HORSE CHESTNUT.
Introduction
(Aesculus, the old latin name for the Italian oak. Hippus, horse; Kastana, chestnut)
Horses and cattle are supposed to be fond of the seeds of the horse chestnut, especially if they are first boiled in potash and then washed in water to get rid of their bitter principles. For our use the hulled nut is pounded to a pulp and mixed with alcohol; the decanted and filtered liquid represents out tincture.
Symptoms
While AEsculus has long been known to the laity as a remedy and pocket-piece for rheumatism and haemorrhoids, it is not officinal in the U. S. Phar. and has been a homoeopathic remedy only since about 1873, when Dr. Cooley, of New York State, gave us our first recorded proving.
Dr. E. M. Hale, who also proved it, tells us that its “central point of action is the liver and the portal system, and that “nine out of ten of its symptoms are due to this action” and we find that its chief use, for engorged haemorrhoidal veins, gives us notice that the liver is congested.
We are told that the AEsculus patient is despondent and irritable. the despondency is easily understood when we think of the torpid liver, and the irritability we can consider as justified when we remember the state that the rectum is in.
For purple protruding piles, think of Aesculus. The haemorrhoids may be internal, but blind or protruding, they are very sore, associated with dryness, burning (61) and itching (159), and a sensation as if sticks, splinters, gravel, or other irritating foreign substance, a chestnut-burr, were in the rectum. As a rule the haemorrhoids of AEsculus are non-bleeding (86).
Associated with the haemorrhoids, we usually have a feeling of fullness in the region of the liver and aching in the small of the back or in the sacrum and hips, worse walking and stooping, and with difficulty in getting up after sitting.
It has been used for leucorrhoea with backache, and for dysmenorrhoea with this character of lumbago, even when not associated with any liver or haemorrhoids trouble.
It is a useful remedy in chronic follicular inflammation of the posterior wall of the pharynx (149), with rawness, dryness, burning and difficulty in swallowing, and frequently the patient is also troubled with haemorrhoids.
I use AEsculus in the tincture.
