Homeopathic Materia Medica

Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica, James Tyler Kent

It is rather singular that traditional medicine used Colchicum so much for gout. In all the old books it was recommended for this malady. The provings corroborate the fact that Colchicum fits into many conditions of gout.

Rheumatism: Acute rheumatism and uric acid diathesis; rheumatic complaints in general, with swelling and without swelling. But traditional medicine does not tell us what kind of gout to give it in or what kind of rheumatism.

It was really the medicine of experience. "if it is gout, try Colchicum."

The question of what was to be done with the patient when the remedy failed never came up.

It was

"Give the prescription and keep at it," and drugs were administered until the patient, steadily growing worse, passed from one doctor's hands, to another's. It is true that Colchicum fits into the gouty state. Spells of cold, wet weather will slack up the flow of urine, make it scanty, or decrease the quantity of solids in the urine.

This takes place in the provings of Colchicum and has been verified many times. It is well known that such a condition will bring about or intensify the gouty state. If the solids in the twine are deficient, if they are not carried off in the urine, something must happen, and the gouty state comes on.

Colchicum is aggravated by cold, damp weather; by the cold rains in the Fall. It is aggravated by anything that will debilitate. It is aggravated in the extreme heat of summer; it has a summer rheumatism; the heat will slack up the flow of urine or the quantity of solids in the urine.

A striking feature running through the remedy is its tendency to move from one joint to another, from one side to another, from below upwards, or from above downwards. Rheumatic conditions with swelling, or without swelling; first here, next there, changing about from place to place.

Dropsical condition: Another striking feature is the general dropsical condition. When the hands and feet swell, and there is pitting on pressure. Dropsy of the abdominal cavity, of the pericardium; of the pleura and dropsy of serous sacs. Swellings that are inflammatory and rheumatic; swellings that are dropsical, with pale urine. Whether copious or scanty, still it is pale.

Muscular rheumatism and rheumatism of the white fibrous tissues of the joints. Rheumatic troubles that have been going on for some time, will end in cardiac troubles. When cardiac troubles with valvular defects are present, almost the first thing the busy doctor thinks of is a history of rheumatism.

Let me say that a part of the study of Materia Medica consists in the observation of sick people. A busy physician learns without books, though of course he should familiarize himself with the literature, so that from reading, as well as observation, he may acquire a knowledge of the general nature of sickness.

When he listens to the patient's story or makes a physical examination, he knows how such cases usually conduct themselves. He knows what to expect. He knows the natural trend of sickness and instantly recognizes what is strange and unusual. He will not recognize what is strange and unusual unless he knows what is natural.

So your books on symptomatology and pathology, diagnosis, etc., will tell you much of this, but as you gain experience in homeopathic practice you will get a much finer idea of this because your Materia Medica teaches you to observe more closely.

The Materia Medica man learns to single out and trace every little thing in order to individualize. So it may be said that years of observation in studying disease, studying the sick man along with the Materia Medica, will open to the mind a much grander knowledge of the sicknesses of humanity than can be had by practicing traditional medicine. Traditional medicine benumbs the ability to observe.

Motion <: All the complaints of this remedy are aggravated from motion. The painful complaints, the head complaints, the bowel complaints. the liver complaints, the stomach complaints, are all worse from motion. Such an aggravation from motion that he dreads to move. About as marked as we find in Bryonia.

Aversion to motion, and aggravation from motion. Aggravation from becoming cold and in cold, damp weather. He is a chilly patient, sensitive to cold. Most rheumatic patients are sensitive to cold, but there are a few exceptions. There is no greater rheumatic patient than the Ledum patient. He presents, both sides. Though he is cold, his pains are ameliorated by cold. In Colchicum the pains are ameliorated by heat, by wrapping up, by being warm.

If he moves, any suffering that he may have will be intensified. Great prostration accompanies the complaints of this remedy. Weakness of the limbs, great exhaustion, nervous exhaustion of a typhoid character. He gradually grows weaker like one going into Bright’s disease. He has grown weak for some time, and he is pallid and waxy.

His hands and feet pit upon pressure. Examine the urine and you will find albumen in it. The urine becomes black like ink with albumen. There is an unusual degree of irritability of the tissues, soreness, sensitiveness to touch, sensitiveness to motion; bruised feeling of the joints and of the whole body.

Touch and motion bring on a painful sensation in the body as of. electric vibrations. Great weakness and exhaustion. He cannot exert himself in the least without causing dyspnea, Must lie down; does not want to move; sinking of strength; seems as if his life will flow out of him from motion and from exertion; so tired and exhausted.

