Homeopathic Materia Medica

Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica, James Tyler Kent

Cina is pre-eminently a child's remedy, but it is suitable for conditions in adults that are seldom thought of. A marked feature running through is touchiness, mental and physical.

Child: The child wants something, but does not know what. The child is aggravated by touch and even by being looked at, and is worse from seeing strangers. The skin is sensitive to touch. The scalp and back of the neck, the shoulders and arms are so sensitive, that it is almost a soreness as if bruised. The hyperesthesia is both mental and physical. The old routine of giving Cina for worms need not go into your notes, for if you are guided by symptoms the patient will be cured and the worms will go.

This patient is disturbed by everything, worse after eating even a moderate meal. The child takes a moderate supper and dreams all night, jerks and twitches in sleep, rouses up in a fright, talks excitedly about what he has dreamed, thinks it is real, and sees dogs, phantoms, and frightful things lie has dreamed about.

The dream is prolonged into the wakeful hours. Screams and trembles, with much anxiety on waking; whines and complains. While this little patient is aggravated by being handled yet he wants to be carried and kept busy, like Chamomilla; although not so intensely irritable as that remedy, yet he must be carried. At first on taking him out of the crib he screams when taken bold of; the first touch aggravates.

This aggravation from touch and sensitiveness runs through the convulsions and fevers, with delirium, glassy eyes, drawn mouth and white ring around the nose and mouth. With a disordered stomach he has convulsions after eating, with the head drawn back and glassy eyes.

The stomach is sour and the child is always spitting up sour milk and belching sour wind. The child smells sour.

The mother says that

"Baby has a worm breath," but the same odor is present when there are no worms. In the convulsions there are loss of consciousness and frothing at the mouth.

Hallucinations of smell, sight and taste, in the delirious state, after taking cold, or on waking from sleep; wakes up with the delusion. Things taste and smell differently. The senses of taste and touch are exaggerated or perverted.

In some cases of internal hydrocephalus, not with enlarged skull but with increase of the fluid in the ventricles and central canal of the spinal cord, the patients take on Cina symptoms. Rolling of the head frequent headaches; sensitiveness to jar; cannot be touched or tapped along the spinal cord without headache always worse in the sun - the head is hot and the feet are cold in the sun.

Cina will cure some of these cases. They cannot stand any kind of disturbance; it produces a convulsion. They cannot be punished because they go into convulsions. If the iter a tertio ad quartum ventriculum is closed they will be incurable, the internal pressure will go on and they will die from it. Such congenital states are incurable.

Dull headache with sensitiveness of the eyes. Headache before and after epileptic attacks and after intermittents. Before and during the headache sensitiveness of the skull. Cina children cannot have the hair combed, and the Cina woman must have her hair down in head and nerve complaints.

There is coldness of the, extremities and also some itching of the skin, but the head symptoms are predominant. From slight disturbances of the mind he cannot digest, and he has diarrhoea. The complaints are aggravated in summer; the heat affects the brain, arrests his functions, and on comes diarrhoea with green, slimy stools or white stools, and the child vomits.

It is pre-eminently brain in Cina; the orders are not received from the brain and so stomach symptoms develop, and worms hatch out. If he is cured the healthy gastric juice will chase the worms out

The child turns his head from side to side.

The pains are sometimes better from turning the head from side to side. You will see this in sensitive women, who must have their hair down; rolling the head relieves, not shaking as in the text, that is too violent.

Eyes: All sorts of colors before the eyes. Objects look yellow. It is useful in sensitive women, sensitive nervous women, who are always worse from using the eyes, and get pain in the head and eyes from sewing. It is like Ruta in that respect, symptoms of eye-strain. It is not so much indicated in young people but more when presbyopla is beginning in middle-aged women, and there is the effort to strain the eyes on fine work or print.

Rubs the eyes and can then see more clearly. On rising from the bed blackness before the eyes; different colors, especially yellow. Strabismus when worms are present, depending really on brain trouble because the worms are dependent upon that.

Face: Face sunken, pallid, wings of nose drawn in. Blue ring or gray streak around the mouth.

"A sure sign of worms," the mother says.

