Graphites

Moist, Scabby Eruptions

What drug has dry, scaly eruptions ?

Lycopodium .

What drug has thick, hard, scabby and crusty eruptions ?

Mezereum .

What are the mental symptoms of Graphites ?

The patient is "sad, fat, fair and constipated" ; the sadness is a great characteristic of the drug.

Patient yawns and stretches continually.

What are the eye symptoms ?

There is inflammation about the lids, which is especially worse about the canthi. There is a tendency for the edges of the lids to crack and bleed, styes appear, the lashes turn in, and there is a discharge from the eyes, which excoriates, and there are often vesicles on the cornea.

What are the characteristics of Graphites about the ears, mouth and nose ?

Moist eruptions around the nose, mouth and behind the ears which from crusts ; if there be a discharge it is thin and excoriating.

What are the indications for Graphites in dyspepsia ?

Tympanitic distension of the stomach ; the patient is obliged to loosen his clothing ; burning pains and cramps and putrid eructations ; there is a burning, crampy pain, which is relieved by eating ; there is disagreeable taste in the morning, and aversion to meat.

Compare Lycopodium here.

Lycopodium has distension with great accumulation of flatus ; but this flatus is not rancid or putrid as under Graphites .

Give the constipation of Graphites.

The stool is covered with mucus or contains shreds of mucus ; haemorrhoids burn and sting, and there are fissures in the anus ; there is no urging to stool, and the patient sometimes goes for days without a stool, and when it does come it is composed of little, round balls knotted together with shreds of mucus.

Mention four drugs having also fissures of the anus.

Rantanhia, Nitric acid, Silicea and Paeonia .

Give indications for Paeonia.

Fissures with a great deal of oozing, the anus is moist, sore and smarting all the time.

What are the skin symptoms of Graphites ?

Moist, scabby eruptions, especially of the scalp, face, bends of joints, and in the folds of skin, as between the fingers, behind the ears, in the corners of the mouth or eyes ; they are cracked, bleeding, or oozing a gluey, honey-like, thick and tenacious discharge. The skin may be dry and horny ; there is absence of sweat, the hair is dry and falls out, the nails become loose.

Cicatrices are benefited by Graphites.

How is Petroleum distinguished from Graphites in its skin symptoms ?

Graphites pictures more of a herpes and Petroleum more of an eczema.

What are the female symptoms of Graphites ?

Leucorrhoea, profuse, coming in gushes and is excoriating ; swelling and induration of left ovary ; dysmenorrhoea of fat women with herpetic eruptions ; patients are constantly cold.