Stannum metallicum

Repeated short attacks. EXTREME WEAKNESS; < IN CHEST; in throat, stomach, upper arms and thighs; drops into a chair; can't even talk; trembles on moving. Paralytic heaviness. Profuse, muco-purulent secretions. Emaciation. PAINS INCREASE GRADUALLY, THEN SLOWLY SUBSIDE. Pressive drawing. Neuralgias. Cramps. Spasms. Hysteria. .................... Anxious, nervous and sad; < before menses. Weak and miserable, and discouraged. Pressive, stupefying headache. Pale face, with sunken eyes. Malar neuralgia. Faceache. Tickling at root of tongue. Vomiting; violent; early morning, with odor of ingesta. Burning in liver. Painful, pinching colic, > hard pressure and stool, which exhausts. Child wants to be carried over shoulder. Worms. Atony of bladder. Easy sexual orgasms. Pollutions. Before menses, mania erotica. During menses, strong odor of body. Gushes of debilitating leucorrhœa. Prolapse, of vagina or uterus, < stool. Much mucus in trachea. Deep, hollow voice. Short breath, from every effort; must loosen clothes. Cough; easily expectorates quantities of sweet or bright yellow pus or balls of mucus. Catarrhal phthisis. Chest feels raw or hollow. Tremulous knees. Swelled hands and ankles. Chill at 10 A.M.; with numb fingertips. Burning palms and soles. Hectic. Debilitating, musty sweat at 4 A.M. Night-sweats.

Using voice. Cold. 10 A.M. MOTION: After. Gentle. Lying on right side. Ascending steps.

Rapid motion. Hard pressure; over an edge. Expectoration.

NERVES. MUCOUS MEMBRANES. CHEST. FEMALE ORGANS.

Antidotes: Hep. Pul. Related: Lach. Nat-m.

Stannum

Tin, The Element.

Extreme exhaustion of mind and body.

Sinking, empty, all-gone sensation in stomach (Chel., Phos., Sep.).

Sad, despondent, feels like crying all the time, but crying makes her worse (Nat. m.. Puls., Sep.) ; faint and weak, especially when going down stairs; can go up well enough (Bor. — rev. of Calc.).

Headache or neuralgia; pains begin lightly and increase gradually to the highest point and then gradually decline (Plat.).

Colic: > by hard pressure, or by laying abdomen across knee or on shoulder (Col.); lumbrici; passes worms.

Menses; too early, too profuse; sadness before; pain in malar bones, during.

Leucorrhoea ; great debility ; weakness seems to proceed from chest (from abdomen, pelvis, Phos., Sep.).

Prolapsus, worse during stool (with diarrhoea. Pod. ) ; so weak she drops into a chair instead of sitting down.

While dressing in the morning has to sit down several times to rest.

Nausea and vomiting; in the morning; from the odor of cooking food (Ars., Colch.).

When singing or using the voice, aching and weakness in deltoid and arms.

Great weakness in chest ; < from talking, laughing, reading aloud, singing; so weak, unable to talk.

Cough : deep, hollow, shattering, strangling ; concussive, in paroxysms of three coughs (of two, Merc.) ; dry, while in bed, in evening; empty sensation in chest.

Expectoration: profuse, like the white of an egg; sweetish, salty (Kali i., Sep.); sour, putrid, musty; yellow, green pus (heavy, green, salty. Kali i.) ; during the day.

Hoarseness; deep, husky, hollow voice; relieved for the time by coughing or expectorating mucus.

Sweat: mouldy, musty odor; after 4 a. m. every morning ; on neck and forehead ; very debilitating.

Aggravation. — Laughing and singing, talking.

using the voice; lying on right side; drinking anything warm (from cold drinks, Spong.).

hoarseness; hard pressure (CoL).

Stannum follows well: after, Caust., and is followed by Cal., Phos., SiL, Sulph., Tub.

Lecture LX — Plumbum and Stannum

Stannum has the opposite.

The Sepia patient has sadness concerning her own health, while she exhibits great indifference to her family. She is easily offended and is inclined to be vehement.

In this relaxation of tissue, producing goneness or weakness, we have several remedies. First of all, when you find patients are weak from talking, compare: Cocculus, Veratrum alb., Phosphoric acid, Sulphur, Sulphuric acid and Calcarea ostrearum.

