Kent's - Classical Homeopathy Online

ut in the earlier stages, in order to be an Arsenicum case, he must have gone through the Arsenicumrestlessness, anxiety and fear.Fear is a strong element in the mental state, fear to be alone; fears something is going to injurehim when he is alone; full of horror; he dreads solitude and wants company, because in company hecan talk and put off the fear; but as this insanity increases he fails to appreciate company and the fearcomes in spite of it. He has a violent increase of his fear and horror in the dark and many complaintscome on in the evening as darkness is coming on. Many of the mental troubles, as well as the physicaltroubles, come on and are increased at certain times.While some complaints, pains and aches are worse in the morning, most of the sufferings ofArsenicum are worse from 1-2 p.m. and from 1-2 a.m. after midnight, very soon after midnightsometimes, his sufferings begin, and from 1-2 o'clock they are intensified.Extreme anxiety in the evening in bed."Averse to meeting acquaintances, because he imagines he has formerly offended them". Greatmental depression, great sadness, melancholy, despair, despair of recovery. He has dread of death whenalone, or on going to bed, with anxiety and restlessness.He thinks he is going to die and wants somebody with him. The attacks of anxiety at night drivehim out of bed. This is an anxiety that affects the heart, and so the mental anxiety and cardiac anxietyalmost seem to coincide. A sudden anxious fear comes over him at night; he jumps out of bed with fearthat he is going to die, or that he is going to suffocate. It is full of dyspnoea, cardiac dyspnoea, andvarying forms of asthma. The spells come on in the evening in bed or after midnight; from 1-2 o'clockhe is attacked with mental anxiety, dyspnoea, fear of death, coldness, and is covered with cold sweat."Anxiety like one who has committed murder". This is one form of his anxiety; he finally works up tothe idea that the officers are coming after him, and watches to see if they are coming in to arrest him.Some unusual evil is going to happen to him; always looking for something terrible to happen."Irritable, discouraged, restless". "Restlessness, cannot rest anywhere". "As a consequence of fright,inclination to commit suicide".The Arsenicum patient with the mental state is always freezing, hovers around the fire, cannotget clothing enough to keep warm, a great sufferer from the cold. Chronic Arsenicum invalids cannotget warm; they are always chilly, pale and waxy, and in such invalids, after they have had severalunusual weak spells, dropsical conditions come on. Arsenicum is full of puffiness and dropsy;oedematous condition of the extremities; dropsy of the shut sacs or of the cavities; swelling about theeyes; swelling of the face, so that it pits upon pressure.Arsenicum in these swellings is especially related to the lower eyelid rather than the upper,while in Kali carb.> the swelling is more in the upper eyelid than the lower, between the lid and thebrow. There are times when Kali carb. looks very similar to Arsenic, and little features like that will bedistinguishing points. If they run together in generals, then we must observe their particularpeculiarities.In the headaches we have a striking general feature of Arsenicum, brought out in theirperiodicity. Running all through this remedy there is periodicity and for this reason it has beenextensively useful in malarial affections which have, as a characteristic of their nature, periodicity. Theperiodical complaints of Arsenic come on every other day, or every fourth day, or every seven days, orevery two weeks. The headaches come on these cycles, every other, or third, or fourth, seventh orfourteenth day. The more chronic the complaint is, the longer is its cycle, so that we will find the moreacute and sharp troubles in which Arsenic is suitable will have every other day aggravations and everyfourth day aggravations: but as the trouble becomes chronic and deep-seated, it takes on the seventhday aggravation, and in the psoric manifestations of a long, lingering and deep-seated kind there is afourteenth day aggravation. This appearing in cycle: is common to a good many remedies, but isespecially marked in China and Arsenic. These two remedies are similar to each other in manyrespects, and they are quite similar in their general nature to the manifestations that often occur inmalaria. It is true, however, that Arsenic is more frequently indicated than China. In every epidemic ofmalarial fever that I have gone trouble I have found Arsenicum symptoms more common than those ofChina.These headaches bring out the interesting point that we mentioned above. Arsenicum has in itsnature an alternation of states, and this carries with it certain generals. Arsenicum in all of its bodilycomplaints is a cold remedy; the patient sits over the fire and shivers, wants plenty of clothing, andwants to be in a warm room. So long as the complaints are in the body this is so; but when thecomplaints are in the head, while he wants the body warm he wants the head washed in cold water, orwants the cold air upon it. The complaints of the head must conform to the generals that apply to thehead, and the complaints of the body must be associated with the generals that apply to the body.