Alumen
By Constantine Hering — The Guiding Symptoms of our Materia Medica
Alum. Aluminii et Potassii Sulphas.
The well-known astringent double salt, found as a native mineral near the volcanoes of the Lipari Isles, in Sicily ; abundant in this country in Maryland and in Tennessee. One of the oldest medicines ever used.
Introduced and proved by C. Hg., in 1845, with the assistance of Drs. Husmann and Rhees. Also proved by Dr. Jeanes, whose frequently corroborated symptoms are included.
A full monography was published in the Journals, in 1872, and is contained in C. Hg.'s Mat. Med ., Vol. I, published by Boericke and Tafel, 1873. 734 numbers on thirty-nine pages.
MIND [1]
Lectrophilie, keeps bed without necessity, plaguing her family.
Anxiety, doubts if medicine will relieve her.
Feels like after unpleasant news.
Spells of rage, attacks people.
Thinking about her disease causes palpitation.
Unpleasant news excites and causes nervous tremors.
SENSORIUM [2]
Vertigo : lying on his back, with weakness in pit of stomach ; > opening eyes ; > turning on right side.
Giddy looking down, as if falling forward ; rush of blood to head.
Deathlike fainting spell, with loss of all faculties.
INNER HEAD [3]
Neuralgic headache. θ Nasal polypus.
Jerking in left forehead, evening.
Pressing on top of head.
Pains coming and going, from place to place ; in forenoon.
Pain < morning, on awaking.
Shooting through temples, with sickness, > by drinking cold water.
Rush of blood to head.
SIGHT AND EYES [5]
Wild look, with spells of rage.
Sees things double by candlelight.
Pupils dilated.
Right eye squints towards nose.
Spots on cornea.
Prolapsus iridis after cataract operation.
Staphyloma corneæ.
Bruised feeling on inferior edge of orbit of left eye, on pressure, or by moving eyelids.
Varicosities of conjunctiva.
Trachoma (topically and internally).
Purulent ophthalmia of infants.
Itching burning on border of lower lids ; right to left.
HEARING AND EARS [6]
Hears every little noise in sleep.
Heat in both ears and left side of face at night.
Purulent otorrhœa.
SMELL AND NOSE [7]
Dryness of nostrils and choanæ.
Nosebleed.
Nasal polypus left side, with rough skin all over face and body, and neuralgic headache.
Lupus or cancer.
UPPER FACE [8]
Expression animated ; with fever.
Left side red and hot.
Complexion sickly, sallow ; yellow.
Pale as a corpse, lips blue.
LOWER FACE [9]
Pain in left articulation of jaw close to ear.
TEETH AND GUMS [10]
Teeth loose.
Gums swollen, inflamed, spongy, with a grey, dirty coating ; teeth surrounded by proud flesh. θ Stomatitis.
Profuse hemorrhage after extraction of a tooth.
TASTE, SPEECH, TONGUE [11]
Taste : bitter ; sourish, astringent ; sweetish, disgusting after taste.
Tongue clean, except a slight coating of slime on back part.
Tongue : dry ; burning in evening ; sour feeling ; stitches worse at tip.
Scirrhus of tongue.
INNER MOUTH [12]
Mouth dry, without thirst.
Spreading ulcers in mouth.
Noma.
Mouth burning, ulcerated ; grey dirty spongy skin about a tooth, which is surrounded with proud flesh ; offensive saliva.
Profuse ptyalism, mercurial in origin or not.
PALATE AND THROAT [13]
Uvula inflamed and enlarged.
Uvula elongated, relaxed after catarrh.
Predisposed to tonsillitis.
Veins about fauces distended ; velum red ; much hawking.
Catarrh of fauces and throat.
Neuralgia of throat.
Spat a lump of coagulated blood in morning after rising.
Throat sore and dry when talking or swallowing fluids ; difficult swallowing.
Throat relaxed, ulcerated.
Burning and severe pains ; heat up from stomach.
Spasmodic constriction in œsophagus ; fluids can scarcely be swallowed.
Prickling sensation in both sides of throat and great dryness, with constant desire to drink.
Throat chronically affected ; mucous membrane covered with mucus, causing troublesome cough.
APPETITE, THIRST. DESIRES, AVERSIONS [14]
Appetite increased, even with fulness in stomach.
Loathes food.
Thirst : throat dry ; and increased appetite ; with heat in stomach, > by drinking cold water ; intense, with fever.
Mouth dry, but no increase of thirst.
