Ferrum iodatum

Fullness, even after a little food; stuffed feeling, as if she could not lean forward.

Vertigo on rising suddenly ; things grew black ; had to lean against something, or fall : with nausea, prostration, lethargy ; as if balancing to and fro ; as when on water ; when walking over water, like when crossing a bridge ; when descending, with disposition to fall forward. Headache : for two, three, or four days, every two or three weeks: hammering, beating, pulsating pains, must lie down in bed ; 'with aversion to eating and drinking. “ Morbus Basedowii ” : especially after suppression of menses : protruding eyes ; enlarged thyroid ; palpitation ; excessive nervous­ ness. Epistaxis in ancemic children, with frequent changing colour of face. Extreme paleness of face, which becomes red and flushes on least emotion, pain or exertion. Face flushes easily on least excitement or exertion. Canine h un g er, alternating with loss of appetite. Anorexia : extreme dislike to all food. Vomiting only of food, immediately after eating. After eating eructations and regurgitations of food, without nausea or inclination to vomit. Vomiting of food immediately after midnight, followed by aversion of food and dread of open air. Cramp-like pain in stomach. Frequent diarrhoea ; stools watery, with or without tenesmus, and preceded or not by pain, but always with much flatulence, and more frequent after taking food or drink. Undigested stools at night, or while eating or drinking. The threadworms seem to be increased by it. Involuntary urination at night ; also when walking about by day. Nocturnal seminal emissions. Men ses too soon, too profuse, too long-lasting, with fiery red face, ringing in ears : flow pale, watery, debilitating. Vomiting of pregnancy : suddenly leaves table and with one effort vomits all the food taken, appetite not impaired thereby ; can sit down and eat again. 37* Difficult breathing, oppression of chest, as if someone pressed, with hand, upon it. Contractive spasm in chest and cough, only when moving and walking. Spasmodic cough after meals with vomiting of all food taken. Whooping-cough. Child vomits food with every coughing spell : great pallor and weakness. Scanty, thin, frothy expectoration, with streaks of blood. Heefnoptysis : of onanists and consumptives : from severe exertion ; from suppressed menses. Erethitic chlorosis, worse in winter. Anæmia masked behind plethora and congestions ; pale colour of mucous membranes, with a nun’s murmur. “ Nun’s murmur ” in veins. Restless : must walk slowly about. The pain forces him to get up out of bed at night and walk slowly about. . Emaciation. Red parts become white. Anæ m ia, from whatever cause, chlorosis of defective menstruation, or simple poverty of blood induced by hemorrhages, deficiency of air, light and suitable food, or of exhausting diseases. Chlorosis after great loss of blood. General hemorrhagic diathesis. Hcemorrhophilia. Sleeps uneasily : is long awake before falling asleep again. Some Italic, Curious, or Notew orthy Symptoms Prone to weep or laugh immoderately, with choking sensation. Anxiety as after committing a crime. Fear of apoplexy. Irritable : little noises, crackling of paper, drive to despair. Many symptoms, better for moderate mental exertion. Head muddled, with cold feet and stiff fingers. Giddy as if drunk, as though would fall over obstacles (walking). On looking at running water, as if everything went round with her. Staggering : reeling sensation on seeing flowing water. Stitches as with a pen-knife in temples, especially at 3 a.m. Headache, vertex, as if skull were pushed upwards. Hammering, pulsating headache : congestion to head. Head dull and full, eyelids heavy : apt to sleep when reading. Head hot, feet cold. Capability to see in the dark at night. Pressure in eyes as if they would protrude. Redness of eyes and swelling of lids. Bleeding from nose, in the morning, on stooping. Face becomes suddenly fiery red, with vertigo, ringing in ears ; palpitation of heart and dyspnoea. Persistent diarrhoea in morbid dentition, stools of mucus and undigested food : face flushes or has a red spot on each side. Unbearable taste of food : taste like rotten eggs. Bread tastes dry and bitter. Appetite voracious : double amount of ordinary meal in evening hardly sufficient. Or, extreme dislike to all food. Appetite