Nausea– in the morning: after eating.
Smoking makes him nauseated and qualmish.
After a meal he is qualmish, anxious, nauseated and sick, as after a violent purge.
Inclination to vomit. Vomiting of sour mucus.
Retching, as if to vomit, while hawking mucus from fauces.
Tension above stomach.
Pressure, as from a stone in epigastrium: worse walking.
Pressure in stomach, after eating a little, in the morning.
A metallic, hereby taste returns.
Pressure as from overloading the stomach, immediately after eating.
Violent gastric symptoms.
Scraped sensation in stomach.
Flatulent distension of abdomen, after eating.
Colic, as if diarrhoea from taking cold would come on.
Cutting colic, with qualmishness. Colic that causes nausea.
Colic speedily disappearing during rest–sitting or lying.
Pain in abdominal ring, as if a hernia would become incarcerated.
Sensation of weakness in abdominal ring, as if a hernia would occur.
Hahnemann has a number of black type symptoms in regard to the effect of Nux on intestines.
Pinching, tearing abdominal pain, as if diarrhoea from a chill would occur.
Needle pricks–cutting pains– pinching pains.
After belly-ache evacuations of dark-coloured mucus, which caused smarting-burning at anus.
Sensation of weakness in the abdominal ring, as if a hernia would occur.
Forcing down towards the genitals in the lower abdomen.
Development of a tendency to inguinal hernia.
The rectum and anus are extremely affected by Nux :
Blind haemorrhoids.
Sharp pressive pain in the rectum, after a stool and after a meal, especially on exerting the mind, and studying.
Tearing sticking and constricting pain, as from aggravated blind piles, in the rectum and anus, after a meal and after exerting the mind and reflecting.
After a stool it seemed as if some remained behind, and could not be evacuated, with a sense of constriction in the rectum, not in the anus.
Discharge of bright blood with faeces, with a sensation of constriction and contraction in the rectum, during stool.
With the stool it always seemed as it if were not enough, and as if the evacuation were incomplete.
Anxious desire for stool.
One has been told by the old Sisters at the Hospital, that in the older days of Homoeopathy, no one dreamed of operating for piles: they used to cure them with Nux and Sulphur–low– and in alternation. (Pace shades of Hahnemann) Sulphur has certainly produced piles; and cured them.
Frequent ineffectual desire for stool, as if the evacuation were incomplete.
Diarrhoea of a dark colour, especially in the morning and immediately after dinner.
Obliged to go to stool three or four times a day : it was often ineffectual, and the stool when passed was soft.
Constipation, as from constriction and contraction of the intestines.
NASH elucidates this phase of the action of Nux. He says,”Frequent and ineffectual desire to defecate, or passing but small quantities at each attempt. This symptom is pure gold. There are a few other remedies that have it, but none so positive and persistently.
“It is the guiding symptoms in the constipation to which Nux is homoeopathic, and in my experience will then, and then only, cure.”
He says, Carroll Dunham here contrasted Nux and Bryonia. That “there was never any reason for confounding them, or alternating them. The Nux constipation is caused by irregular peristaltic action of the intestines, hence the frequent ineffectual desire for stool: the Bryonia constipation is caused by lack of secretion in the intestines. With Bryonia there was no desire, and the stools were dry and hard, as if burnt.” He adds :-
“This Nux symptom is found not in constipation only. It is present in dysentery; where the stools (of slimy mucus and blood) are small and unsatisfactory. With Nux in dysentery, the pains are very greatly relieved for a short time with every stool : with Mercury (Mercurius cor.)the pain and straining continue after every stool-the never-get-done sensation. But whether the patient has constipation, dysentery, diarrhoea or any other diseases, if there is this frequent, ineffectual desire for stool, we think first of Nux vomica, and give it unless contraindicated by other symptoms.”
What Nux really causes in the abdominal organs is irregular peristalsis: colicky pinchings here and there driving the intestinal contents at once forwards and back. Hence the character of defecation. A little passed with relief, and then more to come: and always a sensation that there is more to come. KENT says: “Another state running through Nux is that actions are turned in opposite directions. When the stomach is sick, it will empty its contents with no great effort ordinarily, but in Nux there is retching and straining as if the action were going the wrong way, as if it would force the abdomen open; a reversed action; retches, gags and strains, and after a prolonged effort he finally empties the stomach.”
