PHOSPHORIC ACID


Phosphoric acid is a drug of rather narrow, yet very definite and great utility. Look at the types that need its help. The weedy, over-grown, over-wrought school children, with growing pains that may spell heart-destruction. The tired and apathetic from unequal struggling with adverse circumstances, mental and physical. The “neurasthenics” that plague us; those, at least, who are worn out, indifferent, apathetic and emaciated.


DRUG PICTURE : 79.

ANOTHER of Hahnemanns legacies in Materia Medica Pura. He gives directions for its preparation and for its potentization up to the “trillion-fold dilution”. Of Phos. acid he writes,.

“The following remarkable, pure, artificial morbid symptoms produced by Phosphoric acid on the healthy body indicate of themselves the natural morbid states in which it is specially curative by reason of its homoeopathic similarity”.

Some drugs exhilarate, others depress: but among the depressants there may be an active depressant condition, Aurum being an extreme instance, where the depression is so great as to drive the victim towards suicide. Not so with Phosphoric acid. Here the depression takes the form of extreme indifference. “Listless, apathetic; remarkable indifference to everything in life: especially if there be emaciation and debility,:.

It is “the remedy of ailments from care, grief, sorrow, chagrin, homesickness, disappointed love: particularly when accompanied by night-sweats towards morning, and emaciation”. Bodily, as well as mental functions share in its depression and debility.

And then Hahnemanns joyful experience, in return for his well- placed dose, “He became very cheerful and well disposed”; the curative effect of a dry that has caused and can therefore cure. It is these things that make life worth living!.

Phosphoric acid is a drug of rather narrow, yet very definite and great utility. Look at the types that need its help. The weedy, over-grown, over-wrought school children, with growing pains that may spell heart-destruction. The tired and apathetic from unequal struggling with adverse circumstances, mental and physical. The “neurasthenics” that plague us; those, at least, who are worn out, indifferent, apathetic and emaciated. Those for whom life-civilization-has been too strenuous: and its burdens and disappointments have prone the breaking strain.

“Deterioration of health from nursing.” Here one considers China: which is also apathetic, indifferent, taciturn, but from loss of vital fluids, – haemorrhages, excessive lactation, suppurations. One has probably often prescribed China, when Phos. ac. would have been the better prescription, with it breaking down from, especially, nerve strain. Mental enfeeblement, as KENT has it: mind tired: perfectly exhausted.

Consider further :- “Ailments from care, grief” : here one thinks of Ignatia. But Ign. is the remedy of the sensitive, the easily excited:with incredibly rapid changes of mood; very unlike the apathy and indifference of Phos. ac.

“Ailments from chagrin.” One thinks at once of Staphisagria, also apathetic, indifferent, low spirited, but its ailments from pride, envy or chagrin. KENT tells us that when Staph. has to control himself, he goes all to pieces, trembles from head to foot, loses his voice, his ability to work, etc. Staph. is far more intense and energetic in suffering than Phos. ac.

“Ailments from disappointed love”: one is tempted to prescribe Natrum mur. or Hyos. or Ignatia. But Hyos. has marked jealousy, and is far more intense mentally: quite a different drug picture, and Nat. mur with, possibly, the emaciation of Phos. ac., is passionate, intense: weeps, hates sympathy: has none of the dull apathy that cries aloud for Phos. ac.

KENT contrasts Phos. ac. and Muriatic ac. In Phos. ac. he says, the mental symptoms are the first to develop: the remedy runs from the mental to the physical, from the brain to the muscles: the muscles may remain strong after the mind has given out. In Mur. ac. the muscular prostration comes first, and the mind seems clear until long after the muscles are prostrated.

KENT says,. the Phos. ac. patient pines and emaciates, grows weaker and weaker, withered in the face; night sweats; cold sweats down the back; cold sweats on arms and hands more than on feet: cold extremities: feeble heart and circulation; catches cold easily and it settles on the chest and so on to tuberculosis. Pallor with increasing weakness and emaciation.

Most writers on Phos. ac. give prominence to the curious fact, that with all its prostration, its diarrhoea, acute or chronic, does not cause prostration, and they point to Calcarea, which “feels better, every way, when constipated.”

