Baryta muriatica


James Tyler Kent describes the symptoms of the homeopathic medicine Baryta mur in great detail and compares it with other homeopathy remedies.


Generalities: This is one of our deep acting constitutional remedies and one much neglected. It was much used by the earlier men in our school with great effect. In mental weakness, insanity, enlarged glands and sexual excitement we have a group of symptoms hard to cure without Baryta muriatica.

Add to this profound increasing muscular weakness and we must have this remedy sometime during the case or the cure will be slow.

Its complaints are prominent in the morning, forenoon, afternoon, evening, night and after midnight. In the diseases most amenable to this remedy are the affection of the lymphatic glands and other glands.

The patient desires the open air, yet the open air often increases the symptoms. Many cases of aneurysm have been benefited by it.

Modalities: General physical anxiety is a strong feature. Complaints are worse ascending stairs such as dyspnoea, palpitation and weakness. Dread of bathing, like Sulphur.

The symptoms are often worse in cold air and from becoming cold. The convulsive tendency is a very important feature; convulsions with headache, deafness, vomiting and burning in the stomach; convulsions with full consciousness with electric shocks; clonic spasms. It has cured most stubborn cases of epilepsy.

Distension of the blood vessels; emaciation, fainting spells. Complaints worse in fall and spring. Formication all over the body. Sensation of internal fullness. Bleeding from mucous membranes and from ulcers.

Heaviness externally and internally as from weakness and relaxation. Induration of glands; inflammation and swelling of glands. Extreme lassitude, compelled to lie down. Symptoms come before and during menses.

Some symptoms are better from motion; bruised feeling internally; burping in many parts; cutting pains in internal parts; digging pains are not uncommon; gnawing in external parts.

Pains and sensations: Painless symptoms predominant and pain is the exception. Convulsive jerking in the limbs; stitching in glands and along nerves; downward tearing as if in the muscles; one-sided paralysis; left side. Many parts are tender to pressure.

Pulsation in abdomen and limbs. Pulse fast, 120 full, hard, small. Rising up brings on many symptoms. Electric shocks with convulsions. Complaints left-sided-worse while sitting; must lie down. Symptoms come on during sleep-worse while standing.

Painful swelling of glands. Dropsical swelling after scarlet fever; tension, trembling, twitching; weakness in whole body, can hardly move a limb; while walking; general muscular weakness; paralytic weakness; weariness.

Complaints and symptoms grow worse in wet weather. It is the natural complement of Conium in glandular affections and it is very similar, but much deeper acting.

Mind: Easily angered. Anxiety in the evening; about the future; with nausea; retching and pressure in the stomach. It is useful ill children who are slow to learn or understand; children do not desire to play like other children.

Concentration impossible. The locality around him seems strange, transformed; timid and cowardly; delusion that he walks on his knees. Dullness of mind.

Thinks she is going to die. Fear: of evil, of men; foolish behavior; idiocy; imbecility, indifference, insanity; erotic insanity.

Insanity where the sexual excitement becomes strong. Irresolution. Irritable in the evening. Mania in every form when sexual desire is increased; nymphomania. Sadness in the morning; sits in silence.

Children sit in the corner and give confused answers. Easily startled; suspicious; indisposed to talk; talks in sleep; unconsciousness; fainting; vertigo when walking; things turn around.

The scalp feels constricted. It is a remedy of great usefulness in eruptions of the scalp. Thick, offensive crusts; eczema of the whole top of the head, extending to sides and occiput; suppurating with copious pus. Crops of pimples.

Head: The head feels so heavy he cannot keep up; heaviness of forehead and occiput; sensation of looseness of the brain; a feeling of movement in the head.

Pain in the head in the morning on rising; afternoon, evening, worse in open air; from binding up the hair; after eating, while lying; on moving the eyes; from noise; from pressure; on stopping; while walking; in the forehead, occiput; sides of head, temples; boring in temples; bruises in head; burning in head; pressing in head and in forehead; outwards; stitching in forehead, occiput, sides of head, in temples; stunning pain in head; tearing in occiput, sides of head; shocks in head, ulcers on scalp.

Eyes: Agglutination of the lids in the morning; discharge of mucus and pus from the eyes; inflammation of the eyes in scrofulous patients. Itching and smarting, pressing pain in eyes; paralysis of upper lids; photophobia; pupils dilated and immovable.

