Homoeopathic medicine

1. (calabar bean)
Dr. Nikunj U. Gamit

2.  Calabar Bean. Chop
Nut. Known among the
negroes of Western
Africa as the Ordeal
Bean of Calabar.
 The plant is a perennial
which grows near the
mouths of the Niger and
the Old Calabar river on
the Gulf of Guinea.

3. Where is the proving of physostigma found?
 In the transactions of the American Institute of
Homoeopathy for 1874 .
What is physostigma?
 It is the Calabar bean , and the tincture is made from
the pulverized bean in the same manner as the Nux
vomica or Ignatia tincture is made.
 The bean is pulverized, weighed, covered with five
parts by weight of alcohol, and allowed to remain eight
days in a well-stoppered bottle, at the ordinary
temperature, in a dark, cool place, being shaken twice
a day. The tincture is then poured off, strained and
filtered.

4. What is its alkaloid and its principal use?
 Eserin or Physostigmin .
 It produces a specific contraction of the pupil.
 Dose, 1-60 of a grain in solution, applied locally.
What is its general action?
 It irritates the fibres of the third nerve, producing
contraction of the pupil and spasm of accommodation.
 It acts powerfully on the spinal cord, producing motor
paralysis.

5. In what diseases do we sometimes find it indicated?
 Spinal irritation, tetanus and trismus or lockjaw, but its
use in diseases of the eye such as spasm of the ciliary
muscle, myopia, etc., is most important.
 Post-diphtheritic paralysis.

6.  Spinal Motor Nerves.
 Eyes.
 Muscles.
 Left Side.

7.  Astigmatism. (defect in eyes or in a lens - deviation of
curvature of lens)
 Blepharospasm. (involuntary tight closure of the eye lids)
 Chorea.
 Ciliary spasm.
 Climacteric.
 Constipation.
 Coccygodynia. (pain originate from coccyx)
 Dentition.
 Diarrhoea.
 Dyspepsia.
 Epilepsy.

8.  Eyes, affections of; injuries of; strain of.
 General paralysis.
 Glaucoma.
 Haemorrhoids.
 Headache.
 Heart, affections of.
 Hemiplegia (left).
 Herpes, preputialis.
 Hiccough.
 Hysteria. (Uncontrolable emotions)
 Iris, prolapsed.
 Leucorrhoea.
 Locomotor ataxy.

9.  Myopia.
 Navel, inflammation of.
 Paralysis, local; agitans; spinal. ( Parkinsons disease)
 Paraplegia.
 Progressive muscular atrophy.
 Prostration; muscular.
 Sleeplessness.
 Spinal irritation.
 Spinal sclerosis.
 Stiff neck.
 Tetanus.
 Throat, sore; fish-bone sensation.
 Water, effects of.
 Wounds.

10.  Emotions.
 Grief.
 Bathing.
 Injuries.
 Blows.

11.  Motor nerves through spinal cord are affected by this
remedy; causing fluttering tremors in the muscles; they
do not respond to the will and/or draw into knots; even
the intestines are seen twisted in knots.
 This remedy and its active principle, Eserine, form a
valuable addition to Materia Medica.
 Stimulates heart, raises blood pressure, and increases
peristalsis.

12.  Causes contraction of the pupil and of the ciliary
muscles.
 Induces a condition of short-sightedness.
 Spinal irritation, loss of motility, prostration, with very
sensitive vertebrae Fibrillary tremors.
 Rigidity of muscles; paralysis.
 Depresses the motor and reflex activity of the cord and
causes loss of sensibility to pain, muscular weakness,
followed by complete paralysis, although muscular
contractility is not impaired.

13.  Paralysis and tremors, chorea.
 Meningeal irritation, with rigidity of muscles.
 Tetanus and trismus.
 Poliomyelitis anterior.
 Eserine is used locally to produce contraction of pupil.

14.  This case was cured : Great muscular prostration with
continual inclination to sigh; leucorrhoea agg. by exercising
during the day, especially 4 p.m. ; sighing agg. when
leucorrhoea is agg.; dread of cold water.
 This dread of cold water is a grand keynote of Physo.
 One of the provers (a water drinker) developed a perfect
disgust for cold water and cold drinks; and though used to a
cold morning plunge, was obliged to omit it on account of
his horror.
 Other provers felt uncomfortable after bathing, and had
great reluctance to their bath.

