An analogy to the increase of stamina and firmness in plants can be found in the skeletal effects of light.
It prevents and cures rickets and promotes the healing of bone fractures, as well as of wounds in general. In Swiss experiments a marked statistical difference is shown between patients in well-lighted rooms and those in darker rooms in the time required for the union of bone fractures. 20.
Light increases the blood calcium level,21 stimulates motor activity and circulation,22 favorably affects the coronaries,18 and raises the minute volume of the heart.23 The erythrocyte count is increased.
Finally, there is a definite effect upon the respiratory s system: Light increases the ventilation of the lungs and the depth of breathing.25 Pulmonary tuberculosis is favorably affected by small amounts, yet extremely sensitive to strong light radiation, while the nonpulmonary Tb. responds favorably to any degree of radiation.26 (here we already may note the close similarity to the sensitivity to Phosphor dosage). Trivial respiratory infections vanish rapidly in the intense radiation of high altitudes.27.
There is a general anti-infections effect of light which is probably due to increased resistance as well as to anti-bacterial action. Over-radiation on the other hand promotes local as well as general inflammatory response with increased protein break down and febrile reaction.
Summarizing, we have:.
1. A mental direction of the light effects, in enhancing and stabilizing the functions of consciousness and in its antagonism to the action of anesthetics.
2. A general effect, regulating growth and enhancing general vitality and resistance, as well as the firmness of the physical structure.
These two, the mental and general, effects provide the key to the whole pathology, as we shall see, and determine the effects upon particular organs, namely the respiratory, circulatory and locomotor system.
So far, this exposition of the light physiology seems already to agree surprisingly well with the main directions suggested by the symbolical meaning of light at “nous,” insight, and “pneuma,” breath.
How does all this relate to the more detailed symptomatology of Phosphorus?.
According to our hypothesis a normal state of Phosphorus functioning would consist in the undisturbed action of the inner light. Since a complete paralysis of this function, absolute darkness as it were, probably would be incompatible with life, we might liken the clinical Phosphor disturbance to a state of inner twilight. How would such a twilight state be expected to express itself?.
In our analysis, we may well enough follow the classification arrived at in the summary of the light pathology:.
1. Effect upon the consciousness as opposed to the effects of anesthetics and intoxicants.
The gradual ascendance of conscious and cerebral control represents a relatively recent achievement of the gradual evolution of man. If this full light of consciousness is weakened, impulses will come to the fore which are normally relegated to the dark pool of the unconscious. A relapse occurs into an earlier, more instinctive, or comparatively infantile state. Atavistic reactions like clairvoyance, ++Symptoms directly quoted from the Homoeopathic Materia Medica are in italics-E.W. clairaudience or ecstasy may occur, apparitions may be seen, unaccounted for and consequently disturbing and threatening to the patient (fanciful and imaginary notions, faces grinning out of every corner, as if something would creep out of every corner, etc.).
When the borderline between the accustomed daily reality and the assumed unreality of the unconscious weakens, when the unconscious invades the upper stratum of conscious reality, the response is always terror and fear (Jung). Phosphor had fear of being alone, since the presence of people helps to assure the p physical reality against the invasion from the darker strata, fear that something may happen, of death, fear of the darkness, of evening, night and, characteristically enough, of the twilight which is the outward projection of the inner psychological state and consequently aggravates the total psychosomatic state. There is also a striking of these symptoms to the infantile fear pattern.
However, the classical picture of what happens when the inner light acting in our moral consciousness is dimmed is provided experimentally by the observation of drunkenness and anesthesia. Here the conscious and cerebral control is removed and the individual allows himself to revert to a quasi-infantile state in which the instincts hold free sway. Light was found to be directly antagonistic to the action of alcohol and anesthetics.
