Homeopathic Materia Medica

Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica, James Tyler Kent

This remedy in olden times was frequently abused for man and beast. Our grandfathers supposed it was a protection against disease and hence they used it in the stables.

Lumps of "foetty," as they called it, where put in the corn for the horse, to keep off distempter.

What it has accomplished I am unable to say, but it is certain that these farmers looked upon Asafoetida as a great protective against disease.

It has been used also by the laity as a medicine for fainting, for hysteria, and all sorts of nervous symptoms and complaints.

The use is justified by the proving. These things are scarcely worthy of note, but it shows the general use among the people, as a domestic medicine, in crude form. It has been used more extensively in this form than in professional practice in a legitimate way.

Aspect: There is one class of patients you will find who will trouble you. Those cases that come into your office with puffed, venous, purple faces; they have an appearance of plethora; the face looks puffed, bloated and dropsical at times; it is a dark red, dusky face; such a face we shall cure sometimes with Asafoetida. Carbo an., Aurum, Carbo veg. and Pulsatilla are also related to this kind of face, but it is a very troublesome face, it shows more or less cardiac disturbance and venous stasis.

The venous side of the heart will often be involved, or be about to be involved, when you have this kind of face.

I never like to see them come into my office, for they are hard cases to manage. They have deep-seated troubles, with bleeding, they are subject to sudden inflammations, and they do not rally quickly.

Constitution: In this constitution we have ulcerations; a little place will ulcerate and suppurate, and the ulceration will burrow; this is just what this remedy does.

Another thing this kind of constitution will do is to set up an inflammatory condition of the periosteum with swelling, periostitis of the tibia for instance, where the circulation is not very active; inflammation of cartilages with tumefaction and purple skin, stitching pains and dropsy, ulcerations and fistulous openings. This medicine is good for just such states.

"Ulcers with extreme sensitiveness."

Patients often say,

"I get no sympathy when I am sick because I look so well;" fat, flabby and purple.

This remedy will seldom be thought of in lean persons; they seem to be free from complaints like those of Asafoetida, but in fat, flabby persons, extremely nervous, extremely sensitive to pain, full of hysteria.

Purple when out in the cold, purple when excited. In other words, you see before you the venous constitution, and these people get the worst kind of hysteria; they go off almost from no cause into fainting; from a close room, from excitement, from any disturbance; sometimes cramps come on, but more especially fainting.

They are subject to stitching pains from the bone to the surface; that is, from within out. The periosteum, becomes irritated, and glands become swollen.

Syphilis sometimes produces this kind of condition. Vascular disturbances in the body; periostitis, necrosis, induration of glands, nerve syphilis and head pains. in old syphilitics with this kind of venous face, subject to bleeding, ulcers turn black or become purple. In this there is a similarity to Lachesis.

Old scars turn purple, threaten to suppurate, take! on a venous aspect, become painful and turn black. Ulcers form at the site of old scars in old syphilitic patients and sometimes in psoric patients. Most complaints come on during rest and are better by slow motion.

There is another grand feature running through this remedy; it is full of discharges, catarrhal discharges, discharges from ulcers, watery discharges from different places and even watery stool; and all these discharges are horribly offensive and ichorous.

Deep, flat ulcers from bone and periosteal affections give out a watery, bloody discharge that is horribly offensive, with pains shooting outwards. Get the idea of the venous stasis well fixed in your mind and with this syphilitic state added to it.

There are many pains running through the remedy and they are night pains like those of syphilis, nightly bone pains, and pains in the periosteum.

The ulcers are deep, with bluish edges. Varicose veins surround the ulcers. Inflammation of the bone and periosteum, with blueness all around the ulcers.

When there has been an inflammatory condition of the periosteum, somewhat passive in character, the skin adheres to the bone, glues down to it by adhesion. It is too feeble to ulcerate, it does not get up a likely inflammation, but only a passive state, The glands all over the body are hot and throbbing, with shooting, jerking pains, in syphilis or old psoric and scrofulous complaints.

The bone pains that are felt in the head are sometimes very distressing. Old syphilitic bone pains in the head, stitching, penetrating. It seems where there are lumps and nodules, about the head, this medicine seems to burry things. Shooting, stitching, tearing pains, under left frontal eminence.

This stitching pain is sometimes described as if a nail or plug were driven into the head. These nervous headaches are syphilitic hysterical or scrofulous; hysterical pains described as rending, tearing, stitching.

