The general features of the remedy are such as relate to the mind and such as relate to the tissues of the body in general. If you run through the mental symptoms, taking them all in as one great whole, you will see that all the affections, natural to healthy man, are perverted. So great in extent is this that one of the fundamental loves, which is the love of living, of self-protection, is perverted and he loathes life, is weary of life, longs to die and seeks methods to commit suicide. No love of life. The affections pre-eminently are deranged, the intellectual sphere is only secondarily changed. Of course insanity runs through the remedy, but it is an insanity that begins in the will and proceeds to the intellect; it is first observed as a perversion of the affections. It is astonishing that one could get into such a state of mind, such horrible depression of spirits that there is an absolute loss of enjoyment in everything. You take away a man’s hope, and he has nothing to live for, he then wants to die. Such, it seems, is the state in this medicine. Self-condemnation, continual self-reproach, self-criticism, a constant looking into self; she does nothing right, everything is wrong, nothing will succeed, hopelessness. “Imagines he cannot succeed in anything, and he does everything wrong; he is in disunion with himself.” Imagines he sees obstacles in his way everywhere.

 

He is all the time imaging that he has NEGLECTED SOMETHING, THAT HE HAS NEGLECTED HIS FRIENDS He imagines that he deserves reproach in consequence of HAVING NEGLECTED DUTY; he has neglected something, he is wrong, is wholly evil, has sinned away his day of grace, is not worthy of salvation; this is the train of thought that constantly runs through his mind. The thought really becomes uncontrollable; he is absorbed in himself and sits and broods over it, and by brooding over it he only intensifies his present state and hatches new grievances, continues to worry over himself, thinks he is wholly unfit for this world, and then he longs to die. He looks on the dark side of everything, constantly expecting bad news, looking for everything to go wrong. The future looks dark to him, and he wants to die; he never will succeed, for everything goes wrong that he turns his hand to. His business is dark, his family troubles him, his friends annoy him; he becomes EXTREMELY irritable, easily angered, is worried over trifles, and easily excited. Every little thing rouses him into anger and turmoil, he is always in a vexation. The Aurum state of mind is an insanity dreadful to look upon because of its turbulence and melancholy. It is suitable in the most profound states of melancholy and depression where the patient sits silent and says nothing. When disturbed he is aroused to great vehemence, anger and violence. “Melancholy, feels hateful and quarrelsome.” “Terrible melancholy after abuse of MERCURY.” The causes of this state of insanity are prolonged anxiety, unusual responsibility, syphilis and loss of property. Persons who have been repeatedly drugged with MERCURY, have established upon themselves a mercurial disease, with enlargement of the liver, and this is almost always attended more or less by melancholy and sadness and such hope-lessness as we find in Aurum. Aurum produces such affections of the liver as are associated with cardiac affections, endocarditis, dropsy of the heart and rheumatic affections that have gone to the heart. You will notice that wherever the AFFECTIONS are pre-eminently disturbed in mental disease that there is either cardiac weakness, endocarditis, enlargement of the heart, or some organic or functional disease of the heart. You will very often find a history of taking MERCURY that has superinduced a rheumatic state that has been rubbed away with liniments until the heart is affected, and with this comes hopelessness, insanity of the will, disturbance of the affections. Then it appears to spread in this remedy from the will to the understanding, and the intellectual portion of man becomes involved. Think what a state it is for a man who has been in good condition of health, respected in his business circles, to have a desire to commit suicide. You will see other kinds of insanity and a breaking down or a state of feebleness of the intellect, he cannot think nor reason; his affections are practically intact, but he finally goes into a state of imbecility, or he becomes wild and commits suicide from impulse. That is an instance where the intellect has been affected first and spread to the will. Sometimes this state comes on, and no disturbance in the man’s intellectual nature has been observed; it is intact, it is sound. He has been sound in his business affairs, he has been a good father, he has been observed by those around him to be intelligent, but he has silently brooded over his state and his hatred of the world; he has told nobody of it, and then he has been found hung in his room. The man’s intellectual nature keeps the man in contact with the world; but his affections are largely kept to himself. A man can have affection for all sorts of things and perversion of the affections, but his intellect will guide him not to show his likes and dislikes to the world. The affections cannot be seen, but man’s intellect is subject to inspection. He cannot conceal his intellect. We shall see that the affections are interior, they are covered with a cloak, they are his innermost and are hidden from inspection; but the understanding is the outermost garment, it surrounds and hides his affections, just as does the garment he wears over the body hide the body. The affections that Aurum resembles are those like unto the very innermost nature of man.

 

“Ailments from grief, disappointed love, fright, anger, contradiction, mortification.” “Pain makes her desperate so that she would like to jump out of the window.” He meditates upon death, upon suicide; he wants to get out of the world, wants to destroy himself, has no love for his life which he thinks is worthless.

