NUX VOMICA Medicine


NUX VOMICA symptoms of the homeopathy remedy from Plain Talks on Materia Medica with Comparisons by W.I. Pierce. What NUX VOMICA can be used for? Indications and personality of NUX VOMICA…


      POISON NUT.

Introduction

      (Nux vomica, nut. If for vomica we substitute the word vomiter, the meaning of the second word is made plain.)

Hahnemann, who first proved the remedy, says, in his introduction to it: “There are a few medicines, the majority of whose symptoms correspond in similarity with the symptoms of the commonest and most frequent of human diseases, and hence very often find an efficacious homoeopathic employment. These may be termed polychrests” (Chr. Dis), or a remedy that is indicated in and cures many diseases, and Nux vomica is a prominent polychrest.

Whether the seeds of this East India tree were “known to the ancients is a disputed question. It is only within the last one hundred and fifty years that its value in medicine has begun to be recognized’ (Dunham).

Nux vomica, from which the alkaloid Strychnia is obtained, is a remedy common to both schools of medicine and in both schools is often used in the same general class of cases, stomach and intestinal disorders.

While it has clear-cut and well defined symptoms, I doubt if there is another remedy in our Materia Medica that is used as often empirically or even without any reason at all as this one and it has passed into a current saying, that “when in doubt, give Nux.” Like most proverbs, it is not to be commended for its scientific accuracy and it is certainly not in accordance with our law of cure. Probably we get into this careless habit from the fact Nux vomica acts as an antidote for many remedies and that it is often good practice in beginning the treatment of a case just from old-school hands, which presents a very mixed condition and where we feel that many of the symptoms have been suppressed and that others that are present must be due to the drugs that have been taken and not wholly to the disease, it is often necessary for us to first give the patient a few doses of Nux. vom in order to clear up the case so that we may be enabled to prescribe intelligently on the symptoms that the disease alone presents.

Symptoms

      The most pronounced physiological effect of Nux vomica is spasm of all muscle fibre, voluntary, and involuntary, characterized by hyperaesthesia of the general nervous system (166). It acts chiefly upon the spinal column, affecting especially that portion which presides over the reflex function of the muscular system. with the result that “it excites muscular action, causing incoherent contractions to take place; it deranges the normal order in which muscular motions succeed each other” (Dunham).

It acts on the entire gastro-intestinal tract and on genito urinary organs;it affects the vaso-motor nerves with the resulting well-defined paroxysms of chill fever and sweat. It produces very few tissue changes.

There is in Nux vomica an aggravation of all symptoms early in the morning and from any mental effort. There is general relief from unbroken sleep, but aggravation when the sleep is disturbed (8) or when one is kept up beyond his usual time for retiring.

In some conditions there is aggravation in the open air and they take cold from the slightest draft (5), with relief in the house or from warmth; in other conditions it is just the reverse and there is an amelioration of the bad feeling when in the open air.

There is often found an aggravation immediately after eating (177).

The Nux vomica patient is preferably of dark complexion, with black hair and eyes (88); he is thin easily irritated and disposed to be quarrelsome, Hahnemann giving it as “of an anxious, zealous, fiery, hot temperament” (184).

On account of the morning aggravation, that is so common, his wife has learned to ask the fewest possible questions until he has had his breakfast, and to be sure that he has that meal exactly on the minute. If his wife makes no reply to his adjectives, it is quite possible that he will, later in the day, feel ashamed of his display of temper, but not enough so as to permit of a graceful apology; at the best, no more need be expected of him than, “I know I was cross and irritable this morning and I suppose it was wrong, but how can one help it when you ask such tom-fool questions.”

Nux vom, is adapted to high livers and to moderate drinkers; to those who lead a sedentary life to those who are constipated and who, when they do not have their daily movement of the bowels, take everyone they meet into their confidence. He is full of ideas as to how the world should be run, but as soon as things are altered, he has other changes to suggest. Bright light and strong odors annoy and noise, loud talking, singing or music are unpleasant and Nux vomica is primarily a man remedy.

