Xanthoxylum alatum 200c
- VERMEULEN Frans,
Xan.
People remain what they are, even when their faces fall to pieces.
[Bertolt Brecht]
Signs
Zanthoxylum americanum. Zanthoxylum fraxineum. Northern Prickly Ash. N.O. Rutaceae.
CLASSIFICATION See RUTA.
GENUS The generic name comes from Gr. xanthos, yellow, and xylon, wood, from the colour of the heartwood of some species. Nonetheless, the official spelling is with a Z, perhaps to avoid confusion with the genus Xanthophyllum. The genus includes some 200 species of prickly, aromatic, deciduous or evergreen shrubs and tees with aromatic bark, pinnately divided leaves, and cymes or panicles of small flowers. Several species are grown as ornamentals, some are important for their timber and some are used as spices [Japan pepper and Chinese pepper].
SPECIES A native North American tall shrub or rarely a small tree of southern Canada and northern, central and western parts of the US, Zanthoxylum americanum has leaves resembling those of the ash [fraxineum, from Fraxinus, the Latin name for ash]. Usually found on limestone soil, it grows in open, rocky woodlands, thickets in prairie ravines, fencerows, and roadsides. It has thorns from the ground up [on stem and branches], greenish white flowers [which appear before the leaves in April and May], and purple or reddish brown berries. The leaves are hairy when young and smooth when old, and smell of lemon or orange when crushed. [Plant belongs to the Citrus family.]
CONSTITUENTS Alkaloids, including magnoflorine, nitidine, laurifoline, chelerythrine - an effective antimicrobial - and fagarine, which also occurs in Ruta graveolens; xanthoxylin [aromatic bitter]; lignans [asarinin]; tannins and resins; volatile oil. Coumarins are present in Z. americanum but, reportedly, absent from Z. clavaherculis. Zanthoxylum acts as a diaphoretic, antirheumatic, sialagogue, carminative, and circulatory stimulant. Rubbing the fruit against the skin, esp. on the lips or in the mouth, produces a numbing effect.
MEDICINE North American Indians chewed the bark and berries of the tree to alleviate rheumatism and toothache and the Eclectic physician John Nash introduced its use into mainstream medicine in 1849 for the treatment of typhus and cholera epidemics, although the drug [bark] was already as early as 1820 listed in the US Pharmacopoeia. Widespread marketing by Shaker communities - as 'a valuable tonic in low typhoid fevers' and valuable in 'colic, rheumatism, scrofula' - added to its domestic popularity during the 19th century. Southern prickly ash [Z. clavaherculis] grows in central and southern US where it is used interchangeably with its northern relative. Today, Western herbalists regard prickly ash as a prime remedy for rheumatic and arthritic problems because it stimulates the blood flow to painful and stiff joints. Prickly ash is also considered an effective circulatory stimulant in both intermittent claudication and Raynaud's disease. In addition, it relieves flatulence and diarrhoea, chronic skin conditions, and, applied topically, leg ulcers, chronic joint pains and chronic pelvic inflammatory disease. 1-2 "From personal experience one day in the woods while botanizing," writes Millspaugh, "I found that, upon chewing the bark for relief of toothache, speedy mitigation of the pain followed, though the sensation of the acrid bark was nearly or fully as unpleasant as the ache, and so painful finally in itself that I abandoned its use, only to have the toothache return when the irritation of the bark had left the mucous membranes. A decoction of the bark is diaphoretic and excites secretion generally. Its action upon the salivary glands causes in times almost as full ptyalism as mercury. Its speedy relief of rheumatism is said to occur only when it causes free perspiration. It is a powerful stimulant to healing wounds or indolent ulcerations. ... In typhus fever, typhoid pneumonia, and typhoid conditions generally, I am compelled to say that I consider the tincture of prickly-ash berries superior to any other form of medication. I have known cases of typhoid pneumonia in which the patients were so low that all prospect of recovery was despaired of, to be so immediately benefited that the patients who, a few minutes before, were unable to notice anything around them, would reply to questions, and manifest considerable attention, and ultimately recover."3
PROVINGS •• [1] Cullis - 6 provers [3 males, 3 females], c. 1862; method: tincture, in single dose or repeated doses.
