The symptoms on this occasion were so severe and distressing physical no less than mental that I could not allow the prover to continue to endure them, and gave Platina200 repeatedly, under which she gained speedy relief.
No. 2. To compare with the above, I will give an abstract of a proving made under the supervision of Dr. W. E. Payne, at about the same time, the provers having no communication:
Mrs. P., aged 55 has ceased to menstruate.
Jan. 26, 1870, took a drop of the 30 centesimal. In the evening, after griping pain, had free, faecal stool, followed by acrid feeling in anus and rectum, a very rare thing for this prover. During the night, a feeling in all the extremities as if the blood were pushed outward; restlessness; heat and pain in forehead and brow.
Next day a free stool, followed by acrid sensation at the anus. Frequent desire to urinate during the day, with scanty discharge and followed by an acrid sensation in the urethra. These symptoms recurred daily with marked aggravation about 5 p.m. till February 2. Diarrhoeic stool every morning, followed by acrid irritation at anus, continuing about an hour. Same symptoms with urine.
Feb. 2. Repeated medicine. Increase of the above symptoms; burning in palms and soles all night, with constant desire to find a cool place for them; some cutting pain in the left mammary gland, with aching, beginning below the nipple, deep in the breast, as though between the gland and the ribs and extending around that side to the spine, seeming to pass under the lower end of scapula, coming on after retiring and worse when lying on the affected side.
These symptoms continued and recurred daily; she repeated the medicine, which was followed by a severe blinding headache in the anterior part of the head, the peculiarity of which was a sensation as if all the blood were pressing outward through every aperture. The medicine was repeated every third or fourth day. About the 9th and 10th, in the left side of the abdomen (ovarian region) soreness to pressure; darting pains at times in this region, extending to the groin and pubes in front; frequent desire to urinate.
On the 12th, the head being clearer and better, great heaviness and pressure in the region of the womb, with stinging and darting pain in the ovarian region.
14th. The ovarian pains becomes more decided and extend down the left thigh.
This series of symptoms continued until the 21st, when the ovarian pain continuing, there was also a bearing down in the uterine region, with a desire to sustain the parts by pressing upward with the hand against the vulva; symptoms which continued and are described on the 25th as a pressing and bearing down sensation” in the whole of the sexual organs, with a feeling as if the internal parts were being pulled outward and downward from the mammary and umbilical region through the vagina; irresistible desire to press the hands against the vulva to prevent the internal organs from escaping.
These symptoms continued to recur for a full month after the last dose of Lilium, and the morning diarrhoea for more than six weeks.
No. 3. This prover took Lilium 3 in one dose a quarter ounce. No symptoms were observed for two weeks. Then of which the most striking were those last in order, pain in the lumbar region as though the back would break; bearing down pain in the pelvis, especially when walking; pressure and weight low down in the vagina.
She reports, also, a headache, as if the head were too full of blood as if the blood would issue from nose and ears.
No. 4. This prover, who had suffered from astigmatism, and was hypermetrophic, experienced from Lilium3, heart symptoms, pain through the heart to the back, and a feeling as if the heart were squeezed in a vice. She cannot walk straight by going into a warm room, the symptoms having occurred while walking in cold air.
Also, her eyesight very dim. She took no more medicine, and in about a month her eyesight was restored, She then found that the astigmatism no longer existed.
No.5. This prover describes the same headache as the previous prover – pressure from within outward; the same nervous prostration, and a morning diarrhoea with much tenesmus. She states the symptoms persisted for a month after the last dose.
No.6. This prover reports nervous tremulousness and inability to apply the mind; aggravation in the afternoon, and a headache similar to the preceding. Also, menses diminished in quantity, but occurring too soon. Likewise severe pains in the uterus; could not bear the weight of clothing on the pelvis; profuse acrid leucorrhoea. While the pain in the pelvis was so severe, a vaginal examination disclosed the fact that the uterus was anteverted, a state of things that had never before existed. During the pains hysterical paroxysms.
Nos. 7 and 8. The same series of symptoms as above.
