Tallow or sago-like inclusions in stool; relation to diabetes.
Liver: strong affinity; icterus especially as an accompanying symptom (pneumonia).
(Degenerative liver processes, yellow atrophy and cirrhosis are not important in spite of the pathologico-anatomic similarity).
Urinary organs: nephritis, especially with hematuria.
Sexual organs: tendency to masturbation; increased libido with impotence.
Menses: excessive: sensation as if the back would break; oophoritis and polypi.
Skin: petechia, ecchymosis; patchy falling of hair.
DOSE : The potencies from the 3-30th are common In active tuberculosis the 10D seems best because of less severe primary action.
ACIDUM PHOSPHORICUM
Provings of Acidum phosphoric. are found:
1. Hahnemann: Chron. Krankheiten, 2 Aufl., Bd. 5, 1839.
2. Heinigke: Allg. Hom. Ztg. Bd. 79, p. 157.
3. Schelling: Allg.Hom.Ztg., Bd. 84, p.43.
GENERAL NERVOUS SYMPTOMS
Corresponding to its inertness phosphoric acid lacks the varying, erethistic, sensitive, exalted character of phosphorus, and is at the same time a relaxed phosphorus.
The mental and bodily weakness and exhaustion stands in the foreground in phosphoric acid. States of exhaustion from overwork, after diseases, from sorrow and grief, from excesses in venery, especially masturbation, or from lactation, night sweats, diarrhoea, in general exhaustion after excessive demands upon the vital functions, are held as especially suitable for acidum phosphoricum. As with phosphorus the exhaustion from too rapid growth is a noteworthy indication.
Puberal states with frequent seminal emissions of an atonic type and sexual weakness give the psychic and somatic picture of phosphoric acid especially distinctly. Palpitation and irregularity of cardiac action in too rapid growth, dark circles beneath the eyes, pale face, dilated pupils, weakness, paresis and burning of the back and sacrum, weakness of the legs, then above all phosphaturia which so often appears in sexual neurasthenic syndromes are the bodily phenomena. Poor comprehension and concentration, poor memory, indifference, dullness, inability to perform mental work, lack of ideas, moreover depression, apathy, dissatisfaction with one’s self, aversion to speaking, in particular homesickness, indicate the psychic state in phosphoric acid. But nervous excitation with sleeplessness and sensitivity to all noises is also observed as an accessory action of too large and long maintained doses of phosphates. Such nervous unrest and depression need not be considered a contradiction to the depression which prevails in the picture of phosphoric acid; the sleepiness during the day, particularly morning and evening, the nocturnal disturbance of sleep with restlessness and dreamy sleep or sleeplessness in the symptomatic picture of phosphoric acid are just as little contradictory. A brief sleep may often remove the fatigue and be sufficient to refresh in phosphoric acid.
Persistent confusion, headaches, especially of a pressing and constricting type mostly at the vertex, as from a weight, worse from shaking and from alarm, worse after coitus and use of the eyes, better from lying down and from sleep; vertigo, worse at evening, on standing and walking, pains as though the eyeballs were pressed together and back into the head, impaired vision (in masturbators?) easily provoked visual disturbances, hypersensitivity to noises, complete the details of the picture. If calc. phosphor. is frequently used successfully in the headache of school children, so the phosphate fraction is the essential.
Easy premature falling out of the hair is known from phosphorus poisoning. It and alopecia areata are clinical indications for phosphoric acid. The hair also becomes grey prematurely. One might say that the phosphoric acid patient is subjected to grief, care, sorrow and depression to an unusual degree.
ORGAN AND METABOLIC SYMPTOMS
Especially important is the previously mentioned connection with the male sexual system and the phosphaturia. The excessive seminal discharge with impaired potency, prostatorrhoea on defecation indicate that atony prevails in phosphoric acid while in phosphorus the increased irritability is stressed in sharp contrast to sexual weakness.
