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.
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.
Comments are closed.