Homeopathic Materia Medica

Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica, James Tyler Kent

A peculiar kind of plethora is found running through this remedy, a vascular fullness which affects the extremities and the whole body, and there are symptoms showing that the brain is similarly affected.

Modalities: The conditions of Aesculus are worse during sleep, hence symptoms are observed on waking.

He wakes up with confusion of mind, looks all around the room in confusion, bewildered, does not know the people, wonders where he is and what is the meaning of the things he sees.

It is especially useful in children that rouse up in sleep frightened and in confusion, like Lycopodium.

The remedy produces great sadness, irritability, loss of memory and aversion to work. There are times when there is a sense of bodily congestion, fullness of the veins, and then these symptoms are most marked.

It is a general venous stasis, and is sometimes worse in sleep, worse from lying, better from bodily exertion.

The symptoms pass away after considerable exertion; moving about, doing something, keeping busy relieves.

You will find it useful in persons who suffer from palpitation when the pulsation extends to the extremities and the throbbing of the heart in sleep can be heard; an audible palpitation.

Mind: Now, as the mental symptoms are the most important in a proving, so are the mental symptoms in sickness the most important.

Hahnemann directs us to pay most attention to the symptoms of the mind, because the symptoms of the mind constitute the man himself.

The highest and innermost symptoms are the most important, and these are the mind symptoms.

Aesculus has not been brought out in the finest detail, but we have the key to it.

Extreme irritability is the very general state from which ramify a great many mental symptoms.

Irritability and mental depression run through a great many remedies, and form the centre around which revolve all the mental symptoms in some cases.

The reason that these are more interior than some other symptoms of the mind is that these relate to the affections themselves.

The mental symptoms can be classified in a remedy. The things that relate to the memory are not so important as the things that relate to the intelligence, and the things that relate to the intelligence are not so important as the things that relate to the affections or desires and aversions.

We see in a state of irritability that the patient is not irritable while doing the things that he desires to do; if he wants to be talked to, for instance, you do not discover his irritability while talking to him.

You never discover he is irritable if you do the things he wants you to do. But just as soon as you do something he does not want, this irritability or disturbance of the will is brought on, and this is the very innermost of the man's state.

That which he wishes belongs to that which he wills, and the things that relate to what he wills and the most important things in every proving.

You may say that an individual is sad, but he is sad because he lacks something that he wants; he desires something which he has not and becomes sad for it; sadness may go on to such an extent that the mind is in confusion.

Confusion of mind and vertigo. Make this distinction, vertigo is not confusion of the intelligence.

You have only to meditate upon it a moment and you will see that it is not.

Confusion of the mind is a disturbance of the intellect, not disturbance of the sensorium; you will make a distinction between staggering when walking and a period of disturbance of the mind, with inability to think clearly.

Vertigo is a sensation of rolling, and belongs to the sensorium. A great mistake has been made in some of our repertories, in that confusions of mind are placed with vertigo under sensorium.

These things must be thought out carefully, so that we are clear in our own minds as to what symptoms mean when they are given to us by patients.

A patient may state that when walking in the street he is dizzy or that it appears as though everything interiorly were turning around, yet he may be perfectly able to add up a column of figures; his mind may be clear.

If we ourselves are perfectly clear as to the meaning of these expressions, we will commonly glean the meaning of the patient. It is important to record the language of the patient, yet often a patient will say something which you can see he does not mean at all, and it then becomes necessary to put in a parenthesis what he really means. For instance, a patient says:

"I have such a pain in my chest," with the band on the abdomen, or a woman when menstruating will say the pain is in the stomach when you know it is in the uterus.

Patients must be questioned oftentimes as to their statements, or requested to place the hand upon the painful part. In the same way, therefore, patients talk about dizziness when they are not dizzy at all, but feel a confusion of mind, or they speak of confusion of mind when they mean that they stagger in the street.

It is in the nature of this remedy to have flying pains all over the body, like Pulsatilla and Kali carb., flitting, sharp, shooting, tearing pains, flying from one part to another; they seem at times to be scarcely more than skin deep. Sometimes they fly along the course of the nerves.

