COCHINEAL. (Coccus-kokkos, kokkos, a berry, a kernel; Cochineal-coccineus, scarlet.).
Introduction
The cochineal insect is a native of Mexico but if cultivated in various tropical countries. Th cacti upon which it lives are extensively grown for this especial purpose. The females only are valuable for their coloring matter, and their dried bodies, “previously cleansed by agitation with tepid water, are coarsely powdered and covered with alcohol for fourteen days” (Am. Hom. Phar.) to make our tincture, which has a drug value of the 1x.
Coccus cacti was first proved by the Austrian Society.
Symptoms
The chief points of interest that this remedy has for us as homoeopaths, are its action on the urinary tract and on the fauces and larynx.
The urine is dark colored, containing large amounts of urates and uric acid, and it is of value for gravel, or kidney calculi (123), with violent colic, sharp, lancinating pains running down to the bladder (125), haematuria (85) and usually tenesmus.
It is to be thought of in menorrhagia, with discharge of dark clots (136) and constant and ineffectual efforts to urinate until these clots have passed. Menstruation is apt to be irregular and the flow intermittent, being only at night when lying down (134).
The fauces are very irritable, even when not inflamed; so much so, that simply brushing the back teeth is sufficient to set up a violent cough, along with gagging and even vomiting. The antics of the Coccus cacti patient must not be set down to the discredit of the laryngologist who wishes to examine her, for she will begin to gag as soon as opens her mouth.
It is a remedy of value in laryngitis and bronchitis, with suffocation, most violent paroxysms of cough and difficult expectoration of thick, tenacious mucus (69), which causes strangling, retching and vomiting. The cough is worse on first waking in the morning (40). It has relieved a cough, due to a chronic bronchitis, where the aggravations were, as the pathogenetic symptom records, in morning on waking and at 3 P.M.
It is frequently indicated n whooping cough (8), with strangling, the paroxysms worse after waking “or after rising” (Hering), and ending with vomiting of ropy mucus.
I use Coccus cacti 30th.
