Gelsemium has been employed with benefit for the inco- ordination of locomotor ataxia. It is a medicine of great service for nervous symptoms that are caused by emotions, as for instance, when involuntary urination or defecation is brought on by a shock or occurs during the excitement of danger, as when a soldier goes into battle, when the apprehension of a thunderstorm or of having to go a journey or undergo any unusual ordeal brings on an attack of diarrhoea, when the patient becomes prostrated from being suddenly overwhelmed by some great surprise or shock, in fact the state of exhaustion and paralysis of function that may occur from nervous excitement of many kinds, such as anger grief, bad news, “funk,” & c. Drooping of the eyelids often accompanies the nervous symptoms.
Gelsemium is also a good remedy for some convulsions, for those occurring during teething, eruptive fevers, from suppressed menses and hysteria, but its main province is in diseases of a paretic or paralytic nature. It is useful for nervous chills and tremblings, nervous affections of the heart, nervous palpitation, oppression, &c., brought on by fright, grief, or any other emotion. A distinctive indication for gelsemium in heart affections is that the patient feels that the heart will stop beating if he does not continually move about.
The headache for which gelsemium is the remedy is a congestive headache with a feeling of great weight in the head, pressing it downwards, and a dull aching felt mostly in the back of the head and extending down the neck, where the vertebra prominens is sensitive; it compels the patient to sit with the head raised and resting back on a pillow, and he must keep perfectly still. With the headache the face is congested and flushed and the upper eyelids droop. It is preceded by a blur before the eyes and drowsiness, is associated with stiffness of the neck, is worse in the morning and passes off with the discharge of large quantities of clear, watery urine. It is aggravated by mental labour, smoking tobacco, lying with the head low and in the heat of the sun, and is ameliorated by pressure, stimulants and the flow of urine,. the pain may extend forward over the head and cause of bursting pain in the forehead and eyeballs. the rigidity of the neck muscles, the drowsiness and headache, the facial and ocular paralyses and the febrile condition indicate gelsemium as a remedy in cerebrospinal meningitis, in which it has often been curative.
Nervous diseases for which gelsemium is likely to prove useful are encephalitis lethargic, the depression of paralysis agitans, and possibly in the insomnia of excited confusional states.
Neuralgia-It is useful for neuralgia of many parts, especially for that over the right eye, for orbital neuralgia associated with paroxysms of twitching in surrounding muscles, and for pain in the anterior crural nerve.
Eyes-Besides the ocular paralyses for which gelsemium is so useful, it is very valuable for internal congestions and serous effusions into the eyeballs, and is therefore one of the principal remedies for glaucoma, detachment of the retina, serous choroiditis and choroido-retinitis.
Sexual-Gelsemium is employed to relieve the pain of spasmodic and neuralgic dysmenorrhoea accompanied by vertigo, headache and faintness; the pains are in the uterine region and shoot up to the back and down the legs. It is useful for labour pains that are cutting and extend from before backwards and upwards impending the natural pains; it is serviceable for after- pains. Gelsemium is a remedy for sexual neurasthenia and impotence caused by masturbation and for debility following involuntary seminal losses.
Digestive-The complaints of the alimentary system requiring the remedy are of nervous origin, such as dysphagia from hysteria or that following diphtheria; the diarrhoea resulting from fright, apprehension or other emotion; the stools are yellow, pappy and watery. Gelsemium may sometimes to be use in passive congestion of the liver with giddiness, blurred vision and jaundice.
Fevers-One of the chief spheres for the employment of this remedy is pyrexia. Many forms of fever need it; catarrhal, eruptive, remittent, bilious, & c. There is less restlessness with i than is the case with aconite and more prostration, the pulse instead of being tense is soft and full, there is less violence than with belladonna and less and cerebral excitement, the patient is more drowsy and listless with gelsemium and less likely to be delirious. The chill is without thirst and the fever is accompanied by a tired feeling, aching in the back and limbs and an entire disinclination to move, not because it is painful to do so, as is the case with bryonia, but because the patient feels too weak to take the trouble. In the early stage of typhoid fever, and in recent malarial fevers, these conditions may be present and indicate gelsemium. Another fever for which it is much used is catarrhal fever; the extremities are cold, the head and face hot, there are dull headache, suffused eyes, sneezing, stoppage at the root of the nose and sore throat with the before-mentioned languor, prostration and dull pain in the back and limbs, all the symptoms, in short, which distinguish many cases of influenza. In this variety of the complaint there is no remedy that acts so promptly and successfully as gelsemium. It is also very useful in remittent fevers, especially the remittent fever of childhood that comes on every afternoon and departs without perspiration in early morning. The catarrhs for which it is indicated usually come on in calm, moist, relaxing weather; it is sometimes useful in hay fever and in nasal and Eustachian catarrh. It has been much used in the catarrhal stage of measles and rubella.
Circulatory-Gelsemium is a remedy for nervous palpitation and for the weak, slow pulse of old age.
Sleep-It is a good medicine for sleeplessness when caused by mental emotions or excitement; the patient involuntarily goes over and over again the events that have distributed him.
Gelsemium is antidoted by china.
LEADING INDICATIONS.
(1) Weariness, heaviness of limbs, disinclination and disability to move.
(2) Trembling.
(3) Functional paralyses of voluntary and involuntary muscles. Muscular inco-ordination.
(4) Occupation paralyses.
(5) Ocular paralyses. Serous exudations into interior of eyeballs. Glaucoma. Detached retina.
(6) Ailments caused by emotions; fright, grief, apprehension, the apprehension of any unusual ordeal.
(7) Catarrhal fevers with drowsiness and headache in warm, relaxing climates.
(8) Occipital headaches involving the neck and extending forwards, with ptosis.
(9) Complaints relieved by profuse emission of watery urine.
(10) Nervous persons; young people; children; debilitated and old people.
AGGRAVATION;
From damp weather, warm, damp atmosphere, fog, heat of sun, summer, sudden change to damp air, before a thunderstorm, motion (except muscular pains and heart), playing piano (causes tired sensation in arms), lying with head low (headache), fright, before, during and after menses.
AMELIORATION;
From cold, open air, keeping still, flow of urine (headache), stimulants.
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,