Natrum mur. is a little like that in the smarting and inability to sleep at night in a warm room. In Natrum mur. too, the discharge may continue day and night. We have an acute class in which Pulsatilla is sometimes indicated-copious watery discharge which ends in sneezing. In the beginning we will think of Carbo veg., Arsenic, Allium cepa, Euphrasia.
With Carbo veg. there is a watery discharge and the irritation extends into the chest, with hoarseness and rawness. In Allium cepa we have one group of symptoms that points to this remedy. Excoriating discharge from the nose and bland discharge from the eyes; in the larynx, sensation as if hooks were there, and sometimes this extends below the larynx; this always means Allium cepa; it is also worse in a warm room like Pulsatilla
The Euphrasia looks like Cepa, only the discharge from the eyes is copious, watery and burning the lachrymation burns the eyes and excoriates the cheeks; discharge from nose is bland like Pulsatilla; sometimes this goes into the chest, then it is no longer Euphrasia.
Iodine is worse in a warm room; thick discharge from nose which bums and excoriates and is yellowish-green; but there is one thing that differentiates it from all the others -the patient immediately begins to emaciate when the complaint comes on and is very hungry.
Kali hydr. with the thick yellowish discharge, worse in a warm room, there is a great amount of rawness and burning in the nose; external nose very sore to pressure; sensitiveness in the root of the nose; whole face aches and patient is extremely restless; wants to walk in the open air which does not fatigue him.
Iodide of Arsenic; anxiety, restlessness and weakness; frequent sneezing and copious watery nasal discharge that burns the lip. Burning, watery discharge from the eyes like Arsenic. Arsenic wants to be very warm; wants hot water applied to the eyes; the only relief is from sniffing hot water up the nose. The Iodide of Arsenic is worse in a warm room, and, for days after sneezing, the discharge thickens and becomes gluey, looking like thick yellow honey, this excoriates; much pain through the root of the nose and eyes; often rawness in the chest with dyspnoea.
The remedies having the dyspnoea are Arsenic, Iodide of Arsenic, Iodine, Kali hydr., and Sabadilla; these are the ones I have found most frequently indicated in the asthmatic forms of hay fever. If the complaint has been developed after being overheated about that time, you will find that Silica, Pulsatilla and Carbo veg. must be carefully compared.
There is another class of remedies having the stuffing up of the nose not relieved by the discharge. There is a constant duke to blow the nose, yet he gets no relief. This makes me think at once of Lachesis, Kali bichromicum, Psorinum, Naja and Sticta.
Psorinum has the copious, watery, bland discharge from the nose, it may be excoriating, it has both. The stuffing up of the nose generally takes place in the open air; he is relieved in a warm, close room, and by lying down; has sonic dyspnoea. which is relieved by stretching the arms at right angles with the body. Hay fever is a psoric sickness. Psorinum given in a single dose will so develop the symptoms that the case will be more clear. The attack is not the best thing to prescribe for. If it is too violent, a short acting remedy may be selected that will mitigate it.
Nux vomica has a free easy breathing in the open air, but when he goes into the warm room his nose stuffs up, which also occurs at night, though the water drips on the pillow yet he stuffs up like Pulsatilla, Bryonia, and the Iodine preparations Iodide of Arsenic and Cyclamen. Do not understand me to have given remedies for hay fever, we cannot lay down remedies for diseases. The whole constitution must be most carefully examined.
Face: The face is sickly, often mottled, purple, intermixed with yellow and unhealthy colors; venous puffing; sensation of fullness; often a red face, like that of health, and the patient gets no sympathy; face often flushes; flushes of heat to the face; at times a sunken look; dark rings about the eyes; sallow, green, chlorotic.
Subject to erysipelas; erysipelatous blotches on the face, spreading to the scalp, with stinging and burning; skin of face very sensitive to touch at such times.
Mumps and inflammation of parotid glands. If a woman suffering with mumps takes a decided cold the breasts swell, and there is an inflammation of the mammary gland. Girls take cold, the swelling of the parotid subsides too soon, and the corresponding mammary gland swells; sometimes both swell; or it may begin in one and go to the other.
