Argentum nitricum

Old, dried up, tremulous and weak. Progressive emaciation. Paralysis, ascending. Parts seem ENLARGED or bound up (Glo.). VIOLENT PAINS; LIKE DEEPLY STICKING SPLINTERS; sharp shooting, like lightning; < down back or legs; cause starting; grinding or radiating. Sinking downward from head. Ulceration, with much yellow, bloody pus (Hep.). .................... Conjoined mental and digestive symptoms. Tormented by strange ideas or emotions. Nervous, impulsive and hurried, yet timid and anxious (Ars.). Fearsome. Dreads ordeals, impending evil, passing a certain point, dark (Stram.), etc. Incoherence. Faltering speech, gait, erections, etc. Nervous headache and nervous diarrhœa. Brain-fag. Head as if in a vise; > tight bandage. Vertigo; epileptic, < night. Compressive or deep head pains; loses his senses (Laur.). Boring in l. frontal eminence, 11-12 A.M. Migraine. Scaly tarsi. Eyeballs feel big (Guai.). Swelled carunculæ; chemosis. Photophobia. Violent purulent ophthalmia. Dilated pupils. Sickly, grayish, muddy color. Painful, red tip of tongue, or (dry) aphthæ on edge. Food lodges in pharynx. Throat sensitive; as of a rough stick (Phyt.) or splinter in, > cool drinks. Dark red fauces and uvula. Craves sugar, which <. Astringent sour or bitter-sour taste and vomitus. Alcoholic gastritis. Gastralgia; in a spot. Eructates ingesta. FLATULENCE; bursting (Lyc.); loud explosive belching (Coca.), discharged upward and downward; noisy diarrhœa. Emotional diarrhœa. Shreddy, mucus stools, turning green; < drinking. Violent pains from kidneys to bladder. Cutting in urethra, with painful priapism. Yellow, bloody gonorrhœa. Painful coition. Cough from laughing. Dyspnœa, nervous or flatulent; < gastric pains. Palpitation, < lying on r. side. Craves fresh air. Laryngitis. Throbbing or weak spine. Trembling limbs. Peripheral neuralgias. Ischias antica. Weakness, rigidity or twisting in calves. Ulcers, angry, deep; hard edges; warty granulations. Adherent crusts. Chill if uncovered, yet smothers when wrapped up. Shivers through bowels; up back.

EMOTIONS: ANXIETY. Suspense. In room. Sugar. Shut in places. Lying on R side. Looking down. Drinking. Crowds.

COOL: AIR; open. Bath. Hard pressure. Motion.

MIND. NERVES: Cerebro-spinal. ABDOMINAL. MUCOUS MEMBRANE: STOMACH. Bowels. Eyes. Throat. Urethra. Periosteum. Skin. Left side.

Complementary: Nat-m. Antidotes: Cina. Nat-m. Related: Lyc. Pul.

Argentum nitricum

The Silver Nitrate. TlgO, NO^.

Acute or chronic diseases from unusual or long-continued mental exertion.

Always think of Argentum nit. on seeing withered, dried-up, old-looking patients (thin, scrawny. Sec.).

Emaciation, progressing every year; most marked in lower extremities (Am. m.) ; marasmus.

Apprehension when ready for church or opera, diarrhoea sets in (Gels.).

Time passes slowly (Can. I.) ; impulsive, wants to do things in a hurry; must walk fast; is always hurried; anxious, irritable, nervous (Aur., Lib).

Headache : congestive, with fulness and heaviness ; with sense of expansion; habitual gastric of literary men; from dancing; hemicrania, pressive, screwing in frontal eminence or temple; ending in bilious vomiting; < from any exhaustive mental labor; > hy pressure or tight bandaging (Apis, Puls.).

Acute granular conjunctivitis; scarlet-red, like raw beef; discharge profuse, muco-purulent.

Ophthalmia neonatorum : profuse, purulent discharge ; cornea opaque, ulcerated ; lids sore, thick, swollen; agglutinated in morning (Apis, Mer. s., Rhus ) .

Eye strain from sewing, < in warm room > in open air (Nat. m., Ruta) ; diseases due to defective accommodation.

Craves sugar; child is fond of it, but diarrhoea results from eating (craves salt or smoked meat, Cal. p.).

Belching accompanies most gastric ailments.

Flatulent dyspepsia : belching after every meal ; stomach, as if it would burst with wind; belching difficult, finally air rushes out with great violence.

Diarrhoea : green mucus, like chopped spinach in flakes; turning green after remaining on diaper; after drinking; after eating candy or sugar; masses of muco-lymph in shreddy strips or lumps (Asar.) ; with much noisy flatus (Aloe).

Diarrhoea as soon as he drinks (Ars., Crot. t., Throm.).

Urine passes unconsciously day and night (Caust.).

Impotence : erection fails when coition is attempted (Agnus, Calad., Selen.).

Coition : painful in both sexes ; followed by bleeding from the vagina (Nit. ac.).

Metrorrhagia : in young widows ; in sterility ; with nervous erethism at change of life (Lach.).

Great longing for fresh air (Amyl., Puls., Sulph.).

