VOL. XIII.

The Critique

DENVER, COLO., October 1, 1906.

Entered at Denver postoffice as second-class matter.

VALERIAN.

No. 10

By James Tyler Kent, M. D., Professor Materia Medica, Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital, Chicago.

This remedy cures many nervous and hysterical phenomena in excitable women and children, and the complaints of the hypochondriac. Great nervous excitability, exaltation, hysterical contractures, trembling, palpitation, sense of levitation, paroxysmal respiration, stitching pains, tension in the limbs, jerking, twitching, globus hystericus. Sensation of something warm rising from the stomach, causing paroxysmal suffocation. All the nerves are in a fret. Oversensitiveness of all the senses; great nervous restlessness. All these general symptoms come on during rest, and are relieved by motion and moving about. Fainting easily. Slight exertion brings on symptoms. Complaints change about, and pains wander from place to place. It is a great remedy for the numerous nondescript nervous manifestations that come in spinal irritation when there is amelioration by motion and aggravation by much exertion. Exertion brings in headache in these cases. Stitching pains all over the body during rest.

The mental state is often ecstatic or hysterical. The mind undergoes rapid changes in disposition and ideas. The mental symptoms come on at night; sees images, animals and men. The mental state is one of extreme activity-tension, excitement, passes from one subject to another. Erronious ideas; thinks she is some one else, moves to the edge of the bed to make room; imagines animals lying near her which she fears she may hurt. Fear in the evening in the dark. Symptoms aggravated in

the dark. Great sadness and irritability. Morose, easily exasperated. Mental symptoms come on during rest, while sitting and lying, and go off on walking about.

Vertigo when stooping. Feels light as if floating in air. Violent nervous headaches in evening during rest, ameliorated by motion. Stupefying pains in head. Stitching, tearing pain. Sensation of great coldness in head. Headache from exposure to the heat and light of the sun. Aggravated in the open air and from a draft. Pain in forehead and through the eyes. Tension and constriction of the scalp. Icy coldness in vertex.

Wild look in the eyes. Flashes of light before the eyes in the dark. Pressure in the eyes in the morning. Smarting in eyes. Vision very sharp.

ears.

Hearing acute. Jerking pains. Hissing and ringing in

Face red and hot in open air. Stitching in face and teeth. Sudden jerking pain in face. Twitching in the muscles and drawing pain in face. Neuralgia of face, aggravated during rest.

Thickly coated tongue; rancid taste. Flat taste in mouth on waking.

Sensation as if a thread were hanging down the throat with salivation and vomiting.

Voracious hunger with nausea. Symptoms aggravated when stomach is empty, ameliorated after breakfast. Complaints from fasting. Eructations, like spoiled eggs, morning. Eructation of rancid fluid. Nausea, faintness, body icy cold. Child vomits as soon as it nurses after mother has been angry. Child vomits curdled milk in lumps.

Distended abdomen. Cutting pain in abdomen. Colic. Cramps in hysterical women, in evening in bed and after din

ner.

Watery diarrhea with curds in infants.

Greenish pape

scent stool and blood with cramp in abdomen and tenesmus, in children. Worms in the stool. Prolapsus of the anus when straining to pass urine.

Copious frequent urination in nervous women. Sediment of urine red and white.

Menses late and scanty.

Choking in throat pit on falling asleep; wakens as if suffocating. Inspirations grow less deep and more rapid until they cease; then she catches her breath by a sobbing effort, in spells. (Compare Igatia, Ox-Ac.) Paroxysmal respiration in hysterical and very nervous women. Globus hystericus.

Jerking stitching pain in chest. Oppression of the chest with lump in the throat. Stitching in right side of chest and liver. Stitching in heart with pulse quick, small and weak.

Pain in small of back during rest, ameliorated by walking. Rheumatic pains in scapulæ.

