Abies canadensis

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

(Hemlock-Spruce.)

Description. — A large tree, evergreen. When young the most graceful of the spruces, with a light, spreading spray, and delicate foliage, bright green above and silvery underneath. Very common northward.

Officinal Preparations. — Tincture of the bark and buds, dilutions.

Analogues. — JEsculus, Copaiva, Terebinth, Nux, Ignatia, Lithium.

Mind.

Mind careless, quiet, but easily fretted, and irritable.

Head.

Feels light-headed, a tipsy feeling, a swimming in the head. Top of the head feels congested, a faint, drunken feeling. Sweating about the head, at night.

Eyes.

A feeling as of a stye, on the outer canthus of the left eyelid.

Gastric Symptoms. Dryness of the mouth, with thirst. Gnawing, hungry, faint feeling at the epigastrium. A bloated feeling in the stomach, with burning. * Craving for meat, pickles, and other coarse food. {Gatchell.) A tendency to eat far beyond the capacity for digestion. Great appetite, with rumbling in the bowels after eating. 0 Canine hunger, with torpid fever. {Gatchell.) 0 Dyspepsia, with very weak digestion. (Beckwith.) 2 (")

Abdomen.

Rumbling in the bowels after eating, with great appetite.

Irritable feeling in the region of the spleen.

A feeling in the liver as if it was small and hard, and as it

the bile was deficient. Burning in the rectum, with constipation.

CJrme.

Urination very frequent, day and night; urine profuse and

straw colored. Increased nocturnal, involuntary urination.

Uterus.

She thinks the womb feels soft and " feeble."

A sore feeling in the fundus of the uterus, relieved by pressing.

" Pregnant ewes lose their lambs from gnawing the bark."

Generalities. Skin clammy, hands cold and shrunken. Pain behind the right shoulder-blade.

Increased action of the heart, with distension of stomach. Great restlessness at night, with tossing from side to side; he

lies with the knees drawn up. Wants to lie down all the time, with weakness in the sacral

regions; gaping and drowsiness. Chills down the back; cold, shivering all over, as if the blood

turned to ice-water. Twitching of the muscles.

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

The use of the Hemlock Spruce for dyspepsia is empirical, and originated in domestic practice. A tincture of the buds made by maceration in whiskey is said to have cured the following symptoms :

A light-headed feeling, attended with a gnawing, hungry, faint feeling at the epigastrium, craving hunger, which, if gratified, was followed by distension of the stomach and hard beating of the heart.

The condition represented by the above symptoms resembles that observed in catarrh of the stomach. Drs. Gatchell and Beckwith claim to have cured many cases having the above symptoms, with the tincture. A tincture of the gum of the Abies nigra has caused and cured somewhat similar symptoms. — See Allen’s “ Encyclopedia of Materia Medica,” vol. i.