CROTALUS HORRIDUS [Crot-h]:

- Tarkas P. and Ajit Kulkarni.


Rattlesnake

Region

Blood

Veins

Liver

C-S Nerves

Lymphatics; glands

Heart

Ovaries

R. side

Worse

Warm weather

Spring

Dry cold air

Light

Lightning

In Sun. Tropics

Periodically: full moon; quarterly; annually

Falling to sleep. After sleep

Lying on r. side; l. (heart)

Noxious effluvia (sewer gas)

Drinking foul water

High living. Alcohol

Vaccination

Better

Open air

Motion

Radiated heat



Sun

Light

Hemorrhagic. Debilitated. Paralytic. Collapsy

Depraved. Putrescent. Malignant. Destructive

Make-up : The broken down, inebriate, seniles.

Highlights : Profound trophic action. Acts vigorously on BLOOD and tissues causing rapid breakdown; a disorganization of blood,fluids and tissues, with profound nervous shock and prostration with trembling, mental alienation etc. Putridity, rapid decomposition and malignancy (Bapt.). Zymotic (i.e. toxemic) changes coming on with great rapidity; rapid breakdown of blood; turns inky black (Sec.). Any disease that takes on a malignant turn.

Septic : Tonsils, goitre, ulcers, abscesses, felons, carbuncles, etc. Destructive processes consonant with tubercular and syphilitic miasms. Zymosis (i.e. fermentative toxemia).

Affects the nerves and blood causing: dizziness, confusion or deep coma, trembling, tetanic spasms, paralysis; congestions in various organs, inflammations of a low type (Bufo); hemorrhages, effusions (infiltrations) into brain, lungs, heart, into serous cavities, putrescence; gangrene; sloughing. Thus indicated in diseases of a dynamic (grave) character whether caused by previous low states of the economy or by zymotic / septic poisoning, abuse of alcohols etc., evidenced by low typhoid states, rapid decomposition with malignancy, faintness, general and cardiac debility with sluggish circulation and feeble pulse (causing faintness, cyanosis); ending with non-reversible state, approaching death through breakdown of tissues. Destruction begun in Lach. is continued or completed here.

Bleeding : From all orifices and surfaces; from (and within) eyes, from ears, nose or under nails. Accompanies most complaints, characterized by slow oozing of dark thin (inky), or thick, unhealthy, purulent blood. Even sweat is bloody. Purpura hemorrhagica. Ecchymoses. Petechiae; yellow, dark purple or bluish spots and parts; peliosis (purple spots muc. memb.), (Blue) blood (hematoma), blood boils. Hemolytic jaundice.

Bone marrow diseases either (1) Erythropoietic aplasia (or porphyria) or (2) Thrombocytopenic purpura (or aplasia) and prob. also (3) Leucopoietic aplasia (= agranulocytosis). Pernicious anemia. Gangrene. Senile purpura. Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC).

Weakness : Tired from any slight exertion. General exhaustion with cold and numb hands and feet, mottled backs of hands, tottering gait, tremulous all over as if appprehending some evil. Exhausted vital force (Kali-ph.); muscles inactive (Hell.). Deathly sick, tremulous and weak. Sudden and extreme coldness and blueness (Ant-t.); sudden attacks of cold sweat; coldness and collapse (more marked than in Carb-v. or Helod.), a genuine collapse; collapse during fevers, slides down in bed (Mur-ac.).

Dropsy : Effusions into inner organs. Oedematous swelling of the whole body (anasarca), yearly (<); about affected parts; esp. the head. Epidemic dropsy (beriberi). Filariasis; fever every full moon. Dropsy or filaria with purpuric infiltration and serum oozing (Lach.). Hot swellings with cold skin and sickly appearance. Puffy face. (Angioneurotic odema).

Glands : Enlarged lymphatics and glands (inguinal, axillary etc.) with inflammation that threaten to become gangrenous, sloughing. Lymphangitis and septicemia from dissecting wounds (Pyro.). Buboes-plague. Swollen parotid and submaxillary glands, during yellow fever. Goitre; septic.

Degraded, depraved states that lead to cancers. Carcinoma; fungoid, malignant sarcoma; cancers of tongue, stomach, uterus with bleeding tendency. Cauliflower excrescences (with bleeding tendency).

Nerves : Neuralgias occuring as a sequel to septic, toxemic or even miasmatic disease; from chronic biliousness; at climaxis or in albuminuric conditions. Pains alternate rapidly with each other, come and go suddenly and occur frequently. General burning. Sensitive (<) touch) skin of r. side.

