Veratrum Viride verat-v.

Boger's Synoptic Key — Materia Medica

C. M. Boger · Boger's Synoptic Key — Materia Medica · A Synoptic Key of the Materia Medica, 1915 — the Materia Medica half

Region

Vaso-motors: MEDULLA. Occiput. CHEST. Stomach. Heart. Capillaries.

Worse

RAISING UP. Motion. Cold. Lying on back. Puerperal states.

Better

Rubbing. Lying with head low. Eating.

General

SUDDEN VIOLENT CONGESTION; cerebellar or thoracic; with nausea and vomiting, weakness, staggering, etc. Markedly uneasy. Trembling here and there during sleep, as if on the verge of convulsions. Muscle prostration. General pulsation. Erratic motions. Spasms; with twitchings, shrieks or opisthotonos; before or after menses; as a prodrome. Eclampsia. Uræmia. Burnings; in places; tongue, pharynx, gullet; of skin, which is cold; with prickling. Lies with head low.

Particulars

Loquacity. Mania; puerperal. Delirium, with wild staring eyes and restless hands. Carphology. Head, thrown back; nodding or rolling motions; throbs on raising up; aches on vertex and between eyes. Pains up occiput, with dim vision and dilated pupils. Vision, of red spots; purple, on closing eyes. Deafness, < quick motion. LIVID, TURGID FACE, BUT BECOMES FAINT ON SITTING UP. Apoplexy. Heat stroke. Tension across malar bones. Chewing motions. Red or dry streak down center of tongue. Foul breath. Nausea, with vomiting and purging. Vomiting; violent, without nausea. Hiccough. Œsophagitis. Stomach seems to press against spine. Gastritis. Abdomen aches; cutting at navel. Slow, heavy breathing; as of a weight on chest. Dyspnœa. Violent cough from very start. Pneumonia. Dull, burning ache at heart. Aching neck and shoulders. Vesicles on hands. Cramps in feet, dorsæ, soles, etc. Dreams of water. Full, large, soft pulse or slow, with strong or violent heart beat. Hyperpyrexia or rapidly oscillating temperature; with sweat. Sepsis. Burning in chest. Clothes feel damp. Cold, clammy sweat. Cerebro-spinal fever.

Related

Related: Aco. Gel.

Keynotes and Characteristics with Comparisons of some of the Leading Remedies of the Materia Medica

H. C. Allen · Keynotes and Characteristics with Comparisons of some of the Leading Remedies of the Materia Medica · homeoint.org / Medi-T HTML text; edition not stated by the mirror (first edition 1898, Allen d. 1909)

Keynote

For full-blooded, plethoric persons. Congestion, especially to base of brain, chest, spine and stomach. Violent pains attending inflammation. Acute rheumatism, high fever, full, hard rapid pulse, sever pains in joints and muscles (Bry., Salic. ac.); scanty, red urine. Child trembles, jerks, threatened with convulsions; continual jerking or nodding of the head. Nervous or sick headache; congestion from suppressed menses; intense, almost apoplectic, with violent nausea and vomiting. Congestive apoplexy, hot head, bloodshot eyes, thick speech, slow full pulse, hard as iron. Convulsions: dim vision; basilar meningitis; head retracted; child on verge of spasms. Cerebro-spinal diseases; with spasms, dilated pupils, tetanic convulsions, opisthotonos; cold clammy perspiration. Sunstroke, head full, throbbing of arteries, sensitive to sound, double or partial vision (Gels., Glon.). Tongue: white or yellow with red streak down the middle; dry, moist, white or yellow coating, or no coating on either side; feels scalded (Sang.). Pulse: suddenly increases and gradually deceases below normal; slow, soft, weak; irregular, intermittent (Dig., Tab.). Veratrum viride should not be given simply to "bring down the pulse," or"control the heart's action," but like any other remedy for the totalityof the symptoms.

Seven Hundred Red Line Symptoms from Materia Medica

J. W. Hutchison · Seven Hundred Red Line Symptoms from Materia Medica · rewritten from Hering's and other materia medicas

Red line symptom

The tongue feels as if it had been scalded. Menstrual disorders with intense cerebral congestion. Difficult, slow, laboured breathing; active congestion of the chest. Heart's beat loud, strong, with great arterial excitement; pulse incompressible; high temperature.

Homœopathic Materia Medica

William Boericke · Homœopathic Materia Medica · 9th edition

Common name

White American Hellebore

General

Paroxysms of auricular fibrillation. Induces fall of both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Congestions, especially to lungs, base of brain, with nausea and vomiting. Twitchings and convulsions. Especially adapted to full-blooded, plethoric persons. Great prostration. Rheumatism of heart. Bloated, livid face. Furious delirium. Effects of sunstroke. Œsophagitis. (Farrington). Verat vir, will raise the opsonic index against the diploccus pneumonia, 70 to 109 per cent. Congestive stage and early manifestations of hepatization in pneumonia. Zigzag temperature. Clinically, it is known that such diseases as Tiegel's contracture, Thompson's Disease, athetosis and pseudo-hypertrophic muscular paralysis present a symptomatology quite like that produced by Veratrum vir upon muscular tissue (A. E. Hinsdale, M. D).

Mind

Quarrelsome and delirious.

Head

Congestion intense, almost apoplectic. Hot head, bloodshot eyes. Bloated, livid face. Hippocratic face. Head retracted, pupils dilated, double vision. Meningitis. Pain from nape of neck; cannot hold head up. Sunstroke; head full, throbbing arteries (Bell; Glon; Usnea). Face flushed. Convulsive twitching of facial muscles (Agaricus). Vertigo with nausea.

Tongue

White or yellow, with red streak down the middle. Feels scalded. Increased saliva.

Stomach

Thirsty. Nausea and vomiting. Smallest quantity of food or drink immediately rejected. Constrictive pain; increased by warm drinks. Hiccough; excessive and painful, with spasms of œsophagus. Burning in stomach and œsophagus.

Abdomen

Pain above pelvis, with soreness.

Respiratory

Congestion of lungs. Difficult breathing. Sensation of a heavy load on chest. Pneumonia, with faint feeling in stomach and violent congestion. Croup. Menstrual colic before the appearance of the discharge with strangury.

Urine

Scanty with cloudy sediment.

Female

Rigid os (Bell; Gels). Puerperal fever. Suppressed menstruation, with congestion to head (Bell). Menstrual colic before the appearance of the discharge with strangury.

Heart

Pulse slow, soft, weak, irregular, intermittent. Rapid pulse, low tension (Tabac; Dig). Constant, dull, burning pain in region of heart. Valvular diseases. Beating of pulses throughout body, especially in right thigh.

Extremities

Aching pain in back of neck and shoulders. Severe pain in joints and muscles. Violent electric-like shocks in limbs. Convulsive twitchings. Acute rheumatism. Fever.

Skin

Erysipelas, with cerebral symptoms. Erythema. Itching in various parts. Hot sweating.

Fever

Hyperthermy in the evening and hypothermy in the morning. Suppurative fevers with great variation of temperature.

Relationship

Compare: Gels; Bapt; Bell; Acon; Ferr phos. Antidotes Strychnin-fluid extract, 20-40 drops.

Dose

First to sixth potency.

Leaders in Homoeopathic Therapeutics

E. B. Nash · Leaders in Homoeopathic Therapeutics · homeoint.org / Médi-T HTML text (Nash d. 1917; public domain)

Leaders

A narrow, well developed red streak right through the middle of the tongue.

Intense fever, with twitching and tendency to spasms.

Veratrum viride is another remedy which at one time had a great reputation in the first or congestive stage of inflammatory diseases, and especially in those organs coming under the control of the pneumogastric nerve, viz., pharynx, œsophagus, stomach and heart. For a time the journals fairly bristled with reported cures of pneumonia, and its curative power was attributed to the influence of the remedy to control the action of heart and pulse. It was claimed that if we could control the quickened circulation so as to decrease the amount of blood forced into the congested lung, that you thereby gave the lung a chance to free itself of the existing engorgement.

