The next symptoms of tonsillitis is inability to a swallow solid but the patient can easily eat or drink liquid food like Baptisia and Sil. Paralysis of the soft palate appears most frequently when even the liquid food comes out of the nose. If its foot sweat or skin eruptions is suppressed, on comes the tonsillitis or asthma or lung infiltration accompanied with emaciation and glandular derangement; tendency to frequent quinsy may also appear as its result. Hoarseness and huskiness of voice are also found. In this connection I wish to say one thing more that though Bar.c. prevents the chronic predisposition to quinsy, yet, if it is used during an acute aggravation, it may rather
aggravate the case; even where the case is exactly fit for Bar.c. I warn you against using it because, by doing so, you will simply aggravate the pains of the poor patient; anyhow manage the aggravation in a hygienic way or by giving short acting medicines and, as soon as the aggravation ceases, give a dose of Bar.c. high. I warn you again against using Merc. low in these cases because it will not cure but must aggravate (if you want to avoid suppuration in a chilly case, always use Hep. high, not below 200., and, after the aggravation ceases, treat curatively).
If I am allowed to say so, Psorinum is the grandest remedy…… of all to prevent quinsy and to cure the whole patient, either used in its own sphere or as an interpolation after Sul., Bar.c. and Calc.c. cases, the only proviso being that the patient should be chilly, too much hungry, with offensiveness of the discharges. Between Psorin. and Bar.c. the distinction lies in this that Psorin, is aggravated specially by dry cold and, like Hep., takes a process of suppuration unless timely prevented. Baryta is aggravated both by damp and dry cold; moreover, the process is slow and not towards suppuration. If in Psorin. cases Psorin. is unable to cope then you are to look to Tuberculinum which has no special quinsy symptoms of its own and you are not to use the remedy first hand. The tubercular history in the family will indicate Tuberculinum.
But nowadays even acute cases cannot easily be brought under control without interpolation of T.bov. There is a wide difference between Bar.c. and T.bov. and a comparison can only be thought of regarding their mood. Bar.c. wants to flee away due to its aversion to strangers, whereas T.bov. is averse to those that are familiar, so that Bar.c. does not want any new man or stranger, whereas T.bov. wants new men, new things, new places every moment; therefore he is called cosmopolitan. It is also necessary to compare Bar.c. with Calc.c. Both have mal-growth. But if you remember only two points it will be sufficient: Bar.c. produces an undergrowth, whereas Calc.c. manifests over-growth.
As regards its respiratory organs, asthma, especially of old people, and chronic cough demand special mention. Every catarrh brings breathing difficulties and a sense of paralytic weakness in the air passage when the patient cannot cough to raise the mucus though there presents much rattling nose of mucus in the chest. The cough aggravates at night, especially while lying down, and is ameliorated by lying on the abdomen. Paralysis of tongue, especially of old people. Other general and mental conditions must have to be present more or less along with the above symptoms.
Bar.c. patient is too much hungry, but the peculiarity is this that as soon as he reaches the dining-room the hungry feeling ceases suddenly when he drinks only some quantity of water, but if he eats as a matter of habit or by the request of anyone a sort of dull pain in the stomach would be the result. aggravation of the stomach symptoms after each meal is a noted fact in Bar.c. It is due to the fact that the glands in the digestive canal get enlarged and indurated and they cannot perform their functions properly. The abdomen is distended and painful to touch. It has aversion to fruits and sweets. “A peculiar symptom in the abdomen is the sensation as if the intestines fell to the side upon which the patient lies,” is most important.
A condition which is a product of the tubercular miasm, and technically called tabes mesenterica, is found to appear most frequently in a Bar.c. patient. Its stools are hard, dry and knotty; the haemorrhoids protrude every time the patient urinates or passes stool. The aged patient of this remedy must pass the urine several times during the night. Bar.c. has many other particular symptoms as regards male and female generative organs, heart, blood pressure, rheumatism, etc., but they are of less value; the mental conditions and constitution are the only guiding features.
The cold, foul, excoriating foot sweat of this remedy is most important. In many cases after the suppression of the foot sweat tonsillitis appears because the throat is the weakest centre in Bar.c. like Arg.nit., Lach. and Lac.c. At such a circumstance Baryta high will first restore the foot sweat and then cure the quinsy and foot sweat also will disappear. If moist crusts are found over the head of a dwarfish child do not forget to think about Bar.c.
Worse: from thinking of the complaints (opp. Camphor); while lying on the left and on the affected side; before a stranger; from cold bath, exposure to cold and damp air, and while swallowing solid things.
Better: When alone and from cold food; from warmth, covering and exertion; only during headache craves cold, open air.
CALCUTTA, INDIA.
