HABITUATION
A noteworthy peculiarity is the habituation to fluorides. It has been demonstrated even for the lowest forms of life, for example, yeasts. One has employed this fact in order to make yeasts insensitive to fluorides and then to add disinfecting fluoride compounds and so render the yeasts free from other germs. According to H. Schulz, however, an habituation to fluorine effects also appears in man. It is noted in workers in glass factories in which fluoric acid is used. H. Schulz experimentally confirmed this with cats. From the experience in glass factories, fluorides have been recommended in beginning tuberculosis but without more than a symptomatic improvement being noted. Here one must think of the significance of calcium and silicia for the healing of tuberculosis.
SYMPTOMS OF INTOXICATION
The local and acute toxic actions of fluoric acid and the fluorides have as usual only a subordinate significance for our drug picture. Corrosions with fluoric acid on the skin give, in a slight degree, itching, burning, desquamation of the epidermis; in stronger grades, suppuration, vesicles filled with pus, indurated and slowly scarring ulcers. Two per cent sodium fluoride solution instilled into the conjunctival sac produces turbidity of the cornea, according to Tappeiner and, under certain conditions, scar formation. A corrosion of the upper part of the mucous membrane of the gastro-intestinal canal is the result of concentrated acidum fluoricum, but it may also develop with fluorides where an acid reaction exists, whereby fluoric acid is formed as in the stomach, and corrodes the mucous membrane. In fatal intoxication, the outstanding autopsy finding is the gastric corrosion. Burning and constriction of the esophagus, gastric pressure, eructations, vomiting and general weakness are the external evidences of this intoxication. Outside of vomiting, in studies with sodium fluoride in man and animals, marked salivation is noted, and nausea and headache in man when sodium fluoride has been used as a food preservative. In animal experiment, moreover, appear lachrymation and particularly all types of cramps (muscle trembling, periodic twitching, tonic contractions, trismus, general spasms), somnolence, general weakness, acceleration and deepening of the respiration, lowering, of blood pressure, slowing of the pulse. Tappeiner and Hugo Schulz, report also a nephritis from fluorides; and Siegfried, a focal fatty degeneration of the liver from sodium silico-fluoride.
More essential for us are the actions which have been demonstrated by small doses of fluorides continuously introduced. Since, earlier, when foods were preserved with sodium fluoride, nausea and headache and salivation had been observed, Rost studied this question by animal experimentation (according to the Handbuch der experimentellen Pharmak., Bd. III, p.287): In growing dogs an 8-12 weeks introduction of 0.2-0.5 g. of sodium fluoride daily produces in spite of a diet liberal in calcium a ricketic like process limited almost exclusively to the distal ends of the bones of the forearm and carpal joint, stiffness of the joint, and painfulness when the animal rises. In animals, fed in the same way but without the addition of sodium fluoride, the remainder of the litter remains healthy. The findings were the same in seven series of studies. In another but still unpublished study the author gave growing, meat fed dogs, after the eight week of life, gradually increasing amounts of sodium fluoride up to 0.5gm per day. In the bones and teeth of these animals were noted severe osteoplastic and osteoporotic alterations. At the site of attachment of muscle normally used frequently (as the carpal joint and the skull) thickenings developed in the form of crests or exostosis which finally became distinctly visible in the form of knobs. The teeth were carious and fragile; there were severe disturbances of the jaw. These bony and dental alterations, together with the already mentioned painfulness of the carpal joints on arising, were never absent in animals treated with sodium fluoride. Here we see the anatomic substrate of chronic fluoride intoxication exactly on those structures which are normally rich in fluorine, and, on the other side, we find good basis therein for the connections to bony formations which develop in the homoeopathic picture of action. Not only the connection of fluorine to calcium but also that to silicic acid can be of significance for it. In older animals treated with sodium fluoride, the deposit of white calcium fluoride was distinctly visible.
Worthy of remark still is that formerly an attempt was made to relate fluorine to goiter, but definite results have not been obtained. The halogen nature in any case would give occasion for the attempt. Also, in homoeopathy, calcium fluoride is occasionally recommended for struma cystica and it seems to me according to personal experience to have good influence from persistent use in such cases. The simultaneous connection to the supportive tissues, perhaps, via the silicic acid, might be of significance here.
