PSORINUM Medicine


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


      A NOSODE.

Introduction

      In 1830, Dr. Constantine Hering, while in Surinam, or Dutch Guiana, collected pus from the forearms, hands and between the

fingers, from mature pustules, on a young and otherwise healthy negro. The negro had been handling some stuff imported from Germany and had become infected but Hering says that he does not know whether the infection was due to the Acarus scabiei or not, although he speaks of it as the itch pustule. The nature., unscratched pustules were opened and the pus collected and placed in a vial with alcohol. Hering proved this on the healthy human being and called this nosode, or disease product, Psorinum (psora, the itch).

The use and employment of nosodes soon after this became the subject of much controversy and a point that was early raised against them was, as Hering says, “the silly one of nastiness… an argument rather to be expected from a very of prudish old maids than from those claiming the title of scientific men.”

Farrington, in speaking of this, says that “the objection; that the nosodes”are nasty and filthy is certainly absurd, because nobody would for one moment entertain the idea of administering these substances in a low potency; and this being the case, on one will maintain that there is anything nasty or disagreeable to one’s feeling in administering to a patient psorinum in the two hundredth attenuation.”

The objection that has been made against nosodes, that we practice isopathy and not homoeopathy when we use Variolinum for small-pox, Syphilinum for syphilis, Hydrophobin, for hydrophobia, etc., does not hold gold as regards psorinum, for that is a remedy that has been well proved and we prescribe it on its homoeopathic indications.

An objection to psorinum which grows less serious as time elapses, as then it will be distributed among many physicians, is, that we do not know the name of the lesion from which the pus was collected, m and if, for any reason, our supply became exhausted, it could not be duplicated and the result of the work of proving the remedy and the clinical experience from its use would be of no possible benefit to us. The Psorinum that we purchase to-day is the same as originally used by Hering.

In speaking of Psorinum, I think that we will get a better idea of it from the general picture rather than from the especially symptom, as it is the psorinum case rather than the particular symptoms which will cause you to prescribe the remedy.

double if you will often use Psorinum as the first remedy in an given case or condition, as you, in all probability, will be led to give it either because the indicated remedy does not act as it should or because you have first given Sulphur, which has failed to promote the cue. It is complementary to Sulphur, that is, it not only follows well after that remedy but “completes the cure which the one begins but is unable to effect” (Farrington).

You will recall that under Sulphur, in describing the patient, his appearance and the odor surrounding him, we made use of disagreeable, offensive and similar words, and said that he should not bathe, either because he has an aversion to after or was made worse by its use, or both combined.

As regards psorinum mild terms are wholly inadequate, and Webster’s is searched so that we may express ourselves in stronger terms than filthy, fetid and foul. Hering says that in Psorinum “the body has a filthy smell even after a bath,” and again, that “all excretions, diarrhoea (59), leucorrhoea (126), menstrual flow (137) and perspiration have a carrion-like odor.”.

Symptoms

      Psorinum is especially adapted to children of the lower classes, a child where the excretions have been allowed to dry on, one who, seemingly, as appropriated all the bad odor that it has encountered since birth. The child is scrofulous, with general tendency to enlargement of the glands (83), emaciated, with a sickly and dirty look. The eyes are gummy and inflamed, the ears discharge a fetid pus (63) and the nose runs.

In spite of the child’s emaciation the appetite is usually excessive (119), with bloating of the abdomen and eructations (182) and flatus tasting and smelling like rotten eggs.

A pathogenetic symptom reads, diarrhoea, stools “fluid, dark brown, foul-smelling ” (59), and Bell says that “although the dark fluid stool is very characteristic of Psorinum, the very

offensive odor is much more so.”

the skin of the Psorinum patient is yellow and dirty; at times dry, but usually moist, greasy (169),”as though bathed in oil” (Farrington0, and there are eruptions on the face, scalp and chest, associated with great itching which is worse when warm in bed (122). The eruption on the head is moist and scabby, and mats the hair (88); “it involves the whole scalp and spreads down on either side of the face, involving the cheeks and ears”

(Farrington).

Pediculi are not uncommon in a Psorinum case, and Allen says, “some distressing cases have been known of whole family tormented with constantly recurring body lice, in spite of all precautions of cleanliness,. cured only by this drug,” which, as Dearborn states, “helps to restore normal resistance of the skin.”

Perspiration is easy (185), especially on h extremities, and the odor is similar to that found elsewhere under the remedy.

It is a remedy to be thought of in persistent weakness after debilitating diseases (156), with mental and physical exhaustion (155).

Whether psorinum is derived, says Bell, “from purest gold or purest filth, our gratitude for its excellent services forbid as us to inquire or care.”

I use Psorinum 30th.

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.