It has been “fed in” in low potencies and frequent doses: but we can attest, from long and frequent experience, that it works magnificently in the high and highest potencies in very infrequent dosage: i.e. only repeated if, and when, the same symptoms recur, after perhaps months, to demand a repetition of the same remedy
Reason for useClarke
Mag. Phos. is one of the most important of Schüssler's original additions to the materia medica. It has had a very fine proving in the potencies, conducted by H. C. Allen (Med. Adv., xxxiii. 386-415), but I will first give Schüssler's own account: Phosphate of Magnesia is contained in—blood-corpuscles, muscles, brain, spinal marrow, nerves, teeth. Disturbance of its molecules results in—pains, cramps, paralysis. The pains are—shooting like lightning, or boring; often combined with or alternating with a sensation of constriction; at times wandering; > by warmth; > by pressure; < by light touch. It will cure: Headache, toothache, pains in limbs when of this kind; also cramps in stomach, pains in abdomen usually radiating from umbilical region, > by hot drinks, by bending double, by pressing on abdomen with the hand, sometimes accompanied with watery diarrhoea. Spasms of various kinds—of glottis, whooping-cough, lockjaw, cramps of calves, hiccough, tetanus, chorea, spasmodic retention of urine, &c. In caseous tuberculosis and lupus Mag. p. has a place. When the cells near the caseous masses are too weak to expel them, it is because they are deficient in Mag. p., and Mag. p. given medicinally will enable them to do it.—This sketch of Schüssler's is confirmed in every point by Allen's proving, and by the clinical use of Mag. p. in the highest attenuations. Moreover, there is a very strong family resemblance between these features and those of Mag. c. and Mag. m. But it is only right to say that Schüssler arrived at them by a way of his own, which shows that there are other means besides provings of finding the keynote symptoms of remedies. Allen adds to the above that the pains rapidly change place; that cramping is the most characteristic type of the Mag. p. pains. Dread of cold air; of uncovering; of touching the affected part; of moving; of cold washing. It is best adapted to: thin, emaciated persons of a highly nervous organisation, of dark complexion; to affections on the right side of the body; to complaints from standing in cold water; complaints of dentition; headaches of school children; professional neuroses (e.g., writer's cramp); after-effect of catheterism. Nash says Mag. p. is in the first rank as a pain remedy, and it has all kinds of pain (though cramping pain is the most characteristic) except burning pain, and this distinguishes it from Ars., since both have > from heat. Allen's proving brought out canker sores in mouth, sore lips, and cracked lips. A patient of mine who suffered intensely from cracks at the corners of the lips found nothing relieve so well as Mag. p., and it did it best in the ix strength. Higher were tried. Hering says it is suited to: Young and very strong persons; teething children. Allen says that though it is best adapted to emaciated persons, it acts promptly in stout, fleshy persons when well indicated. The attacks (of pain, &c.) are often attended with great prostration, and sometimes with profuse sweat. "Languid, tired, exhausted; unable to sit up." Mag. p. is more often called for in men than Mag. c., but the indication, "worn-out women," answers for both. The affections of Mag. p. are often periodic. I cured with Mag. p. 6x a very severe attack of chorea in a girl of six. The spasms were general, but they affected the speech to such an extent that she could not make herself intelligible. Rappaz, of Montevideo (quoted H. M., xxix. 178) cured with Mag. p. a young man of 17 of cerebral meningitis which began with violent pain and inflammation in left eye, with terrific pains in head and delirium and intense fever. He was at first treated allopathically, without success. When Rappaz first saw him he was hemiplegic, with frequent and alarming convulsions, crying out violently, involuntary passage of faeces and urine; dilated pupils, dropped jaw, escape of saliva, speech and comprehension difficult. Under Mag. p. 6x in water general improvement set in. Later the 12x was given, and in two months he was well. W. T. Ord cured Miss G., 48, of pain in back extending down right sciatic nerve and up spine, following influenza, with Mag. p. 3x, 5-gr. doses. The pains were shifting, > by rest, < at night. The parts were tender to pressure and numb. Pains sometimes tense in paroxysms, compelling her to cry out. Anxiety; depressed vitality. Skinner has cured with Mag. p. a case of prolapse of rectum with feeling as if rectum were torn, the symptoms being > by heat. The symptoms are < by: Motion; cold air; draught of air; cold wind; COLD WASHING; TOUCH; lying on the back stretched out; when eating. > By: HEAT; WARMTH; PRESSURE; BENDING DOUBLE (the italics and capitals are H. C. Allen's). < Walking; especially in open air; abdominal pain compels walking about, which >.
By regionClarke
Mind Illusions of the senses; sobbing, crying, lamenting all the time about pain in affected parts; with hiccough.—Mental depression and anxiety.—Drowsiness on every attempt to study.—Very forgetful.—Dulness and inability to think clearly.—Indisposition to study; to mental effort.—Mind seems clearer; can think and study more clearly after a few doses of Mag. p.—Persistent depression of spirits.
