Capsicum annuum

Lax, lazy fat, red (Asaf.), clumsy, unclean persons (Sul.), who react badly and dread the cold. Old age. Indolent and can't think clearly. BURNING-SMARTING; tip of tongue; throat, stomach, stool, piles, prostate. SORENESS. Constriction; of throat, with urging to swallow. Dark, red, spongy mucous surfaces or oozing bloody mucus. Sprangling, thread-like pains (Cep.). Neuralgias. Deep abscess. Foul secretions. .................... Changeable. Capricious. Homesick. Splitting headache, > heat. Ears affected alternately. Mastoiditis. NOSE AND FACE RED, BUT COLD. Vesicles or flat, painful aphthæ. Tongue greenish at base. Swelled uvula. Increased saliva. Smoker's sorethroat. Craves stimulating, pungent things; wants a bracer. Dipsomania. Waterbrash. Acid dyspepsia. Small, hot, mucous stools, with tenesmus, also of bladder; then thirst and lumbar pain; < drinking. Dysentery. Urging to urinate. Strangury. Thick, white, creamy gonorrhœa. Cough causes distant pains, or raises foul air; too weak to cough out expectorate. Ribs seem dislocated. Sleepy after meals. Chilly; with the pains; begin in back; with violent thirst, but shivers from every drink; with excruciating backache; alternating with heats, mounting to head; then sweat. Coldness of affected parts. Sweats easily; cold on thighs.

SLIGHT DRAFTS. COLD: AIR. Water. Uncovering. Dampness. Bathing. Empty swallowing. Drinking: < throat, or excites urination. Eating. Drunkards.

Continued motion.

MUCOUS MEMBRANES. THROAT. Kidneys. Bones. Mastoids.

Complementary: Nat-m. Related: Canth.

Capsicum annuum

Cayenne Pepper. Solanaceae.

Persons with light hair, blue eyes, nervous but stout and plethoric habit.

Phlegmatic diathesis ; lack of reactive force, especially with fat people, easily exhausted ; indolent, dreads any kind of exercise; persons inclined to be jovial, yet get angry at trifles.

Children; dread open air; always chilly; refractory, clumsy, fat, dirty, and disinclined to work or think.

Desires to be let alone ; wants to lie down and sleep.

Homesickness (of the indolent, melancholic), with red cheeks and sleeplessness.

Constriction: in fauces; throat; nares; chest;

bladder; urethra; rectum.

8i

Burning and smarting sensation, as from cayenne pepper, in throat and other parts, not > by heat.

Tonsillitis: with burning, smarting pain; intense soreness ; constriction of throat with burning; inflamed, dark red, swollen.

The burning spasmodic constriction and other pains, worse between acts of deglutition (Ign.).

Painful swelling behind the ear (mastoid), extremely sore and sensitive to touch.

Every stool is followed by thirst and every drink by shuddering.

As the coldness of the body increases, so also does the ill-humor.

Nervous, spasmodic cough; in sudden paroxysms; as if head would fly to pieces.

With every explosive cough (and at no other time) there escapes a volume of pungent, fetid air.

Pain in distant parts on coughing (bladder, knees, legs, ears).

Puls.

Cina follows well in intermittent fever.

The constricting, burning, smarting pains differentiate from Apis and Belladonna.

Lecture XLI — Tabacum, Dulcamara, Capsicum and Glonoin

Capsicum Annuum.

Capsicum possesses few, if any, of the narcotic properties of the Solanaceae, but it has, highly marked, the irritating properties of the group in high degree; but little of the drug is required to produce this irritation. It is eliminated from the body through the kidneys, producing strangury with burning when passing water. This drug acts best in persons of lax fibre, rather stout in build, who do not respond readily to medicine because they are of lax fibre, and also because of impaired digestion.

The Capsicum patient has weak digestion or weak stomach, hence the whole man is weak. Such patients are irritable and easily angered. This is true of either adults or children. They are worse from the least draft of air, even though this air be warm. They are clumsy in their motions.

They are subject to chills and fever. The chill commences in the back. Although the patient is thirsty, yet drinking causes shivering. The Capsicum patient is subject to catarrhal asthma with red face and well-marked sibilant rales. He coughs, and a successful cough raises phlegm, which relieves the asthma.

Capsicum has a symptom of the chest not often met with in practice, and that is very offensive breath during the cough.

It also has a well-marked action on the ear, especially on the middle ear. It is of use in rupture of the membrana tympani from disease when there is soreness or inflammation of the mastoid process of the temporal bone.

For abscess of the mastoid process the preferable remedies are Aurum and Nit?ic acid.