Child rubs its nose with the hands or on the pillow or on the nurse's, shoulder. Child bores into the nose until the blood come. The sickly aspect is striking, but it is representative of brain trouble, central trouble. The brain symptoms are the highest and most important. It frightened, whipped, or scolded, the brain is disturbed and the stomach disordered.

They get indigestion and breed worms; white or blue appearance about the mouth, grinding of the teeth during sleep. Before the child has teeth it has a chewing motion, a side to side movement. Sensitiveness of the teeth to the cold air and cold water.

Bleeding from the mouth, and nose. Inability to swallow liquids; they gurgle down the oesophagus before and after convulsions. When the head symptoms are present, the milk or water gurgles down the oesophagus with a gurgling cluck. This is present in diarrhoea and vomiting with brain symptoms.

Ars. and Cupr. are also prominent in gurgling down the oesophagus when swallowing. Choreic movements extend to the tongue.

The child or adult is not relieved by eating, is still hungry. The stomach is loaded and yet he is hungry. After vomiting you would expect there would be, an aversion to food, but there is in Cina, the same empty, hungry feeling.

When there is gnawing in the stomach after eating, or when the child has taken all it can hold yet cries for the bottle, or empties its stomach by spitting up and vomiting the food and then reaches out whining and crying for more, think of Cina. Shuddering when drinking wine as if it were vinegar.

Abdomen bard and bloated. Very often the Cina child will flop over on its belly and get to sleep in that way. If it is turned on the side it wakes up again. While in the mother's arms it will go to sleep with the abdomen resting on the mother's shoulder, but when she puts it on the side in bed it wakens.

If you had a child with copious, gushing, violently foetid stool, ameliorated by lying on the abdomen, and it would have another stool if lying any other way, Podoph. would be the remedy. That would not be Cina. The Cina stool is not very copious, and often white.

Gagging cough in the morning. Short, hacking cough at night. Spasmodic cough. Whooping cough.

Oversensitiveness to touch; trembling, spasms, chorea. Spasmodic yawning. Child cannot sleep unless on the belly or in constant motion.

A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica, John Henry Clarke

The unexpanded flower-heads (commonly called "seeds") of several varieties of Artemisia maritima. Semen cinae. Flores Cinae. Artemisia contra. Wormseed. N. O. Compositae. Tincture.

Clinical.─Abdomen, distended. Anaemia. Anus, irritation of. Asthenopia. Asthma. Bronchitis. Borborygmi. Chorea. Colic. Convulsions. Cough. Dentition. Diarrhoea. Enuresis. Eyes, affections of. Hydrocephaloid. Intermittent fever. Leucorrhoea. Neuralgia. Remittent fever. Scarlatina. Sight, affections of. Spasms. Strabismus. Twitchings. Urine, milky. Whooping-cough. Worms.

