What are the symptoms that to us as Homoeopaths indicate its use in heart troubles?
There is uneasiness and tightness about the heart, it feels as if it stood still; sinking in the epigastrium and sharp pains about the heart; the pulse is slow, even slower than the heart beat; the patient is cyanotic, his sleep is restless and he starts up from sleep as if falling from a height; there is a slow respiration and a desire to take a deep breath; constriction of chest. There is weakness and numbness of the left arm, often blueness of the body, cyanosis, disturbed sleep, apprehensiveness. Sick feeling in stomach after eating.
What is the mental condition in these heart affections?
Anxious, low spirited; gloomy and apprehensive, and a desire to be alone.
What are the indications for Digitalis in dropsies?
Dropsies from cardiac affections; urine scanty, dark, hot.
What are the liver symptoms of Digitalis?
Jaundice from cardiac troubles, with white, ashy stools; liver enlarged, sore and bruised; bitter taste; tongue clean or whitish yellow; slow pulse; drowsiness; high-colored urine; jaundice due to functional imperfections of the liver.
What are the urinary symptoms of Digitalis?
Strangury and frequent urging to urinate; urging at night due to enlarge prostate; thick, yellow discharge from the urethra; useful in gonorrhoea.
Is Digitalis ever a remedy for pneumonia?
Pneumonias in old people with a prune-juice expectoration, cold extremities, cyanotic face and feeble pulse will indicate it. Dyspnoea, the least movement causes palpitation.
GRATIOLA.
What is Gratiola and by whom introduced?
It is the hedge hyssop. A pathogenesis is found in Hartlaub & Trink’s Materia Medica. Tincture from the fresh plant gathered before flowering. Imported.
What is the chief action of this remedy?
In gushing, watery diarrhoea, coming out like water from a hydrant; the stools are yellowish-green and frothy, and associated with a cold feeling in the abdomen.
How does Croton tiglium compare here?
It also has yellow, watery stools coming as from a hydrant; but there is much nausea with it.
LEPTANDRA
What is Leptandra and by whom introduced into Homoeopathy?
It is Black Root or Culver’s physic. Found in Hale’s New Remedies.
What part is used and how is the tincture prepared?
The fresh root of the second year is prepared in the same manner as described under Sanguinaria.
What is the grand characteristic of Leptandra?
Profuse, black, tar-like, fetid stool.
What are its liver symptoms?
Aching an soreness in liver, extending to stomach; drowsiness and despondency with black stools, accompanied with distress at the umbilical region.
EUPHRASIA.
Where are pathogenesis of Euphrasia found?
In Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura, British Journal of Homoeopathy, Vol. XVI, and Allen’s Encyclopoedia.
What is Euphrasia?
The Eyebright, tincture from the fresh plant excluding the root. Imported.
What is the general action of this remedy?
Acts especially upon mucous membranes, principally of eyes and upper respiratory tract.
Give its symptoms.
Blepharitis, injected eyes, discharge thick and excoriating, the tears scald and irritate the cheeks, photophobia worse in artificial light. Traumatic conjunctivitis. Paralysis of the third nerve.
How is Allium cepa distinguished?
The discharge from the eye in Euphrasia is excoriating and that from the nose is bland, while the opposite is found in Allium cepa, nose excoriating and eyes bland.
What is Verbascum thapsus?
The Common Mullein. Tincture from fresh plant.
What are the characteristic indications for Verbascum?
Catarrhs and cold, accompanied by neuralgia and a hoarse, barking cough, a sort of “Basso profundo.” It also is a powerful remedy in urinary irritability. The preparation known as Mullein oil comes from this plant.
What are members of the Coniferae family?
Abies Canadensis, Abies nigra, Pinus sylvestris, Pix liquida, Sabina, Terebinth and Thuja.
What are the principal indications for the use of Abies Canadensis or the Hemlock spruce?
There is a dry mouth, a gnawing or burning in the stomach, a hungry, faint, weak feeling with craving for indigestible or unsuitable articles of food and tendency to over eat. Uterine displacement with above symptoms.
What is Abies nigra and how is the tincture made?
It is the Black Spruce and the tincture is made by dissolving two parts, by weight, of the gum in 9 parts, by weight, of 95 Percent alcohol.
What is its great characteristic?
A sensation as if the patient had swallowed some indigestible substance which had stuck in the cardiac extremity of the stomach; a hard boiled egg sensation; dyspepsia from abuse of tobacco. Low spirited and melancholic, persons who suffer from a dull headache.
