Nux
vomica Anhang
[Lectures on Homeopathic Materia Medica - James
Tyler Kent]
Antidote: Everywhere in this remedy we observe
the striking oversensitiveness of the patient; it is brought out in all the
symptoms.
Irritable; oversensitive to noise, to light, to
the least current of air, to his surroundings; extremely touchy in regard to
his food; many kinds of food disturb, strong foods disturb; he is aggravated by
meat; craves stimulants, pungent, bitter, succulent things, something to brace
him up.
Oversensitive to medicines. One reason why
there are so many Nux-v. patients is because people have been overdrugged by
the old school. When a patient comes from the old school and had prescribing,
having had stimulants and tonics to brace him up, wine and stimulants of all
sorts, it is sometimes impossible to get reliable symptoms, to get the patient
settled down, until we give Nux-v. as an antidote.
It is useful in those over-drugged by tea,
coffee, wine. Old coffee drinkers become (over)sensitive to noise, their
symptoms are flitting; they do not give their symptoms well. Such patients will
do well for a few days on Nux-v.; some of their symptoms will drop out and they
will settle down.
Mind: The mental state is varied, but they all show
oversensitiveness irritable, touchy, sensitive conditions.
They are never contented, never satisfied;
disturbed by their surroundings, and the become irritable, so that they want to
tear things, to scold. Impulses are strongly marked at times. The woman has
impulses to destroy her husband or to throw her child into the fire; the
impulse is intermingled with violent temper, cannot be contradicted or opposed;
if a chair is in the way he kicks it over; if, while undressing, a part of his
clothing should catch on a button he would pull it off because he is so mad at
it.
An uncontrollable state of irritability; it is
a weakness and is accompanied by physical weakness; a lack of balance. For
example, a business man has been at his desk until he is tired out, he receives
many letters, he has a great many irons in the fire; he is troubled with a
thousand little things; his mind is constantly hurried from one thing to
another until be is tortured. It is not so much the heavy affairs but the
little things. He is compelled to stimulate his memory to attend to all the
details; he goes home and thinks about it; be lies awake, at night; his mind is
confused with the whirl of business and the affairs of the day crowd upon him;
finally brain fag comes on.
When the details come to him he gets angry and
wants to get away, tears things up, scolds, goes home and takes it out of his
family and children. Sleeps by fits and starts; wakens at 3 h. and his business
affairs crowd on him so that he cannot sleep again until late in the morning
when he falls into a fatiguing sleep and wakens up tired and exhausted. He
wants to sleep late in the morning.
Melancholy, sadness, but all the time he feels
as if he could fly to pieces, jerks things about, tears things up; wants to force
things his own way. Driven by impulses to commit acts that verge upon insanity
– the destruction of others.
Oversensitive to the open air, to a draft of
air; always chilly, always taking cold and it settles in the nose and extends
to the chest.
Brain fag, fatigue, neuralgias; on the verge of
insanity and this goes on to convulsions. Convulsions of single muscles and
those of the whole body; muscular twitchings; weakness, trembling, and
paralysis. This paralytic weakness and disordered state of the activity of the
muscles and nerves are prominent.
Actions turned in opposite directions. When the
stomach is sick, it will empty its contents with no great effort ordinarily,
but in Nux-v. there is retching and straining as if the action were going the
wrong way, as if it would force the abdomen open; a reversed action; retches,
gags, and strains and after a prolonged effort he finally empties the stomach.
Same in the bladder. He must strain to urinate.
There is tenesmus, urging. The bladder is full and the urine dribbles away, yet
when he strains it ceases to dribble. In regard to the bowels, though the
patient strains much, he passes but a scanty stool.
Sometimes in diarrhea when he sits on the
commode in a perfectly passive way, there will be a little squirt of stool, and
then comes on tenesmus so that he cannot stop straining, and when he does
strain there comes on the sensation of forcing back; the stool seems to go
back; a kind of anti-peristalsis.
In constipation the more he strains the harder
it is to pass a stool. In diarrhea and dysentery there is straining without
relief, but as soon as he passes a little stool there is relief.
Pains: The reversed action of the various
functions shows the spasmodic nature of this remedy. Pains shoot from the
rectum up; burning.
Neuralgias about the eyes, face, and head;
neuralgic headaches the pains stick, and tear; they cause weeping, fainting;
they burn and sting. Pains in the head and face and in the extremities, that
sting and tear, draw. Sensation of tension in the muscles. A drawing in
the back like a pulling or tension in the muscles.
The pain feels as if drawing, a spasm of the
muscles; a drawing pain in the back; drawing pain in the back of the neck,
forcing the patient to let the head go back; drawing pain down the spine;
lumbago. Backache < soon as she lies down (pregnancy) as if it would break
must get up and walk.
