BROMINE
Bromine was isolated from the mother liquor of the Mediterranean Sea in 1826 by Ballard. It is often found in the animal organism in slight amounts, particularly in the thyroid. Indeed, the bromine content of the blood is essentially higher than the iodine content. Only in recent times has it become probable that this content of bromine has significance in the human organism for psychic functions.
Bromine is the only element among the halogens which is a fluid under ordinary conditions chlorine is a yellow green gas; iodine, a black crystal. The asphyxiating, suffocating vapors which arise from it irritate the respiratory passages markedly and also provoke intestinal bleeding and produce narcosis in a more marked degree than chlorine. Narcotic toxic manifestations are also observed from iodine vapors. But bromine represents the high point in the narcotic effect of the halogen series. Elementary bromine is also a marked irritant Plus to the skin; forming vesicles and inducing corrosion which heals only slowly.
TRENDS OF ACTION
The mucous membrane of the respiratory passage, the skin, and the central nervous system remain the chief directions of bromine action when it is introduced in the anion form as well as bromine salts. In the organic bromine compounds as bromoform, bromipin, the bromine action rests up on the bromine which is split off and the organic component has according to them aim only a significance in linking bromine, in a definite way.
The effects of massive doses of bromine can be studied in essentials by the alkali salts, and thereby the depressing action on the central nervous system is always pressed into the foreground in therapeutic uses. For this reason bromine salts have an important place as anti-epileptic agents and as drug which are employed as sedatives and for producing sleep.
SKIN
Before we can detail these actions of bromine salts and consider their explanation more closely we must mention the less observed bromine actions wherein bromine stands very close to iodine. The picture of chronic bromine poisoning, bromism, stands very close to that of iodism in the manifestations evoked on the skin and mucous membranes. The exanthem on the skin has the form of ordinary acne. According to analysis, bromine, just like chlorine will be permanently taken up by the skin when introduced in excessive amounts, and inflammatory skin manifestations in chronic bromism are traced back to the liberated bromine anion, perhaps HBr, which is easily destroyed by the acid reaction of the sweat and the sebaceous glands. Seborrhea and acne are the most common untoward manifestations of the chronic use of bromine. Bromine can be found in the acne pustules. Also pustular eruptions, in whose pus bromine can be discovered, may appear. More rarely the inflammation takes the form of a bromoderma tuberosum, a productive inflammation with subsequent breaking down; from blue-red, nodular enlargements, which rise above the skin, there develop, from the breaking down large, itching, odorous ulcerations. Here also iodine furnishes a comparative manifestation in the granulomatous infiltrations. Very rare is bromoderma nodosum. It looks exactly like erythema nodosum but occurs with fever. Bromine urticaria is also observed.
MUCOUS MEMBRANES
The catarrh of the mucous membranes, preferably of the conjunctival tissue and the upper air passages, appears in the bromine salts corresponding to their more chronic effect less acutely than with iodine. The secretions with bromine are more coagulated, slimy offensive. According to Krosz, one finds pain in the frontal sinus after large doses of bromine, which may correspond to the frequent involvement of the accessory sinuses in acute iodism. Just as with iodine, marked salivation appears with bromine; furthermore, an offensive bromine stomatitis and inflammation of the pharyngeal mucous membrane gives (as with iodine) early occasion for angina. The catarrh of the larynx and bronchi and the increased liability to pneumonia recur as with iodine.
Irritative events also occur on the other mucous membranes, but do not have much significance. In respect to the stomach it should be recalled that the chlorine in the hydrochloric acid can be replaced by bromine. Similar to iodine, an increase in the appetite has been mentioned and in the homeopathic provings of bromine one also finds, besides vomiting and pains, an empty feeling in the stomach and improvement from eating.
In the center of clinical interest and therefore also the subject of many studies stand the actions of bromine on the central nervous system. The depressive action in animals can increase up to paralysis, especially of the cerebrum, but may also involve the spinal cord, while the peripheral nervous system remains un- influenced. The well known manifestations of large doses of bromine in men are: decrease in thinking and of mental acuteness, slowing of speech, a feeling of lassitude and malaise which increase the tendency to sleep. The reflex excitability is decreased (for example, retching and corneal reflexes); vision is cloudy; diplopia, also an ataxia of speech and other movements may appear moreover, difficulty in heating, and stupor. Also well known is the reduction of libido and potency by bromine. The depression of the intellectual functions precedes disturbances of sensibility and motility. Even if bromine were not valued as a characteristic somnifacient, still Januschle was able to induce a state of narcosis in guinea pigs and rabbits before the state of ataxia and paralysis, through subcutaneous injection of large doses.
With these depressive actions on the central nervous system, which as we shall still see, are not the sole possibility although still the most used practical division, the bromine action in epilepsy stands in obvious association. For explanation of this action a great number of investigations have been undertaken on the behavior of bromine in the organism; in particular the relation of bromine to chlorine to chlorine has been studied. The best survey of this field and the practical elaboration in reference to the sodium chloride diet in bromine therapy are represented by the work of A. Lipschutz.
OPPOSING RELATION OF BROMINE AND CHLORINE
The chief excretion of bromine (as with chlorine) occurs through the kidneys. After excessive administration, bromine (like chlorine) is deposited particularly in the skin so far as discharge from the blood is necessary, and the excretion through the kidneys does not keep pace. Bromine is held in the organism and only very gradually excreted when no more bromine is introduced. If bromine is introduced for a long time, then the out put increases from day to day until finally a bromine equilibrium is reached; that is, as much bromine, is excreted as is introduced. At this point also it seems that the bromine load has reached saturation, which naturally can rest at various levels according to the amount introduced daily. Upon cessation of the introduction, the bromine equilibrium is immediately disturbed since the out put is maintained, though not at the same level. Storage and excretion of the bromine are particularly dependent upon the chlorine intake, particularly in the form of sodium chloride. The less chlorine taken in, the more bromine stored; the greater the ingestion of chlorine, the greater the excretion of bromine. To be considered naturally is that the bromine excretion requires a much greater time than the very prompt chlorine excretion. Whether the kidneys differentiate between the bromine and chlorine ions, that is the bromine is held back or whether the bromine enrichment occurs only through the increased blood bromine by substitution of chlorine with a percentually uniform excretion of bromine and chlorine is not definitely decided. But, in any case, a substitution of chlorine by bromine occurs, because with the introduction of bromine a loss of salt occurs. Likewise the chlorine in the gastric juice is suppressed by bromine and in place of HCL there is HBr. The substitution of chlorine by bromine obviously is equi-molecular.
With the continuous therapeutic use of bromine, about one-third of the chlorine in the blood is displaced; in experimental chronic bromine poisoning of animals, about two-thirds. bromine also seems to collect where chlorine is found in greatest amounts, the blood and the lungs. Since it is possible through excessive intake of slat to increase bromine excretion and since all the manifestations of bromine poisoning can be removed by the introduction of salt; one has spoken of a functional antagonism of chlorine and bromine. To the toxic actions of bromine belong also the suppression of epileptic attacks. The attacks can often be again provoked through the excessive intake of NaCl.
The detoxifying action of equimolecular chlorine salts on bromine salt poisoning can be also shown on Fundulus, a fish which can live in sea water as well as distilled water, but dies in various concentrations of sodium bromide solutions. It has been asserted that bromine poising is nothing more than chlorine deprivation.
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,