Homeopathic Materia Medica

Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica, James Tyler Kent

Most of the substances that are used on the table as seasoning in foods will in the course of a generation or two be very useful medicines because people poison themselves with these substances, tea, coffee, pepper, and these poisonous effects in the parents cause in the children a predisposition to disease, which is similar to the disease produced by these substances.

In the fat, flabby, red-raced children of beer drinkers and pepper eaters, with poor reaction, a relaxed and flabby constitution, red face and varicose condition, those that have been over stimulated, children of over stimulated men, we find the sphere of Capsicum very often.

Mind: In those constitutions in which the face looks rosy, but it is cold or not warm, and upon close examination the face is seen to be studded with a fine system of capillaries. Plump and round, with no endurance, a false plethora like Cal.

The end of the nose is red, the cheeks are red, redness over the cheeks, red eyes, easily relaxed individuals. These constitutions react slowly after diseases and do not respond to remedies, a sluggish state, a tired, lazy constitution.

In school girls who cannot study or work, who get home-sick and want to go home. In gouty constitutions, with cracking of the joints and gouty deposits in the joints, stiff joints, clumsy, weak, give out soon. There is sluggishness of the whole economy. They are chilly patients, are sensitive to air, and what to be in a warm room. Even in the ordinary weather the open air causes chilliness. They are sensitive to cold and to bathing.

In the mental state there is no more striking thing than this symptom: homesickness. A sickness like homesickness runs through the remedy and is accompanied by red cheeks and sleeplessness, hot feeling in the fauces, fearfulness. They are oversensitive to impressions, are always looking for an offence or slight; always suspicious and looking for an insult.

Obstinate to the extreme; it is a devilishness. Even if she wants a certain thing she will oppose it if is proposed by someone else. After emotions red cheeks, yet with the red cheeks lack of heat, even with increased temperature; or one cheek pale and the other red, or the cheeks alternate red and pale. Children are clumsy and awkward.

The Capsicum mind is almost overwhelmed by persistent thoughts of suicide. He does not want to kill himself, he resists the thoughts, and yet they persist, and he is tormented by these thoughts.

There are persistent thoughts in many remedies, and it is necessary to distinguish between impulses and desires.

If he desires to have a rope or a knife to commit suicide, that is altogether different from an impulse to commit suicide.

An impulse is sometimes overwhelming and overbalances the mind, and he commits suicide. You should always find out from a patient whether he loathes life and wants to die, or if he has impulses which he wishes to put aside. Some persons lie awake at night and long for death, and there is no reason for it. That is a state of the will, insanity of the will.

In another patient the thoughts jump into his mind and he cannot put them aside, and the thoughts are tormenting. The distinguishing feature of the remedy is often found by differentiating between the two. Desires are of the will; impulses come into the thoughts.

Head: Headaches as if the skull would split when moving the head, when walking or coughing. Feeling as if the head would fly to pieces; holds the head with the hand. Feeling as if the head were large, aggravated by coughing and stepping, ameliorated by lying with the head high.

Bursting pain and throbbing. Headache with pulsation in the forehead and temples. Headache as if the brain would be pressed through the forehead. On stooping, feeling as if the brain would be pressed out, as if the red eyes would be pressed out on stooping.

The senses are disturbed and are overacute; oversensitiveness to noise, smells, taste and touch, to impressions, to insults. The patient is excited.

Ears: Pains in the ears; itching pain; aching, pressing pain with cough, as if an abscess would burst. It has a peculiar action on the bones of the internal ear and mastoid process. Abscesses round about and below the car and caries; petrous portion of temporal bone necrosed. It has been a frequently indicated remedy in mastoid abscess.

Nose: Old catarrhs. The patient takes cold in the nose and throat and this is followed by a collection of mucus. Very often in stupid patients it is difficult to get symptoms, and you must depend on what you see, the character of the discharge and a few other things, and you will find that some of these cases will be cured and all the other symptoms will go away; but in some of these old catarrhs no reaction seems to come after the most carefully chosen remedies, and all at once the doctor observes that the patient has a red face and it is cold and the end of the nose is red and cold, and the patient is fat and flabby and yet has not much endurance, never could learn at school, and if she exerts breaks out into a sweat and freezes in the cold air.

