Phytolacca decandra

A remedy of long and deep action. SORE, HARD ACHE, all over; sudden; < eyeballs, kidneys, neck, shoulders, back, forearms and below knees. Restlessness. Bluish-red parts, fauces, glands, etc. Spreading pains. Rheumatism; after tonsilitis. Shreddy, stringy secretions; stools, menses, etc. Hard mammary glands. Obesity. .................... Faint on rising. Frontal headache. Head feels beaten sore; < brain. Hot tears. Green vision. Nose seems heavy. Nostrils close alternately. Acrid coryza. Yellowish sickly face. Aching, malar bones. Glands swelled at angle of jaw. Jaws ache, as in mumps. Everted lips. Clenches teeth. Tongue, fiery red at tip; feels burnt or pains at root and into ear on swallowing. Much stringy saliva. White-gray spots on fauces. Mucous patches. THROAT; very sore; very painful swallowing; dark, puffy; burning, as of a stick, hot ball or lump in. Like dark wash leather on tonsil. Tonsilitis. Diphtheria. Hard throb in r. tonsil. Quinsy. Violent retching and vomiting; he would rather die. Continuous urging to stool; even during sleep. Dysentery. Hard ache in kidneys. Dark, red urine; chalky sediment. Albuminuria. Sore spermatic cords. Menstruation, with flow of saliva and tears. Chronic aphonia. Dry, tickling cough. STONY HARD, HEAVY, SWELLED (< left) OR TENDER MAMMÆ, paining during suckling, spreading over whole body; hard nodes in. Mastitis. Nipples cracked; inverted. Heart symptoms go to r. arm. Fatty heart. Neck stiff. Right arm numb and fuzzy. Hips and thighs pain on change of weather. Aching tibiæ. Syphilis. Aching heels, > elevating feet. Bone pains. Dry, harsh skin.

Raising up. Motion. Swallowing. Hot drinks. Heat. Cold: Damp. Night. Change of weather.

Lying on abdomen. Cold drinks.

Glands: MAMMÆ. Naso-pharynx. Throat. Tonsils. Muscles. Fibrous tissues: NECK. Back. Tendons. Joints. Periosteum. Kidneys. Tongue (Root). Digestive tract. Right side.

Complementary: Sil. Related: Bry. Kali-bi. Kali-io. Merc. Rhus-t.

Phytolacca decandra

Poke Root. Phytolaccaceae.

Patients of a rheumatic diathesis; rheumatism of fibrous and periosteal tissue ; mercurial or syphilitic.

Emaciation, chlorosis ; loss of fat.

Great exhaustion and profound prostration.

Occupies a position between Bryonia and Rhus ; cures when these fail, though apparently well indicated.

In rheumatism and neuralgia after diphtheria, gonorrhoea, mercury or syphilis.

Pain flying like electric shocks; shooting, lancinating; rapidly shifting (Lac c.. Puls.) ; worse from motion and at night.

Entire indifference to life; sure she will die.

Vertigo; when rising from bed feels faint (Bry.).

Intense headache and backache; lame, sore bruised feeling all over; constant desire to move but motion < pains (Lac c., Mer. — motion >, Rhus).

Irresistible desire to bite the teeth or gums together (Pod.) ; during dentition.

Sore throat; of a dark red color; uvula large, dropsical, almost translucent (Kali bi., Rhus).

Diphtheria : pains shoot from throat into ears on swallowing; great pain at root of tongue when swallowing; burning, as from a coal of fire or a red-hot iron; dryness; difficult to swallow with trembling of the hands; sensation of a lump in the throat with continuous desire to swallow; tonsils, uvula and back part of throat covered with ash-colored membrane; cannot drink hot fluids (Each.).

Carotid and submaxillary glands indurated, after diphtheria, scarlet fever.

Mammae full of hard, painful nodosities.

Breast; shows an early tendency to cake; is full, stony, hard and painful, especially when suppuration is inevitable; when child nurses pain goes from nipple all over body (goes to back, Crot. t. ; to uterus. Puls., Sil.).

Mammary abscess ; pstulce^ gaping, angry idcers; pus sanious, ichorous, fetid; unhealthy.

