Lilium Tigrinum

Lilium Tigrinum.

Tiger Lily. N. O. Liliaceae. Tincture of fresh stalk, leaves, and flowers. (Some of the provings were made with tincture of the pollen alone.)

Angina pectoris. Asthenopia. Astigmatism. Dementia. Diarrhoea. Dysentery. Eyes, affections of. Fibroma. Heart, affections of; Palpitation of. Hysteria. Ovaries, affections of; dropsy of. Pruritus vulvae. Spinal irritation. Urination, too frequent. Uterus, affections of; displacements of; subinvolution of.

The Tiger Lily, which was introduced into the West from China and Japan, was first suggested as a remedy by W. E. Payne. Carroll Dunham urged Payne to have it well proved.

This Payne did, and Dunham himself assisted by having it proved on a woman under his own supervision. The account of this case of Lilium tigrinum disease, with others, is given in Dunham's lucid style in his Science of Therapeutics. Lil. t. was given in the 30th and 3rd attenuations, which were taken during ten days. The symptoms began early but were somewhat slow in developing, and, after recovery, recurred with other symptoms.

The third series recurred in the ninth week after taking the drug, and this was the most severe of all. So intense were the sufferings mental and bodily that Dunham felt bound to antidote them with Plat. 200, which was speedily effective. The symptoms developed in this order: (1) Increased activity; things went more easily. (2) Increased sexual instinct.

(3) Sweetish nausea without inclination to vomit. Abnormal fulness < after eating ever so little. (4) Ill-humour; drowsiness; sleep but with unpleasant dreams. (5) Bloating more pronounced and chiefly across hips in uterine region; darting pains in head and lower abdomen from ovaries down thighs; pressure in vagina; pain at top of sacrum extending to hips.

(6) Crazy feeling with thoughts of suicide; head grows wild after being quiet for a short time; increased depressing weight over parting; < evening. Knees ache. From this point, ten days after the first dose, no more medicine was taken, but the Lil. tig. disease continued to develop and increase in intensity for eight weeks longer, when it was so bad that it had to be put an end to by an antidote.

Of these symptoms the most prominent were a "downward dragging" from shoulders, from thorax, from left breast, from epigastrium down to pelvis, and out at the vagina as if everything would be forced through. (In some other provers who were examined actual displacement was found, especially anteversion.) Late in the proving a thin brown leucorrhoea appeared, leaving a brown stain. This was intermittent. The downward pressure involved the rectum and bladder, and loins.

There was consciousness of the ovaries as distinct painful and burning spots with pains radiating from them down the thighs. Menses came at regular times but flowed only as long as she kept moving. Much hurried and driven, she knows not why. Heart symptoms came on at this time, about a month after commencing the proving: Sudden fluttering sensation, less felt if she can busy herself very much.

Faintness accompanied the fluttering, as though she could make no exertion but must sit still. Sharp pain in apex of heart. After a cessation of symptoms for about a week there was a recurrence of the same, including leucorrhoea, burning pain from groin to groin, with new mental symptoms, including obscene thoughts and disposition to strike and swear. Menses recurred after only two weeks' interval, leucorrhoea having ceased two days before.

After another brief interval the second recurrence occurred, which was put an end to by Platinum. In male provers there was a good deal of pelvic distress, affecting bladder, rectum, and back, and a very decided increase in sexual instinct, but nothing approaching the intensity of the action on the female organs. The heart, in the males, appears to have borne the chief impact of the drug's action. The outward forcing in which the down-dragging symptoms of the female provers culminated was manifested in other symptoms.

One man had this: The heart's action was intermittent, every intermission followed by a violent throb, causing an involuntary catching of the breath; at the same time the blood rushed up through the carotids to the head, producing great heat and a crowded feeling of head and face. Another prover, woman, 53, who had ceased to menstruate, took a drop of 30th. She had: A feeling of exhaustion as if the blood were pushed outward; and later a blinding headache "as if all the blood were pressing outward through every aperture." S Lilienthal had among his symptoms: "A sensation as if a rubber band were stretched tightly from temple to temple";

"as if a skullcap were crushing the head"; "as if the brain was being pushed through eyes and ears." "Outward forcing" is plainly a keynote of this remedy; and the contractive pains at the heart as if grasped with a hand are all of a piece with this. The characteristic feature in the heart-grip is an intermittent pressure—there is alternate spasm and relaxation as if a hand squeezed the heart and then let go and squeezed again. Another leading indication is when there is pain and numbness in the right arm along with the heart pain; and again when there is alternation between heart pains and uterine or ovarian pains.