Head: This remedy is full of headache. It has also dull aching pain, when it seems that the brain would be pressed out. But especially are these pains felt in the back of the head, as if the head would be crushed; hard aching pains, violent aching pains, fullness of the brain.

"Dull frontal headache, from right to left, with constrictive feeling of skin of forehead."

Fullness of the head, with dull, heavy pains, aching in the forehead; pain over the right eye.

"Neuralgic pains in the right supraorbital region."

"Shooting in left parietal bone, later in right."

Formication of the scalp. If you examine the skin you will find formication, tickling and shooting and itching all over the body, so what there is in the scalp is only what belongs to the remedy in all parts.

Eyes: Aesculus is a wonderful eye remedy, especially when the eyes have "hemorrhoids." Does that convey any idea to you?

By that I mean particularly enlarged blood vessels.

Great redness of the eyes, with lachrymation. burning eyeballs and vascular appearance.

This increased determination of blood is more or less painful; the eyeballs feel sore and ache; sharp, shooting pains in eyes.

In almost every rubric of Aesculus we shall find stitching and shooting; little twinges; wandering pains with fullness; almost every kind of disturbance will intensify e fullness.

Fullness of the hands and feet, not the fullness that pits upon pressure, that we call oedema, but a tenseness.

Medicines having much trouble with the veins are often disturbed by hot bathing, weakness after a hot bath, weakness in warm weather, aversion to heat and desire for cold.

It is the state of Pulsatilla. The Pulsatilla veins contract in cold weather, and the shrivelling up makes the patient feel better, but the veins fill and become engorged in the warm air and after a hot bath.

A tepid bath sometimes makes a Pulsatilla patient feel better, but a Turkish bath is generally distressing. Many of the complaints of Aesculus are of this sort; Aesculus often feels better in cold air.

The symptoms of Aesculus are often brought out, by temperature, especially the little stinging pains. It is characteristic of these superficial pains that they are nearly always ameliorated by heat, while the deeper affections are oftentimes ameliorated from cold.

Now, in Pulsatilla, the stinging pains of the scalp and those over the body, here and there, are often ameliorated by the local application of heat, while the patient himself wants to, be in the cold; in the same way Aesculus stinging pains are better from heat, while the patient is often better from cold, although at times he is aggravated from cold, damp weather in rheumatic and venous conditions.

Again, in Secale, we see that the little sharp pains that follow the course of the nerves are better from beat, but the patient himself wants to be in the cold air, or to be uncovered, except the spot of pain, which he wants kept warm.

We notice the same thing running through Camphora; during the twinges of pain he wants the windows closed and wants hot applications; but as soon as the pain is over he wants the windows up and desires to be uncovered so that he can breathe. These are general things, things that are to be observed in analyzing symptoms.

Aesculus then is a venous remedy, engorged and full, sometimes to bursting. Now, there is another feature I want to bring out. You will notice where congestion takes place that it is purple or blue in color.

Throat: This remedy produces inflammation of the throat, the characteristic being that it is very dark. It has the tendency to produce varicose veins and ulceration, and round about these we have marked duskiness.

Aesculus cures varicose leg ulcers with a purplish areola.

When we study the hemorrhoidal state we see the tumor is purple, looking almost as if it would slough. The remedy is not active in its inflammatory state, it is sluggish and passive.

Certain remedies produce a slight inflammation with a high degree of redness, everything is violent and rapid, but in this medicine things are slow; the activities are reduced, the heart is laboring and the veins are congested.

Stomach, Digestion:

"Eructations: sour, greasy, bitter."

"Desire to vomit."

"Heartburn and gulping up of food after eating."

It has a great disturbance of digestion, and we can see by these symptoms that we must class it with Phosphorus and Ferrum.

As soon as the patient has swallowed the food, or a little while after, it becomes sour and he eructates it, until after a while he has emptied the stomach of its contents.

