It has been said that a physician who knows how to apply Lycopodium is already a good homoeopath. Therefore, it always intrigued me to live up to this statement. But Lycopodium proved rather reluctant to give up its secrets to me. Naturally, I knew the symptom, “Hungry but satisfied with two mouthfuls,” but this symptom did not occur often enough in my practice to justify considering myself a good homoeopath; nor did another symptom which I later learned to use, namely, that Lycopodium is indicated in a dry, exhausting, tickling cough with an aggravation at night.
In my desire to get a better understanding of Lycopodium, I thought it worth while to study it from a miasmatic angle, and I am giving you herewith a report on this study.
Hahnemann considered three chronic diseases or miasms, as he calls them, to be the cause of all chronic and acute illness. They are psora, sycosis, and syphilis. The tubercular miasm- which is of great practical importance-is not a basic miasm, but a combination of the features of psora and syphilis. We must understand that this does not mean an established tuberculous lesion, but rather a preliminary stage where the tuberculous toxins circulate in the body causing distinct subjective and objective symptoms, but where the tubercle bacillus is not or not yet found.
Calmette has expressed this conception when he said that, “It is necessary to admit the existence of a pre-bacillary virulent stage which precedes the tuberculous localizations, so that the bacillus discovered by Robert Koch in 1882 represents only one of the stages of evolution and is a resistant form of the tuberculous virus”.
As a general characteristic of the miasms, we can say that psora gives us no physiological changes of structure, another miasm must be present in order to procure a physiological change in structure or shape of a part of organ.
In the tubercular miasm, we find a sense of weakness, the least over-exertion exhausts beyond that which is natural, they are always tired, never seem to get rested. “I was born tired,” we hear them say. They are tired at night-tired even after sleep.
The sycotic has a specific action upon the uterus and its appendages, so that when we meet acute pain or acute inflammatory processes in this region, we seldom make a mistake in attributing the cause to sycosis.
It is syphilis that has a marked destructive effect on tissues, resulting in ulcers and a great deal of scarring.
A general characteristic of Lycopodium is that it has a depressing effect on mind and body and we will find that it has elements of all the miasms in it.
In the mental sphere, the psoric mind is over-active and we have a hypersensitivity to all impressions. The sycotic is cross, irritable, disposed to fits of anger. His memory is weak in certain things. The latent syphilitic is dull, stupid, heavy and obstinate.
The mind of the Lycopodium patient presents the psoric features to a marked degree. His intelligence is keen, he has an active and penetrating mind, but he has a feeble muscular development. The Lycopodium child is apt to have a precocious intelligence, a well developed head, but a feeble body. We find great anxiety. he is afraid to appear in public, yet he fears to be left alone. He is easily frightened, in a crowd, or meeting strangers, or when any unusual ordeal is about to take place. He is very emotional. He starts to cry when he sees an old friend, or meets a relative in the street; or when he is thanked for a service he has rendered. He gets despondent and despairs of recovery. He is afraid of the darkness, e.g., entering a dark room.
All these symptoms are clearly psoric. Yet the symptoms of his temper and his weakness of memory belong to the sycotic miasm; he is irritable, especially in the morning on waking, and he gets sudden outbursts of anger at the slightest contradiction; he forgets words, sentences, and previous lines that he has just read; there is a momentary loss of thought, and he loses the thread of the conversation.
When We consider now the head, we will find that the different miasms find their expression in different types of headaches. The psoric headache, usually frontal or temporal, gets worse as the sun ascends, and better as it descends. The pain is sharp, paroxysmal, and is better by warmth, rest or sleep. The tubercular headache is better by nosebleeds. We will find that the tubercular miasm in general has a pronounced haemorrhagic tendency. The sycotic headache is a vertex headache, it is worse at night and better by motion.
