Of all the medicines in the miasmatic group, those that stand against the growth and development of human beings are specially to be studied because they are the remedies that are better to be used in the prime of life so that thousands of ills which would have come in the later years may be avoided and the young child may grow up to full manhood. Baryta carb. stands supreme in this sphere. It is a remedy which can correct the psoric, as well as the tubercular, tendency that appears in little children so that a proper cure may be possible. This remedy stands against the natural process of development and growth; it stunts, dwarfs and minimises the process of growth.
The current of development is not simply slowed, as in Abrot., Sanicula and other remedies, but the process is receded; a counter current is established so that Nature’s process is practically stopped and the result is that a man of forty speaks and thinks like an urchin of five years. Moreover, he will not mix with the people of equal age because he is conscious that there must be a great difference in their mental levels and so he will invariably play and folic with children of eight or ten. Under-development or arrested development is the central feature of Bar.c. The child is unable to cut teeth, is belated in speaking and walking as in other remedies of this group. Though the result is all the same, yet the cause behind in Bar.c. is altogether different.
Other remedies do not learn to walk or to speak due to the non-development of the muscles, but Baryta does not learn how to speak or how to walk, i.e. in Bar. the fault lies ;with the non-development of mind. From this you must understand that the mind and its physical counterpart, the brain, which is the metropolis of strength, the main power house, are underdeveloped and the mind or the brain is the first to be influenced by Bar.c. You will see this more prominently from the fact that the Baryta individuals grows with years but does not grow in mind so that he will seek for his company men of far younger years; the duller the companion, the better he will mix with him. There is a physical and mental dwarfishness and hence the above conditions come.
One word to be remembered in this connection is that it is not necessarily true that the individual dwarfed in size and stature should invariably be a subject for Bar.c; just point is that a Bar.c. subject must be of undeveloped and stunted mind. so a dwarfed body with a dwarfed mind may be a subject, but never a dwarfed body with a healthy mind.
The mind is stunted, so that his memory and intellect are also found to be stunted. He avoids any mental work, being
conscious of his lack in intelligence. Has “Want of self- confidence.” Seeks solitude, avoids company, specially that of a stranger. The central point of the Bar.c. mind is the shyness and so, in younger years, the patient is observed to hide himself behind an almirah or a screen or a picture when a stranger comes in, and so dull is he as to think himself quite safe and secure even if he is only partially covered. He is characteristically shy and this shyness is most important. Actually, he is confounded and bewildered at the very sight of a stranger and as the stock of his intelligence is already too scanty, he is practically upset and does not know what to do.
Dr.Roberts says, “They are much more afraid of men than of women, doubtless due to the fact that they are habitually more used to being in the company of women.” However, if the Bar.c. child should be corrected by admonitions and instructions, a violent wrath would be the result. The only course is not to vex him at all. Naturally he is despondent, moody and wanting solitude (Bufo- wants solitude to practise masturbation). His memory is dull, cannot remember, cannot learn, wants light work, a least admonition in school will make him sob and cry, he is generally a “problem child”, a sullen, backward boy; his hands are sometimes covered with warts. Bar.c. children do not want to play, “These children will not play normally, but just sit about, interested in nothing, showing a decided tendency to absent-mindedness and idiocy.”
On the other hand the children are over-sensitive which becomes acute, especially when they meet strangers when timidity comes in instead of absent-mindedness. Though the shyness is prominent in him, yet naughtiness and mischievousness are the other features of Bar.c. children. Their small amount of intelligence is wanted to be used by them in doing small mischief to others but the characteristic feature is that they are unable to do any mischief or harm which requires a plan or a long-drawn- out design and what they do they do under a momentary impulse.
Pari passu with the mental non-development, the physical side of the economy is also under deep disorder of dwarfish character. The whole stature of body is shortened and, as the mind is stunted, dwarfed and undeveloped, the exact counterpart is shown in the physical sphere, as if the current of non- development is brought on from in to out, from mind to physique.
This interference, this negative condition, is never functional but deeply organic, dynamicity is far more intense than in ordinary remedies. You know that an organic deformation can never be brought about by any mono-miasmatic, i.e., simply psoric, remedy. It must be the work of some bi-miasmatic or tri- miasmatic remedy. Only psora can derange but cannot deform. By the observation of the working of Bar.c. you must have to conclude that it is not alone an antipsoric, but tubercular, too, as will be observed by symptoms delineatory.
It is pre-eminently a glandular remedy. But its working upon the glands is slow, very slow, as its general action is. All the destructive remedies are so, but characteristically Bar.c. and Iod. are specially so. Though the patient of this remedy is too chilly, yet some of his particular conditions, namely headache and skin symptoms, are aggravated by warm-closed room and in bed when he craves fresh air but cannot tolerate it. Cold air, cold bath and damp weather are intolerable to him. He is greatly susceptible to tonsillitis and swelling of the submaxillary glands from slightest exposure to cold, damp air.
Every cold brings in a slow and low inflammation in the tonsil and round about it. Submaxillary glands, parotid glands, and those below the neck are greatly affected, nodulated and indurated by a least exposure to cold, but the peculiarity of its tonsillitis and glandular affections is that it never brings a positive inflammation and suppuration. All its works are passive and paralytic, like Conium (in Bell., Help., etc., it is positive and inflammatory).
So during the first period of such tendency the affected parts are not much more painful, only a sort of local malaise is felt there by the patient, and the guardians or the physicians may not notice the fact in the very onset of the tendency or, even if occasionally it is detected, a few doses of Rhus., Bell., or like remedies are given to the case every time, which only brings a timely reaction and the process, or rather tendency, continues on and on dormantly.
But after two or three years the glands commence to enlarge more prominently, they gradually become harder and harder, the tonsils also go on enlarging and enlarging and they indurate, emaciation sets in and the little patient shows his inability to breathe through the nose and difficulty of breathing comes in when, on enquiring, it will be found for the first time that adenoids on both the sides have assumed such a form that the air passage threatened to be closed unless immediate measures are taken. Then in most cases Baryta is not applied but the surgeon’s knife comes to the rescue and makes the condition of the child ten times more complicated and confused.
I would warn you against advising the parents for operation unless the child’s life is threatened. In any case, if there are symptoms, do not lose the opportunity of really curing the child and thus putting a stop to the destructive process. But why? Because the operation will only relieve the most immediate and painful symptoms, but aggravate the child’s condition as a man. Not only the child will be duller but the chance in 90% cases is that the lung will commence to be infiltrated and the foundation will be laid for either death from rickets and emaciation in course of a few years or for lung phthisis which will make its appearance during the youthful period.
I can tell you that 10% to 12% of such cases may escape such a calamity simply because such cases are actually more psoric and less tubercular. In those cases you are to be very careful regarding the selection of your remedy. Never make a hasty prescription and never make a prescription on local symptoms only. Always look for the Baryta mind, Baryta constitution and modalities and, if they are present, be sure of Baryta Carb. and of eventual cure, provided you can hit the right potency and know when to stop and how long to stop. The homoeopathic philosophy you cannot discard, without which your homoeopathic practice is bound to be a series of failures and consequent disappointments.
