Kali
iod. is one of the few medicines on whose definite action reliance can be placed
in ordinary practice. In active secondary syphilis, in ulcers of the constitutional type,
and in cases of subacute rheumatism, Iodide of Potassium
will generally do what is expected of it. That its action is specific is generally admitted;
and specific is the same thing as homœopathic. I rarely find occasion to use it in lower
attenuations than the 30th. The history of the drug in relation to syphilis is both
interesting and important. As we should naturally expect, K. iod.,
being anti-syphilitic, is also antidotal to mercury. Experience seems to show that it is
those patients who are charged with the disease or with mercury, or both together, who can
support the massive doses of K. iod. which are sometimes
given. But the salt is often given as a diagnostic, and then, if care is not taken, there is
great danger to the patient. I have seen patients irretrievably reduced in strength by K. iod. given on the supposition that they were syphilitic. I
have recorded in my Diseases of the Heart (p. 165) the
case of a gentleman, 74, who had a psoriasis-like skin affection for which he consulted a
homœopath. His health remained excellent, but his skin did not get well, and he consulted a
well-known skin and syphilis specialist, who at once pronounced it to be syphilitic, though
the patient denied that he had ever had the disease. Massive doses of K. iod. were given, and the skin disease disappeared in a
fortnight. But the patient was practically killed. He cried like a child without knowing
why. He lost over a stone in weight. He could eat very little, and everything Caused
distress and a full sensation. Palpitation came on at all times, and kept him awake at
night. The pulse was a mere flicker in the attacks, and was irregular, intermittent, or very
frequent in the intervals between. It was in this state that he came to me, but the powers
of reaction were destroyed, and nothing that I gave made any impression. He left London, and
died very shortly afterwards. Here is another case of K. iod.
poisoning, when unbalanced by antidotal drugs or disease. It is related by Jonathan
Hutchinson. The patient, a man of 26, had been treated with 5-grain doses of K. iod. at a hospital for a swelling in the groin which was
diagnosed as syphilis. There was no skin eruption at that time, but shortly one did appear,
and was thought to confirm the diagnosis. The dose was increased to 10 grains at the end of
the week, ten days later to 15 grains, and still later to 20 grains. This was kept up from
July 23rd to October 9th. Mercury was then substituted, but this made no change, and the
patient, who was getting worse the whole time, died of exhaustion in a fortnight. The last
part of the time he was in the London Hospital, to which he had been removed, and it was
there found, on careful inquiry, that no evidence of syphilis existed. This was his
condition when he arrived in the London Hospital a few days before his death: There was a
generalised skin eruption, consisting of swellings varying in size from small papules to
enormous tuberous masses, some of the latter being ulcerated. The swellings attained the
greatest size on face, legs, and upper chest. A coloured plate illustrating the case was
published, showing the tumours to be dark purplish red in colour. The antidotal action of
syphilis to K. iod. is further borne out by the
observation of Fournier (Allen's Encyclop., Appendix),
who noted the occurrence of purpura in patients under its influence. But it only occurred in
an intense form in persons who had no signs of syphilis, and to whom it was given "only
as a preventive." But the anti-syphilitic relation of K. iod.
only takes in a small part of its power as it is known to homœopaths. Though it has not
been extensively proved, the recorded and attested effects of over-dosing are numerous
enough. P. Jousset (L'Art Médical, October, 1899, 241)
has referred to Rilliet's experiments with the drug on the healthy. He experimented on
twenty-eight persons, mixing their table-salt with one ten-thousandth part of K. iod., so that in two years each would have taken 40
centigrammes. Here is one of the cases: A man, 45, of very strong constitution, never had
any illness. At the end of seven months he began to waste; had palpitation; became sad and
melancholy; had fixed ideas, weakness, indefinable malaise in the lower abdomen with
constipation. The iodised salt was accidentally suspended during January and February, and
he completely recovered. Returning home in the month of August, he commenced the salt again,
and the same symptoms returned with much more intensity than before: notable and progressive
wasting with voracious appetite; trembling; palpitations; fixed look; yellow complexion;
above all the moral disturbances were very pronounced agitated even to tears; irritability;
disgust and discouragement agitated sleep. It took two months for him to recover this time.
