Argentum Nitricum



All of the eye symptoms are worse in a warm room, worse from sitting by the fire. Wants cold applications, cold washing. Intense photophobia; aversion to light, and this is worse in a warm room; wants it cold, wants it dark.

There is much swelling and tumefaction of the blood vessels of the eye, and redness, and it has a raw denuded excoriated appearance.

“Chemosis with strangulated vessels.”

“Cornea opaque.”

“Ulceration of cornea in new-born infants; profuse purulent discharge from the lids,”

and this is what the “Regulars” in former days and almost tip to date have been using for the eyes, treating them with Argentum nitricum.

Photophobia: after long looking at fine sewing, fine print. In one who has suddenly taken on far sightedness, it has come on as a congestive condition; not of old age but something that should be cured.

All at once he cannot see print at the usual distance but must hold it away off; if it occurs in some one twenty-five years of age or in a child.

At close distance it is indistinguishable. Such a disturbance of accommodation producing far sightedness it has caused and cured.

“Oedema of lids,” etc.

Oedema is a word which runs through the remedy. That is to say, it has a dropsical state wherever dropsy may occur.

Face: The face is the next place we find particulars worthy of note.

“Face: Sweat stood in drops on his face.”

“Face sunken, pale, bluish.”

“Looks prematurely old.”

“Face blue, heavy breathing, pulseless.”

Throat: Then come the throat symptoms. Another feature of this remedy is its general tendency to produce warts.

There is a tendency to favor the growth of warts and in the throat there are little wart-like growths polypoid growths in the throat and about the genitals and anus; hence its great use in sycotic constitutions.

It has all the discharge necessary to its use in the sycotic constitution.

Felt as if he had a stick in the throat when swallowing. At once you will see its close relation to Hepar. In inflammatory conditions of the throat with ulceration.

In Argentum nitricum he wants to be in a cold room, wants cold air, and to swallow cold things. In Hepar he wants warm things to drink, warm clothing, warm room, and cannot put even his hand out of bed or his throat will begin paining him.

Things, you see, just exactly opposite, but they both have “sticks” in the throat. In dry chronic catarrh Alumina and Natrum muriaticum have “sticks” in the throat; but in red throat with tumefaction and pain these two remedies give no relief, the former two are better. “Sticks” in the throat like fish-bones.

Nitric acid, Hepar, and Argentum nitricum, are the most striking remedies for the fish-bone sensation. Many remedies have sticking in the throat, but these are the most prominent.

We know how Argentum nitricum has been used for ulceration in the throat, and here it comes in as one of the most useful remedies in congestion of the throat of long standing. Catarrhs with loss of voice. Warty growths, condylomata, etc.

Loss of voice, tumefaction of the mucous membrane round about the vocal cords and paresis of the vocal cords. Condylomata on the vocal cords.

“Loss of appetite” and refuses drink.

Digestion: This is another feature. He feels that he must have it and it makes him sick; brings on eructations, increased flatulence, sour stomach.

He cannot digest it; it acts like a physic and brings on a diarrhea. So marked is the aggravation from sugar that the nursing infant will get a green diarrhea if the mother eats candy.

Then is it astonishing that the baby can get a dynamized dose from the mother, when the dynamized dose can travel like lightning, and sugar takes all day to be digested and dynamized and fed as poison to the baby? I remember a case that I figured and figured on.

The baby had Mercurial stools, sure enough, they were grass green. Well Chamomilla has grass green stools and Arsenicum and Mercurius and lots of remedies have grass green stools.

Routinist that I was in those days I could not get anything but Mercurius out of it, and although the baby had gotten Mercurius, Arsenicum and Cham. There was no relief, until I found that the mother had been eating candy.

When she was asked if she ate sweet things, sugar, etc., she said,

“Oh, no.”

“Why, yes, you do,” said the husband;

“I bring you home a pound of candy every day.

What do you do with it?”

“Oh, that was nothing,” she replied.

But the baby did not get well until it got Argentum nitricum and the mother stopped eating sugar.

“Irresistible desire for sugar.”

Quite a number of medicines have craving for sweets, but many of them can eat sweets with impunity. It is always a peculiar thing when one of the articles of diet, such as milk, sugar, salt, starch, etc., and the things of the table make sick.

When it is said that “I cannot eat a teaspoonful of anything with starch, egg or sugar in it without being sick,” it is always strange and peculiar, because it is not something that comes in only as a craving and affecting the stomach, but it affects the whole patient.

