Mercury, The Restless God!
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 2003 Jan / Feb VOL V NO 1.
Dr Mirza Anwar Baig

Introduction: Mercury is a heavy metal, with very low melting point, thus turns into liquid at ordinary room temperature. Known to mankind for centuries, both for uses and misuses, mercury is even today a popular medicine amongst quacks as a sex tonic. It is known as quick silver, because of its silver like appearance. Very toxic, yet forms an important homoeopathic medicine: Mercurious-vivus, the Latin version meaning, quick or restless, like the Mercury god, (planet mercury), which disappears quickly.

Hahnemann’s preparation of soluble mercury, called Merc-sol, is made by dissolving metallic mercury in nitric acid and then precipitating it by caustic ammonia. Rezus (Razi), the famous Arabic physician, also a chemist like Hahnemann, well known as a pioneer in the field of cataract surgery, tried to convert this into gold, but failed. But Hahnemann succeeded in turning it into a "golden remedy"!
My introduction to Mercurious was just casual. 25 years ago, when I was a non-believer to Homoeopathy, I met Dr F M Kulay, the famous homoeopath, now a friend, but that first encounter was aggressive.

Background: There was a program of the Ghazal King Ghulam Ali, from Pakistan. I was his personal physician. On the same evening one of his fellow musicians fell seriously ill. Many well wishers rushed to his rescue. Someone also called a homoeopath, which irritated me. However, that was Dr Kulay, professor of philosophy in Mumbai University and I was attached to a teaching hospital. Our common interest was Urdu poetry. Incidentally his college and my institute were in the same locality so we met each other often. One day he came to my surgical ward. The patient was a young girl, lying on a bed with ugly ulcers on her ankles. They were quite large, inflamed and indurated, but painless. When I was demonstrating them about their syphilitic nature with a possibility towards malignancy, Dr Kulay quietly started listening.

He suggested ‘Merc-sol’ for her. Two days later I received a call from the hospital that patient had developed infection in her wounds and was screaming with pain. When I saw her, I found that the wounds were full of pus yet looked healthier. I contacted Dr Kulay who suggested ‘Hepar-sulph’, which finally cured her.

Here is a lesson: Merc-sol, converted the painless syphilitic ulcer into psoric, the painful one, but with better prognosis. Hepar-sulph was the second prescription, which in turn cleared the psoric affections. In this way I learned homoeopathy from him and he learned Allopathy from me. I found Mercury a good antibiotic, such as Merc-sol, Merc-i-r, and Merc-i-f in ENT or GIT affections, while Merc-cor was useful in renal conditions. But inspite of all this I didn’t give much more importance to homoeopathy until I met Dr E G K Menon in connection with my wife’s illness, who influenced me so much that I converted to Homoeopathy. He cured my wife who had cancer. He is my Guru. I would like to present one of the cases, of a very serious condition, treated by him with the rarest mercury. Such types of cases are uncommon, that was ‘Chronic Cor Pulmonale’: A very difficult condition with grave prognosis. Death usually occurs due to cardiac failure, within 6 months to 6 years.

Case: CCP: The patient was my mother, 80 yr, lean and thin with dark wheatish complexion. She was otherwise fine, except at times hysterical with senile dementia, very fastidious, with mania of cleanliness. Never satisfied with anybody’s job, was rigid towards her daughter in law. Very sensitive, wailing and weeping loudly, or cursing, if offended. But during her young age was artisan and skillful. She had one son, 56 years (myself), one daughter, 58 years, one abortion. Never allowed any one to enter her kitchen except family members. One day while white washing inside her kitchen, she fell from the ladder and broke her spine. That time I was around four years. Thereafter began a long saga of pain and agony, and different kind of therapies. Finally treated as TB spine, she was under plaster and jacket for a long time.

Somewhere at the age of 30 yrs she developed Brain TB, and treated for a long period. After recovery, she became a hysterical, wailing and weeping type. Also got attacks of migraine and rolling of ball inside abdomen. Some gynecological problem also developed. Then she had skin affections in the form of weeping eczema & Atopic dermatitis, which were also treated for a long time by different dermatologists.

There was a long list of suffering with recurrent attacks of asthma, bronchitis and allergies with relapse of skin, nerve & gynecological ailments. Operated for Cataract, Glaucoma, and Fistula. By the age of fifty, she had developed bronchiectasis, lung abscess, emphysema and fibrosis of lungs. Finally entered into the stage of Cor-pulmonale ie affection of heart due to lung disease.

Her asthmatic attacks were also terrible, loud wheezing and whistling, rattling & whooping cough, with copious perspiration & fainting spells with restlessness. Some times chilly sometimes warm. Discharges were offensive & foul, watery or lumpy. All kinds of therapies were tried, but nothing could stop her relapses, except Homoeopathy did some palliation.

She had craving for sweets, sour & fried things. Liking for milk, sensitive to cold and heat, worse during wet weather. Mostly constipated with ineffectual urge. Also had piles.

The remedies which helped her time to time, were Arsenic, Natrum-sulph, Lycopodium, Sulphur, Calcarea-carb, Syphilinum, Antim-tart, Carbo-veg, Nux-vomica, Sepia and Phosphorus,. When seen by Dr Menon, she had following conditions:
Cannot walk even few steps, cannot lie on back, restless while lying. Jugular veins were marked with copious sweats, aggravation on slight exertion or lying straight. Tachycardia with collapsing and thready pulse, was very weak. X-ray revealed advancement in fibrosis of lungs with enlarged hilar nodes, more on right side. She had Hydrothorax, bronchiectasis and emphysema as long-standing progressive pathological condition with cardiomegaly & enlargement of Liver with signs of Congestive Cardiac Failure. Declared incurable.

Dr Menon didn’t refer any repertory, his prescription was, Mercurius-sulphuricus-Hydrarg, the oxidized sulphate of Mercury, in 30 potency, few doses. Within three to four days, she showed remarkable improvement, second prescription came after yet few more days and was given ‘Psorinum’ single dose perhaps it was also in 30 potency.
She recovered unbelievably and was well for a number of years.

Conclusion: Homoeopathy starts from the stage where allopathy ends. As long as I was observing palliative and curative actions of homoeopathic remedies in those ailments, which also used to get alright with allopathy, I did not give much importance to homoeopathy except that it is a science of healing and at times acts better than allopathy. But when I witnessed the curing power of homoeopathy in such cases like Cor Pulmonale and saw the disappearance of tumour without surgery, I took it seriously. In short, Mercurius as antibiotics are safest and very effective. If ENT surgeon or dental surgeon would come to experience this particular remedy, possibly their half burden will be sorted out. Imagine, a case of Cor Pulmonale who was in terminal stage, which is to say such type of patients do not survive by any treatment or surgical palliation, brought under control just with few doses of that remedy. Which resolves advancing process of fibrosed lungs, cleared out dropsy, toned her respiration and improved cardiac output back to normalcy. It was not only amazing, was it a miracle? Now I know Homoeopathy is not a miracle, it’s a science, which can do such miracles.

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