Carbo animalis

Old and feeble. Susceptible to colds, sprains or overaffected by small losses, etc. Venosity. Gummæ. Slow, hard painful processes; burning like fire (Ars.), or threatening malignancy. Sense of looseness. Foul acrid discharges. Hæmorrhage. .................... Whining. Brain seems loose or as if crown would split, > eating. Pains down through (r) eyeball (Gel.). Can't locate sounds. Nose, hard, red, swelled; hot, brown stripe across, with itching pimples and desquamation. Goneness in stomach; while suckling. All food distresses stomach. Abdomen, distended after operations. Right ovary seems a heavy ball. Neglected bubo. Pelvic bones pain on sitting. Dark menses; in A.M. only; then great weakness. Sore, moist anus (Carb-v.). Indurated os (Sep.). Suffocation on closing eyes; nervous dyspnœa. Hard, painful nodes in breasts. Bluish skin; cheeks, lips, affected parts, etc. Coppery eruptions on forehead. Crawling, as of bugs. Hard, swelled glands. Surgings or hot flushes. Foul, exhausting sweats; at night; staining yellow.

Slight causes: Small depletions. Sprains. Lifting. Cold taking. WHILE EATING. Dry, cold air. Shaving (Ox-ac. Rad.). Old age. After menses.

Laying hand on part.

NUTRITION. Glands. VEINLETS.

Complementary: Calc-p. Related: Calc-fl. Grap.

Carbo animalis

Animal Charcoal.

Headache: as if a tornado in head; as if head had been blown to pieces ; has to sit up at night and hold it together.

Diseases of elderly persons with marked venous plethora, blue cheeks, blue lips, and great debility.

Circulation feeble, stagnated, and vital heat sinks to a minimum; cyanosis (Ant. t., Carbo v.).

Glands : indurated, swollen, painful ; in neck, axillae, groin, mammae; pains lancinating, cutting, burning (Con.).

Benign suppurations change into ichorous or malignant conditions.

Easily strained from lifting, even small weights; straining and overlifting easily produce great debility; ankles turn when walking.

Joints weak; easily sprained by slight exertion (Led.).

Aversion to open, dry, cold air.

After appearance of menses so weak she can hardly speak (Alum., Coc.) ; menses flow only in morning.

Hearing confused; cannot tell from what direction a sound comes.

A stitching pain remains in chest after recovery from pleurisy (Ran. b.).

Menstruation, leucorrhoea, diarrhoea are all exhausting (Ars. — are all offensive, Psor.).

Similar: to. Bad., Brom., Carbo v., Phos., Sep., Sulph.

Carbo animalis is often useful after bad effects from spoiled fish and decayed vegetables (Carbo v., Cepa).

Aggravation. — After shaving (> after, Brom. ); slightest touch ; after midnight.

Lecture XLVII — Carbo animalis, Graphites and Petroleum

Carbo Animalis.

Bromine.

Sepia, Natr. m.

{ Silic, Phos.

I Badiaga.

[ Merc, iod., Nitr. ac.

Calc. phos.

Carbo animalis and Carbo veg. do not follow each other well. They are so far inimical that one may not be given with benefit after the other. They are too nearly alike. Carbo animalis contains some phosphate of lime. Carbo animalis is complementary to Calcarea phosphorica, especially in affections of the glands.

Carbo animalis is suited to old persons and to those who are greatly debilitated by disease, especially when there is a predominance of what is known as venous plethora. You find such patients particularly inclined to blueness of the skin. The hands and feet readily become blue, with distended veins showing through the skin. They become ill from very slight causes. The cheeks often get bluish. Both remedies are indicated in decomposition of tissue of the body, as in gangrene and ulcerations of the surface or of internal parts, with putrid discharges. Both, too, are indicated in weakness of the digestive organs, both are indicated for the bad effects of loss of animal fluids, particularly during lactation.

Now, as a general distinction between the two drugs, you may remember this: although both drugs act on the glands, the predominance is in favor of the Carbo animalis for glandular affections. For instance, we find it indicated in induration of glands, of the axillary glands and of the glands in the groin, particularly in syphilitic or gonorrhoeal patients. These buboes are hard like stone; Carbo animalis is especially useful when these have been opened too soon, and when there is a gaping wound which has partly healed, leaving the surrounding tissues of an almost stony hardness.

Badiaga rivals Carbo animalis in just these cases, particularly in indurated buboes that have been maltreated.

