Aurum Metallicum

Wants to commit suicide; thinks he is no good in the world.

Nodes and bone pains, caries and necrosis with great depression of mind.

Abuse of Mercury, in syphilis, in massive doses.

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"Looks on the dark side, weeps, prays, thinks she is not fit for this world, longs for death, strong inclination to commit suicide." Strange that this noble metal, for which mankind strives for its pecuniary value, should, when taken into the organism, cause the greatest unhappiness.

The Aurum patient is plunged into the deepest gloom and despair. Life is a burden, he desires death. Suicide dwells constantly in his mind. In men, I have observed it oftenest in connection with liver troubles. In women, with womb troubles, especially when enlarged, indurated or prolapsed. In both these cases, the result, so far as local conditions are concerned, seems to be from repeated attacks of congestion to the parts, which ends in hypertrophy. The liver in enlarged the womb also, and prolapsus occurs from the very weight of the organs. These congestions, so characteristic of the remedy, take place also in head, heart, chest and kidneys; but, whenever they come, the peculiar mind symptoms are always present to furnish the chief indication for Gold. The Gold patient is also at times "peevish and vehement, the least contradiction excites his wrath." He will exhibit these outbreaks occasionally, even when the more characteristic depression and gloom greatly preponderate. Other remedies have a similar depression and tendency to suicide, like Naja and Nux vomica, but none in anything like the degree of Aurum. I once cured a young lady who tried to commit suicide by drowning. After she was cured she laughed at the occurrence, and said she could not help it. It seemed to her she was of no use in the world. She felt so.

Aurum has been found efficacious in curing some bone affections of syphilitic origin, especially if such cases had been the subjects of old school dosing with Mercury. There would be a great falling off of business for physicians if the old school could learn to cure their patients without poisoning them with their drugs. The locality where Aurum has made its best record in these syphilitico-mercurial affections is in caries of the bones (caries of long bones, Fluoric acid, Angustura), of the nose and palate, also of the mastoid process. In these nasal troubles it is sometimes of great use in the catarrh, or ozoena, before the trouble has progressed to actual caries. The nostrils are agglutinated, ulcerated, and nose obstructed and filled with crusts, or there are excessively fetid discharges, and the patient is melancholy and disposed to suicide. Aurum is one of the few remedies that has hemiopia or half-sight, and has cured it even in the 200th potency. Lycopodium and Lithium carbonicum also have half-sight, but Aurum sees only the lower, while the other two see only the left half of objects.

Aurum not only causes and cures indurations of the womb in the female, but indurations also of the testicles in the male, and in both cases de ever-present mental symptoms of Aurum or the syphilitico-mercurial history furnish the chief indications for its use. In fatty heart, in ruddy, corpulent, old people it is one of our best remedies. In these cases there is much vascular disturbance. "Violent palpitation, with anxiety and congestion in the chest and visible beating of the carotids and temporal arteries".

Belladonna may relieve the attack, but Aurum goes deeper and is more lasting in its effect. Aurum is one of our best remedies for bone pains. Never forget it. It ranks with Kali iodide, Asafoetida and the Mercuries in periostical affections.