The patient says:

“I become sick” and hence it becomes a general.

When the patient gets a diarrhea from eating sugar it is not merely a local and particular symptom, because the whole patient is sick before the diarrhea begins; the diarrhea is the outcome. Hence as it is a general it i necessary that it should be examined into.

“The vomited substances tinge the bedding black”.

Incessant vomiting of food. He sometimes spits up food by the mouthful until the stomach is empty. Eructations of air accompanied by a mouthful of undigested food, like Phosphorus and Ferrum. Spitting it up; welling up in mouthfuls

“Eructations relieve “.

“Flatulence passes upwards, in quantities.”

Frequent eructations. Eructations do not always relieve. It is more like China in its eructation.

The eructations of Carbo veg. relieve for some time and he feels better. This is the way with Carbo veg.; he is distended almost to bursting and he cannot get up any wind, but finally after much pain and distension it wells up in empty eructations and then he gets relief.

With China he is distended, and every little while getting up gas, but with no relief. It does not seem to help, and sometimes patients will say they seem to get worse after it.

So it is with Argentum nitricum at times. It evidently has both.

“Most gastric ailments arc accompanied by belching.”

“Belching difficult; finally air rushes out with great violence.”

“Nausea after every meal; nausea with troublesome efforts to vomit.”

I have seen these Argentum nitricum patients vomiting and purging in the same moment, not vomiting one second and purging the next, but gushing out both ways with great exhaustion like cholera morbus, so relaxed, prostrated and weak.

“Vomit; streaked brown, flocculent, like coffee grounds.”

The stomach, liver and abdomen are full of pain. The abdomen distended with all this troublesome flatulence. Inflammation of the stomach, ulceration of the stomach, most troublesome diarrhea. Diarrhea with copious flatus. Stool with copious flatus in nursing children, with tormina and viscous sanguinolent stools and tenesmus.

“Diarrhea of children after weaning.”

Another feature in connection with the diarrhea and dysentery is that casts are passed with the stool, like diphtheritic membrane or deposit; casts like the rectum, strings of membrane, come with the stool. Stools of green, foetid mucus with noisy flatus at night.

Urinary:

“Urine passed unconsciously and uninterruptedly.”

“Urging to urinate; the urine passes less easily and freely.”

“Bleeding of the urethra; painful erections; gonorrhoea.”

It has most painful gonorrhoea with painful erections in the male. In the female the vagina is extremely sore, and the external soft parts are swollen; tumefaction.

Vagina feels sore on urinating; bloody discharge. In the male, orchitis from suppressed discharge. In the female, ovaritis, inflammation of all the pelvic organs. Great soreness all over the pelvis.

Bleeding from the vagina. Ulceration of the uterus. Coition is painful or impossible.

“Pains like sticks or slivers in and about the womb”.

This sensation prevails wherever there are ulcers.

“Prolapsus with ulceration of the os or cervix”.

Haemorrhage of short duration; shoot ing pains through abdomen and stomach. Metrorrhagia. Complaints of nervous women and at the menstrual period. Menses suppressed or scanty. Complaints during pregnancy.

Heart: Under the symptoms of the heart and pulse:

“Anxiety with palpitation and throbbing through the whole body.”

“Violent palpitation from the slightest mental emotion or sudden muscular exertion. Palpitation obliges her to press hand hard against heart for relief. Heart’s action irregular, intermittent,” etc.

Pain in the lumbar region comes on while sitting, but is better when standing a walking. Pain in the back from flatulence. Sore pain in the spine. Pain in back at night. Great weight in the lumbar region. It is a very useful remedy in locomotor ataxia.

Great restlessness. The nervous symptoms are very numerous. Periodical trembling of the body. Chorea, with tearing in the legs. Convulsions preceded by great restlessness. Nervous faintish, tremulous sensation, etc.

James Tyler Kent
James Tyler Kent (1849–1916) was an American physician. Prior to his involvement with homeopathy, Kent had practiced conventional medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. He discovered and "converted" to homeopathy as a result of his wife's recovery from a serious ailment using homeopathic methods.
In 1881, Kent accepted a position as professor of anatomy at the Homeopathic College of Missouri, an institution with which he remained affiliated until 1888. In 1890, Kent moved to Pennsylvania to take a position as Dean of Professors at the Post-Graduate Homeopathic Medical School of Philadelphia. In 1897 Kent published his magnum opus, Repertory of the Homœopathic Materia Medica. Kent moved to Chicago in 1903, where he taught at Hahnemann Medical College.