It looked plausible, and certainly in many cases remarkable cures were effected, and that in a short time. I was a young physician and thought I had found a prize in this remedy. But one day I left a patient, relieved by this remedy of an acute and violent attack of pneumonia, to go to a town five miles distant, and when I returned found my patient dead. Then I watched others treated with this remedy, and found every little while a patient with pneumonia dropping out suddenly when they were reported better.

Now we don't hear so much of Veratrum vir. as the greatest remedy for the first stage of this disease. What was the matter? 1st. It was (like other fads) used too indiscriminately. 2d. It is not desirable (it is wrong) to control or depress the pulse, regardless of all the other conditions. 3d. The patients, who had weak hearts, were killed by this powerful heart depressant. A quickened circulation is salutary, in all inflammatory diseases, and is evidence that the Natural power to resist disease is there, and at work. The pulse will come to its normality when the cause of its disturbance is removed and never should be forced to do so until then. Here is a common fault of the old school notwithstanding their cry of "Tolle causam." So I find fault with Guernsey's keynote, "Great activity of the arterial system; very quick pulse." Next to Digitalis, Veratrum viride slows the pulse, as is abundantly shown in the provings. If quick pulse is ever a result of this remedy, it is a secondary or reactionary effect, like the sleeplessness of Opium or constipation of cathartics. So it seems to me that as an antiphlogistic (forgive me) it must go into the shade with the once vaunted Digitalis.

Then what is Veratrum viride good for? Well, I do not think that its sphere is yet fully defined, or can be without further provings and verification. The provings are already carried far enough to show that it must be a very powerful and useful remedy. That it inflames the œsophagus or stomach is well known, as is the fact that it congests the brain and lungs, but what are the characteristic symptoms that will enable us to prescribe this remedy in preference to the other remedies that do the same thing is not so well known. One peculiar symptom I believe to be characteristic, and which I have verified in a very severe case of erysipelas, which was accompanied by great delirium, is "a narrow, well-defined red streak right through the middle of the tongue." Again I believe Veratrum viride to be one of our best remedies for spasms, twitchings and convulsions, but do not know of any very reliable symptoms guiding us to its selection in the individual case. I once cured a man of a very severe and persistent attack of vomiting, which was aggravated on rising, with this remedy. He had suffered from several similar attacks before, but never any after this one, now several years ago.

A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica

John Henry Clarke · A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica · 1st edition (1900-02, three volumes); homeoint.org / Médi-T HTML digitization

General

Veratrum viride. American White Hellebore. Indian Poke. N. O. Melanthaceæ (of the Liliaceæ). Tincture of fresh root gathered in autumn. [Burt proved Squibb's liquid extract and says he found no other preparation satisfactory.]

Clinical

Amaurosis. Amenorrhœa. Apoplexy. Asthma. Bunions. Cæcum, inflammation of. Chilblains. Chorea . Congestion. Convulsions. Diplopia. Diaphragmitis. Dysmenorrhœa. Erysipelas . Headache, nervous; sick. Heart, affections of. Hiccough. Hyperpyrexia . Influenza. Malarial fever. Measles. Meningitis. Menses, suppressed. Myalgia. Œsophagus, spasm of . Orchitis. Pneumonia. Proctalgia. Puerperal convulsions. Puerperal mania. Sleep, dreamful . Spine, congestion of. Spleen, congested. Sunstroke. Typhoid fever. Uterus, congestion of .

Characteristics

Verat. v . is the American White Hellebore. Growing side by side, Verat. a . and Verat. v . are scarcely distinguishable when not in flower. Millspaugh, however, says that though much like Ver. alb . in its minor points, Ver. v . is strikingly different in general appearance, having a much more pointed leaf, panicles looser and more compound; the racemes of Ver. a . being more compact and as a whole cylindrical, those of Ver. v . scattered, compound, and scraggy. Ver. a . flourishes in mountain meadows, Ver. v . grows in swamps, and wet meadows, and along mountain creeks from Canada to the Carolinas. Cooper has pointed out ( H. W ., xxxvi. 153) a confusion which exists through the Veratrums being also called Hellebores. Ver. v . is "American White Hellebore" and not "Green Hellebore" (which is Helleborus viridis ). Through this confusion an accidental proving of the latter (G. C. Edwards, No. 11. in Allen ) has been included in the pathogenesis of Ver. v . The plants belong to different orders, though it must be admitted there is a close resemblance in their effects. The root of Ver. v . contains Veratrin , and the other alkaloids found in the root of Ver. a ., but in different proportions. Hale was chiefly instrumental in introducing Ver. v . to homœopathy, using it in fevers and particularly in pneumonia. Burt made a heroic proving of the liquid extract; and his infant daughter (twenty-one months) very nearly died from taking a few drops of the tincture from a phial. In two minutes she began vomiting. Coffee and Camphor were given as antidotes. In five minutes her jaws were rigid; pupils widely dilated; face blue; hands and feet cold; no pulse at wrist. Abdomen and back were rubbed with Camphor , when she went into spasms with violent shrieks. These spasms were frequently repeated, a hot bath being most effective in relaxing the muscles. Vomiting ropy mucus kept up for three hours. Pulseless; hands and feet shrivelled. After three and a half hours she slept quietly and soundly and next morning was well but a little weak. Burt recalls his own symptom, "constant aching pains in back of neck and shoulders," and concludes that Ver. v . acts on the cervical portion of the spinal cord and base of brain. He also regards it as acting on the vagus, and paralysing the circulatory apparatus. The great keynote of Ver. v . is congestion , and it is in resolving congestive states that its chief successes have been scored. The correspondence is rough and the lower potencies have been mostly used. D. McLellan told me of a case of his. He was sent for in the middle of the night to see an old lady whom he found sitting up in bed gasping for breath, and blue. Rapid congestion of the lungs had occurred. The attack had come on suddenly. Ver. v . quickly rescued the patient from a condition of imminent peril. The concomitance of congestive symptoms, and also of nausea and vomiting, form one of the leading indications of Ver. v . in a great variety of cases. Sensations of fulness ("Head feels full and heavy;" "rush of blood to the head;" "face flushed;" "buzzing in the ears;" "chest constricted;" or "oppressed as from a heavy load;" point to the congestive tendency. The localities most congested by Ver. v . are: Base of brain; chest; spine; stomach. Slowing of the heart's action is a leading effect of the provings (from its action on the heart muscle and cardiac ganglia ─ Dig . on the pneumogastric); and Ver. v . has been used to "knock down" fever in the same way as Acon . Nash points out that there is some risk in this. When Ver. v . was first introduced he used it largely and successfully in a number of cases; but in one case which appeared to be going on favourably, the patient died suddenly . This he attributes to the Ver. v . In chorea Ver. v . has had many successes: "twitchings during sleep" was a characteristic of some cases. "Constant jerking or nodding of the head," "jerking and trembling, threatened with convulsions," are other leading symptoms. In puerperal convulsions Ver. v. has only succeeded when nauseating doses have been given. In muscular and articular rheumatism it has been used locally as well as internally; and in chorea an application to the spine of the tincture, diluted with spirit, has proved a serviceable adjunct. Among other indications for Ver. v . are: "Violent pains attending inflammation." "Head full, throbbing of arteries, sensitive to sound double or partial vision." Suddenness: Sudden fainting; prostration nausea. A keynote symptom is: Red streak down the centre of the tongue. Ver. v . has a pronounced action on the œsophagus; it causes a sort of ruminating action or reversed peristalsis. Numbness is prominent among the effects of Ver. v . With the 30th I cured a man, 56, of these symptoms: Dim sight as if scales over it; numbness; pain in head as if a tight band were round it; rush of blood to head; sleeplessness. Peculiar Sensations are: Confused feeling in head as if head would burst. As if boiling water poured over parts. Tongue as if scalded. As if a ball rising into œsophagus. As if stomach tightly drawn against spine. As of a load on chest. As if ankles distorted. As of galvanic shocks in limbs. As if damp clothing on arms and legs. Ver. v . is Suited to full-blooded, plethoric persons. Dreaming about water is a characteristic which I have confirmed. The symptoms are: > By rubbing. > By pressure (pain in head). Motion < . Sudden motion = faintness and blindness. Rising < . Walking < ; = blindness. Lying < (headache, breathing, &c.); > faintness and blindness. Closing eyes and resting head > vertigo. < Going from warm to cold. < After exposure. The least food vomiting. < Morning on waking; also evening.

