Calcarea Carbonica

JS: I will give you a little bit of factual information on calcarea carbonica. Calcarea carbonica of course is calcium carbonate; it is the lime from an oyster shell and it is a basic element in living systems, of course concerned with the skeleton and nerve conduction.
The main underlying pathology of this remedy is ailments from overexertion, either of the mind or of the body. Great life stress and a prolonged effort to overcome it. With respect to the mind, the scenario looks something like this. These are responsible, hard­working people, who take on more and more tasks. And this sense of responsibility is not really the egoistic competitiveness of sulphur and it is not the rising to the challenge of nux vomica (“Why did you climb the mountain?” “Because it is there;” only nux vomica is going to say something like this). But this state of responsibility in calc. is a genuine sense that “someone has to do it and if 1 don’t do it, it won’t get done.” This is the underlying idea. And combined with this attitude that “somehow the job has to get done and I am the one to do it,” is the tendency to focus down on the details, to get caught up in the minutiae of affairs.
Kent of course, as always, gives these beautiful descriptions – for those who understand the remedy, it is easy then to see the description – but really most of this information is in Kent, and he says like this: “Calcarea leads to little ideas. That is, it compels to littleness. It compels the mind to littleness, to little ideas, or to dwell on little things.” So in terms of everyday life, there was one patient who described it beautifully; she described how organized she was, how she made this very careful and elaborate filing system, but it took her so long to set up the system, she had no time to file the information and things were in a state of complete chaos. This is the essence of the matter here. Now, this sort of mind obviously does not work rapidly, does not move with speed from one thought to another, like lach., where the mind is just going: “Zoom, zoom, zoom …” the connections are being made.
Calcarea’s mind moves slowly. So these people do their work and their studies carefully, methodically, and slowly. It takes time. They work hard; they do it well. But this slow, careful mind is faced with an ever increasing volume of detail, of organization, of tasks which it feels responsible for seeing to a successful conclusion. And then there arises the sense that this is all getting to be too much and that all the details can barely be contained. They begin to feel overwhelmed and there is the sense that if one more problem, one more thing is added, the whole situation will get completely out of control and everything will simply collapse. That their mind would collapse. Everything is being held; all the details, all the responsibilities, all the tasks are being held and ordered here, and of course the whole overview is lost and the small details are focused on and there are many, many details and there is the feeling that it is just going to give in. Overexertion of the mind.
So we can say that in a certain way calc. lives by the mind; they grasp the world and they organize it through the mind and it is the dysfunction of this part that gives rise to the characteristic psychological picture. And so what we are dealing with now is the psychological picture of calc. (not the elements that come from overexertion of the body; we will touch on that later). This is the way in which the mind of calc. becomes overwhelmed. So in the earlier stages, the idea of being overwhelmed may not be apparent on the surface. They complain of minor physical ailments, such as frequent colds and low back pain. The mental and emotional planes are usually okay; the person appears basically solid and healthy.
They are balanced, have a conservative sort of appearance and they tend to be reserved and need to be in control. calc. can be quite healthy people. Sometimes they are open, pleasant, cheerful, jolly people. They can be quite sensitive and sympathetic; they want people to be happy and for everything to be well. In other words, they are healthy, but the calc. tendency is there and they are overworking a little and they are feeling some fatigue. They are catching colds a lot and they are having this low back pain, which is a big area of weakness for this remedy. As the tension in the situation rises, and the sense of stress increases, they become more serious and you begin to sense the underlying anxiety. A quiet anxiety. They are understated people at this stage, they don’t come with a big anxiety; you have to feel it underneath. The anxiety is expressed most characteristically as anxiety about the future. “What is going to happen if I don’t have everything under control?”
JS: For instance, the main focus of natrium muriaticum is when?
AD: Past.
