Sulphur sulph.
Characteristic
Adapted to persons of a scrofulous diathesis, subject to venous congestions, especially of portal system.
Persons of nervous temperament, move quickly, quick tempered, plethoric, skin excessively sensitive to atmospheric changes (Hep., Kali c., Psor.).
For lean, stoop-shouldered persons who walk and sit stooped; walk stooping like old men.
Standing is the worst position for Sulphur patients; they cannot stand; every standing position is uncomfortable.
Dirty, filthy people, prone to skin affections (Psor.).
Aversion to being washed; always worse after a bath.
Children: cannot bear to be washed or bathed (in cold water, Ant. c.); emaciated, big-bellied; restless, hot, kick off the clothes at night (Hep., Sanic.); have worms, but the best selected remedy fails.
When carefully selected remedies fail to produce a favorable effect, especially in acute diseases, it frequently serves to rouse the reactive powers of the system; clears up the case (in chronic diseases, Psor.).
Scrofulous chronic diseases that arise from suppressed eruptions (Caust., Psor.).
Complaints that are continually relapsing (menses, leucorrhœa, etc.); patient seems to get
(Ars.) ; in chest, rising to face ; of skin of whole body, with hot flushes; in spots, between scapulæ (Phos.).
Sick headache every week or every two weeks ; prostrating, weakening (Sang.) ; with hot vertex and cold feet.
Constant heat on vertex; cold feet in daytime, with burning soles at night, wants to find a cool place for them (Sang., Sanic.) ; puts them out of bed to cool them off (Med.) ; cramps in calves and soles at night.
Hot flushes during the day, with weak, faint spells, passing off with a little moisture.
Bright redness of lips as if the blood would burst through.
Weak, empty, gone or faint feeling in the stomach about 11 A. M. (10 or 11 A. M. > by eating, Nat. c.) ; cannot wait for lunch ; frequent weak, faint spells during the day.
Diarrhœa : after midnight ; painless ; driving out of bed early in the morning (Aloe, Psor.) ; as if the bowels were too weak to retain their contents.
Constipation : stools hard, knotty, dry as if burnt (Bry.) ; large, painful, child is afraid to have the stool on account of pain, or pain compels child to desist on first effort ; alternating with diarrhœa.
The discharge, both of urine and feces, is painful to parts over which it passes; passes large quantities of colorless urine ; parts around anus red, excoriated ; all the orifices of the body are very red; all discharges acrid, excoriating wherever they touch.
Menses : too early, profuse, protracted.
Menorrhagia, has not been well since her last miscarriage. " A single dose at new moon."—LIPPE.
Boils: coming in crops in various parts of the body; or a single boil is succeeded by another as soon as first is healed (Tub.).
Skin: itching, voluptuous; scratching >; "feels good to scratch;" scratching causes burning; < from heat of bed (Mer.); soreness in folds (Lyc., San.).
Skin affections that have been treated by medicated soaps and washes; hemorrhoids, that have been treated with ointments.
To facilitate absorption of serous or inflammatory exudates in brain, pleura, lungs, joints, when Bryonia, Kali mur. or the best selected remedy fails.
Chronic alcoholism; dropsy and other ailments of drunkards; "they reform," but are continually relapsing (Psor., Tub.).
Nightly suffocative attacks, wants the doors and windows open; becomes suddenly wide awake at night; drowsy in afternoon after sunset, wakefulness the whole night.
Happy dreams, wakes up singing.
Everything looks pretty which the patient takes a fancy to.
Movements in abdomen as of a child (Croc., Thuja).
Relations
Complementary: Aloe, Psor.
Ailments from the abuse of metals generally.
Sulph., Calc., Lyc.; or Sulph., Sars. and Sep. frequently follow in given order.
Calcarea must not be used before Sulphur.
Sulphur is the chronic of Aconite and follows it well in pneumonia and other acute diseases.
Aggravation—At rest; when standing; warmth in bed; washing, bathing; changeable weather.
Amelioration—Dry, warm weather; lying on the right side (Stan.).
Type
Quotidian; double quotidian; tertian. In regular paroxysms. Yearly (Ars., Carbo v., Lach., Nat., Psor., Thuja). Typhoid, typhus, bilious, yellow; fever of every kind and every type.
