CEDRON


CEDRON. Cedron is prepared from the seed of a plant which is indigenous to tropical Central and South America. In this same general region are malarias, intermittent fevers and poisonous snakes. Even before it was proven homoeopathically, Cedron had a reputation for curing intermittent fevers and antidoting snake venoms. Cedron is an antidote to Lachesis and is antidoted by Lachesis.


Cedron is prepared from the seed of a plant which is indigenous to tropical Central and South America. In this same general region are malarias, intermittent fevers and poisonous snakes. Even before it was proven homoeopathically, Cedron had a reputation for curing intermittent fevers and antidoting snake venoms. Cedron is an antidote to Lachesis and is antidoted by Lachesis. As a general rule the region which is troubled by a certain disease has the needed cure or cures among the animals, vegetables or minerals native to that area. It is on this basis that folk medicine has its use and value. The homoeopathic proving provides a full and complete evaluation of any remedy which includes the folk use while at the same time amplifying and circumscribing its materia medica. Please note in Clark’s Dictionary of Materia Medica how much space is given to the historical usage of various well-known and long established remedies.

Let us consider Cedron as a remedy of limited field but valuable when and where indicated.

Symptomatology.

Exact periodicity of symptoms: periodic neuralgias; intermittent fevers commencing at same hour daily or every other day.

In fever there is red face during the heat; thirst for warm drinks; profuse sweat; malarias of marshy regions and tropics.

General debility, languor and fainting. Trembling. Complaints after coition (chorea in women; neuralgia in men). Epileptiform convulsions during menstruation. Swollen sensations; numbness of whole body. Objects appear red at night, yellow by day.

Aggravation: After sleep; lying down; night; in open air; before storm.

Amelioration: Standing erect.

Rapidity of action is characteristic.

There is a preponderance of nervous symptoms; and a strong sexual excitement. Adapted to persons of voluptuous disposition and in excitable, nervous temperament; especially in females.

Numbness; enlarged sensations; as if paralyzed.

A large number or symptoms occur on the left side but the right side of head, face, and right elbow and deltoid are affected.

MIND- Fear of going to bed.

HEAD-Sick headache every other day at 11 A.M.

Headache: < during night; < in open air.

EYES-Shooting pains over L. eye. Tic-like pain over L. eye, only after coitus. Objects seem red at night and yellow by day.

FACE-Flying heat of face alternating with chills.

Prosopalgia. Wandering pains, spasmodic distortion of muscles.

MALE- After coitus pain over right eye. Gonorrhea-like discharge lasting 3 days. Gleet with formication over whole body.

FEMALE-Many symptoms appear after coition, and during menses.

Leucorrhoea in place of menses. Profuse ptyalism and leucorrhoea after menses. Menstrual epilepsy, puerperal eclampsia.

RESPIRATORY ORGANS-Difficult respiration, with partial loss of voice, recurring at different intervals. Suffocative fits recurring regularly every day ten to twelve o’clock. Suffocative fits: < after coitus; < after sleep; > by eating. Troublesome cough every morning from six to eight.

FEVER-Chill 4 A.M. followed by sweat; at 4 P.M. after washing in cold water, chill alone.

Regular paroxysms of fever coming at same hour, commencing every day at 6 P.M. by chills in back and limbs, or cold feet and hands.

During sweat: coldness and heat and heat and coldness irregularly intermingle. Quotidian or tertian fevers with marked regularity.

Compare: China; Ars.; Acon. d.; Bell.

Ars. & Sabad. (complaints return same hour every day)

Cedron is an antidote to Lachesis and is antidoted by Lach.; Bell.

Case of Tic Douloureux.

10-20-47-F.L. McK., aged 46. Recurrent attacks of right facial neuralgia for 30 years; of ophthalmic branch of right facial nerve. May come at any time of year, for no known cause. Attack comes and goes gradually lasting 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Pain extends backward from right eye which is injected and waters freely; no effect from local applications; burning, sizzling pains with throbbing. Rx Platina 1M.

10-29-47-Had attack soon after Platina. No attack on 25th 26th and 27th. Severe unbearable pains recur at 6 P.M. daily. Rx Cedron 1M.