For the functional paralysis that may come from fatigue or from mental emotions, compare with Stannum, Cocculus, Ig?iatia, Phosphorus, Natrum mur. and Collinsonia.

The Stannum patient is troubled with disordered digestion, otherwise called dyspepsia. There are nausea and vomiting in the morning, or, as in Colchicum, the odor of cooking causes vomiting. This last symptom is a particularly strong indication for Stannum, especially in women. There is weak, gone feeling in the stomach, as in Sepia ; also bitter taste in the mouth. The rectum is inactive. Much urging is required to evacuate even a soft stool. The face is apt to be pale and sunken, with dark rings around the eyes. These symptoms indicate debility, with which women suffer, and they may call for the exhibition of Stamium when worms are present. Even when convulsions result from the irritation of these parasites, Stannum is still the remedy if other symptoms agree, thus placing it alongside of Cina, Artemisia, etc.

Men may require Stannum when they are hypochondriacal. They have gastralgic pains, which compel them to walk about for relief, and they are so weak that this exercise is very fatiguing to them. The tongue is coated yellowish.

The Stannum patient suffers from prolapsus uteri. This prolapsus so often calls for Stannum, that Dr. Richard Hughes generally finds this remedy useful for simple prolapsus uteri. You will find, too, that under Stannum the vagina is prolapsed. These prolapsus symptoms are worse during stool. The menses are always profuse. The leucorrhcea corresponds with the prevailing character of the drug. It is yellowish or else it is clear mucus, and is always associated with unbearable weakness. The patient is so weak that she can scarcely move about. The prostration is so great that, on dressing in the morning, she has to sit down several times to rest. There is trembling of the arms and legs. The limbs feel as heavy as lead. This weakness is always worse when descending, as when going down stairs or assuming a sitting posture. These uterine symptoms may be associated with weak or gone.feeling in the chest. The patient feels so weak she can scarcely talk.

As somewhat similar to Stannum in prolapsus uteri, with aggravation of symptoms during* stool, you may remember Podophyllum, which has prolapsus uteri with diarrhoea. The stool is usually green, and comes with a rush.

Calcarea phosphorica, Nux vomica, Pulsatilla should also be studied in this connection.

As you might expect, a patient, so thoroughly weakened as to the nervous system as is the Stannum patient, must suffer from neuralgia. The general characteristic guiding you to its use is, the pains increase and decrease slowly. They are especially liable to occur in the course of the supra-orbital nerve. With this character to the pain, we find Stannum useful in prosopalgia following intermittent fever and abuse of quinine.

In these pains that increase and decrease slowly, the nearest remedies are Platina and Strontiana carb. Spigelia, Kalmia and Natrurn mur. also have the symptom, though perhaps less markedly. Epilepsy has been treated with Stannum, particularly when reflex from abdominal irritation, as from the presence of worms in the intestinal canal. The patient has a pale face and dark rings around the eyes, and colic, which is relieved by pressing firmly on the abdomen. If the child is old enough to describe his sensations, he will complain of a sweetish taste in the mouth. It is also useful in epilepsy with sexual complications; opisthotonos; clenching of the thumbs. Hysterical spasms may also call for Stannum, especially when associated with pain in the abdomen and diaphragm.

Next, the action of Stannum on mucous membranes. When it is the remedy, you find that there is copious secretion from the mucous membranes. This is bland and unirritating, and is yellowish or yellowish-green; hence it is a muco-purulent secretion. Sometimes, although not so often, this mucus is tenacious, viscid and intermixed with blood. It accumulates in the throat and is detached with great difficulty, even exciting vomiting. The mucus collects very rapidly in the chest and is quite easily expectorated, with great relief to the patient. The oppression, the weakness, and the tightness of the chest are all relieved when this sputum is raised. The voice, which is husky and hoarse, seems to be raised in pitch by this expectoration. Dyspnoea, too, is decidedly better after expectoration. The cough is very annoying and teasing. It is worse at night, and is excited by talking and walking rapidly. The patient, in addition, complains of that weakness of the chest. It seems as if he had no strength there whatever. Dyspnoea comes on, worse towards evening.

Now these are the symptoms w 7hich indicate Stannum in cases of neglected cold. They also suggest the drug in what has been very properly termed catarrhal phthisis. There is marked hectic fever. The chills come characteristically at ten o'clock in the morning. Towards evening the patient becomes flushed and hot, with aggravation of his symptoms on any exertion. At night he has profuse sweat, which is particularly worse towards four or five o'clock in the morning. Let me say here that in this hectic fever, with chill at ten o'clock in the morning, I have several times tried Natrnm mur. } but without obtaining any benefit from it.