 

The remedy is full of rheumatic affections, not unlike such as are found in old mercurial cases; rheumatic affections with swelling of the joints; affections of the cartilages and bone, inflammation of the periosteum; thickening and induration of the periosteum. Indurations of glands; induration of the cartilages about the joints. These are all of syphilitic and mercurial character. It is useful in old syphilitics when the bones are breaking down in any part of the body; the shin bones, nose bones, ear bones, any of the small bones. Like syphilis and mercury, the complaints are aggravated at night, coming on in the evening and keep up all night. The pains are violent, they tear, the bones ache as if they would break, not in acute fevers but in old syphilitic bone troubles. Knife-like pains in the periosteum. Pains in the joints rendering them immovable. Inflammation of the bone itself with caries. It is not strange that the vascular coating of the bones, the periosteum, should be greatly affected because there is a strange vascularity, all over the economy, in this medicine. The veins are enlarged, in a state of congestion and inflammation, and friable. The veins become thickened and tumefied. The blood vessels pulsate all over the body. “Erethism or vascular fulness characterizes nearly all complaints.” Fulness of the veins of the extremities; this goes on until swelling appears with weakness so that dropsy is prevalent throughout the remedy. Oedema of the extremities, with pitting upon pressure, which occurs in heart and liver affections. A false state of plethora seems to exist in the body and finally turmoil and excitement occur. Violent orgasms in the body, sometimes demonstrated as violent heat, coming in flushes with excitement. Fidgetiness, feeling as if something dreadful were going to happen throughout the economy. Then it settles into a state of quiescence for awhile and then this repeats itself. These violent orgasms come preparatory to the localization or establishment of some breakdown in the economy. At times it is a cardiac affection, with marked oppression behind the sternum with dyspnoea on walking fast or going upstairs. Endocarditis will have this turmoil in the body; by and by look for albumin in the urine, look for enlargement of the liver, look for signs of cancer of the uterus, and deep-seated affections.

 

“Boring in bones.” “Pains drive to despair.” The pains drive the patient out of bed at night and make him walk. This is seen in old syphilitic bone pains, and old mercurialized patients. The patient has been taking MERCURY all his life and his liver is enlarged, and his joints are enlarged. He goes to every doctor, with an endeavor to get relief from his distressing sufferings. MERCURY and disease are so mixed up that a great turmoil will result from your first prescription. He will go through these stages of violence and periodical attacks. You will have to know such medicines as Aurum, CHELIDONIUM and STAPHISAGRIA to get this patient over these awful attacks which he is obliged to go through.

 

This medicine wonderfully affects the glands, the parotid glands, the glands about the groin, the lymphatics in the abdomen; in fact, the glands everywhere. The mammary glands, the testes and ovaries, are involved, and undergo states of hardness, infiltration, etc. Aurum cures chronic enlargement of the testes, and lumps in the mammary glands. Tumors in these glands, of cystic character, have been cured by Aurum. Hahnemann potentized Aurum and gave some of it to a patient, and it did not work, but he thoroughly triturated it until he got it to the fifteenth potency and then it worked and restored that patient to the bosom of his family. Hahnemann says that in the earlier triturations the dose was yet too large to cure; so he went higher until it was sufficiently small to cure, sufficiently attenuated to go into the interior of the economy through the various envelopes of man.

 

There is one grand feature running through the Aurum state; it is the manner in which he is affected by temperature, and by the weather. Here are some symptoms that relate to the whole man, which must be examined in this connection. “Desire for open air.” This patient ranks along with PULSATILLA as to temperature; but Aurum is not mild, gentle and yielding, he is obstinate, irascible, the very opposite of the PULSATILLA patient. “Generally > growing warm.” This is in connection with the headaches. “Cold water ameliorates pain in eyes.” “Averse to uncover,” but he desires open air like PULSATILLA. “Warm air, asthma <“. Many symptoms disappear after washing, especially cold washing; but whenever the patient is suffering from great excitement, turmoil and vascularity, constitutional orgasm, pulsations, he wants the doors and windows open, wants to get out in the cool air; wants the clothing thrown off. This state of excitement and pulsation is ameliorated by the open air. It has those flushes of heat so common to women at the critical period, and these are followed by sweat, sometimes by chilliness.

 

Most that we have said of the remedy is about its general aspect, for everything about the mind is general.

