Carbolicum Acidum
Clarke - Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica · John Henry Clarke · 8,811 chars · source ↗
General
Carbolicum Acidum.
Carbolic Acid. Phenol. Monoxy Benzine. Phenic Acid. Phenyl Alcohol. C6H5 OH. Solution in rectified spirit.
Clinical
Acne. Burns. Carbuncle. Cholera. Constipation. Diabetes. Diarrhoea. Dysentery. Dyspepsia. Eczema. Eructations. Erysipelas. Flatulence. Gangrene. Hydrocephalus. Influenza. Intermittent fever. Irritation. Leprosy. Meningitis. Neuralgia. Pneumonia. Psoriasis. Pityriasis versicolor. Scarlatina. Small-pox. Smell, disordered. Stomach, affections of. Toothache. Ulcers. Uraemia. Uterus, displacements of. Vomiting.
Characteristics
Carbolic acid, like the Carbons, is a powerful antiseptic, and its use as such in surgery has led incidentally to the poisoning of both patients and surgeons. These experiences have provided a number of the symptoms indicating its medicinal use. The pains of carbolic acid come suddenly. They are burning and pricking, sticking.
The urine is very dark, black or blackish olive-green; grass or olive-green. There is numbness and twitching. Putrid discharges are a marked indication. The skin is inflamed, and other symptoms appear, with burning, tingling, itching, and numbness.
Gangrene has been caused by the application of 2 to 5 per cent. solutions. There is profound prostration and fatigue; convulsions; collapse; cold, clammy sweat. Constant yawning. R.
K. Ghosh finds it admirable in cases (if cholera where Verat. alb. seems indicated and fails. There is intolerance of warm room; but also sensitiveness to cold air which < many symptoms. Many poisoning cases show pneumonia, single or double, affecting the bases principally.
Dr. Proctor has recorded a brilliant cure of a double basal pneumonia with drop doses of the B. P. solution, after failure of more commonly used remedies. Nervous dyspepsia of intensely painful character has frequently been cured by it; and R.
K. Ghosh has reported great improvement in a case of diabetes when the remedy was given for something else. Proell has recorded his own case of idiopathic erysipelas affecting the back of the right hand, first three fingers and arm, with violet-coloured swelling and roughness. Rhus removed the fever, but did nothing to stop the erysipelas.
This Carbol. ac. 30 did promptly. It was prescribed by Dr. Streintz. Fahnestock reports a case of poisoning observed by himself from inhaling the fumes.
The patient, a woman, feeling ill, ran across the street to a neighbour's. Before reaching the house she fell prostrate, pale, gasping for breath. When taken in, she had to be propped up in order to breathe; trembled all over; wanted her hands held; "pricking like needles," all over body; unable to raise right arm.
Cold hands and feet. Wanted a drink of water every few minutes; nausea but no vomiting; pain in lumbar region. Symptoms lasted four hours. It has been used with success in the vomiting of drunkards; of pregnant women with violent frontal headache.
Great flatulent distension of the abdomen, with belching of wind and desire for stimulants, indicates the drug. Palpitation of the heart at night has been cured by it. It has relieved cases of cancer of the stomach, and has apparently cured epithelioma of the cheek and nose, with haemorrhages (Allen). Deschere has found Carbol. ac. 30 of great service in uterine displacements, with or without discharges, but these, if present, are always offensive.
The symptoms first relieved are the agonising backache across the loins with a dragging sensation down the buttocks into the thighs. Cooper regards it as specific in influenza, in the 3x for the attack, and 30th for resulting debility.
Relations
It is antidoted by: Chalk; Saccharated Lime. In burns from carbolic acid, Elias C. Price found milk give immediate relief. He suggests copious draughts of milk in poisoning cases. Compare: Gels. Merc. and Sul. in band-like headache; Ars., Carb. v., Chi. and Kre. in burns, ulcers, unhealthy, offensive discharges; Pic. ac. (tightly drawn iron band at base of brain; Carbl. ac. has this round head); Ant. t. and Variol. in Small-pox.
Mind
Irritability
Disinclination for mental exertion
Muddled, confused, bewildered.
Head
Headache: heavy, dull
Periodical sick-headache, as if enclosed in tight hand
Dull frontal headache, as if an indiarubber band were stretched tightly over forehead from temple to temple, > by pressure
Itching of scalp
Headache > by green tea; while smoking; by tight band; by cold hand; by bending head forward.
