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Jun 8, 2012

Clinical Hints on Rheumatism


This Article Published in “The Torch Of Homoeopathy”, Vol. IV, No. 3, July 1962.


Clinical Hints

From Mr. S. W. Long’s note book

Rheumatism :-

    Pains going from one joint to another  -  Ferrum Phos. (Pulsatilla, Lac. Can.)

   Rheumatism when the needle held in the fingers gets so heavy that she cannot sew. Copious diarrhea with rheumatic pains in ankle joints, but not in the wrists; thirst for large quantities of cold water, similar to Bryonia – Podophyllum.

   Gouty and rheumatic conditions worse by warmth and better by cold applications – Ledum Pal, Lac-can, Pulsatilla, Secale cor.

   Rheumatism worse rest – Euphorbium Off, Pulsatilla, Rhododendron, Rhus tox.

   Rheumatism worse warmth – Chamomilla, Kali-mur, Ledum Pal, Mercurius, Pulsatilla.

   Rheumatic affections accompanied by perspiration and soreness of the bones – Eupatorium perf.

   Rheumatic pains in the extremities worse from becoming heated and from exertion of the body – Zincum met.

   Rheumatic pains worse from the heat of the bed, better after rising and entirely disappearing on walking about – Vertarum Alb.

   Rheumatic pains in the limbs ( rarely in the joints) worse during rest after previous exertions, better from movements – Valerina.

   Rheumatic pains especially in the joints better in the evening and at night in bed – Strontium carb.

   Dull rheumatic pains worse when exercising, better whilst at rest – Scilla.

   Rheumatic pains in the limbs; pains in those places where the bones are least covered with flesh, but not in the joints; or touching the painful part the pain immediately vanished and appeared in some other part – Sanguinaria.

   Arthritic complaints; tearing, stinging in the joints after they become swollen, arthritic nodositis – Sabina.

   Sensation of soreness, as from a contusion, bruise or fall, from a blow, especially in the limbs and joints – Ruta G.

   Rheumatic pains extend upwards – Eup-p, Ledum pal, Nux V.

   Rheumatic pains extend downwards – Kalmia, Phytolacca.

   Rheumatic troubles which were very obstinate under our usual remedies, cured with – Medorrhinum. ( E.B.Nash, “Homeopathic Recorder”,1932)

   Rheumatic tension, drawing and tearing in the limbs mostly with sensation of numbness, especially when at rest – Rhus Tox.

   Rheumatic and arthritic pains (drawing and tearing) in the limbs, mostly on the periosteum, caused by stormy weather, and worse when at rest; mostly in the forearms and lower legs – Rhododendron.

   Rheumatic and arthritic soreness with stitches over the whole body –   Ranunculus Bulbosa.

   Rheumatic swelling with stinging pains – Pulsatilla, Apis.

   Pain in the legs, especially on the tibia and in the soles of the feet, as from over-exertion in walking, with great restlessness in the legs, better on rising – Psorinum.

   Restlessness in the legs, has to change the position continually – Prunus spinosa.

   Paralytic sensation, numbness and stiffness in the limbs, generally accompanied by coldness – Platinum Met.

   Cracking and arthritic stiffness in joints – Petroleum.

   Stinging pains in all parts of the body, especially the limbs – Paris quadrifolia. (Homeopathic world, August, 1961)

   The lower legs and feet feel too full, with restlessness in the legs till he lies down – Osmium.

   Pain in the lower limbs with weakness and numbness – Oxalic acid.

   Numbness and insensibility of the body and limbs – Opium.

   Rheumatic pains mostly in the upper arms and lower parts of the legs; worse when going to sleep, Rheumatism often attacks the heart and generally goes from the upper to the lower parts – Kalmia lat.

   Rheumatic pains in the hip joints and knees on moving and more especially during the day. Pains which wander quickly from one part of the body to another – Kali Bichromicum.

   Chronic rheumatism of the joints with violent pains at night, without swelling – Iodine.

   Rheumatic pains in the shoulders, arms, fingers, particularly in the elbow and wrist joint – Gratiola.

   Rheumatic pains (wandering) in the bones and joints at night – Gelsemium.

   Paralytic tearing pain from the shoulder joint into the upper arm (Left) he cannot raise the arm, slow movement improves it gradually – Ferrum Met.

   Paralytic weakness in the joints, especially felt when beginning to move – Euphrasia.

   Rheumatic pains in the arms, extending into the fingers, especially the joints of the fingers; great weakness with sensation of lameness through all the limbs – Colchicum.

   Paralytic immobility of the limbs, with drawing pains in the bones, pains, as if bruised, in the shoulder and bones of the arms, when lifting them up and when touching them – Cocculus Indicus.

