PHOSPHORUS Medicine


PHOSPHORUS symptoms of the homeopathy remedy from Plain Talks on Materia Medica with Comparisons by W.I. Pierce. What PHOSPHORUS can be used for? Indications and personality of PHOSPHORUS…


Introduction

      Phosphorous was first discovered in, and made from urine

91669). One hundred years later it was discovered that it was an ingredient of bones. Phosphorus for our use is made from bone ash. An excess of pure Phosphorus is mixed with 95 per cent. alcohol as the decanted liquid represents one part to a thousand, or the 3x dilution., this is the strongest preparation of Phosphorus of our school.

Phosphorus was first proved by Hahnemann and it is a tissue remedy if the first rank. let me quote from the Handbook in reference to it general like is action so that we may get an idea of its extensive range.

Symptoms

      “It inflames and causes degeneration of the mucous membrane of the entire alimentary canal, causing gastritis, entero- colitis and dysentery, all characterized by destructive processes and haemorrhage. It inflames the kidneys. It causes acute yellow atrophy of the liver as well as a subacute hepatitis. It causes inflammation of the whole respiratory tract and pleuro- pneumonia.” (Phosphorus is one of the drugs that has produced pneumonia, the lungs being in a state of gray hepatization.)

“It produces an inveterate myelitis, with consequent paralysis. It destroys bone, particularly attacking the jaw and tibiae. It disorganizes the blood and produces haematogenous jaundice. It causes fatty degeneration of every tissue and organ in the body, predisposing to haemorrhages,” “the haemorrhage being due,” says Bartholow, “to fatty degeneration of the arterial walls.”

The typical Phosphorus patient is tall and slender, with white skin; he is weak, inclined to stoop and of a haemorrhagic diathesis. There is general aggravation in Phosphorus from sweets (6), from wetting the hands and feet (8) and from lying on the l. side (8). There is a general sensitiveness to and aggravation from cool, damp weather (9) and an aggravation of certain conditions during hot weather.

Great mental and physical exhaustion (155) is an important and prominent symptom under the remedy; great apathy, too tired to talk or to make any exertion; brain feels tired and as if he could not get it rested, with more or less vertigo and trembling of the limbs (192).

It is of value in nervous prostration (156) with a feeling of weariness of life, and in brain-fag (93), with a sensation of coldness in cerebellum (90), heaviness and congestion of the head, or with shocks or snaps in the brain, following a nervous strain. In softening of the brain (149) we have vertigo, stupidity, slow answering of questions and a constant tired feeling.

There are various delusions in Phosphorus that occupy a

secondary place among the pathogenetic symptoms, although they are given more prominence clinically; one, an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance (54) or of his riches; another, that he is in several pieces and cannot fit himself together (54), or that there are faces leering at him from over the footboard of the bed, through the windows, or trooping in the room whenever the door is left ajar.

Phosphorus is to be thought of in neuralgia of the brain, with rush of blood to the head (103) and general aggravation after washing, and in headache, with sensation of fulness or as of heavy pressure on top of the head (103).

The hair in Phosphorus falls out in circumscribed areas (88), with or without the association of dandruff (53).

Phosphorus is of value for numerous lesions of the retina and optic nerve, with halo around the light, black specks before the eyes (77), or flashes of light (78) or a red appearance of letters when reading. It is useful in muscular asthenopia (72), with dull pain deep in the eye after reading; in paroxysms of night blindness (76), with sensation as if everything were covered with a mist (78) or veil, and noticed especially after sexual excesses; and in retinitis albuminurica (76), especially in a person of haemorrhagic diathesis. In cataract it is of undoubted value in arresting the progress of the disease (73), Allen saying, “the general condition of the patient sufficing to indicate the remedy.”

In the ear there is a dry condition of the tympanum, with deafness and re-echoing of one’s own voice (65). There is found prominently, “hardness of hearing as regards the human voice but not for musical tones; noises and musical tones are recognized much more readily than the modulations of the voice” (Houghton).

In the nose it is to be thought of in nasal polypus (145), the characteristic of this remedy being that the polypus bleeds easily and profusely. Fanlike motion of the wings of the nose, while breathing, is found under Phosphorus as well as under Lycopod.

