Oozing of secretion from the anus (with piles, chronic proctitis or fissure) does not contra-indicate sepia.
(b) Generative Organs in Women.-Much stress has been laid on the importance of sepia in “congestive” conditions of this sphere and in traumatic conditions. It is useful in correcting delayed or scanty period. The character of the menstrual discharge is usually dark and may be unpleasant. Prolonged menstruation may be remedied by it in case of subinvolution with the general symptoms described. Menorrhagia with bright, hot blood, however, is no indication for sepia. Leucorrhoea, thin and acrid, may follow the period and is quite compatible with a sepia case. Much exaggerated language has been used concerning the spectacular effects of sepia in “uterine prolapse”. Where there is a sensation of “bearing down” (meaning thereby ” a feeling as if `the inside’ were trying to force its way out at the front passage”) with no measurable degree of prolapse or retroposition and no demonstrably excessive pelvic-floor projection when the patient strains, as if for an action of the bowels, sepia may entirely remove the symptoms and hence has great value. After traumatism during childbirth, with vaginal walls which have never recovered their tone, with subinvolution of the uterus and the cervix close to or protruding from the vaginal orifice, the case seem outside the sphere of drugs. Just where their influence ceases to produce obvious local improvement it is hard to say. They may remove subinvolution, they may fill out the overstretched and thinned broad ligaments to a certain extent. Where, however definite lacerations have taken place and have healed a plastic operation is called for. A drug, sepia or other, may be indicated of course, and will be of great value in improving health and so aiding the success of operations, before and after.
We sound this note of warning to prevent unnecessary disappointment.
Some retro-flexions and version without obvious prolapse afford more scope for drugs. In such cases, with a good quantum of the general symptoms described, with the lumbo-sacral pain common to drug and disease with painful menstruation and leucorrhoea the use of sepia will usually repay the patient, even if it fail to replace her uterus “Bearing down” or “Labour -like” pains may be an indication here as in prolapse, also stitches from the uterine region upwards to the umbilicus or epigastrium.
Sepia should never be relegated to the category od women`s remedy IN so far as laundresses ailment frequently call for it this due to the physical labour of their calling and especially to long hours of. frequently call for it this due to the physical labour of their calling and especially to long hours of standing.
The claims for its beneficial effects on cervical catarrh and erosion are better substantiated, but to reply upon it alone in epithelioma would in our judgment be a serious error.
Sepia has been recommended for gonorrhoea in women.
In the acute stages other treatment would be called for.
IN chronic cases, with vulvitis, thin leucorrhoea, pruritus vulvae et ani-again let it be repeated with a basis of “generals”-it may prove useful.
Dryness of the vagina and vulva after menstruation (as nat. mur.) should call attention to sepia.
In pregnancy sepia has been used for nausea and toothache.
(c) Generative Organs in Men.-Sepia has some reputation in a sticky, yellowish discharge “gluing up the orifice of the urethra”. This was in subacute cases where pyknuria and burning on micturition were present; or it may be valuable in chronic gleet, with want of tone of the genitalia, emissions of thin semen, with deficient prostatic fluid and aching in the rectum, due to prostatic congestion or chronic prostatitis. Genito- urinary symptoms are less common in sepia cases in men than in women.
(d) The headaches of sepia are often one-sided, especially the left, with heaviness of the eyelid or lids, and a tendency to ptosis; pain from the left eye over the head to the occiput. Some types of sepia headache are relieved by lying down-these are sudden, severe cases of hemicrania chiefly during menstruation with spots or “a veil” before the eyes or coloured appearance round artificial lights 9? early glaucoma).
Other sepia headaches of a burning of a bursting character are relieved by external pressure and by continued hard motion. The scalp is tender in all cases, and with chronic and menopausic headache the hair falls out a good deal.
(e) Coryza in chronic cases, with swollen nose and ulcerated nostrils, may be a feature in sepia cases; thick crusts are blown or hawked from the nose and there is loss of taste and smell; more acute coryza (“cold in the head”) sometimes calls for it when unilateral or changing quickly from one nostril to another.
Sepia is complementary to nat. mur which it closely resembles; it is inimical to lachesis and should not be given before or after it.
LEADING INDICATIONS
Have been sufficiently clearly indicated in the narrative, and need not be repeated.
AGGRAVATIONS:
From extremes of temperature, slight physical or mental exertion, getting wet, sitting still too long (headache, &c.). stooping (headache), after eating (headache), after menstruation ((various symptoms), towards evening, warm moist weather.
AMELIORATION:
Warmth, general and local, lying down (megrim, prolapsus), eating (pain renewed or increased after eating [see Hering, gastralgia and “sinking”, tickling in larynx), pressure (sacral pain), vigorous exercise.
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,