Tumefied breast neither heals nor suppurates, is of a purple hue and “hard as old cheese” (Bry., Lac c., Phel.).

Nipples, sensitive, sore, fissured (Graph.) ; < intensely by nursing, pain radiates over whole body.

Hastens suppuration (Hep., Lach., Men, Sil.).

Aggravation.. — When it rains; exposure to damp, cold weather. Compare : Kali i. its analogue.

Loss of personal delicacy, disregard of surrounding objects. Indifferent to life.

Poke-root Aching, soreness, restlessness, prostration, are general symptoms guiding to Phytolacca. Pre-eminently a glandular remedy. Glandular swellings with heat and inflammation. Has a powerful effect on fibrous and osseous tissues; fasciæ and muscle sheaths; acts on scar tissue. Syphilitic bone pains; chronic

rheumatism. Sore throat, quinsy, and diphtheria. Tetanus and opisthotonos. Decrease of weight. Retarded dentition.

Worse, sensitive to electric changes. Effects of a wetting, when it rains, exposure to damp, cold weather, night exposure, motion, right side. Better, warmth, dry weather, rest.

Vertigo on rising. Brain feels sore. Pain from frontal region backward. Pressure in temples and over eyes. Rheumatism of scalp; pains come on every time it rains. Scaly eruption on scalp.

Smarting. Feeling of sand under lids. Tarsal edges feel hot. Fistula lachrymalis (Fluor ac). Abundant lachrymation, hot.

Coryza; flow of mucus from one nostril and from posterior nares.

Teething children with irresistible desire to bite the teeth together. Teeth clenched; lower lip drawn down; lips everted; jaws firmly set; chin drawn down on sternum. Tongue red tip, feels rough and scalded; bleeding from mouth; blisters on side. Mapped, indented, fissured, with yellow patch down center. Much stringy saliva.

Dark red or bluish red. Much pain at root of tongue; soft palate and tonsils swollen. Sensation of a lump in throat (Bell; Lach). Throat feels rough, narrow, hot. Tonsils swollen, especially right; dark-red appearance. Shooting pain into ears on swallowing. Pseudo-membranous exudation, grayish white; thick, tenacious yellowish mucus, difficult to dislodge. Cannot swallow anything hot (Lach). Tension and pressure in parotid gland. Ulcerated sore throat and diphtheria; throat feels very hot; pain at root of tongue extending to ear. Uvula large, dropsical. Quinsy; tonsils and fauces swollen, with burning pain; cannot swallow even water. Mumps. Follicular pharyngitis.

Sore spot in right hypochondrium. Rheumatism of abdominal muscles. Colic at navel. Burning griping pains. Bruised feeling through epigastrium and abdomen. Constipation of the aged and those with weak heart. Bleeding from rectum.

Scanty, suppressed, with pain in kidney region. Nephritis.

Painful induration of testicles. Shooting along perineum to penis.

Mastitis; mammæ hard and very sensitive. Tumors of the breasts with enlarged axillary glands. Cancer of breast. Breast is hard, painful and of purple hue. Mammary abscess. When child nurses, pain goes from nipple all over body. Cracks and small ulcers about nipples. Irritable breasts, before and during menses. Galactorrhœa (Calc). Menses too copious and frequent. Ovarian neuralgia of right side.

Aphonia. Difficult breathing; dry hacking, tickling cough; worse at night (Mentha; Bellad). Aching pains in chest, through mid-sternum; with

cough. Rheumatism of lower intercostals.

Feeling as if heart leaped into throat (Pod). Shock of pain in cardiac region alternating with pain in right arm.

Aching pains in lumbar region; pains streaking up and down spine into sacrum. Weakness and dull pain in region of kidneys. Back stiff, especially in morning on rising and during damp weather.

Shooting pain in right shoulder, with stiffness and inability to raise arm (see Heart). Rheumatism pains; worse in morning. Pains fly like electric shocks, shooting, lancinating, shifting rapidly (Puls; Kali bich). Pain in under side of thighs. Syphilitic sciatica. Aching of heels; relieved by elevating feet. Pains like shocks. Pain in legs, patient dreads to get up. Feet puffed; pain in ankles and feet. Neuralgia in toes.

