Sepia

Lecture

Sepia is suited toi tall, slim women with narrow pelvis and lax fibers and muscles ; such a woman is not well built as a woman. A woman who has the hips of a well-built man is not built for child bearing, she cannot perform the functions of a woman without becoming relaxed in the pelvic organs and tissues. Such a build is a Sepia build, very tall, slim, narrow, straight from the shoulders all the way down.

One of the strongest features of the Sepia patient is found in the mind, the state of the affections. To a great extent, the remedy seems to abolish the ability to feel natural love, to be affectionate. To illustrate it in the language of the mother : ‘1 know I ought to love my children and my husband, I used to love them, but now I have no feeling on the subject.’a The love does not go forth into affection, there is a lack of realization, a lack of ability to register such affections ; the love does not manifest itself. Upon reflection it will be seen that the love itself cannot be so changed, but the affections can be as they are the expression of the love. It is a striking feature of this remedy that the affections are stilled ; all things seem strange ; she does not realize ; she may even be estranged and turned aside from those she loves. This is on the border land of insanity ; it is quite a different state of affairs from that when a woman abused by her husband knows in her rational mind that she does not love him.

This state is brought out in a woman during confinement, after uterine and other haemorrhages, after prolonged indigestion ; high living with disturbance in the circulation, pallor, enfeeblement of body and mind. It is seldom manifested in a man, but it is a striking feature in the woman. It often comes on when nursing a child, from nursing an over-vigorous child or twins who require much lacteal fluid and drag her down. It may be brought out in a woman who has an overvigorous husband. Excessive sexual excitement and over-indulgence brings on coldness and she becomes a cold woman.

She who has been excitable, nervous, and fidgety becomes the opposite, cold, takes on a stoical state of mind. Yet Sepia has all the excitability of any medicine, aggravated by noises, excitement, company, extreme irritability of tissue and mind ; an excitable suicidal patient ; melancholy, sits and says nothing ; taciturn ; answers questions in monosyllables when pressed to answer. An absence of all joy, inability to realize that things are real ; all things seem strange ; no affection for the delightful things of life ; no joy ; life has nothing in it for her. She is worse in company yet dreads to be alone ; and when she is in company she is spiteful, in the midst of her dullness of mind she is spiteful ; she vents her spite on those she loves best. The Sepia woman permits no opposition to her opinions. The best impression of her is lost if controversy arises.

The next most general state is a peculiar sallowness which you will need to see to fix in your mind. Sepia has jaundice, yet this peculiar sallowness is a waxy, anaemic appearance, mottled with yellow, a yellow, sallow tint across the nose and the cheeks described as a yellow saddle across the nose and down the sides of the face. It is also common for the whole face to be covered with enormous freckles, great brown patches as in pregnancy, brown spots on the cheeks, brown warts, warts that have been red or pink become pigmented ; liver spots on the face, chest, and abdomen. The skin of the face is sallow and doughy, looks as if the muscles were flabby : you will seldom see Sepia indicated in the face that shows sharp lines of intellect ; a person who has been thinking a long time has the lines and sharp angles of a thinking person, of one who possesses will and intellect. The Sepia subject is one who is rather stupid and dull, thinks slowly and is forgetful ; the mind is anything but active and we see it in the face. _ In many instances, however, the Sepia patient is a quick patient, but the dullness of intellect is the most striking feature and it reflects itself upon the face. The face is generally puffed, often smooth and rounded and marked by an absence of intellectual lines and angles.

This patient is anaemic, pale lips and ears, pale, sallow face, fingers and hands become shrivelled, sallow, waxy, bloodless. Sepia establishes a progressing emaciation of the body and the skin becomes wrinkled ; the person looks prematurely old ; wrinkles intermingled 'With sallow spots on the face in one who is 35 years of age, making him look as if he were fifty. A child looks like a shrivelled dried up old person.

With all complaints there is constipation. The bowels lose their ability to expel their contents and the patient is always constipated ; constipation during pregnancy ; slow, difficult stool ; stool like sheep dung. Always has a feeling of a lump in the rectum, never able to empty the bowels ; though he goes to stool there is always a sensation of a lump remaining in the rectum. When the stool passes into the lower bowel, it is not expelled until there is an accumulation, which presses the stool out.

Another feature present in most Sepia patients is a gnawing hunger, seldom satisfied ; even though he eats plentifully he feels a gnawing, empty, hungry feeling in the stomach, not relieved by eating or relieved only for a moment. This is striking especially when associated with the constipation and the peculiar state of the affections.

When these symptoms are associated with prolapsus, Sepia will certainly cure, no matter how bad the prolapsus has been or what kind of displacement there is. It is the result of the state of relaxation of all the internal parts as if they were let down, wants a bandage to hold the parts up or wants to place the hand or napkin on the parts ; a funneling sensation, better sitting down and crossing the limbs.

When these symptoms group themselves together, the gnawing hunger, the constipation, the dragging down, and the mental condition, il is Sepia and Sepia only. One is not sufficient but it is the combination.

Sepia has a marked catarrhal tendency, tendency to milky discharges from mucous membranes. Long after digestion has ceased and the stomach is empty comes nausea and sometimes vomiting. It is a catarrhal state of the stomach and when it persists with the milky vomiting, Sepia is very valuable. This is not an uncommon feature in the vomiting of pregnancy. Vomits up food and after emptying the stomach of its contents, vomits or eructates a milky fluid ; morning vomiting, first of food, then a milky substance. Do not confound this with vomiting of milk. Some medicines vomit milk alone and Sepia does this also.

-Whitish milky discharges fruit the posterior nares, from, the vagina, excoriating, milky leucorrhoea, which at times takes on the appearance of curds, thick, cheesy, and horribly offensive ; it has also thick, green and yellow discharges ; it has dry crusty formations on mucous membranes.

