Clinical experience is frequently the only method by which we are enabled to determine the modalities of our remedies. It is, therefore, with much hesitation that I call your attention to a remedy as old as Homoeopathy and claim for it a modality hitherto only hinted at in its provings.
All of us have known from the earliest days of our practice that the headaches of Belladonna are generally aggravated by lying with the head low, and when the general action of this remedy is taken into consideration this fact does not seem so very strange after all, for we know that the nightshade over-fills and congests the capillary circulation; hence, the cardiac throb is transmitted into the finest ramifications of the arterial system; hence, letting the inflamed or injured member hang down favours this blood congestion and in-creases the internal pressure, at the same time augmenting the pain. That is the pathology of it.
Clinical experience confirms us in this, and shows us that aggravation from lying down runs like a red strand through the entire action of this important remedy, which Boenninghausen classes among the antipsorics. Personally, I have found this to be an almost invariable modality of Belladonna, whatever the condition may be, from headaches through all kinds of inflammatory conditions, gout and tumours. So firmly is this fixed in my mind that I would urge it as one of the leading symptoms or key-notes for the remedy.
In order to demonstrate this more fully I will relate the history, in part, of a case cured where this characteristic stood out with uncommon prominence. This summer, two years ago, a labourer patient of mine was badly injured by being hit upon the head with a large falling plank, the distance being twenty feet; his condition, for a time, seemed alarming, but, thanks to our immortal Hering, Glonoin, 1 m., removed all evidences of his disability.
Last summer he was again badly injured by being struck on the back by a piece of falling scantling; this time his recovery seemed only partial, and gradually he began to fail in strength, seemingly caused by a slowly augmenting diuresis, which seemed to be provoked by lying down. He came occasionally for medicine, and worked odd days until during the winter grippe attacked him. This confined him to the house, where I saw him propped up in a chair with slight increase of temperature, some headache, and great prostration.
On asking why he constantly sat in his chair, he replied that as soon as he would lie down this profuse urine would return, amounting to half a pail full during one night. Upon expressing a doubt as to this statement, the poor fellow offered to stay in bed that night to convince me of its truth, which was the very refinement of cruelty on my part, for the man is scrupulously honest and truthful.
However, the next day there was the pail over half full of urine, and my patient no better. About this time his headache led me to think of Belladonna, of which he received four doses of the 45 m; the headache promptly disappeared, and, strange to say, the profuse urination took the same course. On placebo he has since flourished, grown strong, and taken on flesh, being now equal to the hardest kind of labour.
Born in Western Pennsylvania, he graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and subsequently Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia. He moved to Parkersburg, W. Va., in 1888, practicing there, but also consulting worldwide. He gave lectures at the Pulte Medical College in Cincinnati and taught philosophy, materia medica, and repertory at the American Foundation for Homoeopathy Postgraduate School. Boger brought BÅ“nninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory into the English Language in 1905. His publications include :
Boenninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory
Boenninghausen's Antipsorics
Boger's Diphtheria, (The Homoeopathic Therapeutics of)
A Synoptic Key of the Materia Medica, 1915
General Analysis with Card Index, 1931
Samarskite-A Proving
The Times Which Characterize the Appearance and Aggravation of the Symptoms and their Remedies