Platina

THE physical and chemical properties and reac- tions of this metal are described from another chair.

It finds no place in the Pharmacopoeia of England or the United States.

Trousseau and Pidoux cite a few vague and indecisive experiments upon animals and men with double Chloride of Platina and Sodium by Dr. Hoefer in 1840, and therapeutic experiments by the same physician, who proposed to substitute Platina for Gold and for Mercury in the treatment of secondary and of primary syphilis and syphilitic rheumatism.

Our knowledge of the action of Platina is derived exclusively from a proving by Stapf and Gross, two pupils of Hahnemann. It was first published in one of the earlier volumes of the *' Archiv fiir die Homoeopathische Heilkunst."

For medical use, chemically pure Platina is

dissolved in aqua regia. Into this solution a

polished steel rod is plunged. The chloride is

decomposed, and the resulting metallic Platina is

130 PLATINA.

precipitated in the form of a fine dust upon the surface of the rod. It is carefully washed to free it frorn the acid, and is then triturated according to the rules of the homoeopathic pharmacy.

The action of Platina is exerted, in the most marked and peculiar manner, upon the mind and disposition ; upon the second and third branches of the tri-facial nerve ; and upon the sexual organs of women.

It acts, like Ignatia, much more upon the vital forces than upon the organic substance of the body.

It further resembles Ignatia in the fact that it interferes with and deranges the co-ordination of functions, destroying the harmony with which related functions are performed in the healthy body.

But the kind of perversion, and, in particular, the variety of mental perversion and disturbance produced by it, are altogether different from those produced by Ignatia, so that, if Ignatia correspond to one form of hysteria, Platina corresponds to a form altogether different.

The kind of pain characteristic of Platina is a cramp-like, squeezing pain, — a kind of crushing together. It is peculiarly characteristic of this pain that it begins gently, gradually increases in severity, and then gradually becomes less severe, until at last it ceases. In this respect Platina resembles Stannum.

Most of the Platina symptoms are worse when the patient sits or stands, and are ameliorated by

PLATINA. 131

walking. They generally occur, or are aggravated, at night.

It has been remarked as a peculiarity of the sleep of Platina, that however quiet the sleep may have been and however sound, the patient is always found, on awaking, to be lying on the back with the thighs drawn up upon the abdomen, with one or both hands above the head ; and there is about or a little before the time of waking, a disposition to uncover the lower extremities. In connection with the form of hysteria to which Platina will be seen to correspond, and particularly with the nym- phomania, which is a variety of this form of hysteria in which Platina has proved itself a most valuable remedy, these symptoms of the sleep have a great significance.

The action of Platina may be more particularly delineated as follows :

At first, the prover experiences a distressing anxiety, a kind of deadly apprehensiveness, with a sensation of trembling throughout the body, a great disquiet of mind, which does not admit of repose ; the prover believes death to be impend- ing and has a great dread of it. (Like Aconite.)

Now, instead of grief, or despondency, or resig- nation under this state of things, there is great irritability, great susceptibility to anger and vex- ation ; a trifling grievance produces a profound vexation, under the effects of which the prover remains a long time vexed, unfriendly, in fact "in the sulks."

I 3 2 PLATINA.

Then, as the action of the drug becomes more profound, there is an alternation of this depression and this sulky despondency with an unnatural liveliness and gayety, so that the patient laughs violently, and this perversion of the natural func- tions (and of the co-ordination of the functions) of the sensorium goes so far that the prover laughs immoderately, even at the saddest objects.

Then finally there comes a state of mind, the outgrowth and development of that last described, in which the prover displays a most exalted and overweening self-esteem, overestimating herself beyond all reason, and entertaining a correspond- ingly low and contemptuous opinion of all sur- rounding objects and persons, even the most venerable and respectable ; nay, this opinion is the more depreciating the nobler and more worthy the objects of it.

The extent to which this perversion of mind is sometimes carried, and the ludicrous scenes to which it gives rise, are among the curiosities of the materia medica. This is a characteristic action of Platina, and cases of disease in which some- thing analogous does not appear, are rarely cured by Platina.

