Spongia tosta

FLABBY. Weak and heavy. Feels stuffed up. Orgasms. Hard swellings; glands (ductless). .................... Terrified, anxious look. Eyes seem to protrude. Sorethroat, < sweets. Painfully swelled spermatic cord and testes; stitches in; squeezing in. Hard testes. Noisy, whistling inspiration on falling to sleep. SUFFOCATION; as from a plug, leaf or valve in larynx; waking him; with violent, painful palpitation and blue lips; with heavy sweat. Anxious, gasping breathing. HOLLOW BARKING, CROWING, SAWING OR TIGHT CROUPY COUGH; wakes child; then burning in chest; < cold drinks or excitement; > eating. Voice gives out. Croup; sudden. HOARSENESS. Larynx pains, < touch, singing, talking or swallowing; he grasps it. Diphtheria. Neck; as if a cord about. Choking on falling to sleep. Goitre. Fulness in chest. Apical phthisis. HEART; surgings mount up to neck, head and face; with closure of eyelids and tears. Palpitation. Goitre-heart. Valvular disease. Numb fingertips or lower half of body. Awakes in anxiety. Heat; in spells, with anxiety and cardiac pain, would rather die; and sudden weakness after walking in open air, he must lie down; with cold, moist thighs; < thinking of it. Follows: Cact.

DRY, COLD Wind. Roused from sleep. Exertion. Raising arms. Before 12 P.M.

Lying with head low. Eating a little.

HEART; valves. Larynx. Trachea. Glands.

Related: Iod. Led.

Spongia tosta

Roasted Sponge. Spongia.

For the tubercular diathesis.

Especially adapted to diseases of children and women; light hair, lax fibre, fair complexion (Brom.).

Swelling and induration of glands; goitre (Brom.).

Awakens in a fright and feels as if suffocating; as if he had to breathe through a sponge.

.Every mental excitement < or increases the cough.

Worse after sleep or sleeps into < (Each.).

Sore throat, < after eating sweet things.

Thyroid gland swollen even with chin; with suffocative paroxysms at night. Goitre.

Great dryness of mucous membranes of air passages — throat, larynx, trachea, bronchi — “dry as a horn.”

Cough : dry, barking, croupy ; rasping, ringing, wheezing, whistling; everything is perfectly dry, no mucous rale.

Cough : dry, sibilant, like a saw driven through a pine board; < sweets, cold drinks, smoking, lying with head low, dry cold winds; < reading, singing, talking, swallowing ; > eating or drinking warm things.

Croup: anxious, wheezing, < during inspiration

(< during expiration, Acon.); < before midnight (< before morning, Hep.).

Palpitation : violent with pain and gasping respiration; awakened suddenly after midnight with suffocation and great anxiety; valvular insufficiency; before or during menses.

Angina pectoris; contracting pain, heat, faintness, suffocation, anxiety and sweat; < after midnight.

Spermatic cord swollen, painful; testicles swollen, bruised, squeezed; after suppressed gonorrhoea or maltreated orchitis.

Relations. — Spongia follows well: after. Acon., Hep., in cough and croup, when dryness prevails; after Spong., Hep., when mucus commences to rattle.

Compare: Arn., Caust., Iod., Lach., Nux m., sputa loosened but must be swallowed again.

Lecture XLVIII — Halogens — Bromine and Iodine; and Spongia

Spongia.

{ Aeon., Bell., Hep., Iod., Brom.

Spongia. J Anacardium.

Caust., Selen., Phos.

^ Badiaga.

Spo?zgia is not a chemical substance. It is derived from the animal kingdom, but, because its symptoms are closely allied to those of the halogens, it is convenient to study the drug here. Spongia contains Iodine, also some Bromine and some calcareous matter, and probably other ingredients of minor importance. It differs from Iodine. In the first place, it is adapted to light-complexioned persons, and it has not the same property of producing plastic or fibrous exudates that Iodine has. It acts, however, on structures very similar to those influenced by the halogens, especially the glandular system and mucous surfaces. We find it of service in tuberculosis, and we shall find it invaluable in the treatment of heart disease.

First, let us study its action on the glands. It is indicated just as are the halogens in indurations and enlargement of the glands. Thus we find it indicated in goitre. The swelling is hard and large, one or both sides are swollen, sometimes even with the chin, and particularly is this associated with suffocating spells at night. This suffocation does not come alone from the size of the goitre, because some very small goitres give rise to this symptom in a very great degree. I would also call your attention to the fact that goitres will vary in size at different times. They will be larger at one time than another. It is said that they increase and decrease with the moon. It has, therefore, been suggested that you give Spongia, or whatever drug you select, with the waning moon. In this way you hurry its decline. Spongia acts on the testicles just as powerfully as the halogens, producing hardness and swelling of these glands. It is particularly useful in cases of maltreated orchitis or inflammation of the testicle after checked gonorrhoea. There is a peculiar sort of squeezing pain in the testicle and cord, worse on any motion of the body or clothing. In cases of orchitis, our first remedy is not Spongia. Pulsatilla stands at the head of the list, and next to it we may rank Hamamelis, or witch-hazel. The latter drug should be used both locally and internally. It relieves the intense soreness and enables the patient to attend to his duties. Still another remedy is Mercurius solubilis , particularly when what little gonorrhceal discharge is present is yellowishgreen.