   Rheumatic pains in the metatarsal bones and the phalanges of the toes, worse from contact, not from motion – China off.

   Paralytic, trembling weakness of the limbs, tension and shortening of the muscles contracting the joints and bending the limbs – Causticum.

   Rheumatic and gouty pains in the limbs with tension; worse from motion and contact – Bryonia.

   Rheumatic pains in the joints flying from one to another; Coxalgia with stinging pain or burning in the hip-joint; worst at night, aggravated by the least contact – Belladona.

   Rheumatic pains from the elbow up to the shoulder, worse at night; tearing pains in the arms and legs which do not permit one to lie on the painful side, but which are relieved by moving the affected part – Arsenicum Alb.

   Drawing (Gouty) pains in the fingers and their joints; when symptoms reappear, they change their locality, or go from one side of the body to other – Antimonium Crud.

   Pains in the left hip, as if the tendons were too short, causing limping or pain as from dislocation – Ammonium Mur.

   Tearing in the muscles of the joints, often on one side (from the small of the back through the right leg) – Ambra Grisea.

   Drawing and tearing in the limbs, especially at night and during rest, or on alternate afternoons; involuntary alternate extension and contraction of the muscles in different parts of the body – Lycopodium.

   Rheumatic and arthritic pains, tearing and stinging, especially in the limbs and joints, worse at night, with profuse perspiration which gives no relief – Merc V.

   Pain in the periosteum of the long bones, especially in the tibia, worse at night in bed, and then the least touch in intolerable – Mezereum.

   Tension in the bends of the limbs and sensation as if the tendons were shortened; painful contraction of the hamstrings – Natrum Mur.

   Wandering pains, only attacking a small spot and lasting but a short time, returning frequently – Nux Moschata.

   Sensation of great weakness of debility in the legs; the joints feel as if lame – Senega.

   Stiffness of the joints (hands, knees and feet), paralytic drawing and tearing in the arm and armpit to the fingers – Sepia.

   Tearing in the limbs, in outer parts, in the muscles and joints, from above downward; stinging pain in outer and inner parts in the muscles; in the joints; from within outwards – Sulphur.

   Menses appear for about an hour only with great pains – Euphrasia.

   Pain in and around the eyes – Eupatorium Perf.

    

  


Jun 7, 2012

Concern over increase in use of Mercury in dental sector




 Mercury in the mouth of the Indian population (used in filling cavities) at present can be approximately at 396 tonnes, reveals a new report, “Mercury in our Mouth”, released by non-government organization Toxic Link.

According to the report, annual use of mercury by the dental sector in India stands around 65 tonnes, where 49 tonnes gets into cavities and 16.2 tonnes is mostly thrown into the environment as non-contact amalgam.

Says Toxic Link associate director Satish Sinha: “An expected addition of 6,500 dentist by the National Rural Health Mission could lead to increased mercury consumption by approximately 11.2 tonnes annually. A major shift has been seen in the metropolitan and other cities in India, where the use of amalgam fillings has largely been replaced by alternatives.”

Contamination

“The scenario in the rural sector, however, was quite different as per the survey. This is where the policy intervention is required to gradually shift from mercury to alternatives. It is very important to save the next generation, our children from the deadly toxic effects of mercury,” says Mr. Sinha.

The study further reveals that the estimated annual mercury release due to removal or replacement of old fillings (contact amalgam) is 66 tonnes. This entire amount would mostly end up in municipal bins and thus soil and groundwater contamination. These two mediums are also rich in micro-organisms responsible for methylation of mercury. “All this would lead to bioaccumulation and bio-magnifications of mercury in the food chain. Mercury accumulates in the muscle tissues and is neuron and nephrotoxic substance. Other than this, several studies have linked it to cancers and immune system disorders,” says Mr. Sinha.

Children of women consuming sea food are more likely to develop learning disabilities due to exposure to mercury. Many countries have banned mercury fillings in children and pregnant women and it is time India takes a stance to protect this vulnerable population, says the study.

The Hindu, June 7, 2012. 


Jun 4, 2012

Plumbum Metallicum


Published in THE TORCH OF HOMOEOPATHY, Vol III, No. 3, July 1961.






PEOPLE OF THE MATERIA MEDICA WORLD
TO THOSE WHO KNOW THEIR REMEDIES HOMOEOPATHICALLY,
THEY HAVE PERSONALITIES

PLUMBUM

Frederica E. Gladwin, M.D.
Adapted and Arranged by Mollie Ray Carroll

Mr. Plumbum lives in a poor but respectable neighbourhood. A painter by trade, he was a hard worker throughout his early life. Later, he became a mental and physical wreck. Now he is so emaciated that his wrinkled, shrivelled skin is drawn over his bones. He is so sensitive to fresh air that he goes around well wrapped up, even in the summer time; but he never perspires.

