Psorinum

Feels sick all over. Lack of reaction, in chronic diseases. After-effects of infectious diseases, lasting for years. Enfeebled. RECURRENCE. Clears up confused cases. Migraine. Quinsy. FOUL; discharges; stools; eruptions; sweat; stubborn footsweat; odor of body. Thick secretions. Weak, tender and thin, easily chilled; takes cold; clothing seems large or he feels pushed down. Joints seem loose. HUNGRY or unusually well BEFORE AN ATTACK; but debilitated and reacts badly, and chronicity threatens. Wants to wash parts. .................... ANXIETY. Forebodings. Despair, of recovery. Gloomy. Feels good and bad by turns. Horrid thoughts. Averse to work. Feels himself poor (reverse-Sul.). Mind dull, clouded, difficult thinking. Head feels separated from body. Headache, follows visual disturbances; alternates with other troubles. Twitching in temples. Sensitive to drafts about head; wants it covered, in hot water. Dull, dry, tangled hair. Gummy, everted eyelids. Humid sores behing ears. Putrid otorrhœa. Hay fever. Face pale, sickly, dirty, fuzzy or puffy. Loose teeth. Tip of tongue feels burnt (Ign.). Hawks out foul, cheesy masses. Filthy taste. Anorexia; with great thirst. Flatus like bad eggs. DARK, GUSHING, HORRIBLY PUTRID STOOLS; of penetrating odor, going through whole house (Pod.); < at night. Cholera infantum. Stool soft, but difficult. Bed-wetting; at full moon. Offensive genitals. Griping in testes. Chronic gonorrhœa. Breathes > lying down or spreading arms apart. Breathing; < open air. Cough, < lying. Gurgling at heart. Panaris. Lumbar ache, < standing or walking. Hot, itching soles. Skin breaks out; < flexures; is dirty, rough or scabby, greasy. Condylomata, on edges of skin. Intolerable itching; < heat (of bed); he scratches it raw or until it bleeds. Heat, with steaming sweat. Sweat; profuse; < night; on palms; cold; easy.

COLD: Open air. Washing. Weather; stormy; changing. Winter. Heat: Of bed. Exertion. Woolens. SUPPRESSIONS. Yearly. Contact of his own limbs.

Lying with head low, or quietly. Eating. Washing. Nosebleed. Hard pressure. Profuse sweating.

SKIN: FOLDS OF. Sebaceous glands. EARS. BOWELS. Respiration. Right side.

Complementary: Sep. Sul. Tub. Related: Grap. Mang. Pho. Sul.

Psorinum

A Product of Psora. A Nosode.

Especially adapted to the psoric constitution.

In chronic cases when well selected remedies fail to relieve or permanently improve (in acute diseases, Sulph. ) ; when Sulphur seems indicated but fails to act.

Lack of reaction after severe acute diseases. Appetite will not return.

Children are pale, delicate, sickly. Sick babies will not sleep day or night but worry, fret, cry (Jalap.) ; child is good, plays all day ; restless, troublesome, screaming all night (rev. of, Lyc.).

Great weakness and debility; from loss of animal fluids ; remaining after acute diseases; independent of or without any organic lesion, or apparent cause.

Body has a filthy smell, even after bathing.

The whole body painful, easily sprained arid injured.

Great sensitiveness to cold air or change of weather; wears a fur cap, overcoat or shawl even in hottest summer weather.

Stormy weather he feels acutely; feels restless for days before or during a thunderstorm (Phos.) ; dry, scaly eruptions disappear in summer, return in winter.

Ailments : from suppressed itch or other skin diseases, when Sulphur fails to relieve; severe, from even slight emotions.

Feels unusually well day before attack.

Extremely psoric patients; nervous, restless, easily startled.

All excretions — diarrhoea, leucorrhoea, menses, perspiration— have a carrion-like odor.

Anxious, full of fear; evil forebodings.

Religions melancholgy ; very depressed, sad suicidal thoughts; despairs of salvation (Mel.), of recovery.

Despondent: fears he will die; that he will fail in business; during climaxis; making his own life and that of those about him intolerable.

Driven to despair with excessive itching.

Headache: preceded, by flickering before eyes; by dimness of vision or blindness (Lac d.. Kali bi.) ; by black spots or rings.

