Spigelia anthelmia

- TESTE A, GROUP REMEDIES,  GROUP I,ARNICA MONTANA
 Pink-root
 - Genus Spigelia, family gentianeae, Class pentandria monogynia.
 - This small annual plant, which grows in almost all the countries of South America, has black, hairy roots, an almost simple stem, terminating in four lanceolate leaves, out of which starts a thin, elongated spike, loaded with a multitude of greenish blossoms, which furnish a big lobular fruit.
 - When recent, it exhales a poisonous and fetid odor.
 - Its leaves have a nauseous taste, which remains a long time in the mouth.
 - Spigelia is a violent poison.
 - The cattle that eat of it, perish with horrible pains.
 - It causes vomiting, dizziness, stupor, dilatation of the pupils, subsultus tendinum, pulsations in different parts of the body, and an excessive dyspnoea, which increases until death. *
 - From the period (1739), when Patricius Brown first promulgated in Europe the properties of this powerful drug, until the period when Hahnemann studied it systematically, physicians contented themselves with slavishly imitating the negroes of Jamaica, and using it solely for worms.
 - In the numerous treatises on Materia Medica, from that of Bergius to that of Trousseau and Pidoux, who, bye the bye, omit this drug altogether, I have not met with any other application of spigelia.
 - It is true, that it possesses vermifuge virtues, which are much more powerful than those that have been attributed to many other plants, for undeniable cures have been made with it.
 - I would even add, that, among its symptoms, there are many that correspond to the sudden changes which the presence of entozoa in the digestive canal frequently determines.
 - But independently of its not always being the most convenient vermifuge, this restricted use of spigelia would deprive us of a drug whose homoeopathicity in many diseases is self-evident, and where no other drug could replace it.
 - ``The astonishing and diversified virtues of spigelia, show that it has a far higher destination than to cleanse the bowels of worms.''*
 - Homoeopathic applications. Spigelia is probably less frequently employed than it should be.*
 - There are few diseases, however, which are as common as those of which it presents the symptoms.
 - It would seem as though the pathogenesis of this drug represented in a chronic form, all the pathological affections whose acute form is found among the symptoms of arnica.
 - I earnestly call the attention of my colleagues to this comparison, which, so far from being purely speculative, as might be supposed, is simply a rigorous deduction, on my part, from numerous and closely observed clinical facts.
 - Spigelia is indicated by the following physiological conditions and symptoms :--
 - Sense of weariness all over, with a sensation of coldness or real coldness of the body; heat about the head or face only; every motion, such as a step, is painfully felt in every limb.
 - Headache, which deprives one of sense, with vertigo, as though one would fall, especially in the morning, after rising, and sometimes periodical; neuralgia, with pulling, pressive pains, or shootings in the frontal eminences, penetrating far into the brain; also at the occiput, in the left parietal region; pain at the sinciput, in contracting the muscles of the face; excessive sensitiveness of the hairy scalp, when touching it, drawing it into wrinkles, or when simply touching the hair; rheumatic ophthalmia, profuse lachrymation  with or without pain, especially of the left eye; vanishing of sight; blurred vision; dimness of the crystalline lens, rheumatic cataract (of the left eye); ulceration of the eyelids, agglutination of the eye-lids by a viscous gum; prickings in the lids; paralysis of the upper lid; tingling in the inner ear; otalgia; passing deafness; facial neuralgia; exostosis at the forehead and zygomatic bone; neuralgia at the lower jaw, radiating to the nape of the neck and temple; digging pain in the carious teeth; pressive odontalgia from within outwards, with a sensation of coldness at the teeth; aggravation by cold water, and  suspension of the pain during a meal, coming on especially in the morning, afternoon, and at night.
 - Yellow, pale, or earthy color of the skin; such an extreme sensitiveness of the skin, that the slightest blow causes acute pain; cutaneous neuralgias aggravated by cold water : carbuncle (after arnica).
