That the thirst was increased from such large amounts of salt is not striking. The intestinal symptoms were very slight, perhaps because the nitrate solution was suspended in gummi arabicum. In two older provers who likewise took massive doses were many complaints of flatulence and acid eructations (besides sluggish stool in the one). Furthermore, in both a sensation of coldness in the lower leg, and in one a chill over the body, in the other alternating sensations of heat are reported.
More restrained in the dose is the provings of Fackelmann under Hugo Schulz. He employed a 1 per cent solution. This proving confirmed the slowing of the pulse; moreover, the pulse was intermittent. Also confirmed was the slow tendency to healing of the skin and the ease with which it was injured. (Whether the acne observed is more than an incidental event remains to be determined). An important observation is the tendency to bleeding from the nose and mouth which appeared in the 1st week of the investigations which were conducted for several weeks.
Marked thirst and increased diuresis does not seem to be a pure salt action in natr. nitric. since they were also observed with D 3.
In the proving carried out at the Stuttgart Hospital, the various potencies were considered, the 30, 6, 3, and 2. Here the sensitivity of the provers is manifested.
In two provers frequent nosebleed appeared as an unusual manifestation for them (in the one with the thirtieth as well as the second potency). Constitutional nosebleed at puberty and in the anemic is a chief indication for natr. nitr. There is no doubt that here the nitrate fraction is effective.
Many times, compression, pressure and other sensations were observed in the cardiac region; in one prover who easily tended to cardiac complaints, the third potency caused such typical aggravation of compression, of pressure and of cramp, that the study was discontinued on the ninth day. (Thereby any occasion for releasing the mild anginoid complaints was excluded.) The nitrate fraction acts here, as in glonoin, as well as in its reduction step, the nitrite. It seems thoroughly justified in suitable cases of angina pectoris to use the nitrate bound to an organic radical in the expectation of a better duration of effect. The slow, intermittent pulse which becomes weak and soft, as noted from large doses, also indicates that the heart muscle and the conduction system are included in the action of natr. nitr.
For the exacerbation of old dental diseases or dental neuralgias, which have been observed in a series of provers, J. Haupt has found a corresponding old report, there was found a periodic facial neuralgia with a cinnabar-red streak on the gum; the gum was swollen, loosened, and easily bled on touch. It is accordingly not improbable that here a nitrate action on the mucous membrane, comparable to that of nitric acid, is present.
Further proving symptoms ascribed to the nitrate fraction are the dull headache, which, according to one observation, was aggravated by the heat from an oven and improved in the open air further, the rushes of heat to the head, and night sweats.
The Stuttgart provers also had a series of digestive disturbances in complaints of distention, acid eructations with a tendency to diarrhea or soft stool, but the evacuation of the stool itself was difficult or a sensation of unreadiness was present. This was reported in the 30, 6, and 3 potencies while the 2 potency showed constipation (corresponding to the results of Fackelmann’s proving with the same dilution) in the same prover who had liquid stools, with the third dilution. How many of these symptoms, which at present have gained no therapeutic significance, can be assigned to the sodium fraction and how many to the nitrate, remains open.
Also the general disturbances, lack of energy, aversion to work, disturbance of sleep, as they were also observed in most of the Stuttgart provers with natr. nitr., moreover the numerous fleeting sticking pains in the joints and muscles, with giving way and uncertainty in walking, read the same as with natr. carb. Also frequently observed were chilliness and sensations of cold, particularly on the feet and lower legs, which were also noted in the two first provers of 1833. Thereby the natrium fraction seems to become manifested in the general symptoms.
These symptoms of chilliness and relaxation, besides the hydremia, which Loffler’s investigations with large doses furnished, offer the necessary point of departure for the incorporation of natr. nitr. under the hydrogenoid agents. Since the same holds for natr. sulph, one might ascribe this constitutional tendency to the sodium cation.