•• [2] Southwick - 3 provers [2 females, 1 male, 1884; method: increasing doses of tincture. [One female prover made two trials, the other four.]
[1] Chevallier, The Encyclopedia of Medicinal Plants. [2] Bown, Encyclopedia of Herbs and their Uses. [3] Millspaugh, American Medicinal Plants.
Affinity
Nerves. Respiration. Female sexual organs. * Left side.
Modalities
Worse: Sleeping. Dampness. Getting feet wet. Suppressed menses.
Better: Vomiting. Lying down. Drinking of ice water.
Main symptoms
M Falling to pieces.
• "At 12 [noon] took 50 drops. Seemed better in the afternoon and went out. About 4 p.m. an indescribable sensation all over me, really thought I was dying. Seemed as if my whole body was falling to pieces. Could not walk straight; the atmosphere seemed blue and light flashed before my eyes. My body seemed as if elastic and on the stretch. Tongue seemed alternately to expand and contract. Violent noise in left ear, like a bell in the distance." [S]
• "Head felt dropping in pieces." [S]
Floating and sinking.
• "If I sat up, felt as if floating through air; if I lay down, as if sunken deep in bed." [S]
M Depression.
• "Great depression, feeling of depression and weakness; depression in morning on waking, with languor; felt as if I would rather die than live, as though I would like to take enough to kill myself, during headache." [S]
• "Indifference and malaise; no life nor ambition to do anything; did not care if I lived or died, and decided not to take a drop more if I ever felt better." [S]
G THIRST
Desire for [icy] cold water.
[Icy] cold drinks >.
G NUMBNESS of LEFT side. [2 provers]
• "Feeling of numbness through whole of l. side of body from head to foot, the division very perceptible in head, where it affected half the nose - this feeling lasted 2 or 3 minutes."
• "On awaking, whole body numb, esp. l. side." [Hughes]
Left-sided paralysis.
G FLUSHES of HEAT.
• "Aching in upper half of head, accompanied by flashes of throbbing pain as if top of skull were about to be lifted off." [Hughes]
And Perspiration.
Causing weakness.
G Pricking sensation; shocks as from electricity.
G Suffocating feeling / choking.
Desire to take a deep breath; yawning. [several provers]
Constriction of chest [heart].
Throat seems clutched.
Throat feels as if in a vice.
• "Dreamed that throat grew up, and I awoke in a fright about 2 a.m. [not sure], was shaking and left arm felt like lead, and was numb. The numbness may have come from the position in which I lay. Nausea still, but not very giddy, so that I walked about [seemed not to get over the idea that I was suffocating] for an hour, then felt sleepy and slept until 6 a.m. ." [S]
• "Startled out of deep sleep by severe pain in region of heart, and then violent action of heart set in; apex beat to be felt and seen over large area, accompanied with suffocating feeling and almost inability to breathe. Had to sit up in bed, and turn first one way and then another, almost as in a severe case of asthma, even accompanied by several spasmodic coughing spells." [S]
• "Every inspiration an exertion, and very unsatisfactory, as deep breathing brought on pains in lower part of r. lung and in heart." [S]
P Redness of ONE cheek [or both cheeks] during menstrual pains.
P Toothache alternating with earache.
• "They don't know whether they have earache or toothache." [B]
P Violent, agonising, grinding DYSMENORRHOEA.
• "Dysmenorrhoea, neuralgic, with agonising, excruciating, distracting pains, causing the patient to scream out, clutch the hair in desperation, with bodily contortions and tears of anguish; no relief in any position; pains extend down anterior thighs; generally left-sided, with neuralgic headaches, esp. over left eye." [B]
Not > in any position.
Pains go into thighs or radiate over whole body, even to heart.
P Pain in ovaries.
Extending down thighs.
• Severe aching pain in right ovarian region, causing me to forget all other pains and walk the floor; constant radiating from right ovarian region to hip, thigh and back."
• "Sudden sharp pains in right ovarian region, radiating down thighs and across left hip; > lying down and flexing thighs on abdomen; could not walk straight or upright."
