Mirza Tahir Ahmad James Tyler Kent
In homoeopathy, Natrum Muriaticum is a wide acting remedy, despite the fact that it is simply the homoeopathic potency of the common table salt we consume daily. Sodium Chloride is abundantly present in the human body. It plays an important role in maintaining the normal physiological functions of our body. Its deficiency results in different kinds of diseases. It is strange that a large variety of salts are always present in our mouth, Sodium Chloride being probably the most abundant. In spite of this, when even a minute dose of homoeopathic potency of Sodium Chloride is dropped into the mouth, it provokes an immediate body reaction. The salt already present in the mouth does not interfere with the body’s response.
One of the diseases related to the excessive use of salt is high blood pressure (hypertension). Therefore, it is generally thought that to protect against high blood pressure and related heart problems, one should not consume too much salt. However, the research done by heart specialists in England and America does not support the general impression that those who consume less salt will not develop high blood pressure, and those who consume more, must develop high blood pressure. High blood pressure is an independent disease with its own specific causes. However, if someone is suffering from high blood pressure, it is better that he or she abstains from eating too much salt. A healthy person, however, may eat as much salt as he likes. The excessive salt is automatically excreted from the blood, through the urine or sweat. People who do not sweat due to some problem or have abnormal kidney function should abstain from consuming an excessive amount of salt. Excess salt in the blood increases the blood volume by retaining water, which will naturally lead to rise in blood pressure.
Salt is an essential part of human body. Its imbalance produces diseases. Excessive intake of salt will not produce any ill effects in those who have the habit of exercising daily, sweat profusely and also excrete the salt in their urine i.e. their kidneys are functioning normally.
Natrum Mur is a profoundly active, long-acting medicine. No part of the body is beyond its influence. Generally, the skin of a Natrum Mur patient is very shiny. Due to the increased content of water in the blood, the skin feels greasy as if oil has been rubbed over it. However, one should remember that every patient may not necessarily exhibit all the symptoms or that all the relevant symptoms must appear in each and every part of the body. For a remedy to be the exact match, the basic as well as distinctive symptoms must be present in a patient. However, it is not essential for every symptom to be expressed fully.
A patient of Natrum Mur feels tired and weak. Weakness, either physical or mental, is always found in Natrum Mur patients. This is due to the imbalance of Hydrochloric Acid, resulting in episodes of sudden severe weakness.
Natrum Mur is deeply related to malaria. In swampy areas, malaria spreads through mosquitoes. Malaria causes breakdown of red blood cells, resulting in anaemia and the resulting relative dilution of the blood (haemodilution). These signs require the usage of Natrum Mur, which otherwise, has no special affinity to wet marshy areas. The real connection of malaria is with the mosquitoes. Wherever mosquitoes are present, malaria must also exist. Generally, the mosquitoes are found in swampy and coastal areas. In such areas, naturally, Natrum Mur would also be required to treat malarial fever and is one of the best remedies against it. However, it should never be given to the patient while the malarial fever is still rising, because under these circumstances, Natrum Mur may produce serious ill effects or an immediate severe reaction. Several different ways have been described to use Natrum Mur. One is that either one should wait for the temperature to drop and then give the remedy, or it should be given in high potency during the interval between the two bouts of fever. In the case where Natrum Mur becomes effective, it will change the timing of the fever. The fever will either come on earlier or later than its usual time. If only the timing of the fever alters, but there is no decrease in the duration or the severity of the fever, it proves that the remedy has not been effective. In this situation, one must find another remedy without further delay. The appropriate remedy should either result in immediate disappearance of fever with no return, or will alter the timing and decrease the duration of the fever. The fever may not then return, or will be much milder. If so, the treatment should be repeated after the fever has subsided.
The mental signs of Natrum Mur are strange. In the beginning, the patient feels victimized and is always obsessed with the feeling of being a victim of some wrongdoings. Despite this, the patient does not like sympathy. Furthermore, the patient gets captivated with imaginary love. Even some old women get captivated with this kind of hypothetical love. If love could ever be cured with a medicine, then probably Natrum Mur will be the most appropriate.
