Magnesium sulphate, MgSO4, as bitter salts, is often used in massive doses for the acceleration of intestinal and gallbladder, emptying, yet in homoeopathy it is the most rarely employed magnesium compound. As far as a judgment can be shaped it stands very close to natr. sulphuricum. On the basis of its diuretic action- passing of large amounts of light or greenish urine-it, like natr. sulph., has been recommended in diabetes. The soft stool soon after rising, diarrhea which is striking by the massiveness of the stool, are just or even more characteristic for natr. sulph.
Much chilliness and shuddering, heat in the head with coldness of the remainder of the body, coldness with thirst are reported.
The menses are too early and too profuse, the bleeding as with other magnesium salts is thick and black. The leucorrhoea is said to be thick and abundant with cutting pains in the sacrum and thighs, worse on movement.
Especially i n the neck and between the shoulders are pains, with great sensitivity to contact, which makes lying down impossible.
But it is unnecessary to cite further details of this preparation as long as no justification in practice exists for them.
DRUG PROVINGS.
The homoeopathic provings of magnesium salts are found:
Magnesium carbonicum
(1) Hahnemann: Chronic Diseases, 2 Ed., Bd., 4, p.134.
(2) Hartlaub and Trinks: Materia Medica Pura, Bd.2, p.257; and Hartlaub and Trinks: Annalen, Bd. 4, p 451.
Magnesium muriaticum
(1) Hahnemann: Chronic Diseases, 2 Ed., Bd.4, p. 178.
(2) Hartlaub and Trinks: Materia Medica Pura, Bd.2, p.237; Hartluab and Trinks: Annalen, Bd. 2.
(3) Lembke: Neue Zeitschr. f. hom. Klin., Rd.6, November, 1856.
Magnesium phosphoricum
Apart from the report of Schussler (abgek.Theridion) provings of H.C. Allen: Medorrhinum Advance., vol. 23, December, 1889 (after Zeistschr d. Berl. Verbascum homoopath. Aertze., Bd.11, p. 430.)
Magnesium sulfuricum
(1) Hartlaub u. Trinks: Annalen, Bd.4, p.406.
(2) Hencke: Neues Arch. f. hom. Heilk., Bd. 1, p.185, 1844.
SUMMARY Magnesium Carbonicum
Type : Relaxed, cold, sensitive to cold, nervous sensitivity, easily exhausted, muscle weakness, usually thin women and children.
Chief Actions: Neuralgias, especially in face, in teeth, worse at night, at rest, moving about necessary.
Gastro-intestinal: Soreness everywhere, green scum-like diarrhea, non- assimilation of milk; knife-like, colicky pains before the dyspeptic disturbances.
Menstrual Disturbances: Bleeding, dark, tar-like, stronger at night, numerous complaints before the menses.
Modalities: Worse at rest, at night, sleeplessness from 2 to 3, from cold in any form, from contact; better from moving around, warmth in any form, firm pressure.
Magnesium Muriaticum
Same in type and modalities.
Special Actions: Headache better from firm pressure and warmth: constipation with hard, dry, crumbly stools; biliary stasis, hepatic swelling; dysmenorrhea with fainting, great nervous (hysteric) sensitiveness; weakness of bladder evacuations; palpitation on sitting.
Magnesium phosphoricum
Same type, particularly marked nervous sensitivity.
Neuralgia and Spasm Remedy: Attacks of pain, suddenly developing and going; periodic migraine; colic better by bending double, pressure and warmth; dysmenorrhea, ovarian neuralgia; general spasms during teething, after diarrheas; whooping cough; twitching and cramps in the involuntary and voluntary muscles.
Modalities: Marked right-sideness; some aggravation from movement; otherwise as magnesium salts.
Magnesium Sulphuricum
Diabetes? massive morning diarrhea? chilliness with thirst; marked leucorrhoea with cutting pain in back and thighs; pains between the shoulders, sensitive to contact.
DOSE :
The magnesium salts are usually prescribed as triturations in the lower and middle potencies, of magnesium carb. also in the higher potencies, of magnes. phosphor. chiefly as D3, D6, D12.