Another remedy in the very beginning is Gelsemium.

When, however, you have this peculiar screwing-like, squeezing pain in the cord and testicles, with hardness there, Spongia comes in as one of our best drugs.

We find Spongia indicated in acute larjmgitis. This is an alarming disease. It is indicated after Aconite, when there are harsh, barking cough and suffocative spells during sleep, arousing the patient. The larynx is extremely sensitive to the touch. Do not give Lachesis in these cases, for the sensitiveness is not due to hyperesthesia of the cutaneous nerves, but it is the result of the inflamed condition of the laryngeal cartilages. Simply turning the head will bring on a suffocative spell.

Now there is another remedy that I would have you remember in this connection, and that is Sambucus. This is useful when these spasms of the larynx occur frequently during the course of acute laryngitis.

The same symptoms that suggest Spongia in laryngitis also indicate it in laryngeal phthisis.

I will not speak of the application of Spongia to croup, because I gave that to you in the early part of this lecture when speaking of Bromine and Iodine.

We come next to the lungs. We find Spongia indicated in true tuberculosis of the lungs. It is especially called for in the beginning of the stage of solidification of the lung tissue. You find the apices of one or both lungs dull on percussion. The cough is of a hard, ringing, metallic character. It is excited by deep breathing or by talking, by any little excitement, or by dry, cold winds, seldom by damp weather. It is relieved for awhile by eating or drinking. Anacardium also has this same symptom, eating relieves the cough. There is a great deal of congestion of the chest, especially when the patient is moving about, walking in the street for instance. This is accompanied by sudden weakness as if the patient would fall. In such cases Spongia has cured when given early.

Spongia is followed well by Hepar when the same kind of cough continues, but with rather more rattling from the production of mucus, whether blood-streaked or not. The symptoms are worse towards morning, while with. Spongia they are worse before midnight. You find, too, that the Spongia patient is subject to frequent flashes of heat in these phthisical cases, and these return whenever he thinks about them. He also experiences a chill which usually commences across the back. He shakes even when near a warm stove. The heat which follows is all over the body except the thighs, which remain numb and chilly.

Spongia is useful in organic affections of the heart. The patient cannot lie flat on the back with the head low without bringing on a spell of suffocation. He is frequently aroused from sleep as if smothering. He sits up in bed with an anxious look, flushed face, and rapid, hard breathing.

You will find a loud blowing sound over one or the other valve. Spongia is particularly indicated after Aconite. Here there is the same arousing from sleep with great distress, the face is red and there is probably great congestion of the chest. Aconite suits only the hyperemia that precedes endocarditis. Spongia comes in when exudation has commenced and the mischief has been already done. While it does not remove the deposit, it prevents the disease from advancing. In treating heart cases do not begin too soon with Lachesis, Hydrocyanic acidor Arsenicum. Begin rather with Aconite, Spongia, Spigelia, Bryonia of Phosphorus. Aj rse?iic and such remedies come in later. If you give them too soon you weaken the patient. Unless you have a complete picture for the remedy, do not give in the first stages one usually indicated in the last stages of a disease.

Anxiety and fear. Every excitement increases the cough.

Roasted Sponge A remedy especially marked in the symptoms of the respiratory organs, cough, croup, etc. Heart affections and often indicated for the tubercular diathesis. Children with fair complexion, lax fiber; swollen glands. Exhaustion and heaviness of the body after slight exertion, with orgasm of blood to chest, face. Anxiety and difficult breathing.

Worse, ascending, wind, before midnight. Better, descending, lying with head low.

Rush of blood; bursting headache; worse, forehead.

Watering; gummy or mucus discharge.

Fluent coryza, alternating with stoppage. Dryness; chronic, dry, nasal catarrh.

Tongue dry and brown; full of vesicles.

Thyroid gland swollen. Stitches and dryness. Burning and stinging. Sore throat; worse after eating sweet things. Tickling causes cough. Clears throat

constantly.

Excessive thirst, great hunger. Cannot bear tight clothing around trunk. Hiccough.

Swelling of spermatic cord and testicles, with pain and tenderness. Orchitis. Epididymitis. Heat in parts.

