(From vol. iv, 2nd edit., 1825.)
(Flowers of sulphur, Flores sulphuris, sublimed in fine acicular form into the receiver of a retort, washed by being shaken up with alcohol, in order to remove any acid that may be adhering to them.)
Though sulphur has been employed for many centuries, by medical and non-medical persons, in the itch of workers in wool, yet none of them ever observed that the benificial effects they saw from its use in the eruption of itch was effected by sulphur by similarity of action and homoeopathy.
In the note to symptom 673 I have pointed out the exact distinctive signs of the phenomena of itch.
Physicians cured, also, some haemorrhoidal affections with sulphur clumsily administered, without suspecting that they had (unconsciously) effected homoeopathic cures; whilst they aggravated other affections of the rectum and anus with it, because the symptoms by means of which sulphur (see 347, 348, 350 to 353, 366, 488 to 492) and hepar sulphuris (see 112, 113 – 129, 130, 181, 183, 184, 185, 187) can cure only similar natural diseases homoepathically, were unknown to them; and also because they administered too large doses 0 5, 10, 20, 30 grains at a time whereas they should have given hardly 1/10000th part of a grain.
Even though the idea had not occurred to SCHMITJAN to prescribe sulphur in an autumnal dysentery, yet the symptoms of sulphur and hepar sulphuris would suggest to every true physician to employ them in order to combat the troublesome tenesmus occurring especially at night in such cases, for these substances themselves produce a similar affection. For this object a dose of less than 1/10000th of a grain is required (one grain of flowers of sulphur triturated for one hour with 100 grains of milk sugar, and one grain of this mixture again triturated for an hour with 100 grains of milk sugar).
The homoeopathic physician (who alone acts in conformity with natural laws) will meet with many important morbid states for which he will discover and mat expect much assistance in the symptoms of sulphur and hepar sulphuris.
Sulphur seems to act in the smallest doses for from 16 to 20 days and finds its antidote in camphor.
{HAHNEMANN’s fellow-provers were FRIEDRICH HAHNEMANN, WALTHER.
Citations are made from the following old-school sources
ARDOYNUS, De Venen, Lib.ii.
Hufeland’s Journ. d. pr. A. iii.
LANGE, Domest. Brunsv.
MORGAGNI, De Sedib. Et caus. Morb., Iv.
WALTHER. AIG. FR., Progr. De Sulph. et Marte., Lips. 1743.
The 1st edit. Has 161 symptoms this 2nd edit. 814, (In the original 815 symptoms are reckoned, but this is a mistake on the part of the transcriber, who has counted S. 189 as 190.) (not reckonin appended symptoms from the “fumes of burning sulphur”); in the Chr. ed., there are 1969.]
SULPHUR
Vertigo in the morning with slight epistaxis.
In the morning much vertigo with slight epistaxis. [Fr.H-n.]
Vertigo when stooping.
When walking in the open air (after supper) vertigo; she durst not look down nor stoop in the slightest degree; she must take hold of something to avoid falling.
5. When walking up hill in the open air vertigo, lasting eight minutes; he could not tread with certainty, the senses were clouded (aft. 4 d.).
When standing vertigo (in the evening), with rush of blood towards the heart.
Vertigo when she lies at night on the back.
In the evening, after he had lain in bed a quarter of an hour, whirling vertigo, as though he would fall into a faint, as if all went round in his head; for two successive evenings.
(Vertigo when sitting; staggering on rising up.)
10. Giddiness in the head.
Confusion in the head, as though he had not slept enough.
In the morning the head us confused and pressed in the forehead until noon.
In the evening confusion of the head.
After walking in the open air confusion of the head.
15. When walking in the open air weakness in the head, like stupefaction, with gloomy disagreeable ideas, for several minutes, sometimes slighter, sometimes severer.
So forgetful that even what had happened but a short time previously is either not at all only dimly remembered.
(Forgetful.)
Such stupefaction of the head that she imagined she had lost her reason. [MORGAGNI, (Observations. “Pertubatio” in the head is all that is mentioned.)
Great stupidity and dulness.
20. Dizziness and shooting in the head.
Heaviness in the head, felt not only when moving and stooping, but even when sitting and lying.
Every morning headache above the eyes as from stuffed coryza; he must sneeze constantly.
(Headache as from displaced flatulence.)
Hahnemann's three major publications chart the development of homeopathy. In the Organon of Medicine, we see the fundamentals laid out. Materia Medica Pura records the exact symptoms of the remedy provings. In his book, The Chronic Diseases, Their Peculiar Nature and Their Homoeopathic Cure, he showed us how natural diseases become chronic in nature when suppressed by improper treatment.