JS: In the past, yes. natrium muriaticum is fixed on the past; calc.  worries more about the future. Their anxieties go towards: “What if …” This is the question: “What if …” So these are people, who when they go away on holiday, every contingency is taken care of. “Band-aids in case I get a cut …” You see, this sort of thing. Everything is thought out and planned and taken care of, because there is the anxiety: “What if something goes wrong that I haven’t thought of?” A compulsion that everything is taken care of. “Will everything be all right; will the kids be okay; will my health stand up?” You see, fear that something will happen.
Also you will see (page 46, calc., [2]) fear of poverty. You get the feeling of an anxiety about money. If we go further and the organism deteriorates more, we see a more complete picture starts to emerge and they feel on the edge. And at this stage, fatigue becomes the major presenting complaint. They come in and they say: “I am so tired.” Physically exhausted. They are barely, able to cope and with this comes the sense that if something were to go wrong, especially with them, if something were to happen to them, everything would fall apart. So of course we have anxiety about…?
AD: Their health.
JS: Health, yes. “Because I have got all this to do, all this to take care of, all these details; if I were to get sick, oh my God, what would happen then?” So anxiety about health. Especially the fear of cancer. Cancer, the sort of hidden condition which grows and smoulders for years before you know that you have it. So fear of cancer (page 43, additions Vithoulkas) agaricus muscaris, [3]; arsenicum album, [3]; calcarea carbonica, [3]; calcarea fluorica, [2]; calcarea phosphorica, [2]; china arsenicosum, [1]; ignatia amara, [1]; kalium arsenicosum, [2]; nitricum acidum, [2]; psorinum, (3). This is how I have it in my repertory.
Also, fear of heart disease and fear of infectious diseases. And here at this stage you may see quite a bit of irritability and impatience. And you wonder to yourself: “Is this woman sepia?” She is so irritable with her husband and with her children. But when you investigate it more carefully, you see that it really stems from a feeling of being overwhelmed; that they are not really coping, and others are just making life more difficult by their lack of consideration etc. The husband is leaving a mess around the house, the kids are not tidying up; calc. likes order, you see, and there is this feeling that people are not cooperating. “I can’t cope,” and so they become irritable and they are shouting at the kids and they are short with the husband and it is not sepia, it is calc.. And at this point they may develop a distinct aversion to their job, to their work. They just do not wish to carry on. It may even seem like they are lazy, but it is not really laziness; they are just becoming more and more exhausted and they really cannot carry on.
AD: Is that true for a housewife?
JS: Yes, housewife, a very hard job.
So listen to what I am saying here; you may mistake it for sepia if you just look at this part of the picture. However, they push themselves and they push themselves’ further and the fatigue spreads to the mind, which becomes now really quite weak. And the ability to concentrate and to think becomes impaired. And now comes the sense that the mind itself is breaking down, that they are losing their grasp on reality and that they are going insane. Fear of insanity is definitely a deep underlying fear of calc. And even more characteristic than the fear of insanity is the fear that people will notice this deteriorated state. Fear that her condition will be observed. Fear of loss of control.
AD: Is that in the repertory, fear of being observed?
JS: Yes, it is like that: fear of her condition being observed (page 46, fear, observed, of her condition being, Calcarea, [1]). Calc. is very strong there; it is sort of a keynote.
AD: …
JS: … And this is what I said before, it is rot like that in lycopodium, it is not a fear that they will be found out. It is the fear that in the moment people will see their state of confusion. So these are people who do not like others to look over their shoulder while they are working, for instance.
Now, with this sort of breaking down of the mind, this weakness, they may enter into a sort of psychic state in which they begin to pick up the thoughts and the feelings of others. If you look on page 11, you will see the rubric clairvoyance (page 11, Calcarea, [1]). Clairvoyance is the word for psychic receptivity and this comes in pathological states from two, maybe three main reasons. Look at the remedies there; you will see Sepia maybe is there (IB: no) and of course Phosphorus and I think silicea. lyssin, [2]; phosphorus, [2]; nux moschata, [2]; crotalus cascavella, [2] – very strange remedies; stramonium, [1]; tarentula, [1]; calcarea, [1]; cannabis indica, [1]; hyoscyamus, [1]; lachesis, [1]; medorrhinum, [1]; silicea, [1].
