In cross, overworked, fidgety business men of sedentary habits; they cannot bear to be opposed; are irritable and irascible, easily put out; quick to act, those of a fitful temper and where there is a great disinclination to mental work.
What is the headache of Nux?
Dull confused feeling, in the morning on waking, in the frontal and supra-orbital regions, and nearly always associated with qualmishness and nausea; also a bilious occipital headache. Headaches of high livers; in those who use alcohol to excess, often associated with constipation and hemorrhoids.
How does Pulsatilla compare?
Pulsatilla is better in the open air. Nux better in a warm room.
When is Nux vomica indicated in cold in the head?
In the first stage, when brought on by damp, cold weather, sitting on damp steps, etc., associated with sneezing and stuffed-up feeling in the nose. The nose is dry, very little discharge; the eyes water; there is scraping in the throat, and there is dullness and oppression in the frontal region; the symptoms are worse in a warm room and better in the open air.
How does Mercurius compare?
It is similar in the rawness and soreness in the nose, and it is worse in damp weather.
Compare also Arsenicum.
The coryza is relieved by warmth and aggravated by cold, which is the opposite of Nux vomica, and the discharge is very thin and burning.
What is characteristic of the face of Nux?
It is a sallow face; or the false plethora produces red cheeks on a yellow background.
What throat affections correspond to Nux?
Those of smokers, drinkers and preachers; there is a follicular rawness and scraping from overuse of the voice.
What is the taste of Nux?
Sour, herby, metallic or bitter.
What are the gastric symptoms of Nux?
Impaired appetite or abnormal hunger preceding an attack of dyspepsia, eructations which are painful, bitter or sour, a great deal of nausea, and the patient will often say: “If I could only vomit I would feel a great deal better.” The stomach is sensitive to pressure; the pains come on about half an hour after eating; they start in the epigastrium and radiate in various directions.
Name some drugs that have pains coming on immediately after eating.
Lycopodium, Abies nigra and Nux moschata.
What drug has the symptom that three or fours hours after eating the patient vomits?
Kreasote.
What are some of the causes of gastric troubles indicating Nux?
Over-indulgence in spirituous liquors, overwork, sedentary habits, high living.
What symptoms has Kali bichromicum that somewhat resemble Nux?
Dyspeptic troubles occurring in beer drinkers.
What are the liver symptoms of Nux?
Sticking pains and soreness in the liver, enlargement of the liver from alcoholic excesses, or troubles arising from drastic purgatives and allopathic dosing.
What are the symptoms of Nux in colic?
Flatulent colic with desire to stool, and a sensation as if the intestines were squeezed between stones.
To what peculiar symptoms does the constant pressure in the abdomen give rise?
Sensation of weakness in the abdominal rings, as if a hernia would protrude.
Has Nux a characteristic diarrhoea?
It has not; Hahnemann said that copious diarrhoeic stools were never produced by Nux vomica.
Give the constipation of Nux.
It is due not alone to inactivity of the intestines, but to irregularity of the peristaltic action, and this give rise to the characteristic symptoms, constant ineffectual urging to stool, and when the stool does occur it is incomplete and unsatisfactorily, as if a part remained behind.
How does Carbo vegetabilis compare?
It has ineffectual urging, but it is due to wind.
What drugs have no urging to stool at all?
Opium and Bryonia.
What are the hemorrhoidal symptoms of Nux?
Itching hemorrhoids, which keep the patient awake; bleeding piles, with ineffectual urging to stool.
What are the urinary symptoms of Nux?
Painful, ineffectual efforts to pass urine, with scanty discharge and burning; strangury, dribbling of urine in old people from enlarged prostate.
Give indications for Nux in sexual excesses.
Frequent emissions towards night, backache and difficulty of walking. An irritable conditions of the organs which do not seem to be under control of the mind.
What is the backache of Nux?
In the lumbar region; worse at night when lying in bed, cannot turn over without sitting up, lumbago.
What are the symptoms of Nux in the extremities?
Legs give out, hands and feet go to sleep, numbness and formication in back and extremities. Rheumatism of large joints and large muscles, with aggravation towards morning.
Give the symptoms of Nux in intermittent fever.
