Acids - Some Cases
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 1999 Nov / Dec VOL VIII NO 6.
Dr F M Kulay
'Hydr-ac / Acet-ac

Ideal prescriptions are quite rare, for various reasons. In acute, especially, one prescribes in a short time on the basis of a few symptoms. Most of us repertorize cases only when necessary. The keynote prescribers do not often have so good results as they suppose. The most successful prescribers, especially in acute, as also in chronic cases, are undoubtedly those who are masters of Materia Medica, who have grasped remedy-essences; or to check rare and strange symptoms etc. They do not fail to identify Alumina or Cenchris or Paris Q or Sinapsis N and so forth. When they report cases it is often difficult to understand their basis for a prescription but little effort reveals the secret of the remedy they prescribed. In one case, a patient complained among other things, that he felt his scalp fitted tightly and also one of his eyes felt as fitted tightly to the socket, though these were not his main complaints. Dr Kent prescribed Paris Q high and cured it. It is mentioned in the Materia Medica of Paris Q, "Sensation as if head is enlarged". It was easy for Dr. Kent to "see" in the patient's language the image of the Materia Medica language. Only a larger thing can fit tightly in a narrower vessel or container.

Case 1: A friend of mine has a stock of homoeopathic drugs. He frequently consults me on the phone and quite often he benefits. Once he was suffering from cough. I kept on prescribing on phone, wrongly. After 10 - 12 days, he began feeling exhausted; he is a strongly built, sturdy man. "Acid flashed across my mind. I told him to have a blood test (for eosinophils) and come over the next day. The count was 14%. He complained of choking in the throat, in addition. He was given Hydrocyanic-acid 200 [1] and advised to have a blood test again the next day. The new report showed 2% eosinophils, while he improved. That was 8 -10 years ago.

Case 2: This refers to January 1992, I had a chamber then in Yaari Road. Dr S G Bhagwat used to come there as an Anaesthesiologist. Generally healthy, 41 years old with two children. Complaints. Green mucus from nose every hour with headache. Eight months ago, he had surgery for sinusitis and has had no headaches since then. "Either" he says "can't be smelt by anybody if I yawn". He adds, "you can't sit in my car for five minutes, for my car always carries the deadening kit..... Of course, I can't feel it anymore". I thought of giving him Acetic-acid .... More so in order to learn..... But I took the case nevertheless. Nothing of prescribing value emerged from this healthy young medico. The only pertinent symptom I could elicit was "sleeps on abdomen", and now looking back at records I regret I didn't ask "since when?" He improved greatly after Acetic-acid 200 and 1M, given a single dose two months apart. He became a friend and I told him to make Vinegar a part of his diet in the form of salad etc, He has shifted to Pune permanently. I hope he is well.

Case 3: From the experience of behaviour patterns of chronic diseases, I disapprove reporting recent cases. I have seen physicians reporting a case on the basis of the first "good report". A physician of international "repute" published the result in his book of an "acute" case as cured by Lyssin because the patient (a case of malaria) never came back. The patient went worse, I was called in on the 31st day or so, when I prescribed him China 200 [1] dose (no thirst during chill and after, but as fever began to establish itself, thirst began). The next day he was fine and went out to play. He was a young boy, son of an eminent Homoeopath of Bombay. The following case, therefore, is being reported not to show success but to explain the difficulties of the first prescription - the most important artistic duty.

Mr SA, 18 y old and an illiterate boy from UP working in Bombay.
Rashes all over since last one year - red, itching, (face, scalp, arms, especially).
Confluent and become one.
One unsatisfactory stool - strains.
Occasional diarrhoea from cereals.
Urethral burning during urination.
Pain stomach, occasional; no modalities
Not much thirst; takes lukewarm tea.
Likes milk, egg, sweets, not fond of fish.
Normal salt habit.
Feels very weak. Occasional nondescript vertigo.
Eyes burn; lethargic, moderately warm
Confused, not knowing what to do.

I Selected The Following Rubrics.

1. Eruptions. Confluent (skin - KR p 1310).
2. Thirstlessness. (Stomach - KR p .530).
3. Urethra: Pain, burning during urination (Urinary organs KR - p 675).
4. Aversion to fish (Generalities SR Vol 2 pg 242).

Phosphoric-acid takes 2-3-1-0 marks. (Phos takes 2 marks in the last rubrics). Add weakness in a lad of 18 years.
Prescription: Phosphoric-acid 200/3 doses to be given in a day.
After another week: Skin> no urethral burning - "stool same".

Some significance can be attached to "stool same". Once I had a case of a young girl whose chief complaint was constipation. On the basis of the symptoms I cannot recall, I gave her Phos-acid 200 [1]. Never did she complaint of constipation I feel "Stool same" is not really discouraging. That a diarrhoeic drug, did not worsen it, is good enough. Maybe in course in time, constipation, generally a chronic state, may have also gone)

Some Picric-acid Cases of Dr JT Kent (culled from Kent's Minor Writings - Ed. by K H Gypser, MD):

Case 1: A woman passing through menopause, had burning heat in the back, in paroxysms like flushes, brought on or made worse by mental exertion or excitement. Cold extremities. Face cold and pale. Heat in the head. Heat in the hand violent occipital headaches. Heaviness of limbs, especially the lower Picric-acid 10M produced a marvelous constitutional improvement in the case (p.455) (emphasis added)

Case 2: A busy lawyer had brain-fag. Pain in forehead and temples extending to occiput and down, between the shoulders. Nausea. Tongue loaded with yellow fur. Often clay colored diarrhoea, stool mixed with greenish slime. Great exhaustion after motion and mental effort. In recumbent posture and open air "After many remedies apparently indicated had failed, Picric-acid 9x improved all symptoms from the first dose" (p. 24) (emphasis added).

Case 3: A lad of four, after cerebro-spinal meningitis (cured) was left with paralysis of lower extremities. Usual remedies failed. "Picric-acid" 12 X improved from the beginning, and in six weeks he was well.

Case 4: 30 year male < right - Anaesthesia of both limbs from knees down < left - could not walk with eyes closed. Had suffered from painful erections, that it seemed as if his penis would burst. He took picric-acid and made a good recovery" (p. 24) (emphasis added).

In the above cases of Dr Kent, I have added the emphasis to make the essence of Picric-acid "stand out" so that one can see its image in widely different problems: Menopause. Locomotor Ataxia, Paraplegia, Sexual Hyperexcitablity in a debilitated person, children woefully poor in work (school) with unaccountable leg-pains and so forth.

While on the Picric-acid, it would be worth our while to look at the inimitable consciousness of Dr C M Boger in his Materia Medica (Synoptic Key) in which no sentence or verb appears - only eloquent phrases.

Then follows a nine-line disjointed-looking, yet meaningful Materia Medica. For an already Materia Medica man a more time saving account of drug-pathogenesis is hard to find elsewhere. I have, however, not found the rubric "Better in Sun". Dr S R Phatak mentions it under "Better" but does not mention it in the Materia Medica that follows. Perplexing! For Picric-acid is "Worse heat" in italics. I shall be obliged to know from someone.