Bryonia is one of the remedies of nosebleed (but here, Vipera is in our experience the especially effective remedy-even when the condition had been life-long. It, Bryonia, is the great remedy of vicarious menstruation-nosebleed or vomiting of blood.
Here is a tip from one of our teachers, who speaks from personal experience. In a Natrum mur. patient with a severe headache, do not give Natrum mur for the acute condition or you will fearfully intensity the suffering. Give its “acute” Bryonia; and only the Natrum mur. in a quiescent period.
Mentally, and in delirium, Bryonia is commonplace. Its chief note if ANXIETY: anxiety about the future: about the everyday concerns of life. Dreams, and in delirium talks, about the business of the day. Irrational taking about his business; prattling about the business that must be attended to. Wants to get out of bed and go home. Irritable and morose.
It is a great remedy for the breads. “Breasts heavy, of a stony hardness; pale but hard; hot and painful.” While in Belladonna inflammation there is bright redness, with burning skin, and much throbbing. In one case of cancer of the breast, where Bryonia was given because of a big pleural effusion, it astonishingly improved the breast condition as well as wiping out the effusion which one had afraid to aspirate.
Here are some of Allen’s and Hahnemann’s black-type symptoms, especially characteristic of Bryonia, and which Bryonia has much cause and much cured.
ANXIETY; he is apprehensive about the future.
Irrational talking about his business.
Very ill-humoured; troubled with needless anxiety.
Morose: everything puts him out of humour.
Dreams full of quarrelling and vexatious things.
Dreams all night very vividly of anxious and careful attention to his business. In his dreams he is occupied with household affairs.
During sleep was continually busy with what he had read the evening previous.
Delirious prattling about business to be attended to.,
Confusion of the head.
Vertigo as soon as he rises from his chair.
On rising from bed in the morning, dizzy and whirling, as if head were turning in a circle.
Headache commences in the morning, when first opening and moving the eyes.
Pressive frontal headache, very much increased by stooping.
In the occiput, obtuse pain.
A pressing pain in the occiput, with drawing down into the neck; relieved towards noon.
Digging pressure in the front of the brain, with pressing towards the forehead, especially violent when stooping or walking quickly. A walk tires him very much.
Headache on stooping, as if everything would fall out at the forehead; as if everything would press out at the forehead.
Pressive pain above the right eye, followed by dull pressing pain in the occiput, whence it spread over the whole body, and continued more or less severe the whole day : on quick motion and after eating the pain became so severe that it seemed like a distinct pulsation within in the head.
An out-pressing pain in both temples.
Pain in left eyeball, especially violent on moving the ball.
Frequent lachrymation.
In the morning eyes as if gummed up with matter.
Nosebleed for a quarter of an hour in the morning.
Red, hot, soft puffiness of the face.
Drawing, sometimes twitching toothache in the molars of left upper jaw, only during and after eating, all the same time the teeth felt too long and as if they waggled to and fro.
Pain as if a tooth were screwed in and then pulled out, momentarily relieved by cold water.
(Toothache about 3 a.m.) which becomes aggravated on lying on the painless side, and then goes away if one lies on the painful cheek.
Very white, coated tongue. Tongue thickly coated white.
Dryness in the mouth: mouth very dry. Violent thirst.
Collection of much soapy frothy saliva in the mouth.
Insipid, sickly taste in the mouth: he has almost no taste.
Offensive, bitter taste. Intensely bitter taste on the tongue.
Frequent drinking of cold water relieved the bitter taste and the inclination to vomit.
Excessive thirst.
Great thirst: obliged to drink much cold water.
Great thirst: she can and must drink a great deal at once.
Excessive hunger.
No appetite for milk; but when he takes it the appetite for it comes, and he commences to relish it.
Great longing for coffee.
After a meal bitter eructations: or sourish.
After eating, pressure in the stomach, as if a stone lay there and made him cross.
As if a stone lay in stomach, after eating: epigastric region painful to touch: painful to pressure. (N.B., only here is Bryonia not relieved by pressure, i.e. in stomach and abdomen.)
Pasty offensive evacuations in the afternoon, followed by burning in anus.
Diarrhoea preceded by cutting in the abdomen.
Obstinate constipation.
