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Antimonium tartaricum (Ant‑t.)

Antimonium tartaricum (Ant‑t.) appears in the repertory in 560 rubrics. Of these, 33 are single-remedy rubrics in which only this remedy is listed, and 45 are small rubrics with at most two other remedies. The emphasis lies on the rubrics Children, Anxiety, Fear, Unconsciousness, Coma, Moaning, and Weeping. The picture is that of a sick, helpless person, above all a child, who does not want to be touched but wants to be carried, clings, whimpers and moans, and alternates between anxiety and indifference.

Children: Not Touched, but Carried

The children's rubrics are the largest group, and their pattern is a contradiction. The child has an aversion to being touched and an aversion to caresses, but nevertheless wants to be carried, and upright, sitting; carrying ameliorates. It weeps when touched, screams when looked at, also in tabes mesenterica, and weeps constantly. Infants refuse the mother's breast in catarrh or cannot be nursed and weep. In bronchitis the child is irritable, and when coughing it clings. Only this remedy has the rubric for clinging to the attendant.

Clinging, Holding, and Moaning

From the pattern emerges the search for support: the person holds on to any persons standing about, holds on to the nurse, and wants to be carried, sitting. Moaning and wailing stand before the illness, before and during attacks of summer diarrhea, on touch, and in babies; weeping and whimpering too announce attacks and illness. Howling occurs when the person is looked at. One complaint concerns the numerous symptoms in pneumonia.

Anxiety, Fear, and Hopelessness

The anxiety is close to the body: in rheumatism, in pregnancy in attacks lasting two or three hours, aggravated by nausea, with throbbing in the stomach regarding the future. Fear occurs with menstrual pain and with dysmenorrhea, likewise fear of the approach of others during colic in the menses; added is fear of death with respiratory complaints. Hopelessness shows itself in intermittent fever and in colic. Despair occurs on repeated waking. The anxiety alternates with indifference, the indifference with anxiety and with restlessness, and the indifference is accompanied by a slowed pulse.

Unconsciousness, Coma, and Delusions

The remedy shows severe states: unconsciousness in asphyxia and on closing the eyes, coma with dark face, with blue lips, and with pale face, stupefaction when coughing, the state of apparent death in the drowned. The delusions are brief: the person must sleep, is in a stupefied sleep, or is wading in water. Delirium occurs in influenza, delirium tremens with torpor and snoring. The mood changes from exuberance to peevishness, from morosity to exhilaration.

Summary

The picture of Antimonium tartaricum is that of a helpless, severely ill person who wants closeness but shuns touch, clings and moans, wavers between anxiety and indifference, and can sink into coma. The rubrics on children and the single-remedy rubrics on coma and on fear during menses set the remedy apart. A king-pin symptom is not identified in the available data.

A reference work for professionals; it does not replace diagnosis or treatment.