Calcarea carb + silicea = calcarea silicata?

[Dr Muhammed Rafeeque]

Hi friends,

You might have seen many homeopaths giving a drug by blending the symptoms of its chemical components. For example: A person comes with a few symptoms of calcarea carb and silicea. Here, calcarea silicata is given. I would like to know your views.

[Dr Ravindra Saraswat]

CALCAREA SILICATA

(calc-sil)

The silicate of lime is a very deep-acting remedy. The symptoms come on during all parts of the day and night—MORNING, forenoon, afternoon, EVENING, NIGHT, AFTER MIDNIGHT. It acts profoundly upon the skin, mucous membranes, bones and glands. Abscesses, catarrhal discharges, ulcers, are marked with THICK, GREENISH-YELLOW PUS. Thick, greenish-yellow expectoration. Aversion to the open air. Extreme sensitiveness to drafts. One prover felt better in open air; very sensitive to wine and alcoholic stimulants. Marked paleness as in anaemia. Weakness and out of breath ascending stairs, like CALCAREA. Aversion to bathing and worse from bathing; especially cold bathing makes worse, in a prover who had always enjoyed cold bathing. Complaints worse after breakfast. It has cured epithelioma and lupus. From what is known of both calcarea and silica it ought to be a remedy in caries where the symptoms agree. Change of weather, from warm to cold, makes all symptoms worse. Many symptoms are worse after coition. Worse from cold in general, cold air, becoming cold and after becoming cold; worse in cold, wet Weather. Takes cold in cold weather; seems to be constantly taking cold; many internal congestions. Contraction of orifices, a convulsive tendency. It greatly mitigates the constitutional condition in patients suffering from epilepsy, making the fits lighter and farther apart. The veins are greatly distended and a sensation of fullness in many parts. The symptoms are worse during and AFTER EATING. Emaciation is marked and especially in children who have inherited phthisis. Weakness, night sweats and seminal emission. The least exertion prostrates and increases many symptoms. Faintness creeps over her. The muscles become flabby. He is more comfortable on low diet or when fasting; cold food, cold milk and cold drinks make many complaints worse. The mucous membranes bleed easily. Hemorrhage from throat, nose, larynx and chest. He is cold all the time; marked lack of vital heat. One chilly prover became warm after the proving, curative action. Great aggravation from being overheated. The body feels heavy and the organs drag down. Inflammation in external and internal parts; in BONES and GLANDS. Extremely sensitive to a jar in all internal parts. Lassitude day and night, but worse evening and night; must lie down all the time.

 

The muscles, tendons and joints are weak and easily strained. The weakness is much like arsenicum and china, or as though from loss of fluids. He is most comfortable when lying in bed on the back; lying helps most symptoms; after lying a while he seems very well, but as soon as he walks about all the lassitude returns and he must lie down. Many symptoms come at the menstrual period—before, during and after. All symptoms are worse from motion. Mucous secretions increased and greenish-yellow. Numbness of single parts, of parts lain on and of painful parts. The weakness suggests it in complaints following onanism. The blood seems to rush from body to head with great flushes of heat.

 

The pains are boring, burning, CUTTING, jerking, pressing, bruised, STITCHING, TEARING. Burning in internal parts. The function of organs and glands much impaired and slow. Slow digestion, slow action of bowels and liver. Periodicity is marked in many symptoms. When perspiring a slight draft or cold air will suppress the sweat and he becomes lame and the symptoms in general are worse. Pulsation all over the body—internal and external.

 

Sensitive all over, sensitive to pain; sore internally. The bones are sore to touch. Its symptoms are like those that have come on from sexual excesses. The weakness and many other symptoms are worse standing. Stiffness in body, back and limbs when cold, after exertion and after sweating. It has swelling from dropsy and from inflammation; swelling of affected parts, of GLANDS with hardness. Touch aggravates many parts and he dreads being touched. Trembling all over and in limbs, much twitching of muscles. It is most useful in restraining malignant ulceration in the mammary gland. Symptoms worse from uncovering. Walking fast and walking in cold air makes him worse. Great weakness, especially in the morning on waking, after least exertion, from mental exertion, walking in open air. Great nervous weakness. HE IS ALWAYS SO WEARY. Wet weather brings out all his sufferings. It seems that he can hardly get through the winter, so much are his symptoms increased, and he is correspondingly improved in the summer.

 

 

[Debby Bruck]

Very good question, Dr Rafeeque. I believe the evolution of synthesis prescribing came about when two remedies produced symptoms found in one body. I will have to think more about your question. This is great question and we have many cell salts composed of mineral compositions. Such at calc-phos and calc-sulph, where one type of calcarea carb is either hot or cold, more on the heavy or thin side, more introvert or extrovert and many other  modalities which can help differentiate the most appropriate remedy. Perhaps, when one remedy does not fit precisely, and both may be indicated. 

