Muriaticum acidum

Diarrhoea with protrusion of blue or dark purple haemorrhoids, especially when occurring in feeble children suffering from gastric atony, muscular debility and threatened marasmus. Hcemorrhoids swollen, blue ; painful to touch; appear suddenly in children ; protruding, reddish blue, burning, too sore to bear the least touch, even sheet is uncomfortable. Slow emission of urine ; bladder weak ; must wait a long time ; has to press so that anus protrudes. Leucorrhcea with backache; sore anus from piles or fissures. Great debility ; as soon as he sits down his eyes close ; lower jaw hangs '; slides down in bed. Typhus. Constant restlessness or stupid sleep ; unconscious ; loud moaning or conf used talking ; wishes to uncover ; lower jaw dropped; aphthous ulcers in mouth, fetid, sour smelling; tongue coated at edges, shrunken, dry like leather, paralysed. Thin, offen­ sive smelling evacuations ; involuntary stools while passing urine ; rapid, weak, rattling respiration ; sliding down in bed ; urine dark, 5h5 but clear ; bleeding from anus ; haemorrhage of dark, liquid blood ; mouth full of dark bluish ulcers ; pulse omits every third beat ; legs flexed, feet drawn up, skin hot and dry; Typhoid fever also. Scarlatina ; redness intense and rapidly spreading ; eruptions, scanty interspersed with petechiae ; skin purplish. One of the greatest remedies oj very bad cases of typhoid, diph­ theria, scarlet fever, etc. Hahnemann’s Black Letter Symptoms Whirling in the open air and unsteady in walking. Jerking, beating, tearing pain from the left half of the occiput to the forehead ; soon followed by a similar pain in the right half. Heavy feeling in occiput, with drawing stitches there, more on the right side, close to the nape, with swelling of a gland in the nape, which is painful when touched; at the same time heaviness and vertigo in the head, with dimness of the eyes, as when intoxicated. Twitching pinching deep in left ear, which after frequent recur­ rence became cramp-like almost like earache. Feeling of emptiness in the region of the stomach, especially in the oesophagus, which does not go off by eating, together with rumbling in the bowels. Violent pinching from the umbilical region towards both sides, with grumbling. Frequent urging to urinate with discharge of much urine. In the right side of the chest a drawing sensation which com­ menced below the nipple, extended towards the throat, became weaker and then went off. Cutting blows in the middle of the inside of the sternum, along with obtuse pressure at the back of the thoracic cavity, general oppres­ sion thereof, and impeded respiration, all day, occasionally. When sitting, an aching pain in the middle of the back, and from prolonged stooping, which went off when standing or walking. When sitting, an aching pain on the left side of the back, as from prolonged stooping, which did not go off by touching, walking, or standing. When sitting and writing, in the muscles of the right upper arm a drawing and tearing, which went off on moving and extending the arm. In the right elbow joint a drawing tensive pain, frequently. In the left palm a voluptuous itching, which compels scratching. In the.right palm a voluptuous shooting tickling, which compels scratching, but is not immediately removed thereby. 5M When writing a spasmodic pain like cramp, on the ball of the right thumb, which went off on moving it. When sitting a stitch-like pain, combined with aching and drawing in the muscles of the left thigh, close to the groin . . . which wetit off on standing or walking. . . . Staggering when walking, from weakness of the thighs. Persistent itching pricking in the dorsum of the left foot when moving, but worst when at rest. When sitting her eyes closed from exhaustion, but if she stood up and moved about she immediately became lively. Frequent waking from sleep. Febrile shivering over the body, rigor with yawning and stretching of the limbs, but without thirst and without heat thereafter. Sad disposition without assignable cause. Hahnemann also gives some mental symptoms. Laconic, silent and sullen. Pusillanimous, desponding and cross about everything. And the reaction, curative. Very tranquil, calm and free from care. (Sodium Chloride : Common Salt, potentized) Natrum mur. is one of the drugs introduced and proved by Hahnemann and five of his provers : reproved by the Austrian provers, and by others : the provings being mostly made from the ist to the 30th (centesimal) potencies. Hahnemann says in regard to salt . . . “ If it be true that substances which are capable of curing diseases are, on the other hand, capable of producing similar diseases in .the healthy organism, it is difficult to comprehend how all nations, even savages and barbarians, should have used salt in large quantities without experiencing any deleterious effects from that mineral . . . Considering that salt, when ordinarily used, has no pernicious effect upon the organism, we ought not to expect any curative influence from that substance. ’Nevertheless salt contains the most marvellous curative powers in a latent state. “ The transmutation, by means of the peculiar mode of pre­ paration adopted in homoeopathy, of a substance like salt, which is apparently inert in its crude state, into a heroic medicine, the use of which requires the greatest discrimination, is one of the most convincing proofs, even to the most prejudiced, of the fact that the peculiar processes of trituration and succussion resorted to in homoeopathy, bring to light a new world of powers which Nature keeps latent in crude substances. These processes operate, so to say, a new creation.” But in a footnote he alludes to the fact that even apparently innocent substances, including salt, when taken to excess, may become hurtful. Burnett, in