Violent incessant dry cough; worse on inhaling the least cold air; covers the mouth to keep the cold air out, with relief.
Brownish diarrhoea, worse in morn.,
Intense itching of the skin when undressing to go to bed.
There are three localities in which this remedy acts very markedly, viz., respiratory organs, bowels and skin. “Violent, incessant cough, dry and fatiguing, with very little or no expectoration, worse by pressure, talking, and especially by INSPIRING COLD AIR, and at night. “(Dunham). There is perhaps no remedy under which the sensibility of the mucus membranes of the larynx and trachea become more exalted than this one. The patient must cover up the held in bed in order to protect these membranes from contact with the air, which immediately excites cough. Several other remedies, like PHOS., and SPON., have cough worse by breathing cold air, but none so markedly as RUMEX. Going from warm room into cool air and vice-versa. BRY., and NAT-C., have the opposite. The tickling that excites the cough may locate in the throat pit, supra-sternal fossa, or down behind the sternum to stomach, where is often added a sensation of soreness or rawness. (CAUST.,) Again we have found it efficacious in cough, with stitching pain THROUGH LEFT LUNG JUST BELOW LEFT NIPPLE.(NAT-S.,)
The diarrhoea of RUMEX is similar to that of NAT-S., sULPH., and POD., in that it occurs in the morn., but it is a BROWN diarrhoea and is apt to be accompanied with, or an accompaniment of, the cough. On the skin it cures an eruption which is characterized by intense itching WHEN UNDRESSING TO GO TO BED. This eruption may be vesicular, like army or prairie itch, or may look like simple urticaria. Itching on undressing is also found under NAT-S., and OLEAN., but with NATRUM this itching is apt to be found in connection with jaundice or malarial symptoms. If we should get intense itching over the body, which was worse by warmth, especially WARMTH OF BED, we would think of MERC SOL or PROT.,.
