Secale is of great repute in degenerated arteries, especially when they cause threatened or actual gangrene from obliteration of the blood-vessels; it is therefore given in senile gangrene, frostbite and in the more superficial necrosis of Raynaud’s diseases, or when the fingers and toes become cold and black or blue from feeble circulation in them, and should be thought of for that rare condition erythro-melalgia, to which severe chronic ergotism bears a striking resemblance. It is to be thought of in gangrenous inflammation of internal organs, such as the lungs stomach or rectum burning pains, associated with coldness of the surface, but with intolerance of wrapping-up of the parts, will be indications in these, as in other, conditions It is a remedy for abscesses, boils and carbuncles of a green or purple appearance, discharge green pus and which mature and heal slowly.
Diarrhoea.- Secale is useful in chronic diarrhoea, and even in Asiatic cholera, when the stools are watery, foetid, bloody or olive-green and very exhausting and the skin is dried up and shrivelled; the patient is very thirsty, feels burning hot in the abdomen and throws off the bedclothes.
Nervous.- Cramps in the extremities, with numbness, coldness and cold sweat, relieved by uncovering; and paralysis, with formication and numbness, and possibly emaciation of the affected parts, with the secale modality of relief from uncovering are suitable for treatment with that drug. It is indicated in puerperal convulsions occurring with post-partum haemorrhage, and also in the cramps and various paraesthesiae attributable to spinal anaemia.
Eyes.- It is remedy for senile cataract, and is to be considered for strabismus, ptosis, and pustular conjunctivitis when secale characteristics are present.
LEADING INDICATIONS.
(1) General aggravation of all symptoms from warmth and relief from cold.
(2) Burning pains, worse from warmth, better from cold.
(3) Passive haemorrhages of dark, fluid blood that does not clot, uterine, nasal, vaginal, from ulcerations internal or external, from orifices, and from mucous membranes.
(4) Senile gangrene; Raynaud`s disease; frostbites; gangrenous ulcerations; erythro-melalgia.
(5) Skin shrivelled, withered, with black or purple spots, cold, dirty grey.
(6) Threatened abortion; excessive after-pains.
(7) Convulsions, with fingers clenched into palms or spread wide apart.
(8) Paralysis; emaciation of paralysis parts.
(9) Scrawny women of lax fibre, flabby, relaxed sphincters.
(10) Old decrepit, debilitated people.
AGGRAVATION:
From touch, motion and exertion, walking (giddiness), warm applications, warm drinks, after eating, before and during menses, at night.
AMELIORATION:
From lying doubled up (abdominal pain ), open air, cold applications, uncovering, hot baths (diarrhoea).
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,