This proving, for want of a better term, is not scientific in that it was not conducted according to rules. It was a forty year conquest with an unknown foe: alumina poisoning from kitchen aluminium utensils. Three successful hurdles were in this conquest, viz., pulmonary tuberculosis, left-sided hemiplegia and a paretic-like syndrome. All the obstacles were met by the single, similar, infinite remedy.
The forty years insidious march of destruction by alumina was finally met by a Cadmium combination. Some physicians are successful with Barium combinations.
In presenting symptoms developed over a period of forty years, those most outstanding with reasonable degree of permanency are recorded. New symptom manifestations other than expressed in the materia medicas are disclaimed. Ultimate as well as common symptoms are mentioned as suggestive in the outward drift of the disturbed autonomic system.
The vital symptoms, intrinsic signs of a disordered vital force, will be our chief concern.
MIND: Sadness. Depression, worse on waking mornings. Melancholy. Dullness. Lack of concentration. Irritability. Anxiety. Fear. Aversion to company. Lack of memory. Timidity, will avoid meeting people. Inquietude, at times a feeling of everything being unreal.
VERTIGO: Dizziness, aggravated violent exertion.
HEAD: Pain is gastric; with nausea; right side with vomiting. In morning awakening with headache, increases and gone by 3 p.m. Sensation tired sleepy, bruised sore, right side extending to liver region.
Heat of head with pain, ? by slow motion and cold application and cold air. Pain in occiput extending to forehead with chilliness, with coldness of hands and feet; with paleness of face and forehead.
EYES: Pain, burning and smarting. Itching, inner canthi. Lachrymation in wind. Photophobia. Pupils unequally dilated.
EARS: Burning and itching.
HEARING: Impaired, sounds seem muffled.
NOSE: Cracks, tip of root of nose; expansive in character. Sneezing followed by > of pain at root of nose. Ulcer inside, very sensitive. Furuncles inner and outer side.
FACE: Pale with headache. Itching, sensation of hair. Hair falls out of eyebrows. Furuncles on the chin.
MOUTH: Bleeding gums. Dryness. Sensation of tingling desire to scratch it. Ulcers. Tongue enlarged.
THROAT: Dryness on waking and when talking. Constant presence of mucus that necessitates clearing the throat, especially so on rising mornings. Sensation roughness of throat.
STOMACH: Nausea during headache > lying down. Vomitus yellow or green. Sensation of fullness and tension. Empty eructations when changing position.
ABDOMEN: Borborygmi. Fullness and tension which is alleviated by having extremities elevated. Liver enlarged, sore and tender.
RECTUM: Constipation, obliged to strain when stool is soft, or is hard. Itching and burning after and during stool. Cutting pain during stool. Frequent ineffectual urging for stool after going two or three days without a stool. Stools, like balls; may be large, hard, dry and dark; frequent, scanty and covered by mucus.
CHEST: Shallow respirations.
BLADDER: Urination retarded, must wait a long time; then a slow feeble stream. Frequent urging to urinate.
GENITALIA: Impotency. Sexual passion diminished.
LARYNX AND TRACHEA: Irritation with sensation of dryness. Feeling of soreness and roughness; obliged to clear throat frequently. Scanty mucous discharge in throat with difficulty to impossible to speak. Voice at times has sudden weakness, almost impossible to speak. Again hoarseness. There were times when there was aggravating hacking cough either from mucus or tickling in air passages.
HEART: Palpitation while thinking about what to say in public. The longer the suspense in speaking the more violent the pulsations.
BACK: Aching, drawing, tiredness between shoulders and lumbar region while sitting. So severe at times obliged to change position which temporarily relieved.
EXTREMITIES: Dryness of joints. Coldness of hands, feet. Bluish hands and feet. Varicosity of legs. Trembling and weak, at times numbness. Heaviness and awkwardness, weakness of lower limbs. (Incoordination). Coldness of feet and hands during headache. Blueness of hands and feet. Cracking in joints. Jerking of arms and legs falling asleep. Trembling. Furuncles identical, one on each forefinger at the same time. In healing left rough cicatrix. Cracks between the toes with excoriation and discharge light colored sticky fluid.
