Introduction
HAHNEMANN, Materia Medica Pura, in his introduction to the provings of Staphisagria, says:
“It is just to the most powerful medicines in the smallest doses that we may look for the greatest curative virtue in the most serious disease of peculiar character for which this and no other medicine is suitable.
“For these reasons I anticipated a great treasure of curative action in the most peculiar diseases from Staphisagria; and these reasons led me to make careful trial of it on healthy subjects. Thus curative virtues have been elicited from this medicinal substance which are of infinitely greater value than its power to kill lice! (the only medicinal property the ordinary quackish medical art knew it to possess)-curative virtues which the homoeopathic practitioner may make use of with marvellous effect in rare morbid states, for which there is no other remedy but this.”
He says this seed got its name as an exterminator of head vermin. That a certain physician, when suffering from toothache, took some of it in his mouth, but it gave him such a violent exacerbation that he thought he should go mad. “What enormous power must not this drug possess!”
It is in this little preface he writes, “Now, as our new and only true healing art shows by experience that every drug is medicinal in proportion to the energy of its action on the health, and that it only overcomes the natural disease by virtue of its pathogenic power provided it is analogous to the latter; it follows that a medicine can subdue the most serious diseases the more injuriously it acts on healthy human beings, and that we have only to ascertain exactly its peculiar injurious effects in order to know to what curative purposes it may be applied in the art of restoring human health. Its power, be it ever so energetic, does not by any means call for its rejection; nay; it makes it all the more valuable; for, on the one hand its power of altering human health reveals to us all the more distinctly and clearly the peculiar morbid states which it can produce on healthy human beings, so that we may all the more surely and indubitably discover the cases of disease in which it is to be employed similarly (homoeopathically), and therefore curatively. Whilst, on the other hand, its energy, be that ever so great, may be easily moderated by appropriate dilution and reduction of dose, so that it shall become only useful and not hurtful, if it is found to correspond in the greatest possible similarity to the symptoms of the disease we wish to cure.”
The Keynote to Staphisagria is its peculiar mentality, “Complaints that come from pent-up wrath: suppressed anger: suppressed feelings. Speechless from suppressed indignation he controls it, and then suffers from it a Staphisagria patient when he has to control himself, goes all to pieces, trembles from head to foot, loses his voice, his ability to work, cannot sleep, and a headache follows.” Thus, graphically, KENT.
As one has seen: when an officer, after the strain of the Great War, comes out of it with a feeling that he has not been fairly treated, that he has not received due recognition; and his health suffers, and mouth after month he cannot get himself together, till a dose of Staphisagria, with its hidden magic effect; -and health improves, to his great astonishment. He wonders what that marvellous medicine could have been.
Staphisagria also affects the eyes, and especially the lids. It has a great reputation for recurrent styes, and for styes that leave induration, and for scurfy margins to the lids. Also for injuries to the eyes:- for clean cuts, as in operations: for stretched sphincters, with the agonizing pain that ensues,-as when a hospital patient, after operation on the anus, was in such pain and distress that a male nurse had to be arranged for to keep him in bed. Luckily the R.M.O. knew his work, and fetched a dose of Staphisagria: and came back an hour later, to find a patient and watcher both asleep. These things, once realized, are never forgotten. They are more rapid, and more satisfactory than morphia, since they are curative. Not merely a drugging, till, as is hoped, the worst of the suffering will be over.
Staphisagria is one of the drugs that greatly affects the teeth.
Useful where teeth turn black as soon as erupted: and the first teeth quickly decay (comp. Kreos): or in toothache with such exquisite tenderness that no liquid even, to say nothing of the tongue, must touch the teeth.
It is also a skin medicine: “Eczema: yellow acrid moisture oozes form under the crusts; new vesicles form from contract of exudation. Humid, itching, fetid eruption on head and behind ears:-scratching changes the place of itching, but increases oozing.”
BLACK LETTER SYMPTOMS.
