Acid group of remedies in homoeopathy

Most of acids are colourless or light coloured
Corrosive in nature
Sour in taste
Mostly odorless but some having peculiar odour
Evaporates when heated
Combine easily with other elements to form compounds

The word acid comes from Latin , Acious- sour
An acid may be defined as a substance that can provide H+ ion, proton donor, or any substance that liberates hydrogen ion in a solution.
Most acids derive from mineral kingdom, few from vegetable eg: lactic acid

Uses

Used in manufacture of fertilizers, chemicals, explosives, bactericides
Waste water processing
Acids are dehydrating agents, so used in preparation of dry fruits

Classification of acids- mainly two types

Organic- weak or vegetable acids- slow, progressive action producing deep pathology
Inorganic- strong or mineral acids- rapid , acute action producing deep pathology
General characteristic features of acid group( farrington)

1) Acids produce weakness, debility & prostration

The mineral acids, as a class, all produce an irritability of fibre together with weakness and prostration. Whereas the vegetable acids produce weakness without irritability.

2) All the acids cause a peculiar debility.

This is not a simple functional weakness, such as might result from a rather exhausting diarrhoea, such as you find under CINCHONA, or such a functional weakness of the nerves as will be curable by ZINC, but it is a debility which arises from defective nutrition, particularly from blood disease.

Thus we find them called for in very low types of disease, disease in which blood poisoning is a prominent feature, in typhoid states and in scarlatina, particularly when of a low type.

In conditions of exhaustion from abuse of various organs of the body. Thus drunkards, who have long been indulging in liquors to excess, may be relieved by Sulphuric, Phosphoric and Arsenious acids.

3) The acids check haemorrhages- ACET AC, CITRIC AC, PHOS AC, ARS AC

4) Tendency to produce pseudomembranes. so some of them indicated in diphtheria- MURIATIC, PHOSPHORIC, SULPHURIC AND NITRIC ACIDS.

As these acids, particularly the vegetable acids, may cause croupous deposits, do not permit a child convalescing from croup to partake of acid fruits. When the child is susceptible, any one of these acids may tend to produce this disease again

5)Indicated in diabetes mellitus. The principal acids for this condition are PHOSPHORIC AND LACTIC ACIDS.

6) Many of the acids are useful in scurvy, particularly when it has arisen from a diet of salty food with deprivation of vegetables.

Constitution: Lean, thin, tubercular constitution with stooped shoulder and premature old look.

Thermal – Chilly- except fluoric acid & picric acid

Diathesis

Haemorrhagic
Mineral acids- active bleeding
Organic acids—passive bleeding

Miasm

Acids have all the miasms , but predominantly syphilitic
Inorganic acids- predominantly syphilitic
Organic acids- sycotic & tubercular

Sphere of action

I.mucous membranes–.inflammation; destructive ulceration.

II.glandular system.–congestion; inflamation.; fetid discharges., salivation

III.skin.– pustular ulceration; fungoid growths; perspiration.

IV blood. –broken-down, septic condition, anaemia, haemorrhage

V CEREBRO-SPINAL SYSTEM. Prostration, from Loss of Nutrition.

VI.DIGESTIVE ORGANS. Atony of the whole Apparatus.

VII BONES .Rachitis and Caries., syphilitic affections

1) They decrease the acid secretions in the body and increase the alkaline secretions of the body. For example; if a quantity of citric acid is taken into the stomach it will diminish the secretion of gastric juice. On other hand it will increase the secretion of saliva which is alkaline in nature.

2. Antidotal and complimentary action to certain drugs.
Example;
a) Vinegar retards the action of Belladonna, but lemonade aids the action of the remedy.
b) Antimonium crudum will not tolerate acids but you may use tamarind water.

3. Dyspepsia :
Vegetable acids are useful in dyspepsia.
Example; Allow the patient to drink lemonade before meals and we can find that the usual heart burn and sour rising after eating are diminished. Some persons are greatly relieved by drinking sour milk ( Lactic acid). Muriatic acid and Hydrocyanic acid favor digestion. Some persons have been cured of dyspepsia by eating peach kernels which contain these acids.

