Abstract
Since the most ancient times , lime has been used in therapeutics and was considered as a simple element of very restricted use, being preferentially employed for cauterizing warts, fungosities, carcinomatous ulcers, tinea, burns etc., . It was not until Davr’s discovery, in 1808, that the element calcium was known and from this date its applications became more interesting, not withstanding that its use remained relegated to the most complete empiricism.
Hahnemann , the founder of homoeopathy and pioneer of the calcium therapy of today, an expert in the therapeutic value of this substance went on to the preparation by trituration of his first calcium remedy, Calcarea Acetica in 1826 and after wards continued with the Calcareas his experimental labors upon the healthy man.
Introduction
Calcarea carbonica , Calcarea arsinicosa , Calcarea phosphorica, Calcarea iodata, Calcarea silicata, Calcarea flourica , sulphurica and picrica have been the subject of studies and proving by homoeopathic physicians as Hering, Allen, Koch, Robinson, James, Macfarlan, Knorre, Franz, Gross, Stapf, Lille, Hartmann, Schussler, Zeil, Guernsey, Bell, Blakely, Conont, Morgan, Burnett and others, which have determined the characteristics and indications for the use of these remedies in therapeutics, enriching at the same time the homoeopathic materia medica.
Calcium is found in the skeleton, in the teeth, in the soft tissues of the organism being an essential element in all the plasma of the tissues and cells. The normal organism contains 9.0 and 11.0 mg of calcium per 100 cc of serum, which quantity varies in children, this proportion increasing or decreasing in them or in the adult according to their diverse troubles. The calcium level of the blood plasma is in reciprocal relation to the phosphorous of the blood. The metabolic functions of calcium depend upon a complex phenomenon in the ocidifica.
The metabolic functions of calcium depend upon a complex phenomenon in the ocidification, solubility and transportation of the calcium salts, the calcium metabolism can be affected by numerous causes, among which we can mention the action of the parathyroid hormone, the B, C, and D vitamins . The acid base equilibrium, the renal thyroid and parathyroid functions, which supply the absorption degree of calcium and phosphorous salts in the organism.
The amount of calcium contained in the organism and that required for it , it’s deficiency and the variations contained in the blood in which iodized and non iodized compounds form so that the verification of this indispensable element in the daily consumption of food in the man and the animals have been the subject of multiple investigations during the last 20 years , [Collip, Sherman, Stewart, Rown tree, Brown, Hunter etc., ] hence their numerous applications in therapeutics due to the important role that calcium performs in the healthy and sick organism, pure experimentation in the preparations of lime, which is the inexhaustible source of a knowledge of the homoeopathic materia medica and its application to the clinic , has given us numerous and various symptoms from among them as follows –Calcarea carbonica offers us 1631 subjective and objective symptoms , Calcarea arsenica 342 the phosphorous 640 , the sulphurica 340 etc., etc., from more than one hundred years of continued success in the use of the Calcareous in homoeopathy , it has been proved that the best and most efficient results come from the strictest and closest prescription of them according to the law of similitude, embracing the most different applications there fore it is not a surprise for us to find them indicated for the most varied troubles.
Every out hour agrees to this and practice justifies, it that the Calcareous are indicated in that constitutional and morbid state characterized by different affections which are settling in the tegumentary, lymphatic and osseous systems [ scrofula] which is for Escherich, tuberculosis added to lymphatism and causing scrofula that is the evolution of the tuberculosis. The Calcarea patient is stout, corpulent, fatty whether it be a child or an adult, with an excessive paleness of the skin and coolness of the extremities.
In children the fontanelles remain open, the dentition is delayed and irregular, the abdomen is voluminous and the lower extremities short and thin, a backwardness existing in the general developing of the organism.
The patient is apathetic, capricious, indolent, apprehensive, forgetful obstinate and does not like either work or exercise [ hypothyroid ] anemia, loss of the coagulability of the blood, periostities, great sensitiveness to cold, partial, perspiration, children crave eggs, spots and opacities of the cornea, chronic dilatation of the pupils cataract; nasal polypi; otitis, hypertrophy of the tonsils and of the lymphatic ganglia, goiter, loss of appetite, milk intolerance, hypercholorohydria, hepatic colics, umbilical hernia, infantile diarrhoea sterility, uterine polyps , night coughing with spitting, hoarseness without pain, the shest is very sensitive to touch and to pressure, tachycardia, renal colic, knotty arthritis, chronic rhematism, worse by physical and mental exercise by cold and standing up, improvement in dry climate, lying down on the painful side [Calcarea Carbonica].
The patient displays a very serious manifistation in the skin, such as fissures , cracks ,suppurations.
The patient is apathetic, capricious, indolent, apprehensive, forgetful, obstinate and does not like either work or exercise [ hypothyroid ].
