The Gleanings-XXI

CHILDREN’S DISEASES

Dr. M. A. USMANI

[THIS CHAPTER OF THE GLEANINGS IS ON THE PEDIATRIC DISEASES. IN LAYING DOWN THE MATTER I HAVE FOLLOWED NO SCHEMA. BUT I DEEMED IT FIT TO FOLLOW THE PRACTICAL SEQUENCE THAT IS MET IN DAILY PRACTICE. WE FIND THAT THE DIGESTIVE COMPLAINTS ARE ON THE HEAD OF THE LIST OF THE PEDIATRIC DISEASES. THE SECOND IMPORTANT AREA IS THE CATARRHAL CONDITIONS OF ENT AND THE TRACHEA AND BRONCHI, AND SO ON.

THE POLICY OF THE GLEANINGS, THAT IS FOLLOWED THROUGHOUT IS ALSO FOLLOWED IN THIS CHAPTER ON THE DISEASES OF CHILDREN: I.E., ONLY TO MENTION THOSE REMEDIES, WITH THEIR FULLEST INDICATIONS, THAT ARE NOT ROUTINELY USED FOR THAT PARTICULAR COMPLAINT IN DAILY PRACTICE. THIS IS THE ‘FOURTH DIMENSION IN PRESCRIBING’ THAT I’VE HINTED AT IN MY ‘INTRODUCTION’ TO THE GLEANINGS. AND THIS IS THE BASIC THEME FOR WRITING THIS BOOK, I.E. TO CONVINCE THE PEOPLE THAT HOMEOPATHY HAS NO DEARTH OF RESOURCES.—MAU]

DIARRHEA, CONSTIPATION, VOMITING

Summer Diarrhea: Cuphea Visco.Symptoms: 1) Cases arising from acidity of milk or food. Vomiting of undigested food or curdled milk, with frequent green, watery, acid stools, varying in number from 5 to 30 a day. Child fretful and feverish; can retain nothing on stomach: food seems to pass right through the child. 2) Stools decidedly dysenteric, small, frequent, bloody with tenesmus and great pain; high fever, restless and sleeplessness.Pathology: Cholera-infantum, Dysentery. Dose: 5-10 drop-doses of the Tincture, according to age. (I use 6 to 30 potency.-MAU)Remaks: Has tonic properties. Children rally rapidly under it.

Relations: Typha Lat. (Diarrhea, dysentery, summer complaints of children, Ө to first attenuation. Aethusa. “ When Aeth. fails, Cuphea cures.” Massood.

Summer Diarrhea: Iris Vers.Marked inflammatory symptoms, with excoriated raw feeling at the anus. Patient worse at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. Nausea and, sometimes, bilious vomiting. Stools either watery or yellowish green, mixed with bile or oily particles.

Diarrhea with Lienteric Stools: Oleander. Passing in stool the food he has taken the day before.

Diarrhea: Every Time they Pass Wind, they Soil the Diaper: Oleander

Diarrhea, Watery or Green Mucous Stools: Castoreum In delicate, nervous children, who weaken under summer heat or during dentition; and who will not rally under the usual remedies. (CMM 117)

Diarrhea of Nursing Children: Arundo, (Cham., Calc.p) (Boericke)

Acidity of Children, intensely Sour Smelling Green Vomiting: Robin.

Diarrhea Green Forcibly Evacuated: Gratiola

Obstinate Diarrhea during Dentition: In Under-nourished Children: Thyroi.

Non-exhausting Diarrhea, like Phos.Acid.: Calc.Acet. (Boericke)

Diarrhea with Cancrum Oris, and Stomatitis: StaphysagriaThe tongue and gums are white and spongy, while there are cutting pains, before and after stool, with great tenesmus of rectum during stool, and hot and rotten-egg like smell of flatus. (=Cham.). Urge is being renewed by every attempt at eating or drinking. (CMM)

Dysenteric Diarrhea: Geran.Mac.Constant desire to go to stool, with inability for sometimes to pass any fecal matter, then bowels move without pain or efforts. Mouth dry; tip of tongue burning. (Dr. Hale. Read his Therapeutic, and cf. CMM for more diarrhea remedies for children, p 379)