Prolonged inveterate catarrh of the nose, thick, green, and yellow crusts are blown from the nose and sometimes are hawked from the posterior nares, thick, leathery formations. Loss of taste and smell. The smell of cooking food, meat and broth causes nausea. Catarrh of the chest with thick, tenacious, yellow/ expectoration, accompanied with a violent cough, retching, gagging, violent prolonged retching, vomiting ; dry cough and yet there is rattling. Whooping cough ; asthmatic cough with retching and loss of urine. The cough is a violent one. Cough during first sleep [Lach, in irritable children Cham,). Tuberculosis. Quick consumption after a suppressed gonorrhoea ; if given soon enough it will check. Spasmodic dry cough in the evening until midnight ; holds the chest during the cough (Bry., Natr. sulph, Phos.)

Eruptions of the skin. Tendency to produce herpetic eruptions about the genitals, lips and mouth ; ring-worm upon the face and body. It has cured zona, and herpetic eruptions of the labia and foreskin. Vesicular eruptions in the axilla, upon the tips of the elbows ; eruptions that pile up in great crusts on the elbows ; thick crusts form upon the joints ; eruptions between the lingers ; moist eruptions that pour out a watery fluid, or thick, yellow, purulent fluid.

Sepia produces the induration that belongs to some forms of eruption like epithelioma ; indurations will form on the lips and crack and bleed. The scaly eruption that looks like epithelioma is especially Sepia. When the scales come off a yellow, green, ichorous base remains, and as soon as one crust peels off, another forms ; finally if torn off prematurely, it bleeds. Sepia has cured epithelioma of the lips, wings of the nose, and eyelids It has cured old indurations caused by the use of a clay pipe, where it continues to form, and beneath it is seen this thick, yellow, purulent exudation. It is indicated in lumps and lupoid formation on the skin, where there is infiltration ; sometimes healing from the centre to form a ring ; this is a typical Sepia condition. The hardness and purple color are what are peculiarly Sepia. Sepia stands on a par with Lach, for this purple aspect.

Sepia has a hysterical diathesis. Breaks out in spells of weeping, is sad one minute, gentle, yielding, and in another she is disagreeable, excitable, obstinate. You do not know what she is going to do next. She says and does strange things, makes errors, no dependence can be placed on her ; no mental endurance ; no affection for her family ; whole mind weak and disordered, not when there is fever, but it is a chronic manifestation of psora or sycosis. Fear of ghosts ; that something unusual will happen ; atmosphere full of figures, not seen, but she knows that they are there, departed friends or other forms and very often in accordance with religious belief. Never happy unless annoying some one ; relating her grievances ; sarcastic ; insulting ; fear of insanity, poverty. 'Tears to starve, is peevish and feels mortified, easily frightened and full of forebodings.’’ "Passionate, irritable ; the greatest irritability from slight causes, very easily offended. Vexed and disposed to scold.’’

The headaches are nervous, bilious, periodic, violent, involving the whole head ; congestive. Generally better lying down, keeping perfectly quiet ; worse from ordinary motion, but relieved by violent motion, like most Sepia symptoms in general ; she can walk off her sufferings. Stasis of the brain, slowness of thought, mind will not work and mental labor aggravates the headache. A good substantial sleep relieves it, but if she is awakened after sleeping a short time, the headache is worse. The same is seen in regard to motion ; moving the eyes, head, or body, moving about in a warm room aggravates the pain, but a good, long walk in the open air until she becomes heated up, relieves. It is a sluggish state of the body which requires exercise, and violent exercise to keep it in a state of comfort. The Sepia symptoms are worse in the open air unless combined with continued motion, better from exercise in the open air and worse in the house. The headache is worse from stooping, motion, coughing, going up stairs, jarring, light, turning the head, lying on the back and from thinking, but continued, hard exercise relieves, as does a tight bandage, and the application of heat, though worse in a warm room.

There are Sepia headaches that particularly affect the occiput, worse in the morning ; great pain through t3ie eyes and temples ; relieved by sweat, worse on beginning to move ; throbbing felt on stooping, worse on going up stairs.

The Phos, headache is relieved by sleep, but continued, rapid motion aggravates. Cannot endure it. Sepia is suited to the old fashioned bilious headaches. It is better from vomiting ; the pain gradually increases, loathing of food, alien nausea, vomiting and the patient falls asleep and wakens without the headache. Sang, resembles it, is better vomiting, better in a dark room ; the direction is different, however.

Neuralgia of the head ; periodic sick-headaches in gouty people ; violent, congestive headaches in young women sensitive to noise, women of extremely delicate fiber, especially those with dark eyes, dark skin, and who become sallow from sickness. Jaundice often sets in with the headaches ; at the close of the headache vomiting, and in a few days jaundice, which passes away but returns again with the next headache. Headache every morning with nausea ; the smell of food repulsive.

Sepia takes on a stupid state of mind as mentioned above ; will not work ; will not answer questions ; as if intoxicated, benumbed ; eyes and face swollen, sclerotics yellow and jaundice. This sometimes ends in violent vomiting spells. Craves spicy, pungent, bitter things like beer — in old drunkards with headache ; threatening apoplexy- ‘‘Apoplexy in men addicted to drinking and sexual excesses, with a disposition to gout and haemorrhoids, etc.” “Threatening apoplexy in a dissipated, middle-aged man, who is subject to arthritic and haemorrhoidal complaints ; they have usually passed through several light attacks of apoplexy and are frequently visited with prodromic symptoms.”

Under external head we have eruptions and falling out of the hair ; yellow crusts ; oozing of pus and other fluids ; vesicles : eczema of infants.

Eyes ; catarrhal symptoms with vesicles and pustules ; granular lids ; ulcers and psoric manifestations ; various infiltrative conditions of the eyes and about the eyes ; pustules on the margins of the lids, pustules on the globe of the eye, seems as if looking through a gauze ; tarsaltumors, agglutination of lids, styes, etc. The ears discharge thick, yellow pus ; offensive.

