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ARGENTUM METALLICUM - BY KENT

Argentum metallicumarg-m

We will take up the study of Metallic silver. No wonder that this is a very deep acting
remedy, for it has been used symbolically, and medically throughout all history. It
has been a valuable substance throughout all history. It is an anti-psoric, and from
its symptoms I believe it to be an anti-sycotic. It goes deep into the life. Especially
affects the nerves, nerve sheaths. Has complaints along the nerves. All cartilages in
the. body are affected by it. It produces a hypertrophy of cartilages, a thickening of
the cartilaginous portions of joints, of the cartilage of the ears, and of the nose.
Produces cartilaginous growths and tumors; infiltrations It affects the nerve
substance, it is a deep organic remedy. It is more than an ordinary remedy, for it
affects all there is of man. In those nerve fibers especially that carry messages. It
affects the brain in a very profound manner, bringing about changes and a gradual
softening. A strange feature about it in its general action upon man is, that it singles
out mostly the intellectual faculties. It scarcely disturbs his affections; only makes
slight and vague changes in his voluntary system. But the memory, the intellectual
part of man is disturbed increasingly to imbecility. In great sufferings—and it is full
of suffering—it affects his ability to reason. In nearly all the headaches and pains in
the back, and the rending, tearing pains that it produces over the body, it disturbs
his memory and reasoning faculties Disturbs his ability to think. And it comes on in
persons who are in the habit of laboring with the intellectual faculties Business men,
students, readers, and thinkers. Reasoners come to a point when they can no longer
reason, and the slightest mental effort brings on vertigo. He is fatigued. All
symptoms are worse after sleep. Instead of being rested for the day, he wakes in the
morning with mental fatigue and weakness, so that he can hardly move, and it is
with great difficulty that he gets himself together for a mental or physical effort of
another day If he undertakes to do any more mental work, he gets a headache.
Headache mostly in the front of the head, but also in the occiput.

Another strange feature about it, it is full of rending, tearing pains along the nerves,
predominantly of the lower extremities. Tearing, as if the nerves would be torn in
pieces DURING REST. Cold, damp weather, stormy weather will bring on rheumatism
—not so much with swelling, although it has that, but pains apparently in the
cartilages, and pain's along the nerves. And these pains are so severe that he cannot
keep still. Hence, it has a rheumatic state from cold, damp weather, from becoming
chilled, in the joints and in the nerves, so that he walks and walks. Many symptoms
are better from motion and especially walking. So tired and exhausted, but the pain
is so severe that it drives him to walk These pains are many times palliated by
copious drafts of coffee, and this will suppress the sickness, and leave upon him all
sorts of difficulties, under which he is threatening with break down, and in time he
becomes almost useless. "Mental weakness Physical prostration." Rending, tearing
pains. Affections of the joints, the cartilages of the joints. Tearing pains along the
bones —and he is really a wreck, an old broken down constitution when he is yet
young. "A man of forty is like one of eighty." All these pains are better from motion,

Again, it is full of infiltrations. Inflamed cartilages infiltrate and form into hard knots.
A superabundance of cartilaginous tissue, so that round about the joints the
cartilages are thickened. In the ear and nose the cartilage is thickened. The
infiltration that belongs to epithelioma. It has been a wonderful palliative in scirrhus,
and in epithelioma. It has cured epithelioma. It is on record as curing an epithelioma
of the cervix uteri.

Ulceration everywhere; but ulcers that have their beginning in the cartilaginous
tissue, and break out through the cellular tissue, and copiously discharge. The ulcers
infiltrate at their base, and become hard.

Another marked feature is that it affects both testes, but it has a predominant action
in the right. The left ovary and the right testis. Such things are singular, that in one
sex it should produce symptoms in one side of the body, and in the other sex on the
opposite side.