Such is the state of Phosphorus, Ferrum, Arsenicum, Aesculus and a few other medicines. Aesculus has also a state of congestion and ulceration of the stomach.

"Constant distress and burning in the stomach. Inclination to vomit."

Such a state as this might be present in ulceration of the stomach.

Abdomen: The abdomen is full of troubles.

If we read the symptoms of the right hypochondrium, of the abdomen and of the rectum, we shall see from the study of these that there must be a marked portal stasis.

Digestion is slow, the bowels are constipated and there is protrusion of the rectum when at stool. It has most troublesome hemorrhoids with fullness of the right hypochondrium.

The liver is full of suffering. After eating there is distress in the bowels and rectum. Sticking, jagging, burning pains, as if the rectum were full of sticks.

Great suffering with blind hemorrhoids. The hemorrhoidal veins are all distended and ulcerate. The stool becomes jammed into the rectum, against these distended veins, and then ulceration takes place with bleeding and great suffering.

This remedy is often supposed to be suitable to hemorrhoids that do not bleed, but it cures bleeding piles also. We find in the text over two pages devoted to the symptoms of the rectum. Great soreness; much pain; urging to stool; dark stool followed by white one, showing the liver engorgement. Chronic constipation.

Back: The back is the seat of much trouble, especially low down in the back, through the sacrum and hips; although there is also aching all along the back and pain in the back of the neck.

It is a very common thing for patients suffering from hemorrhoids to have pain in the back of the neck and base of the brain, basilar headaches, and when these hemorrhoidal patients undertake to walk they have pain and aching across the sacrum into the hips.

This pain through the sacrum and into the hips, when walking, is a striking feature of Aesculus, so striking that you may expect it to be present even when there are no hemorrhoids.

Constant dull backache; walking is almost impossible; scarcely able to rise or walk after sitting. You will see one suffering from the Aesculus backache, on attempting to rise from sitting, make many painful efforts before he finally succeeds. This is found in Sulphur, Petroleum and is also cured by Agaricus.

Genital female: Aesculus is indicated oftentimes in the troubles of women, with great dragging pain in the pelvis. Many a time has Aesculus cured the dragging-down pain of the pelvis with copious leucorrhoea and pressing pain in the hips when walking.

The woman feels that the uterus is engorged. She says that the lower part of the abdomen feels full, both before and during menstruation. There is much suffering at this time with pains in the hips.

"Uterine soreness, with throbbing in the hypogastrium."

"Old cases of leucorrhoea, discharge of a dark yellow color, thick and sticky."

"Leucorrhoea, with lameness in the back across sacro iliac articulations."

During pregnancy there are many complaints, with soreness and fullness and uneasy consciousness of the uterus and pain across the back when walking.

Aesculus is full of gouty sufferings; gout in all the joints, gouty rheumatic affections, neuralgic affections. Especially in this rheumatic tendency found from the elbows to the hands, in the forearm and hands. Rending, tearing pains, flying hither and thither without any particular order, relieved by heat.

Varicose veins of the thighs and legs have been cured by Aesculus (Fluoric acid). This varicose tendency in the body we have already seen is a striking feature of Aesculus.

After the sore throat has passed away, engorged veins are left, which Aesculus sometimes cures. After eye troubles have been cured, varicose veins - remain in the eye.

With rheumatic complaints there are varicose veins. It is one of the most frequently indicated remedies in the hemorrhoidal constitution, as it used to be called.

A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica, John Henry Clarke

Hippocastanum vulgaris. Horse-chestnut. (Northern India and North America.) N. O. Sapindaceae. Tincture of ripe kernel; trituration of dry kernel. Tincture of fruit with capsule (according to Hering, this is the best).

Clinical.─Anus, affections of. Back, affections of. Constipation. Cough. Haemorrhoids. Headache. Hernia. Intermittents. Jaundice. Liver, affections of. Lumbago. Prostate gland, affections of. Sacrum, pain in. Taste, altered. Throat, affections of. Tongue, affections of. Uterus, prolapse of.

