Arundo mauritanica — an Italian reed grass, its tincture made from the root sprouts — is one of the small precise remedies of the hay-fever season. It was proved by Dr F. Patti and published in 1856, and Hering preserved the proving alongside the clinical observations of Dadea. Its record is narrow but sharp, and it turns on one unmistakable sensation.
Boericke frames the remedy in five words: "A remedy for catarrhal states. Hay-fever." And the hay fever has a signature: it begins with burning and itching of the palate and conjunctiva — an itch seated exactly where no finger can reach it.
This guide profiles Arundo for clinical study from Boericke, Clarke's Dictionary, Hering's Guiding Symptoms and T.F. Allen's Encyclopedia. The originals can be read in full — Boericke's Arundo, Clarke's Arundo and Hering's Arundo — through Similia's free digital materia medica.
The Arundo State
Clarke is candid about the remedy's compass: "It has not been much tested clinically, but its chief sphere has been proved to be in catarrhal conditions." What the proving produced is a catarrh that travels — nose, palate, ears, bronchi — in a patient with marked itching everywhere mucous membrane meets skin, plus two reliable satellites: the serous diarrhœa of nursing or teething children and urine that deposits much red sand.
The mental register is light: Hering records "lascivious ideas," a stupid easy hilarity, anxiety from mucus accumulating in the bronchi that is better in open air, and a dull indifference. Nobody prescribes Arundo on its mind; the body carries the case.
Physical Affinities
Nose and palate. The centre of the remedy. "Hay-fever begins with burning and itching of palate and conjunctiva. Annoying itching in the nostrils and roof of the mouth" — Boericke's italics, with his printed comparison to Wyethia, the other itching-palate remedy. Sneezing with itching nostrils; coryza with snuffling; loss of smell (he cross-references Natrum mur). Clarke adds the discharge sequence: "in the beginning water runs from nose, later green mucus and thick, white, slimy masses; with sneezing, pieces of indurated greenish mucus."
Ears. "Burning and itching in auditory canals. Eczema behind ears" (Boericke). Clarke traces the full arc: inflammation beginning with shooting pains in the concha, extending to the meatus, ending with itching and discharge — including purulent discharge — and the curious "sound of little bells in ears."
Mouth. Burning and itching of the palate; bleeding gums; excoriated mouth with ulcers at the commissures; salivation; pains in the sublingual glands that coincide with the itching ear canals (Clarke's odd but specific concomitance).
Head and hair. "Itching; falling off of hair; roots of hair painful" (Boericke) — Clarke: "hair falls off entirely in children," with scurf. A small keynote worth remembering in scalp cases of childhood.
Children's diarrhœa. "Diarrhœa of nursing children" (Boericke, comparing Chamomilla and Calc phos); Clarke's fuller form: "constant (serous) diarrhœa of nursing or teething children," stools greenish, followed by burning at the anus. Dentition is on the clinical list — Arundo belongs in the teething-diarrhœa group.
Urine. "Red sediment" (Boericke, comparing Lycopodium); Clarke: "much red sand in urine," with weight and burning itching in the urethra after urinating.
Chest. Catarrhal cough with a peculiar sputum: "bluish expectoration" (Boericke) — Clarke has it alternating bluish and white — with anxiety from mucus accumulating in the bronchi. Burning and pain in the nipples; Clarke notes excessive milk secretion causing pain in the left breast.
Sexual sphere. Marked excitement in both sexes: lascivious ideas, frequent erections, "pain in spermatic cord after embrace" (Boericke); in women, violent desire or its opposite, early profuse dark clotted menses, and a strange neuralgia that starts at the left jaw, travels the eyebrow and shoulders and "finally settles on the pubis, burning like fire" (Clarke).
Limbs and skin. Itching and burning with œdema of hands and feet; "burning and swelling of soles. Copious and offensive sweat of feet" (Boericke); eczema, crawling itching of chest and arms; fissures of fingers and heels.