• "Sharp, cutting pain in right ovarian region, extending about hip and down thigh; > heat."
• Dull pain in left ovarian region, extending down thigh; > heat." [B]
P Coccyx very sensitive; seems elongated.
Can't sit except on foot or air cushion "to raise it from chair."
P Soreness of anterior part of thighs BEFORE menses.
[B] = Boger, Xanthoxylum fraxineum; Int. Hahn. Ass., 1899.
[S] = Southwick, A proving of Xanthoxylum fraxineum; The Hahn. Monthly, December 1885.
Rubrics
Mind
Delusions, body is falling to pieces [1; Lac-c.], he was about to die [2], body is elastic and stretching itself out [1S], body is enlarged [1], floating in air [1], floating in air when sitting up in bed [1/1], floor were soft like wool on walking [1/1]. Fear, to go to bed alone [1B], of dark [1B], of death before menses [1]. Desire to pull her own hair [1].
Head
Enlarged sensation [1S]. Pain, > cold drinks [1S], < noise [1B]; as if top of head would come off [1H]; pressing inward, vertex [1S].
Ear
Pain alternating with toothache [1B].
Vision
Colours, black spots during vertigo [1S]; blue, as if looking through blue lace [1/1]. Objects seem distant [1]. Spots before eyes, bright, during headache [1S]. Stars, black, star-shaped spots dancing up and down, on closing eyes [1S].
Face
Discolouration, red, during dysmenorrhoea [3].
Mouth
Speech difficult from dryness of throat [1S].
Teeth
Pain, alternating with earache [1B].
Stomach
Appetite wanting, with thirst [1S]. Vomiting, after coffee [1H]
Chest
Pain, heart, on deep inspiration [1S].
Back
Sensation as if coccyx were elongated [1/1].
Limbs
Sense of looseness in joints [1S].
Sleep
Waking, with pain in region of heart [1S], with palpitations [1S].
Dreams
Being burned [1S]. Of flying [1]. Being murdered [1S]. Being pursued [1S]. Of suffocation [1S].
* Repertory additions: [B] = Boger; [H] = Hughes; [S] = Southwick.
Food
Desire: [1]: Coffee; lemonade.
Worse: [1]: Coffee [= vomiting]; sight of food; smell of food.
Better: [1]: Cold drinks; frozen food; ice-water.
Xan.
People remain what they are, even when their faces fall to pieces.
[Bertolt Brecht]
Signs
Zanthoxylum americanum. Zanthoxylum fraxineum. Northern Prickly Ash. N.O. Rutaceae.
CLASSIFICATION See RUTA.
SPECIES A native North American tall shrub or rarely a small tree of southern Canada and northern, central and western parts of the US, Zanthoxylum americanum has leaves resembling those of the ash [fraxineum, from Fraxinus, the Latin name for ash]. Usually found on limestone soil, it grows in open, rocky woodlands, thickets in prairie ravines, fencerows, and roadsides. It has thorns from the ground up [on stem and branches], greenish white flowers [which appear before the leaves in April and May], and purple or reddish brown berries. The leaves are hairy when young and smooth when old, and smell of lemon or orange when crushed. [Plant belongs to the Citrus family.]
CONSTITUENTS Alkaloids, including magnoflorine, nitidine, laurifoline, chelerythrine - an effective antimicrobial - and fagarine, which also occurs in Ruta graveolens; xanthoxylin [aromatic bitter]; lignans [asarinin]; tannins and resins; volatile oil. Coumarins are present in Z. americanum but, reportedly, absent from Z. clavaherculis. Zanthoxylum acts as a diaphoretic, antirheumatic, sialagogue, carminative, and circulatory stimulant. Rubbing the fruit against the skin, esp. on the lips or in the mouth, produces a numbing effect.
