Also deviating from the observation of Siem are the clonic spasms early in the intoxication, also after previous paretic symptoms. Moreover, reference many be made to the more exact description of the psychic depressions with increasing dullness: while Siem speaks only of apathy, Dollken saw psychic depression, then increasing stupefaction.
QUESTION OF LIABILITY TO DAMAGE HEALTH
In studies on healthy men with large amounts of aluminium salts given by mouth nothing essential is observed outside of a delay and hardening of the stool, as by Wibmer after taking a dram of alum in 2 days; in him a mild diarrhoea present was stopped and soon recurred after discontinuance of the alum. With the appearance of cooking utensils, soldier’s canteens, etc. made from metallic aluminium, the question of injury to health from aluminium salts which go into solution was studied. Plagge found no disturbances of sensation in two soldiers. Ohlmuller and Heise permitted 2 physicians of 26 and 35 years of age respectively to take 1 gram of aluminium tartrate from the 22nd of February to the 26th of March. In the two was noted a mild constipation which expressed itself less through a temporal change in the faecal evacuation than in its firmness. The manifestations diminished each time on the 3rd day after omitting the administration of the salt and did not reappear after the study was ended. Since tartaric acid has a purgative action, this manifestation was ascribed to aluminium by the authors. Other disturbances of nutrition and of general well being even from 30 grams of aluminium tartrate were not observed One sees that also in studies, with massive doses it also makes a difference who observes.
Recently the question of the harmful effects which aluminium cooking utensils could have on human beings has been subject to animated discussion. A universal injury to all men is indeed not asserted by those who know the action of chronic administration of aluminium from the homoeopathic materia medica and nothing is contributed to this question when one testing or another is negative. For this reason the positive proving reports are designated as the exceptional manifestation of an idiosyncrasy. The sensitivity of man for aluminium is certainly graded differently. There need not be exactly a hypersensitivity present if aluminium symptoms come into evidence. There are also factors in respect to the effective material, the duration, the physical and chemical forms, entirely apart from the quantity and the site of application.
ALUMINA
When one sees that the homoeopathic symptomatology of alumina corresponds in a striking manner to the experimentally determined actions in animals, then they cannot pass over the conception that these (indeed temporally too early) results of proving on the healthy are due to the subdivided state of the investigated material.
Provings of alumina are found:
1. Hahnemann: Chr. Krkhten, II Aufl. Bd. 2, p. 33.
Of alumen:
1. Wibmer: wirk. d. Arzneimittel u. Gifte, vol. I, p.114, 1832- 1842.
2. C. N. Hottenroth: Diss. Leipzig, 1838 (1-2 scruples).
3. Barthez: Recueil de Mem. de Chair. et de Pharm. mil. Bd, 38 p. 195 1835 (1/2-3 drachms).
4. Woodward: Med, Era, Jan.1885, and Journ. de lasoc. gall. de med. hom, Bd.3, H 6 (D 1).
5. Hering: Mat. Med, Bd. 1, 1873 (7 provers with 3 and 12 C dilution).
6. Hering: Neues Arch. f. hom. Heilk, Bd. 1, H. 1, 1846.
The trends of alumina go to the central nervous system, in connection with it, to the trophic supply of the skin and mucous membranes and moreover and furthermore to mucous membrane catarrhs.
Aluminium belongs to the electropositive elements even if the cation character is only weakly expressed in its compounds. The sensitivity towards cold and change of weather which we have associated with the positive change is also present in alumina, even if not so prominently as in the elements of the first and second groups of the periodic system. In particular dry cold weather, the transition from dry weather aggravate, damp at times is said to improve. Deficient personal warmth is expressed in the desire for warmth and warm clothing. There is a desire for open air. In the easy chilling still to be mentioned and the tendency to catarrhs of the mucous membranes we must think
of this manner of reaction.
A second general characteristic is its chronic, slow but deep action. We have already noticed in the animal experiments a striking delay in the response. From the chief action, namely, on the depression or interruption of the stimulus transmitting centers, this becomes comprehensible. Because such paralysis are seen (for example also in lead) particularly in the action with very chronic effects.
CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM
The chief trend on the cerebrospinal nervous system can be summarized in the phrase, disturbances of coordination. The mental personality, in particular the sphere of intellectual ideas and judgment is disturbed or broken in its associative capacities and similar interruptions are characteristic in the reflex centers of the spinal cord and medulla.
