Sarracenia Purpurea
Sarracenia · Clarke - Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica · John Henry Clarke · 11,059 chars · source ↗
General
Sarracenia.
Sarracenia purpurea. Pitcher Plant. (Grows in boggy places from Canada southwards.) N. O. Sarraceniaceae. Tincture of fresh plant. Tincture of root.
Clinical
Back, pains in. Bones, pains in. Borborygmus. Constipation. Coxalgia. Diarrhoea. Eruptions, scrofulous. Femur, pains in. Herpes. Influenza. Lumbago. Psoriasis. Small-pox Vision, disordered.
Characteristics
The use of the Pitcher Plant in small-pox is a discovery of the Indians of North America, the spotted appearance of the plant probably suggesting a resemblance to the disease. Hale has collected much confirmatory evidence of its power to antidote the small-pox poison. A proving by T. C.
Duncan, Thomas, and others brought out symptoms of fever, backache, headache, and gastric disturbance. Hering quotes these instances of its action: (1) A woman far advanced in pregnancy was cured of small-pox with Sarr. 3, 6, and 9, delivery being happily accomplished during her convalescence, the infant bearing on its body numerous red blotches, indicating that it had been affected with the disease. (2) An infant a few months old was attacked with a grave form of small-pox, with variolous angina so severe that it was with difficulty it could take the breast; the mother took Sarr. 3, 6, and 9, and continued to nurse the infant, which promptly recovered, the mother not taking the disease.
(3) In an epidemic occurring in the environs of Wavre, Sarr. was given to two thousand persons living in the very middle of the disease and coming in constant intercourse with it, but all who took Sarr. escaped; during the same epidemic two hundred cases were treated with Sarr. without a death. Bilden, who used the 1x tincture in an epidemic with success, concludes that Sarr. is to small-pox what Gels. is to bilious fever. Hale quotes Surgeon-Major C. G.
Logie's (allopath) account of his experience with Sarr. (decoction probably) in small-pox: "Four of the cases in my hospital have been severe confluent cases. They have throughout the disease all been perfectly sensible, have had excellent appetites, been free from pain, and have never felt weak. The effects of this medicine, which I have carefully watched, seemed to arrest the development of the pustules, killing, as it were, the virus from within, thereby changing the character of the disease and doing away with pitting." A number of eye symptoms appeared in the provings, and Sarr. has cured disordered vision.
A case of "phlyctenoid herpes" has also been reported cured by it. Extreme lassitude and pains in the bones were prominent in the provings. The right side was more affected than the left. Sensations were: Light feeling in head.
As if he received a knock on the head. As if head were split. Left eye as if congested. Heat in face as if on fire.
Swelling in womb as if from a tumour or dropsy. Uterus swollen as if full of cysts. As if bones of leg were too thick. Sarr. has the empty, hungry, sinking sensation of the antipsorics.
Dryness of mouth and throat. Weak feeling in the arms. Very sensitive to cold air. Faint after stool.
There is vesical and rectal tenesmus. Stool smells of musk. The symptoms were < about midnight and at 3 p.m. < Morning.
< Rising from lying. < Trying to walk. < In stormy weather. Open air = chilliness, hands and feet cold; = head to be hot and sore, and feet full.
Cold air = to feel chilly and < bone pains. Symptoms generally > in fresh air; and > out of bed.
Relations
Antidoted by: Podoph. Compare: In small-pox, Ant. t., Merc., Vaccin., Variol., Maland. In bone pains, Eup. perf.
Mind
Melancholia, anxious about everything
Great depression of spirits with frontal headache
Brain clearer, buoyant spirits
Dulness of head, loss of memory, insensibility of r. side; paralysis of hearing and smell
Want of memory with the headache
Difficult to concentrate attention, forgetful; feels dull and heavy; sweats freely
Alternate apathy and intellectual activity.
Head
Head feels dull and heavy
Feels light-headed
Vertigo: with cramps in neck, spreading to forehead;
< night; sensation as if he had received a knock on the head, stupor and staggering gait; obliged to support himself or lie down; with drowsiness in head and contractions in spinal column
Frontal headache, low-spirited
Headache: dull at cranial region; severe in afternoon; with chills, nausea, vomiting, dim sight, surring in ears
Pulsations and burning heat of head, with sensation as if it would split
Head hot and aches
Head and body warm
Frontal bone sore
Pruritus and heat of scalp.
Eyes
Eyes weak
Dim sight, headache
Gas flame seems a brilliant yellow ring; sees black objects moving with the eye
Great photophobia
Soreness of r. optic nerve, just behind eyeball
Pain in l. eye as if congested, on waking
Eyes feel swollen and sore
Eyes and lids inflamed
Increased mucous secretion
Cutting, penetrating pains in orbits.
Ears
Surring in ears
Sticking pains deep in r. ear; transient but recurring often; same in l. ear
Intense earache; fears he will lose his senses
Swelling of parotids.
Nose
Fetid smell
Epistaxis nearly producing fainting
Fluent coryza with cold chills and loss of smell
Foul-smelling, green, yellowish, or bloody discharges
Nose swollen, red, with pressure and pulsation at root.
Face
Face flushed
Heat and redness of face
Face pale, with heat and chill alternating
Erysipelatous swelling of face
Miliary eruption on face, with heat as if it were on fire
Scaly herpes on face and forehead
Intense neuralgic pains from temples to jaws.