Before menses, pain in sacrum, hunger, palpitation. During menses, wakes with suffocative spells (Cupr; Iod; Lach). Amenorrhœa, with asthma (Puls).

Great dryness of all air-passages. Hoarseness; larynx dry, burns, constricted. Cough, dry, barking, croupy; larynx sensitive to touch. Croup; worse, during inspiration and before midnight. Respiration short, panting, difficult; feeling of a plug in larynx. Cough abates after eating or drinking, especially warm drinks. The dry, chronic sympathetic cough or organic heart disease is relieved by Spongia (Naja). Irrepressible cough from a spot deep in chest, as if raw and sore. Chest weak; can scarcely talk. Laryngeal phthisis. Goitre, with suffocative spells. Bronchial catarrh, with wheezing, asthmatic cough, worse cold air, with profuse expectoration and suffocation; worse, lying with head low and in hot room. Oppression and heat of chest, with sudden weakness.

Rapid and violent palpitation, with dyspnœa; cannot lie down; also feels best resting in horizontal position. Awakened suddenly after midnight with pain and suffocation; is flushed, hot, and frightened to death (Acon). Valvular insufficiency. Angina pectoris; faintness, and anxious sweat. Ebullition of blood, veins distended. Surging of heart into chest, as if it would force out upward. Hypertrophy of heart, especially right, with asthmatic symptoms.

Swelling and induration of glands; also exophthalmic; cervical glands swollen with tensive pain on turning head, painful on pressure; Goitre. Itching; measles

Awakes in a fright, and feels as if suffocating. Generally worse after sleep, or sleeps into and aggravation (Lach).

Attacks of heat with anxiety; heat and redness of face and perspiration.

Compare: Acon; Hep; Brom; Lach; Merc prot; Iod (Goitre).

Second trituration, or tincture to third potency.

Spongia Tosta

Mind: The mental symptoms of Spongia show that it is a heart remedy.

When a remedy produces the anxiety, fear, and dyspnoea found in Spongia, it will most likely turn out to be a cardiac remedy, unless these conditions are connected with irritation and inflammatory diseases of the brain.

In this drug we find without any cerebral symptoms, marked anxiety, fear of death, and suffocation, associated with palpitation and uneasiness in the region of the heart. It is especially related to cases where there is pain and a sense of stuffiness and fullness in the cardiac region, in the chest, with dyspnoea, anxiety, fear of death, feat, of the future, fear that something dreadful is going to happen. Wakens at night in great fear and it is some time before he can rationalize his surroundings (Aesc., Lyc., Samb., Lach., Phos., and Carbo veg.). Spongia is closely related to Aconite, which also excites the heart, brings on anxiety, fear, and restlessness, fear of death, predicts the hour of death, but this is associated with a marked febrile excitement. Spongia has febrile excitement in a minimum degree.

It is much deeper in its action than Aconite. Its cardiac diseases tend to develop slowly, with actual tissue changes, enlargement of the heart, it takes on a steady growth and the valves become changed, do not fit, hence, there are blowing and whizzing sounds, regurgitation with the mental symptoms. The two are similar in croup, but Spongia is deeper, slower in onset, taking several days for its development.

Cough: Aconite from exposure to a dry cold wind takes a cold to-day and, of course, comes down with croup to night in the first sleep. Before midnight has a dry spasmodic cough; hoarse cough; Spongia has taken a cold yesterday or the day before.

First there is roughness and dryness of the mucous membranes, sneezing. Both remedies have croup before midnight with dry, hoarse, barking cough, sawing respiration and dry air passages.

They are so similar that when Aconite only partially controls the condition and it returns the next night, or lasts on beyond midnight, Spongia becomes its natural follower. Spongia comes in because it was probably the remedy in the beginning.

Cases that grow worse each succeeding night, hoarse barking and crowing before midnight, though it also has a croup after midnight. It is a deep-acting remedy though its complaints sometimes come on suddenly.

Hepar is worse at night and in the morning. And when Aconite has apparently controlled, but the croup returns the next morning, Hepar comes in. Or if it comes on again the next evening with rattling Hepar will also be suitable. Dry, with no rattling is Spongia. If the child wants to be covered or says that it is chilly, Hepar. If it says the room is too warm and kicks the covers off, it needs Calc. sul.

The Spongia patient is worse from a warm room, from heat. Wants to be cool like Iodine, but is better from warm drinks, like Ars., Nux, Lyc.

Glands: The tendency to affect the glands is striking.

As a matter of fact, all the glands are affected; they gradually enlarge and become increasingly hard. Glands that have undergone inflammation and, are increased in size become hard, or they take on hypertrophy.

Hypertrophy of the heart (Kalmia, Sepia, Naja). Spongia has cured endocarditis, cardiac croup and many other inflammatory diseases of the heart resulting from rheumatism. Hypertrophy of the thyroid, goitre, when the heart is affected and the eyes protruding.

