(White Briony.)
(The juice expressed from the fresh root dug up before the flowering time, is mixed with equal parts of alcohol, and, for homeopathic use, is diluted and potentized as directed in the introduction to pulsatilla, up to the thirtieth potency.)
The duration of the action of a somewhat large dose of this vegetable juice can be perceived for a couple of weeks.
The similarity of its effects to many of the symptoms of Rhus toxicodendron cannot fail to be noticed; in the preface to the latter medicine I have sufficiently dwelt upon this. At the same time bryonia affects the disposition quite differently, its fever consists chiefly of chilliness, and its symptoms are mostly excited or aggravated by corporeal exertion, although its alternating effects, when the symptoms are relieved by movement, ate not very rare.
Hence, when using bryonia in diseases, there occur cases where the remedy, although chosen as homoeopathically as possible and given in sufficiently small dose, does not render adequate service in the first twenty four hours. The reason of this is that only one, and that the wrong series, of its alternating actions corresponded. In such cases a fresh dose administered after twenty-four hours effects amelioration by the production of the opposite alternating actions. (The same happens with respect to all drugs, a second dose given immediately arid quickly after the first one partially destroys the action of the first dose.) This happens with only very few other medicines having alternating actions (vide the preface to ignatia), but it occurs not rarely with bryonia.
When it has been really wrongly selected and was not truly homoeopathic, the bad effects are generally removable by Thus, or, according to circumstances, by some other medicine corresponding more exactly to the bad effects produced, such as camphor.
From the rich treasury of symptoms it causes in the healthy human body, a number of artificial morbid states may be put together, of which we may happily avail ourselves for the homoeopathic relief of many ailments of daily occurrence, especially certain fevers, and some kinds of the so-called abdominal spasms of the female sex. Hence its remedial powers are of great extent.
In severe acute diseases, with great excitement, the most serviceable dose is a very high attenuation, one higher than I have previously used to wit, a very small globule of the decillionfold potency. The more or less strong olfaction of a globule the size of a mustard seed moistened with this attenuation acts more gently and certainly, and is equally efficacious in its effects upon the vital force-so amenable to accurately selected homoeopathic remedies-which has been appointed by the wise Creator for bringing about the cure.
[The following assisted HAHNEMANN in his proving of bryonia:-FRIED. HAHNEMANN, HERRMANN, HORNBURG, MICHLER; E. F. RUCKERT, STAPF.
The only reference to another authority is in Symptom 682 where the name NICOLAI appears, but without any reference to enable us to identify him.
The 1st edit, gives 510 symptoms, the 2nd and 3rd 781.]
BRYONIA
Vertigo.
Vertigo, as if he were whirled round, or as if everything whirled round him, when standing.
In the head a dull, giddy confusion, [Mch.]
A kind of vertigo as if he were intoxicated, and as if the blood rushed violently towards his head. [Hrr.]
5. He feels as if intoxicated, he is disposed to lie down. [Fr. H-n.]
Vertigo as soon as he rose from his seat; all turned round about him; after walking for some time this went off.
Vertigo as if from intoxication, all day (aft. 8 d.).
Staggering in the morning. [Fr. H-n.]
Vertigo, with feeling of heaviness, he felt as if all whirled round him in a circle. [Hrr.]
10. Vertigo and fullness in the head. [Hbg.]
Giddy, as if whirling, when she sits up in bed, and nausea in the centre of the chest, as if about to faint.
In the evening (aft. 8 p.m.) such vertigo when standing that he staggered backwards, and would have fallen backwards.
When he attempts to walk he staggers as if he would fall backwards.
When walking staggering to either side, as if he could not stand firmly (aft. 48 h.).
15. After moving, when standing, she sways to one side.
In the morning, on rising from bed, so giddy and whirling, as if all went round in a circle in his head.
All day long giddy in the head and weak in the limbs.
He can hardly turn his head on account of a feeling of fullness in it. [Hbg.]
In the region of the crown and forehead dull movements in the head, which causes vertigo and cessation of thought. [Mch.]
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.