Introduction:
HAHNEMANN’S first “nosode”,–disease-product for the cure of disease. Hahnemann’s proving of Psorinum appears in Stapf’s Archiv, 1833. He used the “sero-purulent matter contained in the scabies vesicle”. Some of the provings were the product of “Psora sicca” (epidermoid efflorescence of pityriasis). (Hering’s Guiding Symptoms.) We say Hahnemann’s first nosode advisedly, because evidence has been deduced from his writings that he had used others; but “that their effects on the healthy organism had not yet been sufficiently ascertained” to justify their publication. He was most insistent on the provings, on healthy humans, of all drugs, before teaching or even suggesting their use on the sick. But we will quote one passage (from Chronic Diseases, vol. I, p. 195). Hahnemann had evidently been exercised in his mind as to whether disease products used for the cure of disease were Isopathic or Homoeopathic–identical or similar. He decided, as we shall see, that by its preparation (triturations with milk- sugar, and then further potentization by repeated succussions, one minim to ninety-minims of alcohol each time), the material is no longer identical, but changed–“similar” only. He says, “In the subsequent list of antipsoric remedies no isopathic remedies are mentioned, for the reason that their effects upon the healthy organism have not been sufficiently ascertained. Even the itch-miasm (psor) in its various degrees of potency, comes under this objection. I call psorinum a homoeopathic anti-psoric, because if the preparation of psorinum did not alter its nature to that of a homoeopathic remedy it never could have any effect upon an organism tainted with that same identical virus. The psoric virus, by undergoing the processes of trituration and shaking, becomes just as much altered in its nature as gold does, the homoeopathic preparations of which are not inert substances in the animal economy, but powerful acting agents. “Psorinum is a similimum of the itch virus. There is no intermediate degree between idem and similimum: in other words the thinking man sees that similimum is the medium between simile and idem. The only definite meaning which the terms isopathic and equalae’ can convey, is that of similimum: they are not idem.” H.C. ALLEN, in his Keynotes of Leading Remedies, gives great prominence to Psorinum, and in his Nosodes gives sixty-four pages to this drug and its provings; curiously enough, he fails to show, even by inverted commas, that the above quotation, with which he begins his list of provings, is from Hahnemann! He emphasizes this, “Psorinum should not be given for psora or psoric diathesis, but like every other remedy, upon a strict individualization–the totality of the symptoms–and then we realize its wonderful work.” In regard to its normalizing action on scalp and hair, Allen gives a curious case. A young man of dark complexion and brown hair had a “perfectly white” patch of hair and skin above the forehead. After Psor. hair and spot became natural colour. And elsewhere he quotes, “Whether derived from purest gold or purest filth, our gratitude for its excellent service forbids us to enquire or care.” CLARKE (Dictionary), says, “Psorinum has been proved entirely in the potencies, and I know of no more trustworthy proving in the Materia Medica.” He gives a number of cases, showing its uses; also cases where some of its symptoms have been evoked in patients under treatment by the drug. His Chief keynotes are “Lack of vital reaction, prostration after acute disease; depressed, hopeless; night-sweats.” He says, “Hopelessness, despair of perfect recovery, is part of the lack of reaction.” “Foulness may be considered its second keynote,” i.e. foulness of all discharges: as we shall see later on, from eruptions, from ears, from bowels; and offensiveness of leucorrhoea, sweat, sputum, etc. He points out some of its peculiar conditions, such as “Sick babies will not sleep day or night, but worry, fret, cry: or, good and play all day; restless, troublesome, screaming all night.” “Feels unusually well before attack.” “Profuse sweat after acute diseases, with relief of all sufferings.” He says, “Psor. has cured more cases of hay fever in my practice than any other remedy.” Among the peculiar symptoms, to which he draws attention are, “Stupid in left half of head. As if brain would protrude: had not enough room in forehead. As if head separated from body. As if he heard with ears not his own. Teeth as if glued together. Hands and feet as if broken. Psorinum cannot bear the limbs to touch each other at night: or the weight of arms on chest.” (Lach. on abdomen.) GUERNSEY, Keynotes.–The symptoms of this drug are very closely allied to those of Sulphur. If the latter appears to be indicated, but fails to cure, study up Psorinum. Dry, lustreless, rough head of hair. Eructations tasting like rotten eggs: stools (diarrhoeic) smelling like rotten eggs. Debility remaining after acute diseases. Now we will draw from the wisdom and knowledge of KENT; condensing. Psorinum is closely allied to Sulphur. He, also, dreads to be washed: looks dingy, dirty, foul, as if covered with dirt. Skin rough, cracks, bleeds; rough and scaly. He cannot wash it clean. Always seems to have dirty hands. Skin complaints worse from bathing, and from warmth of bed. Itching when warm. (And yet Psorinum is the chilliest of mortals.) Rawness, itching, tingling, crawling, bleeding of skin. In eczema, worse from warm applications, worse at night, worse from anything that will keep the air away. “This is the very opposite of