Introduction
MOUNTAIN ARNICA- “fall-kraut” (“fall-herb”)-“Panacea lapsorum”- should be in every house, and everybody should know of its us.
Arnica montana grows all the world over in mountainous regions. A great- grandson of Nelson, hailing from the Andes, seen once only, years ago, is still remembered because he told the tale of Arnica. He told of the terrible falls in those mountains, and how the people there gather Arnica, pour boiling water on the plant, and give the infusion to drink to the injured men, with astonishing results,.
In the scheme of the Almighty, wherever healing is needed, there it is to be found, whether in plant or venom-always at hand.
This wonderful remedy comes by hoary tradition from domestic practice. But Hahnemann has made its use scientific, and demonstrated how it falls into line with all the rest, by its power of causing what it can cure. That is to say, he “proved” it, by administering it to nine persons (mostly doctors) besides himself, and then faithfully recording what it can do in the way of altering health and giving rise to abnormal conditions and sensations in healthy provers.
Let us glance down the provings of Arnica, and find what they have to tell us in regard to its uses: remembering that what a drug can cause, that it can cure.
Felt as if bruised over the whole body.
General weakness, weariness, sensation of being bruised.
Pain in the back, as after a violent fall.
Pain in the heart, as if squeezed, or as if it had got a shock.
All the joints, bones and cartilages of chest painful, as if bruised, during motion and breathing.
Stitches in chest. Short panting breath. Tightness.
Bloody expectoration.
Cough, with feeling in ribs, as if they were all bruised.
Small of the back painful, as if it had been beaten.
Pain in limbs as if joints bruised; pain in all limbs, as if they had been bruised.
Pain in arms, as from bruises; arms weary, as if bruised, by blows.
Pain as if a sprain in wrist-joint. Pain in balls of thumbs as if they had knocked against something hard.
Pain as from a sprain in hips
Then some typhoid symptoms with involuntary stool during sleep; foul taste; foul breath; distention of abdomen, etc., and its typical mental state.
Then some peculiar symptoms, mental and physical.,.
Cold nose.
Head burning hot, with cold body.
Forgetfulness absent-mindedness,.
Sudden horror of instant death.,
Fear of Being touched.
HAHNEMANN says of Arnica, “Hence it is very beneficial” (not only in “injuries caused by severe contusions and lacerations of fibers”) “but also in the most severe wounds by bullets and blunt weapons: in the pains and other ailments consequent on extracting the teeth, and other surgical operations, whereby sensitive parts have been violently stretched: as also after dislocations of joints, after setting fractures of bones, etc. And in some kinds of false pleurisy it is very efficacious, where the symptoms correspond.
For internalize he recommends the 30th potency. For external use, the parts are to be kept moistened for twenty-four hours with wine, or brandy and water, in which five to ten drops of Arnica (not the” O” but the “Ic”) has been well mixed (five to ten drops to the pint).
Of course, a few doses of Arnica internally, after tooth extraction, is the common practice of us all.
KENT(“Materia Medica”) gives some striking little pictures of the action of Arnica, “After railway (or road ) accident, ” “horror of instant death, with cardiac symptoms at night. He goes off into a sleep of terror, jumps up again with this sudden fear of death, and says, ‘Send for a doctor at once.’ And this may happen night after night.”
Or, on the other hand, an Arnica case, in desperate sickness, may say, “I am not ill. I do not need a doctor.”
(We had such a case in our hospital during the 1914-18 War-a French woman, with a very bad form of typhoid, contracted in France during a virulent epidemic. She relapsed and relapsed. It was a very anxious case. But, at her worse she began to profess herself as “so well!”-“Ca va is bien-si bien, Mademoiselle!” So she got Arnica, and media rapid recovery.
Kent gives another little picture of the Arnica condition in old cases of gout. The old grandfather, sitting away in a corner, in terror of touch or approach. He feels that anything coming towards him is going to hurt him, because he is so sore and tender. If he sees little Johnnie running towards him, he says, “Oh, do keep away!-keep away!” “Give him a dose of Arnica.” says Kent, “and he will let Johnnie run all over him.”