He has a key to the patient and examines the patient by the key, that is, by the drug, a mad practice and never to be resorted to except as a dernier resort and in stupid patients. When he gives Capsicum to that patient it arouses her, it may not cure; but after it the Silicea or Kali bich. or other remedy which was perhaps given before and did not act takes hold and cures.

In the text it says, "Nose red and hot."

The skin all over is red and burning, a capillary congestion.

Face: The cheeks are red and hot, and this alternates with paleness. Red dots on the face. Pains in the face like bone pains, from external touch. Pains are worse from touch. Pain in the zygoma, or the zygoma is sensitive. Sensitive to pressure over the mastoid. Swelling in the region of the mastoid.

Taste foul like putrid water. When coughing the air from the lungs causes a pungent offensive taste in the mouth. A hot pungent air comes up from the throat, tasting foul when coughing.

On the tongue and lips, flat, sensitive, spreading ulcers with lardaceous base. The mucous membrane of the lips and various parts of the body if pinched up with the fingers remain in the raised position, showing a sluggish circulation.

This is the flabbiness of Capsicum. It wrinkles on pressure. It is a feeble circulation. The parts you touch are loose and flabby, red, fat and cold. That child will not react well if it has measles, until it gets Capsicum.

The skin is moist and cold, and there is a fine measly condition of the skin due to capillary congestion. If the child is old enough, it will complain of feeling cold. There is slow reaction after eruptive diseases, after glandular diseases, after bowel complaints. The child was fat and flabby, but now does not take on flesh.

He takes cold in the throat and nose, and the throat looks as if it would bleed, it is so red, a fine rash-like appearance - it is puffed, discolored, purple, mottled, flabby and spongy-looking; dark red. Burning soreness with ulceration in the fauces. Uvula elongated. Stitching in throat. Enlarged tonsils, inflamed, large and spongy.

The throat remains sore a long time after a cold or sore throat. Burning, pressing pain in the throat, the throat dark red; relaxed sore throat; pain on swallowing, dysphagia. Throat sluggish for weeks, a do-nothing state, does not get very bad, but gets no better, a lack of reaction.

When the chill begins there is thirst. Thirst after every dysenteric stool, a sudden carving for ice-cold water, which causes chilliness. Craving for water before the chill and when taken it hastens the chill; it feels cold in the stomach.

He desires something warm, something stimulating, craves pungent things. This is seen in whisky drinkers; they crave pepper, and the pepper, on the other hand, turns round and craves whisky. These diffusable stimulants crave some stimulating thing, crave support. Dipsomania.

Let me give you a hint in Arsenic. In dipsomania the sinners who have been drinking a great many drinks in a day sometimes get to that state in which they must get up during the night for a drink or they will not be able to get up in the morning.

In the morning the first three or four drinks will be thrown up, but the next one will stay down; they must take a number until one sticks. They have got to that state in which they must keep on taking it. If they sleep too long the first few drinks will come up, and so they must get up in the night or the whisky will not stay down in the morning until they have taken a number of drinks.

You will see this in lawyers who do a great amount of work on stimulants. Nux, Ars., and Caps. will do something for them if they will co-operate with you. I remember saying to one old toper, who had kept up altogether on champagne, that he would have to stop it. He whined,

"I don't think it is worth while."

If he could not get his champagne he didn't think life worth living. if these people want to get benefit they must co-operate.

Abdomen: Dysentery. After stool, tenesmus and thirst, and drinking causes shuddering. Smarting and burning in anus and rectum. Violent tenesmus in rectum, and bladder at the same time. Haemorrhoids; protruding, smarting, burning; smarting like pepper; they sting and burn as if pepper had been sprinkled on them.

Tenesmus of the bladder; strangury. Burning, biting pain after urination, in old cases of gonorrhoea, in which there no reaction.

The discharge is creamy. You take a picture, of his face, you notice the plethora, but also that he has no endurance, plump, flabby, sensitive to cold, red face. He does not react after cold. He has the, last drop or a creamy discharge with burning on urination.

Capsicum will sometimes stop it suddenly. Coldness of scrotum. Prepuce swollen, oedematous. Pain in the prostate gland after gonorrhoea.

