Antimonium Tartaricum

Introduction

Common name:

Tartar Emetic

Synonyms:

 Tartar emetic, Tartrate of antimony and potassium

Family / Group / Class / Order:

Mineral Kingdom 

Habit and habitat / Description:

 It is available in chemist shops in the market.

Formula / Symbols:

K(Sb) C4H4O6 + ½ H2O[1]

Name of prover:

Hartlaub and Trinks

Introduction and history:

 It is an excellent remedy. As every homeopath will testify, its range of action is very broad. It is a chemical salt of antimony and potassium. It is a colourless, transparent crystal or a white, granular, odourless powder having a sweet metallic taste. The crystals effloresce upon exposure to air; it is soluble in twelve parts of water and three parts of boiling water. It is insoluble in alcohol. The aqueous solution is slightly acidic.

Parts used:

 It is prepared by dissolving a mixture of ten parts of potassium bitartrate with eight parts of antimony oxide, in 75 parts of boiling water, filtering while hot and allowing it to crystallize. It was also introduced by Glauber and proved by Dr Hartlaub and Trinks.Triturations are made from the potassium tartrate of antimony.

Preparation:

Described above.

Constitution

Physical make up

Sickly,sunken face covered with cold sweat.[2]

Temperament

Irritable 

Diathesis

Scrofulous

Relation with heat & cold

Neither hot nor chilly

Miasm

Psora , sycosis

Clinical conditions[3]

Alcoholism. Aphthæ. Asphyxia neonatorium. Asthma. Bilious affections. Bronchitis. Catarrh. Chicken-pox. Cholera. Cholera morbus. Coccygodynia. Cough. Group. Delirium-Tremens. Dyspepsia. Ecthyma. Eyes, inflamed. Impetigo. Intermittent fever. Laryngitis. Lumbago. Lungs, affections of. Myalgia. Paralysis agitans. Plica-polonica. Pneumonia. Psoriasis. Rheumatism. Ringworm. Screaming. Small-pox. Stiff-neck. Sycosis. Synovitis. Taste, altered. Thirst. Tongue, coated. Tremors. Varioloid. Vomiting. Whooping-cough.

Sites of action / Pharmacodynamics

Mucous membranes, respiratory tract, brain, nerves, heart, skin, circulatory system, salivary glands, etc.

Causation (Causes / Ailments from)

Vaccination, living in damp houses, anger, debauchery,smallpox, debility, after eating, vexation.

Physiological action

1.Applied to the skin, it produces a papular eruption, which becomes vesicular,
then pustular with central umbilication.
2. Small doses taken internally cause nausea, increase saliva, gastric and
intestinal juices and mucous in the bronchi.
3. Large doses produce vomiting, diarrhoea, cramps in the epigastrium;
depresses heart action, with consequent falling of blood pressure, lowers
body temperature; greatly increases bronchial mucous; causes fainting,
coldness and paralysis of both motor and sensory centers and diminishes
reflex excitability.

Patho-physiological changes / Pathogenesis

1. It is an irritant and depressant.
2. It acts directly on the mucous membrane of the stomach. Secondly, when
absorbed, it acts upon the medulla oblongata and through the vagus the
depressant action continues; nausea and vomiting are the manifestations of
its influence.
3. It acts on the pneumogastric nerve, causes depression of respiration producing
pneumonia, bronchitis, asthma, etc. It makes the local catarrh more serious
and may induce a degree of asphyxia.
4. Due to the action on the pneumogastric nerve, it causes depression of
circulation.
5. It also acts on the skin producing pustular eruptions like smallpox; also acts
on all tissues and promotes rapid waste.

Characteristic Mental Symptoms (psychology) of Antimonium Tartaricum

1. Apprehension and restlessness during the evening.
2. Vertigo on closing the eyes, alternates with drowsiness, dullness and
confusion.
3. Confusion of head with a feeling as if he should sleep.
4. Vertigo when walking; flickering before the eyes when lifting the head, so
she must lie down.
5. Fear of being alone, muttering delirium and stupor with great despondency.
6. Child will not be touched without whining, clings to those around, wants to
be carried.
7. Headache as if from a band compressing.
8. Frightened at every trifle, bad humour.

Guiding Symptoms

Generalities

Head

Band like feeling in the forehead.

Head hot and sweaty.Trembling of head, while coughing.

Vertigo; with dullness and confusion; alternating with drowsiness.

As of a lump in forehead.

Vertigo from lifting head from pillow.

Fits. as of vertigo with sparking before the eyes.

Head amel. in open air, washing with cold water and motion.

Head bend back

Eye

Dim, swimming eyes.

Collection of mucus in margins of lids (in Pneumonia).

One eye closed.

Pustular eruptions on the conjunctiva.

Flickering; sparks before the eyes.

Eyes staring

Nose

Pointed.

Face

Sickly, sunken.

Pale, bluish or twitching, with cough.

