ARGENTUM NITRICUM

 This remedy should be remembered when the exciting cause is

the apprehension of an approaching ordeal.
 - Argentum like Gold profoundly affects the mind.
- Like Gold it is one of the best remedies for hypochondriasis.
- The symptoms are so many in this trouble that we can only call
attention to them as found in Guiding Symptoms.
- I will only mention a few more prominent and peculiar
symptoms that have been frequently verified.
- "The sight of high houses makes him dizzy and causes him
to stagger.
- It seemed as if the houses on both sides of the street would
approach and crush him."
- "When walking in the street he dreads to pass a street
corner, because the corner of the house seems to project and
he is afraid he will run against it."

Hypocondriyasis: Being preoccupied with having or getting a serious disease or
health condition

 Worrying that minor symptoms or body sensations mean you have a serious illness

 Being easily alarmed about your health status

 Finding little or no reassurance from doctor visits or negative test results

 Worrying excessively about a specific medical condition or your risk of developing a medical
condition because it runs in your family

 Having so much distress about possible illnesses that it's hard for you to function

 Repeatedly checking your body for signs of illness or disease

 Frequently making medical appointments for reassurance — or avoiding medical care for fear of
being diagnosed with a serious illness

 Avoiding people, places or activities for fear of health risks

  Constantly talking about your health and possible illnesses

 Frequently searching the internet for causes of symptoms or

possible illnesses

- "Impulsive, must walk very fast, always hurried." (Lilium

tigrinum)
- "Apprehension when ready to go to church or opera; brings on
diarrhoea." (Gelsemium.)
- The hurried feeling of both Argentum nitricum and Lilium
tigrinum have occurred mostly in uterine troubles; while the
diarrhoea on excitement seems to depend upon a general nervous
condition.

HEADACHE and VERTIGO

Argentum nitricum is sometimes the best remedy for hemicrania;
this kind of headache is often very distressing and hard to cure.
- One peculiar symptom belonging to Argentum nitricum in
headache is a feeling of expansion, feels as though head were
enormously enlarged, and like Pulsatilla and Apis, feels better
when tied up tight.
- This feeling of expansion is also a general symptom, feels as
though the whole body or part of it were expanding, some express
it as a feeling of fullness. (Aesculus hippocastanum.).
- It is found under other remedies also, but very prominently under
this.
- Argentum nitricum has a great deal of vertigo, which is often
accompanied with buzzing in the ears, general debility and
trembling.
- Cannot walk with the eyes closed; the sight of high houses makes
him dizzy.
- These symptoms call to remembrance Gelsemium.
 - Both remedies have much vertigo; great tremulous weakness,
accompanied with general debility, actual trembling and
tremulous sensation, and both have been found useful in
locomotor ataxia.
- I should, other things being equal, give the preference to
Gelsemium in recent cases, or in the beginning, and Argentum
nitricum further along.
- But there are generally diagnostic indications which enable us to
choose between them.

PURULENT OPTHALMIA
"The greatest service that Argentum nitricum performs is in purulent
ophthalmia.
- With large experience, in both hospital and private practice, we
have not lost a single eye from this disease, and every one has been
treated with internal remedies, most of them with Argentum
nitricum of a high potency, 30th or 200th.
- We have witnessed the most intense chemosis, with strangulated
vessels, most profuse purulent discharge, even the cornea beginning
to get hazy and looking as though it would slough, subside rapidly
under Argentum nitricum internally.
- The subjective symptoms are almost none.
- Their very absence, with the profuse purulent discharge, and the
swollen lids from a collection of pus in the eye, or swelling of the
sub-conjunctival tissue of the lids themselves, indicates the drug.
(Apis; Rhus)".
- In blepharitis Graphites and Staphisagria have served me oftener
than Argentum nitricum, but this may not be the experience of
others, for in eye troubles, as in all others, the indications are to be
studied and carefully recognized in their entirety. (Borax must not be
forgotten in blepharitis).
- Specialists are apt to lose sight of this and be led to local treatment
when constitutional would be infinitely better.