If the fever does not subside for a long time and affects the brain, then Natrum Mur should be tried. Natrum Mur has been found to be specifically effective against the bad effects of grief and sadness on the mind. Ignatia and Ambra Grisea are the best and promptly effective remedies during the early stages of bereavement. Ignatia is a fast acting remedy, but its effect is very short-lived, so it needs to be given repeatedly. Once the deep grief becomes embedded into the mind of a patient, then he goes out of the range of Ignatia. Ambra Grisea works better in these patients. Next, comes Natrum Mur. It is my personal experience that with Natrum Mur, even the totally insane patient can be cured. Natrum Mur patients are not aggressive; rather they either sit quietly or become indifferent to the world altogether and then gradually become physically weak. They get very angry, yet do not show violence. Their mind becomes slow and weak. The patient, while talking, forgets and does not remember what he wanted to say. Concentration is lost. Break in the continuity of thoughts in the midst of talking is the symptom of Natrum Mur. However, if while listening, someone fails to understand or there is a delay in understanding, then, Plumbum will be more appropriate.
One symptom of the Natrum Mur patient is that reading causes tiredness. He tends to cry like a chronic Pulsatilla patient. The Pulsatilla patient tends to cry repeatedly, though mentally he is absolutely normal. The hands and feet of the Natrum Mur patient remain cold, and he is also weak. He is inclined to cry with or without a reason. If the ill effects of grief on the patient are not cured with Natrum Mur and the disease appears deep-seated, then Silicea might be helpful in such cases (Silicea is chronic of Natrum Mur). Silicea is also chronic of Pulsatilla. Natrum Mur should not be used repeatedly without good reason, because its excessive use can cause an imbalance of the salts in the blood. There is no harm in the occasional repetition of this remedy, but it should not be repeated too often in one day. The Natrum Mur patient feels very thirsty. During the headache, the patient feels as if being hit with a hammer over various parts of the head. Light hurts the eyes. Movement aggravates this condition. From this point of view, Natrum Mur resembles Bryonia. Constipation in Natrum Mur is more severe than that in Bryonia. Natrum Mur is the chronic, as well as the antidote of Apis.
The Natrum Mur patient suffers from chronic backache. He feels weakness in his arms, legs and particularly the knees. The skin around the nails of the hands (cuticles) becomes fissured due to dryness and the legs become insensitive.
The Natrum Mur patient does not like to eat bread or oily food. The patient feels very hungry but after eating food, he feels tired and weak. He feels burning sensation in the chest, also hardness and a piercing sensation over the liver. After taking food, the stomach becomes heavy and distended. Hunger pangs cause a fainting sensation over the stomach.
The Natrum Mur patient is highly strung and does not tolerate even the slightest noise. A sudden sound causes a headache. The patient is intolerant even to the rustling sound of paper.
The Natrum Mur patient is very cold. However, his symptoms aggravate in a heated room. He likes the open air. From this point of view, half of the constitution of Natrum Mur resembles that of Pulsatilla. Despite feeling cold, the patient likes to go in the open air. In the open, physical ailments ameliorate but the mental ailments aggravate. One must keep in mind these subtleties in the nature of this remedy. The constitution of a Natrum Mur patient changes frequently and rapidly. When the patient sweats, he catches cold, which however gets better in the open.
Natrum Mur affects the skin also. Eczema, itching and inflammation are found mostly at the hairlines. This is typical of Natrum Mur. Both dry pimples as well as discharging boils form. There is itching as well as a pins and needles sensation on the skin. Pus exudes from the itchy spots. Scabs also form, which then peel off in pieces. One symptom of Natrum Mur that resembles Sarsaparilla is that the patient starts ageing prematurely.
In Natrum Mur, the headache starts either after midnight or in the morning after nine o’ clock. Severe morning headache is a symptom of Gelsemium. Usually in Natrum Mur, the ailments, which either start due to heat stroke or during malarial fever, continue from nine o’ clock in the morning till night. The headache usually starts at the nape of the neck and spreads to the backbone. Natrum Mur is related to several back conditions. Especially if there is a sudden attack of “lumbago”, then Natrum Mur works very well in the early stages. The symptoms of a Natrum Mur patient usually become worse on lying down in a soft bed. The backbone becomes relatively very sensitive. There is discomfort and pain along the nerves (sciatica). The patient feels comfort, when lying on a hard surface.
