SILICA


Homeopathic remedy Silica from A Manual of Homeopathic Therapeutics by Edwin A. Neatby, comprising the characteristic symptoms of homeopathic remedies from clinical indications, published in 1927….


      Terra silicea.

INTRODUCTION

      SILICA in the form of silicic acid is found in minute traces in animal tissues, having been ingested in vegetable foods and even more in eggs. Apart from possible metabolic value, its value in the animal economy is in the development and maintenance of hair, nails and feathers.

Neither the recognized textbooks of pharmacology not the records of toxicology afford any clue to the use of silica as a remedial agent. Its general distribution in the tissues, rather than concentration in any particular organ or tissue (except nails and hair), might suggest a systemic or constitutional effect therapeutically (if any) rather than a local one. Its clinical use has confirmed this suggestion.

PATHOGENESIS AND THERAPEUTICS.

      WHAT we know of the provers of silica as a drug is derived partly on the healthy, and partly by its effects in disease. It was used by Paracelsus in cases of urinary calculi and some nervous conditions, and it is not without interest to note that in herbivorous animals considerable quantities of silica salts are found in the urine, and are said sometimes to cause stone in the bladder in sheep.

However, it was not until Hahnemann re-introduced it tested its value and defined its sphere, that it became an effective remedial agent, and then only on the homoeopathic basis. Its use in silicated mineral waters can scarcely be deemed an exception to this statement, though its prescribers may have been unconscious of its homoeopathicity.

To avoid repetition the pathogenesy and the therapeutics of silica will be considered together-its disease-producing and healing powers being practically identical, and no effort will be made to distinguish between the two. Its most conspicuous use is in a particular kind of malnutrition or marasmus, especially in children kind of malnutrition or marasmus, especially in children. Its choice is determined not by our being able to label the patient`s condition as due to congenital syphilis, rickets, or tuberculosis (though it may be helpful in all these conditions), but by the clinical ensemble or picture. A child requiring silica emaciates, or fails to increase in weight as a growing child should, or it may even lose weight and strength. Development is delayed or arrested and the child is backward in walking and talking. The surface and tissues of the body are sensitive to touch it cries or shows signs of distress when lifted or handled. In striking contrast with the emaciated limbs and wrinkled skin there is distension of the abdomen-an association often found in tuberculous children. The distension is mainly gaseous, but enlargement of the mesenteric glands may be present. These may be felt under anaesthesia, or if the abdomen is caught in a state of flaccidity, and have been demonstrated when for any reason, the abdomen has had to be opened. The want of tone implied by this distension permits of constipation, and a peculiar kind of constipation it is which characterizes the typical silica case. The stool itself is formed of hard, dry light-coloured lumps, of which the patient has hardly power to complete the expulsion, and, in children especially, the effort is abandoned and the partly expelled faeces slip back within the sphincter. The abandonment may be due to pain (from fissure or fistula), or to fatigue. Inactivity of the rectum may prevent the evacuation progressing so far, and be represented by occasional spasmodic ineffectual effort, or only ineffectual desire for relief. Other remedies have hard, dry stools (ex. gr., bryonia, lead opium, &c.) as features in their pathogeneses, but the recession is almost peculiar to silica. On the other hand, in some cases diarrhoea of offensive stools, with changing appearance, may be present, and its sudden arrest may cause aggravation of other symptoms.

Unsuitable feeding, teething, or unusually hot weather may be the exciting causes of such diarrhoea, or it may be more persistent, and be due to the irritation of long retained dry faeces.

Perspiration is another feature of silica cases. The “silica patient” is said to “sweat at both ends.” He has profuse head sweats, especially at night, or any time during sleep; it is often associated with soreness of the scalp. The feet are cold and sweat freely, the perspiration being offensive. This may be present in either rickety or tuberculous subjects. They are weakly, with lax muscles, pallor and fine skin, and have sunken eyes and pinched, old-looking face.

