Iodoformium

/odoform has been proved by Underwood and Haines. To the symptoms

experienced by them have been added the recorded effects observed on patients treated with it in

old-school practice. Many cases of fatal poisoning have occurred. All the symptoms of acute

meningitis have been produced in some instances, and this fact has been turned to good account

by homeeopathists. An excellent collection of the pathogenetic effects of df will be found in C.

D. P., from which I take the following: A boy of 10 had /df: thickly applied to a point in

amputated limb at which the stitches did not hold well. On the third day he was sleepy, after a

restless night with frequent sighing. The dressing was renewed, and on the same day, not having

eaten anything since the day before, he had several attacks of vomiting, bilious and easy. All

these symptoms increased during the next few days. The child was constipated and seemed to

suffer from his head. Nights very restless; sleep interrupted by sighing and cries like those of

• ▸meningitis.
• ▸Drowsiness during day.
• ▸Pupils unequally contracted; reacted slowly to light.
• ▸He was

perfectly indifferent and did not recognise those about him. Later, nightly agitation was replaced

by tranquil delirium. Pulse rapid and small. On the sixth day the dressing was changed, on the

• ▸seventh day the symptoms began to abate, and disappeared after the ninth.
• ▸W.
• ▸J.
• ▸Martin (Hahn.

• ▸Month.
• ▸, xxxi.
• ▸799) cured two cases of tubercular meningitis with /df.
• ▸2x.
• ▸He put 4 grains in half a

tumbler of water, and gave a teaspoonful every two hours. One case was that of a child, fourteen

months old, and the symptoms were: Sleeps much; moves mouth constantly as though chewing

or sucking; bores head back and rolls it from side to side. Had been ill twelve days. Violent

convulsions followed, face distorted, eyes squinting, head retracted, neck and back stiff,

automatic movement of one arm and leg. The child was expected to die that night, but /df was

now given, and improvement set in. Fever abated, and in one week all symptoms had passed

away. Drowsiness is a marked feature. In cases of medicinal poisoning the symptoms sometimes

come speedily, and sometimes only after a long period of medication, when they set in with great

suddenness and intensity. For instance, a woman, 26, who had taken 42 grains of /df. in eighty

days, suddenly after a hot bath felt very dizzy and weak in the legs, felt unable to knit, and

diplopia set in. Symptoms of mania followed; weakness, staggering on closing the eyes. For

twelve days she was unable to walk alone. These symptoms having set in suddenly after a hot

bath seems to show that the "< by heat, and by damp" of Jod. is reproduced in /df. Treves has

observed evidences of poisoning develop slowly and insidiously: Malaise, loss of strength and of

appetite, occasional vomiting; and the patient is weighed down with a sense of depression;

moderate fever, rapid pulse; drowsiness; complete hebetude; wasting. The external use of it has

• ▸set up eczema.
• ▸In one case, that of a soldier (H.
• ▸W.
• ▸, xxv.
• ▸292) who had had Jodoform applied to

his arm, a scarlatina-like rash appeared, spreading from the arm over the body, and ending in

desquamation. Scarlatina was actually diagnosed, but some doubt was raised, and, suspicion

being thrown on the /df., a piece of silver was placed in the mouth. Jmmediately a garlic taste

• ▸was experienced showing the presence of /df.
• ▸, which other tests confirmed.
• ▸/df.
• ▸imparts a garlic

odour to silver. The symptoms are < at night; by warmth; by motion; by touch; by riding in cars.

> By uncovering.

Elated—Excitement interrupted by broken sleep.—Transient irritation interrupting

somnolence.—Excitement, melancholia, hallucinations of sight and hearing.—Screams out, leaves

her bed but falls down after walking a few steps, talks nonsense unconnectedly, is unable to hold

anything, sees everything double.—Talkativeness excessive; fear of death with anguish; holds

fast to any person near her bed, and bemoans her approaching death—Drowsiness developing

into perfect coma.—Suddenly began to behave as if out of his mind; answered questions

unwillingly and hesitatingly—Delusions, dressing himself in strange costumes; imagining

himself a prodigious height and growing rapidly.—His ideas all of an exalted kind; imagined he

had the best tenor voice in the world and proceeded to hire a large concert hall. (After

insufflation of /df. into tunica vaginalis; he was sent to an asylum and recovered in four

months.).—Apathetic, amnesia for recent events, nightly restlessness, did not recognise persons,

weak-minded.—Forgetful.

