Studies in the scope of Stannum. by Dr Elizabeth Wright Hubbard

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Studies in the scope of
Stannum.
by Dr Elizabeth Wright Hubbard
Presented by Sylvain Cazalet

(Read by title before I. H. A., Bureau
of Materia Medica, June 7, 1935.)

Dr E. Wright
Hubbard

Our materia medica
gives a horde of symptoms for each of the well-proven remedies, on an
empiric basis. This is practical if we can synthesize and remember the
welter of detail. But our crying need in materia medica is to deepen it,
to study the substances in themselves, in their relation to the cosmos
and the natural sciences. Then a sense of the inevitability of the
remedy picture grows in us. Instead of a feat of the memory, it becomes
a growing power in the physician’s soul. New implications and
possibilities arise which painstaking research as well as vigorous
thought can carry through from hypothesis to science.

That which Hahnemann
made into homœopathy had its source in the ancient mysteries. He
himself acknowledged his great debt to Paracelsus, and some of our best
homœopaths have been deep students of alchemy, like the late Dr. Emil
Schlegel of Germany. The Doctrine of Signatures and the Correspondences
of Swedenborg hold much light for those of us into whom it can
penetrate.

In the ancient wisdom
the elements, and particularly the metals, have a special place, being
connected with the planets. Many of the metals we use and stress-Aur.,
Arg., Hg., Ferr., Cupr. –but some which theoretically should
be as important do not come into their own in our knowledge and
prescribing. For instance, the subject of this paper, Stannum, or tin.
This is the Jupiter of the alchemists, one of the seven most important
metals, each being allied to one of the seven major planets (Aur.
to the Sun, Arg. the Moon, Plb.
Saturn, Stann. Jupiter, Cupr.
Venus, Ferr. Mars, and Merc.
Mercury). The more recently discovered planets, such as Uranus, Neptune,
Pluto, etc. are as yet unassigned as to metallic correspondences.

Paracelsus

Mr Emanuel
SWEDENBORG

Dr Emil SCHLEGEL

Some of the metals are
intermediary, a combination of forces, as Zinc.
of Plb. and Stann.,
Magn. of Ferr. and Cupr.,
etc. In the alchemic view these metals influence or represent different
planes of the human economy : Aur.
the Ego. Cupr. and Ferr.
the astral (emotional), Stann. and Merc. the etheric (vital), Plb. and
Arg. the realm between the etheric and the physical. You will note that
each plane save that of the Ego, has two chief metallic influencers. The
one increases the forces, and the other diminishes them. If you will
check this abstruse sounding statement by our knowledge of homœopathic
medicaments and their workings, and even by orthodox physiology, you
will be surprised at how they all fit in. For instance, copper (astral)
is connected with Venus and is the element which frees the astral that
has too strong a hold.

In plain terms, when
emotionality is excessive we have hysteria, cramps, etc. which are of
the essence of our homœopathic Cupr. Ferr.,
the other astral aspect (Mars) strengthens the astral grip. In other
words the anæmic, flabby Ferr. patient needs more of the defining,
rigid, astral influence. Again Stann. (etheric) connected with Jupiter,
is the forming force-ideals realized in the physical, so to speak-
whereas. Merc., connected with Mercury, represents the dissolving forces
of healing. For the etheric plane is the plane where healing takes
place. We know, homœopathically, how Merc. will resolve the clogged
antrum, the hard swollen gland, etc. (the glandular is etheric). We also
know how Stann. will build up and strengthen vital (etheric) weakness.
To follow, Plb. related to Saturn, frees the etheric from the physical,
thereby tending toward the isolation of the physical, which means death.
We know how slow, devitalized, chronic, emaciated and near dissolution
is the Plb. patient. Arg. corresponding to the Moon, permeates the
physical with the etheric, thereby vitalizing, warming and fluidifying
the solid.

