Capsicum annuum Fever Symptoms


Allen gives the therapeutic indications of the remedy Capsicum Annuum in different kinds of fevers like: Continued, Bilious, Intermittent, Malarial, Remittent, Pernicious, Typhoid, Typhus, Septic fever, etc…


Fever

Characteristic – Adapted to the phlegmatic diathesis, persons with light hair, blue eyes, nervous, but plethoric habit, lax fibre and weak muscles, awkward, indolent, easily offended.

Children, dread the open air, are always chilly, refractory, clumsy, fat, unclean and disinclined to work or think.

Homesickness (of the indolent, melancholic) with red cheeks and sleeplessness, hot sensation in fauces.

Lack of reactive force, especially with fat, indolent persons, who are constitutionally opposed to physical exertion.

Desires to be let alone, wants to lie down and sleep.

Constriction: in fauces, throat, nares, chest, bladder, urethra, rectum.

Burning and smarting sensation, as from cayenne pepper, in throat and other parts, not ameliorated by heat.

Every stool is followed by thirst, and every drink by shuddering.

Every chill is attended with thirst and every drink with shuddering.

Relations – Cina follows well in intermittent fever.

The constricting, burning, smarting pains differentiate from Apis and Belladonna.

Compare: Carbo animalis, Ignatia

Aggravation: From eating, drinking, cold open air. Night, after midnight.

Amelioration: Warmth, during the day.

Type: Periodicity strongly marked. Quotidian, rarely tertian. Malarial fevers of the tropics.

Time: Evening, 5 to 6 p.m., 10.30 A.M.

Prodrome: Thirst some time before chill ( Cinchona – thirst and bone pains 1 to 6 hours before chill, Eup., Nat.

).

Chill: With great thirst. Chill begins in the back, between the shoulder – blades (Polyp.- in lumbar region, Eup.purp. ), worse after drinking. Shivering and chilliness after every drink. Chill, with pain in back and tearing in limbs, extorting cries and causing patient to bend double, ameliorated by jugs of hot water or hot irons to the back, lessened by walking out – of – doors, with painful swelling of spleen, contracted pupils, contraction of the limbs (Cimex), anxiety, giddiness and headache, intolerance of noise (Belladonna), ptyalism and mucous vomiting, in the open air, particularly in a draft, extremely sensitive to cold air (Baryta, Camph.), inward burning and external chill.

Chill followed by sweat, or by heat with sweat and thirst (Ant.c.). Chill spreads gradually until extreme points are reached then as gradually declines. During chill, coldness of chest, with a sensation of water dropping down the back.

“As the coldness of the body increases, so also does the ill humor.” – Hahnemann.

Heat: Without thirst, lessened by motion. Sweat and heat simultaneously (Ant.c.), face alternately pale and red, internal heat with violent burning (Arsenicum) followed by chill with thirst during chill. Headache with pain in the back, relieved by walking about (Rhus). Glowing hot cheeks, with cold hands and feet. Heat of the ears, and hot, red tip of the nose, towards evening. General heat, anxiety, uneasiness, dullness of the mind and intolerance of noise.

Fever at 11 A.M. (following chill at 10.30 A.M.), lasting all night, without subsequent sweat. Fever (after very short chill at 11 A.M. or 12 m.) lasts all night with great thirst. Great sleepiness after fever (Apis, Podophyllum), especially after eating, could scarcely prevented from going to sleep.

Sweat: Without thirst, violent, copious, lessened by motion. Sweat with the heat, or after the chill, without previous heat ( Causticum ). Coming on soon after fever commences, and continuing with it. Sweat in axilla ( Bovista ). Acrid sweat, so acrid that it caused the hands of any person brought in contact with it to burn and tingle. Cold on thighs.

Tongue: Burning blisters, and flat, lardaceous, spreading ulcers on the tongue. Taste sour, of putrid water. Desire for coffee, but it nauseates. Better while eating, worse after. Appetite unimpaired.

Apyrexia: Clear comparatively, chill is predominant, in mucous, flabby constitutions, sometimes dysenteric diarrhea of slimy, burning stools, attended with qualmishness of the stomach, and fullness at the epigastrium.

Intermittents attended with painful enlargement of spleen and torpidity of abdominal nervous centres. Fevers from or after abuse of Quinine.

Difference between Capsicum and Eupatorium purp.

Capsicum

Time: 5 to 6 P.M. every day. 10:30 A.M. Prodrome: Thirst, without bone pains. Thirst during chill with pain in back and limbs. Chill: Commencing in back between the shoulders, worse after drinking, relieved by putting jugs of hot water to back, must have something hot to back. Violent chill with general coldness of body. Heat: Light, transient, or mixed with sweat. No thirst in heat. Headache, intolerance of noise, sleepiness after. Sweat: General, copious, or alternating with heat. Chill, heat and sweat, all relieved by motion.

Eup.purp.

Time. – Different times of day. Every other day. Prodrome. – Bone pains in arms and legs. Thirst for lemonade, and acid drinks – not water. Chill. – Commencing in back, lumbar region, passes up and down spine with bone pains, blue lips and nails. Nausea as chill is leaving. Violent shaking, with comparatively little coldness of body. Heat. – Protracted and well marked, with thirst. Head light, as if falling to left side. Sweat. – Light, mostly on forehead and head. Neither stage relieved by anything.

Capsicum is a valuable remedy in intermittents occurring in midsummer, its symptoms are clearly defined and ought not to be confounded with any other remedy. The chill beginning in the back between the scapulae, relieved by hot irons or jugs of hot water and lessened by motion, is characteristic. It is oftener indicated than used – just the reverse of Quinia.

Capsicum, Cinchona, Eupatorium perf. and Natrum mur., have thirst some time before paroxysm begins, “knows the chill is coming, because he wants to drink.” It is a chief symptom of the prodrome in each. Both Capsicum and Cinchona are wanting in the bone pains and backache so characteristic of Eupatorium and Natrum.

Analysis: Thirst before the chill (Cinchona, Eup., Nat.) but no bone pains.

Chill, with great thirst aggravation after drinking. Shivering and chilliness after every drink amelioration by heat to back.

Heat, without thirst, amelioration by motion. Sleepy after fever and after eating (Apis, Podophyllum).

Sweat, without thirst, acrid, or after chill, or heat with sweat (Ant.c.), Amelioration by motion.

Midsummer fevers.

H. C. Allen
Dr. Henry C. Allen, M. D. - Born in Middlesex county, Ont., Oct. 2, 1836. He was Professor of Materia Medica and the Institutes of Medicine and Dean of the faculty of Hahnemann Medical College. He served as editor and publisher of the Medical Advance. He also authored Keynotes of Leading Remedies, Materia Medica of the Nosodes, Therapeutics of Fevers and Therapeutics of Intermittent Fever.