Either this clairvoyance comes because the mind is so weak, it becomes dull and empty. Of course it is a tremendous mistake to think that thoughts do not exist as real events. I don’t want to digress too much … We live in an age of materialism, but for me there is no separation in a sense between matter and spirit; everything in the universe is material, otherwise our remedies could not work. It is a question of the density of matter. And so our organs of perception, our five senses, have the capacity to perceive only certain densities of matter. Just as our ears can hear only a certain frequency, our eyes can see only a certain range of frequency, we can pick up only certain densities of matter. But that doesn’t mean that all matter begins and ends with our range of perception. You all know this, of course, but you need to carry it just a little further to understand that thoughts are material; it is a substance. It is just a very fine substance.
So when you are open in a way, these thoughts come in and they fill the person’s head just like the radio waves; you turn on your radio; where the hell does it come from, it is there all the time. Why can’t the mind pick up radio waves, after all. You see, is it only this little crystal that can pick it up; maybe the mind picks up radio waves. The mind that is empty and blank, and doesn’t have enough energy for its own thoughts, starts to pick up BBC 2 or something. The people think: “My God, I am going crazy here.” And in a way they are going crazy, it is not really a true delusion or hallucination; it is a perception of reality. This is one form of clairvoyance.
Another form of clairvoyance of course is that characterized by phosphorus, in which the barriers of the whole organism are so open that all impressions just pour in, and they pick up the thoughts and feelings of other people. But in phosphorus it is closer to their physiological state, in a way. In calc. it is more a weakness of the mind. In phosphorus it is a weakness, a kind of disconnection of the subtle bodies; it is a different sort of matter. In cannabis indica the same thing happens; you take drugs, you have visions and the mind becomes more open in a certain way. Certain normal restrictions which are hammered into us from our early infancy are broken down, are taken away by the effect of the drugs, and perceptions of things really existing become evident to our senses. It is very interesting; I don’t know how many of you thought of this, but little babies, when they are born, they have these fontanelles. I mean really, every sound, every movement of the air vibrates directly on to the child’s brain. Little kids are wide open. And as we get older we get more and more closed down, more and more encased in this shell, in this sort of rock-hard stuff, and finally we deteriorate to such an extent that before they had cat-scans the radiologists would use the calcified pineal gland, as an indicator whether the brain was in the centre or not. This redundant organ, the calcified pineal gland. I mean, that is why homoeopathy is so hard for people to accept, because our organs of perception are calcified. These are just the facts, in a way. It is such tremendous intellectual egotism to feel that there are organs in the body which are redundant. For instance, you go in and maybe the kid has appendicitis, and it is not really appendicitis, but you cut the appendix out. This is real “preventive medicine;” you cut it out and you throw it away and then nothing can ever go wrong. I mean, what horrendous egotism to think that there is something in this body, which has just no purpose. “I don’t understand it, therefore it doesn’t exist.”
It is just interesting to look at the remedies here of clairvoyance. Of course in any rubric one remedy means one thing and another remedy means another thing. So we can look again at a different support for the rubric of clairvoyance, which is desire to be magnetised (page 63). And again of course here you will see the main remedies leaping up at you. Now of course, in the time of the repertory, magnetised meant what, actually? Who was the first magnetic healer?
AD: Mesmer.
JS: Mesmer. And what did Hahnemann say about Mesmer?
AD: A great genius.