It has cured all sorts of tumors, enlargement of the ovary, and infiltrations of the
tissues. It is a chilly remedy. Wants to be kept warm, and its pains are ameliorated
by heat. Its headaches are ameliorated by heat—are ameliorated by pressure, by
bandaging. I have many times cured these symptoms in headaches when the patient
had the head wrapped up.

Now, in this medicine we class the patient as one having a lack of vital heat. He
wants to be warm. Likely to be lean, growing increasingly lean, increasingly nervous,
increasingly sensitive. Takes on all sorts of whims. Women needing Silver very often
do such strange and unaccountable things in (compare ARGENTUM NITRICUM) their
nervous states that they bar out all sympathy of their friends, and are called
hysterical. Deep seated trouble of the nerves. Growing increasingly sensitive to
surroundings.

Now, the mental state of Argentum met. is just such as is aroused by confusion, just
such as is aroused by the emotions, just such as the loss of balance from fear, from
anger, from fright, from disturbance of the mind. Because this patient is so sensitive
to his surroundings and so disturbed by annoyances. With his pains he becomes
delirious, and it is not that involuntary delirium that we see in low forms of fever, but
he becomes wild and full of rage. He takes on mental excitement, rage and a state in
which he talks nonsense with great rapidity. Sometimes there is a stage of unusual
excitement in his conversation all mixed up about the character of his thought. All of
the time looks as if he were intoxicated, and he flies from one subject to another,
and prattles. For a moment appearing to be very intense and active in mind, and
forgets all that he was talking about. "In society indisposition to. talk." Because he is
incompetent. He is tired mentally and he forgets what he is talking about. Loses the
thread of his discourse; and he dreads to talk because he gets complaints while
talking. If compelled to answer, he becomes dizzy, and feels strange all over, and
has nervous shakes or shocks. And shocks go over him when tired like an electric
shock It comes suddenly, but the most favorable time for that to come is just when
he wants to go to sleep. He thinks, now he is away from all the troubles of the day
and can rest, and the instant sleep comes over him he is roused from head to foot by
a shock, and another one, and another one, sometimes the whole night he jerks
from head to foot. His limbs jerk up, his lower limbs twitch and jerk, then he gets out
of bed and walks—tries to walk it off. This comes out in the proving of ARGENTUM
NICTRICUM, but it belongs as much to Argentum met., and Argentum met. has long
cured it. In Hahnemann's study of the remedy he lays down the importance of shock
on going to sleep. Shocks in the limbs. But it is an electric shock that causes the
whole body to jerk. "Anxious about the health. Thinks he is certainly breaking down,"
for he is growing weaker. He cannot walk, though he is growing increasingly restless.
He cannot exercise mentally or physically without distress. From meditation or as
soon as he enters a warm room he becomes dizzy— and that is an exception
belonging to a few of the head troubles and the sensorium; he usually is sensitive to
cold. In the house when the room is close he becomes dizzy. It has been an
astonishing feature in this remedy that precisely at the hour of noon a great many
troubles come on, and the pains and aches. Chills. Headaches. Pains in the ovary at
noon. Dizziness with vertigo as if intoxicated. The headaches are frontal and
occipital. One-sided brain affections. One-sided headaches. Violent neuralgia in the
head upon one side at a time, as if deep in the brain, as if involving one-half of the
brain. Mostly the headaches have been on the right side—the one-sided headaches.
Those broken down patients that have become prostrated and over-wrought by
exposure to the sun. Upon the scalp, the ears, here and there upon the body, itching
places. Itching and burning, like frost bites. It has an itching and burning
like AGARICUS, in the toes, in the ears, and he scratches the part, and scratching
does not relieve it until the skin is off, until it oozes, but no relief from scratching.
Rawness in the ears, kept up by constantly boring and scratching in the ears.
Scratching the skin off because of the tingling, itching and burning. Another strange
feature is that about the eyes Silver affects the lids more than the globe. It affects
the sight, producing dimness of vision, and loss of vision; but it produces infiltration
of the lids, thickening of the lids until they are almost as hard as cartilage. The
mucous membrane is infiltrated and hard, and the eyelids cannot be opened. They
spasmodically close, they cannot be pulled apart except by violence. It is a
blepharitis, with thickening and infiltration. Copious discharges. Now, as we strike
this as a catarrhal region, let me say that all through the remedy we will find passive
catarrhal discharges. In some instances thick and yellow, but at the same time
passive, a passive state of the mucous membrane. But the characteristic, the
principal discharge of Argentum met. is gray, thick, tenacious mucus. He
expectorates from the lungs—and from the air passages, from the trachea and from
the larynx, gray mucus. Gray mucus from the vagina, gray mucus from the urethra,
gray mucus from the eyes. Only in a few instances does it have yellow discharges.
When ulceration takes place, as in the larynx and on the eyelids, we have from this
ulceration thick, yellow discharges; but from the ulcerated mucous surfaces it will
generally be found to be gray, except in the urethra. It has cured old cases of
chronic gonorrhoea. If we get the general character of the remedy we know what to
expect when it goes to each region. If we do not know the general character of a
remedy we do not know what to expect; and if we get into a region where we have
the very opposite of it we know then that that is a particular, and does not conform
to its generals. But first of all we have to single out what is general, what may be
expected, what belongs to the nature of the remedy, so that when we see its
opposites we may recognize it and know it as an opposite, as a particular, and as an
exception. Here is one of the characteristic features of Argentum itching. "Scratching
until bleeding, in the ear." Now, this itching involves the whole outside ear, and
extends into the ear, so he scratches the ear until it is red, and swollen, and bleeds.
The cartilage of that ear is lumpy and nodular; is infiltrated. The cartilages of the
nose are also infiltrated. Argentum met. cures many of these cases that are operated
on when they have some portion of the inside of the nose removed by the surgeon,
so that the patient can breathe better. "Thickening of the bones in the nose, the
thickening and building up of the mucous membrane and the cellular tissue in the
nasal passages." Argentum met. is often indicated in such cases. This remedy has a
very decided action. Infiltrations go on thickening and hardening, and then we have
serum in joints. This is one of the most important remedies to know in the necrosis
of cartilages everywhere in the body. But with it must go such nervous and mental
symptoms as the remedy has, such as I have described. The patient looks sickly,
pale, careworn, tired. A broken down patient. An Argentum met. patient is a sickly
one who should have had a homeopathic doctor years ago, but one who can be
patched up and benefited now if he has not gone too far.

