CHAMOMILLA


Excessive irritability of the nerves is well marked. The nervous child, when punished, will go into convulsions. Convulsions of children, they become stiff, roll the eyes, distort the face, twitch muscles, throw the limbs about, clench the thumbs, bend the body backward. Titanic convulsions, twitching of the eye lids, pain in the limbs, general prostration, faintness.


This is german chamomile. It grows in Europe and our tincture is prepared from the whole plant (except the root) gathered at the time of flowering.

Chamomilla exerts its influence on sensory nerves, digestive tract, mind, emotion, on sleep, liver; on women and children. Its chief guiding symptoms belong to the mental and emotional group; a mild, calm and gentle disposition as also sluggish and constipated bowels contraindicate chamomilla. It is sensitive, irritable, hot, thirsty and numb. Oversensitiveness from abuse of coffee and narcotics; pains are unendurable, associated with numbness.

Womens nervous system is wrought-up, extremely sensitive and in pain. She suffers from chagrin.

Excessive irritability of the nerves is well marked. The nervous child, when punished, will go into convulsions. Convulsions of children, they become stiff, roll the eyes, distort the face, twitch muscles, throw the limbs about, clench the thumbs, bend the body backward. Titanic convulsions, twitching of the eye lids, pain in the limbs, general prostration, faintness.

The most important and predominating part of the drug is the mental state. Piteous moaning. Irritability, whining restlessness. The child wants many things which he refuses again. He can only be quieted when carried about and petted constantly, Impatient; intolerant of being spoken to or interrupted. Driven to frenzy by the pains. Complaints arising from anger. Spiteful and snappish. She has no consideration for the feeling of others. Will not bear to be touched or looked at. Peevish. Bad effects of the feelings wounded. Child restless and capricious about the members of the family.

Chamomilla has congestive headaches; throbbing, tearing, bursting headaches. Worse when thinking of the pain or when thinking about the sufferings. Its pains are worse in the evening, especially worse about 9 p.m.

Violent neuralgia of the of the face, teeth, ear, sides of the head. Pains inside the mouth are ameliorated by cold, but earache and pains of the sides of head are ameliorated by heat. Hot, sticky sweat on the forehead.

Pains in ears are stitching in character, > by heat. A feeling of fullness, as if the ear were obstructed or stuffed up. “The ears are so sensitive to air when others parts of the face and head are not.” In nervous sensitive women who cannot ride in the wind without covering up their ears.

There happens fluent, viscid, acrid coryza, with loss of smell lasting while the cold lasts. Nose stopped up, yet runs a watery mucus. Sneezing and inability to sleep; a dry teasing cough, keeping the child awake; or else a rattling cough, as if the bronchi were full of mucus. In childrens cold, with stuffed up nostrils, it compares with Nux v., Sambucus and Sticta. Nux v., is a splendid remedy for the first stage of a cold. The nose is stopped or stops at night and runs through he day. There is frontal headache. Throat is sore and very sensitive to inhaled cold air. But the most characteristic indication is that the patient is chilly on the least motion or uncovering.

Even during the fever, must be covered and keep quiet. Sticta pulmonaria is also useful in acute colds where there is severe pain in the forehead and root of the nose and frontal sinuses, and the nasal secretions dry up and stick, causing a constant desire to blow the nose, or they form into scabs difficult to dislodge. In some cases mucus drops from the posterior nares, and the throat looks raw and feels like dry leather. Sambucus has its own peculiarities. Nose suddenly stops up at night. Sniffles of infants, when the nursing child must let go the nipple, nose blocked up, cannot breathe, The child awakes suddenly, nearly suffocating, sits up, turns blue.

In the face we find one cheek red and hot, and the other pale and cold. Rending pains in the face, stitches in jaw, extending to inner ear, teeth and the outer face at the some time. Pains on being disturbed by chagrin, anger, excitement. If the outer nerves in the face are involved the pains will be ameliorated by heat; if it affects the teeth, the pains will be relieved by cold. The face sweats after eating or drinking. A common feature of the remedy is to sweat about the head, the hairy scalp.

Toothache entirely absent during the day, begins as soon as night comes; worse before midnight, in a warm room or getting warm in bed. An effective remedy for toothache during pregnancy. Teeth feel too long, gums swollen. Offensive, fetid smell from the mouth.