Relations

Antidoted by: Hot Coffee. Antidote to Strychnine. Compare: Puerperal convulsions, Gels. (Gels. has dull, drowsy state of mind); Ver. v., apoplectic condition between the fits, face red, eyes congested, violent convulsive twitches). Congestions, Fer. ph., Bell. Plethora, Aco. Chorea, Hyo. Pneumonia with engorgement, Sang. (Ver v. more marked arterial tension). Scalded tongue, Sang. Tetanus, Nux, Hyperic. Rheumatic fever, Bry., Sal. ac. Sunstroke; double or partial vision, Glon., Gels. Slow, irregular intermittent pulse, Dig., Tab. Aching in gall-bladder, Bap. Heat in heart, Lachn., Rhod., Kalm. Clumsiness, Bov. As if damp clothing on legs, Calc. (Ver. v. and arms). Nodding of head, Lyc., Stram. Neck muscles weak, Ant. t., Ver. a.

Causation

Sun. Suppressed menses. Suppressed lochia.

Mind

Stupefaction; congestion. ─ Mental confusion, loss of memory. ─ Temporary delirium. ─ Quarrelsome and delirious, striking and kicking with r. hand and foot (at times these movements seemed to be involuntary); changed to a happy and comical delirious state. ─ Depression and prostration. ─ Great fear of death. ─ When not vomiting lay in a stupor. ─ Puerperal mania: silent, suspicious; fears being poisoned. ─ Loquacity with exaltation of ideas.

Head

Vertigo: with nausea and sudden prostration; with vomiting as soon as he rises; with photophobia, > closing eyes and resting head. ─ Sunstroke with prostration, febrile motion, accelerated pulse. ─ Headache with vertigo, dim vision and dilated vessels. ─ Head feels full and heavy. ─ Fulness in head, throbbing, aching, buzzing in ears, double or partial vision. ─ Constant dull frontal headache, with neuralgic pains in r. temple close to eye. ─ Rush of blood to head. ─ Pain in head as if tightly bound. ─ A principal headache remedy" (Cooper). ─ [Cooper gives me the following cured cases: Sick-headache; eyes ache and burn, fearful headache and pain in lower back on waking in morning, digging in shoulders. ─ Headache generally before menses, and much sensitiveness of nerves, has to keep in a dark room; pain < behind eyelids; unable to bear sounds. ─ Sick-headache dating from childhood, often at beginning or end of menses, with great depression and lasting two days. ─ Headache in girl, 23, for two years, on getting up in morning is very giddy and weak on her knees, falls down faint in the street, vertigo and sickness and pains all over head, < on vertex, behind ears and in occiput, can't bear to talk or be in noise. ─ Painful swelling of sides of neck, head also feels swollen with suffocative feeling and sneezing and chills down back ( Ver. v . cured after Apis failed). ─ Sick-headache, vomiting, < from fatigue.]. ─ On waking after a short sleep indescribable sensation rising from forehead to crown and seems to grasp vertex and occiput. ─ Dull occipital headache. ─ Constant jerking or nodding of the head. ─ Congestive apoplexy. ─ Basilar meningitis. ─ Cerebral irritation; threatened hydrocephalus. ─ Erysipelas of r. side of head and face, with swelling. ─ Phlegmonous erysipelas of scalp.

Eyes

Full, pressing heavy feeling in eyes. ─ Severe shooting, suddenly stopping pain in l. eye. ─ Aching: upper part of r. orbit; directly over r. eye. ─ Fulness about lids as after crying. ─ Lids heavy and sleepy. ─ Profuse lachrymation. ─ Vision: dim (as if scales over eyes); unsteady; double; dim with faintness on rising up. ─ Green circles round gas-light. ─ Immense green circles round candle, which as vertigo came on and I closed my eyes turned to red. ─ Suddenly blind in upper half of visual field. ─ Cannot walk; if attempts it very faint and completely blind; obliged to keep horizontal position 2.20 p.m. ─ Photophobia and vertigo > closing eyes and resting head, morning.

Ears

Fulness and throbbing in ears (esp. l.). ─ Used locally relieves earache (R. T. C.). ─ Earache with sleeplessness and restlessness, sometimes leaving l. ear and passing up to vertex causing eyeballs to ache and back of head to be painful; chills down back and electric twitches in fingers of both hands, and affecting tongue; temperature and pulse high (great relief. ─ R. T. C.). ─ Deafness from moving quickly with faintness. ─ Ringing; humming with sensitiveness to noise.

Nose

Nose pinched and blue. ─ Catarrh and sneezing. ─ Profuse secretion of mucus from nose. ─ Itching first of r. then l. ala.

Face

Face: very pale; with cadaverous look; blue; hippocratic; flushed. ─ Stinging in r. malar bone. ─ Pains in r. angle of lower jaw. ─ Lock-jaw. ─ Convulsive twitchings of facial muscles. ─ Mouth drawn down atone corner. ─ Lips dry, and mucus of mouth thick. ─ (Phlegmonous erysipelas of face and head.)

Mouth

Tongue: white as if bleached (not coated); white centre, red edges and tip; strawberry; red centre, edges yellow, feels scalded; red streak down centre; inclined to be dry. ─ Acrid burning sensation in mouth. ─ Faint odour of chloroform or ether in mouth. ─ Great increase of saliva; and mucus from stomach and nose. ─ Taste: flat; like lime water; bitterish and peculiar, like odour of semen. ─ Loss of speech.

Throat

Dryness and heat in throat, with severe hiccough. ─ Burning in fauces and œsophagus, with constant inclination to swallow. ─ Numbness of fauces. ─ Spasms of œsophagus constant, violent, with or without rising of bloody frothy mucus; with violent hiccough. ─ Sense of ball moving into œsophagus as far as top of sternum.

Stomach

Ravenous appetite; on waking. ─ Very thirsty, drinks little, which > for a short time. ─ Hiccough: constant; exceedingly painful and violent. ─ Eructations: frequent of wind: acrid, sour risings. ─ Nausea and dizziness, followed by heat of surface. ─ (Continual nausea and sick feeling with dread of food in a bronchitis patient. ─ R. T. C.). ─ Contents of stomach thrown off with a rumbling action without nausea. ─ Sensation as if stomach slowly contracting on its contents and forcing them into œsophagus, producing sensation as of a ball rising up to top of sternum. ─ Retching with agonising pain. ─ The least quantity of food = violent vomiting. ─ Vomiting: profuse, of thick, glairy mucus; of food; of bile; with collapse and cold sweat. ─ Twisting-tearing pain in stomach < by least motion. ─ As if waves rising from stomach to chest, on waking. ─ Pains in stomach, sharp; flying. ─ Great irritability of stomach. ─ (Choked spleen. ─ R. T. C.)

Abdomen

Dull, heavy aching in region of gall-bladder; and umbilical region. ─ Neuralgic pain r. side of navel to groin. ─ In umbilical region: severe cutting aching pains, with rumbling; dull aching; distress. ─ Peritonitis when pulse is hard and firm (A. C. Clifton). ─ Pain and soreness across abdomen just above pelvis. ─ Pain in bowels ran into scrotum; pain in scrotum last to disappear.

Stool and Anus

Crawling in anus. ─ Tenesmus and diarrhœa, copious and offensive stool, with burning of anus and pale face; tenesmus and burning before and up to stool, not during and after; > after stool. ─ Sudden excessive tenesmus. ─ Stools: copious, light, mornings; mushy, with tenesmus and burning; bloody (black in typhoid); doughy, stringy, hard to expel; alternately soft and hard every two hours.

Urinary Organs

Smarting in urethra on urinating. ─ Urine: scanty; very clear; turbid, with reddish sediment, and scum. ─ Hæmorrhage in fungus hæmatodes vesicæ.

