ARNICA MONTANA


Hahnemann’s proving symptoms of homeopathy remedy Arnica Montana from Materia Medica Pura, which Samuel Hahnemann wrote between 1811 to 1821…


(From vol. i, 3rd edit.)

The root of this plant, whose favourite habitat is in shrub-grown upland plains, very soon loses in the air a considerable portion of its odour and of its medicinal power, but it loses most by boiling. Still the freshly prepared powder dried rapidly and thoroughly in the water-bath may be kept with almost unimpaired power for several years in wellcorked phials.

All the artificial dogmas enunciated by the ordinary medical art, which is in its way a learned science, all its scholastic definitions, distinctions, and hair-splitting explanations were in all past centuries unable to discover the specific curative power of this plant or to find out the real remedy for the often dangerous general derangement of the health which is caused by a severe fall, by blows, knocks, contusions, sprains, or by over-stretching or laceration of the solid parts(Hence it is very beneficial in the meat severe wounds by bullets and blunt weapons, as also in the pains and other ailments consequent on extracting the teeth, and in other surgical operations whereby sensitive parts have been violently stretched, as also after dislocations of the joints, after setting fractures of the bones &c.) of our body. Common people had to do this for them, and after the fruitless employment of innumerable things they found at last by accident the true remedy in this vegetable, and hence they called it Fallkraut (fall plant). Some 200 years ago a physician (FEHR) first mentioned this discovery of domestic practice to the learned medical art (this plant was then named by her “Panacea lapsorum”), which has likewise borrowed all the other still extant specific remedies she possesses without exception from the accidental discoveries of domestic practice, but was unable to find them for herself, because she never attempted to ascertain the pure effects of natural substances on the healthy human body.

The symptoms of all injuries caused by severe contusions and lacerations of the fibres are tolerably uniform in character, and, as the following record shows, these symptoms are contained in striking homoeopathic similarity in the alterations of the health which arnica montana develops in the healthy human subject.

In severe and extensive contusion-injuries the cure is very much promoted when, in addition to a small dose of arnica taken internally (when necessary a dose every three days), the parts are also for the first twenty-four hours externally moistened with wine or equal parts of brandy and water, with one pound of either of which five to ten drops of the hundred-fold potentized dilution of arnica are mixed and strongly succussed about ten times.

But the following list of its pule powers points to several other morbid conditions in the human system for which arnica offers sure homoeopathic relief. It is a medicine of much utility, and although its action even in same doses does not last beyond six days, yet I have found it an indispensable auxiliary and intermediate remedy even in the most chronic diseases.

But we must never employ it in purely inflammatory acute diseases, with general heat, chiefly external, nor in diarrhoeas. In such cases it will always be found to be very hurtful, the reason of which is obvious from its peculiar mode of action.

In some kinds of false pleurisy, however, it is very efficacious, in such, namely, whose symptoms correspond to those of this root.

The best preparation of this medicine for internal use is the decillionth(In this as in many other places. Hahnemann rally the potency by the degree of its dilution. And not as on other occasions by the number of times it has been diluted by the addition of 99 or 100 parts to 1 of the stronger preparation. Thus “the hundred-fold potentized dilution” is the first dilution.” The decillinth development of power” is the thirtieth dilution”) development of power. When we can obtain the plant in the green state we mix the freshly expressed juice obtained from the whole plant when near its flowering time with equal parts of spirits of wine. Two drops of the clear fluid, obtained by allowing the mixture to stand, are first diluted with ninety-eight drops of spirits of wine and potentized by two succussions. The dilution is carried on through twenty-nine other phials, always one drop of the weaker dilution added to 100 drops of spirit in the next phial, and shaken twice. In the last phial it is brought to the decillionth development of power.

But if we cannot get the plant in the green state we must be satisfied with a tincture made by adding ten grains of the finely powdered root, as fresh as it can be had, to 1000 drops of alcohol, and allowing it to digest for a week, giving it one shake per diem. Of this one drop is mixed with 100 drops of alcohol, and potentized with two succussions, and so on until the decillionth potency is reached. Two or three of the smallest globules moistened with the highest potency are the most ordinary dose for internal use.

Camphor is the antidote for large doses in unhomoeopathic cases, but wine aggravates its injurious effects.

[The names of HAHNEMANN’S fellow-observers are:- AUG, BAEHR, FRANZ, GROSS, FR. HAHNEMANN, HORNBURG, KUMMER, LANGHAMMER. STAPE. WISLICENUS.]

The old-school authorities quoted are :

AASKOW, Actea Soc. Medorrhinum Hafn., ii.

COLLIN, Obs. cirea Morbos, iv and v.

CRICHTON, A., Samml, br. Abh. F. pr. Aerste, xiii, 3.

DE LA MARCHE, Diss. De. Arnica vera, Halae, 1719.

DE MEZA, Samml, br. Abh. F. pr. Aerste, xiii.

Edinb, Medorrhinum Comment., Dec. ii. vol. ii.

MURRAN, Appar, Medicam., i.

PELARGUS, Obs., i.

STOLL, Rat. Medorrhinum iii.

THOMAS A THUESSINK, Waarnehm, Groning, 1805.

Vecko krift for Lakare, viii.

