Vagus stimuli seem to lessen serum calcium, and sympathetic stimuli to increase it. Obviously the vegetative system is an essential intermediator between the incretory regulation and the state of calcium in the tissues and therefore gives a suitable point of attack and intermediation of the action of therapeutically active doses of calcium.
CALCIUM THERAPY OF THE SCHOOL
The school therapy with calcium salts in different times truly reflects the current stand of theoretic conception and the technical possibilities of employment. A very extensive, purely empirical use of calcium carbonate for about a century underwent a compression on purely chemical indications of acidification of the alimentary tract, especially when diarrhea co-exists. For a long time there remained in addition good experiences in diseases of the lymphatic system, in scrofulous glands and in skin eruptions, and congizance and use was made particularly of calcium chloride. In conjunction with the general use of alkalies, calcium salts are still used here and there is rheumatic-gouty dyscrasias with a tendency to deposits. The use of earthy waters in the formation of sediments, especially in the urinary tract, rests even today on similarly uncertain empiric grounds.
For decades, then, one believed calcium was suitable only for neutralizing acids according to chemical laws, then only in the gastro-intestinal canal. Here aquacalcis has the reputation at least of being more useful than the usual sodium bicarbonate, because it is not followed by subsequent increase of acid production in the stomach as is sodium bicarbonate. Occasionally one attempts of equalize an intermediate acidosis with calcium. In this respect the slightly diffusible and only slightly absorbable calcium carbonate is less useful than the carbonate of sodium.
The internal use of calcium salts seemed unfounded and without prospect especially when, in a calcium deficiency disease, apparently so distinct as rickets, calcium therapy failed. Then, about 1910, appeared a complete revolution, indeed, an overswing, in favor of calcium therapy. Under the impression of the important role of calcium in the organism, particularly in the cell nucleus for growth, the danger of calcium deficit would be averted through a protein rich nutriment, as especially suggested by Emmericih and Loew. Particularly at the time of increased calcium need, as during the dentition period and in pregnancy, in addition to a calcium-rich diet (milk, leafy and rooty vegetables), the further use of calcium lactate was held necessary. The temporary one-sided exuberance for such calcium nutrient therapy has now been fully relinquished, but even today it still correctly exists for special cases with negative- calcium balance.
Ever more from pharmacologic investigation and studies of normal and pathologic calcium economy, it was seen that a pure quantitative conception was unsuitable as the basis of calcium therapy. The results of investigations, as we have summarized shortly above, allow realization that besides the amount of calcium present in the organism, its state of from in various places, its activity, the direction of streaming of calcium ion, which are the essential carriers of this activity, are of decisive significance. In disturbances of calcium economy it is usually concerned with a defective utilization in consequence to inactivation of calcium through de-ionization or through a wrongly directed streaming away of calcium ions rather than too much or too little calcium.
There is also the possibility of rapid introduction of calcium ions through injection, particularly intravenous injections. of the many preparations available, calcium gluconate has proved very useful. Under the influence or injection technic, the difficult point of calcium therapy in acute, paroxysmal states is abolished. In oxalic acid poisoning the calcium salts act chemically binding and spare or replace the calcium necessary to the organism. In other poisonings (sodium chloride and adrenalin fever) calcium ions defend through cell thickening even to a certain degree in war gas poisonings pulmonary edema and acute inflammations. In magnesium narcosis calcium salts act through ion displacement. Clinical confirmation in acute hemorrhage from mucous membranes and skin, also form the lung, exists beyond doubt. The use in tetanic states is likewise soundly based on ion therapy but the mass introduction of calcium ions through injections, relieves the acute state only.
The situation is similar in allergic states, as asthma, urticaria, hay fever, serum exanthems. Here likewise the injection therapy is often indicated for the attack; the action of calcium ions on the permeability of the cells and vessels and on the vegetative steering of this process offers a point of departure for explanation. But a lasting alteration can scarcely be obtained through injection therapy, and only rarely though the more prolonged oral administration of calcium. This rests indeed on the fact that the cases suitable for calcium can be selects only partly by mere diagnosis the consideration of the constitutional factors can lead further here but then the massive form of orally introduced calcium salts is not sufficiently active for such an alterative therapy by any means.
