ANTIMONIUM SULPHIDE-STIBNITE- Sb2 S3.
Introduction
While first proved by Caspari, one of Hahnemann’s fellow- provers, the latter made some additions to its pathogenesis and recommends its use in the 30th. The first published account of the proving was in 1828.
Symptoms
Antimonium crud. is a general tissue remedy. (While the following definition is not wholly accurate, we can think of a tissue remedy as one especially valuable in chronic conditions.0The chief manifestations of the remedy are on the mucous membranes and on the skin.
There is general aggravation from cold water, whether taken internally or applied externally (8), after eating and from vinegar and sour wines (5.)
In many conditions, in children especially, the disposition of the patient determines the choice of the remedy.
Extreme irritability and fretfulness in children (30) is the key-note to the use of Antimonium crud., especially in a great variety of stomach disorders. The child cannot bear to be touched or even looked at.
The young or grown person is sulky and disinclined to speak; grows sentimental “in the moonlight” (Hering)’ “has amorous longings, not for any living creature, but for some unseen seraph” (Talcott); and if we will keep in mind the following indication of Talcott’s, we may, by the remedy and out-door work, help these cases we are sure to meet. He says: “It is suited to the mental condition of some young person passing through the critical pubescent period, whose growing interest in the opposite sex tends to center unhealthfully in some bright Prince Charming, or in some idealized, and perhaps self-created maiden.”
Headaches due to a disordered stomach are common under this remedy (97), Allen saying, especially from “eating candy.” We also have headache from catching cold or after going in bathing (93).
The head seems to resent having the hair wet and there is a tendency to take cold (5) after getting the head wet, as from a shampoo, cold bath, etc.
Antimonium crud. is of value in chronic blepharitis, the lid inflamed, swollen and moist, with agglutination at night, found especially in children, with the mental irritability of the remedy.
The nostrils are chapped, cracked (145) and scurfy, with increased pain on inhalation as if the air were cold or acrid. These crusts, which are also found at the corners of the mouth (141) are frequently the accompaniment of coryza or diphtheria calling for the remedy.
On the face we have a pustular eruption of small and painful boils and pimples (65), located especially about the mouth and nose, and found in those who are inclined to be fat and who have overindulged in food or alcoholic stimulants.
In the teeth, we have toothache in hollow teeth, with aggravation after eating (187).
A “very marked symptom,” says Allen, and noted in particular in disorders of digestion, is a tongue with a thick white coating all over it, looking as if it had been white washed (192).
In infants, we have in addition to this tongue, vomiting after nursing (208) of little white curds of milk and refusal of the child to nurse afterwards. In catarrhal gastritis (178) of children we have the characteristic tongue as one guide, and nausea and vomiting as another, and Farrington says, “the vomiting is a very prominent feature and occurs as the eats or drinks.”
It is of value in the indigestion of children from sweets (6) and of adults from injudicious eating (178), foods that do not agree together, or with the patient, and associated with peevishness and irritability, thickly coated white tongue (192), loathing of (6) and after taste of food, nausea and vomiting, and thirst especially in the evening and at night.
There is frequent call for it in vomiting form an overloaded stomach (178), from acids, vinegar and sour wines (176) and Lippe says from pork (177).
It is an important remedy for alternating diarrhoea and constipation (58) in old people and for “diarrhoea from acids, from being overheated and from cold bathing” (Bell).
Amenorrhoea, or suppression of the menses from cold bathing (134), frequently calls for Antimonium crud., especially when there is prolapsus (203) and constant bearing down as if everything were being pushed out through the vagina (203) and with tenderness over the ovarian region.
Associated with these, we find the gastric and mental symptoms of the remedy.
The leucorrhoea is acrid (126) and watery, containing little lumps of mucus.
Antimonium crud. is of value for acute rheumatism, fingers especially affected (61), associated with gastric disturbances.
The finger-nails become discolored and horny (141) and split or crack, or horny growths from beneath the nails.
Thick, horny callosities form on the soles of the feet near the toes, and the soles become very sensitive when walking, and corns (37) form readily and become inflamed.
It is useful for sensitiveness and soreness of the soles of the feet (72) from walking on a stone pavement, and for soreness of the heels (71).
Dearborn gives some valuable indications for the remedy when he says: “Symmetrical hyperidrosis of the feet (185) or hands without odor, sometimes causing the skin to look macerated and wrinkled, especially when associated with the catarrhal diathesis, may be relieved by Antimonium crud.”
In prickly heat (155) “on the neck, face, back, chest, wrists, etc., with stinging and itching sensations, worse from exercise, warmth, wine, and relieved by rest and cool air, Antimonium crud. not only gives immediate relief, but tends to prevent a recurrence.”
I use Antimonium crud. 6th.
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