Kent's - Classical Homeopathy Online

gangrenous inflammation, so violent, sudden and malignant is it and it has the anxiety, prostration, fearof death, and chilliness, the patient wanting to be covered warmly. When with this inflammation of thebowels the patient is relieved by heat it means Arsenic.You should remember that Secale has a similar state; it has all the tympanitic condition, all theulceration and prostration, all the offensive odor and expulsion of offensive clots, and all the burning,but the Secale patient wants to be uncovered, wants things cold, wants the windows open. The onlydistinguishing feature between these two remedies in a case may be that Secale wants cold andArsenicum wants heat but this is the way we individualize in our homeopathic prescribing. When thereis gangrenous inflammation in the lungs, we find the patient has been taken with a chill, there has beenrestlessness, prostration, anxiety and fear; as we enter the room we detect a horrible odor, and onlooking into the pan we see the patient has been spitting up by the mouthful, black, foul expectoration.Look and see if the patient wants to be covered warmly; if he is easily chilled, and heat feels good; thenit is a hard thing to cover that case outside of Arsenicum. The prostration, the vomiting, the anxiety, therestlessness the cadaveric aspect are present, and where will you find a remedy with that totalityoutside of Arsenic? I have many times gone a long distance to detect, from the very aspect of things,these symptoms that could be gotten while walking from the door to the bedside. Every symptom isArsenic; he looks like it, acts like it and smells like it. You may go to a patient with high gradeinflammation of the bladder, with frequent urging to urinate, straining to urinate, and there is bloodyurine intermingled with clots. It has been found by the attending physician when he introduces thecatheter to draw off the urine that clots dam up the catheter, a little is drawn off and then it stops. Wehave a history of restlessness, anxiety. fear of death, amelioration from heat, great prostration. Youmust give Arsenic, not because there is inflammation of the bladder, but because it is a rapidlyprogressing inflammation, and because it is gangrenous in character the whole bladder will be involvedin a short time, but Arsenic will stop that. So it is with all the internal organs, the liver, lungs, etc.; anyof them may take on violent and rapid inflammation. We are not now speaking of the particulars, butonly illustrating the general state of Arsenic, in order to bring out what runs through the whole natureof it. We shall find when we take up the remedy and go through it in a more particular way thesefeatures will stand out everywhere.The mental symptoms show in the beginning anxious restlessness, and from this a continuationtowards delirium and even insanity with all that it involves; disturbance of the intellect and will. "Hethinks he must die. I went to the bedside of a typhoid patient once with all the general aspect I havedescribed; he was able to talk, and he looked up at me and said: "There is no use of your coming, I amgoing to die; you might as well go home; my whole insides are mortifying". His friend was seated onone side of the bed, giving him a few drops of water, and just about as often as he could get there withit he wanted it again. That was all he wanted; his mouth was black, parched and dry. He got Arsenic.One of the characteristic features of Arsenic is thirst for small quantities often, just enough to wet themouth. It is commonly used as a distinguishing feature between Bryonia and Arsenic for the purpose ofmemorizing, that Bryonia has thirst for large quantities far apart, but Arsenicum little and often, orviolent unquenchable thirst."Thoughts of death and of the incurability of his complaints".Thoughts crowd upon him; he is too weak to keep them off or to hold on to one idea". That is,he lies in bed tormented day and night by depressing ideas and distressing thoughts. This is one form ofhis anxiety; when tormented with thoughts, he is anxious.In the delirium he sees all kinds of vermin on his bed. "Picks the bed-clothes". "Delirium duringsleep, unconscious mania"."Whimpering and gnashing teeth". "Loud moaning, groaning and weeping". "Lamentations,despair of life". "Screaming, with pains". "Fear drives him out of bed, he hides in a closet". These areinstances of insanity that take on first a state of anxiety, restlessness, and fear. Religious insanity, withthe delusion that she has sinned away her day of grace, the biblical promises of salvation do not applyto her, there is no hope for her, she is doomed to punishment. she has been thinking on religiousmatters until she is insane. Finally she enters into a more complete insane state, a state of tranquility;silent, and with aversion to talk. So we see one stage enters into another; we have to take the wholecase together; we have to note the course that the case has run in order to see it clearly and note that inone stage there were certain symptoms and, in another stage, other symptoms. For instance, we knowthat in the acute conditions of Arsenicum there is either thirst for ice cold water, and for only enough tomoisten the mouth, or there is thirst for water in large quantities and yet it does not quench the thirst;but this thirsty stage goes on to another in which there is aversion to water, and hence we see that inchronic diseases Arsenicum is thirstless. So it is in a case of mania; in the chronic state he is tranquil,