Homoeopathy and Homoeopathic Prescribing

Encyclopaedia Homeopathica
FARRINGTON H., Homoeopathy and Homoeopathic

Prescribing (frh1)
FARRINGTON Harvey
Lesson one
1. The American Institute of Homoeopathy defines a homoeopathic physician as "one who adds to his knowledge of
medicine a special knowledge of homoeopathic therapeutics and observes the Law of Similars. All that pertains to
the great healing art is his by tradition, by inheritance and by right".
2. Homoeopathy is system of therapeutics based upon the Law of Similars as expressed by the maxim "Similia Similibus
Curentur" - let likes be cured by likes. When a patient presents a group of symptoms similar to those produced by
the administration of certain medicine to a healthy human, that medicine is homoeopathically indicated and if
prescribed in correct dosage will relieve or cure.
3. Calomel by its physiological action produces diarrhoea, frequent bloody mucus stools, increased secretion of bile and
salivation. When these symptoms have been produced by any other cause other than the administration of calomel
(Mercurius dulcis), very small doses of this medicine will be curative.
4. Again, Belladonna is indicated homoeopathically when the patient presents dilated pupils, violent congestion of blood
to the head with throbbing headache, high fever with hot red skin, cerebral excitement, dryness of mouth and
throat, muscular twitching (symptoms such as are frequently met with in scarlet fever). Any physician will recognize
the above symptoms as well known toxic effects of Belladonna.
5. There are many outstanding examples of this dual action of drugs in common medical practice, but the observing
student will note as he reads the Lessons of this Course that the Law of Similars applies to all substances possessing
medicinal properties.
6. Homoeopathy, or the "New School" of medicine, was founded by Samuel Hahnemann. He did not discover the Law of
Similars, but he was the first to give it practical application to the art of healing. He collected and translated from
previous writings of all ages a mass of evidence to show that others before him, including Hippocrates and
Paracelsus, were aware of this law.
7. Samuel Hahnemann was a celebrated scientist and chemist and one of the leading physicians of this time. He had
graduated from the best medical schools and received personal instruction under the physician to the Austrian
Emperor, Freiherr Von Quarin. He was a translator of note. He practiced successfully in several of the leading cities
of Germany and was looked upon as an eminent physician.
8. Hahnemann was a thinker. He perceived that the practice of medicine to be successful must be guided by law. Up to
his day no definite law of prescribing for the sick had been announced or followed. The practice of medicine was
chaotic. Each physician prescribed according to his own ideas or those of some "shining light" of the profession.
9. Hahnemann at last became discouraged. Day after day his doubts grew stronger. He said to himself, "It is not I who
am at fault, it is the art of medicine which is wrong. I know that I can prescribe as well as the best of those who
now give medicine, but if I am convinced that the sick will do better with no medicine at all - God help me! I will
practice no more!"
10. Finally he gave up the practice of medicine in disgust and turned to the translation of medical and scientific books
for a livelihood. While translating a chapter of Cullen's Materia Medica from English to German, it appeared to him
that the author's explanation of the action of Peruvian bark was fanciful and irrational. So he set about to
determine in his own way the modus operandi of the drug. He tried it on himself. He found it produced typical
symptoms of malaria for which it was recommended and used.
11. From this time on he conducted his investigations along new lines. He did what others had not done before. He
studied medicines systematically by testing them on healthy humans. After repeated experimentation upon himself
and others, he eventually proved the Law of Similars to be the basic law of cure. (See historical note).
12. One by one the medicines then in general use were 'proved by this indefatigable worker and his associates. In
medicine Hahnemann was what Edison has been in electricity. He had vision as well as scientific knowledge. Outside
the beaten path he went in search of new medicaments and found that each one tried was capable of producing its
own peculiar and typical symptom picture when given to healthy humans; and when administered to the sick, who
presented the same symptoms, was found to be curative.
Copyright 2000, Archibel S.A.
13. Early in his career, Hahnemann complained of the untrustworthiness of pharmaceutical preparations, which no
conscientious doctor could prescribe. And in his contributions to medical periodicals, which were always read with
interest, he frequently advocated the use of simple measures and the single remedy in the treatment of disease. He
was one of the first to teach that accurate and definite prescribing could be accomplished only by giving one
substance at a time and observing the effects. He condemned as unscientific the customary mixtures which in his
times often contained twenty or more drugs. He based his belief on the results of experience.
14. He went further and found that clinically a very small dose of a remedy, prescribed according to the Law of
Similars, produced better results than larger doses. In fact, he found that large doses aggravated the sickness
when exhibited in accord with the Law of Similars. Continued experiments along this line led eventually to
potentiation.
15. This briefly is the history of the origin of the prescribing of minimum doses of medicine in accord with the Law of
Similars, guided by signs and symptoms of the sick individual corresponding to similar signs and symptoms produced
experimentally by the remedy upon many healthy humans.
16. These experimental or clinical observations of drug action called "provings" by Hahnemann were made under controls
and in a most painstaking way. This was the introduction to the medical world of "animal experimentation" and led
the way to all of the more recent developments of drug testing and standardization.
17. Among the outstanding early professional accomplishments of Hahnemann, we shall mention but one. During the
scourge of Leipsic, when tens of thousands were dying "like flies" from the Plague, and when every victim of the
epidemic was committed to the "dead house", Hahnemann with his homoeopathic prescribing saved 183 consecutive
cases (most of which were considered moribund).
18. Hahnemann did not work alone, nor were his discoveries accidental. He had as associated many doctors who, like
himself, had an intense yearning for the Truth and who hoped to effect a change in the haphazard and futile
methods of medicine prevalent in their time.
19. Hahnemann and his associates were eminently successful in practice, and as might be expected, jealousies and
unjust criticism were not lacking. Traditional medicine, then as now, was tolerant of new ideas and human welfare
was secondary to medical politics.
20. Throughout his long and busy life (he lived to be eighty-nine) he continued to study, develop and practice the
healing art according to the Law of Similars.
21. Hahnemann's loyal and devoted students continued his researches. Remedies were "proved" on thousands of
subjects and many volumes were added to the numerous works of the originator.
22. To France, Italy, Spain, England, and the United States went homoeopathic physicians, each one an apostle and a
teacher. Later to Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and other South American countries this "new School" found it way: to
Mexico and Central America it advanced with higher civilization: to Egypt and other civilized parts of Africa; to
Australia and to Asia; to India where today it claims millions of adherents. With higher civilization and broader
learning Homoeopathic medicine has kept pace.
23. At the present time there is an unprecedented demand for doctors trained in homoeopathic prescribing. Although
the graduates from homoeopathic medical colleges are doubling in numbers annually, demands are not one-tenth
supplied. Answer the question "why?" in your own way.
24. That people fundamentally believe in the internal administration of medicine in sickness cannot be successfully
contradicted; that they are always ready and anxious for the more harmless, the more pleasant, the certain and
effective is also true.
25. Homoeopathic prescribing does not conflict with surgery, physical therapy, manual therapy, suggestion or other
non-medical measures. However, homoeopathic prescribing of properly prepared and standardized remedies is
supreme in the field of internal medicine.
26. You shall soon be led to see the raison d'tre of Homoeopathy and to understand how it must be adopted by any
physician fully awake to his responsibilities and possibilities.
27. As the Course unfolds it will reveal a broader conception of disease and its management, and hep you to become
more proficient in your chosen profession.
Historical Note
It is a tribute to the genius of Hahnemann that he was unaware that the homoeopathic relation between disease and
medicinal effects was taught and practiced by Hippocrates and Paracelsus, until it was brought to his attention by
Trinks in 1825. (Vide: Life and Letters of Hahnemann, by Haehl).
Lesson two
Homoeopathic fundamentals
1. In order better to comprehend the lessons to follow in the Course, it is timely here to introduce a brief outline of
Homoeopathic Philosophy.
2. All systems of prescribing have been based upon original hypotheses, clinical observations, philosophical conclusions,
and scientific experiments. Aesculapius and other fathers of the healing art dealt with the hypothetical and
philosophical, with just a little clinical observation. As the sciences developed, medicine lagged behind because of
the lack of accurate research and the ever-present personal opinions of the theorizing physicians. The vagaries of
early prescribing were as fallacious as were the concepts of anatomy, physiology and pathology.
3. Instruments of precision such as the polariscope, ultramicroscope, electrocardiograph, manometer, spectroscope,
were not at Hahnemann's command. Yet he gave us by hypothesis, clinical observations and reasoning, many of the
fundamentals of medicine which are now being proposed and confirmed by modern science.
4. Hahnemann, by scientific experimentation on living human beings, repeatedly substantiated the Law of Similars. For
nearly a century and a half this Law has been constantly confirmed by scientific clinical observation. And more
recently, modern research laboratories are giving us confirmation of the scientific soundness of the action of minute
doses and their dynamic action.
5. Colloidal chemistry gives us definite figures within the limitations of the ultramicroscope. Gold, for instance, can be
th
1
th
detected in the 25 decimal trituration, that is /10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,. Radium in the 60
decimal trituration has demonstrated its radioactivity by affecting sensitive photographic plates sufficiently to
produce distinct radiographs. Add thirty-five ciphers to the above fraction and you will have a mathematical
expression of the degree of subdivision to which this substance was divided and yet identified by experiment. This
radiograph can scarcely be ascribed to the chemical action of the infinitesimal amount of elemental radium present
in the trituration used; but may be accounted for by the force or power or dynamis of its immeasurably minute
emanations.
6. The extensive experiments of Dr. August Bier of Berlin University proved the three cardinal requisites of a
homoeopathic prescription.
1. The single remedy (given alone).
2. The similar remedy (Similia Similibus Curentur).
3. The minimum dose (the smallest amount necessary to produce curative action).
Dr. Bier explains the above by saying that
(a) all of the cells of the body are not sick;
(b) the finely subdivided remedy goes past the healthy cells because they have no attraction for it;
(c) the sick cells have less resistance and are more responsive to stimuli. The minimum dose affects these
hypersensitive sick cells and stimulates them to reaction. The similar remedy induces normal reaction. If the remedy
is dissimilar its action is not curative.
(d) only single remedies produce guiding indications for the similar remedy. Iron (Ferrum) produces definite symptoms.
Phosphorus produces a different group. Phosphate of iron (Ferrum phos.) produces symptoms of both iron and
phosphorus but in addition has a distinctive action not found in either of its components. The characteristic
symptoms produced by Ferrum phos. mark it as a distinctive single remedy.
7. The Hahnemannian concept is that disease primarily is a disturbance in the vital force or guiding energy which
governs and regulates all the organs and parts of the body. In health this vital force maintains normal growth and
co-ordination of all organic functions. When, from some disease-producing cause, this force becomes disturbed,
sickness or disharmony of function results. The causes of disturbance may be infections, injuries, exposure, climatic
conditions, violent emotions, errors in diet, or others.
8. How are symptoms produced? A symptom is a deviation from the normal. It is produced in exactly the same manner
as a normal phenomenon, but is the result of a stimulus that is the product of dysfunction of some of the body's
parts. For instance, failure to menstruate is a sign or symptom of pregnancy. It also may be caused by old age,
disease or fright. Haemoptysis may be a symptom of pulmonary tuberculosis but is by no means always of
tuberculosis origin.
9. Objective and subjective sings and symptoms are alike of physical origin. All symptoms are efferent responses,
voluntary or; involuntary, or efferent impulses registering in nervous centers.
10. Bien tre and malaise are expressions of physical conditions. Prodromes are symptoms just as much as are eruptions,
fevers, or discharges. Apprehensiveness, melancholy, tearfulness, loquacity, suspicions, delirium, delusions, fears,
emotions, hysteria, propensities, and even tedium vitae are symptoms - deviations from the normal.
11. Symptoms and signs are by no means always pathognomonic of certain diseases. A patient with more than one
disease may have symptoms not clearly identified with any one of them.
12. Someone has said, "All that a doctor can find out about his patient, by all the means at his command, is often
insufficient to make a clear diagnosis". It is a fact that our best diagnosticians are incorrect in more than 50% of
their diagnoses. Even laboratory findings cannot always be relied upon. Correct logical reasoning must always prevail.
13. Some signs and symptoms (departures from the normal in function, appearance, sensation or behavior) are
characteristic of certain definite diseases, while others cannot be ascribed to any definite disease or pathological
process.
14. Many symptoms are often met with, such as "worse before a storm"; "relieved by warmth"; "aggravated by motion";
"better in damp cold weather"; "fear of death"; "worse from the least draught or cool air"; "better lying on affected
side"; "cannot bear the smell or sight of food". These are definite symptoms resulting from some abnormal
functional condition and not necessarily from pathology.
15. Even when unable to interpret these and other like phenomena in terms of definite disease, should we disregard
them? No more than we should disregard pathognomonic symptoms in the making of a diagnosis. Each change from
the usual and normal in function, appearance or sensation of the patient comes from a cause whether we are able to
determine and define it or not. The causative factor may be an individual characteristic of the patient. Later, you
will find that symptoms unatributable to definite pathology are most often the determining factors in selecting the
homoeopathic remedy.
16. The fact that the homoeopath takes cognisance of symptoms per se, whether indicative of any known disease or
not, enables him to correct the condition before definite disease results; and still more important, he is able to
combat new diseases that have never been heard of before. For instance, ear abscess is prevented by removing the
congestion and inflammation that lead to it. Pneumonia if taken in its inception may sometimes be aborted. Influenza,
or the epidemic later called "flu" which created such havoc among the soldiers in the United States camps and in the
army overseas, was treated symptomatically with surprising success by the homoeopathic physicians while others
were absolutely impotent because they did not know what caused the infection nor did anyone understand the
pathology.
17. Therapeutic nihilism (the travesty of medicine) originated with that group of pathologists (not practicing
physicians) who sought to identify every disorder and disease with definite anatomical changes. They led clinicians
to study disease only in this relation. The fact is that anatomical changes are results of disease and not the disease
process itself. Disturbed physiology always precedes pathology but does not always produce it. Therefore, symptoms
present themselves, before and during, as well as after the formation of pathological end-products or tissue
changes. The homoeopathic prescriber utilizes all signs and symptoms bit recognizes their relative importance.
18. Hahnemann was the first to systematize symptoms and call attention to their importance in treatment as well as in
diagnosis. He proved that each drug invariably produced its own peculiar and characteristic group of symptoms when
administered to healthy persons. These characteristic symptoms he called guiding symptoms because they guide to
the selection of the homoeopathic remedy.
19. The body cells, guided in their activities by physiological force (dynamis, or to use Claude Bernard's term,
irritabilite) constitute a superstructure, the human organism. Vital phenomena are dynamic and the actions of the
human organism should be regarded not from a standpoint of structure but of physiological processes.
20. The healthy human body is like a marvellously regulated, energized, highly specialized electrical machine. This body
gets sick, or parts of it may get sick, affecting the entire composite whole.
21. What is the thing within the bodily tissues that responds to remedial treatment? How does the remedy act? What
occurs to restore normality of tissue-substance and function?
22. Let us confine ourselves to the consideration of the question more particularly at hand, "How do homoeopathic
remedies act?
23. It is clearly demonstrated that specialized organ cells, hepatic or renal for example, display definite selectivity.
Poisons, drugs and remedies do not all affect the same tissues; for example, arsenic, strychnine, ergot, pituitrin.
Normal physiological function of all the twenty-five trillion body cells in harmonious, co-ordinated rhythm, means
health. To bring this about there must be intimate interchange of messages among the different parts, even among
the cells of distinct organs and parts.
24. That interchange of "body intelligence" occurs needs no argument. That it is both chemical and electrical (nervous)
is admitted. Perhaps the present marvellous development of radio will enhance your vision of cellular
intercommunication.
25. Cells are stimulated to activity by capillary circulation of the blood, dissolved electrolytes, hydrolysis, changes in
PH and colloidal interface activity. The balance of all these may be influenced by a potentized drug.
26. The actual generation of cellular and bodily energy by chemical changes, all based on oxygenation, must be given its
proper but not too important place in our consideration, for there is something else in life beyond chemical
reactions. The corpse still retains the chemical constituents of the body; but without the maintenance and direction
of that elemental life force, the corpse chemistry is one of morbid processes and quite different from that of the
ovum, the mulberry mass, the foetus, the growing child, the adult, the senile, or the dying.
27. That elemental vital force; that something which activates alike the composite body and the individual cell and
makes the living, changing, functioning body different from a dead man, we refer to as the dynamis.
28. This dynamis or its counterpart is manifest in the lower animals, the fowls, the fish, and in the vegetable kingdom.
Some hold with good reason that something analogous to it must obtain in the mineral kingdom as well.
29. We must deal, in the healing art, with forces as well as with materials; with behaviors as well as with pathology;
with signs and symptoms as well as with their causes.
Lesson three
Homoeopathic concepts of disease
1. This lesson presents the relation of patient and disease, and discusses some of the deeper, more subtle and less
apparent causes of acute and chronic ailments so frequently met with and so seldom understood. These are problems
which have baffled physicians since the days of Hippocrates, Paracelsus and Galen. But in a course of this character
the importance of these considerations warrants close attention on the part of the student in order that he may
better understand the depth of action and special application of the remedies to be studied in future lessons.
2. In Lesson One the homoeopathic concept of disease was presented. This may have seemed new and revolutionary and
quite at variance with prevailing opinions. Nevertheless, it was made plain that there was no actual discrepancy
between prevalent science and homoeopathic concepts. The homoeopathic concepts are broader and more applicable
to the art of healing.
3. We now come to the consideration of the difference between acute and chronic disease; the causes of susceptibility,
dyscrasias and recurrence of acute morbid processes. This is necessary in determining the basic nature of the case
to be treated and in choosing the remedies to be employed.
4. The philosophy of Homoeopathy is laid down in Hahnemann's Organon of the Art of Healing, a work replete with much
wisdom and cold logic, written after he had put his principles and methods to the test for a period of twenty years.
Although the first edition was published in 1810, many of his teachings are only now being accepted, in principle at
least, by the medical profession at large.
5. "If the physician clearly perceives what is to be cured in disease, that is to day, in every individual case of disease; if
he clearly perceives what is curative in medicines; and if he knows how to adapt, according to clearly defined
principles, what is curative in medicines to what he has discovered to be undoubtedly morbid in the patient... if,
finally, he knows the obstacles to recovery in each case and is aware how to remove them so that the restoration
may be permanent; then he understands how to treat judiciously and rationally, and he is a true practitioner of the
healing art". (Hahnemann's Organon, par. 3).
6. Whether or not the student can accept all that is taught therein, the Organon contains certain fundamentals which
are in homoeopathic prescribing.
7. To clearly perceive what is curable in each case of disease, one must know the underlying causes of chronic diseases,
their intrinsic quality, their course and manner of manifestation and the part they play in the production of many
acute morbid manifestations.
8. To clearly perceive what is curative in each individual medicine one must possess a knowledge of the homoeopathic
materia medica and the genius and therapeutic action of remedies.
9. To know how to adapt these remedies to the morbid states of the patient one must have at his command a knowledge
of how to examine the patient and how to elicit symptoms, how to interpret the various changes that follow the
administration of a remedy; of dosage, repetition and sequence of remedies.
10. The knowledge of what each remedy will do is contained in the lessons on materia medica which constitute the major
portion of the Course.
11. One of the principle reasons why Homoeopathy has not been more generally accepted is that many of those who
essayed to practice it disregarded these essentials. Many conscientious physicians have undertaken to use remedies
prepared according to homoeopathic formulae, only to cast them aside as worthless because of failure to appreciate
the importance of homoeopathic fundamentals.
12. Disease naturally falls into two classes, acute and chronic. The acute diseases run through a certain limited course
and may terminate favourably without remedial measures if the patient possesses sufficient vitality and resistance.
Chronic ailments are not self limited but persist throughout life unless successfully treated in accord with the Law
of Similars. Any remedy acting curatively in a chronic disease acts homoeopathically.

13. Hahnemann practiced for a number of years before he fully realized the fundamental differences between acute
and chronic diseases. However, with his usual sagacity, he noticed that although he was able to overcome such
ailments as common colds, croup, whooping cough, pleurisy, pneumonia, dysentery, scarlet fever, in many patients he
observed recurrences of groups of symptoms which disappeared after treatment only to return in the same or
different form, and that the patient's general health was not permanently improved. This led him to the conclusion
that there mist be some unrecognised underlying factor responsible for chronic disease in general as well as these
apparently acute manifestations and that they were only the outcroppings of some sublatent chronic miasm.
14. He made a thorough search of the history of disease and the recorded experiences of others, seeking some common
dyscrasias that were more or less universal.
15. There existed at that time a fairly good knowledge of the venereal diseases, syphilis and gonorrhoea. To each of
these, as we do now, Hahnemann attributed many chronic ailments. The basic cause of syphilitic manifestations he
called the miasm "syphilis"; that of gonorrhoeal sequelae, "sycosis"; that of chronic diseases (except those due to
drugs or poisons) of non-venereal origin, "psora". NOTE: Vide: Hahnemann's Chronic Diseases, Vol. I, p. 19.
16. We do not attempt to explain the Hahnemannian concept of disease causation in terms used in modern medicine. The
language of today's accepted hypotheses may seem quaint a hundred years hence. Nevertheless, Hahnemann's
concept of miasms is fundamentally substantiated by present day research.
17. Whether or not we use the terms "miasm", "psora" or "sycosis", and whether or not we accept or reject
Hahnemann's explanation of them, there still remains the fact that the conditions he attributed to them actually
exist. No other theory or explanation offers as clear an understanding of the underlying elements of chronic states.
18. Chronic cases present many and varied manifestations as is well known. Sometimes, even with the appearance of
good health, the patient complains that he is "off color" and "lacks pep", with no apparent or discoverable pathology
and no pathognomonic signs or symptoms. In this type the miasm is latent or quiescent, but the patient nevertheless
is chronically ill.
19. There are those with lowered vitality, lowered resistive powers, increased susceptibility, anaemic, who are neither
sick nor well; who are afflicted almost continually with one transitory ailment or another. These get but little
sympathy or attention. But each will present symptoms which if rightly interpreted will guide to an individual remedy
selection applicable to the totality of the symptoms and the underlying cause of the chronicity.
20. Other chronic cases will be definitely sick. Their symptom syndromes indicate definite diagnosable diseases.
Physical examinations and laboratory tests are confirmative. They have arthritis, nephritis, diabetes,
broncho-spasm, gall-stones, gastric ulcer, neurasthenia, and so on. These are of the active chronic type.
21. How often have you met with a case in which the cause of illness was obscure - a case which has baffled every
attempt at diagnosis and case analysis? And how often have you exclaimed, "How I wish I could get at the bottom of
this?" It is hoped that this lesson will give you a start toward the fulfilment of your wish.
22. All ailments are divided into two natural classes:
1. Acute
2. Chronic
Likewise, homoeopathic remedies are classified as to their application.
23. Acute remedies are more superficial in action and act for a shorter time.
24. Chronic remedies are deep acting and chiefly applicable to ailments of chronic nature although at times they may
act wonderfully well in acute ailments.
25. The chronic or deeper acting remedies are subdivided into three groups:
1. Antisyphilitic
2. Antisycotic
3. Antipsoric
This division is made because these remedies are capable of producing on healthy persons the miasmatic symptoms as
well as correcting these symptoms in the sick.
26. Suppression is not a cure of disease any more than it is of crime. The natural tendency of the organism in health is
to throw off waste products from within outward. A similar tendency obtains in disease. Suppression of natural
excretions such as perspiration, urine or menses, gives rise to serious systemic disorders. Skin eruptions usually are
the result of nature's efforts to throw out some throw out some toxin or local irritant. The dire results of the
suppression of the eruptions of scarlet fever or measles are well known. Suppression of eczemas by local applications
has been known to produce colitis, asthma and bronchitis. Suppression of syphilis gives rise to a myriad of chronic
manifestations. The same is true of gonorrhoea.
27. The suppression of any of the above or like diseases is followed by changes in the resistance and susceptibility of
the individual, and new expressions of deranged vital force instituted which differ from those of the original ailment
and are frequently mistaken for new ailments.
28. Symptoms due to suppression may not be readily recognized by the novice, especially in cases where they are
delayed for months or years, as frequently happens in venereal and other diseases. That they are in reality genuine
effects of the suppression can be demonstrated by the administration of the homoeopathic remedy selected on the
totality of the symptoms and in accord with the Law of Similars. The correct remedy will cause the original disease
manifestations to return.
29. Illustrations: Thuja Occidentalis had many times relieved rheumatism following suppressed gonorrhoea and caused
the re-establishment of the urethral discharge. Sulphur has often reproduced a suppressed skin eruption with relief
of internal disturbances such as bronchitis, asthma and diarrhoea. Chronic headaches frequently follow the
application of local astringents to relieve offensive perspiration of the feet. Silica relieves the head symptoms and
restores the foot sweats.
30. The considerations of this lesson have been introduced in order to emphasize the fact that since the homoeopathic
prescription is made from the totality of the patient's symptoms, objective and subjective, it is necessary that the
important symptoms attributed to miasmatic origin be given their proper evaluation.
31. There is still another class of conditions which may be acute or chronic - those induced by the action of drugs and
inoculations. Inappropriate remedies or drugs, especially when taken in appreciable doses (either by order of the
physician, by the patient on his own account, or by accident) poison the system, even though they may effect the
changes for which they were taken. An artificial disease is produced which increases the task of determining the
proper homoeopathic prescription. For instance, how could you except to get a true picture of the patient's
symptoms from one who has for a long time taken bromides, "physic", morphine, quinine, sulphur, aspirin, bromo
seltzer, and the like? It is therefore frequently necessary to discriminate between those phenomena which are the
result of drugs and those of the disease itself. The indiscriminate use of sleep producers, pain killers, headache
remedies, rheumatism cures, blood purifiers, cathartics, and the many self-administered drugs and nostrums must
be taken into consideration by the prescriber and discontinued by the patient in order to facilitate or make possible
the selection of the similimum.
32. This lesson is to be studied in preparation for the message of Lesson Four which deals with the taking of the case,
the evaluation of signs and symptoms, and the relationship of pathology and diagnosis to homoeopathic prescribing.
As you will have observed in the study of the lessons thus far, there are many prerequisites to correct
homoeopathic prescribing. It is the purpose of the School to present to you these necessary fundamentals and to
guide you to accuracy of remedy selection and eventually greater successes in your practice.
Lesson four
1. To the homoeopathic prescriber, disease is disharmony resulting from a derangement of the dynamis or the vital
energy which maintains normal physiological function. Disease is a condition and not an entity, and its manifestations
are those of abnormal physiology called symptoms. The production of symptoms is always in accord with natural
physical laws and every sign and symptom is expressive of some internal deviation from normal physiology. They are
nature's warnings of trouble within, and may be studied, classified and interpreted in the same way as the processes
of normal physiology. Whether due to chronic miasm, to infection by some specific bacterium, to trauma, or to other
morbific influence, they constitute a language which the trained homoeopathic observer may read and interpret in
terms of indications for homoeopathic remedies. He makes his diagnosis in the usual way, but gives it its proper
place in the process of selecting the remedy.
2. Although fully cognizant of the kind of disease he is to treat, and of the signs and symptoms which are known as
pathognomonic, the homoeopathic prescriber also take into account the symptoms arising from the peculiarities of
the patient. No two individuals are exactly alike mentally or physically or as to manner, disposition, speech, action or
physical make-up. Each gets sick in his own way.
3. Instead of confining his study to the general phenomena which gives the condition a name, and seeking some medicine
which has acted favourably in similar cases (as quinine in malaria, salvarsan or potassium iodide in syphilis, or
salicylates in arthritis), the homoeopathic prescriber individualizes each case. That is to say, he heeds the words of
Pottenger who wrote, "Let us remember that here is a patient who has a disease as well as a disease which has the
patient". He takes cognisance of every sign and symptom whether mental, physical, toxic or pathological, and arrives
at a comprehensive totality of symptoms as a basis for the selection of a remedy which corresponds to the patient
as well as to the disease.
4. As shown in Lesson One, symptoms and signs result from deranged dynamis even before or without pathological
tissue changes.
5. All symptoms and conditions are not a equal importance in homoeopathic prescribing. The choice cannot be made in a
mechanical way, or by mere symptom matching. Indeed, the majority of cases present symptoms which are irrelevant
or of no special value in finding the similimum, which can be determined with accuracy only by those symptoms called
"characteristic".
6. The classification and evaluation of symptoms are the most important branches of our study. All symptoms are either
(a) GENERAL or (b) PARTICULAR. A GENERAL symptom is one that effects the patient as a whole. A PARTICULAR
symptom is one that effects a single part or organ. General and Particular symptoms are gain divided into (1)
CHARACTERISTIC, and (2) COMMON symptoms.
(1) A CHARACTERISTIC symptom is one that is peculiar, unusual and therefore distinctive; one which is found in few
patients and in the provings of but few remedies. In other words, characteristic symptoms express the individuality
of the case and therefore are the most important guides in the selection of remedies.
(2) A COMMON symptom is one which is found in many patients and many ailments and is produced in the provings of
many remedies.
A symptom of any class is graded according to its relative value in remedy selection. These grades are indicated by
different kinds of type.
7. A symptom may be more characteristic of one remedy or group of remedies, less so of others and least of still
others. Although there may be many degrees of comparative value, for practical purposes three grades are observed
in the lessons which follow, indicated by three kinds of type. CAPITALS for the first or highest grade; italics for
the second, and plain type for the third.
8. The above classification may be illustrated graphically by the following schema:
(GRADE ONE
(Characteristic
(Grade Two
(
(grade three
(General (
(
(
(GRADE ONE
(
(Common
(Grade Two
(
(grade three
Symptoms
(
(GRADE ONE
(
(Characteristic
(Grade Two
(
(grade three
(Particular(
(
(GRADE ONE
(Common
(Grade Two
(grade three
9. characteristic symptoms are those that are peculiar, unusual, and distinctive, and are found in few patients, and
produced in the provings of few medicines. These characteristics are the guides to the differentiation of remedies.
For example: Bloody mucus and painful tenesmus are common symptoms of dysentery. However, when we find in
addition, the peculiar characteristic symptoms, "every drink of cold water causes chill and is followed by a hurried
stool, "Capsicum is the indicated remedy in this individual case. Again, if the patient with dysentery is "routed out of
bed at 5:00 a.m. and the stool is preceded by rectal fullness and heaviness and colic, and every attempt to pass
flatus is accompanied by a spurt of faeces", Aloe is the indicated remedy.
10. Common symptoms are those that are found in many patients, in many ailments, and are produced by the provings of
many remedies. For example: pain, fever, chills, sweat, cough, flatulence, lameness, congestion, swelling an many
others. chk ments, and are produced by the provings of many remedies.
11. Spasmodic asthma in nearly all cases is worse from lying down. If, however, the asthmatic is "relieved by lying down"
we have an unusual and peculiar symptom, highly characteristic of Psorinum. If the asthmatic patient "fids relief only
in the knee-chest position", unusual and peculiar, we have a strong characteristic symptom of Medorrhinum.
12. The common symptoms of measles are dry cough, coryza, sore eyes, fever and rash. These symptoms, common to all
cases of measles, are of little value in choosing a remedy for an individual case. But when a patient exhibits the
combination of characteristic symptoms, "violent throbbing headache and great sensibility to light, noise and jar",
Belladonna is clearly indicated because these symptoms are characteristic of that remedy. If a case of measles
refuses or is slow to erupt, Bryonia may be indicated, if in addition the characteristic symptom of this remedy
"worse from the slightest motion", is present.
13. Other homoeopathic remedies might be called for by their characteristic symptoms appearing in individual cases of
measles.
14. Fever, chill, emaciation are common generals. "Aggravation from music" or "during a thunderstorm"; "amelioration in
wet weather", "ropy discharges from mucous membranes", are example of general characteristics because they are
strange, out of the ordinary, and lead to a small group of remedies.