Chronic laryngitis of singers ; the high notes cause cough (Alum., Arg. m., Arum).

Great weakness of lower extremities, with trembling; cannot walk with the eyes closed (Alum.).

Walks and stands unsteadily, especially when he thinks himself unobserved.

Convulsions preceded by great restlessness.

Sensation of a splinter in throat when swallowing (Dolich., Hep., Nit. ac., Sil.) ; in or about uterus when walking or riding.

Chilly when uncovered, yet feels smothered if zurapped up; craves fresh air.

Prevents excessive granulation in ulcers.

Relation. — Natrum mur. for the bad effect of cauterizing with nitrate of silver.

Coffea increases nervous headache.

Boys’ complaints after using tobacco (Ars., Ver.).

Similar: to, Nat. m.. Nit. ac., Lach., Aur., Cup.

After Ver. ; Lyc. follows well in flatulent dyspepsia.

ice cream ; unusual mental exertion.

Amelioration. — Open air; craves the wind blowing in his face ; bathing with cold water.

The 200 or loooth potency in watery solution as a topical application in ophthalmia neonatorum has relieved when the crude Silver nitrate failed.

Lecture LVIII — The Preparations of Silver — Argentum nitricum and Argentum metallicum

Argentum Nitricum.

( Arsenicum, Nitric acid.

Argentum nitr. < Plumbum, Cuprum.

( Zinc. >Natrum mur.

Argentum nitricum, or the Nitrate of Silver, in its action on the brain and spine furnishes us with a list of symptoms that lead to the use of the remedy in many forms of nervous diseases, from simple nervous debility to full-fledged locomotor ataxia, or paralysis. Among the anomalous sensations which it causes are the following, which are characteristic of the drug: a very common general symptom which may be present in the headache, ovarian affections and in many other diseases, is this, a feeling as if the body or some part of the body were expanding. In the case of headache, the patient has a sensation, as if the head were enormously large. Sometimes, with the ovarian pains, the patient says that she feels as if there were an immense swelling in the side affected; and yet an examination shows no enlargement of the painful organ. We find this symptom under several other drugs, but very prominently under Argentum nitricum, however. Again, vertigo is almost always present when it is the remedy. This vertigo is associated with general debility and trembling from nervous weakness. The patient staggers and reels as if he were intoxicated. The vertigo is so severe at times that he becomes momentarily blind in association with mental confusion, buzzing in the ears, nausea and trembling. The patient suffers from mental anxiety. He is very impulsive. He must be always busy and yet he accomplishes nothing. He is subject to frequent errors of perception. He hurries restlessly about to fulfill an engagement, thinking that he will be too late, when, in reality, he has an hour or so more than is necessary. In some cases, there is profound melancholy. He imagines if left alone he will die; full of apprehension that he has some incurable disease of the brain. He constantly makes mistakes as to his estimation of distances. For instance, when walking the street, he dreads to pass a street corner, because the corner of the house seems to project and he is afraid that he will run against it. All these errors are traceable to imperfect coordination of muscles. This last is no imaginary symptom; it has been met with a number of times and it has been cured by Argentum nitriciim.

This defective coordination of muscles is a prominent symptom in the disease known as locomotor ataxia, for the treatment of which allopaths have long employed Argentum nitricum as a most valuable remedy. We also may use it when the following symptoms are present: the patient staggers in the dark or when his eyes are closed. The legs are weak and the calves feel bruised as after a long journey. There is a feeling of soreness in the lumbo-sacral region; also pain in the small of the back, very severe when rising from a sitting posture, but rather relieved by walking. Zincum is also better from walking and worse from sitting. The difference between the two remedies is that Argentum nitricum has pain when rising. Sometimes there is pain in the sacro-iliac symphyses, a feeling as if the bones were loose there. Here it is similar to sEsculus hippocastanum . Another symptom which I would like to specialize is trembling of the hands, which causes the patient to drop things. He is very nervous at night. When he does sleep, he has all sorts of horrible dreams. These nervous symptoms are especially worse at eleven a. m. So you see that Sulphur is not the only remedy that has this eleven A. m. aggravation. You will at once see the resemblance between Argentum nitricum and Kali bromatum and Nalrum mur. That trembling weakness, with palpitation, is the exact counterpart of the Natrum mur. condition. This fearful and apprehensive mood, this imagining that he cannot pass a certain point, reminds you of Kali bromatum.

But there are less severe symptoms that will call for Argentum nitricum, and one of them is what we may call functional paralysis, such as follows exhausting diseases, post-diphtheritic paralysis, for example. Gelsemium is here a concordant remedy of Argentum nitricum. Other nervous affections, for which we may use Argentum nitricum, are the following: it is one of the best remedies we have for hemicrania. This is not a simple neuralgia. It is a deep-seated neurotic disease, and by some is supposed to be of epileptic nature. It comes periodically; for its relief the remedy under consideration is one of the best. There is frequently boring pain in the head, which is worse in the left frontal eminence. This boring is relieved by tight bandaging of the head, hence the wearing of a tight-fitting silk hat relieves. It is excited by any mental emotion of an unpleasant kind, or by anything that depreciates the nervous system, as loss of fluids, loss of sleep or mental strain. Sometimes the pains become so severe that the patient loses his consciousness. The paroxysms frequently culminate in vomiting of bile or solid fluid.

