Bryonia also prefers the right side, but the Bryonia patient must lie on that side; must have pressure, and is not so sensitive to a jar; he has not the intense heat, he has riot the great throbbing, and the burning.
Every kind of sickness that you go to you have to individualize in that way. There is no other way to practice Homoeopathy.
Remember, with all the inflammatory conditions there will be throbbing heat redness, burning, soreness to touch, and sensitiveness to a jar.
With Belladonna it means he cannot lie on the inflamed part; while with Bryonia he is ameliorated from lying on the inflamed part.
Throbbing in all the arteries. Great congestion. Vascular excitement. These are present with all the congestions, and inflammations.
Joints: Belladonna cures inflammatory rheumatism, when all the joints are swollen, or a great number of them, and they are hot, red, and burn.
We have in the rheumatism the heat, redness and burning running through; with the same sensitiveness of the whole patient, and a sensitiveness of the joints to the jar of the bed.
He wants to lie perfectly still is very much worse from motion and has considerable fever. Sometimes when the fever in inflammatory rheumatism runs pretty high there is delirium. But the striking features are the swelling of the joints with the redness, and great sensitiveness to motion and to a jar.
It is especially suitable to those that are very sensitive to cold, who cannot bear the least uncovering, cannot bear a draft, very sensitive to the motion, of the covers, and ameliorated by heat.
The very stamp and character of Belladonna is in its rheumatic state, like it is in all of its other complaints. It is the patient that has given Belladonna that character in provings; it is the patient that gives disease that character when he had it, and it is only the fulfillment of the Law of Similars when these come, together, and the remedy annihilates the sickness.
Inflammation of the joints, coming on from sudden exposure of that particular joint. Or from a severe attack of cold one joint becomes inflamed. A trouble that is localizing itself. It may be any joint- of the body, for Bell, affects all the joints.
The sudden exposure to cold in plethoric individuals, is one of the most prominent. causes of the Belladonna sickness. In chronic cases the taking of cold generally, locates, or creates, a disturbance, and increases disorder, that manifests itself in the weakest place.
Vigorous people take cold in the nose, where they throw it off easily. You can often say to sickly patients that your cold now affects you in the weakest place. If you have liver trouble,
“your cold will settle in the liver,” and so on; “but when you get well you will take cold like other people, in the nose.”
Absolutely healthy people seldom take cold, but we do not have many such, they are so rare that we do not often see them; and the snuffles, and sneezing, and the running at the nose are simply throwing off of the cold of ordinarily healthy people.
Limbs: In the limbs, again, we have convulsions, which is a part of the generals. In all the muscles in the limbs, and throughout the body, convulsions.
Children go into convulsions with head troubles, with congestion of the brain, with irritation of the brain. Convulsions from taking cold, in plethoric children, and the limbs are most, likely to show forth these convulsive efforts of the muscles.
Violent cramping. All the limbs are in a state of convulsive movements. Sometimes the spasms are clonic, and sometimes tonic. The convulsions in the limbs are sometimes such as draw them up, suddenly, throw them out suddenly; sometimes convulsions that throw the body backward, called opisthotonos, and sometimes throwing the body forward, called opisthotonos.
The most of the complaints in Belladonna are ameliorated by keeping still. The drawing pains, the pulsations, the inflammatory conditions drive the patient into a desire for perfect rest, are aggravated from motion.
The disinclination and aversion to the slightest motion is common in Belladonna, and as strong in Belladonna as in Bryonia Belladonna is so sensitive in parts that the motions of talking are painful; so sensitive that the conclusion of the voice is painful in the sore spots.
A person with a strong voice, a bass voice, hardly thinks of the concussion that takes place; and much less is that of the female voice, and yet I have seen that aggravation from motion, and that aggravation from jar so marked in the female that her voice was like the pounding of hammers. In inflammation of the uterus, and ovaries, and the bowels, she refrains from talking, because her voice creates a concussion in the sore parts.
That only illustrates the extremes of this great sensitiveness to motion and to jar. Jar is only an exaggerated form of motion, bringing out that sensitiveness.
If you will study the nerves you will find the greatest array of peculiar nervous manifestations, such as sensitiveness of the nerves, aggravated from shock; spasms; various disturbances of the whole nervous, system; twitching; jerking; trembling; subsultus tendinum, etc. Cramps, and spasms, and convulsions in children.
Convulsions: Convulsions come on, with great suddenness.
They come on entirely unexpected. In most instances of convulsions in the long acting remedies and medicines of the zymotic type, the patient has not been prospering in the last days of her gestation; but with Belladonna she goes on part way through the labor, or finishes it, and little is expected.
Perhaps her face is a little too red, but she goes into a convulsion unexpectedly, a violent
one from head to foot.
Congestion of the brain, with excitement. Intense heat; everything is intense, violent, sudden and unexpected.
The pains sometimes leave in confinement suddenly, and a convulsion comes on. But look and see that all the sensitiveness that I have described runs through the patient.
The pains cease suddenly. The blood seems to mount to the head. The face becomes red. Congestions come on suddenly. Convulsions epileptiform in character.
Belladonna is not suitable for those numerous recurrent complaints, even though the single attack should be mitigated with Belladonna Take any of these attacks; whether they are convulsions or headaches, or congestion of the brain, they are running down and become excitable, take on congestive attacks of the head, go right to bed, and roll the head.
You treat those with Belladonna; the attack is relieved. Take notice, I start out by saying this is only one of a series. You may not know it. This may be the first one.
You reduce that one, and when that same exposure comes again, that same attack comes back; but Belladonna does less this time than it did before. After two or three attacks Belladonna will do no more and you are worse off this time than you were before.
When it has broken the first one the physician should see that this is one of a series, and that Belladonna is not suitable. Often it is a case that needs Calcarea, I say often, not always.
All the symptoms should be examined between the attacks, so that the child may be elevated above these attacks because the acute remedy will do no more than suit the first, or second, or third at most. It has not the depth of action, it has not the length of action. It does not affect the economy profoundly enough. It passes away after a few days; has to be frequently repeated.
The patient should be followed up and watched in all these recurrent spasmodic and periodical complaints. Belladonna is not a good remedy for recurrent complaints for it lacks periodicity, just as it lacks continuance of complaints.
Even if the first attack looked like Belladonna. the next attack would come back just the same. Belladonna is suitable in those complaints that if conquered have no tendency to recur; those complaints that end in death or recovery. It will only mitigate those complaints that are periodical.
Sleep: Its sleep is a congestive sleep, a stupor; full of dreams full of violence. Wake’s with fright from a horrible dream, a nightmare. Jerks and twitches in sleep.
“Restless sleep.”
Moaning and groaning in sleep. Doing all sorts of violence. Delirium in sleep.
“Starts in sleep as if frightened.”
In sleep sometimes the patient will commence to talk, will talk faster and louder, the head becomes hot, and the feet cold, and he ends with a shriek.
“Restless tossing in sleep. Feet becoming icy cold in sleep. Head getting hot, in sleep. Wakes up in a fever, and excitement.”
It has symptoms so much like a typical old-fashioned Sydenham scarlet fever that it has been useful in scarlet fever.
Perhaps it is one of the most frequently indicated medicines in that disease. In some seasons, at least it will run all through, and the majority of cases will be Belladonna cases, with the bright red face and glossy appearance of the skin.
Bright red, intense heat, great congestion; after a short time if Belladonna is not administered it will grow darker.
But running through all this are those three words, heat, redness and burning. Burning everywhere. The temperature I described among the generals as being so marked, so intense that you will carry it with you on the ends of your fingers for hours after you have touched a Belladonna scarlet fever.
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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