Nothing was heard of the children till “June of the present year” (1891), (the date of the poisoning is not stated, but it was probably the previous autumn) when the children were brought to the doctor by their father. They all looked pale and feeble, the pupils contracted slowly, and all were sensitive to light. The eldest was irritable and desponding. In the other two hearing and speech were almost gone. The almost absolute deafness in these cases is noteworthy in connection with Dr. Cooper’s cure of a very chronic case of deafness with single drop doses of *Bell
O.
*Belladonna is predominantly (but by no means exclusively) a right- side medicine: all affections of internal head, right side, right eye, right ear, right face, right teeth, right hypochondrium, right chest, right upper extremity, right lower extremity, mouth and fauces *left side. It is suited to plethoric persons with red face, and to conditions where there is local plethora, that is inflammatory states with pain, throbbing, shiny redness as in acute gout. Symptoms are worse afternoon, 3 p-m., 11 p-m., after midnight, during the night and not at all in the day, morning. By touch, draught of air, cold applications, having hair cut, looking at shiny things, drinking, sleeping, lying down, lying on affected side. Better Bending affected part backwards or in wards, leaning head against something, standing, by warmth. *Belladonna is suited to the bilious, lymphatic temperament. Light hair and complexion, blue eyes. It grows in dry limestone soils and is the acute correlative of *Calcarea c.
Relations.
*Belladonna must be *compared with the other Solanaceae: Caps., Dulcamara, Lycopers., Hyoscyamus, Stramonium and the alkaloids Atropia and Solania. *Antidotes: To effects of large doses, Vegetable acids, infusion of galls, or green tea, Coffea., Hyoscyamus, to effects of small doses, Camph., Coffea, Hepar, Hyoscyamus, Opium, Pulsatilla, Sabad. (salivation), Vinum. It *antidotes: Aconite, Arum triphyllum, Atro., Chi., Cuprum, Ferrum, Hyoscyamus, Jaborandi, Mercurius, Opium, Platina, Plumb., sausage poisoning, oil of turpentine. It *follows well: Arsenicum, Chamomilla, Hepar, Lachesis, Mercurius, Phosphorus, nitricum acidum, Cuprum Is *followed well by: Chi., Chamomilla, Conium, Dulcamara, Hepar, Hyoscyamus, Lachesis, Rhus, Seneg., Stramonium, Valer., Veratrum, *Similar to: Aconite, Alcohol (merry craziness), Arsenicum (pains of cancer), Bryonia (Rheumatism worse by motion. In pleurisy and pneumonia it is distinguished from Bryonia In that it has worse lying on affected side while Bryonia Has the opposite), Calcarea c., Chamomilla, Cicuta., Coffea, Cuprum, Eup-pur. (diuresis and vesical irritation, but Eup-pur. has more hyperemia and vesical inflammation), Gelsemium, Hepar, Hyoscyamus, Lachesis, Lil-t. (Lil-t. has better by motion, Belladonna Worse by motion), Mercurius, Nux- v., Opium, Pulsatilla, Rhus-t, Stramonium (rage), Terebe., Veratrum, Arnica (whooping cough). *Complementary: Calcarea *Incompatible: Vinegar.
Causation
Hair-cutting. Head, getting wet. Sausages sun Wind, walking in.
Mind
Melancholy, with grief. hypochondriacal humor, moral dejection, and discouragement. Great agitation, with continual tossing about, inquietude, and anguish, chiefly at night, and in the afternoon, sometimes with headache and redness of face. Desire to die, and inclination for suicide. Lamentations, groans, cries, and tears. Perversity, with tears (in children). Timidity, disposition fearful, mistrustful, and suspicious, apprehension and inclination to run away. Fear of approaching death. Mental excitation, with too great sensibility to every impression, immoderate gaiety, and disposition to be easily frightened. Nervous anxiety, restlessness, desire to escape. Dotage, delirium, and mania, with groaning, disposition to dance, to laugh, to sing, and to whistle, mania, with groans, or with involuntary laughter, nocturnal delirium with murmuring, delirium, during which are seen wolves, dogs, fires, etc., delirium by fits, and sometimes with fixedness of look. Stupefaction, with congestion to the head, pupils enlarged. Delirium. Great apathy and indifference, desire for solitude, dread of society and of all noise. Repugnance to conversation. Disinclination to talk, or very fast talking. Ill-humor, disposition irritable and sensitive, with an inclination to be angry and to give offence. Folly, with ridiculous jesting, gesticulations, acts of insanity, impudent manners. Fury and rage with desire to strike, to spit, to bite, and to tear everything, and sometimes with growling and barking like a dog. Dejection and weakness of mind and body. Dread of all exertion and motion. Loss of consciousness. Fantastic illusions (when closing the eyes). Dementia, to such an extent as no longer to know one’s friends, illusions of the senses and frightful visions. Complete loss of reason, stupidity, inadvertence, and distraction, inaptitude for thought, and great weakness of memory. Memory: quick, weak, lost.