Time
Not characteristic; at all periods. Morning; afternoon; evening; night. Evening predominant; 8, 9, 10 A. M., 12 M.; 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12 P. M.
Prodrome
Evening fever without chill. Thirst (Caps., Eup., Puls.—but can only drink in prodrome and apyrexia, Cimex).
Chill
Without thirst. Frequent internal chilliness. Chilliness, with headache in the evening (Sep.), disappearing after lying down. Aching in forehead with restlessness, relieved when sweat comes on. Chilliness and shivering over whole body, without subsequent heat or thirst (Bov.). Chilliness and rigor, with blue nails, pale face, heavy, giddy head, not relieved by heat of stove, but by lying down. Chilly in open air, as if naked. Shivering on slightest movement in bed (Nux, Stram.). Coldness transient, of the nose, hands, feet, chest, arms, back, abdomen. Chilliness in the back, in the evening for an hour, without subsequent heat. Chilliness constantly creeps from the sacrum up the back, without subsequent heat or thirst, sometimes relieved by warmth of stove. Icy coldness of the genitals. Coldness through all the limbs. Hands and feet very cold, with livid, pale face. Shaking chill for an hour in the P. M., with blue face and cold hands and feet; subsequent heat and perspiration (Ars., Bell., Rhus). Headache, vertigo, delirium. Chill begins in hands, fingers, feet and toes (Carbo v., Nat., Sep.).
Heat
With thirst. Frequent flushes of heat in the face, with shivering sensation over the body (Sep.). Burning heat of the palms of the hands and soles of the feet; or cold feet, with hot, burning soles; was obliged to put them out of bed to find a cool place. Heat and redness of face, with burning in single parts, as on malar bones, around the eyes, ears, nose, mouth. Orgasm of the blood, and violent burning of the hands. Alternate heat (of body and face) with chilliness (Ars., Cal.). Frequent flushes of heat, ending in moisture and faintness. Intense, per-sistent, long-continued fever; skin dry, hot, burning; tem-perature 103-105, little or no remission, day or night; pa-tient literally being consumed with fever.
Sweat
Copious morning-sweat, setting in after waking (sweat while awake, dry heat when sleeping, Samb.). At night profuse sweat all over the body and restless sleep (sweat all night without relief, Kali c.). Profuse sweat on occiput. Perspiration on slightest motion or manual labor (Bry.—sweat on least exer-tion or every mental effort, Sep.). Profuse sweat when walking, reading, riding, writing, talking. Profuse sour night-sweat, of a sour, burnt odor (Lyc.); vomiting; morning diarrhœa; tenesmus.
Tongue
Coated white or yellow, which wears off during the day, and becomes red and clean in evening. Bitter taste in mouth in morning; food tastes natural. Longing for sweets, beer, brandy. Aversion to meat. Milk disagrees, causes sour taste, sour eructations.
Apyrexia
Great prostration after every paroxysm (Ars.), with thirst for beer. Burning heat on vertex. Early morning diarrhœa. Feels as if he was just convalescing from a severe illness.
Sulphur bears the same relation to chronic cases that Ipecacu-anha does to acute, viz.: if the indications for the remedy be not clear and well defined, Sulphur may clear up the case, or completely cure it alone. Intermittent fever is a terrible searcher after weak organs; and Sulphur is frequently required in all forms of the disease—acute and early, or chronic and later—to combat some latent malady aroused during the course of the fever. If we would use Sulphur more and Quinine less, our success would be much more satisfactory, both to our patients and ourselves.
"The antiperiodic virtue of Sulphur does not apply simply to pyrexial intermittents, but it also comprehends intermittent neu-ralgias, which consist of attacks of pain on the right side of the face and head, which begins at the maxillaries and finally extends along the orbital nerves, and thence involves the whole side of the head, there being no dental caries. The pains begin toward evening, last three to four hours, then cease, reappear later, and again cease up to the hour of attack in the evening. Psoric subjects; after the suppression of an exanthem: after the abuse of Quinine."—A. CHARGE, M. D.
Sulphur worn next the skin, in the form of flowers of Suphur, is an effective antidote to the malarial poison which is supposed to produce intermittent fever, typhus and diphtheria, as well as cholera.*