Carbo animalis appears in 12 of the 13 classic books on Similia. Each was written to do a different job — here is what each adds on this remedy, with the opening of its entry.
- Allen HC — The keynotes that separate this remedy from its nearest neighbours.
“Animal Charcoal Headache: as if a tornado in head; as if head had been blown to pieces; has to sit up at night and hold it together. Diseases of elderly persons with marked venous plethora, blue cheeks, blue lips, and great debility. Circulation feeble, stagnated, and vital heat sinks to a minimum; cyanosis (Ant. t…”
- Allen TF — The raw proving record — symptoms as the provers reported them, unedited.
“Preparation , Place a thick piece of ox-hide between red-hot coals, where it must remain as long as it burns with a flame, then quickly put the glowing piece between plates of stone, to put a stop to the combustion (if allowed to cool gradually in the air most of the carbon would be consumed). Triturate. Authorities…”
- Boericke — The quick clinical read — keynotes, modalities and the conditions it is actually prescribed in.
“Animal Charcoal Seems to be especially adapted to scrofulous and venous constitutions, old people, and after debilitating disease, with feeble circulation and lowered vitality. Glands are indurated , veins distended, skin blue. Stitch remaining after pleurisy . Easily strained from lifting. Weakness of nursing women…”
- Boger (Syn) — Generals and modalities in a short analytical portrait rather than a symptom list.
“NUTRITION. Glands. VEINLETS. Slight causes: Small depletions. Sprains. Lifting. Cold taking. WHILE EATING. Dry, cold air. Shaving (Ox-ac. Rad.). Old age. After menses. Laying hand on part. Old and feeble. Susceptible to colds, sprains or overaffected by small losses, etc . Venosity. Gummæ. Slow, hard painful…”
- Clarke — The widest entry — sources, provings, clinical uses, relationships and antidotes in one place.
“Animal Charcoal. Made from charred ox-hide. Contains Calc. phos. C (impure). Trituration. Acne rosacea / Aneurism / Appetite, disordered / Breast, cancer of / Bubo / Cancer / Cataract / Constipation / Coccygodynia / Cough / Empyema / Eructations / Face, eruption on / Gangrene / Glandular indurations / Hæmorrhoids /…”
- Hering — Graded symptoms, each weighted by how often provers and practice confirmed it.
“Animal charcoal. Burnt animal substances, porcupine, swallows, moles, human bones, etc., have been used in medicine, before and since the time of Dioscorides, for glandular affections, scirrhus, epilepsy, etc. 1708. Quesnot, Plusieurs secrets rare et curieux, p. 124. Paris. 1827. Introduced by Hahnemann in his Chronic…”
- Kent — The mental and general picture — who the patient is, before what the remedy cures.
“Carbo animalis is one of the deep-acting, long-acting medicines. Suitable in complaints that come on insidiously, that develop slowly, that become chronic and often malignant in character. Complaints in anaemic, broken down constitutions. Vascular conditions. The Carbons affect the veins more or less, relaxing…”
- Lippe (KN) — Only the symptoms Lippe considered reliable enough to prescribe on.
“Sensation of numbness, as if, in fact, the part had gone to sleep in many parts, especially the head. Rheumatic stiffness of the joints. Pressing pain in the joints and muscles of the limbs. Pain in the hip joints at night. Burning pains. Weakness and easy dislocation of the joints. Great sensitiveness to open, cold…”
- Lippe (MM) — The strict Hahnemannian reading — the symptom picture without clinical interpretation.
“Alternate cheerfulness and melancholy. Fright in the dark. Heaviness in the cerebellum; worse in the forenoon, -in the cold air,- relieved after dinner. Pain in the vertex, as if the skull were open. Tightness and tension of the skin of the forehead and vertex. Heat in the head in the evening in bed, better after…”
- Lippe (Red) — Keynotes with the most-trusted ones marked as red-line symptoms.
“Common name: animal charcoal. Diseases of elderly persons with marked venous plethora, blue cheeks, blue lips and great debility (A.). Sensation of numbness, as if, in fact, the part had gone to sleep in many parts, especially the head (Caust., Kali-Br., Nux-V., Phos., Rhus-T.). RHEUMATIC STIFFNESS OF THE JOINTS…”
- Nash — The comparisons — the remedy set beside the ones it is most often confused with.
“Is another remedy whose great general characteristic is: Great weakness, want of energy, prostration. The subjects of it are often disposed to glandular swellings, indurations and suppurations. Benignant suppurations are inclined to become ichorous. The swellings to become schirrous in character. The swellings seem to…”
