The CHAMOMILLA child who is over-sensitive to noise, does not get the nightmare the same night, the child is wrought up into a perfect frenzy, liable to scream and stamp when disturbed. It is quite a different reaction.
In the ARSENICUM case the child is restless, always moving about whilst the CHAMOMILLA child is better from motion, but particularly better from being carried about-it is passive motion. Jogging about an ARSENICUM child will probably terrify it.
Jog about a CHAMOMILLA child and it will probably stop screaming and begin to crow. You stop and it wants you to go on, and if you do not it will pull your hair. The reactions are entirely different although the symptoms in the Materia Medica are almost the same.
The CHAMOMILLA child is never still, it is never satisfied with any thing it is doing. But it is not a question of passing form one occupation to another. It is a question of getting tired of one thing and throwing it away. It never puts away its toy in a cupboard, it just tosses it down, and picks up something else; if told to put the first toy in the the cupboard it is liable to yell.
Another constant factor about the CHAMOMILLA children is that they get more excitable as the day goes on, more irritable, more difficult to manage, and they are liable to be particularly trouble-some about 9 p.m. The CHAMOMILLA child often is quite impossible after it is put to bed until about midnight, then it appears to wear itself out and falls asleep.
All these children who get into a fury tend to get flushed with red faces and hot heads, but the CHAMOMILLA child tends to get flushed on one side of the face, it is flushed generally but one side will be redder than the other.
CHAMOMILLA is almost universal for the teething child, but it is a mistake to give CHAMOMILLA to any teething child, the indications for it are quite definite. A teething child who needs CHAMOMILLA tends to get much more fractious at night and to have very swollen, inflamed, tender gums, and they tend to be one- sided with a marked flush on that side of the face.
The tender gums are made much worse by any application of heat and they are very much better from cold applications. They are much worse in a hot room, and the attack is liable to subside about midnight. It is worth noting that the toothache pains of CHAMOMILLA have entirely different modalities from the other pains.
CHAMOMILLA children are subject to attacks of acute colic possibly because their parents give in to them; they see something they want and scream until they get it, and that evening they go down with acute abdominal colic-mostly the fault of the parents. These attacks of colic are accompanied by a lot of wind and very much relieved by hot applications.
With these attacks of colic they are liable to get bouts of diarrhoea, with the typical green CHAMOMILLA diarrhoea stool. A CHAMOMILLA child with colic and diarrhoea gives the best illustration of CHAMOMILLA irritability they scream the place down. It is painful, fairly acute colic, and the child makes it very clear that it is in pain.
Another contrast between CHAMOMILLA and ARSENICUM children, is that CHAMOMILLA children are usually hot-blooded. They have very hot heads, very often hot and sweaty, and they are liable to have burning hot feet which they push out of bed at night.
CHAMOMILLA children are ungoverned children, and they have mostly been allowed to get out of hand, but in addition the CHAMOMILLA child in a tantrum of temper can get into such a state that it gets blue in the face starts careful convulsions from pure rage. So one has to be a little careful about the handling of the true CHAMOMILLA child.
One typical CHAMOMILLA child, about three years of age, when in a rage was liable to beat her head against the wall, merely because it distressed her mother.
One night about 10 p.m. after she had been quite impossible for the previous hour and her mother had left her to scream, she had gone into a convulsion. She was practically unconscious, dusky in the face, and twitching all over. So one has to be careful about the wholesome neglect of the CHAMOMILLA child.
Quite a number of CHAMOMILLA babies, teething and with acutely inflamed gums, develop convulsions, and this indicates an explosive nervous system in the CHAMOMILLA child which should be watched.
Teething children do well on a low potency. A few doses usually stop the disturbance, CHAMOMILLA 12 to 30, two hourly, in the average case, but in a violent attack repeat every half-hour until they quieten down.