The nose is a favourite locality ; loss of smell ; yellow or green thick crusts fill the nose and cannot be blown out ; inveterate discharge of thick yellow pus. ‘'Large offensive-smelling plugs from the nose, often so large that they have to be drawn back into the mouth and expectorated, causing vomiting. Dry coryza especially of left nostril. Blowing of large lumps of yellow or green mucus or yellow-green crusts with blood from the nose.” This is descriptive of the worst forms of catarrh ; very few will let it run on thus far, they apply lo(;al treatment and heal the nose up, and, the process at once going to the chest, phthisis pituitous comes on.

The gums settle away from the teeth. Toothache and neuralgia from taking cold.

Sensation of a lump in the throat (like Lach,), but the latter is better from swallowing. (The same in worm troubles indicates Cina.) Uneasiness of the collar and corsets like Lach Worse in the first sleep like Lach.

Sepia brings out many things in connection with the appetites, thirst, eating, drinking and stomach, etc. The Sepia patient is generally conscious of a spoiled stomach, sour and bitter eructations of food, of mucus and bile, sour and bitter vomiting of food and mucus ; all-gone, hungry, empty feeling in the stomach sometimes not relieved by eating. At times a gnawing pain, a sinking, a gnawing hunger which is not always relieved by eating. Almost constant nausea, especially in the morning, nausea and eructations and vomiting of milky fluid ; when the stomach is empty, vomiting, spitting up, eructations of milky fluid. Aversion to food, to the smell of food cooking, like Colch. and Ars. The patient gets up in the morning with an all-gone feeling, distress and fulness in the stomach followed by belching and uprisings of mucus, and milky fluids ; vomiting of pregnancy ; vomiting of milky water in the morning ; this is a characteristic of Sepia.

Acrid, burning eructations ; heartburn ; rancid eructations, excoriating the throat ; pyrosis which is another form of eructation ; acrid, sour fluids burning all the way up, causing contraction, tingling, smarting.

Nausea violent ; deathly sinking accompanied with an awful anxiety in the stomach.

Phos, has more of the typical hunger which is relieved by eating. The Ignatia patient is always sighing ; cannot get rid of ‘‘that feeling.”

Oleander has an all-gone empty feeling as if he would die ; food does not relieve, is not digested, but passes undigested the next day.

Lyc, has an all-gone feeling sometimes not better by eating, felt as markedly before as after eating, and after eating there comes a throb Wng.

Kali carb, has it also, without the amelioration from taking food ; it is even intensified by eating, which is followed by a sensation of fuh ness and throbbing.

In severe liver and heart affections the stomach is not able to keep up assimilation : palpitation, great weakness, liver congested, white stool. Digitalis comes in here with its deathly sinking not better by eating. In Sepia this symptom is associated with the loss of affections, the lump in the rectum, with the constipation, etc.

“Pain in the stomach after the simplest food. Stitches and burning in the stomach. Pain in the stomach worse by vomiting.” This is peculiar, for vomiting usually relieves the distress. The Sepia stomach becomes like a leather bag, fill it up and the food comes up just as eaten or at times sour or mixed with bile.

Inflammation of the liver, enlargement with jaundice, pain, fulness, distension, distress in the region of the liver.

Abdomen distended with flatus, rumbling and distension. These disturbances are often chronic as in pot-bellied mothers ; abdomen covered with brown spots. Sepia has removed tape-worm.

Chronic diarrhoea, stools jelly-like, lumpy ; alternating diarrhoea and constipation ; a great amount of mucus with the stools, whether constipated or diarrhoeic ; hard stool covered with a great quantity of jellylike mucus. Goes for days without a stool and then sits and strains until a copious sweat breaks out and yet no stool, but after assistance with the finger and prolonged strain a little stool is passed, followed by a cupful of jelly-like mucus, yellow or yellow-white and very offensive.

The acute diarrhoeas and dysenteries with jelly-like stools are more in keeping with Kali bi, and Colch, This is chronic diarrhoea or in constipation with stool covered with or followed by jelly-like mucus is Sepia.

Do not confound with Graph, which has an enormous stool with much straining and sweating, and coated with and mixed with a substance looking like the cooked white egg, as if covered with albumen.

In Sepia there is much offensiveness ; the odor of the stool is unusual, loose stools horribly offensive, foetid ; the sweat is foetid, the urine is foetid. “The stool has a putrid, sourish, foetid smell, expelled suddenly and the whole of it at once.” Sepia is given in a routine way for constipation, when there are few symptoms. There is always a sense of fulness in the rectum after stool ; ineffectual straining and sweating in the effort because the patient is weak and exhausted. Sepia has the ineffectual urging like Nux. She may go for days with no urging and then the effort is as if she were in labor. Prolapse of the rectum. Weight as of a ball in the anus not relieved by stool. Soreness of the anus. Expulsion of ascarides. Oozing moisture from the rectum, soreness between the buttocks.

Haemorrhoids soon form when the rectum is so packed with faeces, and they give additional trouble.

There is much urinary trouble ; involuntary urination as soon as the child goes to sleep at night. Sepia is compelled to keep the mind on the neck of the bladder or she will lose the urine ; urine is lost when coughing, sneezing, laughing, the slam of a door, a shock, or when the mind is diverted. Frequent, constant urging to urinate with milky urine that burns like fire and after standing a while a milky, greyish deposit will form which is hard to wash off the vessel. Bloody urine, scanty and suppressed, great pain in the kidneys and bladder with great bearing down ; sudden desire with tenesmus as if the uterus would come out. Sudden desire to urinate with cutting like knives and chill all over the body, if unable to pass it, as a lady in company. I remember a pitiable case. A saleswoman was obliged to go to the closet every few minutes ; a violent pain like a knife cutting came with the desire to urinate, and if the urine was not passed this pain would hold right on. She was compelled to keep her mind on the urine or she would lose it. She was tall, slim, with sallow face, distressed look, worn and tired. Sepia cured her and she was never troubled again.