15. All sensations or symptoms that the patient predicates of himself, or in the relating of which he uses the first
personal pronoun, are general symptoms, as "I am weak", "I am thirsty", "I am sleepy".
16. Mental symptoms are to be classed as general because they reflect the inner self and individuality of the patient.
Hahnemann in his earliest writings points out of the importance of mental symptoms and insists that they must take
precedence over all others in remedy selection.
17. Mental symptoms are both characteristic and common. Irritability, sadness, fear are common to many diseases,
many patients, also many remedies. But "aversion to company", (Natrum muriaticum, Nux vomica and Anacardium),
"loss of affection for wife or children" (Sepia); "restlessness only while at work" (Graphites), "weeps when relating
symptoms" (Pulsatilla); are typical examples of mental characteristics.
18. Experience has shown that emotional symptoms, or those arising from the will, are more valuable in remedy
selection than those distinctly intellectual. Thus: "Loathing of life" and "impulse to commit suicide" (Aurum); "fear of
dogs" (Belladonna); "insatiable desire to travel" (Calcarea phos.); "obstinacy" (Calcarea carb.) all of which are
emotional in character and will mean more in selecting a remedy than: "errors in speaking" (Lycopodium and Natrum
muriaticum); "inability to recall proper names" (Lycopodium and Sulphur); "forgets what he has just read" (Lachesis);
"forgets what he was about to say" (Baryta carb.). Delusions, hallucinations, illusions, delirium, amnesia are
intellectual symptoms.
19. The same characteristic symptom appearing in different parts of the body and in various ailments is classed as a
general. Illustration: "stitching pains" (Bryonia, Spigelia); "burning pains" (Arsenicum alb., Carbo veg., Sulphur);
"stiffness relieved by continued motion" (Rhus tox.); "coldness of affected parts" (Iodum, Rhus tox.); "sweat on
uncovered parts" (Ledum, Rhus tox.); "sweat on uncovered parts only" (Thuja).
20. Alternations of definite ailments belong to the general class. Illustrations: "headache in winter, diarrhoea in
summer" (Aloe); "weeping alternating with laugher" (Ignatia); "alternation of constipation and diarrhoea" (Sulphur,
Aluminum, Nux vomica).
21. A tendency for complaints to occur on one side is a general, as right sided complains (Belladonna, Lycopodium, Apis);
left sided (Lachesis, Mercurius biniod, Phosphorus).
22. Periodicity is a general classification, as in "headache occurring every seven days" (Sulphur); "on alternate days"
(Natrum mur., Chininum sulph.); "complaints recurring on same day annually" (Vipera); "neuralgia at the same hour
every day" (Cedron, Kali bich.).
23. Modalities (conditions of aggravation and amelioration) may be classed either as generals or particulars, depending
upon whether they affect the patient as a whole or only certain parts of the body. Among these are cold, heat,
conditions of weather, motion, rest, position, pressure, touch, eating, drinking, certain foods, and others.
24. Particulars need but little comment. Headache, sneezing, coated tongue, injected conjunctiva, photophobia, swelling
of a single joint, are illustrative of particular common symptoms; while "sensation of coldness in larynx" (Cistus can.,
Bromine); "dilated pupils days before and epileptic attack" (Argentum nit.); "sensation of band about head" (Carbolic
acid, Carbo veg., Gelsemium, Sulphur); are particular characteristics of the highest order.
25. A common symptom may become highly characteristic when it is constantly associated with another or occurs in a
group, or in unusual combinations as "fever with thirstlessness" (Apis, Pulsatilla); "coldness with numbness of the
heels" (Sepia); "emaciation of the upper parts of the body, the lower parts being distended" (Lycopodium);
"diarrhoea with overpowering sleepiness" (Nux moschata); "copious sweat with copious urine" (Acetic acid.). These
are termed "concomitants" and are often of great use in determining the remedy.
26. A striking example of this relation of symptoms is found in the group "frontal headache, nausea, vomiting and high
fever". Singly these symptoms are among the most ordinary and common, but collectively they constitute a group
which is highly characteristic and points to but one remedy, namely, Veratrum viride.
27. A common symptom may be raised into the characteristic class by reason of its intensity. Thus burning pains,
common to many diseases and many remedies, occur more often and are more violent in cases needing Arsenicum alb.,
Carbo veg. and Sulphur. That motion aggravates sore and painful parts is quite to be expected; but when it is found
in such an aggravated degree that the slightest movement of a foot or a hand intensifies a remote condition such as
a headache, it becomes highly characteristic and indicates but one remedy, Bryonia.
28. Most sick people, those of a nervous type especially, are intolerant of noise. Therefore, aggravation from noise is of
comparatively little value as an indication. But when noise cause vertigo (unusual and peculiar), Theridion is the only
known remedy; if noise is felt as a shock in some special part such as the teeth, it is a characteristic indication for
Calcarea carb.
29. Dreams mean little unless they assume some peculiar form or the subject dreamed of is in itself peculiar. Thus the
patient requiring Calcarea sil. constantly dreams of dead relatives; the one which may be helped by Rhus tox. dreams
of hard labor or some strenuous exertion; by Hepar sulph., of fore; by Digitalis, Sulphur and Thuja, of falling from a
height.
10
30. The classification of symptoms may be further illustrated by the following diagrams.
(1. Fear
(2. Anger, etc.
(3. Sexual
(1. Emotional (4. Desires and
((of the will) (aversions
(
(relating to
(
(food, etc.
(Mental (
(
(
(1. Memory
(
(
(2. Thought
(
(2. Intellectual(3. Comprehension
(
(4. Illusions
(Characteristic
(5. Hallucinations
(
(
(6. Dreams
(
(
(1. Sensations
(
(
(2. Pains
(
(
(3. Peculiar pathology
General
(
(or tissue changes
symptoms
(B. Physical(4. Motions, Gestures,
(
(discharges, sweat, etc.
(
(5. Modalities
(
(1. Emotional
(
(A. Mental (2. Intellectual
(
(
(Common (
(1. Sensations
(
(2. Pains
(B. Physical(3. Common pathology
(4. Discharges, etc.
(5. Modalities
(1. Sensations
(2. Pains
(Characteristic
(
(3. Pathology
(
(4. discharges
(Particular (5. Modalities
symptoms
(
(1. Sensations
(
(2. Pains
(Common (3. Pathology
(4. Discharges
(Modalities
31. From all the symptoms, then, certain outstanding characteristics are employed as guides to the selection of the
remedy homoeopathic to the ailment and patient.
32. Having learned what signs and symptoms to look for an how to classify them and give them their proper place and
evaluation in the symptom picture, we are now ready to take up the subject of the examination of the patient in the
following lesson.
Lesson five - part one

1. The Homoeopathic Physician is one who adds the art of homoeopathic prescribing to his knowledge of medicine in
general; but a homoeopathic prescription cannot be made by following the usual methods of case-taking of the
ordinary physician.
2. The indications leading to the similimum are rarely found among the pathognomonic symptoms. Guiding or
characteristic symptoms may be brought out during the usual history taking and physical examination if this prime
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
11
objective is borne in mind. Therefore, it is preferable to elicit, record and classify the patient's symptom picture
before physical examination and diagnosis are attempted. Not only will this procedure obviate the natural tendency
toward giving too much weight to pathology and end products of disease, but it will often assist materially in making
a diagnosis.
In acute cases or in those suffering from some trivial ailment such as a coryza or a common cold, after determining
the nature of the ailment, making sure that it is not an acute manifestation of some underlying chronic malady, a few
well-directed questions may suffice to reveal the proper curative remedy.
Much depends upon the skill and thoroughness of the clinician, especially in the complicated or chronic case.
A noted Homoeopath once said, "A case well taken is half cured". Without characteristic symptoms, a record
covering several pages may be worthless, even to a master homoeopathic prescriber.
Experience has shown that it is best to allow the patient to tell his story in his own words, without suggestions or
interruption except to keep him on the subject. Direct questions or any which may be answered by "yes" or "no"
should not be asked. A lawyer in cross examining a witness leads him into making false statements by the mere form
of his questions. The same holds true of a physician examining a patient.
In the case of an infant, or one who is unconscious, allow attendants or relatives to describe the patient's actions, or
any symptoms which they may have observed. Keenness of observation is an asset. Every least detail of the patient's
actions; how he walks, the color of eyes, skin and hair, expression of the face, the tone of voice and the method of
expression; blemishes, eruptions, warts, formation of the finger nails, imperfections of the teeth, swellings, the
character of stool, leucorrhoea and perspiration may yield characteristic symptoms of his individual remedy. Write
down each symptom in a line by itself, leaving space where amplification may seem necessary.
Unaided by questioning, the patient seldom gives a full symptom picture. In fact, important deciding symptoms in the
case are often forgotten or not mentioned because they seemed foolish, trivial or inconsequential. When the
narrative is concluded, review each statement, amplifying or correcting until you are satisfied that the record is as
complete as possible.
Inquire as to habits of eating, drinking, sleeping, position in sleep, medicines previously taken, sickness that have
occurred during the patient's lifetime, and obtain a chronological sequence whether of previous attacks or the
present illness. Particular attention should be paid to mental states, sexual functions, the effects of grief, shock,
traumatism, unrequited love, marital infidelity, fright or insult. It is imperative to secure information regarding the
distinct character and location of pain and sensation and conditions which aggravate or ameliorate.
10. Part or all symptoms may be due to such drugs as morphine, calomel, cascara, quinine, camphor, aspirin, veronal, the
habitual use of snuff, tea or coffee. These should be discontinued and, if their effects are still evident, antidoted
before a true picture of the natural disease can be obtained. A case complicated with drug symptoms obviously is
much harder to cure.
11. It goes without saying that medicine cannot be expected to correct mechanical conditions. Therefore the physician
should look for removable causes, such as chronic appendix, foci of infection, hernia, haemorrhoids, malformations of
the bones of the nose, an unerupted wisdom tooth, enteroptosis, marked uterine prolapse, broken arches, floating
cartilage in the knee, foreign bodies, fractures, and so forth.
12. Neurasthenics, or patients of a nervous type, are apt to exaggerate. Do not reject their statements of strange or
grotesque symptoms or consider them due merely to "nerves", for some of these symptoms may be found in the
pathogenesis of remedies suitable in this type of case. The careful observer will not be led astray by the undue
emphasis of certain symptoms. In these cases especially, direct questions will spoil the record.
13. The timid or over-modest patient, and the one who has something to conceal are among the hardest to deal with.
14. Above all, avoid a premature conclusion as to what the remedy may be, for this is liable to lead to questions favoring
a remedy which may be entirely foreign to the case.
15. The case which presents much pathology is apt to be lacking in peculiar or characteristic symptoms, as for instance,
advanced Bright's disease, cancer, arthritis deformans and the like. Here the guiding indications may be found in the
history.
16. Where the disease has been suppressed by crude medication, a known homoeopathic antidote in potentized form or
a remedy prescribed on the symptoms present will probably reinstate the original symptom picture and sometimes
cure. Another remedy or a series of remedies may be required to complete the cure.
17. For illustration: A lady, thirty-seven years old, was afflicted with spasmodic asthma. Her history showed that some
time previously she had had eczema on the hands and fingers with deep cracks, a sticky exudates and some bleeding.
Graphites given over a period of several weeks stopped the asthma and brought back the eczema, which finally
yielded to Psorinum. Not only were asthma and eczema completely cured, but the patient's health was greatly
improved.
18. All symptoms, signs and case findings in a patient may become indicators or guides to the selection of the
homoeopathic remedy. Yet among all the symptoms complained of by the patient, elicited by the physician's
12
questioning, observed in his examinations and obtained from laboratory and other findings, there will be certain
symptoms more important and more valuable than others in remedy selection.
19. Remedies through their provings have given us similar symptoms, signs and findings, and the above paragraph will
also apply.
20. Hence homoeopathic prescribing is in reality the fitting of a remedy's prime indications to the symptoms of the
patient under consideration. It would seem very clear that the symptoms most characteristic of a ailment and
correspondingly characteristic of a remedy are of greatest importance in remedy selection.
21. The important symptoms in a given case are chosen from a complete recording of all the symptoms obtainable, the
classification of these symptoms as to whether or not they are characteristic or common, or general or particular;
and further sub-classification according to evaluation or importance in remedy selection. For instance, it has been
established that mental symptoms (incorporating sexual, emotional, will and memory) are highly valued general
characteristics.
22. After going through the record of a case, not those symptoms which are characteristic. Select the prominent
general characteristic; first the mental, then the strong physical; and add to these the particular characteristics.
The aggregate of these will point to the group of remedies to be studied. If one remedy stands out above all the
rest the prescription is easily made. If more than one, comparison should be made by a study of some good text book
of materia medica. If then the choice is uncertain, again go over the patient's record to see if there be any further
symptom which may help to differentiate. This may be found in the pathology, in the general type or temperament of
the patient, or it may be found in the history-physical. Symptoms which appeared years before, such as peculiar
headache, nausea following coitus, an early morning diarrhoea, may furnish the desired information.
23. If well taken, the record will contain at least a few characteristics. But when poorly taken or in cases not well
rounded, that is, in those presenting few or no characteristic or peculiar symptoms, common symptoms may be
utilized in determining the remedy. Here, especially, a good repertory proves invaluable.
24. Illustration: A chronic case with many symptoms presented only two which were truly characteristic, viz.: 1. "faint
empty feeling in stomach at 11 a.m. ", and 2. "burning of the soles of the feet". These are characteristic indications
for Natrum carb., Phosphorus and Sulphur. The patient complained of "weariness in morning on rising", "tendency to
take cold", and had a "general unwashed appearance". Although more or less common generals, these symptoms taken
together with the two characteristic above noted point conclusively to Sulphur.
25. The diagnosis is at times of assistance. More than a century of clinical experience has demonstrated that measles,
pneumonia, whooping cough, tonsillitis, diabetes, tuberculosis, and other diseases are covered by certain groups of
remedies. But these groups may not include the remedy demanded by some typical or unusual individual case. The
habit of prescribing a remedy chiefly because it is "good" for a certain disease has been one of the principal
hindrances to successful prescribing.
26. In recording symptoms for use in accurate prescribing, location, sensations, modalities, concomitants are essential.
1. The location of a symptom, as a rule, is readily determined and suggests a certain group of remedies. 2. A
sensation, such as "burning", "numbness", "heaviness", or "pulsating" as a rule suggests another group of remedies
some of which will be in the group suggested by the location. 3. Modalities, such as "motion", "heat", "cold",
"pressure", "time of occurrence" or "position" still further reduce the number of remedies to be considered. 4. The
importance of concomitants must not be overlooked for they may become the deciding factor in choosing the remedy
for a difficult case. Illustrations of concomitants were cited in Lesson Four, paragraphs 26 and 27. A symptom which
might be very common to a certain ailment, when found in connection with another ailment may become of great
characteristic value. For instance, thirstlessness is rather a common symptom. But when we thirstlessness
accompanying fever, which usually produces an intense thirst, we have a highly characteristic and important
symptom.
27. Take headache as an example. This is a "common particular" symptom. Many patients and many ailments present
headaches, and headache is a symptom common to many remedies. Its study under the schema or formula suggested
might be as follows:
1. Location: occipital, "common particular".
2. Sensation: pressive as if a plug were being driven into the skull is a "characteristic particular" occurring in few
complaints and found under few remedies.
3. Modalities: the patient is worse and the headache worse in the presence of other people, a "characteristic general"
symptom. The patient feels better and the headache is relieved in the open air, a "common general" symptom.
4. concomitants: with the headache there is vertigo, a "common general". Black spots floating before the eyes, a
"common particular". There is fear of a crowd, "characteristic general", and anxiety, a "common general".
28. We haven as the result of the use of our formula, selected, recorded and classified the principal symptoms
presented by the patient. If these symptoms are all found under the proving of some one remedy, the prescription is
13
already made. If, however, the symptoms encompass several remedies, a choice must be made. The case is checked,
other symptoms are elicited, the physical examination is made, the history of the onset and cause of the complaint is
studied, and laboratory and examinations are employed to determine underlying and predisposing causative factors.
29. If, for example, the symptoms elicited under the schema prominently suggest two remedies, these remedies each
may be studied in the Materia Medica and the one most suited to the patient and the complaint quite safely
selected.
30. There are other methods of remedy selection, including the exhaustive use of the Repertory in chronic cases and
those presenting a complexity of symptoms. In some cases the majority of symptoms will be inconsequential and
useless. Hence the advisability of the prescriber's learning to recognize the importance and value of symptoms as
they are recoded, regardless of the method of remedy selection employed.
31. Later in the Course these other methods will be presented. Throughout the study of homoeopathic prescribing it is
highly desirable to bear in mind that not only is homoeopathic prescribing an art, but that the practice of medicine is
an art as well. The true physician calls upon his intuitive artistry as well as upon his knowledge of mechanics,
mathematics, the sciences and the different branches of learning essential to his profession.
32. In fully 80% of the average complaints you will find it quite easy to make an accurate, effective prescription. As
you progress in study and experience this percentage will be increased, and the amount of time and study required
for arriving at the similimum will be proportionately decreased.
Lesson five - part two

1. In the administration of any therapeutic agent, dosage and repetition of dose are of utmost importance. In
administration of homoeopathic medicine, the potency of the remedy must be considered as well as the size of the
dose. Most homoeopathic medicines, when correctly chosen, act remedially in any potency. However, in most
instances, the choice of potency and the interval between doses stand newt in importance only to the selection of
the right remedy.
2. In these respects there is more latitude in acute diseases but the lower potencies are more generally used. In deep
seated chronic ailments it is usually necessary to employ the higher potencies in order to complete or perfect a cure.
3. Most mineral remedies, and those derived from the animal kingdom, including the nosodes, act better in the higher
potencies.
4. The beginner is likely to repeat too often and to continue the remedy too long, especially if he has been accustomed
to giving medicine in crude form for its gross physiological action. If the remedy is the right one and is given in a
suitable potency, the effect in acute disease is almost immediate; in the chronic, within a few hours or days
according to the nature of the ailment. In violent acute conditions, such as severe neuralgia, intense inflammation, or
sinking of vital forces, it may be necessary to repeat the dose every few minutes; twice or three times daily for
th
lower potencies; from the 30 up, a single dose or three doses an hour or two apart, followed by a placebo. The
safe way is to give the remedy until improvement is noted and then stop or lengthen the intervals between doses,
continuing with a placebo when it is evident that the patient is progressing favourably.
5. Perhaps the most difficult lesson that the homoeopathic prescriber has to learn is to wait on the action of the
remedy. Many cases have been retarded or spoiled by too frequent repetition or by a change to another remedy too
soon. In acute cases, one remedy is usually sufficient. Most chronic cases require a series of remedies for complete
cure. This is because so many factors are involved.
6. If the thirst prescription has relieved but fails to complete the cure, a new remedy must be chosen. This is usually
one which covers the remaining symptoms and mist if not all of those which have been removed. Certain remedies
similar in pathogenesis follow one another well; as of Sulphur, Lycopodium and Calcarea carb.; or Pulsatilla and Sepia;
or Hepar and Silica. These are termed "complementary". "Compatible" remedies are those which may be given in
succession without spoiling the case or interfering with its progress. This lass naturally includes the former, and is
called "compatible" in contra-distinction to "inimical", the term applied to remedies which should never be given in
succession. Examples are Causticum and Phosphorus; Mercurius and Silica. Either one given after the other will
produce untoward results. However, Mercurius is followed well by Hepar sulph., when a change in the symptoms calls
for its administration. If Mercurius has helped but has not cured, Silica may be given after the interpolation of a
few doses of Hepar sulph. Phosphorus may be given after Causticum if one of the antidotes of the latter (such as
Coffea, Dulcamara or Nux vomica) be first administered and allowed to act.
7. The Law of Probabilities plays an important part in homoeopathic prescribing. Given a certain symptom which may be
characteristic of two or more remedies, its value rests in the fact that it is more likely to indicate one than the
others. Thus, "burning" is more likely to be indicative of Arsenicum, Carbo veg., and Sulphur, than of Aconite,
Pulsatilla or Thuja. Through many years of clinical experience, symptoms have been given various degrees of ratings
14
which are indicated in the repertories by different kinds of type.