Coldness of the affected part. Coldness in patches. Coldness of the whole body.

It is useful in perplexing and troublesome chronic hoarseness. He had had a cold and remedies for the acute condition have been given, perhaps two or three remedies, Acon., Bry., Hep., Phos., but all at once you wake up to the fact of his chronic constitutional state of hoarseness. He is rotund, chilly, red faced, and the hoarseness disappears under Capsicum.

It is the same with the cough. After making several blunders you wake up and see it is a Capsicum case and that you have never yet gotten at the root of the trouble. This shows the importance of getting at the things general first. If there is much acute suffering of course you must give an acute remedy, but if the patient has delayed recovery and convalescence is slow the next remedy should be the remedy for the patient.

Sometimes it is Sulph., Phos., Lyc., and sometimes it is Caps. If the patient has a good constitutional state he will get over the told on -the acute remedy, but the old gouty, rheumatic, flabby patients need a constitutional remedy.

Cough in sudden paroxysms convulsing the whole body. Cries, after the cough from the headache. Stitches in the suffering part with the cough. Every cough jars the affected joint. The constitutional state comes first and the particulars must agree i.e., prescribe according to the totality.

A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica, John Henry Clarke

Capsicum annuum. Cayenne Pepper. (South America and West Indies.) N. O. Solanaceae. Tincture of the dried pods.

Clinical.─Amaurosis. Asthma. Brain, irritation of. Delirium tremens. Cough. Diarrhoea. Diphtheria. Dysentery. Ear affections. Glandular swellings. Haemorrhoids. Headache. Heartburn. Hernia. Home-sickness. Intermittents. Lungs, affections of. Measles. Mouth, ulcers in. Neuralgia. Nose, affections of. Obesity. Oesophagus, stricture of. Paralysis. Pleuro-pneumonia. Pregnancy, disorders of. Rectum, diseases of. Rheumatic gout. Rheumatism. Sciatica. Scrofula. Seasickness. Stomatitis. Throat, sore. Tongue, paralysis of. Trachea, tickling in. Urine, disorders of. Whooping-cough. Yellow fever.

Characteristics.─Capsicum should be studied in connection with the other great members of the Solanum family, Belladonna, Stramonium, Hyoscyamus, Dulcamara, Solanum Carolinense, Solanum nigrum, Solanum tuberosum (Potato), and Lycopersicum esculentum (Tomato). It acts with great intensity on the mucous membranes, and also on the bones: affections of bones in general; pains in bones of face; inflammation of petrous bone. Capsicum corresponds especially to persons of light hair and blue eyes; also to persons of lax fibre and muscles; obesity; lazy, fat, unclean persons who dread the open air; clumsy children; awkward persons; haemorrhoidal troubles. Lack of reaction and bodily irritability. Symptoms generally appear on left side. As with Dulcamara, there is extreme sensitiveness to cold and damp which < most symptoms. The well-known burning effects of red pepper is a leading indication for its use Burning pains" wherever occurring demand that Capsicum should have the first consideration, if there are no other determining symptoms in favour of another remedy. The burning of Caps. is < from cold water. Redness of the skin, and even a scarlet eruption like Belladonna. Very characteristic is a cough with fetid breath, or bad taste. Cough causing splitting pain in head. Chill at 10.30 a.m., beginning between shoulders and running down back. A case of poisoning in a worker in a capsicum-plaister factory brought out: severe chill with shaking; and it ended in an intense coryza. Caps. 30 brought speedy relief in a case of tympanites following laparotomy, the concomitant symptoms being: cold nose and extremities, and cyanosis. Caps. is a notable fever remedy. The patient is thirsty─but drinking causes shuddering. Absence of thirst during heat. Burning, pungent pains, < by application of cold water, are very marked. Burning, pungent sensation in face < by slightest draught of cold air; burning in throat; burning blisters in roof of mouth (diphtheria or gangrene); constriction of throat, spasmodic closure, pain when not swallowing; burning in rectum, tenesmus, haemorrhage; burning on urination; burning in bladder. Caps. is among the remedies of the front rank in stomatitis in inflammation of the middle ear, with involvement of mastoid cells in the sore throat of smokers and drinkers, with inflammation, burning, relaxed uvula, sometimes dry, sometimes with tough mucus difficult to dislodge. Local burning and general chilliness distinguish Caps. in a vast number of cases. Caps. is indicated where there is lack of reaction in persons of lax fibre. The mental state shows home-sickness. "Home-sickness, with red cheeks and sleeplessness; with hot feeling in fauces." (With a few doses of Caps. I cured completely an Australian girl, of florid complexion, who had come to London to study, and who was quite incapacitated by home-sickness.) There is awkwardness, fearfulness, obstinacy. Alternating states; laughs and weeps by turns; is now jocose and sings, but becomes angry from slightest cause. Delirium: it has been given with great success in delirium tremens, mostly in drachm doses of the tincture, given in milk. > From heat is the most important modality. Patients who cannot get to sleep without a hot bottle at their back. Rest < some forms of headache and > others. Motion = headache as if skull would split; as if bruised; asthma; chilliness; stiff joints to crack. Ascending = asthma. < By touch. Shuns open air; dreads uncovering; dreads air, especially a draught. Spirits become lower as body becomes cooler. Sensation as if cayenne pepper were sprinkled on parts. Violent pains in various places; now here now there. Sensation as if parts would go to sleep. I had one patient on whom Caps. acted well in summer, but not in winter. Equal parts of tincture of Caps. and glycerine make an excellent liniment for external use in many cases of chronic rheumatism and neuralgia.

