KEY TO BRYONIA


In that particular even Hahnemann failed to comprehend, or he would have been careful to have brought it out emphasized it. Yet it was, and is, a point all our very best prescribers vaguely and intuitively sensed and used to the greatest advantage. That is the very thing we are trying to convey and teach in our little Key to the Homoeopathic Materia Medica.


In a searching study of this remedy, I find to be its:.

IDENTIFICATION: Worse from, and aversion to, least motion even of an eyelid or from talking; better from and desires perfect mental and bodily rest and quiet and to be paid no attention; coupled with great irritability and great thirst especially at long intervals. I find among its group -.

ESSENTIAL: The above IDENTIFICATION. Everything puts one out of humor; hasty; peevish. Desires things, but knows not what; children desire things, but reject them when offered. Faint on rising from bed, or on rising up in bed, or on even attempting to raise head from pillow. Face dark red. Mouth and throat extremely dry; lips parched; child will not nurse until lips are moistened; tongue white, or white down center; taste bitter and to food.

Nausea on sitting up. Stools, dry, hard, black as if burned. Pulse full, hard, strong, rapid. Sweat free and easy. Pains sharp, stitching, lancinating. Aggravation by cold, touch and mental excitement. Amelioration by lying on affected side, pressure, heat (except eyes teeth). Under what other remedy will one find a picture, or symptom totality, the exact counter-part of that?.

COMMENT.

MIND: We find the delirium begins at 9 p.m. and lasts all night, while that of Bell. begins at 3 p.m. and lasts till midnight. < on rising, a.m., while Cham. is < at 9 a.m. An anxious uneasy feeling compels one to move; moves, yet screeches with pain. < if crossed, or from visitors. > cold air, wants windows open, like Puls., after which one goes to sleep.

HEAD: We note the head pains are < motion, exertion and a.m.; also that they occur in all the complaints requiring this remedy. We find a headache like that of Nux, but the Nux ache appears a.m., before moving, while that of Bry. comes on even if one moves an eyelid, and the eyeballs feel sore, and there is a bruised feeling all over. Nat. m. has also an a.m. ache, and oily sweat, sour, on face, while the same sweat in Bry. is more general over head, and the lips dry and cracked.

EYES: We find the balls sore to touch and motion, like Gels., but Gels. is thirstless. Bry. dioica is said to be a popular remedy for “black eye,” locally. (But do not forget Led. CC. internally).

FACE: We find constant chewing motion of jaws and hasty drinking; if Bry. fails try Hell.; Bell. also has chewing motion of jaws, but without the dry cracked lips of Bry.

MOUTH: Here we find the taste bitter, > drinking.

TEETH: We find the pain < lying on the painless side, > lying on the painful side and from pressure.

STOMACH: We find the patient dry, he drinks much and seldom and eats little and often, the reverse of Ars. With all the stomach derangements we find great sensitiveness to touch in the epigastrium, and vomiting of food. Bry. is a gourmand, Nux an epicure. One desires cold drinks, yet they chill one dreadfully, but they > the stomach and abdomen. One is sensitive in pit of stomach and all over abdomen, > heat, yet desires to lie in a cool room.

RECTUM: It is said, when other symptoms correspond, Bry. permanently cures constipation, which few other remedies besides Nux and Opium are said to do.

GENITALIA: We find, if the menses become suppressed from becoming overheated from exertion, as from ironing or laundry washing, a few days before the period, Bry. will save her a harder period at the next time.

LARYNX: We find in laryngitis and bronchitis the cough usually dry, hacking, abdominal muscles sore, < night, coming into a warm room, motion, and after eating and drinking, and > heat.

CHEST: Here we find Bry. follows Acon. in pneumonia, after Acon. has eliminated the anxiety and restlessness, but not the high fever.

LIMBS: We find: In all forms of rheumatism, acute, chronic, muscular or articular, there is generally profuse easy sweat.

CHILL: We find the chill comes on a day or two after the exposure to cold; Acon. and Bell. immediately. Has chill from getting wet, like Calc. and Rhus; while chill from sleeping on damp ground or in damp bed calls for Aran.

HEAT: We find burning heat, before midnight, Ars. after. Bry. desires to remain quiet in all stages of chill, heat and sweat.

SWEAT: We find easy, copious, oily, sour sweat, while China has sweat as if mixed with oil.

