On the one hand it is the remedy of periodic bilious migraine, accompanied by vomiting, cold sweats (Iris versicolor and Veratrum album). The cold sweats are seen not specially on forehead like Veratrum album but also on the back of hands.
It has no doubt an action on the liver as it can produce jaundice. It is the remedy of all possible jaundices, of hepatic colics, of cholecystitis, of infections jaundice, or jaundice by retention of bile.
His diarrhoeic stools often contain undigested meat or small balls of fat, indicating not only hepatic insufficiency but also a pancreatic insufficiency.
Aggr. by movement and by cold.
Amel. while lying down on the belly (Chelidonium and Sepia., Kali carbonicum is ameliorated by bending forward. Bryonia and Colocynthis are ameliorated by pressure and by bending double.
From the point of view of drainage, Chionanthus is a small remedy, however very constant of which the action may be schematised thus : very near to Iris versicolor as regards its periodic migraine, but it is a remedy of acute stage having important relation to the trio: Mercurius (solubilis or dulcis), Chelidonium and China.
In periodic migraines when Iris versicolor is indicated very often the ground remedies are Natrum muriaticum or Calcarea phos.
You will then use Chionanthus in hepatic or bilious migraines, often with big, painful liver having tendency to jaundice with colourless stools, rather over coloured stools. It acts well in lower dilutions or in M.T. From the side of intestines it should not be used, to speak the truth as a drainer, but as a canaliser. It acts as a check when there is great hepatic insufficiency.
Myrica. It grows on marshy and uncultured lands of Western Europe and Cazin says that it is found in the surroundings of Versailles.
It has a very strong smell, a bitter taste. The empirics say that it is a vermifuge, tonic, and excitant. It seems to contain a substance like hemp. It contains equally an oil which after decoration gives a product very near to wax, whence its name Myrica cerifera.
Elective action on the heart and the naso-pharynx. It is really interesting to consider the number of remedies that act on the liver and at the sametime on naso-pharynx. It seems that the nasal discharge is a real supplementary outlet of drainage in subjects whose liver functions badly and whose digestive apparatus seems insufficient and this is seen more in men than in women. The intellectuals of the type of Nux vomica, specially the persons of sedentary habit who live in towns, who are aggr. by inhalation of dust, show the maximum frequency of rhino- pharyngitis (chronic) which should always draw the attention on the genito-urinary system (Thuja type) or on the bad function of the liver.
In the Materia Medica we find in Myrica a discharge of thick and yellowish mucous which may cause nausea because of the effort to expectorate.
It is also sometimes, like Chamomilla, a remedy of jaundice. Myrica is very near to Chionanthus and Chelidonium. But there is a depressive action on the heart which is not found in Chelidonium, and very less in Chamomilla. It is for this reason related to Digitalis.
You know that in Jaundice, there may be slow pulse and a depressive action by the intermediary of the vagus on the cardiac muscles. This action is found in Myrica, but not so much as in Digitalis, palpitations and even cardiac weakness with hypotension. The liver is big and sometimes also the spleen.
Phosphorus, China and Digitalis form the trio of cardiac liver, of the accordeon liver; by asystole it becomes big by simple congestion, which may, later on, cause cardiac cirrhosis, with secondary degeneration of the parenchyma of the type of Phosphorus.
In such cases one should not give only Digitalis in ponderable doses, because of its mechanical action on the myocardia but one should know how to use Digitalis in homoeopathic dilutions. Even in 30 and 200 in may give wonderful results. When the symptoms of Digitalis are found on the heart alone, use Digitalis in gross doses are even use maceration of its leaves, but when the heart symptoms are related to liver in an asystolic patient whose balance is more or less unstable with a big liver one should raise the dilution of Digitalis.
You may often have to prescribe as for example Phosphorus 200, followed by China 30, Digitalis 30 and Digitalis 1x. In such a case Myrica becomes a small supporting remedy. I do not know whether it has an action on the respiratory system, because I never use it alone. But it seems that it re-enforces the action of other remedies.