Neuritis with great soreness of skin. Pains in
the regions of the kidneys and liver. Pains draw so that he cannot turn over in
bed, and the only way he can get over is to lift himself up by his hands and
then turn over and lie down. Drawing pains in the sacrum and hips; drawing
pains in the sacrum in connection with dysentery. Rending pains in the bowels
and every pain causes desire for stool. Such is the characteristic of all the
abdominal pains.
Drawing pains in the extremities causing spasms
in the calves, feet, and toes. Cramps in the abdomen cause desire for stool;
after pains in the form of cramps urge to stool; menstrual colic, with urging
to stool; pains in the stomach, after eating, urge to stool. After much
straining no stool passes, but after going several times a small stool passes
with relief. It is scanty and with reversed peristaltic action.
Oversensitive to stimulants. A routine remedy
in men trying to sober up; even in delirium tremens. Old debauchees, broken
down with stimulants sexual excesses and the worry and fret of business; they
work half an hour and then go out and get a drink, and this goes on until
finally they must give up, go home and go to bed. He is on the verge of
insanity, irritable, fatigued, sweats much, < from the air, sensitive to
noise and light; broken down.
In those drinking too much tea, coffee and
stimulants, they stay awake day and night until the end must come; there is
tension in all the nerves; he feels as if he must fly, as if he could no longer
hold together; his muscles and hands tremble; there is jerking of the limbs on
going to sleep and in sleep.
Full of anxiety, despair, and hypochondriasis;
“oversensitive to impressions; “all the senses
are in this condition; cannot bear reading or conversation; irritable, and
wishes to be alone“.
Everybody displeases or does something to annoy
him. Everybody that attempts to soothe only angers him. He dreads the business
affairs of the day. Finally this state comes on: “he quarrels, reproaches,
scolds, insults from jealousy, mingled with unchaste expressions; soon
afterwards howls and weeps aloud“.
Patient is broken down sexually because he is
unusually endowed with sexual desires and he indulges until broken down;
sexually exhausted, impotent. Mental erethism but relaxation on intromission.
Driven to suicide.
An old dyspeptic, lean, hungry, withered; bent
forward; premature age; always selecting his food and digesting almost none;
aversion to meat, it makes him sick; craves pungent, bitter things, tonics.
Weak stomach; after meals pain in the stomach, nausea, retching; stomach sinks
in; withers and loses flesh.
Nose: Tendency to take cold; gets coryza.
Colds settle in the nose, throat, chest and
ears. Takes cold from the least provocation; perspires easily and the least
current of air causes headache with coryza. If he is in a heated room and is
disturbed in his equilibrium he gets a coryza.
Coryza goes to the chest. Grippe with fever and
bone pains; must pile on clothing; the only relief is by keeping unusually hot,
yet a warm room < coryza before the fever comes on; but after the fever
comes on he must have heat; < from the movement of air under the bed clothes;
lifting the covers the pains, cough, etc.
Tendency to jaundice in all the febrile states.
Sclerotics become yellow. Skin becomes very yellow. Old intermittents with
yellow skin. Runs close to Bry. in abdominal complaints with jaundice.
Stomach: suffers from a disordered stomach. A stasis
of the portal system is present, portal congestion; stasis in haemorrhoidal
veins with haemorrhoids; constipation; dysentery; paralysis of the rectum.
Stomach symptoms like Puls.; < in the
morning; foul mouth in the morning also like Puls. Bursting sensation in the
head as if a stone crushed the vertex after disordered stomach.
Full of paralytic conditions. The bowels are in
a state of excitement but this passes away and the time comes when the faeces
remain in the rectum with no warning. This extends to the bladder, so that it
becomes full of urine which cannot be voided; dribbling of urine in old men
with large prostrate, or in gonorrhea.
Paralysis of the extremities; of the face; one
arm; one hand; single muscles; facial paralysis not uncommonly cured by Nux-v.
The sticking pains in paralysis are important.
At times false plethora, with flushed face;
excitement of face blushing; great weakness and exhaustion, with irritability
and the mental condition. When under no exertion with nothing to think of,
patient appears to be well, but the thought of doing something exhausts him in
a moment.
Headache from sweating; in wine drinkers; in
those staying out at night; from night watching. The greatest relief in
headaches as from perfect quiet. Headaches “As if a stone pressed upon the
vertex”.
Most symptoms > from heat, but the head <
from heat. Acne from eating cheese. It has most violent convulsions with
opisthotonos; convulsions of all the muscles of the body, with purple face and
loss of breath from the movements; conscious or semi-conscious during the whole
spasm, aware of the sufferings and contortions which are horrible; < from
the slightest draft of air; tickling of the feet; the merest touch of the
throat causes gagging.
It is given as a routine remedy for loss of
appetite. It will increase the appetite but do dangerous work to the patient.