8. A knowledge of the changes that follow a prescription and how to interpret these changes, is of great importance.
Naturally one would anticipate improvement following the administration of a carefully selected remedy. In
homoeopathic practice, relief of symptoms alone is not sufficient. If the general condition of the patient is
unimproved the remedy selected is ill-chosen or the case is incurable.
9. If the patient reports improvement in sense of well-being, even though painful symptoms are not greatly benefited,
the remedy is acting curatively and should not be changed.
10. An aggravation of all or a part of the symptoms may result from the action of the remedy. In acute disease it will
subside in the first few hours and improvement will follow. In chronic cases the aggravation may persist for several
days.
11. A short aggravation followed by improvement indicates that the remedy is well chosen and is acting curatively.
12. A prolonged aggravation with slowly developing amelioration is a sign that the patient is on the borderline of
incurability, but has still sufficient vitality to react with the remedy; the potency given was too high for the feeble
reactive power of the patient; the initial stimulus was too strong. This is common in cases with well developed
pathology, especially in vital organs, as obtains in advanced pulmonary tuberculosis, cancer, septicaemia involving
lungs, liver or kidneys, myocardial degeneration, or cirrhosis of the liver.
13. A prolonged aggravation with subsequent decline of the patient may mean too high a potency has been employed or
more probably that the case is incurable.
14. A brief amelioration followed by aggravation denotes the wrong remedy, which however, was similar enough to
palliate. The record should be studied for a new remedy and an antidote if necessary.
15. A brief amelioration followed by reappearance of the original symptoms may indicate that a deeper acting or a
miasmatic remedy should have been given. The history should be reviewed especially in regard to hereditary taints
and previous illnesses, such as suppressed eruptions, acute inflammatory rheumatism, syphilis, tuberculosis or
gonorrhoea.
16. Illustration: In a case where Sulphur was apparently indicated but failed to produce satisfactory results, the
evidence of a psoric diathesis led to the study of the nosode, Psorinum, which effected a cure. In another where the
mother had had tuberculosis in her early youth, Silica was given with only partial relief. Tuberculinum transformed
the whole case and brought out symptoms which led to the administration of other remedies and complete recovery.
17. But we must not lose sight of the fact that every curative remedy, whether light or deep acting, acute or miasmatic
in nature, acts according to the law of similars. Therefore, in the instances just given, the symptoms indicating
Psorinum or Tuberculinum must in all probability have been present at some period of the patient's life, if not at the
time of the examination.
18. The aggravation following a well selected remedy, technically known as the "homoeopathic aggravation", includes only
symptoms that have already existed in the patient. The appearance of new symptoms therefore, is noted when the
remedy is the wrong one; when the potency is too low, too high or too frequently repeated; or the patient is
unusually susceptible. The remedy should be discontinued, and if severity of the aggravation warrants, an antidote
should be given.
19. Under the action of the homoeopathic similimum, symptoms disappear in the reverse order of their original
occurrence. "The last to appear is the first to go away".
20. usually, too, the internal symptoms (of the viscera) are first relieved, then those of the periphery. Also, symptoms
disappear from above downward (as shoulder, elbow, wrist, hand).
21. Illustration: (1) Arthritis which began in the right hip and extended to include the left hip should disappear from
the left hip first and the from the right. (2) A case of arthritis complicated with endocarditis recovers under the
administration of the correct remedy, first from the heart (viscera) symptoms, then from the joint (peripheral)
symptoms. (3) Arthritis involving all the joints of the extremity usually is remedied in the upper joints first.
22. In practice when short aggravation followed by ameliorations are frequently noticed and symptoms disappear in the
order mentioned in the preceding paragraph, the physician may know that he is doing good prescribing.
23. "Epidemic remedies" must be considered, for it is true that certain remedies are found to be especially indicated in
separate epidemics. For instance, Gelsemium and Bryonia were indicated in certain periods of the "flu" epidemic of
1918. Sometimes the complete picture of the epidemic remedy is not shown in every patient; by may be built up from
the symptoms of many.
24. We have endeavoured to set forth in the prescribing lessons the essentials of homoeopathic philosophy and their
practical application. It is impossible to make perfect prescribers in a brief course. No matter how complete the
instructions, they must be supplemented by practice and experience. A teacher of singing may describe the
intricacies of voice production, phrasing and interpretation, but only by long practice and persistent application will
the pupil become a finished artist.
15
Lesson six
Preparatory remarks
a. The action of the homoeopathic remedy is based upon the "Law of Similars". The knowledge of what each remedy is
to be prescribed for, is obtained by the experimental administration of small doses to healthy persons of both sexes
and of all ages, technically known as "provers"; with the addition of clinical experience of symptoms and conditions
not as yet brought out in the provings.
b. Thousands of physicians and scientific research workers have labored diligently in this field for nearly a century and
a half. The record of their findings constitutes the homoeopathic materia medica which now comprises over a
thousand remedies drawn from all the three kingdoms of nature, including not only those commonly known to be
active drugs, but also substances which are classified as inert in their nature or crude form. Many of these remedies
have been so thoroughly proven both experimentally and clinically that their complete therapeutic range seems
definitely to be established. These are known technically as the "polychrests" and are the remedies most frequently
called for in everyday practice.
c. The never remedies and those which have been only partially developed, are useful in unusual cases presenting
symptoms calling for their administration. It is the aim of this Course in Homoeopathic Prescribing to acquaint the
student with a practical working knowledge of the more important remedies, their individual characteristics and,
later, their application in the treatment of disease.
d. This knowledge may be broadened by individual study and practice and the reading in text books to be recommended
later in the Course.
e. The names of some of the remedies may be unfamiliar. This is due to the fact that many of the original provings
were made a hundred years ago, before the present nomenclature was adopted. In homoeopathic textbooks and
literature, these old terms have, for the most part, been retained. For example: "Natrum muriaticum" stands for
sodium chloride; "Kali carbonicum" for carbonate of potash, and so on. But, at the head of each lecture will appear
the scientific term by which the drug is known, its synonyms, it any, and the common names. This will obviate any
misunderstanding on the part of the student who has not been previously trained in a homoeopathic college.
f. The first paragraph of each Lesson gives the common name, habitat, part used, etc., and is merely for general
information and to assist the student in becoming acquainted with the remedy that is the subject of the lecture.
g. The physiological action briefly outlined in the second paragraph is a matter of general knowledge and may be found
in textbooks on materia medica.
h. The study from the homoeopathic standpoint begins with "General Characteristics", which sets forth in schema form
the essentials of the remedy and constitutes a key to its further study when more particular indications are added
to form a complete concept of its individuality and scope of usefulness. The student who masters this important
third paragraph is less liable to fall into the habit of prescribing mainly on the diagnosis or the name of the disease,
or into the unscientific practice of choosing a remedy from one or two prominent symptoms without due regard for
the general features which are so essential. The various kinds of type in the third paragraph are used to denote the
relative importance of the symptoms in the remedy under consideration, not only in the totality of the remedy itself
but as compared with the same symptoms to be found in others. Thus "Restlessness" so characteristic of ACONITE,
ARSENICUM or RHUS TOX., is given the highest rating or large capitals. The same symptom less characteristic, or
of less importance, in such remedies as Chamomilla, Ignatia or Nux is placed in the second degree by being printed in
Italics; under Arnica, Aloes, Bryonia, in the lowest degree by appearing in ordinary type.
i. On the typewritten page, "Italics" will be underlined, as shown above in the latter part of the preceding paragraph.
j. Lessons Six, Seven and Eight will be devoted to Aconite, Belladonna and Ferrum phosphoricum, the three great fever
remedies.
Aconitum napellus
1. Common Name: Aconite; Monkshood; Wolfsbane.
Natural order: Ranunculaceae, a family characterized by acrid and narcotic properties. Habitat: Moist pastures and
waste places in mountainous districts of Central and Southern Europe, Russia, Scandinavia and Central Asia. Part
used: Tincture of whole plant except root when beginning to flower. Alkaloid: Aconitine.
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Physiological action
2. Antipyretic, diaphoretic and diuretic. Taken internally it produces tingling and numbness of the lips and mouth and an
increased secretion from the salivary glands. From large doses there results a sense of constriction about the
fauces with pain in the epigastric region, nausea and vomiting. The heart's action is at first slowed but later it
becomes rapid and weak. The arterioles are contracted. The respiratory centers are depressed under large doses
and, as a result, the respiration are slow and shallow. It produces an anxious expression of the countenance, and
cold, pallid skin covered with perspiration. Death from Aconite poisoning is due to paralysis of the respiratory center
from direct action of the poison, although this may be aided by anaemia of the medulla due to imperfect circulation
in its contracted arterioles.
General characteristics
3. Short acting but violent. Full blooded, robust constitution. Ailments due to violent cause: DRY, COLD WINDS;
FRIGHT; ANGER; SHOCK; Getting chilled while sweating; FEAR; ANXIETY; AGONIZED RESTLESSNESS;
SENSITIVENESS TO PAIN; IRRITABILITY; delirium. CONGESTION: INFLAMMATION without suppuration.
HIGH FEVER with unquenchable thirst. Sensations: Numbness, FORMICATION, TINGLING, prickling, enlargement
of parts, heat of affected parts, general coldness. Pains: Lancinating, cutting, stitching, burning. Haemorrhage,
bright red, arterial. Paralysis.
Worse: Evening and NIGHT. VIOLENT EMOTIONS; warm room, warm wraps; being CHILLED; from drinking cold water;
RISING UP IN BED; NOISE; touch; light; jar, stepping; lying on the affected side; during dentition.
Better: in the open air; warmth; repose; warm sweat.
4.
Fear is the dominating feature of Aconite. Fear with trivial as well as intense suffering. Fear with no other symptoms
at all - unreasonable fear accompanied by agonized restlessness and tossing about. Predominantly fear of death, but
it may be fear of the dark; fear of being run over by vehicles on the street; of a crows, or a vague apprehension of
impending evil; fear amounting almost to an obsession. The patient may even predict that he is to die. With this fear
is associated an anxiety, in most cases extreme in its intensity, expressed in every feature and every action of the
patient. The flushed face wears a look of anguish and there is incessant hurried motion of the body. Add to this a
full, bounding pulse, rapid heart action, raving delirium and high temperature, and have the cardinal indications for
this remedy - those which are especially to be kept in mind in making the prescription. When once understood and
firmly fixed in the mind, they will furnish the key for the application of Aconite, irrespective of diagnosis. They are
characteristic of the typical fully developed case.
5. Every remedy has its pace or the time required for its action to become manifest in the provers, and the length of
time its effects continue. Thus we have in general two classes, short acting and long acting remedies. Aconite
belongs to the first class. Its pace is rapid, its course too short to give time for tissue change, but the picture it
presents as a rule is one of violence and intensity. For this reason it is called for in the ailments of plethoric, robust,
full blooded individuals who react quickly and vigorously to the disease-producing factors above enumerated. In
other words, those who get sick suddenly, those who are subject to sudden and acute congestions, with rapid
mounting of the temperature, burning thirst and the ever present mental picture of fear we have described.
6. These patients when ill, develop the sthenic type of fever which is the reaction of a strong heart and sensitive but
vigorous nervous system to some profound impression. For this reason, the ailments for which Aconite is suitable are
almost invariably the result of exposure to intense dry cold, to the biting wind of zero weather, the getting chilled
while perspiring in hot weather, some violent emotion such as fright or anger, some acute infection, a stunning blow
on the head, or shock following a surgical operation.
7. Exposure to dry cold wind will cause coryza, croup, headache, pleurisy, pneumonia, articular rheumatism, etc. Fright
will bring on vertigo, cause griping, an urging to stool or actual diarrhoea, uterine haemorrhage, or even a
miscarriage.
8. It must be borne in mind that in this remedy we have simple inflammation and congestion only, though always acute
and painful. Just so soon as suppuration begins, Aconite ceases to be indicated. No remedy can take its place in
infectious diseases, such as measles, arthritis, pneumonia, or cholera infantum where the onset is rapid and of great
intensity and the above cardinal symptoms are present. In septicaemia, typhoid, and conditions distinctly asthenic,
Aconite has no place, and we must resort to remedies to be considered later in this Course.
9. Sensations of numbness, crawling, tingling, as general features may be found in any part of the body, but especially in
the lips, tongue, finger tips, hands, arms; in the left arm with cardiac hypertrophy; the lumbar region of the back or
down the spine; the limb affected with acute rheumatism; in the paralysed part.
17
10. In addition to heat and great sensitiveness, there is often a sensation of enlargement in the suffering member due
evidently to the intense congestion. The aching head feels full and big; the hot, red face feels swollen though it is
not; the pounding heart too large for its environment.
11. A general sensation of heat would be natural with the hyperpyrexia that characterizes the Aconite case. But it is
especially marked in the affected area, the part which bears the brunt of the attack - in the tense, red, swollen
joint, sensitive and subjectively hot; the inflamed throat, the heart, the chest in pneumonia, or general heat of the
skin with dryness. The opposite also obtains. Coldness in various parts; of the hands and feet; of the tongue as if
cold air were blowing upon it. Sensation as though ice water coursed the blood vessels, when the temperature
registers 103 to 106; or as though ice were on the skin.
12. The typical pains are sharp, violent, cutting, tearing, or burning like fire, and so violent as to drive the sufferer to
distraction.
13. With the intense arterial excitement and congestion described above, we can readily imagine that there is marked
tendency to haemorrhage. It is bright red, hot, purely arterial. Epistaxis, sudden in onset, with fear; coryza with
bloody discharge from the nose; bronchitis or pneumonia with the expectoration of pure arterial blood; cystitis and
blood in the urine; stools of pure blood; uterine haemorrhage.
14. Aconite is, at times, a remedy in paralysis, but it is functional paralysis brought on by dry, cold wind, fright, or some
one of the causes already noted. It is accompanied by coldness, numbness and tingling of the affected members. If
these are absent, Aconite will seldom do good in paralysis.
15. Every well proven remedy has its times of aggravation and remission, some even to the hour. This constitutes a very
important phase in their study from the homoeopathic point of view. General aggravations in Aconite come after
dark. The anxiety, the restlessness, the pains, begin to increase as twilight advances and reach their acme towards
midnight. The fever usually runs higher at this time. The pains, even before they become severe, seem to drive the
patient to despair; all the sensorial impressions are exaggerated. A light touch on the inflamed area, the swollen
joint, or the abdomen in peritonitis, causes great pain; light shining into the congested eye causes the patient to
cringe and increases the eye pains and the associated headache or neuralgia. Noise in intolerable. The adult will say
that the sound of the piano seems to penetrate every limb and causes the head to throb with greater violence; the
child will scream at the sound of a musical instrument or the slam of a door. However, this is not so market as in
some of the hypersensitive remedies to follow, so we have placed these aggravations in the schema, in italics.
16. Jar is akin to touch as is also lying on the affected side. Touch or pressure aggravates. Hence the patient suffering
from a right sided pleurisy remains on the opposite side as long as his restlessness will permit. The value of this
observation will be realized when we come to study other remedies, especially Bryonia alba.
17. Motion is also an important source of exacerbation, for all affected local areas are exceedingly sensitive. But it is
also of general significance. The act of rising up from recumbent posture causes vertigo and faintness, even syncope.
This is evidently circulatory for at the same time the red face turns pale.
18. The patient is worse from both heat and cold. The apparent contradiction here needs a word of explanation. A warm
room or wraps that are too heavy, increase the headache from suppressed coryza, the eye troubles - which, by the
way, may be due to getting overheated - also the chill. Yet uncovering increases the chill or brings on chilliness and
aggravates the rheumatic pains.
19. Open air affords some relief of catarrhal headaches and sweat, particularly that on the head. But toothache,
arthritis, muscular and neuralgic pains are made worse. Therefore, in general the catarrhal and congestive symptoms
are made worse by warmth and a warm room, and are better in the open air; while neuralgic and rheumatoid
sufferings are the reverse.
20. Definite indications for the use of Aconite appear here and there in the general study. The following are added to
assist the student in prescribing this remedy.
21. High fever, trembling, fear of death or of the dark, often fright, threatened miscarriage, suppression of the
menses; the after-effects of fright when the "fear remains".
22. One cheek red and hot, the other pale and cold.
23. Decided chill followed by high fever with dry, hot skin and great thirst. Later warm, profuse, critical sweat which
relieves all symptoms.
24. These indications are frequently met with in the first stage of pneumonia or pleurisy when Aconite is the remedy.
Harsh, dry cough; quickened, labored respiration; heat and soreness in the chest; pressive, burning pains or a
sensation as though boiling water were poured into it. Sputa serous, bloody or blood-streaked - never thick or
purulent.
25. Pleurisy characterized by stitching, stabbing pains usually in one spot in the thorax; aggravated by the least motion,
even yawning. Fear of death and always with sudden rise in temperature. Short, quick, superficial respiration always worse lying on the affected side.
18
26. Haemoptysis from exposure or in pulmonary tuberculosis.

27. Aconite is one of the first remedies to be thought of in the early stages of croup. The child is roused out of sleep
with sharp, barking cough, red face, anxious fear and restlessness. Croup due to exposure to cold, dry winds or in
seasons when the days are warm and the night cold.
28. In diarrhoea or cholera infantum, Aconite is a useful remedy when the typical mental symptoms are present. The
stools are green and watery, with colic which no position relives, or consist of green masses like chopped spinach.
Violent tenesmus. As a rule all symptoms are relived after stool, excepting those of anxiety and restlessness.
29. Aconite is often the first remedy in measles. The catarrhal symptoms, cough and general characteristics decide the
choice.
30. Jaundice of new-born infants, as also retention of urine, seldom require any other remedy. Since the cause may be
chill from being suddenly placed in a temperature several degrees lower than that of the uterus, these fall readily
under the general sphere of the remedy. Other remedies useful in these and other conditions will be given and
compared later in the Course.
31. Aconite is one of our most potent prophylactics. It may be given before the exact nature of the ailment becomes
evident. Thus:
32. In coryza, if administered in the first few hours when there is little more than chilliness and scant, watery
discharge from the nasal passages, it will often abort the whole process.
33. Various acute eye affections will yield in the same manner, provided the causes is: (1) cold air, (2) an active
infection developing quickly, (3) an injury.
3. The effects of injury to the eye merit special attention. For bruises or injury to soft parts, Arnica is the best
remedy; to the eyeball, Aconite. After surgical operations, a blow causing acute inflammation, and the irritation from
foreign bodies in the eye such as a bit of steel or a cinder. The typical symptoms are injection of the sclera which
may be, at times, blood red; exquisite sensitiveness, burning pressure and shooting pains, especially on moving the
eyeball; marked photophobia but no exudation or pus.
35. Aconite is a wonderful heart remedy when the symptoms call for it in endocarditis, pericarditis and pseudo-angina.
Besides the characteristic pains and generals, the guiding indications are numbness and tingling of the left arm
extending to the fingers, oppression of the heart and palpitation, even syncope. It is useful in uncomplicated cardiac
hypertrophy. In hypertrophy with valvular disease, it may do great harm.
36. The Prime Indications for ACONITE are:
Fear of death.
Anxiety.
Restlessness.
Painful inflammation.
Numbness and tingling.
High fever with dry skin and rapid bounding pulse.
37. Antidoted by: Acetic acid, Alcohol, Paris quad., Actea racemosa.
It antidotes: Belladonna, Chamomilla, Coffea, Sulphur, Veratrum album.
Complementary to: Arnica (injuries to the eye); Coffea (analogue; sleeplessness, intolerance of pain): Sulphur, which is
its "chronic".
Lesson seven
Belladonna
1. Common Name: Deadly Night Shade. Natural Order: Solanaceae. Habitat: Europe. Grows in ruins and waste places.
Part used: Tincture of the whole fresh plant when beginning to flower. Alkaloid: Atropine.
2. Belladonna is a mydriatic, an antispasmodic, irritant, narcotic and anodyne. In small doses it is a spinal, respiratory
and cardiac stimulant. In large doses its paralyses both voluntary and involuntary motor nerves. The temperature is
elevated and a diffused eruption like scarlatina often appears on skin and fauces. It produces congestion and dryness
of the mouth, nose, throat and larynx. Its primary action is to diminish the secretions of stomach and intestines but
later causes increased flow. Reflexes are at first stimulated and later diminished. The cardiac intrinsic ganglia are
stimulated and inhibition of the vagus lessened, thereby the heart rate is markedly increased. Peripheral capillaries
19
are contracted and arterial tension raised. Eventually, however, over-stimulation induces paralysis of the
vasomotors, relaxation of blood-vessel walls and lowered blood pressure. At last there is complete motor paralysis,
hallucinations, delirium, stupor and death from asphyxia.
3. Sensitive, nervous women and children with blue eye and light hair; young or full-blooded persons. SUDDEN
VIOLENT ONSET. CONGESTION WITH REDNESS, HEAT, THROBBING AND HIGH FEVER. Extreme thirst;
thirstlessness or aversion to liquids. RIGHT SIDED COMPLAINTS. IRRITABILITY, RESTLESSNESS, FEAR, WILD
DELIRIUM, HALUCINATIONS, nervous excitability. HYPERAESTHESIA of sensory nerves; STARTING, JERKING,
TWITCHING OF MUSCLES, SPASMS, CONSTRICTION OF HOLLOW ORGANS, OF ORIFICES.
Sensations: Of a ball in internal parts; OF HEAVINESS OF INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL PARTS.
Pains: THROBBING, STITCHING, CUTTING, STABBING, COMING AND GOING QUICKLY; PRESSIVE; from within
outward; wandering; BURNING.
DRYNESS OF MUCOUS MEMBRANES; HAEMORRHAGE. Discharges: Scanty, HOT. PULSE RAPID, FULL, BOUNDING.
Paralysis.
Worse: AFTERNOON, 3P.M. ; NIGHT; after midnight; BRIGHT LIGHT; TOUCH; JAR; MOTION; lying down; LYING ON
THE AFFECTED SIDE; RISING UP; COLD DRAFTS; OPEN AIR; SUDDEN CHANGE OF WEATHER (from warm to
cold); heat of the sun; LETTING THE PART HANG DOWN.
Better: WARMTH; REST IN BED; BENDING BACKWARDS; IN THE FORENOON; LYING DOWN; IN SITTING
POSITION.
4. Belladonna is marked by sudden and violent onset and rapidity of action. Patients who most often require this remedy
are sensitive, intellectual and inclined to be plethoric. Consequently, they are subject to congestions and run a high
temperature when ill. This is particularly true of children with large heads and puny bodies, who learn quickly, sleep
fitfully, are apt to scream out at night and develop a temperature at the slightest provocation.
5. This is because Belladonna acts primarily on the cerebrospinal nervous system, producing cerebral congestion,
increased heart action and violent arterial excitement. The type of patient described in paragraph 4 reacts more
readily to the remedy in "provings", and to the sudden chill or the infection capable of producing Belladonna
conditions. Whatever the type of constitution, the characteristics must determine the choice.
6. Belladonna, like Aconite, is never indicated in asthenic fevers and seldom in chronic ailments. Unlike Aconite, it may
still be indicated after the formation of pus.
7. Inflammation and congestion are accompanied by intense, burning heat, vivid redness ant throbbing. Indeed,
throbbing could have been emphasized by red letters in our scheme of generals, for it occurs with greater or lesser
intensity in all Belladonna cases. The head, the swollen face, the throat, the inflamed stomach, appendix or
congested uterus pulsate with such violence that the sufferer is driven almost to distraction. Some of the provers
complained of throbbing all over the body.
8. There is throbbing in the threatened abscess, and when pus begins to form, Belladonna may be still indicated. Pus in
these cases develops with amazing rapidity. This in itself should at once suggest the remedy. What seemed to be a
simple tonsillitis, in a few hours becomes quinsy; an inflamed finger, red, swollen and exquisitely sensitive, soon
presents all the symptoms of a felon. The rapidity of pus formation makes Belladonna a useful remedy in cellulites,
phlegmonous inflammation or erysipelas, when pus burrows quickly between muscles, skin and fasciae. At first bright
red and shining, the overlying skin becomes dusky or even purplish as venous stasis advances, but the pulsating,
burning and hyperaesthesia persist. In a word, nearly all Belladonna complaints are congestive in origin, even the
vertigo.
9. Of no less importance is hyperaesthesia. The sensory nerves, normally over active in these patients, become
increasingly sensitive when they are ill, and receive every external stimulus in an exaggerated degree. This, we have
general soreness of the reddened skin (as in scarlet fever) and of all inflamed areas; photophobia, even more marked
than the condition would warrant; ears so sensitive that every sound causes an increase of the pain or seems to
strike into the brain, causing it to throb.
10. Symptoms calling for the prescribing of Belladonna occur predominantly on the right side of the body. Tonsillitis,
earache, pneumonia, inflammation of lymphatic glands, erysipelas, arthritis, ovaritis and other affections are more
apt to occur on the right side. However, the fact that the ailment appears on the left side des not contraindicate
this remedy when the cardinal symptoms of Belladonna are present.
11. The mental state is clear cut and easily recognized. Nervous excitability is the keynote. The child starts and cries
out in sleep or rouses suddenly as from a fearful dream, clutching the air, trembling and looking wildly about. This is
plainly due to beginning cerebral irritation and congestion and is the harbinger of some serious illness, the exact
nature of which may not, as yet, be determined. Belladonna is here the efficient prophylactic and will usually abort
20
the whole process if given early enough.