for bread. Better for wine, except acid wines. Vomiting after eggs, fat ; worse for meat—milk ; beer. Vomiting when food has been taken, never at other times, not as a symptom of disease, or any organic affection of stomach. Vomiting : easy ; better from ; of food, with a fiery red face. Pulsation in stomach and through oesophagus : as if a nerve quivering : as if a valve rose in throat. Marked swelling of liver : which is sensitive to touch. Urging to urinate with tickling in urethra, extending to neck of bladder. Burning in urethra, as if urine were hot. Oppression chest : hardly moves when breathing : nostrils dilated in expiration. Difficult inspiration : want of air in coughing out, and drawing in. Spasmodic cough : whooping cough. Asthma : difficult, slow breathing. Better walking and talking, or by constant reading or writing. Worse sitting still : most violent lying, especially in the evening. Cough, with copious purulent, blood-streaked expectoration. Haemoptysis : blood bright red, coagulated. Inflammation of lungs with roof of mouth white. Women who blush easily. * * * Kent points out that the strange thing, in Ferrum is that the complaints—the palpitation, the breathlessness, the weakness even, come on during rest. The patient is better moving about : yet exertion tires and causes faintness. Rapid motion aggravates : but there is amelioration from gentle, slow, quiet motion. Often patient is puffed up and dropsical : flesh pits, skin is pale, yet face has the appearance of plethora and flushes. And during chill the face becomes quite red ; flushes with wine also. Patient, though flabby, relaxed and tired gets no sympathy. She has palpitation, dyspnoea and weakness, feels she must lie down, yet face is flushed :—a pseudo-plethora. Blood vessels distended, veins varicose and their coats relaxed : therefore easy bleeding. Haemorrhages from all parts of the body —nose, lungs, uterus ..." green sickness ". Heat in head and face not at all in proportion to the red appearance. Face may be red and cool. Like China, complaints from loss of animal fluids :—prolonged haemorrhage, with long-lasting weakness. No repair : no diges­ tion : no assimilation. Bones soft and bend. . . . Sudden emaciation with false plethora. Pains relieved when moving about gently and quietly, like Pulsatilla : but Ferrum is a very cold medicine : dreads fresh air or a draught. Slight noises drive the patient wild. . . . Nothing in stomach digests, yet no special nausea. Food goes in and is simply emptied out. Or, eructations of food, like Phos. As soon as stomach is empty vomiting ceases till he eats again. Ferrum is an interesting medicine, because of this peculiar stomach ; it is like a leather bag, will not digest anything. (Compare Sepia. Ed.) Relaxation everywhere : i.e. prolapsus of rectum, of vagina, of uterus. . . . As if organs would come out, and sometimes they do. Bladder also :—This relaxation runs all through the remedy and gives it character. * * • Nash. This is another of the abused remedies. It stands with Old School for anaemia, as does Quinine for malaria. Each can and does cure its kind of both conditions, but can cure no other ; and each, when it is the true curative, is capable of doing its work in the potentized form. . . . Let no man prescribe Iron or any other remedy for anaemia, without indications accord­ ing to our therapeutic law of cure. I have seen better cures of bad cases of anaemia by Natrum mur. in potentized form than I ever did from Iron in any form, although Iron has its cases, as have also Pulsatilla, Cyclamen, Calcarea phos., Carbo veg., China, etc. Here is Nash’s summary of Ferrum. Anaemia with great paleness of all mucous membranes ; with sudden fiery flushing of the face. Profuse haemorrhages from any organ ! haemorrhagic diathesis : blood light with dark clots ; coagulates easily. Local congestions and inflammations, with hammering, pulsating pains : veins full ; flushed face alternates with paleness. Canine hunger, alternates with complete loss of appetite. Regurgitation or eructations, or vomiting of food at night that has stayed in the stomach all day : undigested painless diarrhoea. Worse after eating and drinking ; while at rest, especially sitting still : better walking slowly about. Ferrum is one of our best remedies for cough with vomiting of food. It is also one