Platina 
 Platina (J.T.  Kent) 
 November 23, 1896 
 Platinum metallicum 

 Platina is especially suited to women, oversensitive women. It acts most strikingly on those with dark hair and eyes; nervous women; the Spanish type; dark skin; angular women. Haughtiness, pride, overestimation of themselves: they look down on others and regard them as inferior to themselves. This is not only so figuratively but concretely; the objects in the room look too small; an actual deception in vision so that persons look too small; a woman imagines her children to be too small, too small for their age: all objects appear to the eyes as too small. This arrogance, pride, haughtiness and overestimation is a very striking feature.
 There is much tearfulness. Fear that something is going to happen: a woman fears that she will lose her husband, without cause; weeps, throws her arms about him, caresses him in the morning as he is leaving, fears that he will never return, that she will never see him again, that he will die, yet he is in perfect health; it is an insanity. One woman, who was a Platina case, told me that when her husband and she stopped at any place, and her husband went into the house on business while she remained in the buggy, she would become frantic with thoughts that he would die, that she would never see him again, until it seemed that she must jump from the carriage and hunt for him.

Platina Woman

 The remedy is full of mental symptoms, which are commonly associated with intense and violent sexual erethism. Anxiety and trembling of the hands; the anxiety is with the fear that something is going; such as for example that her husband will not return. Anxiety with trembling; trembling of the whole body; trembling during the menses; trembling of the muscles of the hands and feet; trembling when meeting strangers; trembling and excitement with ungovernable sexual erethism. This sexual erethism is present during the menses; when in confinement; when suffering from a copious urine flow; trembling of the extremities with much tingling and itching of the genitals. Haughtiness, anxiety, trembling, and sexual erethism combine to mark this remedy.
 This goes on until the patient thinks all persons are demons. Anxiety weeping and palpitations, with numb feeling in malar bones, as if the parts were between screws. “Out of sorts with the whole world; everything seems too narrow; weeping mood.” Sits alone; sad and morose; without talking; followed by inconsolable weeping, especially when spoken to. Satiety of life with the mental features, the haughtiness and pride. Other remedies have the satiety of life without this. Pulsatilla sits in the corner and says nothing; never answers questions; is silent. Cocculus sits in a chair day and night in silence.
 These mental symptoms she won’t tell but they are observed by others. May have these symptoms when going into insanity, but the haughtiness was manifest early, for months and years, but now she becomes silent, gloomy, melancholy; thinks every one is against her, satiety of life, with taciturnity and fears of death, or wants to destroy herself. This is a more advanced condition, a deeper state.
 It also leads up to the most violent sexual frenzy, uncontrollable, so that the woman cannot be in the presence of one of the opposite sex without trembling and flushing, without showing it, so that she leaves society and goes to her own room.
 Illusions of phantasy on entering the house after walking an hour, as if everything about her were very small, and all persons mentally and physically inferior, but she herself physically large and superior. This is a striking feature. The room seemed gloomy and unpleasant, with apprehensiveness and fretful mood.
 Constantly changes, weeps and frets; scolds and storms. “Mania: with great pride; fault-finding; unchaste talk; trembling and clonic spasms; caused by fright and anger. Involuntary disposition to whistle and sing; canine hunger; eats greedily.
 This previously unpublished lecture was found in a bound book of lectures in the library at the National Center for Homeopathy. It is a lecture given by Dr. Kent * at his Postgraduate School in Philadelphia, PA. The lecture was written out, in purple ink, and in a fine hand, ninety-nine years ago. It was recently diligently-typed from the manuscript by Gwyneth Evans, ICHom.
 A physical condition running through the remedy is wherever there is pain it is accompanied with numbness and anaesthesia. Neuralgic pains of the head and scalp with numbness. All through the remedy there is numbness. A hysterical loss of sensation: a hysterical paralysis; hysterical trembling, fainting, contractions, cramps in limbs.
 Head: Tense, numb sensation in zygomata and mastoid processes as if head were screwed together. Sudden spasmodic contractive shocks through head, from right to left temple, followed by a numb sensation” Everywhere these numb sensations. “Sensation of numbness in head and externally on vertex.” Pain with numbness: numb feeling in brain; unable to concentrate mind; lack of consciousness of self and a feeling as if whole head were numb; the whole head seems strange and the head is numb. Very often there is continual changing in the expression of the face. The face is pale and sunken, easily flushed. Tearing pains in the bones of the face with numbness; neuralgia of the face; she pinches the cheek bones and wonders why they feel so strange.
