(Rhuburb.)
(From vol. ii, 3rd edit., 1833.)
(A grain of fresh, good, pulverised rhuburb-root is, for homoeopathic use, to be brought to the thirtieth potency (X) in the same way as is taught in the preface to arsenic, viz, by three hours of triturition with milk-sugar and subsequent dilution and potentization.)
In the thousand years since this root was introduced into medicine – first of all by the arabians – it has been misused, sometimes (and indeed very frequently) for senseless scouring out of the intestinal canal, sometimes for allying certain diarrhoeas, but even for the latter purpose seldom with good results.
Had physicians known that rhuburb, like all other medicines, can only cure easily, certainly and permanently, affections similar in every respect to those it produces on the healthy body, they would not have remained for so many centuries in ignorance about the pure characteristic effects of this valuable plant, nor would they have made so many injurious applications of it.
The following short list of the positive effects of rhuburb will serve as a guide to some useful homoeopathic employment of it; they will show in what particular cases it must be decidedly efficacious; they will show that it causes symptoms which enable us to make a curative homoeopathic employment of it in similar symptoms of many common diseases (especially of children), and hence that we may often give it advantageously in certain cases, without making mistakes.
A very minute globule moistened with the thirtieth dilution (X) suffices for all homoeopathic curative purposes, to be repeated if necessary, The olfaction of a globule the size of mustard seed moistened with this dilution is almost always sufficient.
{HAHNEMANN as aided in this proving by GROSS, HORNBURG, F. RUCKERT, TEUTHORN.]
Symptoms are derived from the following old-school sources:
BAKER, in Murray, Appar. Medic., iv.
BROCKLESBY, in ibid.
FALLOPIUS (no reference).
FORDYCE, in Murray,Appar. Medic., iv.
MENZEL and TILLING, in ibid.
MURRAY, Appar. medic., iv.
PALLAS, Reise, iii.
PAULLI, SIM.(no reference).
PAULLINI, in Murray, l. c.
The frag. De Vir. Gives 52 symptoms: the 1st edit 194; the 2nd 209, this 3rd edit one less, the omitted symptom being merely a slight variation on 113.]
RHEUM
Vertigo. [SIM. PAULLI, (Observation)…..]
When standing, attack of vertigo with inclination to fall on one side. [Trn.]
Cloudiness in the sinciput, drawing about in it. [Gss.]
Head quite stupid, as after intoxication. [Trn.]
5. Throbbing headache.
A hammering rose into the head as if from the abdomen (aft. 6 h.).
Formication in the temporal region. [Hbg.]
A drawing pain deep behind the frontal eminences. [Gss.]
Pulsating squeezing pain sometimes in the left, sometimes in the right temporal bone and over the crown (aft. 15 h.). [Hbg.]
10. Feeling of heaviness in the head and intermittent tearing in it (whilst walking)(aft 1 h.). [Rkt.]
Aching pain over the whole anterior part of the skull. [Hbg.]
Pressive pain in the right side of the head, especially on the crown and in the temples (aft. ½ h.). [Hbg.]
Dull, beating pain in the sinciput, chiefly when standing. [Trn.]
Slight stitches over the temples.[Trn.]
15. First an aching then a tearing pain in the head extending into the occiput.
An obtuse stretching dizzy headache, which spreads all over the brain, but is worst on the crown and in the temples.
Headache as if stupefying, as if wrenched in the head, and great anxiety as if he had done something bad, but more when moving and stooping.
Heavy in the head, with a sultry heat rising up into it.
On stooping, feeling as if the brain moved.
20. Dulness of the head with swollen eyes; afterwards aching pain in the head over one orbit, with dilated pupils (aft. 1 to 4 h.).
On the border of the upper eyelid a small gland which cause aching and burning pain.
Before going to sleep an eroding pain in the left eye, as if dirt, dust, or an insect hat got into it, with flow of tears. [Hbg.]
The eyes weep and water in the open air. [Rkt.]
Throbbing pain in the eyes. [Trn.]
25. Pressure on the eyelids, even when they are shut. [Gss.]
Drawing in the eyelids. [Rkt.]
Pupils contracted, sometimes more sometimes less. [Rkt.]
Contraction of the pupils, accompanied by an internal uneasiness (for sixteen hours).
Eyes as if weak, and when he looks long at anything, an aching in them as if they were fatigued.
30. Itching miliary rash on the forehead and arm (aft. 36 h.).
Inclination to contract and wrinkle the frontal muscles. [Trn.]
Tensive sensation in the skin of the face. [Rkt.]
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.