VICAT, Mat. Medorrhinum, i.

In the Frag. De Vir. Arnica has 150 symptoms in the 1st edit. 230, in the 2nd edit. 592, and in this 3rd edit 638.].

ARNICA MONATA

During dinner sudden vertigo, as if he would fall forwards. [Gss.]

Giddy whilst walking. [Stf. Gss., Archiro f. d. homoop.. Heilk. v, iii. ( In the original the symptoms contributed by Stapfand Gross, which first appeared in the Archiv. Are indicated by a reference of each to that periodical. For the reason stated in regard to aconite we have substitued the names of the provers for the reference to the periodical. No explanation of these symptoms is given in the Archiv, save that they were observed on healthy persons.)]

Vertigo in the forehead, especially when walking, when it seems to her as if all went round with her in a circle and would tumble with her. [Stf. Gss.]

Vertigo; when she sits and leans the head forward, almost unnoticed; but when she raises or moves the head, immediately a feeling as if all went round with her. [Stf. Gss.]

5. Vertigo.

Confusion of head.

Confusion of head, vertigo, and anxiety, increased by artificial vomiting.

Stupefying headache in the morning.

Heaviness in the forehead (aft. 1 h.). [Stf- Gss.]

10. He sits buried in thought, but does not actually think of anything.

Want of memory; he forgets the word on his lips. [Fr. H-n.]

Distraction of the mind; he cannot fix his thoughts long on one subject. [Ws.]

Along with cloudiness of the head and confusion of the lateral parts of the skull, contracted pupil.[Fz.]

Dulness in the head, without any particular headache (aft. 2 h.). [Kr.]

15. He readily falls into a waking dream. [Kr.]

Internal heat, especially in the head, with heaviness of it, without thirst. [Ws.]

Burning in the head, with aching, out-stretching pain.

Burning in the brain, the rest of the body being cool, at least not hot.

Heat in the head; the rest of the body being cool, at least not hot.

20. Headache. [DE Meza ( A case of paraplegia induced by suppressed menstruation (from fatigue and fright) in a young girl, cured (after lasting three years) by arnica. which brought on the menses immediately, motion returning on two days. (the symptoms have been translated direct from the Latin original.) in Samml. br. Abh, f. pr. Aerzte, xiii.-Editlb. Medorrhinum Comment., Dec. ii, v. ii, p. 350.]

In the temples an aching pain (aft.1/2 h.). [Kr.]

After aching headache, theoccurs also in the temples throbbing, aching headache.

Aching pain in the forehead.

Aching pain in the forehead, which increases when near the warm stove, as if the brain were rolled into a lump. [Fz.]

25. Aching and out-stretching pain, as from something soft in the crown, with drawing in the occiput and tearing towards the temples. [Fz.]

Aching pain over the eyes, going towards the temples, with sensation as if the integuments of the forehead were spasmodically contracted (aft. 1 h.). [ Ws.]

First aching pain in the forehead, then shooting and jerking-shooting pain in the forehead; with chilliness (aft. 8 h.).

Aching, pressing pain in the forehead, especially severe when walking, going up stairs, thinking and reading. [Hbg.]

Aching in the right frontal bone, followed by sneezing, whereupon it extended first into the left then into the right ear (aft. 2 d.). [ Hbg. ]

30. Aching, painful drawing in the left half of the skull from the ear upwards (aft. 3 h.). [Hbg. ]

Aching, stupefying pain in the forehead, rather externally (aft. 5.1/2 h.) [Lr.]

Aching pain externally, on the crown. [Ws.]

After sneezing twice, a pain in the left side of the forehead, as after a violent blow. [Hbg.]

When coughing violent shooting in the sinciput (aft. 7 h.). [Lr.]

35. Great shoots in the head on coughing (aft. 10 h.).

Headache; shootings outwards, which recur when coughing and even when moving the head, and which are only allayed when he lies on the painful side of the head.

Fine shooting pain in the forehead which is aggravated by raising the eyes, with heat of face and thirst.

Shooting in the forehead.

In the forehead jerking shooting.[Stf. Gss.]

40. On the left temple jerking shooting. [Stf. Gss.]

Headache as if a nail were driven into the temple, with general perspiration, about midnight, followed by exhaustion (aft. a few h.).

From time to time recurring, fine shooting tearing headache in the left temple (aft. 4 h.).

Stitches rapidly following one another in the temporal region towards the forehead (aft. 4 h.). [Kr.]

In the left frontal protuberance a rapid shooting, with the sensation as if blood were extravasated in the forehead. [Gss.]

45. Shooting pain in the forehead. [Hbg.]

Obtuse stitches into the temples (aft. 1 h.). [Ws.]

Samuel Hahnemann
Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) was the founder of Homoeopathy. He is called the Father of Experimental Pharmacology because he was the first physician to prepare medicines in a specialized way; proving them on healthy human beings, to determine how the medicines acted to cure diseases.

Hahnemann's three major publications chart the development of homeopathy. In the Organon of Medicine, we see the fundamentals laid out. Materia Medica Pura records the exact symptoms of the remedy provings. In his book, The Chronic Diseases, Their Peculiar Nature and Their Homoeopathic Cure, he showed us how natural diseases become chronic in nature when suppressed by improper treatment.