Iron: We will take up the study of Ferrum metallicum. The Old School has been giving Iron for anaemia throughout all tradition. They have given it in great quantities in the form of the tincture of chloride, and the carbonate.
Whenever the patient became anemic, pallid, waxy and weak, Iron was the tonic. It is true that Iron produces anemia, and it would be astonishing to any one who ever read the provings of Ferrum of the allopaths did not create additional bloodlessness with the doses of Iron they administer.
It is true that under the provings, and under those circumstances where Iron has been given in excess, the patient becomes greenish, waxy, yellow and pallid, with a sickly and anemic countenance. The lips become pale; the ears lose their pink color; the skin of the body becomes waxy, and there comes a tendency to hemorrhage, at times with clots, but commonly with copious, thin, liquid blood, very dark.
The clots will separate and the fluid parts look brown, dirty and watery. The patient gradually emaciates. He is pallid and waxy; his muscles become flabby and relaxed; he is incapable of endurance. All the muscular fibers become tired from any exertion. Rapid exercise, or, any unusual exertion. is impossible. Any rapid exertion or motion brings on weakness, dyspnea, sinking and fainting.
A strange thing running through all the constitutional conditions of Ferrum is that the pains and sufferings come on during rest.
The palpitation sometimes comes on during rest, the dyspnoea comes on during rest, and even the weakness. The patient is ameliorated by moving gently about, but any exertion tires and causes faintness.
Any rapid motion aggravates the complaints. The pains are ameliorated by moving about the house slowly, so that the exertion does not excite or fatigue. In many cases the patient is dropsical. The skin pits upon pressure and is pale, yet the face shows an appearance of plethora. From every little excitement the face becomes flushed.
During the chill the face becomes red. From taking wine or stimulant the face becomes flushed, and the patient, though flabby, relaxed and tired, does not get credit for being sick.
She fails to get the sympathy of her friends. She is feeble, she suffers from palpitation and dyspnoea, she has great weakness with inability to do anything like work, she feels that she must lie down-yet the face is flushed. This is called a pseudo-plethora.
The blood-vessels are distended, the veins varicose, and their coatings relaxed. On this account bleed ing takes place easily; capillary oozing; hemorrhage from all pass of the body, haemorrhage from the nose, the lungs, the uterus.
Women suffer much from haemorrhage from the uterus, especially during and after the climacteric period. Ferrum will be found of great value when the symptoms agree in that wonderful anemic state called “green sickness,” that comes on with girls at the time of puberty and in the years that follow it.
There will be almost no menstrual flow, but a cough will develop, with great pallor. So common is this sickness among girls that all mothers are acquainted with and dread it. In a large practice you will have a number of cases of chlorosis.
Sometimes the early menstrual period is attended with a copious, and then occurs, and this goes on for a number of years before anything like menstrual regularity is established.
In these cases the Old School always used to feed their patients Iron in great quantities, but the more Iron the patient took the worse she grew.
Congestion, tending upwards, with red face, hot head and coldness of the extremities. But the heat of the head and face is not at all in proportion to the red appearance. It will be found that this congestion upward in Ferrum will take place during a chill, in septic fevers or in other forms of fever, and the head is not always hot, but sometimes cool. The face may be red and cool.
Face: Another grand feature of Ferrum is that, like China, it has complaints from loss of animal fluids; from prolonged haemorrhage, with weakness remaining a long time. There is no repair, no assimilation. The bones are soft and easily bent; they take on crooks. Emaciated and feeble children. Dryness of the joints, causing cracking on motion. Sudden emaciation, with false plethora.
Redness of face – a healthy looking bloom – in one who is unable to walk fast on the street, or to stand any exertion. Yet some of the complaints of Ferrum are better from occupation, from doing something, from taking a little exercise, because the complaints come on during rest.
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.
Comments are closed.