Covered with cold sweat.

Incessant quivering of chin and lower jaw.

Mouth

Flow of saliva; during pregnancy.

Tongue; thick, white pasty; very red or red in streaks; dry in the middle; papillae show through white coat.

Mouth remains open after yawning.

Taste; bitter, flat.

Tongue flaccid, dry.

Imprints of teeth on border of the tongue.

Throat

Much mucus in throat with short breathing.

Swallowing painful or impossible.

Stomach

Craves apples, fruits and acids which disagree.

Nausea; comes in waves; with weakness and cold sweat; Loathing, anxiety or fear, followed by headache, with yawning and lachrymation and vomiting.

Vomiting forcible, then exhaustion and sleep.

Violent retching.

Sinking at stomach.

Vomits with great effort.

Thirst for cold water little and often.

Eructations like bad eggs.

Vomiting amel. lying on right side.

Aversion to milk, to all kind of nourishment.

Abdomen

Feels as if full of stones.

Violent colic with drowsiness.

Diarrhoea, of eruptive diseases.

Stools – mucus, of grass green.

Pain in the groins and cold creeps before menses.

Palpitation during stools.

Stool

Mucus , grass green colored.

Urinary Organ

Burning in urethra during and after urination.

Last drop bloody, with pain in the bladder.

Sexual Organ

Pain in testicles after checked gonorrhoea.

Orchitis.

Warts on glans penis.

Leucorrhoea, of watery blood agg. sitting.

Puerperal convulsions amel. after the child is born.

Respiratory System

Unequal breathing; abdominal breathing; Suffocative Shortness of Breath; before cough or alternating with cough.

A leaflet seems to close the trachea.

Coarse Losse, Rattling Cough.

Chest Seems Full Yet Less and Less Is Raised.

Cough followed by vomiting or sleep agg. anger.

Must sit up to breathe or cough.

Coughs and yawns alternately.

Expectoration thick.

Asphyxia Neonatorum, child breathless and pale when born.

Paralysis of lungs, with oedema.

Cough and Dyspnea amel. lying on right side, by eructations, agg. warm drinks.

Capillary bronchitis; pleuro-pneumonia.

Emphysema.

Velvety felling in chest.

Child bends backwards, with cough.

Heart & Pulse

Great precordial anxiety, with vomiting of mucus and bile.

Palpitation with uncomfortable hot feeling.

Paralytic depression of heart.

Weak quick pulse.

Sensation of coldness in blood vessels.

Palpitation with loose stools.

Neck & Back

Violent pain in sacro-lumbar region, slightest effort to move may cause retching and cold, clammy sweat agg. lifting.

Sensation as of a heavy load was hanging on end of coccyx, dragging downwards all time.

Vertebrae seem to rub against each other.

Extremities

Trembling of the hands.

Fingertips icy cold or dead, numb, dry and hard.

Restless arm.

Feet go to sleep on sitting.

Dropsy of the legs; of knee joint (left).

Tension in hamstring when walking.

Synovitis.

Joints swollen.

Jerking up of limbs during sleep, with loose stools.

Skin

Pustular eruption leaving a bluish red mark.

Thick eruptions like pocks.

Sycosis barbae.

Smallpox.

Impetigo.

Delayed or receding eruptions.

Blue eruptions.

Sleep

Great Drowsiness; with all complaints, or from warmth. Yawning with many complaints.

Shocks on dropping to sleep.

Cries during sleep with fixed eyes and trembling.

Lies on back with left hands passed under hand.

Fever

Copious Cold Clammy Sweat.

Coldness, trembling and chilliness.

Burning sensation.

Heat coming from heart.

Cold creeping before menses.

Important characteristic features

Keynotes / Redline:

1. Extraordinary craving for apple.

2. Great rattling of mucus but very little is expectorated.

3. Coarse rattling, like death rattle.

4. Vomiting in any position except lying on the right side.

Guiding

Adapted to persons of hydrogenoid constitution of Grauvogl, torpid, phlegmatic persons. It is suited to old people and children to gouty subjects and drunkards with respiratory affection.

-Ill-effects of vaccination when remedies fail and Silicea is not indicated.

-All complaints are attended with irresistible to desire to sleep.

-Entire absence of thirst.

-Respiratory system-Ant-t affects the mucous membrane especially of bronchi and lungs.

-Causing great accumulation of mucous with coarse rattling and bubbling rales in the chest- coarse, like the death rattle; thereby respiration is impeded and heart’s action becomes laboured, defective oxygenation in the circulation of blood occurs.

-All these conditions cause cyanosis, depression of vital power.

-Great rattling of mucus when very little is expectorated.

-Chest seems full, yet less and less in raised.

-Bronchial tubes overloaded with mucus.

-Rapid, short, difficult breathing, abdominal breathing, seems as if he would suffocate, must sit up to breathe or cough.

–Cough followed by vomiting or sleep.

