Everyday practice furnishes ample material for exemplification of the curative effect of Bryonia and two typical cases will suffice as illustration:
A couple, old patients of mine, keep a set of homoeopathic medicines at home for acute ills, such as imminent colds. I advised the routine use of Aconite for a beginning cold. One day the husband told me: “You know, doctor, you advised us to take Aconite as the first remedy at the beginning of a cold, it always helped my wife, but has always failed me. Once, I tried Bryonia, it helped right away, and since I am using it regularly and never develop a cold”.
His wife is a very lively person, reacting quickly and full of varied interests. He is a deliberate, sober, tenacious, hard- working investment broker. Experimenting, he found the drug belonging to his type.
One day I was urgently summoned to his house. I found him in a shaking chill, teeth chattering, complaining about intense sharp pain in the left lower abdomen, worse from the slightest motion. Temperature was high, the pulse near one hundred, the abdomen hard as a board with extreme tenderness in the lower left region. Since he suffered from diverticulitis, it was obvious that a perforation o an inflamed diverticulum was threatening, if it had not already taken place. I telephoned immediately for the surgeon and gave in the meantime a dose of Bryonia 200. Within a few minutes the chill stopped and after a short time the patient said : “Doctor, I feel so much better now.” The surgeon arrived 15 minutes after I had called, found a changed situation and decided to wait. We waited, and in a few days, the patient was well on his way to complete recovery. An X-ray picture taken much later showed a a walled off perforation.
A man, 48 years old, came to the office with the following complaints: In the morning upon rising, he experienced suddenly a stabbing pain at the nape of the neck, during the day he sometimes has pains in the lower left abdomen, better from pressure; he has been constipated for some time; besides, as a chronic condition, he has a lumbago with sharp shooting pains on the right side of the lumbar region, much aggravated on coughing. The pains are all better from holding and pressing the affected part. His mental symptoms show a choleric character.
He further reveals that he had a contract with a firm which promised some security but this contract was suddenly cancelled, and he is now greatly worried and constantly plagued by fears of the future. Bryonia 200., 1 dose. When he came in two weeks later, he told me that all his complaints had disappeared overnight. Asked whether he still worried and whether his business situation had changed for the better, he said: “No, doctor, its just the same. I think I am very frivolous, but I cant help it, do not worry any more.” LAter I sent him a bill at a considerably reduced rate, which he was in a position to pay. I had to send reminders for two years, although, as I heard, his financial situation had greatly improved. Finally, he paid, cutting down on one item, ad adding a protest against the remainders.
This is the typical Bryonia case : Of choleric temperament, full of sharp pains, worried about his security, he holds on of his back, he holds on to his abdomen, he holds on to his pocket book.
From proving, pathology and clinic we turn now to nature to study the plant, Bryonia alba. In many respects, Bryonia has outstanding features. It grows in wet places near fences and hedges and anchors, with a branched root which reaches the length of two feet and a weight of six pounds, securely in the ground. The fresh root-containing in its very acrid juice of nauseating odor the active material, an alkaloid, bryonicin, and two glycosides, bryonin and bryonidin-is used for the preparation of the remedy. From this big root new stems shoot out (the Greek name Bryonia means “shooting out”) up to 13 feet in height, revealing an astonishing biological energy of growth hidden in the root.
The stems, like the root, are succulent, the many leaves have hairs on their surface. The function of the hairs is to protect the plants against excessive evaporation. This is essential because of the great number of leaves which need much water and because of their extraordinarily great total surface which exposes the leaves to loss of water through evaporation. The preference of the plant for wet places shows its great biological thirst, also evidenced by its tendency to drain and to dry out its environment with great energy to serve its own needs.
The succulent long stems are not able to hold the plant erect; here we are reminded again of the Bryonia effect in the human body, where the erect position, the attempt to sit up, brings about faintness, nausea and general aggravation, and where the muscles particularly affected are those of the nape and of the lumbar region. Which are the main support when assuming the upright position. In order to reach a favorable and stable position, Bryonia develops numerous spiral tendrils that have a firmness of grasp which only few other plants, all of the same family of the cucurbitaceae, possess. These tendrils shoot our from the stems, and develop on their ends cells very sensitive to touch; this also is a Bryonia characteristic as a remedy.
As soon as these ends some in contact with a rough surface they coil around several times to secure a very firm hold. In order to make this hold still more secure, and persistent, two more coils are formed, each one curving in the opposite direction of the neighboring coil, all of them in connection with the elastic, spiral-shaped tendril shooting forth from the stem-an admirable construction, ideally suited to suspend the plant and to attach it to its surroundings. With its great root firmly anchored, the plant grasps persistently, so to speak, with hundreds of tendrils for other stems or the stakes of a fence, spreading its web of foliage from stem to stem, from stake to stake, holding on everywhere with extraordinary firmness, so that it cannot be moved and is able to retain a favorable position, once it is reached, stable and secure.
Bryonia, whether perceived as proving picture, or disease process, or as personality type, or as a plant, everywhere expresses the common denominator of all its forms of appearance and symptoms, the search for stability the search for security.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK.