of the very few remedies turning a red face during ckiU, and has led to the cure of intermittent fever on that symptom. Nash also says, Palpitation of the heart, haemoptysis and asthma are relieved in the same way by walking slowly about. It would seem hardly possible that such complaints should be so relieved ; but there are many such curious and unaccountable symptoms in our Materia Medica which have become reliable leaders to the prescription of certain remedies. * * * By the way, Ferrum is one of the four black-type drugs of obesity : they are Calc., Caps., Ferr., Graph. .It is also a drug to consider in exophthalmic goitre. One has hunted for remedies for blushing. Ferr. is one. A very ancient experience has it, that ill-sleeping persons may find rest, by ordering the position of their beds, so that they shall sleep North and South, i.e. in the magnetic field, with head to the North. Personal experience suggests strongly, Try it. The feeling of peace that streams down blissfully on the first occasion when this position is tried is not easily forgotten. And why not ? I n the blood, Iron is incessantly circulating. 11 is conceivable that its molecules will cruise placidly in the long axis of the body, instead of finding themselves butting about in agitation when the body lies crosswise to the polar current. “ One of the organic tissue-salts introduced by Schuessler. Needs proving. Prepared by trituration. Good results with the 200th potency have been obtained." (Herin g, Guiding Symptoms). About the year 1875, Schuessler, a homoeopathic doctor, introduced his twelve Tissue Salts, or Bio-chemical Remedies. Two of the twelve, Silica and Natrum muriaticum, were old homoeopathic drugs, previously proved and given to the world many years earlier by Hahnemann. Of the rest, some have since been proved (on the healthy) or partially proved ; and, as we know, by experience, many of them are invaluable. Schuessler, looking upon them as tissue foods, gave them in the lower potencies (6x usually) and seems to have fed them in at frequent intervals. But, where they are homoeopathic to the condition we desire to cure, i.e., where they provoke and cure identical symptoms, the higher and highest potencies give as good, or even better results. For instance, his magnificent Magnesiaphos.,?LCts like a charm in the c.m. potency in a dysmenor- rhoea of like symptoms ; sometimes a single dose has ended the trouble. Its sphere, here, is the agonizing, crampy pains that cause the victim to double up (Coloc.) and to hug a very hot water-bottle. We are told that it is to their Mag. phos., that such remedies as Coloc., Vibum., Bell., etc., owe their griping, abdominal pains. And yet, practically, one will not do for the other i Schuessler discarded all but the actual salts in their tissue- combination ; he even discarded later, Calc, suiph., believing that Cglc. does not appear thus in the tissues. But vitality has a way of breaking down and building up for itself, and by no means requires that its wants shall be supplied in the exact form, in which they are to be utilized. He passed by that most precious of remedies. Calc. carb. and substituted Calc, phos., but—the wide difference in their symptoms ! The soft, lethargic Calc. carb. baby, with sweating head, sourness, " plus tissue of minus quality ” everywhere—even in bones, is utterly distinct from Calc, phos., equally valuable in its place, but no substitute for the other : the Calc. phos. baby is often emaciated and generally dark ; more wiry ; and the sweating head, so characteristic of rickets, is absent. For precise work—alas ! neither will do for the other. And chemical and life-processes, as Hahnemann showed, are by no means identical. Another point :—to feed in your drugs upon a hypothesis is one thing, and may advantage the patient. Whereas, to stimulate the organism to take what it needs from ordinary foods by which the want can, and should be supplied, is surely a far higher aim. The stimulative dose of Calc. carb. when symptoms agree, will cause the babe to supply its calcium-need from milk—provided the vitality of the milk has not been destroyed by modern methods; just as the infinitesimal dose of Nalrum mur. (potentized salt) will stimulate an (e.g. asthma patient—we have seen it)—to take the salt he craves and starves for, from the usual food sources