Brimstone. Sublimed Sulphur. S. (A. W. 31.98). Trituration of “Flowers of Sulphur.” A saturated solution of Sulphur in absolute alcohol constitutes the O tincture. (A trituration of amorphous Sulphur has also been used. Effects of “Milk of Sulphur” or Precipitated Sulphur, i.e., Sulphur prepared by precipitation from a solution of Calcarea sulph. With Hydrochloric acid, are included in the pathogenesis.).
Clinical
*Acne. *Adenoids. Ague. *Alcohol habit. *Amaurosis. *Amenorrhoea. *Anaemia. Anus, prolapse of. *Asthma. Atelectasis. Bed-sores. *Biliousness. *Boils. *Brain, *congestion of. Breasts, affections of. Bright’s disease. *Bronchitis. Cataract. *Catarrh. Chagres fever. Chancre Cheloid. *Chest, *pains in. *Chilblains. Chloasma. Climaxis, sufferings of. *Cold. *Constipation. *Consumption. Corns. *Cough. Crusta serpiginosa. Dental fistula. Diabetes. *Diarrhoea. *Dysentery, Dysmenorrhoea, *Ear, *affection of Eczema, Emaciation, Enuresis. Epilepsy. *Eructations. *Eruptions. *Eyes, *affections of. *Faintness. *Feet, *burning, *perspiring. *Fever. Freckles. Ganglion. Glands, affections of. Gleet. Globus hystericus. Gonorrhoea. *Gout. *Haemorrhoids. *Headache. Head, rush of blood to. Herpes.
Hip-joint disease. Hydrocele. *Hydrocephalus. *Hydrothorax. *Hypochondriasis. Impotence. *Influenza. *Intermittents. *Irritation. *Itch. Jaundice. *Laryngitis. *Leucorrhoea. *Lichen. *Liver, *derangement of. *Lumbago. *Lungs, *affections of. *Lupus. Mania. *Measles. *Memory, *weak. Meningitis. *Menstruation, *disorders of. *Miscarriage. Molluscum. *Nettle rash. *Neuralgia. Nipples, sore. Nose, bleeding of, inflammation of. Oesophagus, constriction of. Ophthalmia, acute, scrofulous, rheumatic. *Pelvic haematocele. Phimosis. Phlegmasia dolens. *Peritonitis. *Pleurisy. *Pneumonia. *Pregnancy, *disorders of. Prostatorrhoea. *Rectum, *affections of. *Rheumatic fever. *Rheumatism, *acute, *chronic, *gonorrhoeal. *Ringworm. Sciatica. *Self-abuse. *Sinking. *Skin, *affections of. *Sleep, *disordered. *Smell, *illusions of. *Spinal irritation. Spine, curvature of. Spleen, pain in. *Startings. Stomatitis. *Taste, *illusions of. *Tenesmus. *Thirst. *Throat, *mucus in. *Tongue, *coated. Tonsillitis. Toothache. Trachea, *irritation in. *Ulcers. Urticaria. Uterus, prolapse of. *Vaccination. Varicocele. Varicosis. *Vertigo. *Warts. White swelling. *Worms. Worry. *Yawning.
Characteristics
*Sulphur is an elementary substance, occurring in nature as a brittle crystalline solid, burning in the air with a blue flame, being oxidized to Sulphur dioxide (*Sulphurous acid). The reputation of *Sulphur as a remedy is perhaps as old as medicine. “As early as 2,000 years ago,” says Hahnemann, *”Sul. had been used as the most powerful specific against the itch… The itch, with which the workers in wool are so much affected, causes an *intolerably agreeable, *tingling, *itching, gnawing as of vermin. Some designate it as an intolerably voluptuous titillating itching, ceasing as soon as the parts are scratched and commencing to burn, which burning continues after the scratching. *Sul. frequently produces in healthy persons burning-itching pimples and vesicles resembling the itch vesicles, and especially itching in the joints, and in the night.” The specific power of *Sul. to cure itch was abused. It was applied externally as baths and ointments, and the skin affection was not cured but repelled, and a host of secondary affections appeared in its place. Hahnemann found in *Sul. the homoeopathic counterpart of the peculiar constitutional dyscrasia which tends to manifest in itch-like eruptions, and which he named *Psora. *Sul. is the chief of the antipsoric remedies. A proving of *Sul. appears in the M. M. P., and this is amplified in the *Chronic Diseases. The domestic use of *Sul. (In the familiar “Brimostonee and Treacle”) as a “Spring medicine” is based on its antipsoric properties. “It is one of the most popular diaphoretics of the day,” says Milne, “few old women failing to use it when any eruption is supposed to be struggling through the skin.” It is this property of *Sul. to divert to the surface constitutional irritants which renders it the chief of Hahnemann’s antipsorics. *Sul. has also an antipsoric action independently of its power of “bringing out” rashes. The psoric poison may be present and active in a case of disease and “apparently well-indicated remedies may fail to act” in consequence. In such cases one or two doses of *Sul. will frequently antidote, as it were, the psora, and either clear up the case, or open the way for the action of other remedies. In such cases there will almost certainly be some *Sul. indications present. *Sul. is a potent antiseptic, and is one of the most certain destroyers of the acarus of itch. The exact relation of acarus itch to psora and other itching eruptions need not be considered, but as *Sul. has the power of repressing constitutional eruptions when locally applied, as well as the power of destroying the acarus, it is best to use other means (e.g., Oil of Lavender) for the latter purpose, and give *Sul. or other indicated remedies internally. In my experience the psora of Hahnemann (which is a very real and definite dyscrasia) is generally inherited. The symptoms of latent psora are set forth in detail in Hahnemann’s *Chronic Diseases, and they are for the