From the Greek word "grayjho" I write; it is used for pencils. The beet comes from England, Cumberland county. It has a laminated texture, is soft, greasy to the touch, staining the ringers very much. Triturations should be made with care. Before mak- ing them, the graphite should be pulverized, boiled for an hour in pure water, and after drawing off the water, digested for a few days in a weak solution of nitro-muriatic acid, carefully washed and dried on a filter. This drug was first introduced by Dr. Weinbold about the year 1810. He discovered a lead-pencil factory in Venice ; the people believed that the workmen remained free from scabies while they used graphites externally for tetter. These facts are explained in his pamphlets : Graphites, a Eemedy for Tetter. He used it inter- nally and externally. It had distinguished advocates and opponents. Hahnemann ranks graphites among his antipsoiics. It is un- doubtedly adapted to the scrofulous diathesis, and may be given in doses of any grade, from the first decimal trituration upward. The curative action of this agent in a large variety of afflictions depends upon its homceopathicity to the herpetic diathesis, with which the patient may happen to be tainted. HERPES AND HERPETIC ULCERATIONS The remedy has been used in herpes and herpetic ulcerations, described as salt- rheum, herpes crustaceus, tinea capitis sicca et humida, ulcers (with stinging and aching pains, and a fetid discharge) ; old torpid ulcers, with callous edges, and a fetid, ichorous discharge. M., eight years old, of scrofulous diathesis, always enjoyed good health, until an eruption appeared upon the face, covering it rapidly, with exception only of the fore- head; secretions of lymph and pus, with blood from capillary lesions, form crusts over a suppurating surface, which incessantly renews them; the head and face swell; the eyes are concealed by cedema of the lids; conjunctival injection, with papillary granulations; matinal agglutination of the tarsi ; excessive photophobia, with lachry- mation, the globe remaining sound. Sleep, nutrition and other functions normal. Of a naturally cheerful and amiable temperament, the boy became fretful and stupid. After a long-continued and useless course of allceopathic treatment the boy received graphites*, twice a day and was fully cured. Graphites presents, in a high degree, the following ophthalmic pathogenesis : acrid heat in the eyes; painful swelling and redness of the lids, and burning itching at their angles, with muco-purulent secretion agglutinating the lids ; also, dry irritation of their margin ; the light is insupportable. (Dr. Hirschell, U. S. Joiir. of Horn., February, i860.) A boy five years old, badly nourished, who had passed through a scrofulous gonitis, which left him with a deformed knee, was attacked with a severe scrofulous ophthal- 1 48 GRAPHITES. mia of the left eye. For weeks he was unable to open it ; hot tears escaped imme- diately after each trial ; the neighboring integument was surrounded by small pus- tules ; eruption over the whole face ; perceptible aggravation from crying or rubbing. Calcarea, acid nitricum, sulphur, etc., brought only transient amelioration; relapses always took place, when three symptoms led us to the selection of graphites : the intense photophobia, with simultaneous nightly agglutination of the eyes ; the obstinate constipation of the little patient, the rhagades around the corners of the mouth. A few grains of graphites2, every morning, cured the boy in a week. [New Eng. Med. Gazette, Jan., 1875.) The peculiar adaptation of graphites to the scrofulous diathesis makes it often a useful remedy in the following affections : CHRONIC CONSTIPATION.— The skin is hard, dry, fissured ; there is dryness of the nose with loss of smell ; dryness of the meatus auditorius with deafness ; constipation, with dryness of the mucous membrane of the rectum and fissure aui ; menses late and scanty, and dryness of the vagina, etc., etc. ; feeling of weight in the abdomen ; chronic constipation with hardness in the region of the liver ; hard, knotty stool, with discharge of mucus and blood ; pains in hemorrhoidal tumors ; prolapsus uteri without straining, as if the sphincter were paralyzed, or secondarily light or brown colored, thin and intensely fetid stools, with burning in the rectum. Constipation with hard, knotty stools, expelled after great straining, the lumps being of too large a size, and united by mucous threads ; a quantity of white mucus is expelled with each stool. (Dr. Lilienthal in Med. Investigator, May, 1870.) DYSPEPSIA. — Dr. Charge recommends it when the character- istic skin-symptoms are present, with other evidences of a scrofulous taint. Also: weak digestion; bloating of the stomach and abdomen after a meal ; flatulency ; sensation of a foreign body in the stomach with constant beating ; foul taste ; thirst, nausea, tension in the hypochondria ; engorgement of the liver. Haemorrhoids. Obstinate constipation. OZiENA with eruption about the anus and the genitals ; soreness in the nose ; loss of smell ; heat in the forehead and nose ; headache ; free discharge from the nose ; enlargement and tenderness in the submaxillary glands ; takes cold easily. SUPPURATIONS OP THE EAR, where the discharge excoriates the skin wherever it touches it. Eruption of the skin, from which oozes a sticky moisture. Swelling of the submaxillary glands. WENS, with constitutional symptoms pointing to graphites, such as : great hunger ; bloating of the abdomen ; constipation. There are on record many interesting cures, made with graphites in diseases, to which the remedy, at first glance, would seem to GRAPHITES. 149 stand in anything bnt true homoeopathic rapport. In all of them, however, it acted as a curative agent, because the disease was either produced by a suppression of some eruption to which the drug- was homoeopathic, or because a scrofulous taint was at the root of the disease, and manifested itself in expressions, which pointed to graphites as the successful remedy. From the long list of diseases, which graphites has cured by virtue of the reasons stated, I select the following : PARALYSIS.— Mrs. S., sixty-five years old, had for some time been very much emaciated with- out any perceptible cause. She had a pain in the left side of the occiput, near the medulla oblongata, after which the following symptoms appeared : Numbness and deadness, with coldness of the fingers of both hands, extending to the middle of the upper arm ; at the same time numbness and coldness chiefly of the left, but also of the right side of the face; great vertigo; blindness [? — Ed.]; great prostration of strength; pale and haggard countenance: soreness in both kidneys; constant desire to urinate. (The mother had died of paralysis.) Graphites3 was given, followed by immediate and surprising aggravation of all the symptoms. One small pellet of the 2000th dilu- tion, was. then dissolved in half a tumblerful of water, and a teaspoonful taken three times each day. After one more aggravation of the symptoms, the lady commenced and steadily continued, to improve. There was no return of the numbness of the arm. (Dr. Neidhard in the Am. Jour, of Horn. Mat. Med., August, 1869.