Sulphur

– TESTE A, GROUP REMEDIES,  GROUP IIV,SULPHUR
 – Simple, combustible body, or, at any rate, which has never yet been decomposed, (it is supposed to contain hydrogen,) solid, of a lemon color, insipid and inodorous, becoming electric by friction, fusible at 180° F., and crystallizing when cooling, in the shape of semi-transparent needles.
 – Sulphur is insoluble in water, but slightly soluble in alcohol; so that, from the first upwards, all its dilutions can be made with alcohol.
 – This metalloid which exists extensively in nature, where it is found in its native state, in the neighborhood of volcanoes, in amorphous masses, or in the form of crystals; or in combination with hydrogen, and various metallic oxydes, (sulphurets,) or in combination with oxygen and oxydes, (sulphates,) is moreover, a constituent element of various organic substances, especially of the plants composing the family of the Cruciferae, of which Baume, Deyeux, Planche, etc., regard it as an active principal. *
 – Although sulphur acts with much less intensity than arsenic, corrosive sublimate and other poisons, it may, nevertheless, when taken in large doses, occasion death.
 – This results beyond a doubt from Bank’s experiments on dogs and cats.
 – The following symptoms preceded death in the case of these animals: anorexia, thirst, vomiting, (only in cats,) diarrhoea; increases, followed by increased slowness, of the motions, prostration, slight trembling; lastly, drowsiness and convulsions.
 – After death, all the internal organs, except the heart and bowels, were found to be remarkably pale. *
 – Sulphur seems to affect with equal intensity the carnivorous and herbivorous animals.
 – A pound of sulphur has caused the death of a hore. *
 – The most serious accidents, death even, have befallen man, in consequence of abusing sulphur.
 – Morgani, for instance, relates the case of an individual, who had lost his reason, in consequence of the continued use of this drug ; * and Olmsted, relates a case, where the continued use of large doses of sulphur, had caused a general emaciation with paralysis, ankylosis, contraction and deformity of the extremities. *
 – Empirical applications.
 – “Sulphur seems to have been used in veterinary medicine, previous to being employed as a remedy for the diseases of man, against which it is now used as one of the most powerful auxiliaries of the medical art. *
 – From the earliest ages it has been employed as a disinfecting agent,* a prophylactic,* and in the burnt-offerings of the ancients.”
 – Scarcely mentioned in the works of Hippocrates, it is recommended by Dioscorides * in diseases of the chest, against which it was employed by Plinius and Galenus, both internally and externally.
 – Over-rated and under-rated with a like exaggeration, it has ever since remained in the Materia Medica, where its place has, however, remained very uncertain.
 – It was successfully employed as a sudorific, a tonic, a stimulant, a dissolvent, a deobstruent, an expectorant, and a purgative.
 – In the Materia Medica’s of our day, sulphur remains placed among the excitants, * probably unit further order.
 – Be this as it may, in a certain number of diseases the efficacy of sulphur was if not generally recognized, at least established as a fact by a great many physicians, whose names are regarded as authorities.
 – These diseases are the following:–Some acute exanthemata, particularly measles, of which sulphur, according to the authority of Tortual, Muhrbeck, and Hufeland, is the prophylactic;* anasarca following acute exanthemata;* furfuraceous herpes, favus, the itch;* mercurial salivation, gastric derangement, colic, dysentery, intestinal worms, piles, abdominal engorgements, ascites;*  leucorrhoea and amenorrhoea; cough, asthma, pulmonary phthisis, *chronic rheumatism, gout, scrofula, rickets, some forms of intermittent fever coming on after suppressed swear,* etc.
 – F. Hoffmann, Junker, and Rosenstein, have made this judicious remark, that sulphur not only cures the itch, but that it likewise removes the diseases occasioned by the repulsion of this disease.
 – Hahnemann never went any farther.
 – Cullen, who according to all appearances, was a great sceptic in some respects, “regards the properties which are attributed to sulphur as very uncertain,” a doctrine which seems to have revolted Alibert, who writes: “I use this drug too often and with too much success to admit the assertion of this author.” *
 – Homoeopathic applications.*
 – There is scarcely a disease for which sulphur has not been recommended.