Rheumatic pains in all the limbs, aggravated during rest after previous exertion, ameliorated walking. Drawing, jerking of limbs, and twitching of muscles during rest. Heaviness in limbs, drawing, feels as though must move the limbs but cannot. Darting pains in arms and shoulders. Drawing in the muscles with stitching pains in arms. Hysterical contractures in hands and arms. Crampy darting, tearing, like an electric shock, repeatedly through the humerus, intensely painful. Cramp in biceps when writing. Pain along the sciatic when standing, ameliorated walking. Tearing pain in thigh upward to hip. Tearing in calf when crossing limbs. Tearing in muscles of thighs during rest. Violent drawings, jerking pains in lower limbs during rest. Drawing in thighs, legs and tendo-Achillis when sitting, ameliorated walking. Pain in ankles after exertion, ascending stairs, ameliorated walking. Drawing in tarsal joints when sitting. Pain in heel during rest. Pain in thighs when straightening out the limb. Pain in hip, aggravated standing. Hysterical cramps in lower limbs, calves and feet.

Sleepless before midnight. Cramps in hands and feet prevent sleep. Vivid dreams. Symptoms aggravated on walking. 92 State Street, Chicago, Ill.

NOTE.-Original publication in The Critique.

ARGENTUM NITRICUM.

By Fredrica E. Gladwin, M. D.

Once upon a time, Mr. Nitric Acid went a-woing and the lady of his choice was Miss Argentum Metallicum. Mr. Nitric Acid was dark, had black hair and eyes, a swarthy complexion and that lean, hungry look which Julius Cæsar disliked. It's a mystery what any one ever saw in Miss Argentum Metallicum to admire, she was so tall, thin, pale-faced, even sallow and by no means beautiful, though her manner was somewhat attractive. She was always making merry with her jokes and laughter; even yet she like to talk. Her mind is very claer and she argues with great facility. She often speaks or sings in public, but her voice is not to be depended upon. She has strained it some time or other and now when her friends expect the most of it, as in public use, it fails and she cannot speak or sing a loud word, she is so hoarse. Sometimes when she tries to sing, the sound comes double to the surprise of herself and audience.

Mr. Nitric Acid is very headstrong and obstinate. He never lost an opportunity to convince Miss Argentum that they should become one and by carefully concealing from her what a nervous, irritable, discontented fellow he relly was, he finally succeeded in convincing her.

It is not my purpose to describe their wedding nor to speak of their married life, but to talk of their son Argentum Nitricum. In character he was not so strong as either his father or mother. He could not go so deeply into the lives of people as they could.,

Argentum Nutricum didn't begin life in this world right. ticum, who was always seeking to annihilate him or his work. In just the same way, his father, Mr. Nitric Acid, was always dogging around after Mr. Mercurius trying to undo him.

Argenticum Nutricum didn't begin life in this world right. He was a little, withered, dried-up, old-looking baby, always delicate and it was no wonder, considering his inheritance of psora from his mother and of the other two chronic miasms

from his father; how could he have been a healthy child-it was altogether too much to expect.

His troubles began soon after birth and the eyes were the location of their appearance. Ophthalmia Neonatorum, the doctor called it. The discharge was profuse and purulent and the cornea became ulcerated. The poor little fellow cried and made a great fuss about it, but he couldn't make the nurse understand that he wanted cool air. She thought he had wind colic, which he often has, and he seemed to cry less after he had passed much flatus up and down. He has had all sorts of trouble with his eyes since that attack. His father and mother both had Ophthalmia Neonatorum when first born and were weak-eyed always thereafter. The father's eyes were much more inclined to ulcerate than the mother's. Argentum Nitricum was more like his father in this respect.

All through his infancy and even in after years, he was troubled with colic. Great quantities of gas would collect in the stomach and abdomen and pass noisily up or down, after which he would be relieved. Sometimes the gas became incarcerated and the abdomen distended; then the pain was very severe. The colic he inherited from his father. Mr. Nitric Acid's colic doubles him up when walking and it is worse in the morning. His abdomen becomes distended and you often hear the gas rumbling and gurgling through it. Argentum Nitricum didn't succeed in getting through his second year without the summer complaint. His mother carelessly ate a quantity of candy and the little fellow had to suffer for it. The stools were like grass chopped up with mucus or they would turn green after being exposed to the air. They were forcibly expelled with much flatus and the abdomen was greatly distended.

Argentum Nitricum still has much craving for candy, but even yet he cannot eat it without its producing an attack of diarrhoea.

During childhood, Argentum Nitricum had chorea. There was drawing up of the legs, jerking upward and outward of the arms and spasmodic drawing of the fingers and toes. Now he has occasional attacks of epilepsy. He can always tell when they are coming on, for the pupils become dilated a day or two