BRYONIA AND BELLADONNA-COMPARISONS AND CONTRASTS


Captious critics and bumptious students have long made merry over the large number of peculiar, and, to them, trivial symptoms which appear in the materia medica, and also in the clinical records of homoeopathy-symptoms which appear no where else in medical literature, and which have not received the stamp of approval of the ruling authorities.


It would be alike impossible and unsuitable in a paper of this character to include the whole range of action of the remedies proposed for study. Their contrasts in many respects are so marked as hardly to be better expressed than by saying that one has that which the other has not. But there are certain points of resemblance, if not lines of parallelism, and it is not seldom, I believe, that in prescribing we have to say mentally why one is more suitable to the case than the other. And then I believe the study by comparison is the most effective way of approaching the mastery of the multitude of medicines which the law of homoeopathy makes available for cure.

It is, perhaps, needless to say what will so soon be evident that I have attempted little more than a complication from various accredited sources of the knowledge already in our hands. The beneficent works of Gross and of Boenninghausen have so often made clear the course through a maze of symptoms that I would indulge the hope that the guide to the student, but also humbly serve for trustworthy reference in the presence of disease and pain.

BELLADONNA

Upper left, lower right.

BELLADONNA

Upper left, lower right (Sulph. has the same)

Dark hair

Obesity predominant

Rending pain upwards

Constriction internal

Moist eruptions

Induration of cellular tissue

Sweat lessened indoors

Chill generally without thirst

Drinks often, without at once

Changeable mood

Anxiety and fretfulness

Delirium and activity of mind

Memory active or weak

Vertigo falling to left side or backward

Averse especially to candle light

Eruption on upper lip

Averse to acids; craves lemonade

Nausea more in throat

Nausea in abdomen

Odorless flatus

Diarrhoea generally painless

Complaints most in upper chest

Complaints most on shin of leg

Generally better bending diseased limb

Worse at the full moon

Worse in the twilight

Worse sitting erect

Generally better stooping

Generally better sitting bent forward

Generally better sitting bent forward

Generally better stretching out diseased limb

Generally better from change of position.

Cough with constriction and redness in throat

In eyes superficial inflammations, suddenness of attack, violence of symptoms

Uterine flow bright, or it dark offensive, with sudden pains and sense as if all would come out of the forehead

In fever startings, delirium violent

Meningitis as primary disease

Intense cerebral pain and irritation

Mastitis, with redness in radii from central point and throbbing pains

In measles sweat attends the heat

Scarlatina with smooth skin and hallucinations

Tongue red at tip

Peritonitis with sthenic symptoms

In typhoid in beginning, with violence of symptoms, as delirium, headache, startings and jerkings

Fluent coryza

Alternating color of face

Eruption in corners of mouth and on upper lip

Tongue white with red edges, striped with white

Acid taste in mouth; acid vomiting

Eructations, spasmodic or incomplete

Constipation with distended abdomen

Stool small in size

Painful affections of the kidney

Sexual desire diminished or sometimes increased

Urine turbid when passed

Breathing oppressed, irregular

Cough with sneezing and fluent coryza

Expectoration of bright blood

Affections of the larynx

Acts on external throat more than on the nape

Acts especially on the patella and hollow of the knee

Generally relief while standing

Tenesmus after stool

Relief from walking.

BRYONIA

Upper right, lower left (Calc.carb. has the same)

Light hair

Emaciation predominant

Rending pain downward

Constriction external

Dry eruptions

Suppuration of cellular tissue

Sweat increased indoors

Thirst predominant, not constant

Drinks rarely, much at once

Peevish, sad

Anxiety and mistrust

Delirium and difficult comprehension

Memory weak

Vertigo falling backward

Averse especially to sunlight

Eruption on lower lip

Desire for acids

Nausea more in the stomach

Also nausea in the abdomen

Foetid flatus

Diarrhoea generally painful

Complaints most in lower chest

Complaints most in calf of leg

Worse bending diseased limb

Worse before a thunder storm

Better in the twilight

Better sitting erect

Generally worse stooping

Generally worse sitting bent forward

Generally worse bending head backward

Generally worse stretching out diseased limb

Generally worse from change of position

Cough with irritation in the epigastrium and sharp, stitching and aching pains

In eyes the deeper affections and from metastasis of rheumatism

Uterine flow dark or suppressed with vicarious haemorrhages

In fever lies quiet, delirium mild

Meningitis from suppressed eruption

Shrieking from pain at slightest movement, benumbed sensorium, the face alternately red and pale-after Belladonna.