 – According to Hahnemann, it has been particularly useful in the following affections:–
 – Irritability; ill-humor with depression of spirits; timidity; tendency to start; tendency to weep; disconsolate in regard to every thing he does; paroxysms of anxiety; anxiety that compels him to unbutton his clothes and to go into the open air; irascible mood; headache and difficulty of collecting his thoughts; week memory; frequent turns of vertigo; vertigo when sitting; heaviness of the head when stooping; vertigo on leaving the table; rush of blood to the head, with flashes of heat; headache at night; heaviness at the occiput; pulling headache as if the head would burst, every day; shooting headache; throbbing headache at the sinciput; tingling and nosing of the eyelids in the morning; presbyopia; gauze before the eyes; myopia; pulling pain in the ears; stoppage of the ears when eating; hard hearing; noise in the ears; buzzing in the ears; dryness of the nose; stoppage of one nostril; inflammatory swelling of the tip of the nose; discharge of blood from the nose when blowing it; nosebleed; pale sickly complexion; wrinkled skin of the face; heat in the face; hepatic; hepatic spots on the upper lip; toothache in the evening; denudation of the teeth; swelling of the guns, with throbbing pain; sore throat, which impedes swallowing; insipid taste of the food; ravenous appetite; foul taste in the mouth, in the morning; sour taste in the mouth; aversion to fat, sweet and sour things; canine hunger, oppression of the chest after eating; acids burning eructations; bitter eructations; badly-smelling eructations, at night during sleep; regurgitation of the food and drinks; malaise before a meal; nausea after eating; nausea in the morning; constrictive, contractive gastralgia immediately after eating; digging at the pit of the stomach; stitch at the stomach; stitches in the left side of the abdomen, when walking; stitches in the abdomen; tearing pains in the left side of the abdomen; constrictive pain under the umbilicus; chronic pressure at the upper part of the abdomen; pressive pain in the abdomen, which extorts a cry from him, with constipation; bellyache, after drinking; the hypogastrium is muscles of the touch; painfulness, in the morning; of the muscles of the abdomen, as if too short; shifting of flatulence, borborygmi; hard stool; stool every two or three days only; involuntary evacuation of faeces while urinating; falling of the rectum while straining at stool, wetting the bed, at night; itching at the anus; little sexual power; too sudden ejaculation during an embrace; fetid sweat at the genital organs; itching and heat at the vulva; premature menses; discoloration of the menstrual blood; pressure on the genitals; itching at the vulva before the menses; headache before the menses; leucorrhoea; coryza; stoppage of the nose, roughness of the larynx; titillation in the larynx, which excites a cough; cough in the night; constant cough with fever; blood spitting and stitches in side; difficulty of breathing; asthma, with wheezing and ratting in the chest, and beating of the chest, heaviness in the chest, in the morning; weariness in the chest, from singing; stitches in the sternum; stitches through the chest, to the left shoulder-blade, heat in the chest; pressure in the sternum; itching at the nipples; pain in the loins; cracking in the sternum ; pain in the back after manual labor; pulling in the back; tension in the nape of the neck; twitching in the arm, wrist, and finger-joints; swelling of the arms; sweat in the palm of the hands; trembling of the hands in executing fine work; numbness of a few fingers; tingling at the end of the fingers and toes; red spots on the legs, stitches in the thighs, when walking rapidly; heaviness of the legs; coldness about the thighs, with sweat on the legs, in the morning, in bed; weakness in the knees and arms; tingling in the calves and arms; pain in the tarsal joint, as if luxated; stiffness of the big toes; cold hands and feet; blisters on the big toes; chilblains on the feet; shocks in the extremities when sitting or lying; pains in the knee and other joints; urticaria; itching all blow; sensitiveness to the air and wind; flashes of heat; numbness of the extremities, shooting pains; internal tremor; muscular twitchings; tendency to spraining joints; syncope and spasms; stooping when walking; drowsiness in the day time; too long night-sleep; unrefreshing sleep; desire to sleep after dinner; colic at night; starting during sleep, also with the whole body; sleeplessness; very light sleep; sleeplessness at night on account of frightful dreams, talking during sleep; hallucinations in the morning, on waking; thirst in the night; sweat day and night; nightsweat; sour night-sweat, every night; sweat in the morning; profuse sweat during work.
 – According to Hahnemann, Sulphur is the antipsoric first in rank.
