Both remedies rank high in aggravation from suppression of foot sweats, whether the suppression results from getting the feet cold or from medicinal preparations. Silicia because of its hyperirritability is especially prone to suffer from suppression; convulsions and other serious spinal troubles may follow unless such a sweat is restored and cured by the homoeopathically indicated remedy.
Just as Silicia finds so much in common with Pulsatilla, so Calcarea and Belladonna through their relationship become complementary remedies; in fact Calcarea is the chronic of Belladonna, especially in affections of children, in brain troubles and during dentition. There is a relationship between the product and its origin.; the soil gives of itself to the plant, as manifested in the powers of the potentized Belladonna which grows luxuriantly in earth rich in the salts of lime.
In acute cases where there is hot head, dilated pupils, flushed face, starting in sleep, and Belladonna relieves but relapses occur, Calcarea is very often the remedy to cure by removing the chronic underlying miasm. In children of calcarea temperament, with head sweats and continual dilatation of the pupils, Calcarea when administered is life saving, for these children deprived of the remedy must eventually develop pulmonary tuberculosis, showing that the combined latent miasms of psora and syphilis have sprung to the surface in active form.
A point in common with Belladonna and Calcarea cab. is that the patient has visions of persons and objects on closing the eyes; the images may be frightful, and disappear as soon as he opens his eyes. Cinchona has this symptom also. Calcarea has fear of going insane, or that people will observe her and suppose her to be crazy; talks about fire and murder; imagines someone is walking beside her, and even though alone, believes that someone is in the same room. In the provings of silicia their imaginations are brought out also; quite striking is the imagination that he is in two places at the same time.
Inability to go stairs and exhaustion from it; weakness on walking followed by exhaustion are Calcarea symptoms. All exertion whether mental or physical, aggravate the patient; for days after coition there is great weakness and a sick feeling. Calcarea strains himself easily; pain in the small of the back come after lifting anything heavy, showing in his respect a relation ship to Rhus tox. Silicia has a bruised pain in the whole body, especially prominent after coition; or the bruised pain may come on at night with a sensation as though he had lain in an uncomfortable position.
Both remedies find an image of themselves in epileptic states; convulsions including those of the epileptic type originating after vaccination or suppressed foot sweat are cured by Silicia, Calcarea epilepsy is caused by fright, suppression of a chronic eruption and excesses in venery. The aura which precedes the attack in both remedies, but especially common in Calcarea, originates in the solar plexus and moves upward, the patient being at once thrown into convulsions.
Nux vomica and Bufo have in their pathogenesis this type of epileptic seizure also. The aura in Calcarea often takes the form of a sensation as though a mouse were running up the arm; at other times the aura may go from the epigastrium down into the uterus or into the limbs,. Sulphur also has the sensation of a mouse creeping up the arm before the attack; Calcarea is particularly indicated if Sulphur does not cure, or if the pupils do not dilate after the use of Sulphur. The convulsive manifestations of Silicia show a periodic tendency, occurring often at the time of the new moon, Calcarea too has aggravation at the new moon, but its epileptic attacks show no tendency to be affected by planetary influences.
Vertigo is a prominent symptoms of Silicia, occurring on rising from the recumbent position, from stooping, when sitting or walking and on looking upward; in fact all motion aggravates the vertigo. The vertigo rises from the dorsal region through the nape of the neck into the head; with the vertigo there is an inclination to fall forward or to the left. The vertigo is so severe he is in constant fear of falling, and with it there is a constant state of nausea.
The cerebrospinal headaches may be periodic and they too, look the vertigo, ascend from the nape of the neck to the vertex, and are often right sided as in Sanguinaria, There the vertex and are often right sided as in Sanguinaria. There may be violent boring an tearing in the head, and a sensation of heaviness and fulness as though there were an excess of blood in the head. The tearing in the vertex is so severe the head feels as though it might burst. Instead of the headache there may be a cold feeling rising from the nape of the neck.
