Capsicum annuum

Dysentery. After stool, tenesmus and thirst, and drinking causes shuddering. Smarting and burning in anus and rectum. Violent tenesmus in rectum, and bladder at the same time. Haemorrhoids; protruding, smarting, burning; smarting like pepper; they sting and burn as if pepper had been sprinkled on them. Tenesmus of the bladder; strangury. Burning, biting pain after urination, in old cases of gonorrhoea, in which there no reaction. The discharge is creamy. You take a picture, of his face, you notice the plethora, but also that he has no endurance, plump, flabby, sensitive to cold, red face. He does not react after cold. He has the, last drop or a creamy discharge with burning on urination. Capsicum will sometimes stop it suddenly. Coldness of scrotum. Prepuce swollen, oedematous. Pain in the prostate gland after gonorrhoea. Coldness of the affected part. Coldness in patches. Coldness of the whole body. It is useful in perplexing and troublesome chronic hoarseness. He had had a cold and remedies for the acute condition have been given, perhaps two or three remedies, Acon., Bry., Hep., Phos., but all at once you wake up to the fact of his chronic constitutional state of hoarseness. He is rotund, chilly, red faced, and the hoarseness disappears under Capsicum. It is the same with the cough. After making several blunders you wake up and see it is a Capsicum case and that you have never yet gotten at the root of the trouble. This shows the importance of getting at the things general first. If there is much acute suffering of course you must give an acute remedy, but if the patient has delayed recovery and convalescence is slow the next remedy should be the remedy for the patient. Sometimes it is Sulph., Phos., Lyc., and sometimes it is Caps. If the patient has a good constitutional state he will get over the told on - the acute remedy, but the old gouty, rheumatic, flabby patients need a constitutional remedy. Cough in sudden paroxysms convulsing the whole body. Cries, after the cough from the headache. Stitches in the suffering part with the cough. Every cough jars the affected joint. The constitutional state comes first and the particulars must agree i. e., prescribe according to the totality.

Homesickness. Of a contented disposition : is jocular and sings, and yet on slightest cause, gets angry. Disposition to start. After emotions, fever with red cheeks. Intoxication. Confusion of head ; or, all the senses are more acute. When moving head and when walking, headache as if the skull would bi rst. Throbbing, beating headache : in one of the temples : in the fore­ head. Pressive pain in forehead. Drawing, tearing pain, left side of head. A shooting headache, worse at rest, better by movement. An outstretching headache, as if the brain were too fuU. Drawing, tearing pains frontal bone, more on right side. Aching pain in eyes as from a foreign body. Swellings‘of mastoid process: painful to touch: Periostitis and caries of mastoid. Tearing pain in concha of ear. An itching or aching pain quite deep in ear. Epistaxis. Burning blisters in mouth. Tough mucus in mouth : or dryness. Taste foul : like putrid water. Chaps on the lips : fissured lips. Tough mucus in posterior notes on rising : difficult to dislodge. Tonsillitis, with burning, smarting pain. Great soreness in throat, with smarting. Pain when swallowing, burning and other pains in throat, worse between acts of swallowing. Throat inflamed, dark-red, burning, pressing. Heartburn. Dyspepsia from torpidity ; especially in old people. Stomach ice cold : or burning in stomach. Inclined to vomit. Thirst : drinking causes shuddering ; drawing pains in back. Burning, cutting pains in abdomen. After every stool, thirst, and after every drink shivering. Aching tension, abdomen, especially in stomach, worse movement : with aching tension lower part of back. Tensive pain, abdomen to chest, as from distension. Abdomen feels distended almost to bursting, impeding breathing, to suffocation. A drawing and turning over in abdomen. After flatulent colic in hypogastrium, small frequent stools of mucus mixed with blood, which cause tenesmus. Tenesmus : violent tenesmus. Burning pain in anus. Dysentery : tenesmus and stranguary : pain worse from a current of air, even if warm. Smarting and burning pain in the anus and rectum. Tenesmus of rectum and bladder at the same time. Hcemorrhoids, burning as if pepper were sprinkled on them, swollen, itching, throbbing : with sore feeling in anus : bleeding or blind with mucus discharge ; with bloody mucous stools ; with