Male Sexual Organs

Pains in both testicles, < l., morning; sometimes shoots up into abdomen. ─ Severe pain in l. testicle all through the proving.

Female Sexual Organs

(Congestion of pelvic organs, tenderness of uterus; fever; heat; restlessness; palpitation; local or general anæsthesia. ─ Menstrual colic or dysmenorrhœa; much nausea and vomiting; plethora; cerebral congestion. ─ Membranous dysmenorrhœa, soreness as of a boil in uterine region. ─ Suppressed menses with cerebral congestion; plethora. ─ Amenorrhœa from exposure; chill, complete suppression of discharge, heavy pressive aching in uterine region; intense pain in head with heat and throbbing arteries; mind wandering, sobbing; tendency to hysteric spasms. ─ Vomiting during pregnancy. ─ Rigid os. ─ Puerperal convulsions with arterial excitement; cold, clammy sweat. ─ Puerperal fever, sudden suppression of milk and lochia; quick, weak, or hard, bounding pulse. ─ After abortion retained placenta. ─ Mastitis with great arterial and nervous excitement.)

Respiratory Organs

In evening, tickling, spasmodic cough from just above sternum. ─ Respiration: difficult; with nausea: slow between the vomiting spells; convulsive almost to suffocation. ─ Oppressed breathing on attempting to walk, irregular bowels, sleepless; fulness and heaviness in splenic region, history of ague in early life; profuse diarrhœa followed Ver. v . with great relief (R. T. C.). ─ (Membranous croup, after Acon .). ─ Cough: short; dry; hacking; loose, rattling; < going from warm to cold.

Chest

Constriction of chest; when vomiting ceases. ─ Chest oppressed as from heavy cold. ─ (Oppression of chest with phlegmmy sickness in woman, 83. ─ R. T. C.). ─ Feeling of dislocation in chest when walking. ─ Throbbing in r. side of chest. ─ Pains about l. nipple. ─ (Congestion of chest with rapid respiration, nausea, vomiting; dull burning in region of heart. ─ Pneumonia and pleurisy: pulse hard, strong, quick, or slow and intermitting; lungs engorged; faint feeling in stomach; high fever, face flushed.). ─ (Old pneumonic congestion with superadded acute pleurisy. ─ R. T. C.)

Heart

Pricking pains in region of heart with the headache. ─ Constant burning distress in region of heart. ─ Burning under sternum. ─ Dull, hot, aching pain in heart region 3 p.m. ─ Neuralgic pains in heart. ─ Slow action of heart. ─ Palpitation and dyspnœa. ─ Violent palpitation of heart and faint feeling (agg. ─ R. T. C.). ─ Faintness and biliousness; when rising from lying; from sudden motion; lying quietly. ─ Pulse: slow, soft and weak; irregular, intermittent; suddenly increases and gradually decreases below normal.

Neck and Back

Aching in neck and shoulder, almost impossible to hold head up. ─ Muscles of back contracted, drawing head back. ─ Pain in r. and l. sides of neck. ─ Throbbing and crawling in l. back. ─ Pain in r. of sacrum where it joins pelvis.

Limbs

Rheumatism esp. l. shoulder, hip, and knee; high fever, scanty red urine. ─ Clumsiness. ─ Loss of power of gastrocnemii and Muscles of forearm. ─ Slight drawing in r. elbow and calves. ─ Throbbing in l. radius and r. femur. ─ Sensation as of galvanic shocks in limbs.

Upper Limbs

Aching: top of l. shoulder above scapular ridge; in arms and neck. ─ Shuddering in l. and r. shoulders in succession. ─ Pain: in outer condyle of r. humerus; in r. elbow; in r. and l. ulna; in fingers and thumb.

Lower Limbs

Total loss of locomotion for some hours. ─ Pains in either great trochanter when lying on it. ─ Much pain in hip-joints and about condyles. ─ Cramps in legs. ─ Sensation of cramp in gastrocnemii with inability to exert them. ─ Drawing in r. calf while walking. ─ Lancinating pain in r. hip. ─ Joints swollen, very tender, high fever. ─ (Knee tender, swollen after a wrench.). ─ R. ankle feels dislocated, can scarcely walk; later, l.

Generalities

Pallor with syncope. ─ Tremor. ─ Spasm with violent shrieks; opisthotonos; face dark blue; breath suspended; lasting two minutes and recurring after few minutes' interval. ─ (Epileptic fits in a child, bad case. ─ R. T. C.). ─ Nervous attack with shaking trembling and chilliness (agg. ─ R. T. C.). ─ Numbness. ─ Clothes irritate as if they did not fit well. ─ Convulsions. ─ Chorea, movements continuing in sleep. ─ Often indicated in hæmorrhage from various organs (R. T. C.). ─ The pains of influenza; headaches, gastralgia, pains in calves of legs (R. T. C.).

Skin

Itching in many parts. ─ (Erythema. ─ Erysipelas. ─ Congestive stage of exanthema.). ─ Used locally, relieves pain in erysipelas (R. T. C.). ─ (Measles, with intense conjunctivitis and high fever. ─ R. T. C.)

Sleep

Very sleepy. ─ Coma; blue face; spasms. ─ Restless and sleepless. ─ Dreams: frightful; of being on the water; of people drowning; about water, fishing, &c.; lively in which he was continually baffled and provoked.

Fever

Chilly; body cold but moist skin. ─ Cold shivers, head and feet cold and numbed, crept up arms and legs as if enveloped in damp clothing. ─ Heat followed dizziness and nausea; icy coldness followed the heat. ─ Feverishness; depressed in mind and body, weak, pains in shoulder and over body as from influenza, with prickling irritating rash on forehead, face, and chest (agg. ─ R. T. C.). ─ Profuse diaphoresis and sense of utter prostration. ─ Bathed in cold sweat. ─ Cold, clammy sweat on forehead. ─ (Irritative fever with cerebral congestion. ─ Streptococcus fever; rapid and violent alternations of temperature. ─ Ephemeral fevers with nausea and retching. ─ Cerebro-spinal fever. ─ Typhoid. ─ Yellow fever.). ─ (Typhoid fever, fourth week, beef-steak tongue; sickness, unable to retain any food, great prostration and sinking at epigastrium. ─ R. T. C.)

The Guiding Symptoms of Our Materia Medica

Constantine Hering · The Guiding Symptoms of Our Materia Medica · 1879–91

Mind

Stupefaction ; congestion.
Mental confusion, loos of memory ; vertigo. θ Cerebral hyperemia.
From sudden cerebral congestion : quarrelsome delirium ; great mental depression and fear of death ; semi-stupor, sometimes complete coma ; puerperal convulsions ; insanity.
Puerperal mania : silent, suspicious ; will not see her physician, he seems to terrify her ; fears being poisoned ; sleepless, can hardly be kept in her bedroom.
Depression of spirits.
Loquacity, with exaltation of ideas, or an exalted opinion of her own ideas and powers ; everything seems clear to her ; now clearly understands former mysterious things ; wants no medicine, as that will restore her to former condition ; at
times tlaks and laughs ; some days laughter is constant ; talks long about one thing ; persists in talking and will pay no attention to what is said to her ; will not answer questions ; knows all that is going on about house, does not want anything said that she
cannot hear ; lies in bed and does not want to get up long enought to get clothes changed ; says head feels bad ; eyes red, vision not affected ; appetite poor, or capricious ; bowels torpid ; limbs cold and moist ; pulse small and frequent. θ Insanity.

Sensorium

Sunstroke, with prostration, febrile motion, accelerated pulse.
Headache, with vertigo, dimness of vision and dilated vessels.
Head felt full and heavy.
Vertigo : with nausea ; with vomiting as soon as he rises.