The student should here observe that the picture thus drawn does not portray accurately any one of the three constitutional diseases mentioned earlier in the article. It is the outline of a state of malnutrition which has features common to them all, yet not diagnostic (clinically) of any of them; if is a sketch of the features indicating silica as a remedy for this state. The sphere of this drug is wider than any of them, for there may be instances even of rickets (to which disease silica most closely corresponds) for which that drug is not suitable. It might be called and inorganic vitamin A. The sketch must now be filled in.

Suppurative and ulcerative conditions of a slow and chronic kind are benefited by silica if the patients present the features already described (or some of them) and those to be presently mentioned. Slow suppuration of all kinds, sometimes occurring as fistulae or sinuses, the result of acute or deep-seated suppuration; occurring in a variety of sites, ex, gr., round the nails ( paronychia), or in the lachrymal sac, peri-=anal fistulae (especially those blind internally)-all these call for the consideration of silica as a possible remedy. So do the following: skin wounds that are slow in healing: ulcers with bluish red and hard but sensitive edges, and with dirty, pale, exuberant granulation (“proud flesh”), pustules and boils (and recurrences of them). If a piece of necrosed bone is the source of the suppuration (after injury or periostitis), it should be removed; but if that is not possible and the sequestrum is small, its separation may be facilitated by silica, and healing will then follow. Some cases of caries require this drug.

On all fours with these suppurations is chronic catarrh of various mucous surfaces, to which reference will be made in their various localities.

The discharge from all these sources is offensive, and (except at the onset) thin and irritating; the skin around itches and may be sensitive to touch; warm applications give marked relief. The absorption of old inflammatory deposits is markedly favoured by silica, in which power it rivals sulphur.

Nervous System.-The symptoms indicating silica in the nervo- mental sphere are notable. The patient is desponding, tired of life, and inclined to weep. His resistance is lowered-all impressions induce too marked a reaction; he is startled and anxious from sudden noises; an unexpected touch will elicit an exaggerated response (ex. gr., a “knee-jerk”) being unexpectedly addressed or stumbling against a stone causes tremor, a sudden flush of heat all over or even slight sweat, he is fearful that he will not be able to carry out his usual duties. If he is a lawyer, he is confident he cannot face the court; if he is a surgeon he fears he cannot perform the operation planned, or if he is a clergyman he feels quite unable to preach his sermon-in all the cases it is anticipation which is so greatly felt. When the event is actually entered upon, self-consciousness disappears, and the duty is performed properly, but it is at the price of exhaustion. A frequent repetition of this dread and effort means reduced vitality and a threatened breakdown. The patient becomes restless, irritable and fidgety; his mind is confused and he cannot fix his attention; thinking is an effort and memory is poor for recent events; he is over-fatigued by a small physical or mental effort; and is relieved by lying down, and “lying fallow,” and by wrapping up warmly. This may be described as neurasthenia, or psychasthenia, and it may be due to prolonged worry and mental strain; to over-study (as after working for an examination), or it may have a sexual origin. Or sexual symptoms may have a neurasthenic origin-coition may be followed by exhaustion, palpitation or fainting (chiefly in men), and further, depression be induced thereby. Kent in an apt sentence, illustrates the value of silica, when he writes, “What silica is to the stalk of grain in the field, it is to the human mind.” Many of the chronic effects of fright or shock are curable by it.

A condition called “spinal irritation,” with pains up the spinal column and along the nerves radiating from the cord, tenderness in one or more spots in the back, with pain from the nape up to the head, and the general lowered resistance, already described, has been treated successfully by silica.

Some of the mental symptoms suggest dementia praecox, and in such cases silica should be studied; also in failure obsessions or inferiority complexes. Melancholia may develop.

Edwin Awdas Neatby
Edwin Awdas Neatby 1858 – 1933 MD was an orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy to become a physician at the London Homeopathic Hospital, Consulting Physician at the Buchanan Homeopathic Hospital St. Leonard’s on Sea, Consulting Surgeon at the Leaf Hospital Eastbourne, President of the British Homeopathic Society.

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,