Itches, becomes dry, shrunken, pale. Papular and pustular lesions. Most useful in early stages of cutaneous diseases. Disposition to boils, and when sloughing occurs. Squamous eruptions. Syphilitic eruptions. Swelling and induration of glands. Venereal buboes. Scarlatina-like rash. Warts and moles.

High fever, alternating with chilliness and great prostration.

Compare: Tincture of Phytolacca Berry (sore throats and in the treatment of obesity); Bry; Rhus; Kali hyd; Merc; Sang; Arum triph. Inimical: Mercur. Antidotes: Milk and salt; Bellad; Mezer.

Tincture, to third potency. Externally for mastitis.

Phytolacca

This is a very imperfectly proved remedy, and it is only possible to present fragments of it. The mental symptoms have not been brought out, but the remedy has some striking features. You will notice the resemblance of this drug to Mercury, and it is an antidote to mercury. In those lingering mercurial bone pains, where the patient has been salivated; the pains come on at night from the warmth of the bed; the body aches; a chronic, sore, bruised state; soreness of the periosteum where the flesh is thin, over the tibia; joints; soreness of the muscles; drawing and cramping; drawing in the muscles of the back; backache, worse at night; worse from the warmth of the bed.

The patient suffers from these symptoms in cold, damp weather, as in Mercury. Tendency to ulceration, hence its usefulness in syphilis; old, chronic, syphilitic ulcers; the patient has been salivated; had Mercury rubbed in; he became saturated with it, but it no longer helps. Ulcers in the throat; on the skin; on mucous membranes anywhere.

Spasmodic conditions; drawing in the muscles; this may extend to violent spasms; opisthotonos; sometimes the cervical region is affected and the head is drawn back; jerking and twitching of the muscles.

Glands: Phytolacca is a glandular remedy. The glands become inflamed, and hard. It produces sore throats, with inflammation of the glands of the neck, particularly the sub maxillary and parotid. Inflammation of the throat with the accumulation of thick, tenacious mucus; swelling of the tonsils. Low grade inflammation like erysipelas.

The symptoms are aggravation at night, on cold days, in a cold room, and from the heat of the bed; so that there is a controversy between heat and cold.

It seems that the remedy centres in the mammary glands. Soreness and lumps in the breasts from each cold, damp spell; becomes chilled and a sore breast results; sore breast in connection with the menses; a nursing woman is exposed to the cold, the breast inflames and the milk becomes stringy; coagulated milk. This comes out in the proving, but poke root has been extensively used by cattle raisers when the cow's milk became thick and there were lumps in the bag, and when the condition was brought on from the cow standing out in the rain. Almost any excitement centers in the mammary gland; fear or an accident; lumps form, pains, heat, swelling, tumefaction; even violent inflammation and suppuration. No other remedy in the Materia Medica centres so in the mammary gland. Mercury is similar; when the patient takes cold the glands become sore. If every tribulation makes the glands sore in a nursing woman, give her Phytolacca.

When a mother says she has no milk, or that the milk is scanty, thick, unhealthy; dries up soon; Phytolacca becomes then a constitutional remedy if there are no contra-indicating symptoms. A bloody watery discharge which continued for five years after weaning the infant was cured by Phyto. The breast is so sore that, when she nurses the child, she almost goes into spasms, with the pain extending down the back and limbs all over the body.

Diphtheria. In certain epidemics; great tumefaction of the throat; swelling of the glands of the neck, parotid and sub maxillary; aching in the bones; fetor from the mouth, with heavily coated tongue; great aching in the back; nose bleed; soreness of the muscles.

Analogous to Mercurius; they are closely related in diphtheria. At times in diphtheria we can only obtain the fetor, loaded tongue, exudation, swollen glands and stiff neck.

This looks like Mercurius or one of the Mercuries. The Protoiodide is right sided, and stays there or may go to the left side. The Biniodide goes from left to right. The Merc. cyanide has a thick, green membranous cast, extending from the nose to the throat. In Phytolacca we have many features of Mercury.

It has cured syphilitic nodes on the skull and shin bones.

Skin: Many eruptions.

"Squamous eruptions; Pityriasis, psoriasis." "Ringworm."

"Barber's itch."