Again, we find Carbo animalis indicated in cancer more frequently than Carbo veg.; particularly is it useful in cancer of the breast or of the uterus. In mammary cancer you have the glands indurated in little nodes; or small circumscribed portions which are as hard as stone. L<ater the skin around the induration becomes bluish and mottled, thus showing you the characteristic effect of Carbo animalis in producing venous stasis. The axillary glands on the affected side become indurated and there are burning, drawing pains through the mammae. In the case of cancer of the uterus there are induration of the cervix, metrorrhagia, and burning pains extending down the thighs, and thin, offensive vaginal discharge.

In affections of the digestive organs, Carbo animalis differs from Carbo veg. in this: we find that under Carbo animalis there is goneness and empty feeling in the pit of the stomach, not relieved by eating, and in this respect it is very similar to Sepia.

We find these symptoms indicating Carbo animalis in preference to Carbo veg. in the weakness of nursing women ; we notice that every particle of food taken distresses the stomach, just as we found under Carbo veg. , but with Carbo animalis there is coldness about the stomach, which is relieved by pressing firmly with the hand or by friction over the abdomen, thus showing you the weak debilitated condition in which the patient is, who requires this remedy. Carbo veg. has dragging heaviness about the stomach to distinguish it. Both remedies have piles with this weak digestion, but there is oozing of a thin, inodorous fluid from the rectum in Carbo animalis which does not exist as markedly under Carbo veg.

Both drugs meet again in affections of the chest. We find them both indicated in the late stages of pneumonia, bronchitis, or of phthisis pulmonalis, when there is destruction of the lung tissue and decomposition of the fluid which is expectorated. It is just here that you are most liable to make a mistake in selecting one drug for the other. Carbo animalis has this symptom to distinguish it, suffocating hoarse cough producing shaking of the brain as though the brain were loose in the head. And a cold feeling in the chest. Expectoration is green, purulent and horribly offensive, and conies generally from the right lung, in which you probably will find by examination, a cavity. As soon as the patient closes his eyes he feels as if he were smothering. Other remedies having cold sensation in the chest are: Bromine, Paris quad, and Camphor.

The Carbo veg. cough is spasmodic, with deep, rough voice or else with aphonia. There is decided burning in the chest and expectoration is profuse, particularly in the bronchitis of old people. It is yellow and very foetid, more so than in Carbo animalis. The patient has dyspnoea, worse on turning over in bed and on dropping off to sleep. There is a great deal of rattling in the chest.

Carbo animalis is more useful than Carbo veg. in constitutional syphilis, and for this reason: while both may be indicated in constitutional or tertiary syphilis, after the abuse of mercury, particularly when the glands are affected, and there is great emaciation, Carbo animalis is indicated more by these symptoms: it has coppery-red blotches on the skin, particularly on the face. That you know to be the characteristic hue of syphilitic eruptions. In this respect it resembles Mercurius bin., Nitric acid and Badiaga more than it does Carbo veg.

In debility, we find Carbo veg. always superior to Carbo animalis. There are very few characteristic Symptoms indicating the latter as a remedy in the last stages of typhoid fever, pneumonia and scarlatina. The only difficulty you will have in deciding between the two drugs will be in the debility attendant upon lactation.

In affections of the ears we find Carbo veg. and Carbo animalis again meeting. Thus, we find both drugs causing otorrhoea. The discharge is thin, ichorous, bloody and excoriating in both remedies. With Carbo animalis there is also associated a swelling of the periosteum behind the ears over the mastoid process. Here it is similar to Nitric acid, Aurum and Capsicum. With Carbo veg. we find this otorrhoea particularly as a sequel to exanthematous diseases, as measles and scarlatina. There is no swelling of the periosteum back of the ear. Both remedies are indicated in deafness. Carbo animalis has this peculiar symptom: they cannot tell whence sound comes. Carbo veg. is indicated in deafness when the ears are too dry from the absence of the cerumen or wax, or when there is discharge of offensive cerumen.

In eye affections we find Carbo animalis indicated when the patient is far-sighted; while walking along the street objects seem to him to be far off . The eyes seem as if they were loose in their sockets. This feeling is due to relaxation in the connective tissue similar to that found in the brain. Old people have dimness of sight on attempting to read, but this is relieved by rubbing the eyes.

Carbo veg. is indicated when the patient is near-sighted; objects have to be placed near to the eye to be seen. This symptom is worse after exerting the eyes or after using them steadily for any length of time.

Graphites.

Graphites.

V V Arsenicum. Ferrum.

r Sepia, Pulsatilla.

Kali carb., Phosphorus, Calcarea ostr.

Sulphur, Lycopodium,Silicea, Hepar.

Phytolacca.

Mezereum, Petroleum, Iris, Rhus.

Mercurius, Antimon. crudum.

