Homeopathic Materia Medica

Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica, James Tyler Kent

The general constitutional state of Chamomilla is great sensitiveness; sensitive to every impression; sensitive to surroundings; sensitive to persons; and, above all, sensitive to pain.

The constitutional irritability is so great that a little pain brings forth manifestations as if the patient were in very, great suffering. It naturally belongs to the woman's nervous system, when she is wrought up and extremely sensitive and in pain.

Mind: The mental state goes along with this. Sensitiveness of the mind. Great irritability. These two run through Chamomilla so closely that they are inseparable. Sensitiveness to pain. Easily affected by mortification, by chagrin, so that the nerves become extremely sensitive from these causes, and pains, convulsions, colic, headaches and other kinds of nervous symptoms set in.

The nervous child when punished will go into convulsions. The oversensitive nervous woman will suffer from chagrin. Jerking and twitching of muscles from mortification and excitement. Excessive sensibility of the nerves, so excessive that only a few remedies equal it, such as Coffea, Nux vom. and Opium.

Of course, without hearing a lecture on Opium you naturally think of Opium as capable of producing stupor. Those of you who have seen, the awful state of mind and distress that follow the administration of the crude Opium will understand what I mean by the Chamomilla sensitivity. Convulsions of children.

Convulsions: It is not an uncommon thing, even now-a-days, and especially when practicing in the country, for the young mothers and the nurses to give for baby Camomile tea for colic, and the baby goes into convulsions. No one attributes it to Camomile tea, but the doctor will see at once, if he knows Chamomilla, that these convulsions are due to Camomile.

Then you see the jerkings, the convulsions, the hot head, the great sensitivity; sensitiveness, to noise, and to persons, and the great irritability between the convulsions, convulsions of children; they become stiff; roll the eyes; distort the face; twitchings of muscles; throw the limbs about; clinch the thumbs; bend the body backwards.

Such is the natural appearance of the Chamomilla convulsions; those convulsions that come on in oversensitive children, when they have suffered a good deal of pain from teething. Teething ought to be a perfectly healthy process, but it is really looked upon as a disease, and many doctors carry medicines for "teething children.," and administer them; first one and then another.

Chamomilla has fallen into that bad use of being given "for teething." It is true that many children suffer from irritability of the brain, convulsions, stomach disorders and vomiting about the time of dentition, but I say dentition should not be a diseased state, it should be normal.

If they were in healthy they would cut teeth without sufferings. But slow teething we have to contend with, and that irritable state, that oversensitiveness, so that he child does not sleep. Wakes up as if it had awful dreams. Wakes up in excitement, vomits, has diarrhea with teething.

These symptoms come at this time when the child has not been properly looked after. Or perhaps the mother has not been properly qualified for parturition.

"Tetanic convulsions.

Twitching in the eyelids.

Pain in the limbs.

General prostration, faintness."

Neuralgic pains all over the body with numbness. Twitching, darting, tingling pains. The pains are mostly ameliorated by heat, with the exception of the teeth and jaws. Toothache, pain in the teeth ameliorated by cold, and made worse by heat. But the earaches and pains in the extremities are made better by heat.

You will see in the text under "Temperature and Weather" the symptom:

"Pains are worse from heat," with two black bars as if it were the most important symptom in it, and then below, without any bar,

"Sensitive to cold. Chilly," and "Better from heat;"

but the fact is the pains that are worse from heat are about the teeth and jaws, and it is decidedly a particular symptom relating only to a part; whereas it is true that the patient in the general state, entirely contrary to what this says, is better by heat.

The pains in general are better by heat. The patient himself is better by heat. Consequently, this being a particular, it should state that the pains that are so commonly worse by heat are of the teeth.

The most important part of Chamomilla is the mental state. It pervades the whole economy and you will see that every region that is taken up, every part that is studied, brings into it the mental state of the patient.

This remedy has more mental symptoms than symptoms in any other part. Crying.

"Piteous moaning. Irritable."

The irritability is so great that it manifests itself sometimes in a very singular way. The patient seems to be driven to frenzy by the pains, and she forgets all about her prudence and her diplomacy.

Loss of generosity: she has no consideration for the feelings of others. She will simply enter into a quarrel or dispute regardless of the feelings of anybody.

So, when you go into practice, do not be surprised when you go to the bedside of a patient in labor, who is full of pains and sufferings, if she says:

"Doctor, I don't want you, get out." just such an one will pass under other circumstances as a lady. The awful pains that she is having drive her to frenzy, and this frenzy, this oversensitiveness to pain, is coupled with the mental state.

Inability to control her temper, and the temper is aroused to white heat. Now, in the child, the child whines and cries and sputters about everything. It wants something new every minute. It refuses everything that it has asked for. If it is for something to eat, for something to play with, for its toys, when these are handed to the child it throws them away; slings them clear across the room.

Strikes the nurse in the face for presuming to, get something or other that the little one did not want, yet had asked for. Capriciousness. It seems that the pains and sufferings are sometimes ameliorated by passive motion, this very particularly in children.

The pains seem to be better when the child is carried, so the child wants to be carried all the time. This is true in the colic and in the bowel troubles. It is true with earache; it is true with the evening fevers, and the general sufferings from cold and conditions while teething.

Children must be carried. The nurse is compelled to carry the child all the time. And then there is the restlessness and capriciousness about the members of the family. The child goes two or three times up and down the room with the nurse, and then reaches out for its mother; goes two or three times up and down the room with her and then wants to go to its father. And so it is changing about. Never satisfied. It seems to have no peace.

When it has earache the sharp shooting pains cause the child to screech out. Carries the hand to the ear. The pains often cause that sharp, piercing tone of the voice. Adults in pain cannot keep still the pains are so severe; it is not always that they are decidedly ameliorated by moving, but they seem to be. But they move because they cannot keep still.

So the Chamomilla patient is tossing in bed, if in bed; not an instant quiet. And along with all of these the same irritability; becomes violently excited at the pain angry at the pain; irritable about the pain; will scold about the pain the pain is so torturesome. Aversion to talk, and snappish. The patient is constantly sitting and looking within herself when pains are absent.

Chamomilla has melancholy, and has suffering of the mind, without pain. Then the Chamomilla patient sits and thinks within herself a sort of introspection. Cannot be induced to say a word. Sadness. The Chamomilla child cannot be touched.

Wants to do as he pleases. Wants to change; wants to do something new. The answer from both the adult and the child are snappish. Complaints come on from contradiction; from anger. Convulsions come on from anger.

If the child is suffering from, whooping cough it will have a coughing spell, a spasmodic cough from being irritated. Goes into a spunky state, gets red in the face, and then gets to coughing. Peevishness.

"Quarrelsome. Easily chagrined or excited to anger.

Bad effects of having the feelings wounded."

Such is the mental state, and, as I have remarked, that mental state will be found wherever there is an inflammatory condition that Chamomilla fits. In pneumonia, in bronchitis, laryngitis, inflammations of the ear, erysipelas, headaches, fevers, Chamomilla. is capable of curing when the mental state is present, and the symptoms, in particular, are present.

