The throat feels dry, with a sensation of rawness and scraping, or as if a worm were in the throat. Taste is perverted or lost. Appetite is usually lost, and there is aversion from meat, butter, fat food, especially the fat of meat, and from milk, bread, pork and smoking. The patient craves sour, refreshing things, and often thinks he cannot digest, such as cheese, herrings, pastry, spiced and pungent food. he feels bloated after eating, and desires to loosed his clothing, a sensation of qualmishness is present, he has eructations tasting of the food eaten, and there is heartburn and possibly waterbrash of sour or foul-tasting fluid. he frequently omits, often food that has been taken many hours before and has lain undigested in. the stomach. Digestion is slow, and pain, as of a weight, occurs, in the stomach, or cramping pain at the epigastrium, which is tender and cannot bear pressure. Sometimes there is a gnawing distress in the stomach, as from hunger, which comes on one hour after eating. There is seldom thirst with all these symptoms, though the mouth is dry. Jaundice may occur secondarily to catarrh of the duodenum.
The abdomen is distended with flatulence, which moves about with rumbling and gurgling, especially in bed in the evening, it is sensitive, and there are pressing pains and forcing down towards the pelvis. The stools are usually loose, preceded by rumbling, and are soft and slimy, mixed with green mucus, and vary in colour and consistence; they occur mostly in the evening and during the night. Occasionally there is constipation. with difficult evacuation of whitish stools or of dysenteric stools that are scanty, bloody, green and watery, and are evacuated with a little spurt. Painful, protruding, blind piles are produced which itch, smart, and are sore. When the above symptoms are present pulsatilla is a very frequently used medicine for gastric disorders, for acute and chronic dyspepsias, for mucous diarrhoea, such as occur in measles and chicken-pox, and in febrile affections of children.
Urine.- Pulsatilla usually causes scanty, acrid urine, with copious deposit of urates, phosphates and urate of ammonia. There is burning during micturition and afterwards at the orifice of the urethra (can. sat., canth.) and frequent urging and cutting pain. Involuntary micturition and afterwards at the orifice of the urethra (can.sat., canth.) and frequent urging and cutting pain. Involuntary micturition may occur at night in bed or from any sudden exertion, such as coughing or lifting. This remedy is useful for incontinence in little girls of pulsatilla temperament. The scanty, high-coloured urine sometimes alternates with profuse, clear urine (apis, apocy., argent., calc., berb.) that is passed very frequently. The desire to urinate is worse when lying on the back, whether it is scanty or profuse.
Sexual.- In the male sexual organs pulsatilla causes drawing pains in the spermatic cords and a dull, distressing pain in the testicles. The testicles swell, as does also the right side of the scrotum. Sexual desire is increased. It is very useful for epididymitis and orchitis, whether arising from exposure to cold, metastases from measles and mumps, or from extension of gonorrhoeal inflammation from the urethra. The discharge. It is also a reliable medicine for inflammation of the prostate. It has cured hydrocele.
We now come to the female generative system, in which pulsatilla has its chief sphere of action. It is especially indicated when the menses are delayed or suppressed from catching cold, especially from getting the feet wet. For several days before the flow commences the patient feels chilly, is depressed, languid, puffy about the face and distended in the abdomen, with pressing down as though the menses would appear. When they arrive they are usually scanty, but may be profuse, are of dark colour and are accompanied by sharp constricting pains in the suprapubic region, mostly on the left side, which compel the patient to toss about and bend double. There is also a pain like a stone in the small of the back. The flow is free in the day-time while she moves about and the bowels are more loose than usual. The flow may stop for a few hours and then return (actaea). Sometimes mill appears in the breasts during the period and the breasts are swollen and tender (con.). Pulsatilla is equally useful for delayed first menses in delicate, undeveloped girls and will promote their natural onset. There is often a thick, bland, green-yellow leucorrhoea, or it may be cream-coloured, with swelling of the vulva, and is worse when lying down.
Pulsatilla is a useful remedy for many of the discomforts of pregnancy when the temperament and symptoms indicate it, and to help labour when pains are deficient in strength, irregular and changeable and, although the passages are relaxed, are not effectual. There is good evidence that it can rectify abnormal presentations, which it must do by regularizing and co-ordinating the contraction of the uterine muscle. It will promote the flow of milk during lactation when it is insufficient and will check its appearance in non-pregnant women and in girls at puberty. It will also disperse the small lacteal tumours that sometimes occur in the breasts of children before puberty. Pulsatilla is indicated in gonorrhoea in women (after the first few days), and is the most usually suitable remedy when the discharge is bland and green.
In respiratory diseases pulsatilla is indicated for a dry cough in the evening and at night which becomes loose with expectoration in the evening and at night which becomes loose with expectoration in the morning. Tickling and scraping in the larynx excite the cough, which is accompanied by lachrymation and comes on directly the patient lies down in bed, it ceases if he sits up but returns when he lies down again (hyos.), and in this way the cough keeps him awake the first part of the night. There are many sharp, stitching pains in the chest, especially in the left side, and pressive pain in the centre of the chest. Vicarious haematemesis of dark blood may occur from suppressed menses. Expectoration is difficult and of yellow mucus, scanty, tenacious and of bitter or salt taste, or it may be profuse, especially in the morning. There is considerable dyspnoea and oppression of the chest, the patient wants the windows open and is better from walking quietly in the open air. Pulsatilla useful in bronchitis and also for asthma and hay-fever, for bronchitis following measles, and for catarrhal phthisis in anaemic girls.
Circulation.- Dyspnoea and palpitation from lying on the left side, and catching pains in the cardiac region, relieved by the pressure of the hand, are cardiac symptoms that often accompany the menstrual irregularities for which pulsatilla is the appropriate medicine.
Back.- A pain in the small of the back, as from long stooping or as if sprained, is a prominent pulsatilla symptom and often accompanies menstruation and labour pains. The backache is worse from lying on the back, better from lying on the side and from change of position. Cold shivering, as of cold water being poured down the back, not relieved by sitting near a fire, is another characteristic.
Limbs.-pulsatilla causes drawing, tearing pains in the limbs, which shift rapidly from place to place, are worse at night and from warmth and are better from uncovering. The pains in the limbs are relieved by slow motion. Pains in the fingers and the tips of the toes, in the joints, especially the hip- joint, and about the ankles are common. The feet burn and the patient may put them out of bed to cool (sulph.). There is restlessness of the legs. The veins are varicose and burn and are relieved by cold applications. Pulsatilla very useful for varicose veins and varicose ulcers and for rheumatism and gout when the joints are moderately swollen, subacutely inflamed, and with a tendency for the swelling to go from joint to joint and with relief from uncovering and cold. Numbness occurs in parts that have been lain on.
Skin.- Pulsatilla causes itching of the skin and a red rash all over the body, but mostly on the chest and abdomen, which appears in points and blotches. An eruption may occur on the ankles which itch much at night and may extend up to the knees. The character of the eruption, the mousy odour from the skin, the affections of the eyes and ears, the coryza, the laryngeal catarrh and cough, and the mucous catarrh of the alimentary tract, which are all characteristic of pulsatilla, cause this medicine to present a closer similarity to measles than is afforded by any other drug, and it should always be prescribed in that complaint unless there is an exceedingly good reason for giving another medicine.
Chill, &c.- Chilliness is a characteristic of the pulsatilla patient; he feels chilly even in a warm room and with the pains, yet he cannot bear warmth and is less chilly in the open air. He may feel intolerably not in bed, with distended veins and burning hands and feet that seek a cool place. The heat is without thirst. Sweat is often profuse in the morning; it may be one sided.
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,