(Boneset)
History: Every time I take up one of these old domestic remedies I am astonished at the extended discoveries of medical properties in the household as seen in their domestic use.
All through the Eastern States, in the rural districts, among the first old -settlers, Boneset-tea was a medicine for colds. For every cold in the head, or running of the nose, every bone-ache or high fever, or headache from cold, the good old housewife had her Boneset-tea ready. Sure enough it did such things, and the provings sustain its use. The proving shows that Boneset produces upon healthy people symptoms like the colds the old farmers used to suffer from.
Winter colds: The common winter colds through the Eastern States and the North are attended with much sneezing and coryza, pain in the head, as if it would burst, which is aggravated from motion, chilliness with the desire to be warmly covered; the bones ache as if they would break; there is fever, thirst, and a general aggravation from motion. Such common everyday colds correspond sometimes to Eupatorium and sometimes to Bryonia. These two remedies are very similar, but the aching in the bones is marked in Eupatorium.
If this state goes on for a few days the patient will become yellow, the cold will settle in the chest, a pneumonia may develop, or an inflammation of the liver, or an attack commonly called a bilious fever. Such fevers frequently call forBryonia and Eupatorium, each fitting its own cases.
These remedies are especially useful throughout New England, New York, Ohio, the North and Canada. They do not have this kind of a cold very frequently in the warmer climates, but Eupatorium is often indicated in the warmer climates for fevers, yellow fever, bilious fever, break-bone fever and intermittent fever. It seems to be useful in one kind of complaints in one climate and in another kind of complaints in another climate.
In the Southwest and the West, in the valleys of the great river Eupatorium. cures complaints beginning as if the back would break, great shivering from head to foot spreading from the back, great sensitiveness to cold, congestive headaches, flushed face, yellow ski and yellow eyes, pain in the abdomen, and in the region of the live inability to retain any food, nausea from the sight and smell of food the bones ache as if they would break, the fever runs high, the un is of a mahogany color, the tongue is heavily coated yellow, and the is nausea and vomiting of bile.
That gives the picture of Eupatorium in the Mississippi Valley, in the Ohio Valley, in Florida and Alabama and all through the Southern States. The most prominent symptom are the vomiting of bile, the aching of the bones as if they would break, the pains in the stomach after eating, and the nausea from th thought and smell of food.
The stomach is very irritable; the thought of food gags him. The patient desires to keep still, but the pain is s severe that he must move and so he appears restless. These are among the acute manifestations, and are things only very general th we must take up and apply to sick people.
Eupatorium has been a very useful remedy in intermittent fever when epidemic in the valleys. Among the first signs is nausea sometime before the attack, and there are sometimes spells of vomiting bile. About seven or nine o’clock in the forenoon, he commences to shudder, the shivering runs down the back and spreads from the back to the extremities; he has violent thirst, but the shiverings are mad worse from drinking so that he dare not drink cold water. There is soreness and pulsation in the back of the head, violent pain in th occiput and back before and during the chill. During the chill he wants to cover up and the clothing needs to be piled on.
The thirst extends through all the stages. At the close of the chill there is vomiting; often it does not occur until the heat, but before the sweat fairly sets in, he vomits copiously, first the contents of the stomach and then bile. When the heat is on he seems to burn all over, sometime as though with electric sparks.
Intense heat, burning in the top the head, his feet burn and his skin burns. The burning is more intense than the heat would justify. It is characteristic of this remedy, for the sweat to be scanty; a violent chill, intense fever which passes off slowly, and very scanty sweat. The bones ache as if they would break.
During the chill his head aches as if it would burst, it throbs it tears, it stings, it burns; he describes the headache in terms expressive of violence, as if probably a congestive headache. One would think after the fever subsides and he commences to sweat a little that he would get relief, which is true excepting the headache, which often gets worse clear through to the end of the attack, and. sometimes it will last all day and night; then he will have a whole day free from the headache, but on the third day at seven or nine o’clock on will come the same trouble with increasing violence.
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.