Headache: The headaches of Chamomilla are found in sensitive people, sensitive women, nervous; overstrained; overtired. Fidgety. Excitable women that suffer from pain. A little headache seems an enormous thing. Throbbing, tearing, bursting pains. Congestive headaches.

Worse when thinking of the pain, or when thinking about the sufferings. The headaches are worse evenings. A particular time in the evening for many complaints to be worse is 9 o'clock. Sometimes 9 o'clock in the morning, and sometimes 9 in the evening.

Fever condition worse 9 o'clock in the morning. Pains worse in the evening, and especially worse about 9 o'clock. Stitching, tearing pains in the temples and head. Wandering pains in the temples.

Pressing pain in the head as soon as attention was directed to it, better by busying the mind at something else, or by occupation; forcing one's self to do something, and to think of something else. Congestion to the head. Violent neuralgia of the face, teeth, ear' sides of the head. Pains inside of the mouth are ameliorated by cold. Pains of the ear and sides of the head are ameliorated by heat; earache ameliorated by heat.

Eyes: There are pains in the eyes. Inflammation of the eyes with bleeding. Oozing of a bloody water from the eyes of the new born infant. Chamomilla will cure if there is irritability of the temper.

Profuse acrid discharges; yellow discharges; discharges of purulent matter from the eyes. Violent pressure in the orbit. Lachrymation accompanying coryza with sneezing. Stuffing up of the nose. Headaches, irritability.

Associated with the above is a symptom:

"Face red and hot on one side, the other side pale."

Ears: Like the whole constitution of the remedy there is a great sensitiveness of hearing. Roaring, ringing and singing in the ears. Stitching pains in the ears, ameliorated by heat. Pressing earache.

You will see the little one when the pain comes on put its hands up to its ears, and spitefully moaning, yelling and screaming. Violent pains in the ear. When old enough to talk about it will complain of heat in the ear, and a feeling of fullness as if the ear were obstructed or stuffed up.

In adults, nervous, sensitive women who cannot ride in the wind without covering up their cars.

The ears are so sensitive to air when other parts of the face and head are not sensitive to air.

You will find some patients that can not have air touch the neck. Others have extra covering between the shoulders. Chamomilla singles out the ears. The whole body is sensitive to air and to cold, and he wants to dress with plenty of covering.

Sneezing, watery coryza. Hot face on one side, and often with pains in the head and jaws. Fluent coryza, viscid, acrid, with loss of smell. Loss of smell lasting while the cold lasts.

Face: Rending pains in the face, sometimes involving the teeth and the outer face at the same time. It is not an uncommon thing to have a very sensitive woman if she is disturbed by chagrin, if she has been vexed by her servant, to go to her room and suffer tortures from pain in the face from that excitement, from anger.

If it is the outer nerves in the face the pains will be ameliorated by heat; but when it affects the teeth the pains will be ameliorated by cold. Heat of the face, while the rest of the body is cold.

"The face sweats after eating or drinking."

It is a common feature of this remedy to sweat only about the head, the hairy scalp.

Sometimes during measles or scarlet fever we will have Chamomilla manifestations. Sweating about the head, face red on one side.

"One-sided swelling of the check;"

that is, an inflammatory attack, gets redder, and redder, and finally purple, going into erysipelas, with the mental symptoms.

Hot face, redness of one side. Burning in the face. Neuralgia of the face. If anything warm is taken into the mouth it will bring on aching in the teeth, and sometimes burning and throbbing in the roots of the teeth; tearing, stitching, stinging pains, aggravated by talking; aggravated in the open air; aggravated in a warm room, or getting warm in bed, anything that heats up the body will aggravate this toothache; ameliorated by holding cold drinks in the mouth.

Teeth and gums: Toothache that is entirely absent in the daytime; as soon as it comes night, and the patient gets into the warm bed, then these shooting, tearing pains begin; with the irritability, oversensitiveness to pain, the mental state, hot head, you have the Chamomilla toothache.

"Swelling and inflammation of the gums.

Threatened abscess of the gums.

Toothache when coming into a warm room," when it has been better in the cold air. This toothache is one that may be brought on by taking cold, by exposing one's self to cold air when sweating; and yet the toothache itself when present is ameliorated by cold.

"Toothache from a draft of air."

"Ameliorated from eating cold things.

Worse before midnight."

The most of the troubles of Chamomilla that come on in the evening and night subside about or sometimes before midnight.

"From midnight to morning almost all of the complaints of Chamomilla, are absent.

Many of them are absent during the day.

It has aggravation in the forepart of the night.

"Teeth feel too long.

Swollen gums."

The Chamomilla infant will often hold a glass of cold water against the gums. The little one has inflamed gums, painful gums, the coming forth of the teeth is painful, and it seems to want to prolong the cold in the mouth; when it is so young you would not think it would realize the good of making use of the cold edge of the glass. Offensive foetid smell from the mouth.

The spasms that affect the child all over are likely to affect the larynx, and sometimes affect the larynx without affecting the child anywhere else.

"Spasms of the larynx during cough, or without cough.

Spasmodic constriction of the larynx.

Choking.

Spasms of the throat. Sore and inflamed."

Throat: Chamomilla, cures sore throat when the throat is of a uniform redness, spreading pretty evenly over the whole throat, with considerable swelling. Inflammation of tonsils. Much redness; when the mental state is present. It will never cure a sore throat except in these irritable constitutions, such as suffer from pain, such as are easily angered, in a constant fret. The Chamomilla mental state determines when you ne to give Chamomilla in sore throat.

"Want of appetite. Great thirst for cold water and desire for acid drinks.

Unquenchable thirst."

Aversion to coffee, warm drinks, to soups and liquid foods, The aversion to coffee is a strange thing. Chamomilla and coffee are very much alike in the general sensitivity of the economy. They antidote each other. When persons have been overdrinking coffee, nurses drinking coffee to keep up at night to take care of the patient; persons overdrinking coffee when tired and overworked. Chamomilla is its antidote.

"Thirsty, and hot with the pains."

When the pains come, no matter where, she heats up, and sometimes becomes really feverish. Face red, especially on one side. Head hot; extreme irritability.

Chamomilla has much vomiting. Eructations of gas which smells like sulphuretted hydrogen. The Chamomilla patient has violent retching. Making violent efforts to vomit. Seems that it will tear the stomach. Covered with cold sweat. Exhausted. That is just what Morphine does.

If you have ever seen a patient who has been overdosed by a doctor - I hope that you will never see one that has been overdosed by yourself. Do not make a case, you will have one soon enough, but if you get into a town where there is an allopathic physician, and he happens to give Morphine to one of these oversensitive patients; it may relieve her pain for a little while, but on will come the awful eructations, and she will retch and vomit, and continue to retch when there is nothing to vomit.

Chamomilla will stop that, the first dose, in a few minutes, and it is the only remedy you will need. It will always stop the vomiting from Morphine after the crude effect of Morphine has passed away and the vomiting comes.

Colics: Colic, especially in the little ones, in the infants. Pain in the stomach and abdomen, The child doubles up, and screams, and kicks; wants to be carried; is extremely irritable; attack comes on in the evening; one side of the face red, the other side pale; wants things, and when they are given does not want them; and you have a Chamomilla colic.