He describes, in the bowels,”a kind of anti-peristalsis. In constipation, the more he strains the harder it is to get a stool.”
The urinary organs are also affected with the NUX spasmodic condition.
Urging to urinate.
Frequent desire to urinate: constantly called out that he would be better if he could pass water.
Painful, ineffectual desire to urinate.
Violent straining: the efforts to urinate were constant and most painful, without being able to pass a single drop.
Urine passed with difficulty.
Whilst urinating, a burning and tearing pain in the neck of the bladder.
Whilst urinating an itching in the urethra.
Menses three days early, with cramps in abdomen.
During the menses, nausea in the morning, with chilliness and attacks of fainting.
In the convulsions of Nux vomica, one observes the strychnine element.
The slightest touch of the hand immediately brought on spasms.
Years ago, in the country, a wretched hen was cooped all alone, because”if one of the others touched her, she had a fit”. Tested, by shaking the coop, she was crumpled up, immediately. in convulsions. Some Nux was left for her, and when seen again a few days later, she was running about with the rest of the fowls.
“Nux has the most violent convulsions with opisthotonos; convulsions of all the muscles of the body, with purple face and loss of breath from the movements; conscious, or semi-conscious during the whole spasm, aware of the sufferings and contortions, which are horrible; worse from the slightest draught of air; tickling the feet; the merest touch of the throat causes gagging.” (Kent)
Nux produces not only convulsions, but lockjaw. It has caused “contraction of the jaws, like lockjaw”– “closure of the jaws with complete consciousness.” Lockjaw is very fatal to horses who have “picked up a nail”. One remembers, long ago, a paragraph in an evening paper. The owner of a horse with lockjaw called in a vet. to poison the beast, and the vet. administered a big dose of strychnine. Meeting the owner of the horse a few days later, he stopped him to ask after the horse. “I’m driving him,” was the reply. One of the accidental homoeopathic cures by a vet who knew no homoeopathy. (Strychnine, of course, is one of the alkaloids of Nux.)
To write exhaustively on Nux “of many uses”, would be “to write a complete materia medica”.
But just a few more gleanings in regard to Nux.
NASH says, “Spasm, sensitiveness (nervous), and chilliness are three general characteristics of this remedy.
“Anxiety with irritability; and inclination to commit suicide, but afraid to die.
“For very particular, careful, zealous persons.” (Kent gives only Arsenicum and Nux under the heading fastidious; and Nux is again like Arsenic in its fear of knives for the impulses they suggest.)
“Twitchings, spasms, convulsions, worse the slightest touch. Convulsions with consciousness.
“Sleepy in the evening for hours before bedtime; then lies awake for an hour or two; then wants to sleep late in the morning. “When in sickness, or from abuse of coffee or alcohol Nux symptoms supervene, Nux will be curative.
“Great heat, whole body burning hot, especially face red and hot, yet patient cannot move or uncover in the least without feeling chilly. It matters not what the fever, inflammatory, remittent, the fever accompanying sore throat, rheumatism, influenza, with these indications give Nux vomica, and you will not be disappointed in the result. It took me years to learn the value of this symptom,” says Nash.
“The indigestion of Nux is an hour or two after eating-sour taste–heart-burn–bloating, must loosen clothes, with pressure like a stone in stomach — with the Nux mood and temper. The causes being, coffee, alcohol, debauchery, abuse of drugs, sedentary habits, broken rest from long night-watching too high living. Nux is adapted to complaints from such causes.” One of the characteristics of Nux is a scraped sensation, throat — chest — stomach, in inflammatory conditions.
Nux dreams of lice, as a woman who had taken Nux for a month found to her cost. The dreams of Nux are angry, amorous, anxious of disease, of misfortune, of quarrels.
Nux is one of the few drugs that crave fats; also alcohol and beer; or on the other hand, Nux may loath ale, beer, coffee, food0–even though hungry, and may hate meat, tobacco, and water.