most part almost exact reproductions of the symptoms of *Sul. But while *Sul. is the chief of antipsorics, it is only one of many, and *Sul. is in no way limited in its uses to cases of latent or declared psora. Much more important is it to know the leading features of the drug’s action, which are sure guides in any case. (1) A key to many of the *Sul. conditions is to be found in an *irregular distribution of the circulation: flushes of heat, rush of blood to head, chest, heart, plethora from suddenly suppressed eruptions, piles, discharges, heat and burning sensation of all parts or coldness, sweating of many parts. These irregularities may go on to actual inflammation with effusions, and to fever of intermittent or other types. Another manifestation of this is found in the *redness of orifices and parts near orifices: red ears, red nose, red eyelids and red borders round eyelids: brilliant red lips, bright red anus in children, red meatus urinarius, red vulva. The orifices are not only red and congested, but they are sore and hypersensitive as well, the passage of all discharges or excretions is painful. (2) The other side of this feeling of fulness is a feeling to *emptiness. There is no medicine which has this symptom in a more extreme degree than *Sul., and there is no single symptom that is of greater value to the homoeopathic prescriber than “Faint, sinking, all- gone sensation at 11 A.M.” When that symptom is marked I give *Sul. (generally 30), and get all the good I can out of the remedy before prescribing anything else, and very rarely am I disappointed. There is no need to wait to be told the symptom, or to ask patients directly if they experience it. I generally ask if they get hungry out of their usual mealtimes, and if they say “Yes”, I ask “What time?” The time need not be exactly eleven, though that is the most characteristic time. People who “must have something between breakfast and dinner-time” are generally benefited by *Sul. This ravenous hunger at 11 is often associated with other *Sul. symptoms, as heat at vertex, dyspepsia, portal congestion, constipation with ineffectual urging, piles, constipation alternating with diarrhoea. When the dyspeptic gets food and relieves his hunger he begins to feel puffed up, feels heavy and sluggish, and is low-spirited, he scarcely cares to live. The dyspepsia of *Sul. is often the result of suppressed eruptions. It is well known that drunkenness “runs in families,” and the underlying disease of drunkenness is often psora. *Sul. both causes and cures craving for beer and spirits. Gallavardin cured many apparently hopeless drunkards with *Sul. 1M. The sinking, empty, all-gone sensation” is a common feature in the dyspepsia of drunkards. Dyspepsia from farinaceous food. Cannot take milk, vomits it at once, sour vomit with undigested food. Voracious appetite is a frequent symptom of scrofula, and scrofula and psora are frequently convertible terms. The child clutches at all food offered to it as if starved to death. Defective assimilation, hungry yet emaciated. Stopped catarrh, nose obstructed indoors, better out of doors. The child looks dried up, a little old man, skin hanging in folds, yellowish, wrinkled, flabby. Head large in proportion to body. Lymphatic glands enlarged. Defective assimilation. When scrofula exists without particular symptoms *Sul. will develop them. Allied to scrofula is tuberculosis, in connection with which many symptoms of *Sul. appear: marasmus with hunger at 11 A.M., sore, red orifices, flushes of heat. In tuberculosis of the lungs a keynote is “body feels too hot.” The patient must have windows open no matter how cold the weather may be. The caution is usually given to repeat *Sul. seldom in cases of tuberculosis, and to give it only in the early stages. (3) ” worse By heat” is another keynote of *Sul., and marks it out as the remedy in a large number of cases, the worse is most noticeable by *warmth of the bed. Whenever a patient says he is all right till he gets warm in bed, *Sul. must be examined, it will generally cover the case. (In some cases stove heat relieves.) The cases of rheumatism and sciatica requiring *Sul. will generally have better morning and worse at night in bed. (4) ” worse At night” is scarcely less characteristic. *Sul. is related to both the sun and the moon, which makes it one of the most important of periodics. Cooper cured many cases of neuralgia worse at noon or at midnight. He regards every twelve hours as the most characteristic periodicity, but it may be multiples or divisions of twelve. Lippe cured with “a single dose of Sul. at new moon” a case of menorrhagia, patient had not been well since her last miscarriage. Skinner gave to a man who had paresis of the lower limbs a single dose of *Sul. cm, with instructions to take it on a certain date (when the moon was full). The man recovered almost suddenly. Cooper has had some important experience with *Sul. intermittent fevers. He generally gave two pilules of *Sul.O every four hours correspondents of his found this treatment preserve them from fever in India, and one, an officer, by means of it kept his regiment of sepoys in health when many others were in hospital. One writer treated nine cases with the pilules, and arrested the fever in twenty-four hours. One of the cases was a particularly obstinate