For chronic suppuration of the middle ear you may think of Silicea. Capsicum is of importance in diseases of the throat. It is indicated in diphtheria or in gangrene of the throat when there are burning blisters in the roof of the mouth and when there is an odor from the mouth like that of carrion. The throat feels constricted as if spasmodically closed. The patient is worse when not swallowing and in extreme cases greatly prostrated.

The most similar remedy here is Cantharis.

Capsicum is also indicated in elongation of the uvula.

In dysentery it is indicated when the stools are frequent but small and attended with violent tenesmus and burning in both rectum and bladder. The stools are bloody and slimy and contain shaggy pieces. There is thirst, and yet drinking causes shuddering.

Glonoin.

Blood.

Glonoin. \ Trauma.

(^ Convulsions.

Glonoin or nitro-glycerine is considered in this part of the course of lectures on account of its symptomatic resemblance to Belladonna. It is a ver)' easy drug to study. Though its main point of attack is the blood, it does not affect the quality of that fluid so much as it does its circulation. It acts very quickly and very violently. The key-note to the whole symptomatology of the drug is expressed in this one sentence : "A tendency to sudden and violent irregula? ities of the circulation .

With that for our foundation we can easily work out the other symptoms. The symptoms which are traceable to the irregularities in the circulation are these : very characteristic, indeed, is a throbbing headache. The pain may be in the whole head, or it may be in the forehead, vertex, occiput or any one part of the head. This throbbing is not a mere sensation; it is an actual fact. It really seems as though the blood-vessels would burst, so violent is the congestive action of the drug. The throbbing is synchronous with every impulse of the heart. The blood seems to surge in one great current up the spine and into the head. The bloodvessels externally become distended. The external jugulars look like two tortuous cords, the carotids throb violently and are hard, tense and unyielding to pressure. The face is >deep red. This throbbing is either associated with dull, distressing ..aching or with sharp, violent pains.

We find Glo?ioi?i applicable to sunstroke, indicated either by the :symptoms already mentioned, or by symptoms which show that the prolonged congestion has produced depressing effects upon the brain. The face becomes rather pale, the pulse, which was at first full, grows soft and feeble, and the respiration labored. There is not as much pressure about the chest as about the medulla oblongata, thus interfering with the nerves of respiration. The eyes are often fixed. The patient may even be unconscious. Glonoin, then, we find to be our best remedy for the effects of heat, whether the trouble arises from the direct rays of the sun, from hot weather or from working in the intense heat of a furnace, as in the case of foundrymen and machinists. These effects of the sun or heat are not confined to the head alone, but may involve the whole body. Thus we note oppression of breathing, with palpitation of the heart and nausea and vomiting, with white coated tongue. This nausea is not gastric in origin, but cerebral, as under Rhus tox., Belladonna and Apomorphine. The appetite is gone; there is no desire for food; there is a horrible sunken feeling in the epigastrium, and often, too, diarrhoea. All these symptoms call for

Excessive peevishness. Homesickness, with sleeplessness and disposition to suicide. Wants to be let alone. Peppery disposition. Delirium tremens.

Cayenne Pepper Seems to suit especially persons of lax fiber, weak; diminished vital heat. A relaxed plethoric sluggish, cold remedy. Not much reactive force. Such persons are fat, indolent, opposed to physical exertion, averse to go outside of their routine, get homesick easily. General uncleanliness of body. Abstainers from accustomed alcoholics. It affects the mucous membranes, producing a sensation of constriction. Inflammation of petrous bone. Burning pains and general chilliness. Older people who have exhausted their vitality, especially by mental work, and poor living; blear-eyed appearance; who do not react. Fear of slightest draught. Marked tendency to suppuration in every inflammatory process. Prostration and feeble digestion of alcoholics. Myalgia, aching and jerking of muscles.

Better, while eating, from heat. Worse, open air, uncovering, draughts.

Bursting headache; worse, coughing. Hot face. Red cheeks. Face red, though cold (Asafaet).

Burning and stinging in ears. Swelling and pain behind ears. Inflammation of mastoid. Tenderness over the petrous bone; extremely sore and tender to touch (Onosmod). Otorrhœa and mastoid disease before suppuration.

Herpes labialis (Apply one drop of the mother tincture). Stomatitis. Disagreeable smell from mouth. Fetid odor from mouth.

Hot feeling in fauces. Subacute inflammation of Eustachian tube with great pain. Pain and dryness in throat extending to the ears. Sore throat of smokers and drinkers. Smarting in; constriction. Burning constriction worse between acts of deglutition. Inflamed uvula and palate; swollen and relaxed.