Stannum is a remedy which you must select with great care, or it will surely disappoint you. This symptom of weakness must be present if you expect results. When you find Stannum insufficient in catarrhal phthisis, you may think of the following remedies: Silicea is indicated in catarrhal as well as in true tubercular phthisis when there is cough, which is increased by rapid motion. There is copious rattling of phlegm in the chest. The expectoration is more purulent than that of Stannum. There are usually vomicae in the lungs. You will find Silicea frequently indicated in the catarrhal phthisis of old people.

Phosphorus must often be carefully compared with Stannum, as the two remedies are frequently misused for each other. Both have hoarseness, evening aggravation, weak chest, cough, copious sputum, hectic, etc. Phosphorus has more blood or blood-streaks, tightness across the chest, aggravation from lying on the left side and thirst for ice-cold water.

Senega is a drug which produces great soreness in the w Talls of the chest and great accumulation . of clear albuminous mucus, which is difficult of expectoration. These symptoms are often accompanied by pressure on the chest as though the lungs w 7ere pushed back to the spine. It is especially indicated in fat persons of lax fibre. This Senega contains Senegin or Polygalic acid, which is identical in composition with Saponin, the active principle of the Quillaya saponaria. This also produces the same kind of relaxed cold as the Senega does. Coccus cacti is useful in whooping cough, with vomiting of great ropes of clear albuminous mucus. It may be useful in catarrhal phthisis when, with this ropy phlegm, there are sharp stitching pains under the clavicles.

Balsam of Peru is indicated in catarrhal phthisis by copious purulent expectoration. We know but little concerning this drug. We must, therefore, adopt the expedient of selecting it by a process of exclusion.

Yerba santa or the Eriodiction Californicum is indicated when there is asthmatic breathing from accumulation of mucus. There are considerable emaciation and fever.

Among other remedies with much phlegm on the chest are Antimonium crudum and tartaricu?n, Ckamomilla, Belladonna, Calcarea ostrearu?n, Calcarea phosphoidca and Ipecacuanha (in children), Lycopodium, Sulphur, Phosphorus, Balsam of Peru (purulent sputum), Hepar, Scilla, Yerba santa (fever, emaciation, asthma from mucus), Copaiva (profuse greenish-gray, disgusting-smelling sputa); Illicium anisatum (pus, with pain at third cartilage, right or left) ; Plx liq :

(purulent sputum; pain at left third costal cartilage); Myosotis (copious sputa, emaciation, night sweat).

In pleurisy you find Stannum indicated by sharp, knife-like stitches, beginning in the left axilla, and extending up into the left clavicle. Sometimes they extend from the left side down into the abdomen. They are worse from bending forward, from pressure and on inspiration.

Stannum is sometimes used in functional paralysis arising from onanism or from emotions. Sometimes persons of the weak, nervous temperament I have described are so affected by emotions as to lose the power of motion. Here Stannum compares with Staphisagria and Natrum mur.

Sad, anxious. Discouraged. Dread of seeing people.

Chief action is centered upon the nervous system and respiratory organs. Debility is very marked when Stannum is the remedy, especially the debility of chronic bronchial and pulmonary conditions, characterized by profuse muco- purulent discharges upon tuberculosis basis. Talking causes a very weak feeling in the throat and chest. Pains that come and go gradually, call unmistakably for Stannum. Paralytic weakness; spasms; paralysis.

Worse, using voice (i.e, laughing, talking, singing), lying on right side, warm drinks. Better, coughing or expectorating, hard pressure.

Aching in temples and forehead. Obstinate acute coryza and influenza with cough. Pain worse motion; gradually increasing and decreasing as if constricted by a band; forehead feels pressed inwards. Jarring of walking resounds painfully in head. Drawing pains in malar bones and orbits. Ulceration of ringhole in lobe of ear.

Much adhesive mucus, difficult to detach; efforts to detach cause nausea. Throat dry and stings.

Hunger. Smell of cooking causes vomiting. Bitter taste. Pain better pressure, but sore to touch. Sensation of emptiness in stomach.

Cramp-like colic around navel, with a feeling of emptiness. Colic relieved by hard pressure.