JS: Mesmer was the only other living entity recognised by Hahnemann as someone who had something worthwhile, actually, in the terms of medicine. And the story of Mesmer is a very fascinating story and I encourage you to read it. There are some books, one by a man called James Wycough, I believe, on Mesmer. And you will see that Mesmer was really on to something. He really understood something about the vital force. And what happened to him, because he understood? He was totally destroyed by the medical profession. They picked him to pieces, tore him to bits and buried him. And then they resurrected his original story under the name hypnosis as a sort of mere shadow of what Mesmer actually understood and was trying to do. Very interesting, but quite irrelevant. So the desire to be magnetised is the same thing and implies a real openness to forces coming from outside. A feeling of weakness in the sense of calcarea, phosphorus or silicea, and that the other person’s energy will come in and give them a boost. Whereas lachesis we may look at maybe in a slightly different way, the delusion of lachesis is what? That they are under the control of superhuman forces. So this delusion here is somehow related maybe to this rubric in which they want to be open, so that these superior energies can come into them.
Calcarea suffers here from the state of broken down openness, and they develop a tremendous fear that others, by looking at them, can understand their state of confusion. Probably because maybe they have some experience and they feel therefore that everyone can see how it is with them. I remember when I was younger that it was very, very difficult for me to tell a lie. And part of the reason was not only that my mother had superior psychic powers and every time I told a lie, she found me out, but also, when other people were sort of telling stories, I knew, and I couldn’t imagine that others didn’t know. And I couldn’t imagine that when I told a story a little light, it didn’t go on the top of my head, saying: “Lie, lie, lie …” And this I think is maybe a state that calc. gets into; they feel that everyone will intuitively sense what is going on. And so you look under delusions, insane, that people think her (page 28, Calcarea, [3], only remedy). It is an interesting rubric, because there is only one remedy and it is very strong. It means it is a very important facet of the mental state of this remedy.
Fear, confusion, that people would observe her (page 43, Calcarea, [2], only remedy): Fear, observed, of her condition being (page 46, Calcarea, [1]). You see, this is very different from lycopodium. On the surface it can seem the same, but actually it is a different world. There is another characteristic feature of this remedy, somewhat related to the sensitivity, which may appear at this level or much earlier, anxiety, cruelties, after hearing of (page 6, Calcarea, [2], only remedy). There are other rubrics like after bad news (page 8, bad news, ailments from, Calcarea, [3]), there is after horrible things (page 52, horrible things, sad stories, affect her profoundly, Calcarea, [3]). There is a sort of a sensitivity in calcarea where they cannot bear to watch violence on TV or to look at accidents on the freeway; it enters right into them and it is much too upsetting. And here of course you confuse it with?
AD: Causticum?
JS: Phosphorus. This is a Phosphorus state, but also Calcarea has it.
So of course here is someone who is feeling very responsible, likely to take care of things, and they are driving along and they see there is an automobile accident. What would you expect that they will do? You expect that they will stop and try and do something. And then you find to your surprise when you ask them about this, that they can’t bear to look, even. We all have natural curiosity. And even if we feel totally irresponsible, it doesn’t matter, there is an accident and we all want to see what has happened. These people look the other way; they can’t bear to see the brain is mashed in and the blood and the broken bones and this sort of violence or cruelty.
So with increasing deterioration, things can evolve in two ways now. Now they are really overwhelmed; they feel their mind is going; the responsibilities are too much and they think: “Oh my God, I am going crazy. Everybody is going to see it; what am I going to do?” Either they can go into a state of deep depression, or into a state of hysteria la sort of hysterical anxiety), it can go either way. In the depressed state they become morose, withdrawn and they have a rather passive despair of recovery. They feel they are never going to get better; they just want to be in a dark room with dark clothes; they lose interest in their appearance and become rather untidy and unkempt. Of course you won’t notice calcarea, unless you know how they got into this particular state. But when you see how they got into this state, then you understand: “Yes, this can be calcarea carbonica.”