4. Antidote for intoxication.
Vinegar ( acetic acid) has been used as an antidote for intoxication.

5. Corrosive action:
Discharges are acrid and excoriating .
Example; Lactic acid: It will eat into every tissues of the body . It will dissolve enamel of teeth. Dr. Hering was in the habit of recommending that the teeth be washed occasionally with milk cream that had become sour by keeping 24 hours.

Common Mental Features

Basic themes of acid group

1) Exhaustion

The most common and well known characteristic of the Acids is exhaustion. Vithoulkas (1991 b, page 251) describes the mental exhaustion of Pic-ac, the emotional exhaustion of Ph-ac, and the physical exhaustion of Mur-ac.

Physiologically exhaustion is accompanied by an Acid imbalance.

2) Activeness, hurriedness

Prior to this exhaustion there will be the exact opposite, i.e. an overdose of activity. The Acidums want to do a lot. They exhaust themselves, they use their energy at a very high rate. They don’t necessarily have any complaints yet at this stage, they are merely overactive.

This gives us the next characteristic of the Acidums: hurriedness. This is well known in Sul-ac, one of the most hurried remedies, but the other Acidums have this trait as well. Hurriedness is a symptom that is often accompanied by tiredness or exhaustion, the primary symptom of the Acidums.

3) Lively, fresh, extrovert

The Acidums have a certain freshness about them, especially in the beginning,. They are extroverts and talk easily and openly. Allen writes about Ph-ac: ‘lively, vivacious mood’. Their sexual desire is high.

They have a tendency to be perfectionists, they have a great desire to have everything ‘just so’. This rather forced attitude often makes the opposite happen in their lives.

4) Aggression , fighting.

The overactivity goes together with a certain aggressiveness.

This aggressive side expresses itself physically in the rather biting, etching character of the complaints, as in aphthae, ulcers and fissures.

5)Desire for unification

Behind the aggression of the Acidums lies one very strong desire: that is the desire to become one with everything and everyone. This aspect comes out very clearly in pure hydrogen.

6) Isolation , apathy

But hydrogen also has the opposite feeling: a deep feeling of isolation, of being separated from your fellow beings and loved ones. Hydrogen has both a feeling of total unification and a sensation of total isolation. The Acidums have a similar theme, each one expressing it in their specific area. Ph-ac, for instance, has the desire for total communication, the way in which twins can often do this.

Irritability
Over sensitiveness
Syphilitic qualities like : Hateful Vindictive
Irritable Destructive qualities / activities
“Self” egoism and attention towards pleasure seeking inputs
Poor memory, lack of concentration and destruction of all thinking power.
Depression, listless, dejection.
Apathetic, indifferent

General physical features

Location: right sided.
Complaints come and go suddenly. eg:fluoric ac (opp tosuph ac)
Desires: fat, spicy, alcohol, fruit (2), sour (2), refreshing things. Aversion: bread., meat .
Physical: amel. lying down (2), agg. exertion, climbing stairs. agg. touch.
Pains are burning and biting.
Accidents and sprains.
Discharges are watery, acrid, sour and stained with blood. Discharges are acrid and excoriating .
Useful in typhoid fevers
GI symptoms- diarrhea, dyspepsia, increased salivation
Skin: ulcers, fistula. Naevi.
Useful for treatment of drunkards: Example: Sulphuric acid

Phosphoricum acidum – Glacial phosphoric acid. HPO3.

Best suited to persons of originally strong constitutions, who have become debilitated by loss of vital fluids, sexual excesses (Cinch.); violent acute diseases; chagrin, or a long succession of moral emotions, as grief, care, disappointed affection.
Ailments : from care, chagrin, grief, sorrow, homesickness (Ign.); sleepy, disposed to weep; night-sweats towards morning.
Pale sickly complexion, eyes sunken and surrounded by blue margins. (Puls.).
Is listless, apathetic; indifferent to the affairs of life; prostrated and stupefied with grief, to those things that used to be of most interest, especially if there be debility and emaciation.
Delirium : muttering, unintelligible; lies in a stupor, or a stupid sleep, unconscious of all that is going on around him; when aroused is fully conscious, answers slowly and correctly and relapses into stupor.

