he feels his own self-hood, so that he cannot enter into his subject, his mind will not work but he will say that when he rouses and forces himself into harness he can go on with ease, his usual self-command returns to him and he does well-with promptness, fullness and accuracy. The peculiar Silica state is found in the dread of failure.
“It is the natural complement and chronic of Pulsatilla because of its great similarity; it is Pulsatilla only more so, a deeper, more profound remedy.
“A lawyer says,’I have never been myself since that John Doe case.’ He went through a prolonged effort and sleepless nights followed. Silica restores the brain to its tone.
“It produces inflammation about any fibrinous nidus and suppurates it out; acts on constitutions that are sluggish, and inflames fibrous deposits about bullets, etc. It will throw out abscesses in old cicatrices and open them out.* Cyclopedia of Drug Pathogenesy, one reads, among the re-provings of Silica: Girl of 17. Has several enlarged cervical glands, one of which has suppurated and discharged some years previously. After taking two doses of the 21st. dilution, the gland recommenced to discharge yellow matter. This continued while trying other dilutions, viz. the 12th,4th and 1st. While taking the 4th she got a cough with scraping in throat and mucous expectoration. The cough lasted about a fortnight, the discharge for over a month. (He warns against the use of Silica therefore where the whole lung is tubercular since Silica establishes an inflammation about tubercles– as other foreign bodies, and throws them out; and in such cases it may lead to a general septic pneumonia.)