In general, the hydrogenoid character of natr. nitr. seems to be pressed too much into the foreground. Its affinity for the vascular system, to bleeding, inflammations and fevers, angiospasm, congestions, has been demonstrated as therapeutically valuable. So Stauffer has found it useful in a persistent hemoglobinuria which occurred regularly after each chilling of the feet. For frequent nosebleed at puberty, I can also affirm it as useful. At the beginning of febrile infectious diseases natr. nitr. has been extolled.
With these affinities for the blood vessels, natr. nitr. arranges itself well with the other nitrites and nitrates.
SUMMARY
Constitution: Hydrogenoid (chilly, relaxed) but still tendency to fever, inflammation and bleeding.
Chief Trends:
Vascular system in febrile diseases (Epidemic Universal of Rademacher); bleeding (nose, hemoglobinuria); circulatory disturbances (congestions, angina pectoris, disturbances of the pulse).
DOSE : The D 3 is usually employed.
PHOSPHORUS
Of the two modifications of elementary phosphorus, P, only the yellow (better colorless) has pharmacological significance: red phosphorus is stable by virtue of its molecular structure and shows no or very few reactions and is considered nonpoisonous. On the other hand, yellow phosphorus is extraordinarily reactive an in air it gradually changes from white to yellow phosphorus and in light takes on a layer of red phosphorus.
As an element of the fifth group of the periodic system, phosphorus is trivalent negative but, in contrast to its trivalent hydrogen compounds, the pentavalent positive properties predominate and thereby its tendency to oxygen compounds. The avidity for oxygen gives elementary phosphorus the property of luminescence in air (oxidation to P(OH)3, phosphoric acid). Thereby it is remarkable that the luminescence of phosphorus requires slight amounts of O2 and on the contrary the self-luminescence ceases when phosphorus is brought into an atmosphere of pure oxygen. The light energy in luminescence of phosphorus arises from the chemical energy which becomes free in the oxidation.
Above a certain oxygen pressure the speed of this oxidation does not progress with increasing O2 concentration, but in apparent contradiction to the law of mass action there is a decrease. This behavior recalls a working optimum as it occurs commonly in complicated living processes.
In some chemical reactions phosphorus is a negative or anticatalyzer. According to Bredig, phosphorus slows the decomposition of H2O2 even in the dilution of 1 mol in 20,000 liters of water in contrast to colloidal, platinum.
PHYSIOLOGIC SIGNIFICANCE
Phosphorus is an indispensable constituent of all living substances. The compounds in which phosphorus appears in the organism are derived from the highest step of oxidation of phosphorus, phosphoric acid. The powerful chemical property of reaction of elementary yellow phosphorus is not employed by the organism, moreover it exceeds physiologic bounds. Phosphorus itself and hydrogen phosphide are very poisonous. The insoluble phosphates of the bones stand at the lowest step of ability to react. In case of necessity the skeleton of the animal is a depot for calcium as well as phosphates, because in one-sided experimental calcium and phosphate deficiencies, only the skeleton suffers. A second step is formed to some extent by the alkali phosphates of the blood and fluids in general. Apart from their physico-chemical importance as salts of a weak acid for the maintenance of constant reaction in the body fluids (so-called buffer action), we must perceive in them the first available building material for the cell constituents containing phosphorus. Furthermore, the phosphatides (that is, the phosphoric acid derivatives of various fatty acids) participate as constituents of many lipoids essential to the structure of cell protoplasm (and indeed exactly in the especially active colloidal part). These labile substances obviously have a great significance in cell life and one may well presume some connection between their diversity in the cells of different organs, also between the specific lipoids and the specificity of organ functions.
According to A. Mayer and G. Schaeffer the phosphorus content of the lipoids is characteristic for each animal species. The phosphatides are markedly avid for oxygen and very easily oxidized. The capacity of the lipoids for metabolism, and lecithin (mono-amino-monophosphatide) is regarded as particularly important for the respiration of the nervous system.
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,