EATING AND DRINKING [15]
Before breakfast : attacks of nausea ; cough.
During breakfast : cough worse.
After breakfast : cough better.
Eating > her sinking feeling in stomach.
After meal, heaviness in stomach ; throbbing ; distension ; vomited everything.
At dinner : erections.
Drinking cold water : relieves headache.
HICCOUGH, BELCHING, NAUSEA AND VOMITING [16]
Squalmish at intervals, when awaking at night, prevents falling asleep again.
Nausea with headache, pain in stomach and retching.
Nausea with faintness and weakness more in morning, with restlessness and excitement, giddiness ; chilliness.
Vomits large quantities of glairy mucus, or tough, colorless, sour slime, seldom containing bile, oftener food.
Atonic hematemesis ; vomiting of blood.
Habitual hematemesis in hard drinkers.
Vomits everything he eats.
Vomiting, with colic.
SCROBICULUM AND STOMACH [17]
A sensation of fulness in pit of stomach urges him to take a deep breath, but he cannot.
Weak faint feeling in pit of stomach ; sinking sensation.
Pain, nausea and rush of blood to head and drowsiness.
Pain with faintness, sickness and cold sweat.
Burning heat and feeling of fulness.
Heat in stomach, > by drinking cold water.
Severe pain to left of scrobiculum, > standing still and pressing on it.
Pyrosis and gastric catarrh.
Villi of stomach becoming disorganized ; mucus lining dark red or brown ; walls thickened, more at pylorus, and hardened, as if tanned (toxic).
Pressing followed by throbbing ; lying on back in evening.
HYPOCHONDRIA [18]
Warm creeps running down, followed by jerking contractions of abdominal muscles, towards linea alba.
Relaxed feeling in abdomen.
Distension from wind.
Burning pain low down and in small of back prevents him getting up ; as if back would break.
Colic pain > from pressure ; < when walking, with fulness and heaviness.
Spasmodic wind-colic.
Abdomen sensitive to touch during colic.
Abdomen and navel sunken in ; walls hard and retracted towards spine.
Potter's colic with sleeplessness, headache, crawling, tingling in limbs, constipation ; > from pressure ; abdomen retracted ; tongue dry, black ; urine red and scanty ; violent delirium and debility ; also after opium.
Lead colic, violent as if drunk and enraged ; pulse slow ; tongue in folds and dry ; trembling of limbs and pain as if beaten.
STOOLS AND RECTUM [20]
Violent ineffectual urging.
Stool : less frequent, dryer and harder ; large, black, hard or in small pieces like sheep's dung ; no relief afterwards.
Difficult stool with some blood and subsequent beating in anus.
First hard, then soft stools and pains following.
Diarrhœa yellow as an infant's ; slimy after colic pains, causing great weakness.
Diarrhœa ichorous, mixed with blood of an offensive odor ; abdominal typhus ; great exhaustion.
Very weakening colliquative diarrhœa.
Masses of coagulated blood. θ Typhus abdominalis.
Putrid dysentery.
Violent pains going from rectum down thighs.
During stool : dyspnœa ; pains in rectum ; tenesmus.
After stool : scarcely endurable pain, with scirrhous indurations in rectum ; no fissures.
Ulcerations in rectum, painful excrescences ; fetid bloody ichor.
Anus protruding, tumors inflamed and painful.
A small lump at anus itching violently, < at night.
Itching at anus all evening ; pruritus.
Long-lasting pain in rectum after each stool.
Painful, bleeding piles ; with aching in anus.
Bleeding from anus after wine or whiskey.
URINARY ORGANS [21]
Diabetes mellitus.
Contractive sensations deep in pelvis with complaints of rectum and bladder.
Urine increased, free, acid.
Frequent urging, with scanty, clear flow, containing lumps of blood ; sediment slimy, tough or membranaceous.
Frequent and painful urging, with painful passing of small quantities ; now and then mixed with blood, at others, clear ; after standing, thick as if mixed with clay, dirty, fibrous sediment ; catarrh of bladder, mostly with the aged.
Incontinentia urinæ ; enuresis.
Must urinate every hour or two, night and day.
Urine has an oily, iridescent film on it.
Urine scanty, reddish, in colic ; bloody.
Blennorrhœa urethræ.
Itching of orifice of urethra.
MALE SEXUAL ORGANS [22]
Unusual erections while at dinner.
Male parts weak, frequent emissions. θ Onanism.
