Kent's - Classical Homeopathy Online

His skin torments him almost beyond endurance, itching, burning, heat, all combine to makehim miserable; the skin feels better while scratching but worse after scratching; there is no comfort athome or abroad, in bed or out of it and a place of amusement is not to be thought of; he scratches whichmakes more trouble yet he must scratch to relieve that terrible, constant itching; you may truthfully saythat this remedy has many outward manifestations.This may be summed up as a right-sided remedy with the strange feeling of having beenpoisoned; there are sharp stinging pains all over the body like needles; lightning-like; darting here andthere, aggravated by light pressure and ameliorated by hard pressure.Head, nose and limb symptoms seem to grow worse until seven P.M. and are ameliorated abouteight P.M.; in an hour or two they are gone; the symptoms seem most severe from six to seven P.M.All symptoms, pain, itching, burning, are worse in a warm room and better in the open air,although he is so tired and weak that he can scarcely move, cannot walk straight, with soreness andaching all over the body, yet he is so nervous that he finds it impossible to keep still; there is almostconstant motion of the hands and feet.CUPRUM METALLICUM [cupr] [Kent’s]Cuprum is pre-eminently a convulsive medicine. The convulsive tendency associates itself withalmost every complaint that Cuprum creates and cures. It has convulsions in every degree of violence,from the mere twitching of little muscles and of single muscles to convulsions of all the muscles of thebody. When these are coming on the earliest threatenings are drawings in the fingers, clenching of thethumbs or twitching of the muscles. It has twitching, quivering, trembling, and it has also toniccontractions, so that the hands are closed violently. In this condition the thumbs are first affected; theyare drawn into the palms and then the fingers close down, over them with great violence. In the fingersand toes and in the extremities the spasmodic condition increases and extends until the limbs are in astate of great exhaustion. Tonic contractions, the limbs being drawn up with great violence and it seemsas if the frame would be torn to pieces by the violent contractions of the muscles everywhere. Often thecontractions assume a clonic form, with jerking and twitching.Cuprum has many mental symptoms. It has a great variety in its delirium incoherent prattling,taking of all sorts of subjects incoherently. It has produced a variety of mental symptoms: delirium,incoherency of speech, loss of memory. During its different complaints, such as cholera, some forms offever, the puerperal state, dysmenorrhoea, congestion of the brain, etc., there is delirium,unconsciousness and jerking and twitching of the muscles. The eyes roll in various directions, butcommonly upwards and outwards or upwards and inwards. There is bleeding from the nose and thevision is disturbed. Between the convulsive attacks there is incoherent talk, delirium, during which thepatient is spiteful, violent, weeping or shrieking. They go into convulsions with a shriek. In one place itis spoken of as bellowing like a calf.This drug has the ability to produce a group of spasms followed by the appearance as if thepatient were dead, or in a state of ecstasy. Convulsive conditions sometimes terminate in a state ofstasis during which the and ceases to act and the muscles remain quiet or only quiver. This is often oneof the leading features in whooping-cough when Cuprum is indicated. To bring it down to the languageof the mother, the description which she gives of the little one, which will probably make youremember it better than if I use the text, she says that when the child is seized with a spell of thisviolent whooping-cough, the face becomes livid or blue, the fingernails become discolored, the eyesare turned up, the child coughs until it loses its breath, and then lies in a state of insensibility for a longtime until she fears the child will never breathe again, but with violent spasmodic action in itsbreathing, the child from shortest breaths comes to itself again just as if brought back to life. You havehere all the violent features of a convulsive whooping-cough. In addition to what the mother says youmay also observe a few thing, but the whole make-up of such a case, its whole nature, shows that it is aCuprum whooping-cough. If the mother can get there quickly enough with a little cold water she willstop the cough. Cold water especially will relieve the spasm, and so the mother soon gets into the habitof hurrying for a glass of cold water, and the child also knows, if it has tried it once, that a glass of coldwater will relieve it. Whenever the respiratory organs are affected there is spasmodic breath in g,dyspnoea. There is also rattling in the chest. The more dyspnoea there is the more likely his thumbswill be clenched and the fingers cramped.In the lower part of the chest, in the region of the xiphoid appendix, there is a spasmodiccondition that is very troublesome. It seems to be at times a constriction so severe that he thinks he willdie, and at others a feeling as if he were transfixed with a knife from the xiphoid appendix to the back.Some say it feel as if a lump were in that region and others as if much wind were collected inthe stomach. It destroys the fullness of the voice, and it seems as if his life would be squeezed out.