Calcarea phosphorica. Phosphate of lime. Trituration.
PATHOGENESIS.
For the physiological role played by lime and its salt in the body we refer the reader to the article on calcarea carbonica. The action of calcarea phosphorica is in general way the same as that of calcarea carbonica but the phosphorus element in it gives it certain characteristics of its own which the provings and clinical use have defined. We will in the present section relate the result of the provings and in the therapeutic section give the further indications for the use of the drug that clinical experience has brought to light.
PROVINGS
Mind -These show that the intellect becomes obtuse and there is difficulty in performing any ordinary intellectual operation, wrong words are used in writing and speaking, the memory fails and there is consequently a feeling of inability for any mental work and dread of attempting it. The patient becomes gloomy, discontented, fearful and ill-humoured.
Head.-There is a heavy pain in the head, felt mostly in the morning on waking, it is on the vertex and sides of the head towards the occiput and is like a painful pressure of “the brain” against the skull, worse from bodily exertion, stooping, pressure of the hat and from going into the open air: better from washing the face with cold water, from mental exertion temporarily from food, and from lying still. Rising from sitting or lying causes vertigo. Nausea and pain in the stomach often accompany the headache. there may be a dull, pressive, frontal headache and shootings through the temples with the same modalities. A sensation of fulness and confusion accompanies the headaches.
Eye.- Painful biting pains in the eyelids with a sensation of something in the eye which compels rubbing and yellowness of the sclerotics are the principal eye symptoms experienced by the provers.
Nose.- From the nose there is running of clear fluid., worse in the open air, or of mucus tinged with streaks of blood itching and soreness are felt inside the alae nasi.
Face.- There are pain in upper jaws, itching in the cheek and chin pimples on the forehead and chin; swelling of upper lip also occurs.
Digestive System.- There is a sensation of a small, painful swelling in the gums, and the lower incisors feel as if something is sticking into them. Saliva is copious and acid. The throat feels dry and sore, the uvula, tonsil and pharynx are red and swollen, worse on the right side rendering swallowing difficult and painful. Appetite may be diminished but there is usually a feeling of hunger accompanied with an empty, sinking sensation in the stomach, or a sore pain at the epigastrium which is worse from pressure and relieved by belching. Bread is worse from pressure and relieved by belching. Bread tastes bitter. Heartburn comes on an hour after food and lasts about an hour and is accompanied with burning in the stomach. There is much flatus with borborygmi in the abdomen, and this causes pain in various parts, especially in the transverse colon, the left hypochondrium and round the umbilicus. Diarrhoea and the passage of flatus relieve the abdominal pain; taking food, especially cold food and acids increases it. The stools are frequent at first natural then soft mushy, watery, bilious, slimy, or lumpy and covered with mucus. Much offensive flatus is passed at the same time as the stools, always with relief to abdominal pain.
Urine.- The urine is usually copious and watery, with frequent urging. Pains are felt in the region of the kidneys on exertion or jar such as lifting digging or blowing the nose.
Sexual Organs.- There are drawing pains in the glans penis, shooting through the perineum into the penis, and diminished sexual desire.
Weakness and distress are felt in the region of the uterus, worse during the passage of food and urine, and there are labour- like pains in the hypogastrium and left groin with involuntary stool and passage of blood from the vagina.
Chest.-Sharp pains occur in the chest wall about the level of the sixth and seventh ribs and similar pains are felt in the cardiac region; these are worse on inspiration and arrest the breath. There is much involuntary sighing and considerable soreness of the chest walls when they are pressed upon. A dry, hacking cough is some times present.
Neck and Black.-Cramping pains are felt in the nape of the neck, sharp and dragging pains in the scapular regions, and a dull ache, as from a bruise in the muscles, on each side of the dorsal spine. Sharp pains are experienced in the lumbar spine and upper part of the sacrum, followed by soreness, shooting pains along the lumbar muscles and a bruised feeling in the nates.