Head: All over the head there is stitching pain, but in the frontal eminence, in the temples, there is a sensation as if a nail or plug were driven in, and most of the pains seem to bore, as if they extended from the bone to the surface, and hence are said to be from within out.

Eyes: It is useful in old syphilitics who are subject to eye complaints, ulcers on the eyeball, ulcers on the cornea, ameliorated in the open air, with a sensation of numbness in the eyes; inflammation of the iris, with ragged appearance of the iris; they are subject also to severe, sharp stitching pains that come from within out.

The remedy is full of burning, and so the eyeballs burn, better in the open air. Iritis, but the inflammation sometimes involves the choroid, the retina, and mucous membrane, making a general inflammatory condition of syphilitic character.

There are tearing pains in various places around the eyes; sticking, stitching pains, worse at night. Ulcers, with stitching pains, worse at night. Burning. stitching in the eyes with dryness, so that the lids stick to the balls of the eyes, pain worse at night.

There is a misty appearance before the eyes, dullness as if looking through a fog. It also seems as if the atmosphere were filled with little floating black flies.

"Muscae volantes."

You have looked into the air and seen little gnats and mosquitoes; well it appears to these patients as if these were there when they are not there. The discharge from the eyes is ichorous, bloody and often offensive.

This same syphilitic miasm may attack the car and the bones of the car. These bones may decay and the hearing be lost.

"Burning in the ear with discharge of foetid pus."

Stitching pains in the ears from within out.

Nose: A horribly offensive discharge comes from the nose; ulcers high up in the nose; caries of the bones of the nose; syphilitic ozoena. Putrid old catarrhs.

"Feeling as if the nose stopped high up, as if he could not breathe through it, with fullness of the head, when riding in a carriage." (Aurum, Aurum mur.)

Numbness is a great feature of this remedy, numbness of the scalp, or deep in the head; numbness here and there; numb, dead feeling associated with the pain; numbness after pain; often numbness after sleep.

Other nervous manifestations occur besides those that are hysterical. It has choreic motions. You would expect such a peculiar nervous constitution to have almost everything among its nervous symptoms.

"Constantly chewing and working frothy slime out of mouth, with swollen tongue."

"Speech unintelligible."

"Grinding of teeth; starting at night."

Swelling of the lips, and of the whole buccal mucous membrane, especially the lower lip, with burning in the mouth.

There are syphilitic symptoms in the throat, attended with the usual burning, darting, stitching in ulcers; pain when swallowing; a sensation of a ball rising in the throat, such as occurs in globus hystericus; choking, must constantly swallow.

Hysterical and choreic affections of the oesophagus and trachea. Spasms of the oesophagus. This lump in the throat, or suffocation, is a sort of hysterical spasm of the oesophagus.

"Dryness and burning in the oesophagus."

Stomach: In the stomach troubles, if you have ever seen a typical case of Asafoetida, you will wonder where all the air comes from; it comes up in volumes.

"Hiccough-like contractions of the diaphragm."

Choreic jerkings of the diaphragm, with expulsion of wind like the sound of a pop-gun going off almost every second. It is a condition that the patient has no control over; It is like the shooting off of little, guns forcing loud belching, loud eructations of wind from the stomach.

There are a few symptoms mentioned in the text just here that are worthy of note.

"Pulsation in pit of stomach; perceptible to sight and touch."

"Pressing, cutting, stitching pains."

A queer observation has been made that flatus was not passed downward, but all upwards.

"Eructations; smelling like garlic; tasting rancid, sharp or putrid."

Always horribly offensive. Offensiveness is a characteristic of the remedy. And then there is a

"gone empty feeling in the pit of the stomach," not a pain.

"Pulsations after eating."

"Meteorism of the stomach."

Abdomen: The remedy has many gastric and abdominal complaints; full of bellyache; stitching pains, colic. The diarrhoea is more or less troublesome.

These patients are afflicted with diarrhoea from the slightest indigestion, after any indiscretion in diet, a painful watery diarrhoea.

"Liquid stools of most disgusting smell."

"Blackish-brown papescent offensive stools, which relieve."

Genitals: "Bearing down in genitals, worse when riding in a carriage."

"Uterine ulcer sensitive and painful."

