Gall-stones have been found in the faeces.
Urinary Organs.
Calculi:
Sixteen of our authorities vouch of this condition under the name of renal calculi, while fifteen give nearly identical symptoms under the head of uric acid diathesis. In addition to the presence of the calculi in the urine we have the following: “Stitching, shooting, tearing, burning, pressing down pains in the urethra and all but the last in the ureters; frequent desire to urinate; tearing and burning in the ureters while micturating; interrupted flow and dribbling.” The urine is often heavily loaded with the red sand sediment and pus. The specific gravity is high and the reaction alkaline.
There is no other remedy so often indicated for babies suffering from renal or vesical calculi. My first case of this kind made a deep impression upon me and upon an old school friend of mine who also studied medicine with me, under the same preceptor. This friend graduated at Yale. He had a patient presenting the above group of symptoms, whom he had treated for over three months. The patient was the doctors nephew and eleven months of age. The babe was given a powder of the 30th trituration four times daily, just before feeding. No change was made in the diet or otherwise.
The case cleared up completely in three weeks. My friend then remarked, “According to your law this same medicine will produce these calculi in a healthy person. Will it?” With some trepidation I replied, “Try it.” HE thereupon gave some from the same bottle (Boericke and Tafel 30th.) from which we took the medicine for the baby. He gave one grain to his own daughter, ten minutes before each meal and at bedtime. The urine was examined daily for a week before the drug was given. It was also examined daily after she began to take it. The drug was continued for six days.
Day after day for seven days the doctor repeated. “Nothing doing. It cant be done.” On the eighth day the report was: Quality reduced one- fourth, specific gravity increased, color much darker.” There was not much change from the above for four days more, but on the thirteenth day from the time she began taking the drug, the doctor brought in a bottle of the urine and exclaimed, “Its my feet.” There was a large amount of the red gritty sediment. It was six days after this before the urine became normal.
Our literature abounds in reports of such cases. The make- up of the child is scrawny, poorly nourished and constipated for the general symptoms. “Crying out of the child before and during the act of micturition” is the ranking symptom. Over forty authorities have given it.
Cystitis:
Most of the symptoms given under calculi are found in this group. In fact, I have never met a case of cystitis which had not been preceded by renal calculi. The calculi were the cause. I have never found Lycopodium indicated or useful in acute cystitis.
Nephritis:
Our remedy is very rarely useful in acute nephritis. The only case I remember helping with it, was one in a girl of eleven, who had made a slow recovery from scarlet fever. We had otorrhoea and a very bad throat during the attack of scarlet fever. A few weeks after, as a result of exposure to cold, there was pain in the region of the kidneys; albumin; scanty urine with pain on voiding; gas in the stomach and abdomen. A few doses of the 30th, cleared up this case.
For chronic nephritis it is more frequently needed. In addition to the usual symptoms of Brights disease, the Lycopodium patients suffer from the flatulency and constipation of the remedy and ascites. I am sure that this last symptom is frequently overlooked, because of the accompanying distention of the abdomen from flatulence.
Sexual Organs.
MALE:
Impotency in the male is a condition recorded by fourteen of our authorities. Most of them five old age and excessive venery as the cause. To these I want to add a third cause, viz., fear that they may be impotent because of the fact that they were masturbators during their boyhood. I have had several young, newly married men come to me because they had found themselves impotent. Some of them had waited for months before seeking advice and assistance. In none of such cases has Lycopodium failed to secure the desire result. Fear of impotency in young men is as marked as indication for Lycopodium as fear of the same condition in old men is for Strychnia phos. I use the former in the 30th, the latter in 3x trituration.
Allen 2 gives gonorrhoea and cystitis as other causes of impotency. The former I have never verified. The latter is not an uncommon symptom of the group. Whatever the cause, we have the penis small, relaxed and cold. Occasionally we have wet dreams without erections. Melancholia is the mental state in all these cases. There is always them mental desire, but the physical impossibility of coitus.