Bearing-down sensation. Prolapsus, with weak, sinking feeling in stomach (Sep). Menses early and profuse. Pain in vagina, upward and back to spine. Leucorrhœa, with great debility.

Hoarse; mucus expelled by forcible cough. Violent, dry cough in evening until midnight. Cough excited by laughing, singing, talking; worse lying on right side. During day, with copious green, sweetish, expectoration. Chest feels sore. Chest feels weak; can hardly talk. Influenzal cough from noon to midnight with scanty expectoration. Respiration short, oppressive; stitches in left side when breathing and lying on same side. Phthisis mucosa. Hectic fever.

Paralytic weakness; drops things. Ankles swollen. Limbs suddenly give out when attempting to sit down. Dizziness and weakness when descending. Spasmodic twitching of muscles of forearm and hand. Fingers jerk

when holding pen. Neuritis. Typewriters' paralysis.

Sleeps with one leg drawn up, the other stretched out.

Heat in evening; exhausting night-sweats, especially towards morning. Hectic. Perspiration, principally on forehead and nape of neck; debilitating; smelling musty, or offensive.

Complementary: Puls. Compare: Stann iod. 3x (Valuable in chronic chest diseases characterized by plastic tissue changes). Persistent inclination to cough, excited by tickling dry spot in the throat, apparently at root of tongue. Dryness of throat. Trachial and bronchial irritation of smokers. Pulmonary symptoms; cough, loud, hollow, ending with expectoration (Phellandrium). State of purulent infiltration. Advanced phthisis sometimes when Stann jod has not taken effect, an additional dose of Iodine in milk caused the drug to have its usual beneficial effect (Stonham). Compare: Caust; Calc; Sil; Tuberc; Bacil; Helon. Myrtus chekan (chronic bronchitis, cough of phthisis, emphysema, with gastric catarrhal complications and thick, yellow difficult sputum. Old persons with weakened power of expectoration).

Third to thirtieth potency.

Stannum Metallicum

Stannum is especially suited to persons who have long been growing feeble.

This is so striking that it may be said that some deep seated constitutional state must be present. There is a history of increasing weakness, cachexia, catarrhal conditions, and neuralgia dating back over years. There is sensitiveness to pain and an increasing aversion to doing anything, aversion to business in a man, and in a woman, to going about her housework; always tired, all work becomes irksome.

The countenance becomes increasingly sallow, even to a waxy, cachectic aspect. Once who has been growing weaker and develops neuralgia of the face, eyes, stomach, and intestines; not the shooting, tearing pains often described, but a pain beginning gradually, increasing steadily and then diminishing gradually.

Pains: The pain sometimes begins with sunrise, increases until noon and gradually diminishes, and ceases with sunset. On the other hand, it may begin at any time, as often at 10 A.M. and increasing for ten or twenty minutes, then gradually diminishing, but especially worse at noon.

Cactus has a sun headaches, Kalmia has a similar headache, not so regularly increasing and diminishing, but especially worse at noon. Cactus has a sun headache. Natrum mur. has never been known to cause it, but has cured it especially when beginning at 10 A.M. and worse from 2 to 3 P- m. Sang. headache coming and going with the sun.

The phthisical tendency of Stannum is closely allied to the neuralgias. If these patients settle down into a neuralgic constitution, the deposit of tubercles is postponed, but most of them then seek palliation with the inevitable result of hastening the end. If the Stannum neuralgia is suppressed, we will see phthisis making its appearance, particularly phthisis pituitosa. Nature seems to be able to throw off effects through mucous discharges. If the neuralgia is not permitted to, have sway the patient becomes oversensitive to cold, takes cold easily. When let alone every cold settled in the nerves and every draft caused neuralgias about the eyes, sensitive to every change in the weather, the hydrogenoid constitution of Grauvogl.

But when palliated in any way by Quinine and inappropriate homoeopathic remedies that have the tendency to, catch cold in the chest like Phos., he after a while does not get over his cold, but there is a continuous catarrh of the chest, and later he will die of miliary tuberculosis. Stannum is useful in warding off phthisis, and is a wonderful palliative in that disease. The pain has been likened to the pulling of a string, gradually increasing and gradually letting up. The Puls. pain is somewhat similar in its first half; it gradually becomes intense, but suddenly lets up with a snap; comes gradually and stops suddenly.

