Antidote: Everywhere in this remedy we observe the striking oversensitiveness of the patient; it is brought out in all the symptoms.
Irritable; oversensitive to noise, to light, to the least current of air, to his surroundings; extremely touchy in regard to his food; many kinds of food disturb, strong foods disturb; he is aggravated by meat; craves stimulants, pungent, bitter, succulent things, something to brace him up.
Oversensitive to medicines. One reason why there are so many Nux vomica patients is because people have been overdrugged by the old school. When a patient comes from the old school and had prescribing, having had stimulants and tonics to brace him up, wine and stimulants of all sorts, it is sometimes impossible to get reliable symptoms, to get the patient settled down, until we give Nux vomica as an antidote.
It is useful in those over-drugged by tea, coffee, wine. Old coffee drinkers become sensitive, oversensitive to noise, their symptoms are flitting; they do not give their symptoms well. Such patients will do well for a few days on Nux; some of their symptoms will drop out and they will settle down.
Mind: The mental state is varied, but they all show oversensitiveness irritable, touchy, sensitive conditions.
They are never contented, never satisfied; disturbed by their surroundings, and the become irritable, so that they want to tear things, to scold. Impulses are strongly marked at times. The woman has impulses to destroy her husband or to throw her child into the fire; the impulse is intermingled with violent temper, cannot be contradicted or opposed; if a chair is in the way he kicks it over; if, while undressing, a part of his clothing should catch on a button he would pull it off because he is so mad at it. (Like Acid nitricum).
An uncontrollable state of irritability; it is a weakness and is accompanied by physical weakness; a lack of balance. For example, a business man has been at his desk until he is tired out, he receives many letters, he has a great many irons in the fire; he is troubled with a thousand little things; his mind is constantly hurried from one thing to another until be is tortured. It is not so much the heavy affairs but the little things. He is compelled to stimulate his memory to attend to all the details; he goes home and thinks about it; be lies awake, at night; his mind is confused with the whirl of business and the affairs of the day crowd upon him; finally brain fag comes on.
When the details come to him be gets angry and wants to get away, tears things up, scolds, goes home and takes it out of his family and children. Sleeps by fits and starts; wakens at 3 A.M., and his business affairs crowd on him so that he cannot sleep again until late in the morning when he falls into a fatiguing sleep and wakens up tired and exhausted. He wants to sleep late in the morning.
Melancholy, sadness, but all the time he feels as if he could fly to pieces, jerks things about, tears things up; wants to force things his own way. Driven by impulses to commit acts that verge upon insanity – the destruction of others. Natr. sul. has a strong impulse to destroy himself. Argentum nitr., also, particularly by jumping from a height, but he avoids placing himself in such a position.
He is oversensitive to the open air, to a draft of air; always chilly, always taking cold and it settles in the nose and extends to the chest.
Skin oversensitive to touch, to draft. Full of pains and aches. He sweats easily on the slightest provocation. Brain fag, fatigue, neuralgias; on the verge of insanity and this goes on to convulsions. Convulsions of single muscles and those of the whole body; muscular twitchings; weakness, trembling, and paralysis. This paralytic weakness and disordered state of the activity of the muscles and nerves are prominent.
Another state running through Nux vomica is that actions are turned in opposite directions. When the stomach is sick, it will empty its contents with no great effort ordinarily, but in Nux vomica there is retching and straining as if the action were going the wrong way, as if it would force the abdomen open; a reversed action; retches, gags, and strains and after a prolonged effort he finally empties the stomach.
The same condition is found in the bladder. He must strain to urinate. There is tenesmus, urging. The bladder is full and the urine dribbles away, yet when he strains it ceases to dribble. In regard to the bowels, though the patient strains much, he passes but a scanty stool.
In the diarrhea at times when he sits on the commode in a perfectly passive way, there will be a little squirt of stool, and then comes on tenesmus so that he cannot stop straining, and when he does strain there comes on the sensation of forcing back; the stool seems to go back; a kind of anti-peristalsis.
In constipation the more he strains the harder it is to pass a stool. In diarrhea and dysentery there is straining without relief, but as soon as he passes a little stool there is relief. In dysentery, Mercurius has the constant urging; Mercurius cor. tenesmus with great desire to urinate.
