Spigelia appears in 11 of the 13 classic books on Similia. Each was written to do a different job — here is what each adds on this remedy, with the opening of its entry.
- Allen HC — The keynotes that separate this remedy from its nearest neighbours.
“Pinkroot. (Loganiaceae.) Adapted to anaemic debilitated subjects of rheumatic diathesis; to scrofulous children afflicted with ascarides and lumbrici (Cina, Stan.). Persons with light hair; pale, thin, bloated, weak; wrinkled, yellow, earthy skin. Body painfully sensitive to touch; part touched feels chilly ; touch…”
- Allen TF — The raw proving record — symptoms as the provers reported them, unedited.
“Spigelia, anthelmia, L. Natural order , Loganiaceæ. Preparation , Tincture prepared from the powdered plant. Authorities. (Nos. 1 to 21 , from Hahnemann, Mat. Med., 5).”
- Boericke — The quick clinical read — keynotes, modalities and the conditions it is actually prescribed in.
“Pinkroot (SPIGELIA) Spigelia is an important remedy in pericarditis and other diseases of the heart, because the provings were conducted with the greatest regard for objective symptoms and the subjective symptoms are by innumerable confirmations proved to be correct (C. Hering). Has marked elective affinity for the…”
- Boger (Syn) — Generals and modalities in a short analytical portrait rather than a symptom list.
“NERVES: TRIFACIAL. HEART. Neck. Fibrous tissue. EYES. Teeth. LEFT SIDE. TOUCH. MOTION. Jar. Periodically; with the sun. Tobacco. Coition. Raising arms. Lying on R. side, with head high. Combined heart and eye symptoms , or the latter as an accompaniment. PAIN; in violent attacks; radiating from l. occiput to over l…”
- Clarke — The widest entry — sources, provings, clinical uses, relationships and antidotes in one place.
“anthelmia. Demerara Pink-root. N. O. Loganiaceæ. Tincture of dried herb. Adenoids / Amaurosis / Angina pectoris / Ciliary neuralgia / Cold / Constipation / Depression of spirits / Diaphragm, stitches in / Exophthalmic goître / Eyes, pains in / Gastric catarrh / Glaucoma / Headache / Heart, affections of / Hernia…”
- Hering — Graded symptoms, each weighted by how often provers and practice confirmed it.
“Pinkroot. Loganiaceæ. An annual, growing in the West Indies and South America. The alcoholic tincture is prepared from the dried herb. Provings by Hahnemann, Becher, Franz, Gross, Gutmann, Hartmann, Herrmann, Hornburg, Kummer, Langhammer, Meyer, Stapf, Walther, Wislicenus and others, Hahnemann's Mat. Med., vol. 5…”
- Kent — The mental and general picture — who the patient is, before what the remedy cures.
“Spigelia Anthelmintica Pains : Spigelia is especially known by its pains. It is indicated in persons who are debilitated from taking cold and who have become rheumatic, run down, victims of pain. Hardly a nerve in the body escapes; shooting, burning, tearing, neuralgic pains; they are most marked about the eyes and…”
- Lippe (MM) — The strict Hahnemannian reading — the symptom picture without clinical interpretation.
“Restlessness, with anxiety and great solicitude for the future. Difficulty of thinking and disinclination to mental exertion. Weakness of memory. Giddiness when looking downwards. Vertigo, with nausea. Boring headache, from within to without, in the forehead, vertex, or cerebellum. Pressing headache, principally in…”
- Lippe (Red) — Keynotes with the most-trusted ones marked as red-line symptoms.
“Common name: pink root. Heaviness and soreness of the whole body (Bry, Gels., Nux-V.). Painful sensitiveness of the whole body to contact, with shivering of those parts that have been touched, or with formication through the whole body. Stinging, tearing pains in association with twitchings of the affected areas…”
- Nash — The comparisons — the remedy set beside the ones it is most often confused with.
“Violent beating of the heart, shakes the chest; sometimes audible several inches away. Left-sided neuralgias of head, face and eyes; pains increase and decrease with the rising and setting sun; watering of the eye, on affected side. Modalities: quiet; dry air, setting sun. In this we have another valuable heart…”