There is another form of headache which is mostly neuralgic, and for which Argentum nitricum is the remedy. The bones of the head feel as if they were separating, or the head feels as if it were enormously large. The pains about the head increase to such a degree that the patient almost loses her senses. These attacks end in vomiting, probably to recur once more within a few minutes or an hour. We also find Argentum nitricum indicated in prosopalgia, particularly when the infraorbital branches of the fifth pair and the nerves going to the teeth are affected. The pain is very intense and at its height is accompanied by unpleasant sour taste in the mouth. The pains are of the same character as those already described for the hemicrania. I do not believe that this sour taste in the mouth is of gastric origin, but I think that it is due to some abnormality or disturbance in the gustatory nerves. The face, in almost all these cases, is pale and sunken, rather sallow than pure pale, and in extreme cases, when the blood is very much affected, the surface of the body is of a dark, muddy, leaden hue.

We also find Argentum nitricu?n indicated in that troublesome disease, gastralgia, a neurosis of the stomach. It is especially indicated in delicate nervous women. The gastralgia is excited by any emotion, by loss of sleep, and frequently at the catamenial period. There is a feeling in the stomach as though there was a lump there. This is sometimes accompanied by gnawing ulcerative pain referred to the pit of the stomach. From this spot, pains radiate in every direction. These pains seem to increase and decrease gradually, just as under Stannum. With this there is apt to be intense spasm of the muscles of the chest. The patient cannot bear to have a handkerchief approach the mouth, as it would cause dyspnoea. The patient cannot bear the least food because it makes this pain worse. Sometimes the pain is relieved by bending double and pressing the hand firmly into the stomach. The paroxysms end with vomiting of glairy mucus which can be drawn into strings, or what is more common, they are accompanied with enormous accumulation of wind. The patient for a long time cannot belch, but when he does succeed in so doing, the flatus comes in an enormous volume. This is often accompanied with general tremor, and a nervous feeling, or by a sensation as if the head was being squeezed in a vise.

The nearest ally to Argentum nitricum here, is Bismuth, which is indicated in pure nervous gastralgia. The main distinction between it and Argentum nitricum is in the vomiting. Just as soon as food touches the stomach it is ejected.

Another nervous disease in which Argentum nitricum is indicated is epilepsy. The strong indicating symptom for Silver nitrate is this: for days or hours before an attack the pupils are dilated. After the attack, the patient is very restless and has trembling of the hands. It is especially indicated in epilepsy caused by fright or in that which comes on during menstruation.

It may also be used for puerperal convulsions, when between the attacks, the patient is very restless, and tossing about, now on one side and now on the other.

Nitrate of Silver is also indicated in angina pectoris. The patient complains of intense pain in the chest and about the heart. He can hardly breathe.

We also find it indicated in pure nervous asthma. There are present spasms of the respiratory muscles. Marked with dyspnoea, worse in a crowded room.

Leaving now the action of Argentum nitricum on the nervous system, we come to its use in inflammations and ulcerations. First of all, under this head, we will consider it in diseases of the eye. Nitrate of Silver cures purulent ophthalmia, and by this term I mean any inflammation of the lids or eyes which develops ulceration or pus. This pus is thick, yellowish and bland. It is useful in ophthalmia neonatorum when the pus is of the character just mentioned and is profuse. Especially is it called for after the failure of Pulsatilla or one of the mercuries.

You may also use it for the purulent ophthalmia of adults with pus of this character. Like Pulsatilla, the symptoms are relieved in the open air and become intolerable in the warm room.

In purulent ophthalmia, Pulsatilla stands very closely allied to Argentum nitricum. You will notice that both have profuse, thick, bland, purulent discharge, and both have relief from the cool open air. It has been determined clinically that when Argentum nitricum ceases to act, a dose of Pulsatilla interpolated, helps.

You may also use Argentum nitricum in blepharitis when there are thick crusts on the lids, suppuration and induration of tissues. Even the cornea has become affected by the continued inflammation. The heat of the fire makes the patient a great deal worse. This symptom you also find under Mercurius.

Granular conjunctivitis also calls for Argentum nitricum. The conjunctiva is almost scarlet, and there is profuse muco-purulent discharge.

Rhus tox. is very similar to Argentum nitricum, but it has more spasmodic symptoms. There is spasmodic closure of the eyelids, and when you force them open, hot, scalding tears gush forth, and these cause pimples around the inflamed eyes.

Euphrasia is similar in granular lids; it differs from Argentum nitricum in this: the purulent discharge is excoriating, and there is, in addition, excoriating lachrymation.

Kreosote may be used in inflammation of the eyelids, whether in the infant or the adult. There is a discharge of hot, scalding tears from the eyes, occurring early in the morning.