Headache : always hungry during ; > while eating (Anac., Kali p.) ; from suppressed eruptions, or suppressed menses ; > nosebleed (Mel.).

Hair, dry, lustreless, tangles easily, glues together (Lyc.). Plica polonica (Bar., Sars., Tub.).

Scalp : dry, scaly or moist, fetid, suppurating eruptions; oozing a sticky, offensive fluid (Graph., Mez.).

Intense photophobia, with inflamed lids ; cannot open the eyes; lies with face buried in pillow.

Ears : humid scurfs and soreness on and behind ears; oozing and offensive viscid fluid (Graph.).

Otorrhoea : thin, ichorous, horribly fetid discharge, like decayed meat ; chronic, after measles or scarlatina.

Acne : all forms, simplex, rosacea ; < during menses, from coffee, fats, sugar, meat; when the best selected remedy fails or only palliates.

Hungry in the middle of the night; must have something to eat (Gina, Sulph.).

Eructations tasting of rotten eggs (Arn., Ant. t.. Graph. ) .

Quinsy, tonsils greatly swollen; difficult, painful swallowing; burns, feels scalded; cutting, tearing, intense pain to ears on swallowing (painless. Bar. c. ) ; profuse, offensive saliva; tough mucus in throat, must hawk continually. To not only > acute attack but eradicate the tendency.

Hawks up cheesy balls, size of a pea, of disgusting taste and carrion-like odor (Kali m.).

Diarrhoea: sudden, imperative (Aloe, Sulph.) ; stool watery, dark brown, fetid; smells like carrion; involuntary, < at night from i to 4 A. M. ; after severe acute diseases ; teething ; in children ; when weather changes.

Constipation: obstinate, with backache; from inactivity of rectum; when Sulphur fails to relieve.

Enuresis : from vesical paresis ; during full moon, obstinate cases, with a family history of eczema.

Chronic gonorrhoea of year’s duration that can neither be suppressed nor cured ; the best selected remedy fails.

Leucorrhoea : large, clotted lumps of an intolerable odor ; violent pains in sacrum ; debility ; during climaxis.

During pregnancy : most obstinate vomiting, foetus moves too violently; when the best selected remedy fails to relieve; to correct the psoric diathesis of the unborn.

Profuse perspiration after acute diseases, with relief of all suffering (Calad., Nat. m.).

Asthma, dyspnoea : < in open air, sitting up (Laur.) ; flying down and keeping arms stretched far apart (rev. of, Ars.) ; despondent, thinks he will die.

Cough returns every winter.

Hay fever : appearing regularly every year the same day of the month; with an asthmatic, psoric or eczematous history. Patient should be treated the previous winter to eradicate the diathesis and prevent summer attack.

Cough: after suppressed itch, or eczema; chronic, of years’ duration; < mornings on waking and evenings on lying down (Phos., Tub.) ; sputa green, yellow or salty mucus; pus-like; coughs a long time before expectorating.

Skin : abnormal tendency to receive skin diseases ( Sulph. ) ; eruptions easily suppurate ( Hep. ) ; dry, inactive, rarely sweats; dirty look, as if never washed; coarse, greasy, as if bathed in oil; bad effects from suppression by sulphur and zinc ointments.

Sleepless from intolerable itching, or frightful dreams of robbers, danger, etc. (Nat. m.).

Psorinum should not be given for psora or the psoric diathesis, but like every other remedy, upon a strict individualization — the totality of the symptoms — and then we realize its wonderful work.

berculinum.

Is followed well : by. Alum., Bor., Hep., Sulph., Tub.

After: Lactic ac., in vomiting of pregnancy.

After: Arn. in traumatic affections of ovaries.

Sulphur follows Psorinum well, in mammary cancer.

Whether derived from purest gold or purest filth, our gratitude for its excellent service forbids us to enquire or care. — J. B. Bell.

Lecture XII — Nosodes — Psorinum and Ambra grisea

This class of remedies, as I have already intimated in my introductory lecture, consists of disease products. Many of them have been demonstrated to possess medicinal properties, and hence they are useful in the treatment of diseases of the human frame. The field here is certainly an immense one. As yet, we hardly know the commencement of our labors in this direction. I think that the time will come, when the medicines composing the group, will prove themselves to be of immense service in the treatment of chronic diseases. Some of the nosodes have been derived from the diseases of animals, others from those of plants.

