Xanthoxylum


Xanthoxylum signs and symptoms of the homeopathy medicine from the Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica by J.H. Clarke. Find out for which conditions and symptoms Xanthoxylum is used…


      Xanthoxylum americanum. X. fraxineum. Prickly Ash. Toothache tree. *N. O. Rutaceae. Tincture of fresh bark.

Clinical

After-pains. Asthma. Coccygodynia. Dysmenorrhoea. Earache. Fibroma. Headache. Hemiplegia. Hysteria. Jaw-joint, pain in. Levitation. *Menstruation, painful. Nerves, injured. Nervousness. Neuralgia, crural. Ophthalmia. Sciatica. Toothache. Ulcers.

Characteristics

According to Hale, Rafinesque was the first to investigate *Xanthoxylum, which was known to him as “a great article in the materia medica of our Indians,” who use the root bark in decoction for “colics, gonorrhoea, syphilis, inward pains, toothache, ulcers, &c. It is a great topical stimulant,” he continues, “changing the nature of malignant ulcers.” *Xan. contains *Piperine. ***T. C. Duncan (*Minn. H. M., ix. 340), recounting reminiscences of his boyhood, says: “There was another drug that set my youthful mouth and stomach on fire, and that was Prickly Ash. You wanted to open the mouth to let the cool air get in.” This warmth is felt as a warm glow through the entire system, with a sensation in the nerves as if gentle shocks of electricity were passing through the body. In one of Cullis’ provers, Miss D. (there were six provers, three of them women, all took the O tincture), the entire left half of the body became numb, the left half of the head being sharply divided in sensation from the other half. These symptoms, with the many head pains and fullness in the head, give the correspondence in hemiplegia, in which *Xan. has been given with success. Two additional provings on women appear in *C. D. P. (quoting from *Publ. Mass. Hom, Soc.). In these provings 20- to 100-drop doses of the tincture were taken, and symptoms of great severity were produced. Both provers had severe dysmenorrhoeal pains, with increased and anticipating flow. This is the characteristic of *Xan. The symptoms in each case roused the prover from sleep with pain and suffocation, the pain being confined to head, heart, throat, and pelvis. Many of the pains were radiating-from above right eye over head, from right ovary down thigh and in other directions. Left-sided numbness was present in one, who also had symptoms of levitation and disordered sensation. In dysmenorrhoea *Xan. has a wide range. Cullis, who had most success in cases of *dysmenorrhoea and amenorrhoea, relates these cases: (1) Miss A., 25, brunette, had menstrual irregularity since commencement, would go three, four, or five months, and then her sufferings were excruciating. When she came under treatment had no menses for two months. *Xan. 1 was give, 5 drops thrice daily. Menses appeared in three days and were painless. (2) Miss B., fair, nervous, had menses suppressed by getting feet wet, being then a week over time. *Xan. 1 x, 5 drops every three hours, brought on menses next day. Cullis thinks *Xan. especially *Suited to women of spare habit, nervous temperament, and delicate organizations. Leucorrhoea with amenorrhoea he regards as a strong indication. ***P. C. Majumdar (*Ind. H. R., viii. 21) cured a case of uterine fibroid with *Xan. 3x: An emaciated, feeble, wrinkled woman, 56, widow, had been advised by allopaths to have an operation for tumour. Menstruation had ceased fifteen years before. It had always been profuse and painful, and preceded and followed by leucorrhoea. She had neuralgic pain in right ovarian region, a hard nodular tumour size of a small orange, painful on deep pressure. Fetid, yellowish white discharge from vagina. Patient was nervous, depressed, lazy and sleepy even in the daytime. Appetite poor, disgust for food. *Xan. 3x was given night and morning. In a week the pain was better and discharge less. In four weeks Majumdar found the patient a changed person. The tumour was much softer and reduced by half. In six months the tumour had gone, and the patient was quite well, *Xan. having been taken intermittently all the time. *Xan. belongs to the Rutaceae, and, like *Ruta, has a vulnerary action, as I discovered in this case: Miss X., 28, injured her right ulnar nerve at the elbow by repeatedly striking it against the edge of a bath while washing some articles. For two months she had to keep the arm in a sling. A few weeks after that the arm swelled. Some eight months after the injury I saw her. The pain centered in the ulnar nerve where it crosses the inner condyle of the humerus, though there was pain above and below as well. I gave *Ruta 30, which gave some relief to the pain, and relieved a frontal headache to which the patient was subject. The arm becoming less well, I gave *Xan. 12 four times a day. This made a distinct improvement in the arm, and also relieved a dysmenorrhoea to which Miss X. was subject. After persistent treatment with various attenuations of *Xan. the nerve lost its sensitiveness, and the patient could use her arm freely. *Xan. I in five-drop doses night and morning, with a liniment of *Xan., O proved most effective. A patient to whom I gave *Xan. 3x had immediately a hot pricking pain in right ovary. Among the *Peculiar Sensations are: As if top of head would be taken off by flashes of throb- like pain. As if bewildered with pain in back of head. Feeling of looseness or quivering of brain. As if head falling to pieces. As if pepper in mouth and throat. As of a bunch in throat. Tongue as if expanding and contracting. As if throat swollen and enlarged. Throat as if in a vice. Back of neck as if stiff. Coccyx as if elongated. As if floating in the air. As if head surrounded by a tight band. Eyes as if full of sand. As if walking on wool. As if sunk deep in bed. As if body expanded. Many pains are radiating, some are sudden, arouse from sleep, and cause the patient to catch her breath. Pains are excruciating, unbearable, and are accompanied with red, hot face, but the heart pains causes pallor. The symptoms are: worse By moving head suddenly. Neck pain is better by pressure and by throwing head back. Lying down better. Drink of ice-water better. Headache is better by cold water and in open air. Pains are worse in morning, 4 a.m.

