IODUM [Iod]:

– T. F. Allen.

General Effects
Acute catarrh of all mucous membranes, especially of the eyes and nose. Salivation. Enlargement of lymphatic glands, followed by atrophy, especially of testicles and mammae, and general emaciation. Polyuria, nephritis and albuminuria.
Generalities
Emaciation. Restlessness. Trembling of the limbs. Muscular twitchings. OEdematous swellings. Weakness so great that one can hardly speak. Great excitement of the whole nervous system. Violent pains; worse at night. Clinical. Chronic cases, not febrile, generally characterized by great appetite and rapid emaciation. Acute cases, with high fever. Localized inflammations very frequently require Iod., which seems to be adapted to febrile conditions accompanying parenchymatous inflammations of the various organs and tissues. These patients are usually very thirsty, but not of necessity restless; certainly not anxious like Aconite.
Mind
General despondency. Irritability, with sadness.
Head
A feeling of rush of blood, with throbbing. Pain as if a tight band were about the head. Headache; (

– Pierce W.I.

IODINE.

Introduction
“The element Iodine exists in nature only in the combined state. Sea water is the great source of it, whence it is appropriated by marine plants and animals. It is contained in cold-liver oil to the amount of .03 or .04 per cent.” (Am. Hom. Phar.). Our strongest solution or tincture (really the 1st) contains one per cent. and must be kept in a glass-stoppered bottle. Hughes, while not questioning the value of an easily- digested animal oil as an article of food, asks if the presence of Iodine in cold-liver oil does not give it a medicinal value as well? Hahnemann, who first introduced Iodine into our materia medica, says: “Even in the higher and highest degrees of dynamization” (referring to the 30th) ” Iodine is a very heroic medicine, which calls for every precaution of the good homoeopathic physician; when misapplied in allopathic hands, Iodine is frequently seen to cause the most fearful destruction of the body and life of patients” (Chr. Dis.). You must keep mind that our study to-day of Iodine is necessarily incomplete, as it should include its chemical combinations with Calcarea, Potash, Mercury, etc., the symptomatology of these salts having much in common with that of Iodine, modified more or less by the various bases.
Symptoms
Iodine affects nearly every organ and tissue in the body. It causes an acute catarrh of all mucous membranes, especially of they eyes and nose. It at functions and increases the secretions of all glandular structures, causing hypertrophy, to be followed later by atrophy, especially of the testicles and mammae. It produces general emaciation and the more emaciated the patient the more is Iodine indicated. “It is particularly important to observe,” says Allen, “that it controls inflammations (with high temperature) of many, if not all parenchymatous structures, particularly the lungs, when the indications permit its exhibition.” Iodine inflammation is accompanied, in particular, with plastic exudation (120). Cases requiring Iodine, when not febrile, are apt to have great appetite (119) but rapid emaciation. The appetite is ravenous and while many of the symptoms read better after eating (174) it is only a temporary relief and the hunger especially soon returns. In spite of the amount of food taken, they lose flesh rapidly, or as the laity express it, “it makes them poor to carry it,” and Iodine is of especial value for emaciation ending in marasmus (129), and particularly, emaciation of glandular tissues, breasts, testicles, (188) etc. It is indicated in numerous wasting diseases, especially in scrofulous patients, with all that the word scrofula implies. The lymphatics are large, hard (82) and usually painless, and, as Farrington points out, with the exception of the mental condition, “torpidity and sluggishness is a characteristic of Iodine.” In persons of a scrofulous diathesis, Iodine is especially to be thought of for those with dark hair and eyes (88). Mentally, the Iodine patient is despondent, apprehensive and restless and “may feel,” says Talcott, “that the brain is stirred up, and that he must keep in constant motion, or go insane;” but during fevers and wasting diseases we often find excessive irritability and sensitiveness to real or fancied wrongs. It is a valuable remedy in tubercular meningitis (133) and in hydrocephalus (119). Iodine is to be thought of in persistent headaches, associated with vertigo on active exertion, and for congestive headache, with sensation of a band around head (105) and with dizziness, and noticed especially in old people. In the ears it is useful in chronic deafness, with adhesions in the middle ear or with glandular enlargement; or in deafness with chronic catarrh of the Eustachian tube (63) and roaring in the ears (65) and usually with inflammation and swelling of the tonsils. In inflammation of the tonsil of the tonsils it is of especial value for acute conditions, the combinations of Iodine being more frequently indicated in chronic enlargement or hypertrophy (192). It is valuable for acute fluent coryza (37), with profuse hot discharge (39) making the nose sore. In these coryzas there is fever, lachrymation, sneezing, etc., more or less stoppage of the nose at night (40) and profuse flow in the open air (37) and with headache at the root of the nose or over the frontal