Dysenteric Diarrhea: BelladonnaDiarrhea from cold with enteritis; the discharge being associated with considerable tenesmus; the discharge being slimy and bloody. In summer complaints the stools are

yellowish green and contain lumps looking like chalk, (consisting, no doubt of fat and casein.) (CMM 419)

Cholera Infantum: OpiumFatally advancing stupor, with red face. Pupils tardily reacting to the stimulus of light, or not reacting at all. The disease seems to begin by involving the brain, when diarrhea and vomiting have ceased. The child appears as if it has been drugged. Opium will restore the patient to consciousness, diarrhea sets in, and the disease proceeds naturally to recovery. FERRUM PHOS: is also useful in Cholera Infantum. The discharge from the bowels are frequent, within 24 hours the child is greatly reduced, and falls into a stupor, with red face , dilated pupils, rolling of head and soft full-flowing pulse. (This we know is iron pulse). We also know that congestion belongs to all preparations of Iron. (CMM 270)

First Stage of Cholera Infantum: Gnaph.Vomiting and purging. (Boericke)

Cholera Infantum: Arg.nit.Thin, dried-up children, looking almost like mummies. The legs apparently nothing, but skin and bones. The stools green and slimy, with noisy flatus, and are worse at night. In some cases there would be yellow stools that turn green on standing. (CMM 612)

Cholera Infantum, with Wasting of Body: EpilobiumChronic diarrhea with tenesmus and mucous discharges. Ptyalism.

Cholera Infantum, with Green Watery Stools: Laur.

Prostration after Diarrhea: CinchonaAfter violent and long-lasting Cholera Infantum, the child becomes drowsy, the pupil may be dilated, and the breathing is very rapid and superficial. The diarrhea may have ceased, or the movement may be involuntary. The surface of the body is rather cool, especially the prominent features about the face: thus the ears, nose and chin are cold. In such case China will—if there is any vitality remaining—restore the patient to health. If it should fail, you may still fall back on Calc.Phos., a similar but more deeply–acting drug.

Intolerance of Milk: Mag.c.Milk passes undigested in nursing children. (Also Mag.m.)

Vomiting of Curdled MilkAethusa Cyn.: Curdled milk which is often green. After vomiting the child falls back exhausted and goes to sleep. It awakes hungry and eats, and vomits again. Antimony Crud.: White coated tongue. After nursing the child vomits its milk in curds, and refuses to nurse again, and is very cross.Calc.Carb., Calc.Acet.: With same exhausting diarrhea. (CMM 451)

Vomiting with Jaundice after Birth: Thyroid.

Obstinate Constipation: ParaffineCompare Nyctanthes. (Boericke)

Constipation of Bottle-Fed Babies: Podo.The stools are dry and crumbling. Here it improves upon Alum., Op., and Mag.m. (CMM)

Constipation of Children, in very Cold Weather: Verat.alb.

Constipation of Children with Intestinal Atony: Collin.

HELMINTHIASIS: (Worm Complaints)

Worms: Sabad.With nausea and vomiting, with a peculiar colic, as though the bowels were being whirled around like a wheel. (CMM 258; there are 4 rubrics on Worms in Kent, all include Sabad.)

Thread Worms: for gross symptoms, where worms crawl into the rectum and vagina, when Cina is of no avail. For this we have another group of remedies:Aconite: When the child is feverish and cannot sleep.Ignatia: When the child is simply excited. Indigo: The best remedy when convulsions result from worms.Quassia: If all these fail. Caladium Seg.: It is the best remedy in little girls, when the worms travel over the perineum to get into the vagina. The irritation they produce may excite masturbation.

(CMM 246f)

Worms Affections of Children: Viol.Od.

Worms: TerebinthinaThe child starts and screams out in sleep; picks at the nose; has a choking sensation and a dry hacking cough. Convulsions. (CMM 306)

Round Worms in Children: Stann.

Round and Thread Worms: Santonin.

STOMACH, ABDOMEN

Infantile Colic when Child seems to be full of Wind: Senna

Digestive Problems of Babies with Ammonia like Odor of Urine: Iod.