that supply ordinary mortals, and so end, with his asthma, his inordinate appetite for salt. Science means knowledge. But the science of any day is never ultimate knowledge, and is apt to be pushed off the board by the science of to-morrow. And always we admire and .extol it ; yet, looking back, the science of many days seems to have been but a see-saw of sense and folly. For instance, to safeguard milk from being a possible vehicle of contagion, it has to be “ sterilized "—“ pasteurized ”, till the poor babes fed thereon, semi-starved of its more occult yet indis­ pensable ingredients, lack the power of resistance to those very disease-organisms from which we have striven to protect them. Then “ science advances,” and decrees orange juice, lemon juice, or the “ cheap raw juice of swedes ”—never intended for the up­ building of infants—to be added. Again, babes are brought to us, fed on bone-marrow ; on dried milk ; on peptonized milk ; on predigested foods, considered by the experimental, boastful, advertising chemist as proper substitutes for mother’s milk, often to the inhibition of necessary gland-activity. Then science, advancing still further, discovers vitamins (mark you ! always present in normal foods and in proper quantities, since the dawn of creation, and available for all except the children of civilization). These “ vitamins ” being destroyed in drying and sterilizing preparations, it now becomes necessary to supply them artificially : and (the next problem) not to over-supply them, as science is already discovering in regard to “ Vitamin D ”. Natural foods contain, in requisite proportions, the elements from which we may draw health and life. Clever, clever scientists !—when the chemistry of life in its perfection has been in operation since man strode the earth and women nursed tfreiF babies ; and is still in operation, unless interfered with by ephemeral “ science ”. And infants have lived delightfully, and flourished exceedingly, and grown into the robust men and women ; whose descendants we are. Knowledge is proud because she knows so much. Wisdom is humble, that she knows no more. One thinks of the old home life ; the fat, happy, rosy babies ; away in the country, because town-life—and in these days, flat- life—is not good enough for children :—The selected cow, whose unboiled milk reared them ; the rushing and exciting games in garden and woods ; the discipline of contact, of the clash of wills and tempers that bred self-control, and provided such ideal train­ ing to meet the trials and troubles of the vider life later. * * * The tissue-salts one knows best (besides the aforesaid Natrum mur. and Silica), are four in number, and curiously enough, the phosphates : Calc. phos. as said ; Ferrum phos. for somewhat non­ descript acute inflammations in their early stage—colds— pneumonias—which lack the well-defined indication that would call for Aeon., Bry., Phos., etc. ; Mag. phos. for the terrible nerve pains, where previously we had only Spigelia, Coloc., etc. ; but with the very definite Mag. phos. cry for pressure and heat ; Natrum phos., so useful in acid-muscle conditions, whether from fatigue {Am.) or sickness, as in the “ growing pains ” of small children, indefinite and disregarded often, but ominous where there is with them a small rise of temperature, and perhaps the suggestion of a blowing heart-murmur. To these many doctors would add Kali phos. But this last, for some or no reason, not having taken much hold on one's imagination, and never having become an intuition, it may be well, later on, to Drug-Picture it :—a grand means of grasping the real inwardness of a remedy, and learning its uses. Well, now—to revert to our subject—Ferrum phos. Here is Schuessler’s Theory in regard to it. He says in his last Edition (quoted by Clarke in his Dictionary) : “ Iron and its salts possess the property of attracting oxygen. The iron con­ tained in the blood corpuscles takes up the inhaled oxygen, thereby supplying it to all the tissues of the organism. The sulphur contained in the blood corpuscles and in other cells, in the form of sulphate of potassa, assists in transferring oxygen to the cells containing iron and sulphate of potassa. When the molecules of iron contained in the muscle-cells have suffered a disturbance in their motion through some foreign irritation, the cells