Introduction
WE have been asked to paint a Drug-picture of Natrum phos., and, as usual, have gone the round of writers on homoeopathic Materia Medica, only to discover how little seems to have been written about it. Why?
For us, it happens to be one of the Twelve Tissue Remedies that has assumed a distinct individuality;- which is not by any means the case with all of them.
This was the way of it. On a well-remembered evening-late in the day-one was told that one of the house-maids had a “bad knee”. In those days of early, keen enthusiasm, when the testing of power was more of a novelty and therefore eagerly grasped at, one hurried to the top of the house to find a joint, hot, swollen, very painful-acutely inflamed. One also happened to be interested in the Schuessler remedies-so simple -so delightful-only twelve of them! – to be applied ultra-scientifically for all the ills that flesh is heir to:-until, presently, the inevitable snag shot up, when it seemed, on attempting to assimilate his teachings, that quite a number of them would be probably needed for almost any case. Anyway, this girl got Natrum phos.-his great remedy for rheumatism and -worms.
It worked absolutely to schedule: for next morning the knee trouble had subsided, and the patient had passed two round worms!
That is the sort of case, you will allow, that impresses one’s consciousness ineradicably. It has probably appeared already in the pages of HOMOEOPATHY; it deserves to have done so, but its real place is here.
It was a happy introduction to Natrum phos.-thereafter no mere name, but a trusted friend, to be used again and again in rheumatic troubles, especially in children. One notes that an all-important claim is made for it as a remedy for that dangerous metastasis when pains quit joints or limbs for the heart expressed in the provings thus:
“Pains base of heart, relieving pains in limbs and great toe.
“Heart feels uneasy and pains, when pains in limbs and great toe are better.” One wonders how large a percentage of “heart disease” have some such origin?
Natrum phos., as will be observed through all the records of its provings, is SOUR-ACID. As, for instance, “acid, exceedingly sour smelling sweats acid taste acid condition of stomach, with nausea and vomiting of acid fluids, sour eructations vomiting of fluid as sour as vinegar. over-secretion of lactic acid ulceration of stomach with sour risings green, sour-smelling stools leucorrhoea and discharges from uterus, sour-smelling, acid eczema with symptoms of acidity.”
What about that modern bogey, “acidosis”, supposed to need very careful dieting:- which does not commend itself to one’s ideas of common sense in growing children. There would be no possible danger, and much good to be anticipated from a few doses of Natrum phos. in potency.
BLACK LETTER SYMPTOMS
Thin, moist coating on tongue.
Soft palate has yellowish, creamy look.
Sour eructations, sour vomiting, greenish diarrhoea; pains, spasms and fever with acid symptoms.
Gastric derangements with symptoms of acidity.
Yellow, creamy coating of back part of roof of mouth.
Italic, or important diagnostic symptoms.
Intense pressure and heat on top of head, as if it would open.
Severe pain, head, as if skull too full; frontal or occipital; with nausea and sour, slimy vomiting. Ejection of sour froth.
Squinting caused by intestinal irritation from worms.
Children grind teeth in sleep.
Tongue coated dirty white, with dark brown centre.
Heartburn and acidity: waterbrash.
Vomiting of acid fluids and curdled masses (not food).
Vomiting of fluid, sour as vinegar; over-secretion of lactic acid.
Stomach ache when worms are present, accompanied by acid risings.
Ulceration of stomach: pain in one spot after food. Face red and blotched, yet not feverish.
Sclerosis of liver and hepatic form of diabetes, especially where there is succession of boils.
Colic in children with symptoms of acidity, green sour-smelling stools, vomiting of curdled milk.
Diarrhoea from excess of acidity; stools sour-smelling, green.
Itching, sore and raw anus.
Itching at anus from worms, especially at night when warm in bed.
Intestinal long, or thread worms, with picking at nose, occasional squinting, pain in bowels, restless sleep.
Polyuria. Diabetes.
Incontinence of urine in children, with acidity of stomach.
Feels as if a lump or a bubble started from heart and was forced through arteries.
Pains base of heart, relieving pains in limbs and great toe.