Great objections have been made to the nosodes as remedies in homoeopathic practice. It is well that you should understand the prejudices which you will meet, both among the laity and in the profession. Objections have been made to Psorinum, which you know is obtained from the itch eruption and also to Syphilinum^ the syphilitic poison, on the ground that they are nasty and filthy. This objection is certainly absurd, because nobody would for one minute entertain the idea of administering these substances in a low potency; and this being the case, no one will maintain that there is anything nasty or disagreeable to one's feelings in administering to a patient Psorinum y for instance, in the two hundredth attenuation.

Another objection that has been raised against the nosodes, and one which apparently carries some weight with it, is, that the use of these substances interferes with the progress of Homoeopathy by confusing it with Isopathy. We may reason as much as we will, but we must always keep in view the facts of the case. We must fall back on the tribunal before which all our prescriptions must go, and that is experience. Now, I do not know how far I should care to go into these nosodes. Correctly applied, they are not isopathic remedies. What I call pure Isopathy is the practice proposed by Dr. S. Swan, of New York. For example, if a patient is so constituted that he cannot eat strawberries without being made ill thereby, Dr. Swan potentizes the strawberry and administers it to the patient and claims that thus the idiosyncrasy is destroyed. Isopathy rests on the bold assertion that what causes disease will cure it when administered in a high potency. The use of the nosodes in homoeopathic practice differs from this because in Homoeopathy we start with an experimental fact. We have taken these substances, proved them on the healthy, and have administered them at the bedside. We have found them efficacious, therefore we have the same right to claim them as medicines as we have any molecular substance. We will now proceed with their symptomatology, beginning first with

Psorinum.

Psorinum has been sufficiently proved to enable us to use it successfully in the treatment of disease. We find it especially indicated in constitutions which are psoric (to use Hahnemann's word), inpatients who are subject to glandular and cutaneous affections, and who do not react to the apparently well-chosen remedy. Suppose, for example, that the remedy suited to the case is Pulsatilla. The symptoms seem to call for it. The prescription is in accord with every rule of Institutes, and yet relief is but transient. In such a case ; there is some dyscrasia underlying the disease, and this must be removed or modified before it will be possible to cope successfully with the disease. Again, in certain cases of scarlatina your prescriptions avail nothing, and the little ones die. Many of these cases could be saved if we investigated this branch of our materia medica more thoroughly. The various constitutions or dyscrasiae underlying chronic and acute affections are, indeed, very numerous. As yet, we do not know them all. We do know that one of them is due to gonorrhoea. This disease is so frightfully common, that patients with a dyscrasia arising from it are very rapidly increasing. Now I want to tell you why this is so. It is because allopathic physicians, and many homoeopaths as well, do not properly cure it. Gonorrhoea is not a local disease, and, if it is not properly cured, a constitutional dyscrasia is developed, which may be transmitted to the offspring. I know, from years of experience and observation, that gonorrhoea is a serious difficulty, and one, too, that complicates many of the cases that we have to treat. The same is true, in a modified degree, of syphilis. Gonorrhoea seems to attack the nobler tissues, the lungs, the heart and the nervous system, all of which are reached by syphilis only after the lapse of years. To return from this digression. Psorinum, like Sulphur, is to be thought of in cases where there is a decided psoric taint, and the wellchosen remedy refuses to act. Let us look at some of the symptoms, and note the way that Psorinum affects the tissues. It causes an eruption on the skin, usually herpetic in character, and accompanied by great itching. This itching is intolerably worse as soon as the patient gets warm in bed. By and by you will observe that the skin has a dirty, dingy look, as though the patient had never washed himself (which may indeed be the case). In some places the skin has a coarse look, as though bathed in oil. The sebaceous secretion is excessive. In children the eruption is especially noticeable about the head. It may involve the whole scalp, but it spreads characteristically from the scalp down either side of the face, involving the cheeks and ears, like tinia capitis, which in fact it is. This eruption is, at times, moist, and oozes a matter which is very offensive. At other times it is dry, furfuraceous, as it is then called, and may disappear in the summer, only to reappear when cold weather sets in. There is usually associated with these skin symptoms an otorrhcea, which is thin, ichorous, and horribly offensive, having an odor like that of rotten meat. Ulcers appear on the legs, usually about the tibia or around the ankles or other joints. These ulcers have but this to characterize them, they are slow to heal; they are indolent. I may also observe here, that the herpetic and itching eruptions just referred to are apt to appear in the bends of joints, in the bends of the elbows, and in the popliteal spaces. The child is pale, sickly and greatly emaciated. The entire surface of the body emits an offensive odor, which persists despite the most careful washing. This comes from defective action of the cutaneous glands. They do not properly eliminate, and consequently the discharges remain and undergo decomposition and give off this odor, which can never be cured until the child's skin is cured. In summer time these children are very apt to have cholera infantum. There is no remedy that replaces Psorinum in its range of symptoms in this disease. The children are apt to be nervous and restless at night as a precursory symptom to the cholera infantum. They awake at night as if frightened, or they cry out during sleep; then, two or three nights afterward, they begin with diarrhoea; the stools are profuse and watery, dark brown or even black in color, very offensive, almost putrid in odor, worse at night, or driving the patient out of bed early in the morning.