- The symptom, "red, painful tip of the tongue, papillae erect,

prominent," has guided to the cure of many different kinds of cases
DIGESTIVE SYMPTOMS
There are also some valuable symptoms in the digestive organs; for
instance, "Irresistible desire for sugar; fluids go right through
him; most gastric ailments are accompanied by belching after
every meal, stomach as if it would burst with wind, belching
difficult; finally air rushes out with great noise and violence.
- "All of these are characteristic, and there is no doubt that this
remedy is sometimes indicated when Carbo veg., China or
Lycopodium are given because they are generally so much better
understood.
- Dyspepsia, gastralgia and even gastric ulcer have sometimes
found a powerful remedy in Argentum, and it has also done great
good in very obstinate cases of diarrhoea of various kinds.
- "Green mucus like chopped spinach in flakes."
- "Stool turning green after remaining in diaper".
- "Stool expelled with much spluttering."
- "Stool shreddy, red, green muco-lymph, epithelial substance."
- "During stool emission of much noisy flatus.
- " Now there are other remedies which have some of these
symptoms in a marked degree, notably:
Calcarea phos., which has the spluttering stool with much noisy
flatus, and it is also a fact that both remedies are very valuable ones in
hydrocephaloid consequent on the long-continued drain from
intractable cases of entero-colitis.
- If the bone development should be slow with open fontanelles and
sweaty head of course Calcarea phos. would win.
 - Then in Calcarea phos. the child wishes smoked meats, bacon, etc.
in Argentum nitricum sugar or sweets.
This remedy is useful for the relief of the gastric symptoms of some
of these cases. There is great craving for sweets, but they disagree.
There is great accumulation of gas, which presses up and causes
dyspnoea. There are efforts to belch, which is accomplished in time,
the gas coming up noisily. There are gastralgia and vomiting of
glairy mucus, which relieve the pain.
- is indicated in severe gastralgia, attended with heartburn which is
aggravated or excited by eating.
- A gnawing, ulcerative, sore pain, seated at one spot, or radiating to
different parts, with spinal irritation, pains sometimes appear to
depend upon an irritable state of the nerves of the stomach proper;
often there is flatulence, nausea and palpitation; pain increases and
decreases gradually; hard pressure in the pit of the stomach brings
relief.
- should be remembered in neurotic subjects, when the eructation is
annoying and the gas escapes with much noise.

THROAT AFFECTIONS
Argentum nitricum has its place in the treatment of throat affections.
- There is thick, tenacious mucus in the throat obliging him to
hawk and causing slight hoarseness.
- Rawness, soreness, scraping in throat, causing hawking and
cough.
- Sensation as of a splinter lodged in the throat (Nitric ac., Hepar
sulph., Dolichos), and wartlike excrescences, which feel like pointed
bodies when swallowing.
- This kind of throat may extend downward until it involves the
larynx, especially in singers, clergymen, or lawyers who are using
their voice very much.

When this remedy is indicated the case is a chronic one.

- There is a constant hoarseness, and as soon as the patient begins
to talk or sing there is an easy expectoration of mucus that looks
like starch paste.
- is indicated in chronic follicular pharyngitis when the parts present
a dark red appearance, the patient hawks thick tenacious mucus
from the throat, and there is burning in the throat with a sensation of
a splinter being lodged there.

LOWER EXTREMITIES
- "Pain in the back (small of) relieved when standing or walking,
but severe when rising from a seat," is a condition often found in
practice.
- I have often relieved it with Sulphur or Causticum, but remember
also Argentum nitricum.
- If in back troubles we find great lassitude (Kali carbonicum), with
weariness, especially in forearms and lower legs, especially calves,
or if in addition to this we find vertigo and trembling of the
extremities, we may be sure Argentum nitricum will do us good.
- In paraplegia from debilitating causes or paralysis after diphtheria
we may find this remedy indicated.

Argentum nitricum is indicated when the patient complains of a

severe pain localized just below the xiphoid cartilage, extending to
the back.
- The pain also radiates from the epigastrium to the shoulder, chest
and abdomen.
- There is usually fermentation, and an examination of the blood
shows a condition of chlorosis to be present.

EPILEPSI
- Cuprum metallicum has great restlessness between the attacks.
- Finally Natrum muriaticum is the best antidote for the abuse of
Argentum nit., especially upon mucous surfaces. [I. 293 to 299]