Chief Trends:
Emaciation, sympathetic excitation, Basedow.
Periodic fever, migraine, ciliary neuralgia.
Circulatory disturbances: pulsations, pounding, fluttering, intermittence of heart.
Skin eruptions, especially seborrhoic.
Disturbances of secretions of mucous membranes; dry constipation, acrid secretion of the nose and eye.
Modalities:
Chief time of aggravation 10 to 11 A.M.
Worse from sun’s heat.
Worse before the menses.
Worse at the sea.
Head symptoms worse from mental effort and close work.
Depression aggravated by consolation. Aversion to bread.
Sacral pain better through pressure.
DOSE:
The dose is usually with the high potencies (15, 30). Even in the drug provings in the healthy, the high potencies have yielded considerable symptoms. In the constipation the lower potencies (3-4) have been found effective.
KALIUM MURIATICUM
Kalium muriaticum, KCl, is not proven. Its use arises merely from the theoretic conceptions and clinical reports of Schussler. Schussler places it into connection with fibrin. Fibrinous exudates from mucous membranes and serous surfaces are therefore its leading indications.
The gray white coating at the base of the tongue is said to be an indication in inflammations which exist primarily in the nasopharynx. It is entirely possible that the halogen fraction of this preparation is responsible for the especial affinity for the throat.
But it is also generally an inflammation in the stage of exudation which is taken into consideration in kali. mur. With the few remedies of Schussler the extent of application must necessarily be very great, and consequently the indications are in generalities. The use of the D 6 in bursitis paraepatellaris has been verified by myself.
Of the later additions by homoeopathic observers there should be mentioned also the digestive disturbances from fatty, heavy foods. Here the gray-white coating of the tongue as an accompanying symptom would be easily understood.
KALIUM CHLORICUM
The potassium salt of chloric acid, acidum chloricum, HClO3, is frequently confused by virtue of the defective nomenclature with the more harmless potassium chloride, our kal. muriaticum. The last, KCl, is often even today in the materia medicas designated as kali chloratum, while this is the name of chlorate of potassium, KClO3. This ClO3 anion, because of its energetic capacity for oxidation, is a strong poison, first in line for the blood. It converts hemoglobin into methemoglobin and renders it incapable of performing its task of taking up and giving off oxygen. In this process of methemoglobin formation the iron of the hemoglobin acts as a catalysor, activates the liberated oxygen so that a pure, hardly reversible oxidation of hemoglobin occurs. Thereby the divalent iron is converted into the trivalent. (Oxyhemoglobin, on the contrary, is only a loose addition compound of O2 with hemoglobin.) In the herbivorous the toxic action by the formation of methemoglobin is much less than in the carnivorous. This perhaps depends upon a difference in the h-ion concentration of the blood. Moreover, it is striking that, through the decrease of alkalescence of the blood, the formation of methemoglobin, which is a pure oxidation, there is a destruction of the red blood cells. Disturbances may appear through the formation of thrombi and emboli, especially in the kidneys.
SYMPTOMS OF INTOXICATION
From medicinal use, at times, severe toxic symptoms occur from great doses which lead to asphyxial death and, as an irreversible process, naturally give no indications. To these belong the gray-blue discoloration of the skin and mucous membranes, asphyxia with burning and pressure in the chest, vomiting of bilious masses, meteorism, hiccough, swelling of the liver and spleen and as a consequence of blood destruction, hemoglobinuria and methemoglobinuria, anuria and uremic coma. Disturbances of general sensation as fatigue, apathy, headache vertigo, insomnia, restlessness, changing sensation of heat and cold with recognizable fever, small, rapid pulse, accompany acute and subacute intoxications. The symptoms of destruction of the red blood cells, as icterus and hemoglobinuria, are indeed mentioned in homoeopathic materia medica as indications for hemolytic and septic processes but deserve little confidence so long as no clinical confirmation is available. To the subacute intoxications as well as to those from persistent use of gargles belong: mucohemorrhagic diarrhea with much tenesmus and meteorism. They have given occasion for employment in dysentery and intestinal affections similar to it in occasional cases.
