Solidago has a Weihe point situated on the region of right kidney, on the surface of the triangle of Jean-Louis Petit. Sometimes the constipation augments after having taken the medicine specially when the liver is insufficient. One should not be anxious for this, because it seems that constipation at the beginning of a treatment gives for sometime rest to the hepatic cells. There is produced a slowness of the intestinal transit; a diminution of bile secretion, but the overworked liver takes rest, the patient then goes better. Even when the patient goes no more to pass stools and some mechanical means become necessary, he will remain good because his liver will be slow acting.
This is a point on which we have much insisted. There is but one remedy with centrifugal action on the digestive sphere in all the dilutions. It is Taraxacum. Lycopodium is centrifugal only in 6 or 12.
Now we come to the study of Chelidonium, Taraxacum and Carduus Marianus.
We must understand well the action of these medicines of drainage on the liver, because it is their action on the hepatic cells, on the liver itself allows a drainage either towards digestive apparatus, or to the urinary tract.
Imagine to yourself a hepatic lobula. The central vein of this lobula, the lobula itself with its hepatic cells, really called biliary ducts to the periphery. When you use some cholagogs, you act on the biliary ducts i.e. to say on the peripheric part of the lobula; Phosphorus in high dilutions given to a person suffering from insufficient liver, act on the liver, the blood and the kidneys. It is for this reason that Phosphorus is an important remedy of grave insufficient liver and of uremia. As regards the biliary ducts, Lycopodium and Sulphur will be more specially indicated. Lycopodium is a double edged arm; the more you give it in lower dilutions the more it will act on the periphery; the more you give it in high dilutions, the more it will come nearer to Phosphorus. This will help us to understand the chart. On this schema we have put Chelidonium, Taraxacum and Carduus marianus on the left lobe. Schematically, we may say that Lycopodium, Phosphorus and Sepia are the important ground remedies of these three remedies of drainage. Solidago being the drainage remedy of our whole chart.
Chelidonium. It is a remedy of drainage of the digestive apparatus although at first it creates constipation. But it has later on a very mild action on the liver and helps it to act slowly on the digestive apparatus. Carduus marianus constipates less than Taraxacum and helps us to get a rapid drainage acting on the constipation. For this reason, you may very well give to the same person to allay the constipation of Chelidonium, this remedy and Taraxacum alternately. But together they do not go very well.
The big Chelidonium grows in humid ditches, on old walls, in uncultivated places, ruins of rocks. It has alone, among the three remedies, the symptom : Aggravation by every change of weather.
It may therefore be indicated in hydrogenoids and in some cases, Chelidonium may have for its ground remedies, Natrum sulphuricum or Thuja.
The big Chelidonium is used by the empirics for the treatment of epithelioma. What is interesting to recall here, is that it contains some alkaloids, chelidoni acid. These alkaloids and this acid have some narcotic properties analogous to those of papaverine. Both belong to the family of papavericae; this fact explains that often a person, who will die of uremia, will pass through the stage of Chelidonium, before arriving to that of Opium. Chelidonium is a shaded off Opium.
Chelidonium has action on the skin; it is used in the treatment of warts, because it is sufficiently caustic.
Elective Local Action. On an anatomical region. It is not only a remedy which acts on the right lobe but also on the lower part of the hemi-thorax (right) and on the right portion of the right hypochondria which includes the right lobe of the liver, the lower base of right lung, the right pleura in the same region and accessorily on the right thorax. It is for this reason Chelidonium is sometimes given in intercostal herpes.
You see here an example of a remedy which does not only act as tisane or on an organ but on a topographic region and according too metameric distribution. It acts on the right portion of the abdomen; it is therefore a remedy of the right angle of the colon, of the right base of the right lung in some broncho-pneumonias and pneumonias of the right base.