Characteristics.─Cina is the source of the alkaloid Santoninum. It is pre-eminently a worm medicine, as it causes all the symptoms which characterise helminthiasis both mental, nervous, and bodily. It corresponds more to the effects of lumbrici than to those of other worms. There is irritation of the nose, causing constant desire to rub, prick, or press into it. In children there is extreme ill-humour and naughtiness. Nothing pleases them for any length of time; gritting teeth during sleep; wetting the bed (when accompanied by picking nose, great hunger, restless sleep); tossing all about the bed in sleep; crying out as if in delirium Sherbino has found "getting on hands and knees in sleep" a strong indication for it. But Cina is much more than a mere worm-medicine. Many symptoms appear to be reflex from abdominal irritation. A characteristic feature is: Extreme sensitiveness of mind and body: offended by the slightest thing; peevish and obstinate; aversion to be caressed. Over-sensitiveness of surface: cannot endure to be approached, touched, or pressed upon; touch induces or aggravates spasms. Child cannot bear to have head combed or brushed. Aversion to light. Strabismus; with sickly look and dark circles round eyes; yellow vision. Asthenopia, defective accommodation; yellow vision. Ravenous hunger; sinking immediately after a meal. Difficult swallowing of liquids; clucking noise from throat to stomach. Nocturnal enuresis; urine white, turbid, at times fetid. Larynx extremely sensitive, touching it causes suffocative spasm. Cough excited by sensation of feather down in throat. Reflex cough; caused by writing or reading (to oneself). In fever there is thirst with chill; face pale and cold; hands warm; nausea or vomiting of bile or ingesta. Charles Mohr (H. M., January, 1898) commends it for: anaemic persons suffering from indigestion and non-assimilation of food; or after acute illness when they have headache, vertigo, and neuralgia. In the cachectic who have pains in the belly and deranged abdominal functions, and suffer nervously. For asthenopia from onanism, when reading by artificial light is next to impossible; eyes feel veiled, need constant wiping. Spasmodic strabismus from abdominal irritation. Spasmodic asthma after food that disagrees, "sensation as if sternum lies too close to back, embarrasses breathing and causes anxiety and sweat." Prosopalgia of supra- and infra-orbital region and zygoma chiefly, pains pressing, screwing, with hyperaesthesia. Gastralgia, enteralgia, and fevers when the leading symptoms are present. Nash (Leaders in Typhoid Fever) mentions two cases of typhoid in which Cina proved curative, the indications being "Intense circumscribed redness of the cheeks, and frequent and violent rubbing of the nose." S. C. Ghose has recorded (H. W., September, 1899) a striking cure by Cina 6 and 200 of a case of infantile remittent fever, in which the classical symptoms of the drug were present; the fever came on very irregularly. The symptoms of Cina are < night; before midnight child wakes up frightened. < From open air; cold air; cold water. < Yawning. Child lies on belly, or on hands and knees, during sleep. Guernsey says Cina is suited to complaints which are concomitant to yawning, which come on whenever one yawns.

Relations.─Antidoted by: Camph., Caps., Chi., Pip. nig. Antidote to: Caps., Chi., Merc. Follows well: Dros. and Ant. t. Compare: In aversion to be touched, Ant. c., Ant. t., Hep. Sil., Thu. gurgling along oesophagus when swallowing fluids, Helleb., Cupr. difficult swallowing liquids, Bell., Caust., Hyo., Ign., Lach., Lyc., Pho.; in cough < by reading or writing, Mang., Meph., Nux, Plat. in white stools, Dig.; in ravenous hunger, Ars., Calc., Iod., Sil. Staph.; aversion to be caressed, Ars., Lach.; in squint, Alm.; in asthenopia and defective accommodation, Artem. v. (but Art. v. has dizziness from coloured light; and Cina has > from rubbing). Teste places Cina in the Arsen. group from its analogy in the digestive sphere. Cham. has many points of contact with Cina and some opposite conditions.

Causation.─Worms. Yawning.

SYMPTOMS.

1. Mind.─Lachrymose and plaintive humour.─A child cries when it is touched; is averse to being caressed.─Continual inquietude, with desire for things of all kinds, which are rejected some moments after.─Disposition to be offended by trifling jests.─Great anguish and anxiety on walking in the open air.─Delirium.

2. Head.─Headache, alternately with pressure on the abdomen.─Numbing pressure, as from a load, which weighs upon the head, esp. when walking in the open air.─The head falls to the side and is jerked backwards, with twitches in the limbs and cold perspiration of the face.─Tearing, drawing cephalalgia, aggravated by reading or meditation.─Headache before and after the epileptic attacks; after attack of intermittent fever.─Dull pains in the head, with eyes fatigued, chiefly on waking in the morning.─Cold perspiration on the head (forehead) and on the pale, cold, bloated face, with blueness around the mouth; twitching of the limbs and sleepiness, worse at night (after attacks of whooping-cough and epilepsy).

3. Eyes.─Aching in the eyes, when fatiguing them by reading; when using them at night by the candle-light.─Convulsive movements of the muscles of the eyebrows.─Confusion of sight, on reading, which disappears on rubbing the eyes.─Pupils dilated.─Weakness of sight (from onanism).─Weak sight, with photophobia and pressure on the eyes, as if sand had been introduced into them.─When looking at a thing steadily (reading) he sees it as through a gauze, which is relieved by wiping the eyes.