SLEEP: Sleepiness in evening followed by sleeplessness before midnight.
SKIN: Dry inability to perspire. Fine bran-like scales, roughening of arms and legs, followed by itching, scratching, smarting; itching when becoming warm as by exercise or in a warm room.
GENERALITIES: All symptoms worse while sitting but better when first walking slowly. Desire for open air and feels much better. Sensitive to cold and heat. Cannot resist the cold. Lack vital heat. Emaciation, anemia. When standing fainting and weakness. Amelioration from warm drinks and food. Jerking on going to sleep and during sleep. Lassitude. Weariness, must lie down. In spite of this lassitude can arouse energy to great physical endurance. Trembling with weakness. Relieved lying on abdomen of many symptoms. Slow pulse. Body hairless with exception of the areas of eyebrows, hair and pubis. ATHENS, O.
DISCUSSION.
DR. HEIMBACH: I have been very much interested in the aluminum questions; up my way they call me “nuts” on aluminum kitchen ware. Now, I realize that some patients dont get aluminum poisoning. You have to be allergic to it and if you handle the aluminum question as an allergic proposition, you are nearer correct. To illustrate how little sometimes it takes for a person who is allergic to it-it is almost unbelievable:.
I had a patient come to me from a neighboring town, a baker by trade, who had his own bakery. All the family had more or less aluminum poisoning, and they all cleared up very fast except him, and he just wont clear up from a dizziness. By the way, that is on of the strongest symptoms, dizziness and debility, and I said, “Are you getting in contact with any aluminum at all?”. “Not that I know of”.
“Well,” I said, “in what respect do you eat differently from the rest of the family?” because they all cleared up promptly.
He studied for a little while and it was only in one thing.
“I eat my own bread and the rest of the family dont”.
“Well,” I said, “what in the world do you use in your bakery that would contact you with aluminum? What do you use?”.
He mentioned yeast and milk powder, and there was a third; I cant recall what it was.
I said, “Will you please send me s sample of all three of them when you get home?”.
He said, “I surely will”.
He sent the three samples and where do you think I found it? It was in the milk powder. Evidently the milk had been evaporated in aluminum pans. We cut that out and he got over his dizziness very quickly.
I could refer to another case, a young married man his thirties, who had symptoms of debility and gas-by the way, that is a very prominent symptom, gas-and I couldnt find anything in the nature of pathology or disease of any kind, but aluminum poisoning.
My favorite prescription for it is Chininum arsenicosum, 6x., and dilute hydrochloric acid after meals in a glass of water, about 10 drops, because I think it is chemical antidote to aluminum, and it certainly doesnt interfere with the homoeopathic remedy, because we are supposed to have hydrochloric acid in our stomachs in any case.
In a week he came back and he was feeling pretty good. I gave him another prescription and that ended it for a year. He comes back and his wife is with him, and he gave me very much the same symptoms, and I checked up on them and I said, “You have aluminum poisoning again. Why didnt you leave aluminum alone?”.
He said, “We havent used any aluminum since you told me”.
I turned to his wife and said, “How about it?”.
“To my knowledge we have not any aluminum”.
“Are you sure about the coffee pot?”.
That is one of the worst ones, the coffee pot.
“Well,” I said, “we will just have to find out where you get the aluminum, for you have it, and you have it plenty. The only thing we can do now is for both of you to open your eyes and keep your ears to the ground till you come back and see whether we can locate it”:.
They came back in a week, and they both smiled.
“Well, have you found out where you got it?”.
“Oh, yes”.
“Well, where was it?”.
It was in some canned fruit she had put up. She had put up a lot of fruit before she had discarded the aluminum kitchen ware, and when the winter came around, they started to eat the fruit again, and he got the aluminum poisoning back in a hurry.
I almost was threatened with a suit by the aluminum company. A young squib came in to me, to my office, and said, “I understand all your cases have aluminum poisoning”.
I said. “Is that so? Not to my knowledge, because I dont examine them all for aluminum poisoning, but if I cant find anything else the matter with them and I check on aluminum poisoning, and they have it, I just tell them to quit aluminum ware”.
