“Hard chill about 11 A.M., with great thirst, which continues through all stages, the heat is characterized by the most violent headache, relieved by perspiration.” – Raue.
Difference between Arsenicum and Natrum mur
Arsenicum
Advancing type. Worse afternoon and night. Headache beginning with fever, and continuing long after sweat. Vomiting of bile with the chill, of water after drinking, in every stage. Thirst, drinks little and often during chill and heat, large quantities during perspiration. Hungry. Had been at seashore or summer watering-resorts during hot weather(Gelsemium) Lips pale, dry and cracked.
Natrum mur.
Receding type. Worse forenoon and daytime. Headache begins in chill, increased in fever, partially relieved by profuse sweat. Vomiting of bile between chill and fever (Eup., Lycopodium), or during heat. Thirst in all stage, drinks large quantities and often, which refresh him. Loss of appetite. Had been near freshly plowed or newly turned grounds, swamps, canals, or standing water. Lips covered with hydroa, like string of pearls. “It is taught by every writer, that the chill must come on about 11 A.M., for Natrum muriaticum to be curative. This is all bosh and nonsense. I have cured many, many cases of chronic and acute Intermittents where the chill has come on late in the afternoon. If the rest of the symptoms indicated this remedy, it makes no difference when the chill commences. And let me say here, that Natrum will cure more cases of intermittent fever, both acute and chronic, especially the latter, than any known remedy. With the thirtieth potency, I have cured several hundred cases with this drug alone. It is the best friend a physician has in a malarious district.” – Burt.
While it is true that time is but one element in a case, for one symptom, however prominent, never overrides the totality, and that we must always obtain the totality or majority of symptoms, it is also true that the morning paroxysm predominates, especially at 11 A.M.
“During my travels in Hungary, in the malarious plains of the Theiss and Maros, as well as during a prolonged residence among the Guarosi Indians, of South America, I used a cheap remedy which radically cures every case of ague in twenty – four hours by taking one or, at the utmost, two doses of it. I order a good handful of fine, clean kitchen salt to be thoroughly roasted – if possible, in a new pan, or at least, in one thoroughly cleansed – over a slow fire, till it takes on a brown color, similar to that of lightly roasted coffee. From this roasted salt, a grown up man takes a full tablespoonful, rather more than less, dissolved in a glass of hot water, at once, on the morning following the paroxysm, on an empty stomach, and in quotidian fevers a few hours after the paroxysm is over. As the remedy is only sure of its action on an empty stomach, neither food nor drink must be taken. Though great thirst follow, the patient must only sip a little water through straws, and, when the patient becomes hungry, forty – eight hours after taking the salt, he might take a little chicken broth, or a little beef tea. Strict diet and great care not to catch cold are of the utmost importance. I have used this remedy for the last eighteen years, and it has never failed in a single case when rightly applied. Hundreds of cases in Hungary were cured by it, and, during my voyage to Buenos Ayers, the mate of the steamer Ibis was cured by a single dose in twenty _four hours from an ague which had troubled him periodically for years, and the cure remained permanent. In the tropics of America every European immigrant, as soon as he goes inland, is attacked by intermittent fever, which, if neglected, is too frequently fatal. Thus, four hundred English people succumbed to it in the most paludal forests of Stape, in spite of the immense doses of Quinine and brandy taken, whereas the equally suffering German colony in the adjacent department of Haqua and Paraguay took their roasted salt, and no death occurred among them.” – Dr. Brooke, in N.A.J., 1878.
There is, probably, no remedy in our Materia Medica (Arsenic alone excepted) so often indicated in severe cases – acute or chronic, even those maltreated by Arsenic and Quinine – as Natrum muriaticum. It will cure promptly when indicated, and much quicker and more permanently in the attenuations above then below the thirtieth. Like Lycopodium, Calcarea, Sepia, Sul., and some of the metals, it is comparatively inert in the crude form. Hydroa on the lips is a guiding symptom, although Ignatia, Nux and Rhus all have it. If hydroa be present in first onset of the fever, although after frequent suppression by Quinine it may not be present in old cases, Natrum muriaticum should be thought of. In nursing children, hydroa on the lips, and later the ulcers which succeed them with forenoon attack, are guiding.
Analysis: The patient dreads the chill.
Chill, 10 – 11 A.M., with thirst, long, severe, beginning in fingers, feet, toes, small of back, with blue lips and nails, headache, often unconscious, nausea and vomiting, bone pains.
Heat, more thirst, long, severe, headache, with stupefaction and unconsciousness.
Sweat, with thirst, profuse, sour, gradually ameliorated all pains except headache, thirst, drinking refreshes
Hydroa on the lips.
Pulsations shake the body.
