Clematis has only been partially proved, and consequently it applies only to a few conditions, but these are very important, so that it cannot be passed over.
Skin: It has vesicular eruptions almost erysipelatous in character. One almost constant mental state is that he fears to be alone, yet dreads company. He dreads the necessity of having company, and it seems that the atmosphere is full of frightful and distressing things to worry him.
This makes him low-spirited. The remedy seems to fit the sycotic constitution in its mental state and its generals.
It seems to be fitted to those who had gonorrhoea recently suppressed, because after that suppression will come on this mental state with inflammation of glands.
It is rather singular about the eruptions. One would not think that from so harmless a little shrub so much trouble would come; but there are persons who are just as sensitive to this vine as to Rhus and it resembles Rhus to a great extent in its manifestations.
It produces just, as poisonous a condition as Rhus. Here I might speak of several remedies which relate to the Rhus poison.
There are many vesicular remedies that look like Rhus, and all of them you will have to use more or less in their antidotal relations to each other, but it is well to be sure in a given case which one of them produced the poison.
Croton tig., Rhus, Ranunculus, Anacardium and Clematis at times look so much alike that I am unable to tell them apart by their eruptions.
They are all similar enough to each other to become universal antidotes. The others are all deeper acting than Rhus. The Ranunculus, the little buttercup, has cured epithelioma of the lids. It has cured cancerous affections, so we say it goes deep into the tissues.
On the outer head we have a part of the manifestations of Clematis vesicular eruptions with great itching, stinging and crawling. Now what is true of the eruption here will be true of the Clematis eruption everywhere. It is aggravated from washing.
It will smart and burn, and a quasi-inflammation will set in from washing. Contrast this with the internal features of the remedy. In the teeth and jaws the pain is violent, but while the eruption is made worse from cold applications, the pain inside the jaw and the teeth is relieved by cold water held in the mouth, and aggravated violently from heat, and from the warmth of the bed.
The eruption is aggravated from the warmth of the bed, and also from cold washing. We have to go into the details a little to see whether an eruption is Rhus or whether it is Clematis, or something else. Vesicular eruptions filling with yellow fluid and with induration under the vesicles.
It produces eruptions very closely related to herpes and eczema, and they spread. About the eyes we have vesicular eruptions. If seen in one stage it will be vesicular, and if later, it will be seen as an ulceration. Simple and graver forms of herpes. Herpes zoster about the body.
“Burning, and smarting of the eyes; worse from closing them.
Inflammation of the iris.
Eyes inflamed, protruded, dim.
Chronic irritation of the lids.”
Teeth: The pains in connection with the teeth are aggravated from the warmth of the bed, which is general; they come at night, are aggravated from warm things held in the mouth and ameliorated from holding cold water in the mouth.
Stitching and drawing pains in the teeth; worse at night; better for a short time from holding cold water in the mouth; better from drawing in cold air; worse from the warmth of the bed. The toothache is tolerable during the day, but as soon as he lies down in bed and assumes a horizontal position it increases to an intolerable degree. Pain in hollow tooth, better by cold water or drawing in cold air.
Glands: Swelling of the glands of the groin is a striking feature even when connected with scirrhus. It is connected also with suppressed gonorrhea, and with rheumatism of the joints. Pain and swelling of the right spermatic cord; this is worse at night, worse from walking and from the warmth of the bed.
Bladder: While it has both sides, strange to say there is more trouble in the glands that are on the right side of the body than on the left. It has produced much trouble in the bladder. Constant urging to urinate, most painful tenesmus. Flow stopping and starting. The urethra is painful to pressure. Micturition is remarkably slow, only a feeble stream because of the smallness of the urethra.
It is the nature of this remedy to infiltrate and inflame tissues, and, hence it is useful in those cases of gonorrhoea where they have been slow in passing away, where they have been treated by injection.
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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