Bromium

Bromine (BROMUM)

Most marked effects are seen in the respiratory symptoms, especially in larynx and trachea. It seems to affect especially scrofulous children with enlarged glands. Blond type. Enlarged parotid and goitre. Tendency to spasmodic attacks. Left-sided mumps. Sense of suffocation; excoriating discharges, profuse sweats and great weakness. Complaints from being over-heated. Tendency to infiltrate glands, become hard, but seldom suppurate.

Mind

Delusion that strange persons are looking over patient's shoulder and that she would see some one on turning. Quarrelsome.

Head

Megrim of left side; worse stooping, especially after drinking milk. Headache; worse heat of sun and by rapid motion. Sharp pain through eyes. Dizzy when crossing stream of water.

Nose

Coryza, with corrosive soreness of nose. Stoppage of right nostril. Pressure at root of nose. Tickling, smarting, as from cobwebs. Fan-like motion of alæ (Lyc). Bleeding from nose relieving the chest.

Throat

Throat feels raw, evening, with hoarseness. Tonsils pain on swallowing, deep red, with network of dilated blood vessels. Tickling in trachea during inspiration. Hoarseness coming on from being overheated.

Stomach and Abdomen

Sharp burning from tongue to stomach. Pressure as of stone. Gastralgia; better eating. Tympanitic distention of abdomen. Painful hæmorrhoids, with black stool.

Respiratory

Whooping cough (Use persistently for about ten days). Dry cough, with hoarseness and burning pain behind sternum. Spasmodic cough, with rattling of mucus in the larynx; suffocative. Hoarseness. Croup after febrile symptoms have subsided. Difficult and painful breathing. Violent cramping of chest. Chest pains run upward. Cold sensation when inspiring. Every inspiration provokes cough. Laryngeal diphtheria, membrane begins in larynx and spreads upward. Spasmodic constriction. Asthma; difficulty in getting air into lung (Chlorum, in expelling). Better at sea, of seafaring men when they come on land. Hypertrophy of heart from gymnastics (Rhus). Fibrinous bronchitis, great dyspnœa. Bronchial tubes feel filled with smoke.

Male

Swelling of testicles. Indurated, with pains worse slight jar.

Female

Swelling of ovaries. Menses too early; too profuse, with membranous shreds. Low spirited before menses. Tumor in breasts, with stitching pains; worse left. Stitch pains from breast to axillæ. Sharp shooting pain in left breast, worse, pressure.

Sleep

Full of dreams and anguish; jerking and starting during sleep, full of fantasy and illusions; difficult to go to sleep at night, cannot sleep enough in morning; trembling and weak on awaking.

Skin

Acne, pimples and pustules. Boils on arms and face. Glands stony, hard, especially on lower jaw and throat. Hard goitre (Spong). Gangrene.

Modalities

Worse, from evening, until midnight, and when sitting in warm room; warm damp weather when at rest and lying left side. Better, from any motion; exercise, at sea.

Relationship

Antidotes: Ammon carb; Camph. Salt inhibits the action of Brom.

Compare: Conium; Spongia; Iod; Aster; Arg nit. Avoid milk when taking Brom. Hydrobromic acid (Throat dry and puckering; constriction in pharynx and chest; waves of heat over face and neck; pulsating tinnitus with great nervous irritability (Houghton); vertigo, palpitation; arms heavy; seemed as if parts did not belong to him. Seems to have a specific effect on the inferior cervical ganglion, increasing the tonic action of the sympathetic, thus promoting vaso-constriction. Relieves headache, tinnitus and vertigo, especially in vaso-motor stomach disturbance. Dose, 20 minims).

Dose

First to third attenuation. Must be prepared fresh, as it is liable to rapid deterioration.