Hepar Sulfuris Calcareum

Next, we will consider Hepar sulphuris calcarea.

This is really an impure calcium sulphide, containing traces of the sulphide of lime, organic matter possibly, and very likely, too, minute proportion of the phosphate of lime, since it is made from the middle layer of the oyster shell and flowers of sulphur.

It is a valuable addition to the powers of lime and sulphur used separately.

It possesses many similarities to and marked differences from its components.

Hepar has some action on the nerves.

It is to be remembered as a drug that causes over-sensitiveness of the nervous system.

Pain seems to be intolerable to the patient, and may even cause fainting.

An in- flamed part feels sore and bruised, and cannot bear the touch of the hand or even of a dressing.

I mention this as a universal character- istic of the drug.

I have often given Hepar for cold-sores in the corners of the lips when they were about to suppurate, in inflamma- tion of the eyes and in styes and pimples, when there was present this extreme sensitiveness to touch.

Mentally, the Hepar patient is rather sad and low spirited, particu- larly in the evening.

At times there is an impulse to suicide.

While walking in the open air the patient feels discouraged and cross, and is annoyed by the recollection of all the past unpleasantnesses that have figured in his previous life.

Memory is weakened so that he forgets words and localities.

And this is most evident when he is particularly irritable.

He is over-sensitive so that his speech is hasty.

of Belladonna, which seemed indicated, particularly after exposure to dry, cold winds.

In the neural'gia and other nervous symptoms Hepar belongs with Belladonna, Silicea and Sulphur.

It frequently follows Belladonna, as I have told you; and from Silicea and Sulphur you may distinguish it by the other symptoms.

A symptom in connection with the mental irritability of the patient that I have already men- tioned is hasty speech and hasty actions.

We find precisely the same symptom under Belladonna.

"Hasty speech and hasty drinking" is the way the symptom reads under the latter remedy.

We find it also under Lachesis, Dulca?nara and Sulphur.

To show you that this is a genuine symptom, I will mention a case of hysterical mania cured by a physician on the other side of the ocean.

He had this one symptom to guide him: the patient's speech was hasty and words rolled out in profusion.

The clinching symptom was that she had taken a great deal of Mercury.

Hepar cured the mental condition completely.

We next have to consider Hepar as a remedy in inflammation.

It is suited to inflammations of a croupous form and inflammation with suppuration.

In all the inflammations and congestions in which Hepar is the remedy, you will find that there is extreme sensitiveness of the affected part to touch.

This is so characteristic that it must be present more or less prominently before Hepar may be the remedy.

The parts feel bruised and sore, like a boil.

This, as I have already said, you can carry through all the Hepar inflammations.

For instance, in ophthalmia, or inflammation of the eyes, or lids, you will find that the eyelids are swollen and cedematous, and some- times, too, suppurating styes will form.

With this there is a bruised, sore sensation.

The patient cannot bear to have the eye touched; neither can he bear the cold air.

Cold air and cold applications in- crease the suffering, and here you have a good indication separating it from Mercurius.

Little pimples surround the inflamed eye.

Simi- lar to Hepar in this particular are: Euphrasia, which has pimples on the cheek over which the acrid tears flow, and Phosphorus, which has small ulcers around the large ones.

So, again, in face-ache, the bones are exquisitely sensitive to any pressure.

These are all illustrations of the character of the drug.

I need not multiply them, because they are found in any part of the body in which inflammation occurs.

Now, if the inflammation becomes croupous, Hepar may be indi- cated, whether it be the throat, larynx, bowels or kidneys that are involved.

The characteristics indicating Hepar in croupous inflam- mation of the larynx are these: after exposure to dry, cold winds the patient becomes hoarse, with whistling breathing.

Respiration is so difficult that the child throws its head far back in order to straighten the air-passages.

The cough is hard, barking and ringing, and at the same time accompanied by rattling of mucus.

So sensitive is the child to cold, that the least exposure, even uncovering an arm or a foot, excites a spell of coughing.

Thus you see the extreme susceptibility of the patient to cold air.

Hepar is especially indicated when the cough is worse towards morning.

Occasionally Hepar may be given for cough which occurs before midnight, but then it must be moist and not dry.

You will see from these symptoms that Hepar follows rather than precedes A conite and Spongia.

Aconite is indicated in the beginning of croup when there are great anxiety, high fever, and distressed breathing.

I would advise you to continue the Aconite some time after the symptoms have been relieved, because these cases are very apt to relapse.

Hepar was used by Kafka, in Bright' s disease following scarlatina.

He was led to this by the power of the drug to produce fibrinous or croupous exudations.

Hepar has succeeded in these cases many times, so that it must have some action on the kidneys.

Kafka gives it after scarlatina when the urine becomes albuminous and dropsy appears.

Next we have to consider Hepar in ordinary catarrhs, or what is commonly called a "cold" with aching through the body.

Hepar seldom is a remedy in the incipiency, but for the advanced stage of a "cold." If it be given at the commencement, it frequently spoils the case, whether it be one of coryza or of sore throat, because it is more suitable to what has been termed ' ' a ripened cold ' ' when phlegm has formed.

