Some believe this is due to the fact that there is so much Sulphur in the coal. We may theorize about these things as much as we have a mind to, but we do not want to fall into the habit of antidoting the lower potencies with the high.
Only use that method as a dernier ressort. When there are no symptoms to indicate the remedy, then it is time for us to experiment, and then it is justifiable only when it is carried on by a man of the right sort, because such a man keeps within the limit. He knows how to give his remedy. Such a man is guided by the symptoms in each case so far as symptoms speak out.
In inflammatory conditions a purplish appearance of the inflamed parts, a venous engorgement, is seen under Sulphur.
Measles, when they come out with that purplish color, very often require Sulphur.
Sulphur is a great remedy in measles.
The routinist can do pretty well in this disease with Pulsatilla and Sulphur, occasionally requiring Aconite and Euphrasia. Especially will Sulphur modify the case when the skin is dusky and the measles do not come out. This purplish color may be seen anywhere, in the erysipelas, in the sore throat, often on the forearms, legs and face.
The dreadful effects of vaccination are often cured by Sulphur. In this it competes with Thuja and Malandrinum.
Mind: In the mental state, which gives out the real man, shows forth the real interior nature, we see that Sulphur vitiates his affections, driving him to a most marked state of selfishness.
He has no thought of anybody’s wishes or desires but his own. Everything that he contemplates is for the benefit of himself. This selfishness runs through the Sulphur patient. There is absence of gratitude.
Philosophical mania is also a prominent feature. Monomania over the study of strange and abstract things, occult things; things that are beyond knowledge; studying different things without any basis to figure upon; dwelling upon strange and peculiar things.
Sulphur has cured this consecutive tracing one thing to another as to first cause. It has cured a patient who did nothing but meditate as to what caused this and that and the other thing, finally tracing things back to Divine Providence, and then asking:
“Who made God?”
She would sit in a corner counting pins and wonder, pondering over the insolvable question of “Who made God?”
One woman could never see any handiwork of man without asking who made it. She could never be contented until she found out the man who made it, and then she wanted to know who his father was; she would sit down and wonder who he was, whether he was an Irishman, and so on.
That is a feature of Sulphur. It is that kind of reasoning without any hope of discovery, without any possible answer. It is not that kind of philosophy which has a basis and which can be followed up, reasoning in a series, reasoning on things that are true, but a fanatical kind of philosophy that has no basis, wearing oneself out.
Sulphur has an aversion to follow up things in an orderly fashion, an aversion to real work, an aversion to systematic work. The Sulphur patient is a sort of inventive genius. When he gets an idea in his mind he is unable to get rid of it.
He follows it and follows it until finally accidentally be drops into some thing, and many times that is how things are invented. Such is a Sulphur patient. He is often ignorant but imagines himself to be a great man; he despises education and despises literary men and their accomplishments, and he wonders why it is everyone cannot see that he is above education. Again, this patient takes on religious melancholy, not meditating upon the rational religion, but on foolish ideas about himself. He prays constantly and uninterruptedly, is always in his room, moaning with despair. He thinks he has sinned away his day of grace.
A patient needing Sulphur is often in a state of dullness and confusion of mind, with inability to collect the thoughts and ideas; lack of concentration. He will sit and meditate on no one thing continuously, making no effort to concentrate his mind upon anything. He wakes up in the morning with dullness of mind and fullness in the head and vertigo. Vertigo in the open air. In the open air comes on coryza with this fullness in the head and dullness, so that there is a confusion of the mind.
In the books there is an expression that has been extensively used.
“Foolish happiness and pride; thinks himself in possession of beautiful things; even rags seem beautiful.”
Such a state has been present in lunatics, and in persons who were not lunatics in any other way except on that one idea.
The Sulphur patient has an aversion to business. He will sit around and do nothing, and let his wife take in washing and “work her fingernails off” taking care of him; he thinks that is all she is good for.
A state of refinement seems to have gone out of the Sulphur patient. Sulphur is the very opposite of all things fastidious. Arsenicum is the typical fastidious patient, and these two remedies are the extremes of each other. Arsenicum wants his clothing neat and clean, wants everything hung up well upon the pegs, wants all the pictures hung up properly upon the wall, wants everything neat and nice; and hence the Arsenicum patient has been called “the gold-headed-cane patient,” because of his neatness, fastidiousness and cleanliness.
The very opposite of all that is the Sulphur patient.
“Indisposed to everything, work, pleasure, talking or motion; indolence of mind and body.”
“Satiety of life; longing for indolence of mind and body.”
“Satiety of life; longing for death.”
“Too lazy to rouse himself up, and too unhappy to live.”
“Dread of being washed (in children).”
Yes, they will cry lustily if they have to be washed. The Sulphur patient dreads water and takes cold from bathing.
As to its relationship, Sulphur should not be given immediately before Lycopodium. It belongs to a rotating group, Sulphur, Calcarea, Lycopodium.
First Sulphur, then Calcarea and then Lycopodium, and then Sulphur again, as it follows Lycopodium well. Sulphur and Arsenicum are also related.
You will very often treat a case with Sulphur for a while and then need to give Arsenicum for some time, and then back to Sulphur. Sulphur follows most of the acute remedies well.
The Sulphur patient is troubled is with much dizziness. When he goes into the open air or when he stands any length of time, he becomes dizzy. On rising in the morning his head feels stupid, and on getting on his feet he is dizzy.
He feels stupid and tired, and not rested by his sleep, and “things go round.” It takes some time to establish an equilibrium. He is slow in gathering himself together after sleep. Here we see the aggravation from sleep and from standing.
Head: The head furnishes many symptoms.
The Sulphur patient is subject to periodical sick headaches; congestive headaches, a sensation of great congestion with stupefaction, attended with nausea and vomiting. Sick headache once a week or every two weeks, the characteristic seven-day aggravation.
Most headaches coming on Sunday in working men are cured by Sulphur. You can figure this out. Sunday is the only day he does not work, and he sleeps late in the morning and gets up with a headache that involves the whole head, with dullness and congestion. Being busy and active prevents the headache during the week.
Others have periodical headaches every seven to ten days, with nausea and vomiting of bile. Again he may have a headache lasting two or three days; a congestive headache. Headache with nausea and no vomiting or headache with vomiting of bile. The headache is aggravated by stooping, generally ameliorated in a warm room and by the application of warmth; aggravated from light, hence the desire to close the eyes and to go into dark room; aggravated by jarring, and after eating.
The whole head is sensitive and the eyes are red, and there is often lachrymation, with nausea and vomiting. Headaches at times in those who suffer constantly from great heat in the vertex; the top of the head is hot and burns and he wants cold cloths applied to the top of the head. These headaches associated with heat are often ameliorated by cold, but otherwise the head is ameliorated in a warm room.
The head feels stupid and sometimes he cannot think. Every motion aggravates and he is worse after eating and drinking, worse from taking cold drinks into the stomach and better from hot drinks. When the headaches are present the face is engorged; bright red face. Headaches in persons who have a red face, a dirty face or sallow, a venous stasis of the face; the eyes are engorged and the skin is engorged; the face is puffed and venous in appearance.
Sulphur is useful in persons who get up in the morning with headache, dizziness and red face; in persons who say they know they are going to have the headache some time during the day because the face feels very full and is red in the morning, and the eyes are red.
Before the headache comes on there is a flickering before the eyes, a flickering of color. Scintillations, stars, saw teeth, zig-zags are forewarnings of a headache. Some Sulphur headaches that I have known present a peculiar appearance before the eyes; a rhomboidal figure, obliquely placed, with saw teeth on the upper side and the body filled with spots.
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.
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