Relations.─Antidoted by: Calad., Camph., Cina, Chi., Sul. ac., or vapour of burning sulphur. It antidotes: Effects of Alcohol, Coffee, Opium, Quinine. Compatible: Bell., Lyc., Puls., Sil. Compare: Arn., Bell. (headache, etc.); Bry. (headache from cough); Canth. (burning pains, throat symptoms, dysentery, urinary symptoms); Pso. (lack of reaction; despair of recovery; Caps. in persons of lax fibre); Lach. (thirst before chill; continues into chill; drinking <; also Elaps); Nat. m., Carb. v. and Menyanth. (intermittents; Nat. m. is the "chronic" of Caps.); Carb. an. and Nit. ac. (inflammation behind ears, Aur. and Nit. ac. preferable in abscess; Sil. in chronic suppuration); Phos. ac. (home-sickness; Caps. has red face); Ars., Alum., Carb. v., Lyc. have burning pains > by heat. Merc., Nit. ac., Sul. have passage of blood from bowels. Crot. t. (after drinking urging to stool); Helleb. (colic with spasm of bladder); Plat. (burning, pungent pain in face, < slightest draught of air, warm or cold). Compare also Solanaceae.

SYMPTOMS.

1. Mind.─Tendency to take alarm.─Discontent.─Opinionativeness.─Strong disposition to take everything in bad part, to fly into a rage, even on account of harmless jests, and to utter reproaches.─Capricious and exceedingly changeable humour.─Dulness of all the senses.─Want of reflection and awkwardness.─Nostalgia, with redness of the cheeks and sleeplessness.─Disposition to jest, and to utter witticisms, but gets angry at least trifle.

2. Head.─Bewilderment of the head.─Intoxication, as if from spirituous liquors.─Headache, as if the cranium were going to burst, on walking, or moving the head or coughing.─Attack of semi-lateral headache, pressive and shooting, with nausea, vomiting, and loss of memory, aggravated by movement of the eyes.─Shooting, or acute, drawing pains, esp. in the sides of the head.─Pain of pressive severing in the brain, as if from fulness.─Pulsative headache; (better in motion).─Gnawing itching in the scalp, with pain in the roots of the hair after scratching.

3. Eyes.─Pressure in the eyes, as if from a foreign body introduced into them.─Inflammation of the eyes, with redness, burning pain, and lachrymation.─Eyes prominent.─Confusion of sight, esp. in the morning, as if something were swimming on the cornea, mitigated for an instant by rubbing.─Objects appear black when brought before the eyes.─Sight entirely extinct, as if from amaurosis.

4. Ears.─Acute drawing pains in the ears.─Itching and pressure in the bottom of the auditory tube.─Painful swelling on the bone behind the ear; < by touch.─Tearing behind l. ear.─Diminution of hearing after previous burning and stinging in the ear.

