Mercurius corrosivus
as James Tyler Kent recorded it in Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica, 1905
Mercurius sublimatus corrosivus
This is one author on one remedy. Kent teaching a class, one remedy at a time — fewer remedies, far more on each. Read Mercurius corrosivus in every book at once →
Lecture
Mercurius Corrosivus
Merc. cor. has more excoriation and burning, more activity and excitement.
Merc. is slower and more sluggish. Merc. cor. is violent and active in its movements, it takes hold and runs its course with greater activity. So with a mercury base we have often to prefer this salt. In the eye symptoms there is more excoriation. The pains, burning, smarting, etc., in the eruptions and ulcers are more violent. In Merc. we have slow spreading ulcers, but in Merc. cor. there is great eating; it will spread over an area as large as your hand in a night. He has the mercurial odor and sweat, and he is sallow; he needs mercury, but a more active preparation than Merc. viv.
Merc. cor. has decided symptoms of its own, but they are limited. You cannot tell the ptyalism, or the lardaceous ulcers apart.
In sore throat, if it is a Merc. case, the ulcers are spreading rapidly and burning and smarting like coals of fire, you would say that Merc. is not so intense as this. You need Merc. cor. for the violence, the intense burning, and the rapid spread. The throat is enormously swollen, the glands are swollen, and the thirst is insatiable. In dysentery there is more violence; copious bleeding; great anxiety, can scarcely leave the stool a second, great tenesmus of rectum and bladder; urging to urination and stool is constant; great burning in the rectum. It is a violent case of dysentery. I would prefer Merc. in ordinary Merc. cases, but if this patient is not relieved he will not live, and Merc. cor. is needed here.
In the urinary organs the symptoms are violent. Albuminuria is more marked in Merc. cor. than in Merc. It is one of the most frequently indicated remedies in the albuminuria of pregnancy and a very useful remedy when gout is present. From slight irritation of the foreskin of the male organ, the mucous membrane and skin contract and phimosis takes place.
Merc. cor. relieves the itching and burning, and causes the purse-string to let up. It is seldom indicated in gonorrhoea, but is called for when there is greenish yellow or bloody watery discharge, with violent burning and urging to urination and to stool, and violent painful erections. Chancres spread with great rapidity. Stitching, rending, tearing pains, here and there, especially in the chest.
What the other books say about Mercurius corrosivus
The same remedy read by a different author. They disagree, and the disagreements are where the remedy becomes recognisable.
- Mercurius corrosivus in Boericke — The concise clinical Materia Medica that most Indian colleges teach from, in full.
- Mercurius corrosivus in Allen's Keynotes — The few symptoms that, when genuinely present, point at one remedy and not its neighbours.
- Mercurius corrosivus 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. James Tyler Kent. Lectures on Homœopathic Materia Medica. 2nd edition (preface dated 1 September 1911). Mercurius corrosivus — Lecture. HomeopathyWorld, https://homeopathyworld.in/materia-medica/books/kent/mercurius-corrosivus. First published 1905, 2nd edition 1911: public domain in the US and in India (author died 1916). Reproduced as the author wrote it; a historical reference for students and practitioners, not medical advice.