Homeopathic Materia Medica

Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica, James Tyler Kent

Brain and mind: in all the complaints of Helleborus stupefaction occurs in greater or less degree. Sometimes it is a complete stupor, sometimes a partial stupor, but it is always stupefaction and sluggishness.

Hellebore is useful in affections of the brain, spinal cord, the general nervous system and mind, but especially in acute inflammatory diseases of the brain and spinal cord and their membranes, and in troubles bordering on insanity. There is a peculiar kind of imbecility or stupefaction of the body and mind.

The extreme state is unconsciousness. Complete unconsciousness in connection with cerebral congestion, or inflammation which has gone on to hydrocephalus, cerebro-spinal meningitis, or inflammation of the brain, with stupefaction.

Even early in the disease Hellebore lacks the wildness and acute delirium found is Stramonium and Belladonna. It is passive. Again, it fits in after the wildness of the delirium has passed away and, the patient has settled down into a state of stupefaction. The patient lies upon the back, eyes partly open, rolling the head, mouth open, tongue dry, eyes lusterless, staring into space. Staring at the individual talking. Waiting a long time to answer, or not answering at all.

Violent attacks of brain trouble frequently come to a sudden end, but those that are more passive linger, and that is where Hellebore comes in. The Hellebore case will linger for weeks and sometimes months in this state of stupefaction, gradually emaciating.

He lies upon the back with the limbs drawn up; he looks pale and sickly. When questioned he answers slowly. The text says:

"Stupefaction bordering on insensibility."

Another common expression is:

"Diminished power of the mind over the body."

The muscles will not act; they will not obey the will. It is a sort of paralytic state, but "stupefaction" expresses it. Cannot project ideas; cannot rivet the attention, cannot concentrate the mind. The patient appears semi-idiotic.

Delirium is not common, and when present it is muttering. There is more stupefaction, more "do nothing," more "say nothing," than delirium.

Yet there is evidently confusion of mind; he cannot think. In many instances, very late in the disease, the patient can be roused up, and he will act as if he were attempting to think, as if he were attempting to answer, attempting to move. But he simply stares at the doctor with eyes partly open, with a dazed expression on his face, and picks his finger ends.

When questioned the Hellebore patient is not able to tell you what he has in mind, unless considerably aroused and agitated. But when so aroused he will talk about spirits, or say that he sees devils. He sees in his imagination those images that he has read about, or seen pictured, as the devil, with horns and a tail. A young person who has never heard of the devil, or of spirits, would not have that form of hallucination in his delirium. The hallucinations are shaped in accordance with what he has been taught to imagine.

Hellebore has a peculiar quasi-hysterical condition - a form of insanity. She imagines she has sinned away her day of grace. Like Aurum, she believes that she is doing wrong, that she is committing an unpardonable sin. That is as near as the remedy approaches to insanity,

"An old woman having been accused of theft by the women around took it so much to heart that she hanged herself. This suicide produced such an effect on the women of the village that one after another accused herself of having caused the death of the old woman."

Child: The most striking type in Hellebore is the sick child. It comes in especially in children between two and ten years of age. The staring -lying on the back and staring with half-closed eyes, is typical of the remedy. Sometimes the lips move without any sound. The lips move as if the child wishes to say something, but on further questioning the words he wished to speak are lost, forgotten.

In hydrocephalus there is a sharp scream, the brain cry. The child will cry out in sleep. He will carry the hand to the head and shriek, like Apis. But the Apis hydrocephalus is far more active and acute.

The Apis patient kicks the covers off; this patient does not mind the covers, he does not mind anything. He is not easily disturbed. He lies upon his back with the limbs drawn up; often making automatic motions with the arms and legs. Sometimes one side is paralyzed, but the other keeps up automatic motions.

Hellebore is useful in the low form of disease known as "apathetic typhoid." These same symptoms guide to the remedy. Indifferent to all external impressions.

Rarely much disturbed by being touched, or by being covered too warmly, or by not being covered at all.

