The Arnica montana patient bleeds easily; his blood vessels seem to be relaxed, and extravasation is easy. Blue spots come easily upon the skin, and internally the mucous membranes bleed easily.
The parts that are inflamed bleed. He is subject to catarrhal conditions, and if he has a cough he bleeds easily. The mucus that is hawked out of the chest and throat is streaked with blood, or dotted with tiny pin-head blood clots. His urine contains blood and there is bleeding from the various orifices of the body. There is not sufficient tone in the fibres of the vessel to hold the blood within the vessel walls and they ooze.
All over the body there is a lameness, and soreness, and a feeling as if bruised; a rheumatic lameness; the joints are swollen, sore and lame. If an acute disease becomes more severe, we shall find the mental symptoms as described, and there will be an increasing soreness in the muscles. Arnica is very suitable for that sore, bruised condition of the body, therefore Arnica montana is a very important remedy in injuries, bruises and shocks, injuries of joints, injury of the back with lameness and soreness.
In such conditions Arnica montana becomes one of the first remedies, and unless there are general decided symptoms calling for other remedies it should be the first remedy. Arnica will very often take all the soreness out of a sprained ankle and permit him in a few days to go walking about, to the surprise of everybody.
The black and blue appearance of sprained joints will go away in a surprisingly short time, the soreness will disappear, and he will be able to manipulate that joint with surprising ease. I have seen a sprained ankle when it was black and blue, so swollen that the shoe could not be put on, but after a dose of Arnica, the swelling disappeared in an astonishing way, the discoloration faded out and the patient was able to stand on the foot.
No such result can be obtained with the use of Arnica montana lotion externally. A high potency of Arnica is most satisfactory in bruises, and when no decided contra-indication is present Arnica montana is the first remedy; but for the weakness of tendons that follows such a condition Arnica is not always sufficient, and the Rhus tox. is its natural follower.
If the weakness and tenderness remain in the joints, follow the Rhus with Calcarea. One will not, of course, give these remedies all on the same day, and not in the same glass, but will wait until all the good has been gotten out of the Arnica montana before following with Rhus.
It is quite a common thing for aching and restlessness and weakness to come into a part that has been injured, and Rhus is then a suitable remedy; and it is quite common for a joint that has been badly treated to remain sore and weak, and then Calcarea comes in as a natural follower of the Rhus tox. and then we have to resort to Causticum,
Staphysagria, and other remedies, because of some peculiar feature in the case, but these remedies are all related more or less to Arnica montana, Rhus and Calcarea. For another class of injuries compare Ledum and Hypericum.
Arnica is useful in some chronic cases; especially in old cases of gout. It is quite a common thing for old cases of gout to rouse up into a new soreness of joints, with great sensitiveness.
You will see the old grandfather sit off in a corner of the room, and if he sees little Johnnie running towards him, he will say:
“Oh, do keep away, keep away.”
Give him a dose of Arnica and he will let Johnnie run all over him. He does not want to be touched or approached; he feels that anything that is coming towards him is going to hurt him. He is extremely sensitive, his joints are sore and tender, and he is afraid they will be hurt.
This medicine has erysipelatous inflammation. If you have an erysipelas of the face with the mental state described, with soreness, and sort bruised feeling all-over the body, you need not wait longer before prescribing Arnica.
The sore, bruised feeling all over the body, and the mental state, would decide in favor of Arnica against any medicine.
In inflammation of the kidneys and bladder, of the liver, and even in pneumonia, the mental state and the sore, bruised feeling all over the body would enable you to do astonishing work in such cases, even though Arnica has never produced pneumonia.
It has all there is of the rusty expectoration, with all the soreness of the chest and catarrhal state, the coughing and gagging, and sore, bruised feeling all over the body, and then add to this the condition of stupor and the mental state that belongs to the inflammatory condition of any organ and is especially strong in this medicine. We do not have to worry about any particular fineness of diagnosis to settle upon Arnica montana.
Arnica has aversion to meat, broth and milk. There is great thirst at particular times, for instance, during the chill of intermittent fever he has thirst, while at other times he is thirstless.
“Vomiting of dark-red coagula, mouth bitter; general soreness.” Vomiting of black, inky substances.
Arnica montana is a useful remedy in inflammatory conditions of the abdomen, liver, intestines, with tumefaction tympanites, prostration, tendency to uneasiness, and so sore that he cannot be touched. This state also comes with typhoid.
Do not forget the symptoms of Arnica in appendicitis. You do not need to run for the surgeon for every case of appendicitis if you know Bryonia, Rhus tox., Belladonna, Arnica and similar remedies. The homoeopathic remedy will cure these cases, and, if you know it, you need never run after the surgeon in appendicitis except in recurrent attacks.
If you do not know your remedies, you will succumb to the prevailing notion that it is necessary to open the abdomen and remove the appendix. It is only deplorable ignorance that causes appendicitis to be surrendered to the knife.
Offensiveness is a feature of Arnica; there is offensiveness of the eructations, and the flatus. The stool is horribly offensive.
“Nightly diarrhea.”
“Stool involuntary during sleep.”
“Stools of undigested food, purulent; bloody slimy, mucus: Dark blood, very foetid stool.
Here we see the tendency to oozing from the mucous membranes. Black watery stools with black vomit.
“Retention of urine from exertion,”
from overwork, from injury, from concussion of the brain, from some violent accident. The urine is brown, or inky, dark.
“Piercing pains as from knives plunged into the kidneys.”
“Urine very acid, with increase of specific gravity.”
Pregnancy: Another feature of Arnica occurs in pregnant women. The extreme sensitiveness, soreness or tenderness throughout the whole body is especially felt in the abdominal viscera, in the uterus and pelvic region.
Sensitiveness to the motion of the foetus sore and bruised; the motions of the foetus are very painful and keep her awake all night. Arnica will remove that soreness and she will not distinguish the motion of the foetus It is not an increased motion of the foetus, but that she is sensitive to it.
“Constant dribbling of urine after labor.”
A general feature also of the remedy is that the body is cold and the head hot; the whole body and the extremities are cold, but the head feels hot.
This is a marked condition in sudden congestive attacks, in congestive chill and congestive intermittent fevers. This, sometimes, is the very beginning of a severe attack when there has been almost no warning except a night or two of bad dreams and distress, fearfulness and stupefaction, with soreness in the body. If he comes out, of this, an increased soreness in the body comes on, which grows worse and worse until he is sore and bruised all over.
Children: Children going into severe attacks of infantile fever may threaten convulsions, the head is hot and the body cold. Most physicians will think of Belladonna, which has such cold extremities and such a hot head. Do not forget Arnica montana, especially in those children who seem to have an aversion to being touched, and scream out every time the mother takes bold of the leg or arm.
Look into the history a little and you will see that this is a soreness, and if you strip the child you may observe dusky spots, which give an added indication of Arnica.
This is a whooping-cough remedy; you can easily conjure up what the indications are for whooping-cough; aggravation from touch, sore, bruised condition, spasmodic cough with expectoration of blood, or dark blood-streaked mucus, or little tiny pin-head dots all through the mucus. Vomiting of food with black mucus. The mental state of the child can easily be imagined.
The child is cross and fretful.
“Cough excited by cries in children when accompanied by anger and tossing about.”
“Paroxysms of cough at night.”
“Whooping cough; child cries before paroxysms as though in fear of soreness.”
You can easily apply that which we have seen in the remedy to the various diseases that come on. Stitching pains in whooping cough, pleuritic pains with catarrh of the chest, with pneumonia or pleurisy, inflammatory conditions.
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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