5. Nose.─Epistaxis; also bleeding from the mouth.─Inclination to put the fingers into the nose.─The child rubs the nose constantly, and bores with the fingers in the nose until blood comes out.─Flow of pus from the nose.─Violent sneezing, which provokes a sensation of pressure on the temples, and seems as though it would burst the chest.─Fluent coryza, with sensation of burning in the nostrils.─Stoppage of the nose, in the evening.─Fluent coryza at noon.─The nose burns.

6. Face.─Paleness of face, with livid circle under the eyes.─Earth-coloured complexion.─Face, puffed and bluish, esp. round the mouth.─Face alternately pale and cold, or red and hot.─Pale, cold face, with cold perspiration.─Cramp-like pains and successive pullings in the cheek-bones, aggravated or renewed by contact and pressure.

7. Teeth.─Toothache, provoked by the air and cold drinks.─Pains, as from excoriation, in the teeth.─Grinding of the teeth.

8. Mouth.─Sensation of dryness and roughness of the mouth, esp. of the palate.

9. Throat.─Inability to swallow, esp. liquids.

10. Appetite.─Increase of thirst.─Hunger shortly after a meal.─Voracity.─Bulimy.─Aversion of the sucking child to the milk of its mother.─Hunger may come on in the middle of the night, as in children, or one may feel hungry a few minutes after a hearty meal.─Bitter taste of bread.─Vomiting, or diarrhoea immediately after eating or drinking, esp. drinking.─Vomiting of mucus and of ascarides.─Vomiting during the fever, with tongue clean.─Bilious vomiting.─Disagreeable risings.

11. Stomach.─Audible gurgling from the throat into the stomach when drinking.─Frequent hiccough.─Pain in the precordial region oppressing the breathing.

12. Abdomen.─Obstinate pinchings in the abdomen.─Pinching or cramp-like pressure transversely across upper abdomen, after a meal.─Painful twisting about navel.─Cutting and pinching pain in the abdomen from worms.─Painful rolling in the region of the navel, which is very sensitive to the touch.─Cramp-like, frequently recurring pains in the abdomen, as when the catamenia are about to appear.─Unpleasant sensation of warmth in the abdomen.─Bloated abdomen, esp. in children.─Feeling of emptiness in the abdomen.

13. Stool and Anus.─Stool with maw-worms (short, thick worms).─Loose evacuations of the consistence of pap.─Discharge of ascarides, and of other worms by the anus.─Itching of the anus.─Diarrhoea of bile, and of stercoraceous matter.─Loose, involuntary, whitish evacuations.

14. Urinary Organs.─Frequent want to make water, with profuse discharge.─Wetting the bed.─Urine soon becomes turbid.─Involuntary emission of urine (at night).─Urine milky.

16. Female Sexual Organs.─Catamenia premature, and too abundant.─Metrorrhagia.─Womb-troubles in general.

17. Respiratory Organs.─Short, interrupted breathing.─Respiration wheezing and panting.─Abundance of mucus in the larynx, which is constant, and compels continual hawking.─Gagging cough in morning after rising; irritation thereto (as from dust); is renewed by inspiration after a long interval.─Cough, excited by taking a deep inspiration.─Dry, tickling cough induced by reading (to oneself).─Hoarse, transient cough in the evening.─Dry cough, with cramp, want of breath, anxiety, paleness of face, and groans after the paroxysm; or with stiffness of the body, and bleeding from the nose and mouth.─Cough, with sudden starts, and loss of consciousness.─Before coughing, child raises herself suddenly, tosses wildly about, the whole body becomes stiff, she loses consciousness, just as if she would have an epileptic fit, then follows the cough.─Whooping-cough in violent, periodically returning attacks, from a titillating sensation in the throat, as of a feather, and much tough mucus:─in the morning without expectoration, in the evening with difficult expectoration of white, occasionally blood-streaked mucus, which is tasteless; worse in the morning and in the evening; better during the night, aggravated by drinking, walking in the open air, pressing on the larynx, when lying on the right side, in the cold air, and when awaking from sleep.

18. Chest.─Difficulty of respiration, and anxious oppression of the chest, as if the sternum were compressing the lungs.─Respiration short, often interrupted, or rattling.─Spasmodic digging in the chest, as if it were going to burst.─Jerking and digging shootings in the chest.─Burning, stitches., and soreness in the chest.