Limbs.-There is great weariness of the legs, especially below the knees. Dull aching, or sharp, shooting pains occur in all the limbs, especially from the elbows to the wrists and from the knees to the ankles; also particularly about the knees on their inner aspect and in the hamstring tendons. All pains are worse from movement. There is an ulcerative pain at the roots of the finger nails, all the fingers feel paralysed, and there is a tremulous motion of the hands; a severe pain occurs in front of the ankles followed by soreness in the sheath of the tendons, worse from flexing and extending the ankle joints.
Sleep.-The patient is sleepy during the day, but may get no sleep at night till 2 to 3 a.m., or he has sound sleep at first and early waking; he has many dreams: of danger, fire many events, travelling, robbers, cats and amours.
Fever, &c.-The patient is chilly, especially in the open air, and yet a warm room is oppressive; he has frequent creepy shivering, accompanied by contractile movements in the involuntary muscular fibres in the scrotal skin. Chills and shivering associated with coryza and a hacking cough are better for a brisk walk.
There are general weakness, weariness and prostration, with flushes of heat. The veins are distended and there are pains in various parts, frequently shooting along the muscles into the joints.
THERAPEUTICS.
CALCAREA PHOSPHORICA has been used chiefly in children and in girls at the period of puberty. The calc. phos. child differs from the calc. carb. one in being thin and emaciated instead of fat; he is less chalky-white and more of a dirty white or brownish complexion, and the abdomen, though large, is not hard and distended, but flabby. The calc. carb. child craves eggs, the calc phos. child salt and smoked meats, especially fat bacon. Calcarea phos is useful for children whose nutrition is defective, who suffer from diseases of the bones and glands and are disposed to rickets and tuberculous disease, who grow slowly, are slow in learning to walk and are dull in intellect. It will therefore be the suitable remedy in many cases of rickets and enlargements of the lymphatic glands in children who are suspected of a tendency to tuberculosis. In these children the fontanelles remain open too long, especially the posterior fontanelles; the cranial bones are deficient in size, are thin and crackle like parchment when pressed upon. The head looks too large for the body and the neck is thin and weak and unable to hold the head upright, so that it falls back or to one side, or the chin drops on to the sternum. There may be lateral curvature of the spine from weakness of the dorsal muscles.
Calcarea phos is useful also for the dyspepsias that are so common in these children; food is not digested and is often vomited, especially milk; infants are always hungry and want to nurse all the time; there is much thirst for juicy drinks but food and cold drinks cause pain in the stomach and abdomen, with sour vomiting and diarrhoea of stools that are watery, slimy, green, mucous and spluttering from simultaneous ejection of much offensive flatus. Such a dyspepsia and diarrhoea frequently occur during teething, and calc. phos. is then the remedy; the teeth are late and decay early, they are sensitive to touch and to the pressure of masticating.
The drug is indicated also for the diarrhoeas of older people brought on by cold drinks, ice cream, cider, fruit, vexation, and for those occurring in phthisical subjects, if the characteristic stools are present.
It is indicated when these symptoms of the digestive tract accompany hydrocephaloid, which may be either congenital or the sequel of an exhausting disease such as cholera infantum, typhoid fever or whooping cough. It should be given to the mother during her pregnancy when her previous children have had hydrocephalus.
Calcarea phos. is useful for most forms of malnutrition that arise from defective cell-growth, such as anaemia produced by prolonged suckling, excessive menstruation, or chronic discharges.
It is very useful for a complex of symptoms that often occur in an anaemic school girl about the time of puberty, who is of the Calcarea phos. colour and build, is backward in her studies but ambitious and studies hard. She gets a headache with hot head, has icy-cold feet, hunger for unsuitable food gets dyspepsia, which is only temporarily relieved by eating, has green, offensive, undigested stools, expelled with much flatus and frequent copious urination; the menses, if established, are too profuse and painful. The condition is named “schoolgirls’ headache.” It is not necessary that all the symptoms of the complex should be present to warrant the prescription of this drug.
Edwin Awdas Neatby founded the Missionary School of Homeopathy and the London Homeopathic Hospital in 1903, and run by the British Homeopathic Association. He died in East Grinstead, Sussex, on the 1st December 1933. Edwin Awdas Neatby wrote The place of operation in the treatment of uterine fibroids, Modern developments in medicine, Pleural effusions in children, Manual of Homoeo Therapeutics,