Kalmia Latifolia

Kalmia Latifolia.

Ledum floribus bullatis. Cistus chamaerhododendros. Mountain Laurel. American Laurel. Calico Bush. (Rocky sterile hills, near water, in New England States. Flowers May and June.) N. O. Ericaceae. Tincture of fresh leaves when the plant is in flower.

Angina pectoris. Blindness. Bright's disease. Dropsy. Dysmenorrhoea. Gastralgia. Globus hystericus. Gout. Headache. Heart, disease of. Herpes zoster; neuralgia after. Keratitis. Leucorrhoea. Locomotor ataxia. Lumbago. Neuralgia. Paraplegia. Ptosis. Pregnancy, albuminuria of. Retinitis albuminurica. Rheumatism. Rumination. Scleroderma. Sclerotitis. Somnambulism. Sun-headaches. Syphilitic sore throat. Tinnitus. Tobacco, effects of. Vertigo. Vomiting.

Kalmia is the name of a genus of heathworts, natives of North America. K. latifolia, which has large and showy flowers, is found in the northern parts of the United States. Its flowers "yield a honey said to be deleterious, and its leaves and shoots certainly are so to cattle. K. angustifolia, probably for the same reason, has received the name of Lambkill.

The powdered leaves of some are used as a local remedy in some skin diseases. The hard wood of K. latifolia is used in the manufacture of various useful articles. The Canadian partridge is said to become poisonous as human food after feeding on Kalmia berries" (Treasury of Botany). Hering introduced Kalmia into homoeopathic practice, himself and his friends being the first provers.

The head, including eyes and face, shows the chief intensity of its action, and scarcely less so, the heart. A number of skin symptoms confirm the popular use of the leaves; and among them a "stiffness" of the skin (especially of the eyelids) is the most remarkable. Neuralgias (especially of right side); wandering rheumatic pains which tend to travel from above downwards; tumultuous action of the heart and slow pulse—these are the cardinal features of Kalm. Though Kalm. acts most markedly on the right side of the head, it acts very markedly on the left (heart-) side of the chest and left arm.

Von der Luhe cured with Kalm. 200 an intercostal neuralgia of left side, so intense that the patient could not lie down or sleep at night. The chief guiding symptom was a concomitant numb sensation of whole left arm (H. W., xxxiii. 503). With the same potency I cured in a married woman the following symptoms: "Sick feeling and pains flying about, especially down left side; headache at vertex; chilliness"; and in a case of hypertrophied heart in an unmarried woman, "pain through heart region with inability to lie on left side." Lambert has recorded (H.

W., xxx. 64) the case of a gate-keeper, 54, who had smoked since he was seven years old, and who suffered from "tobacco heart," palpitation, occurring on least exertion or fright, and sometimes awakening him in the night; pulse intermittent; no valvular lesion; tingling in left arm and leg and sensation as if the blood did not circulate in them. He could walk all right, but not far. The chief thing he complained of was sharp pain in right temple like pins and needles, of eighteen months' duration.

It was induced by touch and turning head quickly. Kalm. 3x cured the temporal neuralgia and greatly alleviated all the other symptoms. Kalm. also relieved an old ataxic patient (man) of "vertigo and pains in legs which shoot and shift their position frequently." In connection with this spinal case the effects on animals are worth recalling. Meadows (C.

D. P., quoting Southern J. of H., Apr., 1890,) says cattle eat Kalm. in the latter part of the winter when they are in want of something green. The first symptom is intense thirst; then follow trembling, weakness, staggering, and jerking, the abdomen being full of wind. Then clonic spasms, every fifteen to twenty minutes, increasing to violent convulsions, which are renewed if the animal tries to rise in the intervals between the seizures.

Eyes become fixed, pupils turned up, head drawn back, limbs rigid, abdomen bloated, bowels loose. If the animal recovers there is prostration for a week or more, and for three or four months it is weak, nervous, and walks as if intoxicated, tottering as if unable to control its limbs. The spinal action is unmistakable here, and the provings give "weakness and paralytic condition of limbs"; "shuns all exertion, can hardly go upstairs"; and many symptoms of pain in back.

Neuralgias appear in almost all regions—in eye; in uterus (dysmenorrhoea); in stomach as well as head, chest, and limbs. Pains in the periosteum preventing sleep. The rheumatic pains proceed from above downwards, but some of the sensations ascend: as if a ball was rising in the throat. Sensation of weakness in abdomen extending to throat.

Every heart-beat has a strumming as if it would burst, along sternum to throat. Pain between shoulders coming up over head. Also in rheumatism, the lower limbs are affected first, then the upper. Other peculiar sensations are: As if something loose in head diagonally across the top.

As if the body was surcharged with electricity, a shuddering without coldness. As if something would be pressed off below pit of stomach. As if the stool was glazed. As if one squeezed throat with thumb and finger.