Hernia, Scrotal, Congenital: Mag.m

Infantile Jaundice: Lupulus

Infantile Colic: Nepeta Cat. (Boericke)

Anoraxia: ChinaAn excellent remedy in gastric troubles of children, who are continually asking for dainties, but who reject substantial kind of foods. On awaking in the morning, they are cross and irritable. They have bad taste in the mouth, and white coated tongue. [Other remedies for desire for delicacies are: Aur., Calc., Ip., Kali.c., Mag.c., Psor., Rhus-t., Sabad., Spong., Tub. [The last should never be lost sight of. Most of the times it alone suffices.—MAU]

Fat Anemic Babies with Iodine Appetite: Lapis Alb. MOUTH, TEETHING & DENTAL HEALTH

Aphthous sore Mouth: Sul-ac.Occurring in debilitated children from protracted diseases, or in children with summer complaints or marasmus. The mouth is filled with yellowish aphthous spots. There is a profuse flow of saliva. With this there is apt to be vomiting of sour milk or sour mucus. The child smells sour despite the most careful washing. The stool is yellowish slimy, having the appearance of chopped eggs. The child is apt to have cough , which is very likely a stomach cough , with belching of wind after the cough. (CMM534)

Nursing sore mouth, Aphthous, Stomatitis and Ulceration: Rhus-gl.

Mouth Dry and Aphthous: Ricinus Com.Malnutrition: beginning with nausea, griping stools, greenish yellow to dark green, slimy and gelatinous mucus with blood, pain and tenesmus; anus sore; abdomen sore and tumid. Child becomes more and more feverish, somnolent. Also cholera like symptoms with true ‘rice-water’ stools, and collapse.

TEETHING:

Belladonna: Spasms of children during dentition. Cerebral symptoms are prominent. Hot head, flushed face, throbbing carotids, starting from sleep.Kreosote: Child worries all night, must be patted and tossed all night. Teeth decaying rapidly. Cholchicum: Stools changeable; convulsions from abdominal irritation.Cina: Convulsions, face pale. Child stiffens out, restless.Dolichos: Gums intensely sensitive, seem to itch.Aethusa: Swollen red gums; vomiting of curdled milk, followed by stupor. (CMM 420)

Podophyllum: Moaning, whining during sleep, (Bell. sharply crying), crying sickly. The child grates its teeth, the head is thrown back and rolled from side to side. (CMM 450)

Dentition when Chamomilla Fails: Bell.Belladonna suited to the more advanced cases.

Spasms during dentition: Mellilotus

Toothache: CoffeaPain from decayed teeth with > from cold water.

Rapid Decay of Teeth: StaphisagriaIn weak and broken down children as a result of syphilitic and sycotic inheritance. The milk-teeth are scarcely full-grown before they become black in creases or spots and crumble away. In this respect Staph. rivals Kreosotum, which is one of the best remedies for rapid decay of milk-teeth, when they first become yellow then dark and finally decay. In Thuja the teeth decay at the edge of the gums. Next to these remedies you may think of Antim.Crud., Cham., Coff. (CMM 340)

EYES

Ophthalmia Neonatorum: Arg.n.Thick yellowish pus. After the failure of Pulsatilla.

Ophthalmia Neonatorum: Thuj.

SLEEP & NERVOUSNESS

Sleeplessness: HyoscyamusThe child twitches in sleep, cries out and tremble, and awakens frightened. (CMM 428)

Sleeplessness in Children: Zinc.Val.

Sleeplessness, Must be Carried: Cham.

Sleeplessness with Nervousness and Excitement: Absinth.

Insomnia during Dentition: Cimic.

Unusual Liveliness: Cyprepedium.The child awakes from sleep at night, and is unnaturally bright and playful and evinces no desire to go to sleep again. Such symptoms often are preliminary to some brain affections, which the timely use of Cyprepedium may avert. Chrysanthemum quiets nervous system like Cypreped. (CMM 384)

Night-terrors in Children from Over-excitability of Brain: Kali-Brom.Also owing to irritation and worry during dentition. (Clarke)

Night-Terror of Children: Stram., Bell., Calc.

EAR, NOSE, THROAT (ENT)

Dry Coryza in Infants, Snuffles: Sambucus

Early Stages of Colds, Especially in Children: Merc-i-r.Will also abort peri-tonsillitis if given frequently. Cough from elongated uvula with sore throat. (“Dose, 3X. Mercurius Iod. is far more active as a bactericide than the other mercurials, including the chloride.” Boericke)

Nose-bleed and Hydrocele in Boys: Abrot. (Boericke)

Nose-Bleed of Growing Children: Arnica

Obstruction of Nose: Am.c.Dr. Hoyne commends it in the coryza of children when the nose is seriously obstructed.