affected grow flaccid. If this affection takes place in the annular fibres of the blood-vessels, these are dilated ; and as a consequence the blood contained in them is augmented. Such a state is called hyperaemia from irritation ; such a hyperaemia forms the first stage of inflammation. But when the cells affected have been brought back to the normal state by the therapeutic effect of iron (Phosphate of Iron), then the cells are enabled to cast off the causa­ tive agents of this hyperaemia, which are then received by the lymphatics in order that they may be eliminated from the organism.” Again, *' When the muscular cells of the intestinal villi have lost molecules of iron, then these villi become unable to perform their functions ; diarrhoea ensues.” And, once again, ” When the muscular cells of the intestinal walls have lost mole­ cules of iron, then the peristaltic motion of the intestinal canal is retarded, resulting in an inertia, with respect to the evacuation of faeces.” . . . ” When the muscular cells which have grown flaccid through loss of iron receive a compensation for their loss, the normal tensional relation is restored ; the annular fibres of the blood vessels are shortened to their proper measure, the capacity of these vessels again becomes normal, and the hyperaemia disappears, and in consequence the inflammatory fever ceases.” Schuessler says ” Iron will cure : ” The first stage of all inflammations. ” Pains-and haemorrhages caused by hyperaemia. ” Fresh wounds, contusions, sprains, etc., as it removes the hyperaemia. ” The pains which correspond to iron are increased by motion, but relieved by cold.” (No ! Ferrum is better for gentle motion.) Schuessler recommended trituration and dilutions from the 6x to the i2x. As said, his idea seems to have been to feed in the drug, probably in a potency in which it could be utilized. But, for the more subtle purposes of stimulation, the higher potencies, in less frequent repetition may do even more brilliant work. * * * So much for theory : now for the practical experiences of successful prescribers. Nash has a page of appreciation for Fsrrum phos. We will glean. A valuable remedy in some inflammatory diseases. In keeping with its element of iron, it presents the local congestive tendencies of that remedy ; in its Phosphorus element its affinity for lungs and stomach ; and in its combination proves a great hemorrhagic remedy. The haemorrhages are of bright blood, and may come from any outlet of the body. He also says, further provings and clinical use will enable us to emp'.iy it more scientifically than now. So far as he has observed, it is less adapted to the full-blooded, sanguine arterial subjects, with an over-plus of red blood that Aconite cures, but rather to the pale and anaemic, who are subject to sudden and violent congestions and inflammations, like pneu­ monia, or sudden congestion to head, bowels, etc., or to inflam­ matory affections of a rheumatic character. It is only useful in the first stage of such attacks, before the stage of exudation appears. . . . In dysentery, in the first stage with a good deal of blood in the discharges it is valuable and often cures in a very short time. " A very valuable remedy ; and ought to receive a thoroughly Hahnemannian proving.” * * * Boger (Synopsis) : Lungs. Ears. Worse at night (6 a.m.). Motion. Jar. Checked siveat. Full, Soft, Flowing Pulse, (rev. of Aeon.) Excited and talkative. Violent earache. Frequent stools of bloody water. Laryngitis of singers. Chest congested. F'evers. Pneumonia. Haemorrhagic measles, etc., etc. Marked Symptoms from Hering’s Guiding Symptoms, and from Boericke and Dewey's Edition of Schuessler’s Work. ” Sows eat up their young ; a transient mania depending upon hyperaemia of brain.” All febrile disturbances and inflammations at their onset, before exudation commences. Vertigo from congestion to parts of brain or head. Frontal headache, followed and relieved by nose-bleed. Congestion to brain ; early meningitis. Top of head sensitive to cold air, noise, jar, or stooping. 