A tincture of the fresh mature leaves of Prunus Laurocerasus, L., is used.
General Action
Essentially the same as that of Hydrocyanic acid. Examine particularly the cough symptoms.
Allies. Hydrocyanic acid, Kalmia, Hyoscyamus
Generalities
Tremulousness of whole body. Jerking, (<) head, back and cervical muscles, then paralysis. Shrieked, threw the head back and was convulsed. Convulsions; with staring eyes, closed jaws and frothing from mouth. Eyes fixed upward, teeth clenched and froth running from mouth. Fell stupidly to the ground. Itching stitches in various parts. Pinching burning pains now in one part, now in another, (<) limbs. Pain in throat, chest, region of heart and stomach and scapula, only on r. side. Electric shocks at 9 P.M. in bed. Weariness; in morning; towards evening; early in evening, with sleepiness; after eating, with sleepiness; with aversion to all work. Faintness. Heaviness in morning, with disinclination to work. Insensibility. Paralysis. Asphyxiated, paralytic, apparently lifeless condition, pulse scarcely perceptible, barely 30 (compare Kalmia). Healthy feeling when sitting, as after fatigue. Amelioration in open air; though the roughness in throat was worse then; A. after dinner.
Clinical Chorea, with spasmodic action of the muscles of the throat and oesophagus; the drink rolls audibly through the oesophagus and intestines. It has been found valuable in conditions of extreme prostration, with sense of suffocation, gasping for breath and slow, irregular pulse. It must, of course, be compared with Hydroc. acid, to which it chiefly, if not wholly, owes its efficacy.
Mind
Fancy while awake that he saw old men with long beards and distorted faces and sparks of fire. Happy. Lively. Joyous and interested at 2 P.M. Delight in his work. Hasty, impetuous. Despondent; and lachrymose, he would rather die than live. Fretful; at 2 P.M., and vexed about everything. Anxiety about trifles in evening in bed, with sleeplessness. Anxious oppression, with inability to work and necessity to go into the open air. Everything is irksome, he goes unwillingly to his business. Indolence and sleepiness. Indifference. Inclination to mental labor. Ideas flow slowly. Memory weak. Stupefaction. Coma, with closed eyes, dilated pupils, hurried respiration, involuntary discharge of urine, and faeces, convulsions. Unconsciousness at times, a species of sinking spells, respiration and pulse suspended for several seconds, but before these spells breathing was stertorous, then it stopped and the man appeared dead.
Clinical An extremely excitable, nervous condition accompanies nearly all the conditions calling for the drug.
Head
Hangs over and he cannot raise it. Sticking here and there at 4 P.M.; S. in brain, with crawling. Tearing in evening in bed. Boring. Aching; (>) open air, (<) entering house, sometimes (<) forehead, sometimes (<) occiput, (<) over orbits, (<) hot room, where he felt exhausted; in brain, with constriction; as after intoxication. Anxiety, (>) open air, with internal and external warmth of forehead. Confusion; at 2 P.M., with pain; when reflecting and writing; in evening, (>) sleep, with heaviness; with internal heat; with oppression of forehead and small, accelerated pulse; with general confusion as when after violent thirst one drinks several glasses of wine in quick succession; as if stunned; as before violent catarrh; becoming pain, (<) temporal region and forehead; becoming pain, (<) forehead and orbits.
Pressure downward; on rising from a seat, with obscuration of vision; (>) becoming erect. Brain feels as if pressed against upper and forepart of skull, (<) frontal region, with pressure towards orbits. Feeling as pressed forward. Feeling as if brain pressed to all sides. Heaviness; when walking in the room, with pressure down from vertex; on stooping when walking in open air, with sensation as if something fell from l. side into forehead; (<) stooping, with Dullness and with painful crawling in forehead; extending towards frontal region till 10 P.M.; as before catarrh or after intoxication. Fulness. Intoxication. Apoplexy. Vertigo; on moving in evening, with loss of ideas; on rising from a seat; on rising from prolonged sitting, with Dullness of head; after rising from stooping; (<) open air; (<) walking; with buzzing in ears, difficult respiration and weakness; then sleepiness; as if head went round and round; as if everything turned around; as if everything turned in a circle in evening.