This medicine has been very useful in palliating uterine cancer in such constitutions as described those with purple faces, never the very pallid ones.

Women of feeble, flabby, venous constitutions are subject to hemorrhages and miscarriages. Women who are not pregnant sometimes have the breasts fill up with milk, wonderfully annoying thing, and but few remedies have it; this is one of the few.

It has also deficiency of milk.

"Ten days after delivery milk diminished."

These patients sometimes get hysterical asthma; all sorts of disturbance in breathing, dyspnoea.

"Asthmatic feeling in trachea."

"Asthmatic attacks at least once a day all her life, brought on by every bodily exertion, coition, especially by every satisfying meal."

Attacks of dyspnoea after coition, like Ambra.

"Obstinate titillating cough < at night."

Many of these complaints are worse at night; nightly aggravations. Syphilitic complaints are commonly worse at night and such anti syphilitic remedies as Mercurius, Staphisagria, Hepar, Nitric acid, etc. are all worse at night.

Among the other chest complaints, I will read a few of those that are marked here prominently and are striking ones.

"Pressure and burning of the sternum."

"Compression of chest as from a heavy weight."

"Stitches in chest."

"Single, violent stitches from within outward, at short intervals."

This remedy is full of rheumatism and gouty symptoms; gouty affections in general, in nervous constitutions.

When such a nervous constitution finally produces gouty formations, the nervousness often disappears; for it has been relieved by the deposit in the joints; a transformation scene has taken place.

A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica, John Henry Clarke

Narthex asafoetida. N. O. Umbelliferae. Tincture of the gum resin (obtained by incision from the living root).

Clinical.─Asthma. Bone, disease of. Chorea. Diarrhoea. Dyspepsia. Flatulence. Headache. Heart, affections of. Hypersensitiveness. Hysteria Iritis. Lactation, disorders of. Mercury, effects of. Neuralgia. Obesity. Orbital neuralgia. Ozaena. Syphilis. Tympanitis. Ulcers. Whitlow.

Characteristics.─The symptoms of Asafoetida present an almost perfect picture of hysteria, of the flatulent order. Reversed peristalsis of stomach and bowels. Excessive abdominal distension and sensation as if everything in the abdomen would burst through the mouth. After belching of wind strong rancid taste in mouth. Sinking sensation at epigastrium, < 11 a.m. Hysteria from suddenly suppressed discharges. Many of the discharges of Asaf. are fetid: watery stools of most disgusting odour; profuse and greenish; fetid flatus. Eructations smelling like garlic. Hiccough-like contractions of diaphragm. Griping (into a ball) pain below navel while standing. Heat in spleen and abdomen. Stitches in right hypochondrium, towards the diaphragm. Asaf. affects the left side generally: left side of abdomen; left hypochondrium; left side of neck and nape; left arm; left leg. Hysterical restlessness and anxiety. Eyes inflamed, dry sensation, > in open air. The fetid smell of the drug may be regarded as one of its "signatures." Fetid discharge from nose; bones affected. The following is a strong characteristic: Bones of orbits bruised, sore, and sensitive (iritis; after abuse of Mercury. Merc. has less of the sensitiveness). Caries of bones. Multiple nodes on roof of mouth, discoloured, bone deeply involved. Deficient milk with over-sensitiveness after confinement. Periosteal affections ending in ulcers which are so sensitive that no dressing is tolerated. Pressing pains in various parts, especially pressure from within outwards, < in room, > in open air. Many symptoms come on or are < after eating or drinking. Heat in face after eating. Diarrhoea after eating. Suited to: nervous and hysterical people; phlegmatic, scrofulous, and syphilitic who have taken much Mercury. Sensitiveness to contact is a leading characteristic. Most pains are accompanied by numbness in the affected parts. Many symptoms appear while sitting and are > in open air. Touch > pain in head; on touch pains cease or change place. Scratching > itching.

Relations.─Antidoted by: Puls., Caust., Camph., Chi., Merc., Val. Useful in ailments from: Puls., Merc., Alcohol. Similar to: Arg. n. > open air); Aur. (bone diseases, iritis); Castor., Chi., Caust., Crot. t. (whooping-cough); Hep. (sensitiveness round ulcers; faints from pains), Mang. acet., and Kali iod. (nodes: Mang., bluish; K. iod., pink; pain unbearable. Asaf. the nodes are multiple and discoloured); Ign., Merc., Mosch., Phos., Puls., Thuj., Val. Compare family relations: Ammoniac., Cicut., Con.