Sudden dizziness; weak in the legs.—Body in constant spasmodic motion,

twitching of facial muscles, deep inspirations alternating with apnoea; every movement made

slowly and without energy; on closing eyes cannot stand or walk straight—Constantly wearied

• ▸and tired.
• ▸—Rapid collapse ending in coma and death.
• ▸—Sphincters paralysed.
• ▸—Stiffness of certain

limbs, convulsive movements.—Screams as if suffering from meningitis; draws up legs a good

deal; twitching and rolling.

• ▸Sharp, neuralgic pain.
• ▸Head feels heavy, as if it could not be lifted from pillow.
• ▸Itching of occiput.
• ▸Meningitis.
• ▸Sleep interrupted by sighing and cries.
• ▸Very drowsy.

Confusion, with nausea.—Feeling as if he had been intoxicated the previous

• ▸day.
• ▸—Headache all night; vertigo on sitting up in bed.
• ▸—Sudden giddiness.
• ▸—Stitching pain in

head.—Headache on waking.—Heaviness of head: on attempting to rise, with aching in

vertex.—Head heavy at night as if he could not raise it from the pillow, heaviness next morning

after waking, with intermittent pain in skull, < 1. side.—Frontal pain; < descending stairs, with

• ▸shooting in r.
• ▸ear; neuralgic, < stooping.
• ▸—Stitching in temples.
• ▸—Neuralgic pains in nerves of

• ▸temples, < r.
• ▸extending to behind ears.
• ▸—Pain in temples as from a weight.
• ▸—Sticking in r.
• ▸side of

• ▸head.
• ▸—Pain in occiput and 1.
• ▸lumbar region.
• ▸—Itching of occiput.

Pupils, dilated; contract unequally, react poorly. Diplopia. Failing sight due to retro-bulbar neuritis, central scotoma-partial atrophy of optic disc.

Eyes bloodshot and painful——Smarting and burning in eyes; smarting and

• ▸stinging.
• ▸—Bruised feeling in r.
• ▸eye in morning.
• ▸—Sensitive to light.
• ▸—Objects appear tessellated

• ▸and red, > rising.
• ▸—Sees all persons and objects as through a veil.
• ▸—Vision double.
• ▸—Exquisite

• ▸diplopia.
• ▸—("In purulent ulcers of the cornea, and esp.
• ▸u/cus cornec serpens, Idf.
• ▸has no

equal."—Sattler in old-school practice.)

Sticking in r. ear; sticking, then fulness.—Ears feeling dry and feverish; and

full—Neuralgic pains in |. ear.—Dull hearing.

Dryness in nose, and he complains that he cannot get any discharge from it; with

fulness of membrane and constant snuffing.—Constant sensation as if smelling fumes of

iodine.—Smell as of decaying leaves in a swamp.

Pains in malar-bones; in zygomatic muscles, < motion and bending forward.—Drawing

in malar-bones, with pressing.—Stiffness of zygomatic muscles.—Twitching of facial

• ▸muscles.
• ▸—Aching in r.
• ▸lower jaw, increasing to pain as from a weight.
• ▸—Lips and throat dry; lips

dry and stinging.

• ▸7.
• ▸Teeth.
• ▸_Sharp pain in upper teeth —Aching in sound teeth; in decayed teeth, < upper and r.
• ▸,

coming and going quickly, toothache in afternoon quickly changing to temples.—Teeth feel sore

and too long.

Stitching in r. side of throat.—Dryness of throat, with bitter taste; dryness, with

rawness on swallowing.

• ▸Scaphoid abdomen.
• ▸Chronic diarrhoea with suspected tuberculosis.
• ▸Abdomen distended; mesenteric glands enlarged.
• ▸Cholera infantum. Chronic diarrhoea; stools greenish, watery, undigested, with irritable temper.

• ▸Rumbling in abdomen.
• ▸—Scaphoid abdomen.
• ▸—Flatulent colic.
• ▸—Cutting in

abdomen.—Warmth in abdomen and rectum, with nausea and desire for stool —R. inguinal

region, sharp pain; cutting, with desire for stool; sore pain.

Desire for a liquid stool—Stool delayed; with feeling as if anus were

drawn up into rectum.