Pains: The reversed action of the various functions shows the spasmodic nature of this remedy. Pains shoot from the rectum up; burning.
Neuralgias about the eyes, face, and head; neuralgic headaches the pains stick, and tear; they cause weeping, fainting; they burn and sting. Pains in the head and face and in the extremities, that sting and tear, but especially draw. Sensation of tension in the muscles. A drawing in the back like a pulling or tension in the muscles.
The pain feels as if drawing, a spasm of the muscles; a drawing pain in the back; drawing pain in the back of the neck, forcing the patient to let the head go back; drawing pain down the spine; lumbago. Backache worse as soon as she lies down (pregnancy) as if it would break (Bryonia, Phos – as if broken, Kali carb.) must get up and walk.
Neuritis with great soreness of skin. Pains in the regions of the kidneys and liver. Pains draw so that he cannot turn over in bed, and the only way he can get over is to lift himself up by his hands and then turn over and lie down. Drawing pains in the sacrum and hips; drawing pains in the sacrum in connection with dysentery. Rending pains in the bowels and every pain causes desire for stool. Such is the characteristic of all the abdominal pains.
Drawing pains in the extremities causing spasms in the calves, feet, and toes. Cramps in the abdomen cause desire for stool; after pains in the form of cramps urge to stool; menstrual colic, with urging to stool; pains in the stomach, after eating, urge to stool. After much straining no stool passes, but after going several times a small stool passes with relief. It is scanty and with reversed peristaltic action.
Oversensitive to stimulants. It ii a routine remedy in men trying to sober up; even in delirium tremens. Old debauchees, broken down with stimulants sexual excesses and the worry and fret of business; they work half an hour and then go out and get a drink, and this goes on until finally they must give up, go home and go to bed. He is on the verge of insanity, irritable, fatigued, sweats much, is aggravated. from the air, sensitive to noise and light; broken down. He must have Nux vomica, rest and no stimulants.
In those drinking too much tea, coffee and stimulants, they stay awake day and night until the end must come; there is tension in all the nerves; he feels as if he must fly, as if he could no longer hold together; his muscles and hands tremble; there is jerking of the limbs on going to sleep and in sleep.
Full of anxiety, despair, and hypochondriasis;
“oversensitive to impressions; “all the senses are in this condition; cannot bear reading or conversation; irritable, and wishes to be alone.”
Everybody displeases or does something to annoy him. Everybody that attempts to soothe only angers him. He dreads the business affairs of the day. Finally this state comes on: “he quarrels, reproaches, scolds, insults from jealousy, mingled with unchaste expressions; soon afterwards howls and weeps aloud.”
Patient is broken down sexually because he is unusually endowed with sexual desires and he indulges until broken down; sexually exhausted, impotent. Mental erethism but relaxation on intromission. Driven to suicide.
Nux vomica is an old dyspeptic, lean, hungry, withered; bent forward; premature age; always selecting his food and digesting almost none; aversion to meat, it makes him sick; craves pungent, bitter things, tonics. Weak stomach; after meals pain in the stomach, nausea, retching; stomach sinks in; withers and loses flesh.
Nose: Tendency to take cold; gets coryza.
Colds settle in the nose, throat, chest and ears. Takes cold from the least provocation; perspires easily and the least current of air causes headache with coryza. If he is in a heated room and is disturbed in his equilibrium he gets a coryza.
Cepa coryza is also worse in a warm room. Much stuffing up of the nose in the house at night; nose feels completely filled up, particularly out of doors, but fluent in doors; thin, watery discharge during the day. Sensitive to the least draft; sneezing caused by itching in the nose. This itching goes to the throat and trachea.
In 1881, Kent accepted a position as professor of anatomy at the Homeopathic College of Missouri, an institution with which he remained affiliated until 1888. In 1890, Kent moved to Pennsylvania to take a position as Dean of Professors at the Post-Graduate Homeopathic Medical School of Philadelphia. In 1897 Kent published his magnum opus, Repertory of the Homœopathic Materia Medica. Kent moved to Chicago in 1903, where he taught at Hahnemann Medical College.