The pains of Lil. tig. are wandering, flying, shooting, squeezing and relaxing, opening and shutting, burning and radiating. They radiate from ovary to heart to left breast, down legs (especially left), across to opposite ovary; through left breast to back; from ilium to ilium; across sacrum. In contradistinction to the down-dragging is a "pulling-up" sensation from the tip of the coccyx. A patient to whom I gave Lil. tig. 30 said it caused a sensation in the abdomen as if the contents were "tied up in knots." C.

Sigmund Rage has observed (H. R., xi. 482) excellent results from Lil. t. 3x and 30 in cases of uterine fibroid presenting the characteristic symptoms of the remedy. The 2x and 3x caused severe aggravations—backache; fever and sweat during the night; fear of dying. Among other peculiar sensations are: With nausea, a lump in centre of chest which could be moved down by empty swallowing.

As if an electric current in fingers and hands. As if cool wind blowing on lower extremities. The eyes were the seat of many marked symptoms, and one prover who was astigmatic, after much suffering in the eyes during the proving, found her astigmatism gone when the proving was over The left side was most markedly affected.

Intense restlessness, nervous system irritable, weak, trembling; aimless hurry; walks to and fro. Convulsive contractions of almost all muscles of body, and feeling as if she would be crazy if she did not hold tightly upon herself. Feeling as if she must scream. "Cannot walk on uneven ground" (H.

C. Allen). Burning palms and soles accompany other complaints. The symptoms are > lying on left side, when lying down at all is tolerated.

Rest in general <. (Berridge cured a lady, 50, of heart pain, as if grasped with hand, with cold feeling from apex of heart to under left scapula; excited by worry; < lying on right side; > lying on left side and when busy at work.) Hasty, busy movement >.

Pressure and support >: Must cross legs to relieve bearing down; must put hands to vulva to prevent contents escaping. Movement < uterine symptoms: unable to move for fear her womb would drop from her. Stooping < heart pain. Standing < downward dragging.

< Afternoon and night from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. Diarrhoea < early morning. > In open air. < In warm room; is faint.

Touch < (on epigastrium = desire to vomit); < haemorrhoids. Pressure of bedclothes is intolerable on abdomen and uterine region. Rubbing and pressure > heart spasm.

Jarring < I never obtained good results from Lil. tig. until I gave it in the 30th attenuation. I have tried higher, but the aggravations from these were so severe that I have kept to the 30th.

Antidoted by: Platina; Helon. (anteversion); Nux (colic);

Puls. Compare: Sep. (very like in most respects, but Lil. > by diverting mind and busying about;

Sep. > by violent exertion; leucorrhoea of Lil. is more excoriating); Lil. < afternoon;

Sep. > afternoon; Lil. pressure in anus, Sep. weight like a heavy ball); Puls.

(< in warm room; venous stasis with taste of blood in mouth—also Ham.; weeping mood—Puls. quiet weeping, Lil. spasmodic, flashing; Puls. has not the tendency to prolapse; is not > by support); Nat. m. (heart; uterus; coldness about heart);

Helon. (profound melancholy with consciousness of womb; Lil. hurry with incapacity and distress based on apprehension of serious malady); Alo.

(fulness in rectum; like a plug wedged between pubes and coccyx); Cact. (heart constricted by iron band; constriction continuous, Lil. intermittent; uterine and ovarian pains); Anac. and Ver.

(profanity); Bell. (< by jar; bearing down; Bell.

< by motion, Lil. >); Sul. (early morning diarrhoea, burning palms and soles);

Zinc. (heart symptoms > by lying on left side;—Pho., Pul., Arn. < lying on left side); Murex, Vib. tin., Vib. o., Nux m., Gossyp.

(bearing-down pains); Lach., Sul., Act. r. and Ustil. (left ovary and left inframammary pain); Calc.

(ovarian pain extending down thigh; Calc., right; Lil., left; Pallad. and Plat.

(irritability, "things don't go right"; Pall. over-sensitive, Plat., hauteur); Aur. (prolapse;

Aur. from weight of organ, Lil. from relaxation of ligaments); Latr. mact. and Spig. (heart), Act. r. (heart and uterus);

Pod. (early morning diarrhoea); Cact., Nat. ph., Tarent., Rhus (pain and numbness of left arm with heart disease; Lil. more characteristic, right);

K. bi. (radiating pains; alternating conditions).

Neuralgia in r. ear.—Rushing sounds in ears after going to bed.

Weak, trembling, nervous.—Faintness, < in a warm room, or after being on feet a long time.—< Walking, yet pains so much worse after ceasing to walk that he must walk again.—Pains in small spots; shifting pains.—Throbbing pulsations, as though the blood would burst through the veins.—Restlessness.—Hysteria.