Headache also is produced. This presents the characteristic feature of Platina. A squeezing, con- stricting pain, as if a board were pressed against the forehead, as if the head were compressed, screwed together, etc., and at the same time a .sensation of numbness in the head. Like other

PLATINA. 133

Platina pains it begins gently, gradually increases in severity, and then gradually diminishes. Some- times the cramping pain is in the temple, and then it is conjoined with similar pain in the zygoma and malar bone, constituting the temporo-facial neuralgia of Platina.

Besides these sensations, there is a variety of headache, consisting of a compression of the fore- head and temples, as if everything would come out at the forehead ; much worse from stooping forward, as well as from the slightest movement. It is preceded by anxiety, and by burning heat and redness of the face (a kind of "sick head- ache").

There are painful crampings and compression in the circumorbital regions, and particularly in the supra-orbital, and in these the globe of the eye sometimes participates, feeling sore.

The peculiar compressing, cramping pain is felt in the malar bone and zygoma, with a kind of numbness and at the same time a burning pungent sensation, inducing one to rub or scratch the part.

This corresponds well to a certain form of facial neuralgia. It resembles most closely that of Verbascum thapsus.

It is distinguished from that of Arsenicum in this, that in the latter the pains are burning, and that they dart quickly, like red-hot needles, from place to place.

The pain of Verbascum is like a crushing with tongs. Platina has steady compression.

134 PLATINA.

That of Spigelia is a shooting or piercing, and has its chief seat in the globe of the eye.

Chamomilla has aggravation by heat, and is further distinguished by the great impatience of pain exhibited by the patient. The neuralgia of Capsicum is provoked by external pressure, and is a fine line of pain coursing along the nerve. The constitutional symptoms still further aid us in distinguishing the indications for the several drugs which produce a form of prosopalgia.

Noises in the ears, of the greatest variety, are produced in abundance by Platina. There is little evidence of any organic lesion. (This might lead to the selection of Platina for what is called "ner- vous deafness.")

There is little that is distinctive in the action of Platina on the digestive canal, except in so far as the stool is concerned.

This is retarded ; the faeces are scanty, hard, evacuated with difficulty and almost dry. The evac- uation requires great effort of the abdominal mus- cles ; and this is followed by a peculiar sensation of weakness in the abdomen, or by a shuddering throughout the body.

In the rectum there are occasional sharp stitches, compelling one to cry out. In this Platina resem- bles Ignatia.

The menses appear much too early and are very copious. Moreover, there are uterine haemor- rhages, copious and often recurring. As in most uterine haemorrhages, the color and consistency of

PLATINA. 135

the blood furnish a valuable characteristic of the remedy. That of Platina is very dark, and, with- out being coagulated in distinct masses, it is thick and tarry. It is accompanied by pains in the sacrum ; but these sacral pains are only felt as a sequel to pains which have first been felt in the groins, causing a dragging and pressing downward in the entire pelvis, and have then passed to the sacrum; and, furthermore, there is always in con- nection with this metrorrhagia of Platina an unnat- ural sensibility and irritability of the genital organs.

It may be remarked of the pains of Belladonna that they pass through the pelvis either in its anterior-posterior or in its lateral axis ; while the pains of Pulsatilla and Sepia pass around the pelvis from sacrum to groin, and are conjoined with scanty menstruation instead of profuse.

The labor-like pains of Chamomilla are very severe, and the metrorrhagia is in paroxysms, the blood being thin and rather light, with firm coagula.

The flow of Secale cornutum is thin and pain- less, so is that of China.

Crocus has a dark flow, but it is not attended by a bearing-down pain, but rather by a sensation as of a living body moving in the abdomen.

Millefolium and Sabina both produce a light- colored, florid uterine haemorrhage.

It is, thus, not difficult to distinguish the uterine flow of Platina from that of other drugs.

Attention should again be called to the hyper- sensitiveness and irritability of the genital organs.

136 PLATINA.

These symptoms, together with those of the sleep already mentioned, have led to the use of Platina in cases of nymphomania ; it has been of the greatest service, comparing with Hyoscyamus.

The organs of respiration are not especially affected.

In the trunk, we have first a weakness of the neck; the patient cannot hold up his head, and along with this, a kind of tensive numbness. There is pain in the spine and sacrum, as if they were broken, especially after a long walk or on bending backward.

In the extremities are felt cramp-like, press- ing and compressing pains, such as are elsewhere experienced, conjoined with a kind of burning and numbness.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS.