Sorethroat with uniform redness spreading evenly over the whole throat, with considerable swelling. Spasms of the larynx during cough, or without cough. Inflammation of tonsils. Swelling of the parotid and submaxillary glands. The chamomilla mental symptoms determine when we are to give chamomilla in sorethroat; and as a matter of that, in almost every ailment.

The cough of chamomilla is usually scraping dry, caused by tickling in pit of throat; worse at night, without waking; especially after taking cold, in children. Child becomes angry, then coughs. Winter coughs, running all through winter. Hoarseness, with rawness and scraping in the larynx. .

In stomach, it has want of appetite. Unquenchable thirst. Great thirst for cold water and desire for acid drinks. Gastralgia, pressive pain as from stone. Acid risings and regurgitation of food. Foul eructations. Bitter, bilious vomiting. Tongue yellow, taste bitter. Bad effects from over-drinking coffee. Aversion to warm drinks, to soups, to liquids, to coffee. Violent retching and vomiting. It will always stop the vomiting from morphia after the crude effects of the drug has passed away and the vomiting comes. Chamomilla and coffee are very much alike in the general sensitivity of the economy, yet they antidote each other.

Abdomen becomes tympanitic. Griping about the navel and pain in small of the back, colic in the little babies; the child doubles up, and screams and kicks; wants to be carried, is extremely irritable; attack comes on in the evening. Pain in the stomach and abdomen. A wind colic. Cramp in the bowels. Griping pains, colic in morning. Sometimes ameliorated by warm application.

Stools, grass green, or like chopped egg, or both these chopped up. Yellowish brown stool. Yellow and white, intermingled with grass-green mucus; greenish slimy discharges; greenish water. Stool feels hot while being passed, it smells like sulphuretted hydrogen. Mucous diarrhoea. Scanty stool with dysenteric straining, constipation with no ability to strain. A paralytic weakness of the rectum. Inactivity of the rectum. Itching and rawness of the parts, especially in the evening. Anus pouting, with swollen appearance and rawness. During dentition.

Fever, during epidemic measles, suppression of measles. High fever, with hot sweat about the head, and one cheek red and hot, the other pale and cold.

Convulsions; both legs move up and down alternately; grasping with the hands; mouth drawn to and fro; eyes staring; face and eyes distorted; Stupor.

Cough, with rattling in the chest. Yawning and stretching.

In extremities, violent rheumatic pains drive him out of bed at night; compelled to walk about. Ankles give way in the afternoon. Nightly paralytic loss of power in the feet, unable to step on them. Burning in the soles at night.

In female genital organs, yellow smarting leucorrhoea. Excessive menstruation; blood dark, clotted, with pain through from back to front; attacks of syncope, coldness of the limbs, much thirst. Menstrual colic, following anger. Membranous dysmenorrhoea, with violent labor-like pain, and often with clots. Amelioration by heat.

It is useful in false labor pains. The labor pains are felt in wrong places; pains that are felt too much in the back. Hour- glass contractions. Rigid os uteri. Says she must and will get up. Frequent discharge of colorless urine. Retained placenta with hour-glass contraction of the uterus.

Haemorrhage, dark coagulated blood, occasionally interrupted by bright-red gushes, with tearing pains in the legs and violent labor-pains in the uterus.

Chamomilla is one of the most valuable weapons in obstetrical practice, and the mental state will determine the choice of this remedy.

After-pains are violent and distressing. Lochia profuse, dark, clotted. Wants fresh air, thirst. .

Inflammation of the mammary glands, when the mental symptoms lead to its selection.

The most of the troubles of Chamomilla that come on in the evening and at night subside about or sometime before midnight. From midnight to morning almost all its complaints are absent. Many of them are absent during the day.

Lumbago. Stiffness of the neck muscles. Insupportable pain in loins and hips.

Chamomilla patient is worse from coffee, narcotics, opium; pain, heat, anger, wind, damp, night, open air. Feels better in mild weather, warm wet weather; sweating, cold application; being carried; heat.

Chamomilla follows Belladonna in diseases of children, and in abuse of opium.

Similar: Acon., Bell., Ign., Puls., Staph.

Complementary: Bell., Mag. carb.

N C Bose
DR. N. C. Bose, M.D.C.H
Calcutta
Chief Editor, Homeopathic Herald