This naturally occurs when going towards Bright’s disease, when going towards a continued fever. Kidney affections and liver affections. Lassitude, prostration, anxiety. The muscles twitch and electric shocks pass through the body. A paralytic weakness was observed in the poisonous effects and too prolonged provings. The jaw hangs down, the muscles are flabby, relaxed. He lies on the back as if sinking; slides down in bed like one in typhoid, in low forms of rheumatic and in continued fevers, so great is the exhaustion. Paralysis of the limbs or of one limb, or of any part.

The Colchicum patient is almost constantly sweating, even with fever, and sometimes the sweat is cold. A draft blows upon him, suppresses that sweat and the paralytic condition of the limbs comes on; suppression of urine and retention of urine. This describes the profound character and type of sickness. Low forms of sickness; prostrating sickness; sickness with nervous trembling; with great exhaustion. After acute disease has passed away, great weakness and dropsy follows. Dropsy after scarlet fever.

With all these troubles, the stomach and the bowel symptoms are very decided. This is like Cocculus. Absolutely unable to touch food. Nausea, gagging, retching at the bare mention of food in his presence. The thought and smell of food bring on nausea and vomiting. With all these low forms of disease, these states described, we can see that this kind of weakness is little different from the Cocculus weakness.

Colchicum has delirium, prostration, depression of mind, great sensitiveness to pain, which he seems to feel in his mind, and it brings out mental symptoms. Very sensitive to pain; confusion of the mind; disorders of comprehension. Cannot understand what he reads. The headaches are all of a rheumatic character. Very often the whole skull, the pericranium, is sore as if bruised. The scalp is sensitive. Pressure in the head-constriction; pressing, bursting headaches. Heat in the head. Tearing in the scalp. Headaches are all aggravated by motion.

Eyes: The eye symptoms are of a rheumatic character, are connected with rheumatism, rheumatic fever. It is not very uncommon to have iritis in connection with rheumatic fever and it is a strong feature of Colchicum. Ulcers of the lids, styes, much lachrymation in the open air. The tears excoriate and cause redness of the lids.

He takes cold easily. Sneezing, stuffing up of the nostrils. Nosebleed in rheumatic and gouty constitutions. But there is one feature that is more marked in Colchicum than all others. He is so sensitive to odors that he smells things which others do not smell. He smells odors from which he is nauseated.

"Strong odors make him quite beside himself."

You say "soup" or "broth," or something to eat, and he gets sick.

Nose: He can smell the things in the kitchen, in spite of much precaution, and this runs through the remedy. In typhoid fever, prostrated beyond the usual and typhoid is always prostrated enough, he is unusually prostrated. He cannot take milk, cannot take raw eggs, cannot take soup, because he gags at the mere thought of them.

He has gone on for days, and his family are afraid that he is going to starve to death. That aggravation from odors is so strong with him that it seems to take possession of him. It involves his appetite, his weakness, his stomach.

So it does seem that it is a strong feature. Notice that this is one of his loves; it is a perverted love, and the loves are general whether they are manifested through the eyes, nose or touch. It enters into his very life because it involves hatred to odor, and when it stands out in low forms of disease like the continued fevers, the exhaustive fevers and rheumatic complaints it becomes a general. It would be a particular if it were something that applied to the things alone, but you see it enters into the very innermost.

Involves a hatred, becomes mental, becomes a part of the man. He himself may be said to hate odors, hate the smell of food and the thought of it. Do not say "food" in the presence of a Colchicum patient, but give him Colchicum first, and pretty soon he will want something to eat. It removes that hatred for food. What a vital thing it must be when a man hates that which will keep him alive.

Teeth: The teeth are very sensitive.

"Rheumatic teeth."

The gums settle away; after a while the teeth become loose. Pain in the teeth; rheumatic condition of the jaws and the teeth.

"Grinding of the teeth, teeth sensitive when pressed together."

"Aversion to food; loathing the sight and smell," more the smell of it.

"The smell of fish, eggs, fat meats or broths causes nausea even unto faintness."

The Colchicum patient may have much thirst or no thirst, or these may alternate. Nausea and vomiting are very strong features,

"Nausea and inclination to vomit, caused by swallowing saliva,

Nausea, eructations and copious, vomiting of mucus and bile.

Violent retching followed by copious and forcible vomiting of food, and then of bile."