Convulsions : associated with albumin in urine, with sopor or coma, bloated countenance, lockjaw, constriction in throat, tremulous weakness, septic or zymotic fever, influenza, hemorrhage etc. in broken down patients. Epileptic convulsions at onset of zymotic or septic diseases, with trembling limbs, indifference, constriction in throat, foam from mouth, lockjaw.

Chorea : When traceable to septic, toxemic; or autogenic as in rheumatic, albuminuric or hemorrhagic subjects; irritable; easily tired; (<) after sleep.

Paralysis : After apoplexy (esp. r.), diphtheria; bulbar (glossopharyngeal). Dementia paralytica: painless palsy of limbs with coldness and numbness thereof. Acute degeneration of the brain tissue simulating general paralysis of the insane (syphilitic taint). (Cerebral palsy; Crot-c. verified here).

Injuries : Bites and stings (erysipelas etc.). Burns. Scalds. Dissecting wounds. Vaccination ailments. Lightning. Sun (strokes).

To conclude : "Crot-h. affects the organism more powerfully and thoroughly than Lach. and therefore can cure many cases left out by it or Pyro." (Mure).

Is an intensified Bapt. (its nearest analogue), Cam., Helod., Lach., Pyro.

Is a rescue remedy like Am-c., Ant-t., Arn., Cact., Cam., Carb- v., Crat., Hyd-ac., Kali-ph., Lat-m., Laur. Its range is more intensified (though narrower than its collateral Lach. (is its close-up so to say)) and it can meet very grave stages beyond the ken of Bufo.,Lach., Pyro., or even Carb-v. (e.g. hepatitis-B or hemolysis ultima). With all, its range is more acute, less subacute and not at all the enduring chronic or constitutional (e.g. scurvy, diabetes, allergies, G.P.I. To gout is perhaps limited its chronic range, although more or less palliatively).

Select Particulars : Mind : Nervous agitation, anxiety, weeping, irritability, preceding brain degeneration and dementia; nightly loquacious delirium, D. tremens. Forgetfulness, apathy, melancholia, even insanity.

Head : Vertigo from nervous congestion and degraded blood, with faintness, weakness, trembling; anemic, aural, cardiac. Congestive throbbing headache with other complaints; followed by apoplexy (in inebriates, hemorrhagic or broken down patients). Dull headache, of threatened uremic coma, in waves.

C.-S. meningitis: from metastasis of ear disease, in scarlatina or toxemia; with hemorrhage from nose, bowels. Hepatic encephalopathy.

Eyes : Yellow. Hypersensitive to lamp light. Neuralgic, cutting or inflammatory (burning) pains.Ciliary neuralgia. Hemorrhage; intra-ocular, into the vitreous or retina, autogenic (inflammatory) or from albuminuria; degenerated blood vessels. Cloudy aqueous humour. Glaucoma. Ptosis.

Vision : Dim. Diplopia. Clouded. Yellow. Lost.

Ears : Otorrhea: bloody, offensive, with deafness, stuffed feeling. Surging in. Nervous deafness. Meniere's disease.

Nose : Tip red, blue or purple. Sympathetic epistaxis; blood black and stringy; in broken downs. Ozaena, sanguinous discharge; after exanthemata; syphilitic.

Face : Puffy. Lead-colored. Lips swollen, stiff and numb; quivering (also eyelids). Neuralgia; dull, chronic, periodic. Distorted face on waking.

Acne of all varieties; in drunkards; onanists. Papular eruption, with teeth grinding; delayed menstruation. Erysipelas.

Mouth : Gums: swollen, painful, reddened borders, or white, scorbutic, bleeding, septic. Stomatitis. Mercurial salivation and ulcers. Mouldy breath, stiff palate. Dry. Spasmodic grinding of teeth at night (Tub.).

Tongue : Yellow red; feels tied up hindering speech, trembles or shifts to r. when protruded; syphilis; cancer.

Throat : Sudden sore throat; preceded by palpitation and trembling of heart; nervous, constriction; pain greater than the affection; malignant, decomposed bleeding, puffy face. Diphtheria : gangrene, frightful headache, bleeding from various orifices. Neuralgic drawing or spasms (hysterical) of oesophagus with dysphagia to solids (Bapt.).

Stomach : Craves stimulants, sugar, pork. When hungry trembling, weakness, faintness at pit, throbbing, fluttering feeling below epigastrium. Atonic dyspepsia; nutritional problems of the aged; acidity. Gastritis, with malaise, anxiety, in alcoholism. Violent vomiting with anxiety, palpitation, weak pulse; bile, blood, black, fetid green, coffee-ground like, food, (<) lying on back or r. side; after menses. Agonizing pain with restlessness, coldness, weak pulse. Pylorus constricted; lining of stomach turgid. Ulcer.