SKIN: When symptoms agree, the remedy to develop the eruption in eruptive fevers.

GENERALS: We find the affected parts hot and either pale or dark red. Children do not wish to be carried as it <, the reverse of Cham. Bry. and Calc. are said to resemble each other and should never be given one after the other without an intercurrent remedy. Said to be useful in injury to joints, Arn. falling.

The above is a brief sketch, yet containing the full drug picture or symptom totality. It is contended that it does not give “the background detail that goes to make up the solid detailed totality, upon which we have come to depend.” TRUE! But, if we have come to depend on the wrong “solid detailed totality,” should we not about face and attempt to find the right? Under just what other remedy do we find a symptom totality the exact counterpart of that given under ESSENTIAL ABOVE? How far would we get with Bry. in the cure of any disease if every symptom in that Essential group was omitted, or had never appeared in any stage of the disease for which we intended to prescribe Bry.?.

In our prescribing, great stress is laid on getting the drug picture. Just how many of us know exactly of what symptoms that drug picture consists? If it does not consist specifically of that group of symptoms that that drug alone is capable of producing, directly, on each and every normally healthy human being, then of just what does it consist? Disease, in its course, like the tree, throws out different phases, on different individuals, just as the tree throws out differently formed branches, and different fruits, depending on that which is grafted on to it, but one can not kill the root of that tree by merely lopping off its individual branches, or that which, though foreign to it, grows on those branches, any more than one can remove the cause of that disease by removing only certain of its peculiar symptoms.

If for instance, Bry., in itself, directly produced ALL the symptoms listed under it in either Allens or Herings unabridged materia medica, then ALL those symptoms must be present in every case calling for Bry., if we are to have the coveted true picture of Bry. Otherwise Bry. would not and could not be the truly indicated remedy. has any one ever used that entire list? If not, then no one has ever made a true Bry. prescription. The truth is, the true homoeopath uses from the above essential list every time he prescribes Bry., not always in its entirety, but always in part.

We must ever remember that those symptoms are produced in accordance with natural law and never vary, and that natural law is not based on shifting sands. Therefore in each drug pathogenesis there must be a fixed base, or fixed group of symptoms, that always indicate that remedy, apart from all others, in all forms of disease.

In that particular even Hahnemann failed to comprehend, or he would have been careful to have brought it out emphasized it. Yet it was, and is, a point all our very best prescribers vaguely and intuitively sensed and used to the greatest advantage. That is the very thing we are trying to convey and teach in our little Key to the Homoeopathic Materia Medica.

Before I close this paper, may I call your attention to two matters, not in a spirit of either censure or criticism, but as a correction. that is two symptoms that I have not been able to find under any other known remedy, they are: Fear of walking across a busy street, under Acon., and a morbid fear of cancer, under Phosphorus. The former I have verified several times, the latter once or twice.

Dr. Plumb Brown has verified the latter several times. In the review of our little book the former was questioned because it was not found under the rubrics: Fear of injury, or fear of being run over. It does, however, appear under the rubric: Fear of accident, along with three other remedies. But that is not the fear of Acon. in crossing the busy street. Knerr confirms Kent. The fear of Acon. in crossing the busy street is the fear of confusion or excitement. That is the exact fear that was expressed to me in the cases I cured.

DISCUSSION.

DR. CARR: Dr. Pulford has refreshed the picture of Bryonia in some of our minds, and it probably has been a revelation to some other minds.

Bryonia is is a very interesting remedy in hospital work. I presume it is true in general hospitals, but more so in mental institutions where patients are not occupied with anything very much. Time weighs heavy on their hands; they are lying about, and because of crowded conditions of institutions at the present time, and also because of the fact that appropriations are shaved down so we cant care for the patients as we would like to, they are inactive, and I think statistics bear out in Allentown State Hospital, as well as where I am, what little we use Homoeopathy there, that Bryonia is one of the remedies most often indicated for acute work.

Alfred Pulford
Alfred Pulford, M.D., M.H.S., F.A.C.T.S. 1863-1948 – American Homeopath and author who carried out provings of new remedies. Author of Key to the Homeopathic Materia Medica, Repertoroy of the Symptoms of Rheumatism, Sciatica etc., Homeopathic Materia Medica of Graphic Drug Pictures.