Homeopathy Papers

Hahnemanns Calcareum Therapy and Modern Calcium Treatment

Calcarea carbonica, Calcarea arsenicosa, Calcarea Phosphorica, Calcarea iodata, Calcarea silicica, Calcarea fluorica, Sulphurica and Picrica have been the subject of studies and provings, which have determenied the characteristics and indications for the use of these remedies in therapeutics, enriching at the same time the homoeopathic material medica.

Since the most ancient times, lime has been used in therapeutics and was considered as simple element of very restricted use, being preferently employed for cauterizing warts, fungosities, carcinomatous ulcers, tinea, burns, etc.

It was not until Davy’s discovery, in 1808, that the element calcium was known, and from this date on its applications became more interesting, notwithstanding that its use remained relegated to the most complete empiricism.

Hahnemann, the founder of homoeopathy and pioneer of the calcium therapy of today, an expert in the therapeutic value of this substance, went on to the preparation by trituration of his first calcium remedy, Calcarea acetica (Calcium acetate, acetate of lime,( Ca, C2 H3 O2) in 1826, and afterwards continued with the Calcareas his experimental labors upon the healthy man.

Calcarea carbonica, Calcarea arsenicosa, Calcarea Phosphorica, Calcarea iodata, Calcarea silicica, Calcarea fluorica, Sulphurica and Picrica have been the subject of studies and provings by such homoeopathic physicians as Hering, Allen, Koch, Robinson, James, Macfarlan, Schussler, Zeil, Guernsey, Knorre, Franz, Gross, Stapf, Lille, Hartmann, Bell, Blakely, Conant, Morgan, Burnett and others, which have determenied the characteristics and indications for the use of these remedies in therapeutics, enriching at the same time the homoeopathic material medica.

Calcium is found in the skeleton, in the teeth, in the soft tissues of the organism, being an essential element in all the plasma of the tissues and cells. The normal organism contains 9.0 and 11.0 mg. of calcium per 100 c.c. of serum, and this quantity varies in children, the proportion increasing or decreasing in them or in the adult according to their diverse troubles.

The calcium level of the bloody plasma is in reciprocal relation to the phosphorus of the blood. The metabolic functions of calcium depend upon a complex phenomenon in the acidification, solubility and transportation of the calcium salts. The calcium metabolism can be affected by numerous causes, among which we can mention the action of the parathyroid hormone, the B, C, and D vitamins, the acid-base equilibrium, the renal, thyroid and parathyroid functions, which supply the absorption degree of calcium and phosphorus salts in the organism.

The amount of calcium contained in the organism and that required for it, its deficiency and the variations contained in the blood in which ionized and nonionized compounds form, so that the verification of this indispensable element in the daily consumption of food in man and the animals have been the subject of multiple investigations during these last twenty years (Collip, Sherman, Rowntree, Stewart, Bernheim, Booher, Brown, Hunter, etc) hence their numerous applications in therapeutics due to the important role that calcium performs in the healthy and sick organism.

Pure experimentation in the preparations of lime, which is the inexhaustible source of knowledge of the homoeopathic material medica and its application to the clinic, has given us numerous and various symptoms from among them as follows:
Calcarea carbonica offers us 1631 subjective and objective symptoms, Calcarea arsenica 342, the Phosphorica 640, the Sulphurica 340 etc etc.

From more than one hundred years of continued success in the use of Calcareas in homoeopathy, it has been proved that the best and most efficient results come from the strictest and closest prescription of them according to the law of Similitude, embracing the most different applications, therefore it is not a surprise for us to find them indicated for the most varied troubles.

Every author agrees to this and practice justifies it, that the Calcareas are indicated in that constitutional and morbid state characterized by different affections which are settling in the tegumentary, lymphatic and osseous systems (scrofula), which is far Escherich tuberculosis added to lymphatism and causing scrofula, that is, the evolution of the tuberculosis in a special field.

The Calcarea patient is stout, corpulent, fatty, whether it be a child or an adult, with an excessive paleness of the skin and coolness of the extremities. In children the frontanelles remain open, the dentition is delayed and irregular, the abdomen is voluminous and the lower extremities short and thin, a backwardness existing in the general developing of the organism.

The patient is apathetic, capricious, indolent, apprehensive, forgetful, obstinate and does not like either work or exercise. (Hypothyroid) Anaemia, loss of the coagulability of the blood, periostitis, great sensitiveness to cold, partial perspiration; children crave eggs; spots and opacities of the cornea, chronic dilation of the pupils, cataracts; nasal polyps; otitis, hypertrophy of the tonsils and of the lymphatic ganglia. Goitre. Loss of appetite, milk intolerance, hyperchlorhydria; hepatic colics, umbilical hernia, infantile diarrhoea, constipation.
Menstrual disfunction with milky leucorrhoea, sterility, uterine polyps.

