A tincture is made of the leaves (of the second years) of Digitalis purpurea, L.
General Action
The chief interest centres in its action on the circulation, which it seems to affect through the vaso-motor centres. It slows the pulse, increasing arterial tension and causing contraction of arterioles. Its action on the heart is remarkable in that it produces vigorous systolic contractions which become very irregular, one portion of the ventricle dilating while another remains in a state of contraction; finally the heart stops in systole. Its action on the urinary secretion is uncertain and variable, but it is a valuable remedy (at least a palliative) in some forms of dropsy, with weak heart.
Allied. Apocynum c., Tabac., Helleborus, China., Ferrum, Bryonia, the Alkalies (Calcarea, Kali, Baryta), Zincum met.
Generalities
Lay on back prostrated, scarcely able to move a limb; lay supine in morning, cold pale and covered with profuse sweat. Could not beat the upright position. Falling senseless. Tense white welling of whole body, with pain on touch, afterwards becoming soft and changing to anasarca. Wasting of body in proportion to recuperation of mind. Convulsions. Epileptic attack. Cramps. Stiffening of body; painful S. of trunk and limbs, (<) thighs. Universal and partial trembling. Symptoms of inflammation of gastro-intestinal mucous membrane as well as of brain. Tearing burning and itching sticking in various parts. Feeling as if electrized on every inspiration. Bruised feeling. Malaise. Restlessness. Lightness of body. Relaxation of all muscles, with sensation as if he had not slept enough. Weakness; in morning on waking (Calc-c.), (<) rising (China); with trembling of muscles; sudden, with sweat; sudden, after dinner, as if he would lose consciousness, with heat and sweat. Faintness; between attacks of nausea; and nausea on motion. Heaviness.
Clinical Post-scarlatinal dropsy, urine frequently scanty and dark, extremities oedematous, dyspnoea, oedema of lungs, etc.
Mind
Delirium; at night, with agitation; violent, at night; secretive insanity, with disobedience, obstinacy and attempts to escape. Lively fancies. Gayety bordering on intoxication, with debility. Anxiety (Calc-c., Arsenicum, Bryonia, etc.); (<) about 6 P.M., with dread of the future, (>) weeping; as if he had committed a crime or expected to be reproved. Fear of death. Apprehension; (<) music, with depression; with sighing; as if rising from upper abdomen, Anger at everything. Ill humor. Sadness; and weeping about disappointments; and all objects, appear as to one sick with fever. Continual complaints. Disinclination to talk. Desire to be alone. Indifference; as if he had not slept enough, without sleepiness. Great desire to work. Increased energy, especially of imagination. Weakness. Intellect destroyed. Thought difficult, forgetfulness of everything, with internal and external heat of heat. Incapacity for study. Confusion of ideas. Inability to connect ideas. Dullness, (<) evening, with indifference; D. in evening, with uneasiness in various parts of head and weakness of forearms. Stupor. Coma; interrupted by convulsive attacks or vomiting. Unconsciousness in morning, then falling down in syncope.
Head
Falls backward when sitting and walking, as if anterior cervical muscles were paralyzed (Tabac.). Sudden cracking sound during midday midday nap, with starting up. Aching; in morning; in morning on waking; in morning on waking, (<) afternoon and evening, unfitting him for work; in morning on stooping immediately after rising; in various bones; with heaviness as from rush of blood, with nausea; with cutting in abdomen, then warmth over whole body and pressure towards bladder. Drawing in bones. Weight: (>) forenoon by nosebleed. Pressure on spots. Heaviness and confusion as if full; H., (<) forehead, (<) walking, stooping or overheating, with confusion and pain. Dullness as if hypochondriac. Confusion; like intoxication; causing difficulty in thinking, gradually changing into pain; gradually becoming a pain, extending from vertex over whole head; changing into intermittent pressure in occiput, lasting till noon, with false vision.
Tension in evening, (<) forehead and l. temple. Congestion, with ringing and roaring in ears. Apoplexy. Sensation on bending head forward as if something in it fell forward. Intoxication. Vertigo; in morning, with heaviness; when standing leaning against a chair with anxiety as before Faintness; on rising from a seat, with weakness of limbs; after rising from a seat or bed (Bryonia, Phosphorus, Cocc., Apoc-c.); so that he must fix his eyes upon some object; with inability to think; with division, preventing descent of stairs.