Argentum nitricum may be useful in asthenopia from want of accommodation. Even the coarsest kind of work strains the eyes. Coming now to the mucous membrane of the mouth and throat, we find Argentum nitricum producing a dark red appearance of the fauces. Thick mucus collects in the throat and the patient complains of a sensation as of a splinter there. With all this, there may be ulceration. The cause may be mercury, syphilis or scrofula. The papillae of the tongue are elevated. The gums are tender and bleed readily, but are very seldom swollen, thus giving you a distinction between it and Mercurius. There is often the sensation as of a splinter in the throat like Nitric acid, Alumina, etc.

The larynx suffers from the action of Argeyitum nitricum. There is muco-purulent sputum, seeming to come from the posterior wall of the larynx. There is also marked hoarseness and sometimes even loss of voice. Singers frequently complain of a feeling as if there were something clogging the vocal organs.

Manganum is similar to Nitrate of Silver, causing laryngeal symptoms, particularly in anaemic or tubercular patients. The hoarseness is usually worse in the morning and grows better as they succeed in hawking up lumps of mucus. The Manganum patient has cough from loud reading, with painful dryness and roughness of the larynx. The cough is usually relieved by lying down.

Selenium is also similar to Argentum nitricum.

Paris quadrifolia is a neglected drug in laryngeal affections. We find it indicated when expectoration is noticed mostly in the morning and when it is green and tenacious.

Nitrate of Silver may be used in ulceration of the cervix of the uterus when it is enlarged and indurated, with copious yellow, corroding leucorrhcea and frequent bleeding from the points of ulceration. Next, I would refer you to the action of Argentum nitricum on the kidneys, because little attention is paid to this action of the drug. I think that it was Dr. Preston, of Norristown, who used the drug mostly in such cases. He gave it very frequently in nephralgia from congestion of the kidneys or from passage of calculi. The face is of a rather dark hue and has a dried-up look; there is dull aching across the small of the back and also over the region of the bladder. The urine burns while passing and the urethra feels as if swollen. There is sudden urging to urinate. The urine is dark and contains blood, or else a deposit of renal epithelium and uric acid. It is especially useful when Ca?itkaris, which it resembles, fails.

Nitric acid is to be thought of for urinary calculi when the urine contains oxalic acid and when that substance is the principal ingredient of the stone.

Lastly, I have to speak of the action of Argentum nitricum on the bowels. Here it is very similar to Arsenic. The stools are green and shreddy and consist of blood, slime and epithelium. This is often associated with the discharge of a great deal of flatus and is often provoked by the use of sugar. Especially is it indicated when diarrhoea follows any excitement, such as fright, the anticipation of some ordeal, or when the imagination has been played upon. The bowels are apt to move as soon as the least food or drink is taken.

In cholera infantum it is indicated in children who are thin, dried-up looking, almost like mummies. The legs are apparently nothing but skin and bones. The stools are green and slimy, with noisy flatus, and are worse at night.

Natrum mur. is the proper remedy to antidote the abuse of Argentum nitricum, or the after effects of cauterizing by the crude drug.

Thinks his understanding will and must fail. Fearful and nervous; impulse to jump out of window. Faintish and tremulous. Melancholic; apprehensive of serious disease. Time passes slowly (Cann ind). Memory weak. Errors of perception. Impulsive; wants to do things in a hurry (Lilium). Peculiar mental impulses. Fears and anxieties and hidden irrational motives for actions.

Nitrate of Silver In this drug the neurotic effects are very marked, many brain and spinal symptoms presenting; themselves which give certain indications for its homeopathic employment. Symptoms of inco-ordination, loss of control and want of balance everywhere, mentally and physically; trembling in affected parts. Is an irritant of mucous membranes, producing violent inflammation of the throat, and a marked gastro-enteritis. Very characteristic is the great desire for sweets, the splinter-like pains, and free muco-purulent discharge in the inflamed and ulcerated mucous membranes. Sensation as if a part were expanding and other errors of perception are characteristic. Withered up and dried constitutions present a favorable field for its action, especially when associated with unusual or long continued mental exertion. Head symptoms often determine the choice of this remedy. Pains increase and decrease gradually. Flatulent state and prematurely aged look. Explosive belching especially in neurotics. Upper abdominal affections brought on by undue mental exertion. Paraplegia Myelitis and disseminated sclerosis of brain and cord. Intolerance of heat. Sensation of a sudden pinch (Dudgeon). Destroys red blood corpuscles, producing anæmia.

Worse, warmth in any form; at night; from cold food; sweets; after eating; at menstrual period; from emotions, left side. Better, from eructation; fresh air; cold; pressure.

Headache with coldness and trembling. Emotional disturbances cause appearance of hemi-cranial attacks. Sense of expansion. Brain-fag, with general debility and trembling. Headache from mental exertion, from dancing. Vertigo, with buzzing in ears and with nervous affections. Aching in frontal eminence, with enlarged feeling in corresponding eye. Boring pain; better on tight

bandaging and pressure. Itching of scalp. Hemi-crania; bones of head feel as if separated.

Sunken, old, pale, and bluish. Old man's look; tight drawing of skin over bones.

