Introduction
OF Cocculus indicus HAHNEMANN says: “This vegetable substance, hitherto only used for destroying some noxious vermin and stupefying fish so that they may be taken by the hand, was (like Staphisagria) first employed by myself as a medicine (after I had first ascertained its dynamic effects on the healthy human body.) It possesses many curative virtues, as the following symptoms produced by it show; and the tincture prescribed according to the similarity of effect in high attenuation and potency is indispensable for the cure in many cases of common human diseases; -more especially in some kinds of lingering nervous fevers; in several so-called spasms in the abdomen, and so-called spasmodic pains of other parts, where the mental state is one of extreme sadness, particularly in the female sex; in not a few attacks of paralysis of the limbs, and in emotional derangements resembling those that Cocculus can itself produce.”
HERING (Guiding Symptoms) says: “Tincture of the powdered seeds is used, which contain a crystallizable principle, Picrotoxin, a powerful poison.
“Cocculus was used by the ancients as a poison for fish, stupefying them, and rendering it easy to catch them.
“It has been, and still is” (So he says) ” extensively used for adulterating malt liquors.” A pleasant idea! Perhaps, if this use persists, it may account for some of the symptoms of beer drunkenness. The attitudes and mentality of the reeling and roaring monstrosities one used to meet in the streets-anyway before the war, when beer happily became more costly and more difficult to obtain-are very suggestive of Cocculus poisoning: the difficult, uncertain gait; the difficult speech and articulation; the noisy, quarrelsome mood of the reeling, roaring songsters-no wonder that “one of the remedies for the diseases peculiar to drunkards” is Cocculus.
But, as Tennyson has it, “Bygones may be come-agains”, and we may yet see the good old days back now that beer is blatantly preached from all the great hoardings, “Beer is good for you!” with all the other brewers’ slogans. As an American journal pointed out in regard to patent medicines, these are put on the market and advertised not for tender love of the dear people, or for their relief and salvation, but solely for the juggling purpose of extracting money form their pockets. However, all these things spell “Industry” and “Dividends”: and the revenue from beer is increasing, which must be very gratifying to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Only-there is the other side to the question; appetites whetted; habits difficult, once formed, to eradicate, and as always, temptations for the weak and wavering at every street corner. But it is a free country; or was supposed to be till “DORA” came along-and stayed; and so long as the Boisterous Britisher only gets drunk and not too disorderly or obstructive in the streets, and drinks only before a certain “witching hour of night”, the kindly police will not cause him over much inconvenience. And meanwhile we homoeopaths can see Cocculus in the spasticity and loss of power of the inebriate’s limbs and his clumsy attempts at progression: and learn how to remember its peculiarities and apply them for healing.
Among the mental symptoms, highly suggestive, are:-
Speech: difficult in reading and thinking.
Thinks and answers correctly, but takes a long time in reflecting.
Slowness of comprehension: cannot find the right word: forgets himself: cannot talk plainly: or is irritable, speaks hastily, cannot bear the least noise or contradiction.
Great talkativeness: witty joking: irresistible desire to sing. A kind of mania.
Melancholy and sad: sensitive to insults, slights and disappointment. Easily affronted. A trifle makes him angry.
Cannot accomplish anything at her work: cannot finish anything.
Frightened look. Little concern for his own health; very anxious about others’ sickness. (Arsenicum, Phosphorus, Sulphur)
Fear of death and unknown dangers.
In regard to Picrotoxin, the alkaloid of Cocculus, and to its effect on fish, CLARKE (Dictionary) tells us that “When Picrotoxin is added to water in which fish are swimming, they make winding and boring movements of the body, alternating with quiet swimming, open their mouths and gill-caverns frequently, fall on their side, and rapidly die of asphyxia.”
And he tells of a doctor who proved Picrotoxin on himself with such alarming symptoms that he had to resort to Opium and Camphor to antidote. He experienced “nausea with tendency to vomit; violent intestinal pain and purging; dysenteric diarrhoea and excessive secretion of urine; cramps and paralytic sensations. Pain in bowels and sensation as if bowels would protrude at left inguinal ring.” (Cocculus or Picrotoxin has been found useful in left sided inguinal hernia.)