Psorinum cures a form of chronic cephalalgia with bursting, throbbing pains in the head, preceded by flickering, dimness of vision or spots before the eyes, and accompanied by hunger. Sometimes the patient is inordinately hungry the day before the attack. This hungry feeling is a frequent concomitant of Psorinum complaints. Canine hunger preceding an attack of diarrhoea. Hunger at night, must get up and eat something, like Phosphorus and China, a condition sometimes met with in pregnancy.

We also find Psorinum indicated in the bad effects of suppressed itch. This disease is produced, you know, by the itch insect. You are justified in using as a local application anything that will kill the insect but not suppress the disease. Such an application you have in Oil of lavender, which kills both the insects and their ova. When itch has been suppressed, Psorinum is an excellent remedy to develop it; usually, too, it will cure the disease after its redevelopment. Psorinum is also useful when pustules or boils remain after itch has been cured by some other remedy.

There is another use that may be made of Psorinum, which I have not mentioned, but which is as important as any other. Sometimes, after acute or violent diseases, we find the patient greatly prostrated. For instance, after typhoid fever he is depressed in mind, weak in body, low-spirited, hopeless of recovery, and yet you know that there is no absolute certainty that the patient cannot get well; that there are no organic lesions remaining. He has weakening night-sweats. Perhaps Sulphur has been given without result. In such cases Psorinum is the remedy.

Here you may also consider China or Cinchona, which is an excellent remedy for rapid exhaustion following acute diseases, especially when there has been loss of blood, protracted or profuse diarrhoea, or profuse sweat. It is similar to Psorinum in the night-sweat; but the latter is the remedy when there is the mental state just described — the despair of recovery.

Laurocerasus is to be thought of when there is lack of reaction, especially in chest troubles.

Capsicum is indicated in lack of reaction occurring in persons of lax fibre.

Opium is a very superior remedy in these cases when the patient is stupid and drowsy.

Valerian, Moschus and Ambra grisea are to be used in nervous affections when the apparently well-chosen remedy fails.

Carbo veg. is indicated in cases of abdominal disease when there is great coldness of the body. The breath is cold, and the pulse rapid. Psorinum is very similar, as you see, to Sulphur. It complements that remedy. It is inimical to Lachesis, and is antidoted by Coffea.

Hopeless; despairs of recovery. Melancholy, deep and persistent; religious. Suicidal tendency.

Scabies Vesicle The therapeutic field of this remedy is found in so-called psoric manifestations. Psorinum is a cold medicine; wants the head kept warm, wants warm clothing even in summer. Extreme sensitiveness to cold. Debility, independent of any organic disease, especially the weakness remaining after acute disease. Lack of reaction, i.e, phagocytes defective; when well-chosen remedies fail to act. Scrofulous patients. Secretions have a filthy smell. Profuse sweating. Cardiac weakness. Skin symptoms very prominent. Often gives immunity from cold- catching. Easy perspiration when walking. Syphilis, inherited and tertiary. Offensive discharges.

Worse, coffee; Psorinum patient does not improve while using coffee. Worse, changes of weather, in hot sunshine, from cold. Dread of least cold air or draft. Better, heat, warm clothing, even in summer.

Awakens at night with pain as from blow on head. Chronic headaches; hungry during attacks; with vertigo. Hammering pain; brain feels too large; worse, change of weather. Dull, pressive pain in occiput. Humid eruption on scalp; hair matted. Hair dry.