Inner canthi swollen and red. Spots before the vision. Blurred vision. Photophobia in warm room. Purulent ophthalmia. Great swelling of conjunctiva; discharge abundant and purulent. Chronic ulceration of margin of lids; sore, thick, swollen. Unable to keep eyes fixed steadily. Eye-strain from sewing; worse in warm room. Aching, tired feeling in eyes, better closing or pressing upon them. Useful in restoring power to the weakened ciliary muscles. Paretic condition of ciliary muscle. Acute granular conjunctivitis. Cornea opaque. Ulcer in cornea.

Loss of smell. Itching. Ulcers in septum. Coryza, with chilliness, lachrymation, and headache.

Gums tender and bleed easily. Tongue has prominent papillæ; tip is red and painful. Pain in sound teeth. Taste coppery, like ink. Canker sores.

Much thick mucus in throat and mouth causes hawking. Raw, rough and sore. Sensation of a splinter in throat on swallowing. Dark redness of throat. Catarrh of smokers, with tickling as of hair in throat. Strangulated feeling.

Belching accompanies most gastric ailments. Nausea, retching, vomiting of glairy mucus. Flatulence; painful swelling of pit. Painful spot over stomach that radiates to all parts of the abdomen. Gnawing ulcerating pain; burning and constriction. Ineffectual effort at eructation. Great craving for sweets. Gastritis of drunkards. Ulcerative pain in left side under ribs. Trembling and throbbing in stomach. Enormous distention. Ulceration of stomach, with radiating pain. Desire for cheese and salt.

Colic, with much flatulent distention. Stitchy ulcerative pain on left side of stomach, below short ribs.

Watery, noisy, flatulent; green, like chopped spinach, with shreddy mucus and enormous distention of abdomen; very offensive. Diarrhœa immediately after eating or drinking. Fluids go right through him; after sweets. After any emotion with flatulence. Itching of anus.

Urine passes unconsciously, day and night. Urethra inflamed, with pain, burning, itching; pain as from a splinter. Urine scanty and dark. Emission of a few drops after having finished. Divided stream. Early stage of gonorrhœa; profuse discharge and terrible cutting pains; bloody urine.

Impotence. Erection fails when coition is attempted. Cancer-like ulcers. Desire wanting. Genitals shrivel. Coition painful.

Gastralgia at beginning of menses. Intense spasm of chest muscles. Organs at night. Nervous erethism at change of life. Leucorrhœa profuse, with

erosion of cervix bleeding easily. Uterine hæmorrhage, two weeks after menses; Painful affections of left ovary.

High notes cause cough. Chronic hoarseness. Suffocative cough, as if from a hair in throat. Dyspnœa. Chest feels as if a bar were around it. Palpitation, pulse irregular and intermittent; worse lying on right side; (Alumen). Painful spots in chest. Angina pectoris, nightly aggravation. Many people in a room seem to take away his breath.

Much pain. Spine sensitive with nocturnal pains, (Oxal acid) paraplegia; posterior spinal sclerosis.

Cannot walk with eyes closed. Trembling, with general debility. Paralysis, with mental and abdominal symptoms. Rigidity of calves. Debility in calves especially. Walks and stands unsteadily, especially when unobserved. Numbness of arms. Post-diphtheritic paralysis (after Gelsem).

Brown, tense, and hard. Drawing in skin, as from a spider-web, or dried albuminous substance, withered and dried up. Irregular blotches.

Sleepless, from fancies before his imagination; horrible dreams of snakes, and of sexual gratification. Drowsy stupor.

Chills with nausea. Chilly when uncovered, yet feels smothered if wrapped up.

Antidote: Nat mur. Compare: Ars; Merc; Phos; Pulsat. Argent cyanatum (angina pectoris, asthma, spasm of œsophagus) Argent iodat (throat disorders, hoarseness, gland affected). Protargol (gonorrhœa after acute stage 2 per cent solution; syphilitic mucous patches, chancres and chancroids, 10 per cent solution applied twice a day; ophthalmia neonatorum, 2 drops of 10 per cent solution). Argent phosph (An excellent diuretic in dropsy). Argent oxyd (Chlorosis with menorrhagia and diarrhœa).

Third to thirtieth potency. Best form an aqueous solution 1 to 9, 2 or 3 drops doses. This solution in water preferable to lower triturations; unless fresh, these readily decompose into the oxide.

Argentum Nitricum

Mind: We shall find by examining the symptoms of this remedy that the intellectual feature predominates, as in the metal; that the affections are disturbed only in a limited way. There is a predominance of mental symptoms. First of all, disturbance in the memory, disturbance of reason, he becomes most irrational in his explanations of his actions. He is irrational and does strange things and comes to strange conclusions; foolish things. He has all sorts of imaginations, illusions, hallucinations. He is tormented in his mind by the inflowing of troublesome thoughts, and especially at night his thoughts torment him. to the extent that he is extremely anxious and this puts him in a hurry and in a fidget and he goes out and walks and walks, and the faster he walks the faster he thinks he must walk, and he walks till fatigued.

Strange notions and ideas and fears come into his mind. He has an impulse that lie is going to have a fit or that he is going to have a sickness. A strange thought comes into his mind that if be goes past a certain corner of the street he will create a sensation, will fall down and have a fit, and to avoid that he will go around the block. He avoids going past that corner for fear he will do something strange, He is so reduced in his mental state that he admits into the mind all sorts of impulses.

