A Case of Facial Paralysis

This is an acute case of a male patient. He was born on 23rd April 1952, and consulted for his symptoms on 7th February 1985. He was a planning surveyor in a public utility property department. He was a shy, socially inept, very conventionally old-fashioned clothed young man in a dead end job; he lacked initiative and lived in a house with two women who looked after him. He complained of flu since a few days, a fever, an unsettled stomach, could not hold fluids, there was no trouble swallowing, frontal headache aggravated by central heating, since a few days before. Cold weather aggravated and appeared to be the causation; especially cold wind of which there had been much during February that year. He complained of paralysis after penicillin; felt as if his face was puffed up, which was actually not on observation. His left eyebrow would not raise, left eye would not stay shut, or shut at all, there was pain in the left side of his head, sensation in the left nostril as if swollen, a twitch on the left side of face almost led to spasm of the whole body. There was a history of nervous twitches when run down, a left collarbone fracture, a blow to the left side of head and some pain in left hip. No involuntary urination, some sweat in his axillae during the night; nothing abnormal with the bowels.

Kent’s Repertory¹ has the following intriguing rubrics-

FACE: PARALYSIS: Agar., all-c, anac., Bar-c., cadm., Caust., Cocc., crot-h., cupr., cur., dulc., form., graph., iod., kali-chl., Kali-p., nux-v., op., petr., plb., puls., ruta., seneg., stry., syph., zinc.

FACE: PARALYSIS: right: Arn.,Caust., hep., kali-chl., kali-p., Phos., plb., sil.

FACE: PARALYSIS: Left: All-C.,cadm., cur., form., graph., nux-vom., spig., sulph.

FACE: PARALYSIS: cold, from: Cadm.,Caust., Dulc., ruta. The question arises that how this information could be used? The patient’s paralysis is from cold ‘wind’ not cold bathing, so Dulcamara can be eliminated, the only other strongly showing remedy is Causticum with a ‘right’ sided paralysis, although there may be other possible indications in the patient’s history. Though a three-legged stool is not there,it has been established that there is no escape of urine. I had had never prescribed Cadmium sulphuratum before, indeed only a check in the abbreviations list showed that it was not the metallicum and so far considered this remedy as a cancer remedy only in the writingsof Grimmer².

Eye open sleep during

Eye closed difficult (face seems swelling).

Cadmium Sulphuratum 200C and SL³

The patient reported seven days later and there was no trace of the problem at all, the main improvement was immediate, 75%, and then a gradual improvement of the remainder. No continuing treatment was sought.

Cadmium metallicum was thought of as the remedy for “influenzosis” by William Gutman⁴, Grimmer characterises the sulphuratum as having a fear of solitude, of mental work, worse from cold winds and a crawling sensation with paralysis on the face. A college note showed Cadmium sulphuratum to be prescribed in the CM every 20 minutes for severe influenza! (Was this a joke?)The source of this has been tracked down to Eric Powell’s Natural Home Physician⁵. Clarke confirmed the facial paralysis and cold wind aggravation. Clarke and Grimmer confirmed the unsettled stomach although associating it with yellow fever or cancer, but also with icy coldness and yet with sweat in the axillae. All this and more was confirmed by Hering in seven pages.

This patient was seen some years before the publication of the work of Jan Scholten on minerals and elements and provides a clear confirmation of the possible uses of Cadmium salts. It could be seen as anecdotal evidence. I prefer to see it as an interesting case study, an example of N=1