It is a wind colic. It lasts a fraction of a minute, and then it straightens out again. It shows that it is a cramp, a wind-cramp. in adults, who have felt these symptoms, they are said to be cutting, burning, griping. Griping pains.

Of course, such are the pains that are called colicky. Cramps in the bowels. Griping pains. Sometimes griping as if must go to stool The abdomen distended like a drum. Sometimes ameliorated by warm applications.

"Colic while urinating;" that is an uncommon symptom.

"Colic in the morning.

Tympanitic abdomen."

The most striking Chamomilla stool is grass green, or like chopped eggs, or like these two chopped up; yellow and white, intermingled with mucus that is grass green, like chopped grass; chopped spinach. Greenish, slimy discharges, greenish water.

Those old enough to express themselves in the proving said that the stool felt hot while it passed. It smells like sulphuretted hydrogen. Copious stool; scanty stool, with dysenteric straining. Watery diarrhoea, six or eight passages daily. Mucous diarrhoea. Green, watery stool, faeces and mucus.

"Yellowish brown stool."

Also constipation, with no ability to strain. A paralytic weakness of the rectum; inactivity of the rectum. Anus is "pouting.," with swollen appearance and redness.

Women: The woman, such as I have described, oversensitive to pain, snappish, suffering intensely from a little pain, takes on many symptoms at the menstrual period. The menstrual flow is black, clotted, offensive. Cramping pains in the uterus, clutching and griping, ameliorated by heat.

"Oversensitive to pain," with all the pains and complaints, and the mental state, the irritability, the snappish mental state at a menstrual period. Whether it be a menorrhagia, or a metrorrhagia, there are copious black clots.

"Menstrual colic following anger," which means violent cramping pains in the uterus during menstruation if she has had any great excitement to anger her. Sexual irritability, emotions, disturbance of mind, will bring on cramps at the menstrual period in a woman who is not subject to cramps, affecting her as if she had taken cold.

It is a very useful remedy in membranous dysmenorrhoea. It, perhaps, has existed from the first menstrual period. Every month the woman throws off a little membranous formation. This is thrown off with violent labor-like pains, and often with clots.

Chamomilla may be a palliative. It is not the constitutional remedy that clears away, and prevents the future formation of this membrane, like the deeper antipsorics, but it is often palliative in the more severe attacks, with the irritable condition of the mind; feverish condition, ameliorated by heat; cramping, and clutching like labor pains,

"Yellow, smarting leucorrhoea.

Excessive menstruation; blood dark, nearly black, clotted, with pain through from back to front, attacks of syncope, coldness of limbs, much thirst."

Pregnancy: In pregnancy the woman has also Chamomilla conditions. Irregular contractions; false labor pains. Labor pains that are felt in wrong places. Labor pains that are felt too much in the back.

Contractions that are most painful, cutting, tearing, bringing out screams. so irritable; she scolds the pains; she scolds the doctor; she scolds everybody; drives the doctor out of the room; drives the nurse off, and then calls for her again; refuses things that are offered.

Labor pains that are clutching here, and clutching there, and cramping, showing that certain fibres of the uterus are contracting in one direction, and certain other fibres in another. There is not that uniform, regular contraction that should take place in the expulsion of the contents of the uterus; expulsion of a mole or expulsion of a child.

If the physician can have the pregnant woman under his care during the period of gestation he ought to be able to select remedies to remove these irregular contractions of the uterus, or to prevent them when it comes time for labor. The pains are then not so violent. She feels the contractions, but in many instances they are painless.

You will not always be able to prepare women, they will not always permit it. Women are more inclined to be notional and whimsical and to have their own way a short time before confinement than at any other time. A woman ought to be under treatment all through, gestation, and sometimes it takes longer.

Gestation is a fortuitous time for the woman to take treatment. Symptoms representative of her disordered state come out then that do not appear at any other time. If she has a psoric condition it may remain dormant until pregnancy comes on, which may act as an exciting cause to bring out the conditions that are in the constitution.

It furnishes, therefore, a good time for the homoeopathic physician to study the case and give that woman a constitutional remedy based upon those symptoms that will not only remove those symptoms and prepare her for confinement, but will remove very much of the disorder in her economy, and she will go on through life liberated from much distress, cured from many conditions that perhaps would not have come out until some other occasion brought them out.

A woman that knows much about Homoeopathy would submit herself regularly to constitutional treatment during gestation, that is, would be particular to give the physician everything, all the details, all the sufferings, all the trouble, that he may study that case.

The things that are to be observed during gestation are to be added to the constitutional. symptoms found when gestation is not present, because they are all evidence of a disturbance in that one patient. And it is the patient that is to be treated, not a disease. It is simply another form of disturbance, of disorder of the economy.

The things that Chamomilla reaches during confinement, and during its course, and at the close of it, are irregular contractions, like hourglass contractions.

"Rigidity of the os."

After confinement, after pains. With all these the same mental condition, the same oversensitiveness to pain.

"Postpartum hemorrhage."

Every time the child is put to the breast, cramping of the uterus; cramp in the back. Either of these, or both, Chamomilla cures. The two principal remedies you will have to rely on for these conditions, cramping in the back and cramping in the abdomen every time the child is put to die breast, are Chamomilla and Pulsatilla.

They are two decidedly different remedies in the mental sphere. One is mild and gentle, though whimsical; and the other is snappish and irritable. Both are sensitive to pain, but Chamomilla is far more sensitive to pain than Pulsatilla.

Chamomilla has inflammation of the mammary glands. You cannot prescribe for that unless you have something along with it, and I am sure you will recognize a Chamomilla patient. The woman goes into convulsions.

At the beginning of the confinement the husband comes into the room in some snappish way,

"to make his wife behave herself;" it makes her mad, and she goes into convulsions.

The doctor, perhaps, has just turned his back upon it, but now he says,

"Well, why did I not think to give this woman a dose of Chamomilla?

If I had done that I would have prevented these convulsions."

She becomes very philosophical after a dose of Chamomilla, and often goes to sleep.

Chest, cough and respiration: There are many suffocative attacks and difficulties of breathing, inflammation of the larynx, that you can read up easily.

The cough of Chamomilla has some striking things in it. It is a hard cough, a dry, backing cough. The child goes to sleep at night and coughs and does not wake up. Coughs in its sleep, It is a little feverish has taken cold, and one side of the face is flushed.

It is crabbed when it is awake. The child becomes angry when it has a cold and a little cough, and a little disturbance of the larynx and bronchial tubes has been noticed coming on, and all at once it becomes more excitable, wants to be carried, and if not pleased, or is angered, it will go into a hard coughing spell, and cough and vomit.

"Coughing spells from anger."

That is, he coughs when there is already a cold or a cough, and if the patient becomes angry he has a fit of coughing. The coughing complaints, and chest complaints, and laryngeal complaints are generally worse at night.

The feverish condition comes on at night with the Chamomilla colds, with the Chamomilla whooping cough, with the Chamomilla chest complaints.