Inner head

Frontal headache : severe ; with vomiting ; dull, with neuralgic pain in right temple, close to eye.
Headache from nape of neck, with vertigo, dim vision, dilated pupils.
Congestion to head : from high living, abuse of stimulants ; during dentition.
Fulness in head, throbbing arteries ; increased sensitiveness to sounds ; buzzing in ears ; double or partial vision. θ Sunstroke.
Great pain, with fulness in head ; face much flushed ; burning in head ; spots`before eyes ; delirium or a kind of stupefaction.
Congestive headache from suppression of menses ; intense congestion, almost apoplectic, accompanied by violent nausea and vomiting.
Nervous or sick-headaches.
Intense cerebral congestion : feeling as if head would burst open ; with nausea and vomiting ; sudden spasms ; from plethora, vascular irritation, coup de soleil, alcoholic stimulants, teething in children, and from suppressed discharges ; weight or distension of
head ; giddiness ; intense headache ; fulness and throbbing of arteries ; stupefaction ; increased sensitiveness to sounds, with buzzing, roaring, etc., and double vision.
Constrictive pain in head, increased by warm drinks.
Congestive apoplexy ; intense headache ; stupid, ringing in ears, bloodshot eyes, thick speech, hot head ; slow, full pulse, hard as iron ; convulsions ; dimness of vision, nausea and vomiting.
Cerebro-spinal congestion.
Acute inflammatory meningitis.
Meningitis ; high fever, intense congestion, later rolling of head or vomiting ; face haggard, cold, pulse slow ; breathing labored ; trembling, as if child were frightened and on verge of spasms.
Cerebro-spinal disease ; pulse quick and wiry ; pupils dilated ; muscles of back and neck contracted, drawing head back on shoulders ; delirium ; spasmodic cough ; finally tetanic convulsions every five or ten minutes, for five days ;
opisthotonus ; cold, clammy sweat over body.
Cerebro-spinal disease in a child ; burning fever, frequent vomiting, cries out on attempt to move him, draws head backward, rolls up eyes, puts hand back of ears, rolls head from side to side, pulse wiry, rapid, 150 ; spinal column pungently hot and dry, with petechiæ.
A child, æt. 3 months, very much emaciated, head much enlarged and misshapen, drawn back, from contraction of spinal muscles is compelled to lie on side, eyes rolled upward, rolling of head, moaning and screaming, great heat in back of head and spine, respiration feeble and sighing,
pulse 160 and feeble, watery diarrhœa, urine scanty and high-colored.
Basilar meningitis.
Cerebral irritation : threatening hydrocephalus.

Outer head

Right side of head and face much swollen and covered with large blisters ; headache ; high fever ; no sleep ; no appetite ; intermitting attacks of nausea ; occasional vomiting of water drunk. θ Erysipelas.
Phlegmonous erysipelas of scalp ; red streak down centre of tongue, yellow at edges.

Sight and eyes

Double vision.
Photophobia and vertigo > by closing eyes and resting head.
Unsteady vision.
Dimness of vision : with dilated pupils ; from congestion of blood to base of brain, with nausea and vomiting ; when assuming erect position, with partial syncope ; walking brings on blindness, with fainting ; after loss of vital fluids.
Immense green circles appear around candle, which, as vertigo comes on, turn to red.
Amaurosis : from irritation or congestion of optic nerve ; from anemia.
Mrs. ---, æt. 32, never had any previous eye trouble ; vision good at all distances ; has always suffered from dysmenorrhœa, with severe cephalalgia just before or after menses ; for last six years has had occasional epileptiform
convulsions, all of which were interrupted during her only pregnancy, and subsequent period of lactation ; child died when 9 months old, and with re-establishment of menstrual function occurred dysmenorrhœa, head pains and convulsions, latter more frequent than ever ; at menstrual
period pain in orbital region, gradually extending backward through base to cord ; opisthotonos, body and limbs highly hyperæsthetic, consecutively, from above downward, following course of development of pain ; a few hours later these parts anæsthetic, followed by marked
atrophic changes in muscles ; particularly in lower extremities ; sudden complete loss of qualitative vision of right eye, with contracted pupil ; vision of left eye only slightly hazy ; no pain or uneasiness in eyes until two days after loss of vision was noticed, when
she had a severe attack of cephalalgia, lasting one week with unconscious state, fainting and vomiting, objects appearing like balls of fire before eyes ; aching in one or other eye constantly, < in evening, with appearance of stars, flashes of fire, etc. ; L. E. V. 15/30 ;
R. E. V. = perception of light ; choroiditis circumscripta, a single nodule just external to macula ; nodule, and tissues between it and macula, having characteristic prominence and yellow-red color, while small lines and dots of choroidal pigment gave evidence of approaching
atrophy in that tissue ; after Veratr. vir., R. E. V. 15/80 ; L. E. V. 15/15 ; circumscribed atrophy of choroid about same dimensions, remaining portions of choroid and retina in all respects normal ; no return of headache, dysmenorrhœa or convulsions, vision remaining
good.
Mrs. ---, æt. 21, brunette ; brown irides ; good physique ; family history paraplegia, hemiplegia and apoplexy ; attacked six weeks ago with violent pain in small of back, and through pelvis ; burning as if boiling water were being poured over parts ; pain
and violent cramping in calves and feet, with numbness and itching ; preceding these symptoms, violent cephalalgia beginning in nape and base ; < lying down ; scalp sensitive ; menses infrequent and scanty ; acute metritic cellulitis ; dull pain in left eye,
with gradual failure of vision ; some heavy pain in left side of head, > by pressure, < by lying down ; L. E. V. 4/70 ; inspection of fundus shows a typical "congestion papille," papillary margins being entirely obscured, and presenting characteristic grey,
woolly appearance ; both veins and arteries large and tortuous ; R. E. V. 15/20, with + 1/49 = 15/15 ; retinal veins markedly tortuous and dilated ; after Veratr. vir., R. E. V. 15/15 ; L. E. V. 15/40.
Became suddenly blind in upper half of visual field ; R. E. V. 15/15 ; L. E. V. 15/10 ; optic disk can be distinctly outlined ; only superior retinal vessels can be with difficulty traced.
Twitching in lids, contortion of eyes, rolling of eyeballs, paralysis of lids.
Traumatic erysipelas of lids ; excessive dryness with difficulty of moving them ; great heat in interior of eyes.

Hearing and ears

Deafness from moving quickly, with faintness.
Roaring in ears, congestion ; nausea, vomiting.
Humming in ears and sensitiveness to noise.
Paralysis of auditory nerve, producing deafness.
Neuralgia of auditory nerve.
Acute otitis.
Ears cold and pale.

Smell and nose

Profuse secretion of mucus from nose.
Itching first in right, then in left side of ala nasi.

Upper face

Face : cold, bluish, covered with cold sweat ; nose pinched, cold, blue ; paleness of lips and around alæ nasi.
Convulsive twitchings of facial muscles.
Face flushed ; cerebral congestion.
Right eye completely closed from inflammation and swelling of upper lid ; half of forehead and most of scalp on same side inflamed and covered with large blisters ; much pain ; restless ; sleepless ; fever ;
headache ; tongue coated dirty yellow ; breath offensive ; no appetite ; at times considerable thirst ; nausea from one to three hours, seldom vomiting, and then of water drunk. θ Erysipelas
bullosum.
Phlegmonous erysipelas of face and head ; furious delirium, screaming, howling, striking so that it required several to keep her on bed ; pulse high, strong ; no sleep for sixty hours ; tongue very red, inclined to a brown color on edges, with a red dark streak
through centre ; about three-quarters of an inche wide.

Lower face

Mouth drawn down at one corner.
Lips dry ; mouth dry, or thick mucus in mouth.

Teeth and gums

Dentition ; cerebral congestion, excited pulse ; convulsions.

Taste, speech, tongue

Tongue : white or yellow, with red streak down middle ; dry or moist with white or yellow coating, or no coating at all on either side ; feels scalded ; inclined to be dry.

Inner mouth

A peculiarly characteristic odor of breath, not offensive, but reminding one of a faint odor of chloroform or ether. θ Malarial fever.
Dry lips and mucus of mouth thick ; dry mouth and lips all day.
Copious secretion of saliva.

Palate and throat

Dryness and heat in throat, with severe hiccough.
Burning in fauces and œsophagus, with constant inclination to swallow.
Spasms of œsophagus, with or without rising of frothy, bloody mucus.
Sensation as of a ball rising into œsophagus.
Acute inflammation of whole length of œsophagus, with constant hiccough ; nausea and violent vomiting.
Acute spasmodic stricture of œsophagus.

