Then Kalmia, Aurum, Bryonia, Rhus tox., Ledum, Calcarea and Abrotanum, and sometimes Cactus, are remedies that prove suitable for such cardiac affections. Rheumatic affections that are driven away in this manner are changed without being cured. The people cannot realize the danger, of merely removing symptoms. Every removal that is not in accordance with cure affects the centres of man, that is the heart and brain.
Rubbing is a dangerous thing. When you are importuned with the question,
“Doctor, will it hurt me to have this rubbed?” you reply, “If rubbing does not affect any change in the symptoms, it will do no harm.”
In proportion as it mitigates the symptoms or relieves, just in that proportion it does the patient harm, for the whole vital economy is weakened. There are instances where rubbing is of benefit, but not in rheumatism.
In paralyzed muscles it is a beneficial exercise, for then rubbing can take the place of exercise of the patient himself, of the muscles. But rubbing is not admissible if it is used to reduce pain. The more agreeable it is, the worse, it is for the patient.
In a Phosphorus patient you would be astonished what wonderful relief they can get from rubbing. There is no person more inclined to be weak in the vitality, in the internal economy, than the Phosphorus patient. He is an excitable, weakly patient, and feels better by rubbing and craves it, but if he has rheumatism in the knees and the knee is rubbed the rheumatism may go to the heart, The Phosphorus patient loves to be rubbed, because rubbing relieves the symptoms; he loves to be magnetized.
“Weariness of all the limbs; shuns all exertion.”
“Weakness the only general symptom with neuralgia.”
This weakness is a state that you can glean something from. When severe pain is fatiguing the economy the heart is threatened. A general weakness, prolonged weakness after confinement, or from the pain, as we find in Hepar, but with the weakness, these pains are threatening to leave their parts and go to the heart. He is perfectly exhausted and continuously tired.
The text speaks only of Aconite and Belladonna as the antidotes. Spigelia follows this remedy very well and antidotes it. Benzoic acid is a natural complement to it. Calcarea, Lithium carb. carb., Lycopodium, Nat. mur., and Pulsatilla are the remedies that are closely related and should be compared.
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.