While we may have painless diarrhoea, movements thin, or mixed with hard lumps, and with aggravation from 4–8 P.M., the usual state of the patient is one of obstinate constipation, with little or no desire, stools hard and dry, and spasmodic constriction of the anus whenever the attempt is made to evacuate the bowels (158).
Lycopodium is an important remedy in the uric acid diathesis, with deposits of red sand (123) (uric acid crystals which are easily removed from the vessel). The urine is apt to be scanty and burning when passed (194), and we may find “urging to urinate; must wait long before it will pass” (Hering) (200).
It is useful in dysuria in children, especially with scanty urine, and for retention of urine, the flow being by “fits and starts” (Hering) (199). It has relieved renal colic of the right side (124) and is useful for haematuria when caused by gravel (85). It is a remedy to be thought of for tendency to the formation of stone in the bladder (22).
Lycopodium is of value for chronic interstitial nephritis
(124), with oedematous extremities and the gastric derangements of the remedy. In oedematous conditions generally, a characteristic symptom of Lycopodium is emaciation of the upper part of the body with swelling of the lower.
In the male sexual sphere, it is of value for sexual exhaustion, especially after chronic gonorrhoea or cystitis. There is loss of desire, “he goes to sleep during coition” (Chr. Dis.) and the penis is relaxed and cold (168). With these symptoms it is an important remedy for impotency (168) in the aged, for those who wish to appear to advantage in a new field, and Lilienthal refers to it as the “old man’ balm.” It is to be thought of in chronic prostatitis (155), with more or less cystitis and the urinary symptoms already spoken of.
Lycopodium is a remedy of value in depression of spirits and abdominal distention preceding or during menstruation, or for suppression of the menses, with increased flatulence (138) and melancholia (139).
The leucorrhoea is a paroxysmal discharge, or it flows in gushes (126), and is associated with a sensation of dryness and burning in the vagina (205). With the leucorrhoea, as well as in chronic inflammation of the uterus, cancer (202) and fibroid tumors (202), we are apt to have discharge of gas from the vagina (205). It is a remedy to be thought of for varicose veins of the pudenda (205).
Lycopodium is useful for neuralgia (147) or inflammation of the ovaries, when confined to the r. side (147), or starting there and traveling to the 1.
In the chest Lycopodium is frequently but not always given, because, as it seems to me, the abdominal symptoms have such a prominent place in our minds that we are apt to forget that there are nay others worth remembering.
It is of value for chronic catarrh, especially in old people (147), with dyspnoea from the least exertion, cough worse after 4 P.M., and usually with free expectoration. It has a tickling, irritating cough, as though caused by the inhalation of sulphur fumes (43), with gray salt expectoration (70). It also has a sudden, violent cough from itching-tickling in larynx, as if it were tickled with a feather (43), with scanty expectoration. When there is scanty expectoration, in his remedy, the cough is violent and affects or shakes the stomach or abdomen. A unique symptom is the clinical one given by Allen, “cough rather worse when going down hill than up.”
It is of great value in subacute pneumonia, with easy expectoration but great difficulty in breathing and fan like motion of the wings of the nose (145a0, with aggravation when lying on the back. It is of especial value in mismanaged pneumonia, so-called, when another physician has first been on the case, or if you have treated it from the beginning, one that has never presented a good picture of any remedy, and you, in your anxiety, have shifted from drug to drug as the condition has gone from bad to worse, until now, with the continued hepatization and time for resolution to take place, the patient is getting in a low condition, has great difficulty in breathing, with the fanlike motion of the wings of the nose on each inspiration; in such a condition, Lycopodium, the inoffensive dusting powder, will straighten the case out if anything will.
In phthisis, with cold night-sweats (185), it is called for when the characteristic abdominal symptoms present themselves.
Lippe gives a symptom that sounds as if it should be a prominent one of the remedy, but it is not in the provings, “palpitation of the heart, worse after eating” (111).
Besides ascites, already spoken of, Lycopodium is of value for dropsies of the pericardium (109) and pleura (29).
In the back, we find a burning pain between the scapulae, as from hot coals (168).
In lumbago, Lycopodium is of value after Bryonia has ceased to act, and with aggravation from every motion.
In rheumatism, and especially in chronic conditions, the trouble is worse on the r. side, with aggravation towards evening and from warmth (160). It is of value in chronic rheumatism of any joint, small ones especially (161) and of the hands in particular (161), the hands and fingers swollen and stiff. It is also of value in chronic gout (84), with chalky deposits in the joints.
In rheumatism and gout the gastric and urinary symptoms occupy a prominent position in the selection of this remedy.
Lycopodium is indicated in varicose veins (205) and ulcers, with oedema and aggravation from heat and hot applications, naevus vasculosus and pigmentosus (mole), for eczema and psoriasis (158), with itching and easy bleeding, in general with aggravation from warmth (122) and relief from cold or in the open air. It is useful in intertrigo, “especially under the arms, between the thighs and on the scrotum ” (Dunham), with the above conditions of aggravation and amelioration.
The intermittent fever case requiring Lycopodium is especially a chronic one, with recurrence of the paroxysm at 4 P.M. or between 4 and 8 P.M. and associated with nervous irritability, red sand in the urine, enlarged spleen (13) and teasing cough (121), with sour vomiting at end of chill, which vomiting may continue during the fever.
The chill is apt to begin in the back (121). There is no thirst during the chill but there is thirst (121) during the fever and “after the sweating stage” (Hering). The sweat is sour- smelling.
Lycopodium is occasionally called for in typhoid fever, with distention of the abdomen, uric acid sediment in the urine and great mental depression.
Hahnemann says that a dose of Lycopodium “operates for forty to fifty days,” and ” it is especially efficacious, when it is homoeopathically indicated after the previous use of Calcarea” (Chr. Dis.).
I use Lycopodium 6th.