Most of the complaints of Chamomilla are better after midnight. From 9 o'clock to midnight they are worse.

"Dry cough worse at night and during sleep."

Dry cough from catching cold. Rough, scraping cough of children in winter, with tickling in sus sternal fossa, worse at night.

Dry cough, continuing during sleep. Amelioration of cough when getting warm in bed. Chamomilla is a very common remedy in whooping cough, where the child wants to be carried; keeps the nurse busy all the time. Coughs and gags and vomits, and it is very irritable and capricious in all of its wants and coughs during sleep.

You can now easily detect the chest symptoms. They go with the mental symptoms and the irritability and cough. The cough in the chest is scarcely different from the cough in the larynx and the cough from cold.

It is the same Chamomilla cough. Cough during sleep. During most of the complaints, fevers, colds, acute complaints and little attacks, burning of the extremities.

Limbs: Stitching pains in the limbs. Cramping in the muscles. Limbs go to sleep. With the pains in the limbs, and sometimes in other parts, but particularly in the limbs, a benumbed feeling, or pains with the feeling of deadness, pains accompanied by a benumbed feeling; sometimes almost complete loss of sensation of the skin, yet the pains in the long nerves in the extremities are very violent, and the patient seems just as sensitive to pain as at other times.

Extremely sensitive to pain, but the pains themselves cause a benumbing feeling to follow them.

It has been called in Older books a paralyzing pain. Convulsions of the extremities. Convulsions of the whole body.

"Cramps in the legs and calves.

Tearing pains in the feet following a severe chill.

Burning of the soles at night, puts the feet out of bed."

All the routine prescribers whenever. the patient is known to put the feet out of bed give Sulphur, yet there is a large list of remedies with hot feet, burning soles, and all of them will put the feet out of bed, of course, to cool them off.

There is no reason why they should all get Sulphur.

Another feature of the pains that come on at night, sometimes, before midnight is, they are so violent that he cannot keep still. When the child has pains he wants to be carried, that seems to do him good. When the adult has pains at night in bed he gets up and walks the floor.

Benumbing pains, pains ameliorated by heat, pains that drive him out of bed at night, with twitchings of the limbs.

Oversensitiveness to pain. Great irritability.

Sleep: The Chamomilla patient can not go to sleep at night. He is sleepy, like Bell., but he cannot sleep. If he quiets down during the day he wants to go to sleep. But as soon as the time comes to go to bed he is wide awake, he is sleepless and restless at night, especially the fore part.

At times the Chamomilla patient becomes so full of visions and so much excited during the forepart of the night in his efforts to go to sleep that when be does go to sleep he jerks and twitches and has horrid dreams, and is full of sufferings.

"Anxious dreams. Sees horrible apparitions and starts; dreams about fatal accidents."

Worn out mentally from trying to go to sleep, and he is tired out.

A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica, John Henry Clarke

Matricaria chamomilla. N. O. Compositae. Tincture of whole fresh plant.

Clinical.─Acidity. Anger. Asthma (from anger). Blepharospasm. Catarrh. Coffee, effects of. Colic. Convulsions. Cough. Cramp. Croup. Dentition. Diarrhoea. Dysmenorrhoea. Dyspepsia. Earache. Eyes: blepharitis; ophthalmia. Eructations. Erysipelas. Excitement. Excoriation. Fainting fits. Fevers. Flatulence. Flatulent colic. Gout. Gum-rash. Headache. Hernia. Hysterical joint. Influenza. Jaundice. Lienteria. Labour: disorders of; after-pains. Mastitis. Menstruation, disordered. Miliary eruption. Milk-fever. Miscarriage. Mumps. Neuralgia. Parotitis. Perichondritis. Peritonitis. Pregnancy, disorders of. Red-gum. Rheumatism. Salivation (nocturnal). Sciatica. Screaming. Sensitiveness. Spasms. Speech, affections of. Toothache. Ulcers. Uterus, diseases of. Waking, screaming on. Whooping cough.

Characteristics.─"There is in Chamomilla a little thread of symptoms, and nearly always found running through it. This is a spiteful, sudden, or uncivil irritability" (Guernsey). Teste puts Cham. at the head of one of his groups, which includes Grat., Viol. t., Hell. n. The common feature of this group is: "A particular derangement of the cerebral functions and even of the whole nervous system; a painful increase of the sentient action, followed by a considerable depression of the vital forces, and a certain disorder of the mental faculties." In spite of its obvious analogies with Puls., Ipec., Acon., and Coni., it has marked and exclusive characteristics of its own. "It increases the general nervous sensibility, and stimulates the cerebral functions: a property that seems to give rise secondarily to the various organic alterations that Cham. is capable of producing, and for which it has so often been given with success." "It appears," says Hahnemann, quoted by Teste, "to diminish" [i.e., curatively] "in a great degree, the excessive sensitiveness to pain and the violent derangements which pain occasions in the moral condition of the patient. This is the reason why it appeases a multitude of sufferings to which coffee-drinkers, and persons who have been treated with narcotic palliatives are subject. And this is likewise the reason why it ought not to be given to those who bear pain patiently and with resignation. I mention this rule here, for it is of very great importance." Teste remarks an this that Cham. antidotes not only Coffea, but also Causticum, and most of the members of the Causticum group. Over-sensitiveness, with great irritability and crossness, is the leading note of the Chamomilla effects. The pains are unbearable and drive to despair; the patient insists that the doctor shall cure them at once. Prostrating debility as soon as the pains begin. The senses are too acute. Bad temper (Nux is malicious). Peevishness; ill-humour; anger, with rage, violence and heat. Cannot bear to be looked at. Cannot be civil to doctor. Impatience. Cham. also corresponds to the effects of anger: colic, diarrhoea, jaundice, twitchings, and convulsions. Child cries, and must be carried about to be quieted. There is hot sweat on head. Stopped up colds, with dripping of hot water from nose. One cheek red, the other pale. Face sweats after eating or drinking. The patient is hot and thirsty with the pains. Cham. is almost typical of the dentition state. The toothache of Cham. comes on when entering a warm room or from drinking anything warm. There is fetor of breath, and of discharges in general. Biliousness preceded by anger. Gastralgia, food eaten lies like a load on stomach, hypochondria distended. Tongue yellowish white. Bitter taste. Colic > by drinking coffee. The diarrhoea of Cham. is: stool hot, yellowish green; like chopped egg; offensive; excoriation round anus. Intertrigo of children. Wind colic; belching of wind < the condition (this is characteristic). Menorrhagia dark clots; fetid; temper always < before and during flow (Nux also, but Nux is conscious of it, Cham. is not). Threatened abortion caused by anger. The pain of labour or at menses is centred in the womb, bearing down, painful contractions, unbearable; they extend down thighs and are felt in the back. Leucorrhoea is acrid, watery, corrosive, smarting. Cham. has inflammation of the parotid glands, nocturnal salivation. Rheumatism compelling to get up and walk about; thirsty, hot, almost beside himself. Muscles of face and hands twitch. Insomnia of children; start in sleep; twitching of hands and face; hot sweat of head and face; one cheek red. Puts feet out of bed; soles burn. Aggravation by heat is one of the most prominent features of Cham. < By warm food. Cham. may be the remedy in croup, or croupy cough, if mental symptoms and time conditions correspond. W. H. Baker (Rochester) has recorded such a case. A chubby boy, light hair, blue eyes had a croupy cough. Acon. and Spong. at first controlled it, but afterwards failed. The cough became a loose, rattling, suffocating cough; the mucus came up in the throat and nearly suffocated him. Paroxysms at midnight. During the day he was hoarse; ever impatient, nothing seemed to suit him. Cham. c. m. cured, improvement setting in within two hours. "Chamomile tea" has removed the night-sweats of phthisis. Dr. Anderson, of Dover, Delaware, relates the case of a man who had to change three to five times every night. A cup of weak chamomile tea was ordered every night. The second night there was slight diminution, the third he only had to change twice, the fourth once, and after that there was no more trouble. The plant in this case was probably Anthemis cotula, or wild chamomile of U.S. Dr. Anderson learned its use from "an old woman." But the sweats of Chamomilla are also very marked, Nash mentions a characteristic in the association of numbness or alternation of it with pains. He relates the case of a man who had very painful rheumatism of left shoulder, and who got no better from the usual remedies, but was speedily cured by Cham., the indication being: "Numbness with the pains." Nash differentiates the restlessness of Aco. and Ars. from that of Cham. by the absence in the case of the last of fear of death. The Cham. patient "would rather die than suffer so." Lying in bed <. Walking > backache and rheumatic pains. > Being carried about. Touch, and even looking at the patient, <. Covering <. Pains recur in evening and are < before midnight. Symptoms generally < night. Warmth < most symptoms. Cold > ulcers; a finger dipped in cold water and applied to the part > toothache. < From music. Heaviness and fulness of whole body from playing piano. There is desire for open air, and yet over-sensitiveness to open air, especially about ears. Damp cold weather <. Windy weather <. Great dread of wind. Cham. is particularly suited to diseases of pregnant women, nurses, and little children. Light or brown-haired persons. Arthritic diathesis.

