Pneumonia

Antim Tart.

Type: Lobar pneumonia. Broncho-pneumonia. Bronchitis. Pleurisy.

Senile pneumonia. Secondary pneumonia. Neglected pneumonia.

Bilious pneumonia. Pleuro-pneumonia. Typhoid pneumonia.

Stages: Second stage. Third stage. “Loosening up stage.”

Location: Begins on the right side. Left side.

Causes: Rheumatic exposure, living or working in cellars or basements, underground habitation or employment. Change of weather in spring. Damp cold weather.

Expectoration: Sputa blood-streaked, rust-colored, adhering like glue to the vessel. Copious frothy expectoration or no expectoration, viscid, tenacious difficult of raising. Mucous. Purulent. Tough. Transparent. White. Sour. Sweetish. Salty. Expectorates with ease and in large quantities.

Cough: Coughing and gaping. Cough worse eating with pain in chest and larynx. Dizziness with cough. Cough and dyspnoea better lying on right side. Rattling hollow cough with heat and moist hands. Sweat on forehead. Dyspnoea with desire to cough; chest full of mucus, inability to bring it up. Cough excited by tickling in trachea.

Coughs when angry. Cough at night, chiefly after midnight. Cough with rattling of mucus in chest. Cough with suffocating attacks. Rattling hollow cough. Cough with or without rattling. Cough compels to sit up, it seems loose and rattling but no expectoration. Coughing and gaping alternately.

Respiration: Rapid, short, difficult and anxious respiration; seems as if he would suffocate without sitting erect the whole night. Worse at 3 a.m. must sit up. Sawing respiration. Great shortness of breath. Respiration very unequal, now shorter, now longer, worse lying down, lessened when in an up-right position. Panting breathing. Abdominal breathing. Gasping for breath at the beginning of every coughing spell. Noisy, whistling, purring, bellowing or sawing. Great rattling of mucus with respiration.

Dyspnoea better lying on right side. Dyspnoea relieved by eructation. Difficult breathing, must sit up. Bronchial tubes overloaded with mucus. Greatest dyspnoea and fits of suffocation. Great oppression of breathing towards morning, must sit up to breath. Oppression and prostration. Dyspnoea with desire to cough. Impending paralysis of lungs or of heart.

Pain: Stitching pains of Bryonia have now ceased. Violent pains from the chest to the shoulder. Burning in chest. Cough with pain in chest. Velvety feeling in chest, fitful pain in the chest, especially in the left side.

Pulse: Pulse hard, quick and small; or weak; quick and trembling; small, thread-like; imperceptible. Rapid, weak, trembling, full, hard; small tight, hardly perceptible or thread- like. Unequal or trembling.

Patient: Drunkards, infants, old persons, cachectic people, greatly debilitated persons, feeble children, broken constitutions, catarrhal patients.

Conditions: Bilious pneumonia with yellow skin, yellow urine, and yellow vomit. Stinging pains under right false ribs, expectoration is frothy, yellow and tenacious. Rattling in chest with suffocation, fanlike motion of alae nasi, great oppression, strong heart beat. Hepatic congestion, icterus, pit of stomach sensitive to touch or pressure, nausea, Vomiting. Pneumonia which begins as a bronchitis and extends downwards. Suited to cases that begin on right side; sharp stitching pains, high fever, great oppression of chest. More indicated in catarrhal than in croupous Pneumonia, distinct mucous rales on chest.

Pleuro- pneumonia, fine rales even over hepatized area, oppression of breathing especially towards morning, must sit up to breathe. Pneumonia of drunkards. Rattling of mucus with little expectoration, drowsiness, debility, sweat. Difficulty of breathing with pale or dark red face, blue lips, hot and sweaty head, muscular twitching. Impending paralysis of lungs. Great prostration, patient is constantly slipping down in bed (in some forms of pneumonia). Diarrhoea in pneumonia. OEdema of lungs, cyanosis.

Fever:- High fever, intense heat, copious sweat, drowsiness, profuse sweat on forehead.

Accompaniments: Whining and crying before and during attacks. Despairs of recovery. Throbbing headache worse warmth and better cold and sitting erect. Head hot and sweaty. Lifting head from pillow causes great dizziness. Band-like feeling over forehead. Trembling with the head especially when coughing. In pneumonia when the edges of the lids are covered with mucus; also when eyes are inflamed, staring, dull, half-open or one closed. Desire to close the eyes as from sleepiness.

Face pale, sickly; face pale and sunken; red and puffed; redness of the cheeks with paleness of face; cold and distorted; pale with bluish spots; face bathed in cold sweat; twitching in the muscles of the face; incessant quivering of chin and lower jaw. Wing-like motion of the nostrils at every act of respiration. Nose is drawn and shrunken; eyes are sunken; dark rings around eyes. Lips dry, scaly or cracked. Lips are pale and shrivelled. Dark, sooty nostrils. Face, a perfect picture of anxiety and despair. Mouth open, parched, tongue dry and brown.

Great thirst or no thirst, upper lip drawn up. Thick, white, pasty coat on tongue. Tongue very red or red in streaks, tongue dry down the middle. Bitter taste. Tongue white with red edges. Craving for apples, fruits, acids, cold drinks, and other cool and refreshing things. Aversion to milk. Intense thirst but drinks often and little at a time. Great relief from Continuous anxious nausea with great effort to vomit and perspiration on forehead. Watery diarrhoea preceded by colic, stools papescent, slimy or bloody, tension in perineum; burning at anus. Colic ceases after stool. Dark brown red urine. Turbid urine.

Strong odor of urine. Twitches of the muscles of the arms and hands. Trembling of hands. Cold and moist hands and icy tips of the fingers. Jerking up of the limbs during sleep. Great sleepiness with nearly all affections. Weakness and lassitude. Restlessness and tossing, or patient is drowsy and quiet, cannot open eyes, very difficult to break his drowsiness, unwilling or unable to look up. Affected parts perspire most. Least exertion accelerates the pulse. Vomiting ceases when lying on right side.

Aggravation: Damp cold weather. Every change of weather. Fall and spring. Damp weather. Evenings. Night. Warmth. Stooping. Sitting. Lying down at night. Warm drink (cough). Lying on affected side. Motion 4 a.m. (cough) right side (pneumonia).

Amelioration: Eructations (cough). In open cold air, from sitting erect, from expectoration. Lying on right side. Warmth (rheumatic complaints).

Remedies following: Bar-c., Ipec., Kali-s, Puls., Sep., Sulph.