CALCIUM
The circulation of calcium, Ca, in the lithosphere determines to the great extent the shape of the earth’s surface. Outstanding here is the affinity for carbonate. Calcium carbonate, CaCO3, appears in enormous masses as mountain-forming stones. It is practically insoluble in water. But for the circulation of calcium, it is of decisive importance that CaCO3, in water containing carbon dioxide forms the bicarbonate, Ca (HCO3)2, and this is more soluble. So the carbon dioxide containing water dissolves the calcareous stones and transports the calcium. If th solution loses its carbon dioxide through evaporation or through the synthetic activity of green plants, then the neutral CaCO3 is again precipitated. For the change between precipitation and solution, the greater or lesser amount of CO2 is decisive, on which a neutral acid reaction depends.
If the calcium crust of the earth is formed and changed by carbon dioxide- of the original and constant significance of the related silicic acid for the structure of the earth surface we shall say nothing here-so to the change in form of calcium in the organism, the phosphate is determining. Indeed, calcium phosphate compounds appear in inanimate nature (phosphorite which perhaps corresponds to Ca3 (PO4) and appetite, a complex compound of carbonate, phosphate, and fluoride with calcium). But first in the biosphere, has added itself to the anion builder, phosphorus, and so in the organism the affinity of calcium to phosphates is stronger than for carbonates, and essentially so, or better said: the phosphate determines to a higher degree the form and functional change of calcium than does the carbonate. A consideration of the calcium economy is therefore not possible without an inclusion of phosphate (and also carbonate metabolism).
CALCIUM ECONOMY
Exactly as the change between the precipitation and solution of calcium in the earth is conditioned through the acidity of the carbon dioxide containing water, so also the hydrogen ion concentration of the milieu is the essential in respect to the state of the calcium salts: with acidification the solubility and transportability of the calcium salts increase, and neutral or alkaline reactions favor precipitation. The physiologic states of calcium play essentially between two poles: the precipitation chiefly in the skeleton, mostly in a passive supportive function and at the same time as a reserve depot, on the one side, and the ionic freedom of the calcium in the body fluids, on the other, upon which the vital reactions with the cell colloid depend. Acidosis conditions increased absorption form the calcium depots, and under certain conditions may effect an osteoporosis, whereby there is increased calcium excretion in the urine. The introduction of alkali favors calcium retention and calcium deposits.
The hydrogen ion concentration is also decisive factor for the resorption. The 1 gram of calcium which is taken daily on the average must be split out of the colloid structure of the food, especially from plants and milk, into ions in the stomach and intestine. Absorption occurs in the duodenum and jejunum. So far as poorly soluble calcium salts are present, the bile assists through the solution of calcium soaps (and to a slight degree of phosphates and carbonates) in the biliary acids. In the absence of bile, for example in biliary fistula, calcium absorption is insufficient and the calcium requirement is filled from the depots and osteoporosis may occur. An excess of fat may influence calcium absorption, and reversely an excess of calcium impairs phosphate absorption. So in young rats a calcium intake far in excess of phosphate introduction can lead to the so-called phosphate poor rickets.
The excretion of calcium occurs in the lower intestinal segments and through the kidneys. The return of used calcium in the intestine makes a balance according to intake and excretion impractical because the unabsorbed excreted fraction cannot be measured. The ratio of the calcium excreted through the kidneys to that excreted through the intestine is variable (1:10-1:12) and is altered under morbid conditions. A relative increase of the urine calcium is perceived as a sign of increased mobilization and passage of calcium ions into the blood.
The calcium content of human serum varies physiologically a little: it amounts to 10-11 mg Percent (estimated as CaO. Of this only about 2 mg Percent is in ionic form as Ca Plus about 5 mg Percent is not ultrafilterable, that is, in colloid union, the remainder of about 4 mg Percent is probably present in a non-ionized complex calcium compound. The other conception that a pure, super-saturated, ionized calcium solution is present in the serum has many facts against it. The complex calcium fraction is considered the first line of reserve in maintaining the calcium ion content and in maintaining the calcium ion concentration fairly constant in spite of variable use. Complex fractions as cations are, it seems, bound to colloids, perhaps by absorption, perhaps chemically (this is no longer considered a fundamental difference). But only the cation form has the influence characteristic of calcium on the cell colloids, the characteristic calcium activity in the play of vital powers.
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,