12. If not checked the fever continues to rise, running sometimes to 105 or 106, restlessness increases and what was
at first only nervous excitement passes into wild and furious delirium with fiery, red face, suffused eyes, bright and
shining, widely dilated pupils; screaming in fear at imaginary objects, barking like a dog, biting or gnawing at the
spoon when medicine is offered, tearing the bed clothes, trying to escape. Occasionally the patient becomes quiet
and closes the eyes but only for an instant. There is a start, a shriek and the delirium returns. When asked what
happened the patient will frequently say: "I se such horrible animals, spectres and faces stating at me every time I
try to go to sleep". This often occurs even when there is little fever and the mind is comparatively quiet. But few
remedies have this peculiar symptom. Therefore, it is a prime characteristic.
13. The class of diseases falling within the sphere of Belladonna is easily recognized. Acute mania, infections which are
characterized by high temperature and delirium, puerperal sepsis and other violent affections excepting typhoid
fever and diphtheria. In the latter two, Belladonna can only be palliative and its administration in these diseases is
only a waste of valuable time.
14. To the novice, the symptom just described may seem to resemble those of Aconite. But there are essential
differences as will appear later. There may be abject fear but it is the natural result of the severity of the
patient's suffering and especially the hallucinations which beset him. The small child may not be capable of naming
them definitely; the adult will say that are animals, ghosts, spectres or hideous faces. At first only on closing the
eyes, later with the eyes open, these apparitions seem to be in the room. There is more violence in the Belladonna
picture; of rage, fury, or fits of insane lamentations, groans, or boisterous laughter, rapid talking; again, timidity,
suspiciousness, and disinclination to talk. Aconite presents more of apprehensiveness, anxiety, fear of death, or less
characteristically, ecstasy and exaltation.
15. As the disease gets the upper hand and the vital forces wane, fury and rage give way to somnolence, boring of the
head into the pillow, drawing back of the head from half closed or wide open and staring. Grinding to the teeth,
chewing motions, the pupils dilated until the iris is a mere line of color, twitching and jerking of the muscles of the
face and extremities are also frequent concomitants. Gradually the red face assumes a purplish hue and is covered
with hot sweat and convulsions and even deep coma supervene. So marked is the affinity of Belladonna for the head
that there is a constant tendency for its involvement. Whether the diagnosis be meningitis, spotted fever, sore
throat, septicaemia or scarlet fever, head symptoms will be present. But even in profound unconsciousness there is
some twitching, some muttering and jerking. If perfectly quiet, Belladonna is not the remedy.
16. Spasm is a marked general characteristic. It ranges from the twitching of individual muscles to major tonic or clonic
convulsions, and, through the sympathic, contractions and spasms of non-striated muscular fibers. The latter effect
may account for the sensation of constriction in internal organs and their orifices, the intestines, the uterus, the
vesical sphincter, the gall duct or ureters. Atropine with morphine crude are used for the relief of gall stone colic.
In potency, Belladonna, the parent of Atropine, will relax quickly and naturally, when the symptoms call for it, in such
conditions as spasmodic constriction of the os uteri impeding labor; contraction in the region of the navel in certain
forms of colic, as if ball would form; spasm of the small bowel simulating strangulation; spastic colitis.
17. From irritability and in-coordination of muscles we have spasm of the throat impeding deglutition, and of the larynx,
almost stopping the breath and threatening asphyxiation.
18. But there is a sensation of constriction where actual muscular spasm is not possible. Thus, headache as of a strap or
band about the head, constriction of the upper part of the chest as an accompaniment of bronchial affections,
pneumonia or heart disease.
19. Sensation as of a ball in inner parts is in line with the above. Sensation of a ball in the bladder, in the back of the
pharynx, at the umbilicus.
20. Sensations of fullness occur in any affected part, but especially in the head, the throat, the ear, the heart.
21. Heaviness is most marked in the extremities, the head, the eye balls, the chest with oppression of breathing, and in
the uterus.
22. The pains of Belladonna are usually throbbing, stitching and stabbing. Pains of this character are found also in some
other remedies. In Belladonna, however, although they may shoot above downward or from within outward, or
migrate from one location to another, they are more apt to recur in paroxysms, which quickly rise to an acme of
unbearable intensity and pass off with equal rapidity. The more peculiar a symptom, the more characteristic it is.
Pains rapidly rising and falling are peculiar to only a few remedies, and belladonna stands at the head of the list.
Whenever, in neuralgia, headache or colic, the pains appear and disappear in this manner, Belladonna is most likely to
be the similimum and will act with astonishing rapidity.
23. Pressive pains may be found less often but are, nevertheless, an important indication for this remedy. Heavy,
pressing pains in the head, in the chest, the pressure in the back between the scapulae are notable examples.
24. Dryness of mucous membranes is an ever present characteristic of Belladonna in such ailments as coryza, sore
21
throat, stomatitis, vaginitis, and other affections even when the mucous membranes are not the seat of the ailment.
In labor, miscarriage or ovarian disease, the vagina is hot and dry and very sensitive to the least contact. Belladonna
patients are often thirstless and may have an absolute aversion for all liquids even though the mouth and throat be
dry; again, they may take frequent sips of cold water to relieve the dryness. However, during the fever thirst is apt
to be extreme, at times unquenchable.
25. Dryness of mucous membranes is an early symptom in cases of belladonna poisoning. Therefore, discharges from the
nose, throat, rectum, vagina, are apt to be scanty. This may help in differentiating Belladonna from similar remedies.
In Aconite, for instance, the coryza is fluent and profuse, the diarrhoea more copious, the leucorrhoea copious,
tenacious and yellow.
26. But the term "scanty" does not apply to haemorrhage. The terrific arterial congestion of Belladonna predisposes to
profuse outpouring of bright, red blood from any orifice of the body. Thus we have copious bleeding from the nose,
the ear, the mouth, the eyes, the throat, the chest; profuse menses; sudden, alarming haemorrhage during or after
labor or miscarriage; bleeding from an abscess that has opened. The striking peculiarity of the Belladonna
haemorrhage is that it often feels hot to the patient. It is always bright red, although at times as in uterine
haemorrhage, there are small dark clots mixed with the fluid blood.
27. The principal general aggravations as to time are in the afternoon and night. Prosopalgia or other pains recur daily
at 3 p.m. ; fever recurs at this hour or rises as the night progresses. Delirium, rheumatoid pains, restlessness, colic,
are apt to be worse towards midnight and thereafter; cough wakens the patient at 11 p.m. But there is a remission
of all symptoms during the forenoon.
28. The aggravation from touch has been sufficiently emphasized. The effect of jolting or jarring is almost a sine qua
non in this remedy. It is one of its chief diagnostic features and, whether the inflammation or congestion be
confined to the ear, the hand, the ovary, the uterus, to a single joint, or to the larger area of the abdomen,
sensitiveness to jar is invariably present. If the physician inadvertently brushes against the bed or the nurse walks
across the floor with less care than usual the patient complains bitterly. Several remedies are sensitive to jar, as
for instance, Aconite; but Belladonna heads the list.
29. The Belladonna patient is very sensitive to cold. Even during fever he wants to be warmly covered. A sudden change
of weather, especially from warm to cold, or being chilled while sweating, may be the exciting cause of any of the
complaints calling for Belladonna. Headache or stiff neck from washing the hair or having it cut are examples.
30. Aggravation from the heat of the sun applies particularly to head complaints and to heat prostration, which present
the Belladonna picture.
31. Motion needs little comment, for practically every symptom is aggravated thereby. Conversely, rest or repose
usually ameliorates.
32. Lying down relieves the dyspnoea, the pains in the back and elsewhere, and at times, the headache; but since the
matter is intensely congestive it is usually worse in the recumbent posture. In Belladonna head conditions, we usually
find the sufferer sitting bolt upright in bed or in a chair. The cough and irritation of the chest are apt to be
increased in a recumbent posture.
33. Bending backward is of less importance as a modality, but in some instances is a source of relief to the headache,
the dyspnoea, the cough and the colic.
34. Aggravation from letting the part hang down refers particularly to affections of the limbs and the full feeling that
nearly always accompanies them. Not only are the parts exceedingly sensitive, but gravity increases the congestion
already present. Therefore the patient with a felon sits immovable with the hand in an upright position.
35. In the beginning of a fever Aconite is preferable when there is anxiety, restlessness and fear of death, with full,
bounding pulse. There may be some hallucinations, some crying out in sleep or muttering due directly to the high
temperature. The skin is dry and very hot. But with Belladonna, there is more starting and subsultus tendinum; the
crying out is sudden as from a fright, and the restlessness is characterized by sudden jerking and swift movements.
While the Aconite patient fears death, the one requiring Belladonna rather courts it - asks to be put out of his
misery. The skin of the Belladonna patient is so hot that it burns the examining hand, and gives forth from under the
covers a pungent, steaming heat that is unmistakable. He may sweat profusely, especially in rheumatism. But, if the
Aconite patient perspires, it is a critical sweat that gives immediate relief. The Belladonna patient in later stages
may lapse into coma; the Aconite subject rarely, unless death is imminent.
Special indications
36. In addition to indications already given, the following are of value in prescribing Belladonna:
Dry mouth especially after sleeping; with or without thirst.
Hot head and cold limbs.
Backache as though the back would break.
22
Colic relieved by bending backwards.

Acute pain in left hypochondrium, or pressive pain in the nape of the neck during cough.
Cough ending in sneezing.
Skin red and sensitive to contact.
Sleepy but cannot sleep.
Sweat only on covered parts.
Therapeutic indications
37. Periodic nervous headache with fever, red face and vertigo, worse in stooping bursting, throbbing, stabbing, worse
from the least motion from jar and lying down.
38. Epistaxis with red face, fullness and congestion to the head; copious bright red blood, worse at least jar, motion,
noise or bright light.
39. Tonsillitis and quinsy; right side, parts deep red with great dryness, constriction especially on swallowing liquids,
which are apt to return through the nose; swollen, sensitive cervical glands.
40. Colic in infants; pains coming and going quickly; child involuntarily bends backward and shrieks; clawing, clutching
pains in the umbilical region.
41. Laryngitis and tracheitis: dry, spasmodic cough from tickling in the larynx or sensation as if down were in the
throat. Waking from sleep (often at 11 p.m. ) with red face and throbbing headache on coughing. Night cough in
children; whooping cough; the child cries before the paroxysms; bleeding from the eyes, nose or mouth.
42. Dysmenorrhoea with severe pains preceding flow coming and going quickly; strong bearing down as if everything
would be forced through vagina; menses bright red copious, hot; frightful visions; fever; flushed face and other
Belladonna characteristics.
43. Scarlet fever: skin dry, bright red, smooth, sensitive to touch and so hot that it burns the hand; severe sore
throat; throbbing headache; backache; twitching; delirium "strawberry tongue" (coated white with red edges,
papillae showing through). The best prophylactic in this disease.
44. Abscesses, swellings, mastitis, erysipelas, with smooth redness often radiating in streaks to surrounding parts.
45. Enuresis, usually after midnight; restless sleep; crying out.
46. The Prime Indications for BELLADONNA are:
1. Sudden onset.
2. Congestion, redness, burning heat; pulsation.
3. Sensitiveness to touch, light, jolt or jar.
4. Twitching of muscles; convulsions.
5. "Overexcitement and too great sensibility of all the nerves".
47. Antidoted By: Camphor; Coffea; Hepar sulph.; Hyoscyamus; Opium; Pulsatilla.
It Antidotes: Aconite; Antitoxin; Arum tryph.; China; Cuprum; Ferrum; Hyoscyamus; Mercurius; Opium; Platina;
Plumbum.
It Follows Well: cuprum; Hepar sulph.; Lachesis; Mercurius; Phosphorus; Nitric acid.
Is Followed Well By: China; Chamomilla; Conium; Dulcamara; Hepar sulph.; Hyoscyamus; Lachesis; Rhus tox.; Senega;
Stramonium; Valerian; Veratrum alb.
Complementary: Calcarea carb. (which is its chronic analogue).
Incompatible: Vinegar.
Lesson eight
Ferrum phosphoricum
1. Common Name: Phosphate of iron, Ferric phosphate.
2. Preparation used: Triturate of the pure drug.
3. Anaemic subjects, liable to local congestions. Hilarity; indifference; hopelessness; physical and mental depression;
difficult concentration; impairment of memory. CONGESTION, passive, inflammation; FEVER; thirst.
Weakness: prostration.
23
Sensation: heat; burning.

Pains; pressive, pulsating; shooting; stitching.
Dryness of mucous membranes. Haemorrhage. Discharges; bloody. Anaemia. Varices: phlebitis. Dropsy.
Ailments from getting chilled; from injuries; from loss of vital fluids.
Worse: NIGHT; morning; cold; touch; jar; motion; while standing.
Better: cold applications; warmth; gentle motion: while lying down.
4. The outstanding features of Ferrum phos. are passive congestions; inflammations; fever or pains and anaemia with
red face. Like Belladonna and Aconite, it is indicated in the first stage of inflammatory processes before exudation
has taken place, but its action is of longer duration than that of these two remedies, and indeed, deeper, for it is
useful in diseases that have persisted for a number of years. Formed as it is by the chemical union of iron and
phosphorus, it retains some of the characteristics of both and adds new and distinctive features of its own;
features that are not found in either of the parent drugs.
5. Thus we have two phases to consider. The acute, with more or less sudden onset, high temperature, flushing of the
face, congestion, active inflammation. The chronic, presenting recurrent or subacute inflammation, anaemia and
other manifestations of a psoric diathesis.
6. But the congestion of Ferrum phos. is not the surging of blood into the affected part, driven by an increased heart
action as with Aconite and Belladonna; but passive, due to relaxation to the annular fibers of the blood vessels both
arterial and venous. This fact explains the greater part of the Ferrum phos. pathology. The whole system is relaxed
and weakened by its action. The blood becomes deficient in haemoglobin. The brain, excited in acute febrile states,
later becomes sluggish and functions imperfectly. Even diarrhoea is produced by a relaxation of blood vessels of the
intestinal walls. The patient, instead of being plethoric and robust, is more apt to be anaemic and lacking in physical
vigor. For this reason Ferrum phos. ailments are characterized by great weakness, malaise and a sense of indolence
and apathy. There is indifference to mental or physical labor and the ordinary affairs of life, even to pleasure, and a
great desire to lie down. Exertion or effort aggravates all the patient's complaints and motion increases his pains.
There is little of restlessness. If fear is present, it is only when in a crows of people or at night as a sense of some
impending evil. If there be anxiety, it is because the patient is beset with the idea that he has done wrong to
someone, and worries about it. Frequently he is irritable even to violence, but more often the mental state is one of
complacency, or dullness and difficulty in finding the right words and inability to concentrate.
7. More important, however, is a tendency to loquacity and mirth. Children coming down with measles or capillary
bronchitis with red face and high fever, joke, laugh and chatter as though they were not ill. But the fever and red
face give ample evidence of the beginning of a serious condition. They keep up a constant stream of conversation,
but it is not the vehement loquacity of such remedies as Belladonna. In both Belladonna and Ferrum phos. beginning
cerebral hyperaemia is the cause, active in the one, passive in the other. It is amazing how quickly a few doses of
Ferrum phos. will bring down the fever and restore the patient to health when above indications are present.
8. Redness of the affected part is constant in acute manifestations; and even with little temperature, the influence of
the parent iron is shown by flushing of the face. Flushing with mental excitement; with pain in some distant part of
the anatomy; during the cough, or from no apparent cause at all. Ferrum phos. pictures the easy flushing so often
observed in anaemia and chlorosis.
9. In acute diseases, the fever may reach 106 or higher. The causative factor is usually a sudden chill, the checking of
perspiration on a warm summer day, the effects of such traumatism as a fall, a heavy blow or over-lifting. Again it
may be due to an acute infection. Thus, Ferrum phos. becomes a remedy with a wide range of usefulness, especially
in the diseases of childhood.
10. Dryness of mucous membranes with thirst accompanies most of the acute conditions calling for Ferrum phos. It is
noted in coryza; in sore throat; in pulmonary affections; in arthritis and affections involving the female genitals; and
always with redness and throbbing.
11. Ferrum phos. pains may be pressive but more typically pulsating, stitching or shooting. They may shoot downward or
upward as in sciatica or muscular rheumatism. Pulsation is almost as marked a feature as in Belladonna. Stitching
pains may occur anywhere in the body, but especially in the chest on deep inspiration or coughing; in the swollen joint
on motion; heat, throbbing and shooting pains in the soft parts surrounding a fractured bone. We can learn a lesson
here in the rational selection of a homoeopathic remedy. Arnica, as we shall learn in a future lesson, is the remedy
must often used for bruises and shock following injury. But when the injured member is swollen, hot and throbbing,
and before there is any ecchymosis, Ferrum phos. will relieve more promptly, because of its power to remove
congestion. Arnica may be indicated later.
12. The Ferrum phos. patient has a market tendency toward haemorrhage. Passive arterial bleeding from the nose,
throat, gums, larynx, lungs, or stomach. Haemoptysis, whether due to tuberculosis or to an injury, will be quickly
checked by Ferrum phos. if the other guiding features are present. The flow is less profuse than when Aconite or
Belladonna is indicated. In exceptional cases of otitis media, with agonizing pains, Ferrum phos. may obviate the
24
necessity of paracentesis. The cavity of the middle ear may be filled to bursting with blood and, perhaps muco-pus.
Swelling and congestion in the Eustachian tube recede and with drainage once more established, the pent up fluid
finds a natural exit. Ferrum phos; is frequently of benefit when Epistaxis accompanies an acute coryza or a sinus,
also when Epistaxis occurs in the morning after rising, on blowing the nose, from coughing or sneezing; or when
nose-bleed relieves a congestive, frontal headache. Again in gastritis with vomiting of blood or food mixed with
blood; and bleeding from the rectum, with or without the presence of haemorrhoids. In pneumonia, bronchitis or
phthisis florida, the sputa are almost always more or less blood streaked. The menses are bright red, copious and
premature; leucorrhoea bloody. The Ferrum phos. haemorrhage is peculiar in that blood coagulates with surprising
rapidity into a gelatinous mass.
13. The Ferrum phos. patient, usually anaemic, cannot withstand the loss of blood or other vital fluids. We have
dynamis, headache and even dropsy as the after effects of haemorrhage.
14. The tendency to relaxation in the Ferrum phos. subject is seen in both veins and arteries, differing from Aconite
and Belladonna. It has cured naevi in children, unaided by external treatment and varicose veins, especially un young
people. In the early stages of phlebitis, it is promptly efficacious when there are fever, local heat and tenderness
and the general Ferrum phos. constitution.
15. The right side is principally affected, again reminding us of Belladonna. Violent congestive headache on the right
side of the head; toothache on the right side; arthritis of the right shoulder; inflammation of the right ovary.
16. The general aggravations as to time occur at night and in the morning. Rheumatic pains, fever and cough are worse
at night. Epistaxis and perspiration are apt to be worse in the morning, the aggravation occurring from 4 to 6 a.m.
17. The Ferrum phos. patient feels the cold severely, especially on top of the head and in the back. Headache, neuralgia,
lameness and stiffness of the neck and shoulders or in the small of the back are induced by sitting in a draft of cold
air. The cough is worse from cold and in the open air unless the weather is warm. Conversely, warmth and plenty of
covering make the patient comfortable in general. However, his pains are almost invariably better from cold local
applications. This is an important distinction to bear in mind for amelioration of painful symptoms from heat is
common to many remedies. This modality places Ferrum phos. in a small group, and as a consequence, becomes a
strong characteristic. The various forms of headache are better from cold applications; the toothache is relieved by
holding cold water in the mouth; rheumatoid pains and neuralgia are mitigated by cold compresses.
18. The desire to lie down is not entirely due to weakness. The Ferrum phos. patient is worse while standing, not only in
general but as to head, abdominal and urinary symptoms. It is one of the best remedies for diurnal enuresis in
children with frequent painful urging while on the feet, ceasing as soon as the little patient goes to bed.
19. The Ferrum phos. subject is aggravated by effort of exertion. Active motion increases his sufferings, especially
those of inflamed parts. But gentle or slow motion often relieves. This is an illustration of the apparent
contradictions which are sometimes found in the homoeopathic materia medica, but which, when properly understood
become most valuable guiding indications.
20. Aconite and Belladonna may be distinguished from Ferrum phos., first by the mental symptoms. Aconite presents
more of anxious restlessness and fear of death; Belladonna of hallucinations and tendency towards mania. The mental
symptoms of Ferrum phos. are almost the opposite of these. Although all three are aggravated by cold, motion,
touch and jar, Belladonna is by far the most painfully responsive to all sense impressions and stands highest as far as
touch and jar are concerned. Only Ferrum phos. is ameliorate by cold applications and gentle motion. The pulse of
Aconite is full, rapid, bounding; that of Belladonna quick, hard and "bullet-like"; while the Ferrum phos. pulse is full
and flowing.
21. Threatening hydrocephalus. (See paragraph 7).
22. Rachitic children that gradually become weak, lose weight and appetite, and are inclined to flush in the face but
present no other signs of disease.
23. Beginning of acute colds (Aconite and Belladonna).
24. Pressing pain on the vertex with copious early menses, dragging down in the pelvis and dull pains in the ovaries.
25. Cholera infantum; stools watery, bloody or lienteric; after checked perspiration.
26. Mumps, especially the right side; flushed face; fever.
27. Gonorrhoea; initial stage with scant, watery or mucous discharge; heat and burning in the urethra; deep redness of
the meatus and urethral mucous membrane and at times bleeding.
28. Broncho pneumonia, capillary bronchitis or phthisis florida; heat and heaviness in the chest; hot pains;
circumscribed redness of the cheeks or flushed face; cough lose and rattling; sputa purulent, blood streaked. Is
useless when cyanosis begins.
25
29. The Prime Indications of FERRUM PHOS. are:

1. Passive febrile congestion.
2. Anaemia.
3. Flushing of the face.
4. Aggravation from motion; amelioration from gentle motion.
5. Aggravation in general from cold; amelioration of pains by cold applications.
30. Complementary: Bryonia.
Followed Well By: Bryonia.
Lesson nine
Arsenicum album
1. Common Name: Arsenious Acid; White Arsenic; White oxide of arsenic.
Preparation used: Solution and trituration.
2. Applied to the skin, arsenic acts as a caustic and produces violent inflammation with sloughing of the parts. When
small doses are taken internally it has a tonic effect upon the nervous system and circulation, increasing the flow of
saliva and gastric and intestinal juices, stimulating peristalsis, and improving digestive and nutritive functions. Toxic
doses produce violent gastro-enteritis with nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, dryness of the mouth and throat and
burning in the stomach. The heart becomes irritable and weak and fatty degeneration of the heart muscle ensues.
The red corpuscles of the blood are decreased in number and the blood is rendered less coagulable. The urine
becomes scanty, albuminous and bloody; the skin dry and scurfy. This is followed by herpetic, eczematous or
urticarious eruptions, bronzing and exfoliation. The hair and nails may fall. The nervous system is also profoundly
affected with disorders of motor and sensory functions and depression of the respiratory centers, tremors and
multiple neuritis. Toxic doses increase the bodily temperature, although the extremities are cold. Death from
arsenical poisoning follows exhaustion and collapse. The poison is found in the urine, saliva, tears and sweat. Fatty
degeneration is general affecting kidneys, liver, stomach, heart and muscles particularly.
3. Antipsoric, antisycotic, antisyphilitic. Late stages of disease. Ailments from suppression of eruptions, discharges
from mucous membranes and foot sweat; septic infection; cold food and ice water; decayed animal matter; abuse of
quinine, tobacco and alcohol. MARKED WEAKNESS AND PROSTRATION; ANXIETU; RESTLESSNESS; fear;
impatience; irritability; hurry; SADNESS; LOATHING OF LIEFE; INDIFFERENCE; suicidal impulses;
hypersensitiveness; imbecility; INSANITY; SUSPICIOUSNESS; AVARICE; delirium; UNCONSCIOUSNESS.
Coldness; coldness of single parts; coldness of the affected parts.
Pains: BURNING; LIKE HOT NEEDLES OR WIRES; pressing; tearing, stitching, DRYNESS OF INTERNAL AND
EXTERNAL PARTS.
Discharges: ACRID, SCANTY; OFFENSIVE. PERIODICITY. EMACIATION: emaciation of the affected part.
TREMBLING: twitching; jerking; CONVULSIONS. Paralysis. ANAEMIA; CHLOROSIS; Haemorrhage: haemorrhagic
diathesis. Varices: EDEMA; DROPSY. INFLAMMATION: erysipelatous: ulceration; GANGRENE. Fatty degeneration.
Induration; CANCER; MALIGNANCY.
Eruptions: VESICULAR; HERPETIC; ECZEMATOUS; moist; scabby; PUSTULAR; DRY; ITCHING; BURNING;
desquamating; URTICARIOUS.
Worse: TWILIGHT; NIGHT; AFTER MIDNIGHT, 1 to 2 a.m. ; COLD; BECOMING COLD; COLD AIR; COLD FOOD;
COLD DRINKS; LYING DOWN; lying on the back; lying on the painful side; PHYSICAL EXERTION; CLIMBING
MOUNTAINS; STAIRS; motion; rising up; touch; VOMITING; after stool; AFTER EATING; after drinking; from
ALCOHOLIC STIMULANTS: during menses.
Better: Evening and during the day; OPEN AIR; WARM FOOD AND DRINKS; HOT APPLICATIONS; motion; RISING
UP; from perspiration; IN COMPANY.
4. Arsenic was know as early as the eighth century. It was used to some extent as a remedy for certain diseases of
cattle, but does not appear to have been employed in the treatment of human beings until nine hundred years later,
5.
6.
7.
8.
26
when it came into vogue as a local application in malignant ulcers and skin diseases, and internally as "cure" for
intermittent fever. Our present knowledge of its action shows that these uses were founded on some definite
information, however obtained, of the capabilities of the drug, but the want of any definite rule for practice and the
large and frequently repeated doses in which it was administered resulted in so many cases of poisoning, many of
them fatal, that the "faculty" became alarmed and condemned it as "unsafe". But housewives and irregular
practitioners continued to employ the white arsenic, and were in many instances so successful that it was eventually
reinstated and again became a "safe remedy". It is now in general use by the old school principally in the form of
arsenite of potash, or Fowler's solution and salvarsan and its modifications. This fact, together with its employment
in the manufacture of green pigment (arsenite of copper) for wall papers, carpets, cheap paints, etc., as a cosmetic
and for hardening tallow candles, is undoubtedly the cause for many cases of chronic arsenical poisoning. But juts
such "unsafe" remedies as this one, in the hands of the homoeopath, resolve themselves into some of the most
powerful weapons of his armamentarium, and in the case of Arsenic he is especially fortunate in the possession of a
wealth of information for its application in the treatment of the sick. Its provings, replete with finer symptoms,
supplemented by the records of innumerable cases of both acute and chronic poisoning, afford an accurate picture
of the full effects of the drug, even to gross pathology, more complete than is obtainable within the range of the
homoeopathic proving. No remedy has a wider and more varied field of action. Acute diseases of most violent type:
zymotic, malarial and septic infections; the resultants of alcoholism; of repercussion of eruptions and sweat; the
psoric, sycotic and syphilitic miasms, all come within its curative range. It has cured lupus and cancer in the earlier
stages, and has palliated when a cure was impossible. To understand why, let us consider the Arsenicum patient.
He is anxious, restless, weak, pale, emaciated, chilly. The restlessness is due to anxiety which seems to seek relief in
motion. It ranges from a slight, uneasy shifting to frantic gesticulation and running about. One of the first
symptoms to appear, this restlessness persists even after the advent of unconsciousness. Always moving; from room
to room, from bed to chair, from chair to bed, and when too weak to rise or turn his body, this poor tortured mortal
keeps hands, head or feet in constant motion. The anxiety and restlessness are most marked in acute diseases, but
are always aggravated during exacerbation of chronic ailments and, in fact, by any stress or suffering. Restlessness
and anxiety present during pain may increase, at times, to abject despair.
Weakness also varies at different times and under different circumstances from slight faintness to absolute
prostration. It is nothing extraordinary to find weakness in a chronic invalid or in one who is affected with violent
acute diseases, but in Arsenicum the weakness is out of all proportion to the apparent cause. The slightest demand
upon the nervous energy, a little physical effort, a toothache or slight pain, a coughing spell, not necessarily a severe
one; a scanty diarrheic stool; an attempt to rise up in bed, or vomiting, are followed by sinking of the vital forces, in
some instances even to syncope. Even when comparatively well, continuous effort such as climbing mountains, perhaps
in conjunction with the effects of rarefied air, may be followed by prostration, flushes of heat, chilliness,
sleeplessness and palpitation. Therefore symptoms such as weakness and lack of endurance, which in other remedies
are merely "common generals", in Arsenicum become highly characteristic by reason of their almost preposterous
exaggeration.
The very nature of the typical arsenical individual conduces to the development of symptoms-indicating Arsenicum.
Always more or less nervous, hasty and impulsive, these traits are intensified when he is ill. He is easily offended,
irritable, quarrelsome, easily startled, extremely sensitive to pain. The slow phlegmatic person does not feel keenly.
The excitable, impulsive, sensitive individual whose sensory nerves are unduly shocked by ordinary impressions is the
one who is apt to be restive under suffering.
Fear in the Arsenicum patient is associated more or less with the anxiety and restlessness. Fear as of one who had
committed murder, fear of some awful calamity, fear of disease, fear of a crowd of people, fear at night and during
fever, but especially fear death. With all this anxiety and alarming weakness, death seems to him inevitable. At
times there is overwhelming sadness and hopelessness, a conviction that the disease is incurable and medicine
useless. This favors the contemplation of suicide, especially when alone. Fear when alone, that he will die or will do
himself harm, relieved when others are about him. On the other hand, the hopelessness and utter misery of mind
and body may be accompanied by a state of indifference to life or to everthing that would naturally be considered as
delightful. This is not infrequenly a symptom of typhoid fever. When it appears in the later stages, Arsenicum is to
be considered.
9. A study in detail of the picture which such a case presents will illustrate and emphasize other important
characteristics of the remedy. The image of death is stamped upon every feature. The eyes are sunken and glassy,
the face ashy pale or yellowish and cold to touch, the lips, mouth and tongue parched almost into immobility. The
patient is constantly sipping cold water through a drinking tube, well knowing that if the attempts to sit up he will
fall back in a faint. Black sordes cover the teeth and gums. Water rolls audibly into the stomach causing pain, and at
times is immediately vomited. There are burning in the stomach and bowels; scanty, acrid, watery diarrhoea filling
the room with an odor that suggests the presence of a corpse; oozing of dark liquid blood from the orifices of the
27
body; cold, clammy sweat, or pungent heat and dryness of the skin, which feels like a piece of parchment; low
muttering, more rarely wild delirium, worse after midnight. Ghosts and devils appear before him. Intense
restlessness, anxiety, irritability, peevishness and hopelessness make recovery seem out of the question. From
stupor with involuntary defecation and micturition, he gradually lapses into total unconsciousness. Although it
portrays a desperate case of typhoid fever, this picture may be equally indicative of Arsenicum in a case of
diphtheria with the added symptoms of dark and shrivelled membrane and gangrenous throat; in pneumonia with
threatened paralysis of the lungs; in septic infection or other ailments of asthenic type tending toward dissolution
and death. Such symptoms are not found, as a rule, in the earlier stages of disease. If given too early and therefore
when not indicated, by its powerful depressing effect, especially in repeated doses of a low potency, it may work
irreparable harm.
10. Arsenicum, like many other of the polychrests, is useful in mental disorders. The symptoms indicating insanity are,
for the most part, exaggerations of these that characterize the mental state. No homoeopathic remedy has the
power of changing or regenerating a man's natural character, but it can readjust the changes therein incident to
disease. Therefore avariciousness, common in many Arsenicum patients, will not be affected by the exhibition of
that remedy unless exaggerated into a form of insanity; and so with suspiciousness. If however, these vices are the
direct result of a diseased condition and not of natural disposition, we may count upon their entire removal with the
rest of the symptoms. The Arsenicum insanity frequently takes the form of melancholia with irritability, despair of
salvation, intense anxiety and restlessness. Again, it may be of a more active type with violent fits of anguish; of
rage; fear of ghosts, especially at night; endeavor to escape imaginary pursuers; and visions of phantoms, ghosts and
devils; of countless vermin which he throws away "in handfuls". Impulse to commit suicide or murder. The mother has
a sudden impulse to kill her child; the barber, standing with razor in hand, must exercise strong effort of will to
resist the temptation to cut his customer's throat. Later these impulses may prove uncontrollable.
11. Arsenic is a wonderful remedy for the chronic effects of alcohol. Mania a potu in old offenders with irritable
stomachs, diarrhoea, emaciation and weakness.
12. The unconsciousness of Arsenicum occurs in its most alarming phase as the precursor of dissolution, as in typhoid
fever described above; but the profound asthenia predisposes to fainting or loss of consciousness under other
circumstances. Fainting or loss of consciousness may occur in a patient not bedridden. For instance, apparently
without cause a woman suddenly sinks down in a faint on the floor. Loss of consciousness immediately preceding the
spasm is one of the indications for Arsenicum epilepsy.
13. By no means the least important feature of this remedy is its terrible, burning pains. Burning in the brain, in the
head, face, jaws, throat, oesophagus, stomach, abdomen, skin, uterus, urethra, or rectum; no part of the organism is
exempt. Neuralgic pains like hot wires forced through the nerves; burning as of hot needles thrust into the part;
burning in the spine like a stream of hot air rising upward. Eruptions itch violently, and when scratched the itching
gives place to burning; ulcers burn unbearably. The Arsenicum burning is usually accompanied by inflammation; it is
not a mere abnormality of sensation.
14. Pressing pains are less characteristic; they occur especially in the forehead, occiput, hypochondria, stomach and
chest.
15. Coldness is one of the essential features of this drug, as already indicated. The intense coldness of cholera or
amebic dysentery finds an exact counterpart in Arsenicum. Coldness as if ice-water were coursing through the
blood-vessels; internal coldness while the skin does not feel cold. There are also the more definite symptoms of
localized coldness and coldness of the part affected. Coldness of the forehead, of the face, the chest, the abdomen,
the knees, the feet, the soles of the feet, and elsewhere.
16. Arsenic given to healthy persons in the crude form or the potency, dries up the secretions of mucous membrane and
skin. Hence the violent and unquenchable thirst, the dryness of the nasal cavities and pharynx; the dryness of the
conjunctiva, which often causes a sensation as if sand were in the eye; the roughness and dryness of the skin which
at times feels like parchment; and the general tendency toward scanty discharges. In the chronic case there may be
thirstlessness, but it is nevertheless accompanied by dryness of mouth and throat. In the acute case, thirst is one
of the most prominent symptoms. It may be a vehement unquenchable thirst. The patient desires cold water but, if
taken of too freely, it causes distress in the stomach and is immediately vomited. It may be due solely to the intense
burning and dryness of the mucous membranes, relieved temporarily by moistening. Hence, drinks are taken in small,
but frequently repeated sips.
17. Sometimes, acridity and foul odor apply to the discharges in Arsenic. The coryza is scanty, hot and acrid; the tears
feel hot and cause smarting of the eyelids; the leucorrhoea is scanty and offensive and corrodes the labia; the
diarrheic stools are small, stink like carrion and cause the anus to burn like fire; the discharges from ulcers are
scanty, ichorous and smell like rotten meat; the menses are scanty, acrid and foul.
18. The ability of Arsenicum to cope with malarial fever was discovered centuries ago. But provings and clinical
experience have shown that the periodic return of many of the symptoms need not arise from a malarial plasmodium.
28
Arsenic has weekly or bi-weekly headaches that appear with unfailing regularity. In intermittent fevers the
paroxysms occur every day, every other day, or every fourth day, coming regularly at 2 a.m. , at noon, or at 3 p.m.
Neuralgias, whether malarial or not, may occur in the same regular fashion.
19. Emaciation in general is observed in the well developed chronic case, and in the acute case it comes on with
surprising rapidity. Arsenic is one of the remedies that has emaciation of the affected part. Although the patient
may be thin, the affected part may be still thinner.
20. Pulsations or throbbings may be painless, or painful with inflammation and congestion.
21. Trembling is a marked characteristic of Arsenicum. Jerking of the limbs on going to sleep is a frequent concomitant
of many ailments. Convulsions when met with may be clonic or tonic; they may be hysterical, uraemic, epileptiform or
truly epileptic. We have already mentioned (paragraph 12 chk) a peculiarity of grand mal when Arsenicum is the
remedy. The sensation of warm air streaming up the spine into the head is also a premonitory sign or aura.
22. With irritability of mind comes irritability of fibre. As a consequence there is a tendency to constriction and
spasmodic action of circular muscles, especially in the alimentary tract. Vomiting is seldom free or easily
accomplished. Instead there is retching, acutely painful from contraction of the cardiac orifice, eructations are
abortive and cause great distress. Swallowing may be impeded, or the bolus of food descending only part way is
forced back again by spasmodic action of the oesophageal walls. There are also constrictive sensation in the stomach
and spasmodic closure of the anus with ineffectual attempts at passing the stool. In the respiratory apparatus we
have constriction of the glottis as in laryngismus stridulus, and of the bronchi in asthma; constriction in the
precordium as in angina pectoris.
23. On the other hand, in typhoid the sphincters are relaxed and stool and urine pass unnoticed by the patient. The
tongue and muscles of the pharynx may also be affected as shown first by thickness, and later by loss of speech.
Paralytic conditions of the sphincter vesicae result in enuresis, and of the detrusor muscles, in urinary retention.
Arsenicum should be thought of in retention of urine after confinement; the generals must, of course, decide the
choice. Paralysis of the lungs is frequently a symptom in old people with hypostatic pneumonia. Arsenicum has saved
the lives of many patients with post-diphtheritic paralysis.
24. Arsenicum has a profound effect upon the blood, reducing the number of its red corpuscles and destroying its
coagulability. Hence it has been found of value in anaemia, even of the pernicious type, and in haemorrhage. The
blood is usually dark and fluid. The petechiae, the Epistaxis, the oozing of blood from the gums and haemorrhage
from the bowels suggest the low zymotic conditions which Arsenicum suits so well. Even the ulcers bleed easily; and
the woman, in spite of her scanty menses, has a pronounced tendency to metrorhagia.
25. Arsenicum is one of our prime remedies in both ascites and anasarca. Whether the result of cardiac or renal
disease, or of some toxaemia, oedema is frequently observed in cases where the remedy is indicated. Swelling of the
loose tissues beneath the eyes is very characteristic of this remedy.
26. Arsenicum is frequently indicated in cancer. Inflamed areas are liable to assume an erysipelatous character or
become gangrenous. This conforms to the deathward tendency of the remedy. Gangrene of the lungs with horribly
fetid expectoration; gangrene of the tongue; of the throat in diphtheria; dry gangrene of old people, coming in spots
which gradually turn black; gangrene of the toes, slowly encroaching upon the foot. Arsenicum will put a stop to this
slow death of tissue, even in the old worn-out invalid. If the tissues are past regeneration it will hasten the
formation of the line of demarcation and the sloughing off of the useless part.
27. Fatty degeneration is another phase of the destructive tendency of Arsenicum. Fatty degeneration of the heart; of
the kidneys; of any organ.
28. Induration is most frequently met with in ailments of malignant or septic nature. They appear as hard nodules in
lips, face, breasts, uterus and elsewhere. They soften the surface, and form ulcers which open and discharge putrid,
ichorous, sanious pus.
29. Arsenicum produces in its provings the burning pains and typical cachexia of cancer. In the earlier stages it is
capable of curing, and when cure is impossible it is an effective palliative.
30. The ulcers of Arsenicum are, as a rule, not deep but they tend to spread or become serpiginous. Ulcers in the
throat and mouth, on the cornea, about the nares; ulcer of the stomach; little ulcers on the tips of the fingers, on
the glans and prepuce. All these ulcers burn as if they were being cauterised.
31. Powerful poisons, such as septic matter, zymotic infection and the ptomaine, require deep-acting remedies like
Arsenicum. The results of eating spoiled cheese, meat or sausage are effectually combated by Arsenicum when the
symptoms agree. No remedy is more frequently indicated for wounds with burning, tearing pains, enormous swelling,
induration of tissue and adjacent lymphatic glands with tendency to gangrene.
32. Arsenicum is sometimes a remedy for the effects of suppressions. The suppression of a coryza is likely to ultimate
itself in an attack of asthma. The repercussion of pression of herpes or foot-sweat. In scarlatina or measles when
the eruption is slow to appear and is likely to recedes again, with the appearance of petechiae, prostration, coldness,
29
anxiety and restlessness, Arsenicum is indicated.

