Oh, there is one other point I should have mentioned about the Baryta carb. kid, and that is they have a marked tendency to salivation. If you have seen many of these mentally defective kids you know it is quite a common characteristic of the mentally defective children; you see them dribbling. And it is equally marked in Borax, but in the majority of Borax children you are getting a definite stomatitis, and associated with the salivation you get white spots on the tongue, pearly spots round the margins of the tongue, spots on the lips and on the inside of the cheeks.
Then the next thing is that you do get a very similar history in regard to night terrors under the Borax child, but you can practically always get an exciting cause in the case in the case of the Borax child; the child has been doing too much during the day, or the child has been over excited in the evening, and then they are almost sure to have a marked night terror.
Then the next thing about the Borax child is that there isnt the same degree of inability to learn. But you will very often get the statement from the school, or from the parents, that the child is simply purely idle; if they would give their hearts to it they could learn, but they are just idle. They never settle to anything, and even at play they wont stick at anything they get bored and change from one thing to another.
And the next thing that rather distinguishes them from the Baryta carb. is that they are much more irritable, and their irritability does not end up in weeping as it very often does in the Baryta carb. but it ends up in a violent passion-the child very often kicks and screams.
The next thing about the Borax child which distinguishes it from the Baryta carb. child is that where the Baryta carb. child tends to get a generalized skin eruption, or a very definite crusty eruption on the scalp, you are much more likely to get herpetic eruptions in the Borax child-very often herpetic spots about the lips, or a generalized rash of small herpetic spots on the body.
Then again you are more liable to get acute digestive upsets than in Baryta carb. Baryta carb. is the typical chronic constipation, the hard stool; Borax is very liable to get sudden attacks of diarrhoea and vomiting. There is another characteristic of Borax which is peculiar to it as distinguishing it from Baryta carb., and that is that Borax has a peculiar sensitiveness to fruit and is liable to develop violent colic after fruit- colic followed by diarrhoea.
Then, associated with the tendency to inflammation of the mucous membranes, acute stomatitis and that sort of thing, it is a very common history in the Borax kids to find either enuresis or pain on micturition; I think pain on micturition is much more common, and very often it is without any definite urinary infection.
The other thing that distinguishes the Borax child from the Baryta carb,. when it is a little older is that the Baryta carb. child gets depressing frontal headache from over study; the Borax kid tends to become sick, it tends to get definite nausea from intense concentration.
Then, there is the final clinching point in connection with the Borax child, and that is the notorious Borax aggravation from downward motion. Baryta carb. kids often get train sick or car sick; Borax kids will get train sick and car sick too, but Borax children have a peculiar terror of downward motion, and it is that terror much more than the actual feeling of discomfort which is the characteristic thing of the Borax children.
You get it occurring in all sorts of circumstances; the typical thing is the child who yells every time it is laid down in bed provided the nurse does not lower it very gently; but you get it equally marked in older children who simply scream on going down in a lift in a shop. But it is the peculiar terror, rather than the physical discomfort, which distinguishes Borax from any other drug we have got.
Then the other thing is, it like Baryta carb. in being sensitive to cold, but it has much more sensitiveness to damp than Baryta carb.
By the way, there is one useful practical tip that comes in in connection with Borax, and that is in connection with air sickness. You know we have various drugs for train sickness and sea sickness and that sort of thing; Borax acts in the majority of cases of air sickness, because it is the sudden dip which upsets most people, and particularly their terror of falling, and I have had a number of cases in which I have completely stooped air sickness by three or four doses of Borax before they started flying. It is quite a useful tip sometimes.
Then, of course, Borax is one of the Sodium salts, and immediately you strike any of the Sodium salts you begin to think of the possibility of the others, and, of course, much the most commonly indicated of the Sodium salts is NATRUM MUR. So one always considers the possibility of a childs being Natrum mur. Well, in children, in the majority of cases.
Natrum mur. again is a rather undersized, underweight child. You very often find them coming in and at first sight they are a little difficult to distinguish from the Baryta carb. kid with its shyness, because the Natrum mur. child, until you get to know it, has a very definite dislike of being handled; it has a very definite dislike of being interfered with and it is very liable to burst into tears, which is not unlike the shy terrified reaction you get from a Baryta carb. kid. But if you begin to pursue the matter a bit further, you find the reaction is quite different, it isnt shyness in the Natrum mur., it is much more a resentment at being interfered with.
You find the Natrum mur. child cries, but cries much more from rage than from terror. You can very often stop the Natrum mur. childs crying if you are sufficiently firm; try and soothe it down and it gets worse. i have seen a mother try and soothe a Natrum mur. child till it was nearly in convulsions with screaming, whereas as soon as you leave it alone it will settle down and sit in a corner and watch you. The Baryta carb. will sit in a corner and play with anything within reach-you have got an entirely different mentality.
Another thing that you meet, distinguishing the Natrum mur. from the Baryta carb. is that they both tend to be awkward in their movements. The Baryta carb. child is awkward because of incoordination, it is clumsy. The Natrum mur. child knocks things over because it is in too big a hurry.
Then you will get a history of delayed development in the Natrum mur. child, particularly that the Natrum mur. child was slow of learning to speak; it may have been slow of starting to walk, though that is not nearly so constant. You very often find that the Natrum mur. childs speech is faulty, but it is much more a difficulty in articulation in the Natrum mur. child than a lack of mentality as it is in the Baryta carb. child.
Then the next characteristic about the Natrum mur. child is that it is probably small, underweight, but in opposition to the Baryta carb. where you get a lot of enlarged cervical glands, the typical Natrum mur. child may have very small shotty enlarged cervical glands in a thin neck. The Baryta carb. have a chain of quite large glands running down both sides of the anterior borders of the sterno mastoid; the Natrum mur. children have small shotty glands at the back of the neck, and the neck itself is rather skinny.
The next thing is that the Natrum mur. kid does not tend to run to the same degree of crusty skin eruptions as the Baryta carb. kid. In the Natrum mur. you are much more likely to get an eruption restricted to the margin of the hair, rather than spreading over the whole scalp.
Then the next thing about them is that there isnt the same tendency to salivation in the Natrum mur. child, and, instead of the small patches that you get in a Borax mouth, in Natrum mur. you are much more likely to get a sensitive tongue which is red in places and white in places, but not with the little white vesicles which you get in Borax but much more the irregular mapping which you associate with Nat. mur. either in children or in adults.
Then as the Natrum mur. kids get older, they are very liable to develop school headaches-that is to say, under pressure, working too hard, attempting to concentrate too much, they get headaches. The headaches are almost identical with the Baryta carb. headaches; they are frontal headaches, with exactly the same feeling or pressure down over the eyes, and they are brought on by intense effort-mental effort particularly.
Then the temperature reactions in Natrum mur. are definitely different from the temperature reactions in Baryta carb. In Natrum mur. you very often have a chilly child, sensitive to draughts, who will shiver from a change of temperature, and very often start sneezing from a change of temperature; but they are very sensitive to heat-stuffiness particularly-and they are sensitive to exposure to the sun and are very liable to develop a sun headache.
And, of course, when you get it, and you very often do,you find that the majority of these Natrum mur. children have a definite salt craving. When I first started Homoeopathy I didnt believe that one would ever come across the excessive desire for salt that is recorded in the Materia Medica, in children. But you will find in a very short time that you meet case after case in which there is a very definite salt craving in these kids-they will steal salt as other children would steal sugar.
