Spongia tosta
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 Spongia tosta in every book at once →
Mind
Anxiety and fear. Every excitement increases the cough.
General
Roasted Sponge A remedy especially marked in the symptoms of the respiratory organs, cough, croup, etc. Heart affections and often indicated for the tubercular diathesis. Children with fair complexion, lax fiber; swollen glands. Exhaustion and heaviness of the body after slight exertion, with orgasm of blood to chest, face. Anxiety and difficult breathing.
Modalities
Worse, ascending, wind, before midnight. Better, descending, lying with head low.
Head
Rush of blood; bursting headache; worse, forehead.
Eyes
Watering; gummy or mucus discharge.
Nose
Fluent coryza, alternating with stoppage. Dryness; chronic, dry, nasal catarrh.
Mouth
Tongue dry and brown; full of vesicles.
Throat
Thyroid gland swollen. Stitches and dryness. Burning and stinging. Sore throat; worse after eating sweet things. Tickling causes cough. Clears throat
constantly.
Stomach
Excessive thirst, great hunger. Cannot bear tight clothing around trunk. Hiccough.
Male
Swelling of spermatic cord and testicles, with pain and tenderness. Orchitis. Epididymitis. Heat in parts.
Female
Before menses, pain in sacrum, hunger, palpitation. During menses, wakes with suffocative spells (Cupr; Iod; Lach). Amenorrhœa, with asthma (Puls).
Respiratory
Great dryness of all air-passages. Hoarseness; larynx dry, burns, constricted. Cough, dry, barking, croupy; larynx sensitive to touch. Croup; worse, during inspiration and before midnight. Respiration short, panting, difficult; feeling of a plug in larynx. Cough abates after eating or drinking, especially warm drinks. The dry, chronic sympathetic cough or organic heart disease is relieved by Spongia (Naja). Irrepressible cough from a spot deep in chest, as if raw and sore. Chest weak; can scarcely talk. Laryngeal phthisis. Goitre, with suffocative spells. Bronchial catarrh, with wheezing, asthmatic cough, worse cold air, with profuse expectoration and suffocation; worse, lying with head low and in hot room. Oppression and heat of chest, with sudden weakness.
Heart
Rapid and violent palpitation, with dyspnœa; cannot lie down; also feels best resting in horizontal position. Awakened suddenly after midnight with pain and suffocation; is flushed, hot, and frightened to death (Acon). Valvular insufficiency. Angina pectoris; faintness, and anxious sweat. Ebullition of blood, veins distended. Surging of heart into chest, as if it would force out upward. Hypertrophy of heart, especially right, with asthmatic symptoms.
Skin
Swelling and induration of glands; also exophthalmic; cervical glands swollen with tensive pain on turning head, painful on pressure; Goitre. Itching; measles
Sleep
Awakes in a fright, and feels as if suffocating. Generally worse after sleep, or sleeps into and aggravation (Lach).
Fever
Attacks of heat with anxiety; heat and redness of face and perspiration.
Relationships
Compare: Acon; Hep; Brom; Lach; Merc prot; Iod (Goitre).
Dose
Second trituration, or tincture to third potency.
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 Allen's Keynotes — The few symptoms that, when genuinely present, point at one remedy and not its neighbours.
- 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.
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). Spongia tosta — Mind. HomeopathyWorld, https://homeopathyworld.in/materia-medica/books/boericke/spongia-tosta. 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.