Etiology

In Veratrum Album, discharges can be enormous. This loss of fluid leads to collapse and great coldness of the body along with cold perspiration, followed by cramps or spasms, probably due to the potassium, magnesium and calcium loss. This would be the typical physical picture of a Veratrum patient.

• Loss of fluids (1)

Another causation for a Veratrum state can be the suppression of eruptions, especially eczemas

• Suppressed eruptions (1)

Other causations are:

• Emotional excitement, (2) (e.g. fright, especially during menses (2), Wounded honor (1), Disappointed love (1), Loss of money (2))
• Injuries, mental Symptoms from (1)
• Intoxication (e.g. with Opium, tobacco and Alcohol (1))
• Infectious diseases

Locality

Veratrum Album acts to a great extent on the Nervous System and the Circulatory system (which becomes obvious on consideration of the collapse, cold sweat, etc. that are often found in Veratrum diseases) and on the mind (mania, excitement, delirium, insanity).

Furthermore Veratrum acts well on the Stomach and intestines: There are many stomach complaints: vomiting and diarrhea.

Veratrum also is valuable for disorders of the female genitalia, which becomes clear when looking at the great aggravation the patient experiences just from the menses.

The tongue in Veratrum is dry, as is the palate, and cold. According to Clarke, it might be blackish, cracked or red and swollen or even loaded with a yellow coating.

Acute Diseases

In acute disease, Veratrum Album can be of great value in

• Headache
• Toothache
• Epistaxis
• Bronchial & respiratory affections (including Asthma & Pneumonia)
• Whooping cough
• Gastric disorders
• Cholera Asiatica, – infantum or morbus
• Colic, Constipation
• Diarrhea
• Disorders in pregnancy
• Sciatica
• Hernia
• Inflammation of uterus
• Influenza
• Typhoid fever
• Yellow fever
• Measles
• Scarlatina
• Tapeworm

In emergencies Veratrum Album is most often used for:

• Meningitis
• Epilepsy
• Asthma
• Opium Poisoning (acts as an antidote)
• Lock jaw
• Collapse
• Fainting
• Angina pectoris
• Apoplexy

Bodily Functions and Discharges

Menses

The Menses in Veratrum Album patients can be preceded by headache, vertigo, epistaxis, and nocturnal perspiration. It comes on too early, is profuse and may be accompanied by vomiting and diarrhea, followed by headache in morning, with nausea, humming in ears, burning thirst, and pains in all limbs. In short: Too early, too much and debilitating (menorrhagia).

Dysmenorrhea occurs as well as suppression (amenorrhea), both with Prolapsus and the before-mentioned accompanying symptoms (nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, exhaustion, cold sweat, coldness of body, etc).
Pregnancy

The symptoms during pregnancy, childbed and lochia are of very similar character as the ones during menses:

• Thirst for cold drinks
• Vomiting
• Cold perspiration
• Exhausting labor pains

Abortion is threatened and there are several typical mental symptoms accompanying pregnancy, confinement and childbed, such as nymphomania, shamelessness, hysteria, religious despair and haughtiness.

Lochia might be suppressed, with the same symptoms as dysmenorrhea.

Digestion

Veratrum Album has a great hunger with, especially, appetite for sour or salty things, fruits or ice and sometimes the patient suffers from bulimia. There is excessive thirst. Cold water usually is vomited but milk ameliorates. Digestive complaints are usually > milk, > meat, < potatoes, < green vegetables.

Veratrum has – sometimes violent risings of food or air, qualmishness, nausea, hiccough and water brash.

Vomiting is violent, continuous, frequent, accompanied by cold sweat, sunken face and great weakness and diarrhea. There is a marked aggravation from least motion. Vomited are:

• slimy acid liquids with food
• froth
• yellowish green or white mucus
• black bile and blood

There are pains in stomach and bowels, as if from hunger or from emptiness or pains cutting and sharp as if done by a knife. Stomach and abdomen might be distended. And flatus might be present. Veratrum suffers from colic, colicky pains and diarrhea. Always with the typical symptoms: salivation, great cold perspiration, weakness and sometimes collapse. The patient feels very cold and there is a peculiar sensation of cold in the abdomen or stomach.

Excretions (skin, bowels, urinary tract)

Veratrum Album has copious discharges – the body acts as if poisoned and ‘flushes’ everything out its system. Sometimes however – the secondary reaction in this remedy – the patient suffers from dryness and / or suppression of discharges.

Some excretions however are primarily very slight – especially does this apply to urine – and the mucous membranes are generally dry, but then again this is not surprising: how can there be much water expelled through normal channels if the water is being expelled everywhere else – e.g. in sweats, salivation and diarrhea?
- Eyes

• Frequent lachrymation
• Sensation of dryness as if salt were between lids and eyeball

- Nose

• Epistaxis (< before menses, < during sleep)
• Coryza
• Sensation of dryness

- Mouth

• Extreme tasteless salivation, like water brash
• Salivation with acrid or salty taste
• Extreme dryness and stickiness of mouth and tongue

- Throat and air passages

• Cough with copious expectoration
• Cough, with yellowish expectoration
• Dry, burning, throat & larynx
• Cough without expectoration
• Constant rattling of mucus
• Dryness of throat not relieved by drinks

- Stomach

• Empty eructations
• Eructations of food and water
• Vomiting of a slimy acid liquid with food
• Vomiting of food with white or yellowish-green mucus
• Vomiting of thin blackish or yellowish substances
• Vomiting of bile and blood, black
• Foamy vomiting