Characteristics.─Aescul. hip. is a great pile remedy. In some districts it is a popular custom to carry a chestnut in the pocket as a preventive. It produces many symptoms of disordered liver: Malaise; dulness of head and mind; fulness at root of nose. Follicular pharyngitis with dryness; burning; roughness; contraction in throat, as in follicular pharyngitis. There is soreness and fulness in liver region; the abdomen is sore to touch. There is jaundice with bileless stools. Throbbing in abdomen, especially hypogastrium.

The most intense action is on the lower bowel and pelvic organs. There are haemorrhoids, blind or bleeding; if they bleed it gives relief. Feeling of dryness in rectum as if little sticks or splinters were pricking the folds of mucous membrane; with weak feeling in sacro-iliac joints, as if legs would give way. (Arg. n. has also pain in sacro-iliac joints and sensation as if the bones were loose.) Constipation, stools large, hard, followed by feeling of prolapse of rectum. General aching in lumbar and sacral regions, with stiffness in the back, almost impossible to walk. Tearing in the small of the back and hips.

Poisoning with the green rind of horse-chestnut has produced the following symptoms in a boy: Pupils widely dilated in bright light. Face flushed; pulse full. Drowsy and apparently slept, but the sleep was interrupted at short intervals by sudden awakenings and screams. Great terror as from a dreadful dream, or apparition on opening his eyes. Questioning failed to elicit the cause of his terror.

Aesc. h. patients are, as a rule, despondent and irritable. Walking greatly < all symptoms. Cold air and cold seasons <; nose and throat very sensitive when inhaling; < after washing. > Summer; < winter (haemorrhoids).

Relations.─Compare: Aesc. gl., Alo., Collins., Merc., Nux v., Pod., Sul. Nux v. antidotes the pile symptoms. It follows well: Collins, Nux v., Sul. Compare also: Kali bi. (throat; but Aesc. h. has not the stringy mucus); Phytolacca (follicular pharyngitis).

SYMPTOMS.

1. Mind.─Depressed; gloomy; low-spirited; irritable.─Loses temper easily, regains it slowly.─Unable to fix his attention.

2. Head.─Dull pressure in forehead; slight nausea in stomach, followed at once by stitches in right hypochondrium.─Severe lancinating headache at base of brain, as if too full; tympany; tongue white.─Confused feeling, with giddiness; < rising from a seat.─Frequent flying pains through the temples.─Flushes of heat over the occiput, neck, and shoulders.─Head too heavy to hold up without balancing; all head symptoms accompanied by haemorrhoidal, rectal, or sacral symptoms.

3. Eyes.─Weight in the eyes; they feel heavy and dull.─Eyes feel heavy and hot; balls sore.─Painful aching over l. eye.─Flickering before the eyes.

5. Nose.─Stinging and burning in posterior nares and soft palate.─Dryness of posterior nares and throat; sneezing, followed by severe coryza.─Pain in r. nasal bone; soreness in l.

6. Face.─Pale, miserable appearance.─Flying heat and redness of l. side of face.─Face swells enormously after washing in water.

8. Mouth.─Tongue coated white or yellow.─Thick yellow phlegm in the mouth.─Taste sweet; bitter; metallic (coppery, with salivation).─Tongue feels as if it had been scalded.

9. Throat.─Pricking, formication, burning and stinging in fauces; shooting in l. side.─Feeling as if something had lodged in fauces causing constant inclination to swallow.─Feeling of dryness and roughness (or rawness and burning) in throat, as from taking cold.─Constrictive feeling in fauces.─Neuralgic pains in fauces.─Dark congested fauces with a full feeling and irritation.─Sore throat, chronic, with haemorrhoidal difficulty.

11. Stomach.─Belching, nausea, vomiting.─Violent vomiting; great burning distress in the stomach.─Heartburn and gulping up of food after eating.─Pressure as from a stone in pit of stomach.─Eructations of wind; empty.

