Ipecac. This remedy is a close homoeopathic simile to asthma, especially to the spasmodic variety where the symptoms are great weight and anxiety about the chest ; sudden wheezing, dyspnoea, threatening suffocation, aggravated by motion ; the cough causes gagging and vomiting. The cough is constant, the chest seems full of phlegm, yet none is expectorated, and the extremities are covered with cold perspiration.
Lobelia is a remedy which one usually classifies with Ipecac. It has the great oppression of the chest and a weak sensation in the chest which seems to come from the epigastrium, where there is a feeling of a lump ; there is nausea, profuse salivation ; the attack is preceded by a prickling sensation through the whole system.
Arsenicum. As stated above, Arsenicum has some similarity to Ipecac, but the time of attacks is just after midnight. The patient has a great deal of anguish and restlessness ; he cannot lie down for fear of suffocation. There is anxiety and general sweat, and if the patient drowses off he is awakened with burning pain and soreness in the chest. It is especially the remedy if the disease be chronic and the dyspnoea habitual and dry and the patient aged.
Under Grindelia robusta the patient on falling asleep ceases to breathe and awakes with a start. Grindelia has been found clinically to benefit humid asthma and acute catarrhal asthmas, and Halbert states that 5 or 10 drops of the tincture every hour during the paroxysmal state will greatly palliate.
Viscum album is also clinically recommended. It has weakness of the respiratory muscles and stertorous breathing.
Nux vomica. Nux vomica is a useful remedy when the asthmatic attacks are brought on by gastric disturbances ; simple spasmodic asthmas ; there is some relief by belching the patient must loosen the clothing. It must also be thought of in those who drink much coffee, or liquor.
Kali bichromicum. The potashes produce asthmatic conditions, and under Kali bichromicum we find the attacks coming on about three or four o’clock in the morning, compelling the patient to sit up to breathe ; he sits up and bends forward which relieves somewhat, as does also the expectoration of stringy yellow mucus, which is characteristic of the remedy.
Natrum sulphuricum. This remedy has established a record in curing asthma. Its general symptoms are worse on change to damp weather. It was one of Grauvogl’s hydrogenoid remedies. Its symptoms are moist asthma, with a great deal of rattling in the chest. The symptom of looseness of the bowels after each attack has been repeatedly verified ; in one case the patient was worse from aerated waters and alcohol. If symptoms indicating a sycotic taint be present, it will be all the more strongly indicated.
Hypericum. Dr. T.F. Allen relates a severe case of asthma, having the symptoms, “dryness of the throat always worse in foggy weather,” cured by Hypericum.
Antimonium tartaricum is a remedy used largely in some form by the allopathic school in asthma, and it is homoeopathic to certain cases. The great keynote for the remedy is the presence of fine mucous rales throughout the chest, finer and smaller rales than are found under Ipecac.