Relations.─Cham. antidotes: Coffee, and the narcotics. Especially opium as it corresponds to its secondary effects (useful in nerve storm when morphia is discontinued); the nightly headaches of Thuja. It is antidoted by: Aco., Alum., Borax, Camph., Coccul., Coff., Coloc., Coni., Ign., Nux v., and especially Puls. Puls. and Cham. antidote one another, and precede and follow each other well. Compatible: Merc. sol., Sul., Puls. Complementary: Bell. in diseases of children (Cham. acts more on nerves of abdomen, Bell. more on cranial nerves.) Compare: in dentition, Bell., Borax, Calc., Tereb.; in over-sensitiveness, Aco., Coff., Hep., Hyo., Ign.; diarrhoea, parotitis, toothache, Merc. (Merc. has hard, pale swelling of face, Cham. red and hot); sour breath, constrictive gastralgia in coffee drinkers, Nux (Cham. has bad temper during menses; Nux has malicious temper); toothache < in bed at night; < from warmth, Sul., Merc., Puls.; distension of abdomen unrelieved by eructation, Chi.; indignation and its effects, Coloc., Staph., Nux, Bry.; aversion to be looked at, Ant. c., Chi., Stram.; > by moving about, Rhus., Fer., Verat., (Ver. has maddening pains compelling to walk about, but there is none of the feverishness and excitement of Cham.); stopped catarrh, Nux, Samb., Sticta.; nocturnal salivation, Nux., Pho., Rhus.

Causation.─Dentition. Anger. Indigestion. Pain.

SYMPTOMS.

1. Mind.─Attacks of great anguish, as if the heart would break, with complete discouragement, excessive inquietude, agitation and tossing, groans and tears, accompanied often by drawing colic, and pressure at the pit of the stomach.─Disposition to weep, and to be angry, with great sensitiveness to offence.─Crying and howling.─The child cries and wants to be carried on the arm.─Quarrelsome and choleric humour.─Mischievous disposition in children.─Mental excitement, with strong tendency to be frightened.─Hypochondriacal humour.─Patients neither endure to be addressed by others, nor to be interrupted when conversing.─Peevishness, ill-humour, absence of mind, taciturnity and repugnance to conversation.─State of mental abstraction and inadvertence, as if plunged in meditation, with diminished comprehension.─A sort of stupidity, and apathy to pleasure and to external objects.─Desire for different things, which, when once possessed, are no longer cared for.─Tendency to misapply words when speaking or writing.─Frantic and furious delirium.

2. Head.─Intoxication and staggering, on getting up in the morning.─Vertigo, with fainting.─Vertigo, with obscuration of the eyes.─Vertigo chiefly in the morning, or in the evening, or after a meal, or after taking coffee.─Headache on waking in the morning, or while asleep, sometimes with a sensation as if the head were going to burst.─Pain as if caused by a bruise, and pressive heaviness in the head.─Pullings, shootings, and beatings in the head, often only semi-lateral, with one red cheek; worse at night; in the open air; in the wind; better from warm coverings and when walking about.─Cracking in one side of the brain.─Hot, clammy sweat on the forehead, and on the scalp.─Starting pain in the forehead, chiefly after a meal.

3. Eyes.─Pain as of a wound, in the corners of the eyes.─Shootings, burning, and heat in the eyes.─Eyes inflamed, and red, with pressive pains, chiefly on moving the eyes and on shaking the head.─Great dryness in the margin of the eyelids.─Inflammation of the margin of the eyelids (esp. of the lower, which are swollen), with mucous secretion, humour in the eyes and nocturnal agglutination.─Yellow colour of the sclerotica.─Ecchymosis in the eye, and haemorrhage of the eyes.─Spasmodic closing of the eyelids.─Quivering of the eyelids.─Distortion of the eyes.─Pupils contracted.─Sparkling before the eyes.─Confused sight, more frequently in the morning than in the evening.─Semi-lateral obscuration of the sight, on looking at anything white.─Aversion to bright light.

4. Ears.─Otalgia, with drawing and tensive pains.─Shootings extending to the ears, chiefly on stooping, with disposition to be angry at trifles, and to take everything in bad part.─Tinkling and buzzing in the ears.─Sensation as if the ears were stopped, and as if a bird were scraping and fluttering in them.─Sensibility of hearing; music appears insupportable.─Inflammatory swelling of the parotids, as well as of the sub-maxillary glands, and those of the neck.─Discharge of thin pus from the ears.

5. Nose.─Wrinkled skin of the nose.─Coryza, with obstruction of the nose.─Ulceration and inflammation of the nostrils.─Epistaxis.─Coagulated blood from nose; viscid nasal secretion.─Very acute smell.

6. Face.─Face hot, red, burning or redness and heat of one cheek, with coldness and paleness of the other; or face pale, hollow, with distortion of features from pain.─Heat of the face, while the rest of the body is cold.─Swelling of the face.─Erysipelas in the face, with hard and bluish swelling of one cheek.─Swelling of one temple, with pain on being touched.─Shooting, drawing, and pulsative pains in one side of the face.─Red miliary eruption on the cheeks.─Yellow colour of the skin on the face.─Convulsive movements of the muscles of the face and of the lips.─Lips cracked, excoriated, and ulcerated.─Spasms in the jaws, with compression of the teeth.─Wrinkles on the forehead.

