Silicea



Affections appearing in the angles of the eyes fistula lachrymalis; stricture of lachrymal duct.”

This is a general survey of the eye affections in Silicea.

Ear: There is no deeper remedy than Silicea in eradicating the tubercular tendency, when the symptoms agree; most tubercular cases are worse from cold, wet weather; better in cold dry weather.

The most inveterate cases of catarrh of the ear; old offensive, thick, yellow otorrheoa; following scarlet fever; all sorts of abnormalities in hearing, even to deafness.

Roaring in the cars associated with many diseases and hardness of hearing; hissing, roaring like steam; like a train of cars, many times from mechanical cause and other times from a condition of the nerves.

It is commonly the beginning of a dry catarrh of the middle ear; the remedy is especially useful when, in catarrh of the middle ear and Eustachian tube, the deafness goes on for some time and the hearing returns with a snap, due to the escape of the accumulation of fluids somewhere and described by the patient as a snap or report.

Sudden reports in the ear like a cannon, distant noises with return of hearing.

“Otorrheoa, offensive, watery, curdy, with soreness of inner nose and crusts on upper lip, after abuse of Mercury, with caries.”

Caries of bone in any part of the body, but especially of the small bones of the car, nose and mastoid process,

“Scabs behind the cars.”

Rupture of the drum of the ear.

Catarrhal conditions of the internal car and Eustachian tube, with

“feeling of sudden stoppage in the ear, better by gaping or swallowing.”

Especially with ear troubles, there will be associated indurated parotid glands.

Nose: Accumulation of hard crusts in the nose, loss of taste and smell epistaxis, thickening of the mucous membrane; most vicious catarrh with discharge of bone from the nose.

Horrible, foetid ozaena, old syphilitic cases where the nasal bones are destroyed and the nose becomes a flabby bag, is sunken in or ulcerated away, leaving an opening. Silicea may cure and an artificial nose be made afterwards.

Hepar competes with Silicea in syphilitic nasal catarrhs where the parts are phagedenic; Hepar, Mercurius cor. and Arsenicum, are the principal antisyphilitics when there is phagedenic ulceration of the nose. Babies suffer from bloody nasal discharge. This is often Calcarea sul.

Face: The aspect of the Silicea face is silky, anemic, waxy, tired. Pustular and vesicular eruptions spread over the face, the wings of the nose crack, the lips easily fissure; crusts form on the margin between the mucous membrane and the skin; eruptions and crusts, indurations form under the crusts, they peel off and there is no healing.

These indurations are the same kind of inferior tissue that is found under lupus and epithelioma, a low tissue formation, a low state of eczema that favors infiltration. The small blood-vessels that lead to them become thicker and thicker until they become gristly. There is a tendency to make the soft tissues harder and the hard tissues harder.

In childhood the bones become softer and even necrose or there is an inflammation of the periosteum and a consequent necrosis. Caries of the shaft of the long bones, the head of the bones and the cartilaginous portions; abscesses in cartilages, enchondromata.

Bones break down and form fistulous openings. Necrosis of the jaw, the joints, the hip-joint, the tibia, necrosis of the spine, of the vertebrae, so that there is curvature of the spine, lateral especially. The homoeopathic physicians may treat these affections of the bones with the help of accessory contrivances or supports.

The Silicea patient has rough lips, they crack and peel; rhagades. Scaly appearances at the margins of the lips, fissures in the corners of the mouth that indurate. There is often a line of fissure about the margin of the crust. Little crusts like epithelioma form upon the wings of the nose and when picked off leave a raw surface with no tendency to heal.

Crusty formations upon the ears.

The teeth break down, lose their enamel surface; the dentine is made up largely of the Siliceate of lime and the surface of the tooth becomes rough, loses its shiny appearance and caries sets in.

This often takes place at the margin of the gum; ulcers form on the tip of the fangs. The teeth suffer when it is cold or damp; toothache in wet weather, and the teeth are yellow, decay rapidly, and the gums settle away from. them.

