Spongia Anhang
POLARITIES: Expanding or Contracting. Pressed apart or Pinched together.
Hardness or Flabbiness.
MIND: Haunted. Strong anxiety concerning health. Suicidal depression.
Loose [expansive mood: joking, witty, over-the-top, singing, as if drunk, wild
fantasies, delirious] or Uptight/rigid [contracting mood: irritable, abusive,
obstinate, argumentative, vindictive, rejects people].
SENSATIONS: Expanding or Contracting. Flabby or Hard. Burning. Pressed apart or
Pinched together. As if something alive inside; foreign body sensation:
plugged, corked, wedged. Itching and crawling. Pressure: as of a weight or
stone, compressed. Pulsation. As if the contents of the skull would burst
through the forehead.
SYSTEM AFFINITIES: Lymphatic, glands. Cardiovascular, heart valves, blood
vessels. Respiratory, lungs. Skin. Musculoskeletal, joints.
CLINICAL AFFINITIES: Whooping cough. Asthma. Croup, membranous croup.
Diphtheria. Problems with the heart valves. Complaints of blood vessels,
varicose veins. Aneurysm. Arteriosclerosis. Cyanosis. Tissue death. Gangrene.
Complaints of the glands. Abscesses. Tumours: benign, angioma [tumour
consisting largely of blood vessels]. Cancer. Complications of TB. Ailments
from worms. Catalepsy. Arthritis.
GENERALS: Aggravation: midnight, full moon, cold dry air, winter, menstruation,
pressure. Amelioration: Eating a small amount, warmth, descending.
Remedy source
Common Mediterranean sea sponge, roasted until brown and then triturated. This
differs from other sponges in that it does not contain spicules, (calcareous or
siliceous skeletal forms), only spongin,
a collagen protein. Dr Otto Leeser notes that, for preparation as a
remedy, the sponge should be roasted to a brown colour and not burnt black.
H.
conducted the original proving, resulting in 156 symptoms from provers under
his own supervision and 235 symptoms extracted from papers by 10 other authors;
H. considered his own account incomplete. Materia Medica Pura: Reine
Arzneimittellehre, Volume VI. H. was said to be primarily interested to see the
medicine's effects on goitre.
B.
Finke MD: "A New Proving of Spongia Tosta", American Homeopathic
Review, 1859, p. 317. Finke performed a clinical experiment on a patient who
was displaying general indications for the remedy. This confirmed the remedy's
affinities with the throat and larynx. The patient also had a history of a
tumour in the left breast.
Relationships:
Porifera: Badiaga.
Marine invertebrates: Cor-r. Aster.
Vertebrate:
Meph.
Plant: Fuc. Acon. Dros. Ip. Puls.
Mineral:
Iod. Brom. Calc-i. Kali-i.
Calc. Lapis-albus.
Nosode: Tub.
Senses:
Pliny, in the first
century AD observed that the sponges, like anemones and coral, were
"neither beasts nor plants, but a third nature between or compounded of
both," and "have yet a kind of sense with them". He observed the
sponge to flinch and contract when his hand drew near to pull it from a rock -
a surprising act for an animal with no obvious nervous system. No intracellular
gaps or junctions have yet been found in sponges; these are present first in
the Cnidaria and onwards in evolution, and allow
electrical currents to be passed between cells. Spong. thought to react to
touch and pass messages via chemical signalling, and may be able to pass
calcium signals between cells via normal ion channels.
In
2005, researchers April and Malcolm Hill, at the University of Richmond,
Virginia, USA, discovered that sponges carry sophisticated genes which would
normally control the growth of eyes, the brain, central nervous system and
sensory systems in other animals, including humans. They have the black box of
sensory genes, but do not unpack it, remaining as simple bodies.
Clearing
the Airways: Do Sponges Cough?
Spongia is perhaps best known as a cough remedy. Do sponges actually cough? It
would appear so:
"Sponges
exhibit contractile behaviors (reviewed by Leys and Meech 2006; Elliot and Leys
2003). In the small, freshwater sponge Ephydatia, an inhalant expansion phase
precedes a coordinated contraction that forces water out of the osculum. This
contractile activity generates high-velocity flow in the finer channel systems
that then propagate toward the osculum. Effectively, this seems to be
a
''coughing'' mechanism that eliminates unwanted material, chemicals, or
organisms from the vasculature”.
Just
like the Spongia patient, the sponge in nature 'coughs' to relieve the sympoms
of blockage and suffocation. Sponges are hosts, acting like hotels to all sorts
of creatures, such as crabs and worms.
They
have also formed symbiotic relationships with bacteria and algae. The proving
of Spongia tosta has a strong sensation of a foreign body internally: a stone,
something plugged, or especially something alive: itching and crawling or
giving the feeling of 'fine digging,' internally.
