The wild Ind. of America, Baptisia tinctoria, r. Br., is a perennial herb belonging to the Leguminosae. A tincture is prepared from the fresh root.
General Action
It produces profound depression with a tendency to disorganization of the blood; low type of fever and conditions simulating malarial poisoning (dysentery and typhoid fever).
Compare Rhus, Arnica, Gelsem., (Apis, Bry, Phyto, etc). Paralytic symptoms, lathyrus, Oxytropis, Physostigma.
Generalities
Intolerance of pressure on all parts, could not rest back against chair without pain obliged to change sitting posture often, even the feet were painful from resting on floor (Arn, Bry). Pain in all parts on which he lay each time after waking from nightmare, especially in sacral region and hips, inducing the conviction that the position would soon cause bed-sores, obliged to lie on his face to relieve the back and hips (Arn). Rheumatic pains in r. side. Erratic pains in various parts.
Indescribable sick feeling over whole body. Feeling as if he had taken cold, soreness of throat and sneezing. General feeling of having slept to long and too hard, with bloated feeling in eyes. Restlessness (Rhus); does not sleep quietly, wants to get up, yet does not want to; r. in evening. Faintness; with trembling of legs and aching in them. Weakness; after a light dinner at 3 P.M., with sleepiness; especially in lower limbs, with weak knees and vertigo (Gelsem); in all parts, with bruised and sick feeling, yet does not feel very badly; with tremulous feeling, as if recovering from a fit of sickness and as yet incapable of vigorous mental or physical exertion; (>) walking in open air, which causes lachrymation; with flashes of heat from small of back in all directions. Indisposition to move (Bry). Feeling of inability to make physical or mental exertion, on going to bed. Weariness of whole I. side of body,; in back and lower limbs, especially r., after walking, and in r. shoulder and arm. Stiffness and soreness over whole body with dread of motion; stiffness of all joints as if stained. Paralysis of whole I. side, I. arm and hand numb and powerless. Aggravation for all symptoms after a glass of beer (Rhus).
Clinical Weary bruised feeling over the whole body, especially in the limbs. Hysteria, with great physical prostration, with numbness and fear of paralysis, wanted to die, rubbed her hands all the time, restless. It is indicated in low types of diseases, tendency to disorganization of the blood, with restlessness and generally with delirium or stupor. It may be useful in low typhoid states of a great variety of disease, all the eruptive and malarial disease. All the secretions are offensive, even the sweat and urine, with frequent attacks of faintness and exhaustion.
Mind
Excitement; of brain like the beginning of delirium. Disposition to talk. Low spirits. Mind cannot be confined, a wild, wandering feeling. Indisposition to think and inability to think. Memory weak. Stupid feeling after breakfast. Weakness rather than confusion. Very distinct recollection of what he had been reading.
Clinical Delirium, with low fever, ideas confused, wandering, muttering, seems to be endeavoring to get pieces of the body together; incoherent muttering. Brain fag, the head feels very heavy; in averse to any mental effort and lacks the power to think.
Head
Aching, (<) noise; (<) motion (Bry); with bruised feeling in forehead; with pain in loins; causing a sensations of wildness. Heaviness; in morning after rising, with pain; with pain in occiput; as if he could not sit up. Feeling as if large; and heavy. Soreness of brain, (<) stooping. Confusion; especially in occiput, where there were pain and fulness. Stupid feeling, with pain at occiput. Numbness of brain, with stitches or shocks in various parts of head Vertigo; with weak feeling of whole body, especially of lower limbs, with weak knees. Swimming sensation, as before operation of an emetic.
Forehead-Aching; in morning in evening, with smarting of eyes and drawing pain down nose; with pressure at root of nose; with fulness of whole head; with pain in abdomen all the evening; then passing to occiput; in anterior lobes of brain in afternoon, and in r. frontal sinus in sinuses, r.; in r. sinus; over r. eye sharp over r.; then I. eye. Feeling as if it would pressed in. Tightness across, with pain over r. eye. Soreness in front part of head in evening on moving eyes or turning them upward.
Pain in temples; in r.; sharp pains in T. by spells. Pain at base of brain, with lameness and drawing pain in cervical muscles; heavy P. at base of brain (Petrol.) Pressure in occiput in morning; P. in occiput from ear to ear and from vertex to nape. Fulness of external vessels of head and face. Soreness of scalp.
