CARBONEUM SULFURATUM


I was writing about a remedy that I do not know anything about myself. Dr. Roberts asked me to do that. I went to Herings Guiding Symptoms, Clarkes Dictionary, and one or two remote places where it had been brought up in discussion that I was able to find. The thing that struck me most forcibly was that little list that I gave you there if unusual conditions to which it seems to be applicable.


To the clinical and principal symptoms of Herings monograph on Carb. Sulf. in 1870 are added those of a proving by Dr. Bernhardt published in 1871.

In Clarkes Dictionary there is appended to the clinical picture a long list of unusual conditions for which this remedy is applicable, which reads like one of the old time patent medicine advertisements. Just to mention some of the unusual ones I will enumerate a few, like acne, anaemia, clergymans sore throat, glandular swellings, goitre, gout, hemiplegia, hernia, herpes, impetigo, lost memory, Menieres disease, noises in the head, muscular atrophy, spinal sclerosis and tetanus.

Carbon. sulf. combines many characteristics of its two elements.

MENTAL: Defective memory, loses the word she wants to say; confusion; stares at her fingers with a vacant look; childish behavior, even idiotic; or exhilaration bordering on drunkenness.

SENSORIUM: Sudden attacks of vertigo while sitting; frequent attacks of fainting.

INNER HEAD: Violent pains; pressure mostly in forehead increasing in intensity until mind is affected, < by shaking the head or even taking a heavy step; brushing the hair is painful; itching of head and painful nodules.

SIGHT: Vanishing of sight or dimness; reading brings tears to the eyes.

EARS: Ringing in the ears; sensation as if the ears were stopped up.

NOSE: End of nose burns and is quite red; sneezing; eruptions on nose.

FACE: Has a bewildered expression; eruption like acne with intolerable itching.

TEETH: Toothache from eating warm food, especially the last molars.

TASTE: Saltish, sweet, sour, foul, bitter, metallic. Lisping, Stammering speech like that of a child.

MOUTH: Great dryness with unquenchable thirst.

THROAT: Tickling in palate causing violent coughing; swallowing is difficult causing pain in left ear.

APPETITE: Hunger with aversion to eating, loss of appetite, or satiety after a few mouthfuls; great thirst, especially after beer, After eating painful heavy head, belching, abdomen distended and painful; sour belching which does not relieve; nausea with fainting spells; vomiting bitter water; stabbing pains in the stomach extending to the back, sensitive to external pressure.

ABDOMEN: Pains in pit of stomach extending to cardiac region, followed by loud belching; cutting pains in bowels; navel drawn inward, with much pain; much rumbling and gurgling as if about to start a diarrhoea; strangulated hernia.

STOOL: Frequent passage of very offensive flatus; chronic diarrhoea every four to six weeks; burning and itching of the anus.

URINARY ORGANS: Stitching pains in bladder and urethra extending to anus; burning in urethra with erections when urinating.

SEXUAL ORGANS: Complete loss of sexual desire with impotency and atrophied testicles. In the female there are too weak labor pains.

VOICE, RESPIRATION: Clergymans sore throat; difficult breathing; asphyxia from alcohol or coal gas; cough from irritation at the bifurcation of the trachea.

HEART, PULSE: Palpitation in anaemia patients. Spasmodic pulse.

NECK AND BACK: Rheumatic with stiffness of neck; goitre; feeling as though a heavy load were handing from the back between the shoulder blades.

UPPER LIMBS: Cracking in the right shoulder joint extending to the elbow, < by every change in the weather; jerking flying pains in wrist and finger joints.

LOWER LIMBS: Sciatica, especially in the left thigh, from taking cold and complete inability to walk; pain in right knee as if dislocated; dropsical swelling of the feet in hepatic affections; piercing pains in the metatarsals when walking; painful and tired soles; cold feet.

MODALITIES: Sudden attacks of vertigo when sitting; < from any motion; or any change in the weather in the rheumatic attacks.

TIME: Throbbing toothache at night; involuntary urination.

ATTACKS: Come and go quickly; chronic diarrhoea every six weeks.

TISSUES: Enlarged and indurated lymphatic glands; cold swellings; rheumatic and gouty conditions after the inflammatory stage is passed; tubercular conditions in the lungs or bowels.

SKIN: Itch and herpetic affections; vesicles on an inflamed and swollen base contain an opaque yellowish fluid which forms thick scabs; sometimes the discharge excoriates and causes violent itching; impetigo; herpes. AKRON, OHIO.

DISCUSSION

DR. STEVENS: I remember having very good results with that remedy in a small boy who had a good many styes. I have not used it often, but I think of it in skin troubles of that sort.

DR. GRIMMER: It will cure some dreadful headaches associated with that mental state that the doctor mentioned, the slowing down of all mental processes. Violent chronic headaches will yield to it.

DR. DIXON: I was writing about a remedy that I do not know anything about myself. Dr. Roberts asked me to do that. I went to Herings Guiding Symptoms, Clarkes Dictionary, and one or two remote places where it had been brought up in discussion that I was able to find. The thing that struck me most forcibly was that little list that I gave you there if unusual conditions to which it seems to be applicable.

My experience with the remedy is so slight that I am giving it to you practically as I found it in the book. I do not know much about it personally.

Charles A. Dixon
Dr Charles A. DIXON (1870-1959), M.D.
Akron, Ohio
President, I.H.A.