Swelling of upper lip. Pale, delicate. Humid eruption on face. Sickly.

Agglutinated. Blepharitis. Chronic ophthalmia, that constantly recurs. Edges of lids red. Secretion acrid.

Raw, red, oozing scabs around ears. Sore pain behind ears. Herpes from temples over ears to cheeks. Offensive discharge from eczema around ears. Intolerable itching. Chronic otorrhœa. Most fetid pus from ears, brownish, offensive.

Dry, coryza, with stoppage of nose. Chronic catarrh; dropping from posterior nares. Acne rosacea.

Obstinate rhagades at corners. Tongue, gums ulcerated; tough mucus of foul taste adheres to soft palate.

Tonsils greatly swollen; painful swallowing, with pain in ears. Profuse, offensive saliva; tough mucus in throat. Recurring quinsy. Eradicates tendency to quinsy. Hawking up of cheesy, pea-like balls of disgusting smell and taste (Agar).

Eructations like bad eggs. Very hungry always; must have something to eat in the middle of the night. Nausea; vomiting of pregnancy. Pain in abdomen after eating.

Mucous, bloody, excessively fetid, dark fluid. Hard, difficult stool, with blood from rectum and burning piles. Constipation of infants, in pale, sickly scrofulous children.

Leucorrhœa fetid, lumpy, with much backache and debility. Mammæ swollen and painful. Pimples oozing an acrid fluid that burns and excoriates the glands.

Asthma, with dyspnœa; worse, sitting up; better, lying down and keeping arms spread wide apart. Dry, hard cough, with great weakness in chest. Feeling of ulceration under sternum. Pain in chest; better, lying down. Cough returns every winter, from suppressed eruption. Hay-fever returning irregularly every year.

Weakness of joints, as if they would not hold together. Eruption around finger-nails. Fetid foot-sweats.

Dirty, dingy look. Dry, lusterless, rough hair. Intolerable itching. Herpetic eruptions, especially on scalp and bends of joints with itching; worse, from warmth of bed. Enlarged glands. Sebaceous glands secrete excessively; oily skin. Indolent ulcers, slow to heal. Eczema behind ears. Crusty eruptions all over. Urticaria after every exertion. Pustules near finger-nails.

Sleepless from intolerable itching. Easily startled.

Profuse, offensive perspiration; night-sweats.

Complementary: Sulphur. Compare: Pediculus-Head-louse––(psoric manifestations in children. Eruption on dorsum of hands, feet neck. Prurigo; pellagra. Unusual aptitude for study and work). Pediculus (Cooties) transmit typhus and trench fever). In lack of reaction compare Calcarea and Natrum ars. Gaertner (Pessimistic, lack of confidence, subjective troublesome eye symptoms, fear of heights. Urticaria. Use 30th and 200th (Wheeler).

Two hundredth and higher potencies. Should not be repeated too often. Psorinum requires something like 9 days before it manifests its action, and even a single dose may elicit other symptoms lasting for weeks (Aegedi).

Psorinum

Psorinum is closed allied to Sulphur.

Skin: The patient dreads to be washed. The skin over the body, especially of the face, looks filthy, though it has been well washed. A dingy, dirty, foul look, as if covered with dirt.

Skin rough and uneven, cracks easily, bleeding fissures; it becomes rough and scaly. He cannot wash it clean. The skin of the hands is rough, chaps easily, becomes thick and scaly, easily cracks; breaks out in little scaly, eruptions; looks unwashed; he always appears to have dirty hands.

Many of the complaints of the skin are worse from bathing and from the warmth of the bed. The skin itches when warm; itches when wearing woolens. Itching when warm in bed; he scratches until the part becomes raw, and then it becomes scabby. When healing takes place there is itching and then it becomes scabby. When healing takes place there is itching and then he has to scratch. Legs and arms raw and scabby from scratching. Violent itching from the warmth of the bed, even, without any eruption.

The skin is unhealthy, looks dirty, dingy, studded with capillary blood vessels and enlarged veins. This is the state before the eruption appears. Scabs form from scratching and then comes the eruption.

