Eupatorium purpureum

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

{Queen of the Meadow.)

Description. — This plant is known, also, by the name of Gravel-root, Trumpet-weed, etc. It has a perennial, horrizontal, woody root, with many long, dark brown fibres, which send up one or more solid, glabrous, green, sometimes purplish stems, five or six feet in height, with a purple band at the joints, about an inch apart. Leaves three to six in a whorl, about six inches apart; ovate, oblong, or lanceolate. Flowers all tubular, purple, varying to whitish, and consist of numerous florets included in an eight-leaved calyx; heads in lax, very dense and compound corymbs, cylindrical, five to ten flowers. It grows in wet places, flowering from August to September.

The root is the officinal part ; as found in the shops, it consists of a blackish, woody}' caudex, from which proceeds numerous long fibres, from one to three lines in diameter; externally they are covered with a dark brown, longitudinally furrowed bark, beneath which the interval portion is white, or whitish-yellow, according to its age, the last color being the oldest. It has a smell somewhat resembling old hay, and a slightly bitter, aromatic, and faintly astringent, but not unpleasant taste, and yields its properties to water, by decoction, or to spirits.

Officinal Preparations. — Tincture of the fresh root; dilutions, with dilute alcohol ; infusions. Triturations of the Oleo-resin.

Analogues. — Apocynum cannabinum, Asclepias syriaca, Cannabis sativa, Chimaphila, Galium, U va ursi, Senecio.

Mind.

The mind is possessed by various delusions. Talkative; exclamations; feels extremely depressed.

Hysterical mood, weeping, sighing, and a feeling like homesickness, with fluttering of the heart up into the throat. Illusions of sight, and hearing, with vertigo.

Head.

Sensation as if falling toward the left side, with dizziness. Lightness of the head; dizzy, as though flying round, and round.

Sensation as if her head were moving in all directions. Vertigo, as if flying round and round. Hard, thumping pain in the occipital bones. Soreness, tenderness, and itching of the scalp.

Eyes.

Copious flow of tears, filling the eyes with tears, making constant wiping necessary. Eyes fastened, with an earnest look, upon some object. "Wild staring look of the eyes, with wakefulness. She cannot see as far as usual.

Ears.

Ears feel as if they were full; crackling in the ears. Crackling sound in the ears when swallowing.

Nose.

Abundant discharge of a thin, watery fluid, making the nose sore and irritable.

Face.

Congestion to the face, with burning heat, dry and hot to the touch.

Shining appearance of the face.

Mouth and Throat. Increased action of all the glands of the mouth. Pricking and sticking in the end of the tongue. Gums red and hot.

Choking fullness of the throat; soreness of the throat. Smarting and burning in the posterior part of the throat. Sensation of fullness in the throat, with feeling of homesickness. She feels like crying.

Stomach.

Eructations almost constant from wind in the stomach.

Orampy pains in pit of stomach, with weak, sick feeling. Great nausea, swelling and fullness, mostly on the left side.

Abdomen. Fullness and pain in the bowels. Rumbling, rolling, twisting pain in the bowels. Pain and soreness, worse on the left side. Bowels are hard; tympanitic. Tense cutting pain just above the left ovary.

Stool.

Feeling as though the bowels must be moved immediately;

unable to do so. Pressure and heaviness upon the rectum. Pain and suffering as from diarrhoea, although the passages

were natural.

Urinary Organs.

Deep, dull pain in the kidneys; also cutting pain.

Strong desire to pass water ten minutes after having urinated.

Greatly increased quantity of urine, with large discharges every half hour, but the bladder fills up soon, with cutting, aching pain in bladder.

• Smarting and burning very intense in the bladder and urethra.

Sensation as if she had been a long time without urinating:. ° Diabetes insipidus and perhaps mellitus. The stream of urine is smaller than natural. c Dropsy, when due to renal disorder (low dil. or infusion.) ° Dysuria, with profuse and watery urine (high dilutions.) ° Strangury from uterine displacement, or during pregnancy. ° Mucus sediment in urine in excess, indicating inflammation. 0 tnfiammation of the mucous membrane of urinary passages. ° Suppression of urine in infants.

° Chronic inflammation of the bladder. (Dr. Dresser.) 0 Penal and vesical calculi.

Generative Organs. Female. — Inflammation of meatus urinarius. The external genitals feel as though wet, although they are not.

