Sarracenia Purpurea
By Constantine Hering — The Guiding Symptoms of our Materia Medica
Pitcher plant. Sarraceniaceæ.
Grows in boggy places from Canada southward.
The tincture is prepared from the fresh plant.
Proved by Porcher, Duncan, Thomas, Hale's New Remedies, 1867 ; Cigliano, Am. Obs., 1871.
CLINICAL AUTHORITIES.
- Visual disorder , Berridge, N. A. J. H., vol. 22, p 194 ; Phlyctenoid herpes , Crica, A. J. H. M. M., vol. 3, p. 78 ; Variola , Martiny, Mowremans, Raue's Rec., 1875, p. 287 ; Smallpox , Renshaw, A. H. O, vol. 2, p. 234 ; Use in smallpox , Cigliano, A. H. O, vol. 8, p. 467 ; Easton, vol. 1, p. 135.
MIND [1]
Melancholia, anxious about everything.
Great depression of spirits from frontal headache.
Brain clearer, buoyant spirits.
Dulness of head, loss of memory, insensibility of right side ; paralysis of hearing and smell.
Want of memory with the headache.
Difficult to concentrate the attention, forgetful ; feels dull and heavy ; urine sp. gr. 1020 ; perspires freely.
SENSORIUM [2]
Head feels dull and heavy.
Feels light-headed.
Vertigo : with cramps in neck, spreading to forehead ; especially at night ; sensation as if he received a knock on head, with vertigo, stupor and vacillating gait ; he is obliged to support himself or else to lie down ; with drowsiness in head and contractions in spinal column.
INNER HEAD [3]
Frontal headache, low-spirited.
Head dull and aches at coronal region.
Severe headache in afternoon for two hours.
Full feeling through head just above ears.
Headache with chills, nausea, vomiting ; dim sight, surring in ears.
Pulsations and burning heat of head with sensation as if it would split.
OUTER HEAD [4]
Head is hot and aches.
Head and body warm.
Soreness of frontal bone.
Pruritus and heat of scalp.
SIGHT AND EYES [5]
Eyes weak.
Dim sight, headache.
Gas flame seems a brilliant yellow ring, the two not being distinct ; he sees black objects moving with the eye.
Great photophobia.
Soreness of right optic nerve, just behind eyeball.
Pain in left eye as if congested, on waking.
Eyes feel swollen and sore.
Eyes and lids inflamed.
Increased mucous secretion.
Cutting, penetrating pains in orbits.
HEARING AND EARS [6]
Surring in ears.
Sticking pains deep in right ear ; transient but recurring often ; same in left ear.
Intense otalgia, fears he will lose his senses.
Swelling of parotids.
SMELL AND NOSE [7]
Fetid smell.
Epistaxis nearly producing fainting.
Fluent coryza, with cold chills and loss of smell.
Foul-smelling, green-yellowish or bloody discharges.
Nose swollen, red, with pressure and pulsation at root.
UPPER FACE [8]
Face flushed.
Heat and redness of face.
Face pale, with heat and chill alternating.
Erysipelatous swelling of face.
Miliary eruption on face with heat as if it were on fire.
Scaly herpes on face and forehead.
LOWER FACE [9]
Intense neuralgic pains from temples to jaws.
TASTE, SPEECH, TONGUE [11]
Tongue dry.
Tongue coated brownish white.
INNER MOUTH [12]
Mouth dry.
Lips and mouth parched.
PALATE AND THROAT [13]
Dryness of throat not relieved by tea or water, borborygmi.
APPETITE, THIRST. DESIRES, AVERSIONS [14]
Hungry all the time, even after a meal.
Appetite unusually active, but there was a sense of pain about stomach like that after inflammation or that in an overtaxed muscle.
But little appetite, yet what is eaten agrees with him ; urine 1018 ; pulse 71 ; sweats freely.
EATING AND DRINKING [15]
Great desire to sleep during eating.
HICCOUGH, BELCHING, NAUSEA AND VOMITING [16]
Copious painful vomiting frequently after meals, with lightness from stomach to back and colicky pains.
Vomiting of bile mixed with blood.
SCROBICULUM AND STOMACH [17]
Empty, hungry feeling ; for he can keep nothing on his stomach.
Burning pains in his stomach, with palpitations and contractions.
Pinching pains in stomach ; it feels distended and torn.
ABDOMEN AND LOINS [19]
After going to bed, whole abdominal region was in commotion, extending along tract of ascending and descending colon, all in a kind of rolling motion ; epigastrium tender on pressure.
Some transient pains in bowels.
Bloated about navel.
