In fact Lycopodium seems to be a remedy par excellence for overworked liver. It is for this reason it is a remedy of the “bilious” type to whom corresponds its mental characteristics.
Mentally : apprehension, weakness of memory, forgets words and syllables while writing. Very irritable. Becomes easily angry. Frequent underlining of phrases, in letters that the writes.
Likes to write in violent terms or even in obscene terms, if they are expressive.
Sad in the morning while waking up (contrary, Sulphur).
Jaundice after anger (Colocynth, Chamomilla). The liver is the gland of anger.
Digestive Tract. Dry mouth without thirst. Weak digestion. Incomplete burning eructations rising up to the pharynx.
Prefers hot food and drink (Chelidonium and Arsenic; contrary Phosphorus and often Sulphur). Gastric and intestinal distension. Retention or emission of abundant intestinal gas.
Constipation of insufficient stools. Painful Hemorrhoids.
The action of Lycopodium in constipation is very mysterious.
Very often in the lower dilutions (3, 6, 12), Lycopodium ameliorates constipation (when it is indicated to Lycopodium).
Very often, in high dilutions or in medium dilutions (30, 200, M) Lycopodium aggr. the constipation (when it is indicated by the symptoms)
The phenomena exists also in China, Chelidonium, Myrica, Nux vomica etc…
What is the cause?
Here is how we can interpret it.
The lower dilution of Lycopodium will act as a cholagog, and will eliminate the bile in the intestine more actively. Bile which slows down the heart in the cases of jaundice, on the contrary Increases the Rapidity of the intestinal transit, whence amelioration of constipation, but possibly also diminution of assimilation.
Inversely the intestinal transit would be slowed down, but with augmentation of the power of assimilation, in the case of hepatic insufficiency, ameliorated by Lycopodium in high dilutions. Whence the possible antagonism between the speed of elimination of bile and the power of assimilation, function of the liver cells.
Constipation in a person who has bad assimilation which is perhaps a defence reaction. Perhaps, the liver, by the help of bile, itself regulates the speed of transit exactly necessary to the necessity of assimilation? It requires study.
Besides, we often see the bile extract, capable to overwork the liver and to cause some hepatic troubles either because of overwork or because of the insufficiency, perhaps because by activating the intestinal transit; intestines can no more bring back to the liver the biliary salt for recuperation (according to some authors)
Appetite of Lycopodium. Soon satisfied; by a mouthful only. Dyspnoea caused by cabbage, greasy and farinaceous foods.
Aversion to bread. Desire for sugar (Argentum nitricum, action on the glycogenic function cannot tolerate shellfish).
Liver. Sensitive and painful, small often hard (Big liver Digitalis, China, Phosphorus, Kali carbonicum etc..). Hepatic pain Aggravated by touch; while breathing, painful and heavy sensation on the liver. Point of Weihe, or painful point of Lycopodium is between the 2nd right or left intercostal space, at a distance of 2 cm from the border of sternum.
Yellow patches of the skin on the liver region.
Urine. Brick red sediment. Sometimes excess of uric acid, diminished or precipitated. Lycopodium will act on gouty diathesis like Natrum sulphuricum and Lithium carbonicum.
May go towards uremia, like Ammonium carbonicum, Carbo veg., Arsenicum album, Phosphorus. A good sign of Lycopodium : Urobilinuria. Has action also on acetonemy and acetonuria (Senna).
Circulation. Tendency to aneurysm, specially aortic.
Venous circulation. Naevi.
Erectile tumours.
One foot cold, the other hot.
Sleep. Cannot sleep on the right side (contrary Sepia)
General aggravation from 4 to 8 p.m. (from 4 to 5 a.m the urea in the urine increases.
Very marked Rightsidedness.
Relation of Lycopodium with.
Chelidonium. Very much similar. Bitter taste in the mouth. Pain in the scapulo-vertebral angle (right), into the point of scapula.
Myrica. Resembles to Chelidonium.
Chenopodium. Anthelmintic action on the labyrinth, deafness. Scapulo-vertebral pain like Chelidonium. Vertigo.
Overwork -(>) Dysfunction -(>) Insufficiency -(>) Degenerscence Chionanthus. In jaundice.
Mercurius solubilis, Mercurius dulcis, more or less disputable cholagogs.
China. It is antidote and complementary. Distention of the abdomen, generalised meteorism of the whole abdomen. Big liver, big spleen.
Arsenicum album. Complementary of Lycopodium and of Phosphorus.
Bryonia. According to the modalities. Better lying down on the painful side. Aggravation by respiration, like Lycopodium.
If aggr. caused by Lycopodium think of China (meteorism), or Colocynthis (pain after anger).
With ground remedies.
Sulphur and Natrum sulphuricum, very slight on the liver Phosphorus. Deeper action (rather right-sidedness)
Sepia is between Sulphur and Lycopodium. Lachesis between Phosphorus and Lycopodium (Lachesis, left-sidedness)
The following schema may show the general action of Lycopodium and Phosphorus compared.
In schematising, let us say that Lycopodium acts on the whole field of hepatic lobule, probably on the protoplasma of hepatic cells and bile duct.
Phosphorus has for its field of action on hepatic cell, specially its nucleus (abundance of phosphorus in the nucleus).
