Arsenicum album

– TESTE A, GROUP REMEDIES,  GROUP iV,ARSENICUM ALBUM
 Arsenious acid
 – White arsenic-Deutoxyde of arsenic.
 – This compound, which has been found in a free state in nature, but seldom and in small quantities, is generally taken from cobalt mines.
 – It is obtained by roasting the arseniferous ore, in reverberating furnaces, with long horizontal chimneys.
 – The arsenic oxydizes, and is changed to arsenious acid, which condenses in these chimneys, where it is collected for the purpose of being purified by new processes of sublimation, after which it is fit for use in the arts and in medicine.
 – Arsenious acid is a solid substance, generally in semi-transparent pieces, like glass that has lost its polish, or of a dull white on the outside, but looks like glass on the broken edge, or it is sometimes entirely opaque.
 – If pulverized, provided not too finely, the powder looks lie sugar.
 – Its specific weight is 3.738.
 – Semi-vitreous, it dissolves in 103 parts of water at a temperature of 15, and in 933 parts of boiling water ; if opaque and white, it dissolves in 80 parts of water at 15, and in 7.72 parts of boiling water.
 – The taste of arsenious acid is at first very feeble, manifests itself slowly, and becomes at last slightly acid, like the taste of sour apples, according to Devergie. *
 – It is inodorous, volatilizes like metallic arsenic at a dull red heat, and, like the metal, crystallises in tetraedric needles.
 – When thrown on burning embers, it develops a white smoke, having the odor of garlic.
 – During this process the coal becomes decomposed and sets the metallic arsenic, to which this odor appertains, free ; for if, instead of throwing it on the burning embers, it is only placed in a crucible or on a red-hot metallic plate, the white smoke which rises from the plate volatilizes without being decomposed, and remains completely inodorous.
 – Everybody is acquainted with the deleterious properties of arsenious acid, and the innumerable crimes which have been committed with arsenic, have excited prejudices against the therapeutic use of arsenic, which are far from being extinguished.
 – The hydrated sesqui-oxyde of iron,* if administered in season, is the antidote of arsenic.
 – I underline these words, if administered in season, for the iron preparations seem to act only chemically, as antidotes to arsenic, that is to say, by changing it to an insoluble arseniuret of iron ; whence it follows, that, if the sesqui-oxyde is not administered until the poison has been absorbed, the use of the iron becomes insufficient, and even entirely useless.
 – In such cases experiments upon animals, which I made six or seven years ago, and which I have been unable to repeat since, for want of a suitable apartment, have shown me that the watery extract of opium, in massive doses, (from five to six centigrammes for middlesized dogs,) was the chief and best antidote of the arsenious acid.
 – Unfortunately, I have not been able to confirm this observation by a single case of poisoning in man, but the fact seems, nevertheless, of interest to toxicologists.
 – Empirical applications.
 – The ancients do not seem to have known either the metallic arsenic or the arsenious acid.
 – Orpiment or the yellow sulphuret of arsenic, and especially the realgar or the red sulphuret of arsenic, are, according to the statement of Harles, * the only arsenical preparations in use among the Greeks, or even the Arabs of the 10th century.
 – Several passages in Rhazes of Avicenna, lead me to believe that the Arabs used principally, the realgar internally against cough and asthma, and orpiment externally (against the itch, tetters, and lepra).
 – After having been abandoned almost entirely for several centuries, the arsenical preparations were again used externally by Theodore and Guy de Chanliac.
 – The former used it in the treatment of scrofulous ulcers ; the latter, as an escharotic, to open hydrocleles. *
 – At a later period the arsenical pastes were used for cancer ; this disease being such a frightful disorder, it was not deemed improper to combat it by the most desperate means.
 – These preparations, although they have been of very little use, and have caused many accidents, are still used in our time.
 – Some of them have enjoyed great celebrity, such as the paste of Rausselot, of the Friar Cosme, the powers of Justamond and Plukket, the pomatum of Hellmund, which was purchased by the Prussian government, and which does not differ essentially from that of Friar Cosme ; the anti-cancerous remedy of Davidian, that of Guy, of Chenet, etc.*
 – But homoeopathy has nothing to do with these poor mystifications, which are but too often invented by quacks and by interested venders.
 – According to Desgrages,* Linserbarht, better known under the name of Lentitius, and who practised medicine towards the end of the seventeenth century, was the first who employed the arsenious acid internally, at least, in intermittent fevers.
 – But in order not to abbreviate our remarks concerning the use of arsenic in these fevers, by attaching ourselves to the chronological order, let us postpone this important subject for the present, and let us cast a rapid glance on the other diseases for which this drug was recommended.
 – Cancer, cutaneous diseases, scrofula, syphilis, pulmonary phthisis, asthma, angina pectoris, various forms of periodical headache, facial neuralgia, rheumatism, chorea, and lastly, rage, these were the affections which empiricism, generally, when reduced to the last extremity, dared to combat with the white oxyde of arsenic.
 – Success, was, however, far from crowning, in every instance, these bold attempts.
 – But some cures were effected in these cases, which is sufficiently accounted for by the pathogenesis of arsenic.
 – CANCER.
 – “For a long time past, physicians have tried to combat cancer by the internal administration of arsenical preparations.
 – Zeller is one of the first who praised arsenious acid for such a diseases.
 – Lefebure de St, Ildephont, Ronnow, Schmalz, Adair, Desgranges, etc., assure us to have seen good effects from it ; Dr. Minniks, of Philadelphia, says the same thing, etc.*
 – Unfortunately, these are mere assertions supported by few facts, and of a doubtful authenticity.
 – I do not think, however, that objections have been raised against the observations of either Ronnow or Minniks. *
 – Even Thiebault, who is a zealous condemner of arsenic, takes care not to mention them in his answer to Desgranges, although this one alludes to both of them in his memoir.
 – As regards the numerous cures which Lefebure, or rather, Lefebure de St. Ildephont boasts of having made with arsenic, I confess, that they seem to me rather doubtful.
 – Even the title of his pamphlet published in 1774, would make me suspect them : Approved remedy for the radical cure of the hidden, open, or ulcerated cancer, etc.
 – Approved by whom ?
 – Of nobody but the author, as we learn from an official declaration of Missa, who was then royal censor. *
 – Lefebre, therefore, deceived the public, and, on this account, does not deserve any confidence.
 – But this is not all.
 – The method which he points out in his pamphlet, had no success whatever in the hand of his warmest partisans.
 – Desgranges, for instance, whom Merat and Delens mention by mistake as one of the physicians who had seen good effects from the use of arsenic in cancer, expresses himself in these terms :-“As soon as Lefebre’s pamphlet was published, we tried his remedy in the hospital of Lyons on several females affected with cancer at the breasts, groins, and uterus, following his prescriptions literally ; not one of these patients was benefited in the least ; all experienced anxiety in the praecordial region, spasms, pains in the stomach and bowels, and other kinds of distress, which induced us to abandon our experiments. *
 – Metzger and Fodere were not any more fortunate.
 – But ought we to infer from these failures that arsenious acid, if administered internally, and even after Lefebre’s method,* has never cured cancer ?
 – Such is not my opinion, for negative facts do not invalidate facts that are positive.
 – All that can be said is, that, as a general rule, these positive facts are exceedingly scarce in the annals of empiricism.
 – Cutaneous disease.
 – Here we have an abundance of facts, and if we had no other authorities to consult than modern alloeopathic physicians, their practice, except the doses, accords so perfectly with our own, that we might almost feel tempted to regard their mode of treating cutaneous diseases internally with arsenious acid, as copied from Hahnemann ; but I really believe this is not the case.
 – For as early as 1789, Adair published the happy results which he had obtained with arsenious acid, taken internally, in obstinate tetters. *
 – Rush, of Philadelphia, confirmed Adair’s observations about the same period.
 – Lastly, in 1806, Girdlestone, but especially Willan and Pearson, in England, had popularized this use of arsenic by a number of successful cases, and Biett was one of the first who tried it in France.
 – Cazenave expresses himself as follows concerning the use of arsenious acid in cutaneous disease : *
 – “It is proven now-a-days, that wonderful results are obtained with arsenious acid in the treatment of cutaneous diseases, both in the dry forms and in the chronic eczema and intertrigo.
 – This remedy in less successful in papulous eruptions, etc., and, in general, it has almost always failed in the various forms of porrigo, acne, sycosis, etc.
 – It may be very useful in the elephantiasis of the Greeks ; to the treatment of acute exanthemata, it is not applicable, as a general rule.”
 – Homoeopathy can add but little to these statements.
 – Scrofula and syphilis.
 – A pretty large number of wellauthenticated facts testify in favor of the efficacy of arsenic in certain forms of scrofulous ulcers.
 – The observations of Physick, of Philadelphia, of Hans Roane, of Otto, concerning this subject, made a great nose among doctors at the period when they first appeared.
 – Those which were published by Otto in 1805, in the  Philadelphia Medical Museum, * are for us homoeopaths extremely characteristic.
 – He speaks of malignant ulcers in the face, with caries of the bones and corrosion of the upper lip.
 – So much for scrofula.
 – As regards syphilis, the facts are less evident.
 – But could it be otherwise ?
 – The prejudice which has existed for upwards of two hundred years in favor of the absolute and exclusive specificity of mercury in venereal diseases, did not allow of the introduction of another anti-syphilitic which was not mercurial ; and yet it is well known that the famous anti-syphilitic decoction of Teltz enjoys even yet in England, and more particularly in India, a very extensive popularity ; and the active element of this decoction is a mixture of arsenic and antimony.
 – Cullerier, a physician of our times, has even gone so far as to substitute a fixed dose of arsenic for this mixture, and has obtained the same favourable results.
 – “In some venereal diseases, where mercury aggravates the syphilitic ulcers, Girdlestone arrests their progress with arsenical preparations.” *
 – Boudin, whose writings we shall have to mention more extensively when speaking of intermittent fevers, entertains the same opinion as I do concerning the anti-syphilitic properties of arsenious acid.
 – “Science,” says this author, “has a great many facts to show, where syphilis proved rebellious against mercury, and where the decoctions of Teltz and Arnould cured the disease as if by magic.
 – As was remarked before, the influence of these preparations is principally due to the arsenic and antimony with which they are mixed.
 – I am disposed to think, from some cases in my own practice, that arsenic may be a very useful remedy in constitutional syphilis.” *
 – Pulmonary phthisis, asthma, neuralgia, etc.
 – Although, according to Desgranges.
 – Hippocrates, Galenus, and the Arabs, employed arsenical preparations for a cough with purulent expectoration, and notwithstanding a few dubious remarks by Girdlestone and Beddoes, I do not believe that pulmonary phthisis has ever been cured with arsenic.
 – But I have not by any means the same doubts concerning the cure of angina pectoris, humid asthma, with periodical paroxysms of nocturanl suffocation and oedema of the lower extremities and face, or even ascites and general leucophlegmasia attributed to this drug.
 – These cures are accounted for by the provings of Arsenic.
 – The same is true in regard to certain cures of phthisis meseraica, facial neuralgia, periodical cephalalgia, (of which Fodere relates seven cases),* whooping-cough, trismus, epilepsy and various other nervous diseases, the observations concerning which are scattered through the works of authors.
 – Hydrophobia even might perhaps be included among these latter disease, although it is generally treated with absurd means, or at a period when it has become impossible to cure it.
 – In this respect we read in the dictionary of Merat and Delens : “Russel, in his work on the serpents of India, relates three experiments which he instituted, with varied success, with the pills of Tanjore, composed in a great measure of arsenious acid, on animals that had been bitten by poisonous serpents ; he says that he has given these pills with success to fourteen persons that had been bitten by mad dogs, but before hydrophobia had broken out.”
 – J. P. Ireland employed arsenious acid in massive doses, in similar cases, with uniform success ; he relates five cases.
 – In these cases, the acid brought about vomiting or stoo. *
 – According to all probability, the acid, if employed in infinitesimal doses, would likewise have prevented the paroxysms of hydrophobia, and the patient would not have been disturbed with vomiting or diarrhoea.
 – We shall have to refer again to this subject when speaking of Belladonna.
 – It now remains for us to inquire as cursorily as may be into that property of the arsenious acid which is considered the most important by the regular physicians, and which is not even denied by such men as Stork, Didier, Peyrilhe, etc. ; who look upon arsenic as a poison that can only do harm, and should, on that account, be blotted out entirely from our materia medica.
 – I mean the specific curative character of arsenic in fever and ague ; a question which has now been under discussion for upwards of a hundred and fifty years, and bids fair to be continued a good while longer by the orthodox members of the faculty.
 – And yet the facts that testify to the curative character of arsenic in this disease, are almost innumerable.
 – Indeed, from Rosinus Lentilius, whom we have mentioned already, or rather from Hadrien Stevogt * and Melchoir Frick * to Joseph Plenciz, * that is to say, from the end of the 17th to the end of the 18th century, arsenious acid was used in Germany all the time in intermittent fevers.
 – The violence with which this heroic agent was assailed by its contemners, seems a guarantee for the enthusiasm with which it was defended by its friends.
 – At the head of the former we have the celebrated Stork, who carried on this warfare with all the vehemence and bitterness which he afterwards displayed in his attacks on animal magnetism.
 – But Keil, Bernhardt, the two Plenciz, etc., warm partisans of the arsenic, backed their arguments by thousands of cures against which the diatribes of Stork remained powerless.
 – Even at the present moment a belief in the febrifuge properties of Arsenic has remained popular in Germany.*
 – The use of arsenic in the treatment of intermittent fever was introduced in England by Fowler, in America, by Barton, in Italy, by Brera, and, in these different countries, it produced the same results which had been obtained in Germany for a century previous.
