Ledum floribus bullatis. Cistus chamae rhododendrons. Mountain Laurel. American Laurel. Calico Bush. (Rocky sterile hills, near water, in New England States. Flowers May and June.) *N. O. Ericaceae. Tincture of fresh leaves when the plant is in flower.
Clinical
Angina pectoris. Blindness. Bright’s disease. Dropsy. Dysmenorrhoea. Gastralgia. Globus hystericus. Gout. Headache. Heart, disease of. Herpes zoster; neuralgia after. Keratitis. Leucorrhoea. Locomotor ataxia. Lumbago *Neuralgia. Paraplegia. Ptosis. Pregnancy, albuminuria of. Retinitis blism. Sun- headaches. Syphilitic sore throat. Tinnitus. Tobacco, effects of. Vertigo. Vomiting.
Characteristics
*Kalmia is the name of a genus of heath worts, natives of North America. *Kalmia latifolia, which has large and showy flowers, is found in the northern parts of the United States. Its flowers “yield a honey said to be deleterious, and its leaves and shoots certainly are so to cattle. *K. angustifolia, probably for the same reason, has received the name of Lamb kill. The powdered leaves of some are used a s a local remedy in some skin diseases. The hard wood of *K. latifolia is used in the manufacture of various useful articles. The Canadian partridge is said to become poisonous as human food after feeding on *Kalmia berries” (*Treasury of Botany). Hering introduced *Kalmia into homoeopathic practice, himself and his friends being the first provers. The head, including eyes and face, shows the chief intensity of its action, and scarcely less so, the heart. A number of skin symptoms confirm the popular use of the leaves, and among them a “stiffness” of the skin (especially of the eyelids) is the most remarkable. Neuralgias (especially of right side), wandering rheumatic pains which tend to travel from above downwards, tumultuous action of the heart and slow pulse _ these are the cardinal features of *Kalm. Though *Kalm. acts most markedly on the right side of the head, it acts very markedly on the left (heart) side of the chest and left arm. Vonder Luhe cured with kalm-200 an intercostal neuralgia of left side, so intense that the patient could not lie down or sleep at night. The chief guiding symptom was a concomitant numb sensation of whole left arm (*H. W., xxxiii. 503). With the same potency I cured in a married woman the following symptoms: ” Sick feeling and pains flying about, especially down left side, headache at vertex, chilliness,” and in a case of hypertrophied heart in an unmarried woman “pain through heart region with inability to lie on left side. “Lambert has recorded (*H.W., xxx. 64) the case of a gate- keeper, 54, who had smoked since he was seven years old, and who suffered from “tobacco heart,” palpitation, occurring on least exertion or fright, and sometimes awakening him in the night, pulse intermittent, no valvular lesion, tingling in left arm and leg and sensation as if the blood did not circulate in them. He could walk all right, but not far. The chief thing he complained of was sharp pain in right temple like pins and needles, of eighteen months’ duration. It was induced by touch and turning head quickly. *Kalm. 3x cured the temporal neuralgia and greatly alleviated all the other symptoms. *Kalm. also relieved an old ataxic patient (man) of “vertigo and pains in legs which shoot and shift their position frequently.” In connection with this spinal case the effects on animals are worth recalling. Meadows (*C.D.P., quoting *Southern f. of H., Apr., 1890,) says cattle eat Kalm. in the latter part of the winter when they are in want of something green. The first symptom is intense thirst, then follow trembling, weakness, staggering, and jerking, the abdomen being full of wind. Then clonic spasms, every fifteen to twenty minutes, increasing to violent convulsions, which are renewed if the animal tries to rise in the intervals between the seizures. Eyes become fixed, pupils turned up, head drawn back, limbs rigid, abdomen bloated, bowels loose. If the animal recovers there is prostration for a week or more, and for three or four months it is weak, nervous, and walks as if intoxicated, tottering as if unable to control its limbs. The spinal action in unmistakable here, and the provings give “weakness and paralytic condition of limbs,” “shuns all exertion, can hardly go upstairs,” and many symptoms of pain in back. Neuralgias appear in almost all regions. in eye, in uterus (dysmenorrhea), in