Then the hard bed sensation. That is such a splendid appeal for Arnica, in all sorts of sicknesses. The patient is restless, but only because the bed feels so hard and lumpy, that he is forced to try for a new position. (It is not the anxious restlessness of Aconite or Arsenicum, or the pains of Rhus, that seem as if movement would help-which it may not.)
Another great use for Arnica is in cerebral haemorrhage; generally the first thing to use. This is also foreshadowed in the provings, “Pain as if the head were being distended from within outwards, as if brain were rolled up in a lump. Stitches in 1. frontal eminence, accompanied by the sensation as if an extravasation of blood had taken place.”
Illustrative cases in the ken of some of us.
(1) She was taken ill one night with stitching pain in the chest that made breathing a proposition. Her husband tried to help her with various remedies, probably Aconite, certainly Bryonia, but in vain. then, in a “Domestic Homoeopathy,” he discovered “bastard pleurisy” with its remedy, Arnica; and he gave her a few globules. They were scarcely swallowed when, with a long sigh, and “That’s the first breath I’ve been able to draw tonight!” she was fast asleep in a moment.
(2) He was a doctor who wrote that for than a month he had had distressing difficulty in breathing, since running eighty yards. He would wake at night with oppression in chest, anxiety and fear”. “Heart weakness suggests early death,” he said, yet he was “calm and not anxious”. “Legs heavy; head fuzzy; couldn’t run upstairs. Heart sounds weak, but no disease.” Arnica was suggested and he wrote back,”Arnica had the desired effect! All symptoms went within forty-eighty hours. I’m all right now.”
(3) She was carrying awkward things downstairs, slipped and sprained her ankle badly, and put on an Arnica compress, probably rather strong. Ankle was well next day, but there was a brilliant eruption all over the foot, which died away when the Arnica was discontinued.
Here, N.B.-Arnica can bring out a very nasty dermatitis, when used externally too long or too strong-even a cellulitis when applied to wounds where the skin is broken; and here it is better always to use Hypericum. Probably Hahnemann’s “Ist centesimal potency” (the “ic”:), would be an improvement always, on the “mother tincture” (“O”) commonly in use.
(4) Another doctor, over fatigued mentally and physically, lost all interest in his work. His usual self-confidence disappeared, so that he began to doubt his prescriptions and wonder whether he had prescribed too much of this, or even the wrong medicine. He was nerve sure whether he had shut the door, or turned off the lights: had to go back and see. He was naturally keenly alert, and this change of mentality worried him. Arnica 1,000 put him right in a few days, restoring perfectly his memory and self-confidence.
(5) A person who tired very easily, and was knocked up by a day’s shopping in London. Over fatigue always meant a bad night, unless she took Arnica. On one occasion she had been vaccinated, and her arm was swollen and sore, with painful glands in the armpit; on the top of which she has a dragging day in Town; so at night, she took Arnica. To her surprise she has no further discomfort from the vaccination! (Arnica is capable of producing Cellulitis and septic conditions, and here to relieved promptly.) Some of us prescribe it always, with relief to the patient, after a vaccination, Unlike Thuja the discomfort, leaving the pustules to take their usual course.
(6) Two small girls, of nine and five, brought into hospital by the police after having been knocked down by taxis. Both comatose and limp. Both were seen by surgeons within a few hours of admission and in both cases the surgeons pronounced them hopeless. Both were given Arnica internally, and both sat up to eat a hearty breakfast next morning.
(7) A patient writes from abroad. “May wife has been very ill here, but I am happy to say that all has gone supremely well, and Strasbourg echoes amazement at the effect of Arnica 1,000 taken six hours after a double ovariotomy with complications. Phosphorus prevented all nausea and shock, and the Arnica made morphia entirely unnecessary. A wonderful piece of work.”
(8) A very severely sprained ankle on the stairs late one night. The sufferer was too cute to try to walk on it; she sat and wriggled it in every direction, crawled up somehow to bed, and took Arnica. Next day, again, Arnica and wriggling, feeling that bone after bone slipped back into place. It was well in about twenty-four hours.