Spongy, sycotic warts.
Gonorrhœa ; gonorrhœa preputialis ; gleet.
Shooting pain from middle line of belly, as along a thread, down into penis.
Cutting pain in left side of penis.
FEMALE SEXUAL ORGANS [23]
Affections of left ovary with troublesome constipation.
Insupportable pain near left groin, towards region of ovary.
Weight of uterus presses down collum ; granulations of vagina ; leucorrhœa copious ; emaciation, yellow complexion.
Indurations of uterus, even scirrhus.
Ulcers of uterus.
Discharge of coagula from uterus (and rectum). θ Typhus.
Menses scanty, watery ; during catamenia, hands weak.
Metrorrhagia with atony.
Vagina very sensitive, narrowed by swellings of various size.
Pruritus vaginæ.
PREGNANCY. PARTURITION. LACTATION [24]
Faintish weakness during pregnancy, no vomiting ; flushing, followed by throbbing of heart.
Flooding after childbirth.
(OBS :) Cancer of mamma.
Sore, inflamed nipples.
VOICE AND LARYNX. TRACHEA AND BRONCHIA [25]
Hoarseness ; voice shrill, cannot talk loud ; < from talking.
Voice sometimes high, sometimes low.
Voice entirely lost.
Talking increases hoarseness, causes tickling cough.
Scratching in larynx as from dust, roughness, brings up much clear much.
Epidemic membranous croup.
Constrictive feeling in windpipe.
Bronchitis.
RESPIRATION [26]
Inclined to take a deep breath.
Cannot take a full breath.
Oppression of chest, with colic.
Breathing oppressed, anxious, as from a heavy stone in chest.
Tightness across upper part of chest.
Rapid, short breathing with uneasiness in stomach.
COUGH [27]
With cough scraping in throat.
Dry cough in evening after lying down.
Cough from tickling in larynx caused by talking.
Coughs a long time every morning, with scratching in middle of sternum, pain in groin, in region of ovary. θ Whooping-cough.
Cough immediately after rising, excited by a tickling in throat ; < during, > after, breakfast.
Chronic morning cough of old people.
Sputa : ropy (bronchitis and phthisis), scanty.
Atonic hæmoptysis.
(OBS :) Phthisis.
INNER CHEST AND LUNGS [28]
Pain under clavicle and right shoulder when inhaling.
Stinging from upper chest through to back, awakens at night.
When bending, sore pain under right nipple or in left chest.
Feeling of weakness in lower part of chest and in abdomen.
HEART, PULSE AND CIRCULATION [29]
Feels warm in left side opposite shoulder, also very tired.
At times feels well, then, when beginning to think of her disease, she feels the heart beat, and yet to the hand it seems to beat very little stronger than natural, and at other times motion is scarcely perceptible ; sometimes contractions are frequent, at others seldom.
Violent palpitation from a throbbing in epigastrium extending to heart.
Palpitation from mental excitement.
Rapid, violent palpitation, < lying on right side, or a length of time in one position.
Palpitation in attacks.
Dilatation of heart.
Pain from heart to lower part of right leg.
Pulse frequent with fever ; slow or threadlike with colic ; intermitting.
Strong pulsation through whole body.
OUTER CHEST [30]
Chest sore and tender to touch above clavicle and over second or third rib, left side.
NECK AND BACK [31]
Spine weak ; evening.
Feels as if cold water was poured down back, with headache.
Pain where shoulder blade ends, near spine, right side.
A warm, cramplike feeling below hips, going up left side.
Pain all evening on both sides of spine on a line with inferior angles of scapulæ, with every deep inhalation.
UPPER LIMBS [32]
Weakness in shoulders, > bending forward.
Pain in left shoulder ; > from motion.
Feels as if a cord was drawn tightly around upper arm, causing pain in lines from ligature Trembling and twitching of arms.
Right wrist feels sprained.
Hands weak, dropping things. θ During menses.
Pains in hands with other suffering.
LOWER LIMBS [33]
Pains in limbs, particularly at night.
Lassitude, numbness.
Bruised pain when standing.
Feels as if a cord was tied around leg under knee.
Cramps in calves.
Soles sensitive to pressure, when walking.
Stitches in right big toe.
Feet numb and cold, although covered up warm in bed.
Legs cold from knees down.
Frozen feet.
(OBS :) Ingrowing toe nails.
LIMBS IN GENERAL [34]
Bruised pains.
Crawling, tingling.
Cold hands and feet with stomachache.