Pain in chest (in hands, in feet) as from a sprain. Pressure like a marble from epigastrium to heart. Cracking in head frightens him, ending in sound in ears like blowing a horn. As if something was being pressed away from under sternum.

The pains and conditions requiring Kalm. frequently have nausea and slow pulse as concomitants. Among noteworthy symptoms are: Dry throat. Dry, stiff, swollen, cracked lips. Tingling in salivary glands immediately after eating.

Stitches in tongue. Vomiting with ruminating action; without the least nausea. Pressure on rectum after stool. The sensation of "rigidity of the skin" should make us think of it in scleroderma.

There is much external sensitiveness: Face, pit of stomach, muscles of neck sore, < by touch. Rubbing eyes = stinging in them. The pains are < during early part of night, or soon after going to sleep. Pain in forehead conies on in morning on waking.

The headache is < again in evening, when eye-symptoms and pains generally are <. Kalm. has a "sun-headache," < and > with the sun. (H. G.

Grahn cured in a girl, 18, a headache "beginning in occiput, going over forehead; comes on at sunrise, gets < towards noon and declines as sun sets," with Kalm. 2x. A few weeks later exposure to the sun brought on another attack, which was promptly cured with the same remedy.) A sudden chill, or exposure to a sudden wind = the pains. Heat < and cold > pain in head. Open air < headache and eyes.

Every summer there is roughness of cheeks. Mental effort < headache. Motion <. Lying down, mental faculties and memory perfect, least motion = vertigo.

Lying on back > breathing; on left side < palpitation. The < from motion is very marked, almost equalling that of Bry.; even motion of eyes and eyelids is painful. The pains in the stomach are < sitting bent, though he feels impelled to do so, > sitting or standing upright. But symptoms of vision are < in erect position.

Vertigo is < on stooping; on looking down; on rising from a seat. Palpitation is < on bending forward; and < by mental effort. (Proell cured with Kalm. 1, 2, and 3 headache and weakened memory preventing him from continuing his studies, in a boy of 13 who had insufficiency of the mitral valve.) The neuralgic pains are > by food; wine > vomiting. Symptoms < during leucorrhoea.

A leading concomitant of the Kalmia neuralgias is a paralytic weakness and trembling.

Antidoted by: Aco., Bell. Antidote to: Tab.? Follows well: Nux, Thyroidin, Spigel. Compare: Tab.

(slow pulse and heart; nausea; blindness); Puls. (wandering rheumatism; but Puls. has > by motion); Led.

(botan.; rheumatism affects first lower then upper parts; but Led. pains shoot up, Kalm. pains shoot down); Rhod. (botan.; rheumatism); Abrot.

(metastasis of rheumatic pains to heart); Arbut. (rheumatism < by movement; urinary symptoms); Aesc. g.

(paralytic symptoms); Aesc. h. (rectal symptoms); Urt. ur.

(gout); Rhus (rheumatism; numbness of l. arm; but Rhus is > by movement); Act. r. (headache; eyes);

Ced. (supraorbital neuralgia; Ced., l.; Kalm., r.);

Aco. (heart; numbness of l. arm and fingers); Ars. (neuralgia, burning pains);

Dig. (chest rheumatism, pains so sharp, take away breath, shoot down into stomach, slow pulse; Kalm. more suited to gout or rheumatism shifting from joints to heart); Gels.

(ptosis—Kalm. muscles and lids are stiff; Gels., heavy); Bell. (throbbing head, erysipelas, symptoms travel down);

Benz. ac. (gout); Calc. (cardiac hypertrophy);

Diosc. (gastralgia); K. bi. (catarrhs, shifting rheumatism);

Lith. c. (heart); Lyc. (rheumatic gout; urinary symptoms);

Spigel. (rheumatism, neuralgia, eyes, heart, tobacco antidote; < and > with sun; but Spigel. more left side, and often affects whole head, pains stitching, run back, < by least jar or noise); Cact.

(heart, pains shooting down); Alo. (cracking in head); Sang.

(headache < and > with sun). Led., Rhod., and Uva ursi are close allies.

Chill. Exposure. Wind. Sun.

Coryza; with increased sense of smell; with sneezing, dulness, headache, and hoarseness.—Tearing in root of nose and nasal bones, with nausea.

Teeth tender with neuralgia of face.—Pressing pain in molars, late in evening.

Stool like mush, easily discharged, as if glazed, followed by pressure on rectum.—Diarrhoea, with dulness, dizziness, weariness, nausea, and bellyache.

Frequent, spontaneous, lasting erections, without desire.—Pain in r. testicle, morning; changed to l., afternoon.

Rheumatism often attacks heart, and generally goes from upper to lower parts; pains shift suddenly.—Weariness in all muscles; shuns all exertion, can hardly go upstairs.—Weary and giddy, with diarrhoea.—Weakness the only general symptom with neuralgia.—Trembling, thrilling, strumming, with palpitation.