10-30-47-Attacks usually last 10-14 days at a time. No history of malaria. Greatly improved since Cedron.

2-2-50-No recurrence of tic since Cedron.

3-28-52-Recurrence of tic: tearing, burning pain in and behind right eye; increases and decreases gradually. Several attacks today. All teeth out 6 months ago. Rx Cedron 1M, 3 doses.

4-1-52-No attack 28th, 29th and 30th. Recurred at 6 P.M. for 1 hour. Rx Cedron CM.

6-20-52-No recurrence.

1800 GLENVIEW ROAD,

GLENVIEW, ILLINOIS.

DISCUSSION.

DR. A.H. GRIMMER [Chicago, Ill.]: We can’t let this go without some comments I want to thank the Doctor first for this refresher course. We may all remember about the periodicity of Cedron, but he brought out a lot of side issues that are valuable to us. That is what we need. That is what we came here for. We came here to get the other’s experience, and in that way we grow. We get more out of it.

There is only one other remedy I know of that compares with Cedron in its striking periodicity. There are other remedies that have periodicity, it is true, but not to the large extent that is found under Cedron, and that is Aranea diadema, one of the spider poisons. That has a periodicity, more often an annual or semi annual periodicity, but it also has the daily periodicity in many of its symptoms. There is no need of confusing the two because the symptomatology is vastly different between them.

DR. F.K. BELLOKOSSY [Denver, Colo.]: These cases are the cases that are good for us because they can make us famous, in spite of all the hostile propaganda, but I don’t always consider just the remedy for pain. I always study the whole patient from head to foot and find out all the possible weakness he may have and correct those, so he constitutionally is perfectly healthy, and then the trouble does not return.

DR. ALLAN D. SUTHERLAND [Brattleboro, Vt.]: Mr. Chairman, I also am interested in tic douloureux because I had a deuce of a case some years ago.

I think that patient, among other remedies, had Cedron because there was a certain amount of periodicity, but that was just sort of shot in the dark and, of course, was unsuccessful. The remedy which finally cured the case was Cimicifuga, and Cimicifuga does have a certain periodicity. The way it is described in the Materia Medica is: the pain goes off at night, to recur the next morning. Apparently the morning recurrence is the periodicity of Cimicifuga.

It was well illustrated in this case because for weeks she was perfectly comfortable at night. She had absolutely no pain at all, was able to sleep well, and we had to resort to no sedation because she simply went to sleep calmly and slept well without pain, but as soon as she began to be active the next morning, the pain came back in full force and raised hell with her through the day,

Finally, after weeks, I began to get wise, and I gave her one dose of Cimicifuga 200th, with complete relief.

DR. ROGER A. SCHMIDT [San Francisco, Calif.]: Mr. Chairman, I was very much interested in that. I have had a few cases of tic douloureux, one recently. It was a businessman, middle-aged, who had particularly the right upper maxillary branch of the trigeminal nerve affected, and this for many, many years. That man had found absolutely no relief and yet would not submit to surgical operation to get relief.

Nux vomica, in his case, did a great deal to help him, followed by Spigelia I had another case a while back in an old cancerous woman who had a left trigeminal neuralgia, who got amazing relief, and permanently, with Spigelia low 6x. [Applause].

DR. WILBUR K. BOND [Greensfork, Ind.]: I have used Belladonna quite frequently in right-sided tic douloureux, on the indications, with some success.

Recently I had a very stubborn case I had had trouble with for sometime, and I sent the case to Dr. Holcombe. I believe he cured the case with Magnesium phos. high, CM. potency.

DR. GLADISH [Closing]: There is very little to say other than to thank you for your consideration. I might say that I didn’t bring out clearly in the report of this case that this was a very acute and severe pain, when he got it, that would cause congestion of the eye immediately and profuse lachrymation and a running nose on that side.

It was so severe that he would try anything to relieve it. He would put his face down over the stove and practically burn it, and then he would put on an ice-bag and see if he couldn’t shock it out, but he didn’t shock. It was a very nice case.

Donald G. Gladish