Papules, pimples, crusts, boils, vesicles, and eruptions ooze a watery moisture. When the eruption has gone on for some time the crusty formation and vesicles mingle; the skin becomes thickened and indurated, and new crops come out under the old crusts; rawness, itching, tingling, crawling, bleeding eczema of the scalp and face; the crusts cover the scalp; the hair falls out; the oozing lifts up the crusts and exposes new vesicles; it looks like raw beef, and it tingles so that the child cannot keep its fingers off it; worse at night, worse from the warmth of the bed, worse from warm applications, anything that would keep the air away from it; ameliorated by cool air and worse from covering. This is the opposite of the general Psorinum state, which is aggravated from the open air. He has an aversion to open air.

The eruption goes on, spreads, and the true skin becomes elevated, thickened, indurated, with an increased vascularity and redness. The oozing is offensive like carrion or decomposed meat; nauseating odor from the oozing fluid. Offensiveness runs through Psorinum in such a characteristic way that is worth while mentioning it here; foetid odors, foetid breath discharges and oozing from the skin smelling like carrion; stool so offensive that the odor permeates the whole house, in diarrhea, summer complaint, cholera infantum; perspiration foetid; leucorrhoea abominably offensive; eructations taste as if be had eaten bard boiled eggs and they had spoiled, and they smell so to others; stool flatus, and eructations smell like spoiled eggs; offensive to sight and smell is the subject who needs this medicine.

The skin grows increasingly thick and bleeds, and the eruption spreads to other parts. Eruptions on the lips, on the genitals; very offensive; soreness and rawness about the anus; the vulva ulcerates and is very offensive; ulcers on the legs; on the tibia; on the backs of the hands; on the dorsum of the foot; behind the ears and upon the ears; over the scalp; over the cheek bones; on the wings of the nose and on the nose and eyelids. Greasy skin. The eruption is accompanied by redness of the mucous membranes of the nose, mouth, lips and eyes. Eyelids thickened and turned out, like ectropion; granulation and induration of mucous membranes, so that they become like gristle; redness and ulceration. Ulceration of the cornea; lachrymation; turning out of the lids with loss of the eyelashes.

Eyes and nose: He looks frightful with his red eyes, eruption on the face, red skin oozing a thick yellow discharge. In the early stages the oozing is a whitish thin or whitish thick moisture. In old eruptions ulceration takes place beneath the crusts and there is a thick, yellow, purulent discharge. Yellow green discharge from the eyes and nose. Horribly offensive discharge from the nose; gluey discharge from the nose; offensive like Merc., Sil., Calc. p., Hep.

Accumulation of foetid pus in the eyes. Coryza with thick, yellow discharge. Always taking cold. In the coryza, the nose dries up part of the time and runs part of the time; he must use the handkerchief continually; must blow the nose all the time.

In the early stages of the coryza he blows it all the time, but there is no discharge or relief. This state is so marked that some think of it as a continuous hay fever, which runs all the year and rippens up in the Fall.

It is closely related to hay fever; stuffing up of the nose in the Fall; catarrhal state of the eyes and nose. Hay fever is one of the most difficult conditions to fit a remedy to. It belongs to a low constitution which must be built up before the hay fever will cease.

It is an expression of psora which comes once a year, and the psoric miasm must be changed. In a few years most subjects can be changed, but not in one season, so do not be disappointed. In catarrhal states, hay fever often dates back to low fever improperly treated.

The Psorinum patient himself is one of debility. He wants to go home after a short walk. He is worse in the open air. He cannot breathe in the open air; cannot breathe while he is standing up; wants to go home and lie down so that he can breathe.

Asthma: or cardiac dyspnoea, when the patient wants to go home and lie down so that he can breathe. Usually this condition is relieved by sitting up and from the open air. Not so with Psorinum, he wants a warm place and to he down and to be let alone.

Psorinum is slowed down in all of its functions; a state of paretic weakness. He does not rally after a fever; his digestion is slow; the stool is normal, yet it requires a great effort to expel it; the bladder is full of urine, yet it passes slowly and he feels that some remains; he can never finish stool or urination; he has to go back several times. Although the stool is soft and perfectly normal it cannot be expelled at one sitting. A psoric patient comes down with typhoid; the typhoid has been arrested or has run its course and it is time for convalescence. The fever has subsided, but the patient has no appetite; he does not convalesce; he wants to lie down and does no desire to, be moved; he is worse when sitting up, lies upon his back; he has troublesome breathing and lies with his arms abducted from his side, thrown across the bed; this relieves his breathing and allows the chest to operate properly; so tired and so weak; one dose of Psorinum will cause a reaction, stop his sweat, increase his appetite, cause better breathing. The Psorinum complex of symptoms is one in which remedies cause improvement but a short time and then the symptoms change and another remedy must be selected. It is a state of feeble reaction.