"Painful tension and drawing in the throat. Throat feels raw and sore during
expiration." This is extended into the larynx. "Painful soreness from breathing.
Rawness from coughing in the larynx. Great quantities of gray mucus expectorated
easily. Tension in the fauces on the right side."

Argentum met. has abdominal troubles. Bruised, sore feelings in the abdomen. If
these progress from a catarrhal inflammation of the mucous membranes to a general
congestion of all the tissues in the abdomen, diarrhoea comes on, or constipation of
the most inveterate character, tuberculosis of the mesenteric glands, emaciation,
weakness, trembling. Paralytic feelings here and there in the body. Painful soreness
in the whole abdomen in connection with the urinary troubles. It has a low form of
tissue making, such as tuberculosis, cancerous affections, infiltrations, such as we
have mentioned. Dry stool, like sand. Undigested stool; very offensive. Catarrhal
inflammation of the mucous membranes of the urinary passages, the whole urinary
tract. It cures albuminuria; it cures diabetes, with sugar in the urine; and many of
the broken-down conditions of the kidneys. Low, broken-down constitutions.
Enormous quantities of whey-like urine. A copious flow of urine.

Children lose the urine in sleep. Broken-down, nervous constitutions lose the urine in
sleep.

It has a very decided action upon the genitalia of both male and female. In the male
it especially affects the testes and the mucous tract. It infiltrates the testes,
producing hardness. In the text it reads, "crushed pain the right testicle." "Clothing
increases pain on walking." Inflammation with infiltration. Chronic orchitis. It has
cured a very suspicious testicle believed to be a cancerous affection, which began in
the epididymus, following a gonorrhoea. Inflammation, great hardness, pain,
swelling, burning and stinging.

