“Well, I do not suppose this condition will ever go away, but you are all well, there is nothing to prescribe on, there is not much use of your taking any more medicine,” but in six months from that time the patient would come back to me and say:
“Doctor, do you suppose the treatment you gave me had anything to do with this trouble going away? It has nearly all disappeared.”
I only tell you this to give you an idea how long it takes to restore order, for nature herself to replace the bad tissue and put healthy tissue in that same place, to restore an organ. It takes time, and it is best that we should not be surprised. it may be that the medicine has done all it can do.
Here is another thing I have seen: even when there were no symptoms left, and after waiting a considerable time and there were no symptoms, I have seen another dose of the same medicine that was given on the last symptoms give the patient a great lift, and pathological conditions commence to go way.
So Calcarea is a great friend to the oculist, and every physician ought to be just as good a prescriber as the oculist can be, for he prescribes for the patient. So must the oculist. In prescribing I am in doubt whether there can be any such thing as a specialty, because the homoeopathic physician prescribes for the patient. He prescribes for the patient, whether he has eye disease, or car disease, or throat disease, or lung disease, or liver disease, etc.
Ears: In the ear we have a great deal of trouble. It produces thick yellow discharge from the ears. Cold, chilly weather brings on ear trouble; quite likely from becoming cold or chilled, from an exposure, or from a sudden change of cold damp weather he has additional complaints in the ears.
While he is at his best the idea holds good here as in other catarrhal conditions, there is copious discharge. But from exposure and cold this slacks up a little, and when it does there is a little inflammation, and like enough throbbing, and headache. That occurs every time from exposure.
Whether the catarrh is in the nose, the eyes, or the ears, there will be headache. The Calcarea patient is so easily disturbed from cold weather and exposure, he is so sensitive to the cold, that it is next to impossible for him to dress and protect himself. He is flabby and soft, easily disturbed, sensitive to his surroundings.
If it is an ear trouble, he may have difficult hearing, abscess of the middle ear, catarrh of the Eustachian tubes, etc., but all of these bring on headaches; and around about the ear the glands are all affected.
Nose: The catarrh of the nose is extremely troublesome. Old lingering stubborn catarrhs, with thick yellow discharge; great crusts from the nose. In the morning he blows out enormous blackish, bloody chunks.
He breathes part of the night through the nose, and then his nose clogs up so that he breathes, through the mouth. It has cured a great many times polypi of the nose.
The homeopathic physician, trusting so much to his symptoms, knows so well the remedy after studying the case, that be very likely will prescribe for the patient on the symptoms alone. He says:
This patient needs Calcarea, there is no doubt about it. He prescribes for him and sends him away.
After three or four weeks the patient comes back with a gelatinous looking tough thing on a handkerchief, and says:
“Doctor, look there at what came out of my nose.
Do you suppose your medicine had anything to do with that?”
Perhaps you did not know he had polypus, it does not make any difference, your prescription cannot be any different if he has polypi in the nose, and you do not know it is there; you cannot by any process of torsion remove it before you prescribe, so you will have to leave that torsion to those that do not know about Homoeopathy; and hence the examination is not so important as it is to those who prescribe for the polypi, and forget about the patient.
Affections of the bones of the nose. That is, the catarrhs go on so long, and they are so deep-seated, that the bones of the nose and the cartilage of the nose are infiltrated, any they break down.
Then operators cut out bones, remove cartilage, and perform operations too numerous to mention; and every one must have the same operation; but in order for him to be cured, he must even after that go to an homoeopathic physician. He should first be cured and then if there is anything to be removed let him be operated on.
Face: The face is sickly, cold, covered with sweat. Sweats on the slightest exertion, and sometimes it sweats in the night, on the forehead.
“Cold sweat on the face. Face pale and cachectic,” such as we see in advanced cases of cancer, and consumption.
Face sallow, pale, sickly, dropsical. Eruptions on the face. Eruptions about the lips; and the lips are chapped and the mouth is raw. The lips are cracked and bleeding. Painful swelling on the parotid glands; painful swelling of the sub-lingual and sub-maxillary glands.
The glands all take part in the Calcarea troubles.
Throat: Calcarea is a medicine for chronic sore throats. The throat appearance itself is not always sufficient to prescribe on, but the complaints in the throat are those that come on in persons taking cold so frequently that the patient has not time to get over one before be goes into another, and this engrafts upon him a chronic sore throat.
It may in the beginning be a Belladonna throat, which is quite likely, but before he gets over it he has taken another cold. Remember that this is a part of the Calcarea patient, that he takes cold so easily; he takes cold from every, draft, from very exposure, and from damp weather.
When getting over a Belladonna sore throat – about the time he thinks he is over it he takes a new cold. Perhaps it has been relieved two or three times with Belladonna, and then it settles down into a chronic state, and there are little red patches, perhaps little ulcers in the throat, this extends all over. It extends to the roof of the mouth, a sore tongue, and a constant dry, choking feeling in the pharynx, covering the tonsils and extending, up into the posterior nares, filling with thick, yellow mucus.
Chronic inflammation. The uvula may be puffed; swollen.
“Parts swollen, red, tumid,” but it patches.
The throat very painful on swallowing; dry, choking feeling.
Stomach: The stomach in Calcarea is slow in its action.
“Food taken into the stomach remains.”
It does not digest, it turns sour.
“Sour vomiting.”
Milk sours. Milk disagrees; the digestion is also slow, feeble. He has a feeling of tumefaction and fullness; enlargement after eat ing; and everything sours in the stomach; everything disorders the stomach.
Weak digestion. The Calcarea patient has a very strong longing for eggs. Little children crave eggs; at every meal they will eat eggs, and eggs, will digest better than anything else. It is very seldom that little children naturally long for eggs; children with cold feet, emaciated extremities, large heads, enlarged abdomen; stomach distended like an inverted saucer, rounded out; bloated abdomen, and slender extremities; cold and sensitive to cold; pale skin; pale, waxy surface.
Then, there is complete loss of appetite, no desire for any kind of food. If any desire at all, it is for eggs. Aversion to meat; aversion to warm food.
This with enlarged glands, with goitre. Flatulency. Sour vomiting; sour diarrhoea; that is, it has a pungent, sour odor, especially in children.
In infants living on milk, the milk passes in an undigested form; the stool is so sour that it is pungent. It excoriates the parts, and keeps the nates raw in infants where the diaper comes in contact with the parts.
There are times when the abdomen is emaciated; the gases go out and the abdomen sometimes becomes flabby; but most of the time it is distended with flatulence. When it is flabby it can be observed that there are nodules in the abdomen.
The lymphatic glands are hard, and sometimes can be felt through the emaciated abdomen. There is a tubercular tendency, and tabes mesenterica is one, of the natural endings of the lime constitution, with this we get the glandular affections of the bowels.
Tubercular deposits in the mesenteric glands. Diarrhoea comes on sour; watery diarrhoea; gradual emaciation, especially of the extremities. Every cold brings on more indigestion, and more sour vomiting.
Diarrhoea that can’t be stopped, because every time he gets a cold it renews the diarrhoea. When it, is an acute attack Dulcamara often relieves it but when it has recurred several times Dulcamara can no longer relieve it and Calcarea then becomes one of the remedies.
Again, it is one of the most useful medicines in old, lingering, stubborn cases of constipation. When there is only a moderate diarrhoea the stool is white; and when this constipation is present, the stool is white, or like chalk.
In infants taking milk you can account for the white or pale stool, because of the milk; but when the patient does not live on milk, and lives on ordinary substances, the stool becomes bileless and is very light colored; is yellow or white; and in the constipation, often the stool is very light colored and hard.
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.