Alumina - Rectum, Anus, Stool symptoms - Kent Lectures

RECTUM, ANUS, STOOL

Rectum, anus, stool

Alumina slowness is observed also in the rectum. Alumina's tone is lost and there is inability to perform the ordinary straining when sitting at stool, and so paretic is the rectum that it may be full and distended, and the quantity of faeces enormous, and yet, though the stool is soft, there is constipation.

In Alumina there is often a hard stool, but we notice that the remedy will do the best work where there is this paretic condition of the rectum with soft stool. If the mental symptoms however, are present, such as I have described, with large, hard and knotty or lumpy stool, Alumina will cure.

Now, so great is the straining to pass a soft stool that you will sometimes hear a patient describe the state as follows

When sitting upon the seat she must wait a long time, though there is fullness and she has gone many days without stool.

she has the consciousness that, she should pass a stool and is conscious of the fullness in the rectum, yet she will sit a long time and finally will undertake to help herself by pressing down violently with the abdominal muscles, straining vigorously, yet conscious that very little effort is made by the rectum itself.

She will continue to strain, covered with copious sweat, hanging on to the seat, if there be any place to hang on to, and will pull and work as if in labor, and at last is able to expel a soft stool, yet with the sensation that more stool remains.

Of course a number of other remedies have this straining to pass a soft stool, but they have their own characteristics. Take for example an individual who cannot keep awake.

she says that it is impossible for her to read a line without going to sleep.

that she can sleep all the time.

she suffers night and day from a dry mouth, and the tongue cleave to the roof of the mouth.

Now let her describe this state of straining and struggling to expel a soft stool, and you hardly need to go any further before you know the remedy.

If that patient in addition to what she has said tells you that she is in the habit of fainting when standing any length of time, that she is disturbed in a close room and has all sorts of complaints in the cold air, it is Nux Moschata ^{Nux moschata}.

Now you see how easy it is for remedies to talk.

they tell their own story. Suppose a woman should come to you who has been suffering from haemorrhage, from prolonged oozing, who is pallid and weak and is distended with flatulence, with much belching and passing of gas, and the more she passes the worse she feels, and she has these same symptoms of straining a long time to pass a soft stool, tremendous effort with inactivity of the rectum. You could do nothing but give her China ^China.

Now you know how easy it is for remedies to talk and tell their own story.

By allowing remedies to talk and tell their own story, individualization is accomplished.

I have said all that to show that it is not upon the inactivity of the rectum that you are to decide upon the remedy.

Individualization must be made through the patient. That is a principle that should never be violated. You may have twenty remedies all possessing a certain symptom but if you have a few real decided things that you can say about the patient, the manner in which he does business, the manner in which the disease affects the entire man, then you have something to individualize by.

A pregnant woman has some trouble as well. A woman, who is not naturally a sufferer from constipation, when pregnant becomes constipated, with all the characterizing features of Alumina, i. e., the inactivity of the rectum, no expulsive force; she must use the abdominal muscles, must strain a long time.

Infant Again, the infant has a similar kind of straining. You will see the new-born infant, or the infant on few months old, that will need Alumina

It is a very common medicine for constipation in infants when you can find nothing else; the child will strain and strain and make every effort to press the stool out, and upon examining the stool it is found to be soft, and should have been expelled easily.

Anus

Fissures There is so much under stool and rectum that belongs to the general state that there is scarcely anything left to be presented except some important particulars. As you might suppose, Alumina has fissures.

you would naturally expect these when you consider what kind. of mucous membranes and tissues this patient manufactures. He suffers greatly from constipation, he does much straining, the mucous membrane is thickened and swollen, and hence we have a fissure.

When you see a remedy manufacturing and producing such a state upon the economy, growing that kind of mucous membrane that would favour fissures, you do not have to wait until you have cured a fissure with that remedy to find out if it will suit the case.

You do not have to resort to the repertory to see what Alumina has done in fissure. From your general knowledge of the medicine, you will see that it ought to cure the patient, as it produces such a condition of the mucus membrane and skin as would be naturally found in one who has a fissure.

The skin indurates and ulcerates and becomes clumsy and unhealthy and constipation is produced, and so, after studying the remedy in that way, you are not surprised if it cures a fissure.

You can also think over what other medicines have this state of the economy and see what other remedies you would expect to cure a fissure with.

If you look into the nature of Nitric Acid ^{Nitric acid}, Causticum ^Causticum and Graphites ^Graphites, you will see why they have had a wonderful record for curing fissure. That is the way to study your Materia Medica; see what it does to the man himself, to his organs and tissues.