Relations

*Compare: Head, heart, and uterus, Actear. Lack of eruption in measles, Bryonia Dysmenorrhoea with reflex neuralgia, Coloc. Dysmenorrhoea with reflex neuralgia, Coloc. Dysmenorrhoea and sciatica; numbness, Gnaphal. Dysmenorrhoea, Vib.o., Caulo. After- pains, Pul., Chamomilla, Cuprum i., Stic.p., Ph.ac. Headache over root of nose, Ignatia Headache over right eye, Sanguinaria Heart and uterus, Cact.

Causation

Injury to nerve. Wetting (getting feet wet). Suppression of menses. SYMPTOMS.

Mind

Nervous, frightened feeling.- Easily startled, hysterical.- Depression and weakness.- Indifference and malaise.- Did not care if she lived or died.- Seemed entirely void of ideas.

Head

Giddiness with nausea, worse after rising, had to go to bed.- Pain over eyes, with throbbing above root of nose.- Head dull and aching.- Frontal headache.- Intense burning, pressing, frontal headache, waking her at 4 a.m., worse moving head suddenly, extending into vertex and orbits, with hot flushes over head and face.- Severe frontal headache, with dizziness.- A dull headache, in a space not larger than half a dollar, over nose. Diffused pain in upper part of forehead, worse in right side, pain extends to base of brain, with soreness.- At 6 p.m. sudden and violent pain over right eye, with burning through temples, after it, vision blurred.- Throbbing headache over right eye, with nausea.- Darting pain in left temple, recurring again and again.- A tightening of scalp and heavy pain in temples, increase of head difficulties, with a great heat and quiet flowing (menstrual), being two days in advance of proper time, some headache.- Pain in left side of head and left elbow.- Heavy feeling in top of head.- About upper part of cranium an aching feeling, accompanied by flashes of throb-like pain, as if top of head were about to be taken off.- Pain in back of head, also a bewildered sensation.- Head feels full.- Pressure in head, with fullness of veins.- Tightness of head, with pain increasing over eyes.- Left side of head (and body) numb, the division made perceptible in head, affecting half the nose.- Headache, with sleepy feeling in morning.- Shaking head produces a feeling of looseness or quivering of brain, followed by dizziness.- As if head were surrounded by a tight band (dysmenorrhoea).- Head seemed falling in pieces.

Eyes

Watering of eyes and nose.- Eyes bloodshot, with red margins, and feel as if full of sand.- Lachrymation, pain in lid of right eye.- Eyes twitched, pupils dilated.- Dull, heavy, grinding pain in left eye. Ophthalmia. Vision blurred, as if looking through blue lace. Atmosphere appeared blue, and there were flashes of (blue) light before eyes.- Objects seem a long way off.

Ears

Ringing in ears, especially in r.- Loud noise in right ear, as of a valve constantly opening and shutting.- Loud noise like a windmill in left ear.- Dull pain in right ear, seeming to affect jaw socket, does not know whether his tooth or his ear aches.- Darting pain under and back or right ear.

John Henry Clarke
John Henry Clarke MD (1853 – November 24, 1931 was a prominent English classical homeopath. Dr. Clarke was a busy practitioner. As a physician he not only had his own clinic in Piccadilly, London, but he also was a consultant at the London Homeopathic Hospital and researched into new remedies — nosodes. For many years, he was the editor of The Homeopathic World. He wrote many books, his best known were Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica and Repertory of Materia Medica