You very often get a history of the Antimony crud. kid having night terrors, cross and irritable, and the more the mother attempts to nurse it the worse it becomes, walking it up and down like a Chamomilla kid drives it nearly distracted.
Then, as a contrast to that, there is the other side of the kid. They are very impressionable children, sensitive, they are easily upset emotionally, very liable to burst into tears from any emotional stress if their feelings are touched at all, and under stress they become pale and very liable to faint.
Then the next thing is that with these Antimony crud. kids in their skin eruptions they tend to get very large, crusty, smelly eruptions – the typical crusty impetigo that you see on a childs face. I think I have seen more cases of impetigo in children clear on Antimony crud. Than on any other drug in the Materia Medica. And in adults I should think nine out of ten cases of acute impetigo do clear on Antimony crud.
There is another point about them, and that is that all their skin eruptions, no matter what they are, are made very much worse from water, application of water in any form, and they become very inflamed and painful from exposure to radiant heat, sitting in front of a fire will simply blow them up.
Then the next thing in the Antimony crud. kids is that they are very clumsy, and they get very jerky in their movements and you may get an actual chorea.
Practically all these children suffer from warts on their fingers, you may get one or two small ones, or you may get masses of warts; they are usually flat; they are not usually very painful. Associated with their watery condition, most of these Antimony crud. children tend to have rather deformed nails – thickened and unhealthy looking.
Then there are two other points about the Antimony crud. kids which you always get, and one of them is that you are very liable to get digestive upsets from any acids, sour fruits, sour drinks. And the other point about them is that you always in the Antimony crud. children get a soft, flabby, coated tongue – it is a white coating as a rule. It is much like a Mercury tongue with a white coating.
I think that pretty well covers the outstanding points of the Antimonium crud. and you will see it is not unlike the Petroleum, at least as far as the skin conditions are concerned.
But in the majority of cases where you have got indications for Petroleum you will get a thin child rather than a fat one. And associated with this loss of weight in the typical Petroleum case you have got a good appetite, very often a plus appetite, and very often there is a history of the childs being hungry between meals.
Then the next thing about the Petroleum children is that they are just about as irritable as the Antimony crud. kids, but it is from a quite a different cause; they are much more quarrelsome, and they easily take offence. You will very often get a history from the parents that the child is quite bright mentally, and yet is lazy at school, it doesnt want to work, and is inattentive and forgetful.
They are practically always sensitive to noise and quite scared from any sudden noise, loud noise, which they dont understand. They are very liable to be nervous of crowds – crowds of people. Then they are just as sensitive to cold as the Antimony crud. kids or the Psorinum kids.
Then, in appearance you practically always find some signs of skin eruption in the Petroleum children, and much the commonest is an eruption at the back of the ears, deep cracks which are oozing a yellowish, watery fluid. And very often these cracks tend to split and bleed.
But you will get the same sort of cracks any place in the Petroleum child, particularly in any fold, you get similar cracks at the corners of the mouth, you get cracks at the angle of the nose, and very commonly you get similar cracks round about the anus, in the groins, or in the axillae; and the fluid that oozes out of them tends to crust up and they get thick crusts which are always very sensitive.
Then practically all the skin eruptions in Petroleum itch. They are very liable to be more irritable, I think, during the day than the night, which is sometimes a help because it is occasionally a little difficult to distinguish them from Sulphur.
Then the next thing about the Petroleum children is that they are very liable to catch cold, and with their colds they get an acute nasal obstruction, with an excoriating discharge, tendency for the nose to get crusty, sensitive, bleeding, and very often crusts on the upper lip and round about the sides of the nose.
And with these nasal discharges you almost always get some deafness, very often with acute pain in ear, and a sensation as if the eustachian tube was blocked up. They do quite frequently have an otitis, with the same kind of watery, yellow discharge, and very marked redness of the external ear, an acute eczematous condition, again with the irritation and the tendency to bleed.
Then another thing that you can link up with their itching is that they get very definitely itchy eyes, and very often you get a blepharitis, reddened margins, but they particularly tend to get cracks at the inner canthus, and they are quite liable to get an infection spreading down the lachrymal duct – you may even get an abscess in the lachrymal sac. You can very often squeeze pus out of the lachrymal duct and you get excoriation running down the side of the nose, raw and bleeding. With that, of course, you may get an acute conjunctivitis.
Then, with the amount of infective processes you have got going on in the throat and nose it is very common in these Petroleum children to get an enlargement of the submaxillary glands.
Then another thing that you very commonly get in the Petroleum children is a history of some bladder irritation; it is very often an enuresis, but it is much more commonly an acute irritation, it may be an acute cystitis, and again you get the same description of the sensation of rawness and smarting.
Another very common feature in the Petroleum kids is that after any exposure to cold they are liable to develop acute abdominal colic and diarrhoea. And with their diarrhoea they always get a degree of inflammation about the anus and perineum, with again he burning, red, raw eruption.
Then, another point about the Petroleum kids is, that in cold weather the skin of their hands tends to crack, particularly on the finger tips, and these cracks are very sensitive, very painful to touch, and they get quite deep fissures, which again split open and bleed easily.
Then, of course, all these Petroleum kids have the typical Petroleum aggravation from motion, that is to say, they get train-sick and sea-sick; and there is one other point which is sometimes very helpful and that is that you quite frequently get a history from the parents or the school that with that rather poor mentality if the child is pressed it is very liable to develop a severe occipital headache. That occipital headache is rather rare from mental effort, and it is a little difficult to cover, and Petroleum sometimes helps you out.
By the way, incidentally if you ever get a case of sea-sickness and you are in doubt between Petroleum and Tabacum, which is the other common drug for sea-sickness, you almost always get that occipital headache as well as the sea-sickness in Petroleum and the Tabacum people have not got it at all. So if you get sea- sickness with occipital headache give Petroleum every time. You quite frequently get patients coming in for prophylactic treatment against sea-sickness and it is very difficult to spot if they are going to be Tabacum or Petroleum, and if you remember the occipital headaches of Petroleum kids it puts you on to the Petroleum sea-sickness at once.
Well, of course, there are various other drugs which come in the skins in children but I think these are much the commonest. Of course you immediately think of the possibility of Sulphur because Sulphur is almost automatic in skins, but I think it is better to take the question up with Sulphur in general under the next group.
CHILDRENS TYPES.
NO.4.
THE way I usually group the next crowd are the warm-blooded drugs, that is to say, starting off with Pulsatilla which is the most commonly indicated warm blood drug in children, and following on from that.
Well, it really seems like a waste of effort to attempt to describe a Pulsatilla child to you because you all know them as well as I do. They are very typical. I think they run into two types, you either get the very small, fine Pulsatilla type, with a fine skin, fine hair, an unstable circulation, liable to flush up from any emotion, very often going pale after it, definitely shy, sensitive, always affectionate, very easy to handle, and always definitely responsive.
Or you get the other Pulsatilla type, which is much fatter, with definitely more colour, usually rather darker hair, a little more sluggish in reaction, a little more tendency to weep rather than to bright and gay as the smaller fine Pulsatilla is, rather craving for attention without so much response to it, always asking for a little more. And if you get one picture clear you are apt to forget the other one.