one, and had been pronounced by the doctors to be complicated with liver affection. *Quinine had been tried before to *Sul. cured. In a case of “Charges fever” (of West Indies), which had lasted three months, Cooper ordered a Sulphur bath as well as the *Sul. pilules. That single bath seemed to alter the whole condition, from being an unhealthy, anaemic, bilious-looking man, the patient rapidly became the picture of health. Cooper recalls the fact that workers in Sulphur mines, though in malarial districts, enjoy a complete immunity from intermittent fevers. The power of *Sul. In acute inflammatory conditions is allied to its action in intermittent fevers. *Sul. is the chronic of *Aconite in the effects of chills, and if *Aconite does not promptly solve the difficulty, *Sul. will be required. In the acute inflammations of the high South African plateau, where the variations of temperature are extreme, and chills and their consequences are very common, Van den Heuvel tells me that for the pain, fever, and anxiety before physical signs have appeared, *Aconite is his first remedy. But if the fever does not yield in twenty-four to forty-eight hours, *Sul. will clear it up. “Chill” is “suppression” in another form. *Sul. is a remedy of such universal power that it may be misleading to speak of it as more related to one side than to another. Taken altogether there are more symptoms on the left side than the right. It acts strongly on the left side of the chest: “Sharp stitching pains through left lung to back, worse lying on back, worse by least motion,” is characteristic. In a case of left pleuro-pneumonia following a violent haemoptysis, *Sul. 30 rescued a patient of mine from a condition which seemed desperate. *Sul. acts on the whole respiratory tract, from the nose to the lung tissues. It causes a condition often met with in scrofulous patients, nasal catarrh where the nose is stopped indoors and free out of doors. All the features of asthma are produced in the pathogenesis, and *Sul. has the alternation between skin irritation and asthma often met with in asthmatics. Villers (H.R., xv. 563) relates the case of a girl, 22, afflicted since three years old with eczemas of the most varied form, mostly moist, the chief seat being the region about the pudenda, armpits, fold behind ear, but the whole body was defaced, the only parts which had remained white and normal being the breasts. She had been continuously under treatment for thirteen years, the worst effects resulting when external applications had been used to dry up the eruption. Then most frightful asthma occurred, which lasted till the corrosive, ill-smelling eruption appeared again. She had recently come under the care of a homoeopath, who gave *Arsenicum *iod. 3. From this there resulted a condition of which the patient said, “I cannot describe it, but I felt as if I was being killed.” Her doctor then sent her to Villers, who sent her for three months to a water-cure before he would commence treatment. Her general health was somewhat improved thereby, but the skin remained the same. He then thought of some very high potencies he possessed, and gave a few pellets of *Sul. cm. Three days later he was sent for in a great hurry late one evening, and on arrival found the patient had torn off all her clothes, was rolling about on the floor of her room, continually trying to rub her back and her legs on the legs of chairs or the edge of the door. Then she jumped up, brought a knife from the kitchen and scraped her whole body, would eat nothing and only drank enormous quantities of cold beverages. This lasted five days, after which she slept for two full days. Then this happened: The eruption dried up completely and scaled as after scarlatina. The girl had always had very weak menses, the next three were increasingly strong and intolerably fetid. There was very disagreeable discharge from the ears, corrosive secretion from the eyelids, and a dreadfully tormenting and burning discharge from the pudenda, strongly exciting to voluptuousness. Under the action of the single dose steady improvement occurred, and in four months she was a youthfully blooming maiden in the full flow of all her functions, and the skin in perfect condition. To test this Villers made the patient wear rough wool, dip her hands in first hot and then cold water, and for two weeks he made her rub her body daily with pretty coarse sea-salt. The only effect of these measures was to make the skin improve in texture. *Sul., when indicated, will cause absorption of effusions, pleuritis (plastic, or hydrothorax) hydrocephalic, or synovial. I have frequently cured ganglion of the wrist with *Sul. cm and lower, given on general indications. In the rheumatism of *Sul. the affection begins below and spreads upwards. (This is analogous to the “from without inwards” direction of the psoric complaints which *Sul. meets and reverses.) Sul. acts on the right eye and on all regions of the head _ forehead, vertex, and occiput. It is the remedy for a large number *of periodical headaches, headaches occurring every week, every month. Sick-headache. The headaches are accompanied by red face and hot head, are better in warm room, at rest, worse in open air, worse from stooping. There is also a headache on coughing. I have cured a severe occipital headache worse on