The catarrhal process may have affected the ethmoid, with boring pain in the parts and exquisite soreness.

When the patient swallows, there is a sensation as if he was swallowing a fish- bone, or as if there were something sticking in the throat.

Sometimes he will describe the sensation to be as if there were a crumb of bread or toast sticking in the throat.

This symptom allies Hepar with Mercurius, Nitric acid, Argentum nitricum and Alumina.

These colds, for which Hepar is the remedy, are re-excited by any exposure.

It is often indicated when the abuse of mercury has developed in the system a susceptibility to cold.

In affections of the lungs, we find Hepar indicated in two or three classes of disease.

We find it called for in pneumonia, especially dur- ing the stage of resolution.

It comes in late in the disease (and not in the beginning) when, during resolution, pus forms and you have pres- ent suppuration instead of the normal resolution.

Hepar ought also to be indicated in croupous pneumonia.

Here, as in all other croupous inflammations, it is called for late in the disease.

production of mucus, worse in the morning.

It here frequently follows Spongia.

It may bring about absorption of the tuberculous deposit.

In glandular disease, Hepar is indicated in the stage of suppuration, when the inflammation has gone on to the formation of pus.

You will find it especially useful in the treatment of bubo, whether venereal or not, especially after the abuse of mercury.

Even old buboes remain- ing open after mercury, and discharging continually, sometimes heal under Hepar.

It is not uncommon to find cases of indigestion embraced under the name dyspepsia, which have resulted from a long course of mercurial treatment by physicians of the dominant school.

Hepar, as one of the antidotes to mercury, will sometimes cure these cases.

Sometimes a cure is impossible.

Still, I think, relief is always obtainable from one remedy or another.

We may also find Hepar indicated by dyspepsia, independently of this cause, by the following symptoms: there are usually a sour taste in the mouth and a longing for strong tasting sub- stances, for alcoholic drinks, for wines, for acids, and for condiments of various kinds.

These seem to relieve by stimulating the stomach; so it is the purely atonic form of dyspepsia in which Hepar is indicated.

There is hunger, a gnawing, empty feeling in the stomach in the fore- noon, a longing for something to eat.

This craving for food shows the atonic condition of the stomach.

At other times, although eating does him good and increases his general strength, yet it produces a fulsome- ness about the stomach.

He can bear no pressure about the epi- gastrium.

Sometimes there is burning in the stomach from congestion of that organ.

The bowels are usually constipated.

Urging to stool is often ineffectual, although the faeces be not abnormally hard.

Hepar must not be forgotten in the marasmus of children.

Stand- ing as it does between Sulphur on one side and Calcarea on the other, as a combination of these two, it is here of value.

The symptoms which lead you to Hepar in the complaints of children are these: there seems to be this same weakness of digestion; they cannot manage their food, no matter how well-selected it may be.

If they are old enough, they will tell you the symptoms that I have already mentioned.

If you give them any strong substance, as a preparation of beef-tea, they will show signs of enjoying it very much.

Diarrhoea is present, and is usually worse during the day and after eating.

The stools may be greenish or slimy, undigested, or white and sour; this last is a very important symptom.

The whole child smells sour.

The most promi- nent remedies for sour stools are Magyiesia carb., next to that Calcarea ostrearum, then Hepar, and lastly Rheum.

The same condition is found in the bladder that we have already noticed in the rectum, viz., atony of the muscular coats.

Hence, when urine is voided, it passes very slowly; it drops almost perpen- dicularly from the meatus urinarius instead of being ejected with some force.

It takes the patient some time to empty his bladder.

If with this trouble of the bladder you find wetting of the bed at night, Hepar is the remedy.

It is not often indicated in this condition, however.

The ulcers which call for Hepar are very sluggish and indolent, slow to heal.

They are rather superficial and often serpiginous.

The discharge is bloody and purulent, and has an odor like that of old cheese.

They have this to characterize them, extreme sensitiveness of the border of the ulceration.

produces a condition of non- healing as just indicated.

Every little scratch of the skin suppurates.

The same is also found in Mercurius, Chamomilla, Silicea and Lycopodium.

It also produces a moist erup- tion in the folds of the skin.

There is itching, especially in the bends of the joints.

When Hepar is called for in eczematous eruptions which have a purulent discharge, we find it indicated by these symptoms: after the abuse of salves or ointments containing zinc or mercury, and the eruption is worse in the morning and accompanied by itching.

Ulcers bleed easily, are extremely sensitive and emit an odor like old cheese.

The preparations of soda are quite similar, both chemically and medicinally, to those of potash, yet this similarity is not such that they may not follow the potash salts.

We will see that Kali carb. is com- plementary to Natrum mur. in some of its symptoms.

It seems that the salts of soda are indicated particularly in complaints that arise every summer or in the spring.

Hot weather, electric changes in the atmosphere, or the direct rays of the sun give rise to various ailments.

For instance, we find Natrum carb. useful for chronic headache, trace- able to exposure to the rays of the sun.

Under Natrum mur., we find great debility in summer; the patient feels as though he would faint away when walking in the sun.