In children and young people who grow too rapidly (Cal., Cal. p.); pains in back and limbs as if beaten.

Headache of school girls from eye-strain or overuse of eyes (Cal. p., Nat. m.); of students who are growing too fast.

Interstitial inflammation of bones, scrofulous, sycotic, syphilitic, mercurial; – Boring, drawing, digging pains in nerves of extremities; necrosis in stump after amputations (Cepa).

Diarrhoea : painless; not debilitating; white or yellow watery; from acids, involuntary; with the flatus (Aloe, Nat. m.); choking, from fear.

Urine : looks like milk mixed with jelly-like, bloody pieces; decomposes rapidly; profuse urination at night of clear, watery urine, which forms a white cloud at once (phosphates in excess, nerve waste).

Onanism; when patient is greatly distressed by the culpability of the act (compare Dios., Staph.).

Emissions : frequent, profuse, debilitating; after coitus; most desire, after; several in one night; abashed, sad, despair of cure (with irresistible tendency to masturbate, Ust.).

Chest : weak from talking or coughing (Stan.); in phthisis; nervous from loss of vital fluids, too rapid growth, depressing mental emotions.

Cerebral typhoid or typhus; complete apathy and stupor; takes no notice, “lies like a log, ” utterly regardless of surrounding; intestinal haemorrhage, blood dark

Aggravation. From mental affections; loss of vital fluids; especially seminal; self abuse; sexual excesses; talking causes weakness in chest (Stan.).

Sulphuricum acidum- Sulphuric acid. H2SO4.

Adapted to the light-haired; old people, especially women; – flushes of heat in climacteric years..
Feels in a great hurry; everything must be done quickly (Arg. n.).
Pain of gradual and slow-increasing intensity which ceases suddenly when at its height, often repeated (Puls.).
The pain is pressure as of a blunt instrument. Tendency to gangrene following mechanical injuries, especially of old people.

Sensation as if the brain was loose in forehead and falling from side to side (Bell., Bry., Rhus, Spig.).

Aphthae; of mouth, gums, or entire buccal cavity; gums bleed readily; ulcers painful; offensive breath (Bor.).
Chronic heartburn, sour eructations, sets teeth on edge (Rob.).
Water drunk causes coldness of the stomach unless mixed with alcoholic liquor.
Sensation as if trembling all over, without real trembling; internal trembling of drunkards.
Bad effects from mechanical injuries, with bruises, chafing and livid skin; prostration (Acet. ac.).
Ecchymosis; cicatrices turn blood-red or blue, are painful (turn green, Led.).
Petchia : purpura haemorrhagica; blue spots; livid, red, itching blotches.
Haemorrhage of black blood from all the outlets of the body (Crot., Mur. ac., Nit. ac., Ter.).
Relations. Complementary : Puls.
Ailments, from brandy drinking.
Sulphuric acid, one part, with three parts of alcohol, 10 to 15 drops, three times daily for three or four weeks, has been successfully used to subdue the craving for liquor.-HERING.

Muriaticum acidum – Hydrochloric acid. Hcl.

