Ferrum metallicum - The Iron Willed Soldier

Affinities of Ferrum (Boger)

• VASO MOTORS
• CIRCULATION.
• Blood-vessels.
• Blood.
• Spleen.
• Digestion.
• Left Deltoid.

The Genius according to Boger is:

The strain which runs through every pathogenetic symptom complex... To give this its proper place in the prescription should be the ideal of every prescriber. Only changes of proven value in coordinating and assembling the significant features of seemingly disassociated symptom groups, have been made. Upon these depends almost wholly the final choice of the simillimum. They should reflect a speaking image, as it were, of the correctly indicated remedy. The symptom features of many remedies have been clarified in order to increase their usefulness, especially in precisionizing differentiations. The repertory is only intended to orient the searcher.

Cyrus Boger

Terminology

• Synoptic means to be able to take in all the information with one sweep of the eye.
• The Gestalt pattern is the established remedy picture of a certain remedy.
• The Genius is the clinically confirmed essence or nucleus of the overall gestalt picture which has been established for many remedies over decades or even centuries.

 Clinical conditions addressed by Ferrum (Clarke)

• ANAEMIA / aphonia / biliousness / catalepsy / chlorosis / cramp / enuresis - diurnal / exophthalmic goitre / fever - intermittent / goitre - exophthalmic / heart - palpitation / hectic fever / hydrocephalus / kidneys - affections of / lienteria / MENSTRUATION - disorders of / paralysis - viscera , of / pregnancy - disorders of / rectum - prolapse of / shoulder - affections of / SPASMS / urine - incontinence of

Did you know?

• One use of Clarke's Clinical Repertory is to compare lesser known remedies with the polycrests following a conventional repertorisation
  • For example, one can compare similar clinical rubrics from Synthesis with those found in Clarke to help provide some nuance to a repertorisation that would otherwise contain over 100 remedies.
  • This technique is particularly useful when the case lacks defining characteristics and there is not much to go on other than knowing the nature of the clinical condition.
  • It is also helpful when using the clinical condition as an entry point into studying Keynotes or Materia Medica rather than making a full classical repertorisation.

Temperaments associated with Ferrum (Clarke)

• ANAEMIA - young persons subject to / anaemic - persons / blood - irregular distribution of / breathlessness and FATIGUE, with flushed cheeks / cheeks, flushed, in young persons / chlorosis with erethism / chlorotics / chronic - sufferers from diarrhoea / constipation - extreme, in girls / delicate / DELICATE - GIRLS, FEARFULLY CONSTIPATED, WITH LOW SPIRITS / diarrhoea - chronic, sufferers from / erethism, chlorosis with / exertion - least, red face from / face - red - from least exertion / fat - persons / FATIGUE - GREAT, AND BREATHLESSNESS IN GIRLS WITH FLUSHED CHEEKS / flushed cheeks - young persons with - fatigue and breathlessness / girls or women - delicate, fearfully constipated, with low spirits / girls or women - flushed cheeks, fatigue, and breathlessness, with / irregular - distributions of blood / lips, pallor of / low - spirits, anaemic girls with / motion - symptoms set up by / mucous - membranes - pallor of / PALLOR - lips of / pallor - mucous membranes, of / PLETHORIC / red - face (also in hectic) - from least exertion / SANGUINE / WEAKLY

Frans Vermeulen’s 'plus group' of Ferrum

Weak and strong; reactive and resistant; reinforced, alloyed strength

+ Desire for solitude; intolerance of noise and contradiction

+ Irregular and changeable: moods and circulation

+ Congestion from least pain, motion, emotion, exertion

+ Desire for motion, slow motion >; restlessness

+ Eggs, sour, tomatoes and fat - digestive disorders

Keynotes of Ferrum (Lippe)

• Great emaciation. WEAKNESS AMOUNTING TO PARALYSIS.
• Restlessness in the affected limbs.
• Cracking in the joints.
• Disposition to languor and rest on account of internal weakness.
• Varices. Chlorosis.
• Congestions (not limited to any part of the body, but useful throughout).
• Metrorrhagia with red face and swelled veins.
• Impotence.
• Catamenia (Menses) - too early and too profuse.
• Aversion to fat food and vomiting of what has been eaten
• Walking in the open air greatly affects him.
• Bad effects from the abuse of tea - and from the abuse of quinine.
• Color of the face yellow or else earthy.
• Circumscribed red area on the cheeks.

Keynotes of Ferrum (Allen)

• Persons of sanguine temperament; pettish, QUARRELSOME, disputative, easily excited, least contradiction angers (Anac., Coc., Ign.); amel. from mental exertion.
• Irritability: slight noises like cracking of paper, drive him to despair (Asar., Tar.).
• Women who are weak, delicate, chlorotic, yet have a fiery red face.
• Extreme paleness of the face, lips and mucous membranes which become red and flushed on the least pain, emotion or exertion. BLUSHING (Amyl., Coca).
• Erethitic chlorosis, worse in winter Red parts become white; face, lips, tongue and mucous membrane of mouth.
• Vertigo: with balancing sensation, as if on water; on seeing flowing water; when walking over water, as when crossing a bridge (Lys.); on descending (Bor., Sanic).
• Headache: hammering, beating, pulsating pains must lie down; with aversion to eating or drinking. For two, three or four days every two or three weeks.

Single remedy delusions of Ferrum (Synthesis Treasure Edition)

• MIND - DELUSIONS - balancing - bridge; as if balancing over water when crossing a
• MIND - DELUSIONS - large - surroundings seem too large
• MIND - DELUSIONS - shoved forward; he is - closing the eyes
• MIND - DELUSIONS - shoved forward; he is - lying down; when
• MIND - DELUSIONS - surroundings - capacious; are
• MIND - WEEPING - immoderately

Modalities of Ferrum (Boericke)

• Worse
  • While sweating; while sitting still.
  • After cold washing and overheating.
  • Midnight aggravation.
• Better
  • Walking slowly about.
  • Better after rising

Chronic application of Ferrum (Hering)

¤¤ Adapted to persons of sanguine, choleric temperament; pettish, quarrelsome, disputative, easily excited, least contradiction angers; women are weak, delicate, chlorotic, yet have a very red face.

¤ Very weak and thin.

¤¤ General hemorrhagic diathesis.

Sensation and function of Ferrum (Hering)

GIDDY, as if drunk; as if everything went around with her; as if balancing to and fro; STAGGERING as if intoxicated; as if head would constantly incline to right side; as if skull were PUSHED UPWARD; as if brain were rent asunder; as if grain of sand were in eyes; pressure in eyes as if they would protrude; face as if swollen or bloated; tongue as if burnt; as of a lump in left side of throat; throat as if swollen outside; as if a nerve was quivering in stomach; as if a valve rose in throat; as if viscera would drop; bowels as if bruised; bowels as if beaten, as if they had been acted upon by purgatives; bowels as though they were going to move; as if something was in larynx; as if throat was being squeezed; chest as if constricted; clavicles as if gone to sleep.

Attacks and periodicity of Ferrum (Hering)

• Frequent short shuddering.
• Periodical headaches.
• Quarter of an hour; headache in morning, grows agg.
• 20 minutes : headaches changing to pressive pain from within outward.
• Three quarters of an hour : chilliness.
• Stools followed for hours by cramping pain in rectum

Important rubrics of Ferrum (Synthesis Treasure)

• ABSORBED - business matters; in
• ANXIETY - perspiration - during
• DETERMINATION
• EXCITEMENT - contradiction, from slightest
• IRRITABILITY - noise, from - crackling of newspapers; even from
• PERIODICITY - day - other day; every
• RESTLESSNESS - bed - driving out of
• RESTLESSNESS - warm - bed

Desires / aversions (Boger) 

• Desires
  • APPETITE - Desire - fluid or liquid food, soups
  • APPETITE - Desire - warm or hot drinks - food
• Aversions
  • APPETITE - Aversion - solids
  • APPETITE - Aversion - sour things, acids
  • Eggs

Take a look at the gallery below for a more contemporary perspective from a diverse range of modern masters of Homeopathy