Berberis. A hepatic drainer, may also be considered with other drainers of the urinary system.
It is a plant of our country, that is found in hedges and forests, near farms. It is a thorny plant of which the fruits are red. The sheeps and lambs breed on it.
The empirics recommend it in the liver diseases, in hydropsy and in dysenteries.
Leclerc, in his “Treaties on phytotheraphy”, makes of it a bitter tonic, and it seems that its action on the urinary system is not well known. With the berries of Berberis, in some honey, they prepare a special hydromel, somewhat tasteful to drink which has an acidulated flavour and which acts strongly on the urinary apparatus.
We have said that Hydrastis is for us a drainage type of mucous membranes; that Solidago is a typical drainage remedy of the liver towards digestive and urinary apparatus; Berberis is for homoeopaths, the typical remedy for fighting against metastasis and it is necessary to use it in relation to ground remedies, to check the transfer of the disease.
t d l b d –4
By making some analysis it is found, Berberis, there are two crystallisable substances. The Berberine, and Maril or hydric acid.
Homoeopathic action of Berberis. Very great pains, very acute, in the abdomen or in the lumbar region, liver and kidney. They have always clear-cut character of Irradiating along the urethra.
Modalities : Aggr. by movements, jerkings, standing, walking, specially while walking rapidly and with jerking steps. (One should think of this remedy when a patient says that he feels bad in a bus). He is aggravated after fatigue and after micturition.
Elective Local Action. On the Kidney, on the Bladder, on the Digestive tract. While the empirics know its action on the liver, they do not know its action on the kidney and we know that its primary action is on the urinary apparatus. It has besides an action on the lumbar region, on the whole perineal region so as to become not only a remedy of nephritic colics but even a remedy of lumbago. Its action extends even to hips. Here we find, like Chelidonium that topographic action of homoeopathic remedies goes beyond the organ itself.
I may add that Berberis has undeniable action on the skin. When it is the question about this remedy we must think of the three important ways of elimination : liver, kidney and skin. Berberis is a remedy of which the intoxication produces very rapidly some pains while irritating with a hepatic congestion and almost always uricemia or azotemia. The blood undergoes some changes and this is why Berberis is, to be sure, a remedy of urticaria, a prelude to azotemia under the influence of an insufficient liver.
In this case the person who should normally eliminate by the liver and kidneys is obliged to find out a third way of elimination. Berberis aggr. the itching and sometimes causes the reappearance of an eruption like Sulphur, Arsenicum, Lycopodium. The important ground remedies of which Berberis is the complementary: Thuja and Lycopodium. And these two remedies are precisely the remedies of pre-uremic stage and of uremia. Lycopodium, has primordial action on the liver, and on the kidney. With Thuja, you act on the kidneys without aggravating the cutaneous symptoms, while Berberis seems to be related in this case to Lycopodium. When you give it one would say that the kidney is relatively relieved by causing eruption on the skin. This causes a good effect on condition that it is not exaggerated. On my part, I have often seen that in insufficient liver it seems to drain much better Phosphorus, than Lycopodium, because, Lycopodium has already the tendency to drain through the skin. Berberis is the link from the point of view of polarity, the liver and is the kidney and accessorily the skin. It is the remedy-type when it is necessary to eliminate by the classic remedy that homoeopaths use and which is very difficult to prescribe. I think that it is not so faithful, though sometimes it gives marvellous results. Sometimes on the contrary it has some after effects. It acts remarkably well when used externally in M.T. as compresses.
We have therefore the interest to use Berberis to persons who are capable of urinary discharges, and in this regard one may compare it with Magnesia borocitrica and Pariera brava, specially in nephritic colic. Fragaria in urticaria, Urtica urens is quite near to Berberis by its action on urticaria, Urtica urens is quite near to Berberis by its action on urticaria and by the drainage of urates through urines.
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.