Aconite conditions are dry as a usual thing, or there is only a little watery discharge.
Spongia is entirely dry; if there is an inflamed mucous membrane, it is dry. We have in the croup symptoms in Aconite: Larynx sensitive to touch.
“Croup, waking in first sleep, after exposure to dry, cold winds.”
Lungs and respiration: Aconite is full of disturbances of respiration, dyspnoea from contraction of the smaller bronchial tubes, which we find resembles asthma.
It is indicated in that dyspnoea that belongs to capillary bronchitis, in that dyspnoea that belongs to cardiac excitement in plethoric persons, from taking cold, becoming exposed or from shock.
Dyspnoea from fear, such as occurs in nervous women, excitable, easily affected, nervous, plethoric women. Breathing short, labored, anxious, quick,
It is an asthmatic dyspnoea and there is usually dryness of the mucous membranes of the small bronchial tubes.
“Sits up straight and can hardly breathe.”
Aconite has such a sudden violent cardiac irritation, pulse fluttering, weak, full and bounding; sits up in bed, grasps the throat, wants everything thrown off; before midnight, a hot skin, great thirst, great fear-everything is associated together.
“Anguish with dyspnoea.
Sudden attacks of pain in the heart, with dyspnoea.” All go together.
“Great suffocation.”
From this fear and from anxiety he breaks out in profuse sweat; he is drenched with sweat – and yet he is hot.
When this anxiety passes off he becomes hot. So there is heat and sweat with this awful anxiety. Pulse like a thread.
“Better during expiration.”
The spasm of the larynx often comes on during inspiration.
“Worse during inspiration.
Constant short, dry cough.
Difficult breathing.
Breathes only with the diaphragm.
Chest troubles, such as pneumonia.”
Aconite produces a very rapid inflammation of the viscera of the chest, of the pleura, of the lungs, of the mucous membrane lining the air passages. In pneumonia we have this dyspnoea, the suddenness with which it comes on. If it spreads rapidly it may go into pneumonia.
Inflammation runs so high that the mucous membrane oozes blood, cherry red, or the mucus that comes up is white and heavily streaked with bright red blood.
You go to the bedside of broncho-pneumonia and you will find in the pan mucus streaked with bright red blood. Now, take the violence with which that comes on, the restlessness and anxiety of the individual – he predicts the hour of his death – that would be the case with the Aconite patient.
In the case of pneumonia where the lung is involved, it is likely to be the upper half of the left lung when Aconite is indicated.
Sometimes the whole mucous membrane, the visible throat, the larynx, trachea, the bronchial tubes, will all ooze blood, sometimes a mouthful of blood, so violent is the inflammation.
In these chest troubles there is much pain. Shooting, burning, tearing pains, and the patient is compelled to lie in a somewhat elevated position, on the back.
Cannot lie upon either side, but upon the back. Lying on the side increases the pain. The dry cold winds. Sudden shocks, in persons of good, strong, vigorous circulation. The Haemoptysis that is spoken of is not such as occurs in phthisis, but is involuntary; the blood comes up with a slight cough.
Some one might be deceived to give it in such cases in broken down constitutions in sickly patients; but it is not to be administered in such cases, we have much better remedies.
The patient does not always become a pneumonia patient, but inflammation of the small air passages may be all that is present.
“Dry cough, vomiting and retching, intense fever, spitting of blood.”
No expectoration except a little watery mucus and blood. It occurs a good deal in this way.
Dry cough, sensation of dryness of the whole chest, sensation of dryness in the larynx and throat. Pours down great quantities of cold water, and once in a while after a violent coughing spell he gets up a little blood. But the expectoration is generally mucus.
Pneumonia is generally attended with an expectoration looking like iron rust, as if iron rust had been mixed in with it. Such medicines as Bryonia and Rhus tox, and a few others have that expectoration as a common feature, as natural to the remedies themselves, but Aconite is the cherry – red, bright red expectoration. Its hemorrhages are bright red, and sometimes copious.
All these coughs in pneumonia, in croup, and chest troubles come on suddenly, and if he goes to sleep he will have spasm of the larynx, with dryness of the larynx. He goes to sleep and the larynx becomes dry and he wakes up and grasps his larynx; he thinks he is going to choke.
All these come on from cold winds. Vigorous persons get into a draft and get a chill that will bring on Aconite symptoms.
Aconite has in all inflamed parts a sensation as if hot steam were rushing into the parts, as if warm blood were rushing into the parts, or “flushes of heat in the parts.” Along nerves, a sensation of heat, or sensation of cold.
The pulse in the highest form of the fever is full and bounding; strong, vigorous pulse. When the attack is first coming on and the awful anxiety and nerve tension are present the pulse is very small, but after the heart’s action is well established, then the pulse becomes stronger.
“Tearing pains down the spine.
Painful, stiff neck.
Crawling in the spine like insects”.
That is a peculiar feature, this crawling sensation; it comes from cold, from being suddenly chilled.
Extremities: “Trembling of the hands” associated with these sudden acute attacks.
“Creeping pains in the fingers” associated with these sudden acute inflammatory attacks.
“Cold as ice. Feet cold as ice.
Hot palms.”
Hot hands and cold feet are sometimes present. Rheumatic conditions of the joints. Those that come on as a first attack. Not old rheumatic and gouty attacks, but those that come on as acute rheumatism, those that come on from sudden exposure to cold, from long rides in a dry, cold wind.
They also are attended with fever, with anxious restlessness, with a critical state of mind so often described.
“Trembling, tingling, convulsions of the muscles.”
But the nerves are full of Aconite symptoms and Aconite sufferings. Aconite is a wonderful remedy for neuritis in plethoric persons.
Numbness along the course of the nerves, from cold, from exposure. Numbness and tingling, along the course of the nerves, especially those that run close to the surface.
“Inflammation of the nerve sheaths.
Nervous excitability.
Excessive restlessness.”
Relations: Sulphur has a strong relation to Aconite. It has many Aconite symptoms. In many of the old chronic cases where Sulphur would be used in strong, vigorous constitutions Aconite will be suitable for a sudden attack, and Sulphur for the chronic.
In sudden attacks that Aconite conforms to, that is the whole attack, there may be left in that constitution a tendency to return of a similar attack.
Aconite has no power over that tendency, but Sulphur has. Of course, most of the symptoms must agree but it will seem to you frequently where Aconite has been suitable in the acute disease that Sulphur symptoms will follow, and many times a very violent attack leaves a weakness in the constitution which Aconite has no power to contend with. It has no power to keep off recurrent attacks. It does all that it is capable of doing, and that is the end of it. But it is not so with Sulphur.
After Aconite follow well Arnica and Belladonna. Sometimes it is true it will appear to you that Aconite is capable of coping with all there is in the disease.
But there seems to be a lingering something that holds on, and such medicines as Arnica and Belladonna, and Ip. and Bryonia, do have to come in to finish up the attack or sometimes Sulphur. Very commonly Silica. So we have to study the relations of medicines.
If you have administered Aconite in too many doses, or given it too strong, and your patient is slow in recovering from the attack, or your patient has taken Aconite himself unwisely, then Coffea or Nux will often put the patient into a better condition.
In 1881, Kent accepted a position as professor of anatomy at the Homeopathic College of Missouri, an institution with which he remained affiliated until 1888. In 1890, Kent moved to Pennsylvania to take a position as Dean of Professors at the Post-Graduate Homeopathic Medical School of Philadelphia. In 1897 Kent published his magnum opus, Repertory of the Homœopathic Materia Medica. Kent moved to Chicago in 1903, where he taught at Hahnemann Medical College.
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