The general features of the remedy are such as related to the mind and such as relate to the tissues of the body in general. If you run through the mental symptoms, taking them all in as one great whole, you will see that all the affections, natural to healthy man, are perverted. So great in extent is this that one of the fundamental loves, which is the love of living, of self- protection, is perverted and he loathes life, is weary of life, longs to die and seeks methods to commit suicide. No love of life. The affections pre-eminently are deranged, the intellectual sphere is only secondarily changed. Of course insanity runs through the remedy, but it is an insanity that begins in the will and proceeds to the intellect; it is first observed as a perversion of the affections. It is astonishing that one could get into such a state of mind, such horrible depression of spirits that there is an absolute loss of enjoyment in everything. You take away a man's hope, and he has nothing to live for, he then wants to die. Such, it seems, is the state in this medicine. Self-condemnation, continual self-reproach, self- criticism, a constant looking into self; she does nothing right, everything is wrong, nothing will succeed, hopelessness. "Imagines he cannot succeed in anything, and he does everything wrong; he is in disunion with himself". Imagines he sees obstacles in his way everywhere. He is all the time imagining that he has neglected something, that he has neglected his friends. He imagines that he deserves reproach in consequence of < having neglected duty;> he has neglected something, he is wrong, is wholly evil, has sinned away his day of grace, is not worthy of salvation; this is the train of thought that constantly runs through his mind. The thought really becomes uncontrollable; he is absorbed in himself and sits and broods over it, and by brooding over it he only intensifies his present state and hatches new grievances, continues to worry over himself, thinks he is wholly unfit for this world, and then he longs to die. He looks on the dark side of everything, constantly expecting bad news, looking for everything to go wrong. The future looks dark to him, and he wants to die; he never will succeed, for everything goes wrong that he turns his hand to. His business is dark, his family troubles him, his friends annoy him; he becomes extremely irritable, easily angered, is worried over trifles, and easily excited. Every little thing rouses him into anger and turmoil, he is always in a vexation. The Aurum state of mind is an insanity dreadful to look upon because of its turbulence and melancholy. It is suitable in the most profound states of melancholy and depression where the patient sits silent and says nothing.
When disturbed he is aroused to great vehemence, anger and violence. "Melancholy, feels hateful .and quarrelsome". "Terrible melancholy after abuse of Mercury". The causes of this state of insanity are prolonged anxiety, unusual responsibility, syphilis and loss of property. Persons who have been repeatedly drugged with Mercury, have established upon themselves a mercurial disease,with enlargement of the liver, and this is almost always attended more or less by melancholy and sadness and such hopelessness as we find in Aurum. Aurum produces such affections of the liver as are associated with cardiac affections, endocarditis, dropsy of the heart and rheumatic affections that have gone to the heart. You will notice that wherever the affections are pre-eminently disturbed in mental disease that there is either cardiac weakness, endocarditis, enlargement of the heart, or some organic functional disease of the heart. You will very often find a history of taking Mercury that has superinduced a rheumatic state that has been rubbed away with liniments until the heart is affected, and with this comes affections. Then it appears to spread in this remedy from the will to the understanding, and the intellectual portion of man becomes involved. Think what a state it is for a man who has been in good condition of health, respected in his business circles, to have a desire to commit suicide. You will see other kinds of insanity and a breaking down or a state of feebleness of the intellect, he cannot think nor reason; his affections are practically intact, but he finally goes into a state of imbecility, or he becomes wild and commits suicide from impulse. That is an instance where the intellect has been affected first and spread to the will. Sometimes this state comes on, and no disturbance in the man's intellectual nature has been observed; it is intact, it is sound. He has been sound in his business affairs, he has been a good father, he has been observed by those around him to be intelligent, but he has silently brooded over his state and his hatred of the world; he has told nobody of it, and then he has been found hung in his room. The man's intellectual nature keeps the man in contact with the world; but his affections are largely kept to himself. A man can have affection for all sorts of things and perversion of the affections, but his intellect will guide him not to show his likes and dislikes to the world. The affections cannot be seen, but man's intellect is subject to inspection. He cannot conceal his intellect. We shall see that the affections are interior, they are covered with a cloak, they are his innermost and are hidden from inspection; but the understanding is the outermost garment, it surrounds and hides his affections, just as does the garment he wears over the body. The affections that Aurum resembles are those like unto the very innermost nature of man.
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