The other way is a kind of hysterical state in which they become very agitated, very upset. They feel they don’t know what is going on or what is wrong. They are pacing up and down, they are anxious, they are unhappy. They can’t bear negativity, they can’t read the newspaper, they feel they are so sensitive – all this terrible trouble … They have tremendous anxiety about their health and despair of recovery. And here of course you are thinking of arsenicum and phosphorus. But if you understand the evolution of how they got here, you see when it becomes calcarea. Now calcarea is actually quite a strong remedy, they are quite vital people and if they go into a real psychotic state in which they are floridly insane, probably it is no longer calcarea.-Then maybe they flip into a belladonna state in which they just are having all these delusions and fears and a sort of maniacal behaviour; probably it is not calcarea. I have not seen such late stage things myself, but I just describe it for you, so that if one day it happens, you have some memory that it can be calcarea, even in such an agitated or depressed state. But if they are really nuts, if they are really off the wall, you should look for a different remedy.
Calcarea Physical
So we touch on the generalities and the main pathology of this remedy. Calc. is one of the remedies in which the body type is often of great value. The classical appearance of course is rather fat and flabby, they tend to be square. Square heads, square bodies; they can be either obese and floppy, or they can be quite compact and muscular. And those muscular ones have this sort of square, compact body type and if they have deteriorated more, they become flabby. Those that are healthy Calcareas are strong and physically active, and so the flabbiness is not a big feature, it is the squareness and chunkiness. Those who sit around a lot are not square and chunky, they are chunky and flabby. There is another type which is less common, but which is very characteristic if you see it, and this is a thin body and a thin face where the face is covered with fine wrinkles, arranged in both horizontal and vertical lines, producing small squares. You get the impression of someone who has suffered quite a lot from this sort of chessboard, though with small squares. These are fine lines and there are many of them. I am sure if you think about it, you have all seen some persons where you can say: “Oh, yes, that is how they look.” This can be calcarea. So, overweight, overworked, overexerted is here the essence of the matter.
Frequent infections, especially of the throat and the tonsils; bronchitis and abscesses. Musculo-skeletal problems, rheumatism, low back pain. It is one of the first remedies to be thought of in low back pain. In other words, if you want to make your two-and-a-half minute prescription, someone comes into your office and you see them, they are sort of fat and overweight and you take their hand and it is sort of sweaty. They say: “Doctor, it is my back,” and they put their hand over the lumbar area. You have to ask them just one question: “Are you chilly?” They say: “Yes, I am chilly.” If you really want to push it, you say: “What food do you like?” They say: “Eggs.” You say: “Where do you sweat?” They say: “If I exert myself, I sweat on my head.” You say: “Calc. 10 M, thank you very much.” And of course once every year one is so lucky. But this is the case. Low back pain in someone who is overweight, flabby and chilly, most likely is calc. Especially if their back hurts when they have to work a little harder, or working in the garden, or doing stuff like this; from overexerting. Weakness of the lumbar region which prevents them from sitting upright for any length of time; they tend to slump in the chair.
Chilly, especially the feet and the hands; the hands are cold, clammy and soft. The sort of wet fish handshake, or the boneless handshake. I remember when I would go to a synagogue and the rabbi would stand there and he had to shake the hand of his thousand parishioners, his hand would be like that and you would take it, and you would leave it and it wouldn’t move, this kind of limpness, no strength, no force, just flabby. And calcarea are almost always quite chilly – be aware, quite chilly – except under two conditions; what are the two conditions?
AD: Exertion.
JS: No. Children. Calcarea children are almost always warm.
Their metabolism is high. Don’t be put off; if you have a chilly remedy and the child is warm, no matter, you give that remedy. If the child is chilly, then it is a very big symptom, homeopathically speaking. If a child of four years old is complaining “It’s too cold, mummy, I want to wear my jacket, my pullover,” like this: pay attention. Parents are almost always more chilly than their kids and they have this ongoing battle: “Put on your pullover, it is cold outside, don’t you know, you will catch cold, put on this ….” And the kid is kind of looking at them, you know. I mean, you see how we programme our children, the child is warm! It doesn’t care it is cold outsid, but because I am cold, you have to be cold. Anyway … If the child is cold, you pay attention to it.