5. Nose.─Epistaxis, esp. in bed, in the morning.─Painful pimples under the nostrils.─Dry coryza, with tingling and tickling in the nostrils.

6. Face.─Redness of the face (without heat), often alternately with paleness.─Many small red spots on the face.─Corroding, itching tetter on the forehead.─Pains in the face, in the bones, where they are aggravated by the touch, or in the nerves where they are aggravated during sleep.─Dull pressure on the cheek-bone.─Swelling of the lips.─Ulcerated eruptions, and fissures in the lips.

7. Teeth.─Pains in the teeth, as if they were set on edge, or elongated.─Pullings in the teeth, and in the gums.─Swelling of the gums.

8. Mouth.─Burning vesicles in the mouth and on the tongue.─Viscid saliva in the mouth.

9. Throat.─Sore throat with painful deglutition and pulling sensation in the pharynx.─Inflammation, with dark redness and burning of the throat.─Cramp-like contraction of the throat.─Uvula elongated, with sensation as if it were pressing on something hard.

10. Appetite.─Unnaturally increased appetite, alternated with aversion to food.─Aqueous and insipid taste.─Sour taste in the mouth, and also a taste of broth.─Want of appetite.─Desire for coffee, with inclination to vomit before or after taking it.─Pyrosis.─Nausea, felt generally in the epigastrium, with pressure on the part.

11. Stomach.─Pain in the stomach, which is inflated.─Sensation of cold in the stomach.─Burning pain in the stomach, and in the epigastrium, esp. just after a meal.─Shootings in the epigastrium, on breathing rapidly and deeply, on speaking, and on the part being touched.

12. Abdomen.─Abdomen inflated, almost to bursting, with pressive tension, and suspension of respiration.─Painless rumbling in the abdomen.─Colic about umbilicus, with mucous stools.─Draggings and movements in the abdomen.─Strong pulsations in the abdomen.─Flatulent colic.─Protrusion, flatulent hernia in the inguinal ring.

13. Stool and Anus.─Tenesmus.─Small dysenteric evacuations, with discharge of slimy and sanguineous matter, preceded by flatulent colic.─Nocturnal diarrhoea, with burning pains in the anus.─Blind haemorrhoids, with pain during evacuation.─Haemorrhoidal tumours, with burning (bleeding).

14. Urinary Organs.─Tenesmus of the bladder.─Frequent, urgent and almost useless efforts to make water.─Burning pains on making water.─Cramp-like and incisive contractions in the neck of the bladder.─Incisive and shooting pains in the urethra, when not urinating.─Purulent running from the urethra, as in gonorrhoea.─Flow of blood from the urethra, which is painful to the touch.

15. Male Sexual Organs.─Impotence and coldness of the genital parts.─Purulent discharge from the urethra.─Dwindling of the testes.─Violent erections in the morning.─Trembling of the whole body, during amorous caresses.

16. Female Sexual Organs.─Disordered menstruation, with a pushing or sticking sensation in l. ovarian region.

17. Respiratory Organs.─Hoarseness.─Cough, more violent in the evening and at night, with pains in other parts of the body, esp. in the head and in the bladder, as if they were going to burst, or with pressure in the throat and ears, as if an abscess were about to open in them.─Cough, after taking coffee.─Cough, with fetid breath, and disagreeable taste in the mouth.

18. Chest.─Want to breathe deeply.─Deep breathing, almost like a sigh.─Oppressed respiration, sometimes as if proceeding from the stomach, or from fulness of the chest.─Asthma, with redness of the face, eructation and sensation as if the chest were extended.─Constrictive pain in the chest.─Shootings in the chest on breathing.─Pulsative pain in the chest, which suspends respiration, and which is increased by movement.

20. Neck and Back.─Stiffness of the neck.─Acute drawing pains in the back.

21. Limbs.─Rheumatic pain in limbs.─Tension in the knees and stiffness in the calves of the legs on walking.─Stiffness of the arms and legs, with tingling as when they are asleep.─Shooting-tearing from hip to knee and foot, esp. when coughing.─Caries of r. hip; l. leg atrophied, violent pains in atrophied leg.─Cold sweat on upper part of legs.

