Sulphur

as H.C. Allen recorded it in Keynotes and Characteristics with Comparisons of Some of the Leading Remedies of the Materia Medica, 1899

Sulfur

This is one author on one remedy. The few symptoms that, when genuinely present, point at one remedy and not its neighbours. Read Sulphur in every book at once →

Keynotes

Sulphur

Brimstone ; Flowers of Sulphur. The Element.

Adapted to persons of a scrofulous diathesis, subject to venous congestion; especially of portal system.

Persons of nervous temperament, quick motioned, quick tempered, plethoric, skin excessively sensitive to atmospheric changes (Hep., Kali c., Psor.).

For lean, stoop-shouldered persons who walk and sit stooping; walk stooping like old men.

Standing is the worst position for Sulphur patients; they cannot stand ; every standing position is uncomfortable.

Dirty, filthy people, prone to skin affections ( Psor. ) .

Aversion to being washed; always < after a bath. Too lazy to rouse himself ; too unhappy to live.

Children: cannot hear to he washed or bathed (in cold water. Ant. c. ) ; emaciated, big-bellied ; restless, hot, kick off the clothes at night (Hep., Sanic.) ; have worms, but the best selected remedy fails.

When car ef idly selected remedies fail to produce a favorable effect, especially in acute diseases, it frequently serves to rouse the reactive powers of the system; clears up the case (in chronic diseases, Psor.).

Scrofulous, psoric, chronic diseases that result, from suppressed eruptions (Caust., Psor.).

Complaints that are continually relapsing (menses, leucorrhoea, etc.) ; patient seems to get almost well when the disease returns again and again.

Congestion to single parts; eyes, nose, chest, abdomen, ovaries, arms, legs, or any organ of the body marking the onset of tumors or malignant growths, especially at climacteric.

Sensation of burning : on vertex ; and smarting in eyes ; in face, without redness ; of vesicles in mouth ; and dryness of throat, first r. then 1. ; in stomach ; in rectum; in anus, and itching piles, and scalding urine; like fire in ripples (Ars.) ; in chest, rising to face; of skin of whole body, with hot flushes; in spots, between scapulae (Phos.).

Sick headache every week or every two weeks ; prostrating, weakening ( Sang. ) ; with hot vertex and cold feet.

Constant heat on vertex; cold feet in daytime, with burning soles at night, wants to find a cool place for them (Sang., Sanic.); puts them out of bed to cool them off (Med.) ; cramps in calves and soles at night.

Hot flushes during the day, with weak, faint spellsy passing off with a little moisture.

Bright redness of lips as if the blood would burst through (Tub.).

Weak, empty, gone or faint feeling in the stomach about II A. M. (lo or II A. m. > by eating, Nat. c.) ; cannot wait for lunch; frequent weak, faint spells during the day (compare. Zinc.).

Diarrhoea: after midnight; painless; driving out of bed early in the morning (Aloe, Psor.) ; as if the bowels were too weak to retain their contents.

Constipation : stools hard, knotty, dry as if burnt (Bry.) ; large, painful, child is afraid to have the stool on account of pain, or pain compels child to desist on first effort; alternating with diarrhoea.

The discharge both of urine and faeces is painful to parts over which it passes; passes large quantities of colorless urine ; parts round anus red, excoriated ; all the orifices of the body are very red; all discharges acrid, excoriating wherever they touch.

Menses : too early, profuse, protracted.

Menorrhagia, has not been well since her last miscarriage. “A single dose at new moon.’’ — Lippe.

Boils : coming in crops in various parts of the body, or a single boil is succeeded by another as soon as first is healed (Tub.).

Skin: itching, voluptuous; scratching >; ‘Teels good to scratch scratching causes burning ; < from heat of bed (Mer. ) ; soreness in folds (Lyc.).

Skin affections that have been treated by medicated soaps and washes ; haemorrhoids, that have been treated with ointments.

To facilitate absorption of serous or inflammatory exudates in brain, pleura, lungs, joints, when Bryonia, Kali mur. or the best selected remedy fails.

Chronic alcoholism; dropsy and other ailments of drunkards; “they reform,” but are continually relapsing (Psor., Tub.).

Nightly suffocative attacks, wants the doors and windows open ; becomes suddenly wide awake at night ; drowsy in afternoon after sunset, wakefulness the whole night.

Happy dreams, wakes up singing.

Everything looks pretty which the patient takes a fancy to; even rags seem beautiful.

Movement in abdomen as of a child (Croc., Thuja).

Ailments from the abuse of metals generally.

Compatible: Calc., Lyc., Puls., Sars., Sep.

Sulph., Calc., Lyc.; or Sulph., Sars. and Sep. frequently follow in given order.

Calcarea must not be used before Sulphur.

Sulphur is the chronic of Aconite and follows it well in pneumonia and other acute diseases.

Aggravation. — At rest ; when standing; warmth in bed; washing, bathing; changeable weather (Rhus).

Amelioration. — Dry, warm weather; lying on the right side (rev. of Stan.).

What the other books say about Sulphur

The same remedy read by a different author. They disagree, and the disagreements are where the remedy becomes recognisable.

  • Sulphur in Boericke — The concise clinical Materia Medica that most Indian colleges teach from, in full.
  • Sulphur in Farrington — Lectures that teach remedies in families, by comparing them with each other.
  • Sulphur in Kent — Kent teaching a class, one remedy at a time — fewer remedies, far more on each.
  • Sulphur 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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← Every remedy in Allen's Keynotes

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. Sulphur — Keynotes, pp. 276–279. HomeopathyWorld, https://homeopathyworld.in/materia-medica/books/allen/sulphur. 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.