Cervical glands enlarged; inveterate cases of enlarged testes; orchitis from a suppressed gonorrhea, a cold or other causes; gradually increasing hardness.

Chest: The whole respiratory apparatus is acted upon; cardiac dyspnoea and the most severe forms of asthma.

Dryness of the air passages with whistling and wheezing, seldom rattling, must sit up and bend forward; at times after great dyspnoea, white, tough mucus forms in the air passages, difficult to expectorate; it comes up and often has to be swallowed (Arn., Caust., Lach., Kali c., Kali s., Nux mos., Sep., Staph.)

Dyspnoea worse lying down.

Head and face: The modality is common to its other complaints; violent, basilar headache forces him to sit up in bed and keep still. Holding the head in the upright position relieves the dull pressure in the occiput.

There are many headaches. In the occiput, in the forehead, congestive headaches, but most of them are associated with goitre, cardiac affections and asthma; they are due, probably, to sluggish circulation in the brain. Face distressed in croup; anxious; livid; pale and bloated; blue, pale with sunken eyes; red with anxious expression; alternating red and pale; cold sweat.

These symptoms are the natural effects of difficult breathing and are, therefore, not essential in the selection of a remedy. As primary symptoms, they would probably indicate Ars., but when due to cardiac difficulties, they are unimportant.

"Sore throat worse after eating sweet things. Thyroid gland swollen even with the chin; at night, suffocating spells, barking cough, with stinging in the throat and soreness in the abdomen."

Throat: Enlargement of the tonsils. Difficult swallowing.

Spongia is the remedy when dyspnoea and cough are relieved by warm food; may be better from warm drinks.

Laryngeal troubles with great hoarseness, in individuals tending towards phthisis, with tubercular heredity, cachectic aspect, weak lungs, but no deposit of tubercle. But all at once hoarseness sets in.

There is a tendency for the larynx to become involved in phthisical patients that need Spongia. This patient takes an acute cold and it settles in the larynx with hoarseness. Look out for that patient, for there is a tendency for tubercles to deposit where there is inflammation, and the infiltration instead of being fibrinous may become tubercular. Tendency for the larynx to be first involved in phthisical patients.

In Spongia do not look for the exsudative, but the infiltrative form of croup. Hoarseness with loss of voice, great dryness of the larynx from a cold; coryza, sneezing, the whole chest rings, is as dry as a horn; voice hissing, croupy, nose dry. There is very little accumulation of mucus, but at a late date ulceration begins and then there may be a copious expectoration of mucus. In proportion to the extent of rattling, this remedy is decreasingly indicated. Hepar has the coarse rattling with much mucus.

At times an adult takes cold and rawness of the larynx and trachea is the result. On going to bed she is taken with a spasmodic constriction of the larynx.

Laryngismus stridulous is commonly found in women. Ign., Gels., Lauroc. and Spongia. Ign. and Gels. will cure eight out of ten cases. The larynx is sensitive to touch in croup, etc., like Phos.

Dry, spasmodic cough, troublesome cough; cold things taken into the stomach aggravate. (Veratr. is better from cold water, but the cough is worse.) If the room becomes too warm, there is a dry, tickling, teasing, croupy spasmodic cough.

In cardiac and asthmatic troubles it resembles Lach., in the rousing up from sleep in suffocation; after the sleep the dyspnoea is worse.

The Phos. dyspnoea is often increased after sleeping, with suffocation. Lach. has it in a marked degree; in phthisis when the patient is about to die, there is sweat on going to sleep; dyspnoea on going to sleep and on waking. Lach. palliates and must be repeated.

Cardiac affections accompanied with thick, green or yellow expectoration like pus and dyspnoea on falling to sleep so that he must keep awake as long as he can, fear of sleep in advanced chest troubles. Grindelia robusta will palliate such a case and if the condition is only catarrhal and not tuberculous, it will cure.

Study especially the cardiac symptoms. "The symptoms of circulation are worse; from mental lassitude, from coughing, from lying on the right side, before menses, after lying down, sitting bent forward, from smoking, from going up stairs.

Awakens in fright and feels as if suffocating. Falling asleep early at night, suffocation awakens."

I have mentioned these symptoms, but read them for emphasis.

Ebullitions, distended veins; dropsy in cavities of the body. Especially suits young persons of tubercular parents, who remain weak, are pallid and do not thrive. Tubercular diathesis. Itching but no eruption. Seems always ready for an eruption to appear. Has only simplest herpetic eruptions. Itching all over and no visible eruption.

In acute endocarditis, the principal remedies are Spongia, Abrot., Sepia, and Kalmia. Naja in valvular diseases.