Appetite, thirst. desires, aversions

Thirst.

Hiccough, belching, nausea and vomiting

Hiccough : almost constant ; painful ; with spasms of upper part of œsophagus.
Heartburn, with bitter, sour rising.
Nausea : and vomiting, with cold sweat ; with dizziness, followed by heat of surface ; painful empty retching, with ejection of only a little bloody mucus.
Vomiting : long continuing ; of glairy mucus after food ; of blood ; of bile ; with inflammatory and cerebral diseases ; smallest quantity of food or drink is immediately rejected ; with collapse, very slow pulse and cold sweat.

Scrobiculum and stomach

Sharp, flying pains in epigastrium and umbilical region, passing to pubes.
Excruciating pain covering space size of hand, in lower part of stomach.
Twisting tearing pain in stomach.
Intense drawing twisting pains in stomach, as if it were tightly drawn against spine, causing pain in dorsal region.
Pains culminate, every five minutes, in severe vomiting.
Acute gastritis.
Neuralgic or spasmodic affections of stomach, accompanied by vomiting, retching and excessive irritation.
Heartburn and sour eructations ; could take any form of hot food or drink, but a single mouthful of ice water would cause immediate vomiting, without much nausea, followed by empty retching often lasting for hours ; stabbing pain in dorsal
region, sometimes extending through to umbilicus.

Abdomen and loins

Abdomen as if drawn in, following cramp in stomach.
Pain and soreness across abdomen, just above pelvis.
Pain in lower portion of bowels.
Neuralgic pains at right side of umbilicus, passing down to groin.
Cutting aching pains in umbilical region, with rumbling in bowels and desire for stool.
Enteritis, with high fever, great vascular excitement ; vomiting ; dark, bloody stools.

Stools and rectum

Stools : bloody ; black, in typhoid ; copious, light, mornings ; mushy, preceded and followed by cutting in bowels.
Acute enteritis, with high fever, dark and bloody stools.
Cholera and cholera morbus.
Purging and vomiting almost constantly from 1 until 10 P. M. ; lies doubled up with agony ; profuse cold sweat ; frequent attempts at vomiting, at same time watery stool mixed with small flakes of mucus ; burning in stomach which
was cramped and felt like a stone to external pressure. θ Cholera morbus.
Hemorrhoids red or dark blue.
Neuralgic pains in rectum.

Urinary organs

Urine increased, pale, deposits a reddish sediment ; specific gravity diminished.
Acute cystitis, with fever.

Male sexual organs

Acute orchitis takes an erysipelatous nature.

Female sexual organs

Acute metritis and ovaritis, with a high grade of fever.
Pelvic cellulitis.
Congestion of pelvic organs, tenderness of uterus ; fever ; heat ; restlessness ; palpitation ; local or general hyperesthesia.
Menstrual colic, preceded by great congestion or troublesome strangury ; plethoric women.
Menstrual colic or dysmenorrhœa ; much nausea and vomiting ; plethora ; cerebral congestion.
Menses regular, preceded for three days by most terrible menstrual colic ; pains extend all over body ; face and head bloodshot ; pains running into head from neck ; pulsations in head, neck and carotids ; sight disappears at
times, and at others everything is moving in confusion before eyes ; tongue feels heavy, but is clear and looks natural ; great thirst ; pulse full and bounding. θ Dysmenorrhœa.
Membranous dysmenorrhœa ; soreness as of a boil in uterine region.
Suppressed menses, with cerebral congestion ; plethora.
After being caught in a shower a few days before menses, chill, followed by intense fever, congestion to head, throbbing and fulness of carotid and temporal arteries, great heat of head with coldness of feet, intense pain in head, occasional delirium,
pulse 120, hard and full. θ Amenorrhœa.
Amenorrhœa from exposure ; chill, complete suppression of discharge ; heavy pressive aching in uterine region ; intense pain in head with heat, fulness and beating of arteries ; mind wandering ; hysteric sobbing and tendency to tonic spasms.

Pregnancy. parturition. lactation

Vomiting during pregnancy.
Rigid os uteri during labor.
Puerperal convulsions during labor after blood-letting ; furious delirium ; arterial excitement ; cold, clammy sweat.
Intense congestion of blood to brain, blue, livid face, profound coma or wild delirium. θ Puerperal convulsions.
During nearly whole period of pregnancy, severe vomiting, constant nausea with severe burning pain in stomach, entire inability to retain food except a very small quantity of thin gruel or beef broth, these would often excite protracted vomiting ;
constant pressure and confused feeling in head, with paroxysms of intense burning pain, prostration of strength, coldness of limbs, dryness of mouth, without much thirst ; pain and pressure in head, extending over entire head, with a confused feeling, partial loss of memory ; face
flushed ; heat in head and face ; pulse wiry and increased in frequency ; dryness in mouth with some thirst, no pain except in head ; premonitory to convulsions, slight chilliness with a little nausea and twitching of muscles of face, followed by a rapid convulsed
movement of muscles of body and limbs ; dilated pupils, difficult breathing, continuing with slight intermissions for fifteen minutes ; stupor from which she could not be aroused for fifteen minutes ; afterward pain and pressure in head, with nausea and faintness. θ Puerperal
convulsions.
Violent convulsions setting in as head of child was passing through vagina, and continuing after expulsion of placenta ; face turgid, livid, expression hideous, great activity of arterial system ; violent clonic spasms.
Convulsions with mania, or mania continues after convulsions have ceased.
Puerperal mania : silent, suspicious and distrustful ; would not see her physician, his presence seemed to terrify her, feared he would poison her ; complete sleeplessness, could be with difficulty confined to bedroom.
After excitement during confinement, sixth day, semi-unconscious state, muttering to herself ; face hot and flushed, extremities cold ; pulse full and bounding, 160, temperature 105.5°F.
Puerperal fever : sudden suppression of milk and lochia ; intense fever, restlessness ; excessive pain, tenesmus, tympanitis ; skin cold and clammy ; quick, weak or bounding hard pulse, cerebral congestion and delirium.
After abortion, retained placenta ; high fever ; severe congestion to head ; abdomen distended and very tender over uterine region ; sudden cessation of profuse hemorrhage.
Sudden suppression of lochia on fourth day after labor, from exposure to a draft ; severe chills, mingled with and followed by intense fever ; bursting headache ; throbbing of arteries ; occasional delirium ; slight spasms ; tenderness of abdomen ; with
sharp pain in uterus and ovaries ; breasts flaccid ; no secretion of milk. θ Puerperal fever.
Mastitis, with great arterial and nervous excitement.

Voice and larynx. trachea and bronchia

Membranous croup (after Aconite).

Respiration

Breathing : labored, must sit up, cold sweat on face : (In sick :) decreased from 40 to 16, pneumonia ; difficult, convulsive, almost to suffocation ; sensation as of a heavy load on chest ; patient has to sit up, cannot lie down ; cold sweat
on face.
Oppression of chest ; anxiety.

Cough

Cough : short, dry, hacking ; loose, rattling ; < going from warm to cold.

Inner chest and lungs

Congestion of chest, with rapid respiration, nausea, vomiting ; dull burning in region of heart.
Pneumonia, pulse hard, strong, quick ; engorgement of lungs, with faint feeling in stomach, nausea, vomiting, slow or intermittent pulse.
After exposure, severe chills and headache, pain in right side, cough ; after five days, fever, quick pulse, pain in r. side of chest, cough, frequent and labored respiration ; profuse, bloody expectoration ; clear, bloody mucus. θ Pneumonia.
Tongue feels as if scalded ; violent nausea and vomiting every fifteen minutes ; soft mushy stool ; anxious oppression of chest ; high fever. θ Pneumonia.
Holding his side complaining that he cannot breathe ; cannot take a full inspiration ; stitching pleuritic pain, very severe in right side. θ Pleurisy.
High fever ; face flushed ; vomiting ; labored breathing and expectoration of pus and florid blood ; tongue has a red streak through centre. θ Pneumonia.