7. Teeth.─Odontalgia, most frequently semi-lateral, and chiefly at night, when warm in bed, with insupportable pains which almost induce despair, swelling, heat, and redness of the cheek, swelling, burning of the gums, and painful swelling of the sub-maxillary glands.─The toothache recommences when entering a warm room.─Toothache, after a cold and suppressed perspiration.─Affects teeth on l. lower side; under jaw.─The pains are commonly drawing and pulling, or pulsative and shooting, or searching and gnawing, in the hollow teeth, appearing frequently after drinking or eating anything hot (or cold), and chiefly after taking coffee.─Toothache > by dipping finger in cold water and applying it to affected part.─Loosening of the teeth.─Dentition, with convulsions.

8. Mouth.─Dryness of the tongue and mouth (with thirst), or flow of frothy saliva.─Putrid smell of the mouth.─Tongue red and cracked, or loaded with thick and yellowish coating.─Blisters on the tongue and also under it, with shooting pains.─Aphthae in the mouth.─Convulsive movements of the tongue.

9. Throat.─Sore throat, with swelling of the parotids, of the tonsils, and of the sub-maxillary glands.─Inflammation of the soft palate and tonsils, with dark redness.─Pains in the pharynx, shooting and burning, or a sensation as if there were a plug in the throat.─Inability to swallow solid food, esp. when lying down.─Burning heat in the throat, from the mouth to the stomach.─Deep redness of the parts affected.

10. Appetite.─Putrid or clammy taste.─Acid taste in the mouth, and of rye-bread.─Bitter taste in the mouth (early in the morning), and of food.─Want of appetite, and dislike to food.─Aliments cannot descend.─Aversion to, or great longing for coffee, sometimes with nausea, or even vomiting, and attacks of suffocation, after having partaken of it.─After eating, heat and sweat of the face, inflation and fulness of the stomach, and of the abdomen, risings and inclination to vomit.─Excessive thirst for cold drinks.

11. Stomach.─Risings, which aggravate the pains of the stomach and of the abdomen.─Acid rising (the existing pain is aggravated by eructations).─Regurgitation of food.─Nausea after eating, and chiefly in the morning.─Uneasiness, and a sort of flabbiness in the stomach, as if the patient were about to faint.─Vomiting of food, and of sour substances, with mucus.─Bitter, bilious vomiting.─Excessively painful pressure on the precordial region, as if the heart were going to be crushed, with cries, sweat, and anguish.─Pressive gastralgia, as from a stone on the stomach, with difficulty of respiration, chiefly after eating, or at night, with inquietude and tossing, either renewed or mitigated by coffee.─Burning pain in the pit of the stomach, and in the hypochondria.─After eating or drinking, heat and perspiration of the face.

12. Abdomen.─Tension and anxious fulness in the hypochondria, and in the epigastrium (in the morning), with a sensation as if everything was ascending towards the chest.─Colic, after anger.─Flatulent colic, with inflation of the abdomen, and accumulation of flatus towards the hypochondria, and the inguinal ring.─Excessively painful colic, pullings and cuttings in the abdomen, sometimes in the morning, at sunrise.─Sensation of emptiness in the abdomen, with constant movement in the intestines, and blue circles round the eyes.─Burning cuttings in the epigastrium, with difficulty of respiration, and paleness of the face.─Shooting in the abdomen, principally on coughing, on sneezing, and on touching it.─Painful sensibility of the abdomen to the touch, with sensation of ulceration in the interior.─Pressure towards the inguinal ring, as if hernia were about to protrude.─Abdominal spasms.

13. Stool and Anus.─Constipation, as from inertia of the rectum.─Diarrhoea during dentition (green mucus).─Diarrhoea from cold, from anger, from chagrin.─Diarrhoea chiefly at, night, with spasmodic colic, mostly with slimy, and whitish or watery, or yellowish and greenish faeces, or mucus mingled with excrement, like eggs when beaten up; or hot corrosive faeces, of a fetid odour, like rotten eggs; or evacuation of undigested substances.─Haemorrhoids, with very painful fissures and ulcerations in the anus.─Excoriation about anus (intertrigo).

14. Urinary Organs.─Inclination to make water, with anxiety.─On making water, itching and burning in the urethra.─Urine hot and yellowish, with fleecy sediment; or turbid urine, with yellowish sediment.─Involuntary or feeble emission of urine.─Excoriation at the edge of the prepuce.

15. Male Sexual Organs.─Itching, stinging pain in the margin of the prepuce.─Swelling of prepuce (Sycosis).─Excited sexual desire.

16. Female Sexual Organs.─Catamenia suppressed, with swelling and pressive pains in the pit of the stomach, and in the abdomen.─Pains like those of labour, and general dropsy.─Menstrual colic, before the catamenia.─Pressure towards the uterus, as if from the pains of child-birth.─Pains may occur by which the foetus is forced up instead of down.─The labour-pains are not sufficient, but cause great restlessness and anguish (over-sensitive to the pains).─Violent after-pains.─Metrorrhagia, with discharge of deep-red blood, and of clots, accompanied by labour pains.─Discharge of blood between the regular catamenia.─Burning pains and smarting in the vagina.─Corrosive leucorrhoea, with smarting.─Scirrhous induration of the mammary glands.─Suppression of milk (milk is cheesy or mixed with pus; milk fever).─Puerperal fever.─Erysipelas of the mammae and soreness of the nipples.

17. Respiratory Organs.─Catarrh and hoarseness, with accumulation of tenacious mucus in the throat.─Stitches and burning in the larynx, with hoarseness.─Burning pain in the larynx.─Spasmodic constriction in the gullet.─Dry cough, produced by a constant titillation in the larynx, and under the sternum, chiefly in the evening, and at night in bed, continuing during sleep, and sometimes accompanied by a fit of suffocation.─Wheezing and rattling in the trachea.─Anger provokes the cough (in children).─Expectoration of mucus of a bitter or putrid taste.

18. Chest.─Respiration short, croaking, or wheezing and stertorous.─Deep respiration, with sensible rising of the thorax.─Fit of suffocation, as if from constriction of the larynx or of the chest.─Attacks of flatulent asthma, with anxiety and fulness in the precordial region.─Oppression of the chest.─Shootings in the chest, chiefly on breathing.─Burning in the chest, with dizziness and anxiety.─Shooting in the regions of the heart, with difficulty of respiration.

20. Neck and Back.─Tensive stiffness of neck muscles.─Glands swollen, often very sensitive; painful when turning neck.─Aching pain in the sacrum, chiefly at night.─Pain as of a bruise in the sacrum, with pulling pains, like those of labour, extending to the thigh.─Shooting, pulling, tearing pain in the back.─Painful stiffness in the loins, after having been seated some time.─Insupportable pain in the loins and in the hip, in the morning, on the side opposite to that on which the patient is reclining.─Convulsions in the back, with a throwing backwards of the head, and stiffness of the body as in tetanus.