Symptoms related to the prostate gland are also present in Natrum Mur. There is considerable delay in the onset of urination. The urine comes in drops followed by the feeling of discomfort and unsatisfaction because of incomplete evacuation of the bladder. Sometimes, the patient feels pain either at the end of urination or afterwards. During walking, laughing or coughing, urine may be passed involuntarily (stress incontinence). For bed-wetting at night, Natrum Mur with Kali Phos is very useful. Usually this problem i.e. bedwetting is found in children during deep sleep.
In Natrum Mur, either there is severe constipation or diarrhoea. In Natrum Mur, the patient, despite having an excellent appetite, remains slim and thin. Along with a burning sensation in the stomach, there is palpitation. While eating, the patient sweats. The patient craves salt. He feels better on an empty stomach. After eating food, there is heartburn and the acidity increases, along with excessive salivation from the mouth.
As it has already been mentioned, Natrum Mur is an excellent treatment for malaria. Every type of malaria is included i.e. whether with daily fever or with relapsing fever. The most dangerous type of malaria is the one in which the fever returns every third day. This type of fever does not easily leave the patient. Natrum Mur is very beneficial in this kind of fever. Repeated use has proven that by giving Natrum Mur, the fever starts coming on the second day instead of the third day, and then slowly disappears completely in eight to ten days.
If the diseases of Natrum Mur have become very complicated or have become chronic due to the wrong treatment, then Sulphur 200 will be found very effective in delineating the underlying symptoms of these patients clearly. Sulphur, being a profoundly active remedy, may also cure some of these diseases. Natrum Mur also clearly brings out and clarifies the symptoms of the patients with complicated fevers that have gone out of hand. When the fevers become complicated, they may adopt different forms. When malaria deteriorates further, the symptoms become very complicated. Sometimes the symptoms appear as pain and at other times, they may appear in some other way. A very eminent English doctor has said about malaria that with the exception of pregnancy, it can mimic any disease. It complicates the symptoms so much so that doctors may not arrive at the root cause of the disease. In this regard, both Natrum Mur and Sepia play a very important role. When given in high potency to a healthy person, Natrum Mur sometimes proves to be very useful in protecting against the general tendency towards malaria. Similarly, Arnica 1000 (or higher potency) along with Arsenic 1000 (or higher potency) has often been found to be very effective when given as a precautionary measure against malaria.
In Natrum Mur, like Hepar Sulph, the patient feels as if something has got stuck inside the throat. The patient tries unsuccessfully, again and again to remove the entrapped thing from the throat. He feels as if a thorn is stuck inside. However, if something like fishbone or something else is really stuck in the throat, then Silicea has the ability to expel it. Sometimes, in Natrum Mur, the throat becomes very dry and ulcers develop.
Soft swellings, which pit on pressure, resembling those resulting from a honeybee sting, are also found in and are treatable with Natrum Mur. That is the reason why Natrum Mur is very effective in treating the symptoms of bee-sting. If Natrum Mur is used in combination with Arsenic and Ledum, it benefits the patient astonishingly fast. Furthermore, Carbolic Acid is very famous as the fast acting antidote of bee-sting venom.
Natrum Mur is chronic of Apis. Chronic means that if a remedy, which works for a short while and then stops working, then another remedy takes its benefits further. The second remedy is called the chronic of the first. The swelling of the Apis, if not fully cured with Apis, will completely disappear when treated with Natrum Mur. Similarly, some other diseases, which are not completely cured with Apis, will also be cured when the patient is treated subsequently with Natrum Mur. Therefore Natrum Mur is called the chronic of Apis.
Natrum Mur is a good treatment for weakness following childbirth. If a woman’s general health weakens after delivery, apart from Kali Carb, Natrum Mur is also very effective. Natrum Mur restores the health of the woman. If post-childbirth backache is not cured with Kali Carb, then it can be cured with Natrum Mur.
If there is some kind of deficiency in the mother’s milk, due to which the child is not thriving normally or the milk dries up too soon, Natrum Mur should be used. Natrum Mur rectifies the internal defect due to which the child does not grow properly, as well as increasing the quantity of milk according to the need of the child. Natrum Mur is the best treatment of the emaciating, underfeeding and wasting disease of the children (Marasmus). The emaciation process starts from the upper part of the body and then spreads downwards. Sometimes, this disease is secondary to some disease of the mother; therefore the mother should also be treated.
