Sulphur

SULPHUR

Brimstone; Flowers of Sulphur (The Element)

It is known as Hahnemann's  king  of anti-psorics (remedies).   Kent says that Sulphur is such a full remedy that it is somewhat difficult to tell where to begin.  It seems to contain a likeness of all the sicknesses of man, and a beginner on reading over the proving of Sulphur might naturally think that he would need no other remedy, as the image of all sickness seems to be contained in it.  Yet you will find it will not cure all the sicknesses of  man, and it is not well to use it indiscriminately any more than you would any other remedy. It seems that the less a physician knows of the Materia medica the oftener he gives Sulphur, and yet it is very frequently given, even by good prescribers, so that the line between physicians ignorance and knowledge  cannot be drawn from the frequency with which Sulphur is prescribed by them.

 The type of  Sulphur  patient is very vividly described by Kent. The Sulphur  patient is  lean, lank, hungry, dyspeptic fellow with stoop shoulders, yet many times it must be given to fat, rotuned, well fed people.  The angular, lean stoop shouldered patient, however is the typical one, and especially when he has become so from long periods of indigestion, bad assimilation and feeble nutrition.  The Sulphur state is sometimes brought about by being long housed up and adapting the diet to the stomach.  Persons who lead sedentary lives, confined to their rooms in study, in meditation, in philosophical inquiry and who take no exercise, soon find out that they must eat only the simplest foods, foods not sufficient to nourish the body, and end up by going into a philosophical mania.

There is another class of patients in whom we see a Sulphur appearance in the face; dirty, shrivelled, red-faced people.  The skin seems to be easily affected by the atmosphere.  He becomes red in the face from riding in the air, both in very cold and in damp weather.  He has a delicate, thin skin, blushing on the slightest occasion, always red and dirty looking,   no matter  how much he washes it.  If it be a child, the mother wash the face often, but it always looks as if it had been perfunctorily washed.

Hering called the Sulphur patient "the ragged philosopher".  The Sulphur Scholar, the inventor, words day and night in threadbare clothes and battered hat; he has long, uncut hair and a dirty face; his study is uncleanly, it is untidy; books and leaves of books are piled up indiscriminately; there is no order. It seems that Sulpher produces this state disorder. A state of untidiness, a state of uncleanliness, a state of "dib'nt care how things go," and a state of selfishness.  He becomes a false philosopher,  and the more he goes on in this state the more he is disappointed because the world does not consider him the greatest man on earth. Old inventors work and work, and fail .  The complaints that aarise in this kind of case, even the acute complaints, will run to Sulphur.  You take such a patient and you will notice that he has on a shirt that he has sworn many weeks; if he has not a wife to attend to him, he would wear his shirt until it fell of from him.

H.C.Allen in his Keynotes describes that Sulphur is adapted to pearsons of Scrfulous diathesis, subject to venous congestion especially of portal system.  Persons of nervous temperament, quick motioned, quick tempered, plethoric, skin excessively sensitive to atmospheric changes(Hep.Kali.C Psor.). For lean,stoop-shouldered persons who walk and sit stooping; walk stooping like old men.  Standing is the worst position for Sulphur Patients.; every standing position is uncomfortable.  Dirty, filthy people, prone to skin affections(Psor.) .  Aversion to being washed; always < after a bath.  Too lazy to rouse himself; too unhappy to live.  Children: cannot bear to be washed or bathed(in cold water,Ant.C); emaciated, big-bellied; restless, hot, kick off the clothes (Hep. Sanic.) ; have worms , but the best selected remedy fails.  When carefully selected remedies fail to produce a favorable effect, especially in acute disease, it frequently serves to rouse the reactive powers of the system; clears up the case ( in chronic diseases, Psor.)

Boerricke describes that Sulphur is often used in the beginning the treatement of chronic cases  and in finishing acute ones. Scrofulous, psoric, chronic diseases that result from suppressed eruptions(Caust.,Psor.) Complaints that are continually relapsing(patient seems to get almost well

when the disease returns again and again.  Congestion to single parts; eyes, nose, chest, abdomen, ovaries, arms, legs or any organ of the body marking the onset of tumors or malignant growths, especially at climacteric.  Burning everywhere general and local, especially feet; has to stick them out of bed to cool them. Dr. Nash says that these  burning sensations are found in both acute and chronic diseases.  He says that Arsenic Album leads this burning sensation in all acute diseases while Sulphur leads in chronic affections amongst the other medicines who have burning sensations under them.   Dr. Hawkes(of Chicago) has in like manner has illustrated the unfailing way in which a certain group of symptoms-vertex headaches, with heat there, burning in the soles of the feet in bed, hot flushes, and "gone , empty feeling" about an hour before midday meal-characterises a patient in whose ailments Sulphur will be beneficial.

