SPHERE OF ACTION
Through the cerebro-spinal system, it especially affects the pneumogastric nerve, and intestinal canal.
The powerful influence it has upon the pneumogastric nerves, to produce such violent nausea and vomiting, shows that the nervous centres at the base of the brain, and medulla oblongata are especially affected.
Upon the brain it produces a sudden sinking of innervation, causing loss of power to control one’s movements; staggers about; feels dizzy; vision becomes obscure, and complete extinction of nervous power is going on at a fearful rate.-HEMPEL.
Dr. Hughes says, The picture presented by acute Veratrum poisoning is decidedly choleraic.
There is general coldness, with prostration going on to collapse; embarrassed circulation; copious watery vomiting and purging; and severe spasmodic colic. The more recent experiments of Schroff have further proved that these evacuations do not depend upon gastro-enteritis; as Veratrum causes no inflammation, but at most a transient hyperaemia of the parts it touches. If its action be more intensified, it causes a rapid degeneration of the gastric mucous membrane, but no gastroenteritis.
Veratrum alb, strikes down the functions of that portion of the abdominal ganglionic system that presides over the vascular capillaries of the intestinal mucous membrane, causing serous diarrhoea, which is a genuine sweating of the mucous membrane of the bowels. This watery element is mainly derived from the innumerable follicles in the innumerable follicles in the intestinal tract. The choleraic and Veratrum album poison both affect the system so nearly alike, that in cholera times no man is able to tell one from the other.
GRAND CHARACTERISTICS
Cold sweat upon the forehead.
Anguish, fear of death.
Despair about his position in society; feel very unlucky.
Wanders about the house, is very taciturn.
Headache causing delirium; demented; and cold sweat upon the forehead.
Sudden paroxysms of a sinking of cerebral innervation, characterized of sudden loss of power to control one’s movements; feels dizzy; staggers about; vision becomes obscure; the pulse is depressed; and complete extinction of nervous power is going on at a fearful rate.-HEMPEL.
Puerperal mania and convulsions, with violent cerebral congestion; bluish and bloated face; protruded eyes; wild shrieks, and disposition to tear and bite.
Excessive mirthfulness; collapse of pulse; cold sweat in the forehead; expression of fright; anxiety; and stertorous breathing.
Attacks of pain, with delirium, or driving to madness.
Disposed to talk about faults others, or silence; but if irritated, scolding and calling names.
Sensation as if a a lump of ice was on the top of the head.- RAUE.
Vertigo in drunkards, opium-eaters, or those who use tobacco, characterized by sudden faintings, collapse of pulse, loss of vision, cold sweat on forehead.
Nervous headache at each menstrual molimina.
Sick headache in which diuresis forms a crisis.-F.
Cold, collapsed face; pinched up, bluish nose; dry and cracked lips; lock-jaw; grating of the teeth.
White in bed, face is red; after getting up it becomes pale.
Neck too weak to hold the head-up, particularly children with whooping-cough.
Leaden color of the face, with frequent nausea and vomiting, with great exhaustion.
Digestive Organs.-Exhausting diarrhoea, with cold sweat, especially on the forehead.
Very exhausting diarrhoea; especially weak after every stool; with cold sweat on the forehead.
Terrible colic; the suffering causes a cold sweat to stand upon the surface, especially out the forehead.
Thirst, with craving for the coldest drinks.
Unquenchable desire for cold drinks.
Tongue cold. Voice feeble.
Frequent nausea and vomiting, with leaden color of the face, and cold perspiration especially on the forehead.
Violent retching; wants everything cold.
Least quantity of liquid excites vomiting.
Motion excites the nausea.
Terrible colic, with violent and vomiting.
Vomiting with diarrhoea and great prostration.
Burning and oppression in the epigastrium.
Colicodynia, with sensation as though the bowels were tied up in knots.
Irritation of the coeliac plexus, with fainting, great prostration, cold perspiration, nausea and vomiting.
Hippocratic countenance, loss of vision, and cold extremities.-HEMPEL.
Copious watery diarrhoea, with violent nausea and vomiting.
Watery diarrhoea, expelled in a forcible gush, with little or no griping.-RAUE.
Involuntary watery stools, without the patient’s knowledge.
Burning in the bowels like hot coals.
Generative Organs of Women.-Dysmenorrhoea, with vomiting and purging, or exhausting diarrhoea, with cold sweat.
Nymphomania, from unsatisfied passion or mental causes.
Air Passages.-Cold breath with great prostration, and cold perspiration on the forehead; voice feeble.
Spasmodic cough, with blue face; suffocation; retching.
Asthma; with great suffocation, anguish, and oppression about the heart.
Fever.-Fevers, with great coldness externally, and violent internal heat; pulse thread-like; great craving for cold drinks.
Cramps of the limbs, with cold sweat.
Difficulty of walking; first the right and then the left hip joint feels paralytic (or in other patients, first left then right).
Diseases caused by ice cream, and cold drinks.
Adapted to young people and women of a sanguine or nervo- sanguine temperament; also to people who are habitually cold and deficient in vital reaction; gay disposition; fitful mood, and who have not been exhausted by long excesses or starvation.
(1836-1897)
Characteristic materia medica Published 1873
Physiological materia medica, containing all that is known of the physiological action of our remedies; together with their characteristic indications and pharmacology. Published 1881