Talking to himself. He lies in bed, or sits, when be is alone, and carries on a general conversation with every conceivable individual he has had to do with, on every conceivable subject; and it multiplies and it grows, and he imagines it is all real.
We see how far that is removed from the healthy mind, and yet he is not fit for the insane asylum, with all of these strange things, for when he is roused he does carry on a conversation, and he does as ordinary people do.
When he is alone, when he has nobody to talk with him, he does these strange things. He is controlled and dominated when he is in company, to a great extent, and hence these things are not brought out.
He carries out that same idea when he becomes delirious or insane. Picks his fingers, and does all sorts of peculiar little things. Sees visions and faces of persons when eyes are closed.
“Imagines some one is walking beside her.”
In the proving of Silicea that was observed very strongly. It has been observed in Petroleum, and in Calcarea. In a perfect state of health, with a strong, vigorous intelligence, it is not likely to be felt, but in nervous people, and especially in women, it is common.
“Mental aberration with horrid visions. Sees dogs crowding around him, fights them off.”
Here is a sensation, occurring in nervous women,
“Feels as if she would like to run up and down, and scream.”
Feels as if she could not help it, she must scream. That occurs in persons overwrought, dreadfully excited from a loss in the household by death. The mother loses her child, or husband; or a young girl loses her intended. She is broken-hearted, and greatly excited. It is a hysterical state. And yet I have seen the same in men.
I remember one. It came upon him from business cares. He had that same feeling; he would walk up and down the house, he said he felt as if he must fly or jump out of a window, or do some thing. That is analogous to the mental state found in hysteria, or a great state of nervous excitement.
“She thinks and talks of nothing but murder, fire, rats, etc.”
That is that same idea of talking about little things and foolish things. Things that are not interesting to anybody, And yet I have seen these things in patients and I would ask them why they did it. It is generally said,
“I tried a good while to stop it, and when I could not I just kept right on at it, for it seemed to do me good.”
“She thinks and talks of murder, fire, rats, etc.”
Your patient may talk about other foolish things, but it is only to il lustrate the idea that she sits and talks about foolish things, and can not control herself; thinking, thinking, or expressing it, talking, talking, talking.
Violent screaming spells. And then the Calcarea patient will refuse to talk, will say nothing. She may talk to herself when alone, but will decline to enter into conversation, and will sit perfectly silent.
A Calcarea patient sometimes takes an aversion to work, and quits work. He will quit a most thriving business, and go home and do nothing, after being fatigued in carrying on the business until it- reaches a most thriving condition. He says business is not good for him.
He is tired of business, and when he goes to his business again it seems as if it would drive him crazy. He does not want to see it, he does not want to know anything about it.
Of course, you can readily see that it is not so much in the Calcarea patient that he is driven to, weakness and fatigue from distress in business, although it has that, but that which I am speaking about is that he has overworked until he has given out, and right in the midst of his success he quits his business and goes home, and leaves all-it looks just as if he were lazy.
If you look at him you come to the conclusion that he is lazy. Yet it is an insanity; not the laziness that belongs to tramp nature, though that also might be cured many times. He has been industrious, and all at once takes a turn. A great change occurs in the mind, and he takes on symptoms. It is not such persons as were born that way, born lazy, never would work; but those that become lazy.
It is like the symptom in a pious upright man, whose walk and conversation has been upright but all at once he turns and commences to swear. Of course we know that individual is insane. On the other hand, we have patients that have been only ordinarily industrious that develop an insanity for work, and it seems they have ability in that insane industry to work almost night and day; they are up early and late.
It is a sick state. So when we see in the Repertory “Industry” it does not mean an ordinarily industrious state but one that is exaggerated into a symptom. He has become so industrious that he has a mania for work.
“Whimpering. Low-spirited and melancholy.”
It is a strange thing to see a bright little girl of 8 or 9 years old taking on sadness, melancholy, and commencing to talk about the future world, and the angels, and that she wants to die and go there, and she is sad, and wants to read the Bible all day.
That is a strange thing; and yet Calcarea has cured that. Arsenicum has cured that state, and also Lachesis They are a little inclined to be precocious, and they have attended the Sunday-school, and they have taken too seriously the things they have learned.
Children sad and unhappy, and old people who take on a loathing of life, become weary of life. That is a good deal like Aurum. In going over Aurum I explained that, and dwelt upon it, that the highest love is the love of life; and when an individual ceases to love his own life, and is weary of it, and loathes it, and wants to die, he is on the border line of insanity.
In fact, that is an insanity of the will. You have only to look with an observing eye to see that one may be insane in the affections, or insane in the intelligence. One may remain quite intact, and the other one be destroyed.
We find in Calcarea both equally disturbed. One patient may be insane in his voluntary system, so that all of his loves are perverted; he has no affection that is like what it used to be, like it was when be was well.
Antipathy to his family or some member of his family.
Or, he may have the affection fairly intact, but no intelligence, and does all sorts of strange things.
He is full of fear.
Weary of life; hopelessness, anxiety. The world is black.
“Fear that something sad or terrible will happen. Fears that she will. lose her reason, or that people will observe her confusion of mind.”
“Fear of death; of consumption; of misfortune; of being alone.”
Fear abounds, especially when the voluntary system is disturbed. She is startled at every noise. He can’t sleep sq that the body rests or the mind rests. He is disturbed in his sleep with horrible dreams. His sleep is a restless one.
“Great anxiety and oppression. Restlessness and palpitation. Despairing; hopeless.”
These symptoms have to be coupled and connected with that leucophlegmatic, pale, flabby, sickly individual.
“Child cross and fretful. Easily frightened.”
Many complaints after exertion of the mind. Many complaint after excitement, chagrin or fright.
He is so weak in his circulation, so much disturbed in the heart, it palpitates from every excitement. He is out of breath from every physical exertion; and these take part so much in the circulation of blood in the body, have so much to do with circulation of blood in the brain, have so much to do with the intellect, with the sensorium, that we see at once vertigo on almost all occasions, intermingled with all sorts of symptoms.
Fear, anxiety, and vertigo. If his. emotions stir him up he becomes dizzy. From going upstairs the blood mounts to the head, and he becomes dizzy. Confusion of mind and vertigo from mental exertion. If he becomes shocked, or has bad news, or has any mental excitement or chagrin, this vertigo will come out.
Confusion of mind, determination of blood to the head, cold extremities, covered with sweat, with vertigo.
“Vertigo, when climbing into high places;”
that is the effort of going up. The blood rushes to the head and he becomes dizzy.
“On going upstairs or up a hill. On suddenly rising, or turning the head, even when at rest.”
Head: One of the most striking symptoms of the head of the Calcarea patient is the sweat, the sweat of the head upon the slightest exertion. He will sweat on the face when he sweats nowhere else, and his head is covered with cold sweat when he is comfortable in other places about the body.
The same thing is true about the feet. When his feet become very cold they will sweat. When they are warm they will sweat. You would naturally think that a person going into a cold room would stop his sweating. But sometimes the Calcarea patient will break out in a sweat, upon the head, and upon the feet, in a cold room,
He sweats upon the forehead, so that every draft of air makes him chilly, and this brings on headache. Coldness of the whole scalp, so he has to wrap up the head. Yet during congestions, the head is hot.
So it has at times great heat in the head. The Calcarea headaches are stupefying, they are benumbing; they bring on confusion of mind.
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.