Aphonic disturbance of voice.—Cough from dryness of

throat—Cough on going to bed, with wheezing from mucus in throat.—Smothering

sensation.—Respiration irregular; deep inspirations alternating with apnoea.

• ▸Sore pain in apex of right lung.
• ▸Feeling of a weight on chest, as if smothering.
• ▸Cough and wheezing on going to bed.
• ▸Pain in left breast, like a hand grasping at the base of the heart.
• ▸Haemoptysis.
• ▸Asthmatic breathing.

• ▸Sticking in r.
• ▸chest, extending to lower angle of scapula —Pain in |.
• ▸chest.
• ▸—Sharp

• ▸pain in r.
• ▸chest.
• ▸—Ulcerative pain in I.
• ▸breast, to r.
• ▸of nipple at night, then grasping at base of

• ▸heart, next day aching in |.
• ▸breast—Soreness on taking a long breath.
• ▸—Soreness in lungs.
• ▸—Sore

pain in apex of r. lung, on breathing sensation as if two ulcerated surfaces were in

contact.—Feeling in lungs as from a heavy cold.—Feeling as if a weight rested on chest,

preventing free expansion.

Contraction of muscles of neck.—Bruised sensation in nape.—Spine sore,

does not wish it touched.—Pain along spine; along r. side of dorsal vertebrae; in lumbar region,

with weakness and straining.—Sharp pain in angle of scapula.

• ▸Sticking in |.
• ▸shoulder; and arm.
• ▸—Pain in median nerve of |.
• ▸arm.
• ▸—Pain in I.

humerus, with bruised pain in muscles around the bone.—Rheumatic pain in r. arm; < using

• ▸it.
• ▸—Bruised pain in |.
• ▸arm in morning on touch.
• ▸—Pain in 1.
• ▸elbow; in nerves of 1.
• ▸hand.
• ▸—Sharp

pain in nerves of I. hand.

Pain along 1. crural nerve —Pain in inside of knees——Neuralgic pain in 1.

knee.—Weakness of knees on ascending stairs —Weakness < standing, with pain —Rheumatic

pain in gastrocnemii; rheumatism of flexor muscles of legs.—Cutting in 1. ankle on walking in

• ▸open air.
• ▸—Sticking in r.
• ▸instep.
• ▸—Pain in |.
• ▸foot, < walking.

Legs weak; cannot stand and walk with eyes closed. Weakness of knees when going upstairs.

Red rash over loins, back of arms and elbows (from application to inflamed bursa

• ▸patellee.
• ▸The rash was cured by Sang.
• ▸).
• ▸—Fine eruption of macules, papules, and vesicles on face,

neck, hands, and wrists; diffuse redness with cedema followed; worst on hands and between

fingers, vesicles running together and epithelium separating; back of hands desquamated (in a

nurse who had been applying it to a patient).—Horrible irritation all over body (from application

to wound).

• ▸Sleepiness.
• ▸—Intermittent sleepiness ending in coma.
• ▸—Wakefulness.
• ▸—Jerks and

shocks in nerves when trying to sleep.—Restless sleep, full of dreams.—Restless, < after 2

• ▸a.
• ▸m.
• ▸—Sound sleep till 1.
• ▸30 a.
• ▸m.
• ▸, then sudden waking, restlessness and sleeplessness till 4.
• ▸30, then

partially conscious sleep for an hour and a half, then heavy sleep and difficult

arousing.—Confused dreams; of accidents.

Susceptible to hot weather.—Heat at night, keeps laying off covers —Temperature

may be elevated to 104° or more—Sweats easily from motion.—Sweat on head.

• ▸Breast, pains in.
• ▸Chancre.
• ▸Cough.
• ▸Delirium.
• ▸Diplopia.
• ▸Eczema.
• ▸Enteric fever.
• ▸Eye,

• ▸affections of.
• ▸General paralysis.
• ▸Headache.
• ▸Heart, affections of.
• ▸Hydrocephalus.
• ▸Locomotor

• ▸ataxy.
• ▸Mania.
• ▸Meningitis.
• ▸Tuberculosis.

Second trituration. Three grains on the back of the tongue will relieve attack of asthmatic breathing.

Pain in |. arm and I. leg, < lower half of tibia and fibula, then extending into

foot—Bruised feeling in |. arm and leg, as the pain increases the muscles feel ulcerated.