Key Modalities
The proving record is thin on modalities compared with the polychrests, but three points stand:
- Anxiety and chest symptoms better in open air (Hering)
- Vertigo on getting out of bed (Clarke, Hering)
- The catarrh follows the spring pattern of hay fever, with the palate-itch as the prodrome
Keynote Symptoms
- Hay fever beginning with burning-itching of the palate and conjunctiva
- Itching in the nostrils and roof of the mouth (compare Wyethia)
- Coryza: water first, then green mucus and indurated clinker-like pieces
- Loss of smell with the catarrh
- Itching, burning ear canals; purulent ear discharge; eczema behind the ears
- Serous diarrhœa of nursing and teething children; greenish stools, burning anus
- Much red sand in the urine
- Hair falls out in children; roots of hair painful
- Burning soles; offensive foot-sweat
- Bluish expectoration
- Pain in spermatic cord after coitus
Clinical Applications
Hay fever. The headline use, resting on the palate-conjunctiva onset. Where the eye-symptoms dominate and stream, Euphrasia competes; where the nose is plugged solid with frontal pressure, Sticta; where the palate itch leads, Arundo and Wyethia divide the field, and Boericke's other comparisons — Sabadilla for the sneezing paroxysms, Cepa for the streaming acrid coryza — complete the seasonal differential.
Catarrh of infants and dentition. Snuffling coryza plus the serous teething diarrhœa — a compact and useful pairing in one remedy.
Otorrhœa. The itching-burning canal progressing to purulent discharge, with the eczema behind the ears.
Urinary sand. Red gravel in children's and adults' urine, alongside Lycopodium.
Differential Diagnosis
Arundo vs. Wyethia. The two itching-palate remedies. Wyethia's itch extends behind the nose into the posterior nares with a dry, swallowing-compelled throat; Arundo's runs with conjunctival burning, sneezing and the full watery-to-green coryza sequence.
Arundo vs. Sabadilla. Sabadilla is the spasmodic-sneezing remedy of the hay-fever group, with its salvos of sneezes and lachrymation on going into open air. Arundo sneezes too, but the prodromal palate-itch is its badge.
Arundo vs. Sticta. Sticta's hay fever is dry obstruction — the nose plugged, blowing yields nothing, pressure at the root of the nose. Arundo flows: water, then green mucus, with the itch upstream on the palate.
Arundo vs. Chamomilla and Calc phos (teething diarrhœa). Boericke's own cross-references. Chamomilla's child is furious and demands carrying; Calc phos suits the flabbier constitutional case. Arundo earns the prescription when the greenish serous stools ride along with snuffles and the remedy's catarrhal signature.
Repertorisation Tips
These rubrics carry Arundo where it matters:
- Mouth; ITCHING; palate
- Nose; ITCHING; inside
- Nose; HAY FEVER
- Nose; SMELL; wanting (with coryza)
- Ear; ITCHING; meatus and Ear; DISCHARGE; purulent
- Rectum; DIARRHŒA; children, in; dentition, during
- Urine; SEDIMENT; sand; red
- Head; HAIR; falling; children, in
- Extremities; SWEAT; foot; offensive
The fastest confirmation is the palate-itch onset plus one satellite — red urinary sand or the teething diarrhœa. If the case is all eyes and streaming, re-check Euphrasia and Allium cepa first. Our beginner's guide to repertorisation sets out the method in more detail.
Deepening Your Study
- Boericke compresses the whole remedy — the palate keynote, the children's diarrhœa, the red sediment — into a page
- Clarke's Dictionary preserves the discharge sequences, the ear-inflammation arc and the strange left-jaw-to-pubis neuralgia
- Hering's Guiding Symptoms carry the original 1856 proving of Patti with Dadea's clinical observations
- T.F. Allen's Encyclopedia holds the full pathogenesis for study
You can read all of these side by side through Similia's free digital materia medica. For the neighbouring hay-fever and catarrh remedies, see the guides to Sticta pulmonaria and Euphrasia.
