Sepia produces, certainly, a bearing down sensation upon the lumbar region, together with dragging and even sharp pains from the region of the ovaries extending downward to the pudenda, but besides that, Sepia presents us no symptoms of diarrhoea and irritation of rectum and anus, and no such leucorrhoea as Lilium; the conditions are very different. The Lilium pains are aggravated in the afternoon, and before midnight. They grow worse during repose and when one’s mind is passive; worse, therefore, on lying down and trying to compose one’s self to sleep. Whereas, on the other hand, the Sepia pains are worse from 9 A.M. to noon, and are relieved by repose; being aggravated by motion and occupation. The state of mind produced by the two drugs is very different. Almost the same difference exist between Lilium and Pulsatilla.
Belladonna resembles Lilium in the bearing down sensation, both in the back and in the pubic region, and in the fact that there is not immediate relief from repose. But, on the other hand, Lilium gives no evidence of that general affection of the organism, especially of the circulation, which accompanies every well pronounced group of Belladonna symptoms. On the contrary, under Lilium, when the patient suffered most, nutrition and appetite were not impaired. They were even improved.
It is probable that further provings of Helonias diocia will show a strong analogy between it and Lilium as regards their action on the female organism. We know enough already to recognized a difference in the mental symptoms. Lilium dulls the intellect, produces a sensation of hurry with inability, and a distress based on a clearly defined apprehension of having some fatal or serious malady. Helonias produces profound melancholy, deep, undefined depression, with sensation of soreness and weight in the womb, a “consciousness of a womb.”
Platina seems to me to present the strongest features of resemblance to Lilium, both in the pelvic symptoms and in at least one phase of mental symptoms, and the result of my trials with prover No. 1 shows its power to antidote Lilium. But Platina does not present any of the symptoms of the intestinal tract which are so prominent under Lilium nor are its effects on the function of menstruation similar.
It will be observed that I have said nothing of the action of Lilium upon the heart. This is because my provers were not very markedly affected in that way (except one of them), but chiefly because my purpose was to show the action of the drug on the organs and function peculiar to women, and to demonstrate how valuable additions may in a short time be made to Materia Medica in its weakest part by the labors of professionally educated women heartily engaged in this work, which none but such as they can perform.
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'.