General features: The pathogenesis of Mercury is found in the provings of Merc. viv. and Merc. sol., two slightly different preparations, but not different enough to make any distinction in practice. Mercury is used in testing the temperature, and a Merc. constitution is just as changeable and sensitive to heat and cold. The patient is worse from the extremes of temperature, worse from both heat and cold. Both the symptoms and the patient are worse in a warm atmosphere, worse in the open air, and worse in the cold. The complaints of Mercury when sufficiently acute to send him to bed are worse from the warmth of the bed, so that he is forced to uncover; but after he uncovers and cools off he gets worse again, so that he has difficulty in keeping comfortable. This applies to the pains, the fever, ulcers and eruptions and the patient himself. He is an offensive patient. We speak of mercurial odors. The breath especially is very foetid, and it can be detected on entering the room; it permeates the whole room. The perspiration is offensive; it has a strong, sweetish, penetrating odor. Offensiveness runs all through; offensive urine, stool and sweat; the odors from the nose and mouth are offensive. When Merc. is used in large doses and the patient is salivated he gives off these odors. One who has once smelt a salivated patient will remember the mercurial odor. I remember when I was a student, almost every room had the mercurial odor. Mercury was given till the gums were touched and salivation was produced. That odor is often an index to the use of Merc. He is worse at night. The bone pains, joint affections and inflammatory conditions are all worse at night and somewhat relieved during the day. Bone pains are universal, but especially where the flesh is thin over the bones. Periosteal pains, boring pains, worse at night and from warmth of the bed. The glands are inflamed, and swollen; the parotids, sub-linguals, lymphatic glands of the neck, groin and axilla are all affected; the mammae swell and there is inflammation and swelling of the liver. It is pre-eminently a glandular remedy. Induration is also a general; inflamed parts indurate. If the skin is inflamed it is hard. Inflamed glands are hard. There is induration with ulceration. A tendency to ulcerate runs through the remedy. Ulcers are found everywhere, in the throat, nose, mouth, and on the lower limbs. Ulcers sting and burn and have a lardaceous base, an ashy-white appearance looking as if spread over with a coating of lard. It looks like a diphtheritic exudate, and Merc. has diphtheritic exudations on inflamed surfaces. Ulcers in the throat have this appearance. The mucous membrane sometimes inflames without ulceration, but with exudation, and hence it is useful in diphtheria. It has the same condition in ulcers; when the system is run down they exude a grey lardy or ashy deposit. Chancres take on that form, a whitish cheesy deposit on the base. When you realize that the complaints of Merc. are worse at night, and think of the bone pains, periosteal inflammations, etc., it is not surprising that Merc. sometimes cures syphilis. It is wonderful that the allopath hit upon it for this disease, and he cures or suppresses enough cases by similarity to justify its continued use. When given suitably it cures. Another marked feature is the tendency to the formation of pus. With inflammation there is burning and stinging and the rapid formation of pus and the part is aggravated by both warmth and cold. Abscesses burn and sting; inflammation of joints is attended with pus formation; in inflammation of the pleura the cavity fills up with pus. The discharges of pus are yellow-green. The Merc. gonorrheal discharge is thick greenish-yellow, with stinging and burning in the urethra. Rheumatic inflammation of joints and catarrhal inflammation of mucous membrane are features running through the remedy, and these are attended with sweat, and an astonishing feature is that the sweat does not relieve, and there is even an aggravation while sweating. Rheumatism in old syphilitic, gonorrhoeal and gouty patients. It is similar enough to relate to some cases of psora, syphilis and sycosis. It partakes of the nature of all three miasms. After a prover has taken Merc. a long time he emaciates. This is seen in old mercury takers and in syphilitics who have been mercurialized. It is a great remedy in this condition-steady emaciation with trembling, worse at night and from the warmth of the bed, great restlessness, can't find peace in any position. These miserable wretches, who are breaking down, are great sufferers, whether psoric, syphilitic or sycotic. A strange feature is repeated swelling and abscess formation without any heat. An abscess or swelling in a joint forms, and he sweats from head to foot, is worse at night, loses flesh, trembles and is weak, but there is no heat while the abscess goes on. Abscesses form when the life force is so low that there is no tendency to repair; a slow and prolonged pus formation, no irritability in the abscess, no tendency to granulate, it opens and keeps on discharging and seems dead. Merc. will warm it up, stop the sweat and favor granulation. The superficial ulceration is inclined to spread and become phagedenic; it is not deep but grows larger. These open ulcers are especially seen in old syphilitics; lardaceous base; not much irritability, they are even numb, and if pus is discharged it is greenish-yellow; false granulations appear. Merc. cor. is a greater remedy for the superficial, eating, phagedenic ulcer. At times Merc. takes on a gangrenous condition. This may be seen anywhere, but especially on the lips, cheeks and gums. Cancrum oris. Gangrenous chancre, foetid and black; a sphacelus forms in the chancre and the part sloughs off. All these conditions are aggravated by beat. A patient with a typical Merc. abscess rebels at times against the poultice, for it makes the trouble worse. Trembling runs through the remedy, quivering all over. It has been used with benefit in paralysis agitans. Tremor of the hands so that he cannot lift anything or eat or write. Merc. is a great remedy in children with epileptiform fits, twitching and disorderly motions. It will help children to grow out of these in coordinate angular movements of the hands and feet. Jerking, twitching and trembling. The motions of the tongue are disorderly and the child cannot talk. Convulsions. Involuntary motions which can be momentarily controlled by volition. The restlessness is extreme. The trembling, weakness, sweat, foetor, suppuration and ulceration, the aggravation at night and from heat and cold, give the earlier impressions of the remedy.