- Urine

• Involuntary urination
• Scanty, red brown
• Suppressed
• Thick
• Dark, almost black or greenish
• Diminished, yellow, turbid urine

- Stool

• Gushing, profuse
• Watery, greenish, mixed with flakes
• Rice-water discharges
• Mucous
• Thin & green
• Brownish, blackish or bloody
• Bilious
• Constipation, hard, large stools

- Menses

• Profuse and too early menstruation

- Skin / Perspiration

• Profuse perspiration
• Clammy or cold perspiration
• Putrid perspiration
• Measles tardy and pale
• Miliary eruption
• Nettle rash
• Dry eruption, resembling scabies
• Hemorrhoids with painless discharge of masses of blood in clots

Sleep & Dreams

Sometimes, the patient suffers from nocturnal sleeplessness. However, usually he is yawning and very sleepy all day. He might even sleep for days, exhausted, prostrated and his head nodding even while answering. Drowsiness occurs, coma vigil and incomplete unconsciousness.

Very peculiar in Veratrum Album is that the patient may sleep with his eyes half open or with only one of his eyes closed. Some patients pass their arms over the head.

The dreams usually are anxious, frightful, of being hunted, having to escape, with frightened awakening and the fixed idea that the dream is true. There is moaning and whining during sleep.

Characteristic Sensations

Typical for Veratrum Album is the sensation of great coldness of the body, the mouth or even in the abdomen. The skin feels clammy and cold which is accompanied by profuse, cold perspiration–especially the forehead.

Characteristic for Veratrum also is profuse diarrhea as well as violent vomiting.

It is this severe loss of fluid which causes this coldness and often enough that the patient collapses or becomes so prostrated that he sleeps for a long time. (Allen: “Rapid sinking of forces; complete prostration; cold sweat and cold breath.”)

Due to this loss of fluid, there is also a dehydration: (Allen: “Skin blue, purple, cold, wrinkled; remaining in folds when pinched.”). The patient’s face looks pale and sunken. Face and limbs appear bluish. The other side of Veratrum would be heat and redness of face and hands, which occurs in fever, and violent delirium.

Many circumstances that require Veratrum are accompanied by fainting – be this an emotional derangement or a physical disorder, fainting can be seen quite often in this remedy.

Stomach and abdominal complaints are usually characterized as sharp, cutting or griping and a number of convulsive or spasmodic sensations occur, such as cramps or cramp-like pain in general, constriction of the throat or pressure in eye, head or stomach. Also there are tetanic or epileptic convulsions or lockjaw.
Appearance

Allen considers Veratrum album best suited for the “extremes of life”: for children and old persons, for lean, choleric, or melancholic persons, for young people and women of a sanguine or nervous-sanguine temperament, for people who are habitually cold and deficient in vital reaction, persons of gay disposition, of fitful mood or anemic persons”.

The Veratrum album patient is most likely livid or pale and covered in sweat, especially the forehead. His face might look sunken, hippocratic, with an anxious expression and blue or green circles around eyes. The skin remains in folds when pinched. The fingernails can show bluish discoloration, the whole body, the face and even the breath is cold.

Clarke has observed, that the nose grows more pointed and becomes longer.

Physical Symptoms

Alternating Symptoms

• Alternate sensation of coldness and heat (in ears, in back)
• Burning heat of limbs, alternating with coldness
• Alternate redness & paleness of face
• Shivering, alternating with heat

Concomitant Symptoms

• Meningitis with neck too week to hold head up
• Myelitis with tingling in hands and fingers
• Vertigo with loss of vision
• Headache with green vomiting and pale face
• Neuralgia of face and head, with coldness of hands, indigestion and tendency to faint
• Humming in ears with sensitiveness to noise
• Toothache with headache
• Whooping cough with neck too weak to hold head up
• Cough with involuntary urination
• Gastric complaints characterized by extreme hunger
• Violent vomiting with profuse diarrhea
• Diarrhea, with profuse perspiration or with exhaustion
• Great pressure in hepatic region alternating with vomiting and diarrhea
• Hunger and thirst with profuse flow of urine
• Suppressed menses with blood-spitting
• Typhoid fever with blackness around mouth & nostrils or lisping, stammering speech
• Complaints accompanied by cold sweats or by profuse sweat
• General debility with blue hands and cold feet
• Complaints accompanied by fainting or collapse

Characteristic, peculiar Symptoms

• Sensation of cold water running through the veins
• Sensation of water running down the outside and not down the esophagus, on drinking
• Cooling or sharp taste as from peppermint
• Swallows his own excrement (Hahnemann & Goullon)
• Nausea or stomach pain with hunger and pressure at the stomach
• The slightest movement excites vomiting
• Coldness of body, chilly and thirst for ice-cold water
• Whole body & face blue

Antidotes

Veratrum album is antidoted by strong Coffee; Camphor, Aconite, China and Staphysagria.

It antidotes Arsenicum, China, Cuprum, Opium, Tabacum and also removes the bad effects of Opium and Tobacco.

It follows well Arsenicum, Arnica, China, Cuprum, Ipecacuanha, Camphora, Ammonium carbonicum, Carbo vegetabilis, Bovista, Lycopodium and Nux vomica and is followed well by Pulsatilla, Aconite, Belladonna, Chamomilla, Rhus Toxicodendron, Sepia and Sulphur.
Sources

Allen, Philip Bailey, Clarke, Hahnemann, Hering, Kent, Wiesbauer