drawing pain in back and cutting pain in abdomen. Small frequent stools of mucus, at times with blood : cause tenesmus. Burning in bladder. Burning, smarting after urination. Strangury : tenesmus neck of bladder : urging to frequent, almost ineffectual urination. Scalding of urine. Gonorrhoea : second stage : white discharge : excessive sensi­ bility of parts to contact : cordee only suppressed by cold water. Creeping and tickling in nose, as in stuffed coryza. Hoarseness-, from straining voice, in singers, preachers, etc. When coughing, headache as if skull would burst. Cough expels an offensive breath from lungs. Nerveus, spasmodic cough. Tightness of chest : appears to come out of stomach. Chest constricted, with oppressed breathing : worse very slight movement. Throbbing pain in chest. Drawing tearing pain in and near spine. Tensive pain in knees. Coldness beginning in back. Shivering. Lack of reactive force, especially in fat people. Is wide awake at night : cannot sleep. Sleep full of dreams. Yawning. Great desire to lie down and sleep. So awkward that she runs into everything. Sea-sickness. Lazy, fat, unclean persons who dread open air. Children who are always chilly. Shivering with chilliness after every drink. As if cayenne pepper were sprinkled on parts ! Relaxed fibre : obesity. Shuns all movement. Burnitig in skin. Hcemorrhoidal constitutions Some Italic, and Strange, Rare and Peculiar Symptoms Children become clumsy and awkward. Home-sickness, with red cheeks and sleeplessness. Wakes in a fright, screams : remains full of fear. Senses obtuse. Brain too full. Bursting pains in head. Head feels bruised. Pressing headache in forehead, as though pressure in occiput would force brain out through forehead. Violent, deep-penetrating stitches, vertex. Head seems too large. Affects especially mastoid process. Flickering before eyes : or objects look black. Eyes very prominent, with pale face. Eyes protrude from sockets. Pressing pain in ear with every cough : as if abscess would open. Aching in ears when coughing. l'ip of nose very red and hot : worse towards evening. On coughing or sneezing, cutting in one or other limb. Pain internal or exterior of face, with biting as if from salt. Dry throat without thirst. A remedy of cancrum oris. White spots in throat, with red halo. Malignant or gangrenous pharyngitis. After every stool, thirst, and after every drink shivering. After a drink, must go to stool. Haemorrhoids burn, as if pepper were sprinkled on them. Needle-stitches, in forepart of urethra, when not urinating. During pregnancy, affections of ears, etc. Tickling in trachea causes violent sneezing. Cannot get air deep enough into lungs. Cough in sudden paroxysms : convulses whole body. Cough, as if head would fly to pieces. With every explosive cough, pungent, fetid air escapes. Coughing or sneezing causes sudden pain in a limb. Stitches in suffering parts, with cough. Splitting pain in head, with cough : or pain chest, back, bladder, neck or ear. Inclined to vomit : or pain in knees, legs, ears, throat. Cough : worse anger, warm drinks, evening, night, when lying, dry cold weather, draught, warm or cold. Pain in chest, as if it were too full : not room enough in it. Fatty degeneration of heart in obese persons. Violent pulsations of arteries of abdomen. Clucking, rapid pulsation in some of the larger arteries. Chilliness between scapulae : " cold water dropping down back." * * * Nash summarizes its peculiarities thus : Burning pains, especially on mucous membranes, or smarting, as from red pepper, on the parts. Cough with pains in distant parts, as head, bladder, knees, legs, etc. Chill or shuddering after every drink. Begins between the shoulders and spreads all over. With above symptoms, it is a good remedy for dysentery, or the later stages of gonorrhoea, or in throat complaints. A remedy to be remembered in all affections, with the red pepper burnings. He says, I cured a very bad case of years’ standing. The patient would cry out and grasp head with both hands at every cough. It. finally became so bad that he had to lie in bed, because the hurt was so much worse when sitting. Capsicum cured very quickly Guernsey. It affects mucous tissues in a very prominent degree. Head, aches as if it would burst : beats : throbs ; darts. Better in motion. Biting, burning, stinging itch, scalp, as if it had been rubbed with cayenne pepper. . . . Abdomen as if it would burst. . . . Yawning by day, and sleeplessness by night. Sensation as if falling from a height during sleep (this occurs especially with