Head Headache: pains shooting, darting, stabbing, shifting; intermittent and paroxysmal.—Headache: excruciating; spasmodic; neuralgic or rheumatic; always > by external application of warmth.—Nervous headache, with sparks before eyes; diplopia.—During the night, severe throbbing pressure on vertex, l. side, deep in brain.—Dull headache, as if brain too heavy (after protracted mental effort).—Headache > towards evening, but changes to a pressure above eyebrows, esp. r.—Headache beginning in, or worst in occiput, and constant whilst attending school.—Severe headache; face flushed, red; pain began in occiput, extended over whole head; sick at stomach; aches all over; < 9 or 10 a.m. to 4 or 8 p.m.—Pressive pain in head down through middle of brain.—Pain through temples, top and back of head, with sensation of fulness, < lying down.—Sensation of a strong shock of electricity beginning in head and extending to all parts of body.—Severe headache began in occiput on waking, extending over head, located over both eyes, with severe nausea, and terminated 5 p.m. in a pronounced chill.—Severe pricking over head and forehead, as if rubbed with a fine brush (after becoming warm from eating).—Pustules or large pimples (like blood-boils), with redness and rawness, appeared on r. side of scalp, but did not suppurate.—Large, white, shining scales can be combed out in handfuls twenty times a day.—Scalp feels rough like a grater, and the fine particles combed out feel like sand.
Eyes Double vision (horizontal); sparks; rainbow colours; photophobia.—Pupils contracted.—Dark spots before eyes on attempting to read.—Dull vision from weakness of optic nerve.—Nystagmus; strabismus, spasmodic; ptosis, < r. side.—Twitching of lids.—Neuralgia: supra-orbital or orbital; intermittent, darting, lightning-like pains, < (or entirely) r. side, > by warmth, exquisitely sensitive to touch; with increased lachrymation.—Itching and heat in lower l. lid.
Stomach Spasmodic sobbing (like a hiccough) for three days, ceasing with the second dose in water.—Hiccough thirty times a minute; for sixty days life in danger (Mag. p. soon restored health).—Hiccough with retching day and night for three days; ejected matter was coagulated milk, bile and mucus, with great pain causing lamentations.—Burning, tasteless eructations come on about three hours after eating in the evening; < by physical exertion, > by drinking hot water; heartburn.—Eructation of food tasting of injesta.—Constant nausea.—Bilious vomiting, at times streaked with blood.—Nausea and vomiting attend headache and flatulent colic.—Gastralgia: soreness and extreme sensitiveness of epigastrium to touch; some eructation and sour vomiting; at 12 every day; > by eating.—(Cancer of stomach; intolerable burning pain; vomiting; hiccough;—after Ars. failed, Mag. p. made the patient comfortable for six months.).—Distension of stomach; very restless.—Fulness after eating.—Spasmodic pains in stomach, with clean tongue.—Intense cutting, shooting, cramping pains in region of stomach and epigastrium, extending sometimes towards back and abdomen.—Flatulent distension of stomach, with constrictive pain, > by warmth and bending double.—A drink of cold water starts a colicky pain in stomach, which radiates to bowels, very severe, > by doubling up; by walking about; by rest; by belching.
Female Sexual Organs Menstrual colic; pain precedes flow.—Menses six to nine days too soon.—With menses: great weakness; intensely sore, bruised feeling all through, abdomen, could hardly be up at all, but was much < lying down.—Labiae swollen and at times intensely painful.—Flow dark, fibrinous, stringy.—Dysmenia; pains (cutting, drawing, pressing, cramping) severe, intermittent, < r. side, > from heat; > by flow.
Respiratory Organs Cough: dry, spasmodic, violent; constant, can't speak for cough; face crimson from violence of cough; uncontrollable, seemed she would choke; retching choking with cough < warm room, > open air.—A violent dry cough came on after the headache left; not excited by anything in particular.—(Spasmodic, convulsive sobbing.)
Neck And Back Sore pain in head, back of neck, and lower part of back.—Aching in small of back; sensation as if a section of vertebra was missing.—Dorsal spine, for about six inches, very painful and sensitive to touch for weeks.
Limbs Sensation in limbs like a streak of electricity, followed by soreness of muscles.—Aching feeling in arms and legs; weak and trembling.
Skin Barber's itch.—Herpetic eruption, with white scales.
Sleep Drowsy; fall asleep and awake as from an electric shock, then fall asleep again.—Sleepy when attempting to study.—Spasmodic yawning, severe, as if it would dislocate the jaw; caused tears to flow.—Drowsy at time of rising.—Sleep disturbed by troublesome dreams; wakes with impression that some one is in the room; saw some one standing near.—Restless sleep from pain in occiput and back of neck.—Feels sick and prostrated on waking in the night.—(Relieves sleeplessness in flatulent and gouty subjects.)
Fever Chilly after dinner in evening, 7 p.m.; chills run up and down back, with shivering, wants more clothes.—Chilliness, evening, when going from warm room into open air; shaking and chattering of teeth as with an ague chill; > entering warm room.—A crop of boils took possession of him, terminating in a five weeks' attack of remittent fever.—Severe chill 9 a.m.; lasts three hours; was compelled to go to bed, where he lay and shook; neither heat nor sweat followed.—Creeping chills up and down spine, followed by suffocating sensation; must throw off covering; no thirst.—Exhausted sensation compelled him to go to bed; chill for an hour, at end of which exhausted feeling passed off; cough and catarrhal symptoms followed chill; no fever.—Bilious fever.
Books*
Antidoted by Belladonna, Gelsemium Sempervirens, Lachesis
Complementary—
Follows well—
Compare Arsenicum Album, Belladonna, Lac Caninum +38
* Number of books that state the relation, where more than one. Historical text from the classical materia medica (1828–1950). Not medical advice, and not a claim that any remedy works. homeopathylibrary.com/remedy/magnesia-phosphorica