Head
Confusion of the head, cloudiness, and apparent intoxication, chiefly after eating or drinking, or else in the morning. Apoplexy. Fits of vertigo, with tottering, swimming in the head, dulness, giddiness, nausea, trembling of the hands, anxiety, sparks before the eyes, chiefly in the morning on getting up, on standing upright, or on stooping. Vertigo with anguish, and falling with loss of consciousness, or with weariness and fatigue before and after the attack. Vertigo, with stupefaction, vanishing of sight and great debility. Vertigo, with anguish and falling insensibly on the left side, or backwards, with flickering before the eyes, especially when stooping, and when rising from a stooping posture. Stupor and loss of consciousness, so as to know one’s friends only at most by the hearing, sometimes with pupils dilated and mouth and eyes half open. Fullness, heaviness, and violent pressure on the head, and sometimes with giddiness, stupor, and sensation as if the cranium were going to burst, or with ill-humor and groans, drawing up of the eyelids and desire to lie down. Sensation of inflation and pressive expansion in the brain. Sharp, tractive, and shooting pains in the head. Dartings into the head, as if from knives. Violent throbbings in the head. Strong pulsation of the arteries of the head. Ebullition and congestion of blood in the head, chiefly on stooping. Congestion of blood to the head, with external and internal heat, distended and pulsating arteries, stupefaction in the forehead, burning, red face, worse in the evening, when leaning the head forward, from the slightest noise, and from motion. Stupefying, stunning headache, extending from the neck into the head, with heat and pulsation in it, worse in the evening and from motion, better when laying the hand on the head, and when bending the head backward. Sensation of cold or of heat in the head. Headache, from taking cold in the head, and from having the hair cut. Sensation of fluctuation in the brain, as if there were water in it. Sensation, during the pains, as if the cranium were too thin. Sensation of a dull balancing in the brain, and shocks in the head, chiefly on walking quickly or ascending. Daily pains in the head, from about four o’clock in the afternoon till towards three o’clock the following morning, worse by the heat of the bed and by a recumbent posture. The pains in the head are generally aggravated by movement, especially of the eyes, by shaking, by contact, by free air and a current of air, they are mitigated by holding the head back and by supporting it. Cramp-like pain in the scalp. Copious sweat in the hair. Affections of the hair, which may split, or come out, or be hard and dry, etc. Profuse Pungent-smelling perspiration, especially on the covered parts, while the body is burning. Shaking or turning of the head backwards. Hydrocephalus, with boring with the head in the pillow, sensation as if water were moving in the head, worse in the evening and when lying, better from external pressure, and when bending the head backwards. Boring with the head on the pillow while sleeping. Boring headache in the right side of the head, changing to stitches in the evening. Pressing headache, as if the head would split, pupils contracted, voice faint. Swelling of the head and of the face. Smooth, erysipelatous, hot swelling, first of the face, then extending over the whole head, with stupefaction or delirium, violent headache, red, fiery eyes.
Eyes
Heat and burning in the eyes, or pressure as from sand. Aching in the eyes and the sockets, extending into the head. Sensation of weight in the eyelids, which close involuntarily. Quivering in the eyelids. Ectropium. Paralysis of the optic nerve. Falling down of the eyelids, as if from paralysis. Shooting in the eyes and in the corners, with itching. Eyes red, brilliant, and convulsed, or fixed, sparkling, and prominent, or dull and turbid. Congestion of blood to the eyes, and redness of the veins. Look fixed, furious, and wavering. Look wild, unsteady, wavering. Spasms and convulsive movements of the eyes. Eyelids wide open. Inflammation of the eyes, with injection of the veins and redness of the conjunctiva and of the sclerotica. Heat in the eyes. Distension of the sclerotica. Inflammatory swelling and suppuration of the lachrymal aperture. Softening of the sclerotica. Spots and ulcers on the cornea, Medullary fungus in the eye. Swelling and inversion of the eyelids. Yellowish colour of the sclerotica. Eyes as if affected by ecchymosis, with haemorrhage. Sensation of burning dryness in the eyes, or flow of acrid and (salt) corrosive tears. Pupils immovable and generally dilated, but sometimes also contracted. Agglutination (nocturnal) of the eyelids. Desire for light, or photophobia, with convulsive movements of the eyes when the light strikes them Distortion, spasms, and convulsions of the eyes. Momentary blindness Confused and weak sight, or obscuration and entire loss of sight. Blindness at night (moon-blindness). Presbyopia. Mist, flames, and sparks, before the eyes. Diffusion of the light of candles, which appear to be surrounded by a coloured halo. White stars and silvery clouds before the eyes, on looking at the ceiling of the room. Objects appear double or reversed, or of a red colour. Trembling and sparkling of the letters when reading.
