The acute and subacute intestinal actions are, as previously mentioned, like dysentery. The brown foamy diarrhoea with tenesmus, at times bloody, shows the morning aggravation. Likewise for the enteritis the tenacious, stringy mucus like gelatin is said to be guiding and is considered an indication for kali bichromicum in mucous colitis; because of the tendency to ulcer formation under certain circumstances kali bichromicum comes under consideration in the most diverse chronic ulcerative processes. Moreover also a persistent constipation is observed in chrome workers and in the proves. It is said to be characterized by periodic recurrence and is associated with pains cutting across the pelvis and the voiding of a brown urine. In addition to other sensations in the anus as burning and pressure, a sensation of a plug is also present.
OTHER ORGAN ACTIONS
From the frequent pains of different types in the liver region which were associated with pale clay colored stools, one has concluded that kali bichromicum has significance as a liver remedy. The above reported findings of Lewin and the newer animal investigations of Hinsdale which showed the fatty infiltration of the liver and an increase in the connective tissue support this suggestion. But clinical observation has not yet showed that this indication is sufficient to make a therapeutic indication from it. It is mistake in the meaning of the simile rule when one would make any organotrophic connection conclusively evident of a therapeutic action trend. In the evaluation of the total picture it appears that the possibility of a trend of action is not sufficient. The pathologic-anatomic findings on the organs are for this reason often entirely unsuitable for the emphasis of this value because they bear only the fixed precipitate of a functional event after the ended reciprocal play of powers.
The same also holds for the nephritis which also appears at times as a result of severe kali bichromicum poisoning. The frequently mentioned pains in the lumbar region can also support this indication. But without exact further guiding symptoms we could hardly select kali bichromicum from other renal poisons in a case of nephritis. It is certain that there are also diverse irritative manifestations in the urinary passages from kali bichromicum. Perhaps in pyelitis, cystitis, and urethritis it may lead to the secretion of tenacious mucus. White sediment is also reported. As a special indication “the sensation as if drops remained in the posterior part of the urethra and cannot be pressed out” is perhaps useful from the proving.
On the female genitalia a tenacious yellow leucorrhoea is worthy of note; moreover irritative manifestations, itching, swelling of the external parts, like those on the male external genitalia, can lead to pustules and finally ulcers. Such a pustular and ulcer formation generally appears on the skin with kali bichromicum. The type of pustules which should heal with scarring has given occasion for the remedy in smallpox, just as the type of reactionless ulcer penetrating into the deeper parts among other symptoms has linked it to syphilis.
GENERAL SYMPTOMS
The kali bichromicum picture is rich in pains of the most diverse type which are present in the muscles, joints and bones. According to the site and character they have been considered now as rheumatic, now as syphilitic. Two properties of the pains are particularly worthy of note; first, the sudden appearance and diminution and rapid wandering from one part to another and, second, that they are often limited to a small spot so that one can cover the painful site with the end of the thumb. Both characteristics refer to neuralgias. The modalities of these pains are not fixed with certainty. Perhaps the best is aggravation from cold. In isolated instances they are relieved by motion but usually (especially at the beginning of motion) are reported as aggravated. The wandering pain, worse from cold, may be ascribed to the potassium fraction, perhaps also the preferential site in the back (in the pelvis, sacrum and coccyx). Other modalities which agree with those of kali carbonicum are the general early morning aggravation and the aggravation after coitus.
Then also an alternations between the gastric complaints and the wandering pains in the extremities is described as a sign of kali bichromicum on the basis of the provings.
Extraordinarily numerous in the provings are headaches and sensation of vertigo. In order to evaluate these reports, one must differentiate. The vertigo and many pains are associated with gastric symptoms, nausea and vomiting. Often the pains are associated with catarrhal processes in the upper respiratory pas- sages. They were usually localized in the forehead and about the region of the nose. From all these headaches which cannot be more closely defined than secondary are separated several others resembling migraine or neuralgia. These pains again are limited to small areas, over one eye, unilateral pains about the orbit or in the frontal region which precede darkening of vision, cloudy vision, and vertigo. Here movement seems always to aggravate but the reaction to cold is not constant (once it states better in the open air, the other time worse from cold air), the time of aggravation is often in the morning but also an increase up to noon and decrease toward evening is reported. Since these modalities are not precise, the suitability of the remedy for the for the symptoms concerned is less certain. Unilateral headaches with preceding visual disturbances are found in many drugs and differential signs are necessary. These must be introduced from other fields if one is to attack migraine with kali bichromicum. Kali bichromicum is most frequently employed in the headache associated with disorders of the frontal sinuses.
If one takes the single provings of Arneth’s with the various steps of dilution, then one can read out of it that the wandering pains are evident in the highest dilutions (D 7) and here also the kali fraction comes into prominence while in the third dilution the symptoms in the upper respiratory passages stand in the foreground and in the third the gastro-intestinal symptoms begin, then in the first dilution the nose and the mouth symptoms appear in a very organic expression and thus the chromic acid fraction which differs from the potassium can always be distinctly recognized.
That severe chromic acid poisoning leads to anemic and cachetic states has already been mentioned. This is a sign that the remedy has the capacity to produce deep, subacute and chronic, general disturbances. Corresponding to this in the drug picture which has to be considered less in the end state is a great weakness. The occasional yellow discoloration of the cutaneous appendages by the colored chrome in the severe instances of poisoning naturally is not taken over into the therapeutic drug picture. This would mean to convert the meaning of the simile rule into nonsense.
SUMMARY
Type: So far as determined at present, light haired, puffy.
Chief Trend: Mucous membranes of the upper air passages and the gastro- intestinal canal.
Leading Symptoms:
The tenacious mucous.
The formation of pseudomembranes and circumscribed ulcers.
Pains limited to small spots.
Rapid change of the site of pain.
Alternation between gastric symptoms and rheumatic complaints.
(Doubtful desire for beer but aggravation from it.)
Modalities: Morning aggravation throughout. Catarrhal and rheumatic pains worse from cold, while the gastric symptoms in particular are worse in hot weather.
In general worse from movement.
DOSE The middle potencies (about the 6 D) are preferred in general.
VANADIUM
Neither the metal vanadium itself nor its compounds have been proven on the healthy up to the present. The sodium salt of metavanadinic acid, Na. VO3, in animal experiments yielded actions experiments yielded actions on the vasomotor and respiratory centers and the intracardiac ganglia. The severe toxic manifestations after injection are: motor paralysis, loss of reflex excitability, convulsions, stupor, irritation of the intestinal canal up to inflammation, lowering of body temperature, slowing of respiration and weakness of cardiac action. The blood pressure is reduced, the pulse weak, irregular, intermittent, the respiration initially accelerated, later slowed and fails 622; from such acute poisonings one can learn as good as nothing.
In industry the salts of the lower vanadium oxide are used as catalysors of oxidation because the change in valence, oxygen is easily given off and taken up. In single invertebrate sea stars (Ascidia) vanadium plays the role of iron in the blood. Lyonnet and others report vandates, in particular ammonium metavandate, NH4. VO4, in amounts of 2-5 mgs., is a “roberans” for the improvement of the appetite, strength and weight. Accordingly the technically employed catalyzing property could also be appreciated for the excitation of metabolism.
From the exposure with vanadinic acid salts in industry, irritative states of the mucous membranes, the respiratory passages and the gastro-intestinal canal as well as the kidney have been seen; as general effects, headaches, trembling as well as psychic disturbances.
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,