Dr. Hempel in his Materia Medica, has the following: Horn, in his Archive of Practical Medicine, relates the poisoning of three people who took the root by mistake. The symptoms were–in about an hour, burning in the throat, gullet and stomach, followed by nausea, dysuria and vomiting; weakness and stiffness of the limbs; giddiness, blindness and dilated pupils; great faintness, convulsive breathing and small pulse. In the case of one of the poisoned people, the pulse became imperceptible, breathing stertorous and a total insensibility set in, even to ammonia when held under the nose. Next day this person became lethargic; she complained of headache and had an eruption similar to flea-bites. They all recovered.
Hahnemann relates the following case of poisoning in his `Lesser Writing: I had the greatest difficulty in restoring two children, one a year and three quarters old, the other five years old, who had both taken white hellebore by mistake, the former four grains, the latter seven grains. But few minutes elapsed before the greatest changes were observable in both children. They became quite cold, fell down, their eyes projecting like those of person in a state of suffocation, the saliva ran continually from their mouths, and they seemed devoid of consciousness. I saw then half an hour after the accident. The parents had tried to incite vomiting by means of a feather, but without success. Milk administered by the bowels and poured down the throat in large quantities, had no effect except the production of scanty vomiting, which did no good, but only increased the faintness. When I arrived, both seemed at the point of death; distorted, projecting eyes; disfigured, cold countenance; relaxed muscles; closed jaws; imperceptible respiration. The infant was the worst. The impending death by apoplexy, the failing irritability, at once induced me to combat the symptoms, if possible, with strong coffee…. In the course of an hour all the danger was gone, and the natural temperature, consciousness and respiration had returned.
Buchner relates the following experiment with Veratrum. Walter macerated 40 grains of the root of Veratrum in an ounce of water, of which he took a teaspoonful without experiencing any effect. A table-spoonful of the solution caused in three hours a burning heat in the whole body which lasted half an hour, after which a copious perspiration broke out for five hours. Six hours after swallowing the drug, the room seemed darkened; he was unable to bear the light of day, or to hold his head erect, which he had to press against his chest, otherwise he experienced a violent headache and an intolerable distress in the occiput; the pulse was accelerated; at times he felt cold, and at other times hot. His strength was very much reduced; finally, he vomited ten times, had a number of discharges from the bowels; the face was sunken, pale, altered, covered with a cold sweat. Next day he was well again.
From the above cases it will be seen that, apart from all disturbing influences in the region of the digestive organs, Veratrum has a fair claim of being considered as a homoeopathic remedy in certain choleraic attacks ushered in by phenomena of cardiac or vaso-motor paralysis. Such cases are by no means rare in India, especially in the hot season. I have seen cholera cases having in all respects the appearance of a case of sun-stroke; till, at last, vomiting and purging set in, the dejections became sooner or later choleraic, and revealed the true nature of the disorder. It would be erroneous to think that all cases of sunstroke are invariably associated with intense pyrexia. Sunstroke and thermic fever are by no means identical terms. Dr. Fayrer, in his Tropical Diseases says: Cases of simple exhaustion and syncope may occur during great fatigue or over-exertion, or when there is depression of vital power from any cause during exposure to high temperature. The skin in pale, cold, moist, the pulse feeble. Death may occur in this state from failure of the heart, but complete recovery more frequently occurs.