MEDICINE North American Indians chewed the bark and berries of the tree to alleviate rheumatism and toothache and the Eclectic physician John Nash introduced its use into mainstream medicine in 1849 for the treatment of typhus and cholera epidemics, although the drug [bark] was already as early as 1820 listed in the US Pharmacopoeia. Widespread marketing by Shaker communities - as 'a valuable tonic in low typhoid fevers' and valuable in 'colic, rheumatism, scrofula' - added to its domestic popularity during the 19th century. Southern prickly ash [Z. clavaherculis] grows in central and southern US where it is used interchangeably with its northern relative. Today, Western herbalists regard prickly ash as a prime remedy for rheumatic and arthritic problems because it stimulates the blood flow to painful and stiff joints. Prickly ash is also considered an effective circulatory stimulant in both intermittent claudication and Raynaud's disease. In addition, it relieves flatulence and diarrhoea, chronic skin conditions, and, applied topically, leg ulcers, chronic joint pains and chronic pelvic inflammatory disease. 1-2 "From personal experience one day in the woods while botanizing," writes Millspaugh, "I found that, upon chewing the bark for relief of toothache, speedy mitigation of the pain followed, though the sensation of the acrid bark was nearly or fully as unpleasant as the ache, and so painful finally in itself that I abandoned its use, only to have the toothache return when the irritation of the bark had left the mucous membranes. A decoction of the bark is diaphoretic and excites secretion generally. Its action upon the salivary glands causes in times almost as full ptyalism as mercury. Its speedy relief of rheumatism is said to occur only when it causes free perspiration. It is a powerful stimulant to healing wounds or indolent ulcerations. ... In typhus fever, typhoid pneumonia, and typhoid conditions generally, I am compelled to say that I consider the tincture of prickly-ash berries superior to any other form of medication. I have known cases of typhoid pneumonia in which the patients were so low that all prospect of recovery was despaired of, to be so immediately benefited that the patients who, a few minutes before, were unable to notice anything around them, would reply to questions, and manifest considerable attention, and ultimately recover."3
PROVINGS •• [1] Cullis - 6 provers [3 males, 3 females], c. 1862; method: tincture, in single dose or repeated doses.
•• [2] Southwick - 3 provers [2 females, 1 male, 1884; method: increasing doses of tincture. [One female prover made two trials, the other four.]
[1] Chevallier, The Encyclopedia of Medicinal Plants. [2] Bown, Encyclopedia of Herbs and their Uses. [3] Millspaugh, American Medicinal Plants.
Affinity
Nerves. Respiration. Female sexual organs. * Left side.
Modalities
Worse: Sleeping. Dampness. Getting feet wet. Suppressed menses.
Better: Vomiting. Lying down. Drinking of ice water.
Main symptoms
M Falling to pieces.
• "At 12 [noon] took 50 drops. Seemed better in the afternoon and went out. About 4 p.m. an indescribable sensation all over me, really thought I was dying. Seemed as if my whole body was falling to pieces. Could not walk straight; the atmosphere seemed blue and light flashed before my eyes. My body seemed as if elastic and on the stretch. Tongue seemed alternately to expand and contract. Violent noise in left ear, like a bell in the distance." [S]
• "Head felt dropping in pieces." [S]
Floating and sinking.
• "If I sat up, felt as if floating through air; if I lay down, as if sunken deep in bed." [S]
M Depression.
• "Great depression, feeling of depression and weakness; depression in morning on waking, with languor; felt as if I would rather die than live, as though I would like to take enough to kill myself, during headache." [S]
• "Indifference and malaise; no life nor ambition to do anything; did not care if I lived or died, and decided not to take a drop more if I ever felt better." [S]
G THIRST
Desire for [icy] cold water.
[Icy] cold drinks >.
G NUMBNESS of LEFT side. [2 provers]
• "Feeling of numbness through whole of l. side of body from head to foot, the division very perceptible in head, where it affected half the nose - this feeling lasted 2 or 3 minutes."
• "On awaking, whole body numb, esp. l. side." [Hughes]
Left-sided paralysis.
G FLUSHES of HEAT.
• "Aching in upper half of head, accompanied by flashes of throbbing pain as if top of skull were about to be lifted off." [Hughes]
And Perspiration.
Causing weakness.
G Pricking sensation; shocks as from electricity.
G Suffocating feeling / choking.
Desire to take a deep breath; yawning. [several provers]
Constriction of chest [heart].
Throat seems clutched.
Throat feels as if in a vice.
