The dyspeptic disturbances in nurslings may become severe even to athrepsia, just as in calcarea carb. Prevailing in magnesium carb. are diarrhea, but also hard, crumbly dry stools, which are difficult to evacuate, are reported and it is characteristic for their vegetative basis that they appear after psychic excitation or mental exertion. Constipation is otherwise more characteristic of magnesium muriaticum. Colicky, knife_like constrictive gastric or abdominal pains often precede the dyspeptic disturbances.
SEXUAL ORGANS
Just as calcium so does magnesium have a close connection with the menstrual event. The findings cited from Watchorn also suggest this. While with the other magnesium salts both too early and too profuse menses are reported, it is more often the case with magnesium carb. that the menses are late or entirely suppressed. For all the magnesium salts it holds that the menstrual blood is very dark and tar-like. Cited as characteristic for the carbonate is that the blood flows markedly at night and ceases when walking around. Here a vegetative influence on the tone of the uterus is to be considered in explanation. Many complaints exist before and during the menses; so for magnesium carb. there are chills, colds particularly in the throat, chilliness, backache and toothache before each menstrual period as well as facial pallor during the period; slimy discharge with lower abdominal cramps is of subordinate significance.
Of the atonic symptoms in the male sexual apparatus are decreased libido and frequent pollutions, in the urinary organs inability to retain and the involuntary passage of urine are reported in the provings.
RARE USES
Less utilized are the skin symptoms of magnesium carb., which are very similar to those of calc. carb. Only the dryness and itching of magnesium are more prominent. Magnesium, however, cannot reach the same rank as calcarea as a remedy for scrofula.
Stauffer reports that magnesium carb. has proven itself in cataract. The cloudy vision of the inflamed eye, Like a feather before it, from Hahnemann’s provings, does not given sufficient basis for it and other explanations are not available.
MAGNESIUM MURIATICUM
The chloride compound of magnesium, MgCl2, has the same type and the same modalities as magnesium carb. but also deviations which make the remedy in many directions similar to natr. mur. This holds particularly for the type of constipation. Moreover, a marked action upon the biliary secretion has been ascribed to magnesium mur.
A good indication for magnesium mur. is the headache which is relieved by firm pressure and warm covering. This corresponds to the usual magnesium modalities, but is emphasized in the headache of this compound.
With magnesium mur. constipation with hard stools which are so dry that they crumble when they emerge from the anus, prevails. The stool is like sheep dung and is evacuated only with much pressure. While this syndrome is mentioned merely incidentally in magnesium carb. with magnesium muriaticum it has proven an indication and recalls the dry constipation of natrium mur.
The connection of magnesium mur. to the liver is depicted in the following manner: the liver is hard and enlarged, there is a pressing pain in the liver region which is worse on lying on the right side; when lying on the left side there is a feeling of a weight tearing across. With this a gray-white stool and jaundice should be present. These are very distinct manifestations of biliary stasis in which the constipation described might be considered as a supporting factor. We recall that magnesium salts rapidly empty the gallbladder by a mass effect, but depress bile formation. This experimental finding appears as a reversed effect which forms the opposite to the homoeopathic employment. In the completely different experimental conditions this is not amazing.
In the menstrual disturbances there is frequent fainting in magnesium mur. Generally the supersensitivity of the nervous system is strongly stressed and more like the trend of hysteria. The pains of dysmenorrhea radiate to the thighs, the backache is relieved by firm pressure. The blood is black as with magnesium carb. but the menses seem to be too early and too profuse. Slimy leucorrhoea after preceding abdominal cramps is reported as with magnesium carb.
The marked atony of magnesium mur. comes into expression in a symptom from the bladder; the urine can be voided only by pressure on the abdomen. This indicates a trend in bladder paresis due to spinal causes.
Finally worthy of note in mag. mur. is cardiac palpitation on sitting, it disappearing on movement. The union to the vascular system may well be ascribed to the chloride fraction, because the same is found in natr. mur.
MAGNESIUM PHOSPHORICUM
The introduction of magnesium phosphoricum, MgHPO4, into the drug treasury is one of the fortunate touches of Schussler. Here also he proceeded from the Hahnemann provings of other magnesium salts, but is believed to have grasped in the phosphate the physiologically functioning form of magnesium in the nerves. And in this respect he was not wrong. For a special physiologic connection of magnesium to phosphate in the organism is very probable.
Magn. phosph. was introduced by Schussler as a remedy for neuralgia and spasms and indeed this has been confirmed in the Allen provings and in clinical use many times.
Also in magn. phosph. it is concerned with an over-nervous, rapidly exhausted, usually thin, dark type who is sensitive to cold in every form. The right side of the body seems preferred.
The picture of peripheral nerve symptoms predominates. The neuralgias come and go suddenly, in severe attacks (as with belladonna, there is generally a close choice between it and magn. phosph.). The attacks of pain are often periodic, always at night. The spasmodic character predominates, especially in the pains in the gastro-intestinal tract and uterus, but the characteristic neuralgias are sharp, cutting, sticking, piercing, and the site changes often and rapidly.
The headache has the usual modalities of magnesium: magn. phosp. should be the remedy for many cases of periodic migraine, in which belladonna acts only in the attack itself. The headache extends with preference from the occiput to the forehead and is combined with nausea and at times with spots before the eyes and double vision.
The abdominal pains are colic-like, often due to accumulations of gas and without relief from eructation, and they extend out from the umbilicus, seeming to prefer the right lower abdominal region. Magn. phosph. is to be considered in colics of children where there is loud screaming and rapid exhaustion by the pain. The colic is relieved by bending double, pressure and external warmth. The attacks of pain are renewed when they become cold. These modalities hold in general also for the dysmenorrhea in which magn. phosph. is given in the 3rd -6th decimal potency almost routinely and often proves successful. The cutting, drawing, pressing, cramplike intermittent pains become better when the bleeding occurs; the improvement from warmth differentiates magn. phosph. from pulsatilla. Likewise membraneous dysmenorrhea is suitable for magn. phosph. (here borax is to be considered). The so-called ovarian neuralgias, particularly right, are often removed through this agent.
The spastic character of magn. phosph. extends to the smooth as well as voluntary muscle. Even general spasms in children, without fever, during eruption of teeth and after prolonged diarrhea, are considered suitable and show therein a relation to calcium in the manifestations. Chorea, epilepsy and tetanus were given as homoeopathic indications before the narcotic action was experimentally known.
A spasmodic dry cough without expectoration has given occasion for the use of magn. phosph. in whooping cough. Closer indications are not certainly known. Spasmodic gulping appeared in the provings and has been repeatedly removed by magn. phosph.
Spasms and twitching of the lids, spasmodic twitching of the face in neuralgia, spasmodic squint, indeed nystagmus, spasm of the glottis, spasmodic occlusion of the throat on attempts to swallow fluids, spasmodic yawning, spasm of the urethra, bed wetting of a nervous origin, vaginismus and finally writer’s cramp and other spasmodic states are indications for magn. phosphoricum and show the affinity for the neuromuscular system. From the side of the symptoms this has been very correctly appreciated through provings on the healthy. According to the entire nature of the remedy; it should be tried more that it has in paralysis agitans and the Parkinsonian syndromes.
The modalities are the same as with other magnesium preparations, that is aggravation from cold (air or water) by contact, at night, relieved by pressure, warmth and bending together. Only it seems, in contrast to magn. carb. that movement aggravates (according to the provings and in opposition to the report of Stauffer).
MAGNESIUM SULPHURICUM
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,