Pulsatilla
as William Boericke recorded it in Homoeopathic Materia Medica, 1927
Pulsatilla
This is one author on one remedy. The concise clinical Materia Medica that most Indian colleges teach from, in full. Read Pulsatilla in every book at once →
Mind
Weeps easily. Timid, irresolute. Fears in evening to be alone, dark, ghost. Likes sympathy. Children like fuss and caresses. Easily discouraged. Morbid dread of the opposite sex. Religious melancholy. Given to extremes of pleasure and pain. Highly emotional. Mentally, an April day.
General
Wind Flower The weather-cock among remedies. The disposition and mental state are the chief guiding symptoms to the selection of Pulsatilla. It is pre-eminently a female remedy, especially for mild, gentle, yielding disposition. Sad, crying readily; weeps when talking; changeable, contradictory. The patient seeks the open air; always feels better there, even though he is chilly. Mucous membranes are all affected. Discharges thick, bland, and yellowish-green. Often indicated after abuse of Iron tonics, and after badly- managed measles. Symptoms ever changing. Thirstless, peevish, and chilly.
When first serious impairment of health is referred to age of puberty. Great sensitiveness. Wants the head high. Feels uncomfortable with only one pillow. Lies with hands above head.
Modalities
Worse, from heat, rich fat food, after eating, towards evening, warm room, lying on left or on painless side when allowing feet to hang down. Better, open air, motion, cold applications, cold food and drinks, though not thirsty.
Head
Wandering stitches about head; pains extend to face and teeth; vertigo; better in open air. Frontal and supra-orbital pains. Neuralgic pains, commencing in right temporal region, with scalding lachrymation of affected side. Headache from overwork. Pressure on vertex.
Face
Right-sided neuralgia, with profuse lachrymation. Swelling of lower lip, which is cracked in middle. Prosopalgia towards evening till midnight; chilly, with pain.
Eyes
Thick, profuse, yellow, bland discharges. Itching and burning in eyes. Profuse lachrymation and secretion of mucus. Lids inflamed, agglutinated. Styes. Veins of fundus oculi greatly enlarged. Ophthalmia neonatorum. Subacute conjunctivitis, with dyspepsia; worse, in warm room.
Ears
Sensation as if something were being forced outward. Hearing difficult, as if the ear were stuffed. Otorrhœa. Thick, bland discharge; offensive odor. External ear swollen and red. Catarrhal otitis. Otalgia, worse at night. Diminishes acuteness of hearing.
Nose
Coryza; stoppage of right nostril, pressing pain at root of nose. Loss of smell. Large green fetid scales in nose. Stoppage in evening. Yellow mucus; abundant in morning. Bad smells, as of old catarrh. Nasal bones sore.
Mouth
Greasy taste. Dry mouth, without thirst; wants it washed frequently. Frequently licks the dry lips. Crack in middle of lower lip. Yellow or white tongue, covered with a tenacious mucus. Toothache; relieved by holding cold water in mouth (Coff). Offensive odor from mouth (Merc; Aur). Food, especially bread, tastes bitter. Much sweet saliva. Alternations of taste, bitter, bilious, greasy, salty, foul. Loss of taste. Desire for tonics.
Stomach
Averse to fat food, warm food, and drink. Eructations; taste of food remains a long time; after ices, fruits, pasty. Bitter taste, diminished taste of all food. Pain as from subcutaneous ulceration. Flatulence. Dislikes butter (Sang). Heartburn. Dyspepsia, with great tightness after a meal; must loosen clothing. Thirstlessness, with nearly all complaints. Vomiting of food eaten long before. Pain in stomach an hour after eating (Nux). Weight as from a stone, especially in morning on awakening. Gnawing, hungry feeling (Abies c). Perceptible pulsation in pit of stomach (Asaf). All-gone sensation, especially in tea drinkers. Waterbrash, with foul taste in the morning.
Abdomen
Painful, distended; loud rumbling. Pressure as from a stone. Colic, with chilliness in evening.