stomach as well as head, chest, and limbs. Pains in the periosteum preventing sleep. The rheumatic pains proceed from above downwards, but some of the sensations ascend: as if a ball was rising in the throat. Sensation of weakness in abdomen extending to throat. Every heart-beat has a strumming as if it would burst, along sternum to throat. Pain between shoulders coming up over head. Also in rheumatism, the lower limbs are affected first, then the upper. Other peculiar sensations are: As if something loose in head diagonally across the top. As if the body was surcharged with electricity, as shuddering without coldness. As if something was being pressed away from under sternum. The pains and conditions requiring *Kalm. frequently have nausea and slow pulse as concomitants. Among noteworthy symptoms are: Dry throat. Dry, stiff, swollen, cracked lips. Tingling in salivary glands immediately after eating. Stitches in tongue. Vomiting with ruminating action: without the least nausea. Pressure on rectum after stool. The sensation of “rigidity of the skin” should make us think of it in scleroderma. There is much external sensitiveness: Face, pit of stomach, muscles of neck sore, worse by tough. Rubbing eyes causes stinging in them. The pains are, during early part of night, or soon after going to sleep. Pain in forehead comes on in morning on waking. The headache is worse again in evening, when eye- symptoms and pains generally are worse. *Kalm. has a “sun- headache,” worse and better with the sun. (*H.G. Grahn cured in a girl, 18, a headache “beginning in occiput, going over forehead; *comes on at sunrise, gets worse towards noon and declines as sun sets,” with *Kalm.2x A few weeks later exposure to the sun brought on another attack, which was promptly cured with the same remedy.) A sudden chill, or exposure to a sudden wind causes the pains. Heat worse and cold better pain in head. Open air worse headache and eyes. Every summer there is roughness of cheeks. Mental effort worse headache. Motion worse. Lying down, mental faculties and memory perfect, least motion causes vertigo. Lying on back better breathing, on left side worse palpitation. The worse from motion is very marked, almost equalling that of *Bryonia: even motion of eyes and eyelids is painful. The pains in the stomach are worse sitting bent, though he feels impelled to do so, better sitting or standing upright. But symptoms of vision are worse in erect position. Vertigo is worse on stooping, on looking down, on rising from a seat. Palpitation is worse on bending forward, and worse by mental effort. (Proell cured with *Kalm. I,2, and 3 headache and weakened memory preventing him from continuing his studies, in a boy of 13 who had insufficiency of the mitral value.) The neuralgic pains are better by food, wine better vomiting. Symptoms worse during leucorrhoea. A leading *concomitant of the *Kalmia neuralgias is a paralytic weakness and trembling.
Relations
*Antidoted by: Aconite, Belladonna *Antidote to: Tabacum *Follows well: Nux-v., Thyroidin, Spigel. *Compare: Tabacum (slow pulse and heart, nausea, blindness), Pulsatilla (wandering rheumatism, but Pulsatilla has better by motion), Ledum (botan., rheumatism affects first lower then upper parts, but Ledum *pains shoot up, Kalm. *pains shoot down), Rhododendron (botan., rheumatism), Abrotanum (metastasis of rheumatic pains to heart), Arbut. (rheumatism worse by movement, urinary symptoms), AEsc. g. (paralytic symptoms), Asc. h. (rectal symptoms), Urt. ur. (gout), Rhus (rheumatism, numbness of left arm, but Rhus is better by movement), Actea r. (headache, eyes), Ced. (supraorbital neuralgia, Ced., left, Kalm., right), Aco. (heart, numbness of left arm and fingers), Arsenicum (neuralgia, burning pains), Digitalis (chest rheumatism, pains so sharp, take away breath, shoot down into stomach, slow pulse, Kalm. more suited to gout or rheumatism shifting from joints to heart), Gelsemium (ptosis _ Kalm. muscles and lids are stiff, Gelsemium, heavy): bell.(throbbing head, erysipelas, symptoms travel down), Benz-ac. (gout), Calcarea (cardiac hypertrophy), Dioscorea (gastralgia), Kali-bi. (catarrhs, shifting rheumatism), Lithium carb. (heart), Lycopodium (rheumatic gout, urinary symptoms), Spigel. (rheumatism, neuralgia, eyes, heart, tobacco antidote, worse and better with sun, but Spigel. more left side, and often affects whole head, pains stitching, run back, worse by least jar or noise), Cact. (heart, pains shooting down), Alo. (cracking in head), Sanguinaria (headache worse and better with sun). Ledum, Rhododendron, and Uva ursi are close allies.
