Involves a hatred, becomes mental, becomes a part of the man. He himself may be said to hate odors, hate the smell of food and the thought of it. Do not say “food” in the presence of a Colchicum patient, but give him Colchicum first, and pretty soon he will want something to eat. It removes that hatred for food. What a vital thing it must be when a man hates that which will keep him alive.
Teeth: The teeth are very sensitive.
“Rheumatic teeth.”
The gums settle away; after a while the teeth become loose. Pain in the teeth; rheumatic condition of the jaws and the teeth.
“Grinding of the teeth, teeth sensitive when pressed together.”
“Aversion to food; loathing the sight and smell,” more the smell of it.
“The smell of fish, eggs, fat meats or broths causes nausea even unto faintness.”
The Colchicum patient may have much thirst or no thirst, or these may alternate. Nausea and vomiting are very strong features,
“Nausea and inclination to vomit, caused by swallowing saliva,
Nausea, eructations and copious, vomiting of mucus and bile.
Violent retching followed by copious and forcible vomiting of food, and then of bile.”
In the stomach there is sometimes coldness and sometimes burning. Now it may be that the Colchicum patient has both coldness and burning. They are both recorded in the Repertory and in the provings, but it is sometimes difficult to tell which is which, more difficult than you will imagine unless you try a piece of ice somewhere and something very hot.
“Burning ‘in the pit of the stomach.”
Coldness in the stomach. Now the abdomen furnishes us still more to observe. The abdomen is distended with flatus, tympanitic.
Great soreness in the whole abdomen just such a tympanitic condition as we have in typhoid.
If you ever happen to be in the country practicing, medicine, and the farmer’s cows get into a fresh clover patch and eat themselves full and become distended so that you are afraid they are going to explode offer your services and give each one of those cows a few pellets of Colchicum.
It will be but a few minutes before the wind will get out of there to your surprise and the farmer’s, too; and you may convert him to Homoeopathy. Farmers have been known to put a butcher knife into the pouch of the cow between the last short ribs to let the wind out.
The cow will get well, but Colchicum is better than the butcher’s knife. The same is true of the horse; in fact, of man or beast, When the abdomen is violently distended and tympanitic, Colchicum is often a suitable remedy.
Diarrhea: Spasmodic pains, colic, tearing pains, burning, griping pains, forcing the patient to bend double. Aggravated from motion. Great tenderness and soreness with the colic. Aggravated from eating; ameliorated from bending double. And then comes the diarrhoea. It has just such a diarrhea as is found in low forms of fever. Dysenteric or diarrheic stools that are jelly like.
They form in the pan a solid mass of jelly like, coagulated mucus. Very painful, extremely painful is the Colchicum stool. Great soreness in the abdomen. Great relaxation of the parts. Protrusion of the rectum. Putrid, dark, bloody mucus.
“Bloody discharges from the bowels, with deathly nausea.”
Fall dysentery, with discharges. of white mucus and violent tenesmus. Putrid, dark, clotted blood and mucus pass from the bowels. Diarrhoea with violent, colicky pains. Bloody stools with scrapings from the intestines and, protrusion of anus.
Profuse, watery stools in hot, damp weather or in the Autumn. Watery, jellylike mucus passes from anus with violent spasm in sphincter. It passes as a thin, watery flow; but as. soon as it cools, it forms a jelly.
Urines: The urine burns when it passes. It is attended with much pain. Inflammation of the kidneys, inflammation of the bladder; tenesmus; retention of urine.
The kidneys manufacture no urine; scanty urine with dropsy. The urine is inky, that is, very dark brown and sometimes almost black, loaded with albumen. This remedy conforms principally to the acute form of Bright’s disease.
Heart and chest: Great dyspnoea, rapid, short breathing; the heart’s impulse strong. Respiration accelerated.
The heart’s impulse can be heard all over the room. Palpitation; oppression of the chest. Feels as if he had a great weight on the chest; cannot breathe. Hydrothorax; the pleural cavities distended with serum, causing the dyspnea.
“Heart’s action muffled, indistinct, very weak.”
Stinging, tearing pains in the muscles of the chest.
Limbs: Paralytic pains in the arms; enlarged finger joints. This also tells what a low form of sickness, what a feeble circulation this medicine brings about.
“Weakness so that he strikes the knees together while walking; pain all over as if bruised.
Swelling of the joints.”
The joints are most affected.
Muscular rhumatism.
Numbness, oedema, swelling of the limbs.
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.