Ferrum metallicum
Iron · Iron. · Mineral
Emotional traits that indicate a need for Ferrum met. include moodiness, nervous irritability, sensitivity, and an intolerance of contradiction. A compulsion to do certain tasks may lead to feelings of failure, restlessness, and neglected duty. This sense of compulsion easily turns into its opposite: extreme fatigue, weakness, and depression.
Typical physical symptoms include pale lips and face, a tendency to flush easily, and a rosy look that suggests good health but is actually caused by poor circulation. Perspiration may be cold, clammy, and profuse. Bouts of dizziness may occur, as well as sensitivity to cold and to noise. Mental and physical activity are subject to weakness and severe fatigue. Circulatory and digestive problems frequently occur, possibly with marked appetite loss. Movement may be painful and difficult due to back, joint, and head pain.
Key symptoms
- chilliness
- intolerance of noise and contradiction
- intolerance of eggs and fatty foods
- tendency to flush easily
- person feels better for gentle movement
Worse (aggravation)
- Worse from any active effort
- Worse from motion and exertion, even speaking or walking
- Worse from slight noises
- Worse at night
- Worse from loss of vital fluids
Better (amelioration)
- Better from gentle, slow motion
- Pain in teeth relieved by icy-cold water
- Better from rest
Iron
Best adapted to young weakly persons, anæmic and chlorotic, with pseudo-plethora, who flush easily; cold extremities; oversensitiveness; worse after any active effort. Weakness from mere speaking or walking though looking strong. Pallor of skin, mucous membranes, face, alternating with flushes. Orgasms of blood to face, chest, head, lungs, etc. Irregular distribution of blood. Pseudo-plethora. Muscles flabby and relaxed.
Mind
Irritability. Slight noises unbearable. Excited from slightest opposition. Sanguine temperament.
Head
Vertigo on seeing flowing water. Stinging headache. Ringing in ears before menses. Hammering, pulsating, congestive headache; pain extends to teeth, with cold extremities. Pain in back of head, with roaring in neck. Scalp painful. Must take down the hair.
Eyes
Watery, dull red; photophobia; letters run together.
Face
Fiery-red and flushed from least pain, emotion, or exertion. Red parts become white, bloodless and puffy.
Nose
Mucous membrane relaxed, boggy, anæmic, pale.
Mouth
Pain in teeth; relieved by icy-cold water. Earthy, pasty taste, like rotten eggs.
Stomach
Voracious appetite, or absolute loss of appetite. Loathing of sour things. Attempts to eat bring on diarrhœa. Spits up food by the mouthful (Phos). Eructations of food after eating, without nausea. Nausea and vomiting after eating. Vomiting immediately after eating. Vomiting after midnight. Intolerance of eggs. Distention and pressure in the stomach after eating. Heat and burning in stomach. Soreness of abdominal walls. Flatulent dyspepsia.
Stool
Undigested, at night, while eating or drinking, painless. Ineffectual urging; stool hard, followed by backache or cramping pain in rectum; prolapsus recti; itching of anus, especially young children.
Urine
Involuntary; worse daytime. Tickling in urethra extending to bladder.
Female
Menses remit a day or two, and then return. Discharge of long pieces from uterus. Women who are weak, delicate, chlorotic, yet have a fiery-red face. Menses too early, too profuse, last too long; pale, watery. Sensitive vagina. Tendency to abortion. Prolapse of vagina.
Respiratory
Chest oppressed; breathing difficult. Surging of blood to chest. Hoarseness. Cough dry, spasmodic. Hæmoptysis (Millefol). With the cough pain in occiput.
Heart
Palpitation; worse, movement. Sense of oppression. Anæmic murmur. Pulse full, but soft and yielding; also, small and weak. Heart suddenly bleeds into the blood vessels, and as suddenly draws a reflux, leaving pallor of surface.
Extremities
Rheumatism of the shoulder. Dropsy after loss of vital fluids. Lumbago; better, slow walking. Pain in hip-joint, tibia, soles, and heel.
Skin
Pale; flushes readily; pits on pressure.
Fever
General coldness of extremities; head and face hot. Chill at 4 am. Heat in palms and soles. Profuse, debilitating sweat.
Modalities
Better, walking slowly about. Better after rising. Worse, while sweating; while sitting still. After cold washing and overheating. Midnight aggravation.
Relationship
Antidotes: Ars; Hep.
Complementary.: Chin; Alum; Hamamel.
Compare: Rumex (similar in respiratory and digestive sphere and contains organic iron).
Ferrum aceticum (alkaline urine in acute diseases. Pain in right deltoid. Epistaxis; especially adapted to thin, pale, weak children who grow rapidly and are easily exhausted; varices of the feet; copious expectoration of greenish pus; asthma; worse, sitting still and lying; phthisis, constant cough, vomiting of food after eating, hæmoptysis).
Ferrum arsenicum (enlarged liver and spleen, with fever; undigested stool; albuminuria). Simple and pernicious anæmia and chlorosis. Skin dry. Eczema, psoriasis, impetigo (Use 3x trituration).
Ferrum bromatum (sticky, excoriating leucorrhœa; uterus heavy and prolapsed, scalp feels numb).
