TOADSTOOL-FLY AMANITA-FLY AGARIC.
Introduction
(Agaricus-ayaplkov, agarikon, a sort of tree-fungus. Muscarius-musca, a fly.)
Properly the word Agaricus belongs to a large genus of fungi consisting of over a thousand species, many of which are edible. Hering considering the usual name Agaricus “too vague,” places the remedy under the word Amanita.
Agaricus is a well-known poisonous fungus, that “has been used in Europe as a fly poison for hundreds of years. Cattle are poisoned swell as men by eating it, and it is supposed their flesh is thus rendered unwholesome” (U. S. Depart. Agriculture, Bulletin No.86).
Agaricus was first proved by Staff in 1828, and two years later by Hahnemann. It was also re-proved by the Austrian Society.
Symptoms
It is a remedy to be thought of i nervous conditions and in so called spinal irritation (171) and it acts especially well when these conditions seem be caused, or at least aggravated by anemia (15).
There is a decided aggravation of many of the symptoms from walking in the open air, not necessarily cold air.
The pains are apt to shift from place to place. Hering, in a foot-note, says: “amanita is one of the few remedies in which the symptoms appear at the same time on opposite sides, but diagonally” and cites “upper left and lower right” (53).
Boenninghausen reverses this, giving left lower and right upper, and places the symptom in the third grade. There are but few remedies having these crosswise symptoms at all prominent, and for others you are referred to the lost given in Boenninghausen’s Therapeutic Pocket Book, page 179. According to Hughes we often have with the neuralgic pains calling for this remedy, a sensation as though “sharp ice touched the parts (165), or cold needles ran through the nerves.”
Agaricus is used as an intoxicant Scenario, producing, congestion of the brain and stupidity, and Talcott speaks of it for :’general paresis” (149) and for “paretic conditions after sexual and other debauches,: with “trembling and twitching of groups of muscles.
The headaches are neuralgic, mostly in small spots, sharp boring or piercing pain as from a nail (106) or “:cold needles” (Hering); or the headache are congestive and due to eye-strain, as from desk-work. It is a very valuable remedy is asthenopia (72) fro prolonged strain, with weakness of the muscles and “swimming of the types,” and spasm of accommodation, with twitching of the eye balls and of the lids (79). For “spasms of the eyelids Agaricus is generally the best remedy” (Farrington).
Another valuable indication is in chorea (31) and chorea- like twitchings, especially of the facial muscles, and due to irritable nerves, the result of over-study or excessive brain- work. The grimaces and contractions in chorea increase in frequency as the exhaustion of the day progress and while it is customary for them to cease during sleep, not is a prominent indication under agaricus.
In the nose we have irritation, spasmodic sneezing and discharge of put water from the nostrils, but without inflammatory symptoms. Another words, all the appearances of a fresh and severe old on the head that soon passes off only to return again two or thee times during the day and for several days (37). In a milder from we more frequently find clear water dropping from the nose, without a cold in the head; the “old man’s pearl.”
One the lips we find burning pimples which change to vesicles filled with yellow serum. These eruptions are often found in children given till licking the lips, jerking and other more or less chorea-like symptoms.
It is indicated in facial neuralgia, with electric-like stitches or a sensation as if splinters were being run between the skin and the flesh, and noticed especially in the infraorbital nerve and along the jaw.
In neuralgic toothache we have shooting pains, worse in the open air (187) and in neuralgia of the tongue (192) calling for the remedy, we have burning, splinter-like pains and salivation.
There is also found a gastro-enteritis, with severe and sharp griping pains and great flatulence (81), with or without diarrhoea. In many nervous conditions, large amounts of inodorous flatus is a characteristic of the remedy.
Again, in nervous conditions, the urine is usually scanty, although there may be frequent desire to pass it.
Agaricus is to be thought of in dysmenorrhoea, with terrible bearing down pains, which are spasmodic, and associated with itching of the external genitals. There are also neuralgic pains in the vulva.
The cough is apt to be worse during the day, and either a constant inclination to cough, which can be mostly suppressed (41) and with only occasional bursts of dry, painful cough, or we have an nervous (46) cough that comes on in sudden convulsive attacks and may cause hemorrhage from the lungs. at times we have a spasmodic cough, without expectoration, at night soon after falling asleep(40). the spasmodic coughs usually have expectoration of thick mucus especially early in the attack, and this is one of th few remedies that have expectoration of small hard lumps of mucus (69).
In the chest, while many of the sensations are of a neuralgic character, sticking pains, et cetera, worse from exercise and after eating, others seem to be dependent on the abnormal circulation in the lungs caused by Agaricus, such as a sensation of constriction, with dyspnoea, caused by contracted blood vessels and unoxidized blood, better from deep breathing and walking, the latter being an amelioration the reverse of that usually found in this remedy.
The heart is easily irritated, having irregular tumultuous beating (112), and it is of value for the palpitation of tea and coffee drinkers and tobacco smokers (114).
Along the spine stitches, burning and aching are prominent and it is useful in spinal irritation (171), with extreme sensitiveness of the spine to touch, most severe in the upper region. In lumbago, we find a great variety of muscular pains, all worse on walking in the open air.
In the extremities, we find twitching of the muscles and sharp shooting, neuralgic pains, shifting from place to place (149), and worse on motion, and it is of value for the neuralgic pains of locomotor ataxia (127).
On the skin, have itching, burning and redness, especially noticeable in the toes, fingers and ears (64), as if the parts had been frost-bitten and were burning on being restored, with “aggravation from heat” (Dearborn); and Agaricus is a valuable remedy for the bad effects if frost-bite (82), and for chilblains (31).
I use Agaricus 3rd.