He does not seem to be sensitive to heat, or cold, or pricking, or handling or pinching. Listlessness. What is called in the text "stubborn silence" is more an apathetic silence, an inability to speak. It appears as if he refused to answer, but he does not; he does not know how to answer; he cannot think.

Fixed ideas in persons who are said to be just a little "off their balance.," a little queer. And that fixed idea will stay; there is no use trying to argue him out of it. The woman gets a fixed idea that she is going to die on a certain day, and nothing can get it out of her head. This is not like Aconit, because there is no fear of death.

Aconite has fear of death and fixes the time of death. Fixed idea that she has committed some sin, which she will at times name and describe, or perhaps only mention vaguely - but it is very real to her,

Mind 2: When able to be about the patient appears to be sad, because she sits and says nothing, and seems to be in a woeful mood. But there is not that great lamentation, with walking the floor and wringing the hands that we find in Aurum.

It is an apathetic state; she appears sad and melancholy, whereas perhaps she does little thinking. Any attempt at consolation, so long as the patient is able to think, only aggravates the trouble. Like Natrum muriaticum, the complaints are aggravated by consolation, but the complaints of Natrum muriaticum are not at all like these.

If the Hellebore patient is able to meditate upon his symptoms, they seem to grow better.

Sometimes there are convulsive motions in this remedy, but they are more likely to be automatic. Motions that seem to have nothing to do with the will. He simply makes motions, like one moving in an absent-minded state.

The Helleborus patient is benumbed everywhere. The whole sensorium is in a benumbed state, a stupefaction, a blunting of general sensibility. The text says:

"Vision unimpaired."

Nevertheless he sees imperfectly; he does not regard the object his gaze is fixed upon; that is, his range of vision appears to be correct, yet if questioned a little as to what be saw, he has no recollection of it; it has made no impression upon his memory or his mind.

Vertigo and head: Vertigo, with nausea and vomiting. Vertigo from stooping. With the general stupefaction the head rolls and tosses. The child lies upon the back and rolls the head from side to side. The eyes are partly open, arid he keeps boring the back of the head into the pillow. This is partly unconscious and partly to relieve the drawing in the muscles of the back of the neck. These muscles keep shortening, as the disease progresses, just as they do in cerebro-spinal meningitis; until the head is drawn back as far as it can go.

There is burning heat in the head; shooting pains; pressive pains in the head from congestion. Violent occipital headache. Dull aching in the occiput; benumbed feeling in the occiput. A feeling like wood fullness, congestion and pressure.

The headaches, the motions of the head and the appearance of the face are those occurring in congestion of the brain. I have seen children, after passing through a moderately acute but rather passive first stage, lie in this stupid state, needing Hellebore for weeks before they received it.

When it was given repair set in; not instantly, but gradually. The remedy acts slowly in these slow, stubborn, stupid cases of brain and spinal trouble. Some. times there is no apparent change until the day after the remedy is administered or even the next night, when there comes a sweat, a diarrhea, or vomiting - a reaction.

They must not be interfered with no remedy must be given. They are signs of reaction. If the child has vitality enough to recover, he will now recover. If the vomiting is stopped by any remedy that will stop it, the Hellebore will be antidoted. Let the vomiting or the diarrhoea or the sweat alone, and it will pass away during the day.

The child will become warm, and in a few days will return to consciousness and then what will take place? just imagine these benumbed fingers and hands and limbs, this benumbed skin everywhere. What would be the most natural, thing to develop as evidence of the rousing up of this stupid child?, it is necessary for you to know this.

It is not really a part of the teaching of the homoeopathic Materia Medica, but you must know what to expect after giving this remedy.

Clinical observation: It is a clinical observation which you will - see if you see Hellebore cases, and Zincum cases.