This latter symptom is typical for the sycotic miasm as a whole and we will find it again in the sycotic rheumatism which is better by motion. The syphilitic headache is at the base of the brain, is dull, heavy, persistent, probably caused by a meningeal effusion, and is worse by heat, rest and sleep. Syphilitic affections in general are better by cold.
How compare the Lycopodium headache with these? The Lycopodium patient is subject to periodical headache which are worse by heat and rest, and better by cold; he wants the windows open. The Lycopodium headache, therefore, represents the syphilitic type of a headache.
In the eyes we have great dryness, itching and burning in psora. The dryness is very characteristic of psora, we will find it again in the skin. The tubercular diathesis has a tendency to pustular diseases, as we find it in many cases of granular lids; styes also belong here. The chronic dilatation of the pupil in children is a tubercular sign. In sycosis we have many rheumatic troubles with the eye. In syphilis we are apt to get structural changes in the inner parts of the eye.
It is syphilis or the tubercular process that changes organs and gives us perversions of form or shape or size. Psora has many eye affections, but never a change in the structure of the eye itself.
The psoric pain about the eye is better by heat, the sycotic pain is worse by barometric changes, moisture, rainy or stormy weather, the syphilitic pain is worse by night and worse by heat.
In Lycopodium we find inflammation and redness of the eyelids, and styes. These symptoms belong to the tubercular miasm.
Regarding the ears, we can say that all organic ear troubles are either tubercular or syphilitic. The abscesses in the ear with offensive discharge have the tubercular background behind them.
Lycopodium has a yellowish, purulent, offensive ear discharge which must be attributed to the tubercular taint.
In the nose, we find that psora increases the sensitivity of smell so that patients are unusually affected by odors of any kind. We saw before that psora produces a nervous hypersensitivity. In the tubercular diathesis, we get a catarrhal discharge, thick, yellow, of the odor of old cheese, often dropping down in the throat. I mentioned before that the tubercular miasm has a tendency to pus formation and I also talked about its haemorrhagic tendency.
We find haemorrhage from the nose from the slightest provocation. In sycosis we find a stoppage in the nose which is due to a thickening of the membranes or an enlargement of the turbinate bodies rather than an accumulation of mucus. The discharge is yellowish-green, with the odor of fish-brine. In syphilis we get the destruction of the bones of the nose and ulceration with large thick crusts.
Lycopodium has a chronic catarrh of the nose with a thick discharge, as we find it in the tubercular miasm.
The taste may give us some important clues as to the underlying miasm. In psora the taste is either sour, sweet, or bitter; or just a bad taste; in other words, it is only a change of intensity from the normal. In the tubercular miasm we get a putrid taste, or the taste of blood. The expectoration tastes sweet, sometimes salty. In sycosis we find a putrid, musty, or fishy taste. All metallic tastes make us think of syphilis. Lycopodium has a bitter taste, especially in the morning, which would correspond to the psoric taint.
Morbid hunger or unnatural hunger is a very important and quite constant symptom of psora. Lycopodium has many symptoms in this respect: unnatural hunger, but easily satisfied, hunger at night, hunger immediately after a full meal.
Under the rubric, “Desires and Aversions,” the psoric patient has a craving for sweets. Psoric people like syrups, sugars, candies, while the tubercular craves potatoes and meats. It is noticeable fact that if the system is not assimilating certain things, they will crave that thing: e.g., the tubercular craves salt and has a longing for indigestible things like chalk, lime, slate pencils, etc. The syphilitic and tubercular patients prefer foods and drinks cold, while the psoric and sycotic individuals like them hot. The sycotic patient like beer, rich gravies, and fat meat.
A marked characteristic of the Lycopodium patient is his craving for sweets, which is a psoric feature, and so is the amelioration of the stomach symptoms by warm drinks.
We find the stomach symptoms mostly under psora. Most aggravations occur after eating: headache, flatulence, sleepiness, he cannot keep awake after a meal. We further find heartburn, sour and bitter eructations, and waterbrash.
