We will quote a little from Farrington (Clinical Material Medica)
In Belladonna poisoning cases, the mouth and throat are distressingly dry, compelling frequent efforts to swallow, with suffocative spasms of fauces and glottis. Thirst is violent, yet water aggravates: vertigo, confusion, hallucinations and finally stupor. The pupils are so much dilated as to nearly obscure the iris. Strong coffee is the best antidote, -of course after efforts to get rid of the poison, or the berries that have been eaten.
Our symptomatology from provings and poisonings enables us to employ the drug with mathematical certainty, so far as its selection is concerned..
It is best suited to persons of a plethoric habit, subject to congestions, especially to the head more than to any other part of the body. Also suited to precocious children, with big head and small body they learn rapidly; sleep is unnatural; hot head; red cheeks; screaming during sleep
Belladonna is very often called for in the treatment of convulsions. Epilepsy is steadily modified by it, and at times cured. And spasms of children during dentition, from repelled eruptions, etc., keep the remedy in almost daily demand. In all these cases the cerebral symptoms must be present, hot head, flushed face, throbbing carotids, starting from sleep in terror, etc., foam at the mouth having the odour of rotten eggs
Convulsions, particularly in children, are very violent, distorting the body in every conceivable manner, opisthotonos predominating
On closing the eyes the patient is apt to see abnormal visions; these usually disappear on opening the eyes or a sensation of falling as when a child, suddenly rouses from sleep, clutches at the air, and trembles as if from fear
A peculiarity of Belladonna is the faculty it has of exciting constriction of the circular fibres of blood vessels, contraction of sphincters, etc exemplified in the constriction of the throat, worse from liquids; constriction of the anus, the agony of gall- stone colic, where a small stone is spasmodically gripped in a narrow duct on its way out into the intestines the spasmodic constriction of the os uteri, retarding labour; ineffectual or frequent urging to pass water, with scanty discharge.
In inflammations, if they are violent and come suddenly, and are almost overwhelming in their intensity, Belladonna is again suggested In abscess, whether this be an abscess of the tonsil, a boil, or any other kind of abscess, when pus develops with lightning-like rapidity Indicated by phlegmonous erysipelas, which goes quickly on to suppuration the very suddenness of the attack suggests Belladonna.
Again in inflammation of the breasts. It is here indicated by the violence of the symptoms, by the radiating redness, by the throbbing and tendency towards suppuration.
In the female, Belladonna causes and cures constant violent “bearing down” with this curious modality, worse on lying down, relieved by standing [The knowledge of such peculiarities of drug action are all-important, since they make prescribing sure and easy-comparatively! Pulsatilla has something like this, “bearing down” worse lying. Guided by this symptom one saw a nasty case of distress and fever, after an abortion, cure up rapidly with Pulsatilla. The more commonly useful drugs for “bearing down”, Sepia, Lilium tigrinum, etc., are worse from standing, have to sit down-to cross the legs-to support the parts.
One of our best remedies in acute and chronic rheumatism, pains are cutting, tearing, running along the limbs like lightning one of the best remedies in rheumatic stiff neck, caused by cutting hair, getting the head wet, or sitting with head and neck exposed to a draught.
Belladonna is HOT. It may have hot sweat: in uterine haemorrhages the blood pours out and feels hot In rheumatic fever, when the whole system seems involved, with pain in joints flying from place to place, and almost always profuse sour sweat which gives no relief whatever. The patient seems to soak everything about him with the sweat, and the more he sweats the more he does not seem to get any better [Thuja has the strange symptom, sweat only on uncovered parts, and this has led to brilliant cures, suggesting a drug that might not have been otherwise considered. Belladonna has the opposite, sweat only on covered parts.] “On raising the bedclothes there appears to issue forth hot steam”.
Kent’s picture of Belladonna in rheumatic fever is this. Inflammatory rheumatism when all the joints are swollen, or a great number of them, and they are hot, red, and burn. We have in the rheumatism the heat, redness and burning running through, with the same sensitiveness of the whole patient, and a sensitiveness of the joints to the jar of the bed. He wants to lie perfectly still, is much worse from motion, and has considerable fever
It is especially suitable to those that are very sensitive to cold, who cannot bear the least uncovering, cannot bear a draught, very sensitive to the motion of the covers, and ameliorated by heat. “The very stamp and character of Belladonna is in its rheumatic state, like it is in all its other complaints. It is the patient that has given Belladonna that character in the provings; it is the patient that given disease that character when he has it, and it is only the fulfillment of the Law of Similars when these come together, and the remedy annihilates the sickness.”
BELLADONNA “ALMOST SPECIFIC FOR SCARLET FEVER.”
In March, 1933, we published, together with this Belladonna Drug Picture, the experiences during an epidemic of scarlet fever in his district, of a doctor who had attended our Post Graduate Course, and was minded to put what he had heard about Belladonna to the test, as a cure and as a prophylactic.
His results were what one would expect, but amazing to the Sanitary Inspector who, meeting him in the street, asked how he was treating his scarlet fever cases? saying that, when he called in to see them, they all looked very well, with only the merest trace of rash remaining, and subsequent visits showed how quickly they recovered. The doctor asked, and how were the other cases doing in comparison? “Well, they just drag on as usual.” The Inspector said also, that there were no complications and never more than one case in any household. It was all a mystery to him.
The doctor details some of his cases in patients whose ages raged from eighteen months to twelve years No deaths. No complications even, e.g. kidneys, ears, throat, etc.; while the disease was cut remarkably short, and there was practically no convalescent stage. In 80 per cent. Belladonna was the only remedy required. He ends with, “I have never had such pleasant and happy scarlet fever patients to treat before.” He also tells how he used Belladonna with success as a prophylactic (as was noticed by the Sanitary Inspector). Only in one instance did a second case occur in the same house-four weeks later! (the incubation period of scarlet fever being from one to eight days).
