Indigo Tinctoria

Indigo.

An oxidation product from the juices of several plants, chiefly Indigofera tinctoria. N. O. Leguminosae. Trituration.

Acne. Amenorrhoea. Anus, prolapse of. Brachial neuralgia. Constipation. Cough. Diarrhoea. Epilepsy. Epistaxis. Face, pimples on.

Indigo was introduced into medicine as a remedy for epilepsy. It has been extensively proved by homoeopaths, and observations have also been made of its effects on epileptic patients who were receiving large doses from old-school practitioners. The provings bring out a number of neuralgic and nervous symptoms. These have been supplemented by clinical observations, and the place of Indg. in the materia medica is now fairly well defined.

Teste tried Indg. in cases of epilepsy, but with little success, except in cases arising from the presence of worms. In cases of worm fever he has used it with great effect. The patients were children, from ton to twelve year sold, lymphatic, apathetic, peevish, who ate a great deal. The symptoms were: Chilliness, catarrhal cough, coming in long paroxysms in evening; whitish, moist tongue; sour or foul breath; large but soft abdomen; diarrhoea of two or three stools in twenty-four hours, like greyish pap, sour; ascarides in rectum, even crawling out during sleep.

Teste also used Indg. with success in the following cases: (1) Semi-liquid diarrhoea (three to four stools a day, coming on especially after exercise in a stout old man, frequently given to excesses of eating). (2) Chronic catarrh of the bladder. (3) Stricture of urethra after old gonorrhoea (with Plumb. and Sep.). E.

P. Colby (N. A. J.

H., November, 1879, 666) gave it in all cases of epilepsy coming under his care during twelve years, with the result that he apparently cured 10 per cent., and reduced the frequency of attacks in many more. The dosage is not mentioned, but was probably crude. In the dynamic cures of epilepsy effected by Indg., there has been great melancholy which the patient has sought to hide, spending many nights crying alone; or a furious excitable disposition before the attacks and mild and timid after.

The attacks have been sudden; apparently originating in the solar plexus, from which flushes of heat arise to the head; induced by cold or fright. A peculiar sensation is an undulating sensation in the brain (which I have also observed in a case of epilepsy benefited by Act. r. The Indg. undulation causes obscured vision). A dry suffocative cough in evening and after going to bed, and a cough always attended by nose-bleed are characteristics.

S. T. Yount (quoted H. R., ii. 271) relates that he had used Indg. successfully as an emmenagogue, having been led thereto by the discovery that a patient of his habitually employed it to procure abortion.

He gave it in amenorrhoea in one to four-drachm doses. His contraindications are important to homoeopaths. In very large doses, he says, the crude drug produces nausea and vomiting. It should not be given to pregnant women, nor where there is an irritable stomach, nor where there is the history of a previous pelvic inflammation, nor where there is marked cerebral anaemia.

A case narrated by Nash (Med. Adv., xviii. 223) brings out one of the characteristic conditions of Indg. A hard-working man, over 70, gradually became unable to work. Weak; stiffness all over, especially right side, arm and leg.

Pain in night hip running down leg; < beginning to move after resting. Can hardly turn over in bed. Appetite poor; stomach distressed, four or five hours after eating, if he eats more than a very little.

Pains in the limbs decidedly < after every meal. Indg. cured promptly. There are marked symptoms of brachial and sciatic neuralgia which have this peculiarity: they come on or are < whilst sitting and are > by moving about. Symptoms in general are: < By rest; when sitting.

> By motion; rising; walking. > By pressure; by rubbing. < In afternoon; in evening. The vertigo with headache is > in evening, and < in open air.

Warmth rushes to head on entering a warm room after walking in cold air. All symptoms are < after eating and after evening meal.

Antidoted by: Camph., Nux. Compare: Sul. (epilepsy; sinking sensation; hot flushes; worm fever); Kali bro. (epilepsy; acne); Act. r. (epilepsy with waving sensation in brain); Rhus (< by rest, > by motion); Bufo (epilepsy: Ind., timid, sad, low-spirited; Bufo, vehement or excitable); Lyc. (< in after noon); Ign. (sad, introverted); Baptis. ("Wild Indigo"), and other Leguminosae.

Melancholy, sadness.—Discontented, retired in himself.

Tearing, in and behind the ears, as well as in the lower jaw. Pressure and roaring in ears.

Depressed sexual desire.—Itching of the urethra, glans, and scrotum.

Violent cough, inducing vomiting; bleeding of the nose.—Suffocating cough, exciting vomiting in the evening, before and after lying down.

Rumbling and grumbling in the chest at every inspiration.—Shooting pains in and round the mammae.

Stitch between the scapula.—Stitch in the small of the back, going off after an evacuation.

Pains which disappear entirely, or at least re-appear only, with greatly diminished force, after resting on the part affected, or after scratching.—Shooting and tearing pains in the limbs, in the afternoon and evening.—Subsultus tendinum.

Chilliness, with cold hands and violent headache, with constant desire to urinate; urine turbid.—Great heat, particularly in the face, with increased secretion of urine.