Lilium tigrinum — the tiger lily — is the remedy of a woman pulled in two directions at once. Boericke's mind section holds both poles in a handful of words: "Tormented about her salvation," and an "aimless, hurried manner; must keep busy."
The plant was brought to the West from China and Japan, and its pathogenesis is one of the best-documented in the materia medica. Clarke recounts how W. E. Payne first suggested it and Carroll Dunham urged a full proving — then supervised one himself on a woman whose sufferings, recurring in waves for weeks after the last dose, became "so intense" that Dunham felt bound to antidote them with Platina. Out of that proving came the remedy's signature: a "downward dragging" from shoulders, thorax and epigastrium down to the pelvis "and out at the vagina as if everything would be forced through." Clarke's summary is the keynote: "'Outward forcing' is plainly a keynote of this remedy."
Boericke frames the sphere: "Manifests powerful influence over the pelvic organs, and is adapted to many reflex states dependent on some pathological condition of uterus and ovaries. More often indicated in unmarried women. The action of the heart is very marked."
Kent adds the dynamic that makes the remedy recognisable at the bedside: the mental, cardiac and uterine symptom-groups "often rotate or alternate, and constitute the principal features" — when the mind is at its worst, the pelvis is quieter, and vice versa.
This guide profiles Lilium tigrinum for clinical study from Boericke's Materia Medica, Kent's Lectures, Clarke's Dictionary and Boger's Synoptic Key and General Analysis. The originals can be read in full — Clarke's Lilium tigrinum, Boericke's Lilium tigrinum and Kent's Lilium tigrinum — through Similia's free digital materia medica.
The Lilium Tigrinum Constitutional Type
Kent is emphatic that the nervousness should not mislead the prescriber about the physique: "do not think that because this patient is nervous that she is weak, or liliputian, or lean; for it is especially suitable for those with full veins; apparently plethoric, full blooded, fleshy, rotund women who are very nervous, and especially at the change of life."
The thermal reaction is decisive. Kent: "She is like the Pulsatilla patient; warm-blooded, wants a cool room, likes to walk in the open air." Boericke's modalities agree — "Worse consolation, warm room. Better, fresh air" — and the patient "suffocates in a crowded room, in the theatre, in church," faint in a warm room.
Boger sketches the underlying physiology: the venous circulation of the female organs, uterus, ovaries, heart, rectum and bladder, with a leaning to the left side; "marked nervo-hysterical reflexes... especially mental or cardiac," with "nervous tremor; in hypogastrium, in spine, knees," and everywhere "pulsation, ebullition, gurglings and burnings."
Mental and Emotional Picture
The recorded mental symptomatology of Lilium tigrinum is among the most distinctive in the materia medica, and the sources treat it — as we do here — as proving data for professional assessment.
Tormented about her salvation. Boericke's phrase, confirmed throughout Clarke and Kent. Kent describes the patient lying awake "tormented either by fanatical religious ideas, or a religious melancholy," dwelling on ideas about religion and modes of life that are "unreasonable, illogical and fanciful."
Contrary impulses, alternating with the physical state. Beside the religious anxiety the provings record its opposite: Boericke lists "Disposed to curse, strike, think obscene things," and Boericke also notes "sexual instinct awakened." Clarke's observation gives the symptom its clinical structure: "Disposed to curse, to strike, to think of obscene things; as these mental states came, uterine irritation abated" — mind and pelvis in alternation, the same see-saw Kent describes between mental, cardiac and uterine groups.
Aimless hurry. Clarke: "Constant hurried feeling, as of imperative duties and utter inability to perform them." Boger: "Hurried, nervous, snappish and erotic or depressed. Fruitless activity." In Dunham's proving the prover was "much hurried and driven, she knows not why" — and, tellingly, the cardiac fluttering was "less felt if she can busy herself very much." Occupation ameliorates.
The wild, crazy feeling. Kent: "These provers seemed to like the expression, 'crazy feeling in the head, as if she would go crazy'" — a confusion in which the harder she tries to think rationally, the more scattered the ideas become. Boger: "Wild, crazy feeling. Dread; of insanity; being incurable, etc." Boericke: "Anxious; fears some organic and incurable disease." Clarke adds the prover's own control strategy: "feeling as if she would be crazy if she did not hold tightly upon herself."
Snappish irritability; consolation aggravates. Kent: "She can hardly speak a decent word to anybody. She will snap even when spoken to kindly," and the patient's own report: "It seems as if I must fly when spoken to or disturbed." Sympathy makes it worse — "Even consolation aggravates."