The Sepia patient aborts at the third month. All sorts of ulcerative; conditions, displacements, dragging down and relaxations. Retained placenta. Subinvolution, all the pelvic organs are tired and weak. Metrorrhagia during the climacteric or during pregnancy, especially at the fifth and seventh months.

Both male and female have aversion to the opposite sex. In the? female there is a state as if she had indulged to excess, when this is not the case. No endurance, tired after coition, sleepless nights, sleep full of dreams, jerking of muscles, twitching, leucorrhoea, congestion of the pelvis. A woman who has been normal in her relations with her husband brings forth a child, and then the thought of sexual relations causes nausea and irritability.

The menstrual symptoms are of all sorts, no particular derangement characterizes Sepia. At one time it was thought that scanty menstruation was the more striking feature, but this is not necessarily so ; from provings and clinical observations, it has cured profuse as well as scanty flow. Most violent dysmenorrhoea in girls of delicate fiber, sallow girls.

Sepia comes in when the woman ought to menstruate when the child ceases to nurse ; sometimes the child dies and menses ought to be established but do not appear, and the mother runs down, pines away ; Sepia will establish the flow\

Calc, is the opposite ; the menses come on while the child is nursing., Thick greenish acrid or milky leucorrhœa. Leucorrhoea in little girls.

In the male, old sycotic discharge that has resisted injection. Profuse yellow, or milky discharge from the urethra, or the “last drop,'' painless. Gonorrhoea after the acute symptoms have subsided. Urine loaded with urates, stains everything red and often excoriates, very foetid, associated with prostatitis. ‘‘Gleet ; no pain ; discharge only during the night, a drop or so staring the linen yellowish ; yellowish discharge, no burning or urinating ; |)painless ; of a year and a half's standing ; orifice of urethra stuck together in the morning, particularly when the sexual organs are debilitated by long continuance of disease or through frequent seminal emissions."

Warts on the genitals ; Sepia is useful when these organs have been overused and take on such an appearance. Impotence in the male, loss of sexual feeling in the female.

The close relation between this remedy and Mur ex is worth considering. The muscular relaxation, dragging down in the abdomen and pelvis, aggravated from exertion and walking, ameliorated by sitting with the limbs crossed and ameliorated l)y pressure on the genitalia would be like both remedies ; but add to this copious menstrual flow' and violent sexual desire and Murex must be considered and Sepia eliminated. Both have extreme empty feeling in the stomach. Sepia has diminished sexual desire and often aversion. Murex has great soreness and congestion of the uterus, and she is constantly reminded of the uterus. Murex has acute pain in right side of uterus which crosses the body diagonally upward to left side of chest, or left breast. It cures violent dysmenorrhoea. It has been useful in cancer of the uterus. Watery, greenish, thick, bloody leucorrhoea, causing itching.

One of Sepia’s most general characteristics is the amelioration fromviolent exercise ; worse on beginning to move but better by getting warmed up. This condition is closely related to the back symptoms. There is a great amount of soreness in the back, the spine aches all the way down. Pressure on the spine reveals sore places, spinal irritation. Aching in the back mostly from the loins to the coccyx, often coming on from sitting, and ameliorated from violent exercise. A peculiar feature is amelioration from hard pressure. The patient commonly puts a book low down on the chair and presses the back against it. Sepia does not seem to get the amelioration from lying upon the back as Natrum mur, does. Stooping aggravates the backache. ‘'Backache worse from kneeling.’"

Under symptoms of the lower extremities we find great numbness of the feet. ''Coldness of the legs and feet especially in the evening in. bed ; when the feet get warm the hands get cold ; icy coldness of the feet ; profuse sweat of the feet or sweat of unbearable odor causing soreness between the toes. Swelling of the limbs better while walking.’"

The sleep is full of dreams and distress ; cannot sleep Upon the left side because of palpitation of the heart. Palpitation in sleep, with pulsations and trembling all over the body, pulsations to the finger tips.

In old cases of suppressed malaria. Sepia brings back the chill, but its most useful sphere is after a bad selection of the remedy and the case becomes confused. Where a remedy has been selected for only a part of the case and changed it a little but the patient gets no better. It will be seen that the fever, chill, and sweat are just as erratic as can be. Natrum mur, is one of the greatest malarial remedies, but it is full of order like China, Sepia is full of disorder. In a case confused by remedies think of Calc., Ars., Sulph., Sepia and Ipecac. Never give China or Natrum mur. for irregular symptoms and stages.

Sepia is complementary to Natrum mur. Aside from the stupid condition of the mind it has an excitable condition of the general nervous system that is often marked in Natrum mur. as, for instance, being disturbed by a noise, the slam of a door, etc. It produces jerking of the muscles in sleep ; constantly wakes from imaginary noises, thinks someone has called her ; the last disturbance about the house wakens her.

Worse before and during menses ; during pregnancy; after eating ; during first sleep ; change of weather ; during a thunderstorm ; overwhelming fear. sn.icA

The action of Silica is slow. In the proving, it takes a long time to develop the symptoms. It is, therefore, suited to complaints that develop slowly. At certain times of the year and under certain circumstances peculiar symptoms will come out. They may stay with the prover the balance of his life. Such are the long-acting, deep-acting remedies ; they are capable of going so thoroughly into the vital order that hereditary disturbances are routed out. The Silica patient is chilly ; his symptoms are developed in cold, damp weather, though often better in cold, dry weather ; symptoms come out after a bath.