24. Generalities.─Aching pains.─Drawing pains in the limbs excited by movement.─Pain, as from dislocation, and stiffness in the joints, with cracking, esp. at the beginning of a walk.─Phlegmatic temperament, and relaxed fibres.─Cramps in the body, with stiffness in the arms and legs, with numbness and sensation of tingling.─Repugnance to movement.─The symptoms show themselves chiefly in the evening and at night, and are aggravated by the open air, by contact, and by cold, as well as on beginning to move, and after drinking or eating.─Great sensibility to fresh air, and to a current of air.─Symptoms generally appear on l. side; suited for light-haired people; tendency to get fat; laxness of the muscles.; bloatedness of the skin.─Affections of the bones in general; pains in bones of the face.

26. Sleep.─Sleeplessness, without apparent cause.─Sleeplessness after midnight.─Sensation as if falling from a height during sleep.─Sleep full of dreams.

27. Fever.─Pulse irregular, and often intermitting.─Febrile shivering and cold over the whole body, with ill-humour increasing with the cold, or else with anxiety, dizziness and dulness of the head.─Shivering, commencing at the back; between shoulders.─Cold and shivering whenever drink is taken.─Fever with predominance of cold, and with thirst, burning heat, and affections of the mucous membranes.─Shiverings, with much thirst, afterwards heat, (without or) with thirst and perspiration.─On the upper part of the legs cold perspiration.

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

Cayenne Pepper (Solanaccae)

Persons with light hair, blue eyes, nervous but stout and plethoric habit. Phlegmatic diathesis; lack of reactive force, especially with fat people, easily exhausted; indolent, dreads any kind of exercise; persons inclined to be jovial, yet angry at trifles. Children; dread open air; always chilly; refractory, clumsy, fat, dirty, and disinclined to work or think. Desires to be let alone; wants to lie down and sleep; Homesickness (of indolent, melancholic), with red cheeks and sleeplessness. Constriction: in fauces; throat; nares; chest; bladder; urethra; rectum. Burning and smarting sensation, as from cayenne pepper, in throat and other parts, not > heat. Tonsillitis: with burning, smarting pain; intense soreness; constriction of throat with burning; inflamed, dark red, swollen. The burning spasmodic constriction and other pains, worse between acts of deglutition (Ign.). Painful swelling behind ear (mastoid), extremely sore and sensitive to touch. Every stool is followed by thirst and every drink by shuddering. As the coldness of the body increases, so also does the ill-humor. Nervous, spasmodic cough; in sudden paroxysms; as if head would fly to pieces. With every explosive cough (and at no other time) there escapes a volume of pungent, fetid air. Pain in distant parts on coughing (bladder, knees, legs, ears).

Relations. - Compare: Apis, Bell., Bry., Calad., Puls. Cina follows well in intermittent fever. The constricting, burning, smarting pains differentiate from Apis and Belladonna.

Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics, Eugene Beauharnais Nash

Burning pains, especially in mucous membranes, or smarting, as from red pepper, on the parts.

Cough with pains in distant parts as head, bladder, knees, legs, etc.

Chill or shuddering after every drink; begins between the shoulders and spreads all over.

* * * * *

Capsicum is also a good remedy for dysentery or one later stage of gonorrhoea, or in throat complaints, when there is great burning in the mucous membrane of the affected part. In short, it is a remedy to be remembered in all affections, accompanied with burning of mucous membranes in any locality. The characteristic burning is not like that of Arsenicum, but feels as if red Pepper had been applied to the parts; nor is it relieved by heat applied, as is that of Arsenic. Capsicum has pain in head when coughing as if it would burst. I cured a very bad case of years' standing; the patient would cry out and grasp head with both hands at every cough. It finally became so bad that he had to lie in bed, because the hurt was so much < when sitting, Capsicum cured very quickly. Other remedies having similar < are Bryonia, Natrum mur., Squilla, Sulphur.

Capsicum also has pain in distant parts on coughing, such as bladder, knees, legs, etc.

Chilliness or shuddering after every drink.

Chill begins between shoulders and spreads.

Lack of reaction especially fat people.