By C.M. Bogaer, M.D.

     This is the Glauber Salt of our forefathers and in their day was used as a saline laxative much in the same way that Epsom Salt is today; even miraculous powers were ascribed to it by the ignorant; its violent action, however, led to the gradual substitution of the Magnesium sulphate. Its popular use exhibits its more obvious action; this Homoeopathy has amplified and defined by means of its proving until it is today one tried and true antipsorics exhibiting a long and deep action.

      The liquid stools it causes were formerly believed to be due to an osmotic transmutation of liquid form from the blood into thee intestinal canal; they are now known to be due to a stimulation of the intestinal glands causing an increased secretion of watery mucus, with the evolution of much gas, even enough to be painful; it is passed in quantities with the stool so that a morning diarrhoea, after rising, with a stool which is forcibly expelled with much spluttering, is looked upon as its characteristic. Such diarrhoeas frequently accompany tuberculosis of thee mesentery and have often been cured with Nat. Sul. In a single dose of the highest potency.

      Other remedies for morning diarrhoea are: Sulphur, when the patient is hurried out of bed with barely time to reach the closet, and passes a large, mushy stool.

      Rumex is just like Sulphur, but in addition it has a dry cough, excited by tickling in the throat pit, or inhaling cold air through the open mouth.

      Kali bichromicum has the same urgency, May even soil his clothes, but the stool is watery and comes with a gush and is followed by much tenesmus.

     Aloe involuntarily passes masses of jelly-like mucus, or in the morning he finds a large lump of faeces as his companion in bed; before thee stool there is much rumbling and gurgling in the abdomen, he retains thee fluid faeces with difficulty and often suffers with prolapsing piles.

     Podophyllum also has a gushing morning stool hurrying the patient out like Sulphurs, but it continues the whole day and the stools have a carrion-like odor, ate generally light-colored and may have a meal-like sediment.

Gambogia has a gushing, yellow stools preceded by gurgling and rumbling, and followed by absence of great relief as if an irritating substance had been removed; the stool also irritates and makes the anus sore.

      Bryonia causes and cures diarrhoea coming on as the patient begins to move about in the morning; it is worse from vegetables and stewed fruits or overheating; in general, the patient is worse from all kinds of motion.

       Dioscorea will cure if gripy, colicky pains which fly to other parts accompany it. Just a moment’s digression here; some day you will meet a case in which cramps in the fingers or other distant parts will accompany more central affections like dysmenorrhoea, diarrhoea, etc., then you will often differentiate between Cuprum, Arsenicum, Secale cornutum, Dioscorea, Jatropha and Veratrum album.

       Vom Grauvogel showed that Natrum sulph. Patients are severeely affected by dampness and that the sensitiveness thereto is often a result of sycosis; thus originated the theory of the hydrogenoid constitution, for which he proposed Thuja and Natrum Sulphuricum as remedies; I would impress upon you that no one or two remedies can by thee very nature or things be a specific for any given disease, they can only be such when the symptoms agree and not otherwise.

      “Oppression of breathing, then diarrhoea,” “Symptoms in other parts cause oppression of breathing,” and “Short respiration with a sharp stitch in the left chest when standing,” is symptoms that should attract your attention, and when combined with aggravation from dampness they have led to the cure of many cases of humid asthma.

     This salt has a fine record to its credit in brain and mental affections caused by injuries to the head. Traumatic meningitis with piercing pains extending from the neck to the occiput so severe they extort screams. Sudden jerks throwing the head to one side. Brain feels loose. Headache better by a cold foot bath. Scalp sensitive to combing the hair. Irritable, dreams of fighting. Loss of memory. Buzzing in the head. All these point to violent irritation and when the other symptoms agree, are cured by it. Cutting pain in the heels due to traumatic irritation of the cord has been cured by it.

     It has a considerable record in diseases of the liver; the organ is usually sensitive and the patient worse from lying on thee left side, like ptelea trifoliata and Carduus marianus. As is not uncommon in troubles of this organ, we also find the system trying to rid itself of the products of deficient oxidation by the elimination of brick-red, acid, urinary deposits, one phase of the so-called lithaemia, which is the only way of saying metaphorlcally that too much soot has accumulated in the flues and that the bodily fires are choked either from deficit oxidation or too much fuel in proportion to the oxygen consumed. Natrum sulphuricum will do much for these cases if indicated, but your good judgment will add plenty of fresh air and out of door exercise to the prescription; this will hasten the cure.

     The photo phobia of this remedy is remarkable for its intensity and the fact that it is worse by lamp-light; the eyes are so intensely inflamed that they feel as though they gave out heat.

    It is a prime remedy for the tendency to run rounds, as they are popularly termed, and when the patient subject to them also has sore looking eyes your remedy is evident and will cure. Pains are piercing, compressive or boring in almost any part; the patient is always better on a dry day and when out of doors. Many symptoms are worse during thee menses, notably the headaches, etc; nose-bleed is apt to occur then and the patient is apt to be chilly; on the contrary, the Natrum mur. Patient feels hot during the menses.

     All the Natrums have vesicular eruptions at one place or another; in the Sulphate and Muriate they occur about the lips; a beady streak of slime along the edge of the tongue is also a reliable indication for the latter The Hyposulphite has been used as a topical application in vesicular erysipelas for some time by the allopaths, ebidently homoeopathically.

      There is a cough curable by this remedy; it is so violent that it hurts the head and sides and the patient is compelled to hold them for relief; here it compares with Drosera and Eupatorium Perfoliatum.