The mental state is peculiar. The patient lacks stamina. What Silica is to the stalk of grain in the field, it is to the human mind. Take the glossy, stiff, outer covering of a stalk of grain and examine it, and you will realize with what firmness it supports the head of grain until it ripens ; there is a gradual deposit of Silica in it to give it stamina. So it is with the mind ; when the mind needs Silica it is in a state of weakness, embarrassment, dread, a state of yielding. If you should listen to the description of this state by a prominent clergyman, or a lawyer, or a man in the habit of appearing in public with self-confidence, firmness and fulness of thought and speech, he would tell you he had come to a state where he dreads to appear in public, lie feels his own selfhood so that he cannot enter into his subject, he dreads it, he fears that he will fail, his mind will not work, he is worn out by prolonged efforts at mental work. But he will say that when he forces himself into the harness he can go on with ease, his usual self-command returns to him and he does well ; he: does his work with promptness, fulness, and accuracy. The peculiar Silica state is found in the dread of failure. If he has any unusual liberal task to perform, he fears he will make a failure of it, yet he xiocs it well. This is the early state ; of course there comes a time when he cannot perform the work with accuracy and still he may need Silica.

Another case is illustrated in a young man who has studied for years and is now nearing the end of his course. He dreads the final examinations but he goes through them all right, then a fatigue comes upon, him and for years he is unable to enter his profession. He has this dread of undertaking anything.

Irritable and irascible when aroused ; when let alone he is timid, retiring, wants to shirk everything : mild, gentle tearful women. The Silica child is cross and cries when spoken to. It is the natural complement and chronic of Puls, because of its great similarity ; it is a deeper, more profound remedy. Religious melancholy, sadness, irritability, despondency. Lyc, is stupid, the dread of undertaking any thing in from a general knowledge of inability. In Silica it is imaginary.,

Silica is not suitable for the irritability and nervous exhaustion coming on from business brain-fag, but more for such brain-fag as belongs to professional men, students, lawyers, clergymen. A lawyer says, “I have never been myself since that John Doe case.” He went through a prolonged effort and sleepless nights followed. Silica restores the brain.

The remedy produces inflammation about any fibrinous nidus and suppurates it out. It acts upon constitutions that are sluggish and inflames fibrous deposits about old imbedded missiles. Slow nutrition ; if the individual receives a slight injury it suppurates and the cicatrix indurates, is hard and nodular. Along the track of a knife-cut, is a fibrinous deposit due to inferior and slow nutrition. An old ulcer heals with induration. Where cicatricial tissue forms, it is indurated, shiny, glassy. If Silica is given in such cases, it will throw out abscesses in these cicatrices and open them out. It will open up old ulcers and heal them with a normal cicatrix.

In ordinary people if a splinter lodges in the tissues, a suppuration will slough it out, but in these feeble constitutions a plastic deposit takes place about it and it remains. This is not the highest state of order. Suppuration takes place about a bullet and pushes it out, that is the best state that can be asked for.

Silica, therefore, hastens the formation of abscesses and boils. It suppurates out old wens and indurated tumors. It has cured recurrent fibroids and old indurated tumors.

It there is a deposit of tubercle in the lungs, Silica establishes an inflammation and throws it out, and if the whole lung be tubercular a general suppurative pneumonia will be the result ; hence, the danger of giving such remedies and the danger of repeating them in advanced stage of phthisis. Not only Silica but many other remedies have the power to suppurate out deposits, the result of poor nutrition.

Warty growths on the skin, moist eruptions, pimples, pustules, abscesses. Suppurating cavities. It establishes healing in old fistulous openings with indurated margins. Catarrhal suppurations ; copious muco-purulent discharge from the eyes, nose, ears, chest, vagina, etc.

Complaints from the suppression of discharges ; suppressed sweat. These suppressions produce a state in the economy that threatens what little order is left. An offensive foot-sweat ceases after getting the feet wet, and is followed by chills and violent complaints. Silica cures long lasting foot-sweat when the symptoms agree, or complaints that have lasted since the suppression of a foot-sweat. Thick, yellow catarrhal discharges. They say, '1 have had this discharge so many years,” and when you investigate, you find that there has been some shock, a cold, that suppressed the foot-sweat and it has not appeared since. Silica will bring back that sweat, cause the catarrhal discharge to cease and in time cure the foot-sweat. Catarrhal discharges from the nose and other places, indurations, tumors, chronic gastritis, brainfag, all dating back to the suppression of foot-sweat or otorrhœa3ea, or to the healing up of a fistula.

Chronic sick-headache attended with nausea and even vomiting. Headache commencing in the back of the head in the morning or towards noon going to the forehead, worse towards night, from noise ; better from heat ; supra-orbital neuralgias ; better from pressure and heat and attended with profuse head-sweat. Cold, clammy, offensive) sweat on the forehead. When a Silica patient exerts himself he sweats on the face, the lower part of the body is, dry or nearly so. It requires great exertion to produce general sweat. A striking feature is the sweat about the upper parts of the body and the head. Headache once a week (Gels., -Lyc., Sang., Sulph.). Headache up through the back of the neck and especially to the right side of the head. Resembles Sang. Weight in the occiput as if it would be drawn back, with a rush of blood to the head, like Carbo veg. and Sepia. Headache worse from cold air. Psor. wears a fur cap even in summer. Magn. mur. is better from wrapping up the head but still wants to be in the air. Rhus sweats on the body ; the head is dry. Puls, sweats on one side of the head.

Vertigo to fainting ; with nausea ; vertigo creeping up the spine into the head.

It is especially necessary for the Silica patient to avoid the cold air, (must have the head well wrapped up, especially the part that is painful, and this part perspires copiously.

“Headache worse from mental exertion, excessive study, noise, motion, even jarring from foot-steps, U|ht, stooping, pressing at stool, talking, cold air, touch.’' " Moist, scaly eruption on the scalp, eczema capitis.