 – But in France these decided successes were unable to conquer altogether the prejudice which this terrible name arsenic had excited among the people.
 – Nothing short of the compete closure of the seas during the empire, was able to determine a few physicians to try arsenic as a substitute for Peruvian bark.
 – Fodere, Lordat, C. L. Dufour, A. Boullier, J. C. Dupont, Desgranges, etc., were the principal authors of this innovation, which, in spite of its success, excited a good deal of oppositon. *
 – Finally, as soon as the peace of 1815 had rendered to the French alloeopaths their bark, they speedily abandoned the arsenic, which was indeed completely forgotten until recently, when one of our army-physicians tried to restore its use.
 – Boudin, physician-in-chief of the military hospital du Roule, is a distinguished thinker, well-informed, and in possession of that vast experience which a military physician is almost alone capable of acquiring, by studying the diseases in different countries and in different latitudes.
 – I add that Boudin, if he was not an entire homoeopath, was very near becoming one in 1842, when, in his capacity of physician-in-chief of the hospital of Marseilles, he published his treatise on fevers.
 – He has read Hahnemann, quotes him two or three times, and speaks of him with respect.
 – If he does not accept his doctrine altogether, he uses at least some of Hahnemann’s proceedings.
 – It is difficult to understand why Boudin, after having gone so far, should not have gone still farther, or should ever have endeavoured, as we shall see bye-and-bye, to retract himself.
 – Be this as it may, I regard Boudin’s work as one of the best productions of modern alloeopathy, in point of though, originality and keenness of observation.
 – Fe words have afforded me more pleasure, and excited a higher degree of interest in my mind.
 – This monograph is distinguished from most other monographs in this, that the details which are sometimes as new as they are ingenious, are always governed by a truly generalizing mind.
 – Boudin states and limits very clearly the question he desires to discuss : the marsh-intermittent miasm.
 – According to him, the type, that is to say, the intermission, the remission, or the continuity of the febrile symptoms, does not constitute the characteristic manifestation of particular malady, nor even of a special class of diseases.
 – Indeed a number of very different affections my likewise assume the intermittent type, in the same manner as a number of poisons may, according to Hahnemann, whose authority our author invokes, cause a series of intermittent symptoms.
 – We may remark here in passing, that this sound observation shows how absurd it is on the part of our opponents, to treat all intermittent fevers with one and the same drug.
 – This is the real cause of the want of success in the treatment of intermittent fevers with Peruvian bark, and of the cachexias which are developed almost every day by the injudicious use of this drug.
 – In regard to marsh-intermittents, Boudin is of opinion that the phenomena of intermission, remission and continuity only express the different degrees of intensity with which the fever-miasm acts upon the organism.
 – “If we consider attentively,” says be, “the manner in which the phenomena of marsh-intermittents develop themselves, either in different latitudes, or during the change of the seasons, or lastly at different degrees of elevation above the level of the soil, we would be struck with the relation which exists uniformly and strictly between the type of the disease and the intensity of the miasm, and which is so exactly proportionate that a progression in the quantity of miasmatic matter, arising from the focus of the disease, carries with it a corresponding increase of continuity in the type of fever.
 – The tertian type, which prevails in the North of Europe, is replaced in warmer countries by the quotidian, remittent and even continuous type.
 – On the other hand, as the heat increases, we see in the North of Africa a succession of types develop itself, which is analogous to the changes that take place in the type of the marsh-intermittents in proportion as we come nearer to the equator, so that the tertian winter-fevers of the North of Africa are gradually succeeded by quotidian, remittent, and even continuous fevers.” *
 – This theory seems correct, and Boudin supports it by proofs which it seems difficult to gainsay.
 – However, if it be true, as he says, that the tendency of the type to become continuous, is in exact proportion to the intensity of the miasm, how shall we account for the intermissions in cases of febris perniciosa, a malady which terminates fatally after the second or third paroxysm, unless it is arrested before ?
 – The violence of the paroxysms is a sure sign of the intensity of the miasm.
 – Why then are not such fevers continuous, more than any other ?
 – Upon the whole, it cannot be denied, and Boudin himself will admit this, that, if the intermission of the paroxysms is not sufficient to characterize a disease, this strange and remarkable periodicity of the symptoms, does not, however, belong indiscriminately, and in the same degree, to all known maladies, no more than all drugs are equally capable of producing or arresting the intermittent disease.
 – Would not arsenic, for instance, which is praised by Stevogt, Frick, Fowler, Pearson, Fodere, etc., as the greatest remedy for intermittent diseases, be one of those drugs or poisons, which, if taken in feeble doses, would produce effects that are characterized by the intermittent type, more than those of any other drug ?
 – “I have seen,” says Boudin, “a quotidian intermittent fever, for which I had to give cinchona, develope itself in the case of one of my patients, who, in the space of twelve days, had taken twenty-four hundredths of a grain of arsenious acid for ichthyosis.
 – Was this a simple coincidence ?
 – I do not know ; the fact, however, is, that this patient, with the exception of his cutaneous disease, enjoyed the best health, and that his fever came on at a period when no other similar disease prevailed in town.” *
 – This single fact proves nothing in the estimation of Boudin, and I understand the reason why.
 – Biett, however, admits having observed similar phenomena in the hospital of St. Louis, and I have no doubt that, by ransacking authors, a number of other similar phenomena in the hospital of St. Louis, and I have no doubt that, by ransacking authors, a number of other similar facts might easily be obtained.
 – If I am not mistaken, Morgagni mentions one or two cases of this kind.
 – But what would be the use of such inquiries ?
 – Boudin knows as well as I do, that all the symptoms of the marsh-intermittent fever, which he terms limnhemic fever or rather affection, from the simple diarrhoeic to the tetanic form, are contained in the pathogenesis of the white oxyde of arsenic by Hahnemann and his disciples.
 – According to Boudin, every limnhemic affection, without distinction of type or development of its phenomena, arises from one and the same cause, but multiple in its unity, as we from one and the same cause, but multiple in its unity, as we shall see bye and bye namely, the effluvia of the marsh-vegetation.
 – In this respect, our author believes, and I am disposed to share this belief, that it is not by the effluvia of stagnant water, nor by the emanations of decayed vegetable matter that the marsh-miasm is produced, but by the emanations arising from living plants.
 – Some of these plants are already known.
 – Such are among others, the anthoxanthum odoratum, which, according to Nepples, abounds in the marshes of the Bresse, where it goes by the name of flouve ; and lastly, according to Humboldt, the roots of the mangrove tree, and of the mancanilla,  which, when not covered by water, are supposed by the inhabitants of India to be productive of fever.
 – But how can we admit the identity of the marshmiasm, when the fever-engendering miasms vary so much among each other ?
 – According to Boudin, the endemic intermittent fevers of the department of Aix in France, those of the North of Africa, of Morea, of Senegal, of the deltas of the Ganges, Nile and Mississippi, that is to say, the cholera, the plague, and the yellow fever, are forms of one and the same disease, or rather, different degrees of its intensity.
 – “It is not only,” says he, “between the ordinary endemic diseases of marshy countries, that this identity exists, and I should not think having done more than to merely lift the veil under which the truth is hidden, if I contented myself with simply pointing out the identity that exists between the intermittent, remittent, continuous and masked intermittent fevers, and the endemic diarrhoeas and dysenteries of marshy regions.
 – I have seen several times, in the North of Africa, the marsh-miasmatic diseases, not only simulate, but so faithfully express the cholera of India, that it was absolutely impossible to decide from the first, whether the disease was the real cholera or simply a sporadic cholera fever.
 – In another case, which, it is true, is an isolated observation, I saw in the marshes of Navarin, in Morea, a febris icterica perniciosa, with vomiting of black matter, resembling tolerably well the yellow fever of the West-Indies.
 – And in this same campaign of Greece, in 1828, I have observed among persons who had died with these severe marsh-intermittent fevers, an unusual swelling of the ganglions of the groin and neck, a symptom which greatly resembles a similar phenomenon in the disease of Constantinople and Alexandria.” *
 – Independently of the symptomatic resemblance which is really remarkable in many cases, this author infers the identity of the nature of these diseases from two series of facts : 1st.
 – From a sort of antagonism which all these diseases exhibit in regard to such affections as pulmonary phthisis and typhus, and which antagonism is so decide, that these different classes of diseases never co-exist in the same locality ; 2d.
 – From the fact that they are all cured by the same drug, Which is arsenious acid.
 – Omitting this question of antagonism, however interesting it may be,* I hasten to admit with Boudin the efficacy of arsenious acid in all the diseases mentioned by him, or rather, I rejoice to think that the admits it with me ; for I do not think that alloeopathy cab claim as its practice the use of arsenic in vomiting, diarrhoea, cramps, and other symptoms of cholera ; but is this efficacy, as our author seems to think, an irrefragable proof of the identity of these diseases ?
 – To ad same drug is not able to cure two apparently different diseases : an untenable hypothesis which is contradicted by thousands of facts.
 – Upon the whole, I suppose that it is with the marsh-miasm as with psora ; as I said above, it is at the same time one and yet multiple.
 – But what would be of the highest interest to  in my estimation, would be to determine, by inquiries made in the different localities where marsh-intermittents are endemic, to what kind of marsh vegetation such and such a form of marsh-intermittent corresponds most generally if not specially.
 – As we said above, Boudin treats almost all limnhemic affections, without regard to symptoms, by arsenious acid ; and, in this respect, his practice is, in almost every case, perfectly conformable to the demands of homoeopathy.
 – This will be admitted by any one who has observed the various morbid manifestations of the marsh-miasm, and who, like Boudin, has studied Hahnemann’s pathogenesis of arsenious acid.
 – The physician-in-chief of the hospital of Marseilles is, therefore, knowingly a homoeopath, so far at least as the treatment of limnhemic affections with arsenic is concerned ; and all that seems left for settlement between him and us, seems the dose.
 – The following passage bears upon this point : “After commencing in my experiments, with one twenty-fourth part of a grain, I gradually became convinced, together with a number of other physicians who obtained results perfectly similar to my own, that arsenious acid, if suitably prepared, preserves even at the small dose of non-hundredth part of a grain, all its medicinal every, not only in the treatment of marsh-intermittents, but also in that of a number of other diseases.
 – With a single dose of one-hundredth part of a grain, all its medicinal energy, not only in the treatment of marsh-intermittents, but also in that of a number of other disease.
 – With a single dose of the one-hundredth part of a grain, I have often removed radically fevers that had been contracted in Algiers or on the Senegal, and which had resisted any kind of treatment, even the sulphate of quinine and a change of climate.” *
 – But this is not all
 – What vehicle would you think Boudin uses for the administration of his almost infinitesimal doses of arsenic ? distilled water, which is used for all mineral preparations, and which is particularly adapted to the white oxyde of arsenic, which is almost tasteless and dissolves in this liquid ?
 – Not at all ; like Hahnemann, Boudin prefers the sugar of milk to distilled water.
 – It is true he allows every dose to be dissolved in water, but he directs, like Hahnemann, that the arsenic and the sugar should be previously triturated for a time.
 – Here is his formula :
 – R Arsenious acid-one centigramme, (1/5 of a grain).
 – Add gradually, in small quantities :
 – Pulverized sugar of milk-one gramme, (20 grains).
 – Triturate in a glass mortar for a sufficient length of time (at least 10 minutes) to mix these substances well together, and divide the whole into 20 packages, each containing one-half a milligramme, or the 1/100 of a grin of arsenious acid.
 – “This preparation,” says the author, “is the one which I use most frequently ; a package is dosslved in a spoonful of water, and the solution taken five or six hours before the time when the paroxysm is expected to set in.
 – “This formula is likewise applicable in obstinate cutaneous affections, and in inveterate syphilis.” *
 – The following list shows that, in spite of the smallness of the doses, Boudin’s results, which he obtained in 1842, were at least as satisfactory as those which had been obtained formerly with much larger doses by Fowler,* Fodere, Lordat, etc. :
 – DISEASES which has not been Resisting the bark, Resisting the arsenic, Resisting both bark TOTAL previously treated with any and cured with arsenic and cured with bark and the arsenic other medicine Quotidian fevers, 102 19 4 3 128Tertian fevers, 53 11 3 0 67Quartan fevers, 2 4 1 2 9Quintan fevers, 1 2 0 0 3Irregular fevers, 18 13 2 2 35Fevers called masked 12 8 1 1 24Total of Results 118 57 13 8 266
 – Thus then, in 266 cases of intermittent fever, of various forms and types, the arsenious acid, administered only one the days of the paroxysms, and omitted during the apyrexia, (this was Boudin’s method,) failed only in twenty-one cases, although it was only given in doses of 1/100 of a grain.
 – In these twenty-one cases, however, quinine was not more fortunate than arsenic.
 – What is to be inferred from this fact ?
 – This truth, which homoeopathic physicians should well bear in mind, that there is no absolute specific, and that thee may even be cases of marsh intermittent which may resist both arsenic and quinine, and which the peculiar constitution, temperament, or idiosyncratic conditions of the patient may require to be treated with some other drug.