Zincum is, if possible, even more profound in its dreadful state of stupefaction than Hellebore. Well, that child's fingers will commence to tingle. As he comes back to his normal nervous condition, the fingers commence to tingle, the nose and ears tingle, and the child begins to scream and toss back and forth and roll about the bed. The neighbors will come in and say,

"I would send that doctor away unless he gives, something to help that child;" but just as sure as you do it you will have a dead baby in twenty-four hours. That child is getting well; let him alone. You will never be able to manage one of these cases if you do not take the father into a room by himself and tell him just how the case will proceed.

Do not take the mother; do not tell her a word about it, unless she is an unusually excellent mother, because that is her child, and she is sympathetic, and she will cry when she hears that child cry; she will lose her head and will insist upon the father turning you out of doors.

But you take the father aside beforehand and tell him what is going to happen; explain it to him so he will see it for himself; and tell him that if this is not permitted to go on, that if the remedy is interfered with, he will lose his child.

It is not so much the awful pains, but it is the itching, tingling and formication that cause the appearance of extreme agony. Sometimes in every part of the child's body it is a week before all these symptoms go away of themselves but they will go away, if left alone.

All this will make you nervous. Do not stay and watch the case too long, because if you do you will change the remedy. I never heard of one solitary cure like, these in the hands of an Old School doctor,

The face has a very sickly appearance; sunken, gradually emaciating. It has a sooty appearance, just as if soot had settled in the nostrils and in the corners of the eyes. You will say that the patient is going to die. Quite likely without Hellebore. The remedy fits the kind of cases that the allopath knows nothing about and has no remedy for.

His prognosis is always unfavorable. The face, of course, expresses the mental symptoms. Wrinkled forehead, bathed in cold sweat. Paleness of the face and heat of the head. Twitching, of the muscles of the face.

We find that knitting of the brow and wrinkling of the forehead in just this kind of brain trouble. We find a similar kind of wrinkling in Lycopodium, but the trouble is in the lungs. In this remedy the nostrils are dilated and sooty. Nor much flapping, but extremely dilated. The eyeballs are glassy and the lids sticky.

There is violent thirst in these fevers, and unusual canine hunger. The nausea and vomiting are nondescript. In the early part of the proving there are diarrhoea and dysentery; with copious white gelatinous stool; stool consisting solely of pale tenacious mucus. And then comes paralytic constipation, and these prostrated, emaciated brain cases, such as described, will lie for days without stool, or any action of the bowels.

After a day or two they will not even respond to injections. Little, hard, dry stool. Again, when reaction comes, it very commonly comes with a diarrhea, or a sweat, or vomiting; perhaps with all three of these conditions.

The urine is retained or suppressed; sometimes it dribbles away passes unconsciously. Urine passed in a feeble stream; bloody urine.

The patient lies on the back, with his limbs drawn up; or slides down in bed. Great debility; great relaxation; the muscles refuse to act. Convulsions of sucklings. Epilepsy with consciousness. Traumatic tetanus. Constant somnambulism cannot be roused to full consciousness. Soporous sleep.

A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica, John Henry Clarke

Black Hellebore. Christmas Rose. N. O. Ranunculaceae. Tincture of dry powdered root. Juice of fresh root mixed with equal parts of alcohol.

Clinical.─Albuminuria. Amenorrhoea. Aphthae. Apoplexy. Cholera. Concussion. Convulsions. Cystitis. Depression of spirits. Diarrhoea. Dropsy. Epilepsy. Headache. Hernia. Home-sickness. Hydrocele. Hydrocephalus. Kidneys, congestion of. Melancholia. Meningitis. Night-blindness. Puerperal convulsions. Scarlatina. Tetanus. Typhoid fever. Ulcers. Wounds.

