Effects of onanism or sexual excesses. Seminal emissions followed by great chagrin and mortification: prostration: dyspnoea.
Frequent sneezing without coryza-or with.
Coryza: at first blows only thick mucus from nose, afterwards thin discharge.
Adhesive mucus lies in his CHEST.
At top of sternum, immediately below pit of throat, itching, fine, sharp pricks: must scratch.
Tightness in chest at end of coitus.
Pricking itching between the cartilages of the ribs.
Sharp stitches in region of fourth costal cartilages of right and left sides, intermitting they penetrate slowly from within outwards, without relation to respiration.
Itching pricks in both axillae.
Pains like dislocation in right shoulder joint, only on moving.
Obtuse shooting pains, shoulder-joint, (<) moving and touched.
Violent aching pain in left shoulder joint, not (>) motion.
Paralytic aching pain left upper arm, (<) touch and motion= arm weakened. Paralytic pressure on both upper and forearms, (<) by motion and touch.
Paralytic drawing pain in proximal joints of fingers: (<) by movement.
Fine twitching tearing in muscles of thumb, and several fingers: especially in their tips.
Deep, itching, burning, sharp needle-pricks in thumb, must scratch.
Feeling of a hard skin drawn over finger-tips left hand; little feeling in them, and loss of sense of touch.
Pricking itching muscles of buttocks: on inner side of thighs.
When walking, pain in thighs.
Drawing shooting, or obtuse stitches in knee joint (<) movement.
On touching, stitches change into an aching pain.
Burning shooting under left knee, outer side: (?) in paroxysms.
Boring stitch in right tibia, when at rest.
Tearing in muscles of one or other leg: shooting under and in right calf and above left heel.
Pricking itching just above right outer ankle. Must scratch.
Drawing pains here and there in the muscles of the whole body.
Itching, sharp pricks on various parts of the body.
Pain in all the bones.
Weak in body, especially knees when walking.
Violent yawning, so that tears come into eyes.
Drowsiness in afternoon, so that eyes close.
Amorous dreams and seminal emissions.
In the night often wakes with chilly feeling, but cannot properly collect himself.
Shivering and chilly feeling when eating, without thirst.
Indisposed for serious work.
Incised wounds. And stretched sphincters should be added.
Writers following Hahnemann have not made so much of the pains in the head of Staphisagria. Hahnemann’s provings stress two facts about them, that they are pressing inwards and outwards: and that the violence of the head pains is increased when touched. “Itching pricks, from within outwards are characteristic.” Staph, pains are “move violent when touched.”
And Hahnemann seems to lay far more stress on the action of Staphisagria on joints and limbs than his followers have done:though Hering gives, “Stiffness and sense of fatigue in all joints: arthritic nodosities on joints.” But, in joint.” But, in joint troubles with the Staphisagria mentality, one should consider the remedy: especially wherever its outstanding characteristic “worse from touch” occurs. Chamomilla, so like Staphisagria in mentality, is also often neglected where it would be so useful in rheumatic affections. But Chamomilla cannot keep still, especially at night. The wretched pains in limbs keep the patient awake, and jerking, and perhaps up and pacing the floor. Whereas the Staphisagria pains are unbearably worse from touch.
Who has used Staphisagria for instance in rheumatoid arthritis? Here, from its provings, it ought to be useful, where its mental outlook prevails; mental symptoms being in “the grading of symptoms” the most important, provided they are marked, and especially if showing change, due to sickness, from the normal of the individual. But, one has observed, in some of the worst and most intractable cases of rheumatoid arthritis, just such restless misery and feeling of resentment against (at all events, fate) as appear in the provings and as have been cured by Staphisagria.