 Inner parts pulsate. Pulsation at root of teeth. Pulsation in lower jaw.
 Another strange feature is formication. There is tingling and crawling on the tongue. Sensation of rawness as if the tongue were scalded or burnt, and yet there is no change in the tongue. It is a nervous sensation. Crawling up and down the back, like ants, changing place by touch; changing place here and there; commonly associated with sexual erethism.
 Inside the body there seems to be an outward pressure, as if distended, as if the body were becoming larger. The abdomen is distended by flatus, rumbling with all sorts of noises in the abdomen. Aggravation from the touch of the clothes over the abdomen, and about the thighs and genitals, and wants the abdomen uncovered. Abdomen feels constricted as with a tight bandage.
 Colicky pains in the abdomen. Painter’s colic (Plumbum, Alumen, Coloc) Pains in the bowels, back and lower part of the abdomen, as if the menses were coming on. At the time of the menstrual flow, great disturbance. Pains in the ovaries, in the abdomen, soreness of the abdomen, pelvis and uterus. Very sensitive to touch. Great sensitiveness about the thighs so that she cannot wear the napkin; she has to go to bed and lie on a pad because she is unable to wear the napkin. Extreme sensitiveness of the parts, accompanied by sexual erethism; great itching, yet so sensitive she cannot press or scratch for relief.
 Chronic constipation, with great soreness of the bowels; distended abdomen. Hemorrhoids. Haemorrhoidal flow. Painful hemorrhoids; extreme pain from about the anus, a hyperaesthesia. Itching, creeping, crawling and excitement.
 The male also partakes of this violent sexual erethism. Morbid excitement inducing onanism, especially if prepubic; child has a melancholy and sheepish look; epileptiform spasms; hollow eyes; yellow skin; face pale and sunken; consciousness not often lost, limbs usually drawn up and spread apart.
 The female is driven to a sexual frenzy. Nymphomania. A Platina woman suffers with frequent copious menses; thick and dark, tarry and horribly offensive; with sensitiveness of the genitals. A peculiar feature brought out sometimes in married women is that although the sexual desire amounts to a frenzy yet she is utterly unable to endure the contact of her husband, the parts are so swollen and inflamed. Itching, tumefaction and bleeding of the vulva and yet violent sexual frenzy. Induration of the uterus with excessive sensitiveness. Painful sensitiveness and continual pressure in region of mons veneris and genitals.” “Indurated and prolapsed uterus with continual pressure in groins and back: parts painfully sensitive to touch; sensitiveness even vaginitis during coition. Hemorrhages in clots with uterine cancer, fibroids. Metrorrhagia: body feels as if growing larger; genitals very sensitive; nymphomania: discharge of thick black blood; discharge occurred every fifteen minutes, finally every five: sensation as if body were growing larger and longer, particularly lower limbs; rigor of right arm; globus hystericus; violent pressure upon chest; compressive pain in both temples, so violent that she would take her life if not prevented by force: worse during menstrual period.” This is a summary of the striking features in metrorrhagia. The flow is dark, thick, clotted, tarry; horribly offensive clots. The blood flows with black clots and also fluid, or one grumous mass; horror at the thought of what may happen; horror at the thought of death. Frequent sensation as if the menses would appear. All through the month, with the pain in the back, or the extreme soreness of the genitals, the feeling as if the menses would appear. All through pregnancy there is tremendous excitement of the genitals. Melancholia during pregnancy; threatened abortion; profuse exhausting hemorrhage after abortion; puerperal convulsions when the general symptoms agree.
 Another feature with the anxiety and mental symptoms is palpitation. The heart is in one continual uproar; it thumps and pounds. After slight mental excitement. the presence of strangers, slight joy, there comes palpitations. Throbbing to the finger ends; throbs all over; pulsates in every tissue.
 Tense, numb sensations in nape of neck; numbness in sacrum and coccyx. The limbs become numb. At times can’t tell where the limbs are. It is common in hysterical patients to have this numbness. She imagines she has heart disease because of the numbness in the left hand and arm. Numbness of little finger. Sensitive numb sensation and trembling of right thumb, as if bruised. Numbness of feet; cold feet. This numb sensation found in hysterical patients, spreads all over the body, feels that the whole body is becoming numb.
 The anxiety of the Platina patient, the haughtiness and pride, the sexual erethism, the palpitation, the numbness, the hysterical contractions, the mental symptoms, sum up the whole case. She is one of the greatest sufferers on earth. Extremely sensitive, touchy; she is not without her jealousy and suspicion, but haughtiness is more commonly present.
 Painful tremulousness of whole body, with throbbing in the veins. 

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