There is inflowing of strange thoughts into his mind, and when crossing a bridge or high place the thought that he might kill himself, or perhaps he might jump off, or what if he should jump off, and sometimes the actual impulse comes to jump off the bridge into the water.

When looking out of a window the thought comes to his mind what an awful thing it would be to jump out of the window, and sometimes the impulse comes to actually jump out of the window.

There is fear of death, the over-anxious state, that death is near, and often at times like Aconite he predicts the moment he is going to die.

Looking forward to times he is anxious. When looking forward to some thing that he is about to do, or in the expectation of things, he is anxious. When about to meet an engagement he is anxious until the time comes.

If he is about to take a railroad journey he is anxious, full of fear and anxiety and tremulous nervousness until he is on the car going and then it passes away. If he is about to meet a certain person on the street corner he is anxious and breaks out often in a sweat from anxiety until it is over with.

Not only is this particular symptom present, but the symptoms come on as a result of his anxiety. He is excitable, angers easily, and as a result of this pain comes. When he becomes angry he becomes vehement and pain in the head comes on; cough, pain in the chest and weakness follow this anger The anxiety he has from these circumstances will bring on complaints.

When he is going anywhere, going to a wedding or to the opera, or any unusual event it is attended with anxiety, fear and diarrhea. So it is we have in this a wonderful medicine. It says in the text that he gave all sorts of queer reasons for his strange conduct, endeavoring to cover up, as it were, his foolishness which he himself realizes.

Sadness, melancholy and confusion. Defective memory. The sight of high houses makes him dizzy, and his vertigo is increased or comes on from closing the eyes; with the vertigo there is buzzing in the ears, great weakness and trembling.

Constitutional headaches from brain fag, from exertion of the mind. In such mental exhaustion, headaches, nervous excitement and trembling, and organic troubles of the heart and liver in business men, in students, in brain workers, in those subject to long excitement; - in actors who have kept up a long time the excitement of appearing well in public.

This state of mind progress until there is a general state of weakness; with trembling, paralysis, numbness, disturbed functions, palpitation, throbbing all over the body, with the mental state.

The nervous state continues until there is disorder of all the organs of the body. The stomach refuses to digest, everything taken, seems to go into gas, and he becomes distended and suffers with pain.

The circulation seems to be greatly disturbed in addition to the palpitation. Fullness of the blood vessels and throbbing all over the body. The blood vessels become diseased.

Atheromatous degeneration and dilatation of the veins, varicose veins.

Upon the mucous membranes and skin ulceration, and this progresses and the heart becomes increasingly feeble, and the extremities become cold and blue and the lips are cold and blue, with aggravation of all these complaints from mental excitement, from going to the opera, from meeting a friend, from keeping an engagement.

The medicine is preeminently a nervous one, full of spinal symptoms, rending, tearing pains down the extremities; such pains are found in locomotor ataxia fulgurating shooting pains. There is one grand feature running through this patient modifying most of his symptoms, with few exceptions, and that is that he is like a Pulsatilla patient; he wants cold air, cold drinks, cold things; wants ice, ice cream; wants the head in the cold air; suffocates in a warm room. He suffocates from warm clothing, wants the door and windows open; cannot breathe in a stuffy room, suffocates if other people are in the room; cannot go to church or to the opera, cannot go to places of amusement or gatherings, must stay at home.

He dreads a crowd, dreads certain places.

Ulcerations: Everywhere we find ulceration, but particularly upon the mucous membrane. The throat has ulcers in it, the eyelids, and of the cornea; ulceration of the bladder.

Ulcers of the uterus, of the vagina and of the external soft parts. This tendency of ulcerate seems rather strange, peculiar that it should have in its pathogenesis such a tendency, when the old school has been using it to cauterize ulcers, and yet it heals them up.

We know that Phosphorus will burn and it intensifies the tendency to ulcerate, makes the ulcer go deeper, while Argentum nitricum sets it healing.

Upon mucous membranes we find red elevations, granulations, enlargement of vessels, purplish aspect. Sensitive ulcers.

Female: The complaints in women come on before and during the menstrual period. It is a favorable time for all her complaints to be aggravated; if she have Argentum nitricum symptoms they are likely to be at their worst at this time.

She suffers from most violent dysmenorrhoea, from nervous excitement, from hysterical manifestations, and an unusually increased flow. A tendency to hemorrhages it belongs to this remedy.

The ulcers bleed; there is bleeding from the nose, bleeding from the chest, the urine is bloody; leucorrhoea copious, menstrual flow copious; menorrhagia; bleeding from the mucous membranes generally, from the uterus. Vomiting of blood. It has cured prolonged and most inveterate ulceration of the stomach, when there has been vomiting of blood.

The aggravation at the menstrual period is a strong feature and she is free from symptoms during the interim.

The palpitation, the trembling, the coldness of the surface, though desiring cold open air, blueness of the lips, coldness of the extremities, blueness and coldness of the lower extremities to the knees and of the hands and arms to the elbows, and yet the patient wants cool things, wants something cold.

This may not be seen at any other time. Here is striking feature:

"Patient cannot lie on the right -side because it brings on so much palpitations."

We have plenty of remedies with palpitation worse lying on the right side are rare (Alumen, Badiaga, Kalmia, Kali n., Lil. t., Platina, Spongia). It is uncommon, strange, rare and peculiar. It is such a strong feature in this remedy that to a great extent it becomes quite general, because it is a heart symptom and is intermingled with the general symptoms.

With this sensitiveness he is compelled to get into some other position; must get up and walk, because of lying on the right side.

The patient will say he throbs from head to foot while lying on the right side. Do not forget in this medicine all these general things when we come to apply them in their particulars and the particulars in the generals.

Do not forget that this medicine is one of the most flatulent medicines in the books. He is distended to bursting; gets scarcely any relief from passing flatus or eructations.

He is possessed with the distressing idea that all his undertakings must fail. When walking he becomes faint with anxiety which makes him walk faster. Everywhere you will find the intellectual symptoms predominant.

Headache: The headaches are of a congestive character; considerable throbbing, ameliorated by cold, and tight bandaging. Headache from mental exertion from excitement, with vertigo, nausea and vomiting.

Pains in the right side of the head, jagging, cutting, stitching pulsating. Head feels much enlarged.

Eyes: The eye symptoms are too numerous to mention. They are of a general character such as we find in catarrhal conditions with ulceration, relieved by cold.

All of the eye symptoms are worse in a warm room, worse from sitting by the fire. Wants cold applications, cold washing. Intense photophobia; aversion to light, and this is worse in a warm room; wants it cold, wants it dark.

There is much swelling and tumefaction of the blood vessels of the eye, and redness, and it has a raw denuded excoriated appearance.

"Chemosis with strangulated vessels." "Cornea opaque."

"Ulceration of cornea in new-born infants; profuse purulent discharge from the lids," and this is what the "Regulars" in former days and almost tip to date have been using for the eyes, treating them with Argentum nitricum.

Photophobia: after long looking at fine sewing, fine print. In one who has suddenly taken on far sightedness, it has come on as a congestive condition; not of old age but something that should be cured.

All at once he cannot see print at the usual distance but must hold it away off; if it occurs in some one twenty-five years of age or in a child. At close distance it is indistinguishable. Such a disturbance of accommodation producing far sightedness it has caused and cured.

"Oedema of lids," etc.

Oedema is a word which runs through the remedy. That is to say, it has a dropsical state wherever dropsy may occur.

Face: The face is the next place we find particulars worthy of note.

"Face: Sweat stood in drops on his face." "Face sunken, pale, bluish."

"Looks prematurely old."

"Face blue, heavy breathing, pulseless."

Throat: Then come the throat symptoms. Another feature of this remedy is its general tendency to produce warts.

There is a tendency to favor the growth of warts and in the throat there are little wart-like growths polypoid growths in the throat and about the genitals and anus; hence its great use in sycotic constitutions.

It has all the discharge necessary to its use in the sycotic constitution.

Felt as if he had a stick in the throat when swallowing. At once you will see its close relation to Hepar. In inflammatory conditions of the throat with ulceration.

In Argentum nitricum he wants to be in a cold room, wants cold air, and to swallow cold things. In Hepar he wants warm things to drink, warm clothing, warm room, and cannot put even his hand out of bed or his throat will begin paining him.

Things, you see, just exactly opposite, but they both have "sticks" in the throat. In dry chronic catarrh Alumina and Natrum muriaticum have "sticks" in the throat; but in red throat with tumefaction and pain these two remedies give no relief, the former two are better. "Sticks" in the throat like fish-bones.

Nitric acid, Hepar, and Argentum nitricum, are the most striking remedies for the fish-bone sensation. Many remedies have sticking in the throat, but these are the most prominent. We know how Argentum nitricum has been used for ulceration in the throat, and here it comes in as one of the most useful remedies in congestion of the throat of long standing. Catarrhs with loss of voice. Warty growths, condylomata, etc. Loss of voice, tumefaction of the mucous membrane round about the vocal cords and paresis of the vocal cords. Condylomata on the vocal cords.

"Loss of appetite" and refuses drink.

Digestion: This is another feature. He feels that he must have it and it makes him sick; brings on eructations, increased flatulence, sour stomach. He cannot digest it; it acts like a physic and brings on a diarrhea. So marked is the aggravation from sugar that the nursing infant will get a green diarrhea if the mother eats candy.

Then is it astonishing that the baby can get a dynamized dose from the mother, when the dynamized dose can travel like lightning, and sugar takes all day to be digested and dynamized and fed as poison to the baby? I remember a case that I figured and figured on.

The baby had Mercurial stools, sure enough, they were grass green. Well Chamomilla has grass green stools and Arsenicum and Mercurius and lots of remedies have grass green stools. Routinist that I was in those days I could not get anything but Mercurius out of it, and although the baby had gotten Merc., Ars. and Cham. There was no relief, until I found that the mother had been eating candy.

When she was asked if she ate sweet things, sugar, etc., she said, "Oh, no."

"Why, yes, you do," said the husband; "I bring you home a pound of candy every day. What do you do with it?"