Irregularity of periods, excessive bleeding, leucorrhoea causing burning and itching, depression and sadness before the onset of periods, heaviness in the lower part of the abdomen getting worse in the morning, are all the symptoms of Natrum Mur. The gums become swollen and bleed. The teeth become loose and sensitive to cold and cold air. Teeth hurt after eating food and at night, and the pain may also spread to the ears. A layer of dirty foam-like material deposits over the tongue. There is a feeling of hissing, as if a hair is stuck on the tongue.
The heart beats fast on going up the stairs or lying on the left side. Furthermore, there is a feeling of cold over the heart. There is a feeling of tightness and suffocation in the chest.
Whooping cough with watering of the eyes, severe headache and also worsening of the cough on movement on taking deep breathing and upon getting warm in bed are common symptoms of Natrum Mur. The symptoms of Natrum Mur aggravate in the coastal areas.
Adjuvants: Apis, Sepia, Ignatia
Antidotes: Arsenic, Phosphorus
Potency: 6X to 30 or even to CM
by Mirza Tahir Ahmad
NATRUM MURIATICUM
Generals and aspect: Salt is so common an article of diet that it has been assumed that it could be of no use in medicine.
This is only the opinion of men who, operate entirely on the tissues. There are no constitutional effects from crude salt.
One may find an individual growing thin with all the symptoms of salt; he is taking salt in great quantities, but digesting none of it. Salt will be found in the stool, for it does not enter into the life. There is a Natr. mur. inanition, a starving for salt. The same is true of lime. Children can get plenty of lime from their food and that is better when the salt or the lime is given in such shape that it cannot be resisted by the internal man - aimed not at the house he lives in, but at the individual himself-then the bone, salt inanition, the Natr. mur. inanition, will soon pass away.
We do not with our small dose supply the salt that the system needs, but we cure the internal disease, we turn into order the internal physical man, and then the tissues get salt enough from the food. Drugs must all be administered in suitable form. We may need to go higher and higher until the secret spring is touched.
Natr. mur. is a deep acting, long acting remedy. It takes a wonderful hold of the economy, making changes that are lasting when given in potentized doses.
A great deal is presented that can be seen by looking at the patient, so that we say: this looks like a Natr. mur. patient. Experienced physicians learn to classify patients by appearance. The skin is shiny, pale, waxy, looks as if greased. There is a wonderful prostration of a peculiar kind. Emaciation, weakness, nervous prostration, nervous irritability.
Mind: There is a long chain of mental symptoms; hysterical condition of the mind and body; weeping alternating with laughing; irresistible laughing at unsuitable times; prolonged, spasmodic laughter.
This will be followed by tearfulness, great sadness, joylessness. No matter how cheering the circumstances are she cannot bring herself into the state of being joyful. She is benumbed to impressions, easily takes on grief, grieves over nothing.
Unpleasant occurrences are recalled that she may grieve over them. Consolation aggravated the state of the mind - the melancholy, the tearfulness, sometimes brings on anger. She appears to bid for sympathy and is mad when it is given.
Headache comes on with this melancholy. She walks the floor in rage. She is extremely forgetful; cannot cast up accounts; is unable to meditate; forges what she was going to say; loses the thread of what she is hearing or reading. There is a great prostration of the mind.
Unrequited affection brings on complaints. She is unable to control her affections and falls in love with a married man. She knows that it is foolish, but lies awake with love for him. She falls in love with a coachman. She knows that she is unwise, but cannot help it. In cases of this kind Natr. mur. will turn her mind into order, and she will look back and wonder why she was so silly. This remedy belongs to hysterical girls.
In a mental state where Ign. temporarily benefits the symptoms, but does not cure, its chronic Natr. mur. should be given. It is as well to give Natr. mur. at once if there is an underlying constitutional state too deep for Ign.
Modalities: Aversion to bread, to fats and rich things.
The Natr. mur. patient is greatly disturbed by excitement, is extremely emotional. The whole nervous economy is in a state of fret and irritation, < from noise, the slamming of a door, the ringing of a bell, the firing of a pistol, < music.
The pains are stitching, electric-like shocks, convulsive jerkings of the limbs on falling asleep, twitchings, shooting pains. She is oversensitive to all sorts of influences, is excitable, emotional, intense.
Complaints come on in the warm room, worse in the house, she wants the open air. The mental complaints are > in the open air. She takes cold easily from sweating, but is generally > in the open air, though worse on getting heated; < by sufficient exertion to heat up, but > by moderate exertion in the cold air.
