Ambra grisea
as William Boericke recorded it in Homoeopathic Materia Medica, 1927
Ambergis
This is one author on one remedy. The concise clinical Materia Medica that most Indian colleges teach from, in full. Read Ambra grisea in every book at once →
Mind
Dread of people, and desire to be alone. Cannot do anything in presence of others. Intensely shy, blushes easily. Music causes weeping. Despair, loathing of life. Fantastic illusions. Bashful. Loss of love of life. Restless, excited, very loquacious. Time passes slowly. Thinking, difficult in the morning with old people. Dwells upon unpleasant things.
General
Suitable to excitable, nervous children and thin, nervous patients. Extreme nervous hypersensitiveness. External numbness of whole body in the morning and weakness. Nervous bilious temperament. Thin, scrawny women. Adapted to hysterical subjects, or those suffering from spinal irritation, with convulsive cough, eructation, etc. Also for patients weakened by age or overwork, who are anæmic and sleepless. Great remedy for the aged, with impairment of all functions, weakness, coldness and numbness, usually of single parts, fingers, arms, etc. One-sided complaints call for it. Music aggravates symptoms. Ebullitions and pulsations after walking in open air. One-sided complaints.
Modalities
Worse, music; presence of strangers; from any unusual thing; morning, warm room. Better, slow motion in open air; lying on painful part; cold drinks.
Head
Slow comprehension. Vertigo, with weakness in head and stomach. Pressure on front part of head with mental depression. Tearing pain in upper
half of brain. Senile dizziness. Rush of blood to head, when listening to music. Hearing impaired. Epistaxis, especially in the morning. Profuse bleeding from teeth. Hair falls out.
Stomach
Eructations, with violent, convulsive cough. Acid eructations, like heartburn. Distention of stomach and abdomen after midnight. Sensation of coldness in abdomen.
Urinary
Pain in bladder and rectum at the same time. Burning in orifice of urethra and anus. Feeling in urethra as if a few drops passed out. Burning and itching in urethra while urinating. Urine turbid, even during emission forming a brown sediment.
Male
Voluptuous itching of scrotum. Parts externally numb; burn internally. Violent erections without voluptuous sensations.
Female
Nymphomania, Itching of pudendum, with soreness and swelling. Menses too early. Profuse, bluish leucorrhœa. Worse at night. Discharge of blood between periods, at every little accident.
Respiratory
Asthmatic breathing with eructation of gas. Nervous, spasmodic cough, with hoarseness and eructation, on waking in morning; worse in presence of people. Tickling in throat, larynx and trachea, chest oppressed, gets out of breath when coughing. Hollow, spasmodic, barking cough, coming from deep in chest. Choking when hawking up phlegm.
Heart
Palpitation, with pressure in chest as from a lump lodged there, or as if chest was obstructed. Conscious of the pulse. Palpitation in open air with pale face.
Extremities
Cramps in hands and fingers, worse grasping anything. Cramps in legs.
Skin
Itching and soreness, especially around genitals. Numbness of skin. Arms "go to sleep".
Sleep
Cannot sleep from worry; must get up. Anxious dreams. Coldness of body and twitching of limbs, during sleep.
Relationships
Do not confound with Amber-Succinum q v. Moschus frequently follows advantageously. Compare: Oleum succinum (hiccough). Sumbul; Castor; Asaf; Crocus; Lilium.
Dose
Second and third potencies; may be repeated with advantage.
What the other books say about Ambra grisea
The same remedy read by a different author. They disagree, and the disagreements are where the remedy becomes recognisable.
- Ambra grisea in Allen's Keynotes — The few symptoms that, when genuinely present, point at one remedy and not its neighbours.
- Ambra grisea in Farrington — Lectures that teach remedies in families, by comparing them with each other.
- Ambra grisea in Kent — Kent teaching a class, one remedy at a time — fewer remedies, far more on each.
- Ambra grisea 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.
Create a free accountCite this page. William Boericke. Homoeopathic Materia Medica. 9th edition (preface dated San Francisco, June 1927). Ambra grisea — Mind. HomeopathyWorld, https://homeopathyworld.in/materia-medica/books/boericke/ambra-grisea. Published 1927: public domain in the US (since 2023) and in India (author died 1929). Reproduced as the author wrote it; a historical reference for students and practitioners, not medical advice.