Eyes
Very severe orbital neuralgia over r. eye.—Pupils dilated.
Nose
Tight and stopped up
Tickling, prickling, itching in nostrils
Sense of smell very acute
Ozaena, with great fetor and ulceration.
Face
Pale; or flushed and burning.—Jaws clenched.
Teeth
Aching of teeth in r. upper jaw.
Mouth
Lips dry, cracked, painful or black
Tongue burning and tingling, as if a thousand pins were sticking in it
Tongue dry and chippy, parched and fissured
Throat and tongue black, tender and ulcerated patches in inside of lips and cheeks
Intensely bad smell from mouth.
Throat
Prickling and burning in throat and oesophagus
Heat rising up from the stomach
Spasmodic contraction of oesophagus
Inability to swallow
Sore-throat worse on r. side
Hawking of clear white mucus
Fauces red and covered with a mucous exudation
Uvula whitened and shrivelled.
Stomach
Wants a drink of water every few minutes
Constant belching up of wind
Vomiting of drunkards
Excessive nausea, and inclination to vomit; while eating a little, after breakfast
Vomiting of: Bright's disease; sea-sickness; cancer; pregnancy
Weight in epigastrium as if burdened with flatulence
Burning in stomach
Total loss of appetite
Desire for whiskey.
Abdomen
Pain in r. hypochondrium; also in that region of both sides
Rumbling and rolling in abdomen
Burning in lower part of abdomen and top of head.
Stools
Diarrhoea and dysentery; mucous stools like scrapings; stools like rice-water; thin, black; very offensive
Cholera infantum, with putrid discharge like foul eggs
Constipation with offensive breath.
Urinary Organs
Urine: dark greenish brown; greenish; very dark; black or blackish
Quantity increased and passed frequently
Diabetes
Albuminuria
Urine of high specific gravity; urea abundant
While urinating always an involuntary mucous discharge from anus.
Male Sexual Organs
Itching, or burning-itching of scrotum, > scratching but it soon returns.
Female Sexual Organs
Pain in region of l. ovary walking in open air
Painful swelling of l. ovary
Menses irregular; too profuse, dark colour, followed by headache and nervous irritability
Puerperal fever, with putrid symptoms
Ulceration of the cervix uteri
Offensive discharges.
Respiratory Organs
Unable to lie down, gasping for breath continually, wants hands held.—(Removed in a prover: short breath going up-hill, or upstairs.)—Short, hacking cough with tickling in throat; can hardly retain anything in stomach.—Stertorous respiration.
Chest
Feeling of narrowness in chest as if diaphragm depressed the lungs
Tight feeling, esp. in centre of chest
Pneumonia of (r.) base
Gangrene of lung.
Heart
Stitches in region of heart
Fearful palpitation < night, with great dyspnoea
Jerking in l. common carotid artery while walking rapidly after dinner.
Neck And Back
Neck stiff, lame and sore
Severe pain in lumbo-sacral region, < latter part of night
Pain in loins on straightening one's self and by jolting while riding.
Limbs
Soreness of muscles of back and limbs.—Twitching in muscles.
Upper Limbs
Aching, rheumatic pains in shoulders
Unable to raise r. arm
Aching, rheumatic pains in arms strongly flexed in tonic spasm
Cold hands and feet
Vesicular itching eruption on hand
Erysipelas of back of r. hand, first three fingers and arm, violet-coloured swelling, rough skin.
Lower Limbs
Rheumatic pain in r. hip-joint
Dragging down buttocks and into thighs
Paralysis of lower extremities; with dragging sensation
Aching soreness beneath l. patella all day up to 4 p.m.; feels as if it would be stiff and sore to move it, but it is not felt during motion
Sharp pain in l. shin
Cramps
Cold hands and feet.
Generalities
Fainting and insensibility, lasting for hours.—Pricking like needles all over body.—Tonic spasm; arms flexed, difficulty in straightening them.—Prostration from a short walk.—Offensive discharges.
Skin
Offensive odour from skin
Erysipelas; violet colour swelling, roughness
Miliary vesicles
Malignant scarlatina
Confluent variola.—(Acne; eczema; impetigo; scabies; psoriasis; prurigo; leprosy; pityriasis versicolor; lupus; carbuncles; cancerous sores; sloughing wounds; chronic ulcers; burns).
Sleep
Yawning and sleepy.—Waking often in night.