The other condition in which calcarea may be warm: in women after menopause. Don’t worry about that; you see this woman in her mid-fifties and she is kind of fat flabby, anxious and has palpitations and low back pain and is sweaty. And she says: “Oh, I just don’t like the heat it is always getting too hot you see, I am warm.” And you think: “Oh my God, how can I give calc.?” All you have to do is, you ask what?
AD: What was she like before the menopause?
JS: Yes. “Before you stopped your periods, how were you?” And she will for sure tell you: “Oh, I was much chillier.” Fine.
Worse from damp weather, especially cold damp weather. It is one of the main remedies for aggravation from damp weather. It is not good news for you if you are thinking of calc. and the person is not bothered by damp weather. Perspiration on the least exertion. Obese, chilly, sweaty people, who perspire even when cold. There is a nice confirmation; you ask people, they say: “Yes, my feet sweat” or “I am quite sweaty,” and you say: “Your feet are warm or cold?” They say: “No, my feet are cold. But still my feet are cold and they are sweating.” Good confirmation, especially if the person is overweight. If they tend to be on the skinny side, you will think of Silicea. Perspiration in spots, sweats on the head, on exertion. You have to push around for this a bit. You say: “Do you sweat?” They say: “Oh yes, I sweat everywhere,” and you say: “When do you sweat?” They say: “When I exert myself.” You ask them: “Where does the sweat begin?” And they say: “Oh, it runs down my face.” Good enough. Sweat on the head.
Little babies sweat on their heads when they sleep. Many little babies are what remedy?
AD: Calcarea.
JS: Calcarea, yes. Often calc. corresponds to little babies.
Little babies are calc. commonly, because they have these common calc. symptoms. If you get someone who is seventy years old and they are sweating on their head on exertion, the chances are that they have been calc. ever since they were a child and this is a person with good strong vitality, who kept the same remedy throughout their life. That is obviously not the only symptom, but I mean in a calc. case who is an adult and is still sweating on his head, it is a good sign in his case.
Craving for sweets and pastries; over ninety per cent of calc. will have strong sweet craving. However, also sweets and salt, a big tip-off. When someone craves sweets and salt strongly, you think of calc. It is a very helpful clue; sometimes you are going through the whole damn case and you can’t make head or tail of it and you get to this point and you say: “What do you like?” And you find out they like sweets and salt and suddenly … “Why didn’t I think of that before?” And suddenly you see in front of you this fat, flabby person, who is complaining of being tired. Sometimes it is just these little things, our perception changes and the whole thing becomes clear. Craving for eggs, especially soft-boiled eggs. Now the truth of the matter is that actually we don’t see this so much any more. I think the craving for eggs in calc. is not as common as it used to be. And I don’t really know why, maybe it is because the eggs are not the same as they used to be, they mass­produce them, who knows. Sweet, salt, ice-cream, cheese, nuts, seeds. Craving for nuts, two remedies: calc. and cubeba officinalis  (1B: Asarum also, according to Roger Morrison). I have a wonderful case of a guy with chronic prostatitis, with craving for nuts: cubeba. A beautiful cure.
Farinaceous, especially pastas, bread and also oysters. They have many cravings actually, but mostly sweets, salt and ice­cream, really helpful. Usually aversion to fat, although they can like fat. Definitely aversion to slimy things, red meat and coffee. They can have an empty feeling in their stomach and they tend to eat from this empty feeling, rather than from a genuine hunger. So this is sort of the nervous type of eating, in which they open the refrigerator and eat, even though they are not really hungry; they don’t know what they want, but they have to eat something because of this empty feeling. So they hang around at home, sit around, and most of the exercise is between the couch and the refrigerator. This is one sort of calc. In America they watch a lot of TV and they call them couch potatoes.