[Dr Ravindra Saraswat]

Animals mostly use Calcium to make their frame, whilst plants
mainly use Silica to make their frame. The most primitive plants
were mostly composed of Silica.
For Silica, things are black or white. It is like a computer.
In some ways, Calcarea silicata has some similarities with Spongia.
This is because Spongia contains a lot of Silica.
(Lapis A/bus is a mixture of Calcium, Fluorum and Silica.)
One of the most important
characteristics of Calcarea silicata is that if you combine the
extreme weakness of Calcium with the extreme weakness of Silica, you have an extremely
extreme weakness of Calcarea silicata\ One of the main things differentiating Calcium and
Silica, is that usually in Calcium you have this basic lack of support -> someone finds out
different strategies to seek this support. In the case of Silica, they are so rooted in the
feeling of being support-less that they think that the only possibility is to support
themselves. Usually, in most of the cases of Calcium, you find somebody who is seeking
for a person who is much stronger than them. In Silica, normally they seek out somebody
who is much weaker than them, so that they can play the role of the strong one.
One of the most common, basic strategies for Silica to cope with the world is to say, "I am
weak. The only things that I can do are so little, and so poor, that I have to cope with this
world by myself. I cannot trust in the support of anybody else. What I have to do is to limit
my field of existence to the very few things I can do in the best possible way and to cut off
whatever I cannot cope with".
Silica is not able to find any support. The feeling is that they have not received what they
needed from the family. Calcarea silicata has this clear, deep feeling that nothing can be done
to support them. So, they project out of this world their ideal istic, beautiful support.
Usually you find that they live with somebody who is very strong, and they have a kind of
yielding attitude - like they are a complete victim - but as soon as the strong person dies,
they become the ideal spouse. They consider at that point that the person was their only
support. Death is one of the main problems for them to face. (Calcarea carbonica deletes
the idea of painful concepts.) Calcarea silicata just sees that it is not true. "It's true that my
husband is not here physically anymore but my house is full of pictures and he is just in a
different dimension. He is now in such a powerful condition, that he can protect me
constantly. He is a beautiful angel and can now do what he never did before." Very often,
this may drive them a little bit crazy. It's a kind of extreme numbness of the problem.

[Hans Weitbrecht]

Dear Dr. Rafeeque

Historically Calc-Sil is interesting, and you are right -- there is a funny coincidence how symptoms from Calc-c and Silica are found in its proving.

did you ever ask yourself, IS THERE SOMETHING WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THIS PROVING? (obviously not -- you would have told us otherwise for sure.)

A few years ago I was curious and did a bit of research:

Kent introduced this remedy, and others.

He published them in his MM.

In 1912 at the AHA's meeting he was asked to name his co-provers, which he declined to do, Instead he withdrew the Calc-sil and other provings from the next edition of the MM.

At the time there were allegations, that Kent never proved those remedies, but instead mixed the more characteristic symptoms of Calc- and Silica and published them as a proving.

(we call them DESC- TOP- PROVINGS).

The actual proving of a remedy can be quite different from the combination of their ingredients proven seperately This can be seen when comparing Scholtens calc-sulph with Hep-s (chemically the same).

Likewise the active incredience of NUx and Ign is Strychnin -- Yet they are two entirely different remedies (from the proving point of view)

So -- keep a critical eye on Kent and others, --- there is a lot of unreliable stuff out there.

[Debby Bruck]

Hans. I think everyone knows that Nux vomica, Ignatia and Strychnine are three different remedies with their own symptoms and peculiarities. 

[Hans Weitbrecht]

Hi Debby

GOOD, that's one step forward, did you know about Calc- sulph and Hep?  Or did you know about the Calc-Sil proving?

Just not to be repetitive ---

Cheers, Hans

[Debby Bruck]

Hans. I knew that Hepar Sulph was Hepar-Sulph-Calcarea.

Hepar-sulphuris (Calcium Sulphide) Hepar sulphuris calcareum. The Calcarea sulpurata Hahnemanni. An impure Sulphide of Calcium prepared by burning in a crucible the white interior of oyster shells with pure flowers of sulphur. Trituration. 

Calcarea Sulphurica (Gypsum, Sulphate of Lime) Calc-sulphurica. Plaster of Paris. Sulphate of Calcium. Gypsum. Closely related to Hepar sulphur. Calc-s, which is an impure sulphide of calcium, but has a wider sphere and deeper action in suppurative processes. It is Dr. Schussler's connective tissue remedy and most of the indications for its use are derived from his clinical experience. ~Robin Murphy Materia medica

Regarding Calc-silicata (Silicate of Calcium/Lime). If this remedy has been used for a hundred years by homeopaths with success, there must be records documenting the symptoms for which it was helpful. Again, R. Murphy notes that Ussher used the 1X and 6X potency for cases of atrophy of children and when silica failed in corneal disorders. We can always use re-provings of old remedies. 

[Dr Muhammed Rafeeque]

Thank you all for the valuable comments.

Each chemical substance is having unique physical and chemical qualities. When they combine together, they form a different substance with its own properties (which may include a few features of the ingredients). But, it is a different substance. Even chemistry, which is based up on materialistic view, will agree this point. As Dr Hans said, Nux v and strychnine are having different symptomatology even though chemically same (nux v contains a few more chemicals like hyocyamine). "Desk top proving" is very common nowadays. We can write down the symptomatology even without administering the dose to provers. Doctrine of signature, history, climate, morphology, color, periodic table, zoology/botany textbooks, sensations, delusions, etc are enough for a drug proving now!  Hats off to Hahnemann and his contemporaries who really proved drugs with cent percent accuracy, that too with minimum facilities.