We meet all these psoric symptoms in Lycopodium to a marked degree: burning and incomplete eructations, rising up to the pharynx with burning in the oesophagus for several hours. Irresistible sleepiness after meals, flatulent dyspepsia immediately after eating, the stomach is distended with gas.
Under the rubric, “Abdomen,” we find different forms of diarrhoea expressing typical features of the miasms. The diarrhoea of psora are often induced by over-eating, as the psoric patient is always hungry, or they occur from fright, grief, bad news, or when making preparation for an unusual event. Constipation is very marked preparation for an unusual event. Constipation is very marked, with a dry hard stool, difficult to expel, in round balls like sheep dung. We also have an alternation of constipation and diarrhoea. In tubercular children we have diarrhoeas produced by the least error in diet. A tubercular child cannot use cows milk in any form, the casein has to be modified before they can digest it.
There is great prostration after stools, and the child does not want to be touched or even looked at. The stool shows much slimy mucus and there is apt to be blood after the stool. Haemorrhages from the rectum always call our attention to the tubercular element in the system. Pin worms or intestinal worms are found most plentiful in children with a tubercular taint. Sycosis usually gives us colic, a severe griping colic with the diarrhoeas. The colics are better by firm pressure or lying on the abdomen, and the child wants to be carried, rocked, or moved about in some way. A typical sycotic stool is yellowish-green, with white or green mucus, it is expelled with much force, it is acid and corrosive, has a griping colic, and has the sycotic mental symptoms: namely, impatience and irritability.
In Lycopodium we find bleeding haemorrhoids, which on account of the haemorrhage, would constitute a tubercular symptom. Constipation dominates in Lycopodium, there is frequent but inefficient urging to go to stool The stools are hard and small. These symptoms belong to psora.
Considering now the urinary organs, we find the psoric individual pass his urine involuntarily when sneezing, coughing or laughing. We find a deposit in the urine white or yellowish- white in color, phosphates or similar deposits. In the nervous patient of the tubercular taint we find a urine which is pale and copious. We get nocturnal enuresis in children with a tubercular background.
Under sycosis we find the symptom that children scream when urinating, on account of the sandy deposit in the urine.
A great characteristic of Lycopodium is “red sand in the urine,” which is a psoric symptom, or might be considered as sycotic as the other symptom, “the child cries when urinating.” We also find difficulties in passing water, nocturnal enuresis, nocturnal polyuria, and retention of urine, which are to be considered as psoric. We have kidney stones and kidney colic which are more apt to be sycotic.
In the sexual sphere, we find in the male many difficulties with the tubercular background, such as nightly and involuntary discharges of semen, or a constant loss of prostatic or seminal fluid. The great exhaustion accompanying these troubles is typical of the tubercular miasm. In the female, we can say in general that the flows of psora are bland, while in the sycotic they are acrid, excoriating, biting and burning the pudendum, and in the tubercular individual they are exhausting and apt to induce an anemia.
The menstrual flow in psora is scanty or intermitting, it stops and starts. In the tubercular we are apt to find the haemorrhagic form, the flow is extensive and often prolonged and the blood is bright red, or pale and watery. In the sycotic we find severe menstrual pains, spasmodic, extremely sharp or colicky. The blood is dark, and there are large clots. The leucorrhoea is psora is scanty, in the tubercular it is purulent and debilitating, and in the sycotic it is excoriating and has the odor of fish-brine.
In Lycopodium we find sexual weakness or complete importance, which would correspond to the tubercular taint. In the female we find a state of dryness of the vagina. we find dryness to be a characteristic feature of psora. Lycopodium has further an astonishing power to help in cases of retarded puberty with a lacking development in the sexual features. These cases have a tubercular background. Lycopodium is a great friend of the woman in cases of inflammation and neuralgias of the ovaries, especially the right ovary. It is also credited with having cured cystic tumors of the right ovary. These are typical sycotic features.
The cough of psora is dry, teasy, spasmodic. The expectoration is mucous, scanty, tasteless. The cough of the tubercular is deep, prolonged, giving the lower chest tones, is worse in the morning and on first lying down in the evening. The least exposure to cold causes hoarseness. The expectoration is purulent and sweetish or salty to the taste.
In Lycopodium we find a dry, tickling, hard cough, at night and even during the sleep, with great exhaustion after the coughing spell. This latter feature might indicate that this cough corresponds to the tubercular diathesis. cough remaining after a previous pneumonia, especially in young emaciated people. This state of emaciation of the upper part of the body is one of the great characteristics of Lycopodium and strikes us as an expression of the tubercular miasm. Lycopodium also applies to pulmonary lesions with an abundant, thick, yellow or green expectoration. The expectoration has a salty taste. All these features are unmistakably tubercular.
In disturbance of the heart, the psoric and sycotic elements strongly prevail. The psoric patient suffering with cardiac troubles has more or less anxiety, more or less fear, while the syphilitic or sycotic have very little mental disturbances. We have many psoric symptoms that manifest themselves in sensations of weakness, fullness, heaviness, or soreness about the heart. The heart troubles of the tubercular are accompanied with fainting and weakness, they are worse sitting up and better lying down. In the sycotic we have palpitations from reflex rheumatic troubles. There is seldom much pain or suffering in sycosis, unless in rheumatic difficulties, when we may find severe pains, but they are not as constant as those of psora.
In Lycopodium we have palpitations of the heart during the digestion due to a reflex from the stomach, which symptom is psoric. Lycopodium has proved valuable in certain cases of aneurysms; this is a syphilitic feature. We find varicose veins in Lycopodium especially in the right let, and in the genital organs, especially vulva. Those sign of venous stagnation have a tubercular background.
The skin gives us many clues as to the underlying miasms. The skin of psora is dry, rough, dirty or unhealthy looking, and has an unwashed appearance. Scales and crusts are thin and small. The tubercular skin has a certain clearness about it. It is fine, smooth, and has a transparency so that the veins and capillaries reflect through the tissues. Eruptions in psora are apt to be papular and itching while they are pustular in the tubercular, in keeping with the tendency of the tubercular towards pus formation.
The skin of sycosis is apt to be greasy and exhibits moles and warty eruptions. The eruption of syphilis is found about the joints, in the flexures of the body, or arranged in circular groupings. The color is significant; they are copper-colored. There is typically no itching in syphilitic eruptions, and very little soreness. The scales and crusts are heavy.
The skin of the Lycopodium patient is usually dry which would correspond to psora. He is apt to have copper-colored spots in his face, reminding us of the syphilitic miasm.
Under the rubric “Extremities,” the psoric patient complains of neuralgic pains which are better by rest and warmth, as all psoric troubles are. In the tubercular diathesis, we have joint troubles with an increase in the osseous tissue, nodular growths, pointing to the syphilitic taint in the tubercular miasm. Bones are soft and rickety. In sycosis we find a rheumatism in the joints or periosteum, due to gouty concretions or chalky deposits in the tissues themselves. There is stiffness and lameness with the typical modalities of better by moving or rubbing and worse by rest and the approach of a storm. There is also aggravation by humidity. In syphilis we expect lancinating pains in the long bones with a nightly aggravation, worse by change of weather and by cold and damp.
In Lycopodium we find chronic gout with chalky deposits in the articulations, and a sciatica, especially at night, which is better by motion and worse by rest. These features are clearly sycotic. The characteristic symptom of Lycopodium, “One foot hot and the other cold,” is a psoric symptom.
Our survey shows that Lycopodium corresponds to the features of all three of Hahnemanns chronic diseases, and indicates ;by it a wide range of usefulness.