sinuses (95). It is to be thought of in syphilitic iritis (74) and in syphilitic and mercurial (139) ulceration of the throat, with swelling of the lymphatics. Iodine is very valuable in goitre (83) or bronchocele and especially so in t he beginning or when the tumor is soft. It is also of value later on, Hering saying: “Inveterate cases of goitre; the harder they feel, and the more other symptoms are wanting, the better indicated.” Many cures have been made with infinitesimal doses of this remedy and many a mineral spring has made its reputation for the cure of goitre from the minute amount of Iodine that it contained. Allen warns us against the local application of Iodine to the goitre, saying that while the tumor has been reduced, there have followed alarming pulmonary symptoms. Salivation (163) is prominent under Iodine and Hughes speaks of it “in the salivation of mercury as well as in that of pregnancy” (155). It is to be thought of in enlargement of the spleen (173), due to liver troubles, and accompanied by salivation. It is of value in diseases of the pancreas (149) both acute and chronic, with salivation,a nd in acute conditions with fatty diarrhoea. Iodine is useful in jaundice (122) after the abuse of mercury (139) or from cirrhosis of the liver, and of especial value for tabes mesenterica, or a tubercular degeneration of the mesenterica glands (83), found particularly in children of a scrofulous diathesis, with distention of the abdomen, enormous appetite yet rapid emaciation,a nd exhausting diarrhoea (58), stools frothy (59), foamy, “whey-like” (Hering). In diabetes (56) Iodine would be of value where we had canine hunger, yet rapid emaciation, and especially when due to some diseases of the pancreas. It is to be thought of in incontinence of urine in old men (199), with hypertrophy of the prostate (155). It is of value not only in atrophy of the testicles (188) but also when they are swollen (188) and hard, usually without pain, and it has cured many cases of hydrocele (119) when taken internally. In the female sexual organs we often find as accompanying indications, atrophy of the breasts and ovaries. There may be amenorrhoea, or the menses “may be too early and too profuse”(Minton) (135), and we frequently have a chronic excoriating leucorrhoea (126) “most abundant at the time of the menses” (Hering). Uterine haemorrhage is common, sometimes after every stool, and it is a remedy useful in chronic metritis and cancer (202). Of the ovaries, the r. is more apt to be affected (147) and besides atrophy, it is of value in inflammation (148) and for cysts of the r. ovary. A characteristic sensation of this remedy in female sexual troubles is a pressing, wedge-like pain from the r. ovary down towards the uterus (148). The cough of Iodine is hard, dry and croupy, with sawing respiration (25). It is of value in true croup (52), and in those cases where there is inability to swallow you need not fear about getting equally good results by olfaction; so put some Iodine in the steam-kettle and let the patient inhale the vapor. To quote directly from the Handbook: “A large number of cases of ‘membranous’ croup have been cured by the lower dilutions; our experience is that it is indicated in the early stage with more or less fever, with dry skin and a very dry cough, great difficulty in respiration; it follows closely after Acon.; if Acon. has been given and the patient is not the cough, the patient is still dry and hot and the cough is still croupy, then give Iod.; it is, however, rarely useful after the febrile excitement has disappeared or if the patient perspires freely.” In whooping cough it would be indicated when there was rapid emaciation and great Aconite. In pneumonia (150) Iodine is one of our most valuable remedies. Like Bryonia, it is indicated after the Acon. stage has passed, although the fever is still high, and hepatization has taken place; but unlike Bryonia, it lacks the sharp, cutting pains, and instead of perspiration, the skin is dry. It is particularly valuable in the pneumonia of scrofulous subjects, or in those having a tendency towards phthisis, and in pneumonia at the apex. A thought that we can keep in mind is, that Iodine has an especial affinity for the apex and Phos. of the base of the lung. “It was formerly supposed,” says Allen, “that left-sided pneumonia indicated Iod.; but it is now known that it is equally useful in pneumonia of either side.” In phthisis it is of value with the rough voice, dry skin, emaciation and night-sweats (185); also remember it in the last stage of phthisis (149), where it seems to act, more or less, as a tonic. Iodine is of value in pericarditis complicating pneumonia or rheumatism (162) and it is one of the remedies useful in hypertrophy of the heart (110). While occupying a minor position in Hahnemann’s Chr. Dis. and in Allen’s Encyclop., Hering raises to the highest place the symptom, sensation as if the heart were being squeezed (113). Iodine is useful in articular rheumatism, with nightly aggravation, the joints hot, shiny and swollen and very painful. The pains are shifting (149) or wandering, attack the meninges of the brain and finally the heart (162). It is useful in gonorrhoeal rheumatism (161), in affections of the joints following mercury or syphilis or due to scrofulous affections, and in synovitis of the knee-joint (125), housemaid’s knee. I use Iodine in the tincture.

