To a slight extent there is a similarity of action between the two remedies. Both act through the cerebrospinal nervous system. Stannum reaches the digestive, sexual and respiratory organs, while Staphisagria reaches the whole gastrointestinal tract, the genitourinary organs, and the skin.
Both remedies are weak, but the weakness of Stannum is due to disease, especially of the lungs, and through this condition we may find other organs affected. Staphisagria, on the other hand, is nervously weak and is often despondent and irritable due to sexual excesses, fits of anger, or sleeplessness.
Both remedies have extreme hunger. Stannum is hungry because of loss by expectoration, disease and waste. Staphisagria is hungry because of nervous weakness. The patients nerves are exhausted and they cry for food to pep them up.
Both remedies prefer solitude, Stannum because of the exertion it takes to meet people, Staphisagria because the patient is angry or despondent. He doesnt want people around.
Both have colic and both may have worms. The colic of Stannum is around the navel and is > by hard pressure. In Staphisagria it is in the lower abdomen and is brought on by anger or drinking cold water. I frequently give Stannum for worms where the acute condition has been relived by Cina or some other remedy. Stannum seems to have the property of healing the bowel and making it uninhabitable for the worms. I have never used Staphisagria for worms, but were I to prescribe it I would expect an irritable, child, subject to fits of anger and a craving appetite with poor digestion and gaseous distention.
Stannum, on the other hand, has a feeling of emptiness and may also have a poor digestion and hunger from exhaustion and weakness due to wasting diseases.
One peculiar symptom of Stannum is the weakness of the spine and legs. When the patient sits down he suddenly collapsed and literally falls into the chair. This is a keynote of Stannum. Staphisagria has backache and the muscles feel bruised. This condition is < in the morning, but there is no weakness, just a sore feeling of the muscles of the back and legs.
We have all used Stannum in tuberculosis. The hoarseness, shortness of breath, the profuse sweat, and often profuse sweetish expectoration, the great weakness, and general aggravation at night and on the right side clearly indicate Stannum. Staphisagria has no particular action on the lungs, although the patient may have a nervous weakness or nervous cough.
Stannum produces just what you would expect in the female organs, namely, prolapse, early and profuse menstruation, and leucorrhoea; while on the male organs there is very little action. Staphisagria may have a prolapse, but it is from nervous weakness and is usually transitory. On the male organs Staphisagria has a very decided action, resulting from self abuse, loss of seminal fluid and nervous exhaustion.
If you have never used Staphisagria in acute prostatitis you have missed a bet. When you examine the prostate you find if very tender and irritable. When the patient sits he feels as if he were sitting on a ball, similar to Chimaphila, and if any urine passes it burns the whole length of the urethra. There is usually a spasmodic retention, however. With all this the mans mind seems dull and stupid and his features drawn and waxy. Dont hesitate to give him tincture of Staphisagria and you may not need the catheter.
I remember being called to a hotel to treat a salesman. He had a catheter and had been trying to use it himself. The bed was spattered with blood, the floor was not only spattered but he had tracked the blood from the washbowl to his bed. He could not sit still and at every step he groaned.
On examination. I found the rectum so contracted I could scarcely use an examining finger. The prostate was swollen and so tender that he jumped when I touched it. I gave him Staphisagria at once, and took him to a hospital where I put him in the bathtub filled with hot water. The Staphisagria and the heat relaxed him and I was able to pass the catheter very easily. I know that he lived for years after.
In the chronic variety of prostatitis there is one particular condition where Staphisagria will help you. The bladder is filled with stinking, irritable, residual urine, and the patient is sensitive over the bladder. He dribbles urine, complains, prays, kicks and mourns for death. Just try Staphisagria here and follow it later with Chimaphila.
From “old school” sources Stannum is advanced as a specific in small boils due to staphylococcic infection, aborting the whole process in a short time. Staphisagria, on the other hand, may have a violent itching of the skin or even a dry scaly eczema. Scratching only seems to change the location of the lids, especially at the inner canthus, but we never use Stannum for styes at all, unless they are strictly of staphylococcic variety.