“Aversion to meat, usual food and drink, and
customary tobacco and coffee, to water, ale, food just eaten“.
Abdomen: Pains particularly of the abdomen; pains
cutting, causing the patient to bend double, with nausea from overeating;
bearing down; spasmodic pains in the abdomen (ext. into the limbs/towards the
rectum); colicky pains which urge to stool and urination; renal colic (each
pain shoots to the rectum and urges to stool).
Renal colic is caused by a stone in the ureter,
which by its irritation causes a spasmodic clutching of the circular fibers of
that canal; the proper medicine relaxes these fibers and the pressure from
behind forces these calculi out at once.
The same is true of gall stone colic. The
remedy that ameliorates, or some of its cognates, will overcome the tendency to
form stones. Healthy bile dissolves gall stones in the sac; healthy urine does
the same to a stone in the pelvis of the kidney.
Nux vomica runs close to Bry. in abdominal
complaints with marked yellowness of the skin.
Bry. indicated more in peritonitis, lies with
limbs drawn up. Hemorrhoids, portal congestion, cutting pains to rectum causing
urging to stool.
Abdomen sunken in Nux-v., while in Calc. and
Sepia it is engorged. Inula resembles Nux-v.; has colic with urging to stool
and to urinate.
“Milk sours on the stomach“.
“Heat in the head when eating“.
Bad effects from coffee, alcoholic drinks,
debauchery. Sensation of phlegm in the throat; < from eating. Aloe has
diarrhea from leaving off beer. Nux vomica has diarrhea from leaving off
alcoholic drinks.
“As if a lump in the stomach” (Bry.). In chronic
cases Sepia is more apt to be indicated and follows Nux vomica well, but
quarrels with Bry.; associate this with the pressure in the vertex and you have
the typical Nux condition.
It is closely related to
Female organs: Menses too soon; too long; flow copious; more
strikingly prolonged; flows and dribbles just enough to stain the linen,
starting up now and again with clots.
One menstrual flow is prolonged into another.
This will be accompanied with the mental state; excitable; oversensitive to
medicines.
“Menses too early and too profuse; occur too
soon and last too long; flow dark“.
At times attended with violent pains, cramps in
the uterus, extending over the body, > heat/pressure; < slightest current
of air or cold; pains and spasms > by the hot water bottle, clothing, and
heat.
Labor pains with soreness like Arnica, urging,
etc. Bearing down as if contents would protrude, with teasing to urinate and
urging to stool. The flow may be scant and fitful. Itching of the vulva is
prominent.
Full of hysterical manifestations. Europeans:
more often Nux-v. in their hysterical manifestations, Americans: oftener Ign.
Cough: burning in the air passages; all the mucous
membranes in a state of irritation; nasal tone to voice; loss of voice; sore
throat; tickling cough. Dry, teasing cough with great soreness of the chest,
like Bry., the head feels as if it would split.
Chest: Troublesome asthma. Useful in persons who say
they have asthma from every disordered stomach. They may go free for a year
after Nux-v. is given, and then they eat something that disagrees, and they sit
up all night with asthma. Asthma associated with cough; rattling in the chest;
chest fills up with mucus; cough with gagging, retching; appears as if he had
taken a fresh cold.
Coryza every time he disorders his stomach.
After a disturbed stomach coryza which goes to the chest and then asthma comes
on.
Palpitation and excitement of the heart and
circulation. Much throbbing, < in the morning – mentally and physically. The
coryza and some head symptoms are < from the warmth of the bed like Merc.,
yet < uncovering; < from eating and from motion; head is < from heat.
Pressure and sense of weakness in, the left
inguinal ring – hence cures hernia in babies (Lyc., right side).
Fever: fever and sweat, or a hot sweat like Opium
(but Opium in a hot sweat wants the covers off/Nux-v. cannot raise the covers).
Chills and fever; heat and sweat intermingled. In chills the fingers and hands
are cold, and purple; cold from head to foot; the chill begins in the
extremities or back, and extends over the whole body and, the patient must be
covered up. Shortly there is a reaction and heat and sweat come on, but he must
be covered through all the stages. Thirst is not a marked feature; sometimes it
is found in the heat.
Chills > from any amount of covers; Ign. chills
are better uncovering. In intermittents, the chill and heat intermingle, the
heat is short and dry, and followed by hot, sweat and intense heat < in the
morning, but the chill comes at any time.
Sleeps by fits and starts; wakens at 3 h. and his
business affairs crowd on him so that he cannot sleep again until late in the
morning when he falls into a fatiguing sleep and wakens up tired and exhausted.
He wants to sleep late in the morning.
Skin: Oversensitive to touch, to draft. Full of
pains and aches. He sweats easily on the slightest provocation.
Vorwort/Suchen Zeichen/Abkürzungen Impressum