 – But if the arsenic is not always a specific for fevers which we know positively to have been induced by marshy effluvia, its specific character becomes still more doubtful in cases of unknown origin, existing at a distance from the focus of the marsh-epidemic, and having nothing in common with this latter disease than a small number of symptoms and the intermission of the paroxysms.
 – Every homoeopath knows that, in such a case, some fifteen or twenty drugs claim his attention as much as arsenic.
 – Can it be, perhaps, considerations of this kind which have induced Boudin to modify his original treatment of intermittent fevers, and not to prescribe the arsenic until the patient has been previously vomited with a dose of ipecac, or stibium, and to give five or six grains a day ?
 – According to the last edition of the traite de therapeutique, by Trousseau and Pidoux, Vol. I., p. 261, the present method of the physician in chief of the hospital du Roule, is as follows :-
 – First rule.
 – Commence the treatment with an emetic, (ipecacuanha one gramme ; stibium one decigram,) if the fever is accompanied with gastric symptoms, suppression or diminution of the appetite.
 – After the fever has been arrested, give another emetic, provided the appetite is not entirely restored ; in order to allow the patient to use as soon as possible a substantial and generous diet.
 – Second rule.
 – Give arsenious acid in fractional doses, that is to say, one dose divided into several, the last dose to be given at least two hours before the time when the paroxysm is expected to come on ; proportion the dose according to the character of the fever, which varies according to locality, season, and the individuality of the patient.
 – Give the arsenious acid according to tolerance, so as to gradually arrive at the largest possible dose, giving every quarter of an hour one milligramme, or only half a milligramme, (one gramme or half a gramme of the solution.)*
 – As the patient bears less of the arsenic, diminish the dose gradually, and continue the fractional mode of administration ; if necessary, give the drug partially or totally by the rectum.
 – Take the drug both on the days of the paroxysms and during the apyrexia.
 – Continue it during an interval proportionate to the duration of the disease, and to its resistance to other and previously instituted mode of treatment.
 – In a first attack of a disease, the drug should be continued at least for a week after the last paroxysm, ect.
 – Third rule.
 – Use a substantial and abundant diet, to be limited by the appetite and the digestive powers of the patient.
 – The diet to consist principally of beef, roast mutton ; a generous wine to be ordered, in quantities proportionate to the weakened state of the constitution of the patient ; watery beverages to be avoided as much as possible.
 – All this is very different, as is seen, from Boudin’s former practice.
 – I confess I am unable to say how far his present method is superior to his former mode of treatment.
 – Does every case of intermittent fever yield to grain doses of arsenic, even such cases as proved refractory to the 1/100 part of a grain ?
 – I can scarcely believe it ; or is it, according to Trousseau and Pidoux, because this mode of treatment does away with the necessity of using quinine ?
 – If this be so, is the complete abolition of the use of quinine a rational proceeding ?
 – Upon the whole, what seems to me to result most clearly from this new method of Boudin, is, first, that by means of certain accessory medicinal agents, and of certain hygienic combinations, we succeed in enabling patients to bear truly poisonous doses of arsenious acid ; secondly, that this tolerance, all other things being equal, is proportionate to the intensity of the disease ; this, however, is nothing new either to homoeopaths or to the partisans of counter-stimulation.
 – Who does not know that as many as twelve grains of the extract of opium have been given in delirium tremens, and as many as one hundred gains of stibium in pneumonia
 – Be this as it may, I will endeavour to account for this tolerance of the massive doses of arsenious acid in Boudin’s treatment.
 – As we said, in speaking of the analogies of mercury, to which the arsenious acid belongs, (see page 99,) this substance is essentially depressing in its general action upon the general organism.
 – Hence strong constitutions resist its action much better than constitutions that are naturally feeble and of a lower order of vitality, without however being sick ; for, in such a case, the conditions of the problem might be completely changed.
 – This is the reason why herbivorous animals, such as rabbits, chickens, etc., are readily killed by small doses of arsenic, and carnivorous animals bear, on the contrary, enormous quantities of the poison ; one ounce of arsenic, which rebalancing gave to a bear, had no other effect on the animal than to purge it ; and, in the East of France, our peasants know perfectly well that arsenic will not destroy wolves, and other dangerous or hurtful carnivorous beasts ; for, it was in vain that whole pounds of arsenic were stuffed into pieces of meat, and left on the snow, along the edges o the woods, or in the midst of the thickets inhabited by these animals.
 – But, it may be replied, these facts simply point to a general law that has been known for a long time past.
 – Who does not know that lions, tigers, and wolves, have a more tenacious life than horses, rabbits, and hens ?
 – It is not, therefore, to be wondered that these weaker animals are less capable than the former, of resisting the action of arsenic.
 – I answer ; if it be true that carnivorous animals resist destructive agents much better than herbivorous or granivorous animals ; thee are however, some poisons, as we said page 55, which are an exception to this rue, and act more powerfully on carnivorous than on herbivorous animals.
 – This is not an empty speculation ; the nux vomica will be sufficient, hereafter, to demonstrate the truth of my remark.
 – If now we consider that, in all animals, and also in man, who, as respects his physical organization, is at the same time a carnivorous and herbivorous animal, the destructive action of arsenious acid, is inversely proportionate to the degree of vitality possessed by each animal ; if we consider, moreover, that this vitality depends in a great measure upon the kind of diet pursued by each species and individual, we cannot fail to comprehend how Boudin’s patients find in the exclusively animal diet which he prescribes for them, a sort of immunity against the excessive doses of arsenious acid used in the treatment of their disease.
 – Besides, ipecacuanha and stibium, (especially the former, as is well known by all homoeopathic physicians,) neutralize in a measure the effects of arsenic ; hence it follows, that Boudin administers the poison with one hand, and with the other the antidote.
 – If his patients improve under this method, I have nothing to say against it, for the tree medicine is that which cures.
 – I confess, however, that, until I am further enlightened, I shall believe that Boudin was bearer the truth in 1842, than he now is.
 – If we will now take the trouble to reflect on what has been said, we shall obtain an explanation of a series of truths which the homoeopathic applications of arsenic confirm every day.
 – Thus :
 – 1. Arsenic being capable of producing in a healthy person, the general depression of the vitality, (cacohymia) which the constant and exclusive use of a vegetable diet, (especially when consisting of herbs and watery fruits) almost always, occasions, it follows, by virtue of the law of similitude, that arsenic, which is a most violent poison for individuals impoverished by a low diet, is, on the other hand, most admirably adapted to their constitutions and a majority of their maladies, if given in infinitesimal doses.*
 – 2. Arsenic is essentially, and in almost every person, adapted to acute diseases, (Indigestions, etc.) accidentally occasioned by the excessive use f herbaceous food, (melons, strawberries, fruits in general, but more particularly watery fruits.)
 – The diseases which arise from the abuse of vegetables, and those which are occasioned by arsenious acid, are in every respect, indentical in form.
 – 8. Lastly, arsenic seems to be, in the majority of cases, the specific remedy of sporadic or epidemic diseases, caused by vegetable emanations.
 – It is to be remarked, that, in the very acute diseases which belong to this category, the cholera, yellow fever, the febris perniciosa and the plague, the patient, whatever be his constitution, seems to sink in a few hours in the lowest state of cacochymia, such as our marsh-effluvia only produce slowly, after a long lapse of time, and then only incompletely.
 – However, these are very general, and very ague considerations concerning the therapeutic virtues of arsenious acid.
 – We have to study the pathogenesis of this drug, in order to obtain a knowledge of the manifold applications of which it is capable in the treatment of disease.*
 – Homoeopathic applications.
 – The dynamised arsenious acid has been found useful in the following affections :- Affections of persons excesses or a bad diet, of a lymphatico-nervous constitution, irritable, disposed to sadness, to mucous discharges, to dropsy and tetter ; endemic affections which prevail among the inhabitants of low and marshy districts ; cachexias occasioned by abuse of mercury, iodine, and especially quinine ; partial or general atrophy ; constitutional syphilis ; pale bloating and softening of the tissues ; glandular engorgements ; paroxysms of fever, neuralgia or general weakness returning at fixed hours of days ; paroxysms of anxiety at night, compelling one to rise from bed ; shuddering in the evening, with pandiculation and agitation ; aggravation of the pains during rest ; bone-pains ; aggravation of the pains, when lying on the affected parts ; pains which are felt during sleep ; hypochondriac mood ; compunctions of conscience, as if one had committed a bad deed ; periodical paroxysms of hysteria, epilepsy, and paralysis ; weakness of the memory and of the other intellectual faculties ; passing excitability, followed by weakness of the senses ; mental derangement, with tears and ominous wanderings and expressions ; furious delirium ; with desire to bite, as in hydrophobia ; earthy, blueish, cadaverous color of the skin ; burning itching, which is intolerable, and is not appeased by scratching ; sanguinolent pemphigus ; malignant variola ; eruption consisting of red, pimples, which break and form spreading ulcers ; chronic impetigo and eczema ; elephantiasis of the Greeks ; ulcers with raised ad callous borders, surrounded with a red and shining areola, lardaceous or blackish bottom, and a burning pain which is eased by warmth and aggravated by cold ; ichorous and fetid suppuration of the ulcers ; suppression of all suppuration, with aggravation of the pain ; stupefying, pressive, pulsative headache ; vertigo even to falling, especially in the evening, when sitting or rather, on rising after having been sitting for a time ; excessively painful hemicrania, in paroxysms, with viscid sweat and icy coldness of the hairy scalp, and a violent itching after every paroxysm ; ulcerations at the hairy scalp ; falling out of the hair and beard ; swelling of the head, face and neck, sometimes enormous ; inflammation of the eyes, with photophobia ; wrenching pain in the bottom of the orbits, which is sometimes frightful ; protrusion of the balls of the eyes, and profuse discharge, even in complete darkness, of corrosive tears ; icy coldness at the eyes during the paroxysms of pains ; contraction of the pupils ; muscae volitantes ; congestion and hypertrophy of the vessels of the cornea, whence arises the phenomenon of a blackish or whitish gauze, which intercepts the visual ray ; amaurosis ; oedematous swelling ; excessive dryness or continual trembling of the eyelids ; noise in the ears ; otalgia, weakness of hearing ; hippocratic face ; pullings and stitches in the face here and there ; dull pain in the nasal bones ; red tetters on the forehead and cheeks ; acne rosacea ; chapping and swelling of the lips ;bleeding of the gums ; dry mouth, or else filled with a viscous, bitter, sometimes bloody saliva ; wrenching toothache, worse in the cold ; looseness and falling out of the teeth ; foul smell from the mouth ; taste as of foul flesh in the month and throat ; aphthae in the mouth ; tongue coated, cracked, ulcerated, brownish, blackish, tremulous ; scratching in the throat between the acts of swallowing ; sort of paralysis of the pharynx and oesophagus, which renders deglutition almost impossible ; gangrenous angina ; aversion to cooked food ; desire for milk, fruits and coffee ; habitual difficulty of digesting vegetables and milk, which cause acidity and flatulence ; burning thirst, or rather, constant desire to nourishing the mouth and throat with a cold liquid ; periodical paroxysms of bulimy ; hiccough and sour or putrid eructations after every meal ; nausea with flow of water from the mouth, after every meal ; indigestion caused by fruits or milk ; violent vomiting of brownish substances ; excessively acute gastritis ; yellow fever ; sporadic and Asiatic cholera ; chronic disposition to nausea and vomiting ; subacute gastritis occasioned by a metallic body in the stomach ; heaviness at the stomach ; burning pain in the stomach, and epigastrium, pyrosis ; distension and excessive sensitiveness of the epigastric region, with anxiety and a feeling of embarrassment in the praecordia, as if the heart would be crushed ; tetters at the epigastrium ; induration of the liver ; heat in the bowels ; excessive bellyache, especially on the left side ; flatulence having a putrid smell ; pain in the abdomen, as from a sore or burn ; cold and viscous sweat on the abdomen ; ulcer at the umbilicus ascites ; smarting stools, with violent colic ; green diarrhoeic stools lienteria ; dysentery ; constipation ; painful prolapsus of the rectum ; ascarides ; burning piles ; swelling of the groins ; paralysis of the bladder ; difficulty of urinating ; strangury ; swelling of the genital organs;  gangrene of chimney-sweep ; momentary excitement of the sexual desire, followed by impotence ; lascivious excitement in women ; premature, pale, profuse menses, which last too long ; dysmenorrhoea ; amenorrhoea, with acrid discharge from the vagina.
 – Stoppage of the nostrils ; violent coryza ; dryness and burning at the larynx ; blood-spitting ; paroxysms of suffocation, in the evening after lying down ; oppression on the chest when going up hill ; whooping-cough ; angina pectoris ; stitches in the sternum ; pressure at the sternum ; pulling and tearing pains from the elbow to the axilla, at night ; tearings and pullings in the hip, thigh and groin ; cramps in the thigh ; sciatica ; tearing in the tibia ; contusive pain in the knee-joint ; itching tetters at the bend of the knee, old ulcers on the legs causing heat and stitches ; weariness in the legs ; varices ; spreading ulcers on the soles of the feet, and at the big toes ; smarting pain at the toes when walking.
 – The symptoms caused by arsenic seem to assume a nervous form the higher the attenuations with which the provings were instituted.
 – Thence it follows that the lower attenuations of arsenic are more particularly adapted to organic affections, and especially to the very acute affections of the bowels.
 – We know indeed from experience that the 12th dilution of arsenic was much more efficacious in cholera than the 30th ; having had an attack of the cholera in 1849, I have very accurately observed the differences on my own person.
 – Ipecac., veratr. alb., China, Nux vom., and especially Camph., are, according as such or such symptoms predominate, the best antidotes to arsenic.