Staphisagria.

Ratanhia, Pseonia, Nitric acid.

Desire to be alone, sad and reflective, avoids conversation. Anxiety at night, with orgasm of blood.

Animal Charcoal Seems to be especially adapted to scrofulous and venous constitutions, old people, and after debilitating disease, with feeble circulation and lowered vitality. Glands are indurated, veins distended, skin blue. Stitch remaining after

pleurisy. Easily strained from lifting. Weakness of nursing women. Ulceration and decomposition. All its secretions are offensive. Causes local congestions without heat.

Worse, after shaving, loss of animal fluids.

Headache, as if head had been blown to pieces. Rush of blood with confusion. Sensation as if something lay above eyes so that she could not look up. Bluish cheeks and lips. Vertigo followed by nose-bleed. Nose swollen, tip bluish small tumor on it. Hearing confused; cannot tell direction of sound.

Eating tires patient. Weak, empty feeling in stomach. Burning and griping. Weak digestion. Flatulence. Ptomaine poisoning. Repugnance to fat food. Sour water from mouth. Pyrosis.

Nausea of pregnancy; worse at night. Lochia offensive (Kreos; Rhus; Secale). Menses too early, frequent long lasting, followed by great exhaustion, so weak, can hardly speak (Cocc), flow only in morning (Bor; Sep). Burning in vagina and labia. Darting in breast; painful indurations in breast, especially right. Cancer of uterus, burning pain down thighs.

Pleurisy, typhoid character, and remaining stitch. Ulceration of lung, with feeling of coldness of chest. Cough, with discharge of greenish pus.

Pain in coccyx; burns when touched. Ankles turn easily. Straining and over-lifting produce great debility. Joints weak. Easy discoloration. Pain in hip joints at night. Night sweat fetid and profuse. Wrist pain.

Spongy ulcers, copper-colored eruption. Acne rosacea. Chilblains, worse in evening, in bed and from cold. Verruca on hands and face of old people, with bluish color of extremities. Glands indurated, swollen, painful, in neck, axillæ, groin, mammæ; pains lancinating, cutting, burning (Con; Merc iod flav). Burning, rawness and fissures; moisture. Bubo.

The Carbon group all have putrid discharges and exhalations. All act on the skin, causing interrigo and excoriations. Glandular enlargements and catarrhal states, flatulency and asphyxiation. Carbon Tetrachlorid is said to cause fatty liver (Phosph; Ars; Chlorof). Paralysis of interosseus muscles of feet and hands. Wonderful clinical results in the treatment of Hook worm disease. See Thymol (Relationship). Complementary: Calc phos. Antidotes: Ars; Nux. Compare: Badiaga; Sepia; Sulph; Plumb iod.

Third to thirtieth potency. The third trituration for insufflation in aural polypi.

Carbo Animalis

Carbo animalis is one of the deep-acting, longacting medicines. Suitable in complaints that come on insidiously, that develop slowly, that become chronic and often malignant in character. Complaints in anaemic, broken down constitutions. Vascular conditions. The Carbons affect the veins more or less, relaxing, paralyzing. This one has its own peculiar feature of infiltrating little veins. just as sure, as an organ in the Carbo animalis patient becomes congested it becomes hard and purple from infiltration, and has a tendency to remain so.

Glands and veins: In an inflammation of a gland the veins become weak, and infiltrated, the gland itself becomes hard and sore, the tissues around it indurate, and the skin over it becomes purple. The glands of the throat and axilla grow purple and indurated with no tendency to soften. Some of these medicines, after infiltrating a gland, will hurry up the inflammatory action, produce sloughing, rapid breaking down, with pus-like Hepar, Mercurius and Sulphur. But this medicine paralyzes and infiltrates the little veins in the inflamed part, and there seems to be no tendency to suppuration.

We see that the economy. of this patient is in a sluggish state there are no rapid changes; but everything is slowed down. Even the inflammatory process is a passive one. Very often a slow quasi-erysipelatous inflammation comes on, the part becomes purple and will pit upon pressure. just think what a contrast this to Belladonna.

Belladonna will inflame all the glands, they will swell, become hot and so, sensitive that they can hardly be touched; at first bright red, then purple, with a tendency to resolution if let alone. But the Carbo animalis inflammation comes on slowly, its progress is slow, and there is no tendency to repair.

Enlargement of veins here and there over the body, varicose veins. There is intense burning in the part inflamed. which is indurated and purple. The glands of the throat burn.

Sluggish buboes in old broken down constitutions, in early stages of syphilis, inflame, become enlarged, purple, hard and burn. Lumps in the mammary glands. A purple lump the size of a hen's egg will form in the mammary gland. It does not go on to suppuration, as you would expect it to, it just stays there. It does not enlarge much, but it is hard.