 

In Aurum the pain in the head is very intense, maddening, often accompanied by a sensation as if air were blowing upon him; he looks around to see where the draft comes from when there is none; extremely sensitive. Often has to have the head wrapped up, although it feels hot, with a good deal of congestion and rush of blood to the head. The head is sore and feels bruised. Stitching, burning, tearing pains in the head; much throbbing in the head. The face is bloated, flushed and shiny with the congestive headaches. These headaches are often found in syphilitic subjects; often associated with cardiac disease. Pain in the back of the head associated with cardiac disease, with sluggish circulation, purple face, duskiness of the skin. Exostoses as in syphilis. The skull bones are sensitive to touch; the periosteum is tender to touch. In old mercurialized cases with bone affections and necrosis of the skull, as in syphilis and mercury, the hair falls out copiously; the head becomes bald. Baldness due to syphilis; the scalp is left shiny and the hair will not grow in again. In acute diseases there is falling out of the hair, but it grows in again. But young syphilitics often lose the hair and remain bald all the rest of their life.

 

There are disturbances of the eye, of a catarrhal character, even to the extent of ulceration and infiltration of the various coatings of the eye. Iritis; great disturbance of the whole visual apparatus; some of the striking features I will read from the book, but remember the constitution that we must always have in view; remember the mental state, the mercurial and syphilitic states, the gouty tendency, and the complaints that belong to joints, remember the cardiac disturbances. As we review the eye symptoms we thus see the constitution with which they are likely to be associated. “Photophobia.” Weak sight and eyes. “By gaslight a number of bright, floating specks and dots are seen.” “Eyes ameliorated by moonlight.” “Large letters cannot be distinguished.” “Yellow, crescent-shaped bodies floating obliquely upward in field of vision.” “In upper dark section of field of vision occasional showers of bright, star-like bodies.” In CALCAREA there is a queer symptom; he sees a sudden flash arise from the lower portion of the field of vision; it shoots up and divides, and then he sees stars in every direction. It is the appearance you will see sometimes in the shooting off of one of those rockets that explode and come down in a shower. That has been observed in CALCAREA. “Hemiopia of the left eye.” And so it goes on with many of these peculiar things that can hardly be described except in the language of the text. “Protruding eyes.” Protrusion of the eyes, such as occurs in exophthalmic goitre, with enlargement of the heart, has been cured by Aurum. Enlargement of the thyroid gland with rapid and full pulse. Exophthalmic goitre has been cured by Aurum, NATR.MUR. “Staring, dreary look.” . “Iritis marked by much pain around eye, which seems to be deep in bone.” Such a state would be likely to be produced by syphilis that had been treated with MERCURY and Aurum would come in as an antidote to both the syphilis and the MERCURY. “Pupils irregularly dilated.” It has catarrhal states of the eye. It has inflammation of the conjunctiva, choroid, iris and retina. Well, syphilis does this, taking hold of the eye in just this way and causing great infiltration. Pains round about the eye; the thin plate bones, and the skull bones are all sensitive to pressure; the bones seem tender; periostitis; opacity of the cornea.

 

Syphilis often takes hold of the ear, affecting the bones of that organ. “Caries of mastoid process, obstinate otorrhoea.” Caries of the bones of the ear. “Parotids swollen, painful to touch.” “Oversensitiveness to noises; but music relieves.” “Humming, buzzing and rushing in ears.” Rushing like the rushing of wind and falling water. “Annoying dryness in ears and nose.” This is all like the complaints of syphilis, which are cured by Aurum, but Aurum also corresponds to and has cured many times otorrhoea following scarlet fever where there is even entire loss of the drum of the ear and loss of the bones. Of course it does not restore hearing. Patients will come to you for ear troubles, and you may find that the whole ear apparatus is destroyed ; the mucous membrane and bones of the ear are all in a state of ulceration and necrosis and the discharge is foetid. The patient consults you in order to have the hearing restored and it may not be possible; stop that ear discharge and restore the hearing are the only two things he thinks about. If you go today to our ear specialists and speak about curing the patient, they would not know what you were talking about; the only thing that would be thought of would be the stopping of that ear discharge as quickly as possible. They would examine the ear to see whether it is intact or not; and if it is not, the hearing is of course gone and the stopping of the discharge is then all that is taken into consideration. Homeopathy teaches that the PATIENT should be treated and the patient only, after which the organs and tissues become normal. The whole duty of the physician is to restore health to the patient. We have the nose specialists with their local applications. These things will only bring on bone disease, and tubercular troubles; they stop the discharge from the nose, and of course nature must have a vent somewhere and so she establishes a discharge in the chest; the trouble progresses from the mucous membranes into the lung, into the parenchyma of the lungs, and is often of a tubercular character, and then these men tell you the bacilli have come. This is spurious science. Clean, healthy tissues are the only safeguard. Aurum is full of nasal troubles, with foetid discharge. The bones of the nose necrose; syphilitic necrosis, the nose flattens down; the bones are discharged. You see these people walking about with flattened-down nose and if you get near enough to them the stench will be observed. They are nearly all syphilitics. A few remedies have the power of curing this syphilitic nose condition; Aurum, MERCURY and HEPAR are three of them. I have cured this state a number of times with HEPAR. I once cured a man after the bones were completely softened, so that when the nose was handled it would bend right over; only a sort of cartilaginous structure held the nose in place. I gave that patient HEPAR. It cured him of syphilis after he had been filled in vain with MERCURY. “Coryza, thick discharge, like white of egg.” “Mucous discharge from posterior nares in morning.” Tip of nose knobby, red, like LACH.; strawberry nose. Little knobs on the nose composed of varicose veins in heart cases, with disturbance of the right side of the heart; sometimes found in old drinkers and in heart affections generally. Face red and swollen. Aurum has cured epithelioma of the wing of the nose and lip. Remember the horribly offensive odor from the nose, loss of smell following pains in the nasal bones; nasal catarrh. “Ulcerated, agglutinated, painful nostrils.” “Crusts in nose.” “Nose feels obstructed as in dry coryza.” With nearly all of these nose affections, the patient is bowed down with sorrow, full of grief; black clouds hang over him and he wants to die. Loathing of life and wants to find some way to commit suicide. “Puffy under eyes.” “Blue about nose and lips.” “Face glowing red ” “Violent boring in right zygomatic process when walking.” “Carious teeth.” “Toothache at night.” “Foul breath.” “Syphilitic ulcers in palate and throat.” “Boring in hard palate.” This medicine has cured craving for alcohol, the craving of drunkards.

