• Great emaciation, losing flesh while living well
• Throat and neck of children emaciates rapidly during summer complaints
• Cannot pass urine in front of others
• Awkward, hasty, drops things from nervous weakness
• Heart pulsations shake the body
• Sweats while eating
• Mapped tongue
• Urticaria after violent exercise

Source: Mineral kingdom
Synonyms: Chloride of sodium, Sodium chloride, Table salt, Common salt Prover: Dr Hahnemann, W. H. Schussler, Austrian Society of Provers Formula: NaCl
Duration of Action: 40 to 50 days
Miasmatic Background: Psora, syphilis and sycosis
Temperament: Irritable and nervous
Diathesis: Anaemic
Thermal Relationship: Hot patient but catches cold very easily

Introduction and History: It is a polychrest amongst polychrests. It is found in almost all the tissues of our body. It is a constitutional, very long and deep acting, antipsoric remedy. It is a biochemic remedy of highest importance. Deficiency of this salt produces malnutrition, emaciation and anaemia. It exists more largely in the aqueous humour of the eyes and the crystalline lens. It is a great remedy for emaciation and loss of flesh. It stimulates digestion by increasing flavour of food and by increasing the quantity and quality of gastric juice.

Description: It occurs abundantly in nature, nearly everywhere. It crystallizes from aqueous solutions in colourless, transparent, anhydrous cubes; it is soluble in water but insoluble in absolute alcohol. It is extracted from sea water and is also found in rock salt, in north-west border of Pakistan, dissolved in sea water and lakes.

Preparation: The pure salt is used for preparation. It is dissolved in water in the proportion of 1 to 9 parts. Further dilutions are prepared from this in water or alcohol to highest potencies according to homeopathic pharmacy.

Constitution and Physiognomy: It is best suited to cachectic, anaemic, emaciated people; young people having a tendency to grow fat. The face is as if greased, oily, waxy and shiny.

Ailments From: Disappointment, fright, loss of fluids, masturbation, fit of passion, quinine, profuse menses, vexation, anger, grief, bread, excessive use of salt, wine, injury to head, sexual excess, acid food.

Seat of Action (Pharmacodynamics): Brain, mind, blood, heart, muscles, spleen, glands, nutrition, liver, genital organs, lymphatic system, gastrointestinal tract, skin, etc.

Physiological Action

1. When taken in normal quantities with the food, sodium chloride increases the appetite and the flow of the gastric juice; assists in maintaining nerve and muscle tone, and favours assimilation and excretion of waste matter, especially that of urea.
2. In the form of normal salt solution, it is a non-irritating douche for mucous surfaces and is administered intravenously or subcutaneously in collapse from surgical shock or serious haemorrhage.
3. Excessive use of salt causes anaemia, bloated face, nervousness, headaches, acidity of the stomach, great thirst, swelling and sponginess of the gums, constipation or diarrhoea, debility, mental sluggishness, sleepiness and oedema of the lower extremities. It also causes persistent dryness of mucous membranes, falling of hair in all parts of the body; dirty, torpid skin; herpes, tetters and boils.
4. Too large an amount of salt taken by mistake or given intravenously or hypodermically is followed by nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, fever – at times as high as 104°F, delirium and even coma, convulsions, collapse and death.

General Effects of Common Salt

1. Thinning of blood, slow circulation and lowered temperature. Constant feeling of coldness, especially down the back.
2. Thickening and partial paralysis of vocal cords and an almost continual sore throat. Fluent coryza.
3. Abnormal appetite. Incessant thirst.
4. A pale and waxy colour, with dryness of the cuticle; perspires too freely upon exertion. Sallow appearance.
5. Dandruff, cutaneous affections, deposits and abscesses. Irritating, papular rash.
6. Plethora and corpulence.
7. Constipation or chronic diarrhoea.
8. Retarded endosmosis and exosmosis.
9. The excessive use of salt produces anaemia, bloated face, nervousness, headaches, acidity of the stomach, great thirst, swelling and sponginess of the gums, constipation and diarrhoea, mental sluggishness, sleepiness, oedema of the lower extremities, persistent dryness of the skin and falling of hair. In large quantities it produces nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and fever.