Heart, pulse and circulation

In cardiac region : burning ; prickling ; dull aching.
Heart's beat : loud, strong, with great arterial excitement ; low and feeble ; fluttering.
Palpitation with dyspnœa.
Faintness and blindness : when rising from lying ; from sudden motions ; lying quietly.
Idiopathic and rheumatic peri-and endocarditis ; violent fever ; full, hard, bounding pulse ; congestion to head, without delirium ; throbbing carotids ; constant burning pain, with oppression of chest ; sensation as of a heavy load on chest ; heart's
action violent and tremulous ; respiration rapid, labored and sighing.
Pulse : suddenly increases and gradually decreases below normal ; slow, soft, weak ; irregular, intermittent.

Neck and back

Aching in back of neck and shoulders.
Muscles of back contracted, drawing head backward.
Opisthotonos : arterial excitement ; hands and feet cold ; shocks in limbs ; congestion of brain and spine ; loss of consciousness.
Heat and redness down spine ; back of head hot ; spotted fever.

Lower limbs

Pain in either great trochanter when lying on it.
Much pain in hip joints and about condyles.
Lancinating pain in right hip.
Inflammatory rheumatism affecting knees, ankles and hips ; joints swollen, red, very painful and tender ; high fever ; loss of appetite ; much sweat without relief ; red streak down centre of tongue, white at edge.
After wrenching, knee tender and swollen ; severe pain preventing sleep ; excruciating jumping of limb, controlled by a splint. θ Synovitis.
Right ankle feels as if dislocated, can scarcely walk ; later left.

Limbs in general

Rheumatism, especially in left shoulder, hip and knee ; high fever ; scanty, red urine.
Acute rheumatism ; knees, ankles, wrists and fingers much swollen and very painful ; some general fever ; tongue exhibited central red stripe with coated edges.
Flying pains : pains in joints ; shuddering. θ Rheumatism.
Galvanic shocks in limbs of great violence.
Cramps of legs, fingers and toes.
Pains, especially about condyles.

Rest. position. motion

Lying : headache < ; doubled up, cholera morbus ; cannot, difficult breathing ; quietly, faintness and blindness > ; on back with thighs flexed on pelvis.
Rising : faintness and blindness.
Sudden motion : faintness and blindness.

Nerves

Faintness after rising from recumbent position.
Trembling as if child were frightened and on verge of a spasm.
Convulsive motions of facial muscles. θ Chorea.
Chorea ; twitchings and contortions of body, unaffected by sleep, froth about lips ; champing of teeth ; difficult swallowing ; head jerking or continually nodding ; sexual excitement.
Violent spasms like galvanic shocks.
Convulsions : of all limbs, trembling of whole body ; coming on suddenly, frothing at mouth and violent jactitations of all voluntary muscles ; twitching and contortions of body, cramps in legs and fingers, ankles feel as if dislocated ;
hysterical ; after scarlet fever, great dilatation of pupils, inability to sleep ; during dentition ; puerperal, with mania, which keeps on after cessation of spasms ; face flushed, pulse wiry, thirst ; epileptiform ; with opisthotonus, anemia from diarrhœa ;
trismus.
Epileptiform convulsions, with high fever, pulse 190, rapid respiration, 76 in a minute, and much cerebro-spinal irritation.
Chorea in a woman, childless and subject to menorrhagia ; continual nodding of head, and violent convulsive action of one arm and jactitation of one leg.
Chorea of two months' duration, entire muscular system in a continuous and tumultuous motion, face worked into most horrible and ludicrous contortions ; head constantly jerking ; writhing of whole body, no sleep.
Chorea in a lady, æt. 30, constant moving of head, lower jaw, larynx and tongue, twitching of head, jerking of arms and lower extremities, when these symptoms subside she is attacked by violent palpitation of heart.
Chorea for a month ; movements continue in sleep ; throws about arms and legs while asleep ; is unable to hold a spoon ; speech affected, drops his words when speaking ; complains of pains in hands if he keeps them still for a few moments ; constantly
"on move" as to his legs and arms ; since choreic movements showed themselves has been continually eating ; pain extending up arms and shoulders to head, and a like pain in legs.
A girl, æt. 13, began having choreic symptoms during her eleventh year ; at times quite well then for several days making faces ; bobbing head ; face livid and covered with cold perspiration ; pain in back of head, desire to press it against pillow ; pulse slow
but heavy ; on attempting to rise makes a series of springs, apparently from impossibility of raising one foot from ground without lifting both.
A boy, æt. 13 ; St. Vitus' dance for four years ; began throwing arms and legs about before being put to bed, when spoken to harshly ; frightened by a chimney sweep previous day ; fractious, obstinate boy ; becomes much < when he cannot have his own way.
Paralysis ; tingling in limbs ; cerebral hyperemia.

Sleep

Sleeplessness.
Coma ; blue face ; spasms.
Restless sleep ; dreams of drowning ; of being on water.

Time

All day : dry mouth and lips.
From 1 to 10 P. M. : purging and vomiting.

Temperature and weather

Going from warm to cold : cough <.
After exposure : chills and headache.

Fever

Coldness of whole body, cold sweat on hands, face and feet.
Chilliness with nausea.
Coldness with pale skin, flabby muscles ; quick but weak pulse.
Profuse, cold, clammy perspiration.
Irritative fever, with cerebral congestions, causing convulsions ; particularly in children.
Fevers during dentition, with irritation of brain, spasms or tendency to them.
Scarlatina, during first or febrile stage, when arterial excitement is intense, and there is cerebral congestion.
A girl, æt. 13, had been suffering with continued fever for ten days ; violent pain in back ; inclination to sleep most of day ; very sick at stomach ; black diarrhœa ; pulse varying from 98 to 110 during day ; pain and
weakness in lower limbs. θ Typhoid.
A man, æt. 18 ; sick two weeks ; high fever ; pulse 120 ; face very flushed ; fulness with slight pain and great buzzing in head ; gnats and bugs flying before eyes ; inclined to jump out of bed ; talking at random ; slight bearing-down pain
in bowels, attended with black diarrhœa ; great weakness in lower extremities, general prostration.
A girl, æt. 20 ; violent inflammation of bowels for three days ; pulse 110.
A girl, æt. 14 ; high fever ; face flushed, white spots as large as a quarter here and there.
Ephemeral fevers with vertigo, headache, dimness of sight, nausea and weakness.
Remittent and bilious fevers not dependent on miasmatic influences.
Congestive fevers of malarial districts.
A girl, æt. 9, unconscious for four or five hours ; complete anesthesia ; heart laboring tumultuously ; pulse weak at wrist, 150 per minute ; breathing panting and irregular ; extremities cold and clammy ; back and neck very hot ; complexion
ashy pale, with purplish lips ; now and then a spasmodic twitching of arms and hands.
Cerebro-spinal fever in first stage.
Typhoid fever : pulse is full, hard, frequent ; pain violent in back of head ; delirium ; black stools ; constant talking and muttering unintelligibly, with open eyes ; squinting ; ocular conjunctiva injected ; secretion of yellow mucus at inner
canthus ; nightly agglutination ; face pale with cold sweat ; boring occiput into pillow, jerking head backward, sometimes forward ; pupils dilated ; dropping of lower jaw ; corner of mouth drawn down on left side ; champing teeth ; tongue coated
white ; red streak down centre ; beating of heart when turning over in bed, shaking left side of thorax ; pulse irregular ; urine dark and turbid, fetid, involuntary ; great restlessness ; constant moving, thrusting out one leg, then drawing it up ;
position on back, with thighs flexed on pelvis ; picking at bedclothes ; subsultus tendinum, like galvanic shocks ; twitching of facial muscles.
Yellow fever ; intense fever with occipital pains, and vascular and nervous erethism, threatening convulsions ; development of local inflammations ; precordial distress ; vomiting with cold sweat on face ; great and sudden changes in pulse.

Attacks, periodicity

Every five minutes : pains culminate in vomiting.
For hours : empty retching.
For a month : chorea.
For four years : St Vitus' dance.