33. By far the most important time of aggravation is after midnight, or 1 to 2 a.m. The anxiety, the restlessness, the
fever, the pains, the dyspnoea, the cough, the diarrhoea are all worse at that time. Occasionally the fear, anxiety
and despondency increase a dusk, or when objects assume the weirdness due to falling darkness.
34. Cold in any form aggravates intensely. The cough, the pains, the asthma, the diarrhoea, the vertigo are all made
worse by cold. Cold drinks bring on cough and aggravate the throat, stomach and bowel symptoms. Cold food, such as
ice cream, induces gastralgia, gastritis, diarrhoea; and either cold drinks or food increase the Arsenicum chill. The
congestive headache is the only important exception; it is better from cold local applications.
35. While lying down the anxiety and restlessness become unbearable and rheumatic and neuralgic pains are worse.
Motion increases chilliness, headache, faintness, constrictive feeling in the chest, and is sometimes attended with
flushes, but relieves gouty and rheumatic pains in the limbs and, to some extent, the anxiety and restlessness. Lying
down aggravates, especially neuralgia of the face, toothache, dyspnoea, palpitation and dry cough. Lying on the back
makes the chest symptoms still worse. Lying on the affected side is a source of aggravation when there are
sensitiveness and inflammation.
36. The effect of rising up in bed and physical exertion have been sufficiently emphasized.
37. After eating there are soreness, heat, bitter taste in the mouth, nausea, pressing pain in the stomach, sensation of
fullness up to the throat, aversion to even the smell of food, vomiting or immediate urging to stool. After drinking,
urging to stool and nausea are also evidence. Warm drinks relieve, but cold drinks feel like a lump of ice in the
stomach and are immediately ejected. Drinking wine or other alcoholics causes marked aggravation.
38. During menses physical weakness is marked; there are toothache, sharp stitches shooting from the rectum to the
vulva or pubes, and stinging, cutting pains in the hypogastrium, sides of the abdomen or back.
39. The amelioration of Arsenicum need but little comment. Open air relives the dyspnoea, headache and heaviness of
the head, humming and buzzing in the ears; but all other symptoms, the dyspnoea included, are made worse if the air
is cold. The characteristic general amelioration is from warmth, even the burning pains are relieved by it.
40. Rheumatic pains are somewhat relieved by perspiration, and in intermittent fevers all previous symptoms are
mitigated as soon as the sweat appears.
41. The student will readily perceive that Arsenicum, because of its deep and searching power, corresponds to
conditions that tend towards death and occur only in serious acute ailments, or in the course of chronic disease.
Exceptions to this are found in acute colds, bronchitis and the early stages of certain fevers of the milder type
lacking sthenic quality which characterizes Aconite and Belladonna. In a few instances, however, Arsenicum may
resemble Aconite, as in the early stages of a continued fever. The skin is hot and dry; the pulse full and rapid; and
the patient is anxious and restless. Aconite may have been given but without results. The fever continues to rise,
the patient grows weaker, drinks little and often; the tongue becomes brown and typhoidal symptoms develop.
Arsenicum is clearly the remedy.
42. A few special indications are here given to assist the student in applying Arsenicum in practice.
43. Coryza: Stuffiness of the nose; thin, watery discharge, excoriating nares and upper lip; burning and soreness of
nostrils; profuse lachrymation; burning of eyes; frequent sneezing; dryness of mouth; loss of taste; chilliness,
especially after drinking cold water; weakness.
44. Gastritis: Burning in the stomach like coals of fire; sharp, shooting pains, worse from drinking cold water;
distressing heart burn; vomiting of everything eaten or drunk; faintness after vomiting caused by chilling the
stomach with ice cream or ice water; after eating spoiled meat, sausage or shell fish; ptomaine poisoning.
45. Enteritis, cholera, cholera infantum; stools of thick, dark brown mucous, or brownish-black, watery and extremely
acrid. Vomiting after eating or drinking; cholera or dysentery with sinking of vital forces; coldness of the surface of
the body with internal burning heat; cold, sticky sweat; cholera infantum with the above symptoms; skin dry, harsh,
yellow or tawny; rapid emaciation.
46. Asthma: paroxysms after midnight; pallor; prostration, sweat, anguish, inability to lie down.
47. The Prime Indications for ARSENICUM are:
1. Anxiety, restlessness, fear of death.
2. Burning pains, aggravated by cold and ameliorated by heat.
3. Faintness, prostration.
4. Itching, burning skin eruptions.
5. After midnight aggravation.
6. Lack of vital heat.
7. Burning thirst; drinks little and often.
30
48. Antidoted by: Camphor; China; Ferrum met.; Graphites; Hepar sulph.; Iodine; Ipecac.; Nux vom.; Sambucus;
Tabacum; Veratrum alb.
It Antidotes: Carbo veg.; Ferrum met.; Graphites; Hepar sulph.; Iodine; Ipecac.; Lachesis; Nux vom.; Mercurius;
Phosphorus; Sambucus; Tabacum; Veratrum alb.; lead poisoning.
Is Follows Well: Aconite; Agaricus; Arnica; Belladonna; Chamomilla; China; Ipecac.; Lachesis; Veratrum alb.
Is Followed Well by: Nux vom.; Iodine; Rhus tox.; (skin disease) Sulphur.
Complementary: Carbo veg.; Phosphorus; Thuja; Secale.
Lesson ten
Carbo vegetabilis
1. Common Name: Vegetable Charcoal.
2. Preparation used: Trituration; higher potencies in dilution.
3. Antipsoric; antisycotic; antisyphilitic.
Persons who are sluggish, obese, lazy.
AILMENTS FOLLOWING EXHAUSTING ACUTE DISEASES; from over-eating; rich foods; salt; tainted meat; from
debauchery; alcohol; loss of vital fluids; onanism; sexual excesses; ABUSE OF QUININE, MERCURY; from getting
overheated; ailments of old people.
Late stages of disease.
Debility: PROSTRATION; fainting; coma.
VENOUS PLETHORA; VARICES; cyanosis; haemorrhage; anaemia.
icy coldness.
DULLNESS; weakness of memory; ANXIETY; irascibility; sadness; weeping; INDIFFERENCE; restlessness.
Sensation: Numbness; tingling; constriction.
Pains: BURNING; pressing; constricting; tearing; stitching.
Emaciation: of affected parts.
Induration of lymphatic glands; cancer; ulcers; carbuncles.
SEPTICAEMIA; gangrene.
Offensive discharges.
Worse: MORNING; night; EVENING; cold; cold drafts; warm room; warm, wet weather; warmth; getting overheated;
during and AFTER eating; fats; rich foods; alcoholic beverages; walking in the open air; intolerance of clothing around
the abdomen.
Better: cool air; open air; repose; ERUCTATIONS.
4. Carbo vegetabilis is a typical example of the results obtained by homoeopathic potentization. In its original or crude
form it is nothing more than charcoal made from birch or beech wood and, compared with Arsenicum and other
powerful poisons, is relatively inert. Yet, when potentized, it becomes one of our most efficient and deep-acting
polychrests, with a therapeutic range which extends from an ordinary cold in the head or a simple flatulent
dyspepsia to conditions simulating death itself.
5. The deodorant and antiseptic properties of wood charcoal were known before Hahnemann made his first proving and
demonstrated its marvellous powers in the cure of disease. The fact that powdered charcoal applied locally will
greatly reduce the horrible odor of foul ulcers or cancerous tissue that has begun to break down, undoubtedly led
him to believe that it would prove to be a useful medicine when given in homoeopathic doses. This also illustrates the
fact, frequently observed, that the effects of a drug in crude form are often an index to its homoeopathic inner
quality or nature. The use of popular remedies, almost without exception, is founded upon some inherent curative
power which they possess. Scientific provings only add to the known effects and widen the field of their application.
The two grand characteristics of Carbo vegetabilis are disintegration of tissue and putrefaction, which explain many
of this cardinal symptoms.
6. Debility, putrid decomposition and venous plethora are the basic features of this remedy and indicate the class of
diseases that it will cure. They are diseases of a low type like typhoid fever, typhus, ptomaine poisoning, septicaemia
intermittent fevers of long standing where quinine has been misused, disorders of the liver, or old cases of syphilis
31
aggravated by the effects of massive doses of calomel and the last stages of pneumonia. It is especially suited to
those weakened by debauchery, the over-eating of rich foods, onanism and sexual excesses, to old drunkards, and to
women exsanguinated by post-partum haemorrhage or metrorrhagia. Thus also, it is adapted to the ailments of old
people who are weak and debilitated and are unable to with stand the effects of dissipation or serious acute disease.
7. the typical Carbo veg. patient is fat, sluggish and lazy. His mind works slowly. He remembers with difficulty the most
ordinary things. He cannot arouse himself to activity and has an aversion to mental or physical effort. A short walk
prostrates him, causes him to feel faint and cold and he must lie down. He faints from slight causes; on first moving
about in the morning, even while still in bed. He is indifferent, unaffected by things pleasant or horrible. The
simplest food causes headache, pyrosis, nausea, fullness, heaviness and burning in the stomach and later flatulence
almost to bursting. His pale face flushes to the roots of the hair from a sip or two of wine. Every little draft of air
causes coryza or laryngitis or occipital headache, and yet he is unable to stand being overheated.
8. The weakness of Carbo veg. is not surpassed by that of any other remedy. It is not due to faulty heart action or the
failing of any special organ, but results from a genuine lack of vital reaction. For this reason Carbo veg. is often
indicated in cases suffering from the sequelae of exhausting acute diseases. Although the symptoms of the original
attack may have long since passed away, the patient is left in a condition so low that he is unable to regain health; or
certain chronic ailments continue to recur in spite of all his efforts to live a normal life. Whenever a patient says
that he has been constipated or has suffered from diarrhoea since an attack of typhoid fever; has had asthma ever
since measles or whooping cough in childhood; lameness since overlifting many years ago, or bronchitis that has
persisted since recovery from pneumonia, Carbo veg. may be the remedy.
9. Not only will Carbo veg., when indicated, remove sequelae of whooping cough but it is an excellent remedy in the early
stages of the disease itself and will sometimes cure in a week or ten days. Short, hard but rather infrequent spells
of coughing aggravated by the change from a warm to a cold atmosphere, after eating or drinking, especially cold
things; expectoration mostly in the morning; vomiting of food and mucus; much flatulence; red face during the cough.
In nondescript cases where there is no clear indication for a remedy, Carbo veg. will often relieve this ailment in a
surprisingly short time, and even if it fails to cure, its action frequently brings out symptoms leading to the
similimum.
10. The bronchitis of old people will yield to Carbo veg. when there is no profuse expectoration of yellow or greenish
mucus, or much mucus in the chest with imperfect power of expectoration; burning in the chest; stitches between
the scapulae and in the head on coughing; extremities cold to the knees; collapse; desire to be fanned. The same
indications will apply in the humid asthma of the aged or in persons greatly debilitated, or in old drunkards. During
the attack the skin becomes blue and cold and the face wears an expression of great anxiety. The patient is unable
to lie down and is usually relieved by belching. Carbo veg. is useful in asthma which is reflex from accumulation of
flatulence in the stomach and intestines. He wants all the doors and windows open and continually asks to be fanned
in order to get more oxygen. Vertigo, headache and many other symptoms of the Carbo veg. patient are produced by
insufficient oxygenation of the blood.
11. The action of Carbo veg. on the mucous membranes is further illustrated by the coryza it produces. Itching in the
nose especially around the nostrils with frequent ineffectual efforts at sneezing; watery, acrid discharge or
stoppage of the nose with hoarseness and rawness of the chest. Coryza induced by sitting in an overheated room and
by damp, warm weather. If Carbo veg. is given early enough, laryngeal and chest symptoms will not materialize. The
affection may begin in the larynx without coryza. Then there is hoarseness or aphonia, with or without rawness or
burning, relieved during the day but returning in the evening; hoarseness of singers and speakers, worse from talking
and the damp chill of an autumn evening.
12. Coldness is a constant accompaniment of Carbo veg. complaints. It may be general, or local as coldness of a limb
affected by varicose ulcers, coldness of the nose, ears and knees - the feet being warm, even in patients that are
apparently not very ill. Coldness, blueness and collapse in the late stages, as not infrequently met with in pneumonia,
typhus or typhoid, when the case has taken a sudden turn for the worse and appears utterly hopeless. The patient
lies as if dead; he scarcely breathes; the voice is weak and husky, or reduced to an inaudible whisper; the face is
ashy pale or cyanotic; the pulse thready and flickering or non-palpable at the wrists; the legs bathed in cold sweat.
Even the breath is cold; the patient requests to be fanned continually. Coma supervenes and death seems imminent.
The first dose of Carbo veg. will start reaction. The finger on the radial artery senses a slight pulsation which
gradually becomes regular and gains in force and volume. The breathing grows deeper, the body warmer, and it
comatose the patient slowly returns to consciousness. This is a picture of death and the only hope of saving this
patient lies in the proper administration of Carbo veg. Arsenicum has the same coldness, the same alarming weakness
and prostration, cold sweat on face and legs; the same burning pains and dyspnoea. But the Arsenicum patient cannot
tolerate fanning because the least breath of cold air aggravates and his anxiety and fear are accompanied by
restlessness which is so impelling that the head moves from side to side even when the patient is too weak to move
any other part of the body. When Carbo veg. is the remedy, anxiety may be intense but the patient lies like a log.
32
13. Anxiety is a strong characteristic of Carbo veg.; but it usually occurs in the evening or night attended by pains in
the limbs or varicose ulcers, from air hunger or as a result of itching of the skin when warm in bed. There may also
be irritability or mental depression with weeping, but the more marked condition is one of mental dullness, torpidity
and indifference.
14. The general sluggishness is especially evident in the venous circulation. The walls of the veins are weak and flabby;
the return circulation slow, predisposing to varices, blueness of affected areas, puffiness of the extremities and
haemorrhages. The whole digestive tract is weak and functions imperfectly; the liver is torpid and sensitive to
pressure; haemorrhoids protrude, bleed and burn like fire and are apt to be aggravated after every debauch. An
acrid moisture oozes from the rectum causing and soreness of the perineum.
15. Naturally there is a tendency towards ulceration which is most apt to occur where circulation is least active in the
lower part of the legs and the ankles. Carbo veg. ulcers are indolent and surrounded by a dark, bluish area. They are
superficial and tend to spread; burn and bleed easily and exude a fetid, corrosive ichor.
16. The haemorrhages of Carbo veg. are dark, thin and non-coagulating. Thus we have Epistaxis which recurs daily for
weeks at a time, preceded and followed by marked pallor of the face and accompanied by fainting, thready pulse and
general coldness; haemoptysis or hematemesis and bleeding from the bowels, with the same symptoms.
17. Gangrene is but one step further in the disintegration of tissues imperfectly supplied with blood. Carbo veg. suits
especially the humid gangrene of old people and those who have been debilitated by dissipation or protracted chronic
disease; carbuncles which have become gangrenous and blackish in color and ooze a dark, sanious fluid, cadaverous in
odor.
18. As has already been indicated, burning pains are an important part of the Carbo veg. picture. Burning in the larynx
and trachea; in the chest like coals of fire; in ulcers or cancerous growths; burning on the vertex during change of
life; of the palms and soles during the menses; burning even in the bones.
19. Pressive pains, or as of a heavy weight, occur in the vertex, the occiput and temples. However, the most
characteristic headache of Carbo veg. is occipital. The scalp is extremely sensitive to touch and the head feels
heavy as lead.
20. Constricting pains apply especially to one form of headache with the sensation as if a strap were drawn tightly
across the forehead or a hat pressed tightly upon the head.
21. Tearing and stitching pains are less characteristic. Stitching in the head, spleen, rectum, chest and joints. Stitching
all over the body on getting warm in bed, with anxiety and restlessness.
22. In common with many other remedies, Carbo veg. causes inflammation of glands. It is indicated in mumps when the
general symptoms agree, but is especially useful when the inflammation of the parotid gland recedes and is suddenly
transferred to the testicles or ovaries.
23. Induration, though not so marked as in some other remedies, occurs frequently in swollen lymphatic glands, in
mammae with burning pains and a tendency to suppurate, and in scirrhous carcinoma, lupus and epithelioma.
24. The most important aggravations as to time are morning and evening. In the morning there are confusion in the
head and inability to think clearly; nausea; weakness; trembling and anxiety; cough; coldness and exhausting sweat.
At night the patient suffers from many pains; from itching of the skin; Epistaxis; copious sweats and coldness; or a
general sensation of heat. Flatulence returns and prevents his lying down. In the evening he is tired and weak, is
harassed by cough and pains in the head, face and limbs; but especially his coryza and aphonia are accentuated.
25. Some of the aggravations from eating begin while at the table and may continue for hours thereafter. The
patient's head aches; his stomach feels heavy and abdomen full to bursting; he eructates burning or rancid liquid; his
heart palpitates. But gastric and abdominal pains and flatulent distention are more apt to occur half an hour, or an
hour after meals. He cannot digest milk, pork, fat things (for which he usually has an aversion) cabbage, fish or
meat, especially if trained.
26. Walking in the open air combines the aggravations of exertion and cold. The Carbo veg. patient is also sensitive to
heat. The heat of the sun or a warm room and warm covers at night induce headache, itching and dyspnoea. Warm,
relaxing, moist weather invariably increases his asthmatic breathing, tendency to puffiness of hands, feet and legs,
and makes him feel miserable generally.
27. The Carbo veg. patient cannot tolerate tight clothing about the hypochondria or the abdomen. This is classed among
the general aggravations as is also relief from eructations. One reason why the flatulence and distention of this
remedy are given such high rating is, that they cause many reflex symptoms. Therefore the relief resulting from
rating is, that they cause many reflex symptoms. Therefore the relief resulting from eructations, emission of flatus
and loosening of the clothing is general as well as local.
28. Carbo veg. and Arsenicum have many symptoms in common. Both have, characteristically, burning pains, weakness,
coldness, with nightly aggravation. Both are sensitive to cold, are aggravated by exertion and are relieved by rest.
Both have anxiety and restlessness; offensive, excoriating discharges and are suitable in the late stages of disease,
in poisoning from tainted meat or fish and the chronic effects of alcoholism. But Carbo veg. is predominantly worse
33
in the morning and evening; Arsenicum, after midnight. Carbo veg. is better from lying down except when bursting
with flatulence. The majority of Arsenicum complaints are increased while lying down. Carbo veg. lacks the fear of
death. Arsenicum has much less of flatulence and has venous engorgement only in a minor degree. During fever the
Carbo veg. patient is usually thirstless, but very thirsty during chill. The Arsenicum individual is thirstless during,
but is extremely thirsty both before and after chill. Carbo veg. is sluggish and indolent, especially when over-heated
or in warm, wet weather; whereas Arsenicum presents more of nervous sensitiveness, impatience and inclination to
hurry, desisting only because of weakness. Rest in any form is grateful.
29. The Prime Indications for CARBO VEG. are:
1. Venous plethora.
2. Mental and physical sluggishness and lack of reaction.
3. Weakness.
4. Coldness.
5. Burning pains.
6. Excessive flatulence.
7. Aggravation from extremes of temperature.
30. Antidoted by: Arsenicum; Camphor; Coffea; Ferrum; Lachesis.
It Antidotes: China; Drosera; Kali carb.
Is Followed Well by: Arsenicum; China; Drosera; Kali carb.; Lachesis; Lycopodium; Phosphorus; Pulsatilla; Sepia; Sulphur.
Inimical: Causticum; Carbo animalis.
Lesson eleven
Antimonium tartaricum
1. Tartar Emetic. Tartrate of Antimony and Potash.
Preparations used: Trituration and solution.
2. Applied to the skin, it produces a popular eruption which becomes vesicular, then pustular with a central umbilication.
Small doses taken internally cause nausea, increase of saliva, gastric and intestinal juices and mucus in the bronchi.
Large doses produce vomiting, diarrhoea, cramps in the epigastrium; depress heart action, with consequent falling of
the blood pressure; lower bodily temperature; greatly increase bronchial mucus; cause fainting, coldness and
paralysis of both motor and sensory centers and diminish reflex excitability.
3. Patient torpid, phlegmatic. Old people and children.
Ailments from living in damp cellars; from getting chilled; from the suppression of eruptions.
INCREASED DISCHARGES FROM MUCOUS MEMBRANES.
PROSTRATION; DROWSINESS; coldness.
Irritability; aversion to being touched or looked at; anxiety; restlessness.
THIRSTLESSNESS: during heat; extreme thirst; NAUSEA.
TREMBLING; twitching; convulsions; paralysis.
Eruptions; PUSTULAR; vesicular.
Worse: EVENING; night; from anger; warmth; warm weather; warmth in bed; cold wet weather or air; eating; after
vomiting; lying down; motion; touch.
Better: Cool air; uncovering; passive motion.
4. Drowsiness, profuse mucous secretion, coldness and prostration are outstanding features of Antimonium tartaricum.
Like Arsenicum, Carbo vegetabilis and other remedies of this class, it is usually indicated in the later stages of
disease or in patients who are lacking in vital reaction; hence in old people subject to catarrhal affections of the
respiratory tract or gastro-enteritis, and children of weak constitutions.
5. Too much emphasis must not be given to the constitutional type, for theoretically at least, the conditions calling for
Antimonium tart. might obtain in any patient, irrespective of build and mental characteristics, if the underlying
34
causative factors are present. However, the typical Antimonium tart. patient is sluggish, torpid and muscularly weak.
6. In every day practice, Antimonium tart. will most often be called for in affections of the respiratory organs.
Through its action on the vagi this remedy produces an inflammation of the larynx, trachea and bronchi, with the
secretions of great quantities of viscid, whitish mucus, difficulty in breathing and, finally pulmonary paralysis and
death.
7. When the patient coughs or breathes, the coarse rattling sounds emitted from the chest may be heard by the
physician even before he enters the sick-room, and will at once suggest this remedy. But other guiding features
must be present if he is to be sure of the correctness of his prescription. Observing closely, he will not that the
pale face with pinched nose and hollow eyes is covered with cold sweat; the alae nasi dilate with every labored
breath, have a peculiar sooty appearance and the patient gives every evidence that he wants to be let alone. The
chest seems full of mucus but he is unable to expectorate. Although the face and limbs, and perhaps the whole body,
are cold he resents being covered heavily and he wants the room cool. Occasionally he may attempt to vomit but
emesis is accomplished only after severe retching, which increases the sweat and the weakness. Even if he has fever
he will take only an occasional sip of water. He is more apt to refuse it, not only because it may increase the nausea,
but because he is not thirsty. In exceptional cases there may be a considerable degree of thirst.
8. This is the picture of a typical case of bronco-pneumonia for which Antimonium tart. is the remedy. Some other
remedy may have been given without avail. Perhaps there is hepatisation of the right lung and a subnormal
temperature. The pulse is weak and thready. If dyspnoea is pronounced there will be marked anxiety. But the typical
mental state is one of dullness and spoor, with peevish irritability when disturbed.
9. In children the mental characteristics of Antimonium tart. are observed in their completeness, for children seldom
feign or cover up their feelings. The presence of strangers annoys them. They whine or exhibit irritability in other
ways if the physician touches them or merely looks at them. This is strikingly illustrated in whooping cough. The
child is drowsy and takes little interest in what is going on about it. Its breathing is apt to be labored; its forehead
wet with cold sweat. When touched, it rouses up, cries out in an angry fashion immediately a paroxysm of coughing
comes on. It strangles from the large accumulation of mucus, gets blue in the face, retches, vomits and trembles.
Then it falls back exhausted and lapses again into a stupor. If it gets too warm, the coughing becomes more
frequent.
10. The same symptoms apply in modified form, in capillary bronchitis. The chest is full of rales, coarse and at times
almost bubbling. The little patient is exceedingly weak and drowsy. It whines and frets before a coughing spell and
seldom is able to expectorate.
11. In simple acute bronchitis or in the chronic form, there may be less of weakness and other alarming symptoms, but
there is always the loose, rattling cough, and, especially in the old or weak patient, less expectoration than might be
anticipated with the large amount of mucus present in the bronchi. In advanced cases the patient is seized with
alarming fits of suffocation, rises up suddenly in bed, coughs, vomits and becomes faint and cold. These patients are
often subject to attacks of diarrhoea.
12. Humid asthma, especially in the aged, will respond to Antimonium tart. when the patient is almost suffocated by the
profuse accumulation of mucus and the paroxysms occur after midnight or when overheated in a warm room.
13. Antimonium tart. increases the carbon-dioxide content of the blood and depresses the respiratory center in the
2
medulla. This excess of CO may account in part for the characteristic drowsiness, coldness, weakness and
prostration of this drug. The red blood corpuscles have their oxygen carrying power reduced; the bodily
temperature and blood pressure are lowered. In desperate cases cyanosis may occur. Tartar emetic includes in its
toxicology all these serious complications of respiratory ailments.
14. Years ago, Antimonium tart. was a popular emetic. Hence the common name tart emetic. Nausea and vomiting may be
concomitants of any form of disease in which the remedy is indicated. The nausea is intense, at times deathly, and is
apt to come in waves. Vomiting is difficult. The patient strains and retches and almost faints; his hands tremble and
his whole expression one of intense anxiety. But after vomiting the nausea is relieved until the next wave appears.
Even this may be postponed if he has discovered that lying on the right side will give him some respite. The vomited
matter may be food, mucus or bile. The tongue is red and dry in the middle, or coated with a thick white fur.
15. Whether the case be one of simple gastritis, the vomiting of pregnancy, an acute exanthema where the eruption has
receded, or arthritis with gastric complications, the characteristics above enumerated will be present.
16. Antimonium tart. is almost a specific in cholera morbus or Summer complaint in children, for it has all the weakness,
coldness, nausea, vomiting and loose stools so often met with in serious cases of this ailment.
17. The stools are profuse, watery or slimy and grass green in color. They are preceded by cutting colic, sometimes by
nausea, attended with tenesmus and followed by burning in the anus, continued tenesmus and weak feeling and relief
of the colic.
18. But whatever the diagnosis, the child is irritable, averse to being touched or looked at and wants to be continually
35
carried about. It might be remarked in passing, that, although the aversion to being touched is chiefly mental, there
is often a physical basis for it. In many cases there is a bruised soreness all over the body and even light touch
causes pain.
19. Antimonium tart. is occasionally indicated in arthritis. There are tearing and drawing pains of great severity in the
affected joints with jerking of muscles and profuse sweat, which gives no relief. The peculiar feature of these
cases is, that the pains are aggravated from the warmth of the bed and at night. The characteristic mental
symptoms, the weakness, coldness, nausea and vomiting complete the picture for this remedy.
20. The eruption produced by Antimonium tart. so nearly simulates that of small-pox, that this remedy has long been
used with success in its treatment, including cases of a low type. When the crude powder is applied to a scarified
area of skin, a truly typical pustule is produced which cannot be distinguished from that resulting from successful
vaccination with cow-pox virus.
21. The Antimonium tart. patient is predominantly worse at night. The rheumatic pains increase through the dark hours;
the fever rises at the same time. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, cough, dyspnoea, sweat, are all of them accentuated
at night, although the cough is apt to occur from four to six a.m. , and the asthmatic paroxysms at three.
22. Anger disturbs the patient in a general way, but especially excites the cough.
23. Although dampness and cold air or getting chilled are the exciting causes of many Antimonium tart. ailments, the
patient is intolerant of warmth. Headache, toothache, drowsiness, cough and dyspnoea are aggravated thereby.
Getting warm in bed is especially an aggravation for the cough, the toothache and the rheumatic suffering.
24. Conversely, cool air and uncovering are a source of relief.
25. After eating (or drinking) there are nausea, vomiting, cough, toothache, lumbar backache and drowsiness.
26. Lying down increases the headache, the cough and the dyspnoea, whether truly asthmatic or due to pulmonary
oedema or obstructing mucus in the bronchi. Therefore the patient is better sitting up.
27. Active motion aggravates the rheumatic pains and soreness; and yet, there is general relief from passive motion or
that which requires no effort on the part of the patient. The child wants to be continually carried.
28. The Prime Indications for ANTIMONIUM TART. are:
1. Coarse, rattling of mucus in the chest.
2. Horrible nausea coming in waves, better from vomiting.
3. Aversion to being touched or looked at.
4. Faintness, prostration, coldness.
5. Thirstlessness during the fever.
6. Aggravation from warmth; and from cold or damp air.
Antidoted by: Asafoetida; China; Cocculus; Ipecac.; Laurocerasus; Opium; Pulsatilla; Sepia.
It Antidotes: Baryta carb., Bryonia, Camphor, Causticum, Pulsatilla.
Compatible: Phosphorus.
It Follows Well: Silicea; Pulsatilla; Terebinth; Variolinum.
Incompatible: Kali sulphuricum.
Lesson twelve
Ipecacuanha
(cephaelis ipecacuanha)
1. Common Name: Ipecac Root. Natural Order: Rubiaceae. Habitat: Brazil. Part used: tincture or trituration of the dried
root. Alkaloid: Emetine.
2. Applied to the skin, Ipecac produces irritation, followed by vesicles, pustules and ulceration. Inhalation of the dry
powder may cause coryza or asthmatic attacks. Taken internally it increases the saliva, excites nausea and vomiting
and profuse secretion of bronchial mucus.
Small doses stimulate the liver; large doses act as a chologogue cathartic; toxic doses reduce the temperature, cause
cardiac paralysis and death.
36
3. Especially suited to persons stout and of lax fiber; fair complexion; women and children; patients with a history of
haemorrhage. Especially indicated in ailments caused by rich or indigestible foods; pastry; pork; ice cream; sweets;
by vexation and reserved displeasure; quinine; morphine; suppression of eruptions.
PERSISTENT NAUSEA.
INCREASED SECRETION OF MUCUS. Faintness; prostration. HAEMORRHAGE. Moroseness; impatience; restlessness;
sadness; contemptuous mood. Periodicity; intermittent fevers. Thirstlessness. Convulsions.
Pains: clawing; cutting; crushing; griping.
Worse: NIGHT; warmth; cold; dampness; motion; after eating, especially indigestible or rich foods. Fats; cold drinks;
REPERCUSSION OF ERUPTIONS.
Better: open air; rest.
4. Nausea is the dominating feature of Ipecac. It is the first symptom to appear in the provings and usually the first
indication of illness. It is evidenced by the expression of the face and every action of the patient. Nausea is common
to many remedies, but with only a few is it so persistent, so unrelenting as with Ipecac, and in none is it so generally
an accompaniment of other ailments.
5. Like Antimonium tart., Ipecac markedly affects the pneumo-gastric nerves, causing increases of mucus secretion in
the larynx, trachea and bronchi, dyspnoea and spasmodic cough. It inflames the mucosa of the gastro-intestinal
tract causing diarrhoea, dysentery, and even symptoms resembling those of amebiasis (but it should be noted that
emetine is truly homoeopathic in only few cases of the later ailment). It also has an action on the vaso-motors,
lowering the blood pressure and predisposing to haemorrhage from any orifice of the body. But, whether the case be
one of gastritis, diarrhoea, capillary bronchitis, asthma, epistaxis, post-partum haemorrhage or what not, there is
always more or less nausea. Even the itching of eruptions on the skin is accompanied by nausea and the poor sufferer
scratches until he vomits. With the nausea there are weakness, disgust for food, cold perspiration, especially on the
face, and profuse salivation.
6. The typical mental state is one of ill-humor, impatience and irascibility. There may at times be restlessness, but it
does not compare with the anxiety and tossing about of Arsenicum. The irritability of the adult is pictured in the
child by screaming and howling on slight provocation.
7. Many of the ailments calling for Ipecac are produced by vexation, mortification or suppressed anger, "reserved
displeasure" as it is sometimes called. For instance, if a child be punished and runs a temperature, vomits, or goes
into convulsions, Ipecac may be the remedy. Occasionally it is useful in cases of asthma or gastro-intestinal disease
due to suppressed eruptions relieving the acute symptoms and reinstating the original manifestations on the skin. It
is also useful in intermittent fevers which have been masked by the use of quinine. Typically, the Ipecac chill is
short and aggravated by external heat or in a warm room. It is followed by fever of several hour's duration, and
sweat; and distressing nausea persists throughout the whole paroxysm. In chills and fever or malaria where nausea is
present, and no other remedy seems clearly indicated, Ipecac may untangle the case and definite symptoms of some
other remedy will appear.
8. The most important phases of Ipecac are the gastro-intestinal, respiratory and haemorrhagic.
9. It is one of the first remedies to be thought of in derangement of the stomach or gastritis following the eating of
rich foods, pastry, pork and foods that are difficult to digest. Nausea predominates and is not relieved by vomiting.
After the irritating contents of the stomach is ejected, the patient continues to throw up glairy, sour mucus or bile
and perhaps later, bright red blood. He belches, shudders and saliva runs from his mouth. The tongue however is
clean or only slightly coated, which is a valuable differentiating symptom. These indications apply equally as well in
mal de mer, the effects of tobacco, in gastro-enteritis or in cholera infantum.
10. Ipecac is frequently indicated in the beginning of cholera infantum. The stools are grass green; mucous and watery;
putrid and frothy like fermented molasses; or slimy, dysenteric, with more or less blood. The face is pale, the eyes
sunken and surrounded by bluish rings, the levatores angulorum oris contracted so as to give an expression of intense
nausea.
11. Arsenicum follows when prostration and restlessness increase; when the characteristic thirstlessness of Ipecac
gives way to intense thirst for cold water taken in sips frequently; when burning pains begin in the stomach and the
patient becomes weaker and more restless and there is a definite midnight aggravation.
12. Ipecac is one of our best remedies in bronchial affections, especially if occurring in warm, moist weather. The cough
may be rough, dry and racking, due to titillation in the upper part of the larynx, with a tendency to retch or vomit;
worse in a warm room. But it is usually a loose cough with wheezing and rattling in the chest. Ipecac presents a
perfect picture of capillary bronchitis. The chest seems loaded with mucus but there is little expectorated, until,
with the cough, the child vomits. Breathing is rapid and accompanied by a wheezing sound. The face may be cyanotic.
13. When the cough grows less frequent, the mucus increases and wheezing is displaced by coarse rattling; when there
is waving of the alae nasi and ever increasing drowsiness, Antimonium tart., is the indicated remedy.
14. Ipecac is equally well suited to whooping cough. The child stiffens and becomes rigid during the paroxysm, the face
37
turns pale or cyanotic, and blood may flow from the nose or eyes. Finally it relaxes and vomits a large quantity of
mucus which relieves until the next spell of coughing. This may be repeated until the child becomes exhausted, the
chest fills up, the heart weakens and symptoms tending deathward supervene.
15. Asthma has been cured by Ipecac, especially when it occurs in persons who are fat and flabby and sensitive to
warm, damp weather. There is the same accumulation of mucus as noted above. The cough is wheezy and rattling but
the patient is unable to expectorate. There are constrictions in the chest and larynx aggravated by the least motion;
suffocative spells at night with tetanic rigidity and blueness of the face; cold perspiration and coldness of the
extremities. Vomiting relieves both cough and dyspnoea, because it brings up the mucus.
16. The haemorrhages of Ipecac are purely arterial and the blood quickly coagulates. Epistaxis, hematemesis, and
bleeding from bowels, urethra and uterus are all of this character and accompanied by the ever present nausea,
faintness and cold sweat. The menses are copious, too early and too frequent; nausea persists throughout the period;
the patient obtains not a moment of relief even after vomiting, and with every effort at vomiting there is a profuse
gush of bright red blood. At times cutting pains shoot from the region of the left ovary to the right, or there is
clutching as of a hand in the region of the umbilicus. Threatened abortion with sharp or clutching pain in this region,
running downward into the uterus, with nausea and faint feeling. The haemorrhage after confinement is at times
alarming. It is attended with the symptoms above mentioned, and with oppression of the chest, gasping, pallor,
whiteness of the lips and even of the tongue. Nausea and cold sweat.
17. Ipecac is a short acting remedy and is called for most often in the earlier stages of acute diseases. Antimonium
tart. is its nearest analogue. These two remedies are very similar in their pathogenetic action. But, as the metals and
their derivatives are all deep acting and their effects of longer duration, the Tartrate of Antimony suits more the
later stages when the vitality of the patient has begun to give way under the stress of the ailment. Both Ipecac and
Antimonium tart. produce copious mucous secretion with labored breathing, thirstlessness, intense nausea, faintness
and weakness, coldness and cold sweat. Both are characterized by irritability and disordered digestion. With Ipecac,
vomiting is comparatively easy but does not ameliorate the nausea; vomited matter predominantly bitter and the
tongue is clear or only thinly coated. In Antimonium tart. vomiting is accomplished only with great effort, is
accompanied by cold sweat on the forehead and followed by great prostration or drowsiness; vomitus is more often
sour and the tongue red and dry in the middle or showing a thick white coating. To peevishness and ill-humor
Antimonium tart. adds sensitiveness and aversion to being touched or looked at; Ipecac, contempt and desire for
something but knows not what. Ipecac is frequently indicated in bronchial affections and asthma, particularly in
children with suffocative cough, cyanosis, wheezing or rattling respiration and inability to sleep. Antimonium tart.
finds its special field of usefulness more often in the chest troubles of the weak or aged when the trachea and
bronchi are so filled with mucus that there is danger of asphyxia; when there are ever increasing drowsiness and
threatened paralysis of the lungs. Lastly, the Antimonium tart. patient is ameliorated by passive motion; while nearly
all the complaints of Ipecac are made worse by motion in any form.
18. The headaches of Ipecac are often due to indigestion. The bones of the skull feel as if crushed or bruised and the
pains extend to the teeth and the root of the tongue. Associated with these symptoms are constant nausea and
vomiting.
19. The Prime Indications for IPECAC are:
1. Persistent nausea.
2. Nausea with all complaints.
3. Clean tongue.
4. Thirstlessness.
5. Profuse secretion of mucus.
6. Copious, arterial haemorrhages.
20. Antidoted By: Arnica; Arsenicum; China; Nux vom.; Tabacum.
21. Followed Well By: Arsenicum (cholera infantum, debility, colds, croup, chill); Belladonna; Bryonia; Cadmium sulph.;
Calcarea carb.; Chamomilla; China; Cuprum; Ignatia; Nux v.; Phosphorus; Pulsatilla; Sepia; Sulphur.
22. Complementary: Arsenicum; Cuprum met.
23. Inimical: Bismuth.
24. It will be noted that the indications for the group of remedies comprising Arsenicum, Carbo veg. and Antimonium
tart. correspond to all the signs and symptoms of collapse and impending dissolution. The prostration, coldness, and
copious perspiration of these remedies are unmistakable indications that the vital energy of the patient is fast
losing ground and unable to cope with the devastating power of the disease. Although other remedies may be able to
stem the tide if given early enough, they are powerless in these later stages and a remedy of the class represented
by those mentioned above must be given if the patient's life is to be saved. They are so to speak, last end remedies
and the homoeopathic literature is full of the reports of remarkable cures made possible by their timely aid. In
38
many ways these remedies are alike and their differentiation in some respects is a matter of degree. A review of
their respective lessons on them will show that Carbo veg. stands highest as regards coldness, flatulence and air
hunger (wants to be continually fanned), and the picture of death, but less characteristically, as to anxiety,
restlessness and burning. Usually the body retains its vital heat for some time after death. In the Carbo veg. patient
it is icy and corpse-like some hours before life is extinct; the tongue even the breath are cold. Strychnine or other
stimulants will give only a brief and palliative effect in such cases. But Carbo veg seems to reach the very life force
itself, to excite reaction and to re-establish the circulation of the blood, even at times, in one whose heart has
apparently ceased to beat.
25. To the prostration and coldness of Carbo veg., Arsenicum adds greater anxiety, restlessness and burning pains.
Even in coma, the urge to move is feebly manifested by movements of the head, hands or feet and burning is seldom
absent, irrespective of the name of the disease. Even when moribund traces of anxiety and fear are depicted in the
"facial expression".
26. Antimonium tart. is characterized by more of nausea and filling with mucus, little or no restlessness or burning
pains.
27. Ipecac is added to the group because of its resemblance to Antimonium tart.
Notes on veratrum album

28. Veratrum album, the white hellebore, has many features in common with the foregoing group, especially with
Arsenicum and Carbo veg. Although called for occasionally in chronic cases, if its one of the most important
emergency remedies in acute ailments characterized by sudden and violent onset, FAINTNESS, ICY COLDNESS,
PROSTRATION, COLD SWEAT and COLLAPSE.
29. It acts profoundly on the gastro-enteric system, causing:
1. NAUSEA; retching; sudden, profuse watery vomiting and PURGING, spasmodic colic, cramping of the muscles of the
abdomen and calves of the legs; HIPPOCRATIC OR BLUISH COUNTENANCE; PROSTRATION, COLD SWEAT and
GREAT THIRST FOR LARGE AMOUNTS OF COLD WATER.
2. Cholera Asiatica, cholera morbus, ptomaine poisoning, gastritis or enteritis of severe type.
3. INSANITY, RELIGIOUS; erotic or puerperal MANIA with RAGING DELIRIUM, loquacity, PRAYING, WEEPING,
tearing of clothing, cursing or lasciviousness.
30. The Prime Indications for VERATRUM are:
COLD SWEAT ON THE FOREHEAD WITH MANY DIFFERENT COMPLAINTS; GENERAL OR LOCALIZED COLDNESS
as of FACE, NOSE TONGUE, BREATH, VERTEX, EXTREMITIES. VOMITING, FORCIBLE; of FOOD, BILE or
ENORMOUS QUANTITIES OF SOUR WATER; with PROFUSE, GUSHING, sometimes painless STOOLS, followed
by sinking and emptiness in the abdomen.
Notes on camphor
31. Camphor, like the other members of this group, is an emergency remedy. It is especially suited to ailments produced
by violent causes such as an overpowering infection, sudden chilling, exposure to the heat of the sun, traumatism,
surgical shock or the repercussion of eruptions or discharges.
32. It is characterized by sudden and violent onset, extreme anxiety and restlessness, raging delirium, rapidly
developing prostration, icy coldness, spoor and unconsciousness.
33. These symptoms are accompanied by cold sweat, nausea, vomiting, thin brown or coffee-ground stools, cramp in the
calfs of the legs or tetanic and epileptiform convulsions.
34. The Camphor patient is exceedingly sensitive to cold and pains and other complaints are aggravated by it. But with
icy coldness of the skin and symptoms of collapse he will not be covered and continually turns the covers aside when
semi-conscious. During fever there may be insatiable thirst for quantities of ice-water. But at other times there is
thirstlessness or desire to drink without thirst.
35. Hence Camphor is indicated in congestive chill or pernicious malaria when the heat is of very short duration or
entirely absent, the patient is cold and almost pulse-disease when there are coldness, cold sweat, Hippocratic
countenance, attacks of suffocation and sudden sinking of the vital forces; after the suppression of erysipelas,
scarlatina or measles with coldness, prostration and cyanosis.
36. It may also be found useful in certain forms of insanity, puerperal mania, tetanus and hystero-epilepsy.
37. Camphor is indicated in Asiatic cholera and cholera infantum in the early stages when coldness and symptoms of
collapse appear before vomiting and diarrhoea have set in; or later when there is sudden cessation of all discharges
and the patient is rapidly sinking.
38. One of the most frequent uses of Camphor is in acute coryza. If given during the first few hours of the attach it
39
will often abort the attack. Here it resembles Aconite.

