So it is with all the internal organs, the liver, lungs, etc.; any of them may take on violent and rapid inflammation. We are not now speaking of the particulars, but only illustrating the general state of Arsenic, in order to bring out what runs through the whole nature of it.
We shall find when we take up the remedy and go through it in a more particular way these features will stand out everywhere.
Mind: The mental symptoms show in the beginning anxious restlessness, and from this a continuation towards delirium and even insanity with all that it involves; disturbance of the intellect and will.
“He thinks he must die.”
I went to the bedside of a typhoid patient once with all the general aspect I have described; he was able to talk, and he looked up at me and said:
“There is no use of your coming, I am going to die; you might as well go home; my whole insides are mortifying.”
His friend was seated on one side of the bed, giving him a few drops of water, and just about as often as he could get there with it he wanted it again.
That was all he wanted; his mouth was black, parched and dry. He got Arsenic. One of the characteristic features of Arsenic is thirst for small quantities often, just enough to wet the mouth. It is commonly used as a distinguishing feature between Bryonia and Arsenic for the purpose of memorizing the Bryonia has thirst for large quantities far apart, but Arsenicum little and often, or violent unquenchable thirst.
“Thoughts of death and of the incurability of his complaints.”
“Thoughts crowd upon him; he is too weak to keep them off or to hold on to one idea.”
That is, he lies in bed tormented day and night by depressing ideas and distressing thoughts. This is one form of his anxiety; when tormented with thoughts, he is anxious. In the delirium he sees all kinds of vermin on his bed.
“Picks the bedclothes.”
“Delirium during sleep, unconscious mania.”
“Whimpering and gnashing teeth.”
“Loud moaning, groaning and weeping.”
“Lamentations, despair of life.”
“Screaming with pains.”
“Fear drives him out of bed, he hides in a closet.”
These are instances of insanity that take on first a state of anxiety, restlessness, and fear. Religious insanity, with the delusion that she has sinned away her day of grace, the biblical promise of salvation do not apply to her, there is no hope for her, she is doomed to punishment.
She has been thinking on religious matters until she is insane. Finally she enters into a more complete insane state, a state of tranquility; silent, and with aversion to talk. So we see one stage enters into another; we have to take the whole case together; we have to note the course that the case has run in order to see it clearly and note that in one stage there were certain symptoms and, in another stage, other symptoms.
For instance, we know that in the acute conditions of Arsenicum there is either thirst for ice cold water, and for only enough to moisten the mouth, or there is thirst for water in large quantities and yet it does not quench the thirst; but this thirsty stage goes on to another in which there is aversion to water, and hence we see that in chronic diseases.
Arsenicum is thirstless. So it is in a case of mania; in the chronic state he is tranquil, but in the earlier stages, in order to be an Arsenicum case, he must have gone through the Arsenicum restlessness, anxiety and fear.
Fear is a strong element in the mental state, fear to be alone; fears something is going to injure him when he is alone; full of horror; he dreads solitude and wants company, because in company he can talk and put off the fear; but as this insanity increases he fails to appreciate company and the fear comes in spite of it. He has a violent increase of his fear and horror in the dark and many complaints come on in the evening as darkness is coming on.
Many of the mental troubles, as well as the physical troubles, come on and are increased at certain times. While some complaints, pains and aches are worse in the morning, most of the sufferings of Arsenicum are worse from 1-2 P.M. and from 1-2 A.M. After midnight, very soon after midnight sometimes, his sufferings begin, and from 1-2 o’clock they are intensified. Extreme anxiety in the evening in bed.
“Averse to meeting acquaintances, because he imagines he has formerly offended them.”
Great mental depression, great sadness, melancholy, despair, despair of recovery. He has dread of death when alone, or on going to bed with anxiety and restlessness. He thinks he is going to die and wants somebody with him.
The attacks of anxiety at night drive him out of bed. This is an anxiety that affects the heart, and so the mental anxiety and cardiac anxiety almost seem to coincide. A sudden anxious fear comes over him at night; he jumps out of bed with fear that he is going to die, or that he is going to suffocate.
It is full of dyspnoea, cardiac dyspnoea, and varying forms of asthma. The spells come on in the evening in bed or after midnight; from 1-2 o’clock he is attacked with mental anxiety, dyspnoea, fear of death, coldness, and is covered with, cold sweat.
“Anxiety like one who has committed murder.”
This is one form of his anxiety; he finally works up to the idea that the officers are coming after him, and watches to see if they are coming in to arrest him. Some unusual evil is going to happen to him; always looking for something terrible to happen.
“Irritable, discouraged, restless.”
“Restlessness, cannot rest anywhere.”
“As a consequence of fright, inclination to, commit suicide.”
The Arsenicum patient with this mental state is always freezing, hovers around the fire, cannot get clothing enough to keep warm, a great sufferer from the cold.
Chronic Arsenicum invalids cannot get warm; they are always chilly, pale and waxy, and in such invalids, after they have bad several unusual weak spells, dropsical conditions come on.
Arsenicum is full of puffiness and dropsy; oedematous condition of the extremities; dropsy of the shut sacs or of the cavities; swelling about the eyes; swelling of the face, so that it pits upon pressure. Arsenicum in these swellings is especially related to the lower eyelid rather than the upper, while in Kali carb. the swelling is more in the upper eyelid than the lower, between the lid and the brow.
There are times when Kali carb. looks very similar to Arsenic, and little features like that will be distinguishing points. If they run together in generals, then we must observe their particular peculiarities.
Periodicity: In the headaches we have a striking general feature of Arsenicum, brought out in their periodicity. Running all through this remedy there is periodicity, and for this reason it has been extensively useful in malarial affections which have, as a characteristic of their nature, periodicity.
The periodical complaints of Arsenic come on every other day, or every fourth day, or every seven days, or every two weeks. The headaches come on these cycles, every other, or third, or fourth, seventh or fourteenth day.
The more chronic the complaint is, the longer is its cycle, so that we will find the more acute and sharp troubles in which Arsenic is suitable will have every other day aggravations and every fourth day aggravations: but, as the trouble becomes chronic and deep-seated, it takes on the seventh day aggravation, and in the psoric manifestations of a long, lingering and deep-seated kind there is a fourteenth day aggravation.
This appearing in cycles is common to a good many remedies, but is especially marked in China and Arsenic. These two remedies are similar to each other in many respects, and they are quite similar in their general nature to the manifestations that often occur in malaria. It is true, however, that Arsenic is more frequently indicated than China. In every epidemic of malarial fever that I have gone through I have found Arsenicum symptoms more common than those of China.
These headaches bring out the interesting point that we mentioned above. Arsenicum has in its nature an alternation of states, and this carries with it certain generals. Arsenicum in all of its bodily complaints is a cold remedy; the patient sits over the fire and shivers, wants plenty of clothing, and wants to be in a warm room.
So long as the complaints are in the body this is so; but when the complaints are in the head, while he wants the body warm he wants the head washed in cold water, or wants the cold air upon it.
The complaints of the head must conform to the generals that apply to the head, and the complaints of the body must be associated with the generals that apply to the body. It is a difficult thing to say which one of these two circumstances is most general, and it is sometimes difficult to say which one is the general of the patient himself, because he confuses you by saying:
“I am worse in the cold,” but when his headache is on he says:
“I am better in the cold, I want to be in the cold.”
It is really only the head, and you have to single these out and study them by the parts affected. When things are so striking you must examine into it to see what it is that brings about modality.
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.
Comments are closed.