CHAMOMILLA is also useful for acute otitis in children. It is an extremely painful condition, and in most cases the child does not want to be touched, and is intensely irritable, very often screaming with pain. If the trouble has been brought on form exposure to cold CHAMOMILLA is one of the greatest standbys in the small child, particularly if the one-sided flush is present.
CHAMOMILLA has cleared more acute otitis in small children than any other single drug. And it clears up clears up without any puncture of the drum. But the child must have the CHAMOMILLA make-up as well as the otitis, or CHAMOMILLA will not work. the nervous system has to be all on the fret, and the child has to be irritable and touchy.
The PULSATILLA child develops otitis media from the same cause exposure to cold – has the one-sided flush – but it is a PULSATILLA child, not a CHAMOMILLA one, and CHAMOMILLA will not do it any good. These are the two commonest drugs for acute otitis in children.
Cina. [Cina]
The next drug is CINA which makes a very interesting comparison with CHAMOMILLA. Most people start with a dose of CHAMOMILLA. Most people start with a dose of CHAMOMILLA and if it does not get results they give a dose of CINA. This is not a very scientific way of proceeding. It is better to know clearly what the CINA picture is like and where the difficulties arise.
The outstanding mental distinction between the CHAMOMILLA child and the CINA child is that in CINA there is a degree of obstinacy never met with in CHAMOMILLA. The CHAMOMILLA child is always unstable; the CINA child can be as obstinate as a mule. That is the main mental distinction.
In CHAMOMILLA there is the irregular flushing of one cheek and pallor of the other. The whole face may be red but more likely there is irregular distribution. In the CINA child much more commonly there is a circumscribed red patch on the cheeks, and very often a noticeable pallor about the mouth and nose.
The next distinguishing thing about them is that although both dislike being handled and resent interference, in CHAMOMILLA it is much more mental resentment whereas the CINA child definitely tender to touch.
There is very often the same description of the two that they will scream when handled, but once the preliminary discomfort of handling is over the CINA children are quite peaceful and they allow themselves to be carried about and it will quiet them down; whereas in CHAMOMILLA they want distraction all the time, and are always wanting to be doing something new.
The CINA child will want to be carried because the steady, passive motion soothes him.
Another point which distinguishes CINA from CHAMOMILLA. CINA children are very apt to vomit, as are the CHAMOMILLA types, but almost immediately after the CINA children have vomited they are hungry. Often the CINA children will cry for more food immediately after a meal, and the CINA child often suffers from nightmares, and night terrors if it he had a late meal.
Another distinguishing factor between CHAMOMILLA and CINA is their diarrhoeic upsets. Both types have attacks of diarrhoea. The typical CHAMOMILLA green stool is absent in CINA. The typical CINA stool is a very white, watery stool.
A constant characteristic of the CINA child, both in its digestive upsets and in general, is its relief from pressure on the abdomen. If it has colic it will turn over on to its tummy, if carried about while it has colic it will turn over the nurse’s arm so as to get pressure on its tummy. If it is restless at night, it turns over on to its abdomen.
CINA children are always chilly and are sensitive to any draughts of air. These children are liable to irregular muscular twitchings, particularly after any excitement, and often in the muscles on the face.
In the slightly older children mental characteristic of the CINA child is that they are frightfully touchy. They have of complete inability to see a joke of any kind particularly if it refers to themselves.
CINA children all have a hyperaesthesia of the head, the head is sensitive to jarring, and they have a hyperaesthesia of the scalp. To soothe down a CINA child never stroke its hair. They have an inordinate habit of yawning, and keep yawning as if they would dislocate their jaws, and in some cases a definite history of acidosis links up with the tendency to yawn.
Two other points which indicate the possibility of a child needing CINA. One is that with their intestinal upsets they become very restless and liable to get meningeal irritation, with constant agitation of the head rubbing, it into the pillow. Even without definite meningitis they tend to develop a squint – an internal squint.
He wrote a number of books: Children's Types, Digestive Drugs, Pneumonias
Douglas Borland died November 29, 1960.
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