• "Dreamed that throat grew up, and I awoke in a fright about 2 a.m. [not sure], was shaking and left arm felt like lead, and was numb. The numbness may have come from the position in which I lay. Nausea still, but not very giddy, so that I walked about [seemed not to get over the idea that I was suffocating] for an hour, then felt sleepy and slept until 6 a.m. ." [S]
• "Startled out of deep sleep by severe pain in region of heart, and then violent action of heart set in; apex beat to be felt and seen over large area, accompanied with suffocating feeling and almost inability to breathe. Had to sit up in bed, and turn first one way and then another, almost as in a severe case of asthma, even accompanied by several spasmodic coughing spells." [S]
• "Every inspiration an exertion, and very unsatisfactory, as deep breathing brought on pains in lower part of r. lung and in heart." [S]
P Redness of ONE cheek [or both cheeks] during menstrual pains.
P Toothache alternating with earache.
• "They don't know whether they have earache or toothache." [B]
P Violent, agonising, grinding DYSMENORRHOEA.
• "Dysmenorrhoea, neuralgic, with agonising, excruciating, distracting pains, causing the patient to scream out, clutch the hair in desperation, with bodily contortions and tears of anguish; no relief in any position; pains extend down anterior thighs; generally left-sided, with neuralgic headaches, esp. over left eye." [B]
Not > in any position.
Pains go into thighs or radiate over whole body, even to heart.
P Pain in ovaries.
Extending down thighs.
• Severe aching pain in right ovarian region, causing me to forget all other pains and walk the floor; constant radiating from right ovarian region to hip, thigh and back."
• "Sudden sharp pains in right ovarian region, radiating down thighs and across left hip; > lying down and flexing thighs on abdomen; could not walk straight or upright."
• "Sharp, cutting pain in right ovarian region, extending about hip and down thigh; > heat."
• Dull pain in left ovarian region, extending down thigh; > heat." [B]
P Coccyx very sensitive; seems elongated.
Can't sit except on foot or air cushion "to raise it from chair."
P Soreness of anterior part of thighs BEFORE menses.
[B] = Boger, Xanthoxylum fraxineum; Int. Hahn. Ass., 1899.
[S] = Southwick, A proving of Xanthoxylum fraxineum; The Hahn. Monthly, December 1885.
Rubrics
Mind
Delusions, body is falling to pieces [1; Lac-c.], he was about to die [2], body is elastic and stretching itself out [1S], body is enlarged [1], floating in air [1], floating in air when sitting up in bed [1/1], floor were soft like wool on walking [1/1]. Fear, to go to bed alone [1B], of dark [1B], of death before menses [1]. Desire to pull her own hair [1].
Head
Enlarged sensation [1S]. Pain, > cold drinks [1S], < noise [1B]; as if top of head would come off [1H]; pressing inward, vertex [1S].
Ear
Pain alternating with toothache [1B].
Vision
Colours, black spots during vertigo [1S]; blue, as if looking through blue lace [1/1]. Objects seem distant [1]. Spots before eyes, bright, during headache [1S]. Stars, black, star-shaped spots dancing up and down, on closing eyes [1S].
Face
Discolouration, red, during dysmenorrhoea [3].
Mouth
Speech difficult from dryness of throat [1S].
Teeth
Pain, alternating with earache [1B].
Stomach
Appetite wanting, with thirst [1S]. Vomiting, after coffee [1H]
Chest
Pain, heart, on deep inspiration [1S].
Back
Sensation as if coccyx were elongated [1/1].
Limbs
Sense of looseness in joints [1S].
Sleep
Waking, with pain in region of heart [1S], with palpitations [1S].
Dreams
Being burned [1S]. Of flying [1]. Being murdered [1S]. Being pursued [1S]. Of suffocation [1S].
* Repertory additions: [B] = Boger; [H] = Hughes; [S] = Southwick.
Food
Desire: [1]: Coffee; lemonade.
Worse: [1]: Coffee [= vomiting]; sight of food; smell of food.
Better: [1]: Cold drinks; frozen food; ice-water.
Comments
Post a Comment
PLEASE WRITE YOUR SYMPTOMS HERE TO GET SUGGESTION.