Mouth
Tongue: dry; coated brownish white
Mouth dry; lips and mouth parched
Toothache at night in bed; from least contact, and cold air.
Throat
Throat dry, not > by tea or water; borborygmi.
Appetite
Hungry all the time, even after a meal
Appetite unusually active, but there was a sense of pain about the stomach like that after inflammation or of overtaxed muscle
Little appetite, but what is eaten agrees
Great desire to sleep during eating.
Stomach
Empty, hungry feeling; for he can keep nothing in his stomach
Burning pains in stomach with palpitations and contraction
Pinching pain in stomach, it feels distended and torn.
Abdomen
After going to bed whole abdominal region was in commotion, extending along ascending, and descending colon, all in a kind of rolling motion; epigastrium sensitive to pressure
Transient pains in bowels
Bloated about navel
Borborygmi and some pain in bowels with constipation; dry throat.
Stool And Anus
Much flatus
First part of stool natural, last diarrhoeic
Much tenesmus; dysenteric diarrhoea
Stool at first costive, thin, dark, offensive, soluble
Costive; stools very hard, covered with mucus, and dark
Stool copious, dark, fetid, evacuated with great straining, morning
Rectum and anus swollen and inflamed
Morning diarrhoea; faint after stool, which is dark, often mixed with blood, foul smelling, or smelling of musk; bloatedness with colic.
Urinary Organs
Awoke 3 a.m. with urging to urinate; bladder so full it overcame resistance of sphincter and dribbled away
Voided 27 ounces of urine of sp. gr. 1024; vesical tenesmus
Urine phosphatic
Urine scanty, limpid.
Female Sexual Organs
Watery or milky leucorrhoea, foul-smelling, with spasmodic pains in uterus; pulsative pains in womb with swelling as if from a tumour or dropsy; uterus swollen as if full of cysts, esp. r. side; cervix swollen, hot; miliary eruption and heat in vulva; bloody discharge at other times than menstrual period, as during climaxis.
Respiratory Organs
Phthisis pulmonalis and bronchial affections, joined to or depending on a psoric state; haemoptysis, thick cough; continual tickling in larynx and bronchi; cough with desire to vomit, and vomiting, paroxysms of suffocation and epistaxis; hard cough, shaking chest and bowels, and stopping only after expectorating a quantity of compact mucus, tenacious, filamentary, with a bitter, putrid, oily taste.
Chest
Pains in third and fourth ribs, with great apprehension of heart disease
Pain in angle of ribs
Soreness of pectoralis major.
Heart
Feeling of congestion about head, with irregularity of heart's action
Congestion to chest, heavy feeling about heart
Slight palpitation in morning
Pulse: full and strong; 68, general malaise; small; quick.
Neck And Back
A pain up r. trapezius muscle with wave-like motion
Warm sensation passed up back into head
Weak between and below shoulders
Back weak, wants to lean on something
Arms and back tired and sore all over
Deep-seated pain in back
Fixed pains in small of back
Heat in whole r. lumbar region
Pain in cervical and lumbar vertebrae
Pain and soreness in sacrum.
Limbs
Limbs cold when still, as from deficient circulation
Limbs easily benumbed
Weakness of limbs with paralytic debility
Pains and soreness in diaphyses of all long bones;
< humerus, esp. l
Pain in l. carpus and tarsus.
Upper Limbs
Paroxysms of pain in r. shoulder
Joint, pain in l. carpus and tarsus; face flushed
Arms feel weak
Bruised feeling from shoulders to hands
Aching, sore pain in l. humerus
Bones in both arms pain.
Lower Limbs
Pain in hip-joints < rising to feet from a lying posture
Paroxysms of weakness in coxo-femoral joint, with pains of luxation and fear of failing when beginning to walk
Strange lameness in femur, lower third, < in inner condyle
Pain in condyles of femur
Wave-like motion in muscles of femur
Sensation of fatigue in bones of leg as if they were too thick
Bruised and luxated feeling in joints
Pain in r. patella and metatarsal bones
Knees feel weak
Bruised pain in knees as after a fall; he falls easily on his knees
Bone pains in tibia and fibula; intermittent, but bones continually sore
Bones of feet inflamed, nodes as in gout.
Generalities
Debility; heavy, languid.—Dull, heavy, sore feeling in all bones.—Phlegmonous swelling, with a rosy tint on various parts.—Unrefreshed though slept soundly.
Skin
Phlyctenoid herpes
Psoriasis
Scrofulous eruptions
Variola;
(the decoction taken when eruption is out and beginning to pustulate aborts secondary fever and prevents pitting)
Eruption out, pustules dissipate, first on face, fever lessens, urine though scanty and dark becomes abundant and pale, strength returns
Eruptions similar to crusta lactea; on forehead and hands papular eruptions, changing to vesicular, with the depression as in small-pox lasting from seven to eight days.
Sleep
Sleepy in daytime; sleep disturbed by strange and frightful dreams.—Awakes early: 3, 4, or 5; in a fright; with urging to urinate.
Fever
Feverish and shaking chills, < morning
General chills between shoulder-blades
Chills, heat, and sweat, 5 p.m
At 2 p.m. very chilly in open air
Skin hot and dry
Hands hot, warm all over
Head and body warm
Perspires freely (5th, 8th, 9th d.); although weather still warm, and actively employed, sweat not as free as while taking the drug (11th d.).