From this resume we may gather some of the chief characteristics of Lilium. When taken in moderate doses the effects are not immediate. Days elapse before unmistakable symptoms of the drug-action appear. But the effects are very persistent, as the record of every prover shows. They tend, moreover, to recur at longer or shorter intervals, and in groups which preserve a definite order. Thus prover No.1, whose record I have given at greater length, reports a third recurrence of a group of symptoms nearly two months after the dose of Lilium. In male provers the same recurrence of symptoms in definite groups has been observed, with an interval of comparative freedom from symptoms. The simultaneous observation of these peculiarities in provers residing far from each other, and known to each other, precludes any doubt of its genuineness.
Of the symptoms observed by women, as well as men, the effects on the mind are noteworthy, and are of two varieties. First, as noticed by Dr. Payne, anxiety and apprehension that an incurable disease exists or is impending, and this produces despondency. Second, as exhibited most decidedly in prover No. 1 and clearly, though less pronounced, in several others, a consciousness of an unnatural state of mind and feeling, which at last develops into an exalted condition in which the prover is disposed to find fault with persons and things, to exaggerate her own importance and excellence and look down upon others. Conjoined with this state of things has resulted in hysterical paroxysms. In prover No.1 It assumed such marked proportions I was constrained to put an end to it by administering Platina, the indications for which are evident from the mental symptoms. Intellectual activity is impaired in both men and women. Both have complained of the feeling of hurry and restlessness, which is so well described by prover No.1.
Menstruation is accelerated, in some cases recurring in two weeks. The flow is very scanty.
An acrid, thin brownish leucorrhoea was, to several provers, a troublesome symptom.
But the most striking symptoms, and those most widely observed, relate to the pelvic organs. They did not generally present themselves until a number of days after the proving was begun. They consist of a dragging or pulling or forcing down sensation in the pelvis, as though the entire contents of the pelvis were pulled down though the vagina, or would issue from the vulva. This sensation is not confined to the back or hips nor again to the hypogastric region – but is described as pervading the entire pelvis. And the two provers in whom this symptom was most marked describe the dragging as coming even from the thorax, the mammary region, and the shoulders. So marked is the sensation of downward and outward pressure that the provers place the hand on the hypogastrium or the vulva as though to prevent protrusion. In three provers, physical inspection revealed the existence of anteversion uteri, a trouble which none of them had ever before experienced.
In this train of symptoms belong also the tenesmus of bladder and rectum, and the diarrhoea and frequent micturition.
There is agreement of the provers respecting pains, burning or cutting, and tenderness in the region of the ovaries, especially of the right ovary.
The symptoms generally are worse in the afternoon and before midnight, except the diarrhoea, which seems to be a morning diarrhoea.
If now, with the light which these provings afford us, we seek to place Lilium tigrinum in its appropriate niche in our Materia Medica, and to estimate its value by comparison with other drugs, we observe, first: The uniform occurrence, in so many provers, of pelvic symptoms, as well as the demonstration, by physical examination, of the uterine displacement, establish its a priori claim to rank among the remedies for prolapsus and displacement of the uterus, for catarrh of vagina and uterus, and for inflammation of the ovary. And if we run a parallel with the symptoms of other remedies, we find marked peculiarities which characterize Lilium. In the morning diarrhoea, coming suddenly and with tenesmus, it resembles Podophyllum, and Podophyllum has, likewise, a general bearing down in the pelvis confined, however, to the lumbo-sacral region, while the mental and moral symptoms produced by Podophyllum bear no resemblance to those Lilium. Moreover, in so far as my own observation goes, Podophyllum both produces and removes these pelvic symptoms only when they occur in connection with certain symptoms of the digestive tract, such as Lilium has no relation with.
Dr. Dunham graduated from Columbia University with Honours in 1847. In 1850 he received M.D. degree at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York. While in Dublin, he received a dissecting wound that nearly killed him, but with the aid of homoeopathy he cured himself with Lachesis. He visited various homoeopathic hospitals in Europe and then went to Munster where he stayed with Dr. Boenninghausen and studied the methods of that great master. His works include 'Lectures on Materia Medica' and 'Homoeopathy - Science of Therapeutics'.