Petroleum
as H.C. Allen recorded it in Keynotes and Characteristics with Comparisons of Some of the Leading Remedies of the Materia Medica, 1899
Petroleum rectificatum
This is one author on one remedy. The few symptoms that, when genuinely present, point at one remedy and not its neighbours. Read Petroleum in every book at once →
Keynotes
Petroleum
Coal or Rock Oil. Anthracite.
Adapted to persons with light hair and skin; irritable, quarrelsome disposition (Nux) ; easily offended at trifles (Ign., Med.) ; vexed at everything.
Ailments: from riding in a carriage, railroad car, or in a ship (Coc., Sanic.).
Ailments which are worse before and during a thunderstorm (Nat. c., Phos., Psor.).
Symptoms appear and disappear rapidly (Bell., Mag. ]). — reverse of, Plat., Stan.).
During sleep or delirium : imagines that one leg is double; that another person lies alongside of him in same bed; that there are two babies in the bed (Val.).
Vertigo on rising (Bry.) ; in occiput; as if intoxicated ; like seasickness ( Coc. ) .
Headache: in occiput, zuhich is as heavy as leaa; pressing, pulsating pain; as if everything in the head were alive; numb, bruised; as if made of wood.
Gastralgia : of pregnancy ; with pressing, drawing pains ; whenever stomach is empty; relieved by constant eating (Anac., Chel., Sep.).
Diarrhoea: yellow, watery, gushing; after cabbage, sour krout; during pregnancy, stormy weather; always in the daytime.
Painful sensitiveness of skin of whole body; all clothing is painful; slight injury suppurates (Hep.).
Skin of hands rough, cracked; tips of fingers rough, cracked, fissured, every winter; tenderness of the feet, which are bathed in foul-smelling sweat (Graph., Sanic., Sib).
Herpes : of genital organs extending to perineum and thighs ; itching, redness ; skin cracked, rough, bleeding; dry or moist.
Heat and burning of soles of feet and palms of hands (Sang., Sulph.).
Sweat and moisture of external genitals, both sexes.
Painful, itching chilblains and chapped hands < in cold weather; decubitus.
Sensation of coldness about the heart (Carbo an.. Kali m., Nat. m.). ,
Relations. One of our best antidotes for lead poisoning.
The skin symptoms are worse in winter, better in summer^ (Alum.) ; if suppressed, causes diarrhoea.
Aggravation. — Carriage riding (Coc., Sanic.) ; during a thunderstorm; in winter (Alum.).
What the other books say about Petroleum
The same remedy read by a different author. They disagree, and the disagreements are where the remedy becomes recognisable.
- Petroleum in Boericke — The concise clinical Materia Medica that most Indian colleges teach from, in full.
- Petroleum in Farrington — Lectures that teach remedies in families, by comparing them with each other.
- Petroleum in Kent — Kent teaching a class, one remedy at a time — fewer remedies, far more on each.
- Petroleum in Boger — A compressed key — the generals and the characteristic modalities, with very little narrative.
Search every book at once, take rubrics from Kent and Bönninghausen, and practise on a patient who answers back — free account.
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Cite this page. H.C. Allen. Keynotes and Characteristics with Comparisons of Some of the Leading Remedies of the Materia Medica. 3rd edition (1910). Philadelphia: Boericke & Tafel. Petroleum — Keynotes, pp. 214–215. HomeopathyWorld, https://homeopathyworld.in/materia-medica/books/allen/petroleum. Published 1910: public domain in the US (before 1931) and in India (author died 1909). Replaces B. Jain's 2005 "rearranged and classified" edition (© the publisher), per the owner's decision of 13 Sep 2026. Reproduced as the author wrote it; a historical reference for students and practitioners, not medical advice.