Aconitum napellus.
There is a fitful mood changing from one thing to another, now full of mirth and in a few moments disposed to weep and a great mental anxiety. Fearful of the future, terribly apprehensive of approaching death, predicts the day he is to die.
Face is flushed, bright red, or is pale with moderate congestion.
Great thirst and gulps water eagerly.
Muscles are tense, whole mental and physical conditions are those of an instrument strung to the highest pitch. In short, the Aconite patient has mental anxiety with physical tension.
Veratrum viride.
Excessive physical unrest. Depressed but comparatively careless of the future; intense cerebral congestion with a face flushed to a purple hue and hot, or it is cold with a pale bluish cast; has a dry hot mouth, which feels scalded.
Thirst is moderate. Nausea, retches and vomits profusely, muscles relaxed, has muscular twitchings, restless, constantly changes his position.
Patient has a lower grade of mental unrest with physical relaxation.
ARSENICUM ALBUM.
It is one of our most valued remedies and is especially indicated where the mental condition has been produced by causes which have greatly exhausted and debilitated the patients general condition, as from anxiety, overwork, loss of sleep, and a diseases condition of the mucous membrane generally, and particularly of the stomach, thus preventing the proper digestion and assimilation of food.
The mental symptoms show in the beginning, anxious restlessness and from this a continuation towards delirium and even insanity, with all that it involves. He thinks he must die, even the patient expresses to the physicians that “There is no use of your coming and it useless to take the medicine; I am going to die, you might as well go home; my whole insides are mortifying”; thought of death and incurability of the complaints. Excessive anguish with irresistible desire to commit suicide.
He has fear of death but not like Aconite fear (Acon., inconsolable anguish, fearful and apprehensive that something will happen; predicts day of death; unlike Arsenic, Aconite patient does not refuse to take the medicine, in fact he wants to take it, in spite of the fear and prediction of the day and hour of death), but rather an anxiety, with physical exhaustion and a feeling that it is useless to take medicine, for he is surely going to die; he is incurable. The mental restlessness is as great as the bodily. He has attacks of anxiety that drive him out of bed at night. It makes little differences what the name of the disease is, if this persistent mental anguish, restlessness, attended with great physical weakness and thought of death and incurability of complaints is also present, we should not forget this great remedy.
BELLADONNA.
Probably no remedy in the materia medica possess such a wide range of action or greater power for removing abnormal conditions of the brain than Belladonna. Its symptoms are clear, well defined, unmistakable; its action sharp, vigorous and profound. It is the powerful supplementary ally of Aconite in removing the last vestiges of cerebral congestion and beyond this it subdues like magic the subtler processes of inflammation.
In two forms of insanity, Belladonna has proven itself preeminently curative. Acute mania attended with great excitement, violence, and destructiveness, and accompanied by the characteristic cerebral congestion, and in melancholia, where the mind is extremely dull, stupid, and slow to act, with great heat of head, dilated pupils, congestion of the eyes, full bounding pulse, and persistent sleeplessness. In the former class of cases, the 30th potency were most effectual, while in the latter, frequently repeated doses of the 1st potency have been necessary to achieve the desired result.
Following are a few of its characteristic symptoms on the mind: Its furious delirium, with great rage, biting, striking, and spitting and tearing everything within reach; fear of dogs, wolves, giants, fire, and horrid monsters filling the room; foolish and obscene talking, laughing, dancing, and gesticulating; cerebral exaltation, or confusion of mind with loss of memory; excessive nervous excitability of all the senses; sleeplessness, or sleep disturbed by anxious, frightful dreams, or frequent startings as in a fright; drowsiness, with inability to fall asleep.
HYOSCYAMUS NIGER.
This remedy is most efficacious in mania of hysterical females, characterized by excessive talkativeness and inclination to laugh and sing; or puerperal mania with sexual excitement; in cases refusing to eat from fear of poison, it seldom fails to remove the delusion. Although frequently effectual in reducing the sexual excitement of patients inclined to expose themselves, it seldom proves beneficial in masturbation, and time spent in waiting for its action in such cases is simply wasted.
It has insensibility and loss of consciousness, does not recognize those about him; great mental excitement with constant foolish talking, laughing, and singing, or rage with attempts to strike and bite. Sexual excitement with inclination to go about naked; obscene talking, jealousy, great apprehensiveness, fear when alone, with fear of being poisoned or bitten by animals.
The Hyoscyamus patient is very excitable but less frenzied than the Belladonna patient; is very talkative, mostly jolly and good natured, but occasionally has savage outbursts; is inclined to be destructive and obscene with a tendency to expose and handle the genitals. Hyos. is perhaps more often indicated as a remedy for female patients than Bell, the latter being frequently indicated for the male insane.
Rhus and Hyos. relieve the belief of having been poisoned, the former remedy being particularly adapted to low typhoid conditions.
STRAMONIUM.
The therapeutic sphere of Stramonium, from its symptomatology and the writings of various authors, we suppose to be in acute mania, characterized by more intense excitement than Hyos. or Bell., and with less cerebral congestion. From the wonderful curative effects assigned to it, we had expected to achieve some marked results, but thus far we have been doomed to disappointment. After many trials, with apparently clear indications for its use, we are forced to admit that we have but few positive results achieved from this drug.
It has fearful delusions of men, ghosts, dogs, cats, rabbits, bugs, and flies springing up around him, with violent endeavors to escape; worse in the dark and when alone; imagines that he has been killed, roasted, and is being eaten; that he is very tall and large, surroundings objects seeming to him too small; hallucinations of hearing music, dancing, and voices; mania with constant incoherent talking, screaming, laughing, or crying; merry exaltation with pride and affectation or furious, almost uncontrollable rage and violence, with desperate attempts to bite, strike, and injure those around; melancholia with crying, fear of death, and despair of salvation.
By way of comparison Stramonium is the most widely loquacious. Hyos. is the most insensibly stupid. Bell. in this respect stands half-way between. Stramonium throws himself about, jerking head pillow. Hyos. twitches, picks, and reaches, otherwise lying pretty still. Bell. starts and jumps when falling into or awaking from sleep. All have times of wanting to escape.
VERATRUM ALBUM.
This remedy has a wide range of action in mental disease. It is well reputed in puerperal mania, but especially its effects in mania and melancholia with stupor have been most gratifying. It is especially efficacious in the apparently most hopeless cases where the patient sits in a stupid manner with the head bent forward, taking no apparent notice of anything; answering in monosyllables, or not at all, often eating nothing unless fed, skin cold and blue, pulse weak and intermitting.
With the foregoing symptoms we have occasional fainting spells with temporary unconsciousness and suspension of the hearts action. Under the influence of Veratrum, the depressed vital powers are soon revived and the patient advances to a complete recovery. After a seeming recovery, the patient is liable to a relapse, if the medicine is too soon discontinued, but when once the cure if fully accomplished it remains permanent.
Melancholia, with anxiety as if she had committed an evil deed, sadness, despondency, and grief with involuntary weeping and despair of her salvation. Delusions of being a prince, a hunter, or being deaf and blind, pregnant and in labor; much lascivious and profane talk; wants to escape, can scarcely be held.
It is related that about the year 1500 B. C., a certain Melampus is said to have cured the daughters of Proctus, King of the Argives, who in consequences of remaining unmarried, were seized with an amorous fever and affected by a wandering mania. They were cured chiefly by Verat. alb., given in the milk of goats. Dr. Talcott says that at the asylum they verified the homoeopathicity of Veratrum in amorous fever and in wandering mania, particularly when the symptoms of peculiar excitement are followed by great mental depression, and tendency to collapse.
