HEAD. With such a mental state there is a headache as from a plug in the vertex. This headache is worse from mental work, better during a meal. Here you have the two great characteristics of this drug, sensation as from a plug pressing in, this may be anywhere, in head, in rectum, in abdomen. There is a pain around the navel as if a blunt plug were squeezed into the intestines. Dull pressure as from a plug in the chest, in the glutei muscles, etc., anywhere pressure as from a plug indicates Anacardium.
STOMACH. Again, the symptoms are relieved by eating. They disappear entirely during dinner but begin anew after two hours. Anacardium is a valuable stomach remedy and is very similar to Nux, and Nux is often given when Anacardium is the remedy. The symptoms are these: There is a faint feeling in the stomach one or two hours after eating, there is a dull pain in the stomach extending to spine. The eructations are tasteless or sour. The symptoms disappear after eating but return in two hours and increase until the patient eats again. There is violent gastralgia especially at night. There is urging to stool and a sensation of a plug in the rectum. With these symptoms there is apt to be associated hypochondriasis, confusion and loss of memory.
Petroleum and Chelidonium have gastralgia relieved by eating. The patient is hungry most of the time, he is better while eating and after eating. There is nausea, vomiting, heartburn and hiccough, rumbling and fermentation in the stomach. Such symptoms are found in men of sedentary habits who do mental work, whose memory is inclined to be impaired, inclined to hypochondriasis, bowels are constipated, though there is a desire for stool, till the rectum seems powerless with sensation as if plugged up.
Now if the sexual sphere shows an intense excitement, if there be itching of the scrotum, urinary disturbances, the remedy is so much more indicated. Remember it especially in nervous dyspepsia with flatulence, prostration of the nervous system and functional languor of stomach, often caused by excessive mental work, exhaustion of nerve force and hence, constant desire to eat which eases momentarily, must get up at night to eat something.
There is a paretic state of the rectum in Anacardium which will distinguish it from Nux. The rectum seems powerless.
Sepia. Urging as if a foreign substance were in the rectum, dull feeling in rectum even after stool, inactivity, even soft stool expelled with difficulty. Uterine symptoms.
SKIN. Swollen face covered with blisters which are umbilicated, discharging yellow serum hardening into skin, often accompanied by gastric symptoms.
HEART. Palpitation in the aged rising from slight difficulties and associated with weak memory. Rheumatic pericarditis.
BACK AND LIMBS. Tired feeling in limbs, numbness of fingers, cracking of the joints. There is a well marked periodicity in the symptoms, they intermit one or a few days then reappear. It has been found useful in injuries of tendons and in chronic rheumatic troubles. Cracking in cervical vertebrae on raising arm, cracking in shoulders with pain as if dislocated. Cracking in hip joint on moving it while sitting. Sensation as if a band were tied around the body, as though a plug were stuck in the spine and motion made it stick in further. The knees are weak and paralyzed, feel as if bandaged tightly, the swelling is chronic and attended by a sensation of subcutaneous ulceration. Ankles feel sprained.
In the cerebral sphere Anacardium resembles Phosphoric acid and Zincum. In its action on the skin it resembles Rhus, Croton tig., Urtica, Mezereum, Ledum and COMOCLADIA. Platinum follows well.
Phosphoric acid resembles Anacardium in the debility of the mind, brain fag but Phosphoric acid has greater weakness due to waste of nerve tissue or conditions resulting from continued grief, over-exertion of mind, excesses. The mental condition most characteristic of Phosphoric acid is indifference. The least attempt to mental work causes heaviness of head and limbs.
Zincum comes in later in these cases. It is a deeper acting remedy. Patient is forgetful, mental operations difficult and sleepy, a soporous condition of the mind, vertigo, pressure at root of nose, all symptoms worse from drinking even small quantity of wine. There is apt to be twitching and jerking in various muscles and much nervous, fidgety, moving of the feet. The Zincum patient cannot keep the feet still.
ANACARDIUM OCCIDENTALE.
The Cashew nut. This acts principally on the skin and produces a vesicular eruption, as does the Anacardium orientale, itching terribly and umbilicated as in smallpox. There is also produced an erysipelatous eruption on the face. Said to be efficient to remove warts, vegetable growths, corns, etc. The nuts are edible.
COMOCLADIA DENTATA.
From the same family, a tree common in Cuba. It produces skin symptoms very similar, if anything more severe, and the inflammation is apt to penetrate deeper. Ulceration of skin. The face, too, is apt to be more swollen, a great deal of swelling and soreness around eyes, very painful eyeballs. Erysipelatous inflammation of tissues in and around eye. Pain in the right eye as if pushed out of head, worse near a warm stove. Rhus is better from heat.
It should be remembered that in the greater prominence given to some symptoms by the inflammatory action, we may obtain a clue to the true homoeopathic remedy for the whole case at least for the remedy most completely indicated at that time; and which, being given, must be waited upon until its action is nearly exhausted, before another prescription is made. -H.N. GUERNSEY, M.D., 1866.
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.