That is the way it is in its dysmenorrhoea. Violent contraction of the circular fibers, and hence, a woman will often describe it as feeling as if the uterus was clutched with a string. As if it were tightened. Belladonna is rich in spasmodic conditions, in haemorrhagic conditions, in states of irritation, and in soreness, and the parts are sensitive to pain, and the woman herself is dreadfully wrought up and shocked by pain.
In addition to that, pains in the ovary. Belladonna acts in many instances on the right side. It is common for the right ovary to be more painful than the left, or the right to be entirely affected and the left not at all, in Belladonna. So it is with the right side of the throat. So it is sometimes in the right side of the body.
“Pains in the ovaries with the appearance of the menses. Pains in the pelvic region, which come on suddenly, and cease as suddenly.”
The characteristic Belladonna pains come on suddenly, sometimes stay a few seconds, sometimes a few minutes, and leave suddenly. Pains from uterine congestion. Acute inflammation of the uterus.
“Enlargement of the uterus, and periodically spasmodic bearing down,”
It has a relaxation in the parts as well. The uterus has been congested and is enlarged, and heavy, and the little suspensory attachments have become relaxed, and tired, and weak, and have stretched and elongated, and the already distended and over weighted uterus keeps pulling on them, and this creates the sensation that women so often describe, a bearing down sensation as if the uterus would escape.
It is sometimes described as a funneling sensation. These are the expressions of women when they suffer from prolapsus. That relaxation is common in a great number that have been poisoned with Ergot.
The uterus comes down and is partly exposed between the labiae. Prolapsus as if the whole inner parts were coming out is a common feature, and with this she is worse from a jar.
There is a great sensitiveness in the parts. There is a great soreness in the uterus, and a sensation of heaviness. I have seen women sit with their limbs wide apart so sensitive is the neck of the uterus that is protruding from the vulva.
“Must sit; cannot lie down.”
Many of the Belladonna cases cannot lie down, because of the stretching of the abdominal muscles. When they lie down they must draw up the limbs to relax those muscles.
Must sit, or take a flexed posture. Great sensitiveness in the parts. Pressing and urging towards the genitals.
There are all sorts of positions, and aggravations, and ameliorations in Belladonna, in accordance with what particular muscles are involved.
Some patients can lie better than they can sit. Almost all are worse standing. Some are made better by sitting with the limbs, wide apart. Most are aggravated by bending forward too much. Sitting in a chair she cannot bend forward too much, neither can she bend backwards without increasing the suffering.
So sensitive, and so much swelling in these parts. She is worse from motion, worse from jar, worse from excitement, worse from the slamming of the door, because that makes the muscles twitch.
All this illustrates how sensitive the irritated parts are. Then in the external and internal genitals and ovaries there is burning, and twitching, and much heat. Often tearing pains; the tearing pains are generally an exaggeration of those clutchings and constrictions, and such are known as spasms especially of the circular fibres.
Belladonna is well suited to pregnant women who are extremely sensitive, who are plethoric, who have congestion from taking cold, who have soreness, where there is threatened abortion, or during or after abortion when there are hemorrhages.
Then again Belladonna is useful in red-faced plethoric, vigorous women who have married late in life and become pregnant, and when the day of delivery comes the muscular fibres are in a state of tension.
The uterus will not relax. She is flushed and has heat, and is in a state of excitement, sensitive to touch, sensitive to jar.
Relaxation will soon follow. It is not to be expected that she will have an easy labor, because women who marry at 28 or 30, or later, suffer from prolonged labor.
There is one strong feature of the hemorrhages and, of the discharges; the flow of blood feels hot. During confinement gushes of blood that feel hot. After abortion, gushes of blood that feel hot.
A lochial discharge that feels hot, along with the sensitiveness and soreness of the parts. Tenderness to pressure.
There are inflammatory conditions of the breasts accompanying confinement. Milk fever. When the breasts become red, extremely sensitive to touch.
