Psorinum

Very sad, hopeless, despondent; “bluest of the blue.”

Great debility; sweats on slightest movement; wants to. give up and lie down.

Eruptions on the skin, dry, or moist; or skin scaly and dry as parchment; dirty, the great unwashed, unwashable.

Intense itching of skin < in warmth of bed.

Discharges and exhalations exceedingly offensive.

Very sensitive to cold air; wears a fur cap in summer.

Modalities: < in cold air, < in warmth of bed (itching); sitting up or motion; > bringing arms down close to the body, > lying down (even the dyspnoea); wrapping up warm; psoric manifestations.

Great weakness and debility; from loss of fluids; remaining after acute diseases; without any organic lesion or apparent cause.

Cough and dry, scaly eruptions return every winter.

Quinsy; to eradicate the tendency.

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The disease products are powerful remedies, and when used in the potentized form have made many wonderful cures. It is believed by some that in the potentized form they are so changed that they become homœopathic to the disease which produced them, especially in any other person than the one in whom the original disease existed.

I have experimented more or less with these so-called nosodes, since they were so widely proclaimed by Dr. Swan. I never found them markedly efficacious in such cases, but I have seen remarkable results from them in cases resembling, for instance, gonorrhœal, syphilitic or psoric troubles, without any history of pre-existing trouble of the kind. I have cured eruptions on the skin resembling itch with Psorinum, rheumatic troubles that were very obstinate under our usual remedies with Medorrhinum and a long standing case of caries of the spine with Syphilinum, but in not one of these cases had the patient, that I could trace, itch, gonorrhoea or syphilis. The experience of many others seems to be different. I give only my own. That each nosode seems capable of producing the same or similar symptoms when given by mouth in proving as when inoculated the usual way seems well proven in the case of Psorinum. I do not see why the constitutional symptoms appearing after inoculations should not be considered a proving as well as those following a bee sting, cantharis blistering, or the local external poisoning of the varieties of rhus. If Rhus, very high, will cure rhus poisoning, why should not Syphilinum, etc., cure syphilis? Who will answer?

All nosodes are as capable of curing as they are of poisoning. If not, why not? We must not let prejudice hinder honest investigation. As if in corroboration of the theory that the potentized disease product will cure the disease producing it, the provings of Psorinum indicate that the chief action and curative power of the poison is upon the skin. And is it not remarkable that Psorinum should so strongly resemble Sulphur, the old-time remedy for itch, and again that they follow or complete each other in curing skin troubles? Notice some of the leading skin symptoms.

“Itching when the body becomes warm.”

“Itching, intolerable in warmth of bed.” (Merc. sol.)

“Itching, scratches until it bleeds.”

“Itching between fingers and in bends of joints.” (Sepia.)

“Dry, scaly eruptions which disappear summers and return winters.”

“Repeated outbreaks of eruptions.”

“Skin has a dirty dingy look, as if the patient never washed, and the body has a filthy smell even after a bath.”

These and many other symptoms, too numerous to mention here, show what an invaluable remedy this should be in skin troubles, and abundant experience and observation corroborate the truth of our law of cure in the curative power of disease poisons, as it also does in vegetable, and mineral, and insect or animal.

Psorinum is also found useful in the consequences of suppressed eruptions, and in such cases should never be forgotten when other anti-psorics fail. Dr. Wm. A. Hawley, of Syracuse, N. Y., once made a brilliant cure of a very bad case of dropsy in an old woman, being led to prescribe this remedy by the appearance of the skin. One dose of Fincke’s 42 m. potency, dry on the tongue, cured the whole case in a very short time. It was a case of long standing. Now, if we examine we will also find that this remedy resembles Graphites in many points. A close comparison will pay the earnest student of Materia Medica. Psorinum is very depressed in mind. “Greatest despondency, making his own life and that of those about him almost intolerable.” This state of mind, following acute diseases, like typhus, is especially benefited by this remedy. When writing of Graphites we mentioned the resemblance of the two remedies in the “stools, dark-brown, watery, and of intolerably offensive odor.” This is found in bad cases of cholera infantum or chronic diarrhoea. There is one valuable diagnostic difference between them, although the remedies are so much alike, and that is that the Graphites moisture from the eruption is glutinous or sticky and not markedly so with Psorinum.

Again, Psorinum is very useful for weakness or debility during convalescence from severe acute diseases. The patient sweats profusely when taking the least exercise. Notwithstanding, as a rule, the skin is generally dry, inactive, and rarely sweats. Here, again, as in the stool symptom, choice may have to be made between Psorinum and China. Loss of fluids, blood, suppuration, etc., would decide in favor of the latter and itching eruptions or tendency thereto, before or during the sickness, the former. One thing I forgot to mention in connection with the offensive stool. “All excretions, diarrhœa, leucorrhoea, menstrual flow and perspiration, have a carrionlike smell, even the body has a filthy smell, notwithstanding frequent bathing.” The Psorinum subject is very sensitive to cold air, or change of weather (Hepar), wants to wear a fur cap, overcoat or shawl, even in the hottest weather.

Chronic complaints following or dating back for years to some imperfectly cured or suppressed acute disease. (Carbo veg.) I advise everyone to buy a copy of Allen’s “key-notes,” which has a very good rendering of the nosodes. So we see in Psorinum when proven a great remedy for very grave conditions. I have no doubt that all nosodes are equally valuable when as well understood.