Secale cornutum
as H.C. Allen recorded it in Keynotes and Characteristics with Comparisons of Some of the Leading Remedies of the Materia Medica, 1899
Ergot
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Keynotes
Secale cornutum
Spurred Rye; Ergot. A Fungus; a Nosode.
Adapted to women of thin, scrawny, feeble, cachectic appearance; irritable, nervous temperament; pale, sunken countenance.
Very old, decrepit, feeble persons.
Women of very lax muscular fibre; everything seems loose and open; no action, vessels flabby; passive haemorrhages, copious flow of thin, black, watery blood ; the corpuscles are destroyed.
Haemorrhagic diathesis; the slightest wound causes bleeding for weeks (Lach., Phos.) ; discharge of sanious liquid blood with a strong tendency to putrescence ; tingling in the limbs and great debility, especially when the weakness is not caused by previous loss of fluids.
Leucorrhoea; green, brown, offensive.
Boils : small, painful with green contents, mature very slowly and heal in the same manner; very debilitating.
Face: pale, pinched, ashy, sunken, hippocratic; drawn, with sunken eyes; blue rings around eyes.
Unnatural, ravenous appetite; even with exhausting diarrhoea; craves acids, lemonade.
Diarrhoea: profuse, watery, putrid, brown; discharged with great force (Gamb., Grot.) ; very exhausting ; painless, involuntary ; anus wide open (Apis, Phos.).
Enuresis : of old people ; urine pale, watery, or bloody; urine suppressed.
Burning; in all parts of the body, as if sparks of fire were falling on the patient (Ars.).
Gangrene; dry, senile, < from external heat.
Large ecchymoses; blood blisters; often commencement of gangrene.
Collapse in cholera diseases; skin cold, yet cannot bear to be covered (Camph.).
The skin feels cold to the touch, yet the patient cannot tolerate covering ; icy coldness of extremities.
Menses: irregular; copious, dark, fluid; with pressing, labor-like pains in abdomen; continuous discharge of watery blood until next period.
Threatened abortion especially at third month ( Sal). ) ; prolonged, bearing down, forcing pains.
During labor: pains irregular; too weak; feeble or ceasing; everything seems loose and open but no expulsive action; fainting.
After pains: too long; too painful; hour-glass contraction.
vSuppression of milk; in thin, scrawny, exhausted women; the breasts do not properly fill.
Pulse small, rapid, contracted and often intermittent haemorrhage ; it increases labor-pains, controls profuse or dangerous flooding, is always safe, while Ergot is always dangerous.
Similar : to, Arsenicum, but cold and heat are opposite.
Resembles Colchicum in cholera morbus.
Aggravation. — Heat: zvarnith from covering, of all affected parts ; in all diseases worse from heat.
Amelioration. — In the cold air: getting cold; uncovering affected parts; rubbing.
What the other books say about Secale cornutum
The same remedy read by a different author. They disagree, and the disagreements are where the remedy becomes recognisable.
- Secale cornutum in Boericke — The concise clinical Materia Medica that most Indian colleges teach from, in full.
- Secale cornutum in Farrington — Lectures that teach remedies in families, by comparing them with each other.
- Secale cornutum in Kent — Kent teaching a class, one remedy at a time — fewer remedies, far more on each.
- Secale cornutum 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. Secale cornutum — Keynotes, pp. 255–258. HomeopathyWorld, https://homeopathyworld.in/materia-medica/books/allen/secale-cornutum. 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.