Mind: The mental symptoms present some strong features. Sadness, hopeless; he sees no light breaking through the clouds above his head; all is dark about him.

He thinks his business is going to be a failure; that he is going to the poor house; that he has sinned away his day of grace. It is a fixed idea during the day and he dreams about it at night. Overwhelming sadness; dejection; he takes no joy in his family; feels that these things are hot for him.

His business is prosperous, yet he feels as if he were going to the poor house. No joy or realization of benefit . Extremely irritable, wants to be alone. Does not want to be washed. Full of anxiety, even of suicide. Despair of recovery his sick. Though there is no eruption at night he is driven to despair by the continual itching. If he throws the covers off then he becomes chilly; if he covers up, then there is itching.

Sensitive to cold yet the skin is worse from heat. Tingling, itching, formication, crawling like ants running over the surface, as of insects in the skin.

Especially suited to broken down individuals, who have vertigo as soon as they go into the open air; become dizzy and want to go home. and lie down; afraid they will lose their breath.

Head: Old chronic periodical headaches with hunger, and often the hunger lasts during the whole headache; must get up at night for have something to eat.

The headache is sometimes improve by eating. If he goes without a meal he has a headache. Violent rush of blood to the head, hot face, hair wet with the perspiration, hunger. Every one, two, or three weeks a recurrent headache. Every time the air blows on his head it slacks up the catarrh and a headache comes on.

Either coryza or headache from catching cold. Headache is violent, throbbing, pecking as of little hammer, red face, hot head-congestive at times sweat. Hungry headache in such as have a dry cough in winter. Dry, teasing, racking cough with no expectoration. If the cough ceases he has a periodic headache. So complaints alternate. Head ache goes and cough appears or eruption in winter alternating with headache. Scalp cold; wears fur cap in summer; worse uncovering the head (Sil.), worse front getting the hair cut (Bell., Glon., Sep.). Hepar is also worse from cold.

Salt rheum, psoriasis in winter. Dry, cold weather, cold wet weather; washing in cold water; dish washing, aggravate the salt rheum. "Hair dry, lusterless, tangles easily, glues together; must comb it continually."

Ears: Chronic offensive otorrheoa; thick, purulent, offensive, yellow discharge from the ears; smells like stinking meat; continuous discharge; eruptions about and behind ears. Discharge resulting from scarlet fever; abscess in middle ear; otitis media; rupture of drum; prolonged discharge from such all abscess; foetid discharge.

"Otorrheoa with headache; thin, ichorous and horribly offensive like spoiled meat; very offensive, purulent; brown, offensive from left ear, for almost four year."

Otorrheoa associated with watery, offensive diarrhea. Scurfs in ears, and humid scurfs behind cars.

Teeth and mouth: Rigg's disease; the teeth become loose; the gums settle away, spongy, bleed easily, humid, blue, the teeth fall out. Ulcers about the tongue and mouth; ulcers as found in infancy; aphthae, thrush; ulcerated sore mouth, sore throat, chronic ulcers of throat. Chronic thickening and elongation of the uvula. Enlargement of tonsils, parotids and submaxillary glands; they become hard and tender to touch; swelling from taking cold. Glands of the neck sore.

Abdomen: Chronic abdominal affections with disturbances of stool.

He will strain to pass a soft stool (Nux moshata., Alumina).

Chronic diarrhea; horribly offensive; frequent stool day and night (unlike Sulphur, the remedy it most resembles). He must go several times to pass a normal stool.

Chronic vomiting; ulcer of the stomach, distension of stomach are commonly associated. Always sour belching, sour stomach. Vomiting of blood and bloody stools. This is not strange, because Psorinum has a tendency to hemorrhages, especially from the uterus.

Women: All sorts of menstrual disorders, especially a prolonged menstruation. When a woman has passed through an abortion and the placenta has come away, but every few days a little gush of fresh, bright red blood and clots, or going days and weeks with a little oozing of bright red blood; every time she gets on her feet there is a new start of the flow; no tendency to permanent recovery.