12. Abdomen.─Tenderness in the right hypochondrium.─Much distress in liver and epigastrium.─Fulness in liver and abdomen.─Constant severe aching from pit of stomach to r. lobe of liver.─Abdomen and liver region tender to touch.─Sensation of fulness, flatulency, and colicky pains; haemorrhoidal colic.─Emission of fetid flatus; rumbling in bowels.─Cutting in r. inguinal region (hernia).

13. Stool and Anus.─Dry, uncomfortable feeling in rectum as if it were filled with small sticks.─Soreness, burning, itching, raw feeling, and fulness at anus.─Pain like a knife sawing backwards and forwards through anus.─Haemorrhoids like ground nuts, purple; painful sensation of burning; generally blind; aching and lameness or shooting in the back.─Haemorrhoids blind and painful; rarely bleeding; < standing or walking.─Stool hard, dry, and passed with difficulty.─Sensation of rigid hardness before stool.─Stools hard and black; natural consistence and white.─Backache after a difficult, large, and hard stool.─Prolapsus ani after stool.─Several large piles which seem to block up the rectum, little or no bleeding, great suffering, constipation.─Chronic diarrhoea, with characteristic backache or haemorrhoids.─Piles develop and become particularly troublesome in climacteric years.

14. Urinary Organs.─Pain in region of l. kidney.─Frequent scanty urination.─Urine dark and muddy; dark-brown sediment; yellow, with thick mucous sediment.─Urine hot.

15. Male Sexual Organs.─Discharge of prostatic fluid at every stool, and at micturition; seminal loss during sleep.─A variety of suffering about the generative organs.

16. Female Sexual Organs.─Inflamed cervix uteri, retroversion, prolapsus, enlargement and induration, when characterised by great tenderness heat and throbbing.─Old cases of leucorrhoea, of a dark yellow colour, thick and sticky, worse after menstrual period, increased by walking, corrodes the labia, with aching in the sacrum and knees.─Uterine soreness with throbbing in hypogastrium.─During pregnancy sacro-iliac symphysis gives out while she walks; must sit down; feels best lying.

17. Respiratory Organs.─Short cough, increased by swallowing and breathing deeply.─Hoarseness.─Raw feeling in chest.─Tightness in chest.─Abundant raising of mucus in morning.─Cough, with sensation of stiffness in the throat and suffocation in the upper chest.─Oppression, stitches, soreness and other troubles of chest.─Catarrhal affections causing hoarseness and cough.

19. Heart.─Twitching over region of heart.─Stitches and neuralgic pains in region of heart, esp. apex; and forehead.─Functional disturbances of the heart from haemorrhoidal complaints.

20. Back.─Constant backache affecting the sacrum and hips, very much aggravated by walking and stooping forward; almost impossible to rise after sitting down.─Back gives out when walking.─Aching between the shoulders.─Spine feels weak.─The sacrum, back, neck, head, chest, heart, and abdomen, all seem in remarkable sympathy with the rectum and its vessels.

22. Upper Limbs.─Rheumatic pains in r. scapula and r. side of chest; worse during inspiration.─Shooting, drawing, and tearing pains in shoulders, arms, hands, and fingers.─Paralytic feeling in arms, legs, and spine.

23. Lower Limbs.─Legs so weak she can hardly walk.─L. knee swollen, painful, stiff; cannot bear slightest pressure.─Tendo Achillis sore.

24. Generalities.─Paralytic feeling in arms, legs, and spine.─Feels faint, weak, and weary.─Disposition to stretch and yawn.─Fulness in various organs, as if they contained too much blood.─Mucous dry, swollen; burn and feel raw.

27. Fever.─Chill at 4 p.m.; fever from 7 to 12 p.m.─During fever no thirst, bursting headache, photophobia, profuse hot sweat, heart beats violently.