She cannot turn over in bed; she cannot have the bed jarred, the face is flushed and the carotids are throbbing; there is fever; the sensitivity is aroused throughout the economy.
Great induration; hard as a stone. Belladonna will stop the pain in the breast in a few hours. It will stop that congestion, and, will relieve all suffering.
When the mammary glands are inflamed without any general symptoms but merely an inflammation of the glands give Phytolacca.
Larynx: Inflammation of the larynx. There is that clutching again and choking. It begins with a- rawness in the throat a smarting, and scraping, and the formation of a little mucus. After much scraping and hawking, it extends up the throat a little but before, he begins to cough it is quite dry.
There is smarting, and loss of voice. As soon as he attempts to go into a sleep, that clutch comes on and wakes him up. Hoarseness and rawness and clutching in the throat.
Laryngitis with sensitiveness.
“Sudden attacks of hoarseness;”
every motion, or the slightest attempt to talk, the slightest effort to move the larynx or to touch it causes suffering.
Moving the head backward, or moving the head from side to side, causes pain and cough. Swallowing aggravates. As the bolus goes down behind the larynx he feels a great big sore place, it is the larynx. The voice changes.
One minute it is one key, and in another it changes. Sometimes it is hoarse and sometimes it is squeaky. And then, there is complete loss of voice, unable to utter a sound.
“Croup-like spasms in the larynx. Spasms of the glottis. All the symptoms of croup,” but no membrane.
It is simply a dry, denuded larynx, with rawness and scraping; an inflamed condition. And this is the form of the acute laryngitis; it comes ort very suddenly. His respiration is short, rapid and painful. Often asthmatic.
Chest: Asthmatic condition, with spasmodic breathing. And again, these symptoms seem to involve the whole chest. Oppression of the chest. Asthma in hot damp weather.
The Belladonna cough comes on from clutching in the larynx. As it a little speck of something had crept into the larynx; a little dust, or a little food, or a drop of water had gotten into the larynx, and he coughs.
“Dry, spasmodic cough.”
An intense cough. Cough at night. Cough when lying down, more at night than in the daytime. The cough is spasmodic, barking, short. It is a remedy for whooping cough, with spasms of the larynx which cause the whoop and difficulty of breathing.
Finally after long coughing, the expectoration of a little blood, or a little thin white mucus, is the result of the violent turmoil going on in the air passages from coughing. The Belladonna cough is peculiar.
As soon as its great violence, and the great effort have raised a little mucus he gets peace for a little while, and stops coughing. But during the restful period the larynx and the trachea, and the air passages grow dryer and dryer, and finally they commence to tickle, and then comes on the spasm, as if all the air passages were taking part in it, and the whoop and the gagging, and sometimes vomiting.
Then he gets up a little mucus and the cough subsides. Another little interval and he has another spell. That is the way its goes on, like whooping cough, but during, all of the interim there is constant dryness. Hence the cough is called paroxysmal.
Tightness in the chest, Painfulness in the chest. Soreness in the chest. In Belladonna the child will cry the instant it feels that urging to cough, because it knows what a great suffering is going to take place. The chest is so painful, the child dreads the cough and screams. By the child’s cry we know that it is going to have a coughing spell.
Just like, Bryonia., Hepar and Phos., which have that feature more, than other remedies. There is burning in the chest; violent congestion in the chest; With all of these chest complaints there is that dry, harassing spasmodic cough; worse at night.
This remedy cures pneumonia and pleurisy. I am sure every one here could picture a Belladonna pneumonia, or a Belladonna pleurisy. I am sure you know the patient so well that I need not describe the patient, the head, the congestion, the red face, or the burning; but in pleurisy I will tell you its secret. Belladonna prefers the right side.
Great pain; extreme soreness of the part; cannot lie on it; worse from the jar of the bed and you have the Bell. pleurisy.
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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