The characteristic symptoms relate mainly to the brain and nervous system, connected with gastro-intestinal disturbance. Anguish, crying, and expression of uneasiness and discontent, lead to this remedy most frequently in disease in children, during dentition, summer complaint, when, with the diarrhœa, there is marked inability to digest milk , and poor circulation. Symptoms set in with violence .

Mind

Restless, anxious, crying . Sees rats, cats, dogs, etc. Unconscious, delirious. Inability to think, to fix the attention . Brain fag. Idiocy may alternate with furor and irritability.

Head

Feels bound up, or in a vise. Occipital pain extending down spine; better lying down and by pressure. Head symptoms relieved by expelling flatus ( Sanguin ) and by stool. Hair feels pulled. Vertigo with drowsiness, with palpitation; head hot after vertigo ceases.

Eyes

Photophobia; swelling of Meibomian glands . Rolling of eyes on falling asleep. Eyes drawn downward ; pupils dilated.

Ears

Feel obstructed . Sense of something hot from ears. Hissing sound.

Nose

Stopped up with much thick mucus. Herpetic eruption on tip of nose. Frequent ineffectual desire to sneeze.

Face

Puffed , red-spotted, collapsed. Expression anxious, full of pain; linea nasalis marked.

Mouth

Dry. Aphthæ. Tongue seems too long. Burning and pustules in throat, with difficult swallowing.

Stomach

Intolerance of milk ; vomiting as soon as swallowed or in large curds. Hungry after vomiting. Regurgitation of food about an hour after eating . Violent vomiting of a white frothy matter. Nausea at sight of food. Painful contraction of stomach. Vomiting, with sweat and great weakness , accompanied by anguish and distress, followed by sleepiness. Stomach feels turned upside down, with burning feeling up to the chest. Tearing pains in the stomach extending to œsophagus.

Abdomen

Cold, internal and external, with aching pain in bowels. Colic, followed by vomiting, vertigo, and weakness. Tense, inflated, and sensitive. Bubbling sensation around navel.

Stool

Undigested, thin, greenish , preceded by colic, with tenesmus, and followed by exhaustion and drowsiness. Cholera infantum; child cold, clammy, stupid, with staring eyes and dilated pupils. Obstinate constipation; feels as if all bowel action is lost. Choleraic affections in old age.

Urinary

Cutting pain in bladder, with frequent urging. Pain in kidneys.

Female

Lancinating pains in sexual organs. Pimples; itching when warm. Menses watery. Swelling of mammary glands, with lancinating pains.

Respiratory

Difficult, oppressed, anxious respiration; crampy constriction. Sufferings render patient speechless.

Heart

Violent palpitation, with vertigo, headache and restlessness. Pulse rapid, hard and small.

Back and Extremities

Want of power to stand up or hold head up. Back feels as if in a vise. Aching in small of back. Weakness of lower extremities. Fingers and thumbs clenched. Numbness of hands and feet. Violent spasms. Squinting of eyes downward.

Skin

Excoriation of thighs in walking. Easy perspiration. Surface of body cold and covered with clammy sweat. Lymphatic glands swollen . Itching eruption around joints . Skin of hands dry and shrunken. Ecchymosis. Anasarca.

Fever

Great heat; no thirst . Profuse, cold sweat. Must be covered during sweat .

Sleep

Disturbed by violent startings ; cold perspiration. Dozing after vomiting or stool. Child is so exhausted, it falls asleep at once.

Modalities

Worse , 3 to 4 am, and evenings; warmth, summer. Better in open air and company.

Compare: Athamantha (confused head, vertigo better lying down, bitter taste and saliva. Hands and feet icy cold); Antimon; Calc; Ars; Cicuta . Complementary: Calc .

Dose

Third to thirtieth potency.

Aethusa Cynapium