one of his brilliant little monographs, takes “ NATRUM MURIATICUM as test of the doctrine of Drug Dynamization.” He points out that many doctors accept Hahne­ mann’s Law only, but regard potentization as irrational and unscientific. But, he says, ” our beliefs have nothing to do with truth : . . . disbelieving a thing does not disprove it : . . . in the same way that the presence of nothing but atheists in the world would not do away with the Supreme Being.” . . . Again, “ Drugs, as has been affirmed by many able practitioners, by Hahnemann himself, and as daily and hourly re-affirmed by men of sound science, do act differently and better when dyna­ mized. In fact many affirm, as did Hahnemann, that the doctrine ’ ’ (of potentization) “ is of transcendental importance ; since many serious diseases can only be cured with dynamized drugs, being entirely incurable with the same drug in substantial doses, and therefore altogether incurable, unless with a highly potentized remedy.” Burnett, “ had had no great respect for Natrum mur. as a remedy and had very seldom used it ; because how can any sensible man believe that the common condiment, which we ingest almost at every meal, can possibly be of any curative value : especially as some are known to eat salt in considerable quantities every day without any apparent deleterious effect . . While " to believe in salt as a remedy is almost synonymous with believing in the doctrine of drug dynamization, and a belief in this doctrine is extremely repulsive to one’s common sense. Perhaps the proper spirit would be gratitude to a beneficent Creator”, adds Burnett. Burnett’s “ conversion ” was thus. He had a patient with very obstinate neuralgia, on which he had exhausted all the neural­ gic drugs, as set down for that disease. Being “ at the end of his tether ”, he sent her to the seaside, and—she came back worse ! The neuralgia had been far worse at the sea. He jumped at the idea that it might have been the salty air that had made her worse, and prescribed Natrum mur. 6—and cured her promptly. Worse at the seaside was thereafter one of his great indications for Nat. mur. But this also converted him as regards Hahnemann’s claims for Potentization ; this and other cases : for had not this patient been eating salt, inhaling salt, with not only no cure, but with, on the contrary, aggravation of symptoms, and lo ! poten­ tized salt immediately cured her. Burnett was no fool : with him, Prejudice bowed before Facts. In that little book—Natrum muriaticum, the test of drug dynamization, he gives a number of brilliant cures by potentized salt. His idea was that, in the same way that an infant gets ample lime salts in its food, yet fails to assimilate enough for its needs till it gets the stimulus of potentized Calcarea ; so the hunger of Natrum mur. for salt is a very real hunger ; the patient is not assimilating enough to satisfy his tissue needs, till he gets the stimulus of the potentized drug. In regard to this veritable transmutation of Sodium chloride from a common aliment into a powerful remedial agent by poten­ tization, one remembers that the late Dr. Molson used to tell how he got the Coastguard at Brighton “ because they had nothing to do ” to go on triturating Natrum mur., to produce higher and higher potencies. Instead of the usual three triturations which reduce a substance to one in a million, and by which the most intractable substances, becoming soluble in water and alcohol, are easily run up into the higher potencies, he found that by such repeated trituration his Nairutn mur. became so intensely — almost explosively—active, that at last he was positively afraid to administer it. Dr. Burnett, when first experimenting with Nat. mur. used to take frequent pinches of the potentized drug, to see what it could do. Inter alia it opened a crack in the middle of his lower lip !—a thing he had never had before, and never had again after discontinuing his pinches. It was his habit to thus crudely prove remedies that interested him, on himself. Different persons realize, or visualize the self-same drug in different ways, accordipg to their experiences of its different powers and uses. It is therefore wise to study drugs as described by different writers ; and for that reason we try to give the “ cream of a whole library ” in regard to any drug we are trying to picture. One finds one point emphasized by one exponent, one by another. Burnett's Natrum mur. was a very chilly patient, with especial coldness of knees : coldness of legs, knees to feet. This chilliness over and over again disappeared after taking Natrum mur. Worse at the seaside. Deep crack centre of lower lip. Unconquerable sleepiness after dinner in the evening. Muddy urine, or urine very pale and limpid. He found that Nat. mur. would clear the urine ; or, in curing other troubles, would, in eliminating, cause the urine to become thick and cloudy. Lachrymation with headache. Great lachrymation very characteristic. Malaria ; and ailments since malaria and quinine. With Nat. mur., he cured fever and ague in a sailor, uncured by the salt provisions of those days, and by sea air. It needed the potentized drug to put him right. I believe that it is to Dr. Compton Burnett that we owe this all-important use of Natrum muriaticum in malaria and quinine poisoning, even of years ago. It is one of the precious little tips that save the situation again and again for us. Natrum mur. has “ fiery zigzags” before headache {Sep., etc.). Emaciation, especially about the clavicles and upper parts of the body. (Lyc.) Face shines greasily. Nat. mur. has very marked periodicity. In malaria, the chill starts at 10 a.m. ; or 9—10 ; or 10—11 a.m., and the drug has other very definite hours for chill, headache, neuralgia, etc. 5 7 0

First to third potency.