Digitalis purpurea

Pain in left side apparently in descending colon and under false ribs. Severe abdominal pains, pulsation in abdominal aorta, and epigastric constriction. Enlarged, sore, painful liver.

A person with an enlarged liver, with a slow pulse, with jaundice and pale and stool. With that he will have a troublesome cough. Digitalis is not much of a remedy for a cough unless it is a cardiac cough. Cough at midnight. Cough, with expectoration of "boiled starch." Cough, with expectoration of bloody mucus in hypostatic congestion of the lungs. Cough, brought on by talking, walking, drinking anything cold, bending the body. These are coughs associated with other troubles. Respiration: The same thing is to be said of the respiration. There are difficulties of respiration, along with cardiac troubles and liver troubles. "Respiration irregular and performed with great difficulty. Constant desire to take a deep breath. When he goes to sleep the breath seems to fade away, then he wakes up with a gasp. Lachesis, Phosphorus, Carbo veg. and some other remedies have that; remedies that affect the cerebellum particularly, producing a congestion of the cerebellum. When a patient goes to sleep the cerebrum says to the cerebellum: "Now you carry on this breathing a little while, I am getting tired." But the cerebellum is not equal to the occasion. It is congested, and just as soon as the cerebrum begins to rest the cerebellum goes to sleep, too, and lets the patient suffer; and in that way we get suffocation. The cerebellum presides over respiration during sleep and the cerebrum presides over respiration when the patient is awake. We might learn that from the provings of medicines if we never found it before. "Fear of suffocation at night." Now, to analyze that. He knows from experience that every time he drops into a sleep he suffocates, and hence he fears to go to sleep for fear he will suffocate. The fear of suffocation at night is from this origin. It is the same if he falls asleep in the day time. "Can only breathe in gasps." Digitalis is a useful medicine when there is a filling up of the lower part of thy lungs. The patient is sitting up in bed, and there is dullness in the lower part of each lung and plenty of resonance in the upper portion. Then it is, if he lies down, he will suffocate. Digitalis likes mostly to lie flat on the back with no pillow, when there is no filling up of the lungs. But when there is hypostatic congestion he suffocates. If early in the case the pulse was slow and it has become fast, Digitalis may be of some benefit. Urinary organs: Now, a feature in connection with the genito-urinary organs. In old cases of enlarged prostate gland I do not know what I would do without Digitalis. Where there is a constant teasing to pass urines. In many instances where the catheter has been used for months or years because he is unable to pass urine in a natural way, and where there is a residuary urine in old bachelors and old men, Digitalis is a good remedy. It diminishes the size of the prostate gland and has many times cured. "Dropsy with suppression of urine." In uraemic poisoning and in various phases of Bright's disease of the kidneys we have symptoms indicating Digitalis. Retention of urine; dribbling of urine. Spermatorrhea, Nightly emission. In persons addicted for years to secret vices. Enlarged prostate gland. It is capable of curing chronic gonorrhoea. It has cured acute gonorrhea. It has cured inflammation of that thin, delicate membrane covering the glans penis. Dropsical swelling of the genitals. Food: "Loss of appetite and violent thirst." Most doctors give Sulphur when the patient drinks much and eats little. The nausea of Digitalis is not like that of Ipecac. and Bryonia. It is a singular nausea. The smell of food excites a deathly nausea, a sinking, a goneness, associated with cardiac troubles, with Jaundice and liver troubles. The nausea is accompanied by a deathly feeling, as if be is sinking away. Sometimes the nausea is relieved by eating, but the sinking remains after eating, showing that it is something besides hunger. "Persistent nausea. Extreme sensitiveness, in the pit of the stomach. Faintness and sinking in the pit of the stomach as if be would die. No appetite, but great thirst. Soreness and hardness in the region of the liver. Sensitiveness to pressure in the region of the liver." Now remember the liver and the heart symptoms, the jaundice, the slow pulse, the awful sinking in the stomach, the enlargement of the prostate gland, the gray stool, and you have the principal symptoms of Digitalis. After all that I have said you are not surprised at the horrible anxiety that the Digitalis patient carries with him all the time. He wants to be alone; sadness, melancholy, despondency and restlessness. He canít decide upon anything that be ought to do; tremulousness. The stomach, bowel and liver troubles are just what you see sometimes in a hard drinker after trying to break off. He is prostrated; his heart gives out, is irregular, weak, slow; and he has sadness and melancholy; inability to apply himself. Digitalis will help him straighten out.