-Oedema and impending paralysis of lungs.

-Coughing and gasping consecutively.

–Cough excited by eating, with pain chest and larynx < 3 a.m.

-Dyspnoea relieved by eructation, by lying on right side.

-Asphyxia neonatrum, child breathless and pale when born.

-Nursing infants let go the nipple and cry out as if out of breath.

-Child coughs when angry.

-Child bends backward with cough.

-Expectoration thick and white.

-Thirstlessness with all these bronchial troubles with copious discharge of mucus and great rattling in the chest.

PQRS

Great weakness/prostration.
Nausea and vomiting with respiratory complaints.
Desire to be carried, yet irritability.
Cyanosis (bluish discoloration).
Worse from warmth, better from cool air.

Confirmatory

1. All complaints are attended with irresistible desire to sleep.

2. Nausea, vomiting, coldness, drowsiness, prostration, sweat, runs through the whole of this remedy.

3. Great accumulation of mucus, very little expectoration.

4. Extraordinary craving of apple.

5. Tongue thick, white, pasty, with reddened papillae and red edges and red in streaks.

6. Nausea and vomiting in any position except lying on right side.

7. Complete absence of thirst with bronchial troubles.

8. Violent pain in sacro-lumbar region < lifting, slight effort to move, may cause retching and cold clammy sweat.

9. Pustular eruptions like small pox.

Nucleus symptoms

-Through the pneumogastric nerve, it depress the respiration and circulation, causing great accumulation of mucus, great rattling of mucus. Death rattle, but very little is expectorated.

-Nausea, vomiting, coldness, drowsiness, prostration, sweat runs through the whole of this remedy.

Therapeutic Value of Antimonium Tartaricum

Alcoholism, Asphyxia neonatorum, Asthma, Bronchitis,Catarrh, Chickenpox, Cholera, Convulsions, Drowsiness, Fever, Impetigo,Lung affections, Pneumonia, Pustular eruptions, Rheumatism, Skin diseases,Smallpox, Vomiting,Whooping cough, etc.

Modality

Aggravation 

Warm; room, wraps weather.

Anger.

Lying.

Morning.

Overheating.

Cold; dampness.

Amelioration 

Expectoration.

Sitting erect.

Motion.

Vomiting.

Eructation.

Lying on right side.

Remedy Relationship 

Complementary:

Ip.

Follows well:

Camph, Carb-v, Sil, Sulph, Bar-c.

Antidotes:

Bry, Camph, Caust, Sep, Bar-c.

Antidoted by:

Chin, Merc, Op, Puls, Rhus-t, Sep

• Dose of Antimonium Tartaricum 

• The lowest potencies sometimes aggravate. 

• Potency

•  3x, 6x, 12x, 200, 1000.
• Duration of Action
• 20-30 days[4]

Terminologies 

Core Homeopathic Terminology:

Materia Medica:

This refers to the body of knowledge describing the properties and symptom pictures of homeopathic remedies. It details the symptoms a substance can produce in a healthy person (proving) and, therefore, cure in a sick person.

Repertory:

A repertory is an index of homeopathic symptoms, cross-referenced with remedies that have been known to address those symptoms. It’s a tool used to find the most appropriate remedy based on a patient’s individual symptom presentation.

Potency:

This refers to the dilution and succussion (vigorous shaking) of a homeopathic remedy. Homeopathic remedies are prepared through serial dilutions, with each dilution followed by succussion. Potencies are typically expressed in "C" (centesimal) or "X" (decimal) scales (e.g., 30C, 6X).

Proving:

A proving is the process by which homeopathic remedies are tested on healthy individuals to determine the symptoms they produce. These symptoms are then recorded in the materia medica.

Symptoms:

In homeopathy, symptoms are not just signs of disease, but also individual characteristics of a patient’s experience of illness. This includes mental, emotional, and physical symptoms.

Totality of Symptoms:

This refers to the complete picture of a patient’s symptoms, including their unique characteristics and modalities. Homeopaths aim to match the totality of symptoms with the symptom picture of the most similar remedy.

Modalities:

These are factors that aggravate or ameliorate symptoms (e.g., worse from heat, better from cold, worse at night).

Expectoration:

The act of coughing up and spitting out mucus or phlegm from the lungs and airways. Antimonium Tartaricum is often associated with copious, rattling mucus, but difficult expectoration.

Rattling Mucus:

This term describes the coarse, wet sound of mucus moving in the chest, often heard during breathing.
Respiratory Conditions:
Antimonium Tartaricum is highly associated with respiratory ailments, such as bronchitis, pneumonia, and asthma.

Prostration:

This term refers to a state of extreme physical weakness or exhaustion, a symptom often related to the remedy.

References 

[1] Gems materia medica by Dr.J.D.Patil

[2] Materia Medica by Dr.S.R.Phatak

[3] Dictionary of practical Materia medica by Dr.J.H.Clarke 

[4] Zomeo

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