Picricum acidum
as William Boericke recorded it in Homoeopathic Materia Medica, 1927
This is one author on one remedy. The concise clinical Materia Medica that most Indian colleges teach from, in full. Read Picricum acidum in every book at once →
Mind
Lack of will-power; disinclined to work. Cerebral softening. Dementia with prostration, sits still and listless.
General
Picric Acid Trinitrophenol Causes degeneration of the spinal cord, with paralysis. Brainfag and sexual excitement. Acts upon the generative organs probably through the lumbar centers of the spinal cord; prostration, weakness and pain of back, pins and needle sensation in extremities. Neurasthenia (Oxal ac). Muscular debility. Heavy tired feeling. Myelitis with spasms and prostration. Writer's palsy. Progressive, pernicious anæmia. Uræmia with complete anuria. A one per cent solution applied on lint, is the best application for burns until granulations begin to form. Sallow complexion.
Modalities
Worse, least exertion, especially mental, after sleep, wet weather. A summer or hot weather remedy; patient is worse then. Better, from cold air, cold water, tight pressure.
Head
Head pains; relieved by bandaging tightly. Occipital pain; worse,
slightest mental exertion. Vertigo and noises in ear. Boils within ears and back of neck. After prolonged mental strain, with anxiety and dread of failure at examination. Brain fag.
Eyes
Chronic catarrhal conjunctivitis with copious, thick yellow discharge.
Stomach
Bitter taste. Aversion to food.
Urinary
Scanty; complete anuria. Dribbling micturition. Urine contains much indican, granular cylinders and fatty degenerated epithelium. Inflammation of kidneys with profound weakness, dark, bloody, scanty urine. Nightly urging.
Male
Emissions profuse, followed by great exhaustion, without sensual dreams. Priapism; satyriasis. Hard erections, with pain in testicles and up cord. Prostatic hypertrophy, especially in cases not too far advanced.
Female
Pain in left ovary and leucorrhœa before menstruation. Pruritus vulvæ.
Extremities
Burning along spine. Great weakness. Tired, heavy feeling all over body, especially limbs; worse, exertion. Feet cold. Cannot get warm. Acute descending paralysis.
Relationships
Compare: Oxal ac; Gels; Phos; Sil; Arg nit. Compare: Zinc pic (facial palsy and paralysis agitans); Ferr pic (buzzing in ears, deafness; chronic gout; epistaxis; prostatic troubles); Calc pic (boils in and around ears).
Dose
Sixth potency.
What the other books say about Picricum acidum
The same remedy read by a different author. They disagree, and the disagreements are where the remedy becomes recognisable.
- Picricum acidum in Allen's Keynotes — The few symptoms that, when genuinely present, point at one remedy and not its neighbours.
- Picricum acidum in Farrington — Lectures that teach remedies in families, by comparing them with each other.
- Picricum acidum in Kent — Kent teaching a class, one remedy at a time — fewer remedies, far more on each.
- Picricum acidum 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.
Create a free accountCite this page. William Boericke. Homoeopathic Materia Medica. 9th edition (preface dated San Francisco, June 1927). Picricum acidum — Mind. HomeopathyWorld, https://homeopathyworld.in/materia-medica/books/boericke/picricum-acidum. Published 1927: public domain in the US (since 2023) and in India (author died 1929). Reproduced as the author wrote it; a historical reference for students and practitioners, not medical advice.