-VERMEULEN Frans,
Ars.

Arsenicum album

A perfectionist is a man who takes infinite pains and gives them to others.
[Alan Benner]
Dust thou art, to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul.
[H.W. Longfellow]
Signs
Arsenic Trioxide. Arsenous acid. Arsenous oxide. White arsenic.
CLASSIFICATION Metallic arsenic belongs to the nitrogen family [group 15 of the periodic table] and is classified as a metalloid. Arsenic has three allotropes – yellow, black, and grey. The grey metallic form is the stable and most common ore. Arsenic compounds were described and used in antiquity, especially as poisons. Albertus Magnus is credited with isolation of arsenic from the mineral orpiment in 1250 AD The first precise directions for the preparation of arsenic can be found in Paracelsus’ writings.
OCCURRENCE Arsenic probably occurs throughout the universe; meteorites are reported to contain from 0.0005 to 0.1% arsenic. Its occurrence in the earth’s crust is 1.8 parts per million, placing arsenic as the 52nd out of 103 elements. Native arsenic is rare; native antimony is nearly indistinguishable from it. Arsenic in its elemental state is found in silver ore veins. Over 150 minerals contain arsenic but the main sources are sulphides and sulphosalts such as arsenopyrite [iron arsenide sulphide], orpiment [arsenic sulphide], realgar [arsenic sulphide], lollingite [iron arsenide], stibarsen [antimony arsenic], and tennantite [copper arsenic sulphide]. Its main natural occurrences include Europe [Vosges, France; Kongsberg, Norway; Saxony and Harz Mountains, Germany; England; Italy] and the USA [Santa Cruz Co., Arizona, New Jersey].
PROPERTIES When heated to burn in air, it will burn with a bluish flame and give off an odour of garlic and dense white fumes of arsenic trioxide. It is stable in dry air, but tarnishes on exposure to humid air, forming a black modification.
USES Metallic arsenic is used in metallurgy for hardening copper [improving its corrosion resistance and thermal properties], lead [improving the roundness of lead shot], non-ferrous alloys; in automotive body solder; in semiconductor materials; in the manufacture of low-melting glass [serving as a decolourizer]; as growth stimulant for plants and animals [livestock and poultry]; as wood preservative, herbicide, and pesticide. 1
NAME The name is derived from Gr arsenikon [from Arab az-zernikh, orpiment], yellow orpiment. The alchemists associated it with Gr arsèn, male, assuming that arsenic was of a sulphuric nature and thus male, sulphur being considered the king of metals.

Gangrene Arsenicum case.

