Calcarea acts primarily upon the vegetative system, exciting moderately the functions of secretion and absorption, resulting in a condition of irritation which extends to all the organs and systems of the body, impairing their nutrition, favoring a deposit of the earthy salts, and altering profoundly the composition of the blood. In thus affecting the processes of assimilation Calcarea resembles, in its effects upon the system, the three great disorders of nutrition, scrofula, tuberculosis, and rachitis, and it is in the treatment of these conditions, in their various forms of manifestation, that we find its chief sphere of usefulness. Characteristic symptoms.