39. The Prime Indications of CAMPHOR are:
Icy coldness of the surface of the body, sudden and complete prostration of the vital forces, cold sweat, death-like
pallor, thirstlessness and desire to be uncovered.
Sensitiveness to cold; desire to be uncovered during fever and unquenchable thirst for large amounts of ice-water.
Choleraic symptoms with coldness; scanty or suppressed discharges, cramps in the calves and collapse.
Convulsions with drawing up of the upper lip, clammy sweat and marked prostration.
40. Camphor in crude form is an antidote to all vegetable remedies and to Cuprum and Ferrum. Since it is so often
employed as a household remedy patients should be warned against it. It should be barred from the sick room.
41. Arsenicum, Veratrum and Camphor are similar as to coldness and prostration. Arsenicum may be distinguished from
Veratrum by the characteristic thirst, sensitiveness to pain and after midnight aggravation. Arsenicum has more of
burning; Veratrum more of tearing, cutting or griping pains; Camphor of sensitiveness of the body to contact and in
cholera, usually painlessness.
42. Camphor and Veratrum are similar as to wild delirium, coldness, cold sweat and collapse. Both have markedly
Hippocratic countenance and coldness of nose, tongue and parts most distant from the heart. With Veratrum sweat
occurs persistently on the forehead; with Camphor it is more general or occurs not at all. The coldness of Veratrum
is often described as a sensation as if cold water flowed through the bones into the feet, or coursed through the
blood vessels; that of Camphor as if a cold wind blew upon the body. During the heat both Arsenicum and Veratrum
want to be uncovered but to be covered during the chill. Camphor craves large quantities of ice-water and warm
covering during fever; but even in semi-consciousness thrusts all covering aside when the skin is cold as ice and is
usually thirstless.
Lesson thirteen
1. You have learned to distinguish between acute and chronic diseases, and to search for latent or subtle causes in
recurrent and multiple ailments.
2. You have been taught that each individual gets sick in his own way. His individuality adds to and modifies the
symptoms of his ailments.
3. It has been called to your attention that resistance and susceptibility to disease have a definite relationship; high
resistance means low susceptibility means low resistance.
4. You have been taught how to "take a case"; how to analyze it; how to elicit, classify, and evaluate the patient's
symptoms. You have learned how to discriminate between symptoms which are dependable guides and those of lesser
importance in the selection of a remedy.
5. In the lesson entitled, Use of the Repertory - First Section, you were given an introduction to the use of the
repertory.
6. You have studied illustrations of remedy comparison and differentiation in Lesson Six to Twelve.
7. You are now ready to make practical application of this knowledge.
8. Select a case from your practice, and apply the different steps leading up to the prescribing of the similimum, as
outlined and taught in the Course. Give attention to past and present history, physical examination and particularly
to objective and subjective symptoms. Avoid preconceived notions as to the remedy. Do not, by direct questioning or
otherwise, endeavor to make the case fit a certain remedy, but rather let the actual symptoms point out the right
remedy.
9. (a) Write down all information as you elicit it.
(b) Classify and arrange the symptoms.
(c) Evaluate them, listing the characteristics in the order of their importance.
(d) Name the remedy and explain how and why it was chosen.
10. We desire to ascertain how apt you are in putting into practice the instructions of the Course.
11. Taking the case and prescribing, according to the above instructions, may take more time than you have been
accustomed to give a patient, but it will repay you. If necessary, have the patient return several times, as you would
with any case requiring painstaking analysis. It will be quite proper for you to make a charge for each visit. The
patient undoubtedly will be impressed with you interest and the thoroughness of your methods.
Lesson fourteen
40
Arnica montana
1. Common Name: Leopard's Bane; Fallkraut. Natural Order: Compositae. Part used: Tincture of whole fresh plant,
including the root, when flowering. Habitat: Mountainous regions of France and Northern Europe.
2. Arnica is a remedy much older than Homoeopathy, and was used before Hahnemann's time, particularly in the sphere
of mental disorders.
Arnica is irritant, stimulant, depressant, antipyretic, diuretic and vulnerary. It irritates the gastro-intestinal tract. In
some cases the alcoholic preparation of the flowers has excited erysipelatous inflammation of the skin on account of
a small, poisonous fly which sometimes infests the blossoms. Small doses internally increase the action of the heart,
rise arterial tension, and stimulate the action of the skin and kidneys.
In large doses Arnica produces a transient excitement followed by depression of the circulation, respiration and nerve
centers. It has produced headache, unconsciousness and even convulsions with lowering of the body temperature,
dilation of pupils and muscular paresis. A poisonous dose paralyses the sympathetic nervous system, causing collapse
and death.
Arnica has long been a popular remedy for external use in bruises, sprains, etc. Potter, in his "Materia Medica,
Pharmacy and Therapeutics", states: "Ecchymoses are rapidly dispersed by its administration internally as well as
externally; and for internal bruises from shock or concussion its internal use has proven very efficacious. The
aqueous preparation applied locally promotes rapid union of cut surfaces.
"Arnica is undoubtedly employed effectively in typhus and typhoid fevers, also in delirium tremens, rheumatism, gout,
haemorrhages, epistaxis, haemoptysis, amauroses, concussion of the brain, chronic dysentery and paralysis of the
bladder.
"Arnica internally has given great satisfaction in idiopathic mania, and has often checked exhaustive diarrhoea after
any other remedies have failed".
It acts upon venous capillaries, absorbents and the terminal ends of sensory and vaso motor nerves; muscular fibers at
the junction with the tendons; motor nerves to the muscles; spinal nerves; cardio-inhibitory center; serous
membranes; skin.
3. Patient short and fat (C. Hering). Results of INJURY, OVEREXERTION. Irritability; forgetfulness; confusion;
unconsciousness; apathy; indifference; thinks he is well; FEAR OF BEING APPROACHED or touched; easily startled.
Delirium, muttering. Hyper-acuteness of the senses; dullness.
Pain: BRUISED SORENESS; ACHING, PRESSING, burning; TERING, stitching. Numbness; FORMICATION. Faintness,
PROSTRATION, trembling, twitching, jerking, convulsions, congestion of venous capillaries. Affection of the left
side. HAEMORRHAGE; ECCHYMOSES, Induration of affected parts. Fatty degeneration. Septicaemia. Periodicity;
intermittent fevers; PAINFUL ERUPTIONS; BOILS.
Worse: morning; EVENING; NIGHT; cold; becoming cold; TOUCH, PRESSURE; PHYSICAL EXERTION; motion, walking;
riding; JAR; noise; DURING and after sleep; emotional excitement, CONCUSSION.
Better: open air; lying down; heat.
4. Arnica served a long apprenticeship in domestic practice before it was promoted to the dignity of "officinality". For
several centuries it was used as a remedy for sprains and bruises by the common people in Germany. It was brought
to the attention of the erudite medical profession by one Dr. Fehr, who had noticed the results obtained by the
laity. When Hahnemann published Fragmenta de Viribus Medicamentorum in 1805, but little of importance had been
added to the information borrowed from the German peasants. Therein Hahnemann records his earliest
investigations into the action of Leopard's Bane. Subsequently, in a series of masterly provings upon himself and his
co-workers, he established its true scope of usefulness. The symptoms produced in the healthy organism were found
to be identical with the numerous and varied effects of mechanical violence. The resultant tissue changes, the
haemorrhage, the mental and nervous phenomena, were all included in the pathogenesis and wince have been enlarged
upon and confirmed by clinical experience.
5. The achievements of this one remedy are a remarkable confirmation of the universal application of the law of
similars. Homoeopathy cannot deal with physical causes directly, but it can facilitate the removal of their effects by
stimulating the natural processes of repair, and by correcting the derangement of the vital force incident to severe
shock. In any instance the potentized remedy acts through the vital force, and hence is capable of curing the
41
conditions to which it corresponds, irrepressive of the exciting cause, so that Arnica is capable of relieving Arnica
conditions, whether due in the first instance to traumatism, or to some dynamic or miasmatic influence. For this
reason also, much better results follow the internal administration of the potency than are possible with the cruder
method of the external application of diluted tincture.
6. What would we do without Arnica? Scarcely a day passes but we are called upon to treat a bruised knee or a "broken"
head. Although we should bear in mind that some other remedy may be needed, there is considerable excuse for the
routine practice of giving Arnica first, since it corresponds so intimately with the results of traumatism.
7. Hering used to say that the typical Arnica patient was "short and fat". Doubtless from his knowledge of the Materia
Medica he could also have added, "and one in whom the results of injuries were unduly severe and long-lasting".
Whatever the build, a patient manifesting this especial sensitiveness usually receives great benefit from the action
of this remedy.
8. A man receives a blow on the head, and what may be the results? Unconsciousness, hot head, cold extremities,
fluttering pulse, perhaps involuntary passage of stool and urine, convulsions. These are symptoms of cerebral
concussion, but they are also characteristic of Arnica. If this man recovers, and has not in the meantime received
the remedy, he may suffer for years from the after-effects of this blow on the head. His disposition is changed.
Formerly cheerful and pleasant, he is now sad, despondent, quarrelsome and easily irritated. He is forgetful, makes
mistakes in speaking and writing, and lacks his usual clearness of thought. His mind seems dazed, as in a waking
dream; he sits as if in deep meditation, yet thinks nothing. He complaints of languor and weakness, of fatigue. Again
he may be anxious, easily startled. All his senses are too acute hurt his head, light hurts is eyes. Or he is indifferent
and apathetic and the sensorial nerves seem dull. From time to time he has violent headaches, or periodic convulsions
resembling epilepsy. These are also symptoms of Arnica. It will palliate even when the symptoms are due to
compression. Obviously traumatic symptoms will vary according to the character of the accident and the location of
the injury.
9. Arnica is often useful in night terrors due to shock following railroad or automobile accidents, even though there be
little or no physical injury.
0. The sore, bruised feeling after a blow on the stomach may call for some other remedy, according to general
indications. Arnica is indicated especially when hematemesis and perhaps hectic fever, constipation and emaciation
are sequelae.
11. When a blow on the eye causes soreness, swelling, inflammation and paralysis of ocular muscles with diplopia, dilated
pupil, vertigo on looking downward, or the peculiar illusion "all high objects appear to lean forward as if about to fall
upon him", Arnica is the remedy.
12. Frequently after injury to the breast a hard lump forms. It is wonderful how quickly it may be removed by Arnica,
before it becomes malignant.
13. And so it is with a long list of conditions due to injury. Cystitis or retention of urine after injury of the neck of the
bladder as by the passage of the child's head in a difficult labor; retention of urine after concussion of the spine;
constant ineffectual urging to urinate while the urine dribbles away involuntarily, hydrocele from a bruise. Pleurisy,
or more often pleurodynia from trauma of the chest; stitches, painful soreness of the intercostals muscles and
costal cartilages. Soreness of the jaw after extraction of a tooth, or a long siege in the dentist's chair.
14. In labor the pains are weak and inefficient, or too severe; the woman feels sore all over. She suffers from
excruciating after pains, not so much because of the violence of uterine contractions as from hypersensitiveness of
the uterine tissues. They return every time the child nurses. During pregnancy the movements of the foetus are apt
to be painful, showing the sensitive condition of uterus and surrounding structures.
15. The effects of over-exertion are akin to traumatism and hence come within the sphere of this drug. When, from a
misstep, from heavy lifting, from prolonged marching, there is soreness and bruised aching of the muscles
themselves, Arnica is likely to help.
16. Haemorrhage from injury. Arnica given internally will serve not only as a haemorrhage but will hasten the absorption
of blood clots lodged in the tissues. If given directly after the injury discoloration in many instances may be entirely
prevented. Haemoptysis, hematemesis, hematuria, epistaxis, bleeding into the chambers of the eye, bleeding from
the ear, haemorrhage from any part of the body may be controlled by Arnica, especially if it is due to physical
violence, or only the capillaries or smaller vessels are involved.
17. Pathogenetically, Arnica appears to have the power of weakening the walls of the capillaries themselves, so that the
blood will ooze through. This accounts for the marked tendency to ecchymoses in well-developed Arnica cases, as in
typhoid fever, septicaemia, and passive haemorrhage from mucous surfaces wherever found. Blood may start from
the nasal mucous membrane at every little effort to blow the nose, the cough, and even after washing the face.
18. Apoplexy at times so nearly resembles "concussion" that a correct diagnosis is difficult without the aid of a
previous history. Here again the head will be hot and the body and extremities cold; there will be hemiplegia and loud
blowing respiration. This is the picture for Arnica, especially if the paralysis is left-sided and the stool and urine
42
pass involuntarily. This remedy may be given if symptoms for no other remedy are discovered. It will usually hasten
the absorption of the cerebral clot, bring the patient back to consciousness, and thus make a more accurate
prescription possible, if another prescription is necessary.
19. Congestive chill with its sudden onset, rapidly developing unconsciousness and subnormal temperature; meningitis
whether traumatic or not and the coma of alcoholic poisoning belong to the same category. We find Arnica antidoting
the more active effects of alcoholism as well. Delirium, low and muttering in other Arnica conditions, here reaches
the pitch of frenzy. A peculiar thing about it is that sometimes the man is quite conscious of all that he is doing.
20. The type of typhoid fever calling for Arnica exhibits a larger view of this drug's general characteristics. Gradually
increasing prostration; mental dullness; weariness as after a long journey; seems as if in thought, yet thinks nothing;
wants to lie down and be let alone. In bed he is constantly shifting to find a soft spot on account of the sore bruise
feeling of the surface of the body. The dazed state of mind gradually merges into low muttering delirium and stupor.
When aroused he answers questions correctly though with evident irritation at being disturbed, but he immediately
lapses into a stupor again. Or, when spoken to, he begins to answer, but forgets the words necessary to complete his
sentence. When asked as to his condition he asserts that nothing is wrong with him, that he feels well. This in spite
of the fact that his teeth are covered with sordes, yellowish-green petechiae are forming here and there over the
body, and signs of early dissolution have already begun to appear. Later he picks at the bed clothes, grasps at
imaginary objects in the air, or lies perfectly motionless, with the exception of an occasional attempt, even in his
stupor, to shift into a comfortable position, to find a softer place in the bed. Finally, the jaw drops, the sphincters
relax, the respiration becomes loud and blowing and complete unconsciousness ends in death.
21. Twitching and jerking may be of local or central origin. Thus the infant with incipient meningitis twitches and jerks
in sleep. But the twitching of the muscles of an injured limb is reflex from local irritation. It sometimes occurs
after a fracture and not only endangers the proper coaptation of fragments, but is very painful. Arnica will often
relieve this condition.
22. Induration has been instanced by mammary tumors after injury. Hardening of the tissues anywhere, when from
traumatism, is just as characteristic.
23. Numbness and formication are often associated with the bruised soreness of affected areas. Tingling and pricking
is sometimes felt all over the body.
24. Although Arnica include in its pathogenesis, fatty degeneration of the heart, a more characteristic condition is fat
round the heart.
25. In the morning weakness is more pronounced; there are headache, chilliness, nosebleed, cough. Most symptoms,
however, are worse in the evening and night.
26. Becoming chilled and cold in general, bring on painful complaints such as rheumatism, headache, etc.
27. No remedy exhibits greater sensitiveness to touch and pressure than this one. It is seldom indicated where bruised
soreness is absent. In hypertrophy of the heart the whole chest, as well as the precordium, may become so sensitive
that the light touch of the clothing causes pain. The scalp is sore in headache; the nipples are so sore that nursing is
unendurable; the muscles and the joints are sore. In a sprain where the soft parts rather than the ligaments are
affected, Arnica is wonderfully soothing. It has all the proverbial sensitiveness and crabbedness of gout. Almost the
bare mention of touch aggravates, and the idea becomes so exaggerated in the mind of the patient that he is in
constant dread of being struck by anyone who approaches, a valuable indication for Arnica. No wonder then that
jarring aggravates. The small boils that appear in successive crops are also exceedingly painful to contact.
28. The pains, the vertigo, the palpitation, nausea, headache, chills, weakness are all increased by motion, and especially
by walking. Riding in a car or carriage, aside from the effects of jolting, brings on vertigo and nausea.
29. After eating there are distress in the stomach, congestion to the head threatening apoplexy, fullness and pressing
pain in the abdomen, migraine, toothache, malaise and vertigo with dimness of vision.
30. Emotional excitement is followed by general depression of mind and body, and especially headaches.
31. There is a desire for the open air and the patient feels better out of doors.
32. Lying down ameliorate nearly complaints. The bruised soreness is an exception. Even the headache may be reduced
in severity by lying with the head low.
33. The Prime Indications of ARNICA are:
1. Traumatism.
2. Injuries to soft tissues.
3. Haemorrhage; ecchymoses.
4. Stupor; but answers correctly when roused.
5. Painful eruptions.
34. Antidoted by: Camphor, Ipecac (massive doses); Coffea (headache) Aconite; Arsenicum; China; Ignatia; Ipecac
(potencies).
It Antidotes: Ammonium carb.; China; Cicuta; Ferrum; Ignatia; Ipecac; Senega.
43
It follows Well: Aconite; Apis; Ipecac; Veratrum alb.