In the stomach there is sometimes coldness and sometimes burning. Now it may be that the Colchicum patient has both coldness and burning. They are both recorded in the Repertory and in the provings, but it is sometimes difficult to tell which is which, more difficult than you will imagine unless you try a piece of ice somewhere and something very hot.

"Burning 'in the pit of the stomach."

Coldness in the stomach. Now the abdomen furnishes us still more to observe. The abdomen is distended with flatus, tympanitic.

Great soreness in the whole abdomen just such a tympanitic condition as we have in typhoid.

If you ever happen to be in the country practicing, medicine, and the farmer's cows get into a fresh clover patch and eat themselves full and become distended so that you are afraid they are going to explode offer your services and give each one of those cows a few pellets of Colchicum.

It will be but a few minutes before the wind will get out of there to your surprise and the farmer's, too; and you may convert him to Homoeopathy. Farmers have been known to put a butcher knife into the pouch of the cow between the last short ribs to let the wind out.

The cow will get well, but Colchicum is better than the butcher's knife. The same is true of the horse; in fact, of man or beast, When the abdomen is violently distended and tympanitic, Colchicum is often a suitable remedy.

Diarrhea: Spasmodic pains, colic, tearing pains, burning, griping pains, forcing the patient to bend double. Aggravated from motion. Great tenderness and soreness with the colic. Aggravated from eating; ameliorated from bending double. And then comes the diarrhoea. It has just such a diarrhea as is found in low forms of fever. Dysenteric or diarrheic stools that are jelly like.

They form in the pan a solid mass of jelly like, coagulated mucus. Very painful, extremely painful is the Colchicum stool. Great soreness in the abdomen. Great relaxation of the parts. Protrusion of the rectum. Putrid, dark, bloody mucus.

"Bloody discharges from the bowels, with deathly nausea."

Fall dysentery, with discharges. of white mucus and violent tenesmus. Putrid, dark, clotted blood and mucus pass from the bowels. Diarrhoea with violent, colicky pains. Bloody stools with scrapings from the intestines and, protrusion of anus.

Profuse, watery stools in hot, damp weather or in the Autumn. Watery, jellylike mucus passes from anus with violent spasm in sphincter. It passes as a thin, watery flow; but as. soon as it cools, it forms a jelly.

Urines: The urine burns when it passes. It is attended with much pain. Inflammation of the kidneys, inflammation of the bladder; tenesmus; retention of urine.

The kidneys manufacture no urine; scanty urine with dropsy. The urine is inky, that is, very dark brown and sometimes almost black, loaded with albumen. This remedy conforms principally to the acute form of Bright’s disease.

Heart and chest: Great dyspnoea, rapid, short breathing; the heart's impulse strong. Respiration accelerated.

The heart's impulse can be heard all over the room. Palpitation; oppression of the chest. Feels as if he had a great weight on the chest; cannot breathe. Hydrothorax; the pleural cavities distended with serum, causing the dyspnea.

"Heart's action muffled, indistinct, very weak."

Stinging, tearing pains in the muscles of the chest.

Limbs: Paralytic pains in the arms; enlarged finger joints. This also tells what a low form of sickness, what a feeble circulation this medicine brings about.

"Weakness so that he strikes the knees together while walking; pain all over as if bruised.

Swelling of the joints."

The joints are most affected.

Muscular rhumatism.

Numbness, oedema, swelling of the limbs.

A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica, John Henry Clarke

Colchicum autumnale. Meadow Saffron. N. O. Melanthaceae of the Liliaceae. Tincture of the bulb dug in spring.

Clinical.─Appendicitis. Asthma. Cataract. Cholera. Colic. Cough. Cramp. Debility. Diabetes. Diarrhoea. Dropsy. Dysentery. Eye, affections of. Feels, painful. Gout. Heart affections of. Ileus. Intermittent fever. Intestinal catarrh. Lumbago. Myalgia. Nephritis (rheumatic and gouty). Pericarditis. Proctalgia. Prostatitis. Rectum, prolapse of. Rheumatism. Stiff-neck. Tongue, sensibility lost. Typhlitis. Typhoid fever.

