Spongia tosta
as H.C. Allen recorded it in Keynotes and Characteristics with Comparisons of Some of the Leading Remedies of the Materia Medica, 1899
This is one author on one remedy. The few symptoms that, when genuinely present, point at one remedy and not its neighbours. Read Spongia tosta in every book at once →
Keynotes
Spongia tosta
Roasted Sponge. Spongia.
For the tubercular diathesis.
Especially adapted to diseases of children and women; light hair, lax fibre, fair complexion (Brom.).
Swelling and induration of glands; goitre (Brom.).
Awakens in a fright and feels as if suffocating; as if he had to breathe through a sponge.
.Every mental excitement < or increases the cough.
Worse after sleep or sleeps into < (Each.).
Sore throat, < after eating sweet things.
Thyroid gland swollen even with chin; with suffocative paroxysms at night. Goitre.
Great dryness of mucous membranes of air passages — throat, larynx, trachea, bronchi — “dry as a horn.”
Cough : dry, barking, croupy ; rasping, ringing, wheezing, whistling; everything is perfectly dry, no mucous rale.
Cough : dry, sibilant, like a saw driven through a pine board; < sweets, cold drinks, smoking, lying with head low, dry cold winds; < reading, singing, talking, swallowing ; > eating or drinking warm things.
Croup: anxious, wheezing, < during inspiration
(< during expiration, Acon.); < before midnight (< before morning, Hep.).
Palpitation : violent with pain and gasping respiration; awakened suddenly after midnight with suffocation and great anxiety; valvular insufficiency; before or during menses.
Angina pectoris; contracting pain, heat, faintness, suffocation, anxiety and sweat; < after midnight.
Spermatic cord swollen, painful; testicles swollen, bruised, squeezed; after suppressed gonorrhoea or maltreated orchitis.
Relations. — Spongia follows well: after. Acon., Hep., in cough and croup, when dryness prevails; after Spong., Hep., when mucus commences to rattle.
Compare: Arn., Caust., Iod., Lach., Nux m., sputa loosened but must be swallowed again.
What the other books say about Spongia tosta
The same remedy read by a different author. They disagree, and the disagreements are where the remedy becomes recognisable.
- Spongia tosta in Boericke — The concise clinical Materia Medica that most Indian colleges teach from, in full.
- Spongia tosta in Farrington — Lectures that teach remedies in families, by comparing them with each other.
- Spongia tosta in Kent — Kent teaching a class, one remedy at a time — fewer remedies, far more on each.
- Spongia tosta in Boger — A compressed key — the generals and the characteristic modalities, with very little narrative.
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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. Spongia tosta — Keynotes, pp. 268–269. HomeopathyWorld, https://homeopathyworld.in/materia-medica/books/allen/spongia-tosta. 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.