Forehead. Sticking in r. eminence; after dinner; in l. eminence at 2 P.M., then in r.; in middle of F. on walking in open air; alternately in sinciput and occiput in afternoon. Tearing deep in; in sinciput at 2 P.M., extending to vertex; in middle, with internal heat. Twinging in sinciput, with sleepiness. Boring above orbits. Pain; in middle; in side; l. eminence over orbits; in morning in bed; l. side about 2 P.M.; in open air, (<) in the house, (>) rest, with heat in face; l. side of sinciput on stooping low, (>) rising, with sensation as if brain fell forward; with slow pulse; in l., gradually extending over head, making mental operations difficult, returning next morning on waking and lasting till 3 P.M.; alternately in F. and occiput; throbbing; stupefying, anteriorly; stupefying pain in sinciput. Confusion. Periodical pressure beneath bone. Pressure towards orbits and feeling as if water would be pressed out of eyes, then lachrymation. Pressure forward in sinciput, with warmth and sweat on forehead and hands and feeling as if head were enlarged. Pressure outward; on stooping; behind frontal and nasal bones; pain as if bones were pressed outward and raised upward. Pressure inward; not entirely (>) pressure. Heaviness on going out of the room; H. in sinciput on stooping, not (>) rising, with stupefying pain; in sinciput, with pressure in orbits as if balls were too large. Drawing in middle. Tension and in l. side of face. Fulness. Feeling above nose as in catarrh. Shock.
Temples. Sticking in l. Tearing in r.; from l. to vertex, thence to behind l. external canthus and into zygoma, then into a neighboring tooth, where it becomes a jerking; downward in r.; upward in l., not entirely (>) rubbing. Pain in r. bone; in l. temple at 4 P.M.; in l. on entering a room. Pressure outward beneath r. bone. Throbbing in r. as with a finger.
Vertex. Sticking, (>)stooping, (<) rising. Tearing in l. side. Pain in l. side; intermittent P. in upper part of head. Contraction, with heat. Heaviness; (<) stooping, (>) rising. Feeling as if ice lay on it (Veratrum), then on forehead, then in nape and so on till it occurred in small of back, where it was very agreeable, with disappearance of all head troubles.
Sides. Sticking in l.; r., (<) stooping, with beating; in l., with boring in front of l. ear; r., with throbbing; now beneath parietal bone, now beneath temporal bone. Tearing in l. at 2 P.M. Boring in l., then Dullness. Pain in l.; in r. parietal bone near vertex, (<) touch; throbbing, in l., (<) stooping. Shock in a spot in l., then feeling as if beaten, then Dullness in head.
Occiput. Stitching; in r. Tearing extending towards neck, slightly (>) friction. Twinging pain, with sleepiness. Painful pressure on l., extending to nape. Pressure outward beneath l. bone, with which his thoughts nearly vanish. Drawing deep internally in r. side. Tension in r. as when a lock of hair is pulled. Sensation as if tendons were too short and head would be drawn backward, like a painful heaviness, with cessation of pain in forehead. Throbbing in l.
Scalp. Sticking on r. side of occiput. Crawling and itching. Tickling on r. side of occiput, (>) scratching. Itching here and there; in a spot on r. side; in a spot on l. side, more in upper part; behind sides of forehead at 2 P.M.; now in front, now in back part of r. side, not (>) scratching.
Clinical Neuralgic headache, with feeling of icy coldness of vertex.
Eyes
Staring. Aching around, (<) l. Pressure in evening. Painless feeling as if they would be pressed out. Dryness and warmth; in evening by the light. Burning in r. at 4 P.M.; B. in evening by the light, evenings, (<) r., (<) inner canthus, with sticking; with dimness and weakness. Biting in r. as from salt at 2 P.M. Itching in l. in afternoon; in l. at 4 P.M. Lachrymation in morning; of l. at 2 P.M. Pupils dilