Origanum vulgare

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

{Marjoram.)

Botanical Description. — This is a perennial herb, with erect, leafy, hairy, purple, quadrangular, corymbose stems, from six inches to two feet in height. The flowers are numerous, of a purplish-white color, and are disposed in smooth, erect, roundish, panicled, and fasciculate spikes, and accompanied with ovate purplish bracts, longer than the calyx. "Wild Marjoram is common to Europe and America. It is found in limestone regions, on dry banks, and in dry fields and woods, flowering from May to October. The whole herb is officinal, but it is seldom collected, except for the purpose of procuring its volatile oil, on which its virtues depend, and which may be separated by distillation with water. The plant has a strong, peculiar, rather agreeable balsamic odor, and a warm, bitterish^ aromatic taste, which properties are imparted to alcohol, or boiling water by infusion. The Origanum Marjorana, or sweet Marjoram, possesses properties similar to the above species. It is a native of Portugal, but cultivated in our gardens, and much used in cooking as a seasoning.

Officinal Preparations. — Tincture of the plant; the oil; dilutions; tincture and triturations of the oil.

Analogues. — Cantharis, Cannabis indica, Collinsonia, Hedeoma, Helonias, Platinum, Valerian.

Mind.

She is very quiet, full of thoughts, sad, despairing; wants to throw herself out of the window; wants to walk about all the time; impossible to rest. Everything disgusts her; desire for death; disgust for life; nothing amuses her. Cannot fix the thoughts.

Lascivious ideas, with great heat in the head.

Dreams lascivious, with frequent waking; wakes trembling.

Moroseness and debility one day, vivacity the next.

Sadness, followed by good humor (opposite of coffee).

• Lascivious ideas, with sexual irritation.

° Deep moroseness, with an idea that she was lost and despised. When waking from a stupor she cries out that the devil comes near her. She believes herself in hell, in chains- Considered herself crazy; has thoughts of suicide (in a hysterical girl with sexual irritation).

Head.

Great heat of the head; when this increases, the head involuntarily turns from one side to the other.

*From the French of Dr. Gallasardin, of Lyons. N. A. Journal of Homoeopathy, Vol. 15, page 62.

Headache in the temples, with lasciviousness. Vertigo when going to bed. Epistaxis in the morning.

Urinary and Sexual Organs.

Frequent calls to urinate at night, waking him.

Increased sexual desire. Lascivious ideas and dreams. Itching on and about the bosom. ° Onanism in girls — under ten years. c Masturbation, with mental weakness.

0 A young girl, well every other way, masturbated every day She tried her utmost to fight those sexual inclinations, but in vain. (Cured by the 3d.)

° Sexual irritation, with leucorrhoea and itching of the pudenda in an old maid, of forty years. (Cured by the 3d.) {Dr. Emory.)

° Leucorrhoea, with sexual irritation, in a woman of 35, married. She had suffered several months from powerful lascivious impulses, producing anxiety and aversion to religious duties. (/£•)

° A widow had neither rest nor quiet from voluptuousness. (Cured by the 30th.)

° Tormenting voluptuous desires, in a girl.

0 Leucorrhoea, sterility, "flatulency of the uterus." — Dioscorides.

General Symptoms.

Rheumatic pains in arms, legs, hands and feet, wandering about.

Vividly red efflorescence, and spots on skin of legs and abdomen.

No appetite, but great thirst, and pains in stomach and bowels. Wants to run or walk in fresh air, which does her good.

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

The Wild Marjoram is not indigenous to this country, but may be found in all the older States, introduced from England, where it is a native. It differs botanically from the Sweet Marjoram cultivated in gardens.

The provings from which the pathogenesis in Vol. I is composed were made by Dr. Gallasardin, of Lyons.

According to his proving, verified by the cures he made with it, it appears that its principal sphere of action is upon the generative organs, stimulating the seat of erotic impulses, and thence affecting the brain and nervous system, just as sexual overexcitation does from any cause. It resembles Cannabis indica, Platinum, and Valerian, and possibly Collinsonia, Helonias, and Hedeoma in its primary action. It causes and has cured lascivious ideas and dreams, hysteria from excessive irritation of the genitals.

Dr. Gallasardin cured with the 3X several cases of onanism, masturbation, leucorrhoea with sexual irritation. Dr. Emory cured similar cases with the 30th. Dioscorides says it cures sterility, leucorrhoea, and “ flatulency of the uterus.” Culpepper recommends the cultivated Marjoram for the same complaints. No English author mentions its power of exciting erotic desires.