Ferrum cyanatum (neuroses with irritable weakness and hypersensitiveness, especially of a periodical character; epilepsy; cardialgia, with nausea, flatulence, constipation, alternating with diarrhœa; chorea).
Ferrum magneticum (small warts on hands)
Ferrum muriaticum (Arrested menstruation; tendency to seminal emissions or copious urination at puberty; very dark, watery stools; diphtheria; phlegmonous erysipelas; pyelitis; hæmoptysis of dark, clotty blood; dyspareunia; pain in right shoulder, right elbow, and marked tendency to cramps and round red spots on cheeks; bright crystals in urine. Anæmia, 3x, after meals. Tincture 1-5 drops 3 times daily for chronic interstitial nephritis).
Ferrum sulphuricum (Watery and painless stools; menorrhagia pressing, throbbing between periods with rush of blood to head. Basedow's disease. Erethism. Pain in gall-bladder; toothache; acidity; eructation of food in mouthfuls); Ferrum pernitricum (cough, with florid complexion); Ferrum tartaricum (cardialgia; heat at cardiac orifice of stomach).
Ferrum protoxalatum (Anæmia). Use 1x trit. Compare also; Graph; Mangan; Cupr.
Dose
States of debility where the blood is poor in hematin require material doses; plethoric, hæmorrhagic conditions call for small doses, from the second to the sixth potency.
Iron
We will take up the study of Ferrum metallicum. The Old School has been giving Iron for anaemia throughout all tradition. They have given it in great quantities in the form of the tincture of chloride, and the carbonate.
Whenever the patient became anemic, pallid, waxy and weak, Iron was the tonic. It is true that Iron produces anemia, and it would be astonishing to any one who ever read the provings of Ferrum of the allopaths did not create additional bloodlessness with the doses of Iron they administer.
It is true that under the provings, and under those circumstances where Iron has been given in excess, the patient becomes greenish, waxy, yellow and pallid, with a sickly and anemic countenance. The lips become pale; the ears lose their pink color; the skin of the body becomes waxy, and there comes a tendency to hemorrhage, at times with clots, but commonly with copious, thin, liquid blood, very dark.
Iron. Fe. (A. W. 56). Including also symptoms of the acetate and the carbonate. Triturations of the pure metal and of the carbonate; solution of the acetate. The Protoxalate is also a useful preparation in the crude and in trituration. "Hensel's Tonicum," a liquid, is another serviceable form.
Clinical
Anæmia. Aphonia. Asthma. Biliousness. Catalepsy. Chlorosis. Chorea. Consumption (Fe. acet.). Cough. Cramps. Debility. Diarrhœa. Enuresis diurna. Fever, intermittent. Goître, exophthalmic. Gonorrhœa. Hæmorrhages. Heart, affections of; palpitation of. Hectic. Hydrocephalus. Kidneys, affections of. Lienteria. Menstruation, disorders of. Neuralgia. Paralysis of viscera. Pregnancy, disorders of. Rectum, prolapsus of. Rheumatism. Shoulder, affections of. Spasms. Syphilis. Toothache. Urine, incontinence of. Vertigo.
Iron. (The Element.)
Persons of sanguine temperament;; pettish, quarrelsome, disputative, easily excited, least contradiction angers (Anac., Coc., Ign.); > mental exertion. Irritability: slight noises like crackling of paper drive him to despair (Asar., Tar.). Women who are weak, delicate, chlorotic, yet have a fiery red face. Extreme paleness of the face, lips and mucous membranes which becomes red and flushed on the least pain, emotion or exertion. Blushing (Amyl., Coca.). Erethitic chlorosis, worse in winter. Red parts become white; face, lips, tongue and mucous membrane of mouth. Vertigo: with balancing sensation,, as if on water; on seeing flowing water; when walking over water, as when crossing a bridge (Lys.); on descending (Bor., Sanic.). Headache: hammering, beating, pulsating pains, must lie down; with aversion to eating or drinking. For two, three or four days every two or three weeks. Menses: too early, too profuse, too long lasting, with fiery red face; ringing in the ears; intermit two or …
Head
Vertigo, face suddenly becomes red and fiery; ringing in the ears; palpitation, dyspnoea.
General Face
Face becomes suddenly fiery red, with vertigo, ringing in the ears, great palpitation of the heart, and dyspnoea.
General Face
The least emotion produces a red face.
General Face
Ashy pale or greenish face; with pains and other symptoms the face becomes fiery red.
Mouth and Throat
Great paleness of mucous membranes, especially that of the cavity of the mouth.
Stomach
Alternate canine hunger and anorexia.
Stomach
Food lies in the stomach all day and is vomited at night.
Abdomen
The bowels feel sore on touching them or weakened by cathartics.
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Fiery redness of the face; veins of the face and head swollen.
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Flying pains in the chest and spitting of blood, especially in persons who flush easily and are subject to epistaxis, dyspnoea, palpitation, etc.
-
In persons who, though weak and nervous, have a very red face.
Phatak's chapter on Ferrum metallicum is available in the app.
Read Phatak in the appClassical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