Adapted to persons with black hair, dark eyes, dark complexion.
Irritable, peevish, disposed to anger and chagrin (Nux); restlessness and vertigo.
Great debility: as soon as he sits down his eyes close; lower jaw hangs down; slides down in bed.
Mouth and anus are chiefly affected; the tongue and sphincter ani are paralyzed.
Malignant affections of mouth; studded with ulcers, deep, perforating; having a black or dark base; offensive, foul breath; intense prostration; diphtheria, scarlatina, cancer.
Cannot bear the thought or sight of meat (nit. ac.).
Haemorrhoids: swollen, blue, sensitive and painful to touch; appear suddenly in – Diarrhoea: stool involuntary while urinating; on passing wind (Aloe); cannot urinate without having the bowels move at the same time.
Urine passes slowly; bladder weak, must wait a long time; has to press so that anus protrudes.
Cannot bear least touch, not even of sheet on genitals (Murex).
Typhoid or typhus; deep stupid sleep; unconscious while awake; loud moaning or muttering; tongue coated at edges; shrunken, dry, leather-like, paralyzed; involuntary foetid stools while passing urine; sliding down in bed; pulse intermits every third beat.
Palpitation of heart is felt in the face.
Freckles: eczema solaris.
Relations. Follow well: after, Bry., Mer., Rhus.
Cures the muscular weakness following excessive use of opium and tobacco.

FLOURIC ACID

Mainly a male remedy.
A materialist – a man of the world.
Enjoy life to its full extent – not bothered about spiritual development, awareness, discipline, etc.
Crude energy – makes itself known early in life by a driving force for sexual intercourse. Often begins at age 13-14 and has to have sex every day.
Not easy to discern. May come with falling of hair, or sleeplessness, or anxiety beyond their control.
Destructiveness is the keynote of this acid. Fl-ac. produces slow deeply destructive effects, decay of long Bones, ulcerations, bedsores, varicose veins. Acts especially upon lower tissues and indicated in deep, destructive processes, bedsores, ulcerations, varicose veins and ulcers.
Especially adapted to chronic diseases with syphilitic and mercurial history. Glabella region bloated.
Patient is compelled to move about energetically. Complaints of old age or the prematurely aged with weak, distended blood vessels. Hob-nailed liver of the alcoholics.
Early decay of Teeth. Old cases of nightly fevers, coming on periodically. Goiter. Always feels too hot, wants to bathe in cold water. Tissues are puffy indurated and fistulous. Discharges are thin, foul, acrid or salty, causing itching. Edema. Felon. Nevi.
Secondary syphilis. Numbness of the part not lain on in brain diseases, spinal disorders. Calcareous degeneration. Nevus, flat. Suffering, if the call for evacuation is not immediately attended to. Dropsy with numbness or without.

Nitricum acidum – Nitric acid. HNO3.

Especially suited to thin persons of rigid fibre, dark complexions, black hair and eyes the brunette rather than the blonde- nervous temperament.
Pains: sticking, pricking as from splinters; suddenly appearing and disappearing; on change of temperature or weather; during sleep: gnawing here and there as from ulcers forming.
Sensation : of a band around head, around the bones (Carb. ac., Sulph); of a splinter in affected parts, ulcers, piles, throat, ingrowing toe nail < on slightest contact.
Ailments : which depend on some virulent poison; from mercury, syphilis, scrofula; in broken-down cachectic constitutions.
After continued loss of sleep, long-lasting anxiety, over- exertion of mind and body from nursing the sick (Coc.); anguish from the loss of his dearest friend; indifference; tired of life; sadness before menses.

Great anxiety about his disease; constantly thinking about his past troubles; morbid fear of cholera (Ars.); depressed and anxious in the evening.
Irritable, headstrong; hateful and vindictive; inveterate, ill-willed, unmoved by apologies.
Hardness of hearing >> by riding in carriage or train (Graph.).
Very sensitive to rattle of wagons over paved streets; headache from pressure of hat (Cal. p., Carbo, Nat.).
Ozaena : green casts from the nose every morning.
Fissures in rectum; tearing, spasmodic pains during stools; lancinating, even after soft stools (Alumen, Nat., Rat.).
Urine : scanty, dark-brown, strong-smelling, “like horse’s urine”; cold when it passes; turbid, looks like remains of a cider barrel.
Ulcers : easily bleeding; in corners of mouth (Nat.); splinter-like pains, especially on contact (Hep.); zig-zag, irregular edges; base looks like raw flesh; exuberant granulations; after mercury or syphilis or both, engrafted on a scrofulous base.
Discharges : thin, offensive, acrid; of a brown or dirty yellowish green color; rarely laudable pus.
Haemorrhage : from bowels in typhoid or typhus (Crot., Mur. ac.); after miscarriage or post-partum; from overexertion of body; bright, profuse, or dark.
Cracking : in ears, on masticating; of the joints on motion (Coc., Graph.).
Warts, condylomata : sycotic or syphilitic; large, jagged, pedunculated; bleeding readily on washing; moist, oozing; sticking pain (Staph., Thuja).
Affects especially the mucous outlets of the body where skin and mucous membrane join; mouth, nose, rectum, anus, urethra, vagina (Mur. ac.).
Inimical : to, Lachesis.
Often difficult to distinguish from Mer.; but is adapted to black-haired people, while Mer. is more useful in light-haired persons.

