Introduction
Kernel of Myristica officinalis, L. Nutmeg. Nat. Ord., Myristicacea.
Provings
1. PURKINJE. An entire nutmeg, taken piecemeal with sugar, produced no other effect than a certain dulness of the organs of sense and some heaviness in locomotion. there of them, however, taken after a moderate meal, caused irresistible somnolence, and a deep sleep with quiet agreeable dreams. On awaking, he went to a theatre. On the way, he lost all thinking power, and fell into a peculiar state of hallucination. He feared he had not taken the right road, felt it impossible to make out where he was, and found the distance and the time taken excessively long – thinking he had been an hour on the way and should miss the beginning of the piece. During the whole performance,. dreams and reality contended in his mind, till at last the disorder of mind gradually subsided. There were no other symptoms. Later, P – took 8 grm. of the grated nut in brandy; and this time, instead of quiet somnolence, he was seized with a general agitation of the muscular system, accompanied by vertigo. (N. Breslauer Samml., 1828.)
2. HELBIG. Provings on self and 26 others, without information as to subjects or dosage.
a. Woman. – 1st d. Indifference. She is all day as if drunk, her head is heavy, there is first pain on left side through forehead and temple, then it goes into occiput. Blue rings about eyes. Appetite increased, but fell off next d. Movement in abdomen as though colic were coming on. Uncommonly sleepy, eyes always close. As if intoxicated and sleepy, she knows not where she is, her eyes close. As soon as she comes into the cold and damp air she shivers and becomes pale, evening – 2nd d. Commencement of griping; began on left side of abdomen and spread to right and downwards. – 2nd and 3rd d. Commencement of pinching under stomach, with feeling as if it would come to actual colic. No stool 1st day, 2nd day hard and passed with difficulty, 3rd day, instead of flatus some watery evacuation came away. Is easily chilled in cold air. – no time given. In m., taste on tongue as after a debauch. She feels no proper call to stool at the usual time, the evacuation is hard and passed with difficulty. (Heraklides, part i, 1833.)
3. ANT -, woman. After 1 hours, feeling as if bellyache would come on. Tickling and pricking in nose, making her rub it. – 1st day pressure on right side of head, partly over ear, partly on right corner of occiput, as if it pressed on the bone internally, transient. (Ibid.)
4. C -, a man. – No time given. All n., restlessness, dry heat, sleeplessness, dry sticky lips and tongue, without thirst; feeling as if all the blood – vessels were throbbing; a throbbing pressive pain on small spots of head, especially on left eyebrow. (Ibid.)
5. DERLE, man. After 6 hours, pain, especially on temples, when he shakes his head a waggling as if brain struck against skull; temples painful to touch, and head hot. (Ibid.)
6. DK -, man. Burning of eyes and lachrymation. (Ibid.)
7. DL -, man. After 6 hours, hands hot and burning, lasting 1/2 day – 1st d. Lachrymose humour, with burning and weeping of eyes. he drinks much. pain like splenic stitches, which drew him together, on right side, near navel. – 2nd d. Slimy, diarrhoeic stool, as when there are worms. (Ibid.)
8. GRIMMER, man. Towards evening, distension of abdomen and nausea; twitching about navel, which sometimes goes towards heart, sometimes downwards; thread – worms passed by stool. After doing very little, must lie down exhausted. (Ibid.)