You remember that it acts on the mucous membranes like Hydrastis, specially on those of the biliary apparatus, on the intestinal mucosa and finally it has a secondary action on the kidneys, the knees and on the occiput. A patient of Chelidonium may come to you for his headache on the occiput. You may, in that case think of a liver which is not working well and prescribe Chelidonium or Juglans cineria. In this case often the ground remedy is Lachesis : vertigo, pain of the occiput, gushes of heat, delayed menses or less abundant menses.
Lachnanthes may act electively if there is a rheumatism of the cervical vertebrae.
Action on the knees makes it related to Cocculus. Some patients of arthritis, whose liver works bad, have rheumatism specially of the knees : Chelidonium, Cocculus, Bryonia and Symphytum. The ground remedy will be Natrum Muriaticum and Thuja insufficient liver, arthritis, bad circulation. The toxins are not burnt, toxinic deposition on the articulations. If there is any extra-articular localisation : Bryonia. If there are extra- articular localisations : Rhus tox. With osteocartilagenous lesions: Symphytum. Cracklings in the knees, often with a liver that does not work well, with nausea in a coach or in a train Cocculus.
Do no forget that the vertigo of Chelidonium is related to the liver. The tongue is completely yellow, having imprint of the teeth (Mercurius and Hydrastis)
In Chelidonium : Aggr. by movement, change of climate by touch, cough, the north-east wind; from 4 to 8 p.m. in the evening according to the elimination of urea in the urine.
Do not forget also its relation with Arsenic Album as both like heat, inverse of Phosphorus.
From practical point of view I like Chelidonium as a remedy of Indigestion. When a child or an adult has indigestion caused by fatty foods, it is a marvellous remedy like Antimonium crudum and Nux vomica with which you may give it alternately. The patient complains of his stomach while it is the liver which is affected.
Carduus Marianus. This plant grows in humid places, on the sides of the streets and on ruins. Men rarely eat it. However in some countries where there is famine, people eat this plant.
It is a very bitter plant and as such according to the doctrine of signatures it will act on the liver. This is possible because empirically it is said that the bitter plants act on the liver and on the bile. Carduus is used in precancer stage with high blood pressure. It acts on the liver specially on the left lobe, in jaundice, and empirically on leucorrhoea.
Local Elective Action. Liver, veins, specially portal veins (Sepia) while Sulphur acts on arterial and venous circulation of the abdomen. Nux vomica and Aloe act equally on portal veins; Carduus has a general action on the venous system.
It acts secondarily on the mucous membranes, occiput, kidneys and on the knees but much less than Chelidonium.
The liver is big, often with vomiting of bile.
Amelioration by discharge of blood, agg. by lying on the left side and by beer like that of Aloe.
It seems to act not only on the liver but also on supra- renals specially the left one.
Pre-sternal pigmentation of the skin. This pigmentation in some subjects denotes a diminution of vital force, with supra- renal insufficiency and hepatic insufficiency premonitory symptoms of cancer. It is often an important remedy of female genital cancer.
Taraxacum. This plant grows in the meadows, pasture grounds and on street sides. Cows, goats and sheep feed on them and the bees like very much its flowers. We take it sometimes with salads. It grows on sandy grounds.
Empirically it is said that it is purifier and a tonic but Leclerc says that it is a double edged arm. It may excite or depress and it has been researched what was the number of blood globules before giving M.T. of Taraxacum in high doses; it was seen that at the beginning the number of hematies increases and that very soon, in the second stage the number diminishes. Therefore there is produced at first an excitation and then a depression.
Taraxacum with Phosphorus and Kali Carbonicum acts electively on the supernumerary element of the blood. Kali carbonicum is a remedy that we give in pre-hepatic dyspeptic troubles. This is an ordinary liver in sufficiency for which Taraxacum is an excellent drainage remedy.
Taraxacum contains Calcium, Sodium and Potassium (Calcarea carbonica, Natrum muriaticum, Kali carbonicum).
Among its characteristics let us insist on the Mapped tongue. It is the mirror of all the mucous membranes of the digestive apparatus. It is very difficult to explain it. As in Natrum Muriaticum, one may only say that there is bad elimination on the mucous membranes with often a tendency to blockage of the mucous membranes.
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.