Belladonna. [Bell]
The three great remedies of the Solanacae family have an important action on the mental state, and are possibly more often thought of and indicated in mental affections than other remedies. Belladonna is a remedy for delirious states, and must be given where there is wildness, restlessness, and a desire to cut or tear the clothing. The patient springs out of bed and strikes those around him. He appears frightened and sees objects when he closes his eyes. Speech and actions are hasty. It thus becomes a valuable remedy in ***acute mania, in fact, the highest form of mania, with great determination of blood to the head, hyperaesthesia of the senses, wild eyes and dilated pupils. Such patients may even bark like dogs and are most violent and pugnacious. No other remedy is more frequently indicated and a frequent mistake here is to give it too low; the higher potencies act better and more promptly. ***Violence is characteristic, great noisiness, the patient sings, screams and curses. Delusions of every conceivable variety may be present, in fact, it suits well a buffoonish insanity with ridiculous actions. Butler says the **Belladonna melancholic is exceedingly depressed, fearful and subject to violent attacks of weeping.
**Opium has also a fantastical insanity.
**Cocaine has a sensation as if foreign bodies were under the skin; this is in reality a hallucination. It has also hallucinations of hearing.
Hyoscyamus. [Hyos]
This is also a remedy in acute mania with extreme excitation of the sensorium and abnormal impulses. Talcott says that **Hyoscyamus ” paints the mental town of its victim a brilliant and luminous red and stimulates him to sing in merriest and most vociferous tones the songs of Venus and Bacchus combined.” The **Hyoscyamus patient will perhaps imagine he is pursued by some demon or that some one is trying to take his life; and he runs away from an imaginary foe. He is talkative and, like **Lachesis, constantly jumping from one subject to another. The face is only slightly flushed, not the violent congestion of **Belladonna. He may see ghosts and demons, but the mania of **Hyoscyamus is rather an acute non-inflammatory mania.
**Kali bromatum suits the acute mania of children where patient thinks he will be murdered or that people intend to strike him.
**Camphor has maniacal excitement, suicidal impulse. It is a splendid remedy in exhaustion psychoses with maniacal outbursts and vital powers at a low ebb.
The **Hyoscyamus patient acts silly and idiotic; is lascivious and lewd; throws the bed-clothes off and makes lewd and ridiculous gestures. Persists in stripping herself and uncovering the genitals. Nymphomania. It is a good remedy for the bad effects of extreme jealousy, fright, disappointed love, etc.
Nux moschata has occasional outbreaks of silly laughter and a delusion of having two heads.
There is also a condition of depression found under **Hyoscyamus with debility and prostration where questions are answered slowly or irrelevantly; there is a quick pulse, accumulation of sordes on the teeth, snoring breathing and dropping of the lower jaw. There is a great characteristic of the remedy usually present in these cases, namely, a constant picking at the bedclothes or objects in the air. There is also the great and characteristic symptoms of constant fear of being poisoned by the attendants, which Rhus also has.
**Cantharis. Here we have terrific outbursts of rage, the patient barks, and bites those around him. It is exceedingly destructive. Patient are filled with hallucinations and converse with people long dead. Such conditions are curable by **Cantharis when reflex from sexual or bladder troubles. There is an overpowering sexual excitement with this remedy and the patients are desperate and excessive masturbators and manias with this symptom corresponds to it.
Stramonium. [Stram]
This remedy. like the two preceding members of the same family, has mania, and it is wild and most terrifying, filled with hallucinations: he sees rats, mice, snakes and other animals approaching him and he retires in terror. He is also loquacious; he becomes religious, prays, laughs, talks foolishly and tries to escape; again he becomes Satanic, and has outbursts of violence with ideas of persecution. It corresponds well to many phases of erotic mania, nymphomania, and the mania of masturbation. The keynote of its symptomatology is ***terror. There is also a mania for light and company. Hallucinations of hearings, hears music and men talking in foreign languages. The symptoms are changeable, full of joy, and then full of rage. Proud and then dull.
Professor of Materia Medica in the University of Michigan Homeopathic Medical College. Member of American Institute of Homeopathy. In addition to his editoral work he authored or collaborated on: Boericke and Dewey's Twelve Tissue Remedies, Essentials of Homeopathic Materia Medica, Essentials of Homeopathic Therapeutics and Practical Homeopathic Therapeutics.