9. HARTMANN, man. Staggering and great anxiety. (Ibid.)
10. Dr. HELBIG.-a. From tinct. Immediately, confusion and dulness of forehead. Pressive pain in forehead, drawing towards left eye, with stupefied feeling, for 2 h. After 1/2 hours, warm feeling in stomach. After 3 hours, when reading, he gradually sinks into an absence of thought, which is apt to pass into sleep. After 5 hours, before answering a question, has to think for awhile; often, in spite of every effort, he is unable to give a suitable answer, – a kind of slow flow of ideas. He staggers when walking, and when thinking he has but one idea, until he wakes up from his loss of thought, and he hasten to recall to mind where he is. After 6 hours, a jerking shooting in chest anteriorly, coming upwards in a slanting direction and taking away breath. After 7 hours, hot stitches on chin. On account of dry feeling in mouth, he constantly presses the tongue against palate; at same time a peculiar taste, something like the after – taste of very salt food, all d. After 21 hours, though there was always slight griping, with tendency to flatus and diarrhoea, and a sensation as if diarrhoea was coming on, he mist strain to expel a stool of normal consistence, which was bright yellow, and showed undigested bits of fruit. After 24 hours, though the faeces were not hard, the evacuation was slow, and it felt as if some remained behind. Urine decreased in quantity, but saturated and clear. – 1st d. When walking in open air in evening, he staggers greatly towards the left, instead of walking straight. Along with confusion of mind, there is painful feeling in upper part of brain and skull as though that was compressed from above and from the side and spasmodically affected or contracted, with drowsiness. Dryness of eyes, reading by candle – light is difficult, the eyes close as if from sleep, head and forehead confused, e. Some stitches in ears. The salvia and mucus in mouth seem so thick that the buccal cavity feels quite dry; this makes him inclined to drink, though he is not thirsty; at the back of tongue a feeling as if after taking much salt. Tongue and palate dry, and nose as if blocked up with thick mucus; not thirst, but tongue feels like leather, n. Increased appetite, it has hardly been satiated when it recurs a new. Slight nausea, alternating with increased appetite. Cutting and distension in upper part of abdomen. Cutting from navel extends in 2 rays to either side, down back -, and side – wards, n. Pinching in umbilical region, in bed, n. Urging to stool and feeling as if swollen anus, but nothing comes. Spasmodic pain in penis, going from below upwards. Cannot help falling asleep after dinner, when awakened falls asleep again immediately, the sleep is not very sound. – 2nd d. M., pain in forehead. Full feeling in eyes, pupils seem contracted. Pains in ear, as if a not a blunt instrument were pressed hither and thither in it. A pain betwixt aching and shooting in right ear, m. Spasmodic compression and contraction from both joints of jaw forwards. Feeling of fulness above and anteriorly in chest prevents deep breathing, which causes pressive pains in jerks under sternum. The posterior muscles of right thigh are painful when walking or when touched, as if he had fallen on them or been riding, m. Pressive pain in anterior aspect of left leg, when standing as if an eruption of pimples would come there, all d. On moving arm pain in region of pectoralis muscle as from a blow, much increased by touch and pressure. Slight chilliness, bellyache and sacral pain, little appetite, white furred tongue, pressive pain in soft palate, breathing difficult from pressive pain in chest, great drowsiness, evening – 4th d. Tenderness and pain in left upper and lower molars. – 7th d. Sacrum and legs as if beaten and very tired. – 8th d. Pitching in navel after febrile chill, evening in bed. To the sacral pain there is added, in evening, chilliness, which in the cold increases to rigor, but goes off in room. At same time confusion of head, especially forehead; little appetite, slimy tongue; merry humour, disposed to jokes, evening – 10th d. Hard pressing pains on top of head, a. m. Stitches in left ear. – 11th day while driving, evening, had a painful feeling, which seemed to go from inner ear to posterior wall of fauces (Eustachian tube), as if a rough body were sticking there and were forcibly pressed out; the sensation commenced first in fauces and then went to ear, and thence to buccal cavity. – 12th d. Pain in the parts lain on when he lies on a hard place. – 13th d. Tearing pain at left elbow in extensor muscles, hindering movement. – Several day He has a difficulty in remembering things he learnt a short time before, his memory seems paralysed for such things. Pain as if a loose tooth were seized in order to be extracted, combined with the feeling as though a shock to the body was the cause of it, and this indeed sometimes causes it (going upstairs, &c.). – No time given. A kind pressure on sides of head, especially temples, like pressing out. Single sharp pressures in left ear, appearing to increase by, and partly to depend on, movement of lower jaw. During most of the proving, tenderness of incisors and anterior molars when air penetrates into mouth; at first warm liquids caused the pain, after a few day not. Painfulness of chest in front, impending respiration, sometimes accompanied by a pressive pain in right side, but more, e. When damp wind blows on him it causes pain in nuchal muscles. On flexor side of upper arm, shoulder – and elbow – joints a shooting pain, which occurs occasionally for several weeks and seems to be seated in the blood – vessels. right knee feels constricted, as if someone took hold of it.
Hughes was a great writer and a scholar. He actively cooperated with Dr. T.F. Allen to compile his 'Encyclopedia' and rendered immeasurable aid to Dr. Dudgeon in translating Hahnemann's 'Materia Medica Pura' into English. In 1889 he was appointed an Editor of the 'British Homoeopathic Journal' and continued in that capacity until his demise. In 1876, Dr. Hughes was appointed as the Permanent Secretary of the Organization of the International Congress of Homoeopathy Physicians in Philadelphia. He also presided over the International Congress in London.