ACIDUM FLUORICUM
Acidum fluoricum was proven by Hering and his circle of provers in Philadelphia (Neues Archive fur Hom. Helik., vol. 2 p. 100, and Trans. Amer. Institute of Homoeopathy, 1).
From clinical use it has been shown that acidum fluoricum has a slowed but deep, prolonged action. The supportive tissue is the favored site.
SUPPORTIVE TISSUES
The outstanding affinity to the bones appeared in the provings with 2nd and 3rd potencies with many cutting pains which proceeded from the bones. The animal experiments of Rost confirm this chief action. Inflammatory bone processes, caries and necrosis, even of syphilitic origin (here one thinks of iodine) are old homoeopathic clinical indications, especially when the long bones are involved: but also caries of the middle ear. Moreover, expansion at the glabella belongs here. These indications, extended to exostosis, were taken over by Schussler in a fitting way for his biochemic agent, calcarea fluorica, as in general this agent is given the same actions by him which we otherwise learn under acidum fluoricum. In agreement with the physiologic appearance, many dental pains in the provings have indicated the use in caries of the teeth. With acidum fluoricum, the discharges of the bone maladies are said to be offensive and acrid. Particularly in fistula, for example, dental fistula, fistula of the lower jaw, and also lachrymal and anal fistula, which naturally do not always proceed form bony involvement, the drug is indicated. Here there exists a close relationship to silicea. It is that acidum fluoricum follows silicea very well when silicea has been given for a long time, perhaps excessively, and has exhausted its action. The differentiating fact is that silicea is relieved by warmth and fluoric acid by cold. A trial with fluoric acid is also recommended in chronic arthritis and in defective formation of callus.
A further trend in the same direction as silicea appears to be evident in scar tissue, the skin and its appendages. In the provings old scars begin to itch and become painful. Marked burning and itching occur in the skin, soreness between the toes (from sweat?). Skin affections, ulcers heal poorly. The hair mats, falls out; the new hair is dry and break off. The nails seem to grow rapidly but show unevenness, furrows; they; splinter. The similarity with silicea is distinct. C. Hering describes in detail the appearance of teleangiectasia in his proving of fluoric acid, and the recommendation of the agent in teleangiectasis and naevi deserves great consideration.
This leads to the proven indication in varices and varicose ulcers. Here one might conceive of a connection to the elastic supportive substance. The varicose ulcers on the lower leg re said to have a hard glassy border and to be covered with a hard crust; here also there is offensive, acrid, thin secretion. With the weakness of supportive tissue is associated the tendency to prolapse of the rectum and hemorrhoids (in the provings the previously present tendency to prolapse was increased). Also for venectasia the relief from cold should be an indication.
Purely clinical is the use of acidum fluoricum in cirrhosis of the liver with ascites in drinkers. Since here the new formation of connective tissue is secondary, the affinity to the connective tissue cannot be drawn into explanation, but much better can be considered the finding of Siegfried, in which a focal fatty degeneration of the liver with sodium fluoride was demonstrated.
GENERAL ERETHISM
Besides the affinity to the supportive tissues, which we can consider as crude chemical organ or tissue relation, acidum fluoricum seems according to the provings to have a more dynamic action, that is an action directed more by regulatory centers, and this field of action to some extent is similar to the picture of iodine effect, so that one may well consider the fluorine ion as responsible. This consists at first of a heated general state, a feeling as though warm vapor exuded from the pores but without fever being present. This febrile sensation is worse towards evening. Improvement through baths and washing with cold water with desire for them is the corresponding modality. The marked itching is worse from warmth. The numerous headaches constitute, so far as they are not conditioned by bone pains, the chief signs of increased rush of blood. They are said to be worse as long as urinary urging is absent. Urination should not only induce an amelioration of the headaches but also an improvement in the general feeling. The profuse, acid, offensive sweats also belong to this picture of vascular erethism which is like that of iodine, moreover a restlessness which makes considerable movement necessary. Increased muscle activity with exhaustion, involuntary movements of the musculature of the extremities; twitching and jerking in the various parts, it states in the provings. In the excitation of the muscles without exhaustion appearing, one should recall the previously mentioned role of fluorine in muscle function. Physically, the state of excitation expresses itself in unusual serenity but may be transformed into a depressive phase with ideas causing anxiety and associated with aversion and indifference towards those in the environment, a trend which is otherwise very characteristic in sepia.
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,