Clinical Feeling of great tightness of skin of forehead it seemed to be drawn to the back of the head, the head felt too large, heavy and numb (in fever).
Eyes
Shining. Congestion of vessels, with redness and inflammation. Smarting and aching. Feeling as if pressed into head, with confusion of sight, cannot place anything until he looks at it a few seconds, every thing appears to move. Swollen feeling, with burning and lachrymation. Lachrymation on going into open air. Soreness of balls (Eup-perf); with lame feeling on moving them (Agar_. Partial paralysis of lids, it is difficult to keep them open (Gelsem., Rhus.).
Ears, Nose and Face
Dullness of hearing. Pain at root of nose. Soreness extends to posterior nares. Sneezing and feeling as after taking a severe cold. Catarrh. Thick mucous discharge from nose. Face sallow.
Mouth
Teeth and gums sore, and much blood oozes from gum when pressed with the finger (Merc). Tongue coated yellow; along centre; coated yellow, with flat bitter taste; coated first white, with reddish papillae here and there, then a yellowish-brown coated in centre, the edges being red and shining, and tongue feeling thick; coated white in morning and congested; feels scraped; dry on waking (Rhus-t), and feeling burnt; numb pricking sensation. Ulcers. Salivation; in burning; then pain in r lung; viscid and flat-tasting; sweetish bitter, then a dryish or glutinous substance and the lips stick together. Taste flat, bitter; filthy, with salivation; of food not quite natural.
Clinical The gums, mouth and throat, are sore, ulcerated breath fetid, salivation, ulcerations, with red areola. Useful in the sore mouths of nursing infants and of nursing women. Stomatitis of phthisis.
Throat
Redness of tonsils and soft palate. Congestion; of tonsils and soft palate; of tonsils, with frequent inclination to swallow, which causes pain at root of tongue (Phyto). Angina, throat feels swollen or full, with oppressed respiration and sharp pains in chest when taking a long breath. pricking in upper part. scraped sensation extending through it. Soreness, with a contracted feeling : S, extending to posterior nares. Rawness with much viscid mucus. Constriction, causing frequent efforts to swallow (Apis., Lyc). Dryness, extending to nares, with roughness and stringent sensation, then increase secretion, especially from pharynx. Tickling, provoking cough.
Clinical Diphtheria, the patient semi-comatose or delirious, could swallow only liquids; the face is dark red, and there is a horrible odor from the mouth. Contraction of oesophagus, with great difficulty in getting food into stomach, could swallow only liquids.
Stomach
Appetite lost. thirst. Constant desire for water. Eructations of air. Feeling as if it would be a relief to vomit. Nausea; in evening; with heat. Feel as if he would vomit, but no nausea, with shooting in I., kidney and I. side of umbilicus.
Stitches in cardiac extremity. Cramp in evening. Pain; in epigastric regions; in epigastric region all night; in S. and in r. hypochondriac and umbilical regions; in S. and in r. hypochondriac region, the pain in r. side very severe when walking; in epigastric region at night, (<) turning over, which he had to do constantly; with belching of much wind; with feeling as if a hard substance were in it; in pit, with constriction of diaphragm. Intermittent pain extending to spine, (<) motion; in S., abdomen and r. hypochondrium, passing down to r. iliac region; in S. and liver, sharp at times. Drawing pain in epigastric and r. hypochondriac regions, (<) walking. Heavy pain in S. and liver, with heat in those parts. Distress all the forenoon, and in abdomen, with desire to vomit; D. in epigastric and umbilical regions, with rumbling; in S. and umbilical region, with pain in region of gall-bladder; burning, in epigastrium, with colic in umbilical and especially hypogastric region, rumbling in abdomen and desire to vomit, but no nausea. Empty feeling.
Abdomen
Distention. Rumbling; with desire for stool; with mushy stool. Shooting pain all through. Pain in pressure. Distress. Pain in. hypochondriac region (Bry); in region of gall-bladder, also walking (Diosc); in liver, stomach and umbilical region; in live and stomach, which caused a numb feeling to pass all over the body. Soreness in region of liver Pain in umbilical region (Diosc); (<) full inspiration; with rumbling in abdomen; in umbilical by hypogastric regions, very sharp in hypogastrium by spells. Swelling of glands in I. groin, very painful when walking. Cutting in hypogastric region at 1 A.M. waking him, with rumbling then restlessness Drawing pain in r. groin; and in r. testicle and r. foot.
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.