The woman has so much burning in the vagina that she persuades the physician to make a more careful examination than he has done. He will probably find the whole cervix inflamed, purple and somewhat, enlarged. She says it burns like coals of fire.

Carbo animalis eventually produces ulceration of the tissues in various parts, especially in glands. After a while-but not early in the case - an ulcer forms, and perhaps after ulcerating for a time it comes to a standstill; it has become a sluggish ulcer. Indurated ulcers.

Ulcers and cancer: A bubo breaks down and forms an ulcer. All at once it stops suppurating and around about the tissues become hard and purple. The laudable discharge ceases, a bloody, ichorous discharge takes its place, and, the surrounding parts burn.

Now in ulcers and fistulous openings, where the walls become hard and burn, and the discharge becomes acrid, Carbo animalis is frequently the remedy.

It is not surprising that this remedy has been one of the most suitable for old, stubborn cancerous affections; for cancerous ulcers. They all burn, they are all surrounded by infiltrated, hardened, dark-colored tissue, and they all ooze an acrid ichorous fluid.

It has cured these troubles in old feeble constitutions with night-sweats and much bleeding. It has relieved in incurable cases, and has apparently removed the cancerous condition for years, even though it comes back afterward and kills. This remedy is often a great palliative for the pains that occur in cancer, the indurations and the stinging, burning pains.

Of course we do not want to teach, nor do we wish to have you infer, that a patient with a welladvanced cancerous affection, such as scirrhus, may be restored to perfect health and the cancerous affection removed. We may comfort that patient, and restore order at least temporarily, so that there is freedom from suffering in these malignant affections. Most patients that have cancer are really in such a state of disorder that only a temporary cessation of "hostilities" can be expected; and anyone who goes around boasting of the cancer cases he has cured ought to be regarded with suspicion.

Do not dwell upon the cancer, for it is not the cancer but the patient that you are treating. It is the patient that is sick, and whenever a patient is sick enough to have a cancer his state of order is too much disturbed to be cured.

The proving of Carbo animalis presents the appearance of a broken down constitution. it brought out in the provers just such symptoms as occur in old, feeble constitutions with poor repair and lack of reaction.

Hence the medicine has been a great palliative for patients suffering from malignant infiltrations and indurations; suspicious indurations round about and under the bases of ulcers; suspicious indurations in glands.

A gland becomes inflamed, hard and remains so. Carbo animalis stands at the head of the list of remedies that have that condition.

All through the remedy there is hypertrophy. Tissues pile up here and there into hard nodules; tissues pile up in glands and in organs. The economy has lost its balance, and the result is a disorderly distribution of material. Great prostration, want of energy, associated with palpitation, anxiety and disorders of the pulse. Weak pulse, rapid pulse, irregular pulse. Beating in blood vessels. There is turmoil in the economy, sometimes described as heat. A rushing of heat as though the body was full of steam.

Awful sensation through the chest and in the head, like some great earthquake taking place. These are due to abnormal conditions of the venous side of the heart.

Women: Flushes of heat; pulsations here and there. Hemorrhages. And of course the woman is more likely to bleed than the man; hence we have menses too early, too long, too copious. Prostration with every menstrual flow. The Carbo animalis woman sinks down at every menstrual period as if she would die. Such striking weakness is not at all accounted for by the quantity of the flow.

Chronic induration, with enlargement of the uterus, which gradually grows from year to year (Aur. m. n.). Induration of the cervix and the whole uterus.

Copious flow of the leucorrhoea. Offensive uterine discharges. Ulceration of the uterus, going gradually toward the malignant state. The menses are black and offensive. Finally this poor, feeble woman, who has been plodding along for years with this condition, goes into malignant ulceration of the cervix, which burns, bleeds constantly and oozes a foetid watery flow. The burning pains in the uterus extend down to the thighs.

Whenever this patient puts the child to the breast she has a sensation of emptiness in the stomach, sinking in the pit of the stomach, and she must take the child away.

There are many uterine troubles, with burning, stinging, smarting, a yellow brown saddle over the bridge of the nose, something like the mottled yellow saddle of Sepia. All sorts of disordered conditions of the uterus.

Surging of blood upward to the head, rousing up in sleep, with horrible dreams. This poor mortal is suffering from troubles in the base of the brain, has tearing pains in the head, and especially of the occiput, growing increasingly sensitive to cold, increasingly chilly, increasingly waxy, until we have phthisis or cancer, with varicose veins and all the conditions that I have described.