Stannum is always < at night, on the right side and on exertion of any kind; > by coughing up the copious phlegm. Staphisagria, on the other hand, is a nervous wrecks, so is < by anger, disappointment, sexual excesses, etc.; > by rest and food. Dont forget Staphisagria in hypertension in jealous, morose people.
Both of these remedies are valuable, one for weakness from disease, the other from nervous weakness from excesses. They are both wonderful in action when indicated. FORT MORGAN, COLO.
DISCUSSION.
DR. SCHWARTZ : I think of a young girl of about seventeen the petty, irritable type, who would have headaches with the feeling of a ball in the forehead attacks of anger, usually due to not having her own way. Staphisagria cleared that up. It changed her disposition to a great extent and relieved the headaches, and the sensation of a ball in the forehead.
DR. CORNFIELD: I consider it a privilege to hear this comparative discussion that brought out the practical application of these remedies.
I would like to know if Dr. Bowie uses Staphisagria in all the prostatic cases he mentioned. He mentioned using it particularly in the one variety.
DR. DIXON: I cant help but comment on the prostatic indication for Staphisagria, and to elaborate a little bit on the prostatic condition in the old sinners. Staphisagria has all Dr.Bowie mentioned, which is so often indicated in those conditions. It will be the debilitated patient, as he said, but there is a small group of remedies so efficacious in those prostatic conditions that the man who carelessly turns them over to the surgeon is missing a wonderful field for homoeopathy, it seems to me.
Sabal serrulata is another one used by the dominant school, and Saw palmetto. I wish they know the manufacturers of that remedy, what it will do in the ten thousandths and fifty thousandths potency.
I want to advise Dr. Bowie never to sue the Staphisagria lower than the one thousandths. It acts so much nicer for me than a tincture that I want to urge him to try it in potency.
Thuja is another remedy for those old sinners, as I call them, the men with prostatic troubles. I have some wonderful stories I could relate along that line.
DR. SCHWARTZ: I would like to ask the essayist, or Dr.Dixon, what experience he has had in prostatic cases with Caladium.
DR. DIXON: I dont think I have ever used it.
DR. BOWIE : I have never used it, either, but I would if I found it indicated.
DR. DIXON : Yes, indeed.
DR. TAPLEY: When you are reasonable sure the man has cancer of the prostate, and all the AEsculus symptoms are there, you give those pills and see it clear up like magic, you are so surprised you dont know what happened.
DR. DIXON: Arnica for those fellows who carry their own catheters around, is wonderful.
DR. BONNELL: That is the second time I recall the use of Stannum for pain around the umbilicus, doctor. When you reply, I wish you would give the potency you used.
DR. MOORE: We naturally group a number of remedies for any particular thing. A while ago I considered it quite a privilege to read a case history from Hahnemann. You know there are bales of them over at Stuttgart, and they are the gold we have. Some American, I believe, was with Hahnemann in Paris, and watched him take care of his cases. Here was a case with a cauliflower growth, and he took that case very carefully, wrote it out, and prescribed. This fellow said, “What would you prescribe.?”.
He answered. “Did you hear me ask the questions? Did you hear the answers?”.
“Yes.”.
“Go and read your materia medica. This is a simple case.”.
This person came back in two weeks very greatly improve. Again he was given a remedy, and again this man asked his question and the answer was, “Study your materia medica if you havent got this.”.
The man came back in another two weeks, and the thing was well. He couldnt get anything out of Hahnemann, but there was the record. He looked into it, and the remedy was nothing you would think for these cauliflower growths. It was Chamomilla.
DR. BOWIE: Dr. Canfield wanted to know if I used Staphisagria in low potency. Yes, sometimes. I sometimes use it in high potency. If I have a very acute case and am not always sure of my remedy, I give it in low potency. I get an effect anyway, and have a time to get a better effect. I think the Staphisagria will produce aggravation in low potency. There are some who use Staphisagria in two-drop doses and get good results. I think, as Dr. Dixon said, you get good results in the higher potency.
