Lycopodium Clavatum - General symptoms - Nash

GENERAL

General

Depression of mind and sensorium, stupid; lower jaw drops; chronic conditions, memory fails; uses wrong words to express himself; mixes up things; failing brain power.

Right-sided complaints, or begins on right and travels leftward; throat, ovaries, uterine region, kidney and skin troubles; hernia.

Sense of satiety, or hunger, but soon fills up.

Great flatulence with rumbling, mostly intestinal and pressing downward.

Lithic acid diathesis; red sand in clear urine; better pains in back or kidneys after passing.

Dark-complexioned people; emaciated in face and upper parts, bloated or swollen in lower; keen intellectual but feeble muscular development.

Modalities worse 4 to 8 P. M., after eating, in warm room; better in cool open air, on motion.

Irritable; peevish and cross on waking; ugly, kick and! scream; easily angered; cannot endure opposition or contradiction; seeks disputes; is beside himself.

Complexion Pale, dirty, unhealthy; sallow; looks. Older than he is.

One foot hot and the other cold.

Great thirst after the sweat.

Chill on left-side of the body (Causticum ^Caust., Carbo v.).

Sour vomiting between chill and heat; must uncover (Lachesis ^Lach.).

Perspiration immediately after the chill. Thirst after sweating stage.

In intermittents, the flatulence, sour eructations, sour taste, sour sweat, sour vomiting.

The remedy, Lycopodium Clavatum, with Sulphur ^Sulphur and Calc Carb ^Calcarea forms the leading trio of Hahnemann's anti-psoric remedies. This makes a good starting point, as the boy said when he set a pin in a vacant chair. They all act very deeply. Each finds its affinity in a certain class of people or temperament. Lycopodium acts favourably in all ages, but particularly upon old people and children. It acts upon persons of keen intellect, but feeble muscular development; lean people, leaning towards lung and liver troubles. Such people are apt to suffer from lithic acid diathesis for which this is also great remedy. The Lycopodium subject is sallow, sunken, with premature lines in the face.

Lycopodium Clavatum is one of the leading trio of flatulent remedies, Carbo Veg ^{Carbo veg}. and China ^China being the other two. With Lycopodium there seems to be an almost constant fermentation of gas going on in the abdomen, which produces a loud croaking and rumbling. Remember, while China ^China bloats the whole abdomen Carbo Veg ^{Carbo veg}. prefers the upper and Lycopodium the lower parts. With Lycopodium this flatulent condition is very apt to occur in connection with chronic liver trouble. Again this rumbling of flatulence is often found particularly in the region of the splenic flexure of the colon or left hypochondria.

A feeling of satiety is found under Lycopodium Clavatum which alternates with a feeling of hunger of a peculiar kind. The patient sits down to the table very hungry, but the first few mouthfuls fill him right up and he feels distressingly full; in a Pickwickian sense "too full for utterance." This alternation of hunger and satiety is not markedly found under any other remedy.

Constipation predominates under Lycopodium, and like Nux Vomica ^{Nux vomica} there may be frequent and ineffectual desire for stool, but while that of Nux Vomica ^{Nux vomica} is caused by irregular peristaltic action that of Lycopodium seems to be caused by a spasmodic contraction of the anus, which prevents the stool and causes great pain.

Lycopodium should be thought of in anal troubles associated with chronic liver troubles, especially if with much flatulence.

Lycopodium is of use in right sided hernia. It has cured cases of long standing without the aid of a truss.

The liver troubles of Lycopodium are more apt to be of the atrophic variety, while those of China ^China are hypertrophic, both being equally useful in their sphere.

Lycopodium has almost, if not quite, as marked action upon the urinary organs as upon the liver. It is the chief remedy for "red sand in the urine." This not simply the reddish sediment which is generally termed "brick-dust sediment," and which is found under many remedies, but is an actual sandy, gritty sediment that settles at the bottom of the otherwise perfectly clear urine. Unless thus condition is removed we have sooner or later renal calculi, or gravel forming, and terrible attacks of renal colic. In children this sand is sometimes found in the diaper after severe crying spells, and in adults much pain in the back in region of kidneys, which is relieved after the discharge of urine containing the sand. (See Borax ^Borax, Sarsaparilla ^Sarsaparilla and Sanicula). No one remedy helps these cases more promptly or permanently than Lycopodium.

