Cantharis
The most important feature of this medicine is the inflammatory
condition, and the most important characteristic in the inflammation is the rapidity with
which it develops into a gangrenous state. inflammation conditions usually follow a definite
course for days, but when this medicine is put upon a part or taken internally the
inflammatory state terminates in death of the part with great rapidity.
When taken internally it proceeds almost immediately to attack the
urinary tract and establish a uraemic state which brings about the mental symptoms; the
local inflammatory condition comes on with great rapidity, and this brings the patient down
violently sick in a great hurry.
From strong doses in the poisonous effect we get startling and alarming
symptoms; the whole economy is in disorder; grievous symptoms commonly of the urinary tract.
The parts become gangrenous at an early stage.
Mind: The mental
symptoms are striking. Among those that are guiding are sudden loss of consciousness with red face. Suddenly goes into
stupor. Confusion of mind. Overwhelmed with strange ideas. Thoughts run riot, and go
whatever way they will, as if possessed by outside influence.
Head hot, frenzy, delirium, with great excitement and rage,
paroxysms renewed by dazzling or
bright objects, by touching the larynx or by trying to drink water as in rabies.
Fear and confusion of ideas. The mind often runs towards subjects that
the inflamed parts would suggest.
Bladder and genitals:
The bladder and genitals are inflamed and the excitement and congestion of the parts often
arouse the sexual instinct, so that there are sexual thoughts and sexual frenzy. Violent
amorous frenzy, an excitement such as accompanies inflammation attended with thoughts that
correspond. The sexual instinct has gone mad, the erections in the male are painful and
violent.
The penis is inflamed and sore and it would be painful to have coitus,
yet there is this frenzy. Insolence. Blasphemy. Restlessness ending in rage. Restlessness
causing him to move constantly, a rage and delirium intermingled with amorous frenzy.
This kind of mental conduct in Cantharis is similar to
what will take place in Hyos., Phos., and Secale; a violent delirious state intermingled with sexual
ideas and talk. In some instances he deliriously sings lewd songs and prattles on the
subject of human genitals, urine and feces, a wild raving on subjects not talked about in
health except among the depraved.
But in disease, chaste and modest persons, virgins, will speak so that it
is surprising where they have picked up such language. in such cases it is well to exclude
everybody from the room except the nurse and doctor. I have seen a dear old mother weep and
wring her hands and say:
"Where did my daughter learn such language?"
The daughter is not to blame.
It is simply a condition of the urinary tract or the menstrual function,
brought on from cold or exposure, or through the mother's neglect to tell her daughter what
she should know in regard, to her menstrual function, and how there is inflammation of the
ovaries or uterus, or outside parts, and the urine burns and causes an inflammatory
condition of the outer parts, or the urine is retained and there is frenzy. Such in Cantharis.
Violent, bursting, lancinating headaches as if stabbed with a knife an
inflammatory condition that takes hold of the mind violently.
Running all through the remedy there is burning. In the head burning, throbbing and stabbing.
Unconsciousness and delirium in the mental state. Burning in the side of the head. Stitches
in the side of the head and occiput. Lancinating pains deep in the brain. Hair falls out.
It is seldom indicated in eye troubles alone, except such as come with
head and mind symptoms.
Erysipelas of the face with large blisters. Burning in the eyes and the
whole atmosphere looks yellow. Burning and smarting in the eyes.
Erysipelas of the eyes, with gangrenous tendency. Eyes hot, scalding
tears. Erysipelas of the face, dorsum of the nose, involving the lids. Rhus is more commonly. used in this condition, but when it
is violent Canth. will often be indicated and preferable to Rhus, Rhus has the blisters and
the burning, but in Canth. between your two visits the erysipelas has grown black, it is dusky, a
rapid change has taken place, and it looks as if gangrene would set in.
Burning in the erysipelatous area and the skin around burns from the touch. In Rhus
this is not so. In Cantharis the little blisters even if touched burn like fire. Eruptions burn when touched, ever so lightly, i.e.,
those eruptions such as the remedy could produce.
This patient enters into a state of prostration, is pallid, has Hippocratic countenance and dies. It corresponds to the lowest forms of disease, even
gangrene and violent inflammation of the bowels, bladder, brain, spine and lungs; sinking
and hippocratic countenance.
Inflammation of the lungs, gangrenous type, prostration and the lung that
is affected burns like fire, and immediately he expectorates cadaverous smelling
expectoration, thin, bloody, watery; it has come on in an astonishingly rapid manner, and in
a little while he will die; the nose is contracted, there is the hippocratic countenance,
and the urine is suppressed.
I remember one patient who had just come out of a prolonged drunk. I left
the patient in the evening in just such, a state as I have described.
He was drooling a bloody saliva from his mouth and be was dying. He had
had this condition come on in one night from being nearly frozen in a drunk.
It would be Cantharis or death before morning, but by morning he was
expectorating a rusty sputum and went on to good recovery.
Arsenic has the
burning in the lungs and he spits up black sputum, pneumonia signs are present, with the
restlessness and anxiety, and other symptoms of Arsenic, and Arsenic will stop it at once. These violent remedies
are needed in those cases that will die.
Burning in the throat. Great thirst, with burning in the throat and
stomach. Thirst, with aversion to all fluids, that is, the craving of the mouth and throat
are antagonized by the mental state. Thirst in the throat and an aversion to water in the
mind. Violent, burning in the stomach, pylorus, abdomen.
The abdomen is swollen and tympanitic; lancinating pains cutting and
stabbing. Wherever there is a rapid inflammation in the bowels there is diarrhoea of bloody
mucus or serum, watery, bloody fluids from the bowels and stomach.
The same watery bloody fluid from the eyes. And wherever this watery
fluid comes in contact with the skin it burns and excoriates. Bloody urine.
Desire for stool while urinating. The patient will sit on the commode
with violent tenesmus to pass urine and stool, feels that if he could only pass a few more
drops of urine or a little more bloody stool he would get relief, but no relief comes. All
the parts are inflamed and on fire. Tenesmus and urging not only when the bladder is empty,
but often when the bladder is full.
Retention of urine. Passes none or only a drop or two. Violent tenesmus
of the bladder. Cutting pains with tenesmus, lancinating, stabbing like knives, in neck of
bladder.
Pains shoot off in different directions. Violent pains with frequent
urging. Constant tenesmus. An anxious state and frenzy come on; most violent suffering and
be has urging to pass urine and stool with sexual erethism tantalizing in the extreme.
The whole urinary organs and genitalia are in a state of inflammation and
gangrene. Burning when urinating. This bloody urine burns like fire in the bladder and about
the genitals. Retention or suppression of urine.
It is rare that one suffering from gonorrhea has this violent
inflammation, with burning and tenesmus of the bladder and rectum, but in such a case this
remedy is indicated. The intensity and rapidity are the features of this remedy. It brings
on pain and excitement found in no other remedy. Next to it comes Merc. cor. In the female there is oversensitiveness of all parts. Inflammation of
the ovaries and uterus. Burning in the vagina. Membranous dysmenorrhoea. Menses too early,
profuse, black.
Puerperal convulsions. Retained placenta. Burning pains. When there have
been no expulsive pains present to expel the afterbirth, with the symptoms running all
through this remedy, after it has been given, normal contractions of the uterus have come on
with expulsion of the membranes.
Violent lancinating pains through the kidneys and back. Pains in the
loins and abdomen. Pain on urinating so that he moaned and screamed on passing a drop.
Lectures on Materia Medica- James
Tyler Kent
|