Characteristics.─Colchicum is best known as a remedy in gout and rheumatism, and the provings show its specific relation thereto. It acts on muscles, bones, and joints. It causes extreme relaxation of the muscular system─the head falls forward on the chest; or falls back when the patient is raised from the pillow; arms fall helpless by the side. Stitching, jerking, drawing pains in muscles; periosteum, and joints. Extreme disinclination to move; < from motion. Mind befogged; but answers correctly. Absence of apprehension, no fear of death. Results of getting wet and Letting chilled; changes to damp weather; autumn dysentery, spring rheumatism. (The flowers of the plant appear in autumn; the leaves not till the following spring.) It corresponds to the gouty constitution; leuco-phlegmatic and melancholic temperament; venous constitutions; uric acid diathesis, the sediment being pale yellow and rather like fine flour than sand. Also, urine black as ink; urine loaded with albumen and casts. There is the irritability and aversion to touch so common in gout; pain in small joints, and especially the great toes. The stomach is acutely disordered, nausea and vomiting. "Nausea at thought, sight, or smell of food, especially of cooking," is a characteristic symptom. (Nash records a striking cure by Colch. 200, to which he was led by this symptom. The patient was an old lady who was vomiting blood, and passing as many as sixteen bloody stools in the day. The doors of the room had to be most carefully kept closed to prevent any smell of cooking reaching her as that immediately provoked nausea.) Sensation of icy coldness in stomach; or burning. Coldness is a common symptom: abdomen; stomach; extremities. Profuse cold sweat; marked chills with or without periodicity. Burning also is not uncommon: in cavities, especially abdomen. The characteristic stool of Colchicum is jelly-like mucus; membranous shreds being also marked; violent tenesmus accompanies. Protrusion of rectum. "After evacuation, as in dysentery, there is generally relief (but in typhus fever, e.g., sometimes a terrific spasmodic pain of the sphincter ani comes on after stool. This may occur in common diarrhoea)" (Guernsey). The rice-water stool, hippocratic face, coldness, cramps, prostration, led Salzer to find in it the specific for certain epidemics of Asiatic cholera. All functions, mental and bodily, are slow; nutrition and digestion are at a stand, and yet the patient does not emaciate rapidly. There is great prostration; debility from loss of sleep; the prostration of typhoid fever and typhoid states. On the other hand there are convulsions, cramps, and sometimes restlessness. The pains of Colchicum are very acute and unendurable. The Colch. dysentery and rheumatism are exceedingly painful. Very sensitive and irritable. Cannot endure strong smells. Gouty diabetes, the uric acid reappearing as the sugar disappears. The heart is affected as other muscles. Oppression and anxiety > by walking. Heart-beating. Stitches about heart and loss of consciousness. Heart affected (pericarditis) on disappearance of symptoms from extremities; rheumatism appears on disappearance of uric acid from urine. Colch. will reverse this. J. R. Simson, of Tonawanda, N. Y., cured a very bad rase of typhoid presenting among other symptoms, this: "his left pupil was contracted so as to be almost imperceptible, while the right was dilated to the full extent." This is peculiar to Colch., and no remedy relieved the patient till he received this. B. Simmons calls attention (H. P., August, 1889) to the powerlessness of the affected parts which accompanies many Colchicum affections, especially when occurring in leuco-phlegmatic subjects and when there is oedematous swelling of the parts. He cured a woman, 36, mother of two children, of leuco-phlegmatic temperament, who complained of rheumatism of the hands, which were swollen; joints stiff and powerless, pain as if bruised; the arms being affected but in less degree. "She was unable to brush her own hair, not so much from the pain as from the extreme weakness and powerlessness of the parts affected." T. F. Allen gives "Tingling in finger-nails" as characteristic of Colch.; no other remedy has it. As usual with allopathic specifics, Colchicum has been terribly abused. Here is an instance. I was called suddenly to see an old gentleman of 72, whom I found in a state of collapse, pallid, surface was cold and clammy, almost pulseless. He had been taken suddenly ill when in the water-closet, vomiting "black bile," and had fallen on the floor when trying to walk along the passage. The history of the attack was this: He had formerly been "a martyr to gout." Four years previously he began to take, on lay recommendation, a powder which analysis showed to be composed of equal parts of Colchicum and Jesuit's bark. He kept this up for six months and had no more gout. But at the end of the six months he had the first attack of this kind. It came quite suddenly and was, as far as I could learn, identical with the one in which I saw him. In addition to the symptoms named there was looseness of the bowels, the stool being black like the vomit. He was compelled to lie absolutely still, the least attempt to raise the head exciting nausea. Recovery took place in a few days. This is not exactly a case of what our friends would call "médecine substitutive," but I am inclined to name it "maladie substitutive," the substituted malady, Colchicism, being considerably worse than the gout it replaced. These attacks had recurred every few months, although the powders were discontinued. The < from motion is as marked as that of Bry. The patient must rest and lie down. Cannot lie on left side. < From any exertion mental or bodily. Bending forward > oppression and colic. Symptoms are < night and evening. Warmth > generally; but warm food < toothache; and damp, warm weather = profuse watery stools; warm stove or warm room = chilliness. Symptoms generally are < from cold or damp; from getting wet; from bathing, living in damp dwellings; change to damp weather; from change of weather; also complaints from getting overheated. Pains in gout go from left to right; headaches right to left. Complaints of old people; asthmatic people.