TRIOXIDE Arsenic trioxide, consisting of 75.74% arsenic and 24.26% oxygen as white or transparent, glassy, amorphous lumps or crystalline powder, sublimes unchanged when slowly heated. When rapidly heated the crystals sublime without fusion, while the amorphous form first fuses and then sublimes. It sparingly and extremely slowly dissolves in cold water, but dissolves readily in boiling water as well as in diluted hydrochloric acid, in alkali hydroxide or carbonate solutions. The substance is incompatible with tannic acid, iron in solution, and infusion cinchona and other vegetable astringent infusions and decoctions.
HISTORY “A hundred years ago the total world production of arsenic trioxide was about 10,000 tons. At that time, arsenic compounds were used in the manufacture of lead shot and glass, as well as in medicine. Copper hydrogen arsenite, generally known as Scheele’s green, was widely used as a pigment in wallpaper and textile printing and even in confectionery. By the early part of the 20th century, arsenic compounds were being used in wood preservatives, sheep dips, fly papers and a variety of agricultural pesticides. Today the total consumption of arsenic is about 50,000 tons; a further quantity of at least 10,000 tons is added to the environment each year through the burning of coal.”2
USES Arsenic trioxide is the primary material for all arsenic compounds. Used in the manufacture of glass, Paris green [insecticide containing arsenic and copper], enamels, weed killers, metallic arsenic; for preserving hides; killing rodents and insects; in sheep dips; textile mordant. Formerly used as parasiticide, also for parasitic skin and blood diseases; in rheumatism, asthma and heaves, and as an alterative. Arsenic compounds are also used in certain paints, wallpaper, and ceramics.
DUST Arsenic is shapeless and exists merely as a kind of dust, being found in traces in ores of other elements. Expressing a state of utmost dryness, it seems not to be able to build crystalline structures of its own. It is in a permanent state of disintegration and dust-like dissolution. 3 To conceal their declining beauty, to renew their faded charms, or to obtain “a fresh complexion, a round form, smooth skin, and shining hairs, many ladies, including actresses and courtesans” made use of arsenic intentionally and consciously. 4
PHYSIOLOGY “From arsenic-containing soils arsenic passes into plants and for this reason it is not surprising that the animal body, likewise the human, contains light traces. Gautier in particular has found it regularly in the thyroid, moreover in the thymus, the brain and in traces in the skin and hair and he ascribed a physiologic role to it. It is said to leave in men through the hair and in women with the menstrual blood and milk. It remains longest in the hair. … The hair of men who live in the English manufacturing cities regularly contains arsenic in traces while the hair of people in regions where peat is burned is always free from arsenic. … Even if arsenic is not a physiologically necessary constituent of the body, still frequently traces are found in the normal and it is remarkable that the thyroid seems to be the depot while the skin and accessory structures are excretory sites with definite affinity. … The sensitization for arsenic through hyperthyroidism, which we also found in phosphorus, has been experimentally confirmed.”5 According to recent research, however, most dietary arsenic ends up in the liver and muscle. Arsenic has a predilection for the skin and is excreted by desquamation of skin and in sweat, particularly during periods of profuse sweating. It also concentrates in nails and hair.
EFFECTS High or repeated exposure to arsenic or arsenic compounds can result in nerve damage, with ‘pins and needles sensation’, numbness and weakness of arms and legs, oedema of the face and eyelids, generalized itching, as well as poor appetite, nausea, stomach cramps, nose ulcers, hoarseness, damage to the liver, blood vessels or red blood cells. “Peripheral vascular disease has been observed in persons with chronic exposure to arsenic in drinking water in Taiwan and Chile; it is manifested by acrocyanosis and Raynaud’s phenomenon and may progress to endarteritis obliterans and gangrene of the lower extremities [blackfoot disease]. This specific effect seems to be related to the cumulative dose of arsenic, but the prevalence is uncertain because of difficulties in separating arsenic-induced peripheral vascular disease from other causes of gangrene. Recently, Engel and Smith [1994] found an increase in mortality from vascular disease for U.S. counties where arsenic in drinking water exceeded 20mg/dl but the authors recognize that the relationship may be spurious.”6 Overexposure has been associated with an increased risk of skin, liver, bladder, kidney and lung cancer. Skin contact can cause burning, itching, thickening, rashes, and darkening or loss of pigment in patchy areas. Some persons develop white lines on the nails. Organic forms [arsenic combined with carbon and hydrogen] are less harmful than inorganic forms. The most reliable test for low level arsenic exposure is measuring arsenic in the urine, which must be done soon after exposure since arsenic stays in the body only a short time. The test for high levels of arsenic exposure [over longer periods], is measuring arsenic in hair or fingernails. Arsenic in nails produces transverse white bands across fingernail [Mee’s lines], which appear about 6 weeks after the onset of symptoms of toxicity.
SYMPTOMS Acute arsenic poisoning is characterised by the following symptoms, which occur in about fifteen minutes to an hour: “[1] Burning pain in oesophagus and stomach. [2] Profuse nausea and vomiting of bile stained serum containing small flakes of mucous membrane. [3] Severe abdominal cramps. [4] Profuse diarrhoea, with watery, bloody stools containing small flakes of mucous membrane [rice water stools]. [5] Excessive thirst [due to loss of fluids]. [6] Scanty, bloody urine. [7] Collapse: cold, moist skin, slow and shallow breathing, rapid, thready pulse, etc. [8] Coma and convulsions may occur before death, which results in from six hours to two days. In some cases there may not be much nausea, vomiting or diarrhoea. The patient suddenly goes into collapse, has a few convulsions and dies. If the patient recovers from the acute symptoms, paralysis of the muscles of the extremities may result, causing ‘drop feet’ or ‘drop hands’, from which he usually recovers, however. … Since arsenic is excreted much slower than it is absorbed, cumulative symptoms, or chronic arsenic poisoning is very common. It usually occurs from the continued medicinal use of arsenic preparations. It may also result from inhaling fumes of arsenic, in rooms papered with wall paper containing arsenic dyes, from wearing clothes dyed with arsenic, or by eating food coloured with arsenic dyes. The following symptoms, in the order of their onset, are noticed after prolonged administration. Often the later symptoms appear before the earlier ones. [1] Itching of the eyelids. [2] Redness of the conjunctiva of the eyes. [3] Puffiness about the eyes, esp. in the morning. [4] Sneezing, ‘running nose’ [coryza]. [5] Tightness in the throat. [6] Hoarseness. [7] Loss of appetite, heaviness in the stomach, nausea and vomiting. [8] Skin eruptions; red spots, areas of brownish discolouration [very often they look like freckles] on the face or the abdomen. Dark discolouration on the skin of the abdomen, which look like pencil marks. In severe cases, the hair and nails may fall off. [9] Cramplike abdominal pains. [10] Diarrhoea, with ‘rice water’ stools; the rice water appearance of the stools is due to small flakes of the lining membrane of the intestine which they contain. The following symptoms appear later and only in severe cases: [11] Persistent headache. [12] Pains around the knee, ankle, foot and hands. [13] Redness and swelling of the hands and feet. [14] Areas of skin, esp. on the extremities, which are very sensitive to touch, to pain, to heat and cold. [15] In severe cases there are paralyses of the extensor muscles of the hands and feet, resulting in ‘drop feet’ and ‘drop hands’.”7
TOXICOLOGY Arsenic enters the environment from its use as a pesticide and as a wood preservative, and from emissions from smelting industries. It has a high chronic toxicity to aquatic life, and moderate chronic toxicity to birds and land animals. Drinking water usually contains a few micrograms of arsenic per litre or less. Although most major U.S. drinking water supplies contain levels lowers than 5 mcg per litre, it has been estimated that 350,000 Americans might drink water containing more than 10 times that amount. Some mineral springs or well waters, e.g. in Japan, Argentina, Italy, Taiwan, and Chile, contain even higher concentrations. “There is a cloud of gloom overpowering the otherwise sleepy town of Samta in Jessore, a northern district of Bangladesh. Almost every home you visit there has a child or adult suffering from a mysterious disease. Many have died and the villagers have lost count of the casualties, most of them small children. The symptoms are frightening: watery eyes, chronic indigestion, colds and stomach cramps in the early stages and swollen limbs with bleeding gangrene-like wounds in severe cases. This silent killer is arsenic which has contaminated the drinking water of many villages in northern Bangladesh. … According to the World Health Organization, [WHO], the maximum allowable arsenic content in water is .01 mg in every 1000CC of water. In the arsenic hit areas this is as high as 2.7 mg for every 1000CC of water.”8 The first cases of arsenic poisoning on the Indian subcontinent caused by contaminated groundwater occurred in the neighbouring state of West Bengal in India, which borders Bangladesh. By the mid-1990s, Indian doctors had detected 220,000 cases of chronic arsenic poisoniarsenic poisoning and had dubbed it the ‘biggest arsenic calamity in the world’ [BMJ 1996; 313:9]. Typical symptoms of arsenic poisoning include keratosis, melanosis, depigmentation, oedema and nephropathy. In Bangladesh, there have been cases of squamous cell carcinoma that seem to have been attributable to arsenic ingestion and that have occurred within 10 years of exposure.
POISONERS During the Middle Ages, professional poisoners sold their services to royalty and the common populace. During the French and Italian Renaissance, political assassination by poisoning was raised to an art by Pope Alexander VI and Cesare Borgia. “In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries those ‘Olympic’ poisoners, the Borgia family, made full use of arsenic in their cantarella, aqua di Napoli and other subtle poisons that could kill quickly or by slow degrees, as seemed most expedient. There was no Marsh Test to detect the presence of arsenic, and the victims appeared, as far as symptoms went, to have died of natural causes. Such was at any rate claimed to be the case. A famous vendor of poisons in the seventeenth century was La Tofania, who distributed her ‘Aqua Tofa’na’ to ‘distressed, adulterous, neglected or jealous wives over wellnigh all Europe. Apparently her poison was merely crystallized arsenic compounded, for no apparent reason, with the herb cymbalaria.’ She was executed at the age of 70. ‘After La Tofania’s death fewer husbands died suddenly in Italy.’ So common was death by poisoning in the glamorous era of Louis XIV, Le Roi Soleil, that the period was known as the Age of Arsenic.”9 Dubbed ‘inheritance drug’ or ‘succession powder’ Arsenic was also the preferred poison of legacy-hunters.
DECAY The ancients had the idea that the bodies of those who have been poisoned decay rapidly. “Even so lately as 1776 we find Gmelin stating in his History of Mineral Poisons, that the bodies of those who have died of arsenic pass rapidly into putrefaction, that the nails and hair often fall off the day after death, and that almost the whole body quickly liquefies into a pulp. … Loebel also asserts he found by experiments on animals, that after death from arsenic putrefaction took place rapidly, even in very cold weather. … But it has been proved in recent times that in general arsenic has rather the contrary tendency, – that, besides the antiseptic virtues which it has been long known to exert when directly applied in moderate quantity to animal substances, it also possesses the singular property of enabling the bodies of men and animals poisoned with it both to resist decay unusually long, and to decay in an unusual manner. … In every instance putrefaction made more or less progress at first; but in a few days a peculiar garlicky odour arose, from which time the progress of decay seemed to be arrested; and the bodies underwent a process of hardening and desiccation which completely preserved them. … Arsenic is a good preservative of animal textures when it is directly applied to them in sufficient quantity. This is well known to stuffers of birds and beasts. It is now likewise known to be an excellent substances for preserving bodies, when injected in the form of solution into the blood vessels. Hence, in a case of poisoning the arsenic be not discharged by vomiting, and the patient die soon, it will act as an antiseptic on the stomach at least, perhaps on the intestines also; while the rest of the body may decay in the usual manner. … The reasons assigned will not account for all the apparent cases of the preservative powers of arsenic. And especially they will not explain how the whole body has sometimes resisted decay altogether, and become as it were mummified. It is impossible to ascribe this preservation to the antiseptic power of the arsenic diffused throughout the body in the blood; the quantity there being extremely small. Consequently if the preservation of the bodies is not occasioned by some accidental collateral cause, this property of arsenic must depend on its causing, by some operation on the living body, a different disposition and affinity among the ultimate elements of organized matter, and so alternating the operation of physical laws on it. … An important consequence of the preservative tendency of arsenic is, that in many instances the body of this kind of poisoning may be found long after death in so perfect a state as to admit of an accurate medico-legal inspection and a successful chemical analysis.”10
ENDURANCE “The term poison is a relative one. The degree of toxicity will depend on several factors – the size of the dose, the form in which it is administered, the portal of entry into the body, and of special significance, the susceptibility or otherwise of the dosee. In his book on poisons, Schenk attests – ‘I have seen and spoken to many arsenic eaters in Styria, Lower Austria and Carinthia. Woodcutters, hunters and mountain guides in these districts believe that arsenic makes the breathing easier and the step more certain. I myself saw a porter in Deutsch-Landsberg at the foot of the Kor Alp consume a lump of arsenic the size of a pea. I estimated it at almost half a gram – four times the fatal dose.”11 As a tonic, arsenic, in small doses, was popular with Victorian businessmen. Charles Dickens also resorted to it. The habit of eating arsenic was not restricted to Europe. It seems to have been quite common in 19th-century Canada and America, where “it is largely consumed by the young ladies. … One of the benefits said to accrue from its use is that it gives a plumpness to the figure, softness to the skin, freshness to the complexion, and brilliancy to the eye. For this purpose, young men and maidens resort to it, to increase their charms, and render themselves acceptable and fascinating to each other.”12 The Far East knew the habit as well: Mongolian hunters consumed arsenic to enable them to endure cold when patiently lying on the snow to entrap martins. In China, divers took it before plunging in cold water to catch fish.