They sleep on the left side. It is one of the remedies sleeping on the left side. Frequent nightmares and characteristically they have difficulty in falling asleep, as they see horrible faces when they first close their eyes. Their feet get very cold at night and they put socks on, but because they have a sort of instability of their circulation, later on the feet really heat up and they have to take their socks off. A very nice sort of confirmatory for calc. Of course worse from exertion. Especially ascending stairs, climbing up stairs, climbing up a hill, will often be the first evidence of calc. physical fatigue. You see, they will say: “I can walk, it is fine; if I have to climb up stairs, I am so out of breath, my heart is beating,” Calcarea.
The fears: fear of heights, very strong. In calc. it is even the sort of fear where if you ask them: “If you see someone else standing there on the edge of the building?” They will say: “Oh, I can’t bear to look.” So strong, the fear of heights. Sulphur, also argentum nitricum also have this. Vertigo from high places. Claustrophobia, fear of disease, fear of death, fear of poverty, fear of dogs. Fear of darkness, fear of thundetstorms, fear of mice, fear of rats, fear of insects. Many fears. Arsenicum, phosphorus, calcarea and causticum have many fears; the common remedies for many fears. In general it is a right-sided remedy, except as concerns the muscles in the neck, the chest and the sciatica, which tend to be left-sided.
Calcarea Children
So to say something about calcarea children. Of course, in the infants you see commonly the characteristic physical type; they are large babies with large heads. Plump, flabby bodies. The kid is big and looks big, but yet is not really so strong. They sweat on the head, on the scalp, but of course also on the occiput and cervical region and especially in their sleep. The perspiration is profuse; it may wet the pillow and it can be sour. The child can be fussing, moaning, groaning. Constipation, or diarrhoea. Sour smelling stool.
Vomiting of milk. Frequent cold, chronic rhinitis, colics. The child, when it gets a little older, is still plump and has this pot belly. They are late to walk; they don’t quite have the strength. So they are not those that stand up and walk early. They walk late, they stand late. Their teeth come in late, because calc. affects the bony metabolism. Slow closure of the fontanelles.
Calcarea Toddlers
So the pre-school toddler, here you will still see the kid is plump, now they are having frequent infections, frequent colds, frequent tonsillitis, colds which go to the chest, frequent otitis. They are obstinate kids with poor stamina. Their feet can be quite cold and clammy. And of course they like sweets and eggs and they can have diarrhoea from milk. In the somewhat older children, there is an interesting characteristic which you can use as a confirmation, religious affections in children (page 71. Calcarea, [2]). So these are children – this is one way of explaining it, who know exactly – they have the sense that they have to take care of things and there is this whole world and they have to take care of it, and so it is great solace to them to know that God is there. And they ask lots of questions about God, about angels, about stuff like this. So when you see children of age seven, age eight, who have many questions about God and angels: “Mummy, where do people go after they die? Do the angels look after them? What do angels look like? Where is God really?” and stuff like this, it can be calc..
And of course these are kids, when they run around in the playground with the other kids, calc. kids are the first to sit out. They get easily short of breath, they don’t have a lot of stamina; they get hot and sweaty. The younger kids, age three to six can actually appear quite warm, especially at night. They are worse from the heat; their circulation is a little unstable and they kick off the covers and you think pulsatilla or sulphur, but it can also be calc.
Just quickly a review of systems, to give you the main points.
Head
Vertigo. It is one of the main remedies for vertigo, especially the fear of descending. Calc. don’t like to walk downstairs. It is a combination of the fact that they are somewhat clumsy and they feel somewhat clumsy, and then they have to look down and then there is a fear of falling, and then they get a little dizzy on descending, and all these things together. They don’t like to walk downstairs these open stairs, not this sort of staircase in the house, but more if they have to climb up somewhere, outside stairs. This sort of thing.
Eyes
Lachrymation in the open air, especially the right side. Right­sided lachrymation and only the right side: calc..
Ears
Otitis. Of course frequent otitis media.
Mouth
Aphthae in babies, delayed dentition. Any trouble with dentition.
