Ammonium muriaticum
Ammonium chloride · Sal ammoniac, ammonium chloride. · Mineral
This remedy is typically given to people who are grieving, sad, depressed, and tearful, yet are unable to weep. Usually reserved and self-pitying, they may resent feeling alone in the world.
Ammonium mur. is generally used for these symptoms in conjunction with liver complaints, particularly if they are accompanied by pinching, shooting pains in the stomach, catarrh, and a violent cough that is dry and scraping or loose, and profuse. Inflammatory eye conditions, menstrual disorders, enlarged glands, joint pains, and sciatica are other possible symptoms that may appear, and for which the remedy may be prescribed. Further respiratory symptoms typically associated with Ammonium mur. include a congested nose, sneezing, a reduced sense of smell, a sore throat, hoarseness, and thick, slimy mucus in the nose and throat.
Key symptoms
- State of prostration bordering on typhoid condition
- Fat and sluggish patients with respiratory troubles
- Increased and retained mucous secretions throughout
- Coughs with profuse glairy secretions and catarrhs
- Free acrid hot watery nasal discharge corroding lips
- Hair falls out with itchings and dandruff
- Hoarseness and burning in larynx with dry hacking cough
- Icy coldness between shoulders not relieved by covering
Worse (aggravation)
Better (amelioration)

Sal Ammoniac
A state of prostration bordering on a typhoid state is produced by this remedy. All mucous secretions are increased and retained. It is especially adapted to fat and sluggish patients who have respiratory troubles. Coughs associated with catarrhs and affections of liver. A tendency to irregular circulation, blood seems to be in constant turmoil, pulsations, etc. Many groups of symptoms are accompanied by cough, profuse glairy secretions. Its periods of aggravations are peculiarly divided as to the bodily region affected; thus the head and chest symptoms are worse mornings, the abdominal in the afternoon, the pains in the limbs, the skin and febrile symptoms, in the evenings. "Boiling" sensation.
Mind
Melancholy, apprehensive; like from internal grief. Desire to cry, but cannot. Consequences of grief.
Head
Hair falls out, with itchings and dandruff. Feels full, compressed; worse mornings.
Eyes
Mist before eyes, optical illusions in incipient cataract; capsular cataract.
Nose
Free acrid, hot watery discharge corroding the lip. Sneezing. Nose sore to touch; ulcerative pain in nostrils. Loss of smell. Obstructed, stuffy feeling; constant and unavailing efforts to blow it out. Itching.
Face
Inflammatory face-ache. Mouth and lips sore and excoriated.
Throat
Throbbing in, and swelling of tonsils, can scarcely swallow. Sore spot behind uvula, relieved by eating. Internal and external swelling of throat with viscid phlegm. So touch, it cannot be hawked up. Tonsillitis. Stricture of œsophagus.
Stomach
Thirst for lemonade, regurgitation of food, bitter waterbrash. Nausea. Gnawing in stomach. Epigastric pain immediately after eating. Cancer of stomach.
Abdomen
Splenic stitches, especially in the morning, with difficult breathing. Pain around navel. Abdominal symptoms appear during pregnancy. Chronic congestion of liver. Excessive fatty deposit around abdomen. Much flatus. Strained feeling in groin.
Rectum
Itching and hæmorrhoids, soreness with pustules. Hard, crumbly stool, or covered with glairy mucus. Stinging in perineum. Green mucus stools alternate with constipation. During and after stool, burning and smarting in rectum. Hæmorrhoids after suppressed leucorrhœa.
Female
Menses too early, too free, dark, clotted; flow more at night. Pain as if sprained in left side of abdomen during pregnancy. Diarrhœa, greenish mucous stools, and navel pain during menses. Leucorrhœa, like white of an egg (Alum; Bor; Calc p); with pain about the navel; brown, slimy after every urination.
Respiratory
Hoarseness and burning in larynx. Dry, hacking, scraping cough; worse lying on back or right side. Stitches in chest. Cough loose in afternoon, with profuse expectoration and rattling of mucus. Oppression of chest. Burning at small spots in chest. Scanty secretion. Cough with profuse salivation.
Back
Icy coldness between shoulders; not relieved by warm covering, followed by itching. Bruised pain in coccyx when sitting. Backache, as if in a vise when sitting.
Extremities
Pain as from ulceration in finger tips. Shooting and tearing in tips of finger and toes. Ulcerative pain in heels. Contraction of hamstring tendons. Sciatica, worse sitting, better lying. Neuralgic pain in amputated limbs. Offensive sweaty feet. Pain in feet during menses.
Skin
Itching, generally evenings. Blisters on various parts. Intense burning better cold applications.
Fever
Chilliness evenings after lying down and on awakening, without thirst. Heat in palms and soles. Sub acute, low fevers due to unhealthy climate. Lowest potencies.
Modalities
Better, open air. Worse, head and chest symptoms in the morning; abdominal symptoms in the afternoon.
Relationship
Antidotes: Coffea; Nux; Caust.
Compare: Calcarea; Senega; Caustic.
Dose
Third to sixth potency.