Relations.─Antidoted by: Bell., Camph., Coccul., Nux v., Puls., Spigel., honey and sugar. In poisoning give Ammon. caust. in sugar water. Follows well: Lyc. Followed well by: Carb. v. (ascites). Compare: Aco., Arn., Ars. (Colch. has the prostration of Ars., but without its restlessness); Cact. and Abrot. (metastasis to heart); Bry. (gout, rheumatism, serous effusions, < by movement); Chi., Coccul., Merc., Nat. m., Nux, Op., Pod. (painless cholerine); Puls. (derangement of stomach by eggs; gout; nausea at smell or thought of food, especially if rich or fat); Sep., Calc., Ars., and Ambra. (icy coldness in stomach); Lach. (black urine; < smell of food; cholera); Ver. (cholera, cold sweat on forehead); Bar. c. (paralysis of tongue; cold, loss of sensibility); Nux (debility from loss of sleep; irritability, all external impressions annoy; the debility of Colch. is more profound and there is dislike of all food, and nausea from smells). Colch. is botanically allied to the Veratrums, the Alliums, and Iris. Teste includes it in his Zincum group. It antidotes: Thuja.

Causation.─Grief. Misbehaviour of others. Wetting. Checked perspiration.

SYMPTOMS.

1. Mind.─Great dejection.─Ill-humour.─Peevish; dissatisfied with everything.─The sufferings appear insupportable.─The least external impression (bright light, strong smells, bad manners) drives him to distraction.─Weakness of memory.─Great desire for rest and disinclination to every mental exertion; absence of mind.─Forgetfulness and distraction.

2. Head.─Giddiness when sitting down after walking.─Pulsations in the head.─The headache is relieved, after supper, from warmth and lying quiet in bed.─Pressure on the occiput, during intellectual exertion.─Cramp-like pains in the head, esp. above the eyes.─Semilateral tearing in the head.─Tingling in the forehead and upon the head.

3. Eyes.─Pupils much dilated, only slightly sensitive to light, or immovable or slightly dilated.─L. pupil contracted, while r. is dilated (typhoid).─Pains in the eyes, like a digging pulling, deep in the eyeball.─Swelling of the lower lids.─Watering of the eyes in the open air.─(lritis; keratitis; maculae).─Suppuration of the Meibomian glands (ulceration, left lower lid); burning and redness of the edges of the eyelids.─Visible traction in the lower lids.

4. Ears.─Otalgia, with tearing shootings (after measles).─Tingling in the ears, as if they had been frozen.─Sensation of obstruction in the ears.─Purulent discharge from the ears, with drawing pains.─Dryness of the ears.

5. Nose.─Aching pain in the bones of the nose.─Tingling in the nose.─Pains as from excoriation in the septum narium, aggravated by touch.─Bleeding of the nose in the evenings.─Excessive sensibility of smell.─Obstinate coryza, with snuffling of a great quantity of viscid mucus, proceeding from the nose.

6. Face.─Features disfigured.─Aspect sickly, sad, suffering.─Face spotted with yellow.─Very great paleness of the face.─Cheeks red and hot (afternoon).─Oedematous swelling of the face.─Sensation of separation in the bones of the face.─Sensation in the masseters, as if they were distended, with difficulty in opening the mouth.─Drawings and successive pullings in the muscles and bones of the face.─Semi-lateral tearing in the face, extending to the ear and the head.─Tingling in the skin of the face, as if it had been frozen.─Lips cracked.─Tearing in the lower lip.─Cramp-like pain in the maxillary joint.

7. Teeth.─Odontalgia, with tearing pains.─Sensibility of the teeth, when they touch on closing the jaws.─Acute pains in the gums.

8. Mouth.─Heat in the mouth.─Tearing in the palate.─Abundant, serous salivation, with dryness of the throat.─Heaviness, stiffness, and insensibility of the tongue.─Tongue coated white.─Smarting and sensation of dryness of the tongue and throat.