FEMALE:
Vaginitis is the condition most frequently helped by Lycopodium. It is a peculiar form of vaginitis. Dryness is the ranking symptom. By dryness it should not be understood that there is no discharge. By my materia medica 42 there is reported a case which illustrates my meaning. The three symptoms which led to our remedy in that case were the annoying flatulency, the extreme dryness making sexual intercourse excruciatingly painful and a discharge of dessicated blood.
Since publishing this case I have had three other similar ones. In the majority of cases there is an absence of the normal vaginal moisture. In a few cases there is a more or less profuse, acrid leucorrhoea.
Dysmenorrhoea is mentioned by three of our writers. I have found the following symptoms calling for it: Severe colicky pains, marked melancholia worse before and during the menses; menses late and scanty; duration of period short; constipation and the abdomen enormously bloated for several days before the flow begins and greatly relieved as soon as it was well established. In a few cases the discharge was clotted.
Mucous Membrane.
The point to bear in mind of this sub-division is that while dryness is the most marked sensation, there is moisture present in a minority of cases, This is true of the mucous membrane of the mouth and throat. Sticky mucus is found in the mouth, especially in the morning, although the patient says the mouth is as dry as a chip. In tonsillitis and diphtheria which call for Lycopodium, follicles and pseudo-membrane are in abundance, also much salty saliva. In the nose we find the same sensation of dryness, even when there is mucus enough to plug the nostrils and cause difficult breathing. Ulceration of all sections of the mucous membrane is found, usually superficial.
Blood.
Anaemia frequently exists in these conditions. Loss of weight and decrease in the number of red blood cells seem to go hand in hand. Although the patient usually has an enormous appetite and may take sufficient and proper food, the digestive organs fail to properly digest and assimilate it.
Diphtheria, which I class among blood conditions, calls for Lycopodium in a small percentage of cases. The symptoms are as follows in most of them. The membrane usually begins in the nose and spreads to the right tonsil. The membrane and discharge so occlude the nose as to make breathing through it impossible; great swelling of the throat, often oedematous; spasms of the throat causing regurgitation of food and drink; constriction of the nose, throat and chest; great apathy, often stupor; albumin and large deposits of “red sand” in the urine, which is often scanty and at times wholly suppressed. The discharge from the mouth and throat is often bloody.
Dr. A. P. Hanchette, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, used this remedy with wonderful success in an epidemic several years ago. He used the 30th trituration. [*See my Materia Medica, page 93.] Twelve of our authorities report its use and many more have reported cases successfully treated by it. The potencies used range from the 6th to the 6m.
Typhoid Fever: A careful study of the reported cases of this disease seems to prove that our remedy is called for in those slow low types. The abdomen is also distended that one may suspect perforation of the intestines; the rumbling of flatus is great; the urine passes involuntarily and stains the bed clothes red; constipation is always a symptom; unconsciousness; muttering; delirium; carphologia and twitching of muscles. No other remedy than the one under consideration can save such cases. Muritatic acid comes nearest to it, but has diarrhoea instead of constipation. Flatulency is not marked in muriatic acid.
Scarlet Fever:
I have found it useful only in those cases in which the nose and throat symptoms corresponded to those given under diphtheria.
Lungs.
Bronchitis is mentioned by ten of our authorities and pneumonia by sixteen. All agree that the bronchitis is of the chronic form and the pneumonia of the sub-acute. Some vouch for it in pulmonary tuberculosis, especially when developing after pneumonia. Nash 36 says: “Lycopodium has often saved neglected, mal-treated or imperfectly cured cases of pneumonia from running into consumption.” Lilienthal 22 says: “Typhoid or neglected pneumonia, with continuing hepatization and purulent sputa; pneumonia with raising of mouthfuls of mucus at a time, sputa of a light rust-color; and cough loose, full of deep sounding, as if the whole parenchyma of the lung were softened; fan-like motion of the nostrils.”