Causation.─Checked skin affections.

SYMPTOMS.

1. Mind.─Dissatisfied with one's self; complaints about one's troubles.─Hysterical restlessness and anxiety.─Unsteady and fickle.─Ill-humour; irritable; apprehensive.─Over-sensitive, excitable.─If he thinks of having taken the drug, it causes faintness.

2. Head.─Pressive pain in forehead from within outward; with it vertigo and vanishing of sight.─Single deep-penetrating stitches in left frontal eminence.─Heaviness and pressure in forehead and r. half of the head.─Drawing, pressive pains like a plug, in sides of head or temples; most on l. side.─The pains in the head cease, or change from touch.─Rush of blood to head and warmth of face.─All headaches < towards evening; in room while at rest, sitting or lying; > when rising or moving about in the open air.

3. Eyes.─Nocturnal throbbing pains in and around the head; syphilitic iritis.─Extensive superficial ulceration of the cornea, with burning, sticking, or pressive pains, from within outward; rest and pressure relieve.─Sharp pain extending through eye into head on touching.─Sensation of dryness in the eyes.─Dryness and burning in, the eyes.─Severe boring pains over the eyebrows.

4. Ears.─Hardness of hearing, with discharge of offensive, thin pus from the ears.

5. Nose.─Ozaena; discharge of very offensive greenish matter from the nose; bones swollen and inflamed after Mercury or in scrofula.

6. Face.─Sensation of numbness in the bones of the face; painless tension in various places.─Swelling of the lower lip.─Numbing pressure on chin.

7. Teeth.─Grinding of teeth.─Bluntness of teeth.

8. Mouth.─Greasy, rancid taste in mouth; and of phlegm hawked up.─Speech unintelligible; tongue white, swollen (chorea).─Constantly chewing, and working frothy slime out of mouth.

9. Throat.─Sensation of dryness in the mouth and throat.─Dryness of mouth, throat, and oesophagus.─Sensation of a ball rising in the throat, obliging frequent swallowing to keep it down, and causing at times difficult breathing; globus hystericus.─Sensation in the oesophagus as if the peristaltic motions were from below upward.

11. Stomach.─Ravenous hunger.─Desire for wine.─Disgust for all food.─Pulsation in the pit of the stomach, perceptible to the hand and eye even.─Rising in throat.─Loathing; inclination to vomit.─Sensation of fulness and distension in stomach.─Eructations; smelling like garlic; tasting rancid, sharp, or putrid.─Flatus passing upward, none down.

12. Abdomen.─Great distension of the abdomen.─Pulsations in abdomen.─Heat in spleen and abdomen.─Colic with distension and a "rising-up" feeling; > by external pressure; at height of pain, fainting.─Sense of fulness, and as if beaten, in epigastrium and whole abdomen.─Pressive pain on drawing in abdominal muscles. Lancinations; dartings in abdominal-muscles.

13. Stool and Anus.─Pain in perineum, as from something dull pressing out.─Stool profuse, watery, or thick, papescent, brown, and exceedingly offensive.─Diarrhoea, very offensive, with pain in the abdomen and discharge of fetid flatus.─Stool stinking; slow; difficult; hard.

14. Urinary Organs.─Urine brown, and of pungent smell.─Urine smells like ammonia.─Spasm in the bladder during and after urination.

15. Male Sexual Organs.─Faintness is worse after seminal emissions.─Urging towards genitals; aching in testes; < from touch or motion.─Needle-like stitches in penis.─Drawing in glans; < afternoon.

16. Female Sexual Organs.─Labour-like pains in uterine region, with cutting and bearing-down.─Excited sexual desire.─Leucorrhoea profuse, greenish, thin, and offensive.─Swelling and inflammation of the genitals.─Mammae turgid with milk; when not pregnant.─Deficient milk with over-sensitiveness.─Milk increased; or diminished.

17. Respiratory Organs.─Spasmodic dyspnoea, as if the lungs could not be sufficiently expanded.─Asthmatic attacks.─Obstinate titillating cough., < night.─Hoarse, ringing, short cough, excited by tickling in trachea, with asthmatic feeling therein; spasmodic contraction of thorax and accumulation of stringy mucus.─Cough on gaping.─Greasy-tasting sputa.

