Digitalis


Dr. S.R. Phatak describes the clinically confirmed symptoms of the homeopathic remedy Digitalis in his Concise Materia Medica, published in 1977….


Generalities

      Digitalis is a heart remedy. It also affects liver, lungs, stomach and genito-urinary organs. It should be considered in all diseases where the heart is chiefly involved, with abnormally SLOW, irregular or intermittent pulse, along with indefinite and causeless symptoms. GREAT WEAKNESS, can hardly talk; sinking of strength, faintness; coldness of skin and irregular respiration are other symptoms of organic heart troubles. Hypertrophy of liver, with induration and jaundice, calls for dig, when characteristic pulse is present. Pulse is slow in recumbent posture, quick on motion; irregular and dicrotic on sitting up. Slow pulse after sexual abuse or at puberty. Must talk about with precordial anxiety; with urging to urinate. Cyanosis. Dropsy, with suppression of urine. As of an electric shock going through the body. Prostration from slight exertion. Ill effects of high living Sexual abuse or excess. Alcohol.

Worse

      Exertion. Raising up. Lying on left side. Motion. Smell of food. Cold; drinks, food; weather. Heat. Sexual abuse or excess. Music.

Better

      Rest. Cool an. Lying flat on back. Empty stomach. Sitting erect.

Mind

      Anxious about the future. Sadness; with sleeplessness, from unhappy love; from music. Lascivious thoughts in old men, with enlarged prostate. Fearful. Feels as if he would fly to pieces. Fear of suffocation at night. Wants to be alone. Despondent. Every shock is felt in epigastrium. Great anxiety like from troubled conscience.

Head

      Vertigo; when walking, or riding, with trembling, worse rising up; from cardiac or hepatic affections. Frontal headache, into nose, after drinking cold drinks or eating ice creams. Crashes in head, on dropping to sleep. Bores head in the pillow; pulls the hair. Spastic hemicrania. Head falls back while sitting or walking.

Eyes

      Yellowish, red. Lachrymation worse in bright light or cold air. Objects appear either green or yellow. Both the eyes turned to left. Detachment of retina. Pupils irregular. Diplopia. Eyelids blue. Veins distended on eyes.

Ears

      Hissing in the ear like boiling water. Veins distended on ears.

Nose

      Pain at the root of the nose, after vomiting.

Face

      Pale, bluish; lips blue. Veins distended on. Lips dry.

Mouth

      Tongue blue; clean, with nausea and vomiting. Tongue thick flabby. Bitter taste. Sweetish taste; with salivation; after smoking tobacco. Veins distended on tongue.

Stomach

      Much thirst, but little appetite. Deathly nausea; not better by vomiting or with faint sinking at the pit of the stomach. Persistent nausea and vomiting, with clean tongue. The mere sight or smell of food excites nausea. Epigastric region tender. Neuralgic pain in the stomach unconnected with food. Drinks much and eats little. Desire for bitter things. Nausea before and after urination.

Abdomen

      Liver; enlarged, sore, hard painful. White chalk like, ashy, pasty stools. Diarrhoea, during jaundice. Ascites.

Urinary

      Feeling of fulness after urination. Continued urging; urine; dribbles; (enlarged prostate) hot, burning with throbbing pain at the neck of bladder; as if a straw were being thrust back and forth. Urine; suppressed; difficult. Uraemia; contracted kidneys.

Male

      Atonic nightly emissions; after coition. Gonorrhoea; balanitis, with oedema of prepuce. Prostate enlarged; senile. Dropsical swelling of genitals. Testicles swollen. Hydrocele. Profuse thick yellow white gonorrhoeal discharge. Early morning erections. Amorous desire without ability. As if something were running out in urethra after emission.

Female

      Labour-like pains in the abdomen and back before menses. Vicarious menses from lungs.

Respiratory

      Desire to take deep breath; with dyspnoea. Breathing slow, worse talking, walking, drinking cold things. Cough causes pain in shoulders and arms, or sore, raw feeling in the chest. Expectoration; sweetish, like boiled starch; mixed with bloody mucus. Haemoptysis; with weak heart or from chronic bronchitis; before menses. Senile pneumonia. Cannot expectorate without vomiting. Great weakness in the chest, cannot bear to talk. Suffocates when he drops to sleep; hence fear of suffocation at night. Cough from suppressed menses.

Heart

      Weak, feels like stopping if he moved, must hold the breath and keep still. Least movement causes palpitation. Frequent stitches at the heart. Attacks of angina worse raising arms. Heart tired, after sprains. Dilated heart. Hypertrophy with dilatation. Cardiac dropsy. Palpitation; with depression; from grief. Pulse; slow, weak, irregular, intermittent.

Extremities

      Numbness; heaviness or paralytic weakness worse left arm. Fingers become numb easily and frequently. Fingers swell at night. Coldness of hands and feet. Sensation in the legs as if a red hot wire suddenly darted through them. Nails blue. One hand hot the other cold.

Skin

      Bluish. Dropsical. Cold. Measly eruptions on back. Creeping all over; Angina Pectoris.

Sleep

      Starts from sleep in alarm, that he is falling from a height- in a dream. Drowsy.

Fever

      Flushes of heat, then great nervous weakness, at climacteric period. Chilliness and shivering of the whole body. Cold clammy sweat.

Related

      Glo; Spigelia

S.R. Phatak
A pioneer of Homoeopathy in Maharashtra, Dr Shankar Raghunath Phatak was born on 6th September, 1896. He did his MBBS from Grant Medical College, in 1924. Started his practice but somehow not satisfied with Allopathic Treatment.

He was convinced about Homoeopathy while going through Sir William Osler's writings on 'History of Medicine' so switched over to an entirely Homoeopathic Practice in 1932. He also started working on Homoeopathic literature along with his Practice.

He has contributed immensely to homoeopathic literature. He was an ardent follower of Dr Boger. His Repertory is based on Boger's ''A Synoptic key to Materia Medica'.