"Rash on body; measles; scarlet eruptions all over the body."

It is not surprising that it cures scarlatina, as it has this scarlet rash, the sore throat and glandular involvement.

It has the ability to delay the formation of malignant growths, especially in the breast; glandular tumors that become hard and scirrhous. Until this remedy was known there was but one remedy for the old cicatrices in the mammary gland. Women who were confined years before, had abscesses of the breast which were poulticed and lanced had a cicatrix left, and now in the present confinement they have trouble; inflammation in the old cicatrices; ulceration which eats off the lacteal glands or turns the ducts aside and twists them; high inflammation - throbbing and pain; milk bloody. Graphites was the old routine remedy, but Phytolacca, is a better remedy and suits the general concomitants oftener. The symptoms usually found in an inflamed breast after confinement are: aching in the back and bone pains; fever and shivering.

Phytolacca has these and falls into the very nature of the case. Graphites has it only in a limited way. if there is high fever; congestion to the head; throbbing carotids; much redness, and the redness radiates from the nipple, Belladonna is the remedy.

When the entire gland is as heavy as a stone, and hard, and the patient is sensitive to motion and touch, Bryonia. Mercury when the general symptoms agree. Hepar and Silicea after suppuration is inevitable, especially when the only comfort is obtained from heat. Hepar when there is extreme pain and soreness, irritability and this relief from heat; it limits the extent of the suppuration and opens the part without pain.

Nose: The most distressing, lingering, inveterate, old catarrhs with destruction of the bones of the nose.

"Total obstruction of the nose: when riding, must breathe through the mouth."

"Coryza and cough, with redness of eyes and lachrymation; photophobia; feeling of sand in the eyes, with soreness and burning."

"Syphilitic ozaena, with bloody, sanious discharge and disease of bone."

"Noli me tangere and cancerous affections of nose."

It is somewhat like Graphites, in that it seeks out fissures in which to establish inflammation, induration and eruptions. Where the circulation is feeble it has the tendency to establish induration. "Face sunken, pale, hippocratic; blue around eyes; yellowish complexion; looking blue and suffering .

Pains in bones of head and face at night." "Swelling around left ear and side of face like erysipelas; thence over scalp; very painful." "Lips everted and firm. Tetanus."

"Ulcers on lips."

"Parotid and sub maxillary glands swollen." "Tongue thickly coated on back; coated yellow and dry."

This is found in all acute complaints and is like Mercury. Phytolacca holds a reputation among the Eclectics, and in their results we see a shadow of its homeopathic action. In Cincinnati they used three drops in a tumbler of water and gave it for ulcers in the mouth. It was a standard remedy with them and they made some homoeopathic cures.

"Ulcerated sore mouth."

Syphilitic ulcers find a curative remedy in Phytolacca, when the symptoms agree.

Throat: There are several pages in the Guiding Symptoms showing homeopathic cures of the throat; diphtheria; sore throat; inflamed glands; aching bones worse at night, violent cases, with difficult swallowing, pains in the tonsils; enlarged tonsils; tendency to slough. Syphilitic and mercurial sore throats. The sore throats are often aggravated from warm drinks; he wants cool things; and there is an aggravation at night. Here is a summary:

"Diphtheria; sick and dizzy when trying to sit up; frontal headache; pains shooting from throat into ears, especially on trying to swallow; face flushed; tongue much coated, protruded; thickly coated at back, fiery red at tip; breath foetid; putrid; vomiting; difficulty of swallowing; tonsils swollen, covered with membrane, first upon left; three or four patches; tonsils, uvula and back part of throat covered with ash-colored exudation. Pain in the root 'of the tongue on putting out."

Pains: Old gout and rheumatism of the limbs; in acute rheumatism which is prolonged, worse at night, worse from the warmth of the bed, worse from warm applications.

Gouty rheumatism; syphilitic cases; pains as if in the bones.

"Sharp cutting pains in hip, drawing; legs drawn up; cannot touch floor."

"Syphilitic or gonorrheal sciatica, etc." "Ulcers and nodes on the legs."

A certain class of physicians used to call Podophyllum "vegetable Mercury."

Phytolacca ought to be called "vegetable Mercury" because it is so full of symptoms analogous to Mercury.