DULCAMARA


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


(Solanum dulcamara, Woody Night-shade.)

(The juice freshly expressed from the young stalks and leaves of this shrub-like plant before its flowering time, mixed with equal parts of spirits of win. Two drops of the clear fluid lying over the sediment are added to 98 drops of spirits of wine, the phila shaken with two strokes of the arm, and in this way diluted through 29 phials (filled two third full with 100 drops of spirits of wine), and each potentized with two succussions up to the decillion-fold development of power; one or two smallest globules moistened with this serve for a dose.)

It is very probable, as experiments have indeed partly that this very powerful plant belongs to the antipsorics, as the following pure effects of it seem also to show; still, I shall try to obtain more accurate corroboration of this.

It will morever be found specific for some epidemic fevers, as also for various acute diseases the result of a chill.

Its long duration of action is shown in its trials on healthy persons.

[AHNER, CUBITZ, GROSS, MULLER, of TREUEN, NENNING (in HARTLAUB and TRINKS’ Mat. Medorrhinum), E. F. RUCKERT, STAPF, TRINKS and HARTLAUB (in their Mat. Medorrhinum), GUST, WAGNER, WAHLE, aided HAHNEMANN in this proving.

Symptoms quoted from the following old-school authorities:

ALTHOF, in Murray, Appar. Medorrhinum

CARRERE, Ueber das Bittersuss, 1789.

FRITZE, Annal d. Klin. Ins. In Berlin, iii.

GOUAN, Memoires de la Soc. De Montpellier.

HAEN, DE, Ratio Medendi.

LINNAEUS, Diss. de Dulcamara. Upsal., 1753.

PIQUOT, Samml. br. Abh. f. pr. A., ii.

STARCKE, in Carrere, l. c.

TODE (reference not given).

In the 1st edit. Of the ‘R.A.M.L.’ dulcamara had 123 symptoms, in the 2nd edit. 349, and in this last edit. 401; the Chr. Kr. gives 409.]

DULCAMARA

A transient slight vertigo. [Ng.]

At noon before eating, whilst walking, giddy, as if all objects remained standing before him, and as if it became black before his eyes.

Momentary vertigo. [PIQUOT, (From vol. I, 3rd edit., 1830.) in samml. br. Abh. f. pr. A., ii, 4.]

Vertigo [ALTHOF, (Statement from observation.) in Murray, Appar. Medorrhinum, I, p. 621.]

5. When he wanted to get up out of bed in the morning, he almost fell from vertigo, general weakness and trembling of all the body (aft. 24 h.). [Mr.]

Stupefaction. [CARRERE, (Carrere’s original work is “Traite des properties, usages, et effets de la Douceamere,” Paris, 1789. The citations have been corrected from this treatise. They consist of effects of dulcamara when given for chronic rheumatism, suppressed secretions, and cutaneous diseases. The author says that he has after seventeen year’s experience with the drug; seen no inconvenience result from full doses save those described in S. 88 and 278; 199; 395, 358 (sometimes the precursors of a new eruption, and then associated with 341 and 342); 11 and 65; and 94.) Ueber das Bittersuss, v. Staracke, Jen., 1786.]

Great stupefaction of the head. [STARCKE, (Carrere’s german translator. Additional observations (of the same kind) by him.) in Carrere, l. c.]

Dull stupefying headache.

Headache in the morning in bed, aggravated by rising. [Mr.]

10. Headache, lassitude, icy coldness of all the body, and inclination to vomit. [Mr.]

Heaviness of the head. [CARRERE, l. c.]

Heaviness in the forehead (aft. 12 h.). [We.]

Heaviness in the forehead for several days, at the same time frequent darts from within outwards in the temporal region. [We.]

Heaviness in the occiput, for three days. [We.]

15. Heaviness of the whole head all day, as if the integuments of the head were stretched, especially in the nape, where the sensation becomes a kind of formication. [We.]

Heaviness of the head, with out-boring pain in the temple and forehead, as after a debauch overnight. [Wr.]

Stupid feeling in the head, as after intoxication, which went off in the open air. [Wr.]

Stupid and empty in the head, in the afternoon about 6 o’clock. [Ng.]

Stupid feeling in the head and slight drawing in the left frontal protuberance. [Ng.]

20. The stupid headache lasted for 10 days. [Ng.]

Giddiness in the head with warmth rising up into the whole face. [Ng.]

Heat in the head. [CARRERE, l. c.]

Digging aching in the whole of the forehead. [Gss.]

Violent headache like a digging in the middle of the brain in the sinciput, like dulness, and a sensation as if the brain were swollen, a pain that came on early in bed, and was not diminished or increased either by rest or movement; but it was worse on getting up. [Mr.]

25. Out-boring headache at one time in the forehead, at another in the temples (aft. 15 h.). [Wr.]

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.