-Boericke. G.W

+ Iodine.

#General

Rapid metabolism: LOSS OF FLESH with great appetite. Hungry with much thirst. Better after eating. GREAT DEBILITY, THE SLIGHTEST EFFORT INDUCES PERSPIRATION. Iod. individual is exceedingly thin, dark complexioned, with enlarged lymphatic glands, has voracious appetite but gets thin. Tubercular type. All glandular structures, respiratory organs, circulatory system are especially affected; they atrophy. Iodine arouses the defensive apparatus of the system by assembling the mononuclear leucocytes whose phagocytic action is marked, at a given point. Lead poisoning. Tremor. Iodine craves cold air. ACUTE EXACERBATION OF CHRONIC INFLAMMATION. Arthritis deformans. ACTS PROMINENTLY ON CONNECTIVE TISSUE. THE PLAGUE. GOITRE. Abnormal vaso-constriction, capillary congestion followed by oedema, ecchymosis, haemorrhages, and nutritive disturbances are the pathological conditions at the basis of its symptomatology. Sluggish vital reaction, hence chronicity in many of its aspects. Acute catarrh of all mucous membranes, rapid emaciation, notwithstanding good appetite, and glandular atrophy call for this remedy, in numerous wasting diseases and in scrofulous patients. Acute affections of the respiratory organs. PNEUMONIA, rapid extension. Iodine is warm, and wants cool surroundings. Weakness and loss of breath going upstairs. ADENOID VEGETATIONS. Tincture internally and locally to swollen glands and rattlesnake bites.

#Mind

Anxiety WHEN QUIET. PRESENT anxiety and depression, no reference to the future. Sudden impulse to run and do violence. Forgetful. Must be busy. Fear of people, shuns every one. Melancholy. Suicidal tendency.

#Head

Throbbing; RUSH OF BLOOD, and feeling of a tight band. Vertigo; worse from stooping, worse in warm room Chronic, congestive headache of old people. [PHOS.]

#Eyes

Violent lachrymation. Pain in eyes. Pupil dilated. Constant motion of eyeballs. ACUTE DACRYOCYSTITIS.

#Nose

Sneezing. Sudden violent influenza. Dry coryza becomes fluent in open air, also a FLUENT HOT CORYZA with general heat of skin. Pain at root of nose and frontal sinus. Nose stopped up. Tendency to ulceration. Loss of smell. ACUTE NASAL ENGORGEMENT associated with high blood pressure.

#Mouth

Gums loose and bleed easily. Foul ulcers and salivation. Profuse, fetid ptyalism. Tongue thickly coated. Offensive odor

from mouth.

#Throat

Larynx feels constricted. EUSTACHIAN DEAFNESS. Thyroid enlarged. Goitre, with sensation of constriction. Swollen submaxillary glands. Uvula swollen.

#Stomach

Throbbing at pit of stomach. RAVENOUS HUNGER and much thirst. Empty eructations, as if every particle of food were turned into gas. Anxious and worried if he does not eat. [CINA; SULPH.] Loses flesh, yet hungry and eating well. [ABROT.]

#Abdomen

Liver and spleen sore and enlarged. Jaundice. Mesenteric glands enlarged. Pancreatic disease. Cutting pain in abdomen.

#Stool

Haemorrhage at every stool. Diarrhoea, whitish, frothy, fatty. Constipation, with ineffectual urging; better by drinking cold milk. Constipation alternating with diarrhoea. [ANT. CR.]

#Urine

Frequent and copious, DARK YELLOW-GREEN. (BOVISTA), thick, acrid with cuticle on surface.

#Male

Testicles swollen and indurated. Hydrocele. Loss of sexual power, with atrophied testes.

#Female

Great weakness during menses. [ALUM.; CARBO AN.; COCCUL.; HAEMATOX.] Menstruation irregular. Uterine haemorrhage. OVARITIS. [APIS.; BELL.; LACH.] WEDGE-LIKE PAIN FROM OVARY TO UTERUS. DWINDLING OF MAMMARY GLANDS. Nodosities in skin of mammae. Acrid leucorrhoea, thick, slimy, corroding the linen. WEDGE-LIKE PAIN IN THE RIGHT OVARIAN REGION.

