Sulphur



An aggravation after sleep fits into many of the complaints of Sulphur, but especially those of the mind and sensorium. Most of the, complaints of Sulphur are also worse after eating.

The Sulphur patient is aggravated from, bathing. He dreads a bath. He does not bathe himself and from his state in general he belongs to “the great unwashed.” He cannot take a bath without catching “cold.”

Children’s complaints. Dirty-faced, dirty-skinned little urchins, who are subject to nightly attacks of delirium, who suffer much from, pains in the head, who bad brain troubles, who are threatened with hydrocephalus, who had meningitis, need Sulphur.

Sulphur will clear up the constitutional state when remedies have failed to reach the whole case because they are not deep enough. If the infant does not develop properly, if the bones do not grow, and there is slow closing of the fontanelles, Calcarea carbonica may be the remedy and Sulphur is next in importance for such slow growth.

You would not suppose that the Sulphur patient is so nervous as he is, but he is full of excitement; easily startled by noise, wakens, from sleep in a start as if he had heard a cannon report or seen a “spook.”

The Sulphur patient is the victim of much trouble in his sleep. He is very sleepy in the fore part of the night, at times sleeping till 3 A.M., but from that time on he has restless sleep, or does not sleep at all. He dreads daylight, wants to go to sleep again, and when he does sleep he can hardly be aroused, and wants to sleep late in the morning. That is the time he gets his best rest and his soundest sleep. He is much disturbed by dreadful dreams and nightmare.

When the symptoms agree, Sulphur will be found a curative medicine in erysipelas. For erysipelas as a name we have no remedy, but when the patient has erysipelas and his symptoms conform to those of Sulphur, you can cure him with Sulphur.

If you bear that distinction in mind you will be able to see what Homoeopathy means; it treats the patient and not the name that the sickness goes by.

The Sulphur patient is annoyed throughout his economy with surgings of blood here and there surging, with fullness of the head, which we have heretofore described as flashes of heat. It has marked febrile conditions and can be used in acute diseases.

It is one of the natural complements of Aconite, and when Aconite is suitable to the acute exacerbations and removes them, very often Sulphur corresponds to the constitutional state of the patient.

Sulphur is suitable in the most troublesome scrofulous” complaints in broken-down constitutions and defective assimilation. It has deep seated, ragged ulcers on the lower extremities, indolent ulcers, ulcers that will not granulate. They burn, and the little moisture that oozes out burns the parts round about. It is indicated often in varicose ulcers that bleed easily and burn much.

In old cases of gout, Sulphur is a useful remedy. It is a deep-acting remedy, and in most instances it will keep the gout upon the extremities, as its tendency is outward from centre to circumference.

Like Lycopodium and Calcarea, when suitably administered in old gouty conditions, not where there is much organic change present, it will keep the rheumatic state in the joints and extremities.

Sulphur, like Silicea, is a dangerous medicine to give where there is structural disease in organs that are vital, especially in the lungs.

Sulphur will often heal old fistulous pipes and turn old abscesses into a normal state, so that healthy pus will follow, when it is indicated by the symptoms. It will open abscesses that are very slow, doing nothing, it will reduce inflamed glands that are indurated and about to suppurate, when the symptoms agree.

But it is a dangerous medicine to administer in advanced cases of phthisis, and, if given, it should not be prescribed in. the highest potencies. If there are symptoms that are very painful, and you think that Sulphur must be administered, go to the 30 th or 200 th potency.

Do not undertake to stop the night sweats that come in the advanced stages, even if Sulphur seems to be indicated by the symptoms; the fact is, it is not indicated. A remedy that is dangerous in any case ought not to be considered as indicated, even though the symptoms are similar.

In old cases of syphilis, when, the psoric state is uppermost, Sulphur may be needed. Sulphur is rarely indicated when the syphilitic symptoms are uppermost, but when these have been suppressed by Mercury and the disease is merely held in abeyance, Sulphur will antidote the Mercury and allow the symptoms to develop and the original condition to come back in order to be seen.

The great mischief done by allopaths is due to the fact that they want to cover up everything that is in the economy; they act as if ashamed of everything in the human race; whereas Homoeopathy endeavors to reveal everything in the human rue and to antidote those drugs that cover up, and to free those diseases that are held down.

It is true that many patients will not have Homoeopathy because they do not want their syphilitic eruption brought to view they do not want the evidences of their indiscretion brought to light but Homoeopathy endeavors to do that. Conditions that are in the economy will come out under proper homoeopathic treatment. Sulphur brings complaints to the surface, so that they can be seen. It is a general broad antidote.

Suppressions: It is a medicine often called for in the suppression of eruptions from cold and from drugs, and even from Sulphur. It is a great medicine to develop these things which have been covered tip, hence you will see Sulphur in all the lists of remedies useful for suppressed eruptions or for anything suppressed by drugs.

Even when acute eruptions have been suppressed, Sulphur becomes a valuable remedy. In suppressed gonorrhoea Sulphur is often the remedy to start up the discharge and re-establish the conditions that have been caused to disappear. Symptoms that have been suppressed must return or a cure is not possible.

Sulphur has been the remedy from the beginning of its history, from the time of Hahnemann, and on his recommendation, to be thought of when there is a paucity of symptoms to prescribe on, a latent condition of the symptoms due to psora. In this state it has been administered with so much benefit that the routine prescriber has learned the fact.

When apparently (superficially) well-indicated remedies fail to hold a patient, and symptoms cannot be found for a better remedy, it is true that Sulphur takes a deep hold of the economy and remedies act better after it.

This is well established from experience. You will find at times when you have given a remedy which seems well indicated, that it does not hold the case, and then you give the next best indicated remedy, and then the next, with the same result.

You will begin to wonder why this is, but you will see that, although the case does not call clearly for Sulphur, yet on its administration it so closely conforms to the underlying condition (and psora is so often the underlying condition) that it makes the remedies act better.

This is an observation that has been confirmed since the time of Hahnemann by all the old men.

Such things are only necessary when there is a paucity of symptoms, where after much study it is necessary to resort to what, seem the best measures, measures, justifiable to a certain extent, based upon observation and upon a knowledge of the conditions underlying the constitution of the whole race.

We know that underlying these cases with few symptoms there is a latent condition, and that it is either psora, syphilis or sycosis. If it were known to be syphilis we would select the head of the class of remedies looking like syphilis.

If known to be sycosis, we would select the head of the class of remedies looking like sycosis. Sulphur stands at the head of the list of remedies looking like the underlying psora; and so, if the underlying constitution is known to be psoric, and it is a masked case, Sulphur will open up the latent cause, and, even if it does not act on a positively curative basis, it is true that a better representation of the symptoms comes up. And as Sulphur is to psora, so is Mercurius to syphilis, and Thuja to sycosis.

In the coal regions of Pennsylvania, those who work in the mines and those living in the vicinity of the mines often need Sulphur. We know that the coal is not made up of Sulphur; there is a good deal in it besides; but those who handle the coal often need Sulphur. Persons who are always grinding kaolin and the various products that are used in the manufacture of china, and the workers among stone, especially require Calcarea and Silicea, but those who work in the coal mines often need Sulphur.

The patients look like Sulphur patients; they have the aspect, and even when their symptoms are localized and call for other remedies, you will get no good action from these remedies until you give them a dose of Sulphur, after which they go on improving.

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.

Comments are closed.