Bismuthum

Volume I — Appendix

Description. — Bismuth is a grayish-white metal. The crystals are pyra midal cubes like common salt, and become coated with a film of the oxide when exposed to water. It expands when it solidifies, possesses the property of dimagnetism, and burns with bluish flame and yellow fumes. It is completely soluble in nitric acid.

Preparation. — Triturations (of oxide, or subnitrate).

Mind.

He was morose and discontented with his condition, and complains about it.

Head.

Vertigo. A sensation as if the anterior half of the brain were turning in a circle several times during the day, lasting several minutes.

• Pressure and sensation of heaviness in the forehead, more violent on motion.

• Violent pressive heavy pain in the forehead. Pressure and

sensation of heaviness in the occiput, more violent on motion.

Stomach.

• Nausea in the stomach ; feels as if he would vomit, especiallyviolent after eating.

• Pressure in the stomach, especially after eating.

• Frequent empty eructations and feeling of discomfort in the

stomach.

• Nausea with pressure in the stomach.

• Uncomfortable feeling in the stomach.

• Pressure in the stomach changes to burning.

• Distressing pressure and burning in the region of the stomach.

• Some pressure in the region of the stomach and empty eructations.

Abdomen.

Pinching pressure in the lower abdomen, and rumbling with desire; a sensation as if he must go to stool.

Urinary Organs.

• Frequent urination, every time profuse. Urine is watery.

Chest.

• Pain in the chest and back, with burning, with boring and

burning.

• Pinching-pressive pain in the region of the diaphragm, extending transversely through the chest.

Sleep.

In the morning, a few hours after rising, an excessive sleepiness, but after eating he was unable to take an accustomed nap.

At night, frequent waking in sleep as from fright.

At night, frequent wakings, with weariness. Restless sleep at night on account of voluptuous dreams, without, or frequently with, emission of semen.

(Puke-puke, New Zealand.) Officinal Peepaeation.— Tincture of the green leaves and flowers.

Head.

Confusion in the head and pain in the forehead. Giddiness and flushed face.

Headache, pressive and throbbing in the forehead.

Ears.

Itching and pricking in the ears.

Nose.

Itching and burning in the nostrils.

Face.

Faceache, left side, as if the submaxillary glands were affected, extending to the upper part of the face.

Mouth.

Pricking and numbness in the tongue, evening.

Throat.

Soreness and rawness in the throat, evening.

Stomach.

Nausea and eructation of the taste of the ingesta, evening. Fluttering in the stomach.

Abdomen. Fluttering sensation in the abdomen.

Soreness in the groins, as if in the spermatic cords, and a thrilling

sensation through the penis and testes. Almost constant pain in the groins and weariness in the limbs. Throbbing in the left groin, morning.

Stool.

Evacuations of dry faeces, with sore, constrictive pain in the anus, evening.

Urinary Organs. Soreness in the region of the kidneys. Pressure and soreness in the neck of the bladder.

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

This is a very old remedy in one sense, but very new in another. Teste introduced it into his “ Materia Medica ” with the remark that it “ is very little known to homoeopathic physicians.” The same remark applies almost equally well now, for the great majority of our school rarely use it ; only those who have been allopaths, or have gained some knowledge of its value from allopathic textbooks.

Bismuth is a very important remedy in its sphere of action, but that sphere is narrow, and confined to the nerves of the stomach and those organs in special sympathy with it.

Hahnemann published a few symptoms of the Oxide of bismuth in his “ Materia Medica Pura,” but they have attracted little attention. Teste tried to call attention to it, but he absurdly linked it with a group of medicines to which it has but slight resemblance. His clinical observations were from allopathic experience mainly, and his own personal experience with it was quite fanciful and unreliable.

My experience with it has been large enough to warrant me in speaking decidedly as to its value.

I have found it of the greatest use in painful digestion, or a kind of gastralgia which comes on soon after eating. The pain is peculiar; it is a remittent pressure , as from a stone or some heavy substance in the stomach. Some describe it as a crampy pain, others

a griping. It differs from the gastralgia of Nux, which comes on later after eating; from Carbo veg., which is still later, as well as burning. The only medicines which closely resemble it, in the nature of the pain, are Dioscorea and Calabar.

This gastralgia of Bismuth is often attended with eructations, tasting of undigested roast meat, frontal headache, vomiting of undigested food ; but these are not necessary concomitants.

In vomiting from gastric irritation it is an excellent remedy. The vomiting is not attended by fever, is generally chronic, or has followed acute gastritis, or has been caused by irritating drugs. It is not useful in vomiting of sour, ropy fluids, or wlien inflammation is present. It will often palliate the vomiting from cancer, or ulcer of the stomach ; also the vomiting of pregnancy, when the reflex has caused local irritation of the stomach.

Of Teste’s observations the only trustworthy one is, that Bismuth is indicated in “absence of fever, nidorous (roasted-meat smelling) eructations, mucous or brownish, foul-smelling vomiting ; small, serous, intermittent diarrhoea, stools of a light color and foul odor, preceded by crampy pains at the stomach, and pinching in the abdomen.”

In the diarrhoea of infants, when teething, if they have the above symptoms the Bismuth is a specific. If the diarrhoea occurs in poorly nourished adults, or feeble persons with slow digestion, it will act admirably. *

In headache it is an excellent remedy when it alternates with or is attended by the gastralgia, or when it comes on immediately after eating, and is relieved by vomiting of the ingesta. The pain is general ly frontal.

In the treatment of dyspepsia or painful digestion, not complicated with any liver affection, it is almost indispensable. I have been very successful with it aided by Pepsin, which is peculiarly adapted to assist Bismuth in its curative action. I do not approve of those quackish combinations of “ Bismuth, Iron, Strychnine, and Pepsin,” with which the country is flooded. Pepsin will not combine properly, in solution, with any drug. It should be given uncombined. My plan is to give the Bismuth, if indicated, just before eating, and the Pepsin with the last portion of the food

taken at meals, followed by the Bismuth again in half an hour, if the pain and distress come on.

I usually use in all cases the first decimal trituration of thesw6nitrate of bismuth, giving to adults ten to twenty grains, to children five or ten grains. I do not hesitate to give the same quantity of the crude medicine in obstinate cases. If the preparation is chemically pure no aggravation can possibly accrue from its use. When it is given for the vomiting and diarrhoea of children, the same plan, namely, a dose just before nursing or taking the bottle, with or without the Pepsin after.

You will find recorded in Hempel’s “Materia Medica,” also in Orfila “ On Poisons,” some cases of alleged poisoning from Bismuth, but it is now ascertained beyond a doubt that it is only when Arsenic is combined with Bismuth that it has unpleasant effects. “Notwithstanding all the care of modern pharmacy,” says Wood, “ Bismuth even yet contains Arsenic, and I have seen it from this cause produce bloody purging.”

You should be careful, then, that you procure a pure article. I do not mean to infer that the chemically pure Bismuth will not cause diseased conditions similar to those it will cure, for such an assertion would contravene our law of cure. I do say, however, that only its long-continued use, in large doses, could produce such effects by slowly deranging the gastric nerves.

Its primary effect is, doubtless, to benumb and abolish the normal sensitiveness of the nerves of the stomach and intestines, while its secondary effects would be to cure just that hypersensitiveness which results in the gastralgia, which it is so successful in curing.