Silica is suited to the phagedenic ulcers of syphilis, eating and spreading ulcers on the scalp. Inflammatory conditions between the scalp and skull, tumors forming, filled with a grumous fluid ; as in infancy, it will remove blood tumors. Cephalmatoma neonatorum, synchondroses. Silica is especially of use in the treatment of affections of the cartilages, growths about the joints, about the fingers and toes.

The complaints of Silica are associated with hardened glands, but especially about the neck, the cervical, salivary, and particularly the parotid glands ; large, hard parotids. The parotids enlarge from every cold and get hard, (Bar. carb.. Calc., Sulph.)

Puls, suits the acute inflammation of the parotid, but Silica is indicated in the more chronic forms due to psora, “scrofulous glands."

Many inflammations and conditions of the eyes. Ulcers on the cornea ; pustules on the lids, falling of the lashes, suppuration of the margins of the lids with burning, stinging and redness. Intense photophobia in all eye complaints. Scrofulous cases with sore eyes ; the most inveterate and. chronic cases; suppuration; thin, watery, copious discharge, or bloody, thick and yellow like pus, with ulceration. Syphilitic iritis. “Perforating or sloughing ulcer on the cornea. Spots and cicatrices on the cornea. Fungus haematodes. Eyes inflamed from traumatic causes ; foreign particles have lodged in the eyes ; abscesses ; boils around the eyes and lids ; tarsal tumors, styes. Affections appearing in the angles of the eyes ; fistula lachrymalis ; stricture of lachrymal duct.” This is a general survey of the eye affections in Silica.

There is no deeper remedy than Silica in eradicating the tubercular tendency, when the symptoms agree ; most tubercular cases are worse from cold, wet weather ; better in cold dry weather.

The most inveterate cases of catarrh of the ear ; old offensive, thick, yellow otorrhoea ; following scarlet fever ; all sorts of abnormalities in hearing, even to deafness. Roaring in the ears associated with many diseases and hardness of hearing ; hissing, roaring like steam ; like a train of cars, many times from mechanical cause and other times from a condition of the nerves. It is commonly the beginning of a dry catarrh of the middle ear ; the remedy is especially useful when, in catarrh of the middle ear and Eustachian tube, the deafness goes on for some time and the hearing returns with a snap, due to the escape of the accumulation of fluids somewhere and described by the patient as a snap or report. Sudden reports in the ear like a cannon, distant noises with return of hearing. “Otorrhoea, offensive, watery, curdy, with soreness of inner nose and crusts on upper lip, after abuse of Mercury, with caries.” Caries of bone in any part of the body, but especially of the small bones of the ear, nose and mastoid process, “Scabs behind the ears.” Rupture of the drum of the ear. Catarrhal conditions of the internal ear and Eustachian tube, with “feeling of sudden stoppage in the ear, better by gaping or swallowing.”

Especially with ear troubles, there will be associated indurated parotid glands.

Accumulation of hard crusts in the nose, loss of taste and smell ; epistaxis, thickening of the mucous membrane ; most vicious catarrh with discharge of bone from the nose. Horrible, foetid ozaena, old' syphilitic cases where the nasal bones are destroyed and the nose becomes a flabby bag, is sunken in or ulcerated away, leaving an opening. Silica may cure and an artificial nose be made afterwards.

Hepar competes with Silica in syphilitic nasal catarrhs where the parts are phagedenic ; Hepar, Merc, cor, and Ars, are the principal antisyphilitics when there is phagedenic ulceration of the nose. Babies suffer from bloody nasal discharge. This is often Calc, suL

The aspect of the Silica face is silky, anaemic, waxy, tired. Pustular and vesicular eruptions spread over the face, the wings of the nose crack, the lips easily fissure ; crusts form on the margin between the mucous membrane and the skin ; eruptions and crusts, indurations form under the crusts, they peel off and there is no healing. These indurations are the same kind of inferior tissue that is found under lupus and epithelioma, a low tissue formation, a low state of eczema that favors infiltration. The small blood-vessels that lead to them become thicker and thicker until they become gristly. There is a tendency to make the soft tissues harder and the hard tissues harder.

In childhood the bones become softer and even necrose or there is an inflammation of the periosteum and a consequent necrosis. Caries of the shaft of the long bones, the head of the bones and the cartilaginous portions ; abscesses in cartilages, enchondromata. Bones break down and form fistulous openings. Necrosis of the jaw, the joints, the hip-joint, the tibia, necrosis of the spine, of the vertebrae, so that there is curvature of the spine, lateral especially. The homoeopathic physicians may treat these affections of the bones with the help of accessory contrivances or supports.

The Silica patient has rough lips, they crack and peel ; rhagades. Scaly appearances at the margins of the lips, fissures in the corners of the mouth that indurate. There is often a line of fissure about the margin of the crust. Little crusts like epithelioma form upon the wings of the nose and when picked off leave a raw surface with no tendency to heal. Crusty formations upon the ears.

The teeth break down, lose their enamel surface ; the dentine is made up largely of the silicate of lime and the surface of the tooth becomes rough, loses its shiny appearance and caries sets in. This often takes place at the margin of the gum ; ulcers form on the tip of the fangs. The teeth suffer when it is cold or damp ; toothache in wet weather, and the teeth are yellow, decay rapidly, and the gums settle away from them. All the neuralgias and toothaches are better in a warm room and from hot drinks. Abscesses about the gums and face, better by warmth. Severe pain in the jaw, rending, tearing at night, better from heat ; these pains often end in abscesses about the teeth. Sometimes relieved by pressure unless the part is extremely sore from inflammation.

The tongue takes on inflammation of gouty character ; inflammation with threatening abscess, it fills the whole mouth ; rending, tearing pains, worse at night and better from heat.

