(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.]
20. Rather dizziness in the head than vertigo.
So weak in mind that his thoughts leave him, as if he were about to faint, at the same time heat of face, chiefly when standing.
Illusion of the mind; her own head seems to her much too heavy.[Fr. H-n.]
Stupid in the head, with striking forgetfulness. [Fr. H-n.]
She did not rightly know what she was doing (in the room), worse when lying, for twenty-four hours (immediately) [Fr. H-n.]
25. She did not know what she was doing, and let everything fall out of her hands (in the room). [Fr. H-n.]
The head is stupid, thinking difficult. [Hrr.]
He wishes for things that are not present.
He wishes for things immediately, and then will not have them.
Want of memory, forgetfulness (aft. 4 h.).
30. His head felt very heavy.
Excessive heaviness of the head (frequently, and aft. 4 d.). [Hrr.]
Great heaviness of the head and pressure of the whole brain forwards.
Stupefaction of the head.
Head feels empty (aft. 1 h.). [Hrr.]
35. Dulness in the head until he goes to sleep.
In the morning the headache commences not on awaking, bat on first opening and moving the eyes.
In the morning on awaking the head is dull and painful, as if he had been drinking and dissipating the previous evening; he is unwilling to get out of bed.
(On treading a pressure in the head.)
In the occiput obtuse pain. [Hbg.]
40. Dull aching in the occiput. [Rkt.]
Throbbing headache in the forehead, so that he must lie down.[Fr. H-n.]
Digging pressure in the front part of the brain, with pressing towards the forehead, especially violent when stooping or walking quickly; a walk tires him very much (aft. 24 h.). [Hrr.]
A pain in the forehead, aching so much that he can hardly stoop.[Hbg.]
Pressure from within outwards above the left orbit, in the brain, which passed into a pressure from above inwards in the eyeball (aft.3 d) [Hrr.]
45. Aching pain in the head, mainly on one side, together with tiresome aching feeling in the eye of that side (afternoon). [Rkt.]
An obscure compression in the head, in the forehead above the eyes.
First the blood mounted to the head, then ensued a compression from both temples.
Sensation as if the head were compressed from both ears.
Compressive pain at both sides of the head. [Hbg.]
50. Headache: a compression with jerks in the brain, like beating of the pulse.
In the morning, before day-break, pain as if the head were bound round, with weight in it, mingled with stitches; on account of pain she could not raise her eyes, and when she stooped she could not rise up again (aft. 60 h.).
Violent headache like great heaviness in it, as if it inclined to all sides; with pressure in the brain outwards, and great desire to lie down (immediately).
Headache, after a meal, and when walking an outward pressure in the forehead.
Headache as if all would come out at the forehead (Comp. 395)
55. Headache when stooping as if all would fall out at the forehead. (The sensation of asunder-pressing corresponds almost completely with that of compression 46,47,48,50. 51, as it is felt by the brain enclosed in the unyielding skull; the organic sense cannot then distinguish whether the pain is owing to the great distension or from the resistance of the skull, and yet both are to blame for it.)
When sitting (stooping) and reading, giddy heaviness in the head, which is allayed by raising up the head.
Headache only when stooping, a pressing out at the forehead mingled with stitches.
In the head an aching as if the brain were full and pressed asunder, chiefly when sitting.
An out-pressing pain in both temples.
60. Headache as if something pressed the skull asunder.
In the morning, in bed after awaking, when lying on the back, headache in the occiput, which extends to the shoulders, like a weight which presses on a sore place.
Semilateral headache: a (digging) pressure on a small spot of the right half of the brain, as from a kind of digging or tearing along the bones of the upper and lower maxillae, stands in connexion with a painful submaxillary gland (aft. 30 h.).
Headache: in the morning after rising a twitching drawing in the bones of the cheeks and jaws.
Twitching tearing from the right malar bone up to the right temple externally, more violent when touched. [Hrr.]
65.Tearing pain in the left side of the head (aft. 24 h.). [Fr. H-n.]
(Tearing pain over the forehead then tearing in the cervical muscles, then tearing in the right arm.)
While walking in the open air a stitch in the head through the temple.
Anteriorly in the forehead single stitches, with dulness of the head. [Hbg.]
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.