The phosphaturia does not depend upon increased output in the urine from increased intake or increased phosphoric acid formation through protein destruction. Phosphaturia is better characterized as a calcariuria because in it there is
an increased excretion of calcium through urinary as well as intestinal organs. Furthermore this implies a disturbance of acid-base equilibrium, which is closely bound to the vegetative nervous system. Phosphaturia can be regarded exactly as a partial manifestation of a vegetative neurosis. Naturally one will not consider the therapeutic action of phosphoric acid or an alkali phosphate as a crude chemical balance but more in the sense of a change in vegetative processes. It need not involve a definite independent phosphaturia. More commonly the excretion of an alkaline urine, light in color, copious in amount and becoming turbid from the precipitation of earthy phosphates has been ever again reported as an indication for phosphoric acid when the typical nervous, particularly sexual-neurasthenic symptoms are present. The frequent nocturnal urination likewise belongs to these nervous symptoms.
The gastro-intestinal symptoms distinctly indicate their vegetative origin; white, watery, painless diarrhoea, not particularly exhausting, indeed, at times bringing considerable relief, with marked formation of gas, distention, fermentation, colic and abdominal noises. The conception of a disturbance of cation equilibrium associated with a vegetative disturbance from phosphates seems likely. Acid eructations, vomiting, sour rising belong to the same group. The complaint of gastric acidity however gains more significance with natrium phosphoricum. The dyspeptic disturbance of acidum phosphoricum is described in the following manner: “after each meal pressure in the stomach as if from a weight with sleepiness so that he can do nothing”.
The close connection of phosphates with calcium metabolism permits one to understand that phosphoric acid is also suitable for crude tissue disturbances, although here the calcium compound is more often employed. Thus the diarrhoea may have a ricketic basis. Acidum phosphoricum is particularly useful in periosteal inflammations with a severe pain, worse at night, “as if the bone had been stabbed with a knife” as well as for pains in amputation stumps. According to its entire rhythm acidum phosphoricum has a middle position between phosphorus and calc. phosphor. and this should be considered in its employment for tuberculous diarrhoeas or bone affections.
That acidum phosphoricum is preferred over pure phosphorus in diabetes has already been mentioned. In favor of the choice is the fact that a psychic factor essentially contributes in the etiology. The copious, light urine is an external simile relation; weakness and heaviness in the extremities has also proven itself in practice.
The clinical indications in the respiratory organs are very similar to those of phosphorus; however phosphoric acid lacks the hectic character of phosphorus while the apathy, stupefaction, stupor and adynamic type of fever stands more in the foreground. This fever together with a sleep from which the patient can be awakened by speaking, but gives only short answers because of the great need for rest, may assist in the choice of acidum phosphoricum in pneumonia as well as in typhoid. Profuse night and morning sweats are important accompanying manifestations.
A feeling of weakness in the chest on speaking, which also occurs in sternum, is mentioned by Hahnemann. Moreover, pressure behind the sternum which makes breathing difficult, dry cough from tickling in the chest, worse at evening, on lying down, hoarseness and a salty expectoration are cited as details.
The modality of relief from warmth refers chiefly to the chest symptoms. The nervous symptoms are improved by sleep, even when it is brief, as well as by moving in the open air.
SUMMARY
Like phosphorus but sluggish.
Bodily and mental weakness and exhaustion.
Etiologic: grief, sexual excesses, lactation, too rapid growth, night sweats, diarrhoea.
Predominantly a picture of sexual neurasthenia with phosphaturia; sexual atonia; depression, apathy, inability to think. Better from sleep, even when it is short, and from moving in the open air.
Frequent nocturnal urination.
Painless, white, watery, not particularly exhausting diarrhoea (with considerable colic and gas). Complaints of gastric acidity.
Bone pains, “as though the bone was stabbed with a knife” worse at night. Amputation pains.
Diabetes. Psychic causes. Heaviness and weakness in the extremities.
Adynamic fever with stupor (pneumonia, typhoid); profuse night and morning sweats.
Chest symptoms (weakness in the chest, oppression of breathing, tickling cough) better from remaining in the warmth.
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,