Nux vomica

REMEDIES IN THE BEGINNING OF A CASE

PULSATILLA AND NUX VOMICA

Nux vomica. In the case of sedentary men who come down with severe headache and constipation, with frequent desire for stools, which do not satisfy, or ineffectual efforts at stool, and especially if with very high fever and bright red face there is constant desire to be covered, for he is chilly if he moves or is uncovered in the least. The patient is very nervous, sensitive and easily affected by external impressions.

I put these two remedies here together because I think they belong here. The Nux vomica picture is predominently found among men; the Pulsatilla in women. If some should object that these are not typhoid fever remedies, because they do not create or cause the pathological changes that characterize a fully developed case of this disease, I answer that any remedy having the symptoms of the patient, even though they be only subjective symptoms, is homœopathic to the case, and that if applied when and where it belongs the pathological changes so characteristic may be averted. To meet and defeat in this way disease at the very outset is one of the chief excellencies of our art as compared with the old school of medicine. The “practice of medicine made easy” by prescribing the one remedy for all cases of one (nominal) disease, without regard to the individual, or peculiar, symptoms in the case, is simply in the line of the old mistake of Quinine for malarious affections, Mercury for syphilis, etc., etc. We know the result.

PREMONITORY SYMPTOMS AND CONVALESCENCE

Nux vomica in cases that have been closely confined in-doors by business, persons of sedentary habits, or of intellectual pursuits; who become constipated, stomach gets out of order, food distresses, sleep is unrefreshing, feels worse in the morning than any other time; is a little feverish, with red face, yet wants to be covered, or in warm room, quiet, as the least movement or uncovering makes him chilly.

In one case of typhus, which was, I think, the worst from which I ever saw a patient recover, after the worst had been passed, the case dragged along still presenting an unnaturally high temperature and pulse, < in A. M., face red, with chilliness on uncovering or moving. Nux vomica 200th put in the “finishing touch” and brought on rapid improvement until complete recovery.