Magnesia carbonica

Ailing, worn out, nervous, flatulent and flabby. Sour; all over (Rhe.); regurgitation; foamy vomitus; stool, etc. Emaciation. Marasmus. Sharp shoots along nerves; must walk about. Numb, distended feeling. Can't bear hands covered, yet chilled by uncovering. .................... Heavy brain. Tearing, digging, boring face or toothache; < pregnancy; > cold. Sudden deafness. Waxy pallor. Hawks cheesy masses from throat. Sorethroat at menses. Nibbling appetite. Vomits undigested milk or bitter water. Cutting colic. Stool, frothy; GREENISH, LIKE WATER AND SCUM OF A POND; lienteric, with gelatinous or fatty masses; grass green. Menses like thick, dark molasses; tarry; viscid; < night and on rising; leave a fast stain. Craves open air. Paroxysmal cough; difficult, thin, salty or bloody sputum. Heavy, weary feet. Chilly; takes cold, with coryza, toothache, sorethroat, etc.; before menses; and dry. Sour, greasy, indelible sweat.

NIGHT. Rest. Noise. Cold: Changes of weather. Wind. Drafts. Food; starchy; milk. Slight causes, touch, etc. Children. Nurselings.

Motion. Walking about. Open air.

Malar bones. DIGESTIVE TRACT: Stomach. Bowels. Liver. NERVES: Facial. Dental.

Antidotes: Cham. Nux-v. Pul. Related: Rhe.

Magnesia carbonica

jf

Carbonate of Magnesia. MgCO^, gH^O.

For persons, especially children, of irritable disposition, nervous temperament (Cham.); lax fibre; sour smell of whole body (Rheum).

The whole body feels tired and painful, especially the legs and feet; aching, restless.

Spasmodic affections of stomach and intestines (Col., Mag. p.), increased secretion from mucous membranes.

Unrefreshing sleep, more tired on rising than when retiring (Bry., Con., Hep., Op., Sulph.).

Inordinate craving for meat in children of tuberculous parentage.

Heartburn : sour, belching, eructations, taste and vomiting; of pregnancy.

Pains: neuralgic, lightning-like, < left side (Col.); insupportable during repose, must get up and walk (Rhus) ; toothache, during pregnancy < at night.

Pain on vertex as if the hair were pulled (Kali n., Phos. ) .

Menses: preceded by sore throat (Lac c.), labor-like pain, cutting colic, backache, weakness, chilliness; hows only at night or when lying, ceases when walking (Am. m., Kreos. — rev. of, Lil.) ; acrid, dark, pitchlike; difficult to wash off (Med.).

Diarrhoea: preceded by cutting, doubling-up colic; occurs regularly every three weeks ; stools green, frothy, like scum of a frog-pond ; white, tallow-like masses are found floating in stool ; the milk passes 'undigested in nursing children.

When crude magnesia has been taken to “sweeten the stomach;” if the symptoms correspond, the potentized remedy will often relieve.

Aggravation. — Change of temperature; every three zveeks; rest; milk, during menses.

Amelioration. — Warm air, but worse in warmth of bed (Led., Men — better in warmth of bed, Ars.).

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.

Carbonate of Magnesia Gastro-intestinal catarrh, with marked acidity. Often used with advantage for complains arising in people who have been taking this drug to sweeten the stomach. Is frequently indicated in children; whole body smells sour, and disposed to boils. Broken-down, "worn-out" women, with uterine and climacteric disorders. With numbness and distension in various, parts and nerve prostration. Sensitive to the least start, noise, touch, etc. Affection of the antrum of Highmore. Effects of shock, blows, mental distress. Sense of numbness; nerve prostration;

tendency to constipation after nervous strain; sensitive to least touch, it causes starting, or cold winds or weather or from excess of care and worry with constipation and heaviness. Intense neuralgic pains.

Worse, warmth of bed; change of temperature; cold wind or weather; every three weeks; rest. Better, warm air; walking in open air.

Sticking pain in the side of the head on which he lies, as if the hair was pulled; worse, mental exertion. Itching of scalp worse in damp weather. Pain above margin of right orbit. Blank motes before eyes.

Tearing pain in one side; worse; quiet; must move about. Toothache, especially during pregnancy; worse at night; worse, cold and quiet. Teeth feel too long. Ailments from cutting wisdom teeth (Cheiranthus). Pain in malar bone, worse during rest, night. Swelling of malar bone with pulsating pain, worse exposure to cold wind.

Diminished hearing. Deafness; comes suddenly and varies. Numbness of outer ear. Feeling of distention of middle ear. Subdued tinnitus.

Dry at night. Sour taste. Vesicular eruption; bloody saliva. Sticking pain in throat; hawking up fetid, pea-colored particles.

Desire for fruit, acids, and vegetables. Eructations sour, and vomiting of bitter water. Craving for meat.