Anaemia, loss of the coagulability of the blood, periostitis; great sensitiveness to cold , partial perspiration; children crave eggs, spots and opacities of the cornea, chronic dilatation of the pupils cataracts; nasal polyp, otitis, hypertrophy of the tonsils and of the lymphatic ganglia, goiter, loss of appetite, milk intolerance, hyperchlorhydria hepatic colics, umbilical hernia, infantile diarrhoea sterility, urine polyps, night coughing with spitting, hoarness without pain, the chest is very sensitive to touch and to pressure, tachycardia, renal colic, knotty arthritis, chronic rheumatism, worse by physical and mental exercise, by cold and standing up, improvement in a dry climate, lying on the painful side [ Calcarea carbonica ]
The patient displays a very serious manifestation in the skin, such as fissures, cracks suppurations with callosities, fistulous ulcers which level of the joints, stony indurations, hereditary syphilis congenital syphilis, goiter, arteriosclerosis, apoplexy , tuberculosis, hematomas, gangrene, sclerosis of tympanum, otitis, hypertrophy of the tonsils, bloody piles, varicose veins, aneurism [ Calcarea flourica ].
Hypertrophy of the thyroid gland particularly in puberty hypertrophy of ganglia, hypertrophy of the tonsils, adenoids, uterine fibroids, croup, hereditary syphilis, pneumonia persistant, catarrhal states, polyps in the nose and in the ear [Calcarea iodata],membranous bronchitis, bronchorrhea, membranous dysmenorrhe , cancer [ Calcarea acetia ].
Epilepsy, nephritis, albuminaria , chronic malaria , cancer of the matrix , pernicious anaemia [ Calcarea arsenica ].
Infantile dyspepsia with a craving for ham bacon and smoked meats, flatulency, enterocolitis during dentition, hard stool, green and with fetid gases, fistulas of the membranous, bronchorrhoea, membranous dysmenorrhea, cancer [ Calcarea acetica] epilepsy, nephritis, albuminaria, chronic malaria, cancer of the matrix, pernicious anaemia [Calcarea arsenica].
Infantile, dyspepsia with a craving for ham , bacon and smoked meats. Flatulency enterocolitis during dentition, hard stools, green and with fetid gases, fistulas of the anus, menstrual disorders among young girls with leucorrhoea like white of an egg. prolapsus of the matrix [ calcarea phosphorica] fibroid, adenitis, suppurated process of long duration. Deafness through chronic otorrhea purulent discharges from the ear and from the nose. mastoiditis. dysenteric form, enteritis, chronic enteritis. abscesses and fistulas of the rectum and anu , purulent exudations of the skin / eczema in children and adults lupus, herpes [ Calcarea sulphurica ] sclerosis of the ear; chronic otitis; Meniers, vertigo , inguinal and scrotal hernia [ Calcarea picrata ].
An extensive volume can be written in reference to the use of the Calcareas of the Hahnemannion school adding besides that the best results are obtained, as the founder of homoeopathy counsels with infinitesimal doses, giving cases of cures with the potency from the 30X to the 1000 of Fincke.
The rationale school, which for twenty years up to the present time has paid special attention to the employment of calcium, has undoubtedly been able to enrich their therapeutics with more precise hints about this substance and the most noted authorities summarise their indications for the following cases, calcium carbonate [ creta preparata ], as absorbent and as alkaline base to neutralize the hyperacid dyspepsia. in gastrosuccorrhoea and in the infantile diorrhea and in infantile diorroea .As succedaneous of sodium carbonate [ therapeutics and pharmacology , around 1934 ]As antiemitic in infantile dyspepsia [ lessons in therapeutics , Dr.Hernando ] as an agent for recalsification in tuberculosis of the lungs [ Ferrier and S.Robin , elemental treatise of therapeutics , Monquat 1919 ]
Calcium chlorate as an internal hemostatic or in enemas [ clinical therapeutics , Dr. Gastron Lyon, 1919 ]
Neuter phosphate of lime, glycerophate and chlory drophosphate of calcium [ diseases of infancy suncer and ordonez 1939 ]
The gluconate and lactate of calcium, in hypodermic form after parathyroidectomy in tetany nephritis, oedema, eczema, bronchial asthma, yrticaria , angioneurotic oedema, spasmophilia, uremia, epilepsy, eclampsia, ostemalacia, osteitis, fibrosa, decalsification, lack of consolidation of fractures. tuberculosis pleurisy, enteritis, night sweating in tuberculosis, ulcerative colitis, dysmenorrhoea, ulcerative colitis, as antidote in lead, mercury and chloroform poisoning [ pharmacology and therapeutics, Walter A. Bastedo 1938 ]
From this brief comparison it follows that the calcium therapy of today is nothing less than the calcareum therapy of the Hanemannian school, with the particularity that the indications of the latter are more precise as being in conformity with the law of similia similibus curantur .