Croup without Fever: Kali-bi, or BromiumThe latter if there is cyanosis. Especially suited to light haired plump and fat children.[Read both remedies in Boericke; better follow Dr. Jahr, in his 40-Years Practice.MAU]

CHEST, CATARRH AND COUGH

Loose, Rattling Cough during Dentition: Calc.c. (Dr. Bell)

Whooping Cough:Mephitis: When the catarrhal symptoms are slight, whooping is marked. Cough < night; < lying down; suffocative feeling. Child sometimes can’t exhale. Convulsions at times ensue. Drinks get into larynx. [“I’ve found in using this medicine, that it often apparently makes the patient worse, while it really tends to shorten the course of the diaease.”—Farrington, p. 27 ]Corallium Rub.: Smothering before the cough, and great exhaustion afterward.Coccus-cacti: < morning; the child wakes in the morning, and is immediately seized with a paroxysm of whooping cough, ending in vomiting of clear ropy mucus, hanging in long strings from the mouth.Kali-bi.: Expectoration stringy, but yellow, not clear.Senega: < evening; the child is chubby.Arnica: Child cries before coughing. Anger excites cough. Expectoration frothy, slimy and mostly mixed with blood. (CMM 242)

Whooping Cough: Cerium Oxal.Spasmodic cough with vomiting and hemorrhage. (Boericke)

Whooping Cough that Drags on: Sep.

Whooping cough, specifics: OuabainWhooping cough is cut short in the first stage and reduced in frequency and hastens convalescence. Fluoroform. (Read Boericke p. 259, also Bernoville)

Whooping Cough: Led.p.With complications of epistaxis, respiratory problems, Chest pain, etc.

Whooping Cough: CinaFollows Drosera; also comp. Naphthaline.

Night Cough: Petroleum Dry teasing cough, which comes on when lying down at night. We often find that cough in children with diarrhea, which however appears only during the day. (CMM 501)

Night Cough in Children: Santonine

Cough of Measles: CoffiaShort dry cough of measles in nervous and delicate children. (Boericke)

Cough caused by Naso-pharyngeal Catarrh: Populs CandicansMucus drops from posterior nares.

Pleuro-pneumonia: Ant.t.It produces a perfect picture of the disease. Certain portions of the lungs are paralyzed. Fine rậles are heard, even over the hepatized areas. The patient must sit up in order to breathe. (CMM 585)

Capillary Bronchitis: Ant.t. 1M (Jenichen)Chest full of mucous rales. Bluish face and sweating. “Ant.t. 1M, will work wonders”.

Rattling in Chest after Broncho-pneumonia: Kali-s.“No remedy equals Kali-s. for rattling in the chest following acute inflammation and after bronchopneumonia, when from every change of weather the child coughs and the chest rattle. ( T.K.Moor)

Chronic Bronchitis of Rickety Children, Proceeding towards Tuberculosis: Ant.Iod. (Bernoville)

Asthma in Children: Nat.s. (Kent)

Respiratory Infection of Children: ThymusDry nervous asthma; whooping cough; severe spasmodic cough, but little sputum.

Bilious Pneumonia [That is, pneumonia with hepatic congestion, and with marked

icterus.] Chelidonium: Also in Capillary Bronchitis of children with hepatic symptoms, and especially when it follows measles and whooping cough. The face in these cases is apt to be deep red. Great oppression of chest, as shown in the effort to breathe, and a fan-like motion of the alae nasi (Lyc.), and stitching pain under the right scapula. The cough is usually loose and rattling. Expectoration is not easily raised.Mercurius: Differs from Chel. in the character of stools more than anything else. The Merc. stool is slimy, with great tenesmus, before, during and after stool. The Merc. expectoration is apt to be blood streaked, and sharp pains shooting through the lower portion of the right lung. Antimony Tart.: Has yellow skin, urine and vomitus in bilious pneumonia. Stinging under the right false rib; frothy, yellow, tenacious sputum. Rattling in the chest with suffocation, fan-like motion of the alae-nasi; great oppression and strong heart-beat. The pit of stomach is very sensitive to touch or pressure. There is meteorism, nausea and vomiting.Kali-Carb.: This remedy is often forgotten in pneumonia because it is not indicated in the beginning, but later when there is copious exudation into the lungs, with great rattling of mucus during the cough. The symptoms are aggravated towards 2-3 a.m. the

expectoration contains little globules of pus. There may even be cyanotic symptoms with puffiness over the eyes. (CMM 283, 583)[For simple Catarrhal Pneumonia Verat.v., Phos., Sang., Ant.t., Sulph. A good chapter on it is given by Dewy in his Therapeutics—MAU]

