There is a distended feeling in the stomach; a sense of a weight in the stomach; almost constant nausea; vomiting of slime, bitter and sour. These are the characteristics: bitter and sour.
A sensation of weight in the right hypochondrium, in the region of the liver; aching pains; sometimes cutting pains, and a great amount of distress in the region of the liver. Engorgement in the region of the liver. He can only lie on his right side, his complaints are aggravated from lying on his left side. When lying on the left side, the congested liver seems to pull and draw; the great weight increases the pain and uneasiness and he is compelled to turn back on the right side. Now, it is from these symptoms, whenever a patient comes into my office and says, “Doctor, my mouth is so slimy and tastes so bad, and I think I am bilious,” that he always gets Natrum sulphuricum.
Natrum sulphuricum produces great flatulence, distention of the abdomen, cutting pains in the abdomen, associated with congestion of the liver. In this tympanitic condition of the liver that sometimes comes on in the inflammatory conditions in bilious fever, you will find Natrum sulphuricum your remedy.
I began the use of this remedy with Schussler’s remedies some years ago, and find the indications well carried out by the higher and highest potencies. Bell says that if the thirtieth potency of Arsenic is equal to a complete knowledge of the drug, crude Arsenic would be equal to complete ignorance.
There is a condition of the chest that is characteristic, and that is in relation to the cough. It has a cough with a sensation of “all-goneness” in the chest. In this it competes with Bryonia; both hold the chest when coughing. Bryonia holds the chest because he feels as if it would fly to pieces; there is such a soreness that he feels the necessity of steadying his chest. The complaints of Bryonia are relieved by pressure. Natrum sulphuricum has this same desire to hold the chest; but in Natrum sulphuricum the muco-pus that is expectorated is thick, ropy and yellowish green, looking like pus-purulent-and there is an “all-gone,” empty feeling in the chest. He feels a sense of weakness there; that his lungs are all gone, that he must die in a few days with consumption or some other failing like that, and that it is coming on in a short time.
Bryonia corresponds more to the irritable states with the cough, where there is great rawness, great constriction, great sense of tearing in the chest; burning in the chest; while Natrum sulphuricum corresponds to a case that has been going on for perhaps a week; every cough brings up a mouthful of purulent sputa with a desire to press upon the chest to relieve the weakness; Natrum sulphuricum is then your remedy.
Another condition is that of humid asthma. If a child has asthma, give Natrum sulphuricum as the first remedy. Asthma, when hereditary, is one of the sycotic complaints of Hahnemann. You will not find that in your text-books, so do not look for it, but it may be an observation worth knowing,. I have cured a very large number of such cases of asthma, although the text-books would discourage you if you should read them under asthma, because they will tell you that cases of asthma are incurable. For years I was puzzled with the management of asthma. When a person came to me and asked: “Doctor, can you cure asthma?” I would say, “No.” But now I am beginning to get quite liberal on asthma, since I have learned that asthma is a sycotic disease, and since I have made judicious application of anti-sycotics have been able to relieve or cure a great number of such cases. You will find in the history of medicine that wherever asthma was cured, it has been by anti-sycotic remedies. That is one of the first things I observed, that outside of sycotics you will seldom find a cure for asthma. There is that peculiarity that runs through sycosis which gives you a hereditary disease, and asthma corresponds to that disease. Hence it is that Silicea is one of the greatest cures for asthma; it does not cure every case, but when Silicea corresponds to the symptoms, you will be surprised to note how quickly it will eradicate it. While Ipecac, Spongia, and Arsenicum will correspond just as clearly to the supervening symptoms and to everything that you can find about the case, yet what do they do? They palliate; they repress the symptoms; but your asthma is ‘ better off, your patient no is not cured. Arsenic is one of the most frequently indicated remedies for the relief of asthma; so also are Bryonia, Ipecac, Spongia and Carbo veg., but they do not cure; though they relieve surprisingly at times. Where a patient is sitting up, covered with a cold sweat, wants to be fanned by somebody on either side of the bed, dyspnoea is so distressing that it seems almost impossible for the patient to live longer, to get another breath, then Carbo veg. comes in and gives immediate relief and the patient will lie down and get a very good night’s rest. But what is the result? On comes the asthma again the very next cold. Natrum sulphuricum goes down to the bottom of this kind of a case. If it is hereditary, that is, not long-lived, if it is in a growing subject, Natrum sulphuricum goes down to the bottom of such a case and will cure when its symptoms are present; and the symptoms will so often be present. It is because of this deep seated anti-sycotic nature, we find in the combination of Natrum and Sulphur, that we have a new state and combination running into the life. When the chest is filling up with mucus, rattling of mucus, expectoration of large quantities of white mucus, with asthmatic breathing in young subjects, this remedy must be thought of.
In relation to the genito-urinary organs, we have some very valuable symptoms. In chronic gonorrhoea, with greenish or yellowish-green discharges. Instead of gonorrhoea running off into white, gleety discharge, it keeps up a yellowish, thick, greenish discharge. It competes here with Thuja and Mercurius, both of which are anti-sycotics. When Natrum sulphuricum is indicated there is generally very little pain, it is almost painless. There is chronic loss of sensibility in the part.
The urine is loaded with bile, is of a pinkish or yellowish colour, with a “corn-meal” sediment, or it looks like stale beer and is extremely offensive. Offensive urine is not in the text.
Like sulphur, it has burning of the soles of the feet at night, and the burning extends to the knees; burning from the knees down. It has also, like sulphur, great burning in the top of the head; it has tearing, rending, cutting pains from the hips down to the knees; worse at night. The stomach symptoms are worse in the morning, and so also with the mental symptoms, they are generally worse in the morning.
Now, upon the skin we have some eruptions; we have those cases of so called itch, scabies or vesicular eruptions, vesicular eczema, with a thin, watery discharge exuding from the fingers, and the fingers are swollen stiff and stand out stiffened by the swelling; they are swollen so stiff they can hardly be gotten together. (Baker’s itch and barber’s itch come under this head). Natrum sulphuricum cures where the palms of the hands are raw and sore and exude a watery fluid. Also vesicular eruptions around the mouth and chin and various parts of the body; little, fine water blisters, very much like Natrum muriaticum and very much also like Natrum carb. So you see it runs into the Natrums. The other disease that I incidentally mentioned a moment ago-the barber’s itch-is a sycotic disease, a sycosis menti, a disease of the hair follicles. It is sometimes even contagious. It is one of the highest types of sycosis; the next highest type of sycosis is the venereal wart known as the gonorrheal warts. This medicine corresponds to this state and condition of the body.
Now, we have said considerable about sycosis. We know in sycosis, which is a constitutional miasm, that we have venereal warts or gonorrheal warts; that we have another sycotic state that comes upon the female in cauliflower excrescences. We have also hereditary asthma, a constitutional disease that depends upon sycosis, and this peculiar barber’s itch is one of the highest types of sycosis; they are all. due to one cause, and some day this cause will be demonstrated to be latent sycosis. Gonorrhoea will some day be known to be the true offspring of this sycosis. It is the contagious part of the sycosis. It is the means by which the disease is handed from generation to generation. This thing you will not find in the books, and it is, perhaps, only a private opinion and, therefore, worthless. But some day you will remember that I told you this. I have seen things in my observation that astonished me. I believe I have solved what Hahnemann called sycosis, though he has never described it. To me it is very clear from the cases I have cured, with this theory in view or this doctrine in view. The cases I have cured lead me to believe that I am on the right track.
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.