15.  Weakness was felt on change of weather, and on cold,
bracing days.
 A paralytic state of mind and body from grief has been
cured with Physo.
 Sleeplessness of a peculiar kind occurs in Physo.
 Nash cured with Physo. 12 and 30 persistent sleeplessness
in a patient who had been in an insane asylum, and feared
she would have to go again.
 Her symptom was : "If she chanced to get a nap she awoke
suddenly as if in a fright, and felt no >> from what she had
slept."

16.  Peculiar sensations are : As if stomach were full.
 As if she must lose her mind.
 As if a ball were coming up throat.
 Lower limbs as if asleep.
 Back as if paralysed.
 Tongue as if burnt (left margin); as if swollen and paralysed.
 Sensations of contraction and tension.
 Wavering in brain.
 Weak feeling in stomach.

17.  H. L. Chase, one of the provers, had a "very severe
pain in the right popliteal space," and he afterwards
cured a patient who came to him with pain in the same
region two years later.
 (Allen gives the symptom as in the left popliteal
space.)
 The symptoms are agg. by pressure (of finger between
vertebrae causing wincing); by falls and blows.
 agg. Motion; descending stairs (wavering in brain).
 agg. Walking; stepping; jar of misstep.

18.  >> Lying supine.
 agg. Lying left side; >> lying on right side.
 agg. 4 p.m.
 agg. Night (headache unbearable).
 If pain began at any hour it always continued till 12 o'clock
following, either noon or midnight.
 agg. Cold water; perfect horror of cold drink; cold bath.
 agg. From bathing; from change in weather; on bracing
days.
 agg. In church.
 >> In cool open air.
 agg. On waking.
 >> Closing eyes.
 >> By sleep (hiccough).
 >> Warmth to feet; sinapisms to abdomen.

19.  Uncommon mental activity.
 Foolish actions, said it made him crazy.
 Exhilarated in morning, gloomy towards noon.
 Nothing was right, too many things in room;
continually counting them.
 Irritable.
 Nervous, cannot endure pain.
 Exhaustion, cannot remember anything.
 Disinclined to work.
 Difficult thinking; cannot concentrate the mind.

20.  Constant pain on top; vertigo, with constrictive feeling of
head.
 Pain over orbits; cannot bear to raise eyelids.
 Cerebro-spinal meningitis; general tetanic rigidity.
 Spastic conditions of the face-muscles.
 Darting pain in forehead, agg. motion, and in temples.
 Sharp pain in supra-orbital region, running off towards
nose.

21.  Pain : over right eye, in morning on waking, by noon
pain in whole cerebrum, fulness of blood-vessels of
brain, and contracted feeling in forehead, which
extended to eyelids, causing an effort to open or close
them; in left side at 10 a.m. , with heat in abdomen
and nausea, the pain is heavy at 11, pain over whole
head from 4 till 10 p.m. , with nausea and general
sweat, headache next day with lame, bruised feeling in
region of kidneys.

22.  Pain in temples; showing from right temple to 2nd
bicuspid.
 In evening headache, agg. forehead and temples.
 One-sided headache with fear of opening eyes lest it
should agg. the pain.
 Inability to stop thinking with headache.

23.  Sensation of rush of blood to frontal and temporal
regions.
 Sharp, shooting pains in temples.
 Throbbing of temporal and carotid arteries; heart beats
felt in head on lying down.
 Intense, painful pressure in vertex and both temples,
the pressure in vertex extending over to occiput.

24.  Eyes inflamed, first right, then left; sclerotic dry, red, and
swollen; eyeballs pain and smart; lids feel sore.
 Eyes bloodshot all the forenoon, with burning in them.
 Pain on attempting to use binocular vision, as in reading, so
that one eye must be closed, >> by a weak concave glass.
 Pressure; with muscae volitantes (floating in vitreous humour),
dark and light long worms or snakes, also tremulous vision.

25.  Bright marks when looking at an object; dark yellowish
spots covering one or two letters when reading.
 Sharp, shooting pains, and drawing, twisting sensation in
eyes.
 Eyes sore and painful when moved from side to side.
 Pain deep in, over top of eyeball, running up from inner
canthus to right frontal eminence, then down obliquely
outward into temple.
 Sharp stitches in right eyeball, >> by motion in open air.

26.  Eyes convulsed.
 Sight blurred, hazy, or misty, film over eyes; objects
mixed; after which dull pain over the eyes and between
the eyes.
 Aching in posterior part of orbit, extending back into
the brain; agg. on reading, causing nausea.
 Lids (esp. left) heavy; cannot bear to raise them;
twitching of lids (upper, agg. left).

