The stools are green, slimy, bloody, dark, watery, undigested, excoriating and intolerably offensive. The urine may be suppressed, and the child lies in a stupor, hot and twitching. When aroused he is restless, demanding frequent change of position. On awaking, he is cross and violent, his pinched features looking more hideous as he contracts the muscles and draws the lips more tightly over the gums. The tendency is surely deathward; but in some cases, when the symptoms appear more slowly emaciation follows, but dropsy and great debility set in. The child looks like a living skeleton, cannot be raised from his pillow, vomits his food and purges when given drink.
Arsenic is adapted to such mummified cases, to bottle-fed babies, and to rapid decline, suddenly appearing in chronic cases.
When the symptoms rather favour Sulphur, Arsenicum Sulph. Flav. may be substituted. Stools are green slimy, watery and offensive, worse, during the day, while it is well-known that the Arsenicum Alb. has diarrhoea worse at night, after 12 P.M. When the glands are engorged with the usual Arsenic symptoms Arsenicum Iodatum may be substituted.
ARGENTUM NITRICUM is adapted to emaciated children who look old, yellow an wrinkled. The face is pale, sunken, the weakness is so great that every motion is attended with trembling. This exhaustion is the result of rapid loss of fluids, as in Cholera Infantum, or of long-protracted diarrhoea and defective nourishment. The gastro-enteric symptoms, which indicate it in Marasmus, are somewhat akin to those of Arsenic; but the inflammation is less intense, while the paresis is more marked in the Silver. Thus, with anaemia, weakness and emaciation, it is noticed that fluids taken seem to gurgle through at once. Also diarrhoea of green fetid mucus, with noisy emission of flatus at night. Child craves sweets, yet they aggravate the trouble.
NATRUM MURIATICUM is to be preferred when the child is emaciated, notwithstanding it has a good appetite. The tongue is mapped, and vesicles or herpes from about the mouth. The wasting is especially marked about the neck. (Compare VeratrumAlb).
In one case a child who though old enough, cold not talk, was cured with salt. The defect here was not Paralysis, but arose from imperfect development of the muscles of the tongue and larynx. So, similarly, Natrum Mur. may be used internally and topically for weak ankles in children; they stumble, or their feet turn under them. Salt here compares with Causticum, Sulphuric Acid etc. which, ceteris paribus, may relieve weak ankles.
CAUSTICUM is adapted to children who grow tardily, and who seem to suffer from a sort of paresis. The abdomen is swollen and hard, but the body is wasted and the feet are diminutive. They walk unsteadily and fall easily. This arises not only from weak ankles, but from weakness of brain also. Such children are timid, fear going to bed in the dark, and have a weak memory. They also have Intertrigo during dentition, and Eczema on the occiput.
BARYTA CARB. is very similar to Causticum in mental weakness, timidity and slowness in learning to walk. Both, also. have an eruption chiefly on the occiput. But in Baryta Carb. the brain may be actually undeveloped, as in the sclerosis of infants. The child is dwarfish; it does not want to play, but sits idly in a corner. It cannot be taught, for it cannot remember. The child is dwarfish; it dose not want to play, but sits idly in a corner. The face is red, the abdomen bloated, the rest of the body being wasted; stools imperfectly digested, loose and pappy, or hard and dry. Glands are enlarged, especially the cervical and the tonsils. Child wants to eat all the time, but is averse to sweet things and fruits. A little food satiates.
PHOSPHORIC ACID necessarily favors Phosphorus but the child is apt to be listless and indifferent rather than over-sensitive. The abdomen is swollen, and if, diarrhoea is present, there is much fermentation in the bowels. The diarrhoea, though long-lasting, does not proportionately weaken.
SULPHURIC ACID cures Marasmus with restless, nervous, weakly children. They do everything hurriedly and yet without vim. The eruption, similar to Sulphur, is associated with bright- yellow, mucous stools, which are stringy or chopped. In addition there, is generally aphthous sore-mouth, yellow and painful.
NATRUM SULPHURICUM is to be chosen when a sycotic constitution is inherited; when the abdomen is bloated, with much rumbling of wind, and when the stool is watery, yellow, gushing, coming on so soon as the child begins to move in the morning. (Resembling here Bryonia.)
