Materia Medica

Fluoric acid – Farrington

Fluoric acid
fl-ac

This is a highly excoriating acid, eating as you know even into glass. It is to be particularly remembered from its action on the bones and on the skin. It acts particularly upon the lower tissues of the body. We find it indicated in caries of the bones, particularly when the long bones, as the femur, humerus, and radius, are affected. The discharges from the affected parts are thin and excoriating. The symptoms are frequently relieved by cold applications. Fluoric acid is frequently useful for caries of the temporal bones, and especially of the mastoid process, and that too, whether it be the result of syphilis, or of scrofulous catarrh of the middle ear.

We also find it indicated in dental fistulae. The discharge is bloody and has a saltish disag’reeable taste, rendering the mouth foul and gradually undermining the whole constitution. Fluoric acid will here relieve. There is another remedy which has not been thoroughly proven but which seems to act better than the Fluoric acid, and that is the Fluoride of Calcium or Calcarea fluorica.

CALCAREA FLUORICA is especially useful for osseous tumors, and for enlargement of bones with or without caries. This summer a lady came to my office, with what the dentist had pronounced to be necrosis of the lower jaw on the left side. The teeth had been removed by him, but the patient instead of getting better grew worse, and there was a continual discharge from the cavity. The molar just back of the one taken out, had been filled with gold, and that I found on examination to be rough at its root, and when she would press her jaws together tightly, there would ooze, apparently from its fangs, a fluid which was offensive, dark and bloody, and mixed with fine pieces of decayed bone. The gum around the bone was purple and offensive in itself. The dentist had said that a surgical operation was necessary. The first remedy given was Silicea, which seemed to have some effect. This was followed by Fluoric acid. These two remedies are complementary, and you will frequently find in bone disease that you will have to give one after the other. Fluoric acid is especially indicated when Silicea has been abused. It is also indicated when Silicea apparently does some good but fails to complete the cure. Now in the case I have just related, Fluoric acid also helped for awhile, but improvement again came to a stand-still, and now I noticed a swelling of the bone on the outer surface. This led me to think that Calcarea fluorica would act better, and I gave it in the sixth trituration. That she has been taking since the first of August. A week ago (note: the lecturer was speaking on October 17th)

the discharge had entirely ceased. The tooth which had been filled with gold was no longer painful. Pink granulations were springing up all over the gums. The probe can no longer detect bone which is diseased.

You will remember as a distinction between Fluoric acid and Silicea in bone affections and ulcers that Fluoric acid has relief from cold, whereas Silicea cannot bear anything cold. The slightest draught is intolerable.

We next have to speak of the action of Fluoric acid on the skin. It seems to produce a decided roughness and harshness of the skin, developing cutaneous eruptions of various kinds. There is itching. I do not know of any remedy that causes such general and persistent itching as does Fluoric acid. There is itching in small spots here and there over the body. This is worse from warmth and better from a cool place. You will find under Fluoric acid, that old cicatrices will become redder than natural and itch. By and by, little vesicles will form on or near the cicatrix, thus showing you the affinity of Fluoric acid for this kind of tissue. Then little red blotches appear on the body, and you have well-marked tendency to desquamation. No remedy has this more marked than Fluoric acid. You will find that Fluoric acid also attacks the nails, causing them to grow rapidly. THUJA has the effect of making the nails grow soft.

We may use Fluoric acid in felons, particularly in bone felons. Here, as in case of other diseases of the bones, the discharge is offensive. Here also we may make the same point of distinction between it and other remedies, relief from cold applications.

Fluoric acid also acts upon the muscles. Here its effects are rather novel. It causes an increase in muscular endurance. Under its influence, a person is able to withstand more muscular exercise than that to which he is accustomed. More than this, he seems to be better able to withstand the heat of summer and the cold of winter. Thus the drug has a general invigorating or tonic effect.

This same effect we find under other drugs. We know how Rhus, tox. will enable persons to withstand muscular fatigue. The same is also true of Arsenicum. But the remedy that has” this property more than any other I know of is Coca. This interesting plant is used by the people of South America, particularly by those who climb the Andes. It prevents all the symptoms arising from the fatigue of the journey and from the disproportion between the external and the internal atmospheric pressures. We may make use of this in persons who are weak, particularly for old people, who get out of breath easily when and particularly if they cannot stand a rarefied atmosphere. In that condition, Coca relieves.

Under the influence of Fluoric acid a short sleep seems to refresh. This effect may also be produced by low potencies of MEPHITIS PUTORIUS.

We find that Fluoric acid has produced, and therefore ought to cure, varicose veins. Little blue collections of veins in small spots were caused in two or three provers by Fluoric acid. It may also be of use in naevus.

Other remedies here are HAMAMELIS, especially in acute cases. It is often used externally and internally in the treatment of enlarged veins.