Physio-pathological Changes (Pathology)

1. It stimulates every tissue of the body by entering the cells of the body.
2. It stimulates digestion by improving the flavour of food, acting on the stomach itself by favouring the secretion of gastric juice.
3. It acts on skin, stimulates the sebaceous glands, causes an oily skin and greasy appearance of face.
4. It acts upon blood causing deterioration of blood, resulting in ulcers, eruptions as well as destructive inflammation of mucous and glandular tissues which is called dyscrasia.
5. Deterioration of blood occurs in quantity as well as in quality, producing anaemia.
6. It acts upon male genital organs causing great weakness of these, giving rise to seminal emissions during sleep.
7. It has a stimulating effect on the nervous system, keeping up its tone. Muscular tone is also favoured by the presence of salt in muscular tissues.
8. It promotes the activity of tissue change and increases the excretion of urea. Hence, it is useful in chronic scrofulous ailments affecting the glands, bowels and skin.
9. Mucous membranes everywhere are affected, producing sponginess and swelling with venous hyperaemia, bleeding and increased mucous secretion; hence, catarrh of all mucous membranes with secretion of transparent, watery, coarse, frothy mucous.

Characteristic Mental Symptoms (Psychology)

1. Weeping disposition, sad with palpitation and intermittent pulse; aggravation from consolation.
2. Religious melancholy; joyless, indifferent, taciturn.
3. Wants to be alone to cry; at times there is tearfulness with laughter.
4. Child is cross when spoken to; angry about trifles, and more irritable when
   consoled.
5. Absentmindedness, awkward in talking, does not know what to say.
6. Hypochondriacal; tired of life, hurriedness with anxiety.
7. Extremely emotional. State of fret and irritation.
8. Dreams of robbers and thieves at night. On waking will not go to sleep again unless the house has been searched. Frightful dreams of murder, fire, etc.
9. Hysterical condition of mind; weeping alternates with laughing; weeping mood without any cause.
10. Hysterical girls fall in love with people, where the relationship is objectionable.
11. Tendency to make mistakes while speaking and writing.
12. Aversion to mental work, indifferent.
13. Very forgetful, absentminded, makes purchases and walks away without them.

Characteristic Physical Guiding Symptoms

Discharge: Discharges are acrid, excoriating, watery or like the white of an egg causing itching and discolouration of the surrounding areas.

Tongue: Geographical mapped tongue; white coating with dry bubbles of froth. Sensation of a hair on the tongue.

Taste: Salty.

Lachrymation: Lachrymation corrosive. Tears stream down the face when coughing; lachrymation on sneezing. Copious lachrymation with coryza.

Emaciation: General emaciation; emaciation proceeds from above downwards. Most marked about the neck, which is very thin and shrunken.

Urine and stool: Cannot pass urine and stool in presence of others, even a nurse. Involuntary urine when walking, coughing, laughing.

Headaches: Headaches of school going girls, who are anaemic. Headache from sunrise to sunset. Severe stitching pain in right eye and orbit. Great severity, as if bursting. Left sided headache. Relieved by perspiration.

Desires and aversions: Great desire for salt, salty things, sour or bitter things, milk and fish, but aversion to meat, bread, men and coitus.

Face: Face is oily, shiny as if greased.

Hunger: Ravenous hunger; looses flesh while eating well.

Constriction: Sensation of contraction or constriction, in chest, heart, scalp, rectum, throat, uterus, anus, vagina, hamstring muscles, etc.

Sensation: Sensation as if stool would pass when passing wind. Sensation of a hair on the tongue.

Dryness: Dryness of all mucous membranes, from the mouth to the anus. Dry skin. Painful coition due to dryness of the vagina.

Tongue: Mapped tongue with red insular patches, like ringworms on sides. Heavy, difficult speech.

Coldness: Coldness of heart with trembling of the organ. Coldness of hands and feet. Chill long and severe between 10-11 am. Fever with great thirst; chill begins in feet, fingers or toes.

Hair fall: Hair falls out when touched, in nursing women; loss of hair in women from the labia.

Vomiting: Vomiting with chill in intermittent fever.

Dropsy: Abdominal dropsy, old dropsical cases. Legs are oedematous.

Cracks: Lips, cracked, lips dry, skin around nails dry and cracked. Anus dry and cracked. Cracks in middle and corners of mouth.

Heart: Violent palpitation of heart at every movement of the body, when
lying on the left side.

Inactivity: Children are late in talking; very slow to learn. Weakness of speech organs, difficult talking.

Constipation: Stool dry, hard, difficult, crumbling; stitches in rectum; involuntary stool.

Seminal emission: Seminal emission after coition, increased desire, impotence, paralysis, spinal irritation, after sexual excesses, retarded emission during an embrace.

Warts: Warts on palms of hands.

Eczema: Eczema raw, red, inflamed, especially on edges of hair.

Fever: Intermittent fever; paroxysms at 10 or 11 am, fever old and chronic, ameliorated by sweat.

Menses: Delayed menses of chlorotic girls, headache, mapped tongue, greasy and shiny face.