MIND: Very forgetful. Difficult thinking. Delusion; thinks rags beautiful things-that he is immensely wealthy. Busy all the time. Childish peevishness in grown people.  Very selfish.  No regards for others..Boericke says that Sulphur subjects are always irritable, depressed, thin and weak, even with good appetite.

Head:-   The head funishes many symptoms.  The Sulphur patient is subject to periodical sick headaches; congestive headaches  , a sensation of great congestion with stupefaction, attended with nausea and vomitting.  Sick headaches once a week or every two weeks, the characteristic seven day aggravation.

Most headaches coming on Sunday in working men are cured by Sulphur. You can figure this out.  Sunday is the only day he does not work and he sleeps late in the morning and gets up with a headache that involves the whole head, with dullness and congestion.  Being busy and active prevents the headache during the week.  Others have periodical headaches every seven to ten days, with nausea and vomiting of bile.    The next important symptom is Constant heat on top of head. (Cup.Sulph,Graph.) Tinea capitis, dry form. Scalp dry, falling of hair; worse washing  .Itching; scratching, causes burning.

Eyes: It has many symptoms, such as in olden times would be called scrofulous but which we recognize as psoric.  There is a tendency for every cold to settle in the eyes.  Discharge of mucus and pus from the eyes.  Ulceration and thickening of the eyelids, lids rolled  outwards or inwards, loss of eyelashes; red and disturbed condition.  Now, if we would say "complaints of the eyes in a Sulphur patient,"it could cover all kinds of eye troubles.  Sulphur has extensive eye symptoms.  Eye symptoms with eruptions on the face and scalp, with itching of the skin, especially when warm in bed.  Catarrhal eye symptoms that are made worse from washing.  When not only the eyes are aggravated by bathing, but the patient himself is aggravated from bathing and he dreads to bathe, and he has itching which is made <from the warmth of the bed, and is subject to chronic sick headaches and has heat on top of the head,  with such concomitants his eye symptoms, no matter what, will be cured by Sulphur.  Sulphur has cured cataract and iritis, inflammatory conditions and opacities, and all sorts of "hallucinations of sight"-(coming with headaches).  "Flickering before the eyes" (as described) "small dark specks; dark points and spots, black flies seem to float not far from the eyes; gas or lamp light seems to be surrounded with a halo," etc.  "Burning heat in the eyes, painful smarting."  Every cold settles in the eyes i.e. the eye symptoms, when present, are increased and, when he has no eye symptoms, these are brought on from every "cold".

Ears: The ears are subject to catarrh.  Bad effects from the suppression of an otorrhoea.  Whizzing in ears.  Deafness, preceded by exceedingly sensitive hearing, catarrhal deafness..

Nose:  The catarrhal affections of the nose are extremely troublesome in Sulphur. "Smell before the nose as of an old catarrh,".   Herpes across the  nose.  Nose stufffed indoors.  Alae red and scabby. Chronic dry catarrh, dry scabs and readily bleeding.

Mouth:Lips dry, bright red, burning.  Bitter taste in morning.  Gums swollen; throbbing pain.There is general unhealthy condition of the mouth and tongue. Foul taste and foul tongue. Ulceration of mouth.   

 Throat:   Sulphur is a wonderful medicine for chronic sore throat when the symptoms agree.  The old Sulphur patient suffers from a general catarrhal state, as has been said, and the throat symptoms are of that sort.  Burning redness and dryness of the throat. 

Stomach:-  The stomach is sensitive to touch with the all-gone hungry feeling before mealtimes(especially 11 a.m.) , must have something to eat .Great  heaviness in the stomach after eating but little, after eating meat, or after eating foods that require a healthy stomach to digest.  Then he becomes a victim of pain. He will describe the pain in his stomach as burning pains and great soreness.  Pain in the stomach after eating.  Weak digestion.  Sour taste in the mouth from the welling up of acids from the stomach.