21. Limbs.─Cracking in joints, with pain in them as if bruised.─Pain in periosteum of limbs with paralytic weakness.─Convulsive single jerks in limbs.─All joints sore as if bruised and tired out; there is no power in hands or feet, though without corresponding weariness.

22. Upper Limbs.─Numbness and stiffness of the arms on grasping an object.─Convulsions of the arms, with clasping in of the thumb.─Nocturnal pains, with paralytic weakness in the arms.─Swelling; or coldness; and paralytic stiffness of the hands; with cold perspiration in the palms of the hands.─Numbness or convulsive movements of the fingers.─Finger-joints red and swollen.─Retraction of thumbs.

23. Lower Limbs.─Paralytic and drawing pain in the hip and in the thigh, extending to the feet, chiefly at night.─Tension of the muscles of the thighs, and of the legs.─Cramps in the calves of the legs, chiefly at night.─Tearing sensation, with a paralytic condition of the feet, at night.─Cramp.─Cracking of the knee during motion.─Burning in the soles of the feet (at night, he puts his feet out of bed).─Sensation of numbness in the toes.─Burning and itching in the feet, as from chilblains.─Swelling of the foot and of the sole of the foot.

24. Generalities.─Rheumatic, drawing pains, chiefly at night in bed, with paralytic state, and sensation of torpor in the parts affected, and inclination to move them continually; mitigated by external heat.─Pain with thirst, heat, and redness (of one) of the cheeks, and hot sweating of the head.─Pulsative pains, as from an, abscess.─Over-excitement, and excessive sensibility of the nervous system, with great sensibility to pain, which appears insupportable and induces despair.─Over-sensitiveness of the senses (esp. from coffee and narcotics).─Great sensibility in the open air, and principally to wind.─The extremities feel, as it were, stiff and paralysed.─Great weakness and inclination to fall, with prostration of strength to fainting as soon as the pain commences.─Syncope, with sensation of sinking and faintness in the precordial region.─Attacks of catalepsy, with hippocratic face, extremities cold, eyes half-closed, pupils dilated and dull.─Attacks of spasms and of convulsions, with face red and bloated, and convulsive movements in the eyes, the eyelids, the lips, the muscles of the face, and of the tongue.─Epileptic convulsions, with retraction of the thumbs, and foam before the mouth, preceded by colic, or followed by a lethargic state.─Urgent inclination to remain lying down; a child will neither walk nor be carried in the arms.─Cracking, and pain resembling a bruise, in the joints.

25. Skin.─Miliary eruption, with itching and nocturnal tickling.─Unhealthy skin; every injury tends to ulceration.─In the ulcers, tingling, itching, burning, and jerking shootings, with excessive sensibility to the touch.─Itching pimples form around the ulcer, covered with scurf, and suppurating.─Yellow colour of the skin (over the whole body).─Rash of infants and during nursing.─Red rash on the cheeks, on the forehead.─Inflammatory swelling of the glands.

26. Sleep.─Yawning and stretching.─Sleepiness, during the day, without being able to sleep, on lying down.─Coma, and coma-vigil, with pulling pain in the head, and nausea, or with feverish restlessness, short respiration, and thirst.─Nocturnal sleeplessness, with attacks of anguish, visions, and illusions of the sight and hearing.─Snoring breathing when asleep.─On sleeping, starts with fright, cries, tossing, tears, talking, raving, groans, snoring, and constant separating of the thighs.─Fantastical, lively, quarrelsome and vexatious dreams, with morose and sullen aspect.─Nocturnal delirium.

27. Fever.─Pulse small, tense, accelerated.─Constant alternation of cold, or of partial shuddering, with partial heat, in different parts of the body.─Chilliness and coldness of the forepart of the body, while the back part is hot, or vice versa.─General heat, esp. in the evening, or at night in bed, with anxiety, thirst, redness of the cheeks, hot perspiration of the head, at the forehead, and the scalp; and sometimes, chiefly on uncovering the body, mixed with shivering or shuddering.─After or during the heat, sour sweat, which causes an itching on the skin.─Burning heat and redness (often only in one) of the cheeks, chiefly at night, with groans, tossing, and cold or heat in the rest of the body.─Intermittent fever, with nocturnal aggravation, pressure on the pit of the stomach, nausea or bilious vomiting, colic, diarrhoea, and painful emission of urine.─Chilliness, with internal heat.─Chill and coldness of the body, with burning hot face and hot breath.─Nocturnal sweat, when asleep.─Continuous burning heat, with violent thirst, and starts during sleep, and furious delirium.

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

Matricaria Chambilla (Compositae)

Persons, especially children, with light brown hair, nervous, excitable temperament; oversensitive from use or abuse of coffee or narcotics. Children, new-born and during period of dentition. Peevish, irritable, oversensitive to pain, driven to despair (Coff.); snappish, cannot return a civil answer. Child exceedingly irritable, fretful; quiet only when carried; impatient, wants this or that and becomes angry when refused, or when offered, petulantly rejects it (Bry., Cina, Kreos.); "too ugly to live;" cross, spiteful. Piteous moaning of child because he cannot have what he wants; whining restlessness. Patient cannot endure any one near him; is cross, cannot bear to be spoken to (Sil.); averse to talking, answers peevishly. Complaints from anger, especially chill and fever. Pain: seems unendurable, drives to despair; < by heat; < evening before midnight; with heat, thirst and fainting; with numbness of affected part; eructations <. One cheek red and hot, the other pale and cold. Oversensitive to open air; great aversion to wind, especially about ears. Toothache if anything warm is taken into the mouth (Bis., Bry., Coff.); on entering a warm room; in bed; from coffee; during menses or pregnancy. Labor pains; spasmodic, distressing, wants to get away from them; tearing down the legs; press upward. Diarrhoea: from cold, anger or chagrin; during dentition; after tabacco; in child-bed; from downward motion (Bor., Sanic.). Stool green, watery, corroding, like chopped eggs and spinach; hot, very offensive, like rotten eggs. Nipples inflamed, tender to touch (Helon., Phyt.); infant's breasts tender to touch. Milk runs out in nursing women (runs out after weaning, Con.). Convulsions of children from nursing, after a fit of anger in mother (Nux - after fright in mother, Op.). Violent rheumatic pains drive him out of bed at night, compel him to walk about (Rhus). Sleepy, but cannot sleep (Bell., Caust., Op.). Burning of soles at night, puts feet out of bed (Puls., Med., Sulph.).

Relations. - Complementary: Bell. in diseases of children, cranial nerves; Cham., abdominal nerves. In cases spoiled by the use of opium or morphine in complaints of children. Compare: Bell., Bor., Bry., Coff., Puls., Sulph. Mental calmness contra-indicates Chamomilla.

Aggravation. - By heat; anger; evening, before midnight; open air; in the wind; eructations.

Amelioration. - From being carried; fasting; warm, wet weather.

Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics, Eugene Beauharnais Nash

Very irritable mood; snaps and snarls; will not speak or answer civilly; mad.