Lycopodium should be drained through bile ducts.
Phosphorus should be drained specially through the central vein of the hepatic lobule and thence through the kidney.
There is no haemorrhage in Lycopodium while there is haemorrhage in Phosphorus, Lachesis and even in Sulphur.
Sepia has for its field of action the portal vein.
Sulphur on portal vein and on the whole arterial and venous system of the abdomen in general.
Natrum sulphuricum on blood serum and interstitial plasma of the tissues.
The last three remedies are only indirectly hepatics. Let us now define the field of action of Lachesis which is very difficult.
Lachesis. Less important in liver diseases than Lycopodium and Phosphorus. But it is necessary to think of it in cases of insufficient liver.
It is a remedy of Correlations, the function between the Liver and the Blood.
It is a remedy of Correlations of the function between the Liver and Sympathetic Nervous System.
Mentality. Logorrhoea, loquacity. Excitation, then depression (like Phosphorus). Suspicious, jealous, vindictive. Mania. Macabre dreams, dreams of death. The liver is the gland of jealousy. Lachesis is also a remedy of jealousy (sexual), of envy. Step-mother type, jealous of the step-daughter.
(Other remedy of jealousy, Hyoscyamus). Menopause. Remedy of overwork (mental), mental shocks (efforts of creation, invention, bereavement, sorrow).
General Aggr. during Sleep. The sympathetic nervous system is never at rest. When the parasympathetic predominates : suffocation while sleeping. Aggr. in the morning after waking up.
Vertigo. Gushes of heat. Headache (vertex), aggr. by sun.
Lips are purple or blue, livid.
Desire for oysters and alcohol.
A remedy of alcoholism (Sulphur, Phosphorus, Lycopodium, Gelsemium, Nux vomica).
Lachesis rather Characterises the overwork of Nerves and Sympathetic system with Glandular overwork.
Liver Sensitive. Cannot keep anything tight around the body (Natrum sulph.), around the Neck or around the Chest. Abdominal tympanism, should loosen the clothes.
Constipation of foetid stools.
Haemorrhoids (Phosphorus) of decomposed blood.
Purple haemorrhoids, with constrictive pains.
General amel, during menses.
Hepatic troubles during menopause (Lutein, phosphorus, Cholesterinum)
Possible purpura.
In summary, in Lachesis, action on the blood; unbalanced humours. Related to Phosphorus by its action on blood; to Lycopodium, which comes before and after it by its action on the liver; to Sulphur in arterial hypertension of women during menopause; to Sepia by its action on the two poles: Liver-Organs of the lower abdomen.
Other relations : Arsenicum Album. Restlessness and prostration.
Muriatic acid. Haemorrhoids.
Digitalis. Slow pulse, trigeminal pulse. Arrhythmia.
China. Very weakening haemorrhage of long duration.
Arnica. Traumatisms.
Ignatia. Paradoxal symptoms. Sympathetic dislocation.
Vipera. Important action on the liver. Compare with Ricinus: big liver, as if it is going to burst. Cardiac oedema. Like Lachesis action on the veins. Menopause.
Sepia. A remedy-type of portal hypertension.
Sulphur, Lycopodium specially, sometimes Natrum sulphuricum and Lachesis have also portal hypertension of lesser degree.
What is the characteristic of Sepia? Atony, like all other medicines of Generalised Venous Insufficiency (Pulsatilla), or localised (Sepia). The last two remedies act every time when the organism intensely undergoes the law of heaviness.
Pulsatilla. suffers from this law everywhere, specially in the extremities : hands, feet, legs.
Sepia in the abdomen and in the lower abdomen, from the liver to the uterus and to rectum, whence its action on the liver, on the belly, on the anus, uterus and vagina. The liver is big, painful, heavy; aggr. of pains and uneasiness lying on the left side, sensation as if the liver is going to fall down from the right to the left under the influence of the heaviness. Tendency to Prolapsus of the Anus, Sensation of a Ball in the Anus. Constipation, stools are hard and large, or small balls, oozing and sometimes bleeding haemorrhoids.
Bernoville was a major lecturer in homeopathy, and he was active in Liga Medicorum Homeopathica Internationalis, and a founder of the le Syndicat national des médecins homœopathes français in 1932, and a member of the French Society of Homeopathy, and the Society of Homeopathy in the Rhone.
Fortier-Bernoville wrote several books, including Une etude sur Phosphorus (1930), L'Homoeopathie en Medecine Infantile (1931), his best known Comment guerir par l'Homoeopathie (1929, 1937), and an interesting work on iridology, Introduction a l'etude de l'Iridologie (1932).
With Louis-Alcime Rousseau, he wrote several booklets, including Diseases of Respiratory and Digestive Systems of Children, Diabetes Mellitus, Chronic Rheumatism, treatment of hay fever (1929), The importance of chemistry and toxicology in the indications of Phosphorus (1931), and Homeopathic Medicine for Children (1931). He also wrote several short pamphlets, including What We Must Not Do in Homoeopathy, which discusses the logistics of drainage and how to avoid aggravations.
He was an opponent of Kentian homeopathy and a proponent of drainage and artificial phylectenular autotherapy as well.