Mind: The Arnica montana patient is morose, wants to be let alone, does not want to be talked to, does not want to be approached. He does not want to be approached, both because he does not wish to enter into conversation, a mental state, and also because he does not wish to be touched on account of the great bodily soreness.
These are the two most striking things in this medicine. Irritable, morose, sad, fearful, easily frightened, imagines all sorts of things, especially that he has heart disease, or that he will mortify, or that some deep-seated trouble is upon him. Full of nightmare, dreadful dreams, dreams of muddy water, robbers, etc.
Horrors in the night. He frequently rouses up in the night, grasps at the heart, has the appearance of great horror, fears some dreadful thing will happen. A sudden fear of death comes on at this time, rousing him up in the night; he grasps at the heart, and thinks he is going to die suddenly. He is full of dreadful anguish, but finally he comes to himself, lies down and goes off into a sleep of terror, jumps up again with the fear of sudden death and says:
“Send for a doctor at once.”
This is repeated night after night in persons Who are fairly well in the daytime, who have no sympathy because there seems to be no reality in their sickness, only a mental state. It is also seen in persons who have gone through a railroad accident, or through some shock, who are sore and bruised from injury.
They rouse up in the night with a fear of sudden death, with an expression of terror; the horrors they really went through are repeated. This is similar to Opium, only the Opium fear remains, even in the day time. Arnica montana dreams of it.
When sick in bed afflicted with a zymotic disease, with violent fever, or with fever after an accident or injury, he becomes greatly prostrated, stupid and unconscious. He can be aroused and will answer a question correctly, but goes into a stupor, or be hesitates about a word and is unable to find correct words when trying to answer and goes back into the coma.
When roused up, he looks at the doctor and says:
“I do not want you; I did not send for you; I am not sick; I don’t need a doctor.”
He will say this even when he is seriously ill. I have seen an Arnica montana patient lie back upon his pillow after emptying the stomach of a black fluid like blood, seriously ill, with the face mottled, in zymotic sickness or such as threaten malignant chill, that one would think he was almost going to die, look up and say:
“I am not sick; I did not send for you; go home.”
Yet when in a state of health he was friendly, kind-hearted, knew me well, glad to shake hands with me; but now he is irritated at seeing me there and insists there is nothing the matter with him. Such is the “shock” state, almost a delirium. After finishing such a sentence he will lie down in a stupor, will lie in bed drawn up in a heap and merely groan when spoken to.
He wants to be left alone, does not want to be bothered, does not want to be talked to. That state ushers in complaints after a shock that has shaken the whole system, that has disturbed the circulation.
When a symptomatic typhoid is coming on, i.e., when an intermittent or remittent is taking on symptoms that are typhoid in character, when the tongue becomes shiny, and sordes appear about the teeth and lips, when there is sinking, and soreness all over the body, there are times when this mental state that I am describing will appear and the patient must have Arnica montana.
Arnica montana will interrupt the progress and prevent a typhoid state. Arnica is sometimes suitable to the scarlet fever, when the eruption does not come out, in those severe forms when the body is dusky, mottled and covered with red spots; the patient is constantly turning and that mental state is coming on with moroseness, and stupidity. It is a wonderful remedy, a misunderstood remedy, a misused remedy, because it is almost limited to bruises.
It is one, of sheet anchors in certain seasons, in the malarial valleys of the West, for intermittent fever In congestive chills, in those dreadful attacks with prostration, stupor, mottled skin, with congestion that comes on suddenly, with anxiety.
The doctors know these fevers, they dread them, and can only cope with them by using such remedies as Arnica and Lachesis and other deep-acting medicines. It is not true that these patients must have Quinine.
For many years I practiced among these cases, and I have seen numerous congestive chills and had no need for Quinine. I would rather have my repertory and a few potencies than all the Quinine in the drug -stores.
The sugar pills cure safely, permanently and gently, while the Quinine never cures, but suppresses, and there is nothing in the after history of that patient drugged with Quinine and Arsenic but congestion and violence so long as he lives.
“Horror of instant death, with cardiac distress in night.”
From that it spreads on throughout the system, but hat horror of instant death is a striking feature and it comes on regardless of heart disease.
A horror in the night when there is nothing to come upon the patient; a horrible congestion, which affects especially the cerebellum and upper part of the spinal cord.
“Stupor with involuntary discharges.”
“Coma, insensibility.”
“Lies as if dead.”
There symptoms come in the low forms of disease, in the typhoid type of disease. Many of the remittent fevers, if badly treated, or permitted to run their course under bad nursing, will turn into a continued fever.
While the true idiopathic typhoid comes on after many weeks of gradual decline, a symptomatic typhoid may come on suddenly, and it has symptoms of graver form than ordinary typhoid. The idiopathic typhoid will seldom kill and will generally run to a favourable termination, if the doctor stays at home.
This remedy is full of delirium in these low types of fever, even delirium like delirium tremens.
“Hopelessness; indifference.”
“Hypochondriacal anxiety, peevishness.”
“Fears being struck by those coming towards him.”
That is both bodily and mental.
Physical state: Now, with this mental state thoroughly in mind, we are prepared to take up the general physical state, which has in all complaints, all over the body a feeling as if bruised. It is not strange that Arnica montana is used for bruises, but it is very foolish to put it on the outside and to rub it on in the form of the tincture.
It produces in its pathogenesis mottled spots, like bruises. If you take Arnica montana internally, in large doses, you will have mottled spots, bluish spots, which become yellowish, due to ecchymoses, from extravasations of the smaller capillaries.
This is, to a certain extent, what takes place in bruising. It is an extravasation of blood from the capillaries, and sometimes from the larger vessels.
But all over the body he is sore and bruised, as if he had been beaten. If you watch an Arnica montana patient in order to get the external manifestations of his state, you will see him turning and moving.
You will at once ask yourself, Why is he restless? and if you compare remedies in your mind, you will say, He is like Rhus tox.; he stays in a place a little while and then he moves.
No matter if he is only semi-conscious; you will see him make a little turn, part way over, and then a little further over, and so on until he is over on the other side.
Then he commences again, and he will shift a little and a little, and so he turns from side to side. The question is, why does he move so, why is he restless?
It is an important matter to solve. We notice the awful anxiety of the Arsenicum patient that keeps him moving all the time.
We notice the painful uneasiness felt all over the body with the Rhus patient so that he cannot keep still.
The Arnica patient is so sore that he can lie on one part only a little while, and then he must get off that part or to the other side. So if we ask him,
“Why do you move so?”
he will tell us that the bed feels hard. That is one way of telling that the body is sore.
A more intelligent individual will say it is because he is so sore and feels as if bruised and beaten, and he wants to get into a new place.
Soreness: This state of soreness is present if it be a symptomatic typhoid, an intermittent fever, a remittent fever, or after an injury when he is really bruised all over. You get the same continual uneasiness and motion, moving every minute. He moves and thinks that now he will be comfortable, but he is comfortable only for a second.
The soreness increases the longer he lies, and becomes so great that he is forced to move. With Rhus tox. the longer he lies the more restless he grows and the more he aches, until he feels as if he will fly if he does not move.
With Rhus tox. the uneasiness passes off after moving, and with Arnica the soreness passes off if he gets into a new place. With Arsenicum you see him moving about and look wild, and he is anxious, and this anxiety forces him to move, and he gets no rest, for he keeps going. The Rhus tox. and Arnica patients get better from every little motion.
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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