Abdomen : Liver congested; from ague, uterine or heart trouble. Tenderness; stitches. Jaundice : black; malignant; hematogenous; haemolytic; (hemorrhagic); with dark blood, black stool (Lept.), cold skin, everything looks yellow; typhoid state; unconsciousness. Acute yellow atrophy.

Extreme tenderness to touch of clothes; (tympanitic) swelling during (yellow) fever. Violent pain along course of colon.

Perityphlitis, of low malignant type, tenderness with hardness, foul tongue with red tip, high fever, cold extremities, copious sweat, no stool, or offensive stool (as reaction), lies with legs drawn up. Peritonitis with effusion of bloody serum; esp. in septic-zymotic diseases, low temperature.

Rectum : Diarrhea: during (bad) fevers; from sewer gas or ptomaine (food or drink) poisoning (Pyro.); in summer, (during cholera season); simultaneous vomiting, purging and micturition. Stools: green, dark black, brown like coffee grounds, then offensive. Dysentery; (painless). Hemorrhage or bloody stool; continuous oozing of dark fluid blood, with great debility, faintness and depression, feeble pulse, sudden coldness and blueness, suppr. urine. Cholera.

Hemorrhoids : In heart or liver disease, of inebriates; with menstrual troubles; during pregnancy. Perineal abscess.

Urinary : Passive renal congestion or inflammation from embarassed circulation (as from obstruction in heart disease), asthma, bronchitis etc., more esp. during or after exanthematic or zymotic diseases. Albuminuria, from toxemia (as in diphtheria, typhoid, low fevers etc.); during pregnancy.

Urine: Dark blood during bronchitis, low fevers (causing blood disorganisation), greenish yellow (from much bile), red (like blood), jelly like; scanty or suppr. (uremia).

Male : Increased libido with relaxed organ.

Female : Sharp neuralgic pains, intermittent from l. uterine side to transverse colon, thence cutting across as if from both sides to meet towards pubes in centre; then again upto face and temples or occiput.

Menses copious; dysmenorrhea, with reflex (continuous, dull aching) pain in heart region ext. to arm, or weak heart; with cold feet.

Metrorrhagia: during typhoid; with malignant diseases; at climacteric; with faintness at pit of stomach; patient depraved.

Ovaritis : In hemorrhagic constitutions, associated menorrhagia or puerperal septicemia. Ovarian neuralgia as a pure neurosis; at climaxis, with flushings and (pressive) vertex pain, sinking in pit, palpitation, heart trouble. Ovarian abscess.

Pregnancy : Abortion from any blood poisoning, typhoid etc. Puerperal fever or convulsions, with albuminuria and septic conditions; with a continuous oozing of dark thin offensive blood.

Girls who appear waxy or anemic, chlorotic and have long missed their periods and break out in pimples and pustules.

Mammae : Inflammation.

Respiratory : Voice hoarse, weak, lost. Acute laryngitis (and cough) from scalds, stings, irritating substances or vapors; (<) dry cold air, touch.

Respiration : anxious, embarrassed; quick; labored with weak pulse and nervous agitation; or slow, laboured with imperceptible pulse, difficult as if the lungs were solid. Stertor.

Whooping cough : With debility esp. cardiac, blueness or pallor of face (colour returning but slowly), face puffy, hemorrhagic spots, purple lips, bloodshot eyes, epistaxis; much frothy, stringy bloody sputa; threatened pulmonary oedema or paralysis.

Pneumonia with tendency to abscess or gangrene; hepatization, with intermittent fever (also pleurisy); with enteritis. Hydrothorax, of the aged, with oppression, and ague or other fevers. Stitching pains in chest, near sternum; with hectic.

Heart : Weak trembling; sympathizing with other even distant parts. Palpitation: of debility, obesity or fatty heart; nervous, hysterical.

Pains, with other troubles. Angina pectoris: sudden great prostration, frequent fainting spells, sudden mouth breathing, inclination to vomit, soreness (<) lying on one side. Coronary attack: as if something were going to burst under the sternum, it feels so full there.

Phlebitis; thrombophlebitis, thrombotic processes.

Varicosis; varicose veins, with hypertension; V.V. of spermatic cord (varicocele). Hypotensive state. Softening of vascular walls from neuromuscular inadequacy (of heart) secondary to blood sepsis.

Pulse : fluttering, trembling, quick, thready, soft, weak, arrhythmic, intermittent, even imperceptible. Shortened systo - diastolic interval.