9. Throat.─Sore-throat, as if from swelling of the orifice of the oesophagus.─Tingling in the palate.─Constriction of the gullet.─Inflammation and redness of the palate, of the fauces.─Inflammations, tearings and shootings in the palate, and in the throat.─Accumulation of greenish mucus in the throat, and in the mouth.

10. Appetite.─Appetite suddenly ceasing, merely from the sight or smell of food, with loathing, when merely looking at it, and still more from smelling it; the smell of broth nauseates, and that of fish, eggs, or fat meat almost makes him faint.─Insipidity of food.─Great thirst, esp. for coffee.─Taste bitter; violent thirst.

11. Stomach.─Frequent eructations.─Constant hiccough.─Nausea, increased, so as to occasion loss of consciousness, by the smell of fresh eggs, or fat meat.─Nausea, during a meal.─Nausea, after swallowing the saliva.─Nausea, in an erect position, when moving at table, with inclination to vomit, with constant flow of saliva.─Vomiting of food, or of bile, or mucus, of the ingesta, with trembling, violent gagging, colic, succeeded by bitterness in the mouth and throat; every motion excites or renews the vomiting.─Stomach very sensitive to the touch.─Sensation of excoriation, and tingling in the stomach.─Sensation of cold, or of burning in the stomach, with heavy pain.─Shooting in the pit of the stomach.─Sensation of gnawing hunger in the stomach.

12. Abdomen.─Inflation and fulness of the abdomen.─Pressure towards the outside in the upper part of the abdomen.─Colic, with tearing pains.─Pain, as of excoriation, in l. side of abdomen, on its being touched.─Dropsical swelling of the abdomen, with a fold over the pubic region.─Pain, as of burning and pressure in the abdomen, in the region of the bladder, and in the internal genital parts.─Pulsation in the abdomen.

13. Stool and Anus.─Constipation.─Evacuations slow, difficult, scanty, with urging, even of the soft stool, with pain in the small of the back.─Involuntary evacuation of faeces.─Watery discharges, going off without sensation.─Diarrhoea, consisting of mucus like rice-water.─Dysenteric diarrhoea, of white, transparent, gelatinous mucus.─Ineffectual pressing to stool; he feels the faeces in the rectum, but cannot expel them.─Discharge of much mucus from the rectum.─Extremely painful stools.─Sanguineous evacuations, mixed, as it were, with false membranes.─Prolapsus recti.─Tingling itching, burning, and tearing in the anus.─During stool sensation as if the sphincter ani were torn to pieces.─Cramps in the sphincter ani.

14. Urinary Organs.─Urgent want to make water, with increased discharge of clear urine.─Scanty discharge of urine of a deep colour, with tenesmus, and a burning sensation.─Painful and scanty emission of urine of a bright red colour.─Brownish or blackish urine.─Whitish deposit in the urine.─Burning sensation and pressure in the urinary organs, and the bladder, with diminished secretion.─Pullings, tearings, and incisive pains in the urethra.─Frequent micturition.

17. Respiratory Organs.─Tingling in the trachea.─Tickling in the pharynx, which excites a small dry cough.─Frequent short and dry cough.─Nocturnal cough, with involuntary emission of urine.─Hoarseness in the morning with roughness of the throat.

18. Chest.─Difficulty of respiration, and oppression at the chest, with anxiety; relieved by bending forward.─Tensive, pressive, and periodical oppression of the chest; frequent pressure in small spots in the chest.─Shootings in the chest, sometimes on breathing.─Tearings in the chest, with obtuse lancinations.─Pain, as of excoriation in the chest, on being touched and during movement.─Tingling in the chest.

19. Heart.─Violent palpitation of the heart.─Pressure and oppression in the region of the heart, as if an attack of apoplexy threatened; > by walking.─Hydrothorax.

20. Neck and Back.─Shooting tension between the shoulder-blades.─Tearings in the back.─Pain, as from excoriation in the loins, during movement.─Drawing in the small of the back; worse during motion.─Soreness in the small of the back when touching it.

22. Upper Limbs.─Stitches in the r. shoulder.─Painful lameness in the arms, which makes it impossible to hold the lightest thing.─Trembling of the r. hand preventing writing.─Tearings in the arms, the hands, and the fingers.─Paralytic pain in the arms.─Trembling of the hands.─Heat of the palms of the hands.─Cramp-like contraction of the fingers.─Tingling in the fingers, as if they had been frozen.─Tingling in the finger-nails.─Torpor in the extremity of the fingers.