Profound depression. Boericke: "Profound depression of spirits. Constant inclination to weep." Clarke records depression with dread, timidity and — recorded soberly in the proving — thoughts of suicide accompanying the wild vertex feeling. Boger completes the portrait with a small vanity: "Desires finery."
Physical Affinities
Female organs
The centre of gravity. Boericke: "Bearing down sensation with urgent desire for stool, as though all organs would escape. Ceases when resting," with "constant desire to support parts externally." Kent's rendering is unforgettable: "a sensation of weakness or bearing down in the pelvis as if everything were coming into the world through the vagina" — the patient wants to wear a T-bandage, grasps the abdomen from the sides and lifts.
The menstrual keynote follows the same mechanics: "Menses early, scanty, dark, clotted, offensive; flow only when moving about" (Boericke); Boger: "Menses free, while moving only"; in Dunham's proving the menses "flowed only as long as she kept moving."
Ovarian pains are sharp, burning, radiating — Clarke describes the ovaries felt "as distinct painful and burning spots with pains radiating from them down the thighs," predominantly left-sided in Boger ("ovary (l)... Ovarian pain, (l); into limb"). The leucorrhoea is "acrid, brown" (Boericke), thin and excoriating, leaving a brown stain (Clarke). Congestion, prolapse, anteversion and subinvolution complete Boericke's uterine schema.
Heart
"Sensation as if heart were grasped in a vise (Cact). Feels full to bursting... Cold feeling about heart" (Boericke). Clarke defines the quality that separates it from every rival: "there is alternate spasm and relaxation as if a hand squeezed the heart and then let go and squeezed again." The pulse is irregular and very rapid; "from every emotion the heart flutters" (Kent). Boericke adds "Angina pectoris with pain in right arm" — and Clarke underlines that pain and numbness in the right arm with heart pain is a leading indication. Boger's shorthand: "HEART, feels clutched, overful, cold, weak, hangs by a thread."
Rectum, stool and bladder
"Constant desire to defecate, from pressure in rectum, worse standing. Pressure down the anus. Early-morning urgent stool" (Boericke). Kent: an urgent morning diarrhoea "driving out of bed," and a dysentery of mucus and blood with tenesmus that "you will hardly be able to distinguish from Merc. cor" — occurring, Boericke specifies, "especially in plethoric and nervous women at change of life." The bladder joins in: "frequent urging. Urine milky, scanty, hot," with tenesmus of bladder and rectum together that Kent calls unbearable — constant urging with no stool in the rectum, the retroverted fundus pressing on the rectum and deceiving it.
Eyes
A genuine secondary sphere: "Hyperæsthesia of retina... Myopic astigmia. Useful in restoring power to the weakened ciliary muscle (Arg nit)" (Boericke). Clarke records that one astigmatic prover "found her astigmatism gone when the proving was over," and gives eyes that burn after reading and writing.
Extremities and generals
"Cannot walk on uneven ground" (Boericke) — a strange, highly confirmable general. "Legs ache; cannot keep them still... Burning palms and soles." Boger adds the trembling — hypogastrium, spine, knees — and pains that run backward: "about eyes; to occiput; from nipples through chest; from heart to l. scapula." Boericke notes "Pain in small spots (Oxal ac)" and lists rheumatic arthritis in the remedy's range.
Key Modalities
Worse from:
- Warm room — faintness, dyspnoea, suffocated feeling in crowds, church, theatre
- Consolation — "Even consolation aggravates" (Kent)
- Standing — the bearing-down and rectal pressure
- Miscarriages (Boger)
- Afternoon and night — Clarke: worse "Afternoon and night from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m."
- Rest for the menses (flow stops) — yet walking aggravates the prolapse feeling
- Jarring; pressure of bedclothes — "intolerable on abdomen and uterine region" (Clarke)
Better from:
- Cool, fresh air — the great general
- Being busy — Boger: "When busy"; the fluttering heart quiets when occupied
- Support and pressure — must hold the parts, cross the legs; heart spasm better rubbing and pressure (Clarke)
- Lying on the left side (Boger, Clarke) — though Kent records patients who could lie only on the back
- Sunset (Boger)
Keynote Symptoms
- Bearing down as though all the pelvic organs would escape; must support the parts externally
- Menses flow only when moving about; cease when resting
- Heart as if grasped in a vise — squeezing and letting go, alternately
- Cold feeling about the heart; palpitation from every emotion
- Angina-type pain with the right arm involved
- Tormented about her salvation; consolation aggravates
- Aimless, hurried manner; must keep busy — and better for it
- Wild, "crazy" feeling in the head; dread of insanity or incurable disease
- Constant urging to stool from pressure in the rectum; worse standing
- Early-morning urgent diarrhoea; dysentery with tenesmus at the change of life
- Cannot walk on uneven ground
- Burning palms and soles
Clinical Applications
Uterine displacement states and pelvic relaxation. The bearing-down complex with prolapse, anteversion and retroversion, subinvolution and the reflex bladder-rectum tenesmus. Kent's clinical reassurance is worth recording: under the indicated remedy the distress subsides first, "the bowels become regular, the disturbance of micturition is relieved... and later the uterus will be found in place."
Ovarian neuralgia, chiefly left-sided, radiating down the thighs and alternating or combining with cardiac symptoms.
Functional and nervous cardiac states. The vise-grip sensation, fluttering from emotion, irregular rapid pulse — Clarke's cured cases include the heart pain "as if grasped with hand" better lying on the left side and when busy at work.
Dysenteric attacks in nervous, plethoric women, especially at the climacteric, with mucus, blood and violent tenesmus; also the urgent early-morning diarrhoea.
Asthenopia and accommodative weakness — the weakened ciliary muscle, burning eyes from reading, myopic astigmatism.
Uterine fibroid cases presenting the characteristic symptoms — Clarke cites C. Sigmund Rage's results, alongside his caution about severe aggravations from the low attenuations.
Differential Diagnosis
Lilium tigrinum vs. Sepia. The great bearing-down comparison, and Clarke calls Sepia "very like in most respects." His discriminations are practical: Lilium is better "diverting mind and busying about," Sepia better "by violent exertion"; Lilium worse in the afternoon, Sepia better; Lilium has pressure in the anus where Sepia has the "weight like a heavy ball"; Lilium's leucorrhoea is more excoriating. Temperamentally, Sepia's flatness and indifference contrast with Lilium's driven, hurried agitation.
Lilium tigrinum vs. Pulsatilla. Kent's own comparison: both warm-blooded, worse in warm rooms, relieved in open air, with scanty menses and a nervous temperament. But Pulsatilla weeps quietly and craves the consolation that Lilium cannot bear; Clarke adds that Pulsatilla "has not the tendency to prolapse; is not > by support."
Lilium tigrinum vs. Naja. Both live in the territory where the female pelvis and the heart exchange symptoms. Naja's pain travels — from the left ovary drawn up to the heart, with choking and the grasping at the throat of the snake remedies; Lilium's heart-grip alternates with the pelvic bearing-down, and its mental state is hurried and religiously anxious rather than gloomily brooding.
Lilium tigrinum vs. Cactus and Platina. Cactus shares the gripped heart, but Clarke separates them cleanly: in Cactus the iron-band constriction is continuous, in Lilium intermittent — squeeze and release. Platina, the proving's own antidote, competes on the mental ground; Kent says the remedy "competes very closely with Platina," with Platina's hauteur against Lilium's hurry.
Repertorisation Tips
These rubrics carry Lilium tigrinum in high grade:
- Mind; ANXIETY; salvation, about
- Mind; HURRY; aimless; must keep busy
- Mind; CONSOLATION; agg.
- Mind; FEAR; insanity, losing his reason, of
- Mind; OCCUPATION; amel.
- Female genitalia; PAIN; bearing down; parts would issue through vulva, as if; must support parts
- Female genitalia; MENSES; motion; flow only during
- Chest; PAIN; heart; grasped, as if by a hand
- Rectum; URGING; pressure in rectum, from; standing agg.
- Rectum; DIARRHOEA; morning; driving out of bed
- Generalities; ROOM; warm, agg.; open air amel.
- Generalities; WALKING; uneven ground, agg.
Anchor on the pairing of the pelvic bearing-down with the hurried, salvation-anxious mental state — either alone can mislead, together they are nearly conclusive — then confirm with the motion-dependent menses and the intermittent heart-grip. Watch for the alternation Kent describes: a case may present only one member of the triad at a time. Our beginner's guide to repertorisation sets out the method in more detail.
Deepening Your Study
- Boericke compresses the triad — pelvis, heart, mind — into prescribing keynotes, and carries the potency note (middle and higher potencies, with slow-developing action)
- Kent's Lectures supply the living patient: the alternating symptom-groups, the snapping irritability, the dysentery and the plethoric constitution behind the nerves
- Clarke's Dictionary preserves Dunham's proving narrative, the "outward forcing" analysis, the Sepia comparison table and the 30th-potency observation
- Boger's Synoptic Key and General Analysis distil the regions and directions — venous pelvic circulation, backward pains, bearing down, the amelioration when busy
You can read all of these side by side for any remedy through Similia's free digital materia medica. To place Lilium tigrinum among its peers, see the guide to the essential polycrest remedies, or read how materia medica and repertory work together in case analysis.