In the Ego realm
(corresponding to the Sun and warmth) Aur.
brings the Ego in, strengthens the spirit. We know the warm powerful Aur.
personality with its despairs in the higher realms of the Ego, and with
its action on bones (bones belong to the Ego sphere). Although I have
not found it in the litterateur I feel that the other metal acting on
the Ego must be Platinum‘, the false
Ego, as it were, when the Ego is too strong and needs releasing, just
the opposite of gold (Aur.) where it
needs fortifying.

Most of you are
probably wondering why busy physicians should indulge in such esoteric
meandering, and itch to prescribe for me Sulph. DMM, on the key-note of abnormal
interests in “Who made God” ! But I have found
curious value in straying beyond the customary purlieus of thought. At
least it sets us thinking in that stark, simple, focussed way, which may
be the beginning of wisdom.

All this by way of
preamble to the consideration of the scope of Stannum.
I shall spare the infinite detail which you know or can easily read. In
personality, connected with Jupiter : calm, fair, phlegmatic, slow
but sure, capable of amatory dalliance, only occasionally wielding the
thunder bolts in the form of colic. It is sad mentally (tubercular
patients who are not euphoric) ; prone to weep, but aggravated by
tears (opposite of Puls. which is its complement) ; uneasy,
discouraged and indifferent because of weakness. Think of the element
tin : beautiful but not enduring, too malleable, too ductile, too
brittle ; somehow soft all through, easy to dent and ply. It used
to be called diabolus metallorum
because it could not, as we say now, “take it”. This leads us
to the greatest characteristic of Stann. :
weakness, weakness especially in the chest, as if
empty ; weakness in the voice, cannot talk or read aloud, loss of timbre.
Stann. slumps in a chair, can’t sit up for weakness.

Other notable generals
are :

Pains increase and
decrease gradually with the sun.

Discharges yellow and
bland and often sweet tasting.

Worse 4-5 A. M. and 10
A. M.

Worse descending (Bor.)
-harder to sit down than to rise up.

Better in open
air ; sensitive to cold, drafts and change of weather.

Better walking
fast ; worse lying down, especially on right side. Left-sided
remedy.

Better from hard
pressure, worse light touch (Chin.).

Worse from warm drinks
(opposite of Spong.).

You all use Stann.
often in tuberculosis and laryngeal phthisis, and copious hæmoptysis
and for coughs with copious, easy expectoration which relieves, coughs
better bending over and worse lying down on the right and from hot
drinks. But do you use it for neuralgias and migraine with watering of
the left eye worse from 5 A. M. on, especially for tuberculosis
following the suppression of neuralgia or vice
versa ? Do you use it for leucorrhœa in neuralgic women
or where the two are concomitant ? For deltoid neuritis when
singing ; left phrenic or diaphragmatic neuralgias ; writer’s
cramp, malar neuralgias before and during menses ? (Menses early
and profuse with body odor better by the flow and prolapse worse at
stool.)

For frequent colds
which turn into neuralgias ? Dou you use it for burning and boring
in the liver with emptiness after eating and bitter eructations ?
For gastralgia better by hard pressure and walking ; pain as of
ulcer with hæmatemesis worse lying down ? For colic (even from
worms) with clutching pain around the navel, better bending over a
chair ? When Coloc. does not cure this picture Stann. often will.
It has also celiac with hunger, rigors in the thighs during stool,
Monday constipation (a key-note of Hering’s). It has cramps and spasms
even to convulsions ; sweat of paralyzed parts ; musty night
sweats after 4 A. M. especially of the nape and brow. It has milky urine
full of phosphate ; splitting nails ; sleeps with one leg
drawn up and the other extended ; sleepy by day and not by night
and any number of others.

Looked at from another
view point, Stann. appears in the
Periodic Table of Mendeleef between carbon and silicon. I have found it
often needed when Sil. has been
given, and chemically it is related to silicon also. In the atomic
weight table it classes between indium and antimony, whose weakness in
homœopathic form, it shares.

In the neuralgic
diathesis on tubercular base it is almost the remedy of choice and in
myriad ways vital to the homœopath as one of the seven great metals
toward the healing of mankind.

New York. N. Y.

Source :

Homœopathic Recorder, June,
1936.

Copyright ©
Sylvain Cazalet 2001

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