"Oh, that was nothing," she replied.

But the baby did not get well until it got Argentum nitricum and the mother stopped eating sugar.

"Irresistible desire for sugar."

Quite a number of medicines have craving for sweets, but many of them can eat sweets with impunity. It is always a peculiar thing when one of the articles of diet, such as milk, sugar, salt, starch, etc., and the things of the table make sick.

When it is said that "I cannot eat a teaspoonful of anything with starch, egg or sugar in it without being sick," it is always strange and peculiar, because it is not something that comes in only as a craving and affecting the stomach, but it affects the whole patient.

The patient says:

"I become sick" and hence it becomes a general. When the patient gets a diarrhea from eating sugar it is not merely a local and particular symptom, because the whole patient is sick before the diarrhea begins; the diarrhea is the outcome. Hence as it is a general it i necessary that it should be examined into.

"The vomited substances tinge the bedding black".

Incessant vomiting of food. He sometimes spits up food by the mouthful until the stomach is empty. Eructations of air accompanied by a mouthful of undigested food, like Phosphorus and Ferrum. Spitting it up; welling up in mouthfuls "Eructations relieve ".

"Flatulence passes upwards, in quantities." Frequent eructations. Eructations do not always relieve. It is more like China in its eructation. The eructations of Carbo veg. relieve for some time and he feels better. This is the way with Carbo veg.; he is distended almost to bursting and he cannot get up any wind, but finally after much pain and distension it wells up in empty eructations and then he gets relief.

With China he is distended, and every little while getting up gas, but with no relief. It does not seem to help, and sometimes patients will say they seem to get worse after it.

So it is with Argentum nitricum at times. It evidently has both.

"Most gastric ailments arc accompanied by belching."

"Belching difficult; finally air rushes out with great violence."

"Nausea after every meal; nausea with troublesome efforts to vomit."

I have seen these Argentum nitricum patients vomiting and purging in the same moment, not vomiting one second and purging the next, but gushing out both ways with great exhaustion like cholera morbus, so relaxed, prostrated and weak.

"Vomit; streaked brown, flocculent, like coffee grounds."

The stomach, liver and abdomen are full of pain. The abdomen distended with all this troublesome flatulence. Inflammation of the stomach, ulceration of the stomach, most troublesome diarrhea. Diarrhea with copious flatus. Stool with copious flatus in nursing children, with tormina and viscous sanguinolent stools and tenesmus. "Diarrhea of children after weaning." Another feature in connection with the diarrhea and dysentery is that casts are passed with the stool, like diphtheritic membrane or deposit; casts like the rectum, strings of membrane, come with the stool. Stools of green, foetid mucus with noisy flatus at night.

Urinary:

"Urine passed unconsciously and uninterruptedly."

"Urging to urinate; the urine passes less easily and freely."

"Bleeding of the urethra; painful erections; gonorrhoea."

It has most painful gonorrhoea with painful erections in the male. In the female the vagina is extremely sore, and the external soft parts are swollen; tumefaction.

Vagina feels sore on urinating; bloody discharge. In the male, orchitis from suppressed discharge. In the female, ovaritis, inflammation of all the pelvic organs. Great soreness all over the pelvis. Bleeding from the vagina. Ulceration of the uterus. Coition is painful or impossible. "Pains like sticks or slivers in and about the womb".

This sensation prevails wherever there are ulcers.

"Prolapsus with ulceration of the os or cervix". Haemorrhage of short duration; shoot ing pains through abdomen and stomach. Metrorrhagia. Complaints of nervous women and at the menstrual period. Menses suppressed or scanty. Complaints during pregnancy.

Heart: Under the symptoms of the heart and pulse:

"Anxiety with palpitation and throbbing through the whole body."

"Violent palpitation from the slightest mental emotion or sudden muscular exertion. Palpitation obliges her to press hand hard against heart for relief. Heartís action irregular, intermittent," etc. Pain in the lumbar region comes on while sitting, but is better when standing a walking. Pain in the back from flatulence. Sore pain in the spine. Pain in back at night. Great weight in the lumbar region. It is a very useful remedy in locomotor ataxia.

Great restlessness. The nervous symptoms are very numerous. Periodical trembling of the body. Chorea, with tearing in the legs. Convulsions preceded by great restlessness. Nervous faintish, tremulous sensation, etc.

The sleep symptoms are quite general. Distressing nightmares. The dreams are horrible Wakens in excitement and with starting. All sorts of strange, horrible things in sleep. Dreams of vicious and violent things, and that everything is going to happen to him. Dreams of departed friends, etc.

On waking in the morning limbs feel bruised aching in the chest, Cannot sleep at night because he is so nervous. Erysipelatous bed sores. While riding, palpitation and anxiety compelling him to get out of the wagon and walk, and that real fast.

Purplish rash, such as appears in the most serious forms of scarlet and zymotic diseases. Its most natural antidote is Natrum muriaticum. When you have the ulceration where the throat has been cauterized or the cervix uteri or eyelids have been cauterized by Nitrate of Silver, study Natrum mur. and see if the symptoms of the case would not justify its administration. It is the most common natural antidote for these vicious practices.