Stool
Rumbling, watery; worse, night No two stools alike. After fruit (Ars; Chin). Blind hæmorrhoids, with itching and sticking pains. Dysentery; mucus and blood, with chilliness (Merc; Rheum). Two or three normal stools daily.
Urinary
Increased desire; worse when lying down. Burning in orifice of urethra during and after micturition. Involuntary micturition at night, while coughing or passing flatus. After urinating, spasmodic pain in bladder.
Male
Orchitis; pain from abdomen to testicles. Thick, yellow discharge from urethra; late stage of gonorrhœa. Stricture; urine passed only in drops, and stream interrupted (Clemat). Acute prostatitis. Pain and tenesmus in urinating, worse lying on back.
Female
Amenorrhœa (Cimicif; Senec; Polygon). Suppressed menses from wet feet, nervous debility, or chlorosis. Tardy menses. Too late, scanty, thick, dark, clotted, changeable, intermittent. Chilliness, nausea, downward pressure, painful, flow intermits. Leucorrhœa acrid, burning, creamy. Pain in back; tired feeling. Diarrhœa during or after menses.
Respiratory
Capricious hoarseness; comes and goes. Dry cough in evening and at night; must sit up in bed to get relief; and loose cough in the morning, with copious mucous expectoration. Pressure upon the chest and soreness. Great soreness of epigastrium. Urine emitted with cough (Caust). Pain as from ulcer in middle of chest. Expectoration bland, thick, bitter, greenish. Short breath, anxiety, and palpitation when lying on left side (Phos). Smothering sensation on lying down.
Back
Shooting pain in the nape and back, between shoulders; in sacrum after sitting.
Extremities
Drawing, tensive pain in thighs and legs, with restlessness, sleeplessness and chilliness. Pain in limbs, shifting rapidly; tensive pain, letting up with a snap. Numbness around elbow. Hip-joint painful. Knees swollen, with tearing, drawing pains. Boring pain in heels toward evening; suffering worse from letting the affected limb hang down (Vipera). Veins in forearms and hands swollen. Feet red, inflamed, swollen. Legs feel heavy and weary.
Skin
Urticaria, after rich food, with diarrhœa, from delayed menses, worse undressing. Measles. Acne at puberty. Varicose veins.
Sleep
Wide awake in the evening; first sleep restless. Wakes languid, unrefreshed. Irresistible sleepiness in afternoon. Sleeps with hands over head.
Fever
Chilliness, even in warm room, without thirst. Chilly with pains, in spots, worse evening. Chill about 4 pm. Intolerable burning heat at night, with distended veins; heat in parts of body, coldness in other. One-sided sweat; pains during sweat. External heat is intolerable, veins are distended. During apyrexia,
headache, diarrhœa, loss of appetite, nausea.
Relationships
Penthorum, often indicated after Pulsatilla in later colds. Ionesia Asoca-Saraca indica––(Amenorrhœa. Menorrhagia-acts powerfully on female organs. Abdominal pain). Atriplex (Uterine symptoms, amenorrhœa; hysteria, coldness between shoulders, dislike of warm food, craves strange foods, palpitation, sleeplessness). Pulsatilla Nuttaliana, identical effects. Compare: Cyclamen; Kali bich; Kali sulph; Sulphur. Pimenta-Allspice––(one- sided neuralgias, parts of body hot and cold). Anagyris (headache, amenorrhœa). Complementary: Coffea; Chamom; Nux.
Dose
Third to thirtieth attenuation.
What the other books say about Pulsatilla
The same remedy read by a different author. They disagree, and the disagreements are where the remedy becomes recognisable.
- Pulsatilla in Allen's Keynotes — The few symptoms that, when genuinely present, point at one remedy and not its neighbours.
- Pulsatilla in Farrington — Lectures that teach remedies in families, by comparing them with each other.
- Pulsatilla in Kent — Kent teaching a class, one remedy at a time — fewer remedies, far more on each.
- Pulsatilla 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). Pulsatilla — Mind. HomeopathyWorld, https://homeopathyworld.in/materia-medica/books/boericke/pulsatilla. 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.