Of Cocculus he says: ” It has cured a case of delirium at onset of menses; the patient said, `I always see something alive, on walls, floor, chairs, or anywhere, always rolling, and will roll on me.” (Cocculus is one of the remedies of troubles and irregularities of menstruation- the rest of the symptoms agreeing.)
And he tells of a cure of enlargement of the liver by the great Lippe: it was after parturition, the indication being “The liver was more painful after anger.” And, with Cocculus, the least jar is unbearable (Belladonna).
HUGHES (Pharmacodynamics) quotes a case of poisoning by Cocculus related by Hahnemann (in Hufeland’s Journal). “Coldness: paralytic stiffness of the limbs with drawing pains in their bones and in the back, and sullen irritability, with anxiety, were the prominent symptoms. The patient said that his brain felt constricted as by a ligature. He wished to sleep, but a frightful sensation, as of a hideous dream, came over him directly he closed his eyes, and made him start up again. He had great repugnance to food and drink. This is a frequent symptom of Cocculus, and very characteristic of it.”
Hughes also says,” The experiments lately made on animals with the alkaloid contained in Cocculus, Picrotoxin show that convulsions, both tonic and clonic, are a special characteristic of its action. The latter present many of those singular features which have been observed as results of injury to the crura cerebri, as semicircular and backward movements, and rolling over on the axis of the body. With these there is great slowness of pulse and respiration, indicating disturbance at the origin of the vagus.”
Again, “Cocculus thus appears to influence the motor nervous tract throughout the cranio-spinal axis. To such action is referable, I think, the whole range of its curative influence. It is of great service in certain kinds of vomiting. These, when analysed appear to be of cerebral rather than gastric origin. They are such as occur in sea-sickness, and in some persons from riding in a carriage or any similar motion; they have another instance in the vomiting of migraine, or cerebral tumours in the former Cocculus has no rival.” And he talks of “vertigo, where Cocculus is a principal remedy and of the abdominal spasms, accompanied by flatulence, not the product of fermentation.
FARRINGTON (Comparative Materia Medica) says in regard to “Cocculus, whose active principle is Picrotoxin, bitter poison.
“We shall find under Cocculus symptoms that are under many other drugs, but in no other drug do they hold the same relation as they do here.
“The general effect of Cocculus is its well-known action on the cerebrospinal system: here it produces great debility. It causes a paralytic weakness of the spine, and especially of its motor nerves; thus we find it a certain or frequent remedy in paralysis originating in disease of the spinal cord especially in the beginning of the trouble, whether from functional or severe organic disease irritation, softening of the cord, or locomotor ataxia. It is especially indicated where the lumbar region of the spine is affected, with weakness in the small of the back gives out when walking. Weakness of legs: knees gives out when walking; thighs ache as if they had been pounded; soles of feet feel as if asleep; first one hand and then the other goes to sleep, or the whole arm falls asleep, and hands feel as if swollen.
“There is a concomitant symptom almost always associated with these- a feeling of hollowness in some of the cavities of the body-head, chest, or abdomen. It is more than a weakness; it is an absolute feeling as though the parts were hollow.
“The debility is of spinal origin: especially is it apt to follow loss of sleep: the patient cannot sit up even one or two hours later than usual in the evening without feeling languid and exhausted throughout the entire day following.
“The abdomen is greatly distended and tympanic: this tympanites under Cocculus is not the same as under Cinchona, Carbo-veg., Colchicum, Sulphur, or even Lycopodium.
“There are several origins of tympanites. It may come from the blood-vessels, from the air swallowed with the food, from changes in the food itself, and also from the retention of flatus. The later condition is the cause of the tympany under Cocculus indicus. It is not to be thought of as a remedy when flatus results from decomposition of food. That calls for Carbo veg.”
