Lycopodium clavatum. Club moss. Wolf’s claw. N.O. Lycopodiaceae. Tincture of spores (ethereal). Trituration of spores.
INTRODUCTION
LYCOPODIUM POWDER, prepared from the spores of the moss, is made up of a number of little particles about one eight hundredth of an an inch in diameter and shaped like a nut. These little nuts when fractured are shown to contain oil globules in which the medicinal property of lycopodium resides. The small nuts are hard and are fractured with difficulty, so that to make the first decimal trituration it is directed that trituration with milk sugar should be prolonged for two hours. No tincture but an ethereal one is found to dissolve the sporules and extract the oil. This shows how Hahnemann’s process of trituration can liberate unsuspected medicine powder from what seems to be an inert powder, which is used in orthodox practice only for dusting on the skin to prevent abrasions, and is considered to be of no medicinal use.
PATHOGENESIS.
Lycopodium has been well proved and the provings lay down the main lines in which it can be used for therapeutic purposes, but the results of the provings have been supplemented by many symptoms and general indications furnished by experience culled from long clinical use, which add to, but in no case contradict, those given by the provings. It will be convenient, therefore, to take the provings and the symptoms derived from clinical sources together, as in this way they will provide a more complete picture of the range of the drug from which to decide whether lycopodium should be given in any particular case.
General Effects.-Lycopodium acts powerfully on the vegetative system of the body, that is to say, on the mucous membrane of the whole alimentary tract, from the mouth to the anus and on the prolongation of this tract into the liver, on the whole of the genito-urinary mucous membranes and on that of the respiratory tract. It also acts on the skin which externally corresponds to the mucous membranes internally. On these tissues, skin and mucous membrane, it acts as a depressant and causes slowly advancing weakness, loss of function, and finally decay. Digestion is impaired, the functions of liver and kidneys are interfered with and the skin suffers. From failure in the functions of these tissues there arises secondarily a state of general and advancing ill-health which shows itself by symptoms related to nearly every part of the body and makes of lycopodium one of our principal polychrests.
Digestive Tract.-We will consider first its action on the alimentary tract, as it is there that the symptoms are the most important and striking. There is a moist, suppurating eruption round the mouth, the corners of which are sore and cracked (graphites). Saliva or mucus dries on the palate and lips, and tastes salt. The tongue is coated white, vesicles are present on its tip and ulcers on its under surface, it is dry, stiff and swollen, and seems too large for the mouth, giving the patient a silly expression and impairing his speech. Large quantities of saliva accumulate in the mouth, especially in the morning, when there is nausea and inclination to vomit. Much sticky mucus which feels like glue collects in the mouth and gives a sensation of the teeth being adherent to one another. The gums are bluish, swollen and bleeding, very sensitive to touch, and there may be gumboils. The teeth are loose and feel too long, and there is toothache with swelling of the face, relieved by the heat of the bed and warm applications. The submaxillary glands are swollen and tender. The taste is bitter, slimy, pasty, sour or metallic and there is a disagreeable odour from the mouth. At night, thirst may be present for small quantities frequently, or may be absent. Appetite is very variable, it may be absent altogether, but the more characteristic condition is hunger with early satiety. A small quantity of food seems to fill up the patient, even to the throat, so that he can take no more. He may be hungry though inclined to vomit. The hunger may be quite voracious, so that “the more he eats the more he craves” but the more usual condition is a hunger which is soon satisfied but soon returns. He is often hungry at night and will get up to take food. Sometimes hunger is associated with a headache which is relieved only by eating.
There is accumulation of mucus in the throat with inclination to swallow, a contracted feeling in the pharynx prevents swallowing and fluids regurgitate through the nose, or an irritation in the oesophagus compels the patient to be constantly swallowing. Pain, soreness, swelling and suppuration of the tonsils begin on the right side of the throat and travel over to the left, and membranous patches spreading from the right side have been found clinically to indicate lycopodium in diphtheria. A feeling of pressure or of a ball rises from the stomach through the oesophagus to the throat, where it causes choking. Throat symptoms are made worse by cold and ameliorated by warm drinks (lach. and phos. the reverse.)
The patient has an aversion from coffee, tobacco, boiled warm food, rye bread and meat; he desires sweets and oysters. Cold drinks, starchy food, green vegetables and oysters disagree. Everything tastes sour, and eructations are sour and cause heartburn. There is much belching of air without relief. The stomach feels full, with a sensation of pressure or heaviness, or a sinking feeling may be experienced. Gnawing, burning, or griping pains are present. The epigastrium is very sensitive to touch or pressure, so that the patient must loosen his clothing. Visible pulsation is conspicuous in the scrobiculus cordis. There is great sensitiveness in the liver region, worse from pressure, so that the patient cannot lie on the affected side. A cord-like tension is felt across the hypochondria. The whole abdomen is tympanitically distended and is tender to touch; coughing and taking a deep breath cause pain. Stretching and bending backwards increase the tension and cause pain; the patient wants to bend forwards in order to relax the sensitive abdominal integuments. Abdominal distension is worse after food, is accompanied by audible rumbling and gurgling, most in evidence in the left hypochondrium, and is relieved by the passage of flatus. There may be constant griping pains around the navel or a feeling of retraction towards the spine. The pains in the abdomen go from right to left. Much flatus accumulates here and there in the abdomen, in the back and in the groins, especially in the right groin where it presses out as if a hernia were protruding. Flatus also causes a pressing-out feeling in the rectum. Diarrhoea may occur of foetid, yellow, or green, watery stools, but the more usual condition is one of constipation, when the stools are hard and there is urging, which proves in-effectual from contraction of the sphincter ani. After stool there is a feeling in the rectum of much remaining behind and there are shooting, tearing and burning pains in that part with much flatulence. Haemorrhoids protrude with the stool and are very painful to touch, too painful to sit; the rectal mucous membrane protrudes with a hard stool. The latter may be dry and hard (bry., sulph.), or the first part is lumpy and the second soft. There is commonly an itching eruption, painful to touch, round the anus, or there may be itching without any eruption.
The urinary symptoms caused by lycopodium are important and show involvement of the whole of the urinary system from the kidneys downwards. A severe pain is felt in the loins which is relieved by passing urine. Bearing-down pain over the bladder accompanies frequent desire to urinate, but the patient may have to wait long before it passes. Urine may be suppressed. It is usually either scanty, dark, red, albuminous, and passed with pain, or it may be very clear and abundant, especially at night. Frequent profuse evacuations of urine at night is one of the indications for lycopodium. The characteristic urine is a clear fluid, from which are deposited crystals of uric acid which are seen as red sand at the bottom of the vessel as soon as the urine has been passed. The passage of the crystals is accompanied by pain along the urethra and at the neck of the bladder and sometimes their sharp angles cause haemorrhage from the injured mucous membrane with consequent haematuria. They may set up cystitis and the formation of a stone in the bladder, in which case the urine may become alkaline, purulent and offensive.
In the male sexual organs lycopodium causes redness and inflammation of the prepuce and frequent stitches in the glans penis. The penis is small, cold and relaxed. Sexual desire is diminished. Erections are feeble or occur without sexual desire. There may be amorous dreams with excessive and exhausting pollutions or emissions without previous erections. The patient may become impotent. There is intolerable itching and smarting of the scrotum and thigh, and inflamed brown spots occur in these positions.
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,