20. Back.─Pains, as from a bruise, in the loins, < by motion.─Drawing-tearing pain along whole spine.─Drawing or jerking pains in middle of spine.

22. Upper Limbs.─Tearing and paralytic pullings in the arms.─Cramp-like tearings in the arms and in the hands.─Contraction and starting of the hand and of the fingers.─Sprained feeling in the wrist-joint.─Weakness of the hand, which suffers everything to escape from it.

23. Lower Limbs.─Paralytic or cramp-like pains, and pullings in the legs.─Spasmodic stretching and twitching of the feet.─Cramp-like extension of the legs.

24. Generalities.─Paralytic, tractive pains in the limbs.─Pressure and squeezing, with dull shootings, or cramp-like tearings, pullings and jerkings, or burning shootings in different parts.─Twitching of limbs.─Convulsions, and distortion of the limbs.─Nocturnal epileptic convulsions, followed by headache.─Epileptic convulsions (esp. at night, with or without consciousness) with cries, bending backwards of the back, and violent movements of the hands and feet.─Tetanic stiffness of the whole body.─External pressure <, or renews the sufferings.─Painful sensibility of all the limbs, on movement, and on being touched.─Affections of the l. side; l. lower extremity.─The majority of the sufferings appear at night, or when seated, and are < in the morning and in the evening.─Heaviness in the limbs.

26. Sleep.─Frequent yawning, with trembling and shuddering.─Nocturnal sleeplessness, with agitation, tears, cries, heat, and anguish; in children.─Wakes in the morning, restless and lamenting, in a start.─Child gets on hands and knees in sleep; on abdomen.

27. Fever.─Pulse small, hard, and rapid.─Frequent shuddering, with trembling, even near the fire.─Quotidian fevers, or tertian, with bulimy, nausea, tongue clean, diarrhoea, pupils dilated, and emaciation.─Shivering in the evening.─Strong febrile heat, with delirium, tossing, and agitation.─Chilliness, with shaking or trembling, ascending from the upper part of the body to the head.─Chill, with coldness of the pale face and heat of the hands.─Heat at night, with thirst.─Chilliness with thirst.─After the perspiration (sometimes before the chill) vomiting of food (with a clean tongue); at the same time canine hunger.─Heat, esp. in the head, with paleness, or yellowish colour of the face, and livid circle under the eyes, or with redness of the cheeks.─After the fever, headache.─Cold sweat on the forehead, around the nose, and on the hands.

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

Worm Seed (Compositae)

Adapted to children with dark hair, very cross, irritable, ill-humored, want to be carried, but carrying gives no relief; does not want to be touched; cannot bear you to come hear it; averse to caresses; desires many things; but rejects everything offered (compare, Ant. t., Bry., Cham., Staph.). Constantly digging and boring at the nose; picks the nose all the time; itching of nose; rubs nose on pillow, or on shoulder of nurse (Mar. v.). Children, suffering from worms; pitiful weeping when awake, starts and screams during sleep; grinding of teeth (Cic., Sulph.); ascarides (Mar. v.). Face is pale; sickly white and bluish appearance around mouth; sickly, with dark rings under the eyes; one cheek red, the other pale (Cham.). Canine hunger: hungry soon after a full meal; craving for sweets and different things; refuses mother's milk. Urine; turbid when passed, turns milky and semi-solid after standing; white and turbid; involuntary. Cough: dry with sneezing; spasmodic, gagging in the morning; periodic, returning spring and fall. Child is afraid to speak or move for fear of bringing on a paroxysm of coughing (Bry.).

Relations. - Compare: Ant. c., Ant. t., Bry., Cham., Kreos., Sil., Staph., in irritability of children. In pertusis, after Drosera has relieved the severe symptoms. Has cured aphonia from exposure when Acon., Phos. and Spong. had failed. Is frequently to be thought of, in children, as an epidemic remedy, when adults require other drugs. Santonie sometimes cures in worm affections when Cina seems indicated, but fails (Mar. v., Spig.).

Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics, Eugene Beauharnais Nash

The child is cross and ugly, kicks and strikes, wants to be carried or rocked or don't want to be touched or looked at; wants things and pushes them away when offered.

Frequently boring the nose with the fingers.

Pale sickly look about the eyes, or white and blue about the mouth.

Frequent swallowing as if something came up in the throat.

Alternate canine hunger or no appetite at all.

Urine turns milky on standing.

Frequent sudden attacks of very high fever, with glowing red hot face, with paleness around mouth and lips, or sometimes alternates with pale face with dark bluish ring around the eyes.

* * * * *

Here is a truly unique remedy that none but the homoeopathist knows how to use. The old school chagrined at our success with it, and not willing to resort to our small doses, have bungled with its alkaloid, doing more harm than good, and at last have come to sneer at the idea of children being troubled with worms at all. I have known of several instances of the kind and it has become so common in the region where I practice that the people often ask me – "Doctor, do you believe in worms? Old school doctors don't. I have found several worms that my child has passed, and have come to you to see if you can do anything for them." It is of great advantage to us Homoeopaths to cure the little patients, whether we believe in worms or not. But Cina is not always the remedy for worms. But it is perhaps the oftenest indicated remedy for complaints arising from lumbricoides, or children infested with the animal. Another thing I have proven to my entire satisfaction, and that is, that it is more efficacious for these cases in the 200th or highest potencies than in the alkaloid or lower potencies. Now I say this in order to induce those who have lost faith in the remedy to try it high, according to well-known indications as laid down in our Materia Medica. So many "lose the good they oft might win by fearing to attempt". Let us look at a few of the leading symptoms. The wormy child will be very restless nights, "screams out sharply in its sleep", making one think of Apis, but other symptoms appear which rules Apis out. The child is cross and ugly like Chamomilla, kicks and strikes the nurse, wants to be carried (Chamomilla) or rocked, or don't want to be touched or looked at (Antimonium crud.), desires things and then refuses them when offered (Bry. and Staphisagria), or, unlike Chamomilla, it cries if any one tries to take hold of or carry it. Isn't that a perfect picture of the mind of a wormy child? When these symptoms appear in a child we may sometimes be at a stand between Cina and Chamomilla, but close watching will generally decide. For instance, if you watch or inquire of the nurse you will find that it alternates between a red-hot face, glowing with a bright redness of both cheeks, and a pale, sickly face, with dark rings or circles around the eyes; or, again, red face with great paleness around the mouth and nose. This is Cina. If the face is frequently red and hot on one side and pale and cold on the other, it is Chamomilla. Then again, on inquiry, or we may observe ourselves, the child is boring or picking its nose a great deal of the time, grinds its teeth when asleep, and jumps and jerks in its sleep, frequently swallowing as if something came up into the throat, or even choking and coughing for the same cause. Such a combination is not found under any other remedy. Both Chamomilla and Cina have profuse and pale urine, but Cina urine becomes milky after standing awhile. Cina has alternating canine hunger and no appetite at all. Cina is one of our best remedies for whooping cough, also jerking, trembling, twitching and even convulsions; but in all these affections I have found it efficacious when the aforementioned worm symptoms were present. I once had, at one time, and in one family, five cases of typhoid fever, and they were all very sick. There was no mistake about the diagnosis, and I speak thus positively, because some think. that a child under the age of six years cannot have this disease. This child, five years of age, was the last one of the family attacked with the disease, and it persued the same course as the others in its regular rise and fall of temperature, bloating of abdomen, diarrhoea and other symptoms common to this disease. This being in the earlier years of my practice, and Cina not being set down in the textbooks as a remedy for typhoid, I selected as well as I could from the usual remedies for typhoid. I knew perfectly that she had Cina symptoms all mixed in with those already mentioned, and as the case "got no better fast", I resolved to give a few doses of Cina anyway, and to my surprise I found my patient much better every way at my next visit and the improvement progressed right along to complete recovery. I had to learn several such lessons as that was in my "kittenhood" of homoeopathic practice before I learned for good, that, for purposes of prescribing, the name of the disease was of little account. Since I settled that question, I have had frequent opportunities to help my younger brethren out of difficulties along the same line, and they have been as much astonished as I was.