So he puzzles, for a long time, and prescribes on the immediate attack and palliates it. For instance, the immediate attack might look like Belladonna or Bryonia, Ferrum phos. or Arsenicum, etc.: he treats that attack without taking into consideration the underlying constitutional state of the patient It is quite a profitable business for one who has not much conscience and not much intelligence.
But a conscientious physician feels worried and knows he is not doing what he ought to do by his patient, unless he reaches out for the remedy which touches the constitution. It is far more useful to keep people from taking colds than to cure colds.
Bright’s disease: There is a form of acute Bright’s disease that Dulcamara cures. You can probably now surmise from what we have said of the nature of the remedy, that in cases of Bright’s disease following scarlet fever, or from malaria, or in any acute disease that has ended badly, i. c., the patient has been exposed to the cold too soon, and has taken “cold,” or from sudden change of weather, damp and cold, the feet commence to swell, there is albumin in the urine, the limbs are waxy, the face becomes waxy and sallow, and there is constant urging to urinate. Dulcamara, with other constitutional symptoms, will be suitable.
In bladder catarrh, where there is a copious discharge of mucus, or muco-pus in the urine; when the urine stands, a thick, purulent sediment, yellowish-white, and a constant urging to urinate; every time he takes a little cold, the urine becomes bloody, the frequency of urination is increased, the urine becomes irritating, the catarrh of the bladder rouses up like a flame, all the symptoms are worse in cold, damp weather, and from getting chilled; better from becoming warm. So you see whether it is a catarrh of the kidney or a catarrhal state of the bladder, or an attack of dysentery, or an attack of sudden diarrhea, every cold spell of the weather brings on an increase of the trouble.
There is another Dulcamara symptom which will often be expressed suddenly in the midst of a lot of other symptoms. After you have been hunting for a long time, the patient will say:
“Doctor, if I get chilled, I must hurry to urinate; if I get into a cold place, I have to go to stool, or to urinate.”
So we see that the symptoms come on when the patient is cold, and are better when he is warm. Any catarrhal trouble of the bladder that is better in the summer and worse in the winter.
In dry, teasing coughs that are winter “colds,” that go away in the summer and return in the winter. Psorinum has a dry, teasing, winter cough. Arsenicum has a winter cough.
“Rash comes out upon the face before the menses.”
“As a forerunner of catamenia, with extraordinary sexual excitement, herpetic eruptions.”
Its “cold” sores are very troublesome.
The patients are subject to these “cold” sores upon the lips and upon the genitals.
Every time he takes “cold,” herpes labialis, herpes preputialis.
“Catarrhal ailments in cold, damp weather.”
“Mammae engorged, hard, sore and painful.”
“Mammary glands swollen, inactive, painless, itching, in consequence of a ‘cold’ which seems to have settled in them.”
“Cough, from damp, cold, atmosphere, or from getting wet.”
“Cough, dry, hoarse and rough, or loose, with copious expectoration of mucus and dull hearing; catarrhal ~fever.”
The cough is worse lying and in a warm room and better in the open air.
Rheumatic lameness and stiffness in the back from taking cold better by motion. Drawing pain in the lumber region extending to the lower limbs during rest. Stiff neck from every exposure to cold.
Stitching, tearing, rheumatic pains in limbs after exposure to cold, better by motion, worse at night or in the evening, with some fever. Sore, bruised feeling all over the body.
Warts on hands, fingers and face.
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.