23. Lower Limbs.─Tearings in the legs, the feet, and the toes.─Paralytic pullings in the thighs.─Hot (oedematous) swelling of the legs, with acute pains during movement.─Tingling of the toes, as if they had been frozen.

24. Generalities.─Rheumatic and arthritic tearing in the limbs, and other parts of the body, esp. in warm weather.─Tingling in many parts of the body, as if frost-bitten, when the weather changes.─Tearing twitches, like electric shocks, through one side of the body, with sensation of lameness.─Starting, shootings in the muscles, and in the periosteum of the limbs, esp. in cold weather.─Frequent starting of the body.─Shooting in the joints.─Paralytic weakness, of the muscles.─Pains accompanied by paralytic weakness, and real paralysis.─Great weakness, with sensation of lameness through all the limbs.─Dropsical swellings.─The sufferings are singularly aggravated by intellectual fatigue, by touch, by too brilliant a light, and by the smell of pork.─Aggravation of the symptoms from the commencement of the night till morning.─General sinking, and consequent painful sensibility of the whole body, so that the patient cannot move without groaning.─Nervous fatigue and weakness from nocturnal labour.

25. Skin.─Itching, as from nettles.─Tingling in different parts, as after being frozen.─Oedematous swelling and anasarca.─Suppressed perspiration.

26. Sleep.─Drowsiness in the day, with unfitness for exertion.─Irresistible sleepiness, drowsiness.─Sleeplessness from nervous excitability.─Sleeplessness, without entire unconsciousness.─Sleeplessness, because he cannot lie on the l. side, on which he is accustomed to sleep.─Frequent waking with fright.─Nocturnal heat, with violent thirst.

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

Meadow Saffron (Liliaceae)

Adapted to the rheumatic, gouty diathesis; persons of robust vigorous constitution; diseases of old people. External impressions, light, noise, strong odors, contact, bad manners, make him almost beside himself (Nux); his sufferings seem intolerable. Ailments: from grief or misdeeds of others (Staph.). Pains are drawing, tearing, pressing; light or superficial during warm weather; affect the bones and deeper tissues, when air is cold; pains go from left to right (Lach.). Smell painfully acute; nausea and faintness from the odor of cooking food, especially fish, eggs or fat meat (Ars., Sep.); bad effects from night watching (Coc.). Aversion to food; loathing even the sight of still more the smell of it. The abdomen is immensely distended with gas, feeling as if it would burst. Burning, or icy coldness in stomach and abdomen. Autumnal dysentery, discharges from bowels contain white shreddy particles in large quantities; white mucus; "scrapings of intestines" (Canth., Carb. ac.). Urine: dark, scanty or suppressed; in drops, with white sediment; bloody, brown, black, inky; contains clots of putrid decomposed blood, albumin, sugar. Affected parts very sensitive to contact and motion. Arthiritic pains in joints; patient scremas with pain on touching a joint or stubbing a toe.

Relations. - Compare: Bry. in rheumatic gout with serous effusions; in rheumatism in warm weather. Often cures in dropsy after Apis and Ars. fail.

Aggravation. - Mental emotion or exhaustion; effects of hard study; odor of cooking food. Motion: if the patient lies perfectly still, the disposition to vomit is less urgent. Every motion renew it (Bry.).

Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics, Eugene Beauharnais Nash

The smell of food cooking nauseates to faintness.

Fall dysenteries when the days are warm and nights cold; stools shreddy and bloody, like scrapings.

Swelling of joints moving from one place to another; they are often dropsical and pit on pressure; < in extremes of wet and cold, or warm and dry (Kent).

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This remedy has one of the most positive and reliable characteristic symptoms in the whole Materia Medica, and one which cannot be accounted for from any pathological standpoint that I know of. I mention this here because there is a seeming desire on the part of some to base all their prescriptions on pathological indications. I have no objections to their doing so if they can and succeed in curing their patients. But I claim full recognition for the value of those subjective, sensational symptoms and the modalities which cannot be accounted for. Indeed, I feel quite sure that the well-verified subjective symptoms are oftener to be relied upon in curing our patients than all the pathological conditions we know. Now for the symptom. "The smell of food cooking nauseates to faintness." To illustrate the value of this symptom I will give a case of my own practice; it was also my first experience with a potency as high as the 200th. Patient was a lady, seventy-five years of age, who was suddenly seized with sickness at the stomach and vomiting of blood in large quantities; then bloody stools followed, which were at first profuse, then became small and of bloody mucus. There was great tenesmus and pain in the bowels. Aconite, Mercurius, Nux vomica, Ipecacuanha, Hamamelis and Sulphur, all tried as well as I knew how to select them at that time, but no relief came, and at the end of twelve days my patient was rapidly going down and it looked to me as though she must die. She had become so weak that she could not lift her head from the pillow. By actual count the number of stools passed on cloths in the bed was sixty-five, in twenty-four hours, the pains, number of passages and an symptoms were aggravated from; sundown to sunrise (this is another characteristic of Colchicum).