27.  Contracted sensation in lids with difficulty in opening
them and lachrymation when wide open, difficulty in
keeping left eye open.
 Lids immovable.
 Tight feeling in ciliary region as if something were
creeping about in it, with sharp pain, agg. reading.
 Pupils dilated.

28.  Pupils contracted when asleep, dilated when aroused.
 Disturbed accommodation : approximation of far point
(myopia) and also of near point.
 Vision abnormally acute; double; dim and indistinct;
blurred, hazy, misty.
 (Lens dislocated by blow.)

29.  Sharp, shooting pains in the ears.
 Shooting in left ear; in right.
 Pain in right ear when writing.
 Hammering in right in evening, with feeling in external ear as
from a hot wind.
 Painful pressure on tympani.
 Discomfort in right, with inclination to bore in with finger; after
removal of wax some pain; with eructation a sudden pain from
throat along Eustachian tube to middle ear.

30.  Crawling in left ear.
 Fulness.
 Stopped feeling.
 Partial deafness of right.
 Sensitive to every sound.
 Singing or tuning like escaping steam, at night after
lying down.
 Hissing, buzzing, ringing in the ears.

31.  Fluent coryza; burning and tingling of nostrils; nose stuffed and
hot.
 Fever-blisters around nostrils.
 Twitchings in nose and involuntary expansion of nostrils.
 Small boil inside right nostril.
 Epistaxis while at supper.
 Smarting at end of nose, it feels as if burnt by hot liquid.
 Tension in skin of nose and forehead.

32.  Face pale; flushings of the face; heat.
 Neuralgic pain in right side of face.
 Sensation of cramps or spasms in face extending to neck;
with numbness of left hand.
 Sensation of contraction of left side of face, with
numbness.
 Severe pain in right upper jaw like toothache (though all
teeth on that side had been extracted).
 Numbness of lips.

33.  Tongue feels sore on tip.
 Feeling as if a ball came up throat.
 Dentition : nervous children with vacillating pupils
who have trouble when nursing or taking food; pain in
stomach as soon as they begin, but going off if they
continue to nurse.
 Tongue coated, more heavily at root.

34.  Numbness and tingling of tongue and lips, with
constant desire to moisten them.
 Bad taste in mouth.
 Profuse salivation; thick, leathery saliva.
 Difficult speech.
 Power of speech retained long after inability to
swallow.

35.  Strong heart-pulsation felt in throat.
 Sore throat, painful swallowing.
 Tonsils and soft palate dark red.
 Burning, scraping, raw feeling in throat.
 Tonsils enlarged; swollen, elongated uvula.
 Small ulcers, with yellow centres in pharynx.

36.  Feeling as of a fish-bone in throat; swallowing saliva
very painful.
 Constriction of throat and dysphagia.
 Pain extending from throat to left ear when
swallowing.
 Feeling as if a ball were coming up in throat.
 Submaxillary gland tender and tumefied.

37.  Great pain immediately after eating.
 Sensitive to pressure in epigastric region.
 Pain extends into chest and down arms.
 Gastralgia; chronic constipation.
 Hunger but can find nothing to satisfy it; food has a flat
taste.

38.  No appetite, disgust for food, tobacco, and coffee; and
esp. for cold drinks.
 Tasteless eructations.
 In stomach : prickling, sharp pains; darting pains, with
paralysed feeling of left side; heaviness and weight, as
if undigested food were lying there; hard pain; griping;
emptiness and weakness; sensation of nervousness and
trembling.
 Soreness in region of stomach.

39.  Lancinating pains in hypochondria.
 Hard, sore pain in splenic region; descending to groin and
across hypogastrium, agg. by motion.
 Soreness and pain at navel, which was found much
inflamed.
 Severe pain in umbilical region.
 Pain and soreness in umbilical region.
 Stitches in left side of abdomen.

40.  Much rumbling and distension in abdomen, with
discharge of large quantities of flatus.
 Dull pain in transverse and descending colon.
 Colicky pains, with feeling as if diarrhoea would
occur.
 Shooting pains in left iliac region and down thigh.
 Sharp, cutting pains in lower part of abdomen.
 Dull pains in groins.

