“Painless discharges from the bowels.
Watery mucus, sometimes odorless, but commonly very offensive.”
Then, another part of it is that the patient has no realization of the passage. It is involuntary. Both the urine and the stool are passed without his knowledge. Watery. bloody, or mushy. Hysterical females and young girls, who are subject to attacks of diarrhoea and bloody stools. Relaxed state of the bowels connected with relaxation of the uterus.
“Diarrhoea during pregnancy.
Diarrhoea during typhoid fever.
Paralysis of the sphincter ani.
Paralysis of the bladder after labor, so that the urine remains in the bladder, with no desire to urinate.”
Bladder: The routine remedy for retention of urine after labor is Causticum Causticum, like Rhus, is a great remedy for the effect of strain upon muscles and parts, and the violent effort that a woman passes through in expelling the child in many instances leaves all the pelvic muscles tired, relaxed, paralyzed.
Then comes that which was mentioned, which really belongs to the general state more than the local; violent sexual desire. Violent sexual desire in girls who never had that desire. Coming on and manifesting itself only during the inflammation of the brain.
“Labour-like pains from taking cold.”
A cold settles in the uterus, bringing on painful menstruation. Hyoscyamus has various crampings; cramps in the fingers and toes and of the muscles here and there, temporary paralysis, etc. It has suppressed menstruation. There are many conditions belonging to menstruation, pregnancy and parturition that are hysterical in character.
Twitchings, cough, constipation, diarrhea, etc., that belong to a hysterical nature.
“Puerperal convulsions.
Jerks violently at the oncoming of the convulsions.
After miscarriage, haemorrhage of bright red blood, No desire of the bladder to expel the contents.”
Voice: And then comes the voice, the larynx, respiration, and cough.
Constriction of the larynx. Much mucus in the larynx and air passages, makes the speech and voice rough. Hoarseness with dry and inflamed throat. Speech difficult. Hysterical aphonia. Hyoscyamus and Veratrum are two medicines that cure and make a nervous hysterical woman a great deal more sensible.
“Difficult spasmodic respiration from spasm of the chest.
Apparently loss of breath; rattling in the chest.”
Hysterical cough. Sensitive, hysterical girls, or sensitive women, with spinal irritation, have paroxysmal cough, coming on periodically, coming on from excitement. When this patient lies down in the daytime, at night, any time, on will come the spasmodic cough with contractions in the larynx, spasms in the larynx, choking, gagging, and vomiting.
“Redness of the face, and suffocation.”
It is a dry, hacking, choking cough, that racks the whole body, in spinal affections.
“Tickling in the larynx.
Dry, hacking, and spasmodic cough, worse lying, better sitting, worse at night, after eating, drinking, talking and singing.
Dry, spasmodic, persistent cough.”
But its characteristic cough is a dry, racking, harassing cough, worse lying down. Those young women and girls with sore spots on the spine from the coccyx to the brain, sore places that manifest themselves when leaning back against a chair.
These take a little cold in the larynx, and sometimes it is purely from a nervous attack. Sometimes spinal irritation, spinal cough in those that have curvature of the spine.
“During cough, spasms in the larynx.
Cough worse after midnight; wakes the patient from sleep.
Cough in cold air, and from eating and drinking.
Cough after measles.
Violent spasmodic cough.”
The cough is most exhausting. A cough will sometimes last until the patient is covered with sweat and is exhausted, and leans forward to get a little relief; and he coughs until he is exhausted.
“Spasms of the muscles of the chest.
Contraction of the muscles of one side of the neck.
Spinal meningitis with convulsions.”
Paralytic weakness of the limbs. Convulsions of the muscles. Twitching. Frequent twitchings of the muscles of the hands and feet.
Sleep: Many complaints come on during sleep.
The sleep is a great tribulation to this nervous patient. There are times of sleeplessness. Again, profound sleep.
“Sleepless, or constant sleep.”
Either awake or asleep, there may be muttering,
“Long continued sleeplessness.
Lascivious dreams.
Lying on the back he suddenly sits up and then lies down again.”
That means that the patient wakes out of sleep, looks all around, wonders what terrible thing he has been dreaming about; his dreams seen real. He looks all about and sees nothing of the objects of his dream, he lies down and goes to sleep again.
He keeps doing that all night. Starts up in a fright. jerks in sleep, and cries out. Grates the teeth. Laughing during sleep. With so much brain trouble as belongs to this medicine, we would expect the dreams and the fright, the disturbances, the twitching and trembling in sleep. Its fevers are low forms of fever, the continued fever, the typhoid.
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.