Dioscorea villosa
as William Boericke recorded it in Homoeopathic Materia Medica, 1927
This is one author on one remedy. The concise clinical Materia Medica that most Indian colleges teach from, in full. Read Dioscorea villosa in every book at once →
Mind
Calls things by the wrong name.
General
Wild Yam As a remedy for many kinds of pain, especially colic, and in severe, painful affections of abdominal and pelvic viscera; it ranks with the polychrests of the Materia Medica. Persons of feeble digestive powers; tea-drinkers, with much
flatulence. Gall stone colic.
Modalities
Worse, evening and night, lying down, and doubling up. Better, standing erect, motion in open air; pressure.
Head
Dull pain in both temples; better pressure, but worse afterwards. Buzzing in head.
Stomach
Mouth dry and bitter in morning, tongue coated, no thirst. Belching of large quantities of offensive gas. Neuralgia of stomach. Sinking at the pit of the stomach; pyrosis. Pain along sternum and extending into arms. Eructations of sour, bitter wind, with hiccough. Sharp pain in epigastrium, relieved by standing erect.
Abdomen
Pains suddenly shift to different parts; appear in remote localities, as fingers and toes. Rumbling, with emission of much flatus. Griping, cutting in hypogastric region, with intermittent cutting in stomach and small intestines. Colic; better walking about; pains radiate from abdomen, to back, chest, arms; worse, bending forwards and while lying. Sharp pains from liver, shooting upward to right nipple. Pain from gall-bladder to chest, back, and arms. Renal colic, with pain in extremities. Hurried desire for stool.
Rectum
Hæmorrhoids, with darting pains to liver; look like bunches or grapes or red cherries; protrude after stool, with pain in anus. Diarrhœa (worse in morning), yellowish, followed by exhaustion, as if flatus and feces were hot.
Male
Relaxation and coldness of organs. Pains shoot into testicles from region of kidneys. Strong-smelling sweat on scrotum and pubes. Emissions in sleep, or from sexual atony, with weak knees.
Female
Uterine colic; pains radiate from uterus. Vivid dreams.
Respiratory
Tight feeling all along sternum. Chest does not seem to expand on breathing. Short-winded.
Heart
Angina pectoris; pain back of sternum into arms; labored breathing; feeble action of heart. Especially with flatulence and pain through chest and tightness across.
Extremities
Lameness in back; worse, stooping. Aching and stiffness in joints. Sciatica; pains shoot down thigh; worse, right side; better, when perfectly still. Felons in beginning, when pricking is first felt. Nails brittle. Cramps in flexors of fingers and toes.
Relationships
Antidotes: Chamom; Camph. Compare: Colocy (differs in modalities); Nux; Cham; Bry.
Dose
Tincture, to third potency.
What the other books say about Dioscorea villosa
The same remedy read by a different author. They disagree, and the disagreements are where the remedy becomes recognisable.
- Dioscorea villosa in Allen's Keynotes — The few symptoms that, when genuinely present, point at one remedy and not its neighbours.
- Dioscorea villosa 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). Dioscorea villosa — Mind. HomeopathyWorld, https://homeopathyworld.in/materia-medica/books/boericke/dioscorea-villosa. 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.