Both Natr. carb. and Natr. mur. have the general nervous tension of Natrum, but one is a chilly patient, the other warm, blooded.
Face: The face is sickly looking, the skin greasy, shiny, sallow, yellow, often chlorotic, covered with vesicular eruptions around the edges of the hair, the ears and back of the neck.
There are scaly and squamous eruptions, with great itching, oozing a watery fluid, or sometimes dry. An exfoliation takes place, a shining surface is left. In the meatus, scales form, and peel off, leaving an oozing surface.
Watery vesicles form about the lips and wings of the nose, about the genitals and anus. Vesicular eruptions, white, oozing a watery fluid, come and go. Great itching of the skin is present,
The skin looks waxy, dropsical. There is great emaciation, the skin looking dry, withered, shrunken. An infant looks like a little old man. There is a down on the face that passes away when improvement sets in. Emaciation takes place from above downward.
The collar-bones become prominent and the neck looks scrawny, but the hips and lower limbs remain plump and round. Lyc. also has emaciation from above downward. The directions of remedies will often enable us to distinguish one from another.
Discharges: The characteristic discharge from the mucous membranes is watery or thick whitish, like the white of an egg.
There is a marked coryza with a watery discharge, but the constitutional state has thick, white discharges. He hawks out a thick, white discharge in the morning. There are gluey oozings from die eyes. From the ears flows a thick, white, gluey discharge. The leucorrhoea is white and thick.
With the gonorrhoea the discharge has existed a long time and become gleety. There is smarting m the urethra only after urination.
Head: The headaches are awful; dreadful pains; bursting, compressing, as if in a vise; the head feels as if the skull would be crushed in. The pains are attended with hammering and throbbing. Pain like little hammers in the head on beginning to move.
Hammering pains in the head on waking in the morning.
The pain comes on in the latter part of sleep. There is great nervousness during the first part of the night; she falls asleep late and awakes with hammering in the head. There are also headaches beginning at 10 to 11 A.M., lasting until 3 P.M. or evening.
The headaches are periodical, every day, or third day, or fourth day. Headaches of those living in malarial districts, > from sleep; the patient must go to bed and be perfectly quiet, > from sweating, headaches associated with intermittent fever.
During the chill it seemed as though the head would burst; he is delirious and drinks large quantities of cold water. There is no relief to the head until after the sweat. Sometimes all the symptoms are relieved by the sweat except the headache.
In another form of headache; the greater the pain the more the sweat; sweating does not relieve; the forehead is cold, covered with a cold sweat. When the head is covered warmly he is > moving about in the open air.
Headache due to disturbance of vision where there is inability to focus rapidly enough. Headache < from noise.
Headache involving the whole back of the head and even going down the spine in troubles following the brain diseases, hydrocephalus.
Spine: In spinal troubles, when there is great sensitiveness to pressure an irritable spine.
The vertebrae are sensitive and there is a great deal of aching along the spine. Coughing aggravates the pain in the spine, also walking makes it worse, but it is > from lying on something hard, or pressing the back up against something hard; they may sit with a pillow or the hand pressed against the back. In menstrual troubles, you find the woman lying with some hard object under the spine.
A general nervous trembling pervades the body. There is jerking of the muscles, trembling of the limbs, inability to keep the limbs still, as in Zincum.
Stomach and liver: The stomach and liver are closely related.
The stomach is distended with flatus. After eating there is a lump in the stomach. It seems to take a long time for food to digest. < from eating. Whitish, slimy mucus is vomited attended with relief.
There is great thirst for cold water, sometimes there is relief from drinking, sometimes the thirst is unquenchable. We find fullness in the region of the liver with stitching, tearing pains.
The bowels are distended with gas. There is slowing down of the action of the bowels, the stool being very difficult, in hard, agglomerated lumps.
Bladder: There is slowing down of the action of the bladder.
Must wait before the urine will start, and then it comes slowly-dribbles; there is not much force in the flow.
After urination there is a sensation as if more urine remained in the bladder. If anyone is present he cannot pass urine, cannot pass it in a public place.
There is also continued urging, he must pass the urine often.
This remedy and Natr. sulph. were used by the homoeopaths to clear up chronic diarrhoea, the old army diarrhoea.
