**Carbo is a valuable remedy in chronic gastric catarrh and condition based upon degeneration and induration.
Flatulence gives rise to asthmatic breathing and dyspnoea, which is worse by motion and the erect position and from 4 to 6 P.M., just the time of the aggravation of **Lycopodium.
We may find here the symptom that the patient wants to be fanned. There is frontal headache worse in the morning and in a warm room, crossness, irritability. **Carbo, being a putrid remedy, is especially useful for the effects of over-eating, high living or from eating tainted meats, where, digestion being slow, the food putrifies before it digests. There is great craving for salt and other things that always make him sick. Remember that **Carbo has a more upward pressure of gas on the diaphragm, causing distress of breathing, than **China has, and not so much pressure down on the intestines as **Nux vomica has, and that it is more applicable to putrid dyspepsias and the chronic dyspepsia of ***old people. It has more burning and flatulence than **Nux vomica, though, like **Nux vomica, it is suitable for the bad effects of debauchery and high living, and haemorrhoids worse after a spree. It comes in after **Nux. Another distinguishing feature between **Carbo and Lycopodium is, that in Carbo the tendency is more to diarrhoea, while in **Lycopodium it is more to constipation.
China officinalis. [Chin]
**China is useful in cases where, like **Carbo vegetabilis, there is depression o vital power, but here it seems to be especially limited to the loss of animal fluids. Like **Lycopodium and Colchicum it has tympanites, and is still further like the former in the sensation of satiety after a few mouthfuls of food. The distension calling for **China is painful and only momentarily relieved by belching. There are sour or bitter eructations and the flatus is offensive; there is slow digestion and the patients faints easily, as in **Nux moschata, and they are worse after late suppers. There is also a sensation as if the food had lodged in the oesophagus behind the sternum. **Pulsatilla has this, but in a less degree than **China. The boiled-egg sensation of **Abies nigra is lower down. Many times these symptoms of **China are caused by drinking tea to excess. When **China is well indicated there will be a yellow diarrhoea, which is worse at night and after meals. **China does not have the rancid belching with burning, which will distinguish it from Carbo vegetabilis. In cases where the food does not digest, but lies a long time in the stomach, causing eructations and finally is vomited undigested, **China is the remedy.
Lycopodium [Lyc]
Is especially suitable for chronic congestion and catarrhal conditions of the stomach in patients with liver and gouty troubles; hypochondriacal patients. A grand characteristic of **Lycopodium is this: the patient goes to meals with a vigorous appetite, but after eating a small quantity of food he feels so full and bloated that he has to force himself to swallow another mouthful, and he leaves the tables with his hunger only momentarily satisfied. Here it is seen that the distress is ***immediately upon eating, not a half hour after, as in **Pulsatilla and **Anacardium. **Nux moschata also has distress immediately upon eating. There is intolerance of pressure about the waist after meals, not all the times as in **Lachesis. Now this sensation of satiety is found under **Arsenicum, Carbo vegetabilis, China, Sepia and **Sulphur, but it is especially characteristic of **Lycopodium, digestion is slow and difficult, and the **Lycopodium patient is almost unconquerable sleepy after eating. There is a great accumulation of flatus in the stomach and intestines- -rather more in the intestines, especially the colon–and this presses upwards and causes difficulty of breathing just as we found under **Carbo vegetabilis. We may also have attacks of ravenous hunger under **Lycopodium, which, if not satisfied, will cause a headache as in **Cactus grandiflorus. The patient is worse after late dinners, the distension lasting into the night, making him restless and wakeful. **Lycopodium is especially useful in the atonic and acid forms of dyspepsia, for it has also sour taste, sour belching, and vomiting when it does occur is sour, which is not common, however; there is also also painful swelling at the pit of the stomach and intolerance of tight clothing; the patient prefers hot drinks. Belching of gas in **Lycopodium does ***not relieve. **Lycopodium is, after all, quite similar to **Nux vomica, but the immediate distress after eating belongs to **Lycopodium. In **Nux vomica, from the flatus presses rather downwards. Both have constipation with ineffectual urging to stool. **Nux from fitful intestinal action, **Lycopodium from contraction of the sphincter ani. **Sepia is also similar in some respects to **Lycopodium, but **Sepia has a sensations of emptiness in the epigastrium while that of **Lycopodium is repletion. The urine is high colored, over acid and loaded with lithates or uric acid crystals and it is not so offensive as that of **Sepia. **Lycopodium has also as an important stomach symptom; desire for sweets, which is similar to **Argentum nitricum. **Lachesis desires oysters.
Professor of Materia Medica in the University of Michigan Homeopathic Medical College. Member of American Institute of Homeopathy. In addition to his editoral work he authored or collaborated on: Boericke and Dewey's Twelve Tissue Remedies, Essentials of Homeopathic Materia Medica, Essentials of Homeopathic Therapeutics and Practical Homeopathic Therapeutics.