Veratrum Album

A perfect picture of collapse , with extreme coldness, blueness, and weakness , is offered by this drug. Post-operative shock with cold sweat on forehead, pale face, rapid, feeble pulse. Cold perspiration on the forehead , with nearly all complaints. Vomiting, purging, and cramps in extremities . The profuse , violent retching and vomiting is most characteristic. Surgical shock. Excessive dryness of all mucous surfaces. " Coprophagia " violent mania alternates with silence and refusal to talk.

Mind

Melancholy, with stupor and mania. Sits in a stupid manner; notices nothing; Sullen indifference . Frenzy of excitement; shrieks, curses. Puerperal mania. Aimless wandering from home. Delusions of impending misfortunes . Mania, with desire to cut and tear things ( Tarant ). Attacks of pain, with delirium driving to madness. Cursing, howling all night.

Head

Contracted features. Cold sweat on forehead. Sensation of a lump of ice on vertex . Headache, with nausea, vomiting, diarrhœa, pale face. Neck too weak to hold head up.

Eyes

Surrounded by dark rings. Staring; turned upwards, without luster. Lachrymation with redness. Lids dry heavy.

Face

Features sunken. Icy coldness of tip of nose and face . Nose grows more pointed. Tearing in cheeks, temples, and eyes. Face very pale, blue, collapsed, cold .

Mouth

Tongue pale, cold; cool sensation, as from peppermint. Dry in center not relieved by water. Salty saliva. Toothache, teeth feel heavy as if filled with lead.

Stomach

Voracious appetite. Thirst for cold water, but is vomited as soon as swallowed . Averse to warm food. Hiccough. Copious vomiting and nausea; aggravated by drinking and least motion . Craves fruit, juicy and cold things, ice, salt. Anguish in pit of stomach. Great weakness after vomiting. Gastric irritability with chronic vomiting of food.

Abdomen

Sinking and empty feeling. Cold feeling in stomach and abdomen. Pain in abdomen preceding stool. Cramps, knotting abdomen and legs. Sensation as if hernia would protrude ( Nux ). Abdomen sensitive to pressure, swollen with terrible colic.

Rectum

Constipation from inactivity of rectum, with heat and headache. Constipation of babies, and when produced by very cold weather. Stools large, with much straining until exhausted, with cold sweat . Diarrhœa, very painful, watery, copious, and forcibly evacuated , followed by great prostration. Evacuations of cholera morbus and true cholera when vomiting accompanies the purging.

Respiratory

Hoarse, weak voice. Rattling in chest. Much mucus in bronchial tubes, that cannot be coughed up. Coarse rales. Chronic bronchitis in the aged ( Hippozanin ). Loud barking, stomach cough, followed by eructation of gas; worse, warm room. Hollow cough, tickling low down, with blue face. Cough comes on from drinking, especially cold water; urine escapes when coughing. Cough on entering warm room from cold air ( Bryonia ).

Heart

Palpitation with anxiety and rapid audible respiration. Pulse irregular, feeble. Tobacco heart from chewing. Intermittent action of heart in feeble persons with some hepatic obstruction. One of the best heart stimulants in homeopathic doses (J. S. Mitchell).

Female

Menses too early; profuse and exhausting. Dysmenorrhœa, with coldness , purging, cold sweat . Faints from least exertion . Sexual mania precedes menses.

Extremities

Soreness and tenderness of joints. Sciatica; pains like electric flashes. Cramps in calves . Neuralgia in brachial plexus; arms feel swollen, cold, paralytic.

Skin

Blue, cold, clammy, inelastic, cold as death . Cold sweat. Wrinkling of skin of hands and feet.

Fever

Chill, with extreme coldness and thirst.

Modalities

Worse , at night; wet, cold weather. Better , walking and warmth.

Relationship

Compare: Veratrinum -alkaloid from seeds of Sabadilla. (electric pains, electric shocks in muscles, fibrillary twitchings); Cholos terrepina (cramps in calves); Camph; Cupr; Ars; Cuprum ars ( intermittent, cold, clammy sweat ); Narcissus poeticus (gastro-enteritis with much griping and cutting pain in bowels. Fainting, trembling, cold limbs, small and irregular pulse); Trychosanthes --(diarrhœa, pain in liver, dizziness after every stool); Agaric emetic (vertigo; longing for ice-cold water; burning pains in stomach); Agaric phalloides (cholera, cramps in stomach, cold extremities, urine suppressed). Veratrine (Increased vascular tension. It relaxes it and stimulates the elimination of toxins by skin, kidneys, and liver).

Dose

First to thirtieth potency. In diarrhœa, not below the sixth.