Nose
Nasal polyps, hay fever, sinusitis.
Throat
Thyroiditis, goitres.
Rectum
Constipation; most adults will have constipation .
Genitalia
High sexual desire. Calcarea can have a high sexual desire. You will see we will touch on it, but don’t be put off; high sexual desire. Dysmenorrhoea and of course metrorrhagia, heavy bleeding. You see, the uterus is flabby, the muscles don’t contract and the blood is just coming out. Uterine fibroids, of course. Painful breasts pre­menstrually. Conium is a very important remedy for painful breasts pre-menstrually. Also in calcarea and carcinosinum it is a helpful symptom and there some other remedies.
Urinary Organs
Kidney stones, calcium stones.
Chest
Tumours of the breast. So when you have given your remedy. the patient is getting better and then they develop this lump in the breast, pretty good chance that maybe it is going to be calc., especially in the right type.
Back
Weakness of the lumbar region, especially.
Generalities
Worse from cold weather. Any type of arthritis, osteo-arthritis especially of course. And, needless to say, rheumatic complaints worse from cold damp, worse from exertion. The complementary remedy to calc. is rhus toxicodendron as well.
Extremities
Weakness and brittleness of the nails, a very helpful confirmation for calc.
Complementary
Of course there is the classic triad: lycopodium, sulphur and calcarea. The acutes: rhus tox., belladonna and chamomilla.
Confirmations
The things which you need to know off by heart, the good confirmations: chilly people, worse from cold, worse from cold damp, worse from exertion, worse from ascending, worse from the full moon. Frequent colds, sleep left side, strong desire for sweets, eggs, salt, cheese, ice-cream. Fear of heights, insanity, cancer, mice, infections. Dread of hearing bad news. Despair of recovery. Vertigo, especially turning quickly or from heights. Low back pain, lumbago. Nails break easily. Feet icy cold and then they warm up later and leg cramps, especially at night in the sleep. These are symptoms which you must just know, not individually, but as a pattern. We are pattern recognisers.
And so if you know these symptoms as a sort of coherent whole, then – when you take your case and you have all this information (you listen to me and you think: “Oh hell, I have got to do this.”) and you go and you spend an hour-and-a-half with a patient and you collect this volume of information and you don’t know where to begin, then you look at your case arid you see: this symptom, that symptom; overweight, chilly, worse damp weather, desires sweets and salt – you can forget everything else and you give calc. Because this is a calc. case. If you have these things together as their pattern; this is the remedy. It is actually a fairly simple remedy and mostly you will miss it because it is a very big remedy. They will give you many symptoms and you will get lost in the symptoms, and you will miss the sort of simple pattern, which makes calc. Most of the calcareas that I miss and that are pointed out to me by my colleagues, are of this sort of nature.
AD: … averse to slimy things …
JS: Little contradiction, yes. (IB: they desire oysters and yet they have an aversion to slimy). So obviously it can go either way, but averse to slimy is definitely Calcarea. Calcarea and natrum muriaticum.
AD: The rubric for …
JS: It is not a rubric; I am just telling you (IB: page 482, aversion to slimy food, Calcarea, [2]; Natrum muriaticum, [2]; Medorrhinum, [2]; additions from Vithoulkas). The most usual thing to elicit that slimy, is not only oysters, but what else is sort of slimy? When they eat an egg and the white is not properly cooked and the people say: “Urghh;” these people do not like slimy things. Also you notice this particular expression is disgust. Be aware of it. You see a case and you ask: “Now, are you afraid of dogs?” and they say: “Urghh, dogs …” Do you write fear of dogs? No, maybe it is disgust. You say: “You like to keep your house clean?” They say: “Urghh, I can’t stand dirt.” It is disgust. There is a rubric disgust and you won’t really get it. Few people will say: “That disgusts me.” But you see this “Urghh” expression and you know.
Author: Jonthan Shore M.D.,DHt, MF Hom