Borborygmi and some pain in bowels with constipation ; dry throat.
STOOLS AND RECTUM [20]
Much flatus.
First part of stool natural, last diarrheic.
Much tenesmus ; dysenteric diarrhœa.
Stool at first costive, then dark, offensive, soluble.
Costive ; stools very hard, covered with mucus and dark.
Stool copious, dark, fetid, evacuated with great straining ; morning.
Diarrheic stools mixed with glairy mucus, bile and blood ; anorexia, prostration and painfully strong palpitation.
Rectum and anus swollen and inflamed.
Morning diarrhœa ; faint after stool, which is dark, often mixed with blood, foul-smelling or smelling of musk ; bloatedness with colic.
Morning diarrhœa ; bloatedness with colic ; faintness after stool which is dark, often mixed with blood ; foulsmelling or of the odor of musk.
URINARY ORGANS [21]
Awoke 3 A. M. with urging to urinate ; bladder so full it overcame resistance of sphincter and dribbled away.
Voided 27 oz. of urine ; sp. gr. 1024 ; vesical tenesmus.
Urine increased, limpid, colorless, scarcely any sediment even after several hours.
Urine responds to tests for phosphates, earthy phosphates and chloride of sodium.
Urine copious, a little cloudy ; sp. gr. 1030 (cloudy from mucus) ; pale yellow.
Urine scanty, limpid, 1025.
FEMALE SEXUAL ORGANS [23]
Watery or milky leucorrhœa, thick, whitish, foul-smelling with spasmodic pains in uterus ; pulsative pains in womb with swelling as if from a tumor or dropsy ; uterus swollen as if full of cysts, especially on r. side ; neck of womb swollen and hot ; miliary eruption and heat in vulva ; bloody discharge at other times than menstrual period as during climaxis.
INNER CHEST AND LUNGS [28]
Phthisis pulmonalis and bronchial affections, joined to or depending on a psoric state ; hæmoptysis, thick cough ; continual tickling in larynx and bronchi ; cough, with desire to vomit and vomiting, paroxysms of suffocation and epistaxis ; hard cough, shaking chest and bowels and stopping only after expectorating a quantity of compact mucus, tenacious, filamentous with a bitter, putrid, oily taste.
HEART, PULSE AND CIRCULATION [29]
Feeling of congestion about head, with irregularity of heart's action.
Congestion to chest, heavy feeling about heart.
Slight palpitation in morning.
Pulse : full and strong ; 68, general malaise ; rose to 100 before morning ; 61, very small ; quick, 80.
OUTER CHEST [30]
Slight soreness of whole pectoralis major ; pain ran up right trapezius muscle with a wavelike motion ; lumbar heat ; pulse 70, full ; bloated feeling at navel (probably from flatus).
Pain in angle of ribs for half an hour.
NECK AND BACK [31]
Warm sensation passed up back into head.
Weak between and below shoulders.
Back weak, wants to lean on something.
Arms and back tired and sore all over.
Deep-seated pain in back.
Heat in whole right lumbar region.
Pain and soreness in sacrum.
UPPER LIMBS [32]
Paroxysms of pain in right shoulder joint, pain in left carpus and tarsus ; face flushed.
Arms feel weak.
Bruised feeling from shoulders to hands.
Aching, sore pain in left humerus.
Bones in both arms pain.
LOWER LIMBS [33]
Pain in hip joints < rising to feet from a lying posture.
Paroxysms of weakness in coxo-femoral joint with pains of luxation and fear of falling when trying to walk.
Strange lameness in femur, lower third, < in inner condyle.
Pain in condyles of femur.
Wavelike motion in muscles of femur.
Sensation of fatigue in bones of legs as if they were too thick.
Bruised and luxated feeling in joints.
Pain in right patella and metatarsal bones.
Knees feel weak.
Bruised pain in knees as after a fall ; he falls easily on his knees.
Bone pains in tibia and fibula ; intermittent, but bones continually sore.
Bones of feet inflamed ; nodes as in gout.
LIMBS IN GENERAL [34]
Limbs cold when still as from deficient circulation.
Limbs easily benumbed.
Weakness of limbs with paralytic debility.
REST. POSITION. MOTION [35]
Wants to lean on something ; weakness of back.
Rising to feet from a lying posture : pain in hip joint <.
Trying to walk : fear of falling.
NERVES [36]
Debility, wants to lie down all the time.
Languid, heavy.
TIME [38]
Morning : stool with great straining ; diarrhœa ; slight palpitation ; feverish, with shaking chills.
Afternoon : severe headache.
Night : cramps in neck <.