Complaints from living in damp dwelling. Of the remaining Soda preparation, NATRUM PHOSPHORICUM, we have sufficient knowledge to prescribe it in the Marasmus of children who are bottle-fed. Abdomen swollen; liver large; colic after eating; stools containing undigested food.
Magnesia Salts, so abused in Allopathy, are certainly neglected by Homoeopathy. They correspond to forms of Marasmus which seem to depend upon defective digestion. In Magnesia Carb. we find emaciation, swelling of the glands, abdomen bloated and heavy. The child suffers from griping pains, colic, followed by green, watery, sour diarrhoea. At other times, the stool, if it stands, forms a green scum resembling that on a frog-pond.
Magnesia Carb. most resembles Colocynth (colic), Rheum (sour diarrhoea and griping), and Chamomilla (green, yellow stools, which colic).
MAGNESIA MUR.- Child suffers from Ozaena; the discharge is acrid, and the nose obstructed at night; scurf in the nostrils, the alae and point being red and swollen. The stomach is bloated, and the stools are in large hard lumps, or crumble as they pass the anus. Such a child is puny, rachitic, or has an enlarged live. The glands are swollen, and, like Silicea, sweat of head and feet accompany all the symptoms.
Dr. Clifton confirmed many of the above symptoms of Magnesia Mur.
CONIUM has been use when the abdomen is hard and distended; frequent sour stools, undigested. The effort at stool causes great weakness.
GETTYSBURG WATER has proved efficacious in affections of the joints and bones. Hip-disease, Pott’s Disease, with ulceration, the discharge being thin, watery and offensive. The child suffers from diarrhoea, worse at every change in the weather. (Introduced by Dr.Macfarlan.)
LITHIUM CARB. to which the Gettysburg Water chiefly owes its efficacy, may be successfully used when the child has a rough, harsh skin, milk-crust and ring-worm, itching violently. The skin is seldom moist, being generally harsh and dry. The nose is swollen, internally sore and dry, with shining crusts in the nostrils. The diarrhoea is light-yellow, fecal in the morning and offensive at night; worse after fruit.
STAPHISAGRIA is too often forgotten. It resembles Coloc, Chamomilla and Mercurius The child has a humid, fetid eruption; scratching changes the place of the itching, and increases the oozing. The face is sunken, the nose pointed, and blue rings encircle the eyes. The teeth, as they appear, soon turn dark or crumble. The mouth is aphthous, the gums appearing pale, spongy and bleeding when touched. Nostrils sore, with the catarrh; eye-lids and corners of mouth ulcerated. Fetid night-sweat. The abdomen is swollen. Colic after least food or drink. Stools hot, smelling like rotten eggs or dysenteric. The child is irritable, asks for things, and then indignantly pushes them away.
VIOLA TRICOLOR certainly leads the list when Crusta Lactea is the most prominent feature of the case. The incrustations are thick, and discharge copiously a thick yellow, purulent matter. The child cannot sleep because of the irritation. The urine is profuse, and has an odor like that of cats. During sleep, the hands twitch, the thumbs are clenched, the face is red, and the whole body hot and dry.
HYDRASTIS, though not known to be an anti-psoric, is introduced to show its value in excoriations in the groins, as confirmed by anna E. Griffith, M.D.
In addition, it may probably suit when the following symptoms are present, though as yet clinical confirmation is absent. Eczema on the forehead at the border of the hair, oozing after washing. Thick mucous discharges (more excoriating than the botanically related Pulsat.). Marasmus; great debility, faintness at the stomach; aphthae of weakly children; tongue swollen, shows marks of the teeth, or appears raw, dark-red, with raised papillae.
NITRIC ACID is called for in weakly children, after abuse of Calomel, or who have inherited Syphilis. The child is wasted, sallow, weak. The upper arms and thighs in particular are emaciated. There are aphthous ulcers in the mouth, with putrid breath. This Acid attacks prominently mucus outlets; so we are apt to find ulcers or blisters about the mouth; soreness and rawness at the anus, etc. The diarrhoea consists of green mucus, sometimes fetid and undigested, and is worse in the morning. Stool followed by great exhaustion. Glands enlarged. Sometimes indicated for the Calcarea patient., when debility and wasting persist despite the use of Lime.
