THERAPEUTICS.
Conium and coniine have had but a limited used in orthodox medicine. The former has been administered in whooping-cough, chorea, tetanus and strychnine poisoning, with doubtful results.
In homoeopathic practice conium has found its principal application in affections of the glands and of the nervous system.
Nervous System.-In addition to the mental and paretic symptoms detailed in the pathogenic section, conium has mental states apparently dependent on the reproductive life, especially in women. These suggest its usefulness in obsessional states in women, about the age of 35 to 45, especially if unmarried, with repressed sexual feeling. Later in life a lethargic or stuporous condition may develop, in which the drug should be studied; or dementia following intermittent insanity, whether due to alcoholism or not, may require its use.
Conium is a very useful medicine for chronic inflammations and indurations of glands, or other soft parts, caused by injuries, especially by blows.
Breasts.-It is specific to the female breasts and disperses hard nodules and swellings in them, even when they appear to be cancerous. It is indicated when the breasts become enlarged and tender before each menstrual period and for the effects of injuries to them. In scirrhous tumours of the breasts or other glands it should be thought of when the pains are burning, stinging, or darting (apis).
It is a remedy for swelling and induration of the testicles, especially if resulting from a blow; also for fibrous thickening of the uterus, ex. gr., chronic metritis or even “fibrosis,”. It is a valuable palliative in cancer of the uterus and of the stomach.
Sexual.-Conium causes wasting of the mammae and testicles, and is a remedy for weakened sexual functions, whether due to masturbation or to suppression of the sexual appetite, such as occurs in widowers and widows who have hitherto led an active sexual life. The enforced abstinence may cause hysteria in women and impotence and prostatic emissions during stool in the male, together with sexual hypochondriasis manifested by depression, timidity, taciturnity and aversion to society. Conium will be useful in these cases and in the condition in which sexual desire is excited, but no eructations take place; or semen and prostatic fluid escape involuntary on any emotion, without sexual desire, both when awake and in sleep. The drug is useful for thick, milky leucorrhoea, for scanty menses, especially in single women over 40, for difficult conception and for heartburn in pregnant women occurring when they go to bed at night.
Urinary.-Weakness in the urinary organs similar to that in the genitals indicated conium, thus it is useful for paralysis of the bladder when the flow of urine is interrupted, stops and begins again, and when there is dribbling after micturition, a condition apt to occur in old men. It is also a remedy for ischuria, arising from nervousness or from swelling of the prostate.
Respiration.-Conium is indicated for a violent spasmodic cough that occurs only on lying down, the patient has to sit up and cough till a little mucus is expectorated, and also for the nervous night cough of old people; this is a dry, hacking cough from a dry spot in the larynx, and is associated with spurting of urine and sleeplessness. The cough, in consumption, for which this remedy has been successfully given, is a loose cough in which the expectoration comes up no further than the entrance to the pharynx and must be swallowed.
Vertigo.-Conium is curative in some forms of vertigo, especially when occurring in old people, or caused by over-use of tobacco. It comes on when turning over in bed, or from turning the head sideways, or raising it, and is often accompanied with a numbed feeling in the head. Sudden attacks of giddiness and faintness call for it.
Head.-It is serviceable for headache, when the brain feels too large and sensitive, and is followed by coldness and numbness of the head.
Eyes.-It is useful in ophthalmia when there is great photophobia, with little to be seen in the eye to account for it, the ophthalmia is worse at night, and from the least ray of light, and better from pressure and in a dark room. It is a remedy for difficulties in accommodation when the eye adapts itself sluggishly to different ranges of vision, and for partial or complete paralysis of the lids. It has proved useful in the cure of traumatic cataract.
Limbs.-It is a good remedy for failing power of locomotion, especially in old people, the patient is weak and trembling, the knees give way and he falls forwards.
Indurations.-It should be thought of in all kinds of indurations from pressure or irritation, such as cancer of the lip from irritation of the pipe.
LEADING INDICATIONS.
(1) Numbness, coldness, want of sensation.
(2) Muscular paralyses without spasms; gradually increasing paralytic weakness.
(3) Indurations of glands and soft parts caused by injuries.
(4) Swollen, hard glands; fibrous tumours; scirrhus.
(5) Disorders arising from enforced sexual abstinence.
(6) Feeble but erethistic state of the male genitals.
(7) Dry cough from dry, itching spot in the larynx, on lying down.
(8) Vertigo from turning the head sideways, turning over in bed, looking at moving objects.
(9) Pain and swelling in breasts before menses.
(10) Engorgements and tumours of the breast.
(11) Perspiration on falling asleep or even closing the eyes.
(12) Sufferings better from letting the limbs hang down.
(13) Aversion to light without inflammation of the eyes.
(14) Weakness, palpitation and faintness after an evacuation.
(15) Stabbing pains.
(16) Stream of urine feeble, interrupted dribbling.
(17) Cold flatus, cold stool.
(18) Effects of blows, falls, grief, over-study.
(19) People who are easily intoxicated with stimulants.
(20) Women of rigid fibre and easily excited; also the opposite temperament.
(21) Organic affections of lymphatic individuals, women, children, old people.
AGGRAVATION:
From standing, lying down (cough), at rest (most symptoms), during eating, lifting affected parts, turning in bed, or turning the head sideways (vertigo), touch, jar, or fall, pressure of tight clothing, alcohol, watching moving objects (vertigo), celibacy.
AMELIORATION:
In the dark, from letting affected limb hang down (calc. the reverse), moving, walking, stooping.
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,