SOURCES Fish and shellfish build up organic arsenic in their tissues; hence these, particularly shellfish, are the richest food source of arsenic. Some meats, esp. poultry and pigs, contain organic arsenic because they have been given traces of arsenic in their feeds to improve growth and to control disease. “Arsenic compounds were originally used to treat coccidiosis, a wasting disease in chickens; the growth-promoting effects was discovered accidentally. A bottle of wine may contain as much as 50 mcg of arsenic, from pesticides used in vineyards. Seaweed [or kelp] tablets, sold in health food shops, contain significant amounts of arsenic. A person who eats fish every day may take in as much as 250 mcg of arsenic per day – but even this amount is unlikely to be dangerous.”13 Plants with the highest amounts include Isatis tinctoria [dyer’s woad], Fucus vesiculosus [kelp], Rhodymenia palmata [dulse], Chondrus crispus [Irish moss], Citrus paradisi [grapefruit], Citrus medica [citron], Cetraria islandica [Iceland moss], and Vicia faba [broadbean].
MEDICINE The first successful antisyphilitic agent was an arsenic compound, ‘Salvarsan’. Produced in 1909 by the German chemist Ehrlich, the drug was part of Ehrlich’s search for the ‘magic bullet’, a drug that would destroy bacteria circulating in the blood without killing or seriously damaging the patient. Ehrlich believed that organic compounds of arsenic would provide such a drug and invented them by the hundred. Number 606 was not successful against the infection for which it was intended, but turned out to be very effective in the treatment of syphilis. Number 606, afterwards named salvarsan, was much used for many years to combat syphilis, until superseded by penicillin. Salvarsan was the first man-made chemical to be effective against a major disease; its appearance marked the beginning of modern chemotherapy. 14 At the end of the 1990s the uses of arsenic as a medicine again came into fashion. “Two years ago, Chinese researchers reported that low doses of arsenic trioxide induced remission in patients with acute promyelocytic leukaemia [APL], prompting physicians in the West to undertake their own pilot study. … In the pilot study, 12 patients who had relapsed from conventional therapy were treated with low doses of arsenic trioxide. Eleven of the 12 patients achieved remission anywhere from 12 to 39 days after treatment started, experiencing only mild side effects. The single patient who failed to reach remission died from a complication related to the disease five days after arsenic treatment began and could not be evaluated in the study. Once remission was achieved, each patient received a brief treatment break, which was followed with repeated courses of arsenic trioxide therapy every three to six weeks thereafter. After two cycles of therapy, the investigators conducted additional tests to determine whether any molecular evidence of leukaemia remained. Three patients tested positive for molecular evidence of the disease and later relapsed with APL, while eight patients tested negative for molecular evidence of APL and remained in remissions that lasted as long as 10 months. To date, several patients have received up to six courses of arsenic treatment without experiencing cumulative side effects.”15
PROVINGS •• [1] Hahnemann – 8 provers; method: unknown.
•• [2] Imbert-Gourbeyre – 11 provers [10 males, 1 female], 1863; method: 4th trit., 1-3 times daily for 5-15 days; 8th trit., 3 daily doses for 4 days; 13th trit., 3 daily doses for 9 days.
[1] Merck Index. [2] Lenihan, The Crumbs of Creation. [3] Hauschka, Substanzlehre. [4] Lewin, Phantastica. [5] Leeser, Textbook of Hom. MM, Inorganic Medicinal Substances. [6] Klaassen, Casarett and Doull’s Toxicology. [7] Blumgarten, Materia Medica for Nurses. [8] People and the Planet Vol. 6/3, 1997. [9] Gibson, Studies of Homoeopathic Remedies. [10] Christison, A Treatise on Poisons. [11] Gibson, ibid. [12] Cooke, The Seven Sisters of Sleep. [13-14] Lenihan, ibid. [15] Arsenic Shown To Induce Remission Of Promyelocytic Leukaemia, New England Journal of Medicine Nov. 1998.
Affinity
MUCOUS MEMBRANES. MIND. RESPIRATION. Lungs; right, apex. Blood. Heart. Nerves. SPLEEN. Lymphatics. Muscles. SKIN. Serous cavities. Organs.
* RIGHT SIDE. Left side.
Modalities
Worse: COLD [ICE CREAM; COLD DRINKS; COLD FOOD; cold air]. EXERTION. PERIODICALLY [after MIDNIGHT; AFTER 2 a.m.; 14 days; yearly]. DRINKING. VEGETABLES. Infections. Bad meat. Eruptions [undeveloped; suppressed]. Quinine. Lying on part. Tobacco.
Better: WARMTH [WARM, dry APPLICATIONS; WARM FOOD; warm drinks; warm wraps]. Motion. Walking about. ELEVATING HEAD. Sitting erect. Company. Cold applications and cold air [only > headache].
Main symptoms
Two THEMES:
PRESERVATION
• Forever young [use of arsenic by women]; forever strong [arsenic eaters].
• Preservative for hides; fixative for textile dyestuff; wood preservative.
• Improves corrosion resistance of copper.
• Bodies of persons poisoned with arsenic mummify.
• Arsenicum subjects want things to last – health, property and possessions, strength, relationships, etc.
• “Arsenicum enjoys making a practical contribution to the community, and is often active in opposing new developments which threaten the harmony and environmental integrity of the neighbourhood.” [Bailey]
DISINTEGRATION, DECLINE, DECAY, DEATH
• Dust [arsenic is a dust-like substance; dust to dust, ashes to ashes; allergy to dust; feeling of dust in air passages; cleaning mania].
• Weed killer; parasiticide; insecticide; rodent killer.
• Arsenicum subjects are preoccupied with death.
• Destructive, malignant processes.
• Discharges smell of decay.
• Sensitiveness to food that isn’t entirely fresh [mouldy cheese; spoiled food; bad meat; rancid fat; spoiled fish].
M Insecurity. Afraid to be alone, constant desire for company.
M Many FEARS: disease, cancer, robbers, poverty, death, being alone.
PREOCCUPIED with DEATH.
• “In general, these individuals dress in black and their symptoms are worse at midnight [the midpoint of the night, the darkest of the dark] or at midday, the midpoint of the day, when the sun’s light begins to decrease. … The colour black symbolizes the lack of hope in the face of death [it is not a colour, but the absence of colour, neither reflecting nor transmitting light], and the ill person improves greatly once he understands that the death of the body means only that ‘the soul must go on!'” [Grandgeorge]
Or: “Heavenly into white as a colour.”1
• “Apt to be full of apprehension and dread, gets all worked up if anything goes wrong or simply over fear that something will go wrong; esp. liable to panic at night.” [Gibson]
Looks on the dark side of things. Believes that everything is tending to the worst.
• “Not only fear for themselves but for everyone connected with them. If relations late, sure they’re run over – certain everything going wrong – if anyone coming to stay, dinner will never turn out properly. … Distressing thoughts which distress him – fearful, depressing. At first can put off these thoughts by talking to someone, so always desires company, but later fear and depression may be constant.”2
M FASTIDIOUS; censorious. Fussy.
IMMACULATE OUTER APPEARANCE.
OBSESSED with ORDER AND TIDINESS.
• “Arsenicum is most liable to become irritated by untidiness, inefficiency and waste. All of these refer to the material plane of existence, which is usually Arsenicum’s principal focus.” [Bailey]
Attention to detail.
Gets security from order.
• “Irritated beyond measure by slackness or idleness on the part of others.” [Gibson]
• “The nickname for Arsenicum is the ‘gold-headed cane’ patient. Though so weak that he is almost dying, he will remember to want his flowered dressing gown, and will really suffer if the pictures are crooked on the wall.” [Wright Hubbard]
M MISERLY [avarice, can be generous, but expects something in return].
CAREFUL [afraid to take any risks].
Collects all kinds of material objects [valuable and old, antiques], likes comfort and money [security].
Possessive. Economical. SELFISH.
• “Generally they will favour practical security over emotional satisfaction when an opportunity for the latter may endanger the former.” [Bailey]
M TREMENDOUS RESTLESSNESS.
• “There is a general air of tension, unease and restlessness – the restlessness of the hard-pressed executive rather than the fidgetiness of the dilettante, suggesting Phosphorus. The Arsenicum patient makes quick movements, walks across the floor rapidly and takes a quick look round the room; on sitting down seems fidgety, does not wait calmly to be questioned but starts straight in to relate his tale of symptoms.” [Gibson]
M ANGUISH [fear of death], < alone. • “Doesn’t wish to be spoken to, but neither that one should leave the room.” [Charette] • “When alone thinks about disease and similar things, from which it is difficult to free his mind.” [Allen] M Anxiety when something is expected of him. ANXIETY ABOUT HEALTH [clinging to a doctor, claiming reassurance [Nit-ac.], exaggerating symptoms to assure attention]. Fixation on illnesses. • “Comes in definitely on spot – Tells story punctuated with extreme worry and anxiety. Thinks they have got something definite and serious or they may be hopeless and rather despairing. Thinks it’s rather hopeless telling you about it. Impossible for you to do them any good.”3 DEPENDENCE ON OTHER PEOPLE. Needs lots of reassurance. • “The security-consciousness of Arsenicum women often results in a reluctance to move far away from the parental home. Like Natrum women, they find the proximity of their parents reassuring, and also are liable to feel guilty if they cannot be there for them in times of need. Arsenicum men also tend to be very diligent in caring for elderly parents, and they are liable to expect their own offspring to do likewise.” [Bailey] G Ailments and [sudden] prostration, fear and restlessness. G SUDDEN weakness. Weakness from slight exertion. Prostration out of proportion to the problem. G External coldness and internal burning. G Poor appetite and if depressed gastric upset. • “Definite desire for sour things, coffee and very often for milk. Also particularly sensitive to anything that isn’t quite fresh. Something that most people can take will upset Ars. May be upset by watery or juicy fruit – melons, pears. Causes diarrhoea – not good on vegetarian diet. Digestive upset from vegetables and iced food in hot weather. Any alcohol <.”4 G Burning, UNQUENCHABLE THIRST. Desire for cold water, but stomach < cold water. Drinks often and little at a time [small sips to moisten lips and mouth]. G < PHYSICAL exertion. < Walking fast. G < NIGHT [after midnight; 1 – 3 a.m.]. G > HEAT, except headache [> cold air].
G BURNING PAINS [like fire, sparks, hot needles or wires].
> WARMTH or warm applications.
G ACRID, thin discharges [small quantities].
G PUTRID cadaveric odours [of discharges].
G Destructive, malignant processes.
Gangrenous diseases [or tendency to ulceration], burning like fire, but > warmth.
P Acute gastroenteritis, and simultaneous vomiting and diarrhoea.
And Burning thirst, burning pains and prostration.
Vomiting and diarrhoea, and fear and restlessness, after eating ice cream.
P Asthma.
< After midnight; odours. And Frothy expectoration, like whipped white of egg. And Fear and restlessness. And Burning pain in lungs. Associated with suppressed eruptions. P Urticaria after eating [shell]fish. [1] Wallace, Remedy Notes. [2-5] Blackie, BHJ, April 1961. Rubrics Mind Anguish, as if everything became constricted [2/1], driving from place to place [3], with palpitation [3]. Anxiety after midnight, 3 a.m. [3], driving out of bed [3], as if he had not done his duty [1], when anything is expected of him [2/1]. Desires to be carried fast [3]. Confusion on waking at night from an anxious dream [1*]. Delusions, body will putrefy [2; Bell.], contaminates everything she touches [1/1], everyone is looking at her [3], has offended people [3], his family will starve [1], she is being watched [3]. Desires more than she needs [2]. Fear of being alone lest he die [3], of death when alone [3], of being disabled [3]. Irresolution about trifles [1]. Joy at the misfortune of others [1/1]. Laughing, never [3]. Cannot rest when things are not in proper place [2]. Restlessness, wants to go from one bed to another [3]. Revealing secrets in sleep [2]. Vertigo When walking across an open place [1/1]. Head Itching of scalp when becoming cold [1; Sulph.]. Eye Unable to open eyes at night [1]. Photophobia from snow [3]. Vision Colours, blue sparks [1/1], white points [1]. Objects seem to be moving up and down [1]. Sparks, during headache [1], during vertigo [1]. Ear Noises, fluttering sounds when swallowing [1/1]. Nose Epistaxis from anger [2/1], from wine [1/1]. Face Coldness of face during headache [1]. Perspiration during palpitation [1/1]. MOUTH: Dryness, cannot moisten food [1; Merl.]. Stomach Anxiety rising high up at night [3/1]. Coldness after cold drinks [2], after fruit [2]. Flushes of heat extending over body [1]. Sensation of a lump after cold drinks [2]. Rectum Diarrhoea after anxiety [2], after ice cream [3], at seashore [2]. Kidneys Pain < sneezing [1]; stitching on deep inspiration [2]. Female Pain in ovaries > moving feet [2/1].
Larynx
Sensation of smoke in larynx before sleep [2/1].
Respiration
Asthmatic, after midnight, 2 a.m. [3]. Difficult, from dust [3].
Chest
Angina pectoris < drinking water [1/1], > standing [1/1].
Sleep
Sleepiness from mental exertion [3].
Dreams
Darkness [1]. Physical exertion [3]. Storms [2]. Threats [1].
Skin
Sensation as if skin would burst when moving about [1/1]. Coldness during pain [1/1].
* Repertory addition.
Food
Aversion: [2]: Cold drinks; fats and rich foods; food, smell of; meat; sausages; sweets. [1]: Alcohol; beans and peas; butter; cereals; cooked food; farinaceous; flour; fruit; gruel; meat, boiled; meat, smell of; milk; olive oil; pastry; pudding; soup; watery fruit.
Desire: [3]: Cold drinks; olives, olive oil; warm drinks, during chill; warm food. [2] Brandy; bread; bread, rye; coffee; meat; milk; refreshing; sour fruit; sweets; whiskey; wine. [1]: Bacon; beer; fat food; fat + sweet; fruit; hot food; ice; lard; lemons; mustard; pickles; pungent; sausages; sour; vegetables; vinegar.
Worse: [3]: Cold food; fruit; meat, bad; sausages, spoiled; wine. [2]: Brandy; butter; cheese, old; cold drinks; fat; food, smell of; frozen food; ice cream; milk; sour; vinegar; watery fruit. [1]: Beans and peas; beer; cabbage; cheese, mouldy; coffee; fish; fish, spoiled; flatulent food; high game; honey; hot food; meat, fresh; meat, odour of cooking; pastry; pepper; pickles; pork; pungent; rancid fat; raw food; salads; salt; sauerkraut; sweets; tea; veal; vegetables; water.
Better: [3]: Hot food; warm drinks. [2]: Coffee; brandy; cold drinks, during heat; milk; vinegar. [1]: Water; wine.