Important Characteristic Features

Anaemia: This is one of our best remedies in anaemic conditions. Anaemia is due to loss of vital fluids and alteration in blood. There is paleness and inspite of the fact that the patient eats well, there is emaciation. Much palpitation, fluttering and intermittent action of the heart. Attacks of throbbing headache and dyspnoea, constipation and depression of spirits; and aggravation by consolation. Blue rings around the eyes and oedema. Hypochondriasis in these cases is marked.

Headache: It is a very useful remedy for left sided headache of school going girls. Headache is caused by eye strain, loss of vital fluids or exposure to the sun. Headache of anaemic school girls, from sunrise to sunset; especially from 10 to 11 am as if bursting; with a red face, nausea and vomiting before, during and after menses. Headache as if there were little hammers beating in the skull, worse from moving the head or eyeballs. Headache starts with blindness and zig-zag vision; headache better from perspiration.

Child (baby): Natrium muriaticum child is emaciated, very weak, pale and anaemic. Descending type of marasmus; emaciation especially marked in the neck. Baby is very irritable and cross, cries from the slightest cause. Baby is hot but has great tendency to catch cold with frequent sneezing. The baby gets into a passion about trifles when consoled. Baby losses flesh while eating well. Tongue is mapped, difficult speech, slow learning to talk and walk. Usually constipated. Intense craving for salt but aversion to bread. Involuntary urination while coughing, laughing and sneezing. All symptoms worse by heat of sun, consolation, from taking much salt; amelioration in open air, from irregular meals.

Intermittent fever: It is a good remedy for intermittent fever. The stages are very unequal, the chill perhaps being continuous, heat moderate with violent headache, and perspiration wanting or excessive and debilitating relieving the headache. Fever is generally caused by abuse of quinine; old, chronic, badly treated and neglected cases of fever. Complexion is yellówish-gray. The spleen and liver are enlarged. Chill starts especially between 10 to 11 am. Fever with severe headache. Periodicity is well marked, chill returns in the morning. Fever blisters, especially at the corners of mouth. Mapped tongue with red insular patches. Great thirst, pains in the bones, in the back, debility, accompanied with shortness of breath. Sleepy during daytime and sleepless at night.

Hysteria: It is a very important remedy for hysteria. Alternate weeping and laughter; menses delayed and painful; profuse, greenish, acrid leucorrhoea, itching and burning; fluttering of the heart with a weak faint feeling; cardiac pulsations shake the body; dreams of robbers in the house, will not sleep again until a search is made; with painful contractions of the hamstrings; sensation of a hair on the tongue.

General Modalities

Aggravation: At 10 or 11 am, at the sea shore, from heat of sun, stove, by
consolation, mental exertion, lying down, crying, sea air, lying on the left side.

Amelioration: Lying on the right side, cold bathing, in the open air, going without regular meals, pressure against the back, sleep.

Remedy Relationships

Complementary: Sep, Ign, Caps, Apis.

Follows well: Thuj, Sep.

Antidotes: Apis, Camph, Phos, Ars.

Antidotal to: Chinin-s, Arg-n, Apis.

Compare: Puls, Calc-c, Glon, Kalm, Sang, Spig.

Comparison

Worse from over exertion in the sun: Ant-c, Lach, Nat-m.

Headache of school girls: Calc-p, Nat-m, Psor.

Hypochondriacal tendency: Nat-m, Phos.

Silent grief: Ign, Nat-m, Puls.

Slow learning to walk: Nat-m, Bar-c.

Thoughts persistent: Cann-i, Nat-m.

Weeping, aggravation from consolation: Nat-m, Sep, Sil.

Potency: 3x, 6x, 12x, 30, 200, 1000.

Dosage: H. C. Allen recommends higher potencies but Dr Schussler recommends 6c potency.

Repetition: Low potencies maybe repeated but higher potencies are given in single doses.

Therapeutic Value: Anaemia, Atrophy, Catarrh, Constipation, Dyspepsia, Eye affections, Glandular affections, Headache, Heart affections, Intermittent fever, Leucorrhoea, Marasmus, Menstrual troubles, Respiratory troubles, Rickets, Skin troubles, Sterility, Tongue affections, Urinary affections, Vertigo, Warts, Whooping cough.

Note

1. Natrium muriaticum is the chronic of Ignatia, which is its vegetable analogue. It should never be given during a fever paroxysm. ‘Cannot often be repeated in chronic cases without an intercurrent, called for by the symptoms.’
2. If vertigo and headache be very persistent, or prostration be prolonged after Natrium muriaticum, Nux vomica will relieve.