Stools hard as a stone and large; as if they would split anus.
Sticking in kidney, and pain as if torn.
Corroding leucorrhoea.
Dyspnoea as if from adhesions or contraction of lungs.
Cough spasmodic : yellow viscid mucus : tastes saltish.
Cough : when eating or drinking anything hot must cough till he vomits : from beer.
Intercostal neuralgia, follows herpes zoster. (Ran. bulb., Ars.).
Limbs feel as if shortened.
Right had cold, left warm; or both cold.
Paralysis of flexors of fingers; finger-ends powerless, cannot hold anything.
Violent pain in tibia as if beaten, or as if periosteum were torn off, after midnight.
Leg, from knee to instep, covered with thick yellow scab, from cracks of which thick, yellow matter oozes on pressure.
Scabs fall of in pieces, leaving skin deep-red, sore, itching violently and exuding a thin, clear, fluid, forming a thin scab under which pus again collects; skin round scab dark-red, tense, hot, itching. At night intolerable itching and burning in eruption. Foul odour. (Herpes crustaceous).
Violent nightly pains in bones of feet.
Feeling of great lightness of body.
Especially indicated in January and February.
Worse from heat and cold.
Head especially worse cold : cranial bones, pains in scalp, etc.
Yet worse heat of bed : of fire : itching of scalp and feet. (Like Puls.), is chilly and drowsy in a warm room.
Hands and feet cold : nails blue. With hot spot on top of head.
Sensations : as if drunk. As if upper part of head were pithy. As if skull would split. As if top of head were gone.
Eyes drawn backward : ears open.
Teeth too long : ants running over chest.
As if skull would split : stools would split anus : kidneys as of torn. Periosteum torn.
Throat narrowing. Chest too tight : limbs too short.
Sticking like needles : Millions of insects crawling on him.
Twitching pains : in hollow teeth; from hip joint to knee; in cheek : in eyelid.
Like fire darting through muscles.
Constriction, throat, stomach, round prolapsed anus.
Bones feel distended.
HUGHES (Pharmacodynamics) tells us that Mezereum was one of the vegetable substances. . . with which it was attempted to replace mercury in the treatment of syphilis. He refers to its influence over nodes and nocturnal pains.
He says, Hahnemanns pathogenesis in the Fragmenta, mentions such pains as caused by it in the cranium, clavicle and thighs, and several of the later provers report the same experience : in homoeopathic practice we use it with much confidence in these affections, and in simple or rheumatic periostitis. “Whether it acts on the bones themselves, I hesitate to say.” But he says there is on re cord a case in which it seemed to check the necrosis of jaw produced by phosphorus.
The Homoeopathic method, he says, has added another valuable application of Mezereum-to cutaneous affections. The plant is a violent acrid, and irritates the skin when externally applied, and the throat, stomach and intestines when swallowed. He tells of intolerable itching over the whole body caused by the internal use of the drug; and of the reputation of Mez. as “about the best medicine for shingles; and not only for the eruption, but also for the consecutive neuralgia.”
He also quotes Dunham : “These symptoms suggest at once the applicability of Mezereum to crusta lactea, to various forms of pure impetigo; and to some of those mercurial or mercurio-syphilitic ulcers on the lower extremities which are often so difficult to cure. I have frequently had occasion to witness the prompt curative action of Mezereum in these affections, in which I have generally used the 200th potency. This has proved efficacious in cases in which the lower dilutions have been inert.
The characteristics of the Mezereum skin diseases are well defined in the above symptoms, viz. itching occurring in the evening in bed., aggravated and turned to burning by touch or by scratching; sensitiveness to touch; ulcers with an areola, sensitive and easily bleeding, painful at night; the pus tends to form an adherent scab, under which a quantity of pus collects.” Hughes also quotes Pareira, “The urinary organs are sometimes affected by it, an irritation similar to that of Cantharides being set up”.
NASH gives, pain in long bones, especially tibia. (Dros. and Lach., Asaf., etc. ED.).
Facial neuralgia or toothache, when pains are greatly worse by eating or motions of jaw : better by radiate heat.
Nose : vesicular eruption, with excoriations, formation of thick scabs, worse at night : Zona.
He says, “I once cured a very obstinate case of facial neuralgia with it : worse by eating : only relief was to hold face as near as he could to a hot stove : no other heat applied wet or dry, relieved. (This is interesting,because Mez. is, in “skins” anyway, markedly worse from heat of fire. ED).
GUERNSEY, Keynotes, says :-Often useful in cases of very violent neuralgic pains about teeth or face, especially if pain be in left bone, running towards the ear. Also neuralgic pains at night in teeth : teeth left side. Shin bone.
Mouth waters.
Urine with red flakes which float on top of urine.
Subsultus tendinum. When fingers are put on wrist or on other parts of body, the tendons are felt to jump and jerk.
Burning : darting in muscles, like fire darting through them.
Let us seek final enlightenment and emphasis from KENT, that graphic painter of symptomatology.
Eruptive complaints : eruptions and ulcerations.
The outer surfaces of the body are in a constant state of irritation : nervous feelings, biting, tingling, itching, changing from place to place on scratching. The part becomes cold after scratching.
As soon as he gets warm in bed,or into a warm room, itching begins.
Kent, of course, gives the thick, tough, leathery crusts ; with fluctuation beneath the crusts, where pressure causes the oozing of thick white pus . . . vermin often found among the crusts. Acrid pus, eats away the hair . . . Cases with a history of suppressed eczema or syphilis. Eruptions, red cicatrices about face and eyes : fissures in corners of eyes.
Ear trouble from suppressed eruptions. . . . atrophic catarrh : degeneration of mucous membranes, ear, nose, throat. Has all the catarrhal states, the ulcerations and patches of copper-coloured eruptions found in syphilis.
It tends to manifest the sufferings of the body in the skin ; it throws the physical evils to the surface. The Mezereum patient is in fairly good health when the eruptions are out. When suppressed, catarrhal affections, nervous disorders, strange mental symptoms, constipation, rheumatism, joint-symptoms appear ; he becomes a mental wreck.
Religious or financial melancholy : melancholy in regard to his business : indifference to everybody and everything. . . . Insanity with melancholy, sadness, and a history of eruptions that have called for Mezereum. . . .
Sensation of goneness, fear, apprehension, faintness in stomach, as if something would happen. Every shock, pain, bad news, when the door bell rings, when he expects the postman, or a friend, or when introduced to someone,he experiences a thrill beginning in stomach : he is frightened in the stomach”. (Calc., Kali carb., Phos., and Mez.) Kent says also, “These solar plexus individuals have often a deep cracked tongue .
Dr. Dunham graduated from Columbia University with Honours in 1847. In 1850 he received M.D. degree at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York. While in Dublin, he received a dissecting wound that nearly killed him, but with the aid of homoeopathy he cured himself with Lachesis. He visited various homoeopathic hospitals in Europe and then went to Munster where he stayed with Dr. Boenninghausen and studied the methods of that great master. His works include 'Lectures on Materia Medica' and 'Homoeopathy - Science of Therapeutics'.
