Magnesia carbonica

Lecture LXII — Ferrum and the Magnesia Salts — Magnesia carb. and Magnesia mur.

Magnesia Carbonica.

j Arsenicum, Phosphorus.

Magnesia carb. \ Belladonna, Camphor, Pulsatilla, Merc, Colocynth. I Ratanhia, Sepia, Cocculus.

> Pulsatilla.

>Rheum.

>Chamomilla.

>Belladonna.

Magnesia is much used in one form or another by allopaths as a purgative medicine. When thus abused several results may follow. It may become injurious from its tendency to accumulate in the intestines as an incrustation of ammonia-magnesian phosphate, and also from its remoter effects on the nervous system. Its action on the latter is not unlike that of Zinc, and it may be used for similar forms of neuralgia. Nux vomica is the remedy for constipation resulting from large doses of the crude drug.

Rheum is also to be given for the abuse of Magnesia when diarrhoea, with sour, slimy stool and tenesmus, results.

Pulsatilla may be useful in some symptoms.

Colocynth is called for in case griping pains result from abuse of Magnesia.

Chamomilla is indicated when Magnesia causes neuralgia. Almost all the symptoms of Magnesia carb. seem to centre around the action of the drug on the gastro-intestinal organs. All other symptoms depend upon this action more or less, or else are secondary in importance. To describe the Magnesia carb. patient to you, I must say that the drug acts on both adult and child. If the patient is a child, you will find it puny and sickly from defective nutrition. Milk is refused, or, if taken, causes pain in the stomach, or is passed undigested. The child is subject to frequent griping, colicky pains, which are very much like those of Colocynth. It draws its limbs up to relieve these abdominal pains which are also frequently relieved by motion. The stools are characteristically sour, green and slimy, are preceded by much griping and rumbling in the bowels, and have been very aptly compared in appearance to the scum on a frog pond. Sometimes, when the stool is not exactly diarrhoeic, it looks as though there were lumps of tallow in it. In severe cases you will find the child poorly nourished, and its mouth full of aphthous ulcers, which are simply indications of the impoverished state of the system from defective nutrition. With these symptoms you can see how Magnesia carb. may be used for marasmus in children. There are several drugs which are here very similar to Magnesia carb., and it will be well for us to consider them.

In the first place, Magnesia carb. is similar to Colocynth, in that it has griping, colicky pains, doubling the child up, but it is distinguished from that remedy by the green, slimy stool.

Still greater is the resemblance between Magnesia carb. and Rheum. Both have the sour, slimy stool, etc. The former is the deeper acting remedy of the two, and if you are in doubt as to which to give, Rheum should precede. I must say that Rheum is a rather treacherous remedy. With the sour, slimy, frothy stools it has gripfng colic and twitching of the muscles of the face and fingers during sleep. Chamomilla resembles Magnesia carb. in many cases, particularly in diseases of children. In both remedies anxiety and restlessness are prominent. But in Chamomilla there is a yellowish-green stool, looking like chopped eggs. Both remedies have relief from moving about, and both have griping pains before stool, and both have irregularity in feeding as a cause of the illness. Magnesia carb. is of course the deeper acting of the two.

Magnesia carb. is also similar to Calcarea ostrearum. Both have sour stool, rejection of milk, and imperfect nourishment of the body. Calcarea, however, may readily be distinguished from the other by the sweat on the head, face and scalp, by the damp and cold feet, and by the enlargement of the abdomen.

In marasmus compare Magnesia carb. also with Antimonium crudum , Sulphur, Podophyllum, Sepia, and Natrum carb.

If the Magnesia carb. patient is an adult, we may have some of the following symptoms to guide us: the gastric and hepatic symptoms predominate. The patient suffers from what has been termed acid dyspepsia. Food, such as cabbage and potatoes, and starchy food generally, are indigestible in such cases. He becomes anxious and warm while eating; and at night so hot that he can't sleep; yet he dreads exposure.

Pregnant women may require Magnesia carb. when they suffer from toothache, and when the pains are worse at night and force the patient to get up and walk about.

There is another remedy which I shall mention in this connection, one which you would hardly think of. Some years ago, it may be twenty, a physician of this city was treating a lady in the first months of pregnancy, who suffered terribly from toothache. He gave her Magnesia carb. and other remedies. Still the pain continued. Dr. Lippe was called in consultation, and he thought of Ratanhia, which has toothache at night, compelling the patient to get up and walk about. This remedy promptly cured the case. You can remember these two remedies then, and you may place them with Chamomilla, which is complementary to Magnesia carb.

The menses are usually late and scanty, and they have this peculiarity: they flow more at night or on first rising in the morning, are scanty during the day and even cease altogether in the afternoon. The flow is also more profuse between the pains. This is true, whether they be profuse or scanty. In all the Magnesia salts the menstrual flow is dark or black, almost like pitch.

Magnesia card, also has some relation to rheumatism and to affections of the muscles and joints. It is suitable for rheumatism in the right shoulder. It also has rheumatic pains in the limbs, which are worse after a long walk, better from warmth, and worse in bed. Sangninaria is similar to Magnesia carb. , in that it has rheumatism affecting the right deltoid muscle. Several years ago I used Sangninaria quite a number of times without any effect, and I became so disgusted with it that I announced to the class that I did not believe in it. Within a week after that I had two cases promptly cured by it. Nux moschata is indicated in rheumatism affecting the left deltoid. There are two cases of cataract on record as having been cured by Magnesia carb. In one of these the patient was predisposed to headache and boils.