When our chairmans request arrived, asking for a paper for his bureau giving a remedy, and telling just “when” it acts, it found me in the midst of compiling a practical Essential Materia Medica for our own use, giving just that very information. That request found me just finishing the above named remedy, so I have chosen it as a text for my theme, as it was to interesting to me.
True Hahnemannian homoeopathy spells, and demands, constancy, and above all, ACCURACY. Science spells accuracy and demands constancy and not inconsistency. Therefore true Hahnemannian homoeopathy is SCIENTIFIC. Only its application is an art. To attempt to apply a drug on only a few of its more prominent symptoms, apparently otherwise important, without, reference to its direct primary pathogenetic group, is to merely cause a suppression of those symptoms. That condition often appears to us as a most miraculous and brilliant cure; appearing all the more brilliant the nearer we are to THE indicated drug, but it does not necessarily cause us to arrive at the most coveted goal-A.RADICAL CURE.
It is our aim to incorporate into our Essential Materia Medica those things that would be positive and reliable guides to the student and to the busy practitioner, who could care to espouse, study and practice true Hahnemannian homoeopathy. We have started out with what, to us, appears to be the true CHARACTERISTIC of the drug, which may be simple, or complex as with Arsenic. Next we have given the true ESSENTIALS, as far as we have been able to find them. These symptoms must be constant in both drug and patient, whether produced early or late in the pathogenesis matters little, but they must be constant, and not due to reaction but lighting up latent predispositions.
Those essential symptoms must be, or have been present at some time in the disease, either at its onset or during its course. The ESSENTIAL group is followed by a schema embracing the all important, the leaders, and those symptoms which, to date, have been found under no other know remedy, together with the more valuable hints relating to the drug. Our only claim for originality in the work is a combination of its original formation and original. In presenting this remedy before this body I will give the grand-.
ARSENICUM ALBUM (ARS)
CHARACTERISTIC: Asthenia with irritability of fibre complicated with anxiety, anguish, fear of death, especially sudden death, when left alone or on going to bed; and great restlessness, even during coma, and when too weak to move the body he moves the head, or if able to get up he goes from chair to chair or from bed to bed; the child wants to go from nurse to nurse or from person to person or to be carried rapidly, often saying, “Run, run!”.
Next I will present the-ESSENTIAL:Including the above, we have:Sadness. Despair. Depression. Peevishness, Sensitiveness. Lassitude. Trivial affections producing sudden and complete sinking of strength. Extreme prostration. Face pale, waxy, puffy; expression of genuine agony. Especially aggravated around 1 a.m., and ameliorated from heat, except head. The initial thirst is violent, often ungovernable especially for little and often, as water molests the stomach.
The skin is dry, usually like parchment. All the discharges and excretions are acrid, scanty, putrid and of a cadaverous odor. Is chilly, always freezing, hovers over the fire, and is weak after the chill. The pains are burning stitching, either like burning hot needles or like coals of fire, and better heat.Anxiety, restlessness,.prostration and cadaverous odors are prominent essentials and predominate.
Out of the Schema, I have picked the following: Nearly all the mental diseases of Ars. are characterized by extreme anxiety, restlessness and fear. The delirium of Ars. is more violent than that of any other remedy except Nit. ac. The greater the suffering he greater the anguish and fear of death. Thinks he is surely going to die therefore it is unnecessary to take medicine. Desires head cold, body warm (reverse, phos).
All the ulcerations of the eyeball, and even the cornea, are characterized by extreme painfulness (burning), hot excoriating tears, swelling of lids and great photophobia. The oedema of the lids, especially the lower one, is not at all like the puffiness of Apis and Rhus, nor is it dependent on infiltration of the connective tissue as it may be with Rhus, but is associated with the general cachectic Ars. condition. The Ars. eye symptoms are better warm applications frequently periodic in recurrence, begin every fall, and often change from eye to eye (Lac.c) Sulph., Calc. and Ars. will be called upon whenever the discharge from the ear has been stopped, in broken down constitutions.