Now in such cases Veratrum (Album or Viridi) is the homoeopathic remedy. Many a homoeopath might have administered in such a contingency Camphor; if he has succeeded, he has done so, partly in virtue of the stimulating action of the drug on the vaso-motor centres, that is to say, by having practised unknowingly a little bit of Allopathy, which is after all often good enough, in cases of emergency, where extinction of life is threatened by a severe shock imparted to the system; or he may have succeeded, because, in the words of Dr. Fayrer complete recovery more frequently occurs. Believing as we do, however, that the administration of a remedy-and were it even merely a palliative remedy–on strictly homoeopathic principle is by far superior in its effects to any allopathic contrivance, we shall administer in cases of sudden collapse in consequence of threatening cardiac, or vaso-motor paralysis, such drugs as are by virtue of the similitude of their pathogenesis, entitled to a place in our Therapeutics. What is more, in cholera cases as before mentioned, where cardiac paresis is at the root of the evil, none others but such remedies which by their primary effects have proved to be cardiac paralyzers will ever be able to cope with the attack and to stem its further progress. Our Ricinus will fail to check the vomiting and purging of the spasmodic variety of cholera, or to restore the patient to health even after those evacuations have been partly checked; and such remedies as Veratrum, Aconite, Tartar Emetic, and in some contingencies, Nicotine, will take leading place in our remedial choice.
There are many particularities connected with the physiological action of Veratrum worth knowing. Although a paralyzer of muscular action, it may nevertheless, in its transient primary effect, produce muscular twitching. In the case related by Hahnemann, the jaws were spasmodically closed. It is especially in the respiratory tract, that Veratrum reveals undoubted spasmodic action. In spasm of the glottis, it stands near Cuprum. Of late I have seen, especially during the cholera season of 1883-84, many cases of cholera where the patient used to complain from the very beginning of impeded breathing on account of a sort of intercostal spasms; strange to say the complaint was in all cases, I had seen located at the left side- and provers of Veratrum have noticed a similar complaint on just the same side. Cicuta Virosa tried by various practitioners had no effect. Veratrum persevered in acted beneficially. Its spasmodic action on the intestinal muscular coat is well brought to prominence by the severe colic, which most of its provers experienced. It alkaloid, Veratrine, has of late particularly attracted the attention of some physiologists, and by their exertion, we are now able to understand better the mode of its action.
Given in fatal doses, says Dr. Phillips in his Materia Medica (Vegetable Kingdom), Veratrine produces violent vomiting and collapse, intense depression of the pulse, and a kind of tetanic spasms, which usher in asphyxia and death. The spasmodic condition of the muscles has been the subject of much discussion. The excellent researches of Provost of Geneva demonstrate, and as it appears conclusively, that the muscular spasm is due to direct irritation of the muscles by the alkaloid. Veratrine is a heart poison because it is a muscular poison…. The convulsions which occasionally occur, and also the alterations in sensibility, can at present be only imperfectly explained. Nor is it possible to say why vomiting or diarrhoea should occur, as it does in a considerable number of cases. At any rate, it is not the result of inflammatory irritation, for none such takes place. No signs of inflammation are found in the alimentary, canal after death; the later researches have proved this conclusively, although a contrary belief formerly prevailed.
So much is sure that the twitchings and convulsions are not produced by the action of Veratrine on the brain, as they occur after section of the spinal cord. They are partly due to the direct action on the muscles, for they occur when the cord is destroyed, and in animals whose nerves are paralyzed by Curare. (Ringer).
I am unable to understand why Dr. Ringer believes that the twitchings and convulsions are only partly due to the action of the drug on the muscular substance, when it has been once proved that curarised animals would manifest signs of convulsion; this fact should be looked upon, as settling the matter conclusively.
Again as to the general paralysis of the voluntary muscles it is not owing to muscular exhaustion produced by powerful tetanic contractions; for paralysis is produced in warm-blooded animals without tetanus….The rapid occurrence of rigor mortis and acid reaction make it probable that Veratrine kills the muscle. It produces, however, no morphological change in the muscles till rigor mortis sets in….Dangerous as the Veratrine symptoms appear, yet they speedily pass away if the drug is discontinued. Some self-experimenters have experienced dull, aching pains, made worse by movement, and tonic and atonic contractions of the muscles, sometimes violent, especially at the extremities. This substance has the same prostrating effect on birds, and in America is sometimes used to destroy these animals; it makes them too weak to fly and thus they are easily caught, but if left a while, the effects of the drug pass off, and they escape. (Ringer).