 – “When the symptoms of the itch,” says Hahnemann, “have been recognized by the physician, it will suffice to administer, without any external application, two globules of dynamized sulphur, in order to cure a child of the whole psoric disease, disease, in two, three, or four weeks.
 – No other remedy will be required.”*
 – There is not a physician who does not know, now-a-days, what this assertion is worth.
 – It is true, sulphur cures the itch, but almost always very slowly; so slowly, that some of Hahnemann’s disciples despairing of accomplishing a cure by the internal use of the attenuations of sulphur, have resorted to the reprehensible custom of accompanying the internal use of sulphur with the external use of the sulphur-ointment.
 – I have noticed that it is principally in sanguine and robust subjects that the itch resists with most obstinacy the exclusive and internal use of sulphur.
 – The efficacy of this drug is much more marked in the treatment of favus; but in any other species of scald-head it is more than doubtful.
 – Chronic and non-venereal ulcerations of the skin are generally very speedily modified by the aid of sulphur; they change in appearance, fleshy granulations start up, and, in some cases, cicatrisation takes place with a surprising rapidity.
 – But sulphur is not, as many physicians believe, the specific remedy for scrofula.
 – What is supposed to be scrofula, in such a case, are simply bad humors, arising from bed air, bad food, or excesses of some kind; such a cacochymia is characterized by the following symptoms.
 – Sickly looks, pale, blanched, wan, earthy face; flaccid or wrinkled, or else fine and rose-colored skin; herpetic eruptions which are more or less distinct or have already disappeared either spontaneously or under the influence of repelling drugs; dull, but continual headache; weakness of one or more senses; slow fever, with evening exacerbations; physical and mental indolence; sweat in making the least effort; dyspnoea in working, walking, and especially in going up stairs; timid, pusillanimous, and at the same time irritable mood; ect.
 – This group of symptoms is indeed developed by every antipsoric in a healthy person, after its action has been allowed to continue for a time; and it is therefore cured or at least diminished by every one of them; but these symptoms are not scrofula.
 – Formerly I made frequent use of sulphur against the swelling of the cervical glands, but almost always without success, except in cases where these glands were ulcerated.
 – In such cases the pus ceased to discharge, the wound became cicatrised; and in a few months after, the disease reappeared in some other place.
 – In caries sulphur seldom effects a cure.
 – Generally it improves the constitutional condition of the patient; but this improvement does not last unless a more suitable remedy is resorted to in season.
 – This drug has rendered great service in old cerebral affections, with seated pain in the forehead and diminution of the sense of hearing, and in certain forms of paralysis.
 – The epilepsies which have been cured with sulphur, were most probably of psoric origin; I have never had an opportunity of using it in this case.
 – It marked action on the rectum explains the numerous cures of piles which have been accomplished with sulphur, and likewise of the various affections which accompany them, or which break out in consequence of their suppression.
 – Lastly, it is especially in chronic affections of the air-passages, that sulphur has been found efficacious.
 – But has it really cured pulmonary phthisis ?
 – If it has not cured this disease, at least its course has been retarded for several years.
 – Sometimes, it is true, this suspension of the symptoms of phthisis, were it ever so complete for a time, for a few weeks, for instance, is only an ephemeral illusion both to the physician and the patient.
 – There is no doubt, however, that serious affections of the air-passages have frequently been arrested by the use of sulphur; affections, which, without being tuberculous phthisis, would nevertheless have been equally fatal.
 – I have collected several cases bearing upon this point, among others, that of a farmer of the district of Bagnoles, in Normandy, whose two brothers had both died of phthisis pulmonalis, according to the report of the physicians by whom they had been treated, and whose own case presented all the symptoms of a case of consumption of the second degree.
 – Sulphur is scarcely ever employed in acute cases.
 – No drug, however, can replace it in certain abnormal phases of exanthematic fevers.
 – “When the small pox runs an irregular course, and shows signs of being disposed to strike in; when the pustules, instead of being transparent or yellow, are greenish, pink-colored or black; when they fill themselves with blood, and a decomposition of the pus, and the development of putrid symptoms seems imminent, sulphur has then to be given.” *
 – Camph., Crot. tigl., Puls. and Coff. are the surest antidotes to sulphur.