18. Chest.─Oppressive pressing, aching pains in the chest.─Stitches in chest (r. side), from within outward.

19. Heart and Pulse.─Nervous palpitation, with small, quick, irregular pulse.─Continual pain about heart region.─At times heart feels bound tightly, as if it could not beat; afterwards only on exertion or walking.─Heart feels swollen to bursting.

20. Neck and Back.─Fine burning stitches in and behind r. scapula, extending to ribs.─Very violent sacral pains.─Cannot work on account of the backache.─Crawls run over back in afternoon.

22. Upper Limbs.─Sensation as if bones of the arm were bending.─Darting pains in the bones; caries in; caries of the periosteum.─Tearing stitches in upper arm and forearm down to tips of fingers.─Painfulness of the periosteum, accompanied with great sensitiveness; nodes.─Twitching in the muscles of the arms.─Aching, drawing, beaten pain in wrist joints.─Whitlow, pains < night.

23. Lower Limbs.─Psoas abscess and disease of pelvic bones.─Twitching of the muscles of the legs.─Carious ulcer on the tibia.─Pain as of a splinter sticking in r. fibula.─Swelling and caries of the tibia, and bones of the feet.─Stitches and pulsation in the big toe.

24. Generalities.─Asthma of different kinds.─Sense of rigor.─Body heavy and bloated.─Hysterical attacks.─Hysteria, with much trouble about throat or oesophagus.─Twitching and jerking in the muscles.─Dull stitches (periodically) from within outwards, changed or relieved by touch.─Pains mostly in the inside (flexor side) of the joints and limbs.─St. Vitus' dance.

25. Skin.─Itching, better by scratching; pricking, burning skin.─Ulcers with high, hard edges, sensitive to touch, easily bleeding; old ulcers on forearm, wrist, hand; ulcers, esp. when affecting the bones; pus profuse, greenish, thin, offensive, even ichorous.─Ulcers, very painful to contact, esp. in the circumference, gangrenous.

26. Sleep.─Much against his habit, he is much inclined to sleep.

27. Fever.─Pulse small, rapid, and unequal.─Heat in the face after dinner, with anxiety or drowsiness, without thirst.─Chills run over body from time to time.

Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics, Eugene Beauharnais Nash

Here are five so-called hysterical remedies. They have many nervous symptoms that are similar, and I will only give a few characteristic symptoms of each and leave their study to those who love to study.

These five remedies should be studied together.

Moschus. "Hysterical spasms of the chest, nervous suffocative constrictions, especially on becoming cold." Palpitation (hysteric) with dyspnoea, prostration, fainting, exclaiming, "I shall die! I shall die!" etc., greatly excited. Laughs immoderately, or cries or scolds until her lips turn blue, eyes stare and she falls down fainting or unconscious.

Castoreum. "Exhausted pains better from pressure, menstrual colic, with pallor and cold sweat."

Asafoetida. Enormous accumulation of flatulence all pressing upward; ball rising in throat.

Great suffering, especially hysterical, from suppression of discharges. Discharges foetid.

Great sensitiveness to contact; in ulcers, especially periosteal.

"Full of wind; flatulence with eructations all pressing upward, but none downward. Seems as if she would burst with the upward pressure, reverse peristalsis." "Especially useful if its nervous symptoms come on after the suppression of leucorrhoeal or other habitual discharges." All discharges offensive, even of ulcers, and great sensitiveness to contact or touch. Osteitis or caries with this same exceeding sensitiveness to contact (Hepar).

Valerian. General nervous irritation, cannot keep still, tearing pains and cramps in different places. Feels as if floating in the air (Sticta pulm. as if legs were floating in the air). Over-sensitiveness of all the senses. Sensation as of a thread hanging down throat. With this remedy I once cured a severe case of sciatica in a pregnant woman on the symptom, pain worse when standing and letting the foot rest on the floor. She could stand with that foot resting on a chair, or could lie down in comfort.

Ambra grisea. Convulsive cough, with frequent eructations of gas.

Discharge of blood between the periods; after a hard stool; or walk.

Very nervous women, cannot void stool or urinate when others are in the room.

Discharge of blood between periods; any little exertion or straining at stool causes it. Nervous cough followed by eructations of wind. It is particularly adapted to nervous affections of old people and spare subjects nervously "worn out".