And again, “No doubt abnormal painlessness is a grand keynote for Opium; but in the pathogenesis many acute pains will be found, and among them this, recorded by Hahnemann himself, `Horrible labour-like pains in uterus, which compelled her to bend the abdomen double; with anxious, almost ineffectual urging to stool.’ Whether this be primary or secondary I know not”; and he records a case of severe dysmenorrhoea where Opium gave greater and more lasting relief than anything else, and another where Opium 30 given for constipation caused, with the onset of the next period. “sharp pain which caused vomiting and a desire to sit doubled up and keep warm”.
Among its contradictory things, Opium has twitchings, jerkings, even to convulsions. And here, Kent says: “an Opium patient with convulsions needs to be uncovered, and wants cool open air. Convulsions if the room is too warm.” “If the mother puts such a child into a hot bath to relieve the convulsion, it will become unconscious and cold as death.” (Compare Apis.)
Opium presents a vivid picture of extreme alcoholism-delirium tremens; and is here, again, found useful.
Opium causes sensations of beatitude-physical and mental: great happiness, great confidence, in the first hours of the drug. As these wear off into the torments of the damned, the Opium eater must get back to that temporary state of delight, and he renews always the torment that is destroying him.
De Quincey’s Opium visions were architectural, scenic; sensations of descent into chasms of sunless abysses, depths below depths, from which it seemed hopeless that he would ever re-ascend. He describes the gloom, the suicidal darkness. Space and time senses were powerfully affected. Vastness of proportions-vast expansions of time, till he seemed to have lived 70 to 100 years in one night. Dreams of lakes, silvery expanses of waters, then “a tremendous change, which unfolding itself like a scroll through many months, promised an abiding torment. For now that which I have called the tyranny of the human face began to unfold itself. Now it was that, upon the rocking waters of the ocean, the human face began to appear; the sea appeared paved with innumerable faces, upturned to the heavens; faces imploring, wrathful, despairing, surged upwards by thousands, by myriads, by generations, by centuries; my agitation was infinite; my mind tossed and swayed with the ocean.”.
ODD SYMPTOM AND TIPS
Painless. Complains of nothing. Wants nothing.
Thinks she is not at home. (Bryonia)
Face expresses fear and fright.
Stool involuntary-after a fright (sphincter paralysed).
Bed feels so hot that she cannot lie in it. Moves for a cool place: must be uncovered. (Sulphur)
Retention with a full bladder (Stramonium suppression); bladder full, but fullness unrecognized.
Lack of reaction to the properly selected homoeopathic medicine.
GUERNSEY SAYS: “In chest troubles, where there is continuous stertorous respiration, give Opium. Respiration deep, unequal.” (Cheyne-Stokes.)
Among the symptoms that Opium can cause is awful fear or anxiety and it is useful in complaints from fear, where the fear remains.
Shock, and the horrible thing cannot be recovered from : it comes back continually before the eyes.
Clarke remembers reading of the cure of an ulcer on the leg. There were no sensations on which a remedy could be diagnosed, but the absence of sensation indicated Opium, and Opium cured.
De Quincey writes that among his trials, as he gradually broke off the drug habit, was violent sneezing. He would sneeze for sometimes two hours at a time, and at least two or three times a day. He also had the Opium excessive perspiration, so violent that he was “obliged to use a bath five or six times a day.”
Kent says: “There is never any use for crude Opium in the sick room. In surgery at times it is admitted that something seems necessary, and we will not quarrel with the surgeon. But in disease in sick people it is not necessary. It performs no use and in the end is an injury; it prevents finding the homoeopathic remedy. It has masked the symptoms, and you cannot do anything for days.”
Now look at Opium in the light of the Arndt-Schultz Law Large doses of a poisonous drug are lethal, smaller doses paralyses, while still smaller doses of the same poison stimulate the life- activities of the self-same cells.
In largest doses, Opium first produces excitement, then drowsiness and incapacity for exertion-sleep-finally coma.
It is at first rousable, soon no stimulation is of the least use: pupils minutely contracted; no reflexes.
It is cold, livid; towards the end, bathed in cold sweat.
Pulse weak and slow: respiration slower and more irregular: at last stertorous, and patient dies from asphyxia.
In material doses (non-lethal), it diminishes all secretions except sweat. Mouth dry: stomach and intestines dry, and paralysed,- from paralysis of muscular structure in the wall of the intestines. Almost always constipation therefore: the most complete constipation.
Vessels dilate in the medulla and cord.
It is a direct poison to the respiratory system: produces slow, stertorous respiration.
And just what Opium can do-short of death-it can cure.
In minimal doses it cures its own kind of constipation: rouses consciousness in the comatose: and in those who are stunned by shock: can give sleep, to the abnormally wakeful with exaltation of sense, and so on. It is not the drug of universal “usefulness” of the old school, but it can do, permanently, far more wonderful things, when given after the manner of Hahnemann.
BLACK LETTER SYMPTOMS
Fear of impending death. Expression of fright and terror.
Complete insensibility. Impossible to excite any sing of uneasiness by pulling the hair, or pinching the skin, or sudden effusion of cold water.
Insensibility with complete apoplectic respiration.
Unconscious: eyes glassy, half-closed, face pale, deep coma.
Mania a potu: senses dull; sopor with snoring. Sees animals coming towards him. People want to hurt him: creeps under covers: wants to jump out of bed. Believe themselves murderers or criminals, to be executed. Wants to run away.
Staring look: facial muscles twitch. Lockjaw. Tremor.
Ailments from excessive joy, fright, anger, shame.
Ailments after fright, the fear of the fright remaining.
Trembling limbs after a fright. Spasms from emotion, fright, etc.
Face pale. Face flushed.
PUPILS dilated, insensible to light: or contracted and sluggish.
Paralysis of tongue with difficult articulation.
Great thirst: unquenchable thirst.
Colic: transient: very violent: griping, with constipation, as if intestines out to pieces. Painter’s colic.
Stools: involuntary after fright; fluid, frothy; burning in anus; tenesmus. Hard, round, dry, black balls: like sheep dung: feels as if rectum were closed; come down and recede. (Silicea)
Almost unconquerable chronic constipation.
Cholera infantum: stupor, snoring, convulsions, contracted pupils.
Well selected remedy refuses to act. Want of susceptibility to drugs. Want of vital reaction.
Painlessness in all ailments. Complains of nothing; wants nothing.
Paralysis: insensibility: after apoplexy-in drunkards-old people.
Weak expulsive power of bladder: which is unable to expel its contents: retention of urine.
Frequent involuntary deep breathing. Respirations long, sighing! or stertorous respiration.
Pulse slow, with slow stertorous respirations: exceedingly red face: extremely profuse perspiration. Convulsions.
Whining in sleep. Drowsy, difficult to keep awake: at night, restless with much perspiration.
Sleepless with acute hearing; clocks striking and cocks crowing at a distance, keep her awake.