Relieves ailments resulting from abuse of mercury, especially if there be erethism; bad effects of repeated does of Digitalis.

Aggravation. Evening and at night; aftermidnight; contact; change of temperature or weather; during sweat; on walking; while walking.

Amelioration. While riding in a carriage (reverse of Coc.).

Lacticum acidum- (Lactic acid)

Morning sickness, diabetes, and rheumatism offer a field for this remedy.
Pain in breasts, with enlargement of axillary glands, and pain extends into hand.
Locally, in the tuberculous ulceration of vocal cords.
Stomach
Tongue dry, parched.
Thirst; voracious hunger.
Canker, copious salivation and water-brash. Nausea; morning sickness, especially in pale anaemic women.
Hot, acrid eructation.
Nausea; better, eating.
Burning, hot gas from stomach to throat, causing profuse secretion of tenacious mucus, worse smoking.

Benzoicum acidum

A gouty, rheumatic diathesis engrafted on a gonorrhoeal or syphilitic patient.
Gouty concretions; arthritis vaga; affects all the joints, especially the knee, cracking on motion; nodosities (Berb., Lith. c., Lys.).
Urine dark brown, and the urinous odor highly intensified.
Enuresis nocturna of delicate children; dribbling urine of old men with enlarged prostate; strong characteristic odor; excesses of uric acid.
Catarrh of bladder after suppressed gonorrhoea.
Diarrhoea of children; white, very offensive, exhausting liquid stools running “right through the diaper” (Pod.); urine offensive and of a deep red color.
Cough; with expectoration of green mucus (Natr. s.); extreme weariness, lassitude.
Pains tearing, stitching, in large joints of big toe; redness and swelling of joints; gout < at night..
Incompatible : wine, which aggravates urinary, gouty and rheumatic affections.

Oxalicum acidum- (Sorrel acid)

Although certain oxalates are constant constituents of vegetable food and of the human body, the acid itself is a violent poison when taken internally, producing gastro-enteritis, motor paralysis, collapse, stupor and death.
Influences the spinal cord, and produces motor paralysis.
Pains very violent, in spots (Kali bich.) worse, motion, and thinking of them. Periodical remissions.
Spasmodic symptoms of throat and chest.
Tuberculosis.

Picricum acidum – Picric acid

Is often restorative of a wasted and worn-out system; a fair picture of “nervous prostration” (Kali p.).
Progressive, pernicious, anaemia; neurasthenia.
Headache : of students, teachers and overworked business men; from grief or depressing emotions; in occipital-cervical region (Nat. m., Sil.); < or brought on by slightest motion or mental exertion.
Priapism, with spinal disease; erections violent, long-lasting; profuse seminal emissions; satyriasis (Canth., Phos.).
Small boils in any part of body, but not especially in external auditory canal.
Weariness, progressing from a slight feeling of fatigue on motion to complete paralysis.
Relations. Compare :Arg.n., Gels., Kali p., Phos. ac., Phos., Petr., Sil.
Amelioration. From cold air and cold water.
Aggravation. Least mental exertion; motion; study; wet weather.