“The sneezing of Ars. is no joke, it gives no relief, it starts from a spot in nose, as from the tickling of a feather.” The taste is bitter to water (to milk, Sabin., to sugar, Sang., to plums, Iod., to bread, Puls.). The wrinkling of the mucous membrane in diphtheria belongs to Ars., alone as far as known. Crude Ars. is supposed to kill the microscopic growths that are supposed to cause diphtheria, Ars,. drinks little and often and eats seldom and much (reverse, Bry.). The thirst is generally absent during the chill, or if present it is for warm drinks, during the heat it is for little and often, just enough to moisten the mouth and lips, while during the sweat it is for large quantities, beginning in dead earnest, the more he sweats the more he desires water, until he feels that he could drink a well dry.
In all the stomach troubles, even ulceration, there is extreme thirst, irritability causing stomach to reject everything, or retain but little, with extreme soreness and burning heat. The abdominal affections are characterized by inflammation of the abdominal viscera, extreme sensitiveness and collapse, “Do not use Ars. indiscriminately in summer complaints of babies, or for dysentery or cholera infantum, for it may do much harm if not indicated.” Ars. is most useful in cholera generally after the gushing period has passed, leaving a state of extreme exhaustion, a state like come appears, the patient looks as if almost dead except that he breathes; it is that Ars. will establish a reaction. Ars. is our most important remedy for diarrhoea from chilling the stomach with ice cream, or taking cold, the stools scanty, offensive, dark, and followed by great prostration.
After parturition the bladder may be weak, with loss of power and control (should it fail, do not forget Caust,, especially if no indications for any other remedy). In suppression of the urine from Ars, poisoning do not forget Spts. n.d. in large quantities of water. Valuable in pelvic cellulitis, enlarged uterus, tumor, ulceration, cancer of the womb, uterine haemorrhage, etc., with burning lancinating pains. The cough in all pulmonary complaints is worse after midnight, lying on back, with scanty expectoration. The cough is apt to appear periodically and with increasing force. Very valuable in weak heart, irritability, rapid on least provocation. Before an attack of epilepsy, icy coldness runs down back. Ulcers about fingernails (about joints: Bor., Sep).
Heat, burning up inside, cold outside (reverse, Carbo v.). Burning heat after midnight (Bry., before) Graph. is the best remedy for the skin troubles remedies for spreading ulcers that eat in every direction and such as follow the opening of a bubo which has no tendency to heal. Then skin eruptions requiring Ars. as a rule are dry, scaly, sore and burn and itch intensely. Unhealthy states of the skin, and low fevers, are often accompanied by ulceration and even gangrenous sloughs. Injured parts that suddenly turn gangrenous, or parts that suddenly take on erysipelas.
There is a great tendency to shriveling, mucous membranes of mouth and lips shrivel, and become wrinkled, mucous membrane of throat looks leathery and wrinkled, these are sure indications for Ars., such causes being very malignant in character. Euthanasia, use higher potencies. No other remedy has burning in so marked degree, better heat. Is of great service in chronic ailments will great debility, anaemia, from prolonged exposure to malarial influences, in the poorly fed and syphilitics. There may be thirstlessness in chronic troubles. The conditions of time and temperature especially as all important with Ars., and unless these correspond in the patient failure will be more frequent than success. TOLEDO,OHIO.
DISCUSSION.
DR. SPALDING: Dr. Pulford has finally convinced me of exactly what he means by these primary, basic pathogenetic symptoms; I told him a year or two ago I couldnt quite follow what he meant by them.
I think his presentation of Arsenic shows clearly what he is emphasizing in the remedies, and it certainly presents the remedy in a way that you can recall more easily.
DR. FARRINGTON: I am looking forward to the publication of that materia medica. In studying and preparing the post-graduate extension course that has been carried on fro Chicago, for about three years, I think I looked into pretty nearly every materia medica ever written, and it is amazing how much copying there has been done. One man changes the wording a bit, but the same things are there over and over again. There are only a few who will give you firsthand information, Hahnemanns Materia Medica Pura, Lippes Materia Medica, Herings Condensed and the Guiding Symptoms, and the Encyclopaedia, my fathers Clinical Materia medica, which is full of pure gold, and one or two others.
