Kali Bromatum

I do not know much about this remedy from a homœopathic standpoint. It first gained a reputation with the old school profession for its sleep-producing qualities and its power over epileptic seizures. As usual, it was pushed for these things until they found it was a dangerous remedy in the large doses which they had to use to produce the desired effect.

They discovered that it produced sleep, not by increasing the blood in the brain to stupefaction, like Opium, but by decreasing the amount of blood, thus resembling more nearly natural sleep. Then they exclaimed, Eureka! But, alas! too great and long-continued anæmia resulted in lack of nutriment to the brain tissue, and as a consequence there developed depression, melancholia, insanity and signs of brain softening until Hammond, its chief advocate, admitted that it put more patients into the insane asylum than any other remedy.

Well, for what can we safely use the remedy? For the symptoms arising from cases simulating the effects of Kali bromatum, just as we do any other homœopathic remedy. I do not understand the remedy well enough to give characteristic indications for its homœopathic uses. There is one symptom which I think is valuable as a “guiding symptom,” viz.: “fidgety hands.” The patient must be working or playing with them continually; even the sleeplessness is somewhat relieved by moving the fingers over the bed clothes; or he plays with his watch chain or the head of his cane, anything to work off this excess of nervousness. Zincum has “fidgety feet,” and Phosphorus a general fidgetiness or uneasiness; can’t sit still, but changes position continually; not like Rhus toxicodendron, because he is relieved of pain by moving, but because he is simply nervous. The homœopathic uses of Kali bromatum ought to be better understood.