The following symptoms from the Materia Medica Pura will remind you of the symptoms of nux and digitalis:
“Palpitation of the heart, also with rush of blood to the head, and heat and redness of the face, with cold hands.”
“Strong, violent beats of the heart, also with anxiety, also with feeble pulse and cold skin.”
“Pressure in the region of the chest (heart), particularly when the trunk is bent forward, when sitting or standing, also with anguish and oppression of breathing.”
In the proving of quinine you will find similar symptoms, to which I add the following: “distressing constriction about the throat, and sense of fear about the heart;” and, if you should happen to practice in malarious districts, where people are poisoned with quinine, you will have excellent opportunities of observing its effects, namely: its primary symptoms, like those I have just quoted, denoting over-stimulation of the heart; and its secondary effects, namely, weakness, irritability, and irregular action of the heart. I have no hesitation in asserting, that many of the cases of hypertrophic debility of the heart, supposed to arise from ague, have their origin in the enormous quantities of quinine given to suppress that disease.
I believe, also, that the free use of quinine will cause hypertrophy with enlargement, of a temporary character, and as a large proportion of the cases of dilatation of the heart is preceded by this condition, we have in quinine a medicine which is homoeopathic to that variety of cardiac disease. I shall refer to china again in the next lecture.
Dose: In hypertrophy with enlargement, having the above symptoms, give the 6th or 30th dilution.
Ferrum has an action not so far removed from nux and china as some have supposed. All the preparations of iron cause pathogenetically a pseudo-plethora, i.e., a plethora not of a healthy physiological character. I do not look upon iron merely as a blood-enricher, acting in the same way as beef or other blood-food. To suppose that it acts simply by imparting iron to the blood is too crude a notion. The more rational theory is that it has a two-fold action, namely, of entering the blood and then stimulating the nerves of nutrition until the blood-making process goes on in a normal manner. This ferrum-plethora closely simulates that condition which we sometimes see in cases of hypertrophy with enlargement. The symptoms indicating its use are: Rush of blood to the head, with puffiness around the eyes and swelling of the veins; vertigo, staggering, hammering and throbbing headache, and roaring in the head; faint feeling in walking, with blackness before the eyes; hard, strong beating of the heart; pulse hard, large, and slow, or quickened by exertion; heat, with anxiety and oppression, proceeding from the pit of the stomach; tightness in the chest, as if constricted, with difficult, anxious breathing, and contractive spasm of the heart. For these symptoms give ferrum, but not lower than the 6th trituration.
Hydrastis has no special heart-symptoms, but I recommend it, on theoretical grounds, when the hypertrophy is impending from obstruction in the liver, or chronic stagnation of the portal circulation. Podophyllum,* *See Symptoms of Podoph. in New Remedies. leptandra, aesculus, and collinsonia have the same action, and are especially indicated if the patient is subject to haemorrhoids, and when the cardiac symptoms are worse when the piles are least troublesome.
The medicines of the fourth class, namely: belladonna, glonoine, lachnanthes, stramonium, agaricus, cimicifuga, aurum, and solanum Plus Plus U.S. Jour. of Hom., 1870. are all excellent palliatives in hypertrophy, when the impulse is so strong as to throw an undue amount of blood to the head and lungs, causing headache, vertigo, frightful dreams, etc. They have the best effects in the 3rd to 6th dilution.
Plumbum aceticum, according to Raue, is homoeopathic to true hypertrophy with the symptoms: “Stitch in the region of the heart during inspiration, with anxiety; heat and redness of the face; rush of blood to the region of the heart during a rapid walk; anguish about the heart, with cold sweat; palpitation. Post- mortem after poisoning has shown, that the serous coat of the pericardium is lined with a layer of reddish grey, fine, villous, meshy, firm, exuded lymph. The heart is more than double its natural size. The wall of the left ventricle is more than an inch thick.”(++) (++)Raue’s Pathology.
Hale wrote Lectures On Diseases Of The Heart, Materia medica and special therapeutics of the new remedies Volume 1, Materia Medica And Special Therapeutics Of The New Remedies Volume 2, Saw Palmetto: (Sabal Serrulata. Serenoa Serrulata), The Medical, Surgical, and Hygienic Treatment of Diseases of Women, New Remedies: Their Pathogenetic Effects and Therapeutic Application, Ilex Cassine : the aboriginal North American tea, Repertory to the New Remedies with Charles Porter Hart, The Characteristics of the New Remedies, Materia Medica and Special Therapeutics of the New Remedies, The Practice of Medicine, Homoeopathic Materia Medica of the New Remedies: Their Botanical Description etc.