[Lectures on Homeopathic Materia Medica - James Tyler Kent]
Tubercular miasm.
Mind: The mental symptoms of Spongia (anxiety, fear
and dyspnoea) show that it is a heart remedy.
A remedy producing the anxiety, fear and dyspnoea of Spongia, it will
most likely turn out to be a cardiac remedy, unless these conditions are
connected with irritation and inflammatory
diseases of the brain.
Head: Any cerebral symptoms, marked anxiety, fear
of death, and suffocation, associated with palpitation and uneasiness in the
region of the heart (with pain and a sense of stuffiness and
fullness in the cardiac region, in the chest, with dyspnoea, anxiety,
fear of death/of the future/something dreadful is going to happen).
Wakens at night in great fear and it takes some time before he
recognizes his surroundings
The modality is common to its other complaints; violent, basilar
headache forces him to sit up in bed and keep still. Holding the head upright
> dull pressure in the occiput.
There are many headaches. In the occiput, in the forehead, congestive
headaches, but most of them are associated with goitre, cardiac affections and
asthma; they are due, probably, to sluggish circulation in the brain.
Face distressed in croup; anxious; livid; pale and bloated; blue, pale
with sunken eyes; red with anxious expression; alternating red and pale; cold
sweat.
These symptoms are the natural effects of difficult breathing and are,
therefore, not essential in the selection of a remedy. As primary symptoms,
they would probably indicate Ars., but when
due to cardiac difficulties, unimportant.
Adapted to diseases of children and women; light hair, lax fibre, fair
complexion (Brom.).
Swelling and induration of glands; goitre (Brom.).
Throat: Enlargement of the tonsils. Difficult
swallowing.
Sore throat, < after eating sweet things.
Thyroid gland swollen, comes even with chin: with suffocative paroxysms
at night. Goitre.
Cough: dry, barking, croupy; rasping, ringing,
wheezing, whistling; everything is perfectly dry, no mucous rale.
Cough: sibilant, like a saw driven through a pine board; <
sweets/cold drinks/smoking/lying with head low/dry cold
winds/reading/singing/talking/swallowing; > eating/drinking warm things.
Croup: anxious, wheezing, < during inspiration (< during
expiration: Acon.); < before midnight (< before morning: Hep.).
Male organs: Spermatic cord swollen, painful; testicles
swollen, bruised, squeezed; after suppressed gonorrhoea or maltreated orchitis.
Spong. closely related to Acon., which also excites the heart, brings on
anxiety, fear, and restlessness, fear of death, predicts the hour of death, but
this is associated with a marked febrile excitement. Spong. has febrile
excitement in a minimum degree.
It is much deeper in its action than Aconite. Its cardiac diseases tend
to develop slowly, with actual tissue changes, enlargement of the heart, it
takes on a steady growth and the valves become changed, do not fit, hence,
there are blowing and whizzing sounds, regurgitation with the mental symptoms.
The two are similar in croup, but Spong. is deeper, slower in onset, taking
several
days for its development.
Respitory: Palpitation: violent with pain and gasping
respiration; awakened suddenly after midnight with suffocation and great
anxiety; valvular insufficiency; before and during menses.
DRY mucous membranes of air passages: throat/larynx/trachea/bronchi.
“dry as a horn.”
Spong. The whole respiratory apparatus is acted upon; cardiac dyspnoea
and the most severe forms of asthma.
Cough: Acon. from exposure to a dry cold wind takes
a cold today and, of course, comes down with croup to night in the first sleep.
Before midnight has a dry spasmodic cough; hoarse cough; Spongia has taken a
cold yesterday or the day before.
Every mental excitement < or increases the cough. First there is
roughness and dryness of the mucous membranes, sneezing. Both remedies have croup
before midnight with dry, hoarse, barking cough, sawing respiration and dry air
passages.
They are so similar that when Aconite only partially controls the
condition and it returns the next night, or lasts on beyond midnight, Spong.
becomes its natural follower.
Spong. comes in because it was probably the remedy in the beginning.
Cases < each succeeding night, hoarse barking and crowing before
midnight, though it also has a croup after midnight. A deep-acting remedy: its
complaints sometimes come on suddenly.
Hep. < at night/in the morning. And when Acon. has apparently
controlled, but the croup returns the next morning, Hep. comes in. Or if croup
comes on again the next evening with rattling
Hep. will also be suitable.
Dry, with no rattling is Spong.
If the child wants to be covered or says that it is chilly: Hep.
Child says the room is too warm and kicks the covers off: Calc-s.
Spong < warm room/heat.
Wants to be cool: Iod.
> from warm drinks: Ars., Nux-v., Lyc.