38o FERRUM PHOSPHORICUM Perhaps a feeling as if head were pushed forward, with danger of falling. Severe headache with soreness ; can't bear hair touched ; with hot, red face, and vomiting of food. Rush of blood to head. (Comp. Bell., Glonoine.) Eyes inflamed, red, burning, sore. On stooping cannot see ; as if all blood ran into eyes. First stage of otitis. Epistaxis. (Vipera.) A florid complexion. Ulcerated throat, to relieve congestion, heat, fever, pain and throbbing (Bell.). " First stage of diphtheria.” * Worse after meat, herring, coffee, cake. Toothache relieved by cold. Vomiting of blood. Haemorrhoids, inflamed or bleeding. Stools of pure blood. Haemorrhage from bladder and urethra. Initiatory stage of all inflammatory affections of the respiratory tract. Pneumonia with expectoration of clear blood. Haemoptysis after concussion or fall. Pleuritis and pneumonia, first stage. Coughs clear blood, with nose-bleed. ” Full pulse, less bounding than Aconite, but not so flowing as in Gels.” Articular rheumatism. Acute. Attacking one joint after another. Joints puffy but little red ; worse slightest motion. Felons, at the commencement (Bell.). High fever. Skin hot and dry. Scarlet fever. (Bell.). Copious night sweats, not relieving the great pains of rheuma­ tism, driving out of bed. Sweat between 4 and 6 a.m. » * * All febrile disturbances at their onset, especially before exudation commences. 38 1 “ In many inflammatory and some eruptive fevers, it seems to stand between the intensity of Aeon, and Bell., and the dullness of Gels.” “ In anaemia compare with China, with which it has many symptoms in common. . . . The tree from which China is obtained is always found in a ferruginous locality.” “ Measles with conjunctivitis and photophobia (35 cases).” * * * One has seen very rapid curative action with Ferr. phos. in many early colds without very definite symptoms ; and also astonishing cures of pneumonia, without the definite symptoms that would call for Aeon., Bry. or Phos. Not having been extensively proved, Ferrum phos. has not yet taken the place it richly deserves in homoeopathic literature. Its sphere seems to be, simple, active hypereemia. It should be useless in septic cases. “ Ferr. phos. is a constituent of China, Gels., Verat., Aeon., Am., Ailanth., Anis., Stil., Phyto., Berh., Rhus, Asaf., Viburn., Secale (.25 per cent.). Graph. (2.74 per cent.).” Boericke. Gelsemium—Yellow Jessamine—or " Yellow Jasmine A climb­ ing plant native to the Southern States of America. We owe Gelsemium as a remedy to Dr. E. M. Hale (U.S.A.), who was proud of the title his colleagues gave him, “ Father of the New Remedies", because he added valuable medicines to our pharmacopoeia, and because of his important text book, Hale's New Remedies. Clarke’s description of Gelsemium and its action is excellent. He calls it a drug of importance in Homoeopathy, not for the great number of symptoms it causes, but because of the number of its well-marked and clearly characteristic symptoms, which correspond to symptoms constantly met with in everyday practice. We will extract. " Gelsemium is a great paralyser. It produces a general state of paresis, mental and bodily. The mind is sluggish, the whole muscular system is relaxed : the limbs so heavy he can hardly move them. . . . The same paretic condition is shown in the eyelids, causing ptosis ; in the eye muscles, causing diplopia ; in the oesophagus, causing loss of swallowing power ; in the anus, which remains open . . . Post-diphtheritic paralysis. . . . The mental prostration is typified in ‘ funk ’ as before an examination ; stage fright ; effects of anger, grief, bad news ; and is accompanied by drooping eyelids. . . . Hysterical dysphagia or aphonia, after emotions. . . . Tremor is a key-note of the remedy.” One remembers after an attack of diphtheria, prickling in finger-tips and in soles of feet, as if shoes full of little sharp stones, and one uncomfortable moment, when something swallowed went, not down, but up, into the nose. Gels, promptly finished all that. It should. One of its characteristic symptoms is paralysis of oesophagus and of the muscles of deglutition. It has proved a great remedy in post-diphtheritic paralysis. And then Influenza. There is one form of ’flu of which Gels. makes quick work—where chilisare playing up and down the spine ; where legs are too heavy, almost, to lift, and head and brain too languid, and weighty, and dull ; and here a dose of Gels, will straighten things up, often in a couple of hours. Again, patients come—sometimes after an epidemic, several in an afternoon, complaining, “ Never well since ’flu some weeks