Exceedingly sensitive to pain, which makes her mad: numbness alternates with, or attends, the pains; sweats with the pains.

Excessive uneasiness; anxiety; agonized, tossing about; will only be quieted by carrying the child about.

High fever with sweating, especially on the head; thirsty; one cheek red and hot, the other pale and cold.

Dentition diarrhoea; green stools, foul odor like rotten eggs, much colicky pain, abdomen bloated.

Cough dry < at night, when asleep, from tickling in throat pit; < cold weather and every winter.

Especially adapted to children and nervous, hysterical women.

Violent rheumatic pains drive him out of bed at night; compel him to walk about.

Burning of soles at night; puts feet out of bed.

Numbness with the pains.

* * * * *

Charles J. Hempel called this "the catnip of Homoeopathy", because it was particularly adapted to nervous affections, especially of children. This is one of the remedies that finds its leading characteristic symptoms in the mind of the patient. To "boil down" all the different ways in which the Chamomilla mind can be and is expressed: "The patient is cross, ugly, spiteful, snappish. She knows it, admits it, and so does every one else. She will return mean, uncivil, spiteful answers to her best friends, and then confess her fault, to repeat it again and again, and stoutly affirms she cannot help it, she feels so." This state of mind is always present in the marked Chamomilla case, whether it be adult or child.

Of course the young child cannot give vent to its feelings by talking, so it comes as near to it as it can by whining and crying, sometimes it seems without cause, and also when it shows by fever, diarrhoea, teething and many other complaints that it is actually sick and suffering. It wants this or that thing, puts out its little hand for it, and when it is offered pushes it away and points to something else, to reject it in turn. Now the child does not know what it wants, but the homoeopathic physician does. It wants a dose of Chamomilla. This peevish disposition in which nothing pleases, takes possession of the child, mother, father or any and all grades and classes of subjects when Chamomilla is the remedy, and it is found in connection with all kinds of diseases. It is also especially adapted for ailments brought on by fits of anger. In short, it is the leading anger remedy of the Materia Medica.

The other leading anger remedies, or, for ailments brought on by anger, are Aconite, Bryonia, Colocynth, Ignatia, Lycopodium, Nux vomica, Staphisagria.

It is also one of the leading remedies for pain, and there is this peculiarity about it, the pain is not always in proportion to the gravity of the case, and we often see, for instance, in labor, a great deal harder pains of which the patient does not complain half so loudly. But in the Chamomilla case the patient is exceedingly sensitive to the pain and exclaims continually, "Oh; I cannot bear the pain." Many times have I met this condition in labor cases, and in the majority of them the cross, peevish, snappish, condition of mind accompanying, and seen it changed in a short time to a mild, uncomplaining, patient state, by a single dose of Chamomilla 200th.

This sensitiveness to pain is not confined to labor cases, but I have often observed it in neuralgias, toothache, rheumatism, etc., and the same happy results follows its use.

This condition of sensitiveness is often found in coffee drinkers, or in those who have been addicted to narcotics.

Chamomilla is very useful here. There is another sensation which is often found in conjunction with, or sometimes alternating with, this pain or sensitiveness, and that numbness.

It is found in rheumatism or paralytic states and is very characteristic. The pains of Chamomilla are oftener aggravated by heat than otherwise, but are not on the other hand, like Pulsatilla, ameliorated by cold. In fact, the patient is often very sensitive to cold, and cold air brings on troubles for which this remedy is specific. I now call to mind a very painful case of rheumatism of the left shoulder in a middle-aged man. It was in my earlier practice, when I was prescribing for names more than I do now, and of course he got Aconite, Bryonia and Rhus toxicodendron, etc., but no relief. A wiser man was called in consultation and the patient was quickly cured by Chamomilla. When I asked the counsel what led him to prescribe this remedy he answered numbness with the pains.

Another condition which is met by this remedy is restlessness and sleeplessness. You will remember that we gave as the great trio of restless remedies Aconite, Arsenicum and Rhus tox That was right, but we did not say that those were all the restless remedies. Here we have another in Chamomilla. Let me quote: "Violent rheumatic pains drive him out of bed at night, and compel him to walk about". (Rhus tox., Ferrum met., Verat. alb) "Excessive uneasiness, anxiety, agonized tossing about, with tearing pains in the abdomen." "The child can only be quieted by carrying it on the arms will not be quiet unless carried." (Opposite Bryonia). These symptoms represent in a few words the restlessness of this remedy. But some will ask, isn't this similar to your trio of restless remedies? It is; but there are shades of difference and concomitant symptoms that decide between them all. And the true Hahnemannian is the man to recognize them. There is no particular overwhelming fear, fear of death, etc., under Chamomilla as there is under Aconite. The patient is maddened; driven to desperation under Chamomilla; does not care whether she dies or not; had rather die than suffer so, and so we might draw lines of differentiation between this and other restless remedies, but it would take too long. Each physician must get a habit of doing this for himself. In his ability to do this lies the superior skillfulness of the homoeopathic practitioner. Without this he can only hope for indifferent success at most, and will be driven to all sorts of experiments, adjuvants, surgical measures and so forth which might be avoided, much to his own credit, and the advantage of his patient. The sleeplessness of the Chamomilla patient is owing to the pain and excessive nerve sensibility and this remedy procures sleep by overcoming these troubles, which make the patient sleepless. Now there are a few symptoms, when occurring in conjunction with the peculiar mind and nervous symptoms of this remedy, that confirm the choice of it, such as.

"Warm sweat on the head wetting the hair."

"Pressing earache in spells; tearing pain extorting; cries."

"Ears particularly sensitive to cold air."

"One cheek red and hot, the other pale and cold."

"Face sweats after eating or drinking."

"Toothache if anything warm is taken into the mouth." (Pulsatilla).

"Toothache recommences when entering a warm room."

"Teeth feel too long."

"Dentition with diarrhoea of green stools smelling like rotten eggs."

"Hot and thirsty with the pains; also fainting. " (Hep. sul.).

"Gastralgia in coffee drinkers; constrictive pain, or as if a stone were in the stomach. " (Nux vom.).

"Wind colic; abdomen distended like a drum; wind passes in small quantities without relief."

"Stools green, watery, corroding (Sulph.), like stirred eggs."

"Stools hot, smelling like rotten eggs."

"Metrorrhagia dark coagulated blood, flowing in paroxysms."

"Menstrual colic, also following anger."

"Labor pains press upward, or begin in back, and pass off down inner side of things."

"Rigidity of os, pains unendurable."

"After-pains also unendurable."

"Children have spasms, from fit of anger in the nurse."

"Cough from tickling in throat pit."

"Cough dry, worse at night, especially while asleep, does not waken when coughing." (Calcarea ost., Psorinum.)

"Chronic cough, worse in winter or cold weather."

"Body chilly and cold; face and breath hot."

"Heat and chill intermingled." (Ars. alb.).

"Skin moist and burning hot." (Bell.)

This does not by any means cover all the symptoms which indicate Chamomilla, but when they do occur it is strongly indicated and shows something of the range and usefulness of this remedy when given according to homoeopathic rules.