The record says that the man's health was again "completely restored"; but this is
not quite correct. After the first poisoning, although complete health was apparently
regained, there was left an extreme susceptibility to the drug's action, so that a much
shorter period of poisoning was required to reproduce the symptoms in a greatly aggravated
degree. And two years after this, although health was apparently perfectly restored, a visit
of twenty-one days to the seaside nearly cost the man his life. The same symptoms
reappeared. He was reduced to a skeleton, the appetite being all the time exaggerated. In
walking he was almost bent double, trembling and out of breath at the slightest movement.
Pulse weak and very frequent. Finally he was compelled to keep his bed, and had great
difficulty in reaching his home in Geneva. There he promptly got better. But in spite of the
apparent recovery a very profound change in the organism had occurred; and from this
experience "< at the seaside" must be
numbered among the conditions of K. iod. Two others,
both women of sixty, had the same symptoms as this man, one at the end of two months, the
other at the end of four. On the rest of the twenty-eight experimented upon no symptoms were
observed. Joussett quotes from the same authority experiences with the same salt in the
treatment of goître. A man of fifty had a round, indolent, non-fluctuating goître on the
right side of the neck, the size of an orange, of very slow growth. He took every morning,
fasting, a spoonful of water containing one gramme (15 1/2 grains) of K. iod. From the first day of the treatment he felt an
indefinable anguish. The sixteenth day there was increased malaise and considerable wasting,
and the patient threw his potion into the lake. Two days later his doctor found all the
grave symptoms of the poisoning; but the goître was three parts
gone. The patient was sent to the country and was ill all the summer, but
completely recovered in the winter, the goître having returned to
its original size. This experience was repeated on three other patients; but a
goîtrous dog was more fortunate. Two centigrammes (gr. 1/6) was sufficient to produce all
the symptoms in him, and his goître disappeared and did not return when he recovered from
the poisoning. In this connection may be mentioned the power of the salt over tumours of
other kinds. Enlarged lymphatic glands, syphilitic nodes, condylomata, and tumours of the
breast and uterus have been removed by it. This has occurred under the action of the crude
salt for the most part; and the general explanation is that the solvent action of the drug
is most powerfully excited on the more lowly organised new tissues. But this would not apply
to all cases. We have seen in Hutchinson's case that K. iod.
can produce tumours as well as remove them; but Jules Gaudy has put on record another
experience (Journ. Belge d'Homœop., vi. 57). Several
cases of abdominal tumour were successfully treated by him with K.
iod. in 3x, 10 and 15 centesimal triturations. Two of these had been
unsuccessfully treated with the crude salt before coming under his care. This they could not
tolerate on account of loss of appetite and irritation of the mucous membrane of mouth and
throat. One of these patients had a large tumour on the level of the great curvature of the
stomach extending on both sides, plunging into the abdominal cavity and extending into the
pelvis; it was adherent and difficult to define. She had a jaundiced, dirty-looking skin,
and loss of appetite, and mostly vomited her food. A suspicion of latent syphilis led Gaudy
to the remedy, which was perfectly tolerated in attenuation, though not in the crude. Health
rapidly improved, and in three months there was hardly any tumour to be discovered. The
remains of it evidently depended from the epiploon. The second case was very similar in
nature to this. Cooper reports this case: "Womb packed with fibroids, pain in right
inguinal region on exertion, spirits depressed, tinnitus like buzzing of flies, constant
tired, sleepy feeling down the limbs, hot burning feet, though sometimes intense shivering
all over, pains in the breasts, which are tender, unable to go long without food, constant
distension as from flatus, sinking at scrobiculus cordis at 11 a.m., sleep dreamy; all these
symptoms moved away under K. iod. 30, leaving the
patient in absolute comfort." Cooper adds this note: "There is much resemblance
between the actions of K. iod. and of Sul. in their 30th dilutions. After bronchitis, pneumonia,
erysipelas, and other inflammatory affections, K. iod.,
in 30th and also in cruder forms, acts like magic, apparently from the removal of the effete
products left in the tissues.".─K. iod.
