Antimonium Crudum

Thick, milky white coating on tongue (in many complaints).

Derangements from overloading the stomach, especially fat food; nausea.

Crushed finger-nails: grow in splits like warts and with horny spots.

Corns and callosities on soles, with excessive tenderness; can only walk with pain and suffering.

Alternate constipation and diarrhoea in old people, especially with the characteristic tongue.

Child cannot bear to be touched or looked at, fretful, cross.

Feverish conditions at night. Headache; after river bathing; from taking cold; alcoholic drinks; deranged digestion; acids, fat, fruit; suppressed eruptions. Mucus; from anus, ichorous, oozing, staining yellow; mucous piles. Cannot bear heat of sun; < from exertion in sun; exhausted in warm weather.

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This remedy, like the three of which we have been writing, has a strong affinity for the alimentary canal. Its leading characteristic is in its thickly-coated, white, very white, white as milk, tongue.

Many remedies have white tongue, but this one leads them all. It is also a great stomach remedy, and in disorders of this organ arising from over-eating, where there is much nausea, distress, and especially the characteristic tongue, it is to be thought of before any of the three of which we have written. It is especially to be considered if the gastric derangement is of recent date. The process of digestion is hardly under way; the eructations taste of the food as he ate it, and the sufferer feels as if he must “throw up” before there will be any relief. In such a case a few pellets of Antimonium crudum on the tongue will often settle the business, save the loss of a meal, and all further suffering.

Diarrhoea may often follow these dietetic errors, especially during the heat of the summer season, and then the stools are peculiar in that they are partly solid and partly fluid, showing that digestion has been only partially performed in the whole length of the canal. Antimonium crudum and Bryonia sometimes present about equal claims in a case of summer complaint; but the case in its entirety must decide the choice between them.

There is a form of diarrhœa which alternates with constipation, oftenest found with old people, where Antimonium crudum is the only remedy. Then it is only one of the best remedies for mucous piles; there is a continuous oozing of mucus staining the linen, very disagreeable to the patient.

There are some mind symptoms that are very peculiar, “the greatest sadness and woeful mood with intermittent fever;” again, “sentimental mood in moonlight, ecstatic love,” and again, “child cannot bear to be touched or looked at.”

Of the first two symptoms I can say nothing from experience or observation, but of the last, that it is a gem. Many times in cases of gastric or remittent fever, for which Antimonium crudum is a very excellent remedy, I have been led to its use by this very condition of the mind: the child is cross, but not like Chamomilla wants to be carried and soothed, but will scream and cry, and show temper at every little attention. Another thing that I have noticed in many of these cases is, that the fever runs higher at night and is accompanied with great thirst; the white tongue is almost always present. Such children are quite apt, even when around the house, to have “sore, cracked and crusty nostrils, and corners of the mouth,” and so this may appear when sick.

There is a peculiar constitutional condition found in some people which calls for this remedy. It is found in the extremities; finger-nails grow in splits, like warts, with horny spots (Silicea nails crippled, on fingers and toes; Graphites nails become thick, crippled; Thuja nails brittle, crumbling, distorted), and if by accident one becomes injured or split, it does not repair as it should, but grows out of shape. Then the toe-nails are brittle and grow out of shape also, or shrivel up and do not grow at all. The feet are covered on the soles with corns and callosities which are VERY TENDER, can hardly walk on them on account of this tenderness. Some of the worst cases of chronic rheumatism have been cured by this remedy, guided by the excessive tenderness of the soles of the feet. (Baryta: soles get sore from foot sweat; Pulsatilla: soles pain and are tender; Ledum: heels and soles tender when walking; Medorrhinum: couldn’t walk except on knees; Lycopod.: soles swollen and painful.) Horny excrescences anywhere on the skin make one think of Antimonium crudum. The remedy is oftenest found indicated in the extremes of life, in children and old people.

Now the peculiar modalities which deserve particular mention are: First, the troubles are often caused or aggravated by heat, and especially by the heat of the sun. (Bryonia, Glonoine, Gelsem., Nat. carb.) The patient feels exhausted during warm weather; the gastric troubles come on, or are worse, such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhœa. The cough is worse, and, like Bryonia, is worse on coming into a warm room from cold air. These affections are particularly worse in sunshine, but also from radiate heat of the fire, so that Antimonium crudum takes a high rank as a hot weather remedy. Second, cold bathing aggravates or causes trouble. (Rhus tox., Sulphur.) “Child cries when washed or bathed in cold water.” Cold bathing causes headache, cold in the head, gastric catarrh, diarrhoea, suppressed menses, toothache, etc. When any case of long standing comes to us, and the patient dates the beginning of the trouble to going in swimming or falling into the water, we think of Antimonium crudum and examine for further indications for the drug.

Now a few scattering symptoms that have found their remedy in Antimonium crudum: “Copious hæmorrhage from the bowels, mixed with solid fæces; chronic redness of the eyelids; toothache in decayed teeth, worse at night; gastric trouble after acids, sour wine, vinegar,” etc.