Generalities
The patient frequently feels a boiling throughout the body as if in the blood vessel.
Sensitive to cold. Many complaints increase while in the open air. Flushes of heat, ending in sweat.
Tearing pains and smarting prevail extensively. Burning and excoriation of mucous membranes.
Drawing or sensation of shortening of tendons. It is a long-acting remedy.
Mind
There are few reliable mental symptoms known. Anxiety, fretfulness and antipathy to certain persons. Neuralgic and, rheumatic pains in the head. Tearing pains in the head.
Head
Stitching and tearing in the temples. Itching of the scalp and other parts. Rash all over body like measles.

Sal ammoniac. Ammonium chloride. NH4 Cl.
Clinical
Anosmia. Bronchitis. Constipation. Coryza. Cough. Diarrhœa. Eyes, inflammation of. Feet, pains in. Glands, enlarged. Hæmorrhoids. Liver, affections of. Melancholia. Menstruation, disorders during. Pneumonia. Sciatica. Scurvy. Spleen, pains in. Sprains. Stumps, neuralgia in. Tonsils, swelling of. Ulcers.
Characteristics
Am. mur. is less prominently a right-side medicine than Am. c.; Guernsey regards it as rather left-sided. It acts specially also on the forehead. It causes ulceration and ulcerative pains; also dislocation-like pains and tension as if tendons were contracted. Both cause paralytic weakness; both are < in open air. Am. mur. has > from warm bath. Am. carb. has greater sensibility to cold and to damp weather than the muriate. Both have itching eruptions of all kinds; drowsiness by day with indolence; shivering in the evening. The mental state is very similar in the two. The muriate has perhaps more melancholy and disposition to tears than …

Sal Ammoniac. (NH4OCl)
Especially adapted to those who are fat and sluggish; or body large and fat, but legs too thin. Watery, acrid coryza, corroding the lip (All. c.). During menses: diarrhoea and vomiting; bloody discharge from the bowels (Phos.); neuralgic pains in the feet; flow more profuse at night (Bov. - on lying down, Kreos.). Obstinate constipation accompanied by much flatus. Hard, crumbling stools require great effort in expulsion; crumble from the verge of anus. (Mag. m.); vary in color, no two stools alike (Puls.). Haemorrhoids: sore and smarting; with burning and stinging in the rectum for hours after stool (Aesc., Sulph.); especially after suppressed leucorrhoea. Leucorrhoea; like white of egg, preceded by griping pain about the navel; brown, slimy, painless, after every urination. Sensation of coldness in the back, between scapulae (Lach.). Hamstrings feel painfully short when walking; tension in joints as from shortening of the muscles (Caust., Cimex). Offensive sweat of the feet (Alum., Graph., Psor., Sanic., Sil.).

Neck and Back
Icy coldness in back, especially between shoulders.

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Influenza; acrid, watery coryza, corroding the lips sore throat, hoarseness with rawness and burning in the larynx; dry tickling cough.
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Constipation, stool hard and crumbling, requiring great effort to expel.
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During menses a bloody discharge from the bowels.
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Cannot walk erect on account of a pain as from a sprain in the groins.

Phatak's chapter on Ammonium muriaticum is available in the app.
Read Phatak in the appClassical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.