Calcarea bromata

Volume I — Appendix

Officinal Preparations. — Triturations.

(No Provings.)

° Congestion of the brain, with delirium and sleeplessness.

° Sleeplessness, with great nervous irritability.

° Controls the cerebral congestions and irritations of children,

whether direct or reflex. ° In the incipient and first stages of cerebral diseases in nervous,

irritable children.

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

“ This salt is said, by Dr. Hammond, to have effects which resemble both Bromide of potassium and Chloral hydrate. It is asserted to be preferable to either when there is congestion of the brain with delirium and sleeplessness, or in sleeplessness alone with great nervous irritability.”

This paragraph was written nearly two years ago. Since that time I have had frequent opportunities of testing its value, and do not hesitate to assert that it is the most valuable of all the Bromides in the treatment of diseases of children.

Hahnemann rightly considered the preparations of Calcarea almost indispensable in the treatment of diseases of children, especially during the period of dentition.

Calc, carb., Calc, phos., Calc, arseniosum, and Calc. iod. are a most valuable group, and if we add the Calc. brom. we have five medicines with which I am almost ready to assert we can treat successfully a large proportion of the ailments of children from birth to puberty.

Given in the lower triturations, or even 1 to 10 grains of the crude salt, we can control the cerebral congestions and irritations of children, whether direct or reflex.

The children for whom Calc. brom. is most useful are the laxlymphatic, nervous, and irritable. They grow fast, but the flesh is not solid ; they learn to walk with difficulty, the teeth come tardily, and are attended with gastric, intestinal, and cerebral irritation. It is useful in the vomiting and diarrhoea as well as for the sleeplessness, fretfulness, and tendency to brain disease.

My experience with this medicine has given me greater confidence in it in the incipient and first stages of cerebral diseases, in

such children as I have described, than in the much-vaunted Belladonna, Hyoscyamus, Aconite, and. Bryonia. (Before I learned the value of Calc. brom. I had better success with Solanum and iEtliusa than the remedies I have named.)

But to be successful with Calc. brom. it must be used boldly. No danger need be feared from its use. It is not a narcotic like Opium and its preparations. It simply contracts the cerebral vessels, preventing congestion, and at the same time it diminishes or prevents the dangers of reflex irritation.

One grain of the crude drug can be given for each year of the child's age ) and this dose can be repeated every hour in urgent cases with perfect safety until the dangerous symptoms subside.

In milder cases of erethism or irritation the lx to 3X trituration may be relied on.

I have often prescribed it for children fed by the bottle or otherwise, by dissolving two or three grains in their regular allowance of food for the day. I never saw any bad effects from it, but on the contrary the happiest results in the general improvement of the physical and mental condition.

I will here add that in thin, bilious, nervous children, with black hair and eyes, I have found the Bromides of soda or potassa to act the best.

I hope this earnest recommendation will have the effect of inducing physicians to pay more attention to the value of this truly beneficent remedy.