Mr. Plumbum is discouraged, but that is not surprising, for his wife is almost sure to have a hysterical attack whenever he most needs her help and sympathy. All the neighbours are sorry for him and are very kind to him, but they have no use for so deceitful a woman as Mrs. Plumbum. Mrs. Plumbum often pretends that she is sick, even that she is unconscious, when anyone is around to see. Although they have no sympathy with such nonsense, the neighbours often go to Mr. Plumbum’s assistance. Mrs. Arsenicum, Mrs. Ignatia and Mrs. Carlsbad, who like rye bread, often carry some of their baking in for Mr. Plumbum. However, Mrs. Arsenicum always seems so anxious and restless while she is there and Mrs. Ignatia is so evidently trying to suppress her sobs that he is suspicious of both of them. He is so sure that they have put poison in the rye bread that, much as he wants it, he is afraid to eat any.

Indeed, Mr. Plumbum often has the notion that everyone around him, except Mrs. Carlsbad, is murderer and wants to assassinate him. She is talkative and very sympathetic and always ready to weep over his woes. He hates conversation, for he often can’t find the proper word, but Mrs. Carlsbad good-naturedly saves him from having to say much. She understands how hard it is for him to talk, for she experiences the same difficulty when trying to write, and she often forgets names. Mr. Plumbum eats Mrs. Carlsbad’s rye bread and wishes that she would bring him some cakes and fried food. She herself, however, is not especially fond of cakes and fried food and so the thought never enters her head. His thoughts come so slowly that she is gone before he has time to ask her.

Mr. Plumbum is exceedingly slow in every way. Even his bodily functions are slow. He is slow to comprehend an idea and slow to respond after he has finally comprehended. To have to wait for him is enough to send Mrs. Plumbum into some kind of hysterical spasm. Sometimes she sticks a pin into him, just to see if she can make him move a little faster; but it does no good. He is as slow to feel the pin as he is to comprehend the idea.

One day, Mrs. Plumbum sat down to the piano to cheer him with music, but she found that she couldn’t lift her fingers fast enough to play. That made her discouraged and melancholy, thinking that she had sinned away her day of grace. While she was feeling dejected, Mrs. Curare, a forgetful stupid, lazy woman, hurried in to sympathize, for she, too, knew just what it was like to have her fingers and wrists give out at the piano.

Mrs. Plumbum really deserves the neighbour’s sympathy instead of their scorn, for her children are a great disappointment and care. Most of those who were born alive are epileptics or idiots. The neighbours contend that their condition resulted from drugs which Mrs. Plumbum took to induce an abortion, but they are mistaken.

Mr. Plumbum wasn’t always the wreck that he now is; nor did this plight come upon him suddenly. While he was slowly drifting into this condition, he frequently had the colic. He endured excruciating pain and a feeling as though his abdomen was being drawn in toward his back. During these attacks, Mrs. Plumbum usually became hysterical and the neighbours would go to his assistance. Mrs. Colocynth would come running with a cup of hot coffee, and Mr. Nux Vomica, with a hot water bottle. Mr. Nux Vomica, seeing the hot coffee would scold Mrs. Colocynth because hot coffee made colic worse. When she saw Mr. Plumbum bending backward with the pain, Mrs. Colocynth would say, “Double up, Mr. Plumbum,” and Mr. Nux Vomica would say, “Yes, double up and put this hot water against your abdomen.”

Mr. Plumbum knew that colic was sometimes relieved by bending forward; so he would obediently double up and put the hot water bottle upon his abdomen. Sometimes bending backward ameliorated his colic and he would stretch back again. The hot water bottle made him feel a little better, but it wasn’t heavy enough to give him relief; so he cast it aside for the rubbing that Mrs. Colocynth suggested.

About this time Mrs. Magnesia Phosphorica would come in, expressing her opinion that the hot drinks, hot applications and bending double might help, but that hard pressure would relieve the pain. So, along with the hot coffee and the hot water bottle she called for Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary and for the Family Bible to place upon the hot water bottle for added pressure.

Mr. Nux Vomica was so sure that hot coffee would make the colic worse that he grew angry and would have nothing more to do with the case. He would rush out of the house banging chairs and slamming doors on his way, and, that morning, at the office it wouldn’t be safe to ask him an unnecessary question or to make the least noise. Mrs. Colocynth was inclined to be angry because Mr. Nux Vomica had made such a fuss about her coffee. Then she remembered that if she permitted herself to become angry, she, too, would have the colic; so she controlled herself and went for the family Bible and Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary to pile them on the hot water bottle as Mrs. Magnesia Phosphorica had suggested.