the general Psorinum state, which is aggravated by the open air.” (The patient wants to get away from the open air; “his skin needs it”. It is these contradictory symptoms, contradictory as regards the patient and his parts, that make prescribing more easy: as in the chilly Phos. who wants ice for his suffering stomach, and icy cold drinks in plenty: or the typical Ars. who needs “blankets up to his chin, and his head out of the window”.) “The oozing of eruptions is offensive like carrion or decomposed meat: nauseating, sickening odour from the oozing fluid. Offensiveness runs through Psorinum–stinking odours, fetid breath. Discharges and oozings–stool, perspiration, leucorrhoea, all abominably offensive. Stool, flatus, eructations smell like rotten eggs. Psor. is offensive to sight and smell. And so through all the complaints of eyes, nose and other parts: discharges yellow green, horribly offensive. “Debility: but worse in open air: can’t breathe: wants to go home and lie down so that he can breathe. Wants a warm place to lie down and be let alone.” Lies on his back, arms wide apart, thrown across bed, to relieve the breathing, in asthma, etc. Worse the nearer the arms are brought to the body. In fevers the heat and sweat are intense: “covered with boiling sweat in fevers”: the heat as great as that of Bell., but not the dry heat of Bell.: hot steam under the covers. (Or, as usual, the opposite. “In typhoids, after least exertion, sweats, and the sweat is cold.”) In regard to stool, Kent quotes, “In Psorinum we find the haste of Sulphur, the flatulence of Olean. and Aloe, and the difficulty of expelling a soft stool like Alumina, China and Nux mosch.” Psorinum hates draughts: scalp cold: wears a fur cap in summer. Mentally hopeless and sad: business will be a failure: has sinned away his day of grace: no joy in his family: these things are not for him! Anxiety, to suicide: despair of recovery. Psorinum, before treatment, is in no wise an ideal companion; is not, like the Mr. Guppy made famous by Dickens, “a nice young man for a small tea-party” One has not used Psorinum at all frequently, having, perhaps, failed to grasp its “inwardness” in other than very characteristic cases, where it has hit one in the eye, and refused to be missed. But one remembers just two or three striking instances of its employment. A young girl, dying very rapidly of phthisis, came to out- patients years ago; so offensive–breath a nightmare–that one was unable, almost, to breathe near her: sputum green and horribly fetid. Psorinum was prescribed, and we hurriedly got doors and windows open and a big draught to blow away her memory. Next time she appeared, there was nothing unpleasant to notice, the odour was gone. What happened to her later, one cannot relate, she only appeared a few times and was seen no more. That is the worse of the out-patient crowds. They come and their condition and remedies are carefully studied and noted. Some of them continue to come; some that one greets with an inward groan–like curses and chickens that come home to roost: while out of some of them great joy arises. Or, again they cease to reappear, and others take their place: and it requires effort –a good deal–to follow them up later, when it would be most interesting and instructive to know what had happened. One’s best cases are often heard of only years later , when a new patient arrives with, “You cured Mrs. So-and-So, some ten years ago; and now I have come to see if you can cure me too. I’ve got just the same that she had!” In Hospital work, history repeats itself: “Where are the nine that have not returned to give thanks?” The ONE, is often a very precious and encouraging personage. But it is the case of Hahnemann’s washer-woman, over again. “So many weeks in great pain, and unable to work!–why should the poor woman leave her job merely to tell the doctor that she is well?” Another Psorinum case, many years ago, was a wee boy, admitted into our Children’s Ward with a T.B. abdomen and chest. The odour of the unfortunate–or, as it turned out, fortunate– child was so awful, one could hardly go near his bed. He got a dose of Psor. 30 and he was put out on the balcony for a few months; and went out apparently well. And yet another case, from early dispensary days, of a miserable, sickly little girl, with insufferably evil odour, and dry harsh skin–it was almost ichthyosis–who improved greatly on Psorinum. One quotes from memory: the cases are very long ago, and to look up the notes, not even knowing the names, would be a considerable task. But they may serve to impress on others also, two of the great characteristic of Psorinum.–its insufferable mal-odour, never to be forgotten–only to be compared to that of rotten eggs (and any one who has broken a rotten egg will realize how, having hurled it as far away as possible, one is impelled to flee in the opposite direction !) and the harsh, dry skin, which is, or may be, a great feature in the Psorinum picture. Another drug of appalling odour is Kreosotum. A woman supposed to be dying of bronchitis (? bronchiectasis) came into hospital some years ago. It was almost impossible to go inside her screens–she was screened off because of the awful odour of breath and sputum. Kreosotum 200, not only banished the odour by the next day, but restored her to life, to the amazement of the then house physician. One has seen Kreosotum 200 also annihilative of the terrible odours that sometimes accompany cancer of cervix; where, if it did nothing more, it made life more supportable for patient and her entourage.