The transformation of the ion milieu and the closely joined alteration of vegetative steering are the grounds of explanation of such general nature that thereby almost all diseases could come into question in regard to calcium therapy. Actually an almost innumerable number of indications have been cited as indications for the oral use of calcium in the last decades, but have also for the most part again disappeared. Either the cases were not suitable because there was no lack of active calcium ions, or the massive doses were not suitable for altering the very finely regulated ion milieu of the organism. Through this a decision of experiences with prolonged peroral calcium salt therapy is very uncertain.
Since homoeopathic calcium slat therapy demands that the indications be embraced more sharply and at the same time bring the preparation into an active form, one need not enter into the pro and con of varying reports in single states of disease. If one look only at the diagnosis, then the homoeopathic indications correspond very extensively with the usual ones. But the establishment of a definite calcium constitution in homoeopathy makes possible a much better selection of suitable cases.
Only single fields of the customary use of calcium need a brief discussion. From pharmacologic experiments on the surviving heart, by which a digitalis like action of calcium ions has been found, an attempt has been made to employ calcium therapy in decompensated hearts, especially those with disturbance of rhythm. The decisions have been favorable on the results in nervous and thyreotoxic tachycardia. The combination of calcium with digitalis proceeds from the thought that digitalis and substances acting like it sensitize the heart for the action of calcium ions. But the reports do not permit a certain judgment as to whether this combination accomplishes more than digitalis alone.
Calcium therapy in pulmonary tuberculosis, which repeatedly finds supporters, has no supportable theoretic basis, because a calcium deficiency in the tuberculous lung is certainly not demonstrated and an increased requirement for a calcium deposition in the dead tissue cannot be assumed that this calcification can be accelerated by a further introduction of calcium salts, and, further, this calcium deposition is entirely subordinated in the healing. A favorable palliative effect on the amount of expectoration, the night sweats, the diarrhea, can be ascribed to the cell thickening and vascular action of calcium.
Likewise in tuberculous glandular affections the employment of calcium has been suggested on the basis of promoting calcification of the caseating glands. However, this old empiric therapy certainly has other bases, which stand in connection with the general constitutional tissue actions of calcium.
The calcium action on inflammatory and allergic states of the skin can be explained in general with the cell thickening and through the influence of the vegetative system. According to histochemic investigations, calcium also has an immediate relation to the skin as a respective organ. In the healthy skin calcium is found essentially in the connective tissue portion; in dermatosis, however predominantly in the papillary bodies and the epithelium of the cutis.
Also for the removal of edema of chronic renal diseases is the treatment with large doses of calcium to be taken into consideration. It may also be possible that the diuretic action of milk depends up on its high calcium content. The increased excretion of sodium ions, in part, and an influence on the state of swelling of the tissue colloids can be made responsible for
it.
Less common is the calcium therapy of ovarian dysfunctions, in particular, menstrual disturbances. And further, these offer a very fertile field. For, in the first place, the influence of the endocrine ovarian function of the calcium economy of osteomalacia and gravidity tetanic is known. But further, even in normal menstruation, a liability in the vegetative system with variations in the amount of serum calcium is present. In the vagotonic premenstrual phase, in which the function of the ovary, or rather the corpus luteum, is increased, the amount of serum calcium is relatively high, and calcium is mobilized from the tissues. The vagus stimulation is traceable to the outpouring of choline into the blood and the instigator for this is the incretory impulse from the corpus luteum. And during menstruation the vagus is maintained. Vagotonic signs, as the increase in secretion of gastric juice, aggravation of vagal neurosis (Asthma urticaria) before and during the menses, are frequent. Reversely, hypofunction of the ovaries is bound with inactivation of calcium, suppression of ionization. The ovarian weakness leads easily however, to small cystic degeneration, precipitant repining persistence of the follicle, while other corpus luteum is formed only defectively. Since the corpus luteum acts depressively (endocrinologically) on menstruation, there comes with hypofunction the stimulus for bleeding. So are explained the too early and too marked bleeding from hypofunction of the endocrine fraction of the ovary. According to all appearance, with this is combined a disturbance in calcium economy in the sense of defective activation, defective ionization. And while otherwise in these state choline or follicular hormone preparations are prescribed, too early and too severe menses in young girls and in the preclimacteric period are frequently proven homoeopathic indications for calcarea carbonica. This indication is naturally not some is naturally not something derived from reflection on the influence of calcium on the hormonal nd vegetative regulation of the menstrual process but from observations of constitution in people sensitive to calcium, for which the method of drug proving on healthy humans is responsible.
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,