  The liver is very troublesome organ.  There is enlargement and induration, with much much painfulness pressure and distress. The patient becomes jaundiced with sensation of engorgement or fulness of liver, dull aching in the liver.  He is subject to gall stones, tearing pains in the region of the gall duct, coming periodically attended with much increase of his sallowness.  The Sulphur liver patient is the victim of chronic sallowness, which increases and decreases.  When this patient takes "cold" it settles in the liver; every"cold", every bath he takes, every change of weather, aggravates his liver symptoms,  and when these are worse he has less of other troubles.  It localizes itself in attacks of bilious vomiting, in attacks of "bilious headaches,"as he calls them. Great desire for sweets(Arg.Nit.) Milk disagrees.

Abdomen:  The sulphur patient suffers from great distention of the abdomen; rolling in the abdomen; soreness in the abdomen.   He is also a flatulent patient. There is much belching, much distension, much rumbling and passing of flatus.  Colic after drinking.

Rectum:  Itching and burning of anus; piles dependent upon abdomen plethora. Frequent unsuccessful desire; hard knotty, insufficient.  Child afraid on account of pain.  Redness around the anus, with itching.  Morning diarrhoea, painless, drives out of bed, with prolapsus rect.  Haemorrhoids burning and tender. oozing .and smart with the liquid stool.

Urine:-   Enuresis especially in scrofulous, untidy children.  Burning in urethra during micturition, lasts long after.  Must hurry, sudden call to urinate.  Great quantities of colorless urine.  Sulphur has cured patient with sugar in urine in the early stage of diabetes. 

Male:-  On the genitals there are many eruptions.  Itching of the genitals, worse from warmth of the bed; much sweat about the genitals, coldness of the genitals. In the male, impotency; the sexual desire is fairly strong, but he is unable to secure suitable erections;,premature ejaculation. Discharge of prostatic fluid when at stool.

Female:-    Under female sexual organs we have sterility. We have irregularity in the menstrual flow, menstrual flow suppressed from the slightest disturbance. Menses too late, short, scanty, and difficult; thick, black, acrid making parts sore.  Leucorrhoea burning excoriating.  Vagina burns. Women are full of hot flashes,

Respiratory:      Difficult respiration; wants windows open.   This remedy is full of difficult breathing, shortness of breath from very little exertion, copious sweat, so exhausted; asthmatic breathing and much rattling in the chest. Dyspnoea in middle of night>by sitting up.  Every time he gets "cold" it settles in the chest or in the nose.

Back:  Drawing pains between shoulders.  Stiffness of nape.  Sensations as if vertebrae glided over each other.

Extremities:-     The extremities are covered with eruptions.  Eruptions upon the back of the hands and between the fingers, and sometimes upon the palm;  vesicular and scaly eruptions which itch; pustules, boils and little abscesses . Burning of soles and hands at night.  Hot sweaty hands. Sweat in armpits, smelling like garlic. Stoop shouldered.Cannot walk erect.

Sleep:  Catnaps; slightest noise awakens.  Cannot sleep between 2 and 5 a.m.

Fever:- Frequent flashes of heat.  Violent ebullitions of heat throughout entire body.  Dry skin and great thirst.  Night sweat, on nape and occiput. Perspiration of single parts. Remittent type fevers.

SKIN: No remedy has more general, positive and persistent action upon the skin than Sulphur.  With or without eruption, itching and burning, are the characteristic sensations attending the skin symptoms.  Skin is dry scale, unhealthy; every little injury suppurates.  Freckles.  Pruritis especially from warmth in evening, often recurs in spring-time, in damp weather.

Modalities:-

Worse at rest, when standing, warmth in bed, washing, bathing, in morning, 11 a.m., night, from alcoholic stimulants, periodically.  Better, dry warm weather, lying on right side, from drawing up affected limbs.

Relationship :  Complementary: Aloe; Psorin; Acon; (Sulphur often follows in acute diseases);Merc. And Calcarea are frequently useful after Sulphur, not before. Lyc; Sep; Sars; Puls;

SUMMARY OF INDICATIONS:-

SKIN DISORDERS-POLYNEUROPATHY-DIARRHOEA-LIVER DISEASES - Constitutional disorders

NOTE: Sulphur is the great anti-psoric remedy. Sulphur is "the King of Psora."- Hahnemann..

Important Note: Sulphur is the chronic of Aconite nap.

                           Sulphur, Sarsaparill and Sepia follow in that order in chronic disorders.