Moreover, the symptoms and organic changes caused by the aliphatic lipoid soluble anesthetics (alcohol, ether and chloroform) which resemble one another in their main actions,28 when considered together, show a most striking similarity to the Phosphor pathogenesis, thus suggesting the actual relevance of this material for our purpose (for brevity alcohol, ether and chloroform, when not especially differentiated, will be referred to simply as anesthetics).
The effects of intoxication, which resembles also the beginning of anesthesia, is described as follows:29.
It depresses the central nervous system, especially the higher functions. It simulates stimulation, chiefly by lowering the normal restraining functions…resulting in euphoria, comfort and enjoyment, to elation and vivacity; then downward through loquacity, garrulity, emotionalism, either affectionate or quarrelsome or both, to violence, then hebetude, stupor and finally coma.
This pattern is most closely duplicated in the Phosphor pathogenesis. The provings show a polarity of excitability and ecstasy with lowered inhibitions followed by indifference, stupor and exhaustion. The Phosphor patient resembles the devote of Bacchus in being pleasant, sympathetic, of sanguine temperament, changeable disposition or quarrelsome and easily angered, craving company, loquacious, amative, easily enthused but unreliable, without perseverance, impressionable and very susceptible to external influences with quick perception, increased flow of thoughts which rush through his mind (stimulative phase), subject to states of mania of grandeur yet quickly given to exhaustion and fatigue (depressive phase), unable to stand mental tax, unable to think and worse from mental exertion, becoming hyposensitive, apathetic and indifferent with failing memory and concentration, aversion to work ending in stupor and coma.
Emotionally, the loss of inhibitions makes him easily excited, getting beside himself with anger, vehement, perspiring from excitement (as does the drinker and the anesthetized patient), fearful, cowardly, sad, hysterical, alternatingly laughing and crying, or just tearful and gloomy, weary of life, and misanthropic.
An extreme loss of moral inhibitions results in the ascendance of the most animalistic impulses: lasciviousness, uncovers h is person, seeks to gratify his sex instincts no matter on whom, erotic mania, sex excitement and shamelessness.
Obviously, the similarity between the Phosphor picture and anesthesia (the somatic sphere of which will be discussed late) holds therapeutic implications. Mania-a-potu, delirium, tremens, ill effects of there and chloroform are clinical Phosphor indications.
2. Effect on growth-regulation and general vitality and resistance.
The lack of stamina within the mental personality is paralleled by a loss of stamina in the physical sphere. We may compare this with the analogous disturbances of plants with insufficient light exposure. Such plants show overgrowth, with long, stooping, pale, weakly stems, or the abundant over- production of soft material as found in mushrooms and fungi. Extremest light privation, of course, leads to stunted growth.
The Materia medica of Phosphor lists: Feeble constitutions, born sick, grown up slender, young people who grow too rapidly, stooping, bad posture, stunted growth; chlorotic girls who grow too rapidly and have suddenly taken on weakness, pallor and green sickness (Kent). The failure to form chlorophyll in the pale, lightless plants or mushrooms has its counter part in the deficient formation of hemoglobin; moreover we remember that light increases the red cell count. Anemia thus becomes an obvious finding in a state of disturbed light-functioning.
In analogy to the lack of the generally vitalizing effect of light, the inner twilight state of Phosphor has the typical adynamia; mentally and physically exhausted, always tired, need of rest; easily weakened by loss of vital fluids; empty, all gone sensation in chest (the chest, the seat of the “pneuma,” being particularly under the light-Phosphor influence), lack of vital heat. The exhaustion which follows the mental overexcitation (see above) is augmented by this constitutional physical lack of resilience. Emaciation and marasmus are the final states of the extreme mental and physical exhaustion.
Progressive adynamia is commonly associated with failure of the adrenal glands, and, actually, Phosphor poisoning depresses the adrenals.30 In turn we are led to assume a close association of the adrenals to our postulated inner light-metabolism by the fact that they regulate the formation of melanin, the dark pigment in skin, hair, retina, etc., which is the organisms response to light.