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-SANKARAN R.,
The mineral Arsenic lies between Phosphorus and Bismuth in the Periodic Table. I found that in this group, which also includes Antimony, there is a feeling of insecurity, of loneliness, of being isolated, and of not belonging. Phosphorus tries to make up for this feeling by excessive friendliness and sympathy. In Arsenicum, it manifests as fear and insecurity.

The Arsenicum patient sees the world as threatening, chaotic. He feels that he is old, weak and defenseless, and that there are thieves all around him, ready to take advantage of his weakness. He needs people and is dependent on them because of his weakness, yet feels that they cannot be trusted, that they are interested only in his money. However he cannot do without them, and hence is very careful that he should not offend them, lest they leave him and go away. He is mistrustful and suspicious, cautious and anxious in all matters: money, relationships, even health.
The Arsenicum person has a hypochondriacal anxiety; he fears that he will lose his health unless he exercises regularly and will avoid many things which he feels are harmful. He will not eat out in restaurants, etc., and will impose many restrictions on himself in diet and other matters. His life is full of anxiety. He is extremely fearful that he will lose what he has, unless he is extremely cautious. This makes him both restless and conscientious. The restlessness drives him from place to place, he cannot rest till things are in place; anything that seems out of place troubles him. The patient will show you his hands and ask you to look at both of them. “Doctor, he will ask, do you see that the veins on my left hand are more prominent than those on the right hand? Why is this so?” The conscientiousness and carefulness is manifest as an almost compulsive need for order, making Arsenicum extremely fastidious and hence a remedy of the cancer miasm. I have also seen that the Arsenicum concern for health and security can extend to others, so that these patients can be caring for the health and security of others as well. I have found that they write very precisely in very small writing, fitting in much as possible in a very small space.
Rubrics
– Delusion, sees thieves at night.
– Delusion, that the house and space under the bed are full of thieves.
– Delusion, about criminals.
– Delusion, others conspire to murder him.
– Delusion, is about to receive injury.
– Delusion, that she is being watched.
– Company, desire for, alone, while, aggravates.
– Fear, alone of being, lest he die.
– Delusion, friend has been offended.
– Company, aversion to whom he imagines he has offended.
– Carefulness.
– Desires more than she needs.
– Fastidious.
– Rest cannot when things are not in proper place.
– Anxiety for others.
– Anguish driving from place to place.
Kent
– Corrugated nails.
– Taste bitter for water.
– Desires fat.
– Thirst: small quantities for, often.
– Cracks: feet soles.
Phatak
– Agony, cannot rest in any place.
– Craves condiments.
– Dust aggravates.
– Walk, impulse to.

-PETERSEN F. J.,
Syn.-Arsenic, acidum arseniosum, arsenious acid.
Physiological action: Locally applied it acts as an irritant and escharotic. Applied to a large surface diluted it may be absorbed and give rise to symptoms of arsenic poisoning. Taken internally in toxic doses it may have such a profound action in some cases as to cause profound narcosis immediately. If not, its toxic effect will manifest itself as follows: It powerfully irritates the gastro-intestinal tract, causing burning pain in the throat and stomach, salivation, metallic taste in the mouth, nausea, vomiting, thirst, great pain, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract; albumen in the urine, feeble pulse, great anxiety, rapid, oppressed breathing, cold and clammy sweat, cold breath, delirium, convulsions, and finally death. The symptoms resemble somewhat those of cholera. In small doses it promotes appetite and digestion, increases peristaltic action, intestinal secretion, respiration and heart’s action, exalts mental activity. In large or long continued medicinal doses it will cause itching of the skin and skin eruptions, swelling of the eyelids, salivation, nausea, vomiting, dyspnoea, pain and soreness in the epigastric region, diarrhoea, jaundice, impaired sensibility, albuminuria. As the habit of using it may be formed it should be used with discretion. Water, if taken with it, will increase its rapid absorbtion. Symptoms of chronic arsenic poison caused by inhalation, which may be from the dust of wall paper or other cause are colicky pains, cough, dysentery, irritation of the eyes, white tongue more of a silver gloss, coryza and general prostration. A valuable remedy when indicated, but should be used with care and not when contra-indicated. The best, and, as a general rule, the only form to administer this drug, is in the 3x to 12x homoeopathic trituration. In most cases, but especially in diseases where there are malarial conditions to be taken into consideration the chininum ars., 2x is the best form to administer, in fact the author has given this almost exclusively.

Indication and use: In oedematous or engorged conditions of the cellular tissues of the body accompanied by a lack of elasticity of the tissues and skin; in those conditions where the skin has lost its elasticity, where when it is raised with the fingers it does not spring back as normally. The tissues look puffy and unnatural; also with the above indications where there is an abnormal, unnatural increase in tissue so often met with, especially in women at the climateric. In debilitated conditions, conditions following malaria it exerts on the nerve centers and the sympathetic nervous system a marked tonic influence. It will cure malaria where quinine fails; however, in these conditions chininum ars. 3x is the best form to use. Arsenic taken on an empty stomach is carried directly to the liver by the veins. If not empty it is carried to the general circulation by the lacteals which absorb it. It promotes the flow of digestive fluids and tones up the stomach. We think of it in disease marked by exhausted vitality; intermittent fever and typhoid fever with great thirst and debility. Stomach and bowel troubles, with burning pain, atonic dyspepsia, gastralgia, ulcers of the stomach, severe vomiting, diarrhoea with watery green or dark burning stool; diarrhoea in greatly run-down conditions of nervous nature or origin, shreds of mucus passing with stool and large evacuations. In some cases of dropsical complaints it acts well. In skin diseases of the scaly nature with burning attended with discharge of thin, watery fluid; obstinate ulcers with burning or itching or with a bloody, thin or fetid discharge; also of benefit in colds, influenza and bronchitis with difficult expectoration where there is marked exhaustion of the vital forces. In cholera it no doubt is a valuable remedy. Arsenic is claimed to be a preventive of variola, cholera and yellow fever, especially the latter two. In order to be effective as a preventive in time of epidemics “acid arsenious” 1-100 of a grain 3 times a day the first week; twice a day the second week and once a day thereafter during an epidemic.

– Wilhelm Karo.

Arsenicum is the drug for nervous, sad and irritable individuals

General Symptoms.
Restlessness, anxiety, fear of death, great thirst, relieved by drinking little water. Aggravation by cold and wetness and during midnight. Better by warmth.

Special Symptoms.
Menstruation premature and profuse ; menstrual flow pale red blood. Stinging, cutting pain. After menstruation stinking, watery discharge from the vagina and anus. Acrid, corrosive, thick, yellowish leucorrhoea, aggravated by standing.

– G. H. Clarke
Arsenic.