FEVERS, EXANTHEMA

Exanthematic Fever: ZincumAnemic children who are too enervated to develop an exanthema.

Small-pox, when Eruption fails to break out, and causes Convulsions: Ant.t.: It is very useful in the beginning before the eruption appears, and the patient has a dry teasing cough, which superficially may suggest Bryonia. Ant.t. creates, in the provers, a full resemblance of Small-pox. So it has the pathogenetic reason to be selected for this disease.

MEASLESPulsatilla: is indicated only when catarrhal symptoms predominate, with coryza and profuse lachrimation. Do not give Puls. In the beginning when the fever is high. You should begin the case with Aconite or Gels. Complications: Ear-ache,Otitis Media, Diarrhea: Pulsatilla.Kali-bi.: When instead of simple catarrh of the eye, you have pustules developed on the cornea. The throat is swollen; the pain goes from throat into the ears. The salivary glands are swollen and there is catarrhal deafness.

Kali-c.: When pneumonia or broncho-pneumonia supervenes after measles.

Non Appearance of Rash in Measles: StramoniumStram. acts better on children and young infants, than does Bell. Take, for example, a case of measles: there is hyperpyrexia with marked coldness of extremities. The rash does not come out properly. The child is hot; its face is red; it tosses about, crying out in a frightened manner as soon as it falls asleep. It knows no one, its “movements are convulsive, but not jerking and angular, they are rather gyratory.” (Farrington, 424)

URINARY SYSTEM

Enuresis: Santonin.

Enuresis during First Sleep: Sepia

Enuresis in Nervous Children: Viol.od.

Involuntary Urination without apparent cause: Hyos.

MENTAL, NERVOUS, GENERAL

Mentally Deficient Children: Syphilinum

Acute Mania: Kali-Brom.Kali.brom. excites the sensorium without inflaming the brain. In acute mania the child awakes from sleep with screaming and imagines that someone is going to hurt him. Comp. Hyos. (CMM 430)

Nail-biting: Ars., Sanicula, Hyos., Amm.Brom.

Crying Infants: Syphilinum

Child Roll about on the Ground: ProteusHurls objects held in the hand; kicks out. (Julian’s New M.M)

Stammering Children: BovistaRepeats the first syllable 3-4 times. Comp. Spig.

Stuttering: Cann.s.

Retarded Growth of Children: Tabacum

Convulsions, Spasms of Children during Dentition: Scutellaria

Convulsions, during Dentition, Pale face, no Heat: Zinc.

Convulsions without Fever: Mag.p.,Thyroid.,

Convulsions, by any Slight Irritation, as Dentition: Kali-brom.Or indigestion. --Farrington

Train or Car Sickness: Baryta Carb., BoraxAir-Sickness: Borax (Borland, Children Types, p.11)

Lumbar Puncture Trauma, antidote with Nat.s.

Hydrocephaloid: [An infants’ disease resembling hydrocephalus, sometimes observed in poorly developed infants just after weaning. Or comes in the wake of cholera infantum. The little patient lies almost in a stupor.] The face is pale and bathed in cold sweat. (Verat. is not indicated here). The eyes are half open and you will find the pupils reacting very slightly to light. The urine is suppressed. Here Sulphur is the only remedy. Read on CMM p. 471

Growing Pains in Children: GuaicumAlso Ph-acid. (Essentials of Materia Medica)

Heart Crippled with Rheumatic Fever: Ars.iod.

Eczema of Children: Eczema Capitis, Crusta Lactea: Viol.Tri.With swollen glands, eczema of face; sycosis.

ATROPHY OF CHILDREN

Atrophy of Tubercular Children: Ol-jec. 1x-3x, also Externally.