Chill begins in the extremities, with blueness of nails; preceded by gaping and yawning, and aching in the limbs, dull frontal headache, thirst with the chill, not before it as in China, and as chill passes off the patient vomits; the fever is especially in the upper part of the body. Gastro-bilious symptoms predominate.
Give sleep symptoms of Nux.
Sleepy in the evening, falls asleep in his chair, and falls asleep immediately on going to bed; wakes an hour or so before daybreak, dozes off and again awakes more tired than he was before going to bed, and with a headache.
How does Pulsatilla compare?
The Pulsatilla patient is wide awake in the evening, but the sleep is sound and the patient awakes languid.
IGNATIA AMARA.
Where are studies of Ignatia found?
Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura, Jorg’s Provings, Hartlaub & Trinks.
What is Ignatia?
The seed of a large tree, a native of our Philippine Islands; it is called the St. Ignatius’ bean. The tincture is made from the bruised seeds in the same manner as Nux vomica, Cinchona, etc.
What are its alkaloids?
Strychnine is the principal one, and it contains more of this substance than does the Nux vomica bean.
What is its general physiological action?
Ignatia produces a marked hyperaesthesia of all the senses and a tendency to clonic spasms. Mentally, the emotional element is uppermost. Hence its chief applicability in hysteria. It destroys the harmony of action between different portions of the organism and perverts the co-ordination of function.
What is there characteristic in general about Ignatia?
It is a remedy full of contradictions; for instance, there is fever and no thirst, sore throat relieved by swallowing, sensitiveness relieved by pressure, chill relieved by uncovering, headache relieved by stooping, etc. Monroe says one must look for the body of a drowned Ignatia patient “up stream.”
What are the mental characteristics?
Changeable mood, introspective, silent given to sighing, melancholy with tendency to weep; it is a remedy full of disappointments, complaints arising from fear, jealousy.
What is its use in grief?
It is the chief remedy for the effects of grief; the patient has a disposition to brood over her sorrow.
What is the remedy for the chronic or long-lasting effects of grief?
Phosphoric acid.
What are the indications for Ignatia in hysteria?
Great sensitiveness to external impressions, patients laugh and cry alternately, face flushes on emotion, spasmodic laughing, ending in screaming, globus hystericus, profuse pale urine, flatulent conditions, contortions of muscles.
What are the head symptoms of Ignatia?
Heaviness in the head as if congested, relieved by stooping; there is a pain as if a nail were driven into the parietal or occipital region; clavus hystericus; the headache ends in vomiting or in a copious discharge of pale urine. It is aggravated by smoking or smelling tobacco.
What drugs have a sensation as if a nail were being driven into the occiput?
Thuja and Coffea.
What are the throat symptoms?
There is a lump in the throat and a sticky sensation, which is relieved by swallowing.
What are the digestive symptoms of Ignatia?
Bitter taste in the mouth and regurgitation of a bitter fluid, gastralgia and hiccough, relieved by eating and smoking. Empty, gone feeling and great nervous depression; empty retching, relieved by eating; the patient vomits simple food, but retains such things as cabbage.
Give the symptoms of the rectum and stool.
Distension of the abdomen after eating and painful contraction of the sphincter after stool. Violent stitches, which shoot from the rectum into the abdomen; itching about the anus as from ascarides.
What is there characteristic about the urine?
It is very profuse and pale.
What are the respiratory symptoms?
Dry, spasmodic cough in quick, successive shocks, as if a feather were in the throat; the more the patient coughs the more he wants to and it is only stopped by an effort of the will; the cough occurs in the evening on lying down.
What is the fever of Ignatia?
Partial in all its stages; the chill is not relieved by external heat, and there is thirst with the chill, but none with the fever.
What are the spasmodic symptoms of the drug?
Spasms from fright or fear, with pale face and twitching of individual muscles; spasms of nervous women with out maniacal symptoms; hysterical spasms and spasms of children.
What is Curare or Woorari?
A South American arrow poison, composed of the juice of a member of the Strychnos family, and probably some animal poison. It comes in the form of a resinous extract and is prepared by trituration.
Professor of Materia Medica in the University of Michigan Homeopathic Medical College. Member of American Institute of Homeopathy. In addition to his editoral work he authored or collaborated on: Boericke and Dewey's Twelve Tissue Remedies, Essentials of Homeopathic Materia Medica, Essentials of Homeopathic Therapeutics and Practical Homeopathic Therapeutics.