Bromium



“Blind, intensely painful varices, with black, diarrheic stools.

Blind, painful hemorrhoids,” and hemorrhoids that protrude.

“Haemorrhoids during and after stool.”

During the stool the rectum is painful from hemorrhoidal tumors.

Genitals: Swelling and induration of the left testicle. Notice the left sidedness, the left side of the throat, and the left testicle. Then, again, dull pain in the region of the left ovary.

“Constant dull pain in the ovary; with swelling and hardness.”

There is the same induration of the left ovary. It does seem strange that some medicines single out more particularly the left organs and the left side of the body. Like Lachesis in many instances it picks out the left side of the body.

A great many remedies show a preference for one side of the body; the glands in this remedy are more affected upon the left side of the body than the right.

“Swelling of the ovarian region before and during menses.”

Suppression of the menses. Loud emission of flatus from the vagina.

Larynx: In the larynx it has produced more symptoms than in any other part of the body. It produces a raw, sore feeling in the larynx from inhaled air.

“Rawness in the larynx.

Loss of voice.

Hoarseness from overheating.”

From too much clothing on a warm day, or from keeping on an overcoat in a room that is heated; coming out into the air he cools off. He has laryngitis.

“Tickling in the larynx,” keeping up a constant coughing.

Scraping and rawness in the larynx. Scraping mucus from the larynx, scraping and coughing. It is not a hawk, because that noise clears the throat.

Every medical should go through all the noises he hears others make, and try and observe as much as possible what feeling is accompanied with that noise, so that he can put himself in the other’s place.

Each one is accompanied with its own sound, and the instant you hear it you realize the exact place he is drawing mucus from and just where the irritation is.

If you allow the patient to describe it he always calls it by the wrong name. The patient knows very little about this part except that it is the throat, and if he is drawing mucus from the throat, or scraping it from the larynx, he always calls it the throat.

But the physician must waive all that and observe as to sound. So let each one go alone by himself and make all these noises that he bears people make, and then realize for himself what part it is he is scraping.

It may seem ludicrous, but how else will you learn about it? It is just as important to figure out these sounds as it is to figure out what a child needs by its sounds and motions. It is impossible to get the symptoms and wants of a child except by interpreting its motions.

Every motion it makes indicates something. An astute observer, one who has been watching children for a number of years, will understand the child, and will hardly have to ask the mother a question. He will know at once where the child is sick by what it does.

The child is like the animal. You never have to ask a horse or dog where he feels pain, because he will always tell by his motions. So does the infant.

The hoarseness comes on after being overheated. Remember that.

“Rough, dry cough; pain in the larynx.” jumping up for want of breath.

“Gasping and suffering for breath, with wheezing and rattling in larynx.

Sensation as if air passages were full of smoke.”

Now we have all these rough sounds; rough breathing; croupy breathing; rasping breathing different ways of describing different forms of croup.

You cannot individualize a remedy by these because one child will croup in one pitch, and another will croup in another; but to get at the constitution of the child and the mother is the important point.

“Voice hardly audible.”

“Spasm in the glottis.”

In the croupy condition it is really a membranous formation upon the inflamed surface, very often extending downward through the trachea into the bronchial tubes, and producing a croupous pneumonia.

Bromium has that in its nature. But without any membranous formation at all Bromium constricts the larynx. It has constriction of the larynx; just like a clutching, a spasm.

“Tickling in the larynx, with irritation to cough.

Scraping and rawness in the larynx.

Sensation of coldness in the larynx.”

That is a very peculiar symptom with Bromium. In laryngitis, where the patient says the feeling is as if it was covered with down.

I have heard them describe it as if it was covered with velvet, but it feels so cold.

The air breathed, feels cold, just like it was the air blown off from snow or ice.

Sensation of coldness in the larynx.

“Constant sore pain in the larynx.”

This means that the larynx is painful to touch. Phosphorus, Belladonna, and Rumex have soreness in the larynx, sore to touch; but the Bromium soreness is commonly below the larynx and in the throat pit as well.

“Sensation as if the air tubes were full of smoke.”

Some patients, will describe that as sulphur fumes, or as of smoke from tar. After the first few hours mucus begins to accumulate in the larynx and trachea, and a constant expectoration keeps up, of a whitish thick mucus, and he coughs and scrapes the larynx constantly, and there is no peace.

This is often present in laryngitis without any membranous formation. Bromium is not given as often as it is indicated in voicelessness, in irritation of the larynx, in rawness of the larynx because it is uncommon for persons to have laryngitis and hoarseness in the larynx from being overheated.

Many of those cases would be cured promptly by Bromium. But where it is thought of by the routine prescriber is where there is croup or diphtheria.

That was never taught by Hahnemann.

“Much rattling of mucus in the larynx.

Inspiration very difficult.

Larynx drawn down.”

This would take place in croup, after the formation of the membrane.

“Cough hoarse, crowing, suffocative; breathing sawing, whistling.

Spasms of the larynx; suffocative cough.

Membranous formation in larynx and trachea.

Croupous inflammation formed by exuberant growth of fungi.”

“Asthma of sailors as soon as they go ashore;” relieved again as soon as they are at sea.

Difficult breathing with rattling throughout the chest. Bronchitis and pneumonia. Bromium is often the remedy when whooping cough is prevailing in the spring, towards the hot weather, and membranes form in the larynx.

The cough gets immediately worse from dust. Handling old books from the shelf aggravates. Sneezing, hoarseness, irritation in the respiratory tract from picking up and handling dusty things.

“Cough, with sudden paroxysms of suffocation on swallowing.”

Bromium is full of catarrhal conditions, especially of the breathing apparatus. It has hepatization of the lungs; infiltration is one of its most natural features.

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.