The whole respiratory apparatus is acted upon; cardiac dyspnoea and the
most severe forms of asthma.
Dryness of the air passages with whistling and wheezing, seldom
rattling, must sit up and bend forward; at times after great dyspnoea, white,
tough mucus forms in the air passages, difficult to expectorate; it comes up
and often has to be swallowed (Arn., Caust., Lach., Kali c., Kali s., Nux-m.,
Sep., Staph.)
Glands: The tendency to affect the glands is striking. All glands are
affected; they gradually enlarge and become increasingly hard. Glands that have
undergone inflammation and, are increased in size become hard, or they take on
hypertrophy.
Chest: Angina pectoris; contracting pain, heat,
faintness, suffocation, anxiety and sweat; < after midnight.
Hypertrophy of the heart (Kalmia, Sepia, Naja). Spongia has cured
endocarditis, cardiac croup and many other inflammatory diseases of the heart
resulting from rheuma.
Hypertrophy of the thyroid, goitre, when the heart is affected and the
eyes protruding.
Chest: Dyspnoea < lying down.
In cardiac and asthmatic troubles it resembles Lach., in the rousing up
from sleep in suffocation; after the sleep the dyspnoea is worse.
Sore throat < after eating sweet things.
Thyroid gland swollen even with the chin; at night, suffocating spells,
barking cough, with stinging in the throat and soreness in the abdomen.
Spong. dyspnoea and cough > warm food; may be > warm drinks.
Laryngeal troubles with great hoarseness, in individuals tending towards
phthisis, with tubercular heredity, cachectic aspect, weak lungs, but no
deposit of tubercle. All at once hoarseness sets in.
Tendency for the larynx to become involved in phthisical patients that
need Spong.. This patient takes an acute cold and it settles in the larynx with
hoarseness. Look out for that patient,
for there is a tendency for tubercles to deposit where there is
inflammation, and the infiltration instead of being fibrinous may become
tubercular. Tendency for the larynx to be first involved in phthisical
patients.
In Spong. do not look for the exudative, but the infiltrative form of
croup. Hoarseness with loss of voice, great dryness of the larynx from a cold;
coryza, sneezing, the whole chest rings, is as dry as a horn; voice hissing,
croupy, nose dry.
There is very little accumulation of mucus, but at a late date
ulceration begins and then there may be a copious expectoration of mucus. In
proportion to the extent of rattling, this remedy is decreasingly indicated.
Hep. has the coarse rattling with much mucus.
At times an adult takes cold and rawness of the larynx and trachea is
the result. On going to bed she is taken with a spasmodic constriction of the
larynx.
Dry, spasmodic cough, troublesome cough; cold things taken into the
stomach aggravate. (Verat.> cold water, but the cough is <) If the room
becomes too warm, there is a dry, tickling, teasing, croupy spasmodic cough.
Laryngismus stridulous is commonly found in women. Ign., Gels., and
Spong.. Ign. and Gels. will cure 8 out of 10 cases.
The larynx is sensitive to touch in croup, etc., like Phos.
The Phos. dyspnoea is often increased after sleeping, with suffocation.
Lach. has it in a marked degree; in phthisis when the patient is about to die,
there is sweat on going to sleep; dyspnoea on going to sleep and on waking. Lach.
palliates and must be repeated.
Cardiac affections accompanied with thick, green or yellow expectoration
like pus and dyspnoea on falling to sleep so that he must keep awake as long as
he can, fear of sleep in advanced chest troubles. Grind. will palliate such a
case and if the condition is only catarrhal and not tuberculous, it will cure.
Study especially the cardiac symptoms.
“The symptoms of circulation < from mental lassitude, from coughing,
from lying on the right side, before menses, after lying down, sitting bent
forward, from smoking, from going up stairs.
Awakens in fright and feels as if suffocating. Falling asleep early at
night, suffocation awakens.”
Ebullitions, distended veins; dropsy in cavities of the body. Especially
suits young persons of tubercular parents, who remain weak, are pallid and do
not thrive. Tubercular diathesis.
Itching but no eruption. Seems always ready for an eruption to appear.
Has only simplest herpetic eruptions. Itching all over and no visible eruption.
In acute endocarditis, the principal remedies are Spongia, Abrot.,
Sepia, and Kalmia. Naja in valvular diseases.
Neck: Cervical glands enlarged; inveterate cases of
enlarged testes; orchitis from a suppressed gonorrhea, a cold or other causes;
gradually increasing hardness.
Sleep: Sleeps into < or < after sleep (Lach.).
Awakens in fright and feels “As if suffocating”; “As if head to breathe
thru a sponge”.
Vorwort/Suchen Zeichen/Abkürzungen Impressum