Characteristics.─Black Hellebore was one of the drugs used to produce the "Helleborism of the ancients," the subject of Hahnemann's famous essay; but the drug most commonly employed was the While Hellebore, or Veratrum album, which belongs to another family, the Melanthaceae. "Black" hellebore receives its name from the external colour of its root; the root of Ver. alb. is extremely white. Teste quotes Hahnemann as saying: "I conclude from various observations that one of the first effects of Black Hellebore is a kind of stupor, a dulness of the sensorium commune, a condition where, with sight unimpaired, nothing is seen very fully, and the patient does not pay any attention to anything; with the hearing perfectly sound, nothing is heard distinctly; with perfectly constituted gustatory organs, everything seems to have lost its taste; where the mind is often or always without ideas; where the past is forgotten or little remembered; where nothing gives one any pleasure; where one's sleep is very light, and a really sound, refreshing sleep is not to be had; and where one desires to work without having the necessary strength or attention required for it." Teste groups Hell. n. in the Chamomilla class, with Gratiola and Viola tric., all of which cause "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." He cured with Hell. n. a case of epilepsy in a little girl five weeks old after the failure of Cham. Cham. was given to the nurse, Hell. n. directly to the patient. The history was this: The child, which was well formed, was constipated from the day of birth. The mother, twenty-eight, dark, robust, but of irritable temperament, laid the child's sickness to a fear she had had towards the end of her pregnancy. This may have been the case, but the lady had lost a boy in convulsions, precisely similar, the previous year. The little girl had every day five or six paroxysms, each lasting from one to three minutes, and almost always followed by sleep. There was sudden inability of the body, without any marked stiffness; head slightly thrown back; repeated oscillations of tongue from right to left, the tongue being slightly protruded from the mouth. Staring look, convulsive rolling upward of eyes when the paroxysms were very violent; a few acute cries followed by drowsiness, when the spasm was near its end. During the paroxysm the child remained so perfectly sensible that a slight shock, as the shutting of a door, arrested the paroxysms at once, and then shortened them a good deal. Hell. n. cured in two or three days. From a purely nervous derangement of this kind, the action of Hell. n. goes on to actual inflammatory states of the brain and its meninges. The drowsiness so prominent in Teste's case is a leading note of the conditions of meningitis and fever to which the drug is homeopathic. Such a condition is found when effusion has taken place from the inflamed membranes, and here the ancient reputation of Hell. n. in dropsical conditions is confirmed. The forehead is wrinkled; there are automatic movements of one arm and leg, whilst the other is paralysed; the head rolls from side to side with screams; greedy drinking of water; chewing motion of jaws; urine scanty or entirely suppressed, sometimes with sediment like coffee grounds. This condition of urine is an indication for Hell. n. in many states, and a sign of the favourable action of the remedy is, as Nash points out, an increase in the amount of flow. In post-scarlatinal dropsy with these indications it is of great service. It has cured concussion of the brain resulting from a blow on the head after Arn. had failed. In this case one pupil was larger than the other; the patient was drowsy, answered questions slowly; one leg dragged on walking. In fever there is sooty appearance of nostrils; dry, yellow tongue with red edges; breath horribly offensive; drinks roll audibly into stomach; fever < 4 to 8 p.m.; face pale, almost cold; pulse faint, imperceptible; picks clothes and lips. Guernsey sums up the remedy thus: "In dropsical affections; dropsy of outer parts and of inner parts; parts which are usually white turn red; absence of thirst in all complaints; chilliness, heat, perspiration without thirst. Discharge of urine too scanty; urine with dark sediment like coffee grounds─top part is clear, but leaving this sediment. Nausea at the stomach; rumbling and rolling in the bowels; darting in the joints, also in the bones; heat with shuddering." In addition to the "absence of thirst" there is "drinks with avidity, bites spoon, but remains unconscious," and "Thirst with disgust for drink," as there is also "Hunger: child nurses greedily with disgust for food." Hunger, yet food is repulsive though it tastes natural. The hungry, nauseated, uneasy sensation at the epigastrium showing its profound action on the solar ganglion. Cooper, who has studied the Hellebores very closely, says that they produce the "sinking sensation" more intensely than any other drugs. The Winter Aconite (Eranthis hyemalis), a close ally of Hell. n., "acts on the solar plexus and works upwards, causing dyspnoea." He quotes (H. W., xxx. 210) from Flora Historica an interesting account of how French prisoners of war at Norman-cross were suffering from an epidemic of night-blindness (nyctalopia), when for lack of snuff they took to using powdered Black Hellebore, with the result that they were cured of their blindness in a few days. Among the dropsies cured may be mentioned hydrocele from suppressed eruptions. The old use of Helleb. as an application to ulcers seems to have depended on its property of draining the tissues. In the pathogenesis of Hell. foet. is a symptom bearing on this profuse discharge from ulcerated surface." Cooper has cured ulcers with dropsical conditions with Hell. n. and Hell. v. given internally. The headaches of Hell. n. are stupefying; sensation as though contents of head were bulging at forehead and eyes; shocks pass through the brain like electricity; boring and shaking in forehead and occiput; bruised pain; heat in brain. Pains in occiput and nape of neck I have frequently cured with Hell. n.; also headache which the patient can only describe as a "stupid headache." There is vomiting and purging as with the other Hellebores, the vomit is apt to be green and the stools jelly-like. The pulse is slow and feeble, the respiration is slow and the temperature low. Torpidity and apathy run through the remedy. In this it approaches Opium. Apoplexy followed by idiocy. The symptoms are < 4 to 8 p.m., and in the evening and night (sees spirits; rolls head; dry cough; night-blindness); < in cool air; from uncovering; > in warm air; by wrapping up. < From exertion from motion; from stooping; breathing easier when lying down lying perfectly quiet > pains in head. Touch <. < When thinking of ailment; > when mind is diverted.