Rumbling, gurgling. Dragging towards pelvis. Very heavy; contractive, pinching, pain in right illiac region.

Preceded by griping, colicky pain. Green, watery, frothy, like a frog- pond's scum. Bloody mucous stools. Milk passes undigested in nursing children. Sour, with tenesmus (Rheum). Constipation after mental shock or severe nervous strain.

Sore throat before menses appear. Before menses, coryza and nasal stoppage. Menses too late and scanty, thick, dark, like pitch; mucous leucorrhœa. Menses flow only in sleep; more profuse at night (Amm m), or when lying down; cease when walking.

Ticking cough, with salty, bloody expectoration. Constrictive pains in chest, with dyspnœa. Soreness in chest during motion.

Tearing in shoulders as if dislocated. Right shoulder painful, cannot raise it (Sang). Whole body feels tired and painful, especially legs and feet. Swelling in bend of knee.

Earthy, sallow and parchment-like; emaciation. Itching vesicles on hands and fingers. Nodosities under skin. Sore; sensitive to cold.

Unrefreshing; more tired on rising than on retiring.

Chilly in evening. Fever at night. Sour, greasy perspiration.

Antidotes: Ars; Merc. Complementary: Cham.

Compare: Rheum; Kreos; Aloes; Cheiranthus-Wall flower ––(deafness, otorrhœa, nose stopped up at night from irritation of cutting wisdom-teeth).

Third to thirtieth potency.

Magnesia Carbonica

This remedy has only been partially proved, and comes to us now as Hahnemann left it.

The mental symptoms and symptoms of some portions of the body and particulars have not been fully brought out. The remedy really needs reproving with high potencies upon sensitive provers that the finer shades may be understood. I would not speak of it but for the fact that it relates to a class of cases so very important that you will not be able to get along without it. It is related to the older and deeper psoric sickness. It is deep acting and long acting and permeates the economy as thoroughly as Sulphur.

General features: Some of the most striking general features are: Amelioration from motion; desire for open air, yet very sensitive to cold air; wants to be covered during all stages of fever; daily evening fevers; symptoms recurring every twenty-one days. Sensation of heat and even sweat from eating and drinking warm things; evening thirst.

Like other Magnesias it has most violent neuralgic pains, pains along the course of nerves, pains so violent that he cannot keep still, and he moves about and is relieved by motion. The provers felt these pains mostly in the head and face, but clinical experience has demonstrated that it has violent neuralgia everywhere. We are justified from the proving, in considering it as especially related to the left side of the face; neuralgia in the night; driving him out of bed, keeping him in constant motion. As soon as he stops moving the pain becomes very severe, shooting, tearing and cutting.

It has varied eruptions upon the skin; dry scaly, dandruff-like eruptions upon the skin, very unhealthy hair and nails. Particularly does it affect the teeth and roots of the teeth. In every change of the weather the roots of the teeth become violently painful, burn, shoot and ache continuously. Toothache before and during menstruation.

During pregnancy she suffers all the time with toothache, tearing pains in the left side of the face, although the roots of the teeth are perfectly sound. The hollow teeth are unusually sensitive, and painful. The teeth are so sensitive that they cannot be manipulated by the dentist.

This is like Ant. crud., but Magnesia carb. especially affects the roots of the teeth, while Ant. crud. affects the dentine more particularly. Sensitiveness of the teeth, so that he cannot bite upon the teeth, and the teeth feel too long. Magnesia carb, and China, when no other symptoms are present, are prominent remedies among the affections of the teeth during pregnancy.

There is a kind of marasmus that you will puzzle over if you do not know this remedy. If we analyze the remedy in general, we will see that it produces a state of the body like that prior to tuberculosis.

He does not undergo, repair, he loses flesh, and the muscles become flabby as if some serious disease were coming. In children of tuberculous parents there is that tendency to go into marasmus. The child's muscles are flabby, the child will not thrive in spite of feeding and medicines. It seems to be laying the foundations for some serious trouble.

Finally, it emaciates and the back of the head begins to sink in, as if from atrophy of the cerebellum. The appetite increases for milk and meat and animal broths, and yet they are not digested, and when the milk is taken it continually passes the bowel in the form of white potter's clay, or like putty.

The stool is soft and of the consistency of putty. If you go through a china factory where the men are forming with their hands, in such wonderful manner, all sorts of beautiful dishes, and moulds, you will see that the original clay, as they are manipulating it, is white. It is a perfect picture of the Mag. carb. stool, composed of putty-like undigested milk.

I have observed, especially among illegitimate infants, those that have been conceived by clandestine coition, that they have a tendency to sinking in the back of the head. The occipital bone will sink in, and the parietal bones jut out over it, and there will be a depression. That is not an uncommon thing in children that go into marasmus. They are very likely to have a potter's clay stool. It does not run, and it is not hard.