In Phos. ac. there may be “amelioration of complaints by their ending in a diarrhoea.” Kent talks, under Phos. ac. of the child with copious, watery stools in summer: so copious that the napkin seems no use: the stool runs all over the mothers dress and forms a great puddles on the floor: the stool is almost odourless, thin and watery, and the little one smiles as if nothing were the matter. The mother wonders where it all came from, yet the child seems well.” “The Phos ac. diarrhoea often ameliorates many of the symptoms, and the patient feels better. Some patients say they are never comfortable unless they have diarrhoea”.

N.B. – Phos. acid has pinching and squeezing pains.

GUERNSEYS great indication for Phos. ac. is a condition of complete indifferent to everything: not a soporous, delirious or irritable condition, but simply an indifferent state of mind to all things. He does not want anything, nor to speak: shows no interest in the outside world. In fevers, difficulty of comprehension: will think about a question, perhaps answer it, then forget all about it. He calls it “dizziness of the mind”.

Besides ailments from mental affections, he gives :- “after suppression of cutaneous eruptions: i.e. any bad effect that comes from such suppressions; from loss of fluids, especially seminal.

NASHS Leaders:- Drowsy apathetic: unconscious of all surroundings, but can be roused to full consciousness.

Chronic effects of grief: hair turns gray: hopeless, haggard look.

Grows too fast and too tall: young persons with growing pains in bones and so on.).

Phos. ac. is one of the drugs that are better after a short sleep. (Camph., Phos., Sepia, etc.).

Salty expectoration. (Again, Phos. and Ars., Sepia, Lyc. Puls., etc.).

Stupefied with grief: a settled despair.

In regard to growth: “with Calc. carb., they grow too fat, with Phos. ac. too fast and tall”.

In regard to hard study, Nash says, “While it is true that youth is a time to get education, it is also true that it is the time when too great a strain in that direction may wreck and for ever incapacitate a mind which might, with more time and care, have been a blessing to the world. Phos. ac. properly exhibited, may be of incalculable benefit in such cases”.

He say, also, “it seems very singular that, after so much talk about the general depression or weakness of this remedy we should be obliged to record that profuse and sometimes long-continued diarrhoea should not debilitate, as a characteristic symptom. Well there are a good many unaccountable things in both disease and therapeutics, and this is one of them, but the fact remains and we act upon it.

The profound weakness and depression of Phos. ac. is upon the sensorium and nervous system. He points out that China debilitates by its diarrhoea or loss of fluids: Phos. ac. attacks the nervous system primarily and it effects or results are not so much the loss of vital fluids, as in China.

In regard to the profuse watery urine of Ign. and Phos. ac. he points out that in the first case it is hysterical, the latter not at all so.

Quiet. Indifferent.

Loss of ideas, and weakness of mind.

He cannot collect his thoughts in proper manner.

He speaks unwillingly; talking is irksome.

Speaks little and answers questions unwillingly.

Listless, apathetic: remarkable indifference to everything in life, especially if there be emaciation and debility.

Ailments form care, grief, chagrin, homesickness, or disappointed love: particularly with drowsiness, night sweats towards morning; emaciation.

He looks very ill humoured and sullen.

Sad humour, on account of concern for the future.

He became very cheerful and well disposed : (secondary, curative reaction).

Schoolgirls headaches, from over-use of eyes.

Occipital headaches and pain nape of neck from exhausted nerve power or excessive grief.

Confusion of whole head. Headache like stupidity; buzzing in head.

Constant headache.

On the slightest shock or noise, the pains in the head become extremely violent.

Hard pressure on left side forehead.

Squeezing pressure right temple, more violent on moving.

Squeezing pressure in both parietal bones; worse on moving.

Pain as if temples were pressed towards one another, as if violently pinched by forceps.

Drawing pressure in right parietal and occipital bones, more violent when moving.

Tearing and squeezing pain in brain, here and there.

Tearing pressure in occiput, worse noise and slightest movement.

Violent shooting pain, right temporal, extending into right eye.

Burning, sore pain on the side of nape.

Vertigo towards evening, when standing and walking.

Vertigo in the morning, making him fall when standing.

Transient burning left eye, as if something pungent had been smelt.

Pain as if eyeballs were forcibly pressed together and into head.

Itching in the point of nose: must scratch.

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.