ORGAN ACTIONS
Under calcarea carbonica in the skin is a mixture of inflammatory manifestations in the exudative diathesis with the allergic, which naturally merge into one another. In the provings they are reported: thick groups of light red, painful, itching, pea-sized elevations of the skin as well as raw, purpuriform, shrivelled skin. When constitution and modalities, as sensitivity to cold and damp, speak, for it the above as well as the following are suitable for calcarea carbonica: persistent, nettle like eruptions, circumscribed edema of skin, moreover, nodules like prurigo on the extensor side of the extremities with indolent glandular swelling, which indeed represent a consolidated form of allergic skin manifestations and are often united with eczema. Likewise, disturbances of the skin innervation as in pruritus is often suitable for calcarea carbonica.
Of the digestive organs the manifestations with the ricketic- lymphatic syndrome have been mentioned already. But there also appear some vegetative disturbances in motility and secretion: acid taste in the mouth, acid eructations after all foods, sour, burning, persistent nausea from meat and warm foods, pressing and spasmodic gastric pains, particularly after eating, with vomiting of food, nocturnal gastric spasm, distention of the gastric region, painfulness on pressure, tension in the hypochondria with intolerance of tight clothing. In adults these disturbance are often associated with constipation with hard, white stools. A vegetative influence in the biliary passages (perhaps in a sense of atropine) is also to be considered, and on this side a favorable action of calcarea carbonica in choleocystopathy and cholelithiasis is understood. Only rarely mentioned but still worthy of record because of its peculiarity is the observation that the calcarea carbonica patient feels better as long as he is constipated.
The inflammatory and allergic manifestations in the respiratory passages are not specific for calcarea carbonica. Only in connection with other, particularly constitutional leading lines do they give occasion for the selection of calcarea carbonica.
According to experimental investigations on the action of the calcium ion on the heart, one should expect marked cardiac actions in the symptomatic picture of calcarea carbonica. But it is to be recalled how great is the cleft between experimental findings on the isolated organ and the results of provings on he total human organism. Indeed, symptoms are cited in respect to the heart: marked palpitation after the least exertion, especially on climbing, oppression of the chest as from an accumulation of blood with tension, relieved by bending the shoulders back. The vegetative influences on the heart and vessels, however, are of subordinate significance and have not with calcium preparations in any case obtained such therapeutic confirmation as with the related barium.
SUMMARY
Constitution:
Lymphatism:
Type :
Blond, blue-eyed, pale, fat, relaxed, suffused, pasty, plump. Torpid type of reaction.
Juvenile; feminine habitus.
Menstrual type: too early, too severe, too prolonged (hypofunction of the germinal glands).
Partial sensations of cold and partial sweats. Dampness of feet.
Sensitive to cold and dampness.
Psychic: depressed, phlegmatic, depressive, anxious.
Clinical Indications:
Rickets, spasmophilia, disturbances of dentition exudative diathesis, scrofula.
Disturbances in sexual development.
Polyps, formation of concretions.
Vegetative skin and digestive disturbances.
Peculiar Symptoms and Modalities: A version to milk and aggravation of gastric complaints form it.
Desire for eggs. Secretions and excretions sour.
Aggravation from cold and damp in any form.
Better during constipation.
DOSE
The D6, D12, D30, have proven themselves according to the chronicity and constitutional aspects of the case.
CALCIUM PHOSPHORICUM
In impure form animal bones, claws and teeth, was obtained the phosphate of calcium, a common drug in antiquity. But only the pure preparation though the precipitation from aqua calcis or calcium chloride acid and sodium phosphate yields valuable observations. The usual preparation consists essentially of CaHPO4. The Provings are:
1. Hering in Jahr’s Nouveau manuel de med. homeop. Paris, 1840, p.111 (Allentown Provings, 1837).
2. Schreter: Neues Arch. f. homoop. Heilk. Bd. 3, H.3, p.153, 1846.
3 Benecke: Der phosphorsaure Kalk. London and Gottingen, 1850 (Chiefly on patients).
4. Cate: Trans. of Amer. Inst. Homo.1858.
5. Sick: Deut. Z. f. Hom. 1922, p. 360 (published by Meng).
Moreover, calcium phosphor. is included by Schussler in his tissue salts, but without his having performed any provings.