 - Rheumatism at the nape of the neck, with painful numbness, which the lying on the back renders intolerable.
 - Violent shootings in the walls of the chest, especially the left side, under the clavicle, or on a line with the heart; painful contraction of the muscles of the chest; stitches in the region of the diaphragm.
 - Rheumatism, with pain as if sprained, in the shoulders, wrists, in the finger-joints, hip, knee, and in the joint which the big toe forms with the first metatarsal bone; pressive, pulling, or cutting pains in the extremities lengthwise; trembling of the upper extremities; contraction of the flexor muscles of the fingers; burning itching in the palms of the hands; cold, viscous sweat in the hollow of the hands; sub-cutaneous tubercles in this part; contusive pain at the knee; pulling in the legs from below upwards, with heat in the feet, or from above downwards, with coldness of the feet; sprain at the foot;* burning pain at the instep (without redness); deep-seated and lancinating pain at the sole of the foot, when resting the body upon it.
 - Dry, pale, and cracked lips; sensation of dryness and of prickings as with pins, in the mouth, although it is filled with a tenacious and nauseous saliva; coated tongue; fetid breath; sensation as if a half-fluid body were ascending towards the throat; anorexia or bulimy, tingling in the oesophagus; nausea in the morning and afternoon; bilious vomiting; neuralgic pains at the stomach; sensation of a lump in the umbilical regions, as if rolled upon itself; pinchings or cutting pains in the abdomen; swelling of the abdomen; lancing pains in the abdomen, with falling back of the head, and loss of sense; noisy and sometimes painful borborygmi in the abdomen; emission of flatulence which has the smell of rotten eggs; tension in the groin; hernia inguinalis, hard stool, like sheep's dung, and enveloped in a quantity of mucus; mucous diarrhoea, with tenesmus; tingling and prickings in the rectum; discharge of ascarides; copious and frequent emissions, especially at night, of a watery or whitish urine.
 - Tingling in the wind-pipe; chronic hoarseness; catarrh of the air-passages, with fever, heat of the skin, but absence of thirst and sweat; violent cough, with or without expectoration, and sometimes accompanied with a violent dyspnoea, which increases most while the chest is bent forwards; painful angina and bronchitis, alternating with the rheumatic pains in one shoulder, and sometimes co-existing with these pains.
 - Stitches at the heart; palpitations of the heart, especially in the morning, while sitting quiet; a sort of shuddering at the heart; sensible decrease in the number of the beats of the heart; fever, with predominance of coldness; habitual chilliness; violent gaping; drowsiness in the daytime; sleeplessness in the evening, before midnight; disturbed, unrefreshing sleep, full of disquieting dreams; sour sweat during sleep; quotidian intermittent fever, commencing in the morning with a shuddering, followed by a dry heat, with absence of thirst.
 - Anxious sadness; forebodings of unpleasant occurrences; depression of  spirits even to suicide.
 - Marked predominance of the pains in all the organs of the left side.
 - Spigelia, which ought, perhaps, to terminate the series in which I have placed it, presents some of the symptoms which characterize the drugs of the following group, namely :--
 - Foulness of the breath and secretions; blackish pustules on the skin; general languor and prostration; depression of the pulse; aggravation of the pains in the cold, and especially in cold water; tendency to softening of the bones; striking action upon the periosteum; aggravation of the symptoms during rest, at night or in the morning, or sometimes about two o'clock in the afternoon; production of entozoa; and lastly, predominance of its action upon the left side of the body.
 - It will be seen afterwards, how much importance I attach to this latter consideration.
 - All this shows, that as a general rule, spigelia is principally indicated in chronic affections, or in recent affections of debilitated, pale, thin, or bloated persons, complaining of chilliness, and disposed to rheumatic pains, without heat or swelling of the affected parts.
 - This drug is often indicated after arnica; after spigelia we often have to give Zinc. Arsenic, and sometimes Digitalis in affections of the heart.
 - Cocculus and Camphor antidote spigelia.