Nitricum acidum
Nitric acid · Nitric acid, aqua fortis · Human-made/chemical
An underlying discontent is evident in those who respond best to Nitric ac. This may be due to the extreme discomfort of their physical symptoms. Their behavior is often bitter and unforgiving, and they tend to dwell in the past. They are typically selfish, bad-tempered, explosively angry, and critical. Hypersensitivity may cause these people to worry that they are offending others, to be easily offended themselves, or to feel that others are trying to deceive them.
Prolonged emotional and mental suffering often leads to ill-health in these individuals. They fear death and worry incessantly about their health, often believing that their own suffering is much worse than others’ and must therefore be treated immediately. Discharges such as urine and perspiration are typically offensive-smelling. A tendency to feel the cold is common, as are cravings for fat and salt. Any jarring motion, such as that of a moving car or train, usually makes them feel worse, as does drinking milk.
Nitric ac. is used mainly for painful skin ailments, especially where the mucous membranes meet the skin of the mouth, nose, or anus. The conditions treated by this remedy often manifest in the skin before going on to affect the internal organs. It is also used for warts, hemorrhoids, anal fissures, mouth ulcers, and catarrh.
Key symptoms
- anxiety about health
- splinterlike pains
- cracks in mucous membranes at orifices
- offensive-smelling discharges
- irritability
- oversensitivity
- chilliness
- dissatisfaction
Worse (aggravation)
- Worse in evening and night
- Worse in cold climate
- Worse in hot weather
Better (amelioration)
- Better while riding in carriage
Nitric Acid
Selects for its special seat of action the outlets of the body where the mucous membrane and skin meet; these pain as from splinters. Sticking pains. Marked improvement of all symptoms while riding in a carriage. Acts best on the dark complexioned and past middle life. Syphilis, after abuse of Mercury. Pains appear and disappear quickly (Bell). Hydrogenoid constitution. Sycotic remedy.
Blisters and ulcers in mouth, tongue, genitals; bleed easily. Fissures, with pain during stool, as if rectum were torn. All discharges very offensive, especially urine, feces, and perspiration. Persons who have chronic diseases, and take cold easily and disposed to diarrhœa. Excessive physical irritability. Cachexia, due to syphilis, scrofula, intermittent fever with liver involvement and anæmia, etc. Gravel; arthritis. Capillary bleeding after curettage.
Mind
Irritable, hateful, vindictive, headstrong. Hopeless despair. Sensitive to noise, pain, touch, jar. Fear of death.
Head
Sensation of a band around head. Headache from pressure of hat; full feeling; worse from street noises. Hair falls out. Scalp sensitive.
Ears
Difficult hearing; better by riding in carriage or train. Very sensitive to noise, as the rattle of wagons over pavements (Coff; Nux). Cracking in ears when chewing.
Eyes
Double vision; sharp, sticking pains. Ulceration of cornea. Gonorrhœal ophthalmia, photophobia, constant lachrymation. Syphilitic iritis.
Nose
Ozæna. Green casts from nose every morning. Coryza, with sore and bleeding nostrils. Tip red. Stitches, as of a splinter in nose. Caries of mastoid. Nosebleed, with chest affections. Chronic nasal catarrh, with yellow, offensive, corrosive discharge. Nasal diphtheria, with watery and exceedingly excoriating discharge.
Mouth
Putrid breath. Salivation. Bleeding of gums. Painful pimples on the sides of the tongue. Tongue clean, red and wet with center furrow. Teeth become loose; gums soft and spongy. Ulcers in soft palate, with sharp, splinter-like pains. Salivation and fetor oris. Bloody saliva.
Throat
Dry. Pain into ears. Hawks mucus constantly. White patches and sharp points, as from splinters, on swallowing.
Stomach
Great hunger, with sweetish taste. Longing for indigestible things-chalk, earth, etc. Pain in cardiac orifice. Dyspepsia with excess of oxalic acid, uric acid and phosphates in urine and great mental depression. Loves fat and salt (Sulph).
Abdomen
Great straining, but little passes, Rectum feels torn. Bowels constipated, with fissures in rectum. Tearing pains during stools. Violent cutting pains after stools, lasting for hours (Ratanh). Hæmorrhages from bowels, profuse, bright. Prolapsus ani. Hæmorrhoids bleed easily. Diarrhœa, slimy and offensive. After stools, irritable and exhausted. Colic relieved from tightening clothes. Jaundice, aching in liver.
Urine
Scanty, dark, offensive. Smells like horse's urine. Cold on passing. Burning and stinging. Urine bloody and albuminous. Alternation of cloudy, phosphatic urine with profuse urinary secretion in old prostatic cases.
Male
Soreness and burning in glans and beneath prepuce. Ulcers; burn and sting; exude, offensive matter.
Female
External parts sore, with ulcers (Hep.: Merc; Thuja). Leucorrhœa brown, flesh-colored, watery, or stringy, offensive. Hair on genitals falls out (Natr m, Zinc). Uterine hæmorrhages. Menses early, profuse, like muddy water, with pain in back, hips and thighs. Stitches through vagina. Metrorrhagia after parturition.
Respiratory
Hoarseness. Aphonia, with dry hacking cough, from tickling in larynx and pit of stomach. Soreness at lower end of sternum. Short breath on going upstairs (Ars; Calc). Cough during sleep (Cham).