Mr. Plumbum felt a little better but still had severe pain when haughty Mrs. Platina walked in to direct the treatment. To oppose the arrogant Mrs. Platina required too much mental effort for Mrs. Magnesia Phosphorica; so she walked off and left the patient to Mrs. Platina. Mrs. Colocynth indignantly followed. Freed from the interference of the others, Mrs. Platina lost no time in curing the patient in her own way.

Mr. Plumbum is much emaciated, but his emaciation has not come suddenly. His way of growing thin is peculiar to himself and he has taken plenty of time to do it. It started with exceedingly painful neuralgia, with burning, and shooting pain. Then the part would wither. Meanwhile he became constantly more emaciated, all over, until his skin seemed to be drawn over his bones. Of course, he is numb, stiff and partly paralyzed.

He has had a variety of pains, sometimes simple pricking and sometimes tearing and crushing, mingled with violent darts. At times the bones felt as though they were being broken, or scraped; then the pain lessens, only to begin again. The pain may be superficial or deep seated and quite impartial as to location, attacking anywhere – skin, muscles, bones and nerves often wandering from one part of his body to another. If he moves or is cold, it usually brings on the attacks; yet though motion increases his pains, he frequently changes position.

Mrs. Plumbum broods in melancholy over Mr. Plumbum’s slowness. She wishes he would hurry, for, when he goes out on an errand, it seems as though he would never return. But if poor Mr. Plumbum does exert himself out of doors to hurry all the way home, it hurts his head, and makes his mental and emotional symptoms worse. His head gets hot, while his hands and feet become cold as ice. His face grows as pale as death and the neighbourhood boys call him the walking corpse. He doesn’t dare to go to the theatre, to a political meeting, or to church for a crowd often causes him to faint. That frightens people into thinking that he is dead, until Mr. Ammonium Carb who is usually present, understands and revives him.

Mr. Plumbum has suffered from constipation almost all of his life. It began spasms when he was a child. Then his mother physicked (To dose with medicine especially cathartic or laxative) him and he went from bad to worse. His stools were little hard balls, sometimes ash-gray, but generally black or dark green.

The constipation brings spasms of the rectum, constriction and retraction of the anus and excruciating pain. It is accompanied by an exceedingly painful drawing back from the naval toward the spine, when he isn’t constipated, Mr. Plumbum is likely to have diarrhea, from which he suffers as much as from constipation. His diarrhea is accompanied by violent colic, spasms of his abdominal muscles, long lasting tenesmus and convulsive drawing up of the anus. His stools are involuntary profuse, offensive, watery, bloody and slimy yellow or dark. At the same time he vomits violently.

Mr. Alumina sympathize with Mr. Plumbum in his attacks of constipation for he, too, has the difficult, hard, knotty stool. He, too, has the constriction of the rectum and tenesmus; also the colic. Mrs. Platina also sympathizes with Mr. Plumbum when he has these attacks. She knows just how colic and obstinate constipation feel and considers her shooting pains in the rectum before stool quite as bad as Mr. Plumbum’s painful retraction of the anus. Even the stupid Mrs. Opium sympathizes with Mr. Plumbum in his bowel trouble.

The Plumbum children have terrible convulsions. Unlike most children whose one convulsion causes a commotion, Mr. Plumbum’s children will have four or five paroxysms a day. They utter frightful shrieks, bite their tongues during the paroxysm and sometimes remain unconscious for an hour after the paroxysm is over. Occasionally they moan deeply toward the end of the convulsions. At times the convulsions alternate with pains in the limbs, stomach or bowels. One child’s limbs have been paralyzed since an attack of convulsions. One child, injured at birth, has suffered the effects of too depressed occiput, followed by lock-jaw.

Mrs. Opium is very sorry for the Plumbums. She thinks she understands all about convulsions, for her own children have both tonic and clonic spasms, often caused by fright. During convulsions, which often come during sleep, her children lose consciousness; their pupils become contracted; their breathing is heavy and spasmodic. Their faces and bodies become deadly pale. Sometimes they sob and their throats rattle. The spasms begin with a scream and end in a deep long-lasting sleep. Mrs. Opium is too stupid to see any difference between her own children’s convulsions and those of the Plumbums. If she could see a difference, she wouldn’t admit it.

Mr. Plumbum is emaciated, paralyzed and old before his years as the result of great suffering. His is a history of disease going from bad to worse, and so it will continue as long as he remains in this world.