Marasmus with Opium like Sleep: OpiumThe patient is wrinkled and looks like a little dried up old man. [If marasmus is produced by opium, Sulphur, Arg.n., Sars. may be used as antidote.] (CMM 272)

Marasmus Following Cholera Infantum: ArsenicumUndigested stools, diarrhea which is provoked just as soon as the child begins to eat or drink. Aggravation after midnight, particularly the restlessness and diarrhea. Rapid emaciation. The child’s skin is apt to be harsh and dry, and often yellowish and tawny. Arsenicum should be given early, as it is already too late. Time might have been wasted by giving superficially indicated remedies as Nux,v., and Sulph. also there is a resemblance to Cinchona or Arg.nit. (CMM 553f)

DRUG PICTURES OF LITTLE ‘BRUITS’

Belladonna: “When it is to be used for children demands the presence of some cerebral symptoms. There must be some irritation of the brain, as shown by jerking of the limbs, irritability and fretfulness or even some absolute meningeal inflammation.” Resemblance between Belladonna and Bryonia: The resemblance is so great as to make a selection often perplexing. Both remedies have haste in drinking water; both have crying out with pain; both have aggravation from motion and both have constipation. At times it is very difficult to distinguish between them. (CMM)

Sulphur: It is especially adapted to persons of rather light complexion, who are easily angered. It is also suited to persons who are subject to skin affections, particularly to those who have harsh, rough skin, which very readily breaks out with eruptions of various descriptions—varying from simple erythema to a positive eczema. There is apt to be an offensive odor from the body. Sulphur patient is not much given to cleaniliness, as he is not fond of water and bathing. In fact bathing aggravates his symptoms. The bad odor does not disappear by washing.

Sulphur is the king of remedies for Scrofula. It is also one of the main remedies for osseous defects; and comparable with Calcarea for the bones of the scalp. It has all the defects of defective growth of bones, from caries to early childhood rickets. It has curvature of the spine and stooped shoulders. He is voracious eater with defective assimilation. So ‘always hungry, yet emaciated’. Marasmatic look, as of an old winkled man, with flabby skin.

Redness of the orifices of the body—a very strong symptom. The lips are rich red color indicating Sulphur in pneumonia, scarlatina, dysentery and anemia. Redness of the ears may be noted while the rest of the body is not abnormal in color. With this last indication Sulphur has often prevented earache in children, and also has, with this indication, prevented erysipelas. We also find this redness along the borders of the eyelids, giving them an appearance as if they have been painted with vermilion. We find redness at the anus with soreness of the parts—a symptom which is particularly useful in the diarrhea of the children. The child screams with pain when the bowels are moved. The same is also true of vulva which is found to be red. Sulphur is a sheet-anchor remedy for the psoric cases, when no other remedy is indicated, or when no remedy, though indicated, does not hold the case. [Read my article on Sulphur Personality, on my Resource Page: http://www.homeopathyworldcommunity.com/page/usmani]

Calcarea Carb.: It is suited where there is defective growth; hence it is very necessary remedy in childhood and in infancy. It affects chiefly the vegetative system, altering materially the nutrition of the body. Under its influence secretion and absorption progress rapidly. And thus it becomes a favorite remedy in cases in which the ‘constitution’ is to be changed. The glands are rapidly affected by lime; they swell, inflame and become the seat of pathological deposits. This is especially true of the cervical and mesenteric lymphatics. The Calcarea patient is fat and plump, rather a bloated than of a solid, hard fat. It is especially suited to children who are scrofulous;

who are fleshy, yet not well-developed as to bones, brain, and Muscles. The face is rather pale, flushing occasionally. Usually the color is of a watery or Chalky paleness. The child is slow in the movements. It is not active, nervous or quick, as we find in case of Sulphur child. Calcarea growth is irregular, so that the head is disproportionately large to the rest of the body. Osseous growth is defective. Fontanelles remaining open for long. The features are rather large, lips are thick, especially the upper lip. Dentition is slow. Craving for boiled eggs. The scalp sweats profusely, wetting the pillow during sleep. The sweat is cold. The feet are clammy cold. The child can also go to the opposite of the above, by having gone into marasmus; the abdomen remain abnormally large. Such are usually the scrofulous children. (CMM 668f)