 

Another marked feature of this medicine is its ability to harden, enlarge and inflame the liver; induration with cardiac affections; enlargement of the heartand liver. When you take into consideration the venous system, the portal system and its close association with the heart in establishing the circulation of blood in the abdomen, and the work that it does in the abdomen as a great receiving apparatus, you will not be surprised to find that heart and liver affections are associated with hopelessness and despair. Notice, on the other hand, something that will set you to thinking perhaps, in cases of phthisis, none of them is hopeless, they think they are going to get well; the lungs are almost gone with tubercles, but he knows if he could only get up that little something out of the throat he would get well. Notice then that peculiar relation between the lungs and the understanding, and between the heart and the will. With every little trouble located in the heart there comes hopelessness, but when the manifestation of disease is in the lungs there is hopefulness.

 

Dropsical conditions of the abdomen. “Inguinal hernia.” “Tabes mesenterica.” All of the glands of the body are involved more or less. All sorts of disturbances of the sexual organs. “Testes indurated.” “Frequent nightly emissions.” Complaints as the result of vices. “Hydrocele.” “Ulcers on scrotum after gonorrhoea.” “Burning and stinging in perineum ” “Condylomata around anus.” “Induration of uterus.” “Menses too late and scanty.” “Uterus prolapsed and indurated ” “Leucorrhoea thick white.” Complaints in the uterus and region of the pelvis from straining and reaching up the arms; abortion from reaching up at the windows and fixing a curtain, etc. Aurum is a medicine that is suitable for induration of the uterus and ulceration of the uterus as a result of repeated abortions. When you study the loss of affections that is involved in such a state and the affections or lack of affections that are found in Aurum you can see a deep well-grounded similitude in the symptoms, and that is the way to hunt for a remedy. It is in the sphere of the physician to examine into this state of mankind in which he can destroy his offspring and to examine into the nature of remedies producing such a state. We see in Aurum this entire perversion of all the loves of mankind, and finally their entire destruction.

 

The symptoms of asthma and of difficult breathing you would naturally expect to be associated with the cardiac affections. Notice this also, that the difficult breathing is of two kinds, such breathing as involves the lung, and such breathing as involves the heart. So it is we have an asthmatic condition of dyspnoea that is cardiac in character, and dyspnoea that is purely respiratory. These are entirely distinct in character; one belongs to such remedies as have a predominance of action on the affections, and another belonging to those having a predominance of action on the intelligence; one will involve the lung and finally bring on emphysema; the other one is entirely different in its character, with irregular heart action, and only secondarily associated with emphysema. Study your pathology with these things in mind and you will be able to perceive the nature of sickness and its results. These things are not mere observation, whims and theories, but are the outcome of studying things from internal to external.

 

In this remedy the pains wander from joint to joint and finally locate in the heart. Angina pectoris is often the ending of an old rheumatism that has wandered from joint to joint. “Difficult breathing.” If the case goes on a little while, there will be blood spots, and if he lie on the right side the lower part will be dull on percussion and the upper part will be resonant. Palpitation with great agony. Extreme oppression in the region of the heart on walking fast and going, upstairs with oedema of the lower limbs.