41.  Stools : copious; soft, thin; watery; yellowish; bilious; part
natural, part black like tar; lumpy, mixed with watery discharge;
dark and offensive.
 Constipation; from atony.
 Sphincter ani swollen and rigid; evacuation painful; rectum
protruding, swollen and very sensitive.
 Tenesmus and burning, with diarrhoea; also tenesmus of bladder.
 Stool irregular and loose, anus sore and inclined to protrude;
piles (absent for three years) return.
 Severe piles following childbirth.

42.  Bruised, sore feeling in region of kidneys.
 Bladder feels distended.
 Frequent desire to urinate, often ineffectual.
 Frequent and copious urination.
 Urine : yellow; high coloured; strong-smelling; clear;
muddy; pale and copious.

43.  Frequent erections with but slight desire.
 Two emissions without dreams or excitement.
 Strong-smelling sweat about genitals, prepuce tender
and swollen, many small vesicles on glans with
burning itching.

44.  Irregular menstruation, with palpitation.
 Congestion of eyes.
 Rigid muscles.
 Leucorrhoea; agg. exercising during day, esp. about 4
p.m. ; with inclination to sight; sighing agg. when
leucorrhoea is worse; dread of cold water.

45.  Cough from tickling in throat.
 Slight constant inclination to cough from filling lungs.
 Laboured, sighing respiration; yawning.

46.  Feeble pulse; palpitation; spasmodic action, with
feeling pulsation through the whole body.
 Beats of heart distinctly perceptible in chest and head.
 Fluttering of heart felt in throat.
 Fatty degeneration.

47.  Limbs feel weary, as after great fatigue.
 Numbness in all the limbs; and paralytic feeling.
 Neuralgic pains in the limbs.
 Stiffness or bruised feeling in the joints.
 Staggering gait.
 Cold extremities.

48.  Upper limbs
 Wrists feel weak; dull aching pain in them.
 Sharp, shooting pain in left shoulder.
 Itching of left palm.
 Paroxysms of burning in palms.
 Hands feel cold, then hot and red.
 Pain in right deltoid >> only by violent motion.
 Numbness in left arm.
 Sharp pain in left, then right arm.

49.  Lower limbs
 Unsteadiness from knee downward when walking, esp. with eyes shut.
 Dragging pain in left hip towards back.
 Stiffness in hip and knee.
 Cramp-like pain in left (and right) popliteal space.
 Sensation of a drawing cord behind leg and knee, impeding walking.
 Gnawing in left tibia.
 Legs feel asleep.
 Numbness in left foot.

50.  Irresistible desire to sleep; soporific sleep.
 Restless sleep with dreams.
 During sleep mind so active was unaware he had been
asleep.
 Falls asleep frequently, but awakes suddenly without
relief; following night scarcely closed eyes in sleep;
thoughts very active; an idea once started kept on with
unusual persistence.

51.  Creeping, chilly sensation in back; yawning; every movement
and draught shuddering.
 Hands and feet cold.
 Cold, clammy skin.
 Heat in head and face; flushed and hot.
 Heat in face and down back with chilliness of legs.
 Dry burning in hands.

52.  Perspires very easily.
 Cold sweat in drops over whole body.
 Strong-smelling sweat around genitals.
 Copious sweat all over body.

53.  Change of temperature.
 Eyestrain.
 Bathing.
 Heat and cold.
 Descending.
 Motion.
 Stepping.
 Jar, misstep.

54.  Lying on abdomen or with head low.
 Exerting the will.
 Closing eyes.
 Sleep.

55. Antidotes :
 Atropinum and Chloratum hydratum.
 Camphor suspends the symptoms temporarily.
Compatible : Amyl nitr., Conium, Gelsem.
Compare :
 In eye diseases : Agaricus, Caustic., Chamom., Conium,
Curare.
 In tetanus, Nux vom.

56.  A drug for myopia (Ruta., Con., Phos., Puls.).
 Idiopathic or traumatic tetanus; brought on or worse by
slightest breath of air from a person passing. (Hyper.,
Lyc.).
 Locomotor ataxia. (Alum., Con., Gels., Nux vom.,
Phos.).
 Uncommon mental activity. (Can. i., Coff., Phos.).
 Floating black spots before eyes (Chin., Cocc., Nat.
mur., Phos., Sep., Sil., Sulph.).
 Profuse Lachrymation (Euphr., Merc.).
 Gastralgia, worse after eating (Calc. phos., Mag.
phos., Nux vom.).
 Jerking limbs. (Bell., Cupr., Hyosc.).

57. Thank you...