Solanum dulcamara. Woody nightshade. Bitter sweet.
Introduction
ANOTHER of the invaluable medicines whose indications for exact and scientific use we owe to Samuel Hahnemann. It was, for him, “a very powerful plant”, and he says that its duration of action is a long one. He used it in the 30th potency. He was aided in his proving by a dozen doctors, and he quotes a number of authorities in regard to the various symptoms recorded.
Hale White, the Old School text-book for Materia Medica (in my edition, anyway) knows it not.
Even Culpepper (`578-1662) has not a great deal to say about this plant, whose uses, for him, were rather occult than practical. He says, “It is good to remove witchcraft both in men and beast, as all sudden diseases whatsoever. Being tied about the neck, it is a remedy for the vertigo or dizziness of the head; and that is the reason that the Germans hang it about their cattle’s neck, when they fear any such evil hath betided them: country people commonly used to take the berries of it, and having bruised them, they applied them to felons, and thereby soon rid their fingers of such troublesome guests.”
Dulcamara affects subversively and curatively all mucous membranes, besides glands, and skin, and muscles.
The provers of Dulcamara suffered especially in cold wet weather: and WORSE COLD WET WEATHER is the grand keynote for the employment of this remedy. Catarrh–from cold wet weather: diarrhoea–from cold wet weather: urinary troubles–from cold and wet weather; even skin troubles–from cold wet weather: and so
on.
Dulcamara affects the entire length of the respiratory mucous membrane. NOSE–dry coryza, or profuse discharges. Nose-bleed of clear hot blood, worse after getting wet…. THROAT– tonsillitis from every cold change: hawking up of tough mucus, with rawness…. CHEST, cough from cold damp atmosphere or from getting wet. Must cough a long time in order to expel phlegm. Great oppressive pain in the whole chest, especially on inspiration and expiration.
In the stomach it causes eructations–empty or tasting of food, with distension after a moderate meal as if stomach would burst.
A curious regional effect of Dulcamara is at, or about, the umbilicus. Here the pinching and shooting pains occur again and again in the provings: and Dulcamara has proved marvellously useful in pain, or in skin affections, of umbilicus. The pain is “in the hole” as a wee child expressed it.
Then, MUCOUS DIARRHOEA, ALTERNATELY YELLOW AND GREENISH. The diarrhoeas of cold wet weather, or sudden changes from hot to cold. “Dulcamara is markedly an Autumn remedy,” says KENT. He says, as soon as the cold nights come on and the cold fall rains come, there is (in Dulcamara subjects) an increase of rheumatism and an increase of catarrhal discharges… catarrhal cases that always stuff up when there is a cold rain.
Kent says our mothers used to make ointments of Dulcamara; and it is astonishing how soothing it is when applied to smarting wounds. Ulcers with an eating condition that spread and do not heal (Arsenicum).
It is a great SKIN medicine. Nettlerash that comes in cold, damp weather. Crusty eruptions that come especially over the head–the crusta lactea of babies. Head and face covered with this sore, itching, bleeding, crusty eruption.
Ringworm, also. Kent says, “Dulcamara will nearly always cure these ringworms in the hair”,–and in other places.
And WARTS. Dulcamara is one of the great remedies for warts (Causticum, Thuja). The Dulcamara warts are large, fleshy and smooth; or flat. One remembers a patient with a large wart on the right lower lid, interfering with sight. After a dose of Dulcamara C.M. it began to dry up, and was gone in a fortnight. “It came away in bits; they irritated and she rubbed them away.” This was in 1927, and there has been no recurrence.
Urinary organs also: turbid urine. Catarrh of bladder from taking cold in cold damp weather.
Muscles; of the back, especially. In the loin: above the left hip. Drawing pain in both thighs, better walking, returns immediately on sitting. Excessive perspiration: offensive.
In Dulcamara catarrhs, Kent says the nose wants to be kept warm. The sufferer will sit, in a warm room, with cloths wrung out of hot water, clapped over face and nose to relieve the distress; worse in the open air. Worse in a cold room.
Kent says, in regard to remedies, “We have to observe the time of year, the time of day, day or night aggravations; the wet and dry remedies, the hot and cold remedies. We have to study the remedy by circumstances.”
All the symptoms are worse in cold damp weather, and from getting chilled, better from becoming warm and keeping still.
“So you see whether it is a catarrh of the kidney or a catarrhal state of the bladder, or an attack of dysentery, or an attack of sudden diarrhoea, every cold spell of weather brings on an increase of the trouble.”
And Kent says, “There is another Dulcamara symptom which will often be expressed, in the midst of a lot of other symptoms. The patient will say, `Doctor, if I get chilled I must hurry to urinate: if I go into a cold place, I have to go to stool, or to urinate.'”
NASH sums up the Dulcamara conditions thus: “This remedy, like many others, finds its chief characteristic in its modality. Complaints caused or aggravated by change of weather from warm to cold. All kinds of inflammatory and rheumatic diseases may spring from such a cause, and so Dulcamara comes to be indicated in a long list of them. For instance, after taking cold, the neck gets stiff, back painful, limbs lame, or the throat gets sore and quinsy results, with stiff neck and jaws; the tongue may even become paralysed.”
So we see that with this remedy, it is a less a question of locality, or of altered functions that leads us to successfully prescribe: it is the marked causation of each and all of the troubles. The patient is the victim of conditions to which he is hypersensitive–COLD, and especially WET COLD.
BLACK LETTER SYMPTOMS
From Hahnemann, Allen’s Encyclopedia, and Hering
Scald head, thick brown crusts with reddish borders, on forehead, temples and chin; bleeding when scratched.
Humid eruptions on cheeks.
Thick, brown-yellow crusts on face crusta lactea.
Thick crusts all over body.
Warts and eruptions on face.
Warts on hands and backs of fingers.
Warts, fleshy or large, smooth, on dorsa of hands and on face.
Tongue paralysed from cold, yet talks incessantly.
Inarticulate speech from swollen tongue.
Colic: as from taking cold; as if diarrhoea would occur.
Colic such as is usually caused by wet cold weather.
Yellow, watery diarrhoea, with tearing and cutting colic before very evacuation.
Mucous diarrhoea, alternately yellow and greenish.
Diarrhoea from cold, or change from warm to cold, especially cold damp weather.
Catarrhal troubles caused by cold damp weather.
Cough from damp cold atmosphere, or from getting wet. Must cough a long time to expel phlegm.
A very acute pain darts through the left side of the chest in fits.
Great oppressive pain of the whole chest, especially on inspiration and expiration.
Pain in small of back, as after long stooping.
In the loin, above left hip, a digging, shooting pain.
A drawing, tearing pain in both thighs.
Lameness in small of back, as if from a cold.
Eruptions like nettlerash all over the body, without fever.
Chill, commencing in, or spreading from back, not better for warmth, mostly towards evening.
Ill-smelling perspiration.
We have often successfully employed Dulcamara for pain, or eruptions in the region of the umbilicus–“The hole”, as a wee girl graphically described her pain-spot. One first discovered this tip in Boenninghausen years ago. Localities can be important.
YET ONE MORE BLACK LETTER SYMPTOM. Earache; nausea; buzzing : worse at night. Earache the whole night, preventing sleep.