The disturbance and confusion of the sphere of comprehension, the ability to form ideas and decisions is characterized through the restraint of imagination. On this basis arises the impulse for murder, for example, at the sight of a knife, of blood, etc. The consciousness of reality is disturbed, things seem unreal, indeed, the consciousness is finally confused concerning the identity of the patient’s own personality. “When he sees or states something, he has the feeling as though another person had said or seen it, or as through he was placed in another person and could see only then”. He is not entirely certain whether he is still himself. He cannot follow a chain of thoughts, cannot draw a conclusion, makes mistakes in speaking, in writing, uses words which he does not intend to say. He is forgetful, is indisposed for any occupation. In this confusion it is understandable that he fears that he will lose his mind. The patient is completely envloped by fears, unpleasant thoughts that something evil will befall him. By his mental state his disposition is weighed down and encoumbered. Only when his mental state is somewhat better and his mind is also improved, he will rest. All is dependent upon the tormenting depression and confusion of thoughts through impulsively developing ideas. The confusion and depression is worse mornings on awakening. This is understandable because the delayed realization of actuality on awakening is to some extent still in the field of normality.
The vertigo of alumina can indeed be psychogenic as it often accompanies the state described as well as conditioned through interrruption of the reflex paths. Objects rotate, he stumbles as if drunk, worse in early morning, on bending and walking. For the coordination vertigo the appearance of Romberg’s phenomena on closing the eyes and in the dark speaks correspondingly. Moreover vertigo appears in a proving (Schreter); vertigo as if the eyes were closed. Alumina is especially suitable for old fragile people with vertigo. In the vertigo stiffness of the neck is noted. It also states: drawing in the neck during sleep, the neck muscles draw the head back during sleep.
There follow a series of motor paretic symptoms: from a sensation of paralysis to actual weakness up to paralysis is reported of almost all the voluntary muscles, although in the provings only the early phases are apparent: difficulty in moving the arms, must take a slow tottering gait as after a severe illness, must make slow movements, all muscles as if paralyzed, paralysis of one side of the body, or of the lower extremity, difficulty in swallowing, paretic state of the esophagus, squeezing sensation down to the stomach on swallowing each bite, the material seems to steadily go down; paretic weakness of the larynx, loss of voice, huskiness, weak voice, a singer or reader can only use the voice a short time then it fails; with this occurs a peculiar tickling in the larynx; also the movement of the chest is weak, sensation of heaviness on the chest which is increased by talking; weakness and paralysis of the eyelids, eye muscle disturbances, double vision, squinting of both eyes, cloudy vision as if in a fog.
Still more often a paresis and weakness of the rectum and bladder occurs in alumina; there is a constipation on account of the inability to evacuate a stool of normal consistence. The rectum thereby may contain enormous accumulations. Likewise soft stools are evacuated with difficulty, and when they are passed there is the sensation as if some were still retained. This paretic state of the rectum appears particulalry in pregnant women who otherwise do not suffer particularly from constipation, moreover in very small children who must strain excessively even from a soft stool. But in the peristent constipation a very hard, lumpy stool may be present and by this the occurrence of fissures is favored.
The bladder weakness is very similar: on account of the inability to empty the bladder, micturition proceeds slowly, the urine flows slowly, the stream is interrupted when the patient stands, many times it is voided only in drops; likewise retention with involuntary dribbling ischuria paradoxica appears. Characteristic is the symptom: must go to stool in order to void.
Leeser, a Consultant Physician at the Stuttgart Homeopathic Hospital and a member of the German Central Society of Homeopathic Physicians, fled Germany in 1933 after being expelled by the German Medical Association. In England Otto Leeser joined the staff of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. He returned to Germany in the 1950s to run the Robert Bosch Homeopathic Hospital in Stuttgart, but died shortly after.
Otto Leeser wrote Textbook of Homeopathic Materia Medica, Leesers Lehrbuch der Homöopathie, Actionsand Medicinal use of Snake Venoms, Solanaceae, The Contribution of Homeopathy to the Development of Medicine, Homeopathy and chemotherapy, and many articles submitted to The British Homeopathic Journal,