Locality and direction

Left : vision hazy ; dull pain in eye ; heavy pain in head ; rheumatism in shoulder, hip and knee ; corner of mouth drawn down.
Right : neuralgic pain in temple ; head and face swollen, with blisters ; loss of vision ; inflammation and swelling of upper lid ; neuralgic pains from umbilicus to groin ; pain in chest ; lancinating in hip.
Right then left : itching in ala nasi ; ankles feel as if dislocated.

Sensations

As if head would burst ; as if boiling water were being poured over parts ; as of a ball rising into œsophagus ; as if stomach were tightly drawn against spine ; confused feeling in head ; tongue as if scalded ; as of load on chest ; as if
ankles were dislocated ; as of galvanic shocks in limbs.
Pain : in orbital region ; in calves and feet ; in lower portion of bowels ; all over body from uterus ; into head from neck ; in right side ; in joints ; about condyles ; in back of head ; in lower limbs.
Intense pain : in head, with dysmenorrhœa.
Sharp pain : in uterus and ovaries.
Sharp flying pains : in epigastrium and umbilical region to pubis.
Excruciating pain : in lower part of stomach.
Violent pains : in small of back and through pelvis ; in back.
Lancinating : in right hip.
Cutting : in umbilical region ; in bowels.
Stabbing : in dorsal region, sometimes to umbilicus.
Stitches : pleuritic in right side.
Pricking : in skin.
Prickling : in cardiac region.
Tearing : in stomach.
Neuralgic pain : in right temple ; in stomach ; right side of umbilicus to groin ; in rectum.
Rheumatic pain : in joints.
Twisting pain : in stomach.
Drawing : in stomach.
Pressure : in head.
Heavy pain : in left side of head.
Bearing down : in bowels.
Constrictive pain : in head.
Cramp : in stomach ; in calves and feet ; of legs, fingers and toes.
Dull pain : in left eye.
Soreness : across abdomen ; as of a boil in uterine region.
Aching : in umbilical region ; heavy pressive, in uterine region ; dull, in cardiac region ; in back of neck and shoulders.
Burning : in head ; in fauces and œsophagus ; in stomach ; dull, in region of heart ; in chest ; in skin.
Fulness : in head ; in arteries.
Distension : of head.
Faint feeling : in stomach.
Numbness : in calves and feet.
Tingling : in limbs ; in skin.
Heat : in eyes ; in head and face ; down spine.
Dryness : in mouth.
Itching : in calves and feet ; in ala nasi ; in skin.

Tissues

Congestions, especially to base of brain, chest, spine and stomach.
Dropsy : with fever ; after scarlatina.
Violent pains attending inflammations.
Acute rheumatism with high fever, full, hard, rapid pulse, pains in joints and muscles ; scanty red urine.
Inflammatory rheumatism with gastric complications ; tongue coated on sides with a red streak through centre ; creeping chilliness ; aching in all bones, followed by headache and fever ; affects especially left shoulder, hip and knee.
Endo-and pericarditis ; cardiac oppression with passive congestion.

Touch. passive motion. injuries

Rubbing : > pain and itching.
Sunstroke.
Pressure : > pain in head.

Skin

Itching of different parts from rubbing.
Tingling and pricking in skin.
Itching and burning of skin ; high fever.
Skin cold, clammy, bluish, insensible, shrivelled.
Eruptions, with intense fever.
Erythema and vesication of skin.
Phlegmonous and vesicular erysipelas.
Skin cold and moist, or hot and burning.
Scarlatina : with intense arterial excitement ; during febrile stage cerebral congestion or irritation of spinal centres ; convulsions, with greatly dilated pupils ; perfect sleeplessness ; sequela, as rheumatism, dropsy ; when inflammatory symptoms are
present.
Measles during febrile stage, especially if pulmonary congestion is impending ; convulsions before eruption.
Smallpox before eruption ; cerebral congestion and excessive nausea, vomiting and great prostration.
In erysipelas, if cerebral symptoms should set in from metastasis of inflammation to brain, with hard, very full pulse.

Stage of life, constitution

Full-blooded, plethoric persons.
Boy, æt. 5 ; rheumatism.
Girl, æt. 6 ; erysipelas.
Boy, æt. 7, delicate constitution, sickly aspect and color, has passed through several pulmonic attacks ; pneumonia.
Boy, æt. 10, scrofulous ; rheumatism.
Boy, æt. 11, suffering one month ; chorea.
Boy, æt. 13, suffering four years ; chorea.
Girl, æt. 13 ; chorea.
Girl, æt. 13, ill ten days ; continued fever.
Girl, æt. 14 ; fever.
Mr. H., æt. 18, ill two weeks ; typhoid fever.
Miss C., æt. 20 ; inflammatory fever.
Mrs. M., æt. 26, primipara ; puerperal convulsions.
Lady, æt. 30 ; rheumatism.
Man, æt. 35 ; rheumatism.
Widow, æt. 36, has tow children, since death of husband nervous and excitable, rather insane for years ; after an attack of erysipelas ; insanity.
Mrs. B., æt. 55 ; bilious pneumonia.
Young lady, strong and plethoric, after sweeping a cold, damp floor in her slippers ; amenorrhœa.
Mrs. G., delicate, after being caught in shower ; amenorrhœa.
Lady, middle-aged, sick five days ; erysipelas of face.
Lady, middle-aged, fleshy ; erysipelas of scalp.

Relations

Verat. vir . cured spasms from Strychnine .

The Therapeutics of Fevers

H. C. Allen · The Therapeutics of Fevers · 1902 Library of Congress printing (Allen d. 1909; public domain)

Characteristic

For full-blooded plethoric persons (Acon.).

Congestions, especially to base of brain, chest, spine and stomach.

Violent pains attending inflammation.

Acute rheumatism, high fever, full, hard, rapid pulse, severe pains in joints and muscles (Bry., Salyc. ac.); scanty, red urine.

Child trembles, jerks, threatened with convulsions; continually jerking or nodding the head.

Nervous or sick headache; congestion from suppressed menses; intense, almost apoplectic, with violent nausea and vomiting.

Congestive apoplexy, hot head, bloodshot eyes, thick speech, slow full pulse, hard as iron.

Convulsions: dim vision; basilar meningitis; head retracted; child on verge of spasms.

Cerebro spinal diseases; with spasms, dilated pupils, tetanic convulsions, opisthotonos; cold, clammy perspiration.

Sunstroke, head full, throbbing of arteries, sensitive to sound; double or partial vision (Gels., Glon.).

Veratrum viride should not be given simply to "bring down the pulse" or "control the heart's action," but like any other remedy for the totality of the symptoms.

Type

Remittent; malarial; congestive; malignant; typhoid; continued; yellow. Periodicity not marked; onset sudden and course severe and rapid.

Chill

Coldness: of whole body; with nausea; with pale face and cold, clammy skin; aching in back of neck and shoulders.

Heat

Intense fever, with cerebral irritation and tendency to spasms; violent pain in back; sleepy during the day; nausea at stomach, or vomiting and black diarrhœa; face hot, flushed; great weakness of lower extremities and marked prostration.

Sweat

Profuse, cold, clammy; vomiting, with a cold sweat on the pale face.

Yellow fever: fever intense, with pains in nape and occiput, vascular and nervous erethism, with spasms or threatened convulsions; continued gastric nausea; vomiting and cold sweat on face; sudden changes in pulse and violent throbbing in left chest.

Typhoid: temperature, 103–106; pulse, 120–140; violent occi- pital headache; boring head into pillow, jerking head backward and forward; twitching of facial muscles; dropping of lower jaw; picking of bedclothes; stool and urine involuntary.

Tongue

White or yellow with red streak down the mid- dle; dry, moist, white or yellow coating, or no coating on either side; feels scalded (Sang.).

Pulse

Suddenly increases and gradually decreases below normal; slow, soft, weak; irregular, intermittent (Dig).

Analysis

In congestive, pernicious intermittent or yellow fever, with extreme coldness, thirst; face cold and collapsed; skin cold and clammy, great prostration; cold sweat on forehead and deathly pallor on face.