Keynotes and Characteristics with Comparisons of Some of the Leading Remedies of the Materia Medica (Allen's Keynotes), Henry Clay Allen

Horse Chestnut (Sapindaccae)

For persons with haemorrhoidal tendencies, and who suffer with gastric, bilious or catarrhal troubles. Fullness in various parts, as from undue amount of blood; heart, lungs, stomach, brain, pelvis, skin. Venous congestion, especially portal and haemorrhoidal. Despondent, gloomy; very irritable; looses temper easily and gains control slowly; miserably cross (Cham.). Mucous membranes of mouth, throat, rectum are swollen, burn, feel dry and raw. Coryza; thin, watery, burning: rawness and sensitive to inhaled cold air. Follicular pharyngitis; violent burning, raw sensation in throat; dryness and roughness of throat. Frequent inclination to swallow, with burning, pricking, stinging and dry constricted fauces (Apis, Bell.). Rectum: dryness and heat of; feets as if full of small sticks; knife-like pains shoot up the rectum (Ign., Sulph.); haemorrhoids blind, painful, burning purplish; rarely bleeding. Rectum sore, with fullness, burning and itching (Sulph.). Constipation: hard, dry stool, difficult to pass; with dryness and heat of rectum; severe lumbo-sacral backache. Stool followed by fullness of rectum and intense pain in anus for hours (Aloe, Ign., Mur. ac., Sulph.). Prolapsus uteri and acrid, dark leucorrhoea, with lumbo-sacral backache and great fatigue, from walking. Severe dull backache in lumbo-sacral articulation; more or less constant; affecting sacrum and hips. Back "gives out" during pregnancy, prolapsus, leucorrhoea; when walking or stooping; must sit or lie down. Sensation of heaviness and lameness in back. Paralytic feeling in arms, legs and spine.

Relationship. Similar: to, Aloe, Coll., Ign., Mur. ac., Nux, Sulph., in haemorrhoids. After Coll. had improved piles, Aesc often cures. Useful after Nux and Sulph. has improved, but failed to cure piles.

Aggravation. Motion; backache and soreness, by walking and stooping; inhaling cold air.

Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics, Eugene Beauharnais Nash

Sense of fullness and pulsation in various organs and veins (especially plethoric), as if too full of blood.

Constant dull backache across sacrum and hips; < walking or on stooping (piles, leucorrhoea, displacements etc.).

Sense of fullness, and as of sticks in the rectum (haemorrhoids).

Mucous membranes of mouth, throat, rectum are swollen, burn, dry and raw.

Coryza; thin, watery, burning; rawness and sensitive to inhaled cold air.

Frequent inclination to swallow, with burning, pricking, stinging and dry constricted fauces (Apis., Bell.).

* * * * *

This is one of the remedies that is not so remarkable for its wide range of action as it is for positiveness within its range. Almost all its usefulness, so far as known, centres in its action in the lower back and pelvic region and ever prominent is this characteristic: Constant dull backache, affecting sacrum and hips, much aggravated by walking or stooping. It is one of our leading remedies for haemorrhoids, and in addition to this backache there is a feeling of fullness, dryness, and sticking as if the rectum was full of sticks. There is not the tendency to protrusion or prolapsus that there is in Ignatia, Aloe, Podophyllum and some other remedies, and the backache is often greatly out of proportion to any external evidence of piles. This feeling of fullness seems to be a sort of general characteristic of Aesculus, but is especially prominent in the pelvic cavity.

These symptoms are often found in conjunction with other affections besides haemorrhoids, such as uterine displacements, and inflammations; and some very bad forms of leucorrhoea have been promptly cured by this remedy. There is another quite valuable symptom in these pelvic troubles, viz.: throbbing or beating sensations, that calls for Aesculus. I have seen equally good results from the use of this remedy in the 3d, and the potencies.

I used Aesculus with great results in coryza and sore throat. The coryza is very much like the Arsenic coryza, thin, watery, and burning, but what characterizes Aesculus here is sensation of rawness: sensitive to inhaled cold air. In the throat it has the same sensation of rawness, both in the acute form, and also in chronic follicular pharyngitis, for which it is often a good remedy. It may be that age and use will develop more uses for this remedy.