Leucorrhoea quite profuse.

• Threatened abortions.

0 Amenorrhoea, dysmenorrhea {atonic.)

° Habitual abortion at the third or fourth month.

A quick, jerking motion in region of left ovary.

Tense, cutting pain in region of left ovary.

0 It is a genuine tonic to the female organs of generation.

3 Inefficient labor pains.

Male. — ° Impotency, from exhaustion or abuse of the generative functions.

Chest.

Palpitation of the heart; fluttering of the heart up into the throat.

Strong desire to inflate the lungs, of which she was not cognizant.

Pulse 80 to 100, full and bounding.

Back and Neck. Neuralgic-like pains from below upwards, mostly on the left

side of the back and hip. Sore pain directly within the spine, its whole extent, from

below upwards.

Dull, aching pain in the sacrum, running upward into the kidneys.

Stiff, wry neck, with lame, weak feeling in nape of the neck. Cutting pain in the neck, running from left shoulder to occiput.

Upper and Lower Extremities. Tired, weak, uneasiness in the limbs, with numbness and gnawing pain.

A constant sensation as if her boot-heels were crowding

through her boots upward. Rheumatic pain, changing from place to place, always from

below.

Gnawing in the hip bone; legs feel weak, tired, left leg worse. All symptoms worse on the left side of the body.

Sleep.

Sleeplessness, with wild, staring eyes.

Fever.

Intermittent fevers, with chills in the back and aching.

3C2

° Intermittent fever,' miasmatic; paroxysms at various times of the day; chills beginning in the small of the back, spreading up and down the trunk and extremities; lips and nails blue; violent shaking with comparative Utile coldness; fever, with nausea and vomiting, followed by moisture, not amounting to sweat, principally about the head and forehead; any attempt to change position, ever so little, during the sweat, a chilliness would pass through the body. ( Van Tagen, Martin, Howard, Gardiner.) [This remedy seems specific in ague with the above symptoms; but they

have a remarkable resemblance,to those of Eupat. perf. (Hale.)]

° Hectic fever, with night sweats; pulse feeble but regular. Generalities.

Faint, dizzy feeling pervading the whole body.

All the symptoms are worse on left side of the body.

A feeling as if falling to the left; (compare Anac, Aur., Bell., Dros., Euphorb., Mez., Natr., Nux mosch., Spig., Spong., Zinc.) (Hering.)

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

call it gravel-root) as a remedy for painful affections of the urinary organs and dropsy.

Eclectic physicians use it in irritable bladder , diabetes insipidus, incontinence of urine, and in calculous affections. The provings verify the trustworthiness of its reputation, and add another proof of the truth of the law of Similia.

I have used it successfully in calcareous concretions in the bladder and kidneys; in diabetes insipidus (it may prove useful in glycosuria) ; in dysuria, enuresis nocturna, and other conditions of irritation of the bladder from direct or reflex causes. In dropsy, it has been used quite successfully by many homoeopathic physicians. The dropsy in which it will prove curative will be found, generally, to be a secondary condition, preceded by undue excitation of the kidneys, which after a time gives way to the opposite condition of torpor or passive congestion. In this respect it closely resembles Apoc. cann.

It appears to have some specific action on the generative organs, but the precise nature of such action is not yet determined.

It is claimed that it has cured impotency. Impotency is a frequent concomitant of diabetes, and the two conditions may jointly indicate this remedy.

It is also claimed that Eupatorium purpureum is indicated in sterility, threatened miscarriage, habitual abortion, ovarian and uterine atony, inefficient labor-pains, amenorrhoea and dysmenorrhoea, and as a general “ uterine 101110.” I have not used it very extensively in uterine affections, but its similarity in effect to Cimicifuga, Helonias, Caulophyllum, and especially to Helonias, would make it advisable for you to try it when those remedies fail.

Among its symptoms of the sensorium is a persistent sensation, “ as if falling to the left,” with a “ dizzy feeling all over.” It causes also a feeling of “ homesickness,” although the prover was in her own house. A general hysterical, low-spirited state was also present.

The dose in diabetic affections or the nervous disorders should be in the third attenuation ; while in dropsy, gravel, inflammations and congestions of the urinary organs, and atonic conditions

of the organs of generation, lower dilutions may be used, and in some cases the infusion.