Now during ad this sickness this patient had been so nauseated and faint at the smell of cooking food that they had been obliged to keep the doors closed between her bedroom and the kitchen, which was two large rooms away. I was not so well acquainted with Materia Medica then as now, and while I did not overlook the symptom did not know of any remedy that had it. But I had my Lippe text-book of Materia Medica in my carriage and I went out and got it and sat down by the bedside; determined to find that peculiar and persistent symptom and "fight it out on that line if it tom all summer" I began at Aconite and looked at the stomach symptoms of every remedy, until, the first time I remembered ever having noticed it there it stood in plain English under Colchicum. Then I looked in my medicine case for the remedy. None there, and I was four miles from home. I had a box of Dunham's 200ths under my carriage seat that had been there for over a year, but which I had never used for want of confidence in high potencies. It was the best I could do for the present, so I dissolved a few pellets in a half-glass of cold water, and directed to give one teaspoonful after every passage of the bowels. On my way home I stopped my horse two or three times to turn around and go back and give that poor suffering woman some medicine. I felt guilty, but I said to myself this is Lippe's Materia Medica, and these are Carroll Dunham's potencies, and here is a clean cut indication for its administration, and the other symptoms do not counter-indicate. Well, I got home. But I started early the next morning to try and make amends for my rashness (if the patient was not dead) of yesterday. Imagine my surprise as I stepped into the sick-room when my patient slowly turned her head upon the pillow and said, with a smile, "Good morning, Doctor." I had been met with a groan several past mornings. I felt faint myself then. I dropped into a chair by the bedside and remarked, "You are feeling better." "Oh, yes Doctor." "How much of that last medicine did you take?" "Two doses." "What!" "Two doses; I only had two more stools after you left." "Don't you have any more pain?" "Pain stopped like that" (putting her hands together) "and I feel well except weakness." She took no more medicine, quickly recovered, and was perfectly well for five years after, and finally died at eighty years of age. I never got over that surprise. Convinced against my will, but not of the same opinion still.

Now I fell to experimenting with the 200th in down-right earnest. I have cured many cases since of autumnal dysentery with this remedy on the same indication, and with the same potency. I have also cured a very severe case of typhlitis (now called appendicitis, for which they so often operate with more deaths than were ever known before the operation became popular) on the same symptom, which was markedly present in the case. Bright's disease, a bad case, was also cured by it. Rheumatism, gout and dropsies have been cured, this symptom being present, and so I have been at length in giving my experience with this remedy in order to prove three things:

1st. That we should not be influenced by prejudice.

2d. That subjective symptoms are most valuable.

3d. That the 200ths do act and cure.

Of course, there are other valuable symptoms besides the one upon which we have laid such particular stress. For instance, Colchicum has two symptoms that are opposite one to the other, viz.: Violent burning and icy coldness in the stomach. These opposites are often found in the abdomen. Again, it is sometimes indicated in autumnal dysentery, the white or bloody mucous discharges having a shreddy appearance, looking as if the mucous membrane had been scraped off the intestines, with great tenesmus. Cantharis has these stools, looking like scrapings, as prominently as Colchicum, but with Cantharis the pain and tenesmus implicate the urinary organs at the same time. Colocynth also has such stools, but the doubling-up, colicky pains distinguish it from both the others. Colchicum has great meteoritic distention of the abdomen. It is in the 200th potency a good remedy for the bloating of cows that have eaten too much green clover. In dyspepsia, when there is complaint of burning or sensation of coldness in the stomach, and much gas in stomach or abdomen, or both, Colchicum is excellent, taking sometimes preference over Carbo vegetabilis, China or Lycopodium.

Colchicum is always set down in the text-books for rheumatism, articular, migrating and gouty, and I have often tried it, but never with anything like the success of our other rheumatic remedies. I have been greatly disappointed in it here. Perhaps I did not use it low enough. It is also said to be a good remedy for weakness or sudden prostration, but here I have no personal experience with it. However, if in any of these troubles, or others, I should find its prime characteristic present I should certainly give it and confidently expect good results.