The phosphate anion contributes several new trends to the calcium picture, particularly in constitutional respects. The impulse to bodily growth is greater; it contrasts with the neuromuscular weakness and psychic failure. Therein the influences of the phosphate fraction become obvious. In place of the plump, inner, calcarea carb. type, calcarea phos. tends to an asthenic gigantism. The vertebrae are weak, they can scarcely support the head. The cranial sutures and the joints ache, especially the sacro-iliac joint. The body is thin the abdomen large but relaxed. The color of the skin is more gray or brownish. The great chilliness, sensitiveness to damp and cold, change of weather, drafts, as well as easy sweating are the same as with calcarea carb. The scrofula developing on this soil assumes a more erethistic form. The state of nutrition is defective. Glandular swellings develop and recur more rapidly. The danger of transition into active tuberculosis is greater. The phosphate fraction is responsible for the greater utility of this agent in bone and joint tuberculosis, as also in the first stage of pulmonary tuberculosis.
If calcarea carb. is mentally retarded, depressed and slow in mental development, then there is added in the phosphate even a greater mental exhaustion. In the rapidly growing child, school headache is a proven indication of calcarea phos. Hot head and cold feet, as well as dyspeptic states, are often combined with it. Indeed, in the higher grade of mental retardation with motor unrest, in the so-called agile or versatile idiocy after cerebral infantile paralysis, A. Stiegele saw a striking result with calcarea phos. D 6. Also in chronic hydrocephalus the agent is usually recommended. v. Grauvogl gave it during pregnancy to women who had borne hydrocephalic children.
A peculiarity of the appetite can assist in the selection between the carbonate an the phosphate: calcarea phos. has desire for game and salty foods (bacon, ham). Moreover, outside of the ricketic-scrofulous syndrome there exists in calcarea phos. a greater tendency to diarrhea. The soft stools of phosphoric acid and marked formation of gas make themselves obvious. The diarrheas are green hot, undigested, contain gas which is very offensive. Food and especially cold drinks provoke some pain and distension in the stomach and abdomen, after which diarrhea follows. Vomiting of milk is also cited, in calcarea phos. It is also recommended in the hemorrhoids which appear with hard stools in older people and this seems to be supported also in the self investigation of the sick.
In general a more marked connection with the bones is ascribed to calcarea phos. It is, therefore, used in badly healing fractures, defective callus formation.
In other syndromes of the juvenile age which show similar pictures in the two remedies, calcarea phos. and calcarea carb. can be differentiated best through the constitution, the rhythm.
If the scrofulous and tuberculous process is more acute, the destruction more marked, then one leans with preference on the phosphorus influence and selects calcium hypophosphorosum, calcium hypophosphite, Ca (H2PO2)2.
SUMMARY
Constitution:
Asthenic tallness
Emaciation, gray discoloration of skin
Easily chilled
Erethism and easy transition to active tuberculosis
Great mental exhaustion, intellectual retardation, motor unrest.
Clinical Indications:
Same as with calcarea carb. but more erethistic form. Tendency to tuberculosis.
Stronger affinity for bones: bone and joint tuberculosis.
Defective callus formation, sutures and symphyses painful.
School headache Chronic hydrocephalus and agile idiocy.
Peculiar Symptoms:
Desire for game and preserved meats.
DOSE :
Usually in D 6 and D 12 (triturations).
CALCAREA ACETICUM
The acetate of calcium was the first salt of calcium which Hahnemann proved. He later replaced it by calcarea carbonate because of the purer calcium action. Calcium acetate is only rarely used. Of the proving symptoms only headache, worse after reading and mental effort, (migraine) and the painless nonexhausting diarrhea have been retained. The employment in dysmenorrhea membranacea and bronchitis fibrinosa, severe spasmodic cough which ends with expectoration of bronchial casts, rests purely, on clinical recommendation.
CALCIUM MURIATICUM
Calcium muriaticum, calcium chloride, CaCl2 is practically not proven. The study of Wimmer with 0.5-1 Gm. of the substance gave only a diuretic effect and after three weeks, exhaustion, weakness, non-desire for work, aversion for food. Internal employment of the remedy has been suggested chiefly by Rademacher in persistent vomiting, gastric pain with distension and eructations. For injection therapy of calcium this salt has been largely replaced by others.
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,