Extremities
Fetid foot-sweat, causing soreness of toes, with sticking pain; chilblains on toes. Sweating of palms, hands; cold, blue nails. Offensive sweat in axillæ at night.
Skin
Warts, large jagged; bleed on washing. Ulcers bleed easily, sensitive; splinter-like pains; zigzag, irregular edges; base looks like raw flesh. Exuberant granulations. Black pores on face, papules worse on forehead.
Modalities
Worse, evening and night, cold climate, and also hot weather. Better, while riding in carriage (Reverse: Cocculus).
Relationship
Complementary: Ars; Calad; Lac can; Sepia.
Inimical: Lach.
Compare: Merc; Kali; Thuja; Hepar; Calc.
Dose
Sixth potency. As the nitric acid patient begins to improve skin symptoms may appear for a time, a favorable indication.
Generalities
Great general weakness; feeble reaction; extreme sensitivity, and nervous trembling, are marked features in this remedy.
Patients greatly broken by long suffering, pain and sickness, physical more than mental suffering, finally anemia and emaciation are marked.
Sensitive to cold; always chilly. Symptoms are aggravated from becoming cold, and in cold air. Always taking cold.
The walls of blood vessels are relaxed and bleed easily; profuse dark blood. Pains as if flesh were torn from the bones and a sensation as though a splinter felt in inflamed parts, in ulcers and in nerves. Inflammation of the periosteum, in bone, and in the nerves. Syphilitic bone pains. Caries of bone, and exostoses.
Nitric acid. Aqua fortis. HNO3. Solution.
Clinical
Actinomycosis. Anus, fissure of. Axilla, offensive perspiration of. Bladder, chronic catarrh of. Breath, offensive. Bright's disease. Bronchitis. Bubo. Chancre. Cheloid. Chilblains. Choking, easy. Climacteric. Cold, easily taken. Condylomata. Constipation. Corns. Cough. Dysentery. Dyspepsia. Ear, affections of. Epilepsy. Eyes, affections of. Feet, perspiring. Fistula; lachrymal. Freckles. Frost-bites. Glandular swellings. Gleet. Gums, sore. Hæmaturia. Hæmorrhages. Herpes. Herpes preputialis. Ingrowing toe-nail. Iritis, syphilitic. Irritation. Jaw-joint, cracking in. Menstruation, excessive. Metrorrhagia. Mouth, sore. Mucous patches. Muscæ volitantes. Myopia. Nails, affections of. Ozæna. Paralysis (l. side). Perspiration, abnormal. Phimosis. Polypus. Proctitis. Prostate, suppuration of. Ranula. Rectum, affections of. Rickets. Salivation. Spine, injury to. Syphilis. Taste, disordered. Tongue, ulceration of. Ulcers. Warts. Wens. Whooping-cough.
Nitric Acid. (HNO3.)
Especially suited to thin persons of rigid fibre, dark complexions, black hair and eyes - the brunette rather than the blonde - nervous temperament. Persons suffering with chronic diseases who take cold easily; are easily disposed to diarrhoea; rarely to those who suffer with constipation. Old people with great weakness and diarrhoea. Excessive physical irritability. Pains: sticking, pricking as from splinters; suddenly appearing and disappearing; on change of temperature or weather; during sleep; gnawing here and there as from ulcers forming. Sensation: of a band around head, around the bones (Carb. ac., Sulph.); of a splinter in affected parts, ulcers, piles, throat, ingrowning toe nail, < on slightest contact. Ailments: which depend on some virulent poison; from mercury, syphilis, scrofula; in broken-down cachetic constitutions. After continual loss of sleep, long-lasting anxiety, over-exertion of mind and body from nursing the sick (Coc.); anguish from the loss of his dearest friend; …
Nose
Stitches as from a splinter in the nose, on touch.
Mouth and Throat
Ulcerated spots on inner surface of cheeks, with pricking pains as from splinters; corners ulcerated; foul odor.
Mouth and Throat
Pricking pains worse when swallowing.
Stomach
Longing for fat, herring, chalk, lime, earth, etc.
Anus and Stool
Fissures of the rectum; pain in the rectum which lasts for hours after a stool.
Urinary Organs
Urine scanty, dark brown, smelling intolerably strong like horse urine.
Male Sexual Organs
Sycotic excrescences on the glands; sometimes bleeding when touched.
Skin
Ulcers with stinging and pricking as of splinters; exuberant granulation.
Bones
Syphilitic bone pains; especially after abuse of Mercury; pricking pains.
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Blisters and ulcers on the tongue and mucous membranes of the mouth and throat, with pricking, burning pain on being touched, especially after the abuse of mercury.
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Superficial ulcers like chancres, on glans and prepuce, looking clean, but exuding an offensive moisture.
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Sycotic excresences on the glans, bleeding when touched.
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Stitches and sticking pains as from splinters,. especially on touch, in all parts of the body.
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Ulcers with stinging and pricking pains, edges. irregular; exuberant granulations, after mercury or in secondary syphilis.
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Cracking in maxilliary articulation when chewing.
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Sticking pains in rectum, and spasmodic constriction. in anus during stool; fissures.
Phatak's chapter on Nitricum acidum is available in the app.
Read Phatak in the appClassical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