The white, hard stool is quite another symptom, and the soft semi-fluid white stool leads to another class of remedies, but this pasty stool, looking as if it could be moulded into any kind of shape, is a Magnesia carb. stool. I once had in charge an orphanage, where we had sixty to one hundred babies on hand all tho time. The puzzle of my life was to find remedies for the cases that were going into marasmus. A large number of them were clandestine babies. It was a sort of Sheltering Arms for these little ones. The whole year elapsed, and we were losing babies every week from this gradual decline, until I saw the image of these babies in Magnesia carb., and after that many of them were cured. The Mag. carb. baby smells sour like the Hepar baby.

Wash it as you will and it smells sour; the perspiration is sour, and the whole baby smells sour. It is not especially the stool. The stool smells strong and pungent putrid, and very often the whole child has a pungent odor, like an unclean baby, though it be well washed. The Magnesias produce inactivity of the rectum and anus - a paresis. The stool is large and hard, requiring great straining to expel. It is dry, hard and crumbling. The stool will remain partly expelled and then crumble, breaking up in many pieces. Another stool that is laid down in the books as a most striking condition of Magnesia carb. is green; it is the diarrheic stool, and the green part floats upon the watery portion of the stool.

The stool is often lumpy, and liquid.

The lumps lie in the bottom of the vessel, but floating upon the liquid portion of the stool is the green like the scum of the frog pond. This is recognized as one of the most striking features. "Stools green, like scum on a frog pond; sour, frothy; with white floating lumps like tallow, bloody, mucous."

Floating like lumps of tallow, is more characteristic of Phosphorus, and many a time has Dulcamara cured it.

The face of the chronic adult case is pale, waxy, sickly and sallow. and you wonder why this patient will not right up, and will not thrive. She has a sickly countenance, her muscles are lax, she becomes so tired and sweats upon little exertion.

She is disturbed in every change of the weather, and is worse at the beginning of menstruation, She seems to take cold whenever menstruation is coming on. She says:

"I know my menstrual period is coming on, because I have a cold in my head."

Magnesia carb. has coryza every month before. the monthly period.

These patients take on an appearance as if going into decline, and yet they go on year after year unable to do anything; not able even to keep house, have a violent craving for meat and an aversion to vegetable food, grow thin and increasingly flabby, muscles relaxed, and with tendency to prolapsus. The walls of the abdomen have a tendency to fall down and to be relaxed, and the rings favor the formation of hernia. That is the kind of relaxation. The nerves are painful, and the muscles are tired. When you have such a case and have prescribed, and they persist in spite of every remedy, you know that the case does not well indicate a remedy, that the conditions are latent and there is a tendency to some grave internal disorder. The organs are threatening to break down; the kidneys, the heart, the lungs, or the brain are about to undergo organic change.

We have a catarrhal state in this remedy, but it is a dry catarrh, not much discharge. An old ulcer will dry up and become shiny and discharge almost nothing. The nose is dry and the eyeballs are so dry that the lids stick together and it is difficult to open the eyes. The skin becomes dry and itches and burns. Tendency to dryness of the mucous membranes and dryness of the skin. Dryness is a marked feature of this medicine. "Inordinate appetite for meat in children." The stomach is a troublesome organ. The Magnesia carb. patient is always complaining of a sour stomach; sour eructations. Food comes up sour. There is nausea and coming up in the throat of sour food. Pains in the stomach after eating an ordinary amount of food; bloated after eating; much flatulence after eating. The stomach digests the food slowly and it becomes sour.

This remedy is especially useful if the history has been a tubercular one. Losing flesh and craving for meat in those who are tubercular, or in those, that are from tubercular parents.

Patients suffering from a dry cough.

Dry cough before the evening chill like Rhus tox. There are persons who have simply this tendency who go along year after year in this withered state, with the little hacking cough, not rousing up into much. Finally some favorable circumstance arises and the tuberculosis comes on rapidly after it has remained in a sluggish state for a long time.

There are a few remedies more likely to be associated with that condition than any others, Arsenicum, Calc. carb., Lycopodium, Magnesia carb. and Tuberc. They fit into this lingering state, this prelude to active phthisis. They sometimes set a patient thriving, but mind you, these cases are hard cases to manage. They are difficult to find remedies for. Their trouble is so latent, the symptoms do not come out, and sometimes you have to read between the lines. They are the one-sided cases spoken of by Hahnemann.

In addition to this dry, tickling cough, which is not mentioned in the books, we find "Cough, spasmodic at night from tickling in the larynx."

"Sleepiness during the day and sleeplessness at night."

When you have seen many of these cases that are threatening to go into phthisis, you will notice that it is a general feature with all of them.

"Doctor, I am so tired in the morning; while I sleep some in the night, in the morning I feel as if I had not slept."

Always tired and relaxed. Most of these subjects are cold and chilly. This, state has not been bought out yet in the remedy, but clinically it relates to cold and chilly patients. Patients who say that they have not much blood.