Burning in tip of tongue. Atonic dyspepsia. Much flatulence, especially in debilitated subjects. Intense craving for stimulants. Vomiting, sinking at pit of stomach. Much thirst; but drinking causes shuddering.

Bloody mucus, with burning and tenesmus; drawing pain in back after stool. Thirsty after stool, with shivering. Bleeding piles, with soreness of anus. Stinging pain during stool.

Strangury, frequent, almost ineffectual urging. Burning in orifice. Comes first in drops, then in spurts; neck of bladder spasmodically contracted. Ectropion of meatus.

Coldness of scrotum, with impotency, atrophied testicles, loss of sensibility in testicles, with softening and dwindling. Gonorrhœa, with chordee, excessive burning, pain in prostate.

Climacteric disturbances with burning of tip of tongue (Lathyrus). Uterine hæmorrhage near the menopause, with nausea. Sticking sensation in left ovarian region.

Constriction of chest; arrests breathing Hoarseness. Pain at apex of heart or in rib region, worse touch. Dry, hacking cough, expelling an offensive breath from lungs. Dyspnœa. Feels as if chest and head would fly to pieces. Explosive cough. Threatening gangrene of lung. Pain in distant parts on coughing-bladder, legs, ears, etc.

Pain from hips to feet. Sciatica, worse bending backward; worse, coughing. Tensive pain in the knee.

Coldness, with ill-humor. Shivering after drinking. Chill begins in back; better, heat. Must have something hot to back. Thirst before chill.

Antidote: Cina; Calad. Compare: Pulsat; Lycop; Bell; Centaurea (surging of blood; homesickness; intermittent fever).

Third to sixth attenuation. In delirium tremens, dram doses of tincture in milk or tincture or orange peel.

Capsicum

Most of the substances that are used on the table as seasoning in foods will in the course of a generation or two be very useful medicines because people poison themselves with these substances, tea, coffee, pepper, and these poisonous effects in the parents cause in the children a predisposition to disease, which is similar to the disease produced by these substances.

In the fat, flabby, red-raced 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 over stimulated men, we find the sphere of Capsicum very often.

Mind: In those constitutions in which the face looks rosy, but it is cold or not warm, and upon close examination the face is seen to be studded with a fine system of capillaries. Plump and round, with no endurance, a false plethora like Cal.

The end of the nose is red, the cheeks are red, redness over the cheeks, red eyes, easily relaxed individuals. These constitutions react slowly after diseases and do not respond to remedies, a sluggish state, a tired, lazy constitution. In school girls who cannot study or work, who get home-sick and want to go home. In gouty constitutions, with cracking of the joints and gouty deposits in the joints, stiff joints, clumsy, weak, give out soon. There is sluggishness of the whole economy. They are chilly patients, are sensitive to air, and what to be in a warm room. Even in the ordinary weather the open air causes chilliness. They are sensitive to cold and to bathing.

In the mental state there is no more striking thing than this symptom: homesickness. A sickness like homesickness runs through the remedy and is accompanied by red cheeks and sleeplessness, hot feeling in the fauces, fearfulness. They are oversensitive to impressions, are always looking for an offence or slight; always suspicious and looking for an insult.

Obstinate to the extreme; it is a devilishness. Even if she wants a certain thing she will oppose it if is proposed by some one else. After emotions red cheeks, yet with the red cheeks lack of heat, even with increased temperature; or one cheek pale and the other red, or the cheeks alternate red and pale. Children are clumsy and awkward. The Capsicum mind is almost overwhelmed by persistent thoughts of suicide. He does not want to kill himself, he resists the thoughts, and yet they persist, and he is tormented by these thoughts.

There are persistent thoughts in many remedies, and it is necessary to distinguish between impulses and desires.

If he desires to have a rope or a knife to commit suicide, that is altogether different from an impulse to commit suicide.

An impulse is sometimes overwhelming and overbalances the mind, and he commits suicide. You should always find out from a patient whether he loathes life and wants to die, or if he has impulses which he wishes to put aside. Some persons lie awake at night and long for death, and there is no reason for it. That is a state of the will, insanity of the will.

In another patient the thoughts jump into his mind and he cannot put them aside, and the thoughts are tormenting. The distinguishing feature of the remedy is often found by differentiating between the two. Desires are of the will; impulses come into the thoughts.

Head: Headaches as if the skull would split when moving the head, when walking or coughing. Feeling as if the head would fly to pieces; holds the head with the hand. Feeling as if the head were large, aggravated by coughing and stepping, ameliorated by lying with the head high.