Remember what is said about the Bell. pain. It comes suddenly and reaches its intensity at once, where it may remain for hours, but ceases suddenly.

The Stannum pain is at times so severe that there is a throbbing pulsating intermingled with it, and the mind seems stunned.

"Headache every morning, over one or the other eye, mostly the left, gradually extending over the whole forehead and increasing and decreasing gradually, often with vomiting."

"Violent, glowing, beating pain." It is sometimes attended with burning.

"Felt as if the head would burst with inward blows.

Neuralgia of the left eye gradually increasing from 10 A.M. to noon, then gradually decreasing, with lachrymation during pain.

Intermittent supra-orbital neuralgia from 10 A.M. to 3 or 4 P.M., gradually increasing and attaining its acme, and then again gradually decreasing, after the abuse of quinine."

This is when the body is weak, with sallow countenance and tendency to phthisis, full of pain, and the earlier history shows that instead of taking cold in the chest or nose, as others take cold, every cold settles in the nerves. Finally he begins to take cold in the chest, with dyspnoea, violent, racking cough, gagging, retching, vomiting, and the most intense sufferings.

Copious, thick, yellow-green, bloody expectoration, which tastes sweetish (Phos.). Retching when coughing is marked; thick, white, yellow or green tenacious mucus. Cannot walk, cannot do anything without cough.

Always tired; it is an effort to work. Wakens in the morning with the chest filled with mucus, and coughs and expectorates, and yet some remains; he gags, retches and vomits, and it strings out of the mouth tasting sweetish, sometimes salty or sour.

Voice: This great weakness is manifested in the voice; hoarseness, loss of voice; the vocal cords will not respond; a paralytic weakness. Talking makes him feel weak, especially in the chest. "Hoarseness, weakness, emptiness in the chest on beginning to sing, so that she was constantly obliged to stop and take a deep breath; at times a few expulsive coughs removed the hoarseness for a few minutes.

Rawness in the larynx."

Rawness in the trachea and smarting all the way down when coughing. Irritation to cough, as from mucus in the trachea; or breathing, with cough either loose or dry, felt more while sitting bent over than when walking.

"Accumulation of great quantities of mucus in the trachea, easily thrown off by coughing. Oppressed breathing from ascending, from the slightest movement when lying down, in the evening, from coughing."

"Cough in fatiguing paroxysms; epigastric region painful as if beaten; violent, shattering, deep, short, from time to time, as from weakened chest, with a hoarse.

Weak sound.

Cough caused by talking, singing, laughing, lying on the side and from drinking anything warm." "Sputa like white of egg; yellow, green pus; sweetish, putrid, sour or saltish during day. Chest so weak that he cannot talk; empty feeling in the chest,"

This remedy is frequently indicated in cases where the routinist would prescribe Bry., etc., in low potencies to loosen the cough. Stannum is not dangerous in phthisis, and will palliate the case if it is incurable.

It will not rouse up the whole economy like Silica, but there may be an aggravation of the nervous symptoms; if there is anything to build on it will cause the patient to rally. If it brings back his old neuralgic pains, and you know he has not a long time to live, and seems to suffer much, Puls. is the natural antidote.

When a loose, easy cough is turned into one that is violent, dry and racking under Stannum, and seems to be inclined to be prolonged, Puls. will restore the loose cough. This is not a good action of the remedy; in incurable cases you can get the best results by not going too high.

Women: Another feature is seen in women. If you ever meet with a case who has suffered with violent neuralgia and she says since the obliteration of these pains she has had a copious, thick yellow, green leucorrhoea, think of Stannum. There is great weakness, which seems to proceed from the chest. The leucorrhoea has saved her from consumption.

Menses too early and too profuse; bearing down in the uterine region; prolapsus uteri and vaginae.

Paralytic symptoms; writers' cramp; women cannot let go of the broom (Dros. cures most cases).

"Constipation; stools hard, dry, knotty, or insufficient and green."

Inactive rectum, i. e., a paralytic state; even though there is much urging there is inability to pass the stool, which at times is soft. Colic better from pressure, lying on the stomach (Coloc., Cupr.); worse from motion; better from bending double.

"Very much exhausted from talking or reading aloud.

Great lassitude from walking; weariness of the whole body, especially when ascending stairs great sense of weakness in larynx and chest, thence all over the body trembling worse from slow exercise."