He is pessimistic, “inclined to commit suicide, but too cowardly to consummate his desires” (Talcott) and all these conditions are noticed especially after eating (131), in persons of a sedentary habit, or in those who sit up late at night, and have alternations of constipation and diarrhoea (34).

The convulsions cured by Nux. vom are often epileptiform in character and are usually caused by indigestion (36) and are associated with reflex excitability. In apoplexy (18) it is to be thought of in a person of the Nux habit and especially for the resultant paralysis.

We have vertigo, an intoxicated feeling (207) in the morning before breakfast, recurring, perhaps, after dinner. While many a Nux vomica patient, even those not addicted to alcohol, will feel that his or her vertigo or headache will be better after the customary cup of coffee, still many conditions arise from its excessive use, and headache resulting from the abuse of coffee, or worse after a cup of coffee is common.

We find headache in the morning on first waking (95) even before opening the eyes, with sensitiveness internally (91) “as if beaten with an ax,” or a congestive, full feeling, with sensation as if it would burst (104), and with desire to hold the head or press it against something hard (92). The headaches are usually frontal, associated with a bilious condition (95), nausea and vomiting, sour or nasty taste.

Nux vomica is of value in supraorbital neuralgia recurring regularly in the morning and in infraorbital neuralgia, involving the face, with running of water from the eye or nostril of the affected side, the neuralgias being especially due to the abuse of coffee or alcohol.

In the eye a guiding symptom would be the morning aggravation. We find great photophobia in the morning (76), with burying of the face in the pillow, the forcible opening of the lids followed by a gush of tears (76), the photophobia disappearing later in the day. It is of value in atrophy of the optic nerve, and in amaurosis resulting from the excessive use of tobacco or alcohol it is the most prominent remedy that we have.

It is useful in earache (63), with hyperaesthesia to sounds and intermittent pains worse on going into a warm room or when getting warm in bed (64), and for deafness due to a fresh cold, with roaring in the ears (65), headache, chilliness, sneezing and itching in the Eustachian tube.

This itching or tickling in the throat end of the Eustachian tube (Handbook says l.), where the patient tries in every way to get at it in order to scratch the pale and so obtain relief, is a good indication for Nux vomica in a beginning coryza or in hay fever (90).

The coryzas are apt to be caused by exposure to dry, cold weather (37), with sneezing, crawling and stuffiness of the nose (39), itching and scraping of the throat, and with at first dryness of the nose followed by watery discharge. The stuffiness of the nose is worse in the house or in a warm room and is relieved in the open air (37). The coryza is oftentimes fluent

(37) during the day and stopped at night, or the stoppage alternates between the nostrils, first one side and then the other becoming suddenly stopped or free (37); at night this stoppage is especially apt to be worse on the side on which he lies.

Nux vomica is to be thought of for facial neuralgia, recurring periodically every morning (79).

The toothache may be neuralgic, from taking cold (187); it is better from heat (187), worse from cold air (187), on taking cold water in the mouth (187) and especially worse immediately after eating (187).

The prevailing taste in Nux vomica conditions is sour (186) or putrid according to our books; but the words used by patients to describe it depends upon the extent of their vocabulary, and I do not know of a remedy where such a variety of words is used to describe taste as under this one.

Imagine the state of man when he wakes late some morning after having spent the previous night “with some friends from the West,” and you have some idea of the Nux vomica taste. “Bad” and “horrid” are customary terms, while “dark brown” is prevalent; “like a motorman’s glove,” “like a parrot’s cage ” or “as if a colored family had just moved out,’ have been given me.

We have nausea with distaste for food, tobacco and coffee (5) and aversion to the smell of food or of cooking (6) When there is vomiting it is usually sour-tasting and sour smelling.

Willard Ide Pierce
Willard Ide Pierce, author of Plain Talks on Materia Medica (1911) and Repertory of Cough, Better and Worse (1907). Dr. Willard Ide Pierce was a Director and Professor of Clinical Medicine at Kent's post-graduate school in Philadelphia.