In the throat and neck we have inflammation and swelling of all the glands, external and internal, all at once or singly. Quinsy with great pain in the tonsils, one or both ; threatening suppuration. Inflammation of the parotid, sublingual and much less frequently the submaxillary and cervical glands ; painful, tumid and hard, with pain in the neck, shoulders and head, even in acute inflammations. But then we have the opposite state of affairs. In an old chronic case broken down with suffering the symptoms are worse after a bath, he wants warmth, dreads the cold, is always shivering. But when in the neck there is an acute inflammation the very opposite is present ; he suffers from flushes of heat, an irregular, flushing fever, cold extremities while the upper part of the body is hot, sweat about the head and neck, sensation of heat and suffocation in a warm room. This will. be present in quinsy and abscesses of the glands of the neck, if acute. Silica here shows its relation to Puls, The latter in its chronic manifestations is overburdened with heat, but in an acute trouble is chilly. They are reversed as to their acute and chronic states. Puls, in the beginning is chilly and sweating.

Silica is full of throat symptoms but is seldom indicated in acute forms because its pace is too slow ; it comes on after there has been a series of colds, such colds as are ameliorated a number of times by Bell, or other acute remedies, but still continue to settle in the tonsils and in the glands of the neck. Silica breaks up the tendency. There is a catarrhal state in the throat that is roused up by every cold into an increased flux, with hoarseness, settling back into the chronic state again ; chronic catarrhs of the pharynx. It competes with Natrum mur. in inveterate sore throat.

Silica disturbs the stomach, causes hiccough, nausea and vomiting ; disturbs the liver. All these symptoms are connected and are hard to separate. Decided aversion to warm food, desires cold things, wants his tea moderately cold, he is willing to have his food cold, dislikes warm food. Sometimes there is a decided aversion to meat, but if he does take it, he prefers cold, sliced meat. He likes ice cream, ice, water, and feels comfortable when it is in the stomach ; it is sometimes impossible for him to drink hot fluids, they cause sweat about the face and head and cause hot flushes. (Bar, c,)

Silica is disturbed by the extremes of heat and cold, easily affected in changes even of a few degrees ; he has complaints from being overheated ; he gets overheated easily, sweats easily from a slight change in the temperature and comes down with a cold.

Case: A physician waiting on an obstetrical case, had a little difficulty in the last stage and he became overheated ; putting on his overcoat and hat he went out on the porch to cool off and was taken down with asthma, violent cough, copious expectoration with gagging and vomiting which lasted him for months. The acute remedies he had taken only palliated, but a dose of Silica cured him almost as quickly as he was taken down ; he could not tolerate a warm room ; the acute complaints of Silica are often worse in a warm room and from heat.

Silica has an aggravation from milk. Many times the infant is unable to take any kind of milk and, hence, the physician is driven to prescribe all the foods in the market if he does not know the right remedy. Natrum carb, and Silica are both useful when the mothers milk causes diarrhoea and vomiting. The routinist is likely to give such medicines as athusa, entirely forgetting Silica. The latter, as well as Natrum carb., has sour vomiting and sour curds in the stool. “Aversion the mother’s milk and vomiting.” “Diarrhoea from milk.” Put these two together.

Although the patient has an aversion to hot things and desires to eat cold things, yet in chest complaints cold water, ice cream and cold things in general, increase the cough to gagging, and then the retching is dreadful ; violent, retching, gagging cough. Retching from an endeavor to expectorate is usually controlled by Carbo veg., but Silica has it.

“Water brash, with chilliness, with brown tongue ; nausea and vomiting of what is drunk, worse in the morning ; water tastes bad ; vomits after drinking.”

The Silica stomach is weak, in a do-nothing state ; old dyspeptics that have been vomiting a long time, especially those who have ani aversion to hot food, who cannot take milk, are averse to meat, where the mental and bodily symptoms agree.

Silica was one of the greatest remedies for the chronic diarrhoea in the soldiers of our Civil War. It cured a fair percentage of those sick from sleeping on damp ground, eating all sorts of food until the stomach and bowels were prostrated, from long marches, from going into the South from the cold North, from becoming overheated. It is like Sulphur in these symptoms.

Silica has some pain in the stomach and bowels, but there is more soreness to pressure ; colic and flatulence and tenderness to pressure ; a chronic soreness in the stomach and if it goes on too long, a tubercular state comes on. Abdominal pain relieved by heat ; distension of the bowels with flatulence and rumbling. Enlarged abdomen in children and adults (Bar. c.) ; tightness across the abdomen. Disturbed by the pressure of the clothes and worse after eating ; the decided feature is the amelioration from heat.

Constipation from inability of the rectum to expel the faeces. It is seldom that the stool lies in the rectum without urging like Alumina; there is much urging to stool but inability to expel. The stool may be in small balls or large and soft or large and hard, but there is much straining and sweating about the head and great suffering while straining ; the rectum becomes impacted, he strains until he is weak and exhausted, the stool slips back ; and he gives up in despair. The only way he can relieve himself is by some mechanical method. Great straining at stool belongs to many remedies, but especially to Alumina, Alumen, China, Natr. mur., Nux vom., Nux mosch., and Silica.

Silica has removed tape-worm, when the symptoms agree (Calc., Sul.).

It has also cured fistulous openings. Patients who have a tendency to phthisis are subject to abscesses about the region of the rectum, that break inside or out and form complete or incomplete openings. These seem to take the place of what would otherwise come, and if healed by operation or other external means, the tendency is to end in chest trouble, either in form of a fixed catarrh or tubercular infiltrations. Silica is one of the remedies that turns the constitution into order and in one to five years the opening ceases to be necessary and it will heal. Surgeons heal it up at once, and for a time the patient is comfortable, Init in a few years he breaks down.

Caust., Berb.a Calc, r., Calc, p/ios , Graph., Staph, etc., are suitable, in such cases. Silica here follows Thuja well.

