CONNECTIVE TISSUE ACTION
The action of graphites on scar tissue is extolled. It is said to soften old scars. We find a similar influence also in silicea. In ulcera cruris graphites again is indicated by the hard borders and the thin, acrid, offensive secretion; it bleeds readily and has a thin, sanguinous discharge. Styes, chalazae sebaceous tumors, fibroma, and scirrhus, as well as hydrocele have likewise been cited as indications. In tendon contraction, Dupuytren’s contracture, graphites may be tried. In the connective tissue action must also be included the employment in otosclerosis, with difficulty in heating which is better in noise and from riding, with various types of ear noises and dryness of the inner auditory passages.
According to all reports graphites belongs to the chronic metabolic remedies which, like sulphur and silicea, are directed preferably toward the skin and digestive functions. They can be subordinated with reservations, to the carbonitrogenous constitution.
SUMMARY
Chronic remedy.
Constitution: Fat, chilly, constipated, pale, pasty, inert, depressed.
All functions impaired.
Chief Trends: 1. Skin.
Dry, unhealthy, itching, worse from the warmth of bed. Rhagades, fissured eczema. Moist crusted eruptions with honey-like, tenacious, acrid, offensive, secretions.
Predominant sites: flexor surface of joints, behind the ears, muco-cutaneous junctions (recurrent erysipelas!), region of genitalia, hair and nails. Scars and connective tissue action: keloid, swellings; otosclerosis: heating better in noise and on riding.
2. Gastro-intestinal canal.
Persistent constipation. Hard faeces covered with mucus.
Abdominal plethora. Aversion to cooked foods, meats (also to salty and sweet foods).
Occasionally ravenous hunger; burning and cramp in the stomach, relieved by eating.
Hemorrhoids with fissures and anal eczema.
3. Female sexual functions.
Delayed, scanty, pale menses. Sterility.
Leucorrhoea, watery, profuse, acrid (cervical erosions).
Modalities:
Nothing universal; in general worse from cold. Worse at the time of the menses, particularly the constipation.
Itching worse at night, in the warmth of the bed.
Many gastric complaints improved by eating, others aggravated (abdominal plethora).
DOSE
The 6, 12, and 30 D potencies are usually employed.
The chronic skin processes with the suitable constitution are suited for testing the higher potencies.
PETROLEUM
Crude petroleum is a natural product of the earth, arising probably through the slow destruction of fossil rests of animals and plants. Chemically it is a mixture of carbon compounds of the allopathic series or paraffin series (which are derived from methane, CH4) and some aromatic or cyclic carbon compounds (derived from the benzol ring C6H6) and other compounds. The composition of petroleum is therefore different according to the source. The petroleum from Galicia, Transylvania and Roumania is medicinally employed, that is, a petroleum containing few constituents of the low boiling point. The part used begins to boil at 90. With this the petroleum ether (boiling point between 50-60) and the characteristic benzine (boiling point between 70- 90) is excluded. On the other side the substances boiling at over 300, the solid fractions of petroleum at ordinary temperature, vaseline and paraffin are omitted. However many injuries to paraffin workers, of which shall still speak, are ascribed to those constituents which appear in the common fuel petroleum. On the other side the paraffin cancer may be placed at the side of tar cancer. Paraffin and tar stand very close, only the points of departure for these products are different: in paraffin, the crude petroleum; in tar, the coal.
We cannot expect a uniform chemical composition in the natural mixture “petroleum” but merely an approximate control through the specific gravity and the boiling point. Hahnemann 507 described a method by which one can purify it from admixed bituminous elements (from the “fluchtigen Gewachsolen” as he states) by mixing with alcohol and filtration as is done with rock oil. Preliminary purification by sulphuric acid was also known to him.