TEMPERATURE AND WEATHER [39]
In open air : chilly, hands and feet cold ; head hot and sore, feels full.
Cold air : makes him feel chilly and increases bone pains.
FEVER [40]
Feverish, with shaking chills < in morning.
Skin hot and dry.
Hands hot, warm all over ; cold air makes him feel chilly and increases bone pains, especially in knees.
Hot, feverish ; pulse 80, small and quick.
ATTACKS, PERIODICITY [41]
Alternating : heat and chill.
For half an hour : pain in angle of ribs.
For two hours : headache in forenoon.
LOCALITY AND DIRECTION [42]
Right : insensibility of side ; soreness of optic nerve ; pain deep in ear ; uterus swollen ; pain up trapezius muscle ; heat in lumbar region ; pain in shoulder joint ; pain in patella and metatarsal bones.
Left : pain in eye ; pain in ear ; pain in carpus and tarsus ; pain in humerus.
SENSATIONS [43]
As if he received a knock on head ; as if head would split ; left eye as if congested ; heat in face as if on fire ; swelling in womb as if from a tumor or dropsy ; uterus swollen as if full of cysts ; as if bones of legs were too thick.
Pain : in left eye ; in bowels ; up right trapezius muscle ; in angle of ribs ; in sacrum ; in right shoulder joint ; in left carpus and tarsus ; in bones of arms ; in hip joints ; in condyles of femur ; in right patella and metatarsal bones ; in tibia and fibula.
Intense neuralgic pains : from temples to jaws.
Severe pain : in head.
Cutting, penetrating pains : in orbits.
Pinching pains : in stomach.
Spasmodic pains : in uterus.
Pulsative pains : in womb.
Deep-seated pain : in back.
Sticking pains : deep in right ear.
Aching, sore pain : in left humerus.
Burning pains : in his stomach.
Cramps : in neck to forehead.
Aching : at coronal region.
Soreness : of frontal bone ; of right optic nerve ; of pectoralis major ; of back and arms ; in sacrum.
Bruised feeling : from shoulders to hands ; in joints ; in knees.
Burning heat : of head.
Pulsations : in head ; at root of nose.
Wavelike motion : in muscles of femur.
Pressure : at root of nose.
Heaviness : of head ; about heart.
Full feeling : through head.
Dryness : of tongue ; of mouth ; of throat.
Tickling : in larynx and bronchi.
Dulness : of head.
Luxated feeling : in joints.
Strange lameness : in femur.
Heat : in vulva ; in whole right lumbar region.
Warm sensation : up back into head.
Light feeling : in head.
Weakness : between and below shoulders ; of back ; in coxo-femoral joint ; of knees ; of limbs.
TISSUES [44]
Bones feel heavy, sore.
Bones pain, especially cervical and lumbar vertebræ, sacrum and femur, < in inner condyle and great trochanter.
Phlegmonous swelling with a rosy tint on various parts.
SKIN [46]
Phlyctenoid herpes.
Psoriasis.
Scrofulous eruptions.
Variola (decoction taken when eruption is out and beginning to pustulate aborts secondary fever, pitting).
Fever becomes less, delirium vanishes, pains lessen, eruption develops sooner and matures rapidly, desiccating without leaving pits.
Eruption out, pustules dissipate, first on face, fever lessens, urine though scanty and dark becomes abundant and pale ; strength returns.
Arrests pustules, killing as it were the virus from within, preventing pitting.
Constitutional symptoms in three or four days subside.
Even confluent forms are helped, little or no pitting following.
Relieves restlessness, sleeplessness during variola.
A woman far advanced in pregnancy was cured of smallpox with Sarrac. 3, 6th and 9th, her accouchement being happily accomplished during her convalescence, the babe bearing upon its body numerous red blotches, indicating that it had been similarly affected at the same time with the mother.
An infant a few months old was attacked with a grave form of smallpox, with variolous angina, so severe that it was with difficulty it could take the breast ; the mother took Sarrac. 3, 6th and 9th, continued to nurse the infant, which promptly recovered from the disease, and the mother did not take the disorder, notwithstanding the immediate and constant contact of the child.
In an epidemic occurring in the environs of Wavre it was given to more than two thousand persons living in the very middle of the disease and coming in constant intercourse with it, but all who took it escaped the disease ; during the same time more than two hundred cases were treated by the same remedy without the loss of a single patient.
STAGE OF LIFE, CONSTITUTION [47]
Man, æt. 35, sanguinobilious temperament, suffering a long time ; phlyctenoid herpes.
RELATIONS [48]
Antidoted by : Podophyl . (diarrhœa).