Dry, parched stool, with effort.
Urine dark, almost brown.
Fluent coryza for eight days.
Severe coryza without cough.
Viscid phlegm in the fauces that was detached by hawking.
Dry cough.
Irritation to hacking cough: it seems as if some mucus were in the windpipe; when he coughs for some time he feels a pain there compounded of soreness and pressure: the pain becomes more violent by speaking and smoking tobacco.
When he comes from the open into a warm room he has a feeling as if a vapour were in the windpipe, which compels him to cough. He feels as if he could not breathe in air enough.
Viscid phlegm in the windpipe, detached by frequent hacking cough.
When coughing it always goes into the head like a pressure.
Stitches in the sternum on coughing he was obliged to hold the chest with the hand.
Internal heat in the chest.
Sharp outward shooting pain under the right nipple, in the cavity of, the chest only on expiring.
(Here are some of ALLEN’S italic symptoms, which are very important):
Short, but violent stitches in the right side of chest, so that he was obliged to hold his breath and could not cry out.
Stitches in the right side of chest between the third and fourth ribs.
Tearing stitches in left side of chest, extend from behind forward, are relieved during rest, aggravated during motion and on deep respiration. (Perhaps we are doing wrong to give only the black type symptoms: those in italics are tremendously important also!)
Weariness and heaviness in all the limbs.
Swelling elbow joint and somewhat below and above it, to the middle of the upper and forearm, and of the feet.
In the wrist-joint pain as if sprained or dislocated at every movement.
In the fingers shooting pains when writing.
Great weakness in thighs; he can hardly go upstairs: less when going downstairs.
Tensive, painful stiffness of the knees.
Stitches in knees when walking.
Knees totter and bend under him when walking.
Legs are so weak that they can scarcely support him, on beginning to walk, and even when standing.
Hot swelling of the foot.
Hot swelling of the instep, with bruised pain on stretching out. The foot seems tense on stepping on it, and on touch it pains like an abscess.
Very much inclined to yawn. Frequently yawning all day.
On rising, great exhaustion and weakness-had to drag himself about.
On rising from bed he was attacked by faintness.
After the midday siesta he is chilly and dazed in the head.
Great thirst (he must drink much cold fluid) with internal heat, without being hot to the touch externally.
Sensation of heat in the face with redness of it and thirst.
He perspires all over when walking in the cool air.
Profuse nocturnal sweat from 3 a.m.
Sour sweats.
Until Dr.Haehl, of Stuttgart, in recent years, and after long search, discovered Hahnemann’s voluminous case books-relegated to an attic!-and established them in his Hahnemann Museum at Stuttgart, Bryonia had the distinction of figuring in one of the every few cases from his colossal lifework that were, till then, available (at all events in his better known publications).
It is worth re-telling. He gives it to illustrate his method of taking the case, and finding the remedy. As such, it may be interesting of republish it in extenso some day.
A washerwoman had come from a neighbouring village to ask for help. She was crippled with pain, and had been unable to work for some weeks. Hahnemann took her symptoms with the care he enjoins on us, and then went through them, jotting down the remedies that had caused, and could therefore cure such symptoms, till Bryonia was seen to alone cover the entire picture.
In those early days, he administered a dose of Bryonia in the strong tincture, and sent her away.
When, a couple of days latter, she failed to return, one of his disciples was anxious to know the effect of the remedy. “Go, then, and find out,” suggested Hahnemann. The woman was found at her tub, busy and indignant. She said that the pain had left her the very next day, and that she had remained well. All these weeks she had been unable to earn her livelihood-did the doctor expect her to leave her work and go all those miles to tell him that she was cured?
Bryonia was one of Burnett’s Fifty Reasons for being a Homoeopath. Let him tell the tale.
“When I was a lad I had pleurisy of the left side, and, with the help of a village apothecary, and half-a-hogshead of mixture, nearly died, though not quite; from that time on I had a dull, uneasy sensation in my side, about which I consulted many eminent physicians in various parts of Europe, but no one could help me. All agreed that it was an old adhesive something between the visceral and costal layers of the pleura, but no one of my many eminent advisers could cure it. And yet my faith in them was big enough to remove mountains: so faith as a remedy did no good.