Night coughing with spitting, hoarseness without pain, the chest is very sensitive to touch and to pressure. Tachi-cardia. Renal colic, knotty arthritis, chronic rheumatism. Worse by physical and mental exercise, by cold and standing up. Improvement in a dry climate, lying down on the painful side. (Calcarea carbonica)

The patient displays a very serious manifestation in the skin, such as fissures, cracks, suppurations with callosities, fistulous ulcers which secrete a yellowish pus. Hard edges even down to the level of the joints. Stony indurations.
Hereditary syphilis, cogential syphilis. Goitre. Arteriosclerosis. Apoplexy. Tuberculosis. Hematomas, gangrene. Sclerosis of tympanum, otitis, hypertrophy of the tonsils, bloody piles, varicose veins. Aneurism. (Calcarea fluorica.)
Hypertrophy of the thyroid gland particularly in puberty, hypertrophy of ganglia, hypertrophy of the tonsils, adenoids. Uterine fibroids. Croup. Hereditary syphilis. Pneumonia. Persistent catarrhal states; polyps in the nose and in the ear. (Calcarea iodata.)

Membranous bronchitis, bronchorrhoea. Membranous dysmenorrhoea. Cancer. (Calcarea acetica).
Epilepsy. Nephritis, albuminuria. Chronic malaria. Cancer of the matrix. Pernicious anaemia (Calcarea arsenica)
Infantile dyspepsia with a craving for ham, bacon and smoked meats. Flatulency. Enterocolitis during dentition. Hard stools, green and with fetid gases. Fistulas of the anus. Menstrual disorders among young girls with leucorrhoea like white of an egg. Prolapsus of the matrix. (Calcarea phosphorica)

Fibroid, adenitis, Suppurated process of the long duration. Deafness through chronic otorrhoea, purulent discharges from the ear and from the nose. Mastoiditis. Dysenteri-form enteritis, chronic enteritis. Abscesses and fistulas of the rectum and anus. Purulent exudations of the skin. Eczema in children and adults. Pupus Herpes. (Calcarea sulphurica)
Sclerosis of the ear; chronic otitis; Meniere’s vertigo. Inguinal and scrotal hernia. (Calcarea picrata)

An extensive volume can be written in reference to the clinical use of the Calcareas of the Hahnemannian school, adding besides that the best results are obtained, as the founder of homoeopathy consels, with infinitesimal doses, giving cases of cures with the potency from the 30x to the 1000 of Fincke.

The traditional school, which for twenty years up to the present time has paid special attention to the employment of calcium, has undoubtedly been able to enrich their therapeutics with more precise hints about this substance, and the most noted authorities summarize their indications for the following cases: Calcium carbonate (creta preparata), as absorbent and as alkaline base to neutralize the hyperacid dyspepsia. In gastrosuccorrhoea and in infantile diarrhoea. As succedaneous of sodium carbonate. (Therapeutics and Pharmacology, Arnaud, 1934)

As antiemetic in infantile dyspepsia. (Lessons in Therapeutics, Dr Hernando.) As an agent for recalcification in tuberculosis of the lungs. (Ferrier and A. Robin. Elemental Treatise of Therpeutics, Manquat, 1919)
Calcium chlorate as an enternal hemostatic or in enemas. (Clinical Therapeutics, Dr. Gaston Lyon, 1919)
Neuter phosphate of lime, glycerophosphate and chlorhydrophosphate of calcium as antirachitic. (Diseases of Infancy, Suner and Ordonez, 1930)
The gluconate and lactate of calcium, in hypodermic form after parathyroidectomy, in tetany, nephritis, oedema, eczema, bronchial asthma, urticaria, angioneurotic oedema. Spasmophilia. Uremia. Epilepsy. Eclampsia. Osteomalacia. Osteitis fibrosa. Decalcification. Lack of consolidation of fractures. Tuberculous pleurisy. Enteritis. Night sweating in tuberculosis. Ulcerative colitis. Dysmenorrhoea. As antidote in lead, mercury and chloroform poisoning. (Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Walter A Bastedo, 1938.)

From this brief comparison it follows that the calcium therapy of today is nothing less than the Calcareum therapy of the Hahnemannian school, with the particularity that the indications of the latter are more precise as being in conformity with the Law of Similia similibus curantur. MEXICO, D.F.

Courtesy—The Homoeopathic Recorder, July 1939.

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Hilario Luna Castro

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