Another symptom here is of great importance: "Yellowish-greenish gonorrhoea of an

indolent character from the beginning, of eight months standing." That clinical
symptom has been verified. Now, it is a natural feature of gonorrhoea for the
discharge to be yellow, or yellowish-green, and thick in the early stage, for it then to
become lighter and lighter until it is whitish thick or thin, growing lighter in character
until it becomes white and gleety. Argentum met. is the remedy when the discharge
remains yellow. The pain has all ceased, and generally when the pain ceases the
discharge soon begins to be lighter, but in the Argentum met. cases the pain ceases,
it becomes a passive discharge, the urethra loses its sensitiveness to pain, and the
mucous membrane loses its sensation to a great extent, but the thick greenish or
yellowish discharge remains. Now, in these thick passive discharges that are long-
standing, old cases, we are very much troubled to find remedies. These old stubborn
cases that still remain yellow, and still remain thick. They will not yield to ordinary
remedies—they come under a peculiar class of remedies. Argentum met., ALUMINA,
ALUMEN, SULPHUR, Ones not usually thought of in the early period, but the general
constitutional state of the patient forms the character of his symptoms.

In the female we have ovarian troubles, infiltration, hardness, cystic troubles, cystic
ovaries, that are cured by this remedy; ovarian tumors; very large, hard indurated
ovaries—especially the left. The right testicle, the left ovary. Pain in the left ovary
and back. Prolapsus, with pain in left ovary. Pain in the small of the back while
sitting. The cures have been predominantly of the left ovary, although it cures
complaints of both.

Another grand feature found in this remedy is weakness, relaxation of muscles

through the whole body; trembling; and now, if that thought is applied—if that
feature of the remedy is observed in the pelvic organs—it will be seen that those
muscles that hold up the" uterus, the broad ligament, etc., are in a state of
relaxation, they allow the uterus to sag. In other words, we get prolapsus. You will
be astonished to know that homeopathic remedies are wonderful in their ability to
create tonicity, and thereby restore the prolapsed uterus to its normal position, and
to remove the dragging down feeling women generally describe, a sensation as if the
inner parts were being forced out. All of these are sensations that accompany a
prolapsus. Argentum is one of the medicines. In fact, the whole pelvic system is
engorged, increased in weight; tissues infiltrated, likely to be hardened. Cervix
congested and indurated. Takes on ulceration. Greatly enlarged, congested. It has
been a palliative medicine in epithelioma of the cervix, with burning, stinging pains,
copious, putrid, yellowish-green and bloody discharge. It has cured a tendency to
menorrhagia, copious menstrual flow; the relaxation that must be present in
haemorrhages will soon be overcome when the symptoms agree, when the general
state is present. Ulcer of the uterus; discharge purulent, ichorous. "Sometimes
bloody water, with unbearable stench." It is a medicine of great use in horribly
offensive leucorrhoea {KALI ARS., KALI p.). "Neck of the uterus very much swollen,
presented a spongy mass, deeply corroded with ulcers in different directions." Where
it was given in case of scirrhus of the uterus it says, "In less than three days foul
smell was lost entirely". When a remedy acts in that manner it actually stops the
growth. In fact, a cancerous state that would go on to its termination in fourteen to
sixteen months will go two or three years and the patient remain comfortable The
remedy that is indicated stops the ulceration, it checks the destruction, and keeps
the patient comfortable and with her friends for years. In cancerous affections the
state of life is very low The state of order is generally beyond restoration.

