Selenium metallicum
Selenium · Selenium · Mineral
People who benefit most from this remedy may have difficulties in connecting to or becoming intimate with others and may withdraw, even from close friends. Mental activity may cause them great exhaustion, and they may be very forgetful. Great weakness, particularly if the body temperature increases, is a classic feature associated with this remedy. It is used for conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome and multiple sclerosis, when there is rapid mental and physical exhaustion, with unhealthy-looking skin, emaciation, constipation, hair loss, and possible malfunction of the nerves governing the genitourinary tract.
Key symptoms
- Great debility worse from heat; easy exhaustion in old age
- Dribbling of semen and prostatic fluid during sleep
- Prostatitis and sexual atony in elderly men
- Hair falls out; hoarseness of singers
- Pain over left eye worse walking in sun and from strong odors
- Lascivious thoughts with impotency; extreme sadness
- Chronic liver affections; liver enlarged and painful
- Raising transparent lumps of mucus every morning
- Debility after exhausting diseases
Worse (aggravation)
Better (amelioration)
The Element Selenium (SELENIUM)
Selenium is a constant constituent of bones and teeth.
Marked effects on the genito-urinary organs, and often indicated in elderly men, especially for prostatitis and sexual atony. Great debility; worse, heat. Easy exhaustion, mental and physical, in old age. Debility after exhausting diseases.
Mind
Lascivious thoughts, with impotency. Mental labor fatigues. Extreme sadness. Abject despair, uncompromising melancholy.
Head
Hair falls out. Pain over left eye; worse walking in sun, strong odors and tea. Scalp feels tense. Headache from tea drinking.
Throat
Incipient tubercular laryngitis. Hawking and raising transparent lumps of mucus every morning. Hoarseness. Cough in morning, with expectoration of bloody mucus. Hoarseness of singers. Much clear, starchy mucus (Stann).
Stomach
Desire for brandy and other strong drink. Sweetish taste. Hiccough and eructations after smoking. After eating, pulsation all over, especially abdomen.
Abdomen
Chronic liver affections; liver painful, enlarged, with fine rash over liver region. Stool constipated, hard and accumulated in rectum.
Urinary
Sensation in the tip of urethra as if a biting drop were forcing its way out. Involuntary dribbling.
Male
Dribbling of semen during sleep. Dribbling of prostatic fluid. Irritability after coitus. Loss of sexual power, with lascivious fancies. Increases desire, decreases ability. Semen thin, odorless. Sexual neurasthenia. On attempting coition, penis relaxes. Hydrocele.
Skin
Dry, scaly eruption in palms, with itching, Itching about the ankles and folds of skin, between fingers. Hair falls out from brows, beard, and genitals. Itching about finger-joints and between fingers; in palms. Vesicular eruption between fingers (Rhus; Anac). Seborrhœa oleosa; comedones with an oily surface of the skin; alopecia. Acne.
Extremities
Paralytic pains in small of back in the morning. Tearing pain in hands, at night.
Sleep
Sleep prevented by pulsation in all vessels, worse abdomen. Sleepless until midnight, awakens early and always same hour.
Modalities
Worse, after sleep, in hot weather, from Cinchona, draught of air, coition.
Relationship
Incompatible: China; Wine.
Compare: Agnus; Calad; Sulphur; Tellur; Phosph acid.
Antidotes: Ign; Puls.
Dose
Sixth to thirtieth potency. Colloidal Selenium injection for inoperable cancer. Pain, sleeplessness, ulceration and discharge are markedly diminished.
Marked mental and physical weakness following prolonged fevers, after sexual excesses, from secret vice, from exposure to the heat of the sun in summer.
Generalities
Great fatigue from which he seems unable to recuperate from rest.
Slight exertion brings great fatigue and weakness and especially in hot weather. Sudden weakness in hot weather. Great weakness in the back, almost paralytic after typhoid fever or other temporary diseases. Extremely sensitive to a draft of air, cool, warm or damp. Marked general emaciation, also special emaciation of face, thighs and hands.
The diseased limb withers. The hair falls out all over the body, head, eyebrows, whiskers and genitals. All his nervous symptoms are aggravated after coition. Pulsation in all the limbs and in the abdomen after eating.
Selenium. An Element. Se. (A. W. 79.5). Trituration.
Clinical
Alcoholism. Ankle, itching eruption about. Comedo. Constipation. Debility. Enuresis. Hair, falling out. Headache. Hoarseness. Impotence. Laryngitis, scrofulous; tubercular. Liver, affections of; rash over region of. Priapism. Prostatitis. Prostatorrhœa. Psoriasis palmaris. Reveries. Scabies. Scalp, eczema of. Skin, unhealthy. Spermatorrhœa. Stammering. Sun, effects of. Syphilis.
Characteristics
Selenium was discovered in 1818 by Berzelius, and was named by him after the moon (σελήνη) because it is found associated with Tellurium (Tellus, the earth). It is also found associated with Sulphur. All three belong to the same group of elements. "When precipitated it appears as a red powder, which-melts when heated, and on cooling forms a brittle mass, nearly black, but transmitting red light when in thin plates. When heated in air it takes fire, burns with a blue flame, giving a gaseous Oxide of Selenium, which has a most penetrating and …
Selenium. (The Element.)
Adapted to light complexion; blondes; great emaciation of face, hands, legs and feet, or single parts. Very forgetful in business, but during sleep dreams of what he has forgotten. Headache: of drunkards; after debauchery; after lemonade, tea, wile; every afternoon. Hair falls off, on head, eyebrows, whiskers, genitals. Coryza ending in diarrhoea. Hungry: at night (Cina, Psor.); longing for spiritous liquors, an almost irresistible maniacal desire. Constipation: stool large, hard, impacted so that it requires mechanical aid (Aloe, Cal., Sanic., Sep., Sil.); after serious illness, especially enteric fevers. Urine: red, dark, scanty; coarse, red, sandy, sediment; involuntary dribbling while walking. Impotence, with desire; lewd thoughts, but physically impotent (sudden impotence, Chlor.). Erections slow, insufficient, too rapid emission with long-continued threill; weak, ill-humored after coitus, often involuntary dribbling of semen and prostatic fluid which oozes while sitting, at stool, …
Anus and Stool
Stool hard, so large, and impacted that it requires mechanical aid to get it away.
Male Sexual Organs
Prostatic juice oozes while sitting, during sleep, when walking, and at stool.
Phatak's chapter on Selenium metallicum is available in the app.
Read Phatak in the appClassical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