REST. POSITION. MOTION [35]
Lying on back : vertigo ; pressing followed by throbbing in stomach.
Lying down : dry cough in evening.
Lying on right side : palpitation worse.
Lying in one position long : palpitation worse.
Turning on right side : relieves vertigo.
Standing still : pain in scrobiculum > ; bruised feeling in limbs.
Motion : of eyelids, bruised feeling of orbit ; pain in left shoulder better.
Bending : sore pain in chest ; weakness in shoulders better.
Cannot get up : pain in small of back.
Can hardly hold head up : with fever.
Walking hold head up : with fever.
Walking : colic worse ; soles sensitive.
NERVES [36]
Trembling, after rising, most in arms ; excited.
Trembling with pain as if beaten.
Nervous tremor and excitability of feeling as if agitated by unpleasant news.
Weak. θ Typhus.
Weak and relaxed in stomach, abdomen and all the limbs.
Tired, faint, as if he would fall from his seat, forenoon.
SLEEP [37]
Light sleep, hears every little noise.
Cannot get to sleep on account of orgasm.
Anxiety at night, nausea, headache.
Sleepless from fever. θ Colic.
Wakened by stinging in chest.
Disturbed by nightmare, 4 A. M.
TIME [38]
Night : heat in ears and face ; squalmish when awaking ; itching lump in anus worse ; stinging in chest ; pain in limbs ; anxiety, nausea and headache.
Night and day : must urinate.
Forenoon : pains in head change from place to place ; tired and faint ; internal heat.
Evening : jerking in left forehead ; tongue burns ; pressing and throbbing in stomach ; itching at anus ; dry cough ; spine week ; pain on both sides of spine.
Morning : pain in head on awaking ; spat coagulated blood after rising ; nausea, fainting, giddiness and chilliness ; coughs a long time.
At 4 A. M. : nightmare.
TEMPERATURE AND WEATHER [39]
Very sensitive to cold.
After taking cold, has a sore throat.
While washing, chest pains.
Exposure to air : roughens and chaps skin.
FEVER [40]
Chill : metallic taste, slight nausea, palpitation ; pain striking from heart across to lower extremity of right lung ; sensation as of cold water poured down back, and numbing coldness of feet, though covered warmly in bed ; deathlike faintness with chill.
Chilly with sick stomach.
Coldness followed by headache.
Coldness of skin followed by heat and tingling.
Fever with intense thirst, nausea, etc.
Inward heat throughout body, in forehead.
Warm creeps over belly.
Chilliness, and another time inward heat.
Coldness with stomach pain, followed by heat with rush of blood to head ; can hardly hold it up.
ATTACKS, PERIODICITY [41]
Sudden attacks disappearing quickly : of beating or fluttering of heart.
Nausea, flushes, cramps, etc., disappear soon, return quickly.
Same hour, 3 P. M., pain in arm.
Every other morning : nausea, faintness and weakness, with restlessness and excitement.
Every hour or two : must urinate.
LOCALITY AND DIRECTION [42]
Right : eye squints towards nose ; pain under shoulder ; soreness under nipple when bending ; pain to leg through heart ; pain near spine ; wrist feels sprained ; stitches in big toe.
Right to left : itching on border of eyelids.
Left : jerking in forehead ; heat in side of face ; nasal polypus ; pain in jaw ; pain in scrobiculum ; cutting side of penis ; affection of ovary ; pain in groin ; pain in chest when bending ; soreness about clavicle and second and third ribs ; warm feeling from hips up side ; pain in shoulder.
Above downward : warm creeps in abdomen ; pains from rectum to thighs ; shooting from belly to penis ; pain from heart to right leg ; feeling as of water being poured down back.
Front to back : stinging in upper chest.
Diagonally : pain from heart to right leg.
Below upward : warm sensation from hips.
SENSATIONS [43]
As if agitated by unpleasant news ; sinking faint feeling in stomach ; warm creeps running down abdomen ; relaxed feeling in abdomen ; pain in limbs as if beaten ; as from a heavy stone in chest ; uneasiness in stomach ; as if cold water was poured down back ; warm cramplike feeling below hips ; as if a cord was drawn tightly around upper arm ; as if a cord was tied around leg under knee ; as if he would fall from his seat, faint.
Pain : in left articulation of jaw close to ears, to left of scrobiculum ; from rectum down thighs ; in groin ; in ovary ; under clavicle and right shoulder ; from heart to lower part of right leg ; where shoulder blade ends ; in both sides of spine ; in left shoulder ; in hands ; in limbs.