Suppurative conditions in the urinary tract, catarrh of the mucous membranes ; old inveterate catarrh of the bladder with pus and blood in the urine ; copious, stringy deposits in the urine. Prostatitis, suppuration, thick, foetid pus from the urethra. Gonorrhoea, pus, or puslike discharge from the urethra, slight, shreddy discharge, bloody, purulent discharge. It is sometimes thick, or is curdy ; this is from any mucous membrane.

Abscesses along the penis, in the perineum, prostate gland, testes Chronic inflammation and induration of the testes with much pain ; testes feel as if squeezed, sensitive, painful. Hydrocele in boys or adults.

In the male, impotence, weakness of the genitals after coition, easily exhausted, lacks power ; exhausted if he has coition with anything like ordinary frecjucncy ; it takes him a week or ten days to rest up (Agar,). Much sweating of the genitals with exhaustion, tired out in the spine, weak back.

Involuntary discharge of urine at night ; enuresis in little boys and girls.

In women a prostrated condition of the sexual functions. Serous cysts in the vagina, fistulous openings and abscesses about the vulva, which heal with hard nodules or do not heal at all ; little oozing fistulae, offensive, cheesy discharge. They heal in little nodules and then break out again in the same nidus. Women who are subject to these abscesses.

Bloody discharge between the periods. In Silica there is very easy flow of blood from the uterus ; a haemorrhagic flow comes on before the menses from excitement, and especially when nursing ; when the child is put to the breast a flow of blood starts. Notice the distinction between Calc, and Silica. Calc, has a tendency to flow during lactation, but not when the child is put to the breast.

Silica cures hydrosalpinx and pyosalpinx, with copious, watery discharge from the uterus. Sometimes a woman has a lump on one or the Other side of the uterus, which steadily increases and all at once there is a flooding of watery, bloody, purulent fluid and the lump disappears, soon to fill up again and empty in the same way in a gushing flow. Such are the manifestations of hydrosalpinx and pyosalpinx. Entire absence of the menses for months : amenorrhoea.

Serous cysts in the vagina as large as a pea or an orange, projecting from the vagina or projecting upwards and flail cned out in conformation with it. Many little cysts like hickory-nuts grouped together. Rhod. and Silica have cured these even when there is a paucity ol other symptoms.

'‘Leucorrhoea, profuse, acrid, corroding, milky, preceded by chirping around the navel, causing biting pain, especially after acrid food ; during urination : in gushes ; with cancer of the uterus. Hard lumps in the mamma;.’'

Threatened abscesses of the breasts. If the remedy is given in time, if will abort the entire trouble. Where the remedy has come too late and suppuration is inevitable, Silica comes in for its share. There may be throbbing, tenderness, and weight, yet the remedy controls the pain, hastens the conclusion, and the opening comes naturally, discharges little and closes at once. As sure as an anodyne is given, a hot poultice applied, you will fail with your remedies. There is too much blood in the part, and the application of a poultice increases the trouble ; it causes an increased determination of blood to the part, and if suppuration takes place it causes more breaking down of tissue. Instead of a thimbleful of pus you will have cupfuls for days and half of the gland is destroyed.

Women who are so weak they tend to abort, or no conception takes place. It would seem if the organs were tired out and unable to perform their functions.

The infant has all sorts of troubles. It grows up sickly ; cannot tolerate its mother’s milk or indeed any kind of food ; vomiting and diarrhoea. A healthy child will digest even unwholesome milk.

The Silica cough is a dangerous one ; the remedy suits the early stage of phthisis, when the lung is not extensively involved ; it suits a cough of catarrhal character when the symptoms agree. If there is a small abscess in the lung with no tendency to heal, it brings about repair, causes contraction of its walls. Inveterate cases of catarrh of the chest with asthmatic wheezing, overexertion. After violent exertion and overheating, gets in a draft, or takes cold from a bath, becomes chilled. Humid asthma, coarse rattling, the chest seems filled with mucus, seems as if he would suffocate. Especially the asthma of old sycotics, or in children of sycotic parents. It competes with Natr, sul in such cases. The patient is pale, waxy, anaemic, with great prostration and thirst.

Asthmatic attacks from suppressed gonorrhoea, with liability to develop complaints from over-exertion and over-heating, as in most sycotics.

Dry, teasing cough with hoarseness, threatening tuberculosis of the larynx, peculiar cracked voice from thickening of the laryngeal mucous membrane or tubercular involvement ; soreness of the chest threatening miliary tuberculosis, with aggravation from cold and amelioration from warm drinks. Pulmonary affections in stone-cutters. The fine dust causes chronic irritation. Silica establishes a suppuration and throws off these particles of stone.

Expectoration profuse, foetid, green, purulent ; only during the day ; viscid, milky, acrid mucus, at times pale, frothy blood.

Chronic tendency for colds to settle in the chest and bring on asthmatic symptoms. Chronic bronchitis ; inflammation of the lungs with suppuration. Silica especially suits the later stages of pneumonia and the old, chronic complaints following pneumonia. Slow recovery after pneumonia (Lyc., Sulph, Phos., Sil., Calc.). Flushes, rattling in the chest. Flushes in the face during the day (Sulph.a Sep., Lach.), rattling like Ant. tart., flushes like SuJph. and Lyc.

Phthisis ; thick, yellow, green, foetid sputa, more pronounced coldness than Calc., and head sweat, pains in the lungs, sore lungs, stitches.

In the extremities we have inflammation of the periosteum. Corns (Ant. cr.. Graph.). Ingrowing toe-nails. Rheumatism of the soles of the feet. Cannot walk (Ant. cr., Med., Ruta, Sil). Begins to sweat as soon as he falls asleep (Puls., Con.).

Epilepsy ; aura in the solar plexus creeping into the chest and stomach. Complementary to Calc., Puls., and Thuja.