(Hahnemann and Hering, chiefly:)
Weakness of memory; when he has read something, after a few minutes he remembers it only dimly, and when he thought about anything for himself, it soon after escaped him, and after long reflection he could hardly recall it.
Indifference, low-spirited, dullness of mind.
Children are ill-humoured and cry frothings, which after getting they petulantly push or throw away (compare. Cham,.): worse early morning.
Great indignation about things done by other, or by himself; grieves about consequences.
Ailments from indignation and vexation, or reserved displeasure; sleeplessness.
Aching, stupefying pain, in HEAD, especially in forehead.
As if brain compressed, especially fore head, with roaring in ears, which goes off sooner than headache.
Feels as if occiput wore compressed inwardly and outwardly.
Heaviness of head; hard pressure in head, right temporal bone and vertex.
Pressive pain in left temple, outwardly and inwardly, as if the finger were strongly pressed on it.
Pressive boring stitch, left forehead, from within outwards, its violence wakes him from sleep in the morning
Sharp, burning needle-prices in left temple.
Obtuse shooting in right temple, outwardly and inwardly, as if the bone would be pressed out; more violent when touched.
Painful drawing externally on several parts of head, more violent when touched.
Itching papules on nape.
EYES. Very dilated pupils for many hours.
Blepharitis, margins of lids dry, with hardened styes or tarsal tumours.
Styes, nodosities, chalazae on eyelids, one after another, some times ulcerating.
Pressure on upper lid: smarting sore pain in the inner canthi. (Hahnemann adds footnote “in a man who had never had anything the matter with his eyes in his life”)
Inflammation of white of eye, with pains.
The eyes are excessively deeply sunk, with blue raised borders- as after great excesses.
Tensive stitch in left ear.
Tearing and tugging from head down through cheeks into TEETH.
Burning, sharp shooting in left cheek: must scratch.
Teeth turn black, or show dark streaks. Gums ache.
Gums bleed when pressed, or when brushing teeth.
While eating, tearing in gums and in the roots of lower molars.
Much toothache:-in decayed teeth: in a whole row of teeth; during menses, shooting into ear. Worse cold drinks and touch, not from biting; from drawing in cold air; after eating.
Toothache when eating: teeth are not firm, but when touched waggle; when eating, feels as if teeth were pressed deeper into gums and the same when the two rows of teeth only touch one another; but the gums are white.*Hering gives a cured case.” Prosopalgia in an old lady, made life unendurable; on touching spoon or fork to lips inexpressible pains shot from lips over face; fluid food had to be eaten with finger (sic.). could take no solid food, mastication impossible.” [“After indignation, after becoming, after becoming angry, all | sorts of complaints.” Comp. Chamomilla, Colocynth.]
Tickling pricking in right lower molars.
Rough throat.
Constant accumulation of mucus in mouth, without bad taste.
Frequent hiccough.
Adipsia: drinks less than usual.
After indignation, cardialgia.Plus
Colic, after indignation: after lithotomy; with urging to stool: or urging to urinate and squeamishness. (<) food and drink.
Flatulence becomes displaced in hypogastrium. Hard painful pressure in right ABDOMEN below navel.
Pinching stitch in abdominal viscera.
Violent, twisting about, pinching pain in whole abdomen, now in one part, now in another. Hot flatus; much flatus is developed.
Itching needle-pricks in renal region.
Costiveness.
With the feeling as if flatus would be discharged, a thin, unnoticed stool occurs.
Itching in anus while sitting, independent of stool.
Frequent call to URINATE, when very little dark urine is discharged. Call to urinate; scarcely a spoonful passes, mostly reddish or dark-yellow in a thin stream, or by drops, and after he has passed it always feels as if the bladder were not empty, for some urine continues to dribble away.
On awaking from sleep, pressure on the bladder.
Every time water is passed, burning in the whole urethra.
Violent drawing burning stitches out of right inguinal ring, as if in the spermatic cord as far as right testicle.
Aching pain in left testicle, when walking, and whenever rubbed; the pain is more violent on touching it.
