Sensitiveness: This drug is characterized by a general sensitivity. Sensitiveness of vision, of hearing, of smell, of touch; sensitiveness to pain. it is most astonishing sometimes about this great sensitiveness. Pains are increased by noise.
Sensitiveness of hearing is so great that sounds are painful. Pains in the face, toothache, headache; pains in the lower limbs; everywhere aggravated by noise.
All the nervous disturbances possible are found in this medicine, and they are all aggravated by noise. Even the opening of the door and the ringing of the door-bell produces great suffering. Such patients are so sensitive that they hear sounds which those in a state of health cannot hear.
Perhaps no medicine in the Materia Medica approximates this sensitiveness of hearing where it is accompanied with pain, unless it be Nux vomica Those practitioners who do not know this generally resort to Nux vomica for pains aggravated from voices in another room, or from noise or the sound of children.
Many remedies have increase of nervousness from noise; noise aggravates headache, and aggravates suffering about the head, and makes some persons nervous, But pain in the extremities aggravated by noise is peculiar. It seems that the noise disturbs him so that he cannot bear pain.
The Coffea state is brought on by emotions or violent excitement of the mind, but especially by joy or
“pleasant surprise.”
The result is sleeplessness, nervous excitement, neuralgia, twitching of muscles, toothache, face ache, red face and hot head.
You may be called to the bedside of a woman who has been laboring for some great cause. She works persistently, is successful, but goes to bed with weeping, delirium, neuralgia, sleeplessness.
Her heart palpitates, her pulse flickers, she has fainting spells, and without Coffea she may die. Coffee drinkers who keep up through some ordeal and then break down are similarly affected.
The Coffea patient is sensitive to wine. A small amount of wine intensifies the nervousness, produces sleeplessness, flushed face, feverishness, great excitement. Not necessarily intoxication, but nervous excitement.
Coffea has a painful sensitiveness of the skin beyond comprehension. I remember one particular case. A woman bad her lower limb out of bed and it was as red as fire down one side. I walked toward it to put my hand on it.
But she said,
“Oh, don’t touch it, I can’t bear to have it touched; I can’t touch it myself.”
I asked how long this had been coming on.
She said,
“Ob, it all came on within an hour.”
Such a symptom is common in coffee drinkers. There was no fever. Intense stinging, burning pains in the skin with the redness and heat with coarse rash coming on suddenly, leaving just as suddenly. The sensitive part is aggravated by cold air, aggravated by any wind or from fanning, from motion, yet aggravated by warmth. Aggravated from anyone walking across the floor. The woman I referred to scowled when I was walking toward the bed. A number of times I have seen such things relieved within a few minutes by Coffea.
Mind: Fainting from sudden emotions. Hysteria, nervousness, weeping. Pitiful weeping from pain trembling and weeping from hurt feelings; the slightest neglect. The greatest mental and physical exhaustion; great restlessness lying awake most of the night.
The wakefulness produced by Coffea is well known, even to the laity. It is taken by nurses to keep them awake nights with their patients. The Coffea patient is quick to act and to think. So full of ideas that she lies awake nights making plans, thinking of a thousand things; utterly unable to banish the thoughts that flood the mind; hears the clocks on the distant steeples, as do Opium, China and Nux vomica
Hears the dogs barking. So great is the brain activity, the mental excitement, that she hears noises that are purely imaginary. Memory active, easy comprehension full of ideas; increased power to think and to debate. Coffea increases the mental capacity. But after a while reaction follows; she becomes stupid and sleepy.
There is no end to the fancies, to the visions. Fanciful visions come before the mind. Recalls things not thought of for years; recalls poetry that was recited in childhood. Eyes brilliant; pupils dilated; face flushed head hot.
Teeth: With all these nervous states the patient dreads the fresh air. He is extremely sensitive to cold, sensitive to the wind and cold weather. Complaints come on in the cold weather, from the cold air. Pain in the mouth and jaws, better from holding ice-cold water in the mouth.
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.