Asthma

CHARACTERISTICS.
Anaemia, chlorosis. Degenerative changes in the aged with shortness of breath, asthma, and oedema of the limbs. Patient pale and weak. Chronic ulcer of the stomach will general degenerative changes. Irritative dyspepsia. Desire for stool immediately after taking food or water. Vomiting of cold water. Passage of undigested food. Watery, cadaverous-smelling stools., Burning, neuralgic pains that return periodically, dry, scaly eczema. Psoriasis. Chorea.
TOXIC EFFECTS.
Gradual loss of weight through impairment of nutrition. Loss of gastro-intestinal vigor. Face and body become pale and swollen. Great anxiety and restlessness at night with dreaming and increase of fever. anguish.1. Edema and itching of the eyelids. Conjunctivitis, suffusion and smarting of the eyes. frontal headache. Inflammation of the mucous membrane of the nose, dryness of the mouth, itching, dryness and roughness of the throat.2. Laryngo-bronchial catarrh. Oppressed breathing. Dyspnoea. Cough with bloody expectoration.3. Action of the heart irritable and feeble, palpitation cough.4. Great irritability of the stomach with intolerance to food and drink. Tongue red and dry. Violent retching and vomiting. Vomiting of glairy mucus, very epigastric pain usually of a burning character.5. Diarrhoea, tenesmus and dysenteric stools. Intense thirst, restlessness, shrunken features, cramps in abdomen and legs, collapse, cold breath, rice-water discharges, strangury, suppression of urine.6. Great irritability of the nervous system. Neuralgic pains, trembling, stiffness, flexed joints, herpes zoster, paralysis.7. skin dry and dirty looking. Eczema, urticaria, lichen, pityriasis, psoriasis. Shedding of the hair and nails.8. General oedema and albuminuria.9.
DOSE
Acidum arsenosum, 30/1-15/1 gr. Liquor acidi arsenosi, 2-10 m. Liquor potassii arsenitis, (Fowler’s solution),1/2-10 m. Arsenic is usually administered in the form of Fowler’s solution. The second and third decimal triturations are often more effective.
THERAPEUTIC USES.
Degenerative changes in the cerebral vessels in old people causing local venous congestion, melancholia, sluggishness, and bloating of the face.1. (Minute doses). Melancholia and hypochondriasis of the aged.1. Great anguish, tossing to fro, must get out of bed and move about at night.1. (second or third decimal trituration). Persistent sneezing, profuse discharge from the nose and eyes, frontal headache with itching and roughness of the throat and soft palate.2. Ulceration of the cornea recurring first in one eye, then in the other. Worse at night. Patient emaciated and exhibits great nervous excitability.1-2. Chronic conjunctivitis; thin secretion irritating the edges of the lids, tears acrid burn like fire. Lids oedematous and inflamed.2. Malignant sore throat; fauces and tongue very much swollen; foetid breath. Disorganization of tissues and great prostration are the leading features. Bronchitis which with profuse burning, corroding discharge from the nose, accompanied by extreme lassitude and aching of the muscles. Chronic bronchitis the lower lobes of both lungs. Asthma associated with chronic bronchitis, usually worse at night. Weakness puffiness of the face and body. Feebleness of the heart in. old people due to impaired nutrition, causing shortness of breath upon exertion and oedema of the limbs. Angina pectoris from degenerative changes in the heart due to an impairment of nutrition.1-4. Dilatation and valvular diseases of the heart, with anasarca. 1-4. Irritative dyspepsia with pain and heartburn. Desire for stool immediately after taking food or water, with colic and passage of undigested food. Cold always disagrees.5. (Minute doses) Chronic ulcer of the stomach, pain and vomiting, accompanied by anaemia, chronic gastritis and, occasionally cirrhosis of the liver. 5. (Very small doses). Dyspepsia; red and pointed tongue, poor appetite, distress after meals. Presence of food or water in the stomach causes pain and vomiting or desire to go stool. 5. (Very small doses) Vomiting reflex or from gastro intestinal irritation. Great straining and retching, the vomited matter consists of glairy mucus and blood, or blood alone. 5.(Not more than two drop-doses of Fowler’s solution) Chronic gastritis resulting from anaemia or from daily use of alcoholic stimulants. 5. (Minute doses) Nausea and vomiting after eating ice cream or drinking ice water. Stomach distended. 5. Gastralgia, enteralgia and chronic ulcer of the stomach dependent upon impaired nutrition. 5. Chronic diarrhoea. Pale very weak, passes undigested food soon after it is swallowed. 1-6 (Use the second or third decimal trituration). Watery, cadaverous smelling stools; cramps in the bowels and lets. Acrid, corroding, rice-water stools with great prostration. 6 (Second or third decimal trituration) Typho-malarial fever Dry, red tongue, dry skin, delirium, tender abdomen, diarrhoea.6 (In doses not greater than one drop of Fowler’s solution) Cirrhosis of the liver. (Toxic doses causative minute doses curative) Membranous diarrhoea and dysmenorrhoea.1. Neuralgia especially of the fifth and intercostal nerves.7, Hemicrania from depraved condition of the system.1 Neuralgia, gastralgia, enteralgia; pains are burn in and agonizing, accompanied with great restlessness and anguish. Inclined to be intermittent, and to return periodically. Made worse by cold and when at rest. Found in persons debilitated by malaria, influenza or other diseases. 1-7. Local chorea histrionic spasm.7 (Inject two five drops of Fowler’s solution, diluted with equal quantity of water into the muscle.) Paralysis agitans.7 (Use fowler’s solution hypodermically in equal amount of water, and internally) Chorea in poorly nourished children who have been placed under too great nervous strain. 1-7. (Slowly increase to full doses. Must be given in water after meals.) Chronic arthritis dependent upon systemic degenerative changes. The joint structures are swollen, stiff and the flexors contracted. 7. (Large doses on full stomach. Must be persisted in) Malarial cachexia, chronic state , where there is impaired nutrition and lack of gastro-intestinal vigor.1. Chronic intermittent fever burning heat; rapid prostration, torpid weakness, dropsical swellings cachexia abuse of quinine. 1. Tuberculosis; loss of appetite, vomiting , wasting, diarrhoea, etc. 1 (Two to four drops of Fowler’s solution every two two to four hours) All forms of menstrual derangements due to impaired nutrition. All forms of anaemia. Skin waxy, face puffy, muscular weakness, loss of appetite, irritability of the nervous system.1. Chlorosis, with symptoms similar to those of anaemia.1. Enlarges lymphatic glands. Patient pale and weak.1. (Internally in full doses, and injected directly into glands). Obesity due to defective assimilation.1. Diabetes of the hepatic origin, in which general debility is accompanied by a comparatively small secretion of urine. Albuminuria dependent upon debility and impaired nutrition.9. Psoriasis.3 (May inflame patches at first). Pemphigus, when there is present an irritative or paralytic nerve disease. or an accompanying neuritis.7-8. Eczema.8. (Dry and scaly). Lichen ruber.8. (Three to five drops of Flower’s solution daily for many weeks). Urticaria.8 (Minute doses).

– Gladstone Clarke.

Symptoms :

Restless Arsenicum album

1. Fat, plethoric persons; usually dark; easy disposition to diarrhoea, vegetarians; old people. 2. Combination of sadness and irritability; sometimes suicidal tendency; great fastidiousness; fear of the dark; (<) alone; hyperaesthesia of the special senses. 3. In adynamic fevers; rapid and great prostration yet marked restlessness from anxiety and fear of death (Acon); wants to be moved from place to place; obviously ill and lacking in vital power. Septic states. 4. Burning, lancinating pains and sensations, (>) heat (rev. Phos.). 5. Discharges burning, excoriating offensive, debilitating, thin, watery; generally scanty. 6. Periodicity and malignancy of symptoms. 7. Great thirst; calls for small quantities at frequent intervals. 8. Gastric ailments with loathing of food; vomits everything even a spoonful of water; ill-effects of eating fruit, ices, etc., also ptomaine and similar poisonings. Patient dislikes meat but desire fat. 9. Skin troubles of all kinds, esp. scaly eruptions. 10. Patients very chilly, (<) cold and damp; lying with head low; midnight to 3 a.m.; rest: (>) heat, except head symptoms. Note. Thuja is sometimes its chronic.

– Pulford

Chill :

Shaking chill, during pain. (L): Drinking increases the chill, and causes vomiting; shaking chill, while walking in open air, evening, and at night in open air; time: 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 12 to 2 p.m., 1 to 2 p.m. and 2 p.m. Blue lips and nails, during chill, like Nux. Sleepy night before chill. Drinking causes chill; Eup. causes chill and nausea: Caps. causes chill and shivering. Chill causes oppression of chest in Apis and Ars., coldness in abdomen in Meny., and blue nails in Nux. The most often indicated drug in “dumb” ague and in afternoon intermittents of nursing children, who never have chill, and where it is impossible to get any indications.
Heat :
Burning outside, cold inside, reverse of Carb-v.; chill absent: 1 to 2 p.m., 1 to 2 a.m.; continued fever, petechial, stools small, putrid, foul, cadaverous, tongue brown, leathery, prostration; incomplete intermittents. (L): Fever at night, thirstless, anxiety; midnight and after; burning Heat at midnight and after (Bry., 2.); 2 a.m.; 12 a.m. to 3 a.m.; irritative, slow fever; one stage wanting. Never give Ars. early in typhoid, unless positively indicated, if given too soon in a disease tending to become moribund one may create the very result one is anxious to avoid. Rhus often precedes Ars. in the last stage of tuberculosis, the restlessness is not an Ars. symptom, and Ars. will not ameliorate it.

Sweat
With anxiety, at night; after fever; while sitting; amelioration walking in open air. Cold, clammy. Amelioration; except headache, which is increased: Eup.

Skin :


Itches, a suppressed eruption. (L): Blackish eruption; periodical boils; eruption from cold air; burning pimples; burning pox; rupia; whitish. Graph is the best remedy for chronic skin troubles from Ars. poisoning. Suppressed hives causing cramp and croup. Boils or carbuncles, pepper box openings, cutting lancinating burning pains amelioration heat, aggravation after midnight. Ars. and Merc-c. are the two principal remedies for spreading ulcers, and such as follow the opening of a bubo, with no tendency to heal. Burning stitches, as from red hot needles (Sec. sparks), Cases, as a rule, requiring Ars. are dry, scaly, sore, an burn and itch intensely. For parts that suddenly take on erysipelas. For injured parts that suddenly turn gangrenous. Ulcers spread and eat in every direction, like Merc-c., but Merc- c. is aggravation heat, very offensive, burn like fire, Skin cold, bluish, dry like parchment, peels off in large scales. Gangrene, senile, sicca, cold, desires more covering, amelioration heat, the reverse of Carb-v. Great tendency to shrivelling, mucus membranes of mouth, and lips shrivel and become wrinkled, the mucus membranes of the throat looks leathery and wrinkled, these are sure indications for Ars., such cases being very malignant in character, putrid and even gangrenous in odor.

General :

Weakness and collapse

Collapse, during vomiting; epileptic convulsions, aura of warm air streaming up spine; faint, when speaking; must sit up in bed, with knees drawn up, resting head on arms and knees; varicose veins burn at night. Would like to have body in an oven, and head in an ice box. The typical Ars. patients is an hydrogenoid one, inclines to anaemia, tuberculosis or scrofula, with a tendency to zymosis, whose irritability of fiber begins and ends only with life itself. Necrosis of bone, like Fl-ac. Enables one to withstand muscular fatigue, like Rhus. Externally cold as ice, internally as if full of fire, the reverse of Carb-v. Cancer, where the pains burn and cut as from red hot needles or a red hot knife. Euthanasia, like Tarant-C., use higher potencies. The prostration of Ars. is out of all proportion to the illness. No other remedy has burning in so marked degree, amelioration heat, as Ars. Always freezing, wants to hover over the fire, cannot get enough clothing. The liquid trocar, in dropsy. The acute troubles are apt to be aggravation every other or every third or fourth day; the chronic troubles every seventh day or two weeks; according to the chronicity. There is a striking tendency to ulceration wherever a cold strikes the part. Like Thuja and Lach., Ars. is an antidote to animal poisons, they go right to the root of the evil, especially dissecting wounds. Catarrhal trouble ending in ulceration is a strong feature of Ars. At the early stage of the attack, Ars. has all the rigors and chills to be found in the Materia Medica, of a violent character, blood flows through the vessels like ice water, in ice cold waves; as fever comes on one goes to the other extreme and the blood flows through the vessels like boiling water, then comes the sweat which is prolonged and does not amelioration the exhaustion that follows and is attended by dyspnoea, coldness, anxiety and restlessness, one’s thirst increases so that one feels as if one could drink a well dry. Complaints return annually, like Lach. The conditions of time and temperature, especially, are all important with Ars., and unless these correspond in the patient failure will be more frequent than success. Ars. acts more powerfully on vegetable eating animals, the reverse of Nux.