THERAPEUTIC USES
For a prolonged action of kal. chloricum, two principal directions come into consideration, the kidneys and the mouth. The urine and saliva are the two principal sites of excretion for the poison. In the urine part of the kal chloric. appears reduced to KCl. One knows that the toxic action of kali chloric. is provoked much easier of the damaged kidney. In acute parenchymatous nephritis with many casts and much protein, kalium chloric. in the 1-3 potency is recommended by the Americans, as R. Haehl reports. Outside of the urinary symptoms, one must take consideration of the above-mentioned general disturbances of the remedy, particularly the congestive headache in the forehead and temples and the severe vertigo. Frequent nosebleed is explainable from the action of the blood and is a further indication. The nose bleed should alleviate the above- mentioned head symptoms and the irritable hypochondriacal disposition. Also in chronic parenchymatous nephritis in which the choice of the remedy is very difficult due to the scantiness of the symptoms, I have repeatedly employed kalium chloricum in the D 6 and have gained a favorable impression. Nephritis during pregnancy is a special indication. Pains in the region of the kidney are observed in the course of intoxication, the output of urine is mostly diminished, but there is often much urinary tenesmus.
Of the mouth symptoms the marked salivation, great dryness of the mouth and esophagus and foetor ex ore are cited in toxicologies. In the homoeopathic provings the saliva is reported as sour, the taste altered in diverse manners, but especially inflammatory manifestations of the entire oral mucosa up to ulceration and glandular swelling are depicted, moreover, a feeling of coldness on the tongue and in the throat. (The last is to be valued only as a local symptom since kalium chloric. solutions produce a feeling of coldness as well as a faint bitter taste.) The easy bleeding from the inflamed gums harmonizes with the general tendency of the remedy to hemorrhage.
On the other hand kalium chloric. solution is a favorite gargle in inflammations of the mouth and throat, and formerly, when one was not as exactly informed of its toxic actions, it was used more than today in stomatitis, angina and diphtheria, but particularly in mercurial stomatitis where it was often used for protection in mercury cures. Through an oxidizing and disinfecting action this influence was explained without further consideration. But a kalium chloricum solution does not act antiseptically and will oxidize organic substances at body temperature only when the oxygen is activated through a catalysor. Intermediate reactions of the tissue cells in any case participate in the local effect. So long as we do not know these exactly, the similarity of the inflammatory effect on the mucous membrane is to be perceived as a result of these intermediate reactions and is a useful therapeutic guide. Another explanation will be employed as the totality of the effect is revealed in its details.
If now such an oral or throat inflammation concerns a patient with parenchymatous nephritis, then, the choice of kalium chloric. is emphasized.
Striking is the similarity of the chief trends of subacute kalium chloric. action with that of mercury: mouth and throat, kidney, intestinal mucosa. And further, the type of inflammation is similar in respect to many symptoms in the two remedies. There is also similarity in the skin manifestations, since kalium chloric. (outside of skin bleeding) can also provoke a papular erythema.
From this similarity in external manifestations, in which an antagonism in cell chemistry may be present, is guided the use of kalium chloric, in mercury poisoning.
The choice of kal. chloric can occur at the present time from the organ affinities and objective symptoms as might be expected in an agent which has early toxic actions. Guiding symptoms for the remedy are not as yet known, and of the modalities the improvement by nose bleed deserves only partial confidence.
A drug provings of kalium chloricum is found in Martin’s work: Arch. f. homoopathische Heilkunsst, Bd.16, p. 181.
SUMMARY
Chief Indications:
Parenchymatous nephritis with congestion of head which is relieved by nose bleed. Stomatitis. Dysentery like stools. Mercury poisoning
ACIDUM MURIATICUM
The acute actions of HCl gas are entirely like those of chlorine gas. We designate as acidum muriaticum, HCl, hydrochloric acid, a solution of HCL. Pure acid contains 25 per cent HCl; acid. hydrochloric dilutum, one-half as much.
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,