Lycopodium Child: Most frequently indicated in emaciated child, who is muscularly weak but mentally well-developed. He is precocious and unusually obstinate. The emaciation is noticed particularly about the upper part of the body and neck. There is predisposition to liver troubles, and affections of the lungs. The face is often pale and sallow, the eyes being sunken and surrounded with dark bluish circles. Often the face is furrowed, with creases and wrinkles, indicating deep-seated disease. The face readily flushes, the cheeks become red, as in the evening and after eating. In temperament the Lyco. patient is rather impatient and irritable, and easily made angry. At other times sadness and tearfulness is marked. When sick, such patients are apt to become domineering and rather imperious in manner; or to consider themselves of great importance and those about them of no importance, so they order others about with an angry vehement manner. As to the intellectual part of mind, we find the memory always weak, make mistakes in speech, forgets words or syllables, can’t find the right word while speaking; but if the subject is very important, so as to call forth his utmost energy, words flow with ease. (Comp.here Sulphur, Lach., Fl.Acid. and Sil. CMM 440)

Lycopodium is often needed when the child becomes suddenly obstinate, breathes rapidly in sleep, worries, cries; muscles become flabby, and is unable to walk anymore. Before any serious turn in disease, e.g. typhoid or scarlatina, there is an anticipatory symptoms showing why Lyco. is indicated. I refer to the condition of the childafter sleep. The child wakes cross and irritable, kicking the clothes off and striking everyone about it, or it raises up terrified and clings to the mother, as if for protection against some objects of alarm. (If unchecked this symptom may lead to some cerebral mischief.) Compare here with Cuprum, Bell., Stram., Zinc. (CMM 442f)

This symptom may again indicate another complication: that is of “gravel,” in which lithic acid is passed in sufficient large quantity in the urine as to cause pain on passing water. They awke from sleep screaming out with pain and kicking at all around them. Here Lyco. is indicated by both the subjective and objective symptoms. It is related with Sarsaparilla, Zingiber, Pulsatilla, Arnica, Prunus Spinoza, etc. and they should be compared in ischuria. (Ibid.)

Silicea Child: The great important effect of Silicea lies in the nutritive changes which are made by it. As nutritive changes are more evident in the growing child than in the adult, we will find Silicea symptoms appearing mostly in children from infancy up. The child then is imperfectly nourished, not from the defective quality of the food it takes, but

from defective assimilation. The head is disproportionately large; the fontenelles, especially the anterior, are open; the body is small and emaciated, with the exception of the abdomen, which is round and plump, as is often the case in scrofulous children. The head, neck and face is covered with an offensive sweat. The face is pale, waxen, earthly or yellowish. The bones are poorly developed, as are also the muscles; consequently the child is slow in learning to walk. Silicea is especially adapted to rachitic children. The fibrous parts of the joints are inflamed, swollen and ulcerated. This gives the joints, especially the knees, a knob-like appearance.

Silicea is complementary to Thuja, especially in nervous affections and for the bad effects of vaccination. “Whatever we may say,” says Farrington, “in favor of the necessity of vaccination, we do know but that this operation may be followed by unhappy symptoms, and that, too, when the purest of the virus has been used. Hence, at times, you have to counteract the bad effects that may follow the operation.” Sulphur is given after vaccination, and is supposed to prevent the outbreak of any other disease than the vaccinia itself. if such effects as erysipelas, convulsions or diarrhea should follow, then you will give Silicea, which will cure the case. Thuja itself is complementary here, and comes in very well for diarrhea following vaccination, and also when vaccination fever is high. Pustules like those of small-pox, together with a rash, appear all over the body. Malandrinum is also useful for ill-effects of vaccine.

Silicea has special affinity to tonsils, when these glands are suppurated and refuse to heal. Sil. is more than ever the remedy when this occurs in rachitic children. Also in the treatment of boils or furuncles when they discharge thin watery, and foul pus. It also prevents the recurrence of boils. In the Silicea diarrhea the stools are offensive, usually painless and lienteric. The child vomits its food. The constipation of Silicea is quite characteristic: famously known as shy-stool.

Silicea is also useful for convulsions of epileptic character, with a well-marked aura, starting from the solar-plexus, as in Bufo, and Nux.v. Aggravation in certain phases of moon, and overstraining of mind and emotions. (CMM)