SAFFRON. (Crocus-kpwkus, krokus, saffron. Saffron-from the Persian, safran, yellow (as bile). Sativus, sown or planted.).
Introduction
Crocus sat., the autumnal crocus, has nothing in common with Colchicum the meadow saffron. Crocus sat. Yields the real saffron of commerce, which consists of the orange-colored stigmas of the flowers; but as it took some four thousand flowers to make announce of the dried stigmas, it was apt to be adulterated with cheaper substitutes, and it is now about displaced by aniline dyes.
Crocus was first proved by Stapf, one Hahnemann’s followers.
Symptoms
There are two things that stand out prominently in this remedy, the hysterical symptoms and the haemorrhages of dark
blood.
It is to be thought of in hysteria, with changeable moods, and in nervous prostration (156), with the peculiar abdominal sensations, which we will speak of later, and the chorea-like twitchings, noticed especially in the spasms of the upper eyelids (79). It is also to be thought of in chorea (31), with repeated nose-bleed of tenacious, thick, black blood (142).
Crocus is a remedy useful for headache during the climacteric (96) and “worse during the period in which she was accustomed to have menstrual flow” (Hering). These headaches are congestive, pulsating (102) and better from pressure (92); sometimes one side of the head is affected and sometimes the other, with pain in, or over the corresponding eye.
In the eyes we have ciliary neuralgia (75) where the pain goes from the eye to the top of the head and associated with a sensation as if a cold wind were blowing against the eye (77). It is useful in asthenopia (72) with a feeling as if a veil were between the eyes and the light (78), or as if a film of mucus were over them and he is obliged to wink or wipe his eyes in order to remove it; along with this, we may have extreme photophobia, cannot read without a gush of tears.
It is of value in spasmodic affections of the eyelids (79), with itching and twitching and feeling as if he had to wink all the time or press the lids tightly together.
Crocus has a sensation as if something living were jumping about in the pit of the stomach, abdomen, arms or other parts of the body, or a sensation of worms crawling in the abdomen (11) or of something dead lying there and associated with a condition of extreme nervousness. It might be of use in imaginary pregnancy, and it is of value to remove the tendency to miscarriage (13) associated with the unnatural sensation of worms in the abdomen, or as of something dead lying there.
Menstruation is too profuse and too long (135) of thick, dark blood (136) and aggravated by any motion (134). It is of great value in menorrhagia (135) and metrorrhagia (135) at the climacteric, with increased flow on the slightest movement.
I use Crocus in the tincture.