Of the uses of Platina in treating disease, but little remains to be said.

The mental symptoms denote the forms of hysteria in which it is useful. Whereas Ignatia corresponds to cases in which there is a disposi- tion to grieve, to brood in melancholy sadness over sorrows, whether real or imaginary, Platina, on the other hand, belongs to a variety in which the mind rises in defiant and distorted superiority over the causes of vexation or sorrow ; becomes, first, demonstratively apprehensive, then alternately demonstratively lachrymose and boisterously merry,

PLATINA. 137

and at last absurdly supercilious, — a genuine repre- sentation of Mrs. Lofty. But, whatever the frame of mind may be, it is always demonstrative, and this is the character of Platina ; the personality of the patient is obtruded on one's notice.

The character of Ignatia, on the other hand, is that it is undemonstrative ; the sufferings and per- versions are not obtruded on one's notice.

The peculiarities of the neuralgia and of the uterine haemorrhage, which are marked Platina symptoms, have already been pointed out.

It remains only to call attention to the stool, and to say that in the constipation which is often so troublesome a concomitant of pregnancy, Platina is often a valuable remedy, standing in the same rank with Sepia, Alumina and Plumbum.

SEPIA.

SEPI^ SUCCUS.

THE juice of the cuttle-fish ; a blackish fluid contained in the abdomen of the animal, and from which the animal has the power of projecting the juice into the surrounding water.

For medicinal purposes the juice is carefully- dried, divested of its membranous envelope, and prepared by trituration according to the rules of the homoeopathic pharmacy.

Although Sepia has no place in the pharma- copoeia of the old school, and is, indeed, so little known by them that one of their foremost writers has endeavored to fling ridicule on homoeopathists by stating that they ascribe medicinal virtues to the cuttle-fish bone, which is mere carbonate of lime, it is a singular fact that Hippocrates set a high value on Sepia as a remedy in diseases of women and in dysmenorrhoea, and that Galen ascribes to it tonic and stomachic qualities ; while Marcellus recommends it for gravel and for the removal of freckles. A very singular anticipation by the ancients of the exact deductions from the homoeopathic law.

SEPIA. 139

Sepia is one of our most important remedies. Its action pervades almost the entire organism and is very enduring, the effects of a single dose often lasting for many weeks.

Upon the vital force and the organic substance it acts with equal energy.

The sphere of action comprises, in particular, the sexual organs of women, the gastro-intestinal tract and its appendages, the skin and glands, and the nervous system of animal life.

The symptoms are most apt to occur or to be aggravated when the patient is at rest, sitting quietly, in the forenoon or evening; and to be relieved by vigorous exercise in the open air. In general, the aggravation occurs about the middle of the forenoon ; especially the sense of " sinking at the pit of the stomach," which attends many uterine disorders.

Sepia induces a tendency to free and sudden perspiration from a nervous shock or from exer- tion, but it is noteworthy that this perspiration comes out after the exertion is over or the shock is past, and when one is sitting quietly. (Calcarea carbonica has sweat during the exertion.)

Sepia produces (and cures) what are well known as " hot flashes " — sudden accessions of heat, followed by a momentary sweat and weak- ness and disposition to syncope. These are frequent and very annoying incidents of the cli- macteric period in women. Lachesis resembles Sepia in this.

140 SEPIA.

In many respects the symptoms of Sepia closely resemble those of Pulsatilla. As would be natu- rally inferred, these remedies often act as mutual antidotes; and so it happens that frequently, when they are given in alternation, as the custom is of some physicians, no result is observed. In such cases, it is often sufficient to suspend the adminis- tration of one of them in order to get a prompt and satisfactory effect from the other.

The skin affections of Sepia are among its most important symptoms. We find itching of the skin, and itching vesicles and papules on the face, hands and feet; and also a vesiculo-pustular erup- tion in the hollow of the joints of the knee and elbow. After the Sepia eczema there is abundant desquamation.

While speaking of the skin, it should be men- tioned that Sepia produces on the lower lip a swelling with a soreness, burning pain and a pricking as from a splinter of wood. This symp- tom, together with the constitutional symptoms, has led to the use of Sepia in the treatment of epithelial cancer of the lower lip, two cases of which, cured by Sepia ^°°, have come within my personal knowledge.

