Eupatorium Perfoliatum



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.

At times these attacks are prolonged, the one will extend into the other, that is enter into a sort of remittent character with no intermission. The longer this runs the more the liver becomes engorged, and finally the urine is loaded with bile, the stool becomes whitish, the fever increases, the nausea increasing, the tongue becomes pointed and elongated, and is dry, the headache is extremely painful, and a state of masked fever comes on.

In those intermittent fevers that begin with violent shaking, and the headache continues without sweat, or, if with sweat the headache is made worse, thirst during all stages, vomiting of bile at the close of the heat or during the heat, with the awful bone aches, the Western men, who study their Materia Medica, know that they have a sure cure in Eupatorium.

The time for the administration of this dose is at the close of the paroxysm. You get the best effect when reaction is at the best, and that is when reaction is setting in, after a paroxysm has passed off. That is true of every paroxysmal disease, where it is possible to wait until the end. You cannot mitigate them very much during the attack, indeed, if the medicine is given then it very often increases the difficulty, but if you wait until the close of the paroxysm you get the full benefit of your medicine, and the next paroxysm will not develop, or will be lighter, or, if another attack is brought on immediately you may rest assured there will be no more.

It is not an uncommon thing in intermittent fever, when the remedy has been administered at the close of the paroxysm, for the next paroxysm to come within twenty-four hours after the administration of the medicine; these mixed cases are often in a state of disorder.

One who does not know this would immediately show the white feather, would be alarmed, would be afraid the patient was getting worse, but you have only to wait for the subsidence of the attack and you will see that you have broken its cycle and periodicity.

When this remedy has been apparently indicated by intermittents, and it has not proved of sufficient depth to root out the intermittent, there are two remedies, either of which is likely to follow it, and these are Natrum muriaticum and Sepia. These two remedies are very closely related to Eupatorium, and take up the work where it leaves off, when the symptoms agree.

Gout: This medicine has also a chronic constitutional state, viz.: its gouty nature. It is a very useful medicine in gout. It has gouty soreness and inflamed nodosities of the finger joints, of the elbow joint, pain and gouty swelling of the great toe, red tumefaction of the joint of the great toe. It establishes, in persons who are subject to chalk stone deposits around the finger joints. These gouty subjects take cold, the bones ache, the joints become inflamed, the patient will say he is chilly, the skin becomes yellow, the urine is charged with bile, the stool becomes whitish, and he becomes weak.

In many instances these patients have been for years resorting to Burgundy for relief of their gouty joints and the weakness. Some one of our homoeopathic remedies will relieve the suffering, but in those old gouty subjects who have been always drinking wine, you cannot take the wine away from them at once; you cannot do it while they are having the attack, because they have become so accustomed to it.

Burgundy is the kind of wine very commonly used by the gouty, but the Scotchman with his gout thinks he must always have a little Scotch whiskey and in the attack it is quite impossible to take it away from him. What has been his custom must be followed out for a while because he would grow weaker, but it is damaging him, and hence it is difficult to contend with gouty subjects who have been taking stimulants. You do not get the full benefit of Homoeopathy and you cannot stop his stimulants because weakness will follow. Persons who have not taken wine as a regular beverage can and should do without it, as it interferes with the action of the homoeopathic remedy.

These gouty patients have terrible sick headaches. Pain in the base of the brain and back of the head, associated with gouty joints. These are often referred to as arthritic headaches, that is, gouty headaches, headaches associated with painful joints. Or the headaches may alternate with pains in the joints. Congestive headaches, the pain being in the base of the brain, with more or less throbbing; the pain spreads up through the head and produces a general congestive attack.

Sometimes these headaches come on when the joints are feeling better, and the more headache he has the less pain he has in the extremities; and again, when the gout affects the extremities, then the headaches diminish. Headaches, having a third and seventh-day aggravation, coming with more or less periodicity.

With the headache there will be nausea and vomiting of bile, nausea at the thought and smell of food. This gouty individual is also subject to vertigo, and the sensation as if he would fall to the left is especially noted with the coming on of the headache. The vertigo comes on in the morning; when he gets up he feels as if he would sway to the left, and he has to guard himself in turning to the left. Sometimes in intermittent fever this symptom of swaying to the left and vertigo ending in nausea and vomiting, violent pain in the back of the head and pain in the bones, are the first threatenings.

We have in this remedy also other gouty manifestations: shooting through the temples, shooting from the left to the right side of the head; shooting all through the head; stitching, tearing pains in the limbs as well as the bone aches.

The headaches are so violent that they make him sick at the stomach. In gouty headaches, in intermittents at the close of the intense heat, in periodical headaches, the course is the same, the pain is so intense that nausea is soon brought on and then he vomits bile. Eupatorium has not been used on its symptoms in gouty states as often as it might have been. In intermittent fever it is well known; in headaches it is only occasionally used.

James Tyler Kent
James Tyler Kent (1849–1916) was an American physician. Prior to his involvement with homeopathy, Kent had practiced conventional medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. He discovered and "converted" to homeopathy as a result of his wife's recovery from a serious ailment using homeopathic methods.
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.