What is Sabina?
It is the Juniperus Sabina or Savine. Introduced by Stapf.
What of the tincture?
It is made from the fresh tops of the younger branches collected in April. Imported.
What are the main characteristic symptoms of Sabina?
Metrorrhagia, with paroxysmal flow of bright color, accompanied with pains in the joints. Threatened abortion about the third month, with pains in the small of the back, going down thighs; bruised sensation along the anterior surface of the thighs.
What is Terebinth?
The common oil of Turpentine, one part, by weight, of the purified oil is dissolved in 99 parts, by weight, of alcohol. This is called the mother tincture.
What are the chief symptoms of Terebinth?
Dull, aching pain in the renal region; drawing pains and distressing strangury; urine scanty, bloody, dark and smoky looking and smelling like violets; there may be also excessive tympanites.
What is the main symptom of Pix liquida or Tar?
Suppurative processes, with a pain at the third left costal cartilage. Eczema of dorsa of hands.
What drug has a pain at the third right costal cartilage?
Anisum stellatum.
What drug has stitches in the left breast running through to the shoulder blade?
Myrtus communis.
THUJA OCCIDENTALIS.
Where are pathogeneses of Thuja to be found?
In Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura, Metcalf’s Homoeopathic Provings, North American Journal of Homoeopathy, Vol. XXV.
What is Thuja?
The Arbor vitae or Tree of Life, or White Cedar.
From what is the tincture prepared? Describe the process.
The fresh young twigs, leaves and blossoms are gathered when the tree is just flowering. Chop these finely and weigh. To every three parts add gradually two parts of alcohol, bringing the whole mass into a thick pulp by stirring. Strain through a piece of new, linen. Stand eight days in a well-stoppered bottle in a dark, cool place and then filter. Drug power, 1/2. The tinctures is deep orange-brown in color.
What place does Thuja hold in the homoeopathic Materia Medica?
It is our great antisycotic remedy.
Give the general action of Thuja.
Its main action is on the skin and genito-urinary system. It irritates these and changes their secretions. It also produces wart-like excrescences upon the body.
In what special field is Thuja useful? For the bad effects of vaccination, especially for the diarrhoea caused thereby.
Mention two other drugs useful for the bad effects of vaccination.
Silicea and Kali mur.
What is meant by a hydrogenoid constitution?
First described by Dr. Grauvogl, a noted German Homoeopathist, and characterized by a preponderance of water within all the tissues. Such patients are worse in rainy weather, at the seashore and from water in any form.
Give three drugs especially applicable to that form of constitution.
Thuja, Natrum sulph. and Aranea diadema.
What are the mental symptoms of Thuja?
The patient is always in a hurry, talks hurriedly, moves hurriedly, is excitable, imagines he is made of glass, and is brittle, and refuses to move for fear of breaking, or he imagines himself double or treble and scattered about.
What are the neuralgias and peculiar symptoms about the head?
Sensation as though a nail were being driven into the vertex or frontal eminences, intense stabbing pains driving patient almost to distraction; patient must lie down.
What are the symptoms of Thuja in gonorrhoea?
Thin, greenish discharge, scalding urination, warts and condylomata about the genitals, gonorrhoea suppressed by injections, and complicated with rheumatism or orchitis.
Mention another use of Thuja.
It is a remedy for warts and diseases of the epidermal tissues, such as affections of the nails, etc.
How do the warts calling for Thuja differ from those calling for Causticum?
The Causticum warts have a solid body and are very horny. Thuja warts are fissured, cut up having cauliflower appearance.
What is the diarrhoea of Thuja?
Chronic diarrhoea traceable to vaccination forcibly expelled like water from a bunghole; thirst with same gurgling sound on drinking, worse in the morning after breakfast, from coffee and onions, with rapid emaciation and exhaustion.
What is Pinus sylvestris?
The Scotch fir, tincture from the fresh shoots.
What is Pinus sylvestris used for?
Emaciation of the lower extremities in children with tardiness in learning to walk.
What are the members of the Liliaceae family?
Allium cepa, Allium sativa, Aloes, Asparagus, Colchicum, Convallaria, Helonias, Lilium tigrinum, Paris quadrifolia, Sabadilla, Squilla, Trillium pendulum, Veratrum album and Veratrum viride.
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.