Redness of the eyes; of the lids; veins injected; stiffness of the eyes; ulceration of the cornea; swollen lids; complaints of the eyes and head from exertion of vision, much like Conium; dim vision with flickering.

Ears: Abscesses behind both ears; discharge from both ears; copious offensive; like spoiled cheese; purulent; after scarlet fever.

Eruptions on ears; recurrent inflammation of the ear; auditory canal itching in the ear; noises in the ear on chewing and on swallowing catarrh of the Eustachian tube; buzzing, ringing and roaring; pain in both ears; deep in; worse in the right ear; pain in the ear with sore throat; worse lying on the painful side; better from cold drinks; drawing, stitching, tearing pain in ear tearing behind ear; pulsation in ear; tingling of the ears; twitching hearing impaired, finally lost.

Nose: Catarrh of the nose with copious thick, yellow discharge; coryza fluent with fever; dryness in the nose; epistaxis.

Itching in the nose; the nose is obstructed; rawness in the nose. A red nodule on the side of the top of the nose; stitching pains in the nose. Frequent sneezing; sneezing in sleep without waking.

Face: The face is red with fever, otherwise pale.

Drawing and spasms of the face. Dryness of the lips. Enlarged and indurated submaxillary gland with otorrhoea; eruption on forehead and nose; crusty, pimples, expression is anxious and the face is hot.

Inflammation of the right parotid gland after scarlet fever swelling of the glands of neck and jaw; very hard; right parotid submaxillary. Tension of the face with nausea and diarrhoea.

Mouth: Bleeding gums. Cracked tongue; white tongue.

Dryness of the mouth in the morning, of the tongue; coated tongue; viscid mucus fills the mouth and covers the tongue; odor from mouth offensive; putrid; like from mercury. Burning in the mouth; the gums are sore.

Paralysis of the tongue. Salivation with every paroxysm. Speech difficult. Swollen gums and palate. Taste is bitter; putrid, sour, sweetish; food tastes putrid.

Ulceration of tongue. Looseness of the teeth with salivation; pulsating pain in the teeth. Compelled to sit up in bed; worse after midnight and after sleep; jerking; stitching, tearing.

Throat: Inflammation of the throat and tonsils; recurrent tonsillitis from taking cold; dryness in throat. Enlarged tonsils elongation of the uvula with sore throat; viscid mucus in the throat pain in the throat and ear, worse on right side; with salivation; worse on swallowing; burning in the throat.

Suppuration of the tonsils. Swallowing very difficult. Swollen tonsils. Varicose veins in the throat. Swelling and induration of the cervical glands.

Appetite and stomach: Appetite ravenous; wanting; aversion to food. Desires dry wheat bread. Distension of the stomach. A feeling of emptiness in the stomach. Eructations after eating; bitter; water.

Flushes of heat rise from the stomach to the head. Fullness and weight in the stomach after solid food; heartburn, hiccough.

He can eat only the simplest food, as digestion is slow and the stomach is feeble; inflammation of the stomach; loathing of food; nausea.

Pain in the stomach; cramping; pressing after eating; sore; stitching. Retching. Tension. Thirst with dry tongue; during chill; extreme. Vomiting in the morning; with headache; incessant, bile, blood, mucus, watery, with purging and great anxiety.

Abdomen: Distension of the abdomen. Enlarged and bard liver and mesenteric glands. Flatulence; fullness; hard abdomen.

Pain in abdomen in the morning, after eating, before stool, in hypochondria, burning, cramping, cutting, stitching in hypochondria and inguinal region.

It has been of great benefit in abdominal aneurisms. Swollen liver; swollen inguinal glands after suppressed gonorrhoea. Abdominal tension. Ulcers in the inguinal region.

Stools: Constipation; difficult stool; no desire for stool; stool hard and covered with mucus; generally painless, diarrhoea which is also generally painless.

Dysentery, bloody mucus; jelly-like stools; frequent; generally painless. Much offensive flatus. Haemorrhage from rectum and from intestines.

External piles, protrude during urination; itching of the anus; involuntary stool; moisture about the anus; some pain in the rectum during stool burning during and after stool; pressing pain; soreness, stitching tenesmus.

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.