Natr. mur. is useful in the complaints of women, in troublesome menstruation. There is a great variety of menstrual complaints: menses too scanty or too free, too late or too soon. We cannot individualize from the menstrual symptoms, we must do it from the constitutional state.
Examine every possible function to be sure you have all the symptoms. Examine every organ, not by examining it physically, for results of diseases do not lead to the remedy, but examine the symptoms.
Observe the rapidity with which remedies affect the human system there are some that are long acting, deep acting. Natr. mur. is one of these. It operates very slowly, bringing about its results after a long time, as it corresponds to complaints that are slow, that are long in action.
This does not mean that it will not act rapidly; all remedies act rapidly, but not all act slowly; the longest acting may act in acute diseases, but the short acting cannot act long in chronic diseases. Get the pace, the periodicity of remedies.
Some remedies have a continued fever, some a remittent, others an intermittent fever. In Acon., Bell. and Bry. we have three different paces, three different motions, three different forms of velocity; so in Sulph., Graph., Natr. mur., Carbo veg. a different form, a different development.
Some would not hesitate in a continued fever to give Bell., but its complaints come on in great haste, with great violence and have nothing in their nature like a continued fever. This is not like typhoid. Bell. and Acon. have no manifestations of typhoid, even if the symptoms are present.
Be sure that the remedy has not only the group of symptoms, but also the nature of the case. The typhoid case has a likeness in Bry. or Rhus, but not in Bell. We owe no obedience to man, not even to our parents, after we are old enough to think for ourselves. We owe obedience to truth.
Natr. mur. is a long acting remedy; its symptoms continue for years; it conforms to slow-coming, long-lasting, deep-seated symptoms. It requires a long time for a man to be brought under the influence of it, even when moderately sensitive.
The chill comes in the morning at 10-30; every day, every other day, every third or fourth day. The chill begins in the extremities which become blue; there is throbbing pain in the head, the face is flushed; delirium, talking of everything, constant maniacal actions.
They grow worse until a congestive attack comes. During the entire attack there is thirst for cold water. During the coldness he is not > by heat, not > by piling on the clothing, but wants cold drinks.
We would naturally suppose that a person freezing to death would want warm things, but the Natr. mur. patient cannot bear them.
The teeth chatter, he tosses from side to side, the bones ache as if they would break, and there is vomiting as in congestive conditions. In the fever he is so hot that the fingers are almost scorched with the intense heat, and he goes into a congestive sleep or stupor. The sweat relieves him; the aching all over is > by the sweat, and in time the headache passes away.
There is intense chill, fever and sweat. Sometimes the attacks are in robust, strong people, but usually in the anaemic, in emaciated people full of malaria; lingering, chronic cases.
Complaints do not always have this long prodrome. Its most striking use is in cases that have been living a long time in malarial swamps; saturated with the malarial atmosphere; they are anaemic, often dropsical; in old cases that have been mixed with arsenic and quinine, the crude drugs used by the Old School to break the fever as long as the patient is under their sway, but the patient is sick internally even more than before, and when the condition comes back, it is generally in its original form; the crude drug is usually unable to change the type of an intermittent fever.
Remedies only partly related to the case will change the character of the sickness so that no one can cure the case. The homoeopathic remedy will cure intermittent fever every time if you get the right remedy. If there is a failure the case is mixed up so that no one may be able to cure it. First of all a master must realize the case and turn it into order so that it can then be cured. There are few men who never spoil a case of ague, because many cases come from partly developed, marked cases, the symptoms not being all out, especially in cases that have taken homoeopathic remedies. The homeopathic failures are the worst failures on earth.
Natr. mur. is irregular enough in its nature to develop the chills into regularity. When it has come into better order, wait: either the whole case will subside, or another remedy will be clear. There are other remedies that can turn cases into order. Often cases spoiled by homoeopaths can be turned into order by Sep. Marked cases with congestion of the head, aching in the back and nausea are turned into order by Ipecac.
The cure is permanent after homoeopathic prescribing; the chills do not return.
Natr. mur. not only removes the tendency to intermittents, but restores the patient to health, and takes away the tendency to colds, the susceptibility to colds, and to periodicity. It is the susceptibility that is removed. We know that every attack predisposes to another attack.