In like manner, the other skin symptoms have induced the successful use of Sepia in cases of Rhus poisoning.

The fever of Sepia is incomplete. Chilliness predominates, but, like the heat, is fugitive and transient. Perspiration is copious, especially at night, and is conjoined with great weakness.

SEPIA. 141

The disposition peculiar to Sepia is a depressed, anxious and fearful state of mind, with a sense of helplessness, and yet great susceptibility to excite- ment, and still more to terror, frequent attacks of weeping, and despair of life.

SPECIAL ANALYSIS.

There are supra-orbital pains. The eyelids pain on awaking, as if too heavy, as if paralyzed, corresponding to ptosis — a malady in which Sepia has often been given successfully.

Then, conjunctivitis with biting and burning and itching, but very scanty secretion of mucus or pus.

142 SEPIA.

in the facial bones and in the teeth. Finally, a characteristic symptom of Sepia is a brown discol- oration extending across the bridge of the nose like a saddle.

In the mouth often form painful vesicles and ulcers — a form of stomatitis.

The taste in the mouth is offensive, slimy, putrid like a bad Qgg, with eructations of the same char- acter ; or bitter, often bitter early in the morning, this ceasing after breakfast.

There are abundant eructations ; hiccough after eating ; nausea and vomiting of bile, or vomiting of bile early in the morning on rising, with, during the day, attacks of constriction in the hypochon- dria, and nausea.

SEPIA. 143

The abdomen is often distended with flatus. There are cutting pains horizontally across the abdomen, sometimes extending up into the chest.

The stool is scanty and infrequent.

On the sexual organs of women Sepia acts very distinctly. Along with cutting pains in the abdomen, a pressure is felt on the uterus down- ward, as if everything would fall out.

144 SEPIA.

The menses come too early, but are scanty. They are preceded by violent aching in the abdo- men, causing even faintness, and by chilliness and shuddering.

During the menses, restlessness, drawing pains in the limbs and abdomen. Palpitation and dys- pnoea, with toothache and headache and epistaxis ; with depression of mind.

At other times than the menstrual period, fre- quent stitches in the vagina in paroxysms, with or without a watery yet lavish leucorrhoea. The leu- corrhcea is rarely acrid, whereas that of Kreosote is very acrid.

Sepia produces (and cures) a dry, fatiguing cough, provoked by a sensation in the region of the stomach, and seeming to come therefrom ; or the cough comes, as it seems, from the abdomen. A symptom which I have often verified in practice.

Then again a cough with copious, saltish expec- toration, white or grayish yellow : the cough being attended, as all the Sepia symptoms are, by acces- sory symptoms, such as stitches in the epigastrium or head, faintness, nausea, etc.

From these and other similar symptoms, we draw our indications for Sepia in pulmonary con- sumption.

It produces various forms of oppression of the chest, burning in the chest and palpitation.

In the sacro-lumbar region Sepia produces pain, which generally is relieved by sitting or lying, worse when standing or walking. The backache

SEPIA. • 145

of Belladonna is worse when lying down ; better when sittingf. Sometimes the reverse.

It is a pressing, dragging pain over the sacrum and at the same time over the hips, and a burn- ing pressure in the spine ; also drawing pressure and burning pain across the dorsal region and under the scapula (often like that produced by sewing).

In the extremities, stitches and sticking, draw- ing pains, with lassitude, coldness of the feet, but sometimes only of the knees ; sweat of the feet. The eruptions already described.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS.

Among the general affections for which Sepia has been found a useful remedy may be men- tioned, first: Various forms of skin disease, and in particular those of a vesicular character, attended by much itching and followed by desquamation. The vesicular eruption is not attended by the erysipelatous inflammation of the contiguous skin, such as is characteristic of Rhus toxicodendron ; and this serves in part to distinguish these drugs.

When, however, the herpes circinnatus occurs, not II

146 SEPIA.

in isolated patches, but over a great portion of the body in intersecting rings, and attended by heat, itching, fever and great constitutional disturbance. Tellurium seems to be indicated, as appears from a proving of that drug in the "American Homoeo- pathic Review."

In connection with skin symptoms, may be mentioned again, the brown discolorations of the forehead and cheeks and of the skin across the bridge of the nose, known as "liver spots," and which are very frequently found conjoined with constitutional symptoms which indicate Sepia as a remedy, these symptoms being particularly those of the hepatic region and of the uterus and its appendages.