Heart feels uneasy and pains, when pains in limbs and great toe are better.
Pain lower third of sternum, as if torn in two.
Goitre (in thirteen cases); the feeling of pressure was relieved in three to five days; in some cases a cure was affected.
Rheumatic pains contractions: stiffness on rising.
Synovial crepitation.
Crampy pains in hands when writing.
Worse thunderstorm: trembling and palpitation, and pains worse.
Diseases of infants suffering from excess of lactic acid, resulting from over-feeding of milk and sugar.
Ailments with excess of acidity.
Swelling of lymphatic glands before hardening.
Rheumatic arthritis.
Skin affections, with acidity. What about that modern bogey, “acidosis”?
This is what Schuessler has to say about this great “tissue salt”, Natrum phosphoricum. (N.B.-It must be remembered that Schuessler was a homoeopathic physician, whose ambition was to limit the number of remedies, and to make homoeopathy easy by his “bio-chemical” studies.)
He says, this salt is found in blood, muscle, nerve and brain- cells, as well as in the intercellular fluids useful in podagra, gout, as well as in the acute and chronic articular rheumatism, being thus a remedy for the so-called acid diathesis. It is the remedy for conditions arising from excess of lactic acid. It prevents the inspissation of the bile and mucus with crystallization of cholesterin in the gall duct, and will thus remove the case of many case of jaundice, hepatic colic, bilious headache and imperfect assimilation of fats from lack of bile. Schuessler gives a lengthy paragraph on the role of this salt, in the course of which he says, the liver is the prime and master laboratory of the animal body.
According to him, the great key-note for this remedy is the moist, creamy, or golden-yellow coating at the back part of the tongue, also at the back part of the roof of mouth. Blisters and sensation of hairs on tip of tongue.
Sour eructations, sour vomiting, greenish diarrhoea. He suggests “Possibly it is the remedy for diabetes, for, as is well known, sugar is changed into lactic acid. This, by the presence of Nat. phos., is converted into carbonic acid and water; while this salt thus lessens the quantity of lactic acid in the system, it furnishes room for a further supply of it from the sugar, and in this way reduces the amount of sugar to the normal degree.
Among the symptoms, as given by Schuessler: Mental; imagines, on waking at night, that pieces of furniture are persons, that he hears footsteps in next room.
(In our copy of Schuessler, we have recorded in the margin, a suggestion from our lecturer as students, “Exophthalmic goitre”, but symptoms do not seem to warrant this.)
Vomiting of sour fluids, or of a dark substance like coffee grounds, sour risings, loss of appetite.
It has many urinary symptoms. Diabetes. Constant urging; flow intermits, requires straining, and so on. We have given the most salient symptoms above.
Evidently Nat.phos. should be useful in the alarming metastasis where pains in extremities improve, while the heart suffers. This reminds one of one’s old rhyme on Benzoic acid:
“Better when urine’s thick and plus;
When scant and clear his pains are wuss!
And when his limbs and joints find ease.
He takes a turn at heart-disease.”
Schuessler suggests, as usual, the 6x or the 12x potencies; but we are told the higher and highest potencies have also been employed with success. We have used 30’s and 200’s.
CLARKE (Dictionary) gives the experience of one of the provers, who developed “itching of ankles with an eczematous eruption; fear, especially at night, that something would happen. headache; nausea; some defect of vision, with one pupil dilated.” Two years later he had a patient with visual disturbance and headache, with a sense of fear worse at night, and eruption about ankles: Nat.phos. cured promptly. This reminds one of what Hahnemann said in regard to provers:
“By making his own person the subject of experiments the physician will derive many invaluable advantages. A self-prover knows with certainty what he has felt, and every experiment of the kind upon himself stimulates him to explore the powers of numerous other drugs. In this manner he will grow more and more expert in the art of observing, so indispensable to the physician, as long as he continues to make himself the infallible and undeceptive subject of his observations.” And he shows (from his own experience) how the organism of the prover is “strengthened to repel injurious agencies from without, by means of these moderate experiments with drugs”.
And he lays it down that “Morbid disturbances called forth by drugs in the healthy are the only possible revelation of their inherent curative power.”