Workmen who are exposed to Phosphorus vapor are apt to suffer from necrosis of the maxillary bones; it affects them only when the bone is denuded or exposed, and is especially liable to attack those who suffer from carious teeth. Nowadays all workers in match factories are subjected to frequent examinations of the teeth, and as soon as any decay appears, it is attended to.

We use Phosphorus with success in necrosis of the lower jaw (123), dental fistula (187) and in caries of the nasal bones (142).

Phosphorus is of value in a haemorrhagic diathesis, haemophilia, a bleeder, and we often find a predisposition to haemorrhage in those patients to whom we are giving the remedy for other troubles. The blood in these haemorrhages is very fluid and difficult to coagulate, and a prominent symptom under Phosphorus is, “much bleeding of small wounds,” such as persistent haemorrhage after drawing a tooth (187). Surgeons hesitate about operating on such a patient, if they know of the condition, and it might be well to put ” a bleeder” on Phosphorus for a time in the endeavor to overcome such tendency.

Phosphorus is of value in haemorrhage of the stomach (208) and in gastric ulcer (181), with relief from the vomiting by drinking cold water (174), as well as in gastritis and the vomiting of pregnancy (153), a general indication being that the vomiting is temporarily better from ice or cold drinks but as soon as the water becomes warm in the stomach the vomiting is renewed. In gastritis there may be cutting pains as from knives, a sensation of constriction, so that the food does not seem to enter the stomach, or burning (178) extending to the back (180) and associated with a sense of great external weight or pressure over the region of the stomach. Associated with the burning pains we may find a weak, empty feeling (179), which Hering speaks of as a “goneness, as if stomach has been removed.”

The gastric troubles of Phosphorus are worse in hot weather and while in these conditions we are apt to have thirst, as a rule the Phosphorus patient is not thirsty, or they feel too tired to make the exertion necessary to get a drink.

Phosphorus is one of the few remedies of value in diseases of the pancreas (149), and we would have as characteristic indications, greasy stools, or stools with little particles looking like tallow or like cooked sago (60).

In the liver many conditions call for this remedy, including cirrhosis (127), suppurative hepatitis, with hectic fever and night-sweats, and acute yellow atrophy or malignant jaundice. We must keep in mind that while nearly all fatal cases of poisoning by Phosphorus present an almost exact picture of malignant jaundice, the remedy has had little or no effect when used in that disease.

Hering speaks of Phosphorus for “disordered livers in men invalided from tropical climates” and it is an important remedy in fatty degeneration of the liver (127), “due to heart disease or dependent upon caries of the vertebrae or of the hip-joint” (Farrington).

In the rectum we have bleeding haemorrhoids (85), with a small stream of blood with every stool.

We have involuntary stools whenever anything enters the rectum, and paralysis of the sphincter (160), the anus being always open (we can imagine the consequences). As an illustration of desire for stool whenever the patient lies on the l. side. it is to be thought of in chronic diarrhoea (58) that is painless and worse in hot weather (57); the stools and fetid (59) and may contain white particles looking like mucus or mutton-tallow (60).

Phosphorus is useful in haematuria (85), especially “from debility after sexual excesses” (Hering) and it is one of the few remedies having either a milky white urine (199) or one with a fatty film rising to the surface (199). In croupous nephritis (124) it would be indicated when, in addition to the usual contents, the urine contained fatty casts, and in diabetes (56) it is of value when phthisis is an accompaniment.

As regards the sexual organs, we can think of Phosphorus in the male for sexual excitement followed by weakness and impotence (167) and in the female for nymphomania (146) associated with sterility (173).

It is of value in amenorrhoea (134) in young girls who are growing too fast, in vicarious menstruation (138) and in membranous dysmenorrhoea (138). The menses are apt to be too early and too profuse (135) and followed by great weakness (138). It is of value for metrorrhagia or metrorrhagia in nursing women.

Willard Ide Pierce
Willard Ide Pierce, author of Plain Talks on Materia Medica (1911) and Repertory of Cough, Better and Worse (1907). Dr. Willard Ide Pierce was a Director and Professor of Clinical Medicine at Kent's post-graduate school in Philadelphia.