Ignatia amara
as H.C. Allen recorded it in Keynotes and Characteristics with Comparisons of Some of the Leading Remedies of the Materia Medica, 1899
This is one author on one remedy. The few symptoms that, when genuinely present, point at one remedy and not its neighbours. Read Ignatia amara in every book at once →
Keynotes
Ignatia amara
St. Ignatius Bean. Loganiaceae.
Especially suited to nervous temperament; women of a sensitive, easily excited nature; dark hair and skin but mild disposition, quick to perceive, rapid in execution. In striking contrast with the fair complexion, yielding, lachrymose, but slow and indecisive, Pulsatilla.
The remedy of great contradictions : the roaring in ears > by music; the piles > when walking; sore throat feels > when swallowing; empty feeling in stomach not > by eating; cough < the more he coughs; cough on standing still during a walk
(Ast. fl.) ; spasmodic laughter from grief; sexual desire with impotency; thirst during a chill, no thirst in the fever ; the color changes in the face when at rest.
Mental conditions rapidly, in an almost incredibly short time, change from joy to sorrow, from laughing to weeping (Coff., Croc., Nux m.) ; moody.
Persons mentally and physically exhausted by long-concentrated grief.
Involuntary sighing (Lach.) ; with a weak, empty feeling at pit of stomach; not > by eating (Hydr., Sep.).
Bad effects of anger, grief, or disappointed love (Cal. p., Hyos.) ; broods in solitude over imaginary trouble.
Desire to be alone.
Finely sensitive mood, delicate conscientiousness.
Inconstant, impatient, irresolute, quarrelsome.
Amiable in disposition if feeling well, but easily disturbed by very slight emotion; easily offended.
The slightest fault finding or contradiction excites anger, and this makes him angry with himself.
Children, when reprimanded, scolded, or sent to bed, get sick or have convulsions in sleep.
Ill effects, from bad news; from vexation with reserved displeasure; from suppressed mental sufferings; of shame and mortification (Staph.).
Headache, as if a nail was driven out through the side, relieved by lying on it (Coff., Nux, Thuja).
Cannot bear tobacco ; smoking, or being in tobacco smoke, produces or aggravates headache.
In talking or chewing, bites inside of cheek.
Sweat on the face on a small spot only while eating.
Oversensitiveness to pain (Coff., Cham.).
Constipation; from carriage riding; of a paralytic origin; with excessive urging, felt more in upper abdomen (Ver. ) ; with great pain, dreads to go to closet; in women who are habitual coffee drinkers.
Prolapsus ani from moderate straining at stool, stooping or lifting (Nit. ac.. Pod., Ruta) ; < when the stool is loose.
Haemorrhoids : prolapse with every stool, have to be replaced; sharp stitches shoot up the rectum (Nit. a.) ; < for hours after stool (Rat., Sulph.).
Twitchings, jerkings, even spasms of single limbs or whole body, when falling asleep.
Pain in small, circumscribed spots.
Fever: red face during chill (Fer.) ; chill, with thirst during chill only; > by external heat; heat without thirst, < by covering (> by covering, Nux).
Complaints return at precisely the same hour.
Ignatia bears the same relation to the diseases of women that Nux does to sanguine, bilious men.
There are many more Ignatia persons in North America than Nux vomica persons. — Hering.
Relations. — Incompatible: Coff., Nux, Tab.
The bad effects of Ign. are antidoted by Puls.
Aggravation.. — From tobacco, coffee, brandy, contact, motion, strong odors, mental emotions, grief.
Amelioration.: — Warmth, hard pressure (Cinch.) ; swallowing ; walking.
What the other books say about Ignatia amara
The same remedy read by a different author. They disagree, and the disagreements are where the remedy becomes recognisable.
- Ignatia amara in Boericke — The concise clinical Materia Medica that most Indian colleges teach from, in full.
- Ignatia amara in Farrington — Lectures that teach remedies in families, by comparing them with each other.
- Ignatia amara in Kent — Kent teaching a class, one remedy at a time — fewer remedies, far more on each.
- Ignatia amara in Boger — A compressed key — the generals and the characteristic modalities, with very little narrative.
Search every book at once, take rubrics from Kent and Bönninghausen, and practise on a patient who answers back — free account.
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Cite this page. H.C. Allen. Keynotes and Characteristics with Comparisons of Some of the Leading Remedies of the Materia Medica. 3rd edition (1910). Philadelphia: Boericke & Tafel. Ignatia amara — Keynotes, pp. 142–145. HomeopathyWorld, https://homeopathyworld.in/materia-medica/books/allen/ignatia-amara. Published 1910: public domain in the US (before 1931) and in India (author died 1909). Replaces B. Jain's 2005 "rearranged and classified" edition (© the publisher), per the owner's decision of 13 Sep 2026. Reproduced as the author wrote it; a historical reference for students and practitioners, not medical advice.