Jerking : in left forehead.
Burning : in lids ; in tongue ; in throat ; in stomach ; low down and in small of back ; in anus.
Shooting : through temples ; from middle line of belly as along as thread down into penis.
Cutting : in left side of penis.
Stitches : in tip of tongue.
Stinging : in vertex ; in temple ; in tip of tongue ; in rectum ; from upper chest through to back ; in chest.
Prickling : in throat.
Sore pain : under right nipple.
Bruised feeling : orbit of left eye ; in lower limbs ; joints of arms ; hands and feet.
Sprained feeling : in right wrist.
Scraping : in throat.
Scratching : in middle of sternum.
Pressing : on top of head ; in stomach.
Throbbing : in epigastrium ; in stomach ; in anus ; through whole body.
Tightness : across chest.
Constriction : in œsophagus ; in windpipe.
Contractive sensation : deep in pelvis.
Cramps : in calves.
Neuralgia : of throat.
Crawling tingling : in limbs.
Tingling : in skin.
Itching burning : on border of lower limbs.
Itching : in eyelids ; in small lump at anus ; of orifice of urethra ; of scrotum ; of shoulder.
Tickling : in larynx.
Heaviness : in stomach ; in abdomen.
Fulness : in pit of stomach ; in abdomen.
Faintish weakness : during pregnancy.
Weakness : in lower chest and abdomen ; in shoulders.
Heat : in ears ; in left side of face ; from stomach ; in left side opposite shoulder ; in skin.
Coldness : of skin.
Dryness : of nostrils and choanæ ; of throat ; of skin.
TISSUES [44]
Hemorrhages from leech bites, extracting teeth, etc.
Parenchymatous bleeding from mouth, gums, nose, uterus.
Mucous membrane : dry in nose, on tongue, in mouth, larynx.
Emaciation.
Joints of arms, hands and feet feel bruised.
TOUCH. PASSIVE MOTION. INJURIES [45]
Touch : abdomen sensitive ; tenderness of upper left chest.
Slight scratches bleed.
After extracting teeth, profuse bleeding.
After cataract operation, prolapse of iris.
After metallic pessaries, scirrhus.
Pressure relieves or increases colic.
In powdered substance or solutions, in burns or scalds, after a plunge of arm in boiling oil.
Pressure : causes bruised feeling in orbit ; relieves pain in scrobiculum ; colic better.
SKIN [46]
Itching in eyelids, anus, scrotum and shoulder.
Skin dry ; exposed to air, rough and chapped.
Rough skin all over body and face. θ Nasal polypus.
Furuncles on body, on thighs.
Ulceration less after a burning, or such as remain after different other applications to skin.
Fungous granulations.
Proud flesh.
Chilblains.
Indolent ulcers.
Scorbutic ulcers.
STAGE OF LIFE, CONSTITUTION [47]
Old people. θ Disease of the bladder. See 21 .
Children, profuse bronchial catarrh.
RELATIONS [48]
Similar to its relatives, Aluminium, Alumina , etc., and to : Aloes (rectum) ; Capsic . (long uvula) ; Ferrum (relaxed abdominal walls, prolapsed uterus, etc.) ; Ferr. jod . (leucorrhœa and prolapsus) ; Kali bichr . (stringy discharges from mucous membranes) ; Mercur . (prolapsed vaginia, uterus and rectum ; tenesmus of rectum, etc.) ; Merc. corr . (burning and tenesmus of rectum) ; Mur. ac . (fluttering of heart, anal pains after stool with fissures) ; Nitr. ac . (ulcers ; cancer recti ; hemorrhages from all orifices ; clots from rectum in typhoid ; tenesmus, fissures, etc., of rectum) ; Nux vom . (rectum) ; Opium ; Plumbum (colic ; tenesmus of rectum ; granular lids, etc.) ; Ratan . (fissure of rectum) ; Stannum (prolapsed vagina) ; Sulphur (pain through left lung, etc.) ; Sulph. ac . (hemorrhages, etc.) ; Zinc. met. et. sulph . (eyelids ; ulcers of cervix uteri ; colic, etc.)
Antidote to : lead poisoning ; calomel and other mercurial preparations : Aloes (for vomiting of blood).
Antidoted by : Chamom . (cramps in abdomen) ; Nux vom. ; Ipec . (nausea and faintness) ; Sulphur .