Bursting pain and throbbing. Headache with pulsation in the forehead and temples. Headache as if the brain would be pressed through the forehead. On stooping, feeling as if the brain would be pressed out, as if the red eyes would be pressed out on stooping.

The senses are disturbed and are overacute; oversensitiveness to noise, smells, taste and touch, to impressions, to insults. The patient is excited.

Ears: Pains in the ears; itching pain; aching, pressing pain with cough, as if an abscess would burst. It has a peculiar action on the bones of the internal ear and mastoid process. Abscesses round about and below the car and caries; petrous portion of temporal bone necrosed. It has been a frequently indicated remedy in mastoid abscess.

Nose: Old catarrhs. The patient takes cold in the nose and throat and this is followed by a collection of mucus. Very often in stupid patients it is difficult to get symptoms, and you must depend on what you see, the character of the discharge and a few other things, and you will find that some of these cases will be cured and all the other symptoms will go away; but in some of these old catarrhs no reaction seems to come after the most carefully chosen remedies, and all at once the doctor observes 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 yet has not much endurance, never could learn at school, and if she exerts breaks out into a sweat and freezes in the cold air.

He has a key to the patient and examines the patient by the key, that is, by the drug, a mad practice and never to be resorted to except as a dernier resort and in stupid patients. When he gives Capsicum to that patient it arouses her, it may not cure; but after it the Silicea or Kali bich. or other remedy which was perhaps given before and did not act takes hold and cures.

In the text it says, "Nose red and hot." The skin all over is red and burning, a capillary congestion.

Face: The cheeks are red and hot, and this alternates with paleness. Red dots on the face. Pains in the face like bone pains, from external touch. Pains are worse from touch. Pain in the zygoma, or the zygoma is sensitive. Sensitive to pressure over the mastoid. Swelling in the region of the mastoid.

Taste foul like putrid water. When coughing the air from the lungs causes a pungent offensive taste in the mouth. A hot pungent air comes up from the throat, tasting foul when coughing. On the tongue and lips, flat, sensitive, spreading ulcers with lardaceous base. The mucous membrane of the lips and various parts of the body if pinched up with the fingers remain in the raised position, showing a sluggish circulation. This is the flabbiness of Capsicum. It wrinkles on pressure. It is a feeble circulation. The parts you touch are loose and flabby, red, fat and cold. That child will not react well if it has measles, until it gets Capsicum.

The skin is moist and cold, and there is a fine measly condition of the skin due to capillary congestion. If the child is old enough, it will complain of feeling cold. There is slow reaction after eruptive diseases, after glandular diseases, after bowel complaints. The child was fat and flabby, but now does not take on flesh. He takes cold in the throat and nose, and the throat looks as if it would bleed, it is so red, a fine rash-like appearance - it is puffed, discolored, purple, mottled, flabby and spongylooking; dark red. Burning soreness with ulceration in the fauces. Uvula elongated. Stitching in throat. Enlarged tonsils, inflamed, large and spongy.

The throat remains sore a long time after a cold or sore throat. Burning, pressing pain in the throat, the throat dark red; relaxed sore throat; pain on swallowing, dysphagia. Throat sluggish for weeks, a do-nothing state, does not get very bad, but gets no better, a lack of reaction. When the chill begins there is thirst. Thirst after every dysenteric stool, a sudden carving for icecold water, which causes chilliness. Craving for water before the chill and when taken it hastens the chill; it feels cold in the stomach. He desires something warm, something stimulating, craves pungent things. This is seen in whisky drinkers; they crave pepper, and the pepper, on the other hand, turns round and craves whisky. These diffusable stimulants crave some stimulating thing, crave support. Dipsomania.

Let me give you a hint in Arsenic. In dipsomania the sinners who have been drinking a great many drinks in a day sometimes get to that state in which they must get up during the night for a drink or they will not be able to get up in the morning.

In the morning the first three or four drinks will be thrown up, but the next one will stay down; they must take a number until one sticks. They have got to that state in which they must keep on taking it. If they sleep too long the first few drinks will come up, and so they must get up in the night or the whisky will not stay down in the morning until they have taken a number of drinks.

You will see this in lawyers who do a great amount of work on stimulants. Nux, Ars., and Caps. will do something for them if they will cooperate with you. I remember saying to one old toper, who had kept up altogether on champagne, that he would have to stop it. He whined, "I don't think it is worth while."

If he could not get his champagne he didn't think life worth living. if these people want to get benefit they must co-operate.

Abdomen: 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.