In men it is the testicle. Pulsatilla is one of the most important remedies in this form of metastasis; it breaks up complaints that flit about. Pulsatilla is the common remedy for enormously swollen testicles from mumps in a boy. Carbo vegetabilis is another remedy, but then you have a Carbo veg. patient. Abrotanum is also useful in wandering around symptoms.
Pains: Pulsatilla has wandering pains, rheumatism goes from joint to joint, jumps around here and there; neuralgic pains fly from place to place; inflammations go from gland to gland.
But here is the distinguishing feature – Pulsatilla sticks to its own text; it keeps jumping around, but it does not change to a new class of disease. Abrotanum has this metastasis, but it changes the whole diagnosis; that is, the allopath says,
“This is a new disease today.”
The patient has a violent diarrhoea today, and an ignoramus suppresses it; an inflammatory rheumatism comes on, and he calls it a new disease. The suppression of a diarrhoea or a hemorrhage, or the removal of piles, causes an out-cropping somewhere else. A child has a summer complaint suppressed and there follow symptoms referring to the brain, kidneys, liver, or a marasmus with emaciation from. below upwards. Such things are in the nature of Abrotanum.
Stomach: Hours after eating the patient eructates mouthfuls of sour, rancid, bitter fluid; liquids roll up from the stomach; always belching up rancid food.
Some patients cannot digest butter; cannot use olive oil on their food. All sorts of bad tastes in the mouth. Several hours after eating has not finished digesting food in the stomach. Sour vomiting and eructations.
Digestion is slow, and the patient goes to the next meal hungry; eating does not satisfy; assimilation is bad. Always bilious. Mouth is slimy and the taste is bad. All these symptoms are worse in the morning.
“Accumulation of saliva and much mucus in the mouth.”
“Flow of sweetish or tenacious saliva.”
“Constant spitting of frothy, cotton-like mucus.”
A striking feature of the Pulsatilla patient is that he never wants water. Dryness of the mouth, but seldom thirsty. Even in -many of the fevers he is thirstless, but there is at times an exception to this in high fevers there may be some thirst.
“Thirstlessness, with moist or dry tongue.
Desire for sour, refreshing things.”
Often desires things he cannot digest; lemonade, herring, cheese, pungent things, highly-seasoned things, juicy things.
“Aversion to meat, butter, fat food, pork, bread, milk, smoking.”
“Scraping sensation in stomach and oesophagus like heartburn.”
Many pains in the stomach when empty or when full. But the bloating, the gas and the sour stomach are most striking. Gastric catarrh. Craves ice cream; craves pastries, yet they will not digest, and make him worse. Craves things which make him sick. This is not uncommon. The whisky drinker craves his liquor, yet knows it will kill him. So in Pulsatilla with regard to pastries. Craves batter cakes, with maple syrup, yet knows they will be vomited. Craves highly spiced sausage, yet averse to pork alone.
Pulsatilla produces and cures jaundice.
“Jaundice in consequence of chronic susceptibility to hepatitis and derangement of secretion of bile, with looseness of bowels duodenal catarrh; disordered digestion feverishness and thirstlessness after quinine.”
Abdomen: Many troubles seem to manifest themselves in the abdomen by bloating, distension of the abdomen, flatulence, colicky pains, rumbling, fermentation of food, and from disorders of menstruation or diarrhea.
Great sensitiveness, tumefaction, tenderness; whole abdomen, stomach and pelvic organs sensitive to touch. Bloating after eating, especially after fats and rich foods. Fullness of the veins; general venous stasis. It brings about especially a tumid fullness of the abdomen, such a stuffed feeling that she cannot breathe.
Women: In a woman about to menstruate, there is bloating of the abdomen, stuffed feeling, has to throw off her clothes, cannot wear stays, wants to get into a loose dress or, to go to bed – so extremely puffed is she.
Associated with this abdominal tumefaction the face and lips become bloated and puffed, the eyes red, and the feet puffed so that she cannot wear her shoes. There is also a sensation of dragging down, a sense of great weakness, commonly related to the menstrual disturbances or uterine disorders.
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.