Lycopodium is also one of our best remedies for impotence. (Agnus Castus ^{Agnus castus}). An old man marries his second or third wife and finds himself not "equal to the occasion." It is very embarrassing for the whole family. A dose of Lycopodium sets the thing all right and makes the doctor a warm friend on both sides of the house.

Young men from onanism or sexual excess become impotent. The penis becomes small, cold and relaxed. The desire is as strong as ever, and perhaps more so, but he can't perform. (Selenium ^Selenium, Caladium Seguinum ^Caladium). I have known apparently hopeless cases of this kind cured by the use of Lycopodium Clavatum, high single doses at intervals of a week or more. Give it low, however, if you want to, but do not blame me if you don't succeed.

Lycopodium affects the right side most, or. at least the troubles begin on the right side. Swelling and suppuration of the tonsils I have aborted more than once in old quinsy subjects by an early dose of Lycopodium Clavatum. In fact, I have had such success with Lachesis ^Lachesis, Lycopodium, Lac Caninum ^{Lac caninum} and Phytolacca Decandra ^Phytolacca that some who employ me for nothing else come for those powders that "break up quinsy" so quick. In diphtheria, if the disease begins in the nose or right tonsil and extends to the left, you will think of Lycopodium, but remember that Mercurius Iodatus Flavus ^{Mercurius protoiodide} also begins on the right side, but there is no difficulty in choosing between the two. (Bromium ^Bromine diphtheria begins below and comes upward, just the reverse of Lycopodium). Pains in the abdomen, ovarian and uterine regions also begin in right side, running from right to left; right foot gets cold while the other remains warm, eruptions begin on right and travel across to left side. Sciatica the same.

Upon the respiratory organs Lycopodium Clavatum also has a strong influence. It is one of our best remedies for chronic dry catarrh of the nose, which becomes completely closed, so that' the patient has to breathe through the open mouth, especially at night. Here the choice often lies between Lycopodium Clavatum, Ammonium Carbonicum ^{Ammonium carb}. and Hepar Sulphur., other symptoms, of course, deciding the choice. In infants Sambucus Nigra ^Sambucus comes in for a share of attention.

Lycopodium has often saved neglected, mal-treated or Imperfectly cured cases of pneumonia from running into consumption. It may even come into the later stages of the acute attack itself, and here as usual the disease is apt to be in the right lung, and especially if liver complications arise. The disease has passed the first or congestive stage, and generally the stage of hepatization, or is irk the last part of this stage, and is trying hard to take a favourable turn into the breaking-up or third stage, the stage of resolution. Just here is where many cases die, neither free expectoration, nor perfect absorption of the disease product taking place. There is extreme dyspnoea, the cough sounds as if the entire parenchyma of the lung were softened; even raising whole mouthfuls of mucus does not afford relief, the breath is short and the wings of the nose expand to their utmost with a fan-like motion. Now is the tame when Lycopodium does wonders. Again, even when this stage is imperfectly passed, and the patient still coughs and expectorates much thick, yellow, purulent or greyish-yellow, purulent (sometimes foetid) Matter, tasting salty, with much rattling in the chest, Lycopodium is indispensable Here the choice may have to be made between Lycopodium Clavatum and Sulphur ^Sulphur, Causticum ^{Kali hydroiod}. or Silicea ^Silicea. The characteristic aggravation as to time, of Lycopodium Clavatum is from 4 to 8 o'clock P. M. Colocynthis ^Colocynth has 4 to 9 aggravation of abdominal pains, and Helleborus Niger ^{Helleborus Niger}, of the headache, with coryza.

Many more things might be written of this wonderful polychrest, but I have given the most important. Lycopodium Clavatum's strongest curative powers are not developed below the 12th potency, hence neither the old school nor the homoeopaths who confine themselves exclusively to the low preparations know much about it. Like Carbo Veg ^{Carbo vegetabilis}, Silicea ^Silicea and Sulphur ^Sulphur its best powers are only developed by Hahnemann's peculiar process of potentization.

"prove all things. hold fast that which is good.".