Two remedies that fit this state are Sulphur and Psorinum. A marked state of relaxation, subinvolution. The uterus does not go back to its normal size and there is this tendency to bleed; a state of inertia.

Soft stool, passed with difficult do not forget this. Obstinate constipation. Haemorrhage from the rectum.

Cholera infantum; often in the early days the stool is horribly offensive, slimy, undigested; there is vomiting and prolonged weakness and the whole child has an offensive odor; child dirty; nose sunken in (Ant. t.), sunken, countenance. Psorinum causes reaction and cures, or brings the child into such a condition that a simple remedy completes the cure.

It is not the sourness of Hepar; in spite of washing, the child smells so sour; like sour milk; the diaper, urine, and faeces and perspiration are sour. This is a strong general feature of Hepar. The stool smells like spoiled eggs, so also the eructations and flatus. The offensiveness of the stool is horrible, but not so permeating as Bapt., which is thick and clay-like, while the Psorinum stool is watery, brown, gushing and may be bloody.

Chronic diarrhea, early morning, urgent. Hot flatus, burning the anus; smells of spoiled eggs, Arn. and Staph. Involuntary stool at night (China has a black, profuse, watery stool at night and after meals.)

In Psorinum, we find the haste of sulphur, the flatulence of Olean. and Aloe, and difficulty of expelling a soft stool like Alumina, China and Nux mosch.

Men: There is prostration in some Psorinum cases; prostration of the genitals.

It is not such an unusual thing in the female to have aversion to sexual intercourse, but man is not often subject to the complaints that cause aversion to coition. Yet we have in man as well as in the woman actual aversion or a state of no enjoyment. He can perform the act and he has no difficulty in obtaining an erection, so it is not impotence, but there is no enjoyment.

Impotence comes later.

"Absence of erections; parts flabby, torpid." "Aversion to coition; impotence; want of emission during coitus."

"Prostatic fluid discharged before urinating." Old gleet, painless discharge; the "last drop;" relaxed and cold genitals; a drop of white or yellow pus after a well selected remedy. (Sepia, Sulphur, Alumina, Psorinum.) Psorinum is indicated above all others if there is an unusually offensive state of the genitals, Thuya, if the odor is of a nauseating, sweet character; warts exposed by rolling back the foreskin; sweet odor in spite of washing.

Heart: Psorinum cures many heart complaints. Palpitation from the least exertion, better lying. Stitching pain better lying. Cardiac murmurs of either side. Mitral regurgitant murmur. Pericarditis of rheumatic origin. Heart symptoms with general weakness, dusky face, dazed look. Weak, irregular and rapid pulse. But mark the modalities. Aggravation in the open air, aggravation when sitting up, aggravation when sitting at the writing table; wants to rest the chest and breathing apparatus by lying down. Asthmatic dyspnoea ameliorated by lying down, and worse the nearer the arms are brought to the body. Such symptoms are found in very few remedies and in none so marked as in Psorinum. Febrile state. Intermittent, bilious fever, fever from a cold. The patient is so hot that the hand under the covers feels as though in a steam bath and the sensation of heat causes one to draw it back.

It is not the dry heat of Belladonna, yet it is as intense. It is a steam. He is covered with a boiling sweat in fevers. Head and body hot and hot air or steam beneath the covers. (Opium has this, but it is in a violent congestion to the head, an apoplectic condition.) In intermit tents he is taken on the street with difficult breathing. He wants to go home; he is weak and exhausted, crawls up stairs on the hands and knees. The chill is not marked, but the heat is intense and the sweat copious. He is almost in a stupor, befogged, bewildered, cannot answer questions; face red, puffed, mottled.

"Sweat profuse, cold, clammy from least exertion."

This is another form which comes on in the weak, broken down state. After typhoids, he sweats if he turns in bed, after the least exertion, and the sweat is cold. Profuse night sweats. Night sweats of phthisis; when there is that tremendous heat under the covers, a copious hot sweat; mental state as if dazed.

Marasmus; shriveling of the skin; dirty skin; cannot wash it clean. Offensive discharge from the bowels; great emaciation; increased growth of hair on the face; a fuzz (Nat-mur., Psor., Sulph Calc.); horribly offensive in spite of washing; ravenous appetite yet grows thin. Foetid odors would lead one to think of Psorinum.