Each attack of ague is more destructive than the previous one. The drugs used increase the susceptibility; the homeopathic remedy removes$ the susceptibility. Homeopathic treatment tends to simplify the human economy and to make diseases more easily managed.
Unless this susceptibility be eradicated, man goes down lower and lower into emaciation, emaciation from above downwards.
Children born in a malarial region are likely to go into, marasmus. They have a voracious appetite, a wonderful hunger, eating much, but all the time emaciating.
Pregnancy: Conditions of pregnancy.
The mammary glands waste, there is wasting of the upper parts of the body. The uterus is intensely sore.
The leucorrhoea, which is at first white, turns green. Women take cold in every draft of air.
There is pain during sexual congress with dryness of the vagina, a feeling as though sticks pressed into the walls of the vagina; pricking pains.
There is dryness of all mucous membranes; everywhere the membranes are dry. The throat is dry, red, patulous; a sensation of a fishbone jagging into it when swallowing; there is inability to swallow without washing down the food with liquids; there is sticking all the way down the oesophagus.
Throat: Most prescribers give Hep. for every sticking or fishbone sensation in the throat; this is the old keynote, the old routine.
Nitr. ac., Argent. nit., Alum. and Natr. mur. all have it, but all differently.
Hepar sulfur: The tonsils are swollen, full, purple-quinsy.
The patient is sensitive to the slightest draught, there is pain in the throat even on putting the hand out of bed; he sweats in the night with no relief; he is sensitive to every impression; feels everything ten times amplified.
Nitricum Acidum: There are yellow patches in the throat; ragged, jagged ulcers in the throat, or it is inflamed and purple.
The urine smells like horses' urine.
Argentum nitricum: There is much hoarseness, the vocal cords being disturbed.
The throat is swollen, patulous; the patient wants cold things, cold water, cold air. Adapted to those cases that have had ulceration of the os uteri with cauterization.
Natrum Muriaticum: There is extreme dryness of the mucous membranes, as if they would break; chronic dryness without ulceration.
There is much catarrhal discharge like the white of an egg, with dryness of the mucous membranes when not covered by this mucus. The patient is extremely sensitive, sensitive to a change of weather.
Every remedy has its own pace, its order or succession. We must bear in mind the order of succession.
Natr. mur. is useful in old dropsies, especially dropsy of cellular tissues. Sometimes there is dropsy of sacs, dropsy of the brain following acute diseases. In acute spinal meningitis with extreme nervous tension, where there is chronic drawing back of the head, chronic jerking of the head forward.
Acute diseases that result in hydrocephalus, or in irritation of the spine. Sometimes useful in abdominal dropsy, but more often in oedema of the lower extremities. Acute dropsies after scarlet fever; the patient is oversensitive, starts in his sleep, rises up in the night with confusion; there are albumen and casts in the urine,
In dropsy after the malaria, Natr. mur., when it acts curatively, generally brings back the original chill. The only cure known to man is from above down, from within out, and in the reverse order of coming. When it is otherwise, there is only improvement, not cure. When the symptoms return there is hope; that is the road to cure and there is no other.
The skin symptoms are sometimes very striking. In old lingering cases where the skin looks transparent as if the patient would become dropsical, a waxy, greasy, shiny skin; other remedies with greasy, shiny skin are Plumb., Thuja, Selen.
These remedies go deep into the life. Any remedy that can produce such wonderful changes is long-acting.
Useful after labor when the mother does not progress well; she is feeble and excitable; the lochia is prolonged, copious and white; the hair falls out from the head and genitals; the milk passes away, or the child does not thrive on it.
Useful in after pains where there is subinvolutîon of the uterus, the uterus is in a state of prolonged congestion.
She is < noise, music, the slamming of a door. She craves salt and has an aversion to bread, wine and fat things. Sour wines disorder the stomach. Natr. mur. will clear up the case, restore the milk, turn the case into order.
Natr. mur. is needed by those chlorotic girls who have a greasy skin, a greenish, yellowish complexion; who menstruate only once in two or three months.
The menses are copious, or scanty and watery. Where the symptoms agree, this remedy can eradicate this chlorosis and turn the countenance into a picture of health, but not in a short time.
It takes years to establish health in a typical chlorosis; the cut finger bleeds only water; the menstrual flow is only a leucorrhoea; there is pernicious anemia. Natr. mur., goes deep enough into the life to restore the pink complexion.
by James Tyler Kent