Seneca Snake-root. Polygalaceae.
Mind
Cheerful, but irritable, easily becomes vehement when excited. Phlegmatic.
Anxiety with accelerated breathing.
Sensorium
Confused feeling in the head.
Dulness, with pressure and weakness of the eyes.
Slight vertigo before the eyes.
Inner Head
Head feels heavy.
Sort of aching in forehead, sinciput and occiput; comes every day, is felt when sitting in a warm room and accompanied by pressure in eyes, that does not bear touch, though headache is not worse from pressure; better from exercise in open air.
Pressing pain in forehead and orbits after dinner, especially in left side of head; relieved in the open air.
Eyes
Aching over the orbits, eyes tremble and water when he looks at an object intently or steady; eyes weak and watery when reading.
Weakness of sight and flickering, must wipe the eyes when reading, but they are aggravated thereby.
Evenings, on walking towards setting sun, seems to see another sun beneath the first; on turning eyes outward it appeared like a compressed oval, and disappeared when head was bent backwards and when eyes were closed.
Promotes absorption of lens fragments after operation for cataract.
Paresis of the left oculo-motor nerve, with paralysis of the superior rectus muscle; patient could see clearly only by bending head backwards which relieved double vision.
Drawing and pressure in the eyeballs, with diminution of visual power.
Eyes pain as if pressed out, or as if balls were being expanded, especially in the evening and in candle-light.
Hypopion in scrofulous patients.
Cilia hang full of hard mucus: smarting of the conjunctiva, as if soap was in the eyes; mornings; blepharitis; sometimes lids stick so after sleep, they must be soaked before they can be
separated.
Nose
Troublesome dryness of the Schneiderian membrane, Smell before the nose as of a malignant ulcer.
Sneezes so often and so violently that the head grows dizzy and heavy; followed by thin coryza.
Tongue etc.
Coated white, yellowish-white, or slimy in the morning, with slimy, unpleasant taste.
Taste: bad, with rumbling in stomach; metallic; like urine.
Throat
Mouth and throat dry; tenacious mucus difficult to hawk up; scraping and roughness; constriction in the fauces; hawking.
Nausea and Vomiting
Eructations, which relieve the mucus and hawking.
Nausea with vomiturition; burning in the stomach.
Stomach
Pressure below the pit of the stomach; senses of gnawing hunger.
Digging pain in the epigastrium, disposition to flatulence and to outbursts of ill-humor.
Stool etc.
Purging, vomiting and anxiety; watery stools, spurting from the anus.
Stools scanty, hard, or dry and large, insufficient.
Urine
Urine diminished, dark colored, foams when shaken.
Urine acrid, increased in amount.
Urging and scalding before and after micturition; mucous shreds in the urine; on cooling becomes thick and cloudy, or deposits a thick sediment, yellowish-red, with upper stratum yellow and flocculent.
Larynx
Tenacious mucus causing hawking or coughing; often an irritating, shaking cough as in old cases of bronchitis.
Sudden hoarseness when reading aloud.
Hoarse; throat so dry it hurts when he talks.
Breathing
Short breathing and oppression of the chest on going up stairs.
Dyspnoea as from stagnation in the lungs; also on awaking and during chill. etc.
Cough
Dry, with oppression of chest and roughness in throat; short, hacking, from mucus or from irritation in larynx, worse in the open air and from walking fast.
Cough often ends in a sneeze (often in common colds).
Shaking cough like whooping cough from burning and tickling in the larynx in the morning, with copious, tough, white, mucous sputum (like white of egg).
Soreness of the chest, dry, cough, throat dry, hoarseness; later much mucus in bronchi and trachea.
Cough worse evenings; at night, during rest. sitting, lying on (left) side, and in a warm room.
Lungs
Orgasm of blood; oppression with flushes of heat; oppression especially during rest; tightness.
Certain movements cause pain, as if chest was too tight; disposed to expand the chest, this leaves soreness.
Shooting stitches in the chest, worse during inspiration, during rest.
Dull stitches and burning pain in left chest when lying on the right side.
Walls of chest sensitive or painful when touched, or when he sneezes (often as a remnant of colds on the chest).
Burning sore pain under the sternum, especially during motion and on deep inspiration.
Stepping hard, walking fast or running, causes pulling sore pain, as if through mediastinum.
Accumulation of much mucus in larynx, trachea and chest.
Is said to be useful for hydrothorax after inflammations in chest.
Heart Pulse
Violent boring pain in region of heart.
Heart’s beat shakes the whole body; violent palpitation while walking.
Neck Back
Pressing pain between the scapulae especially when stepping hard, or on other movements which concuss the chest.
Pulse rather hard and accelerated.
Position etc.
Many symptoms worse during rest. Also See Exercise: Motion: Bending head back: Going up stairs: Walking, walking fast: Sitting: Lying on sides (left) : (right) Lie down: Looking intensely or steadily: Reading: Closed eyes: Turning eyes outward: Talking:.
Nerves
Debility, with stretching of the limbs, confusion, heaviness and beating in the head.
Legs feel weak; joints feel lame.
Weakness seems to originate in the chest.
Lassitude and slight trembling of upper limbs.
Faintness, when walking in open air.
Sleep
As soon as he lies down evenings, heavy sleep.
Restless sleep, full of dreams; awakens often from all dull stitches and tightness in chest.
Time
(Every) Day: Evening: Night: Morning:,.
Temperature and Weather
Warm room: Open air: (Setting) Sun: Candle light:.
Chill Fever Sweat
Chilliness, weakness of feet; chill in open air; dyspnoea.
Shuddering over back heat in face, weak, burning eyes, beating headache, difficult breathing, body feels bruised.
Flushes of heat: Skin hot. Skin becomes warmer and moister.
Tissues
Diseases of mucous membranes especially of the lining of larynx trachea and bronchi.
Catarrh that tend to leave sore and tender places in the walls of the chest, as though there were left circumscribed spots of inflammation.
Contact Injuries etc.
Touch : Pressure: Stepping hard: Wiping eyes:.
Skin
Burning vesicles, itching when touched.
Bites of poisonous, enraged animals.
Stages and States
Best suited for the phlegmatic, also for fat children predisposed to catarrh; or to the sluggish, who react from colds imperfectly.
Relationship
Compare: Sapon., Calcarea carb., Caustic., Baryt (in fat children); Aspar., (bronchial and cystic catarrh, both drugs have difficult detachment of mucus, turbid urine with burning, etc. Senega, more a shaking cough; Aspar., one that causes gagging latter has, too, more weakness of heart, and tendency to gravel and gout in old people); Bryon., Scilla., Hepar, Cubebs, Copaiva (last two in frothy urine with mucous shreds).
