Mezereum

Swelling of glands with large abdomen in children. Pressure in inguinal ring. Flatulent colic, with shivering and difficult respiration.

Hypochondriac and despotident. Takes no pleasure in anything. Everything seems to him dead, atul nothing makes a vivid impres­ sion upon his mind. Very violent headache ; head painful to slightest touch (after a slight vexation). Bone pain in bones of skull, especially aggravated by contact. Cranial bones pain, are swollen and sensitive to cold and contact : worse from motion and in the evening. Caries. Itching and burning of scalp. Head covered with a thick leather-like crust, under which thick white pus collects here and there, and hair is glued together. On the head, great elevated white scabs, under which ichor collects in quantity, and which begins to be offensive and to breed vermin. Ey es : sensation of dryness. Obstinate jerking of the muscles of left upper lid. Ear : Sensation of air distending the right external meatus. (Then the left.) Teeth feel blunt and elongated : painful on biting or from fresh air. Violent burning in mouth. Heat and scraping in fauces. Burning in throat and pharynx : dryness in fauces, hacking cough ; anxious oppression of breath, loosening of scanty mucus on coughing. Vomits b eer, which has a bitter taste {not water). Pain in periosteum of long bones, especially tibia : worse at night in bed ; least touch is intolerable. Worse in damp weather. Bones inflamed, swollen, especially shafts of cylindrical bones ; after abuse of Mercury and venereal disease. Eczema, itching intolerably, copious serous exudation. Neuralgia and burning after zona. The skin of face is of a deep inflammatory redness, and the eruption is “ fat ” and moist. The child scratches the face continually ; it becomes covered with blood. In the night the child scratches its face so that the bed is covered with blood in the morning ; and the face is covered with a scab which the child keeps constantly tearing off anew, and on the spots thus left raw, large {fat) pustules form. Ulcers covered with thick whitish-yellow scabs, under which thick, yellow pus collects. Vesicles appear around the ulcers, itching, violently and burning like fire. After eight days these vesicles dry up, leaving scabs, the tearing off of which causes great pain and retards healing. Some Qu eer, or Italic Symptoms Irritable ; averse to everything ; desire to run away. {Bell., etc.) Apprehensiveness in pit of stomach {K. curb., etc.) as when expecting some very unpleasant news. Everything vexes him ; he wants to say all kinds of annoying and vexatious things. Unable to recollect : or understand. Every intercurrent remark of others disturbed and confused his ideas. Head dull, as if intoxicated : as of he had been up all night. Headache from root of nose into forehead as if everything would press asunder. On pressing frontal bone it pains and draws down to the feet. Heat and perspiration on head ; chilliness and coldness in rest of body (morning). Sensation upper part of head, as if pithy. Pressing pains as if skull would split. On head, great elevated white scabs : chalky scabs, extend to eyebrows and nape of neck. Violent biting on head, as if from lice. Pressure in eyeballs, as if too large. Moist, itching eruption on head and behind ears. {Graph.) Dry eruption on head, with intolerable itching, as if head was in an ant’s nest. {Favus.) (A case of favus cured recently with Puls.—in a typical Pulsatilla child.—Ed.) Eczema of lids and head ; thick hard scabs, from which pus exudes on pressure. Ears feel as if too open, and as if air was pouring into them ; or as if tympanum was exposed to cold air ; with desire to bore with finger into ear. Oozing eruption behind ears. Fluent coryza, scabs in nose—soreness. Constant excoriation of nose. (Compare Aur., Sulph.) Facial muscles drawn tense : troublesome twitching of muscles of right cheek. Feeling as if eyes were drawn backward into head. Wind blowing in the right ear. Honey-like scabs about mouth. Sensation as if tooth was being lifted out of socket. Teeth decay suddenly above gums ; crowns remain intact. Decaying roots. Peppery sensation on palate and in fauces. Canine hunger noon and evening. Loss of appetite. Desire for ham fat, coffee, wine. Beer tastes bitter and causes vomitingt Burning in whole mouth as from pepper. Ulcer of stomach. Induration of stomach. Burning, corroding pains in stomach, as if it were raw inside. Stool contains glistening bodies. Small, white, shining grains in brown faeces. Anus becomes painful and constricted about fallen rectum. Stools hard as a stone and large ; as if they would split anus. Sticking in kidney, and pain as if tom. Corroding leucorrhœa. Dyspnoea as if from adhesions or contraction of lungs. Cough spasmodic : yellow viscid mucus : tastes saltish. Cough : when eating or drinking anything hot must cough till he vomits : from beer. Intercostal neuralgia, follows herpes zoster. {Ran. bulb., .4rs.) Limbs feel as if shortened. Right hand cold, left warm ; or both cold. Paralysis of flexors of fingers ; finger-ends powerless, cannot hold anything. Violent pain in tibia as if beaten, or as if periosteum were tom off, after midnight. Leg, from knee to instep, covered with thick yellow scab, from cracks of which thick, yellow matter oozes on pressure. Scabs fall off in pieces, leaving skin deep-red, sore, itching violently and exuding a thin, clear, fluid, forming a thin scab under which pus again collects ; skin round scabs dark-red, tense, hot, itching. At night intolerable itching and burning in eruption. Foul odour. (Herpes crustaceus.) Violent nightly pains in bones of feet. Feeling of great lightness of body. Especially indicated in January and February. Worse from heat and cold. Head especially worse cold : cranial bones, pains in scalp, etc. Yet worse heat of bed : of fire : itching of scalp and feet. (Like Puls.), is chilly and drowsy in a