In paralysis of the upper eyelid — ptosis — Sepia often effects a cure; also in certain perversions of the function of vision.

The neuralgia, the toothache and the headache of Sepia, are almost always conjoined with some disorder of menstruation, with pregnancy, or with some disease of the sexual organs of women. And it is peculiar to Sepia that, along with its symptoms of disease in the sexual organs, there occurs a considerable number of sympathetic symptoms in distant organs, e. g. : the toothache, headache, salivation, neuralgia.

Attention has been called to the fact that two cases of epithelial cancer of the lower lip have been cured by Sepia. A third case of this disease is so interesting as to be worthy of narration.

SEPIA. 147

Sepia is rarely indicated by these symptoms but that there is present the peculiar "sinking and all-gone sensation " in the pit of the stomach, almost producing faintness, and relieved by lying down and by taking food or wine.

In amenorrhcea or retarded and scanty men- struation, it is often indicated.

Experience has shown its value in cases of ulceration and congestion of the os and cervix uteri. Its use in appropriate cases supersedes all local applications, which in the vast majority of

148 SEPIA.

cases are not simply unnecessary, but are very mischievous. The same may be said of mechanical contrivances in uterine displacements, especially pessaries and internal supporters of all kinds.

Sepia is also a remedy in functional derange- ments of the liver.

Medical practitioners, like other men, are apt to "run in grooves," and the grooves grow deeper by use. With regard to the materia medica, they are apt to remember of each remedy some one or two applications in which it is eminently useful, and to forget or ignore many others in which, though, perhaps, less frequently indicated, it is equally valuable.

Thus, every one has in mind the virtues of Silicea in suppurative inflammation of connective tissue, while comparatively few might think of it as a remedy in cerebro-meningitis, or in neuralgia, or in epilepsy.

Sepia, in like manner, suggests itself to every practitioner in cases of chronic uterine disease, and its value in such cases has caused it to be classed, in the medical mind, with remedies speci- ally adapted to chronic cases. The remarks I purpose to make will show, I think, that it may also be a remedy for acute conditions. They will serve, likewise, to call attention to the re-proving of Sepia, made under the direction of the Bureau of Materia Medica of the American Institute of

SEPIA. 149

Homceopathy, and published in the Transactions of that body for 1875. While this proving con- firms in a remarkable manner, the Hahnemannian proving of Sepia, and may be said to have added little absolutely new to our knowledge of this drug, it certainly presents, in a definite form, symptoms that are somewhat shadowy in the original proving, and thereby furnishes evident indications, where formerly these were perceptible only to acute observers.

I propose to consider only the relations of Sepia to "functional derangements of the liver," taking from Murchison's recent work,* the symp- toms of these derangements and placing under each of these symptoms the corresponding group of Sepia symptoms.

Before describing the symptoms of functional derangement of the liver, Dr. Murchison states that the functions of the healthy liver are — not simply nor chiefly the secretion of bile — but

" I. The formation of glycogen, which contrib- utes to the maintenance of animal heat and to the nutrition of the blood and tissues, and the development of white blood corpuscles.

"2. The destructive metamorphosis of albu- minoid matter, and the formation of urea and other nitrogenous products, which are subsequently elimi- nated by the kidneys, these chemical changes also contributing to the development of animal heat.

* " Functional Derangements of Lectures, etc., delivered in March, the Liver: being the Croonian 1874, etc., London."

150 SEPIA.

"3. The secretion of bile, the greater part of which is re-absorbed, assisting in the assimilation of fat and peptones, and probably in those chemi- cal changes which go on in the liver and portal circulation, while part is excrementitious, and in passing along the bowels stimulates peristalsis and arrests decomposition."

A "functional derangement" may be a modifi- cation or an arrest of any one or several of these healthy functions.