Back : Myelitis: mild local pain (<) pressure; weak back; oppression of chest; difficult speech; painless paralysis of limbs with coldness and numbness. Softening of spinal cord (Kali- ph.).

Locomotor : Inflamed, swollen, mottled, gangrenous; thrombo- phlebitis (Milk leg: phlegmasia alba dolens).

Pains : Cramp-like drawing in calves, heels, toes. Sore pains : in calf, sole; in bones and joints; with palsy, (Gonorrheal) rheumatism. Rheumatoid arthritis. Gout. Pain (<) touch, jar, motion.

Sleep : Sleeplessness from nervous and mental agitation; more than bodily suffering warrants. Drowsiness, but cannot sleep. Torpor, drowsiness, coma. Dreams of quarrels, travelling, of dead, horrible.

Skin : Petechial spots on body (esp. legs); with faintness, irregular heart beats and dizziness; petechiae and varicose ulcers on legs, with languid circulation. Mottled (blue-yellow), annually with fever and pain. Usually dry; but sudden attacks of cold sweats.

Abscesses, pustules, boils, carbuncles, felons, pemphigus, vesicles, pustules (vaccinal), anthrax (Anthr., Lach.), blood boils, chilblains, burns, all with gangrenous tendency (diarrhea accompanying it); parts look bluish and unhealthy, doughy (esp. centre); all skin troubles with low fever and prostration. Gangrenous inflammation of skin and cellular tissues, with sloughing; hot; bluish moist gangrene. Old cicatrices flare up.

Erysipelas : Phlegmonous, phlyctenous or oedematus; recurrent; skin purple; in wounds, from dissecting work; after bites, vaccination or suppr. menses; with unhealthy pus in distant parts; with low fever, zymosis, prostration and low vitality; metastasis to brain (Lach.). Ulcers: obstinate, even malignant, with yellow complexion, apathy.

Scarlatina: eruption tardy with hemorrhages; blood oozing from the gangrenous fauces, tonsils dark red and tumid; scarlet skin with high fever and malignant tendency; dark brown dry tongue; dry skin; thirst; vomiting; diarrhea (putrid); respiration sighing and intermittent; great tremendous weakness; torpor, unconsciousness or sopor; low muttering delirium etc.

Measles : Black hemorrhagic; dark confluent eruption; tendency to putrescence; intense fever; eruption spreads too slowly (or reappears as a mottling gangrene of mouth and genitals as a sequel; delirium; eye and nose symptoms very severe, throat and chest symptoms more moderate; puffy face; thirst; urine dark, scanty, cold extremities and other general symptoms.

Thermic states : All fevers of a low malignant type and adynamic condition in general, presenting also a hemorrhagic and putrescent character whether caused by zymotic or septic poisoning; or by previous low states of the system. Blood poisoning of a very severe nature dominates the whole picture. Chill a non - entity (unlike Pyro.).

Yellow fever with; vertigo, severe headache, epistaxis, face yellow or dusky, swollen parotids, tenderness over liver, nausea, stools dark, bloody, offensive or involuntary, blackish or suppr. urine, hands nearly black, pain all over body, great debility with tendency to collapse, all symptoms of blood poisoning.

Low, malignant, septic (bilious), remittent, typhoid or malarial fevers with: sunken eyes, yellow face, tongue dry, cracked, broken in centre and deep red edges; gnawing, aching pain in liver, black pasty bloody stools, dark urine, hepatized lungs, skin yellow, cold, clammy sweat, delirium with drowsiness, even unconsciousness, fever seldom runs high, sometimes even down to subnormal, presenting a typhoid state.

Fevers : Periodical, annual, monthly; pyemic, hemorrhagic, malarial; hot latitudes (yellow fever, typhoids etc.). Influenza; epidemic. Black-water fever (Asia), Hemolytic. Streptococcal infections. Septic. B Coli.

Relations : Antidotes: Am-c., Camph., Card., Coff., Lach., Op., (Ter., TNT.), alcohol, radiant heat. Collateral : Hippz., Lach., Mur-ac., Sec., Sul-ac., Ter., TNT.

Complementary : Carb-v., Lycps.

Milder : Carb-ac., Card., Sec., Tarn-c.

Compare : Both., Cad-s., Camph.,Crot-c., Elaps., Naja, Lach.

Crot-h. acts more on the blood and less on the heart, Naja more the heart and the blood but little; Lach. acts decisively on both. Naja is chilly while Crot-h. and Lach. are hot. Naja, Crot-h. terminate life more rapidly than Lach. Crot-h. and Elap. are r. sided; Naja l. sided (like Lach.) with a lure for ovary. Carb-ac. has sloughing of tissues but no blood destruction.