warm room. Hands and feet cold : nails blue. With hot spot on top of head. Sensations : as if drunk. As if upper part of head were pithy. As if skull would split. As if top of head were gone. Eyes drawn backward : ears open. Teeth too long : ants running over chest. As if skull would split : stools would split anus : kidneys as if tom. Periosteum tom. Throat narrowing. Chest too rght : limbs too short. Sticking like needles : Millions of insects crawling on him. Twitching pains : in hollow teeth ; from hip joint to knee ; in cheek : in eyelid. Like fire darting through muscles. Constriction, throat, stomach, round prolapsed anus. Bones feel distended. Hughes {Pharmacodynamics) tells us that Mezereum was one of the vegetable substances . . . with which it was attempted to replace mercury in the treatment of syphilis. He refers to its influence over nodes and nocturnal pains. He says, Hahnemann's pathogenesis in the Fragmenta, mentions such pains as caused by it in the cranium, clavicle and thighs, and several of the later pro vers report the saine experience : in homoeopathic practice we use it with much confidence in these affections, and in simple or rheumatic periostitis. “ Whether it acts on the bones themselves, I hesitate to say.” But he says there is on record a case in which it seemed to check the necrosis of jaw produced by phosphorus. The Homoeopathic method, he says, has added another valuable application of Mezereum—to cutaneous affections. The plant is a violent acrid, and irritates the skin when externally applied, and the throat, stomach and intestines when swallowed. He tells of intolerable itching over the whole body caused by the internal use of the drug ; and of the reputation of Mez. as “ about the best medicine for shingles ; and not only for the eruption, but also for the consecutive neuralgia ”. He also quotes Dunham : These symptoms suggest at once the applicability of Mezereum to crusta lactea, to various forms of pure impetigo ; and to some of those mercurial or mercurio-syphilitic ulcers on the lower extremities which are often so difficult to cure. I have frequently had occasion to witness the prompt curative action of Mezereum in these affections, in which I have generally used the 200th potency. This has proved efficacious in cases in which the lower dilutions have been inert. The characteristics of the Mezereum skin diseases are well defined in the above symptoms, viz. itching occurring in the evening in bed, aggravated and turned to burning by touch or by scratching ; sensitiveness to touch ; ulcers with an areola, sensitive and easily bleeding, painful at night the pus tends to form an adherent scab, under which a quantity of pus collects.” Hughes also quotes Pareira, ” The urinary organs are sometimes affected by it, an irritation similar to that of Cantharides being set up.” Nash gives, Pain in long bones, especially tibia. (Dro$. and Lach., Asaf., etc. Ed.) Facial neuralgia or toothache, when pains are greatly worse by eating or motions of jaw : better by radiate heat. Nose : vesicular eruption, with excoriations, formation of thick scabs, worse at night : Zona. He says, " I once cured a very obstinate case of facial neuralgia with it : worse by eating : only relief was to hold face as near as he could to a hot stove : no other heat applied wet or dry, relieved. (This is interesting, because Mez. is, in “ skins ” anyway, markedly worse from heat of fire. Ed.) * * * G u e r n s e y , Keynotes, says :—Often useful in cases of very violent neuralgic pains about teeth or face, especially if pain be in left bone, running towards the ear. Also neuralgic pains at night in teeth : teeth left side. Shin bone. Mouth waters. Urine with red flakes which float on top of urine. Subsultus tendinum. When fingers are put on wrist or on other parts of body, the tendons are felt to jump and jerk. Burning ; darting in muscles, like fire darting through them. * * ♦ Let us seek final enlightenment and emphasis from Kent, that graphic painter of symptomatology. Eruptive corhplaints : eruptions and ulcerations. The outer surfaces of the body are in a constant state of irritation : nervous feelings, biting, tingling, itching, changing from place to place on scratching. The part becomes cold after scratching. As soon as he gets warm in bed, or into a warm room, itching begins. Kent, of course, gives the thick, tough, leathery crusts ; with fluctuation beneath the crusts, where pressure causes the oozing of thick white pus . . . vermin often found among the crusts. Acrid pus, eats away the hair. . . . Cases with a history of suppressed eczema or syphilis. Eruptions, red cicatrices about face and eyes : fissures in comers of eyes. Ear trouble from suppressed eruptions. . . . atrophic catarrh : degeneration of mucous membranes, ear, nose, throat. Has all the catarrhal states, the ulcerations and patches of copper- coloured eruptions found in syphilis. It tends to manifest the sufferings of the body in the skin ; it throws the physical evils to the surfacr The Mezereum patient is in fairly good health when the eruptions are out. When suppressed, catarrhal affections, nervous disorders, strange mental symptoms, constipation, rheumatism, joint-symptoms appear ; lie becomes a mental wreck. Religious or financial melancholy : melancholy in regard to his business : indifference to everybody and everything. . . . Insanity with melancholy, sadness, and a history of eruptions that have called for Mezereum. . . . Sensation of goneness, fear, apprehension, faintness in sto/nach, as if something would happen. Every shock, pain, bad news, when the door bell rings, when he expects the postman, or a friend, or when introduced to someone, he experiences a thrill beginning in stomach : he is “ frightened in the stomach ”. (Calc., Kali carb., Phos., and Mez.) Kent says also, “ These solar plexus 'individuals have often a deep cracked tongue and are hard to cure.”