The headaches occur after mental exertion, is decidedly aggravated by mental or physical labor, by quick movements of the head which convert the dull aching pain into sharp stabs; there is also aggravation from light and noise. Relief comes on lying down in a dark quiet place and by wrapping the head warmly. This relief from warmth runs through Silicia from beginning to end. Concomitant with the headache there is pain in the eyes when the globes are revolved laterally in the orbits, together with chilliness, nausea and vomiting; sensitivity of the scalp to touch, and an exalted sense of hearing-probably sympathetic, characteristic of the hyperacuity of psora. The headaches reveal the psoric miasm in Silicia, coming during the day, during the day, ameliorated lying down and from warmth in contrast with the syphilitic type which is aggravated at night, aggravated lying down and finds relief from cold or cool applications.
Calcarea, while having many head symptoms, does not portray the psoric type of headache. There is heavy aching and pressing pain as from a board in various parts of the head, always worse in the open air, by reading and stooping, in fact stooping produces a bewildered sensation. Great heat in the head with red face and cold extremities or a feeling a congestion may alternate with a sensation of icy coldness in the head. Calcarea may prefer the left side of the head the sensation of coldness in the head may be unilateral; hemicrania, however is not as pronounced a future as in Silicia; the latter too has congestions to the head with heat and redness of the face The Calcarea vertigo comes when walking in the open air, on sudden motion of the head, on ascending and on looking upward, and as in Silicia there is the sensation as if he will fall especially on turning the head.
The action of Calcarea on pus formations in the body, such as abscesses, is remarkable. While Silicia, Sulphur and Phosphorus hasten suppuration, Calcarea when indicated favors resorption of pus and encourages calcareous formation in the parts. Foreign bodies are dislodged from the system by Silicia through its power to produce suppuration. There are occasions when silicia is indicated, yet must not be given, for example when the internal location of an abscess would be followed by spreading of the circumscribed area of suppuration. Here surgical measure apply, as in pyosalpinx, suppurative appendicitis with abscess formation, empyema and allied conditions. If, however, Calcarea were indicated in such conditions it could safely be given, because of its power to absorb pus, to concentrate and to contract tissues.
On cellular tissue Silicia produces inflammation which progress to suppuration, then ulceration, then finally induration. The suppuration is chronic; the tonsils suppurate and refuse to heal; boils and furuncles recur in crops, do not heal and continue to discharge a thin watery and ichorous pus; occasionally the pus is thick.
The indurated cicatricial areas remaining after inflammation and suppuration have healed are readily absorbed under the action of Silicia. Its power to absorb indurated surfaces is comparable with Graphites.
Silicia is often useful in scrophulous children where the long bones are carved or where there is a lateral curvature of the vertebral column. Calcarea has similar indications in bone diseases, the curvature being usually in the dorsal region in children who are slow in learning to walk and talk, and whose weak ankles cause inversion or eversion of the foot in walking depending on the muscles involved. Weakness of the ankle joint is a syphilitic trait.
In all forms of ulcers Silicia is useful, especially in ulcers from bone diseases; such ulcers occur in tuberculous hip joint disease and in the back from vertebral caries, usually connecting with fistulous tracts. Ulcers of the cornea are common; these slough and perforate the cornea like those of Nitric acid, are not vascular as are those of calcarea, and therefore not much infiltration of surrounding tissue follows. The lids are swollen and covered with suppurating styes.
Calcarea produces ulcers, which are deep carious and even fistulous, but its ability to do so is not nearly as prominent as it is in Silicia. Unlike the latter, the ulcers on the cornea are very vascular and threaten to destroy that membrane, and on healing leave pronounced corneal opacity; no remedy excels Calcarea in the latter condition. In the optical disorders of Calcarea, artificial light in particular is dreaded, although on first waking in the morning the child complaints of an aggravation from the daylight. In its eye troubles, Calcarea acts better after Sulphur than before, being suited to advanced sluggish cases which do not react to Sulphur. Hahnemann noticed that Calcarea followed Sulphur well when there was a tendency to chronic dilatation of the pupils. Another remedy which holds a relation to Calcarea in scrophulous and tubercular ailments is Nitric acid, which remedy is often indicated if the corneal ulcers progress and threaten to perforate or destroy.
