In the ductus communis choledochus there is a clutching – or it may be in the cystic duct that the circular fibers, clutch that little bit of stone and will not let it through.
The passage is large enough to admit it and it has started to go through – but the irritation of the part causes a spasm and it clutches, that little stone; you put a dose of Belladonna on his tongue, the spasm lets up, stone passes on, and there is no more trouble; in fifteen minutes the gallstone colic is gone.
There is never a failure in homoeopathic prescribing in gallstone- colic. The symptoms are not always Belladonna, but in this instance, where that horrible sensitiveness is present, it is Belladonna
“Convulsions in infants.”
They are violent and are usually associated with cerebral congestion. The skin is always in a state of fever. They are brought on from light, from a draft of cold air, from the infant becoming cold.
Nervous, brainy children, those with a good sized head, and plump, large-headed boys; boys especially, but also girls that have boys’ heads, when exposed to the cold have convulsions. Light, motion and cold will bring on these convulsion.
The Belladonna subject as an individual, like Bryonia, is worse in all his complaints from motion.
Motion brings on convulsions, motion brings on pain; motion increases the action of the heart and brings on throbbing; motion brings on many complaints and increases the sufferings.
Now think of these generals whenever you come to Belladonna This idea of Belladonna must prevail. No matter how many little symptoms you accumulate, get at these first.
Mind: The mental symptoms of Belladonna are delightful to study, but dreadful to look upon. The mental symptoms are such as come on in intense fevers, such as are observed in maniacal excitement, in delirium.
Excitement runs all through. Violence runs all through the mental symptoms. The mental symptoms are all active, never passive. There is no passive delirium in Belladonna It is a wild state.
He is wild; striking, biting, tearing things; doing unusual things; doing strange things; doing unexpected things. He is in a state of excitability. These mental symptoms that come on during fevers, the delirium and excitement, are very commonly ameliorated by eating a little light food.
That is not generally known in Belladonna, but it is quite a strong feature. But remember the violence, and with it, if you go to the bedside where there is this violent delirium, keep in mind the heat, redness and burning.
Full of imaginations. Sees ghosts, and spirits, and officers, and wild things. In the early part of the fever the delirium is very violent and excitable; but as it passes on he goes into a sleep, a sort of half-slumber a semi-comatose state.
Apparently in a dream, and he screams out. Dreams horrible things. Sees in his dreams the things that he talks about. When he has real sleep, or resting, as near as it is for him to rest, he has violent dreams; night-mare.
Sees things on fire. He is in a delirium, and in torment. He becomes stupid at times, appears to lose consciousness. Loses the memory of all things and then becomes wild. His delirium goes ort when he appears to be sleeping.
These symptoms often occur with cerebral congestion, the violent cerebral congestion of the infant. If they are old enough to talk they will talk about the hammering in the head.
In Belladonna the infant also commonly remains in a profound stupor, the profound stupor that goes with congestion of the brain pupils dilated; skin hot and dry; face red, throbbing carotids.
Finally the child becomes pale as the stupor increases and the neck is drawn back, because as it progresses the base of the brain and spine become involved, and the muscles of the neck contract; drawing the head -backwards; and he rolls the head; eyes staring, pupils dilated.
This mental state is associated with scarlet fever and with cerebro-spinal meningitis.
Again, these mental states take the form of acute mania, when the patient will bite the spoon; will bark like a dog; will do all sorts of violent things; even jump out of the window. He has to be restrained, put in a strait-jacket.
The face is red, and the skin is hot, and the patient at times says that he burns all over, or that the head burns, and the head is very hot.
During all this time the feet are cold. Head hot, feet cold, or feet and hands cold as ice. It seems all the blood is being hurried to the head. All sorts of delusions and hallucinations are mingled with the acute mania; ghosts; horrid monsters; strange things, and deformed subjects.
Fear of imaginary things, and wants to run away. In the delirium of Belladonna he wants to jump out of the window, wants to run, wants to get away from his attendants. He thinks they are doing him injury.
Throughout the acute mania, and throughout the delirious state, all the manifestations partake of violence. Destructiveness.
The Belladonna patient in the most acute state must be watched, controlled, handled, and sometimes tied. In the text it describes these states as “rage, fury.”
He wants to do violence.
“Moaning. Instead of eating, bit wooden spoon in two, gnawed plate, and growled and barked like a dog. A boy violently sick ran around the room laughing immoderately.”
It has an insane laughter. A loud, boisterous laughter.
“A piece of bread, which he took to be a stone, he threw far from him. He turns and rolls in bed in a perfect rage. Aversion to noise and company.”
Aversion to light; is better in the dark. At times a more passive state intervenes between these attacks of violence.
The active time is always that of violence; but there is sometimes a more passive state when the patient will sit or lie in bed and tear the bed clothing, or break anything that she can get her hands on. If it is a stick, she will break it up.
Running all through the complaints, whether delirium, fever, or pains, there is starting.
Starting in sleep like an electric shock. just as soon as he falls asleep a sensation like an electric shock throughout the body.
“Starts in fright at approach of others. Fear of imaginary things, wants to run away from them.”
“Great anxiety”
runs through the remedy. As a patient comes out of these attacks of delirium, as he comes out of convulsions, fear is depicted upon the face.
The patient is in great excitement; the circulation is in a state of great excitement; the heart is in great excitement; motion and emotion increase the beating of the heart.
It may have been gleaned that Belladonna is a remedy that is over sensitive; a state of hyperesthesia extreme irritability of tissues. This is said to be an increased irritability of the nerve centres.
This develops a state of increased ability to taste, and to smell and to feel; excibility of the sensorium.
Sensorium: Sensitive to impressions. Sensitive to light, to noise, to touch, to jar. The sensorium is violently excited.
Excessive nervous irritability stands out, perhaps, as one of the most prominent features of Belladonna in contrast with medicines like Opium that deprive the patient of all sensitivity.
The more congestion there is in Belladonna the more excitability. The more congestion there is in Opium the less excitability.
And yet they are very similar in many respects; very similar in aspect; in the appearance of the eyes and face; similar in pathological states. If I were to prescribe on the pathological state, the congestion of the brain, the appearance, without taking in the intensity of the one or other, I would not be able to distinguish between Opium and Belladonna
They often antidote each other. But we do not prescribe on pathology, but upon symptoms, after careful individualization.
“Vertigo,” with this intense excitability. Turning in bed, or moving the head makes him dizzy.
“Things go round.”
“Vertigo with pulsations.”
Moving the head increases the pulsation, and the vertigo. The patient lies in bed; cannot hold the head up.
This increase sensitiveness especially applies to the scalp. We notice it particularly in the woman. She cannot have the hair bound up. It is often the case that Belladonna patients will not have the hair combed or brushed.
“Lets the hair hang down the back;” so sensitive is the scalp.
“Hair feels as if pulled. Does not want the hair touched.”
There are some remedies that correspond to extreme irritation in very sensitive natures; like Hepar, where she faints with the pain; like Nitric acid, when cannot bear the noise of vehicles going along the street, because it creates such violent sufferings; like Coffea, where footsteps aggravate all the complaints; he was so sensitive to pain that the noise of one entering the door when he was on the third floor aggravated his sufferings intensely, though no one else could hear it.
In Nux vomica, even the sound of footsteps increases the pain all over the body. Belladonna has in its nature all this sensitiveness to pain. It is a part of the general sensorium; the who bodily state is intensified.
The Chamomilla patient is oversensitive to pain, but we do not need to sympathize with the Chamomilla patient, he will fight it out himself. But you will pity the Belladonna patient, you will pity the Pulsatilla patient, and the Nitric acid patient.
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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