EUPATORIUM PERFOLIATUM


The Eupatorium has intense pains all over the body which seem to involve all the bones of the skeleton, arms, legs, shoulders, back, hips and, particularly, the shin bones and other idications to be prescribed for influenza by Dr. Douglas M. Borland in his book on Influenza….


THE outstanding point which leads to the consideration of Eupatorium is the degree of pain which the patients have. There are very intense pains all over-of an aching character-which seem to involve all the bones of the skeleton, arms, legs, shoulders, back, hips and, particularly, the shin bones.

As a rule, Eupatorium influenzas develop rather more quickly than others, and the pains develop very rapidly. The patients say it feels as if the various joints were being dislocated-it is that type of very intense, deep-seated pain. Associated with the pain, there is incessant restlessness; the patients are always moving to try to ease the aching pain in one or other of their bones.

In Eupatorium influenzas-a useful differentiation point-the sweat is very scanty. Other drugs which have a very similar degree of bone aching all tend to sweat.

The patients are always depressed, but with a different depression from that of Bryonia. They are acutely depressed and definitely complaining; they complain bitterly about the intensity of their pain and, if they are not complaining, they move around in bed, groaning and moaning; and are very sorry for themselves.

In appearance, they usually have a fairly bright flush and a dryish skin, with rather pale lips, in contrast to the deep congested appearances in the other drugs already described. They tend to have a white- coated, thickish fur on the tongue and, instead of the bitter taste of Bryonia, they simply have a flat, insipid taste.

Eupatorium patients are always chilly; they feel cold and shivery, are sensitive to any draught of air and very often have a sensation of chilliness spreading up the back.

They usually suffer from quite intense headaches. Typically, they complain of extreme soreness of the head, very often most marked in the part that is resting against the pillow.

There is one exception to this; they complain of extreme soreness in. the forehead, where there is no pressure at all, and a sensation of pulsation in the occipital region, accompanied by a feeling of intense heat on the top of the head.

They sometimes have a strange surging feeling in the head and, oddly, the surging to go from side to side across the top of the head.

Coryza in Eupatorium is rather distinctive. The patient has a feeling if intense obstruction-as of the nose is completely stopped up-and this is accompanied by most fluent discharge with violent and incessant sneezing.

With this coryza there is always marked involvement of the eyes. The margins of the lids look red and inflamed, there is intense lachrymation and a feeling of generalised soreness. They look congested; and there is some degree of photophobia, but not very marked.

Eupatorium patients sometimes develop an extreme hyperaesthesia to smells of any kind. Any odour induces a sense of irritation, aggravates the coryza and, very often, makes them feel sick.

They suffer from an intensely dry throat, which is just generally congested. With it they are very thirsty, with a desire for ice-cold drinks. I remember a Eupatorium patient whose one desire was for ice-cream. He did not swallow it but held it in his mouth to cool the burning at the back of his throat.

Care must be taken, however: if Eupatorium patients have too much ice water, ice-cream or cold drinks, they are very prone to gastric attacks. Liable to good deal of eructation of wind anyway: irritation of cold fluids in the stomach may cause a definite bilious vomit.

The catarrhal condition usually avoids the larynx, but the patients complain of intense heat and burning in the trachea. This is accompanied by a very trying cough. Which again is accompanied by intense soreness in the chest walls. There are intense aching pains all through the chest muscles, pains which feel as though they are actually in the ribs.

The Eupatorium cough is very violent, with scanty sputum, and it seems to hurt the patients from head to toe. It makes their head burst and increases the chest pains, so that they try to restrain the cough or control the chest movement, even while they are coughing, because of the pain. It is a generalised aching pain-as if they were being broken: not the sharp, stabbing pain of Bryonia, which is equally as sensitive.

Douglas Borland
Douglas Borland M.D. was a leading British homeopath in the early 1900s. In 1908, he studied with Kent in Chicago, and was known to be one of those from England who brought Kentian homeopathy back to his motherland.
He wrote a number of books: Children's Types, Digestive Drugs, Pneumonias
Douglas Borland died November 29, 1960.