Coffea cruda. N.O. Rubiaceae. A tincture from the raw berry.
PATHOGENESIS.
COFFEA is the well-known beverage. It is a decided mental stimulant, the mind and thoughts are usually active, and a slight degree of excitement is produced; fatigue is less observed and muscular effort is easier than usual. In sensitive subjects sleep may be deferred by the crowding in of ideas or the reviewing and re-reviewing of past events or future plans.
The special senses are rendered temporarily more acute and the subject of the experiment may become more sensitive to pain and to the open air, which he shuns (except headache). In due course reaction takes place in the shape of mental and bodily exhaustion.
Caffeine (C8H10N4O2H2O) produces the same effects, with the addition of causing trembling of all the muscles of the body. It also causes diuresis (as does coffea), with increase of solids and increased metabolism. Large doses may cause a rise of temperature.
Headaches may be produced-either a general feeling of a “rush of blood” to the face and head, or a unilateral pain as if a nail were being driven into the head. The cause may be mental excitement, painful or pleasant, and the pain is worse after eating and better while in the open air. The face is flushed, hot and dry.
Hearing is very acute, especially sensitive to music, and sounds seem shrill.
Nose.-Epistaxis in the morning may take place.
Teeth.-Pain in several teeth, more often on the right side, extending to the air; associated with restlessness or weeping. The pain is temporarily relieved by holding ice or very cold water in the mouth.
Digestive system.-Hunger and thirst are excessive, especially at night, and spasmodic gastric pain and oppression are present, as if from tight clothing. Lower down severe colic is felt.
Genito-urinary system.-Micturition is more frequent, especially at night, when the sexual appetite is also excited. Menstruation is increased and the vulva is sensitive to touch.
Respiratory organs.-Hoarseness on waking is experienced, with mucus difficult to dislodge, causing short, dry cough. A nervous, tickling cough at night, accompanied with oppressed breathing, anxiety and sleeplessness occur and is accompanied by quick, irregular pulse and palpitation.
Circulatory system.-Coffea is useful for palpitation due to nervous excitement or an irritable state of the heart.
extremities.-Neuralgic pains in arms down to the fingers, with tremor on using the hands, and pains in the legs, relieved by pressure and aggravated by motion, come on, especially at night.
Nervous system.-sensitiveness of the cutaneous nerves, itching of eruptions, restlessness, shivering, yet feeling of heat without sweat, are part of the general hyperaesthesia and erethism; alternations of depression and hilarity occur.
THERAPEUTICS.
Insomnia.-The chief homoeopathic uses of coffea are for sleeplessness and neuralgia. The former has the features already mentioned, and if the patient is not taking coffee to excess, a few doses of coffea just before and after going to bed will usually give restful sleep.
Mental.-In cases of excitability and hysterical weeping with the same over-stimulated mental state, acuteness of senses and flushed face, coffea will act satisfactorily. It has even been used for mild delirium tremens, with restlessness, fears and failure to identify his surroundings on the part of the patient oppression are present, as if from tight clothing. Lower down severe colic is felt.
Genito-urinary system.-Micturition is more frequent, especially at night, when the sexual appetite is also excited. Menstruation is increased and the vulva is sensitive to touch.
Respiratory organs.-Hoarseness on waking is experienced, with mucus difficult to dislodge, causing short, dry cough. A nervous, tickling cough at night, accompanied with oppressed breathing, anxiety and sleeplessness occur and is accompanied by quick, irregular pulse and palpitation.
Circulatory system.-Coffea is useful for palpitation due to nervous excitement or an irritable state of the heart.
Extremities.-Neuralgic pains in arms down to the fingers, with tremor on using the hands, and pains in the legs, relieved by pressure and aggravated by motion, come on, especially at night.
Nervous system.-sensitiveness of the cutaneous nerves, itching of eruptions, restlessness, shivering, yet feeling of heat without sweat, are part of the general hyperaesthesia and erethism; alternations of depression and hilarity occur.
THERAPEUTICS.
Insomnia.-The chief homoeopathic uses of coffea are for sleeplessness and neuralgia. The former has the features already mentioned, and if the patient is not taking coffee to excess, a few doses of coffea just before and after going to bed will usually give restful sleep.
Mental.-In cases of excitability and hysterical weeping with the same over-stimulated mental state, acuteness of senses and flushed face, coffea will act satisfactorily. It has even been used for mild delirium tremens, with restlessness, fears and failure to identify his surroundings on the part of the patient.
The coffea neuralgia is chiefly facial, extending to the teeth and affecting the right side by preference; it may also affect the lower limbs, where it is relieved by pressure and worse from using the limb.
In women it is sometimes useful for uterine pains after childbirth, with the hypersensitiveness, restlessness and insomnia characteristic of the drug; also for dysmenorrhoea in similarly sensitive states.
Unilateral neuralgic headache, from excitement or alcohol, due to mental strain, talking, &c., attended with nausea, may call for coffea.
Other indications for the drug may be found in the earlier sections.
Coffea is antidoted by nux v. and chamomilla.
LEADING INDICATIONS.
(1) Over-sensitiveness to all impressions, of special senses and to pain.
(2) Increased mental and physical activity.
(3) Sleeplessness, with similar mental state-the same idea or chain of thoughts repeats itself.
(4) Toothache, relieved temporarily by iced-water in mouth.
(5) Unilateral headache, as if a nail were driven in.
(6) Causation: ailments from mental emotions, especially excessive joy, from cold and from narcotic medicines.
(7) Pains, even those in the extremities, are aggravated by noise.
AGGRAVATIONS:
Excessive joy and any sudden emotion, after food (headaches), night, motions (pains in legs), noises.
AMELIORATION:
Open-air (headache), holding ice or cold water in mouth (toothache), warmth.
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,