Kalium ferrocyanatum

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

(Kali-ferrocyanuretum.)

Pharmacology. — This salt may be obtained by boiling purified Prussian blue in a solution of Potassa until the blue color disappears, filtering *he liquor, evaporating, and crystalizing several times to render it pur.e It occurs in broken or entire crystals of large size, whose form is usually a rectangular prism, truncated on the ends and edges. The crystals are large, of a honey-yellow color, transparent. Sp. gr. 1.832. Have at first a sweetish-bitter, but afterward a saline taste, permanent in the air; soluble in four parts cold water and two of boiling; insoluble in alcohol, which precipitates them from their aqueous solution in brilliant yellow flakes.

Officinal, Preparations. — Aqueous solution 3 i to 3ix; dilutions with water.

Analogues. — {Kali. Carb., Ferrum, Digitalis, Lycopus, Collinsonia, Hydrocyanic acid and its salts.)

0 Fatty heart, with weak, irregular pulse.

0 Fatty degeneration of the heart.

0 Hypertrophy, with dilatation.

0 Functional disorders of heart, with anaemia.

0 Chlorosis, with cardiac debility.

(See Therapeutics, Vol. II.)

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

This compound salt is quite innocuous in comparison with the Cyanide of potash, with which you must be careful not to confound it.

Its action has been but little studied in our school, while the eclectics have been using it largely for many years. It is a little singular that it can be given in doses of ten or fifteen grains several times a day without causing any poisonous effects, while the Cyanuret in doses of one-sixtieth of a grain will cause very unpleasant effects. It is said that the Ferroeyanuret is carried off so rapidly by the urine that the system does not absorb sufficient to cause deleterious effects. But this is not a good reason. We must look in some other direction for an explanation of this seeming anomaly. I think the Hydrocyanic acid forms, with the iron, a compound which resists disintegration to such an extent that only an infinitesimal quantity of the acid is liberated.

The pathogenetic effects of large doses of the Ferroeyanuret, so far as observed, are “ giddiness, debility, non-fetid salivation, with ulceration of the mouth.” It lessens the force and rapidity of the heart’s action, and decreases the heat of the body. It is said to temporarily destroy all sexual desire and power. From these symptoms, and its effects in disease, we should place it as an analogue of the Bromides, Prunus, Laurocerasus, Lycopus, Digitalis, etc.

It bids fair to become an important remedy, especially in diseases of the nervous system and the heart.

Dr. Towne, in giving his experience with this remedy, says that he has used it with the greatest benefit in females, especially of enfeebled constitution, relaxed fibre, feeble digestion, sour stomach with flatulence, sleeplessness, and other symptoms attending such states of the system, such as pains in the head, stomach, bowels, back, etc. The pulse is feeble, irritable, easily excited, and seldom regular for any length of time ; the hands and feet more or less inclined to be cold.

This is just the class of cases in which we would naturally suppose it to be homoeopathic, as it doubtless is.

It is said to be very useful for the sufferings due to excessive lactation. Such cases present symptoms much like those mentioned above.

Headaches of a 'purely nervous character, depending on an impoverished state of the blood, are greatly benefited by this medicine.

“ Cases of pure neuralgia ,” says Dr. Towne, “not depending on decayed teeth or organic lesions, are usually promptly relieved by its use. That variety called sun-pain has been immediately cured in every case. I have had no cases of neuralgia which have given me any real trouble since I have used this preparation.”

The same writer claims that it is almost specific in asthma. But all the Potash salts have some reputation in that disease.

It has been praised in whooping-cough, epilepsy, chronic bronchitis, nightsweats, and hypertrophy of the heart.

Dr. Ray speaks highly of its virtues in hypertrophy, also in functional disorders of the heart. From among the many cases which he reports, I select the following characteristic symptoms which he removed by its use: palpitation, ringing in the ears, vertigo, intermittent pulse, waking with a sense of suffocation and disturbed sleep at night. (All were improved in the open air.)

Some of his cardiac cases were organic, others purely functional in their nature.

I will try and give you an idea of the symptoms and general pathological state for which this medicine is suitable. Taking into consideration the constituents of the drug, it is evident that the first general indication for its use is a depraved and impoverished condition of the blood.

Next in importance we must have a debilitated and irritable state of the nervous system, and finally, as a result of these two conditions, we shall find a weak and irritable heart.

If you will remember the symptoms first mentioned, for which the eclectics have used it so successfully, you will recognize the fact that they all depend upon one or more, or all, of the above three general morbid states.

My own experience with the remedy has been almost altogether in the direction of diseases of the heart.

I have found it particularly useful in that condition known as

chlorosis, where the heart is particularly enfeebled, the blood is in a watery condition, with an excess of white corpuscles, and a dropsical tendency impending. Such patients may be quite obese-looking, but it is obesity without plethora — a contrary condition. I imagine the apparent obesity is not from fat alone, but a condition of the cellular tissue simulating it. In these cases the heart beats very feebly and irregularly, fainting spells are frequent and distressing, dyspnoea is excited by the slightest exercise, and the kidneys are very torpid.

In these conditions give the remedy in doses of five to ten grains of the lx every four hours, until improvement sets in. Larger doses may be used with benefit and safety, namely, as much as from two to five grains three times a day.

In irritable heart it is fully equal to Lycopus or Collinsonia. It is especially indicated when the extremities are cold and the patient is sensitive to cold air. All the functions of nervous life are enfeebled, and the symptoms are similar to those quoted from Dr. Towne.

Fatty degeneration of the heart ought to be favorably affected by this medicine, but I would advise it to be given as high as the 3X trituration.

I would not prescribe it in hypertrophy of the heart with enlargement, for I do not consider it homoeopathic to that condition.

If, however, with such hypertrophy you find great poverty of the blood and an exceedingly irritable state of the cardiac nerves, it might be used with advantage as a palliative.

In hypertrophy with dilatation, it ought to prove an excellent remedy, for it possesses the power of imparting tone to the attenuated and feeble muscular structure and quieting the irritable cardiac ganglia and the accelerator nerves of the heart. In these cases you can use it in appreciable doses (two to four grains every six hours).

It is readily soluble in water, and a drachm can be dissolved in four ounces of Aqua gaultheria, and a teaspoonful or two prescribed as often as required by the exigencies of the case.