The modern method of preparation of the potencies no longer corresponds to the original prescription of Hahnemann because he made dilutions to the 1:1 million, that is C 3, with sugar of milk and only subsequent potencies with dilute alcohol. On the other hand both the pharmacopoeias, Gruner as well as Schwabe, use only liquid dilutions from the beginning.
POISONINGS
Apart from intentional provings upon the healthy we have knowledge of the actions of petroleum only from the usual occupational poisonings. Exact experimental animal investigations have scarcely been performed with petroleum.
The chief organ affinities of petroleum are similar to those of the simple carbon substances (for example, graphites), on the skin and the gastro-intestinal canal. To this is added, in petroleum, a particularly marked influence on the sensorium, indeed on the cortical centers. This cerebral action according to Lewin, 508 who made personal observations in the petroleum districts of Pennsylvania, is due chiefly to the petroleum districts of Pennsylvania, is due chiefly to the readily volatile, that is, low boiling carburetted hydrogen which is generally inhaled in the gaseous form. The gastric form of intoxication and the skin manifestations according to Lewin are to be ascribed to the heavier constituents with higher boiling points. The residue of crude petroleum which is no longer present in the medicinally employed petroleum acts most severely and rapidly on the skin. In the paraffin fraction it even amounts to malignant tumors.
SKIN
The skin affections from both external as well as internal introduction according to Lewin consist of acne-like, thick, hard nodules with inflammatory surroundings; moreover, inflammatory infiltrations as furuncles and diffuse inflammation resembling erysipelas. Burning and itching are constant symptoms. Lewin places the point of origin in the sebaceous glands and hair follicles, respectively the perifollicular tissue. He places the petroleum affections, the so-called oil itch, at the side of those which occur in refinement of oils, tars, asphalts, etc.; the skin glands are occluded and thereby inflammation occurs. 509 Still it is to be remembered that these impure mixtures almost always contain sulphur.
The detailed picture of the skin manifestations in paraffin workers has been given by Ogston. 510 It reads:
“Eruption of nodules and vesicles on the skin involved appears very soon in those who are concerned with this occupation for the first time; the eruption lasts some weeks or months and then generally lessens. Exceptionally in some persons the eruption does not disappear in that it takes on a chronic character and produces such an outspoken and persistent affection of the skin that the general status is disturbed thereby and makes the cessation of work necessary. The acute form of the eruption which soon appears in those who are subjected to the influence of crude paraffin, covers the hands, wrists, arms, feet and legs with light red nodules, very close together, usually largest and most numerous on the wrists or where the clothing is in close contact. The dorsal aspect is especially involved, the palms and the soles of the feet may be entirely free. Similar nodules appear to a slighter extent on the face, the neck and other parts of the body with which the oily stuff comes in contact. The exact examination of the skin of those affected yields the following chief characteristic of the eruption: the light red nodules, hard on contact, soft on pressure, slightly variable in size, which corresponds approximately to a barley corn, round and embrace a single hair follicle and the area immediately surrounding it is inflamed, reddened and hard. The hair is considerably elevated from the apex of the nodule and the opening of the hair follicle is considerably widened and easily visible to the unaided eye (about the size of a needle puncture in a sheet of paper). The widening extends deeply into the follicle which contains the core of the inflamed nodule and whose retention contribute to the ring like hardening of the inflamed zone. The open orifice of the follicle shows masses of desquamated epithelia which are dry and fragile in place of fatty and tenacious. The nodule has little tendency to pass over into suppuration, and as is usual in the maggot the contents cannot be expressed, however the redness and hardness gradually lessed and after they have existed a short time, finally diminish and leave the hair follicle widened and its mouth open so wide that the retained epithelial mass is visible and indeed even more distinct through the continuous retention and accumulation of the filth. In actuality the acute form of the eruption consists in successive stages of formation at the same time from complete development to regression; thereby the skin in between them shows the dark openings of the follicles which have already broken down or are in the process and the skin still shows pliability and elasticity in contrast to the manifestations of the chronic from of the disease.
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,