Thuja.). . . . Eructations of red pepper feel and taste :• sensation of cold water in stomach. Symptoms generally left sided ; for light-haired people : tendency to get fat : lax muscles : bloated skin. * * * Farrington speaks of the marked irritating properties of Capsicum, : it takes but little of the drug to produce irritation. He says it is eliminated through the kidneys* producing strangury with burning when passing water. He says it acts best on stoutish persons of lax fibre. Weak stomach, weak digestion, whole man weak. Adults and children alike are irritable and get angry : are worse from the least draught, even of warm air : clumsy. He is thirsty, yet drinking causes shivering. An unusual symptom : very offensive breath during cough. In diphtheria, carrion odour from the mouth. Throat feels spasmodically closed : worse when not swallowing. * * * Now for some extracts from Kent. He says : Most of the substances that are used on the table as seasonings in foods will in the course of a generation or two be very useful medicines, because parents poison themselves with these substances, tea, coffee, pepper, and tobacco (though tobacco cannot be said to be on the table, yet it might as well be if it is used at all), and these poisonous effects in the parents cause in the children a predis­ position to diseases, which are similar to the disease produced by these substances. ' In the fat, flabby, red-faced children of beer drinkers and pepper eaters, with poor reaction, a relaxed and flabby constitution, red face and varicose condition, those that have been over-stimulated, children of overstimulated men, we find the sphere for Capsicum very often. The face looks rosy, but is cold and not warm, and is seen to be studded with a fine system of capillaries. . . . Plump, round, w'ith no endurance, a false plethora, like Calc. End of nose red, cheeks red, redness over cheekbones, red eyes. These con­ stitutions react slowly after diseases, do not respond to remedies, are sluggish, tired, lazy. Schoolgirls who cannot study, and get home-sick. Gouty joints, stiff, clumsy, weak. . . . Chilly in the open air : worse for bathing. Mental state : home-sickness . . . oversensitive : sus­ picious : always looking out for an insult. Obstinate in the extreme : it is devilishness. If she wants a thing will oppose it, if suggested by someone else. Tormented by persistent thoughts of suicide. Headache : as if skull would split when moving head. Feeling as if skull would fly to pieces : holds head with hand. Head feels too large. As if brain would be pressed out and eyes pressed out on stooping. Capsicum has a peculiar action on the bones of the external ear and the mastoid process.* Abscesses round about and below the ear, and caries : petrous portion of the temporal bone necrosed. It has been a frequently indicated remedy in mastoid abscess which worries the old school doctors so much that they bore down and remove the cells for fear of basilar inflammation : a devilish practice, for, after they do all this and nearly kill the patient and spasms come on in spite of it all, the indicated remedy comes in and cures the patient, and the spasms, and the ear disease. Old catarrhs . . . when no reaction seems to come after the most carefully chosen remedies, and all at once the doctor wakens up to the realization that the patient has a red face, and it is cold, and the end of the nose is red and cold, and the patient is fat and flabby and has not much endurance ; never could learn at school : and if she exerts breaks out into a sweat and freezes in the cold air. . . . When he gives Capsicum to that patient it rouses her . . . it may not cure, but after it Silica or- Kali bich. or other remedy which was perhaps given before and did not act, takes hold and cures. . . . The parts you touch are loose and flabby, red, fat, and cold. Dysentery. After stool tenesmus and thirst, and drinking causes shuddering. . . . Haemorrhoids sting and pinch, as if pepper had been sprinkled on them . . . with plethora : plump, flabby ; sensitive to cold, red face. . . . Chronic hoarseness : and he is rotund, chilly, red-faced and the hoarseness disappears under Capsicum. Cough in sudden paroxysms, convulsing the whole body ; every cough jars the affected part. Stitches in the suffering part with the cough. * A girl has been seen at Hospital with a constant temperature of about ioo° since a mastoid operation some years agoA dose of Capsicum given after work­ ing on this Drug Picture has resulted in a normal temperature ever since, i.e. three months. 2o6