Calendula officinalis. The common marigold. N.O. Composite. Tinct. from flowers and leaves.
INTRODUCTION
CALENDULA has been used of late years almost exclusively by practitioners of homoeopathy and their patients. Its use is based on empiricism, but it is, in a small sphere, so valuable an agent that it must receive its due place here.
It does not appear to have been “proved” in the ordinary sense of the term but it has proved itself to be a valuable vulnerary.
In the pre-antiseptic days of the American Civil War it was found serviceable in gunshot wounds, promoting healing, lessening suppuration and relieving pain. It is a very soothing application, in the proportion of 2 dr. of the tincture to 1 pint of sterile normal saline solution. It is better to apply the solution hot.
Its sphere has been much narrowed by the introduction of aseptic surgery, but where union has broken down for any reason it will favour granulation and remove unpleasant odours. In staphylococcic infections, where the secretions are not pent up, it is soothing and healing.
For catarrhs, such as leucorrhoea and nasal discharges, it forms a pleasant and efficacious douche, It may replace iodine on sensitive skins and mucous membranes.
Calendula is seldom administered internally but in the third decimal dilution it is believed to enhance the effect of its local application. It would be in the above-named traumatisms and condition, where the patients are “nervous”, starting too easily from over-sensitiveness of hearing and touch and to cold air, that it is indicated. Damp weather increases the ailments.
Chilliness in the morning and heat in the afternoon are attributed to calendula, or the two are mingled. A prover noticed that chewing the leaf relieved a difficulty of passing water he had experienced “such as is common in old men” (? prostatic). Pyknuria, dysuria (hot or burning pain), occur during the chilly stage of fever. Indeed, where fever is in definite stags (malarial type) all the patient’s symptoms are worse during the chill and from drinking.
General heaviness of the head, worse in the morning, especially in the occiput; worse when lying down.
The neck and throat are painful from swelling and tension in the submaxillary glands, worse from moving and causing pain on swallowing.
LEADING INDICATIONS.
(1) As a vulnerary, especially for clean-cut wounds; also (in the days before antisepsis) valuable in compound fractures.
(2) As a haemostatic, ex.gr. after tooth extraction.
(3) To prevent or check suppuration-locally and internally; for old ulcers.
(4) In catarrhs of mucous membranes-coryza, leucorrhoea, &c.
(5) Oversensitive to pain.
(6) Rheumatic pains relieved by complete rest or alternatively by walking.
Calendula does not irritate the skin as does arnica.
AGGRAVATION:
During damp and cloudy weather: from bending the neck, from cold air and cold drinks (fever).
AMELIORATION:
Rest.
Edwin Awdas Neatby founded the Missionary School of Homeopathy and the London Homeopathic Hospital in 1903, and run by the British Homeopathic Association. He died in East Grinstead, Sussex, on the 1st December 1933. Edwin Awdas Neatby wrote The place of operation in the treatment of uterine fibroids, Modern developments in medicine, Pleural effusions in children, Manual of Homoeo Therapeutics,