Metallic Gold has had a checkered medical history. It was esteemed by the Arabian physicians and the ancients. Later it was scorned, condemned and rejected because of its insolubility and its indestructibility. Hahnemann revealed its mighty power for good and evil by his methods of trituration, potentization and provings. at first Hahnemann used low triturations but later had his best results from the higher potencies. Today gold is being used by the allopaths in the treatment of arthritis, tuberculosis and carcinoma.
Most homoeopathic physicians could tell of patients, in these days of strain and tension, who were reduced to despair by business worries and anxiety and threatened suicide, yet were rapidly restored to life, to hope, to renewed efforts by a few doses of potentized gold. Potentized gold, when tested on normal healthy persons, has produced just such states of suicidal despair and hopelessness but, when given to patients with despair and suicidal tendencies, has proven a mighty power to strengthen the will and revive the natural affections-even to the deepest and most fundamental of all: the Love of Life. No remedy in the homoeopathic materia medica has this desire to take ones own life as strongly as Aurum, although many other remedies have this suicidal disposition to a certain extent. Natrum sulph probably ranks next in this mental symptom.
The patient is dejected and full of grief: seeks solitude. Imagines that he has lost the affection of friends. Dissatisfied with everything. Melancholy; imagines that he is not fit for this world: longs for death: the thoughts of death give him intense joy. Great anguish, increasing to self-destruction. Quarrelsome, peevish: cannot stand the least contradiction. Great anguish about the heart.
Hahnemann says, “I have cured several cases of melancholy, promptly and permanently, and they were those who went about with the serious intention of committing suicide”.
Kent says: “In Aurum all the affections, natural to healthy man, are perverted. So great in extent is this that one of the fundamental loves, which is the love of living,of self-protection is perverted, and he loathes life, is weary of life, longs to die and seeks methods to commit suicide. Absolute loss of enjoyment in everything, self-condemnation, continual self-reproach, self- criticism, a constant looking into self; she does nothing right, everything is wrong, is wholly evil, has sinned away his day of grace, is not worthy of salvation-this is the train of thought that runs constantly through his mind. Broods. Is wholly unfit for this world, and then he longs to die.
Gold has an important place in the treatment of heart affections of the gravest kinds. It is frequently indicated in coronary disease. Dr.Margaret Tyler says it comes next to Arnica to her in these cases.
Burnett used gold for the non-thriving, pining, condition of boys-low-spirited, lifeless, poor memories; lacking in boyish “go”.
Aurum is a good remedy for over-dosing with mercury.
Aurum is one of our best remedies for bone pains.
Aurum produces such affections of the liver as are associated with cardiac affections, endocarditis, and rheumatic conditions of the heart.
The remedy is full of rheumatic affections-with swelling of joints; affections of cartilages and bones, inflammations of periosteum, thickening and induration of periosteum. As in syphilis and with Mercury, the complaints are aggravated at night. Aurum is often useful in old syphilitic cases.
Aurum affects and cures diseases of bones, especially those of the nose and skull. Aurum has much nasal discharge with foul odor. Necrosis of the nasal bones.
Nodes and bone pains, caries and necrosis with great depression of mind.
Abuse of mercury, in syphilis, in massive doses.
Nash says: “In men, I have observed Aurum oftenest indicated in connection with liver troubles. In women, with uterine troubles, especially when enlarged, indurated or prolapsed”.
Nash also says: “Aurum is one of the few remedies that has hemiopia or half sight and has cured it.” Lycopodium and Lithium carbonicum also have half sight but Aurum sees only the lower, while the other two see only the left half of objects.
Aurum has a great desire for open air.
I am reminded of a case that I had while I was practicing in Northern Iowa in the early years of the first world war before the United States entered the conflict. A man of about 60 to 65 years was brought to me, who had been acting queerly for sometime. Finally one morning, about a year previously, he had fractured his own skull with a hammer. A decompression was done and he was better for a few months. Then he began to act queerly again.
He was taken to the hospital at Iowa City where the psychiatrists said that the only thing that could be done for him was to commit him to the State Hospital at Independence. His family knew of a nervous and mental case from this locality that I had cleared up, and asked me to take his case. He felt that he was to blame for the war. If a child cried, it was all his fault.
Very depressed and entirely irrational. He was given Arum metallicum 10M. I kept him in a local hospital and in my home for a month and then sent him back to his home much improved. He soon went back to work on his farm, lived normally for a number of years and died from other causes. In this case, Aurum saved his spending his last days in a mental institution.
Another case that we had recently: Mrs.M-aged 53 years, diagnosed as “Menopausal Melancholia,” first came to us March 22, 1949 with the following history:
Despondent at times for the last 8 or 9 years. During the war she tried to commit suicide by slashing her wrists. She was placed in Patton Asylum for 3 months and given shock treatment with apparent recovery. However, she had a relapse in 1948 and again just before she came to us. She talked of killing her son.
At the time she came to us she would go to bed days at a time. She was argumentative and irritable. No interest in anything. Menses scanty and come every three months.
She has been on Aurum met. in increasing potencies since March 1949. Since the middle of June 1949. She has had none of her mental symptoms. Her family says she is the best she has been since before the war.
GLENDALE, CALIF.
Secretary-Trasurer, I.H.A.
Business Manager, The Homoeopathic Recorder.
Author of The Home Prescriber Domestic Guide.
Dr. A. Dwight Smith was born in Monticello, Iowa, in 1885. He graduated with an M.D. degree from Hahnemann Medical College in Chicago in 1912, and in 1921 moved to Glendale, California. After spending a period in the Army Medical Corps he did a residency at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia specializing in pediatrics. During his many years of practice he was president for one year and secretary-treasurer for thirteen years of the International Hahnemannian Association. He also served as editor of the Homeopathic Recorder, for thirteen years. Dr. Smith also held the position of editor of the Pacific Coast Homeopathic Bulletin for over forty years.