Forehead. Sticking in l.; externally. Sharp pain in spot over r. eye. Aching; in morning on waking, with nausea; in r. side in forenoon; in evening, with pressure on temples; (<) movement; in sinciput; over r. orbit; with fulness; with frequent uneasiness in region of heart; throbbing, or at bottom of orbits; contractive, in forepart and in temples, (<) thought. Weight; in middle of upper part on mental exertion; in sinciput, with heat. Confusion in sinciput. Tension on turning eyes to one side; T. in forepart.
Temples. Sticking now in r., now in l.; in l., shooting through whole brain, in evening and at night in sleep; tearing, in l. Tearing in r. close to ear. Pain in r.; jerklike, now in temples, now in whole head.
Pain in vertex. Heaviness in vertex. Tearing in l. side of head. Stitchlike tension in a spot in parietal part of brain on stooping, extending into a l. upper tooth, (>) rising. Pressure in sides; with tension; jerklike P. in r.; one-side P. like an internal itching; like the beating of waves against sides of skull of, also (>) standing or bending backward, (>) lying or stooping. Drawing in sides causing vertigo. Sticking in occiput and vertex. Pain in occiput; I. half; extending from r. to l. side and from occiput to vertex, with confusion of head and incipient vertigo; in protuberance, as from a blow.
Clinical Cerebral meningitis, state of effusions, albuminous urine, slow or feeble and irregular pulse, cold sweat, etc. (differs from Hellebore only in the character of the pulse). A sudden crashing noise in the head, with frightened staring up, has led to the use Digitalis in periodical attacks of this sort occurring in the course of general nervous prostration or in threatening epilepsy.
Eyes
Inflammation. Redness and sensitiveness to light; R., (<) in evening, with pain. Dimness and Weakness. Both inclined to turn to l., with pain on turning them to r., when vision is double and triple, with puffy face (compare Gelsem.). Burning of r., then a pustule, with areola of inflamed vessels in periphery of cornea towards inner canthus. Lachrymation; (<) in the room, eyes dim, hot, full or red vessels, with pain and hardened mucus in canthi; biting. Pain in balls; on touch; sudden intermittent, in r. Conjunctiva anaemic; C. inflamed. Pupils dilated; (<) r.; and insensible; contracted; C., with stronger, clearer vision; alternately D. and C., pupils only slightly sensitive. Inflammation of Meibomian glands. Lids red. Swelling of lower lid. Agglutination in morning, then weakness of eyes. Sore pain in margins of lids in evening in bed on closing eyes. Scratching in inner canthus. Smarting burning in external canthi. Heaviness of lids in morning, with inability to hold them open. Sudden intermittent sticking tearing extending from r. brow into r. frontal region, at 1 P.M. Pain in r. superciliary ridge extending towards external canthus; burning pain in r. S. ridge, with dim vision, Throbbing pain in orbits.
Vision dim; and his own hands and another’s face looked blue. Distorted in afternoon, with anxiety and pressure as from a finger upon eyes. Amblyopia or diplopia. Flickering (China); and double; before l. eye in morning and also in r. towards noon, so that he saw three varieties of figures, closing eye and rubbing it slowly caused clouds of phosphorescence, the eye sensitive to light, the form of the rose was the type of the flickering, in the first experiment there were round spots in the field of vision, the space circumscribed, four deep oval lines forming four convex indentations, and the waves of light and shade surrounding this showed the same form only less indented, the next two days the flickering figures were surrounded by curved lines with five indentations, but more superficial, which were again surrounded by enlarging waves of light and shade, with superficial indentations, after wards when the flickering decreased there were only fragments with the rose formation on the side, like a segment of the larger and more superficially indented circle; F. before l. eye on winking and on looking from light to dark portion of field of vision, afterwards (<) before r. eye, there was in middle of the field of vision an alternately appearing and disappearing roundish spot of light, and about this concentric waves of light and shade in similar motion, at last F. only on entering house after moderate exercise, on walking or ascending stairs. Hallucinations. Sparks; like lightning before r. eye at noon. Spots, stripes, white surfaces, waving before eyes. White spots and black rings waving before eyes. Vision of colors, red, green yellow, like a shimmering light in the twilight. Objects seem green or yellow. The flame of a coal fire appeared blue. All objects appeared covered with snow in morning on waking. Blindness; sudden, as from going suddenly from the dark into the light, with vertigo, then floating sparks.
Born in 1837in Westminster, Vermont. . He was an orthodox doctor who converted to homeopathy
Dr. Allen compiled the Encyclopedia of Pure Materia Medica over the course of 10 years.
In 1881 Allen published A Critical Revision of the Encyclopedia of Pure Materia Medica.