has also been proved in the regular way, but not so extensively as some other Kali salts. It acts on the tissues much in the same way as
syphilis does─dissolving them─glands atrophy,
tissues, especially connective tissues and ligaments, inflame and ulcerate. The periosteum
and bones are attacked and nodes appear. But K. iod. is
perhaps more anti-scrofulous than anti-syphilitic. It acts best in scrofulous patients,
especially if syphilis or mercurialisation or both are superadded. It also causes
infiltration, œdema and dropsy of various kinds. The blood is acted upon, hæmorrhage
occurs, and purpura hæmorrhagica. A grand indication for K. iod.,
as pointed out by Cooper, is a "diffused sensitiveness" over parts affected. This
appears in the provings: "The scalp is painful on scratching, as if ulcerated (after
eleven days)." This is from Hartlaub and Trinks. "Swelling of the whole thyroid
gland, increasing very rapidly, with some sensitiveness to touch
and pressure." It has removed sensitive syphilitic nodes. I have often
verified this indication. In all neuralgic or inflammatory conditions where there is
heightened and diffused sensitiveness of the affected part, K. iod.
must be considered. I cured with K. iod. 30, in a
middle-aged man, neuralgia occurring daily over the left eye; in addition to this he
complained that his head was very sore. He had also Sore
gums and a cough, and was > lying down. There was no
syphilis in this case. Farrington mentions "Headache of the external head, hard lumps
like nodes on the scalp which pain excessively." This may be either syphilitic,
mercurial, or rheumatic. Cooper cured with K. iod. 30 a
case of rheumatic gout in a lady; every joint affected; unable to sleep for weeks on account
of the pain. The keynote indication was: "After fatigue, hepatic region becomes
tender." He commends it in affections of the spleen with diffused sensitiveness of
spleen region and dropsy. K. iod. also corresponds to
serous effusion on the brain secondary to hepatisation of the lungs. The action of K. iod. in the respiratory sphere is very important. The coryza
of K. iod. is well known, and constitutes for the old
school the only generally recognised indication of "Iodism," as it is called, with
supreme disregard of the Kali element. The discharge is
acrid, watery; the eyes smart and are puffed, there is lachrymation. (This action on the
eyes may develop into iritis, keratitis, and chemosis.) The coryza recurs repeatedly from
every little cold, and makes the nose red and swollen. The discharge may become thick,
green, offensive; ozæna and perforation of the bones may occur. The voice becomes nasal,
hoarse, or is lost. "Awakened especially 5 a.m., with dry throat, oppression, loss of
voice, glands swollen," as in croup and œdema glottidis. K.
iod. corresponds to many cases of phthisis, laryngeal and pulmonary. A
characteristic is: Stitches through the lungs; in middle of sternum; through sternum to back
or deep in chest while walking. "Deep, hollow, hoarse cough with pain through
breast." The characteristic expectoration is greenish, copious, and looks like soapsuds. Hering speaks of K.
iod. as having been curative in pneumonia and Bright's disease. Lutz (quoted H. W., xxviii. 175) remarks on the frequency (from atmospheric
causes) of bronchial asthma among both whites and natives in the Sandwich Islands, the
symptoms being those of a suffocating capillary bronchitis with defective expiration, K. iod. (crude) giving speedy relief. "The initial,
pronounced, and unmistakable symptoms of K. iod. are:
coryza, sneezing and bronchitis; and from these spread out an expanse of symptoms such as
might be expected from so usual a starting-point of disease" (Cooper). K. iod. has been
commended as a protective against foot-and-mouth disease in cattle (B.
M. J., June 26, 1895). The heart is profoundly affected, as we have seen above.
"Fluttering on awaking; must get up, fearing otherwise he will smother." It is a
favourite remedy for aneurism among old-school practitioners, but there is no need to
imitate their massive doses; its action is evidently specific. Walking greatly < all heart symptoms. It is suited to many cases of rheumatic
heart, as well as other rheumatic conditions. The digestive tract is no less disordered than
other mucous membranes. There is a terrible pain at the root of the tongue which is
characteristic. There is loss of appetite and indigestion with flatulence and bloating
almost as intense as that in Lycopod. Cold much < all these symptoms. The rectum and genito-urinary tract have
many symptoms. I cured with it a case of spasm of the rectum with a little pain in the
urethra coming on after coitus. Psorinum and Sulphur had given partial relief before. This < after coitus relates K. iod.
to the other Kalis─Caust.,
K. bich., and K. carb. Eruptions of many
kinds appear, scrofulous and syphilitic in appearance. There is a papular and pustular
eruption, especially on scalp and down back, the pustules leaving scars when they heal.
Among the peculiar sensations of K. iod. are: As though head was enlarged; as if it were screwed
in; as if a large quantity of water were forced into brain; as if it would be forced
asunder; as if a leaflet were at root of nose. As if a worm was crawling at root of nose.
Back as if in a vice. As of a tumour in ovaries. In chest as if cut to pieces. In coccyx as
if bruised. Cooper has cured with it many cases of noises in the ears, giving a single dose
of 30 or higher and allowing it to work. The chief time Condition of K. iod. is in the main the same as those of the other great
anti-syphilitics─Syph., Aur., Merc.,
and of the disease itself, < at night, from sunset to
sunrise. This applies to its rheumatic and other affections. The sciatica of K. iod. is < at night, < lying on painful side, >
in open air. The chest symptoms, like those of K. ca.,
may be < in early morning 2 to 5 a.m. Headache < 5 a.m. (also headache <
after a night's rest). Loose stools also occur at that time (K. bi.).
Like Merc., K. iod. has great sensitiveness to
atmospheric changes: Every little exposure every damp day will set up the symptoms. At the
same time there is the > in open air of Iod., &c.: "Irresistible desire for the open air;
walking in open air does not fatigue." The chill of intermittent fever is not > by warmth; but warmth >
many symptoms of teeth and scalp. In general, however, there is aversion to heat. Heat < headache. Motion <,
especially walking; after the first movement, in the lower limbs it is more bearable.
Sitting hurts, and flexing limbs > some of the pains.
< From touch is a very marked feature of K. iod.; this is part of the "diffused sensitiveness"
noted by Cooper. All symptoms < by drinking cold
milk. "K. iod. is a remedy that has a great number
of keynotes. It seems to meet all temperaments, and while suitable for pale, delicate
subjects, is also required for those who flush easily and are manifestly plethoric. A
diffused arterial vasculosis is met by it, but it is also called for in venous states. Its
characteristic tinnitus aurium is certainly the sharp, shrill, hissing and piercing noises,
but it also relieves the throbbing, pulsative noises, especially when the heart is
hypertrophied and inclined to fatty degeneration. Diversity of lesion, diversity of
aggravation, and prolixity of symptoms without any one feature being in prominence, calls
for it: a moderate amount of catarrh of one or more of the orifices of the body, with
tendency to flatulent distensions, depression, used up feelings, inability to think, are
characteristic. But perhaps the most satisfactory action of K. iod.,
in the 30th, is in rickets (and rickety conditions) along with its many attendant symptoms.
When children cannot bear to be touched, cannot ride in jolting conveyances, have big heads
and emaciated limbs, big teeth and small jaws, and when they incline to frequency of
urination and of defæcation, K. iod. 30 will work
wonders. In child-life K. iod. acts at once if indicated
and completely clears away the symptoms: in adult-life it may often have to be reverted to
during the treatment of very obstinate forms of disease. While this is true in a broad
sense, it is also true that there is no known prescription that gives a better chance of
removal of that very obstinate symptom tinnitus aurium than a single dose of K. iod. 30 allowed to act. This must not be taken as
justification for careless selection of the remedy in cases marked by contra-indicating
features" (Cooper).