All the neuralgias and toothaches are better in a warm room and from hot drinks. Abscesses about the gums and face, better by warmth. Severe pain in the jaw, rending, tearing at night, better from heat; these pains often end in abscesses about the teeth. Sometimes relieved by pressure unless the part is extremely sore from inflammation.

The tongue takes on inflammation of gouty character; inflammation with threatening abscess, it fills the whole mouth; rending, tearing pains, worse at night and better from heat.

Throat: In the throat and neck we have inflammation and swelling of all the glands, external and internal, all at once or singly.

Quinsy with great pain in the tonsils, one or both; threatening suppuration. Inflammation of the parotid, sublingual and much less frequently the submaxillary and cervical glands; painful, tumid and hard, with pain in the neck, shoulders and head, even in acute inflammations. But then we have the opposite state of affairs. In an old chronic case broken down with suffering the symptoms are worse after a bath, he wants warmth, dread the cold, is always shivering.

But when in the neck there is an acute inflarnmation the very opposite is present; he suffers from flushes of heat, an irregular, flushing fever, cold extremities while the upper part of the body is hot, sweat about the head and neck, sensation of heat and suffocation in a warm room. This will be present in quinsy and abscesses of the glands of the neck, if acute. Silicea here shows its relation to Pulsatilla The latter in its chronic manifestations is overburdened with heat, but in an acute trouble is chilly. They are reversed as to their acute and chronic states. Puls, in the beginning is chilly and sweating.

Silicea is full of throat symptoms but is seldom indicated in acute forms because its pace is too low; it comes on after there has been a series of colds, such colds as are ameliorated a number of times by Belladonna or other acute remedies but still continue to settle in the tonsils and in the glands of the neck.

Silicea breaks up the tendency. There is a catarrhal state in the throat that is roused up by every cold into an increased flux, with hoarseness, settling back into the chronic state again; chronic catarrhs of the pharynx.

It competes with Natrum mur. in inveterate sore throat.

Stomach: Silicea disturbs the stomach, causes hiccough, nausea and vomiting disturbs the liver.

All these symptoms are connected and are hard to separate. Decided aversion to warm food, desires cold things, wants his tea moderately cold, he is willing to have his food cold, dislikes warm food. Sometimes there is a decided aversion to meat, but if he does take it, he prefers cold, sliced meat. He likes ice cream, ice water, and feels comfortable when it is in the stomach; it is sometimes impossible for him to drink hot fluids, they cause sweat about the face and head and cause hot flushes. (Barayta carbonica)

Silicea is disturbed by the extremes of heat and cold, easily affected, in changes even of a few degrees; he has complaints from being overheated; he gets overheated easily, sweats easily from a slight change in the temperature and comes down with a cold.

Case: A physician waiting on an obstetrical case, had a little difficulty in the last stage and he became overheated; putting on his overcoat and hat he went out on the porch to cool off and was taken down with asthma, violent cough, copious expectoration with gagging and vomiting which lasted him for months.

The acute remedies he had taken only palliated, but a dose of Silicea cured him almost as quickly as he was taken down; he could not tolerate a warm room; the acute complaints of Silicea are often worse in a warm room and from heat.

Silicea has an aggravation from milk. Many times the infant is unable to take any kind of milk and, hence, the physician is driven to prescribe all the foods in the market if he does not know the right remedy. Natrum carb. and Silicea are both useful when the mother’s milk causes diarrhoea and vomiting.

The routinist is likely to give such medicines as Aethusa, entirely forgetting Silicea. The latter, as well as Natrum carb., has sour vomiting and sour curds in the stool.

“Aversion the mother’s milk and vomiting.”

“Diarrhea from milk.”

Put these two together.

Although the patient has an aversion to hot things and desires to eat cold things, yet in chest complaints cold water, ice cream and cold, things in general, increase the cough to gagging, and then the retching is dreadful; violent, retching, gagging cough. Retching from an endeavor to expectorate is usually controlled by Carbo veg., but Silicea his it.

James Tyler Kent
James Tyler Kent (1849–1916) was an American physician. Prior to his involvement with homeopathy, Kent had practiced conventional medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. He discovered and "converted" to homeopathy as a result of his wife's recovery from a serious ailment using homeopathic methods.
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.