HUGHES. (Pharmacodynamics) says: “Hahnemann was thus led to prove it; and he found it so powerfully to affect the healthy body that he thought it likely to prove a great medicine. His pathological results have been substantiated by the active properties found to belong to the two alkaloids of stavesacre (Staphisagria)-delphinine and staphisagrine; but his therapeutic expectations have hardly been realized as yet. Staphisagria, in fact, is one of those drugs which one hardly ever thinks of in connection with the treatment of the ordinary forms of disease. Every now and then, however, the consultation of a repertory leads us to choose it as the simillimum to the group of symptoms, and in time, perhaps it will attain a forward place in therapeutics; for its provings evidence its possession of a very extensive range of influence.”
Hughes also quotes different writers on its uses in sea sickness, and in the vomiting of pregnancy; in diseases of the eyes, especially the lids; in periostitis and the shifting pains of long bones (Drosera) in neuralgia; in caries. All these especially “in those who are extremely sensitive to mental and physical impressions-as an antidote to the after-effects of Mercury and also to those of indignation and chagrin.” It also has been helpful in sexual troubles.
Some peculiar symptoms.-“When he walks quickly he feels as if someone were following him; this caused anxiety and fear; and he must always look about him.” Lachesis, Med, and a few other drugs have this Ancient Mariner sensation:-
“Like one who in a lonely road. Doth walk in fear and dread, And, having once turned round, walks on And turns no more his head, Because he knows a fearful fiend Doth close behind him tread.”
Another characteristic symptom is, “Inclined to throw away everything he took in his hand.” This is part of the “Wants a thing, and when he gets it, throws it away.” (Comp. Chamomilla, Cina.)
As NASH says, “Staphisagria, (Chamomilla, Nux vomica, Cina, Colocynth stand very close to each other for cross, ugly, irritable subjects, and there are few cases that one or the other will not fit.”
And Nash draws attention to another characteristic,-he says, unique: “This remedy has a very peculiar symptom, which appeared in the provings, and which I have verified, viz. `burning in urethra when not urinating.’ While urinating the burning ceased. We have plenty of remedies for burning before, during and after urination, but Staphisagria is the only one having this burning all the time between the acts of urination.”
NASH’S resume:-
Cross, ugly, scrawny, pot-bellied children; subject to colic; worse after food and drink. Extreme hunger even when stomach is full of food.
Styes, nodosities, chalazae on eyelids, one after another, sometimes ulcerating.
Burning in urethra when not urinating.
Very sensitive to slightest mental impressions; least action or harmless word offends.
Bad effects of sexual abuse; mind dwelling continually on sexual subjects.
Teeth decay early in children; cannot be kept clean.
Sensation as if stomach and abdomen were hanging down, relaxed. Craving for tobacco.
NASH says, in regard to its usefulness in the cure of condylomata, fig-warts or cauliflower-like excrescences. “In one case, with the 200th of this remedy, I removed an excrescence on the perineum of a lady in which the growth was an inch long and the appearance was exactly in appearance like a cauliflower. It rapidly disappeared under the action of the remedy and never returned.”
“Incised wounds. It is the best remedy here, where there is a clean cut as after surgical operations. It is to such wounds what Calendula is to lacerations, Arnica, Hamamelis, Ledum and Sulph. acid for bruises, Rhus tox., Calcarea and Nux for strains; Calcarea phos. and Symphytum for fracture.”
GUERNSEY, Guiding Symptoms, sums up Staphisagria, and one sees how greatly, mentally and physically, it resembles that most sensitive of sensitive remedies-Hepar.
“Patients are so sensitive that the least action or word troubles or annoys his feelings: anger and indignation.
“Worse from mental affections, from anger with indignation.
“From grief: from mortification, especially if caused by offences.
“From loss of fluids: tobacco: mercury: sexual excesses.
“From sleeping in the afternoon.
“From touching the part, as in toothache: can’t bear the tongue, drink, or anything to touch the teeth.
“From least touch on affected parts.
Among Hahnemann’s symptoms, the last one reads. “Good humour; he was cheerful and talkative in society, and enjoyed existence.” And in a footnote, he adds, “Curative secondary action of the organism, in a man of an opposite character of disposition.” Staphisagria is indeed one of the mighty remedies of warped mentality.