Mastitis with pale redness, tension and sticking pains

In measles when suppressed or delayed and meningitis follows

Scarlet fever with roughness of eruption, drowsiness and chest symptoms

Tongue coated white down middle, especially in meningitis

Peritonitis after exudation and with sharp pains, especially on moving

Typhoid with symptoms of depression or in later stage

Stopped nose

More fixed red and bluish red face

Eruption around mouth and on lower lip

Tongue coated white bitter or nauseous taste; bitter vomiting

Eructations tasteless or mostly tasting of the food, and waterbrash

Constipation from inactivity of the bowels or from hardened faeces

Stool large in size

Painful affections of the urethra

Sexual desire increased

Urine becomes turbid on standing

Breathing oppressed and deep Cough with sneezing and dry coryza

Expectoration blood-streaked or rusty

Affections of the trachea

Acts on the nape more than on the external throat

Acts on joints of the lower extremities in general

Generally relief while sitting

Generally relief after stool

Relief from warmth of bed.

Symptoms or modalities common to both remedies have been intentionally omitted as serving but little the purpose of discrimination which has been the end in view.

The writer is aware that many distinctions must have been overlooked in this inquiry made in limited time and in hours of weariness, and he hopes that they will be supplied and any errors he may have fallen into corrected by this friendly critics.

MEET MRS. KALI CARBONICUM.

A. PULFORD, M.D.

She is peevish and irritable and has great aversion to being alone. She is easily frightened and starts if touched, especially on the soles of her feet. She is especially troubled with weak eyes after abortion or coition, or after she has had measles. Her face is swollen, with sac-like swellings between eyebrows and lids. Whenever she becomes cold she has sticking pains in her pharynx with difficulty in swallowing. Her food descends slowly and easily gets into her windpipe. She is extremely sensitive about her epigastrium; her stomach distended as if it would burst from wind. Everything seems to be converted into gas. If old and rather inclined to obesity, she is inclined to become dyspeptic, her food becomes repugnant, is constantly chilly, her hands and feet cold, and no matter how great the heat she does not sweat.

Immediately after eating her abdomen becomes hot, full, and greatly distended, with cutting, stitching pains. She is subject to anal fistula, and to piles which are inflamed, sore, stitch and tingle as from ascarides. Whenever she menstruates her menses are too early, scanty, and of a pungent odor, acrid, and are apt to cover thighs with an itching eruption, are preceded by colicky pains in abdomen, and accompanied by constipation. If she should be so unfortunate as to have an impending abortion, she has pains in her back to her buttocks and thighs.

If she has children her labors are accompanied by pains which are either insufficient, or stitching and shooting, in her back shooting down into her glutei muscles or buttocks and nates, or they may pass off down th thighs, or she has bearing down from her back to her pelvis. She is often subject to terrible attacks of asthma at 3 a.m. during which she must lean forward with her head on her knees. She is also subject to a cough at 3 a.m., which is repeated every half hour, and to attacks of pleurisy and pleuro-pneumonia with cutting, sticking pains in chest, evening on lying down. She does not know how to lie, she is worse lying on right side, in the morning, if left chest especially in lower part leaving a stinging sensation.

She also has a tendency to fatty degeneration of the heart and to insufficiency of the mitral valves. Her back is so weak while walking that she feels that she must give up and lie down. She is very subject to lumbago with sharp, shooting, stitching pains shooting downward, from loins to glutei, coming on at 3 a.m. Her legs jerk on falling to sleep. She is so exhausted that she must either sit or lie down. She either wakes at 1 or 2 a.m. and cannot sleep again, or else at 2 to 4 a.m. with nearly all her troubles, but especially with her chest and throat troubles.

Her pains are mostly darting, stitching, worse during rest and lying on her painful side. With most all her complaints she has oppressed respiration. She is apt to become anaemic after loss of blood, fluids and vitality, and her old age very subject to dropsy and paralysis.

Edward Rushmore