Relations.─Antidoted by: Camph., Chi. Compatible: Zinc., Bell., Bry., Chi., Lyc., Nux v., Phos., Puls., Sul. Compare: Apis. (Apis has exquisite sensitiveness of abdomen; Hell. n. complete sensorial apathy; Hell. n. has puckering of face, dropping of jaw, and automatic action of limbs of one side; Apis has < from heat, Hell. n. > from heat); Apocy., Digit. (slow pulse); Kali bro., Lach.; Dig., Tereb. (breathes better lying down); Phos. ac. (sensorial depression, drowsiness, apathy; but Phos. ac. can be roused easily; muscles not completely relaxed, has not the dirty nostrils of Hell. n.). Opium (but the stupor of Op. is more profound; face dark, breathing stertorous); Zinc. (checked exanthemata; hydrocephalus; Zinc. has fidgety motion of feet); Lach. (coffee-ground sediment in urine; muscular weakness; jelly-like mucous diarrhoea accompanying dropsy); Pip. meth., Ox. ac. (> when mind diverted); Nat. m. (< from consolation).

Causation.─Checked exanthemata. Blows. Disappointed love.

SYMPTOMS.

1. Mind.─Melancholy taciturnity.─Excessive, and almost mortal anguish.─Home-sickness.─Hypochondriacal humour.─Taedium vitae; envious seeing others happy.─Suicidal.─Indolence.─Sobbing lamentation.─Obstinate silence.─Irritable, < from consolation.─Suspicious.─Dulness of the internal senses.─Stupidity and want of reflection, with (thoughtless) fixedness of look on one single point, much moaning, and inability to think.─Weakness of the memory.─The mind seems to lose command over the body; the muscles refuse their office as soon as the attention is diverted (if the will is not strongly fixed upon their action; if he talks he lets fall what he holds in his hand).