BLACK LETTER SYMPTOMS
Anxious: full of fear: melancholic. Very depressed, sad, suicidal thoughts. Driven to despair by excessive itching. Moist, suppurating, fetid, also dry eruptions on scalp. Tinea capitis et faciei. Discharge of fetid pus from ear. Otorrhoea; with headache; thin, ichorus and horribly offensive, like rotten meat. Very offensive, purulent, with watery, stinking diarrhoea. Brown, offensive, from left ear, for almost four years. Chronic cases following scarlet fever. Humid soreness behind ears: scurfs on ears, and humid scurfs behind ear. Swelled upper lip. Tongue very dry. Sensation of plug or lump in throat impeding hawking. Great hunger. Eructations tasting like rotten eggs. Stool, dark-brown: very fetid, and foul-smelling. Cough, with expectoration of green mucus, nearly like matter. He perspires freely when walking:–profuse sweat with consequent debility. Skin has a dirty, dingy look, as if patient never washed: in some places looks coarse, as if bathed in oil. Sebaceous glands secrete in excess. Eczema behind ears, on scalp, in bends of elbows and armpits, accompanied by abscesses affecting bones. Itch; dry on arms and chest, most severe on finger joints; followed by boils: inveterate cases with symptoms of tuberculosis, repeated outbreak of single pustules after main eruption gone. Suppressed eruptions.
IMPORTANT, CHARACTERISTIC ITALIC, OR PECULIAR SYM
PTOMS Very irritable, easily angered; always thinks of dying. Great fear of death. Sad and joyless. Great test despondency, making his own life and those about him intolerable. Religious melancholy. Despair of recovery. Attacks of fear; fear of fire, of being alone, of apoplexy of becoming insane, etc. Frontal headache, with sensation of weakness in forehead: not space enough in skull, as if everything were pushed out–on rising. Better: for nose-bleed; after washing and breakfast. Fiery sparks before eyes: objects appear as if they were trembling, vibrating. Discharge: from ears of reddish earwax, or fetid pus. Herpes from temple, over ears to cheeks. Right ear a mass of crusts and pus. Looseness of teeth: so loose, feels they may fall out. Thirst for beer: desire for acids; loathing of pork. Vomiting of sweet mucus every morning at ten and in evening. Horribly offensive, nearly painless, almost involuntary, dark and watery stool: at night, and most towards morning. Leucorrhoea, large lumps, unbearable in odour: violent pains in sacrum and right loin. Suffocation and crawling in larynx: tickling; throat seems narrowing, must cough. Out for a walk, must return home in order to get breath, or to lie down, so that they can breathe more easily : (<) instead of (>) from open air. Chest expands with difficulty: cannot get breath. Anxious dyspnoea. Worse when sitting up: better lying down. Worse the nearer arms are brought to body. Asthma as if he would die. Cough with salty-tasting, green and yellow expectoration. Expectoration of blood, with hot sensation in chest; yellowish green. Chronic blenorrhoea of lungs, threatening phthisis. Suppuration of lungs. Chest symptoms better lying down. Pain in heart better lying down: thinks the stitches in heart will kill if they continue. Gurgling in region of heart, especially noticed when lying down. Dyspnoea with palpitation. Weakness in all joints as if they would not hold together. Joints easily sprained: tends to overlift himself: troubles from tension or stretching of muscles. Herpetic and itching eruptions, especially in bends of joints, in bends of elbows, in popliteal spaces. Better bending forward. Profuse sweat from slightest exercise. Malaise: tired out. Constantly increasing debility, with abdominal affections. Child at night would twist and turn and fret from bedtime till morning, and next day be as lively as ever. Children: emaciated. Children good all day, restless, troublesome, screaming all night. Or will not sleep, but worry, fret and cry day and night. Very sensitive to cold air, or change of weather. Wears a fur cap, overcoat, or shawl even in hottest summer weather. Restlessness before and during thunderstorm. Averse to having head uncovered. While in bed, body itches. Profuse night-sweats of phthisis: or want of perspiration: dry skin. All excretions, diarrhoea, leucorrhoea, menses and sweat have a carrion-like odour. Body has a filthy smell, even after a bath. Abnormal tendency to skin diseases. Itching when body becomes warm. When rubbed small papules and vesicles arise, between fingers, in bends of knees, terrible, of whole body at night, preventing sleep, Eruptions bleed easily and tend to suppurate.
-M.L.Tyler.