Then we come to a state of the larynx. It is a wonderful laryngeal medicine. Loss of

voice with inflammation, from overuse of the voice, such as occurs in singers and
talkers. One who is compelled to use the larynx much. It is then a paralytic
weakness of the vocal cords. Running all through this remedy there is aggravation
from any little prolonged exertion—a paralytic tendency with aggravation from
exertion. So it is in the lungs—in every part of the body. And then comes the loss of
voice. Now, apply all that we know of its ability to infiltrate We have tuberculosis of
the larynx. Singers, public speakers, who are broken down, nervous, of poor
digestion, bad inheritance, take on tuberculosis of the larynx, and the voice is lost.
Ulceration follows. And this trouble finally goes into the lungs. They emaciate and get
night sweats. "Loss of voice." Generally of a painful character

Again, colds settle in the larynx "Cannot speak a loud word; constant tickling in the
larynx, provoking cough." Rawness and soreness in upper part of larynx Laughing
aggravates the coughing—laughing will cause tickling in the larynx, and he will
scrape out QUANTITIES OF GRAY MUCUS If the irritation is in the smaller air
passages, in the lungs, laughter will set him to coughing, and he will scrape out gray
mucus "Over the bifurcation of trachea, a raw spot; when using the voice, talking,
laughing, or singing" In the middle of the chest a raw sensation "Roughness and
hoarseness of the voice. Phthisis of the larynx;" in those withered young people; a
young man when he is not more than twenty-five looks to be fifty. Many wrinkles as
though he had had many cares. Has a dry cough; gets up a little gray mucus. Yet he
may be somewhat wiry, getting about fairly well. Has inherited phthisis. The cough is
a deep cough, is aggravated from laughing, talking and in a warm room. Laughing
causes cough and causes mucus in the larynx This remedy will turn aside this
threatening phthisis, this dry teasing cough. A little dry, hacking cough especially
comes under this remedy. In no instance are we likely to have those violent
spasmodic shaking coughs, such as we find in BRY. When coughing a sore feeling in
the larynx. "The cough is accompanied with an easy expectoration." He does not
usually cough so much to get up the mucus as he does to relieve a little irritation;
but when there is mucus it generally comes up easily. It is not so difficult to detach
as we find in many remedies. "Easily detached mucus in the larynx." He simply
scrapes it out by an effort of the larynx. Cough and scraping of the larynx during the
daytime and evening, worse in a warm room and better in the open air and from
motion.

It has a sense of weakness of the chest. There are two remedies having this
weakness of the chest and you cannot easily tell them apart. Weak voice, weak
chest; a feeling that it is so difficult to breathe, and so difficult to talk, and so difficult
to cough, because the muscles of the chest feel so weak. These two medicines are
Argentum met. and STANNUM. Great weakness of the muscles of the chest. The
patient dwells upon it much, and it is a weakness far beyond what can be accounted
for in tuberculosis, a sense of muscular weakness in the chest. A paralytic weakness
of the chest. Of course, this is wholly different from the ANTIMONIUM TART., which
has a dreadful weakness of the chest, but in that remedy you will remember it is in
the acute affections. It is suitable in lingering complaints, sickness of long standing,
so that "great weakness of the chest" means that which I have tried to describe and
it is that which patients will often fail in their efforts to describe. "Doctor, I feel so
weak in the chest."

Now, this remedy is full of cardiac disturbances. Palpitation when lying on the back.
"A sense of trembling in the chest." A sense of quivering, fluttering, or trembling, as
it will be described by the different patients, trembling in the chest. That tremulous
Weakness of the whole body, hands and feet; palpitation with general trembling is
strong in this remedy. "Frequent palpitation. During pregnancy, palpitation.
Palpitation at night. Palpitation associated with headaches." With general weakness.
Gradually increasing weakness. From his general weakness the knees knock together
when walking. Trembling in the knees with palpitation and general weakness. The
limbs become stiff. "Numbness in the limbs, as if asleep." Loss of power. MANY OF
THE COMPLAINTS ARE INCREASED DURING REST. Pain in the back and limbs while
sitting, better while walking. All the nervous excitement that is possible in remedies
comes up in this remedy.
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