1. If the power to convert glucose into glyco- gen be impaired by functional derangement of the liver, glucose passes into the general circulation, is eliminated by the kidneys, and we have one of the several forms of glycosuria, — forms which agree in this one symptom (sugar in the urine), but differ profoundly in the pathological conditions on which this symptom depends, and in the indications for, and their amenability to, treatment. The form we have described is often transient, and always a mild and curable form of diabetes; or, this glyco- genetic function may be modified in another way, and we may have a more serious form of glyco- suria by an increased conversion of glycogen into sugar, from hypersemia of the liver depending on paralysis of the vaso-motor nerves, resulting from irritation of the roots of the pneumo-gastric nerves, injuries of the spinal cord, poisoning by curare, etc.

2. When the function by which the liver disin- tegrates and eliminates albuminoid matter is imper- fectly performed, the disintegration stops short of

SEPIA. 151

the formation of urea which is soluble ; and prod- ucts more sparingly soluble, and which are less completely oxidized, than urea, are formed, viz., uric acid, etc.; or products still less oxidized, such as leucin and tyrosin, which we find in acute atrophy of the liver when this function of that viscus is almost abolished. Where, under this functional derangement, uric acid is formed instead of urea, we find in the urine deposits of uric acid, of urates, and abnormal pigment.

Such is a brief statement of Murchison's views of the functions of healthy liver, and the results of some of their derangements. I shall restrict my remarks upon Sepia to the second form of derange- ment above described, viz., that of the function by which albuminoid matter is disintegrated and elim- inated, and the derangement of which is manifested, among other symptoms, by excess of uric acid and urates in the urine.

Murchison gives the following names of diseased conditions resulting from this derangement:

1. Atonic dyspepsia, of which the symptoms will presently be given in detail.

2. Gout — anomalous or regular; urates in the blood, and deposited in or near the joints.

The symptoms of the atonic dyspepsia are given more particularly by Murchison, as follows :

152 SEPIA.

After each group I cite, from the new or from Hahnemann's proving, the corresponding Sepia symptom :

SEPIA. 153

gastric region (214, 215) ; as if a load rested on the epigastrium (217); soreness around the umbiHcal region on pressure, especially on the right side (221); Boennihghausen names Sepia under the rubric "worse from lying on the left side."

Sepia : weakness and aching of the thighs and legs (419- 421); general weariness and prostration in the joints. (422.)

Sepia: cramps in the calves at night. (Hahn., 1310-1314.)

Sepia: dizziness (35 Hahn., 87-100); obscured vision. (Hahn., 258, 259.)

154 SEPIA.

Sepia: both ears feel stopped (ill); ringing, singing, roaring, etc. (Hahn., 293-304.)

Sepia: restless nights; tired mornings (504); disturbed sleep. (508, 509, 511, 512.)

Sepia: palpitation, very nervous (360, 365); seemed as if the heart occupied all the cavities of the body (359); pulsation with soreness in the stomach (199.)

21. Angina pectoris, Sepia (?).

SEPIA. 155

provers of both sexes, and from various potencies of Sepia.

Sepia : feel- ing of rawness in the posterior fauces, etc. (165, 167.)

Sepia: coughing spells in the morning, with either difficult expectoration, or copious sputa, easily raised ; harsh, dry cough. (342, 344.)

Sepia : tightness and constrictive sensation in the chest. (346.)

156 SEPIA.

Cases illustrating the use of Sepia in acute disease, connected with fu7ictional derangement of the liver.

Case I. August, 1875. ^ 1^^' seven years old, was brought home from the country, said to be suffering from remittent fever ; he had been ill three weeks, and presented the following symp- toms : febrile condition persistent, very weak, keep- ing his bed, extreme depression of spirits and irritability of temper, occipital headache, sudden, excessive desire for food, but eats only a small quantity. Two or three stools daily and one or two at night, of normal consistency ; but clay- colored and offensive.

Successive outbreaks of furuncles on the nates ; on the right side of the abdomen, just below the arch of the ribs, a very tender spot which is the seat of constant pain ; the whole right hypochondrium is tender and heavy ; aching in the right shoulder, restless sleep ; the urine has a pink deposit, stains every thing it touches red and stains the vessel; heavy sweats at night. He is reported to have had Podophyllum, China, Bryonia, etc., etc., without perceptible effect.

SEPIA. 157

digestion ; then the pain and soreness vanished ; then the stools and sleep became normal ; last of all, the urine became normal.

I gave Sepia 3° trituration, in solution, a dose every four hours. In twelve hours the fever had gone and did not return, the side was better, the bowels had moved ; in a week she was entirely well.