Is Followed Well By: Aconite; Arsenicum; Bryonia; Ipecac; Rhus tox.
Complementary: Aconite; Ipecac.
Lesson fifteen
Rhus toxicodendron
Rhus radicans
1. Common Name: poison ivy; poison oak. Natural Order: Anacardiaceae. Habitat: North America. Grows in woods and
along fences on low ground. Part used: Tincture of the fresh leaves gathered at sunset just before flowering. Active
principles: Toxicodendric acid; Toxicodendrol.
2. Applied locally to the skin, Rhus tox. is an irritant and causes itching and vesicular eruption on the skin which may
extent to the mucous membranes where it produces oedematous swelling, dryness, rawness and burning. Went taken
internally or inhaled there are colicky pains in the abdomen worse at night, diarrhoea, tenesmus, bloody stools and
urine, and fever which is often typhoid or intermittent in character; pains of a rheumatoid type in fibrous
structures, joints and lumbar region, ameliorated by heat and aggravated by rest. Fatal results have not followed any
case of poisoning recorded.
3. Antipsoric. RHEUMATOID, PARETIC AND TYPHOIDAL CONDITIONS due to exposure to COLD and DAMPNESS;
from GETTING WET; from OVEREXERTION and STRAINING; from TRAUMA. Left sided complaints; or extending
from left to right.
RESTLESSNESS; ANXIETY; fear; MILD DISPOSITION; IRRITABILITY; impatience; ABSENT MINDEDNESS;
CONFUSION; forgetfulness; SADNESS; discouragement; SUSPICIOUSNESS; IMPULSE TO COMMIT SUICIDE.
Aversion to company; DELIRIUM; unconsciousness; PROSTRATION.
Aversion to the open air. Thirst. Jerking of muscles; trembling.
Sensations: DRYNESS OF MUCOUS MEMBRANE; HEAVINESS; NUMBNESS; TINGLING; NUMBNESS OF SINGLE
PARTS; of affected parts; coldness of affected parts.
Pains: AS IF SPRAINED; AS IF TORN LOOSE; PRESSING; BRUISED SORENESS; aching; stitching; burning.
PARALYSIS. HAEMORRHAGE. Periodicity. Septic infection; phlegmonous inflammation; suppuration; carbuncle;
gangrene; inflammation of lymphatic glands.
Eruptions: MOIST; FINE VESICULAR; PUSTULAR; ECZEMATOUS; CRUSTY; ERYSIPELATOUS.
Worse: MORNING; NIGHT; AFTER MIDNIGHT; IN REPOSE; ON BEGINNING TO MOVE; WHILE WEATHER;
CHANGE OF WEATHER; open air; TOUCH.
Better: CONTINUED MOTION; CHANGE OF POSITION; MOTION OF THE AFFECTED PART; AFTER SWEATING;
HOT APPLICATIONS; WARM COVERING; pressure.
4. Rhus toxicodendron is indigenous to North America but was brought to England in 1640. The earliest record of its
use as a medicine was in 1798. Its poisonous effects wee noted by a Doctor DuFresnoy of Valenciennes, in the case
of a young man who was cured of a vesicular eruption of six years' duration by being accidentally exposed to the
volatile emanations of the plant. DuFresnoy and others used it successfully in rheumatism, paralysis, amaurosis and
certain forms of chronic skin diseases. Hahnemann and his followers have made extensive provings, establishing it as
one of the principal polychrests.
5. The active principles of Rhus tox. are toxicodendrol, a fixed oil, and a volatile substance known as "toxicodendric
acid", which is given off from the plant in greatest amount after the sun goes down, in damp or cloudy weather and in
the warm days of June and July. Its poisonous effects are augmented if the victim is warm and sweaty when
exposed. It is a remarkable fact that these peculiarities were brought out in the provings and have become
important modalities through clinical experience.
6. Although many persons are immune, some are so susceptible to the action of the volatile principle of Rhus tox. that
merely passing to the leeward of the plant will precipitate a violent attack of poisonous.
7. Two varieties of Rhus tox. are recognized, one growing in the form of a shrub with erect, comparatively smooth and
44
slender stem, seldom reaching more than four feet in height, and known as poison oak; the other known as poison ivy
or Rhus radicans, a climbing vine with thick tortuous stem, heavily fringed with brownish rootlets by which it clings
to its host.
8. In spite of the fact that the two varieties may spring from one and same root stock and their morphology seems to
be due merely to habit, they differ somewhat in pathogenetic action and clinical usefulness. But since they are so
nearly identical in action, they are treated as one remedy, - Rhus tox. and their difference noted briefly at the close
of this lesson.
9. The leading characteristics of Rhus are lameness, stiffness, anxiety and restlessness; fevers of typhoidal type;
phlegmonous inflammation; paretic conditions; aggravation from cold and dampness, repose and over-exertion;
amelioration by heat and continued motion.
10. Around these central features may be grouped all the many and varied phases of this powerful and useful
polychrests. Common colds, influenza, rheumatism, neuritis, typhoid, intermittent and eruptive fevers, septic
infections and erysipelas are among the many ailments that it will cure.
11. Rhus stands next to Arnica as a vulnerary and often follows that remedy in the after effects of injuries. But since
it has an especial affinity to fasciae, aponeuroses and the sheaths and fibrous prolongations of muscles, rather than
the muscular tissues themselves, it is most useful in the after effects of sprains, lifting of heavy objects and
strenuous effort such as running and swimming. If indicated after contusion, it is because the fibrous tissues have
been injured - tissues which do not fall within the sphere of Arnica.
12. Rhus has cured more cases of arthritis, both acute and chronic, than any other remedy. It is not usually suitable in
cases that develop suddenly from exposure to dry cold wind, as are Aconite and Belladonna, but more to be pains and
stiffness following a thorough drenching in a rain storm, sleeping on damp ground, from being chilled while perspiring
or after strenuous physical effort. The patient needing Rhus is more susceptible to exposure when his skin is moist.
Moisture seems to be an essential factor favoring the production of Rhus symptoms.
13. In acute arthritis the joints become smooth, shining and oedematous with little or no redness. The stitching,
tearing pains force the patient to move although motion may be excruciating painful. After moving a while, the pains
and stiffness abate and he stops and tries to rest. However, his respite is but short lived for the pains return with
renewed severity and he must move again. This is repeated until he is exhausted. At times he feels as though the
flesh were being torn from the bones, or the bones scraped. Often there is numbness and tingling in the affected
members and a sensation of on-coming paralysis.
14. In chronic arthritis there is less swelling but much stiffness and lameness, often with contractures in the
structures about the joints. The patient is a veritable barometer. Every change in the weather increases his
suffering, especially if a change to wet weather. He hugs the stove by day and piles on the covers as night. After
long sitting his joints grow sore and stiff so that motion is very difficult, but soon they limber up after he walks a
while.
15. However, the Rhus patient cannot walk very far. He lacks endurance and soon tires. He becomes weak and exhausted
from slight effort and must lie down.
16. Weakness and prostration and a feeling of helplessness are of frequent occurrence in acute Rhus poisoning and
appear early in the provings.
17. Rhus has been termed the great anti-paralytic. The paralysis curable by Rhus is usually functional, and due to
exposure to wet or cold, or to overexertion; less often to spinal inflammations. It may be painless, of one limb or a
paraplegia; it may be of a single nerve as in ptosis palpebrarum. When Rhus is the remedy, the affected part is
frequently cold and numb.
18. The depressing effect of Rhus is not only physical; it is mental as well. The mind functions slowly. The patient is
listless and forgetful. Proper names slip from his memory. He is absent-minded, sad, discouraged and inclined to
weep and in his depression he wants to be alone.
19. Rhus, like several of the polychrests, presents opposite mental states. While some patients exhibit marked
irritability or impatience over trifles, others are mild and even tempered. This is often noted in typhoid fever.
20. In typhoidal states and septic infections the more serious phases of the mental state are evident. The listlessness,
physical weakness and mental depression mentioned above appear early or before the disease is recognized. Sleep is
redness and filled with dreams of fatiguing exertion. As the disease advance the mental hebetude and dullness
increase. The patient is indifferent to everything, but growing restlessness impels him to move. His debility is out of
proportion to the physical condition present, yet he turns from side to side, sits up in bed lies down again; if strong
enough he walks to another room, tries another couch, only to return. His pale face suddenly becomes hot and red
and he complains of a peculiar headache as though a board were strapped to his forehead. Perhaps his nose starts to
drip dark red blood. He has a coated tongue with a red triangular tip. Blue circles form about the eyes. Drowsiness
gradually merges into stupor with low, muttering delirium, for the condition is essentially asthenic and the pulse is
weak and rapid. His mouth and throat are dry and he is tormented with an insatiable thirst for cold drinks. When
45
asked a question he answers slowly or with apparent reluctance, sometimes failing to complete a sentence. Again he
may become suspicious of the attendants and refuse to take medicine, thinking it poison. At length he lapses into
complete unconsciousness. His tongue becomes dark brown and deeply fissured; his mouth and teeth coated with
brown sordes. Brown watery cadaverous smelling stool escapes involuntarily and urine passes unnoticed. Even in coma
he is restless.
21. The description just given is one of typical typhoid. But many diseases, when Rhus is the remedy, may assume
typhoidal symptoms whether it be pneumonia with rust colored sputum or greenish putrid mucus feeling cold as it
passes over the tongue; peritonitis with pressing cutting pains and bloody stools; pelvic cellulitis or metritis with
erysipelatous inflammation of the genitals, fetid lochia and paretic condition of the lower limbs; dysentery with
tearing pains down the back of the thighs; scarlatina with military rash, dark red oedematous fauces, cellulitis of
the external tissues and arthritis; or diphtheria with bloody saliva and diarrhoea.
22. The pains that characterize Rhus tox. have already been suggested. Aching and bruised soreness occur in such
ailments as influenza and rheumatism, but they may accompany pneumonia, typhoid or intermittent fever, erysipelas
or what not. Burning may occur in any location. It is especially a symptom in diseases of the skin.
23. Stitching pains occur in most location. The same may be said of pressing pains.
24. Numbness, tingling and formication are frequent concomitants of rheumatism and paralysis but are associated with
many other ailments. Rhus presents all the pathognomonic symptoms of neuritis.
25. Suffering parts are cold from impaired circulation. There is numbness of the side lain on and of the left arm in
heart disease.
26. Haemorrhage from any orifice of the body indicate Rhus, especially if caused by exertion, trauma or septic
infection. The blood is dark red. In metrorrhagia or haemoptysis or epistaxis from a strain, Rhus is the first remedy
that comes to mind.
27. The characteristic periodicity refers especially to intermittent fever and headaches.
28. Owing to its tendency to involve connective tissue, Rhus becomes an important remedy in cellulitis of the tissues
underlying the skin. The swelling is always more or less oedematous and the surface dark red or purplish, often
studded with vesicles. Later gangrene may set in. in true erysipelas, Rhus cures when the disease is of the vesicular
type; when it itches and burns and is relieved by heat and there is a tendency towards cerebral involvement with the
typical Rhus mental symptoms. Erysipelas beginning on the right side is very characteristic; also erysipelas of the
genitals. In all these forms of inflammation, the adjacent lymphatic glands are involved; if of the hand, the axillary;
of the lower extremities the inguinal glands.
29. In incipient carbuncle presenting a dark red surface, vesiculation and burning pains relieved by heat, Rhus will often
abort the disease before suppuration progresses to the point of abscess formation.
30. Rhus has a remarkable and varied action upon the skin. Erythema, rapidly passing on to vesication, pustulation and
the formation of scabs or crusts oozing a thin fluid, itching, tingling and burning especially after scratching.
31. Eczema capitis, impetigo, and less often many forms of dry, scaly desquamating eruptions come within its sphere of
action. But it is to be remembered that in general Rhus eruptions are moist, not dry.
32. In scarlatina or measles Rhus is best suited to the adynamic type with military eruption; in small-pox, to the
haemorrhagic. Chicken pox may present Rhus symptoms. The provings include urticaria brought on by getting wet and
worse in cold air, pemphigus, purpura haemorrhagic and various forms of herpes.
33. The predominant aggravation as to time is at night. While any of the symptoms of Rhus may appear during the day,
the majority of them and especially the mental states of restlessness, anxiety and fear are increased after the un
goes down. In many cases they reach their acme after midnight. This is particularly true of the rheumatic pains,
cramps and other symptoms of the muscular structure. Delirium, restlessness, and itching of the skin are intensified
at night.
34. In the evening there are sadness and inclination to weep; cough and restlessness disturbing the patient's slumbers.
35. In the morning, the patient is thoroughly miserable, because, from comparative quiet, the joints become stiff, the
mind dull and befuddled and the brain congested. On rising he begins to cough or has nosebleed.
36. The aggravation during repose or when quiet, is an essential feature of Rhus and differentiates it from other
remedies that are relieved by motion.
37. Lying down is an important modality, applying to the general state as well as to every particular symptom found in
the case. Even when the patient is not unduly restless, many complaints, especially the pains, are renewed every time
he assumes the recumbent posture. They are ameliorated while sitting up. Nor can this be explained on the grounds
of increased congestion as in Belladonna or Aconite.
38. Cold in any form aggravates; becoming cold, cold bathing, cold drinks and open air, are all included in the schema of
general characteristics, for the sake of clarity and completeness. Becoming cold is often the direct cause of trouble,
such as a cold in the head, laryngitis or rheumatism. Cold drinks cause pain in the stomach. Putting a hand or a foot
out from under the covers will invariably cause a spell of coughing or renew the chills. One may except cold open air
46
to aggravate, but open air causes an unpleasant sensation in the skin, even when the weather is warm. Bathing may
aggravate even if the water is not cold. In fact, bathing may stop the action of the remedy. Wet weather and
dampness are not only the leading causative factors of Rhus ailments, but are also the major aggravations of
symptoms both general and particular.
39. Touch aggravates because of sensitive surfaces. On the other hand pressure relieves practically all pains where
surface irritation is absent. The lumbago for instance, which frequently calls for Rhus, is relieved by lying on
something hard, or pressure with the hands.
40. Relief from continued motion is a modality of Rhus which applies not only to restlessness, pain, rheumatism,
lameness and stiffness, but to other complaints as well. Aphonia clears up by continued of the voice. Palpitation and
dyspnoea are made better by moving about. Even mental sluggishness is improved by moderate physical exertion.
41. The remedies thus far given in the Course which should be studied in connection with Rhus are Aconite, Arsenicum
and Arnica. Aconite, though restless, anxious, sensitive to cold and worse at night, will hardly be mistaken for Rhus,
for its whole character is sthenic; its onset more rapid and violent and motion increases every symptom.
42. Arsenicum, besides manifesting fear, anxiety, restlessness and burning pains in greater degree than Rhus, is worse
from continued motion.
43. Arnica may give the appearance of restlessness only because the patient is vainly endeavouring to find a soft place
in the bed. When aroused from stupor the Arnica patient answers correctly; the Rhus patient only partially failing to
complete his sentence. Instead of manifesting anxiety or apprehension, the Arnica patient insists that he is not sick.
Arnica, moreover, affects only the soft parts, and every motion is acutely painful; Rhus, the fibrous tissues, with
severe pain on first moving, but relief by continuing to move.
44. Rhus radicans, in addition to the general indications given for Rhus tox. above, presents burning of the tongue with
soreness of the tip; pains and other symptoms worse before a storm but better after it breaks, especially if it be an
electric storm. The headache of Rhus radicans is characteristically occipital, extending forward over the head, with
pain and stiffness in the nape of the neck. It has a pronounced yearly aggravation. It cures phlegmonous erysipelas
of the ankle extending up the legs, without any accompanying fever. When acute Rhus poisoning is typical, Rhus
radicans constitutes the best antidote if given in high potency. It is also the natural antidote for dermatitis
exfoliata caused by the abuse of quinine and quinine compounds.
45. The Prime Indications of RHUS TOX. are:
1. Irresistible desire to move.
2. Mental and physical restlessness.
3. Lameness, stiffness and rheumatoid pains, with numbness and tingling.
4. Paretic conditions.
5. Acute diseases assuming a typhoidal aspect.
6. Phelgmonous inflammation.
7. Erythema and vesicular pustular or moist eczematous eruptions.
8. Aggravation from cold, dampness and change of weather; while in repose; from over-exertion and straining.
9. Amelioration from continued motion, and heat.
46. Antidoted By: Bryonia; Belladonna; Camphor; Coffea; Croton tigl.; Grindelia; Mercurius; Sanguinaria; Sulphur.
It Antidotes: Bryonia, Ranunculus bulb.; Rhododendron.
Complementary: Bryonia; Calcarea fluor.; Phytolacca.
Followed Well By: Arsenicum; Bovista; Bryonia; Calcarea carb.; Belladonna; Graphites; Mercurius; Nux vomica;
Phosphorus; Pulsatilla; Sepia; Sulphur.
It Follows Well: Arnica.
Inimical: Apis.
47. Antidotes for Ivy Poisoning: Anacardium; Bryonia; Croton tig.; Graphites; Grindelia rob.; Kali sulph.; Rhus radicans
(high); Sanguinaria; Sepia.
Lesson sixteen
Bryonia alba
1. Common Name: White Bryony. Natural Order: Cucurbitaceae. Habitat: Middle and Southern Europe. Part used:
Tincture of the fresh roots procured before flowering.
47
2. When applied to the skin it occasions blisters. When taken internally in poisonous doses, it causes gastro-intestinal
inflammation with profuse vomiting and uncontrollable diarrhoea, dilated pupils, reduced temperature, colic, collapse
and death. In some cases the serous membranes are inflamed and covered with an exudates. The lower portion of
the lungs shows hepatisation without bronchitis. The mucous membrane of the large bronchial tubes is irritated,
resulting in cough with pain and distress in this region. The muscles are intensely irritated and congested.
3. Antipsoric; antisycotic. Patient dark-complexioned, bilious and of firm fiber.
Ailments from ANGER, chagrin, taking cold, getting chilled; cold drinks when heated; becoming warm; from the heat of
the sun; from suppression of ERUPTIONS and discharges. Complaints appear slowly. RIGHT SIDED COMPLAINTS;
left sided complaints.
IRRITABILITY: MENTAL DULLNESS; CONFUSION; restlessness; fear of death; ANXIETY; IMPETUOUSNESS;
hurry; sadness; aversion to company; DELIRIUM; delusions. DRYNESS OF INNER PARTS. FEVER WITH THIRST.
Inflammation; of SEROUS and mucous membranes; of muscular tissue; congestion.
Sensations: heaviness; pressure.
Pains: STITCHING; STABBING; lancinating; bruised soreness; PULSATING; BURSTING; AS OF A LOAD; BURNING.
Haemorrhage.
Worse: MORNING; EVENING; NIGHT; MOTION; JAR; stooping; RISING UP; cold; BECOMING HEATED; WARM
ROOM; lying down; AFTER EATING.
Better: PRESSURE; LYING ON THE PAINFUL SIDE; REPOSE; LYING DOWN; COLD DRINKS; cold and warm
applications.
4. For centuries Bryonia alba was employed in domestic medicine among the people of Europe, especially as a local
application in rheumatism. Pereira describes it as a powerful emetic and purgative. He and others used it in vomiting.
Hermand and De Montgomery considered it a good remedy for colic, diarrhoea and dysentery. The ancients
prescribed it for dropsy, notably hydrothorax. Thus both layman and physician unwittingly confirmed some of the
important uses of this drug long before it was proven by Hahnemann and the Austrian provers. But, like many useful
medicines, it was cast aside by the medical profession because they knew no law defining its application. It was
expunged from the official pharmacopoeia and omitted from textbooks for many years.
5. Bryonia is one of the most frequently indicated polychrests of the homoeopathic materia medica. It is not difficult
to learn or to prescribe, for its characteristic indications are clear cut and distinctive.
6. Four general conditions qualify its whole pathogenesis. They are:
1. Aggravation from motion.
2. Sharp stitching pains.
3. Dryness of inner parts.
4. Amelioration from pressure.
7. Aggravation from motion is common to many remedies and to many patients. When an organ or part of the body is
inflamed and sensitive, quite naturally moving it will hurt. This modality in Bryonia becomes a grand characteristic,
not only because it affects every least symptom of the case but also because the patient is so markedly affected by
motion that the least change of position in some distant part increases the pain. (See Lesson IV, Paragraph 24). In
other words, Bryonia leads all other remedies having aggravation from motion.
8. Sharp, stabbing or stitching pains predominates, whether the case be one of congestive headache, meningitis,
neuralgia, pleurisy or arthritis. In most instances the character of these pains may be accounted for by the
underlying pathology.
9. Dryness of inner parts applies not only to the checking of secretions of mucous membranes but to those of serous
surfaces as well.
10. Pressure ameliorates because it prevents motion or impedes the flow of blood to congested parts. Hence the
patient ill in bed, for instance with pneumonia, pleurisy or appendicitis will be found lying on the affected side.
11. The typical Bryonia patient is dark complexioned, bilious and of firm, fleshy fiber. He is morose and easily angered,
especially when he is ailing, and often suffers as a result of a fit of anger, chagrin or deep mortification. He wants
things that cannot be had or rejects whatever is offered. He is habitually constipated. He is very sensitive to cold
air, to cold, dry winds and always gets sick after being chilled while perspiring. Yet he cannot stand the heat of the
sun and some of his complaints are aggravated by heat, or by getting over heated.
12. However Bryonia is a remedy of such wide range that the type or physical build of the patient is usually a secondary
48
matter, as Bryonia ailments may occur in anyone except, perhaps, the stout, flabby or slothful individual whose
symptoms are more apt to call for such remedies as Carbo veg. and Antimonium tart.
13. The Bryonia patient is apt to be impetuous and in a hurry. He drinks and eats hurriedly, is quick in his movements
and in his speech; but his complaints often develop slowly.
14. Although high fever and violent congestion may result from exposure to a cold dry wind, they develop more slowly
than in such remedies as Aconite and Belladonna and are more apt to hollow a long period of exposure than a sudden
chill.
15. The principal points of attack are serous membranes in head, chest, joints and abdomen; mucous membranes of any
part of the body, but more particularly those of the respiratory and digestive tracts; lung tissue, liver and muscles.
16. Like Rhus tox. Bryonia has a marked typhoidal phase on account of its action upon the blood and Peyer's patches,
although it corresponds to fevers of many and varied types; continued, remittent, bilious, and eruptive fevers; less
often to those of intermittent type? Fever is the accompaniment of inflammation and congestion in any part of the
anatomy, and with fever is associated a syndrome of more or less mental confusion and dullness, headache, physical
lassitude, extreme dryness of the mouth and throat with thirst; copious, oily or sour perspiration and external
chilliness. The pulse is rapid and tense, but less bounding than that of Aconite and Belladonna. The tongue is coated
white down the center with red edges and there is a bitter taste in the mouth. Whether it be a case of sick
headache, pneumonia, typhoid or rheumatic fever, the liver is apt to be more or less affected, and if there is
vomiting the matter ejected is intensely bitter or may consist of pure bile.
17. Ill humor changes to positive meanness; sadness merges into despair of recovery or of the future; lassitude, which
appears early, changes into marked weakness, although not the profound prostration of Arsenicum, Carbo veg. and
Antimonium tart. Anxiety is more or less pronounced, but it lacks the intensity and fearfulness of that which
characterizes Aconite and Arsenicum. Restlessness comes especially during fever and with severe pain but the
Bryonia patient is averse to motion chiefly because it aggravates all his sufferings.
18. As the case progresses, typhoidal symptoms begin to manifest themselves. The tongue becomes yellow, the frontal
headache more intense, and the least motion, even turning the eyes or lifting a hand or a foot, causes the head to
throb as though the brain would burst through the skull.
19. The patient lies perfectly still, his face red, at times purplish puffed and besotted, or yellowish from jaundice.
20. In true typhoid Bryonia is indicated in the early stage. The mind is hazy and confused. The patient dozes frequently
and dreams of what has transpired during the day, and while his eyes are closed, he sees people who are not in the
room. Delirium ensues, but it is of a mild type, first while he is drowsing or falling asleep, later during his waking
moments as well. He talks incoherently about his business affairs or events of recent happening. Occasionally he
tries to get out of bed, saying that he is away from home and must return so that he can be properly cared for.
21. The epigastrium is sensitive to touch and there are stitching or stabbing pains, heaviness and soreness in the region
of the liver. The lips are dry and cracked, the mouth and tongue parched. In spite of this, he seldom asks for water
and then only at long intervals, when he eagerly gulps down a tumblerful. This is the characteristic thirst of Bryonia.
After drinking he often complains of nausea and may vomit. He is usually constipated, for the dryness extends from
the mouth through the entire alimentary tract, resulting in large, hard desiccated stools, expelled with great effort.
Diarrhoea is not a frequent complication in the Bryonia typhoid, but in advanced cases, the stools may be mushy,
brown and offensive and sometimes involuntary.
22. In cases of suppressed eruptions or discharges, the symptoms must always be the guide. But these symptoms will
frequently call for Bryonia. Thus in coryza when the discharge suddenly ceases and there are soreness and severe
pain over the frontal sinus, throbbing headache worse from the least motion, dryness of the nasal passages, mouth
and throat with the characteristic thirst, Bryonia will reinstate the discharge and in most instances complete a cure.
23. Menses suppressed from standing on a street corner in wintry weather or driving when insufficiently clothed, may
be followed by a splitting headache, soreness and heat of the breasts, stitching pain in the right ovary extending to
the thigh or vicarious nosebleed.
24. Bryonia is the remedy in measles or scarlatina when the rash is slow in appearing, or has receded and alarming
symptoms develop. Violent headache, drowsiness or stupor and sudden cries indicate an oncoming meningitis. The
sharp stitching or lancinating pains so characteristic of the remedy, recur at intervals, especially when the little
patient is moved. There may be marked strabismus. The face is pale or alternately pale and red; the tongue white
down the center; the mouth and lips parched and dry. Water is gulped down with avidity at long intervals and may be
followed by vomiting. Bryonia is not often indicated in primary meningitis. But when meningeal involvement is due to
the repercussion of an eruption, Bryonia will reverse the process, relieve the brain symptoms and reinstate the
eruption. A very characteristic symptom in such cases is a chewing motion of the jaw.
25. Repercussion of external manifestations on the skin is always followed by serious consequences, but not always by
brain symptoms. Congestive headache, diarrhoea, dyspnoea and faintness especially on rising up from bed may also
result, and Bryonia be the indicated remedy.
49
26. The headaches indicative of Bryonia are legion. The most characteristic, however, are frontal or occipital. They may
be congestive or neuralgic. Shooting, stitching and throbbing pains predominate. When congestion is not severe, the
pain may be only full a dull ache, but that Bryonia is the remedy is at once revealed by the fact that the pain changes
to acute throbbing or sharp stitching on the least motion, even if only of the eyelids or from the jar of coughing; and
that it is relieved by perfect quiet, pressure and hot fomentations. These headaches may be due exposure to the
heat of the sun or to being overheated from any source. They may be concomitants of many complaints, such as
gastric disturbances, constipation and, as already noted, of fevers. Stooping always aggravates.
27. Bryonia is one of the chief remedies in respiratory diseases. The Bryonia patient is sensitive to drafts and is always
catching cold. The result may be diarrhoea, pneumonia, pleurisy, bronchitis, or a coryza. In the latter condition
Bryonia is a useful but somewhat neglected remedy. Yet if given early enough it will abort a cold in the head in a few
hours. The first symptoms are dull headache, sneezing which causes stitching pains in the vertex, redness of the
eyes and lachrymation and perhaps aching of the nasal bones. In a few hours the ailment creeps downward, causing
rawness and dryness of the pharynx and hoarseness. There is apt to be distress in the stomach with nausea. Bryonia
is seldom indicated in coryza without some gastric involvement and constipation.
28. The natural trend of a cold is downwards. This is especially true of a Bryonia cold, and an early exhibition of the
remedy will usually check the inflammation and protect the chest. If the symptoms in the upper passages have
subsided and the chest alone is involved, or if the infection has started as a bronchitis, Bryonia will still be the
remedy. If given in too high a potency, or in a low potency too often repeated, the resultant congestion in the head
and sinuses may be so severe as to require a suitable antidote.
29. In the pandemic influenza of 1918 to 1920 many lives were saved by Bryonia. The Old School methods of treatment
were utterly futile, for in many cases the infection in the nose and throat spread so rapidly to the chest, that a
bronco-pneumonia developed before the physician realized it. Aconite, Belladonna or Ferrum phos. may have been
indicated in the beginning, but Bryonia was often the remedy when the disease acted in this manner.
30. The cough at first is dry and racking and may seem to the patient as if coming from the stomach. With every
paroxysm he involuntarily holds his head or supports the chest with his hands, for pressure relieves. He feels as
though he must expand the lungs, but every attempt to do so is attended with sharp stitching pains. Whenever he
becomes heated or enters a warm room, the cough is renewed. He cannot eat a meal in peace for he begins to cough
after the first few mouthfuls of food. He is sure to have a paroxysm after rising from the table. These symptoms
are excellent indications for Bryonia in whooping cough. The paroxysms are followed by vomiting of food and then of
bile.
31. Bryonia is indicated in pneumonia after exudation has taken place. The typical chill of Bryonia is associated with
internal heat and redness of the face. Respiration is short, quick and labored from a sense of weight in the sternum
or constrictive feeling in the epigastrium; but chiefly owing to the agonizing stabbing and stitching pains in the
pleura with every respiration. The intellect is dulled; the face red and bloated as in typhoid fever and wears an
expression of anxiety. The skin is bathed in sweat, the mouth and throat dry and parched. Usually there is some
heaviness or soreness and stitching in the region of the liver; later there may be jaundice. Expectoration at first
scanty and perhaps blood streaked, later assumes a rust color. The patient at times wants to be propped up in bed,
for it relieves the cough and dyspnoea; but more often he lies on the affected side to ease the pains in the involved
area which is usually in the right lung.
32. Pleurisy with no pneumonia complications presents a similar picture. The cough is dry, every breath an agony and the
patient lies on the affected side.
33. True to its affinity for serous membranes, Bryonia is often called for in synovitis and arthritis. The joint is swollen,
red and hot, the fever not high but the mouth and throat dry. One or more joints may be involved and remain so until
recovery. If the inflammation shifts at all it does so slowly. There is a copious, sour-smelling sweat.
34. Bryonia is one of the few remedies that produce positive inflammation of muscular tissue. Hence it is the similimum
when there is bruised soreness while at rest and stitching pains on the least motion. It is often called for un
lumbago. In spite of the soreness of the lumbar muscles, firm pressure is the patient's greatest relief.
35. The dryness which is a constant symptom of mouth and throat, extends even to the anus. Food lies undigested in
the stomach, and feels like a heavy lump or a stone. In gastritis or derangement of the stomach from errors in diet
or drinking ice water when over-heated, Bryonia is of excellent service. Irritable, morose and petulant, the Bryonia
patient is subject to attacks of indigestion. He suffers from burning and sharp cutting in the stomach, cannot bear
even light touch on the epigastrium because of great soreness; craves beer, coffee and acids, and is constipated. He
has a bitter taste in the mouth after drinking or eating. His tongue is coated heavily white. After eating he has
nausea and frequently vomiting, first of ingesta and then bile and water. The nausea and vomiting are renewed by
the least motion, especially on rising up in bed; at the same time he is seized with vertigo and faintness.
36. His spells of indigestion are often preceded by unnatural hunger and his hasty eating of an abnormal amount of food
50
only serves to precipitate the attack Bryonia, if given during the hunger, may ward off the indigestion.
37. Although habitually constipated, the Bryonia patient may have diarrhoea. It may occur at any season of the year,
especially after taking cold drinks or ices, or when overheated, but is most apt to appear during the hot months of
summer. The stools are thin, brown or lienteric, smell like old cheese, and are preceded by cutting colic. The
modality of "Worse from motion" applies here as in all other Bryonia complaints, but is shown in a striking way. Even
when there is little disturbance of the bowels during the day, there is sure to be a spell just as soon as the patient
gets out of bed in the morning.
38. The most characteristic sensation in the Bryonia case is heaviness or sense of weight. It occurs in the forehead
with the bursting, throbbing headache and nosebleed, or as of a heavy weight on the vertex, as a concomitant of
suppressed menses; as a heavy, crushing pain in chorioiditis or glaucoma; in the stomach like a lump or a stone after
eating; as if a heavy weight pressed upon the right shoulder; or as an oppressive heaviness over the sternum.
39. Again in mastitis the milk is suppressed or develops too slowly. The breast swells to stony harness, is reddened and
exceedingly sensitive and feels as heavy as lead.
40. Bryonia presents a variety of painful sensations, stitching, throbbing and bursting being the most common. There
are also burning pains but they are less characteristic and not the fiery burning of Arsenicum and Carbo veg.
41. Motion aggravates at all times. Many Bryonia symptoms are worse in the morning, because then the patient begins to
move. Vertigo, headache, nausea begin just as he is coming to full consciousness; the headache, as soon as he opens
his eyes.
42. In the evening the patient feels hot in bed, even without fever; delirium, temperature, oppression of the chest and
rheumatic pains increase and become worse as night advances.
43. Jarring, whether from cough or in walking, affects painfully the head and other suffering parts. However, it is less
marked and therefore of less importance than the same modality in Belladonna.
44. Aggravation on stooping of bending forward is a constant modality, affecting the headache, vertigo and pains in the
lumbar region.
45. Lying down ameliorates because it implies repose and quiet. Dyspnoea and cough are exceptions, for they are
aggravated in the prone position.
46. The Bryonia patient is sensitive to both cold and heat. There is no contradiction or inconsistency in this. While
headaches, cough and many other complaints are caused or aggravated by becoming warm, the rheumatic pains are
invariably relieved by hot applications and warm covering. On the other hand, the chill is worse in a warm room, and is
accompanied by heat and redness of the face; the toothache is relieved temporarily by cold water in the mouth, the
nausea by cold drinks in the stomach.
47. Aconite bears an intimate relation to Bryonia in fevers, except in those of typhoidal or intermittent type. Both
remedies present red face, burning, stitching and throbbing in the head or other affected parts. Both are
aggravated by motion and touch. Both exhibit anxiety, fear and restlessness, dryness of the mouth, and fever with
great thirst. The action of Aconite, with its sudden onset and rapidly mounting fever coincides with the hyperaemia
and congestion preceding inflammation. Anxiety is more pronounced and fear of a fatal issue drives the patient to
constant and rapid tossing about. Bryonia follows when effusion or typhoidal symptoms supervene, for both of these
conditions are entirely foreign to the nature of Aconite. Although the Bryonia patient may be, to some extent
anxious and restless, his sufferings are so markedly increased by motion, that he is forced to lie still. Instead of
mental excitement, there are dullness and desire to be let alone, and his fear is more despair of recovery or the
result of the delusion that he is going to the poorhouse. Light touch may aggravate, but firm pressure relieves.
48. The belladonna patient has more markedly, intolerance of light, jar and touch. The eyes are bright and shining, the
impact of the pulse bullet-like, the actions of the patient quick and jerking.
49. In meningitis Belladonna gives place to Bryonia with the advent of effusion into the ventricles and beneath the
cerebral meninges. The bright red face turns pale, there is less sensitiveness to light and jar but absolute
intolerance of motion. Both remedies exhibit marked thirst and hasty drinking, but the Belladonna patient thirstless
or satisfied momentarily by a sip or two, while the Bryonia subject swallows a glassful and refuses more if offered
too soon. There is more rolling of the head when Belladonna is the remedy.
50. Although as a rule, the differentiation between Bryonia and Rhus tox. is easily made, these remedies have much in
common. This is why they are complementary to each other. Restlessness in Rhus is both mental and physical and
motion relieves. In typhoid, depression of the mental faculties is more pronounced; stupor and physical weakness
more alarming, for Rhus is more deeply septic. The tongue provides an unfailing means of differentiating the two
drugs. In Rhus it is brown with a triangular red tip; in Bryonia thickly coated white, yellow, dry and parched, or white
with clean edges.
51. Antimonium tart. follows Bryonia in pneumonia. There are sharp, stitching pains in the chest, high fever, and marked
dyspnoea. The violent, dry cough, somewhat relieved by Bryonia, changes to a loose, suffocative one; the chest fills
with mucus; weakness and stupor increase and the patient yawns and coughs alternately; the skin is bathed with cold
sweat.
52. The Prime Indications of BRYONIA ALBA are:
1. Extraordinary aggravation from motion.
51

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Encyclopaedia Homeopathica

FARRINGTON H., Homoeopathy and Homoeopathic

of Similars. Any remedy acting curatively in a chronic disease acts homoeopathically.

strange, out of the ordinary, and lead to a small group of remedies.

Lesson five - part one

Lesson five - part two

which are indicated in the repertories by different kinds of type.

Copyright 2000, Archibel S.A.

Copyright 2000, Archibel S.A.

26. Haemoptysis from exposure or in pulmonary tuberculosis.

the whole process if given early enough.

Colic relieved by bending backwards.

Sensation: heat; burning.

29. The Prime Indications of FERRUM PHOS. are:

anxiety and restlessness, Arsenicum is indicated.

Notes on veratrum album

will often abort the attack. Here it resembles Aconite.

It follows Well: Aconite; Apis; Ipecac; Veratrum alb.

Copyright 2000, Archibel S.A.

Copyright 2000, Archibel S.A.

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