2. Head.─Giddiness on stooping.─Stupefying headache, with coryza (4 to 8 p.m.); < from stooping, > at rest and in the open air.─Stupefying pain, and sensation of bruising in the head.─Pressive and numbing headache.─Pressive headache from outward to inward, with stupefaction and heaviness of the head; < on moving the head, from exertion; > in open air and from distraction of mind.─Inflammation of the brain, with stupefaction; heat and heaviness of the head; < from thinking of the pain.─Hydrocephalus with stupefaction; stupor; boring with the head in the pillows; coldness of the body; < from stooping.─Painful heaviness, with burning pain in the head, coldness of the fingers, sensation of general shivering, and paleness of the face.─The headache is more bearable on keeping quiet, and endeavouring to sleep.─Bruised pain externally on vertex and occiput; esp. during the febrile chill; at every movement, esp. when stooping and going upstairs, the pain changes into a violent twitching in integuments of head > by external pressure.─Painful sensitiveness of the exterior of the head, and esp. at the occiput, as if it were bruised, on its being touched, and on moving the head.─Uninterrupted pressive pain in occiput extending toward nape of neck.─Headache extending from nape to vertex.─Jerking in the integuments of the head, during movement, when stooping, and when going up stairs.─Disposition to bury the head in the pillow, when sleeping.─Small swellings in the skin of the forehead, with bruise-like pain.─Moist scabs on the scalp.─Falling off of the hair (an the head and on the whole body), with pricking pain on the scalp, esp. on the occiput, with pale dropsical swelling of the face and body.

3. Eyes.─Pain in the eyes, as if a nail were driven into the orbital margins.─Pressive heaviness in the eyes, in a downward direction.─Pupils dilated (one pupil larger than the other) without inflammation.─Involuntary fixedness of look on one single point.─Twitching in the levatores palpebrarum and the cheeks, with heat in the face.─Night-blindness.─Photophobia by day.

4. Ears.─Shootings in the ears, day and night, with searching piercing.

6. Face.─Face pale, sometimes yellowish.─Pale and oedematous swelling of the face.─Forehead wrinkled.─White vesicles on the lips, which are swollen.─The upper lip is cracked.─Soreness of the corners of the mouth.─Dull aching pain in the cheek-bone.

7. Teeth.─Toothache at night, with shooting and tearing pains, < by cold and heat.

8. Mouth.─Troublesome dryness in the palate, with incisive and scraping pain during deglutition.─Constant accumulation of saliva in the mouth, and salivation, with excoriation of the commissures of the lips.─Vesicles and apthae in the mouth, and on the tongue.─Numbness and swelling of the tongue.─Pimple on the tip of the tongue, painfully stinging when touched.─Dry, white tongue (in the morning).─Bitter taste in the throat, < by eating.

9. Throat.─Scraping feeling on back of palate.─Tiresome dryness on palate and cutting and scraping pain on moving the parts in swallowing.─Aching, sore throat on swallowing; feels excoriated.

11. Stomach.─Nausea, sometimes with excessive hunger.─Speedy satiety, with repugnance as to rest of meal.─Has appetite, but on eating has no taste, and becomes suddenly nauseated, which ceases immediately after eating.─(Nausea of palate and throat.).─Nausea rising up from pit of stomach.─Nausea in whole abdomen, with frequent empty eructations.─Dislike to food, esp. meat, green vegetables, and saurkraut.─Green, blackish vomiting, with pains in the abdomen.─Heaviness, fulness, and inflation of the stomach.─Inflation of the epigastrium, with pain of ulceration, and impeded respiration.─Sensation of excessive uneasiness of the epigastrium.─Painful pressure on the epigastrium at every step.─Sensation of retraction in the pit of the stomach.─Painfulness of the stomach when coughing and walking.─Burning pain in the stomach.─Burning and scraping in the stomach.

12. Abdomen.─Pinchings in the abdomen.─Sensation of coldness in the abdomen.─Heaviness in the abdomen.─Dropsical swelling in the abdomen.─Clucking in the abdomen, esp. on breathing deeply, as if there were water in the intestines.─Rumbling and borborygmi in the abdomen.─In r. inguinal region single pressures ending in a stitch, a sensation as if a hernia would ensue.─Severe hard pressure on middle of os pubis.

13. Stool and Anus.─Tenesmus, with discharge of (white) gelatinous mucus, preceded by pinchings in the umbilical region.─Stools consisting of pure, tenacious, white mucus.─Stools like frog-spawn.─Diarrhoea, with pain in the abdomen, and nausea.─Watery and frequent evacuations.─Hard, scanty stool, during and immediately after which violent cutting, shooting in rectum, from below up, just as if it contracted tightly, and as if a body with cutting edges stuck there.─After an evacuation, burning hot smarting at the anus.─Feeling as if intestines had no power to evacuate faeces, during soft stool.─Involuntary stools.─Blenorrhoea of rectum with spasm of bladder.─Haemorrhoids.

14. Urinary Organs.─Frequent want to make water, with scanty emission.─Scanty urine, with sediment like coffee grounds.─Feeble stream.─Deep-coloured urine.─A large quantity of pale, watery urine is emitted.

15. Male Sexual Organs.─Suppression of sexual desire, with flaccidity of the genital parts.

16. Female Sexual Organs.─Pain under l. nipple, pains all over her, forced her menses on; had to get up at night to pass water.─Suppression of menses.─Amenorrhoea: from disappointed love; from damp feet, and getting wet through.

17. Respiratory Organs.─Sighing respiration.─Breathes easier lying down.─Breathing difficult with anxiety, < every evening, must sit up.─Cough: dry, backing, < at night, with gagging; comes suddenly while smoking.─Suffocating constriction in the throat and nose.─Short, dry cough, with painful tension in the l. hypochondrium.─Difficult respiration, as from hydrothorax.─Accelerated, or deep and slow respiration.

18. Chest.─Constriction of the throat, nose, and chest.─Heat in the chest.

19. Heart.─Palpitation of the heart.─Anxiousness about heart which prevents him resting anywhere.

20. Neck and Back.─Stiffness and painful sensibility of the neck and the nape of the neck during movement.─Swelling of the glands of the neck.─Contractive pain in the loins.─Gnawing and obtuse lancinations of the spine.─Pain, as from a bruise, between the shoulder-blades.

22. Upper Limbs.─Tearing in the bones of the arms and joints, and in the upper part of the fingers.─Jerking in the muscles of the arms.─Piercing and shooting in the hands and joints of the fingers.─Want of strength in the hands.─Spasmodic stiffness of the fingers.─Humid, painless vesicles between the fingers.─Ulceration around the nails.

23. Lower Limbs.─Violent lancinations, and burning pressure in the hips.─Pricking pain in the l. hip.─Want of stability in the legs, with yielding of the knees.─Stiffness and tension in the thighs and hams.─Obtuse and piercing lancinations in the joints of the knees, and of the feet.─Humid, painless vesicles between the toes.

24. Generalities.─Shooting and piercing pains in different parts, and esp. in the periosteum, < by fresh air, corporeal fatigue, eating and drinking.─Pullings and tearing in the limbs.─Shooting pains in the joints.─Sudden relaxation of all the muscles.─The muscles refuse to perform their office, unless sustained attention be paid to them; staggering gait; suffering objects to fall which are grasped by the hand.─Convulsive twitching of the muscles (during sleep).─Relief is found in the open air, and sensations are felt as when recovering from a long illness.─All things have a freshness about them.─Convulsions.─Cramps.─Syncope.─Dropsical swellings.─Falling off of the hair and nails.

25. Skin.─Paleness of the skin.─Miliary eruptions.─Leucophlegmatic swelling of the skin of the whole body; anasarca.─General desquamation of the skin.─The hair and nails fall off.

26. Sleep.─Stupor, sopor.─Sleepiness, with eyes half open, and pupils turned upwards.─Confused, anxious dreams, the remembrance of which is not retained.─Sleeplessness.─Tossing in the bed.

27. Fever.─Pulse, small, slow, almost imperceptible.─Shiverings, alternating with shooting pains in the limbs.─Chilliness predominates during the day, as long as he remains out of bed, with heat of the face and drowsiness.─Chill, with goose-flesh and pain in the joints.─The chill spreads from the arms.─Coldness of the whole body, and esp. of the extremities.─General shivering, with corrugated skin, and tenderness of the scalp when touched, and on moving the head; pullings and tearings in the limbs, lancinations in the joints, and absence of thirst.─In the evening, after lying down, burning heat throughout the body, and chiefly in the head, with internal shuddering and shivering, without thirst; dislike to liquids; when attempting to drink, very little can be taken at a time.─Nocturnal sweat, towards the morning.─After lying down in bed, the heat comes on immediately, generally accompanied by perspiration.─Heat followed by chill, with colic.─Cold, at times clammy perspiration.

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

Christmas Rose (Ranunculaceae)

Weakly, delicate, psoric children; prone to brain troubles (Bell., Cal., Tub.); with serous effusion. Melancholy: woeful; despairing; silent; with anguish; after typhoid; in girls at puberty, or when menses fail to return after appearing. Irritable, easily angered; consolation < (Ign., Nat., Sep., Sil.); does not want to be disturbed (Gels., Nat.); Unconscious; stupid; answers slowly when questioned; a picture of acute idiocy (of chronic, Bar. c.). Brain symptoms during dentition (Bell., Pod.); threatening effusion (Apis., Tub.). Meningitis: acute, cerebro-spinal, tubercular, with exudation; paralysis more or less complete; with the cri encephalique. Vacant, thoughtless staring; eyes wide open; insensible to light; pupils dilated, or alternately contracted and dilated. Soporous sleep, with screams, shrieks, starts. Hydrocephalus, post-scarlatinal or tubercular which develops rapidly (Apis, Sulph., Tub.); automatic motion of one arm and leg. Convulsions with extreme coldness of body, except head or occiput, which may be hot (Arn.). Greedily swallows cold water; bites spoon, but remains unconscious. Chewing motion of the mouth; corners of mouth sore, cracked; nostrils dirty and sooty, dry. Constantly picking his lips, clothes, or boring into his nose with the finger (while perfectly conscious, Arum.). Boring head into pillow: rolling from side to side; beating head with hands. Diarrhoea: during acute hydrocephalus, dentition, pregnancy; watery; clear, tenacious, colorless, mucus; white, jelly-like mucus; like frog spawn; involuntary. Urine: red, black, scanty, coffee-ground sediment; suppressed in brain troubles and dropsy; albuminous. Dropsy: of brain, chest, abdomen; after scarlatina, intermittents; with fever, debility, suppressed urine; from suppressed exanthemata (Apis, Zinc.).

Relations. - Compare: Apis, Apos., Ars., Bell., Bry., Dig., Lach., Sulph., Tab., Zinc. in brain or meningeal affections.

Leaders In Homoeopathic Therapeutics, Eugene Beauharnais Nash

Another remedy of not very wide range, so far as we have any clinical knowledge, but so far so we do know is invaluable.

We know of its use in the advanced stage of serious brain troubles, such as meningitis or any trouble of the brain where is threatened effusion, or effusion already present.

Symptoms: Head rolling from side to side on the pillow, with screams; great stupidity or soporous sleep; greedy drinking of water: wrinkled forehead with cold sweat; motion of jaws, as chewing something; dilated pupils, and often cannot be made to see or hear, or be made to sense anything at all; continual motion of one arm and leg, while the other lies as if paralyzed; urine scanty or entirely suppressed, sometimes sediment like coffee grounds. These symptoms indicate a desperate condition, and the patient will soon die comatose or in convulsions unless the proper remedy can be found.

Helleborus niger can often cure such cases, as I have often observed, not only in my own practice, but in that of others. I have sometimes observed that the first sign of improvement in such cases was a decided increase in the urine, and following it a general subsidence of all the other bad symptoms. I have used it with most prompt and satisfactory results in the 1000th (B. & T.) and 33m. (Fincke's) potencies.

Helleborus is also an excellent remedy in post-scarlatinal dropsies, which come on very rapidly. Here the coffee-grounds sediment may or may not be present. The choice is sometimes not easy between this remedy and Apis mellifica.