Volume 108 Number 2
AJHM Summer2015 67
Asafoetida
·
Stitches in chest from within outward. Whooping
cough
.
·
Single violent stitches from within outward, at
short intervals, renewed when chest is touched.
·Boring sticking in the left loin, from
within outward
,
disappears on inspiration and expiration.
·Stitches in the left shoulder joint from
within out-
ward
.
·Pressive sticking in the right upper arm, on its inner
surface from
within outward.
·Boring pressure on the inner side of the left forearm
from
within outward
.
·Sharp stitches from
within outward
in the right tibia.
1c) However, there can also be an
inward directed
pain
as in the following headache symptoms with a
peculiar
nail or plug sensation
:
·
A sudden pain in the left temple, like an inward—
pressing pointed plug.
·
Pain as if a nail or plug was driven into brain.
·Intermitting
pressing—inwards
in the left temple,
almost like a
pushing inward.
·
Pain in the right parietal bone, as from a deeply
penetrating plug.
2) Another great characteristic of this remedy is part of its
name which indicates a
fetid odor
. This offensive fetid
odor is a characteristic of many of its discharges: the
eructations, stools, flatus, urine, discharge from nose,
breath, sweat, and discharges from ulcers. For example:
·Constant eructations of air having the taste and smell
of garlic.
·
Eructations: smelling like garlic, tasting rancid,
sharp, or putrid, smelling like feces, tasting like car-
rion.
·
Profuse, thick, papescent, brown, and very offensive
stool.
·
Blackish—brown, papescent, offensive stools, which
relieve.
·Hard, dark,
offensive
stool.
·The urine smells strongly of the drug.
·Urine acrid and
pungent
, though lighter colored.
3) Which brings us to its third grand characteristic, a
tendency to produce
sensitive ulcers
in many different
places,
especially over the tibia.
The remedy’s syphilitic
nature is expressed by these ulcers, fistulous openings,
necrosis and caries of the bones and by many of the com-
plaints being
worse at night
.
This is a good example of the importance of clinical
symptoms in homeopathy. In the provings only pains in
the tibia were elicited. However, various practitioners
extrapolated from this and cured cases began appearing
showing it is useful for very painful ulcers and caries of
the tibia (see cases 1 and 20) and in other places. After
the reporting of many such cases,
painful ulcers and
carious ulcers
have become well recognized symptoms
of this remedy.
3a)
Ulcers are so sensitive
, the softest kind of dressing
hurts them and
light touch, even a short distance
from the sore, causes acute suffering
.
·
Uterine ulcer, sensitive and painful, with offen-
sive discharge.
·Ulceration of the cervix uteri, the ulcers have high,
hard edges, are
sensitive and painful
, and bleed if
touched.
·
Pain in ulcer at night, almost unendurable.
·
Dark red, hot swelling of the skin
; ulcers with thin,
fetid, ichorous, bloody discharges; edges raised,
hard, blue; ulcers deep, flat, with fistulous openings;
ulcers affecting the bones; ulcers bright red, raw in
appearance, covered with tenacious lymph; erup-
tions flat
,
painful; shooting pains in the ulcer.
·
Ulcers with extreme sensitiveness, patient flinch-
es from even the softest dressing, or from near
approach of any one.
·
Ulcers with high, hard, bluish edges, sensitive
to touch, easily bleeding, pus profuse, greenish,
thin, offensive, even ichorous.
·Old ulcers on forearm, wrist, hand, especially when
affecting the bones, thin ichorous pus.
3b) Besides a tendency toward ulcers, there is a tendency
toward
caries (i.e. necrosis) of the bone and gan-
grene.
·Ulcers penetrating to bones, discharging thin, fetid
ichor.
·
Caries of the forearm.
·Swelling and caries of bones of feet.
·Ulcers turn black or become purple.
·Cold gangrene.
·
Black, gangrenous flesh above and below the ulcer.
·
Necrosis of the tarsal bone.
·
Necrosis of the right tibia
.
·Fistulous openings, necrosis and caries of the bones.
·
No longer tormented by the nightly syphilitic
bone—pains
, but can again sleep under his feath-
er—bed. The apparently healthy portion of the tibia
lying beneath the peculiar carious ulcer, became
again sensitive and painful to the slightest touch,
or even the approach of the finger, so also to the
removal of the char pie,
and at night also almost
unendurable
.
·
Most extreme sensitiveness, in the vicinity of the
carious ulcer of the tibia, of the superficial skin—
sores, and also of the ulcer itself; the patient cries
out if the finger touches a place distant from the
ulcer; removal of char pie causes most severe pain.
3c) The tendency toward
offensiveness
and
caries in
bones
are found prominently in the ear and nose
symptoms:
·
Discharge of fetid, green, purulent matter from nose