#Respiratory

Hoarse. RAW and tickling feeling provoking a dry cough. PAIN IN LARYNX. Laryngitis, with painful roughness; worse during cough. Child grasps throat when coughing. Right-sided pneumonia with high temperature. Difficult expansion of chest, blood- streaked sputum; internal dry heat, external coldness. Violent heart action. Pneumonia. Hepatization spreads rapidly with persistent high temperature; absence of pain in spite of great involvement, worse warmth; craves cool air. Croup in scrofulous children with dark hair and eyes. [BROM. opposite.] Inspiration difficult. Dry, morning cough, from tickling in larynx. CROUPY COUGH, with difficult respiration; wheezy. COLD EXTENDS DOWNWARDS from head to throat and bronchi. Great weakness about chest. Palpitation from least exertion. Pleuritic effusion. Tickling all over chest. Iod. cough is worse indoors, in warm,

wet weather, and when lying on back.

#Heart

Heart feels squeezed. Myocarditis, painful compression around heart. Feels as if squeezed by an iron hand [CACTUS] followed by great weakness and faintness. Palpitation from least exertion. Tachycardia.

#Extremities

Joints inflamed and painful. Pain in bones at night. White swelling. Gonorrhoeal rheumatism. Rheumatism of nape and upper extremities. Cold hands and feet. Acrid sweat of feet. Pulsation in large arterial trunks. Rheumatic pains, nightly pains in joints; constrictive sensations.

#Skin

Hot, dry, yellow and withered. Glands enlarged. Nodosities. Anasarca of cardiac disease.

#Fever

Flushes of heat all over body. Marked fever, restlessness, red cheeks, apathetic. Profuse sweat.

#Modalities

WORSE, when quiet, in warm room, right side. BETTER, walking

about, in open air.

#Relationship

Yatren. Iod. pathogenesis is similar to that of CARBOL. ACID. Antidotes: HEPAR; SULPH.; GRATIOLA. Complementary: LYCOPOD.; BADIAGA. Compare: BROM.; HEPAR; MERCUR.; PHOSPH.; ABROT; NAT. MUR.; SANIC.; TUBER.

#Dose

The crude drug in saturated solution may be required. Third to thirtieth potency. Ioduretted solution of Potass. iod. (35 grains Potassa and 4 grains Iodine to 1 oz. of water, 10 drops three times a day) expels tapeworms dead. Locally the most powerful, least harmful and easily managed microbicide. Ideal agent to keep wounds clean and disinfected. Bites of insects, reptiles, etc. Gunshot wounds and compound fractures, excellent. Great skin disinfectant.

-H.C.Allen

+ Iodine The Element.

#General
Persons of a scrofulous diathesis, with dark or black hair and eyes; a low cachectic condition, with profound debility and great emaciation [Abrot. ]. Great weakness and loss of breath on going upstairs [Calc. ]; during the menses [Alum. , Carbo an. , Coc. ]. Ravenous hunger; eats freely and well, yet loses flesh all the time [Abrot. , Nat. m. , Sanic. , Tub. ]. Empty eructations from morning to night, as if every particle of food was turned into air [Kali c. ]. Suffers from hunger, must eat every few hours, anxious and worried if he does not eat [Cina, Sulph. ]; feels (>). while eating or after eating, when stomach is full. Itching: low down in the lungs, behind the sternum, causing cough; extends through bronchi to nasal cavity [Coc. c. , Con. , Phos. ]. Hypertrophy and induration of glandular tissue – thyroid, mammae, ovaries, testes, uterus, prostate or other glands – breasts may dwindle and become flabby. Hard goitre, in dark-haired persons [light-haired, Brom. ]; feels (>). after eating. Palpitation, worse from least exertion [compare Dig. – from least mental exertion, Cal. ars. ]. Sensation as if the heart was squeezed together; as if grasped with an iron hand [Cac. , Sulph. ]. Leucorrhoea: arid, corrosive, straining and corroding the linen; most abundant at times of menses. Cancerous degeneration of the cervix; cutting pains in abdomen and haemorrhage at every stool. Constipation, with ineffectual urging (>). by drinking cold milk. Croup: membranous, hoarse, dry cough, worse in warm, wet weather; with wheezing and swaying respiration [Spong. ]. Child grasps the larynx [Cepa]; face pale and cold especially in fleshy children.

#Relations
Complementary: to, Lycopodium. Compare: acet. ac. , Brom. , Con. , Kali bi. , Spong. in membranous croup and croupy affections; especially in overgrown boys with scrofulous diathesis. Follows well: after, Hep. , Mer. ; is followed by Kali bi. in croup. Acts best in goitre when given after full moon, or when the moon is waning. – Lippe. Should not be given during lying-in period, except in high potencies. – Hering.

#Aggravation
Warmth; wrapping up the head [reverse of, Hep. , Psor. ].