Arnica, montana. L., belongs to the Compositae, A tincture is prepared from the root, leaves and flowers, mixed.
General Action
The most pronounced effects of Arnica are on the blood, general anaemia, with sharp neuralgias, tendency to haemorrhages; depression of temperature; malnutrition, with disordered digestion, involuntary diarrhoea. Rheumatic and cutaneous symptoms are marked. The soreness of flesh is quite characteristic.
Allied Drugs. – Bryonia, Rhus t., Ruta, Baptisia, Bovista, Sec-c., Elaps., Phosphorus, nitricum acidum, Hypericum, Symphyt., Carbo-v.
Generalities
Agitation increasing to tetanus of r. side. Convulsions. Twitchings; of single muscles, especially in limbs. Fibrillar contractions of isolated muscular fasciculae, especially in region of jaws. Trembling of whole body alternating with convulsive movements of limbs. Stitches; in almost every part, especially nose, eyebrows, eyelids, even in hands and fingers; in whole body, with itching; burning, in different parts. Intermittent tearing in almost every part, especially in limbs, for the most part rising from below upward, in lower limbs, (<) sitting.
Pain in periosteum of all bones, resembling almost a drawing in all limbs, as in fever and ague; formicating or dull pain in a contused part; twitching, in affected parts; in whole body on lying, as if it were on pebbles. Sensitiveness of whole body (Platina); of all joints on motion and of skin. Bruise pain over whole body. Sudden illness when pressing on dorsal vertebrae, with jerks in muscles of nape and of back, with throwing back of the head while the trunk is upright, the illness (<) on pressing on last dorsal vertebra, when there is a pain in waist, radiating to epigastrium, with suffocation and weight on chest. Orgasms of blood in evening, with pulsations in whole body and vertigo. Sensation as if everything on his body were tied too tight. Uneasiness of whole body, becoming a trembling. Faintness; when walking, (>) standing; from heat of sun, with nausea.
Weakness; on rising; on retiring at 10, but restlessness and wakefulness until midnight; early in bed, with relaxed testicles, as if he had had an emission, which was not the case; when walking, as if suddenly blighted with old age; with a bruised sensation (Baptisia); with sluggishness; with sleepiness; with tremulous uneasiness; with a desire to sit down.
Feeling when walking in open air as if whole r. side, especially shoulder, were heavy and hanging down paralyzed. Aggravation from speaking, blowing nose, motion and almost every noise. Amelioration from a long walk in cold weather.
Clinical Extremely valuable when the body feels bruised and sore; results of injuries (rather of cuts than of bruises). Excessive prostration, with anaemia, sticking pains, or after low fevers. Haemorrhages of venous blood, passive; general tendency to blood disorganization. Thromboses. Haematocele. Paralysis (r. side). Pernicious anaemia. Tendency to degeneration of tissue with foul odors, boils and abscesses which do not mature well or do not granulate. In septicaemia, burrowing abscesses, enlarged veins, which are sore; muscular pains from overexertion; bedsores; affects of contusions and sprains; stings of insects, etc.
Mind
Memory wanting (Lachesis, Phosphorus). Absent-minded; with wandering of thoughts. Reveries. Inability to perform continuous active work. Aversion to work; any work requiring perseverance. Indisposed to think or talk after walking in open air. (Inclination to perform greater literary work than can be accomplished without injury to health.) Uneasiness of body and mind, feeling as if prevented from doing something necessary, with indisposition for any kind of work. Indifference to work, to everything (Phosphorus). Fright; from unexpected trifles, with starting. Horror of instant death. Hopelessness. Anxiety; hypochondriac. Apprehension of future evils. Weeping; after supper, with peevishness, with listen to nobody. Depression of spirits.
Sensitiveness, sometimes without physical sensitiveness, sometimes in alternation, sometimes simultaneously with it. Excitability, she could easily laugh when there was no occasion for it, and when something disagreeable was told her she got angry and howled. Sullen. Sullen insolence and imperiousness. Quarrelsome. Obstinate and headstrong resistance to other people’s opinions. Contradictory, opinionative, nothing suits him. Morose and does not speak a word; morose, desire all sorts of things and then repels them.
Clinical Valuable in mania, delirium tremens, especially with involuntary discharges of a putrid odor, nosebleed of dark blood. Affections of head or mind, which appear slowly long after an injury. Delirium of low malarial fevers. Delirium of low malarial fever, muttering or complete stupor. In apoplexy, with stertorous respiration (paralysis (<) on l. side), or with involuntary stools, with no cerebral excitement, but a heavy stupor, with foul breath; or if the patient should be somewhat conscious he complains of aching soreness over the whole body, fear especially of persons coming towards him, as if they would strike him; this condition of fear is an extremely well-marked mental symptom of Arnica in gout.
Head
Stinging from 3 to 8 P.M., now more in forehead, now more in occiput. Stitches when coughing; extending upward, renewed on coughing and moving head, (>) resting head on painful side. Jerking lancinating when stooping, as if everything would come out of forehead, with nausea. Twitching tearing, (<) stooping and coughing. Aching; morning on waking, (<) 8 A.M., on walking in open air, when there was vertigo, (>) 10 A.M.; in forenoon; (A., (>) lying); with weight in eyes and sensation of oppression and drooping in lids; then throbbing aching in temples; as if a knife were drawn transversely through head from l. side, then internal coldness of head, causing hair to stand on end; distending, seeming to arise from something soft in vertex, with drawing in occiput and tearing towards temples; distending, when walking in open air; distending, with burning; rheumatic, with vertigo (commonly one-sided); stupefying, in morning.
Emptiness. Obscuration, with confusion in sides of head and contraction of pupils. Confusion; with pressure in r. half, especially over r. brow; (<) artificial vomiting, with vertigo and anguish; with fulness; with sleepiness; changing to r.- sided headache; so that she feared falling over while sitting, with frontal headache. Heaviness; so that it hangs on one side; heavy and so movable on account of weakness of muscles of neck that it inclines to all sides. Blood rushes to brain, with aching in forehead. Vertigo; during rest; when walking; when reading too long, with nausea; (>) sitting and bending head, but in righting head or moving if feeling as if everything turned with her; sudden V. at dinner, as if he would fall forward.
Forehead – Stitches; in sinciput on coughing; in sinciput and occiput, morning on waking, lasting all day; in l. eminence, with sensation of extravasation of blood; (<) raising eyes, with heat in face and thirst; jerking. Aching; in morning, changing to confusion of whole head, (>) afternoon; (<) walking, ascending stairs, reflecting or reading; in l. half in evening; in r. forehead, temple and r. eye; then stitching and twitching stitching, with chilliness; over eyes, extending towards temples, with sensation as if integuments of forehead were spasmodically contracted; as if brain were rolled up into a lump, (<) near stove; pressing out in spots in afternoon; as if congested; stupefying, more externally; twitching, in fore part of head; in r. half of bone, then sneezing, then it extended into l., afterwards into r. ear. Bruised pain in l. side after sneezing. Crawling in. Heaviness. Vertigo as if everything turned around with her, (<) walking.
Temples – Stitches; extending inward; extending towards forehead; jerking, in l. Intermittent tearing in l.; with stitches. Aching; in l.; on coughing; as if a nail were thrust in, with general sweat about midnight, then exhaustion. Constriction.
Vertex – Aching externally; in r. side, impeding work. Tender and sore feeling in brain.
Sides. – Intermittent sticking and tearing in l. Aching on r.; on l.; in parietal region and in orbits; under parietal bone and in region of lachrymal fossa.
Occiput. – Twitching tearing in l. half in forenoon. Aching in r. half at 11 A.M., (<) 1 P.M., extending to r. half of forehead at 2 P.M., (>) evening; in spots as if hair were pulled out, or as from electric shocks.
Scalp – Immovable almost as far as eyebrows. Stinging itching. Formication over orbits; on vertex.
Clinical Neuralgias, sharp (as from a nail or knife), all pains worse on motion. neuralgias following injuries to nerves; intermittent, with a malarial basis, with coldness, no fever. Apoplexy. Hot head with cold body. It has been found useful in meningitis or meningeal irritation as a result of concussion. It is particularly indicated in a severe headache as if the head were being distended, with extreme sensitiveness of the brain internally, or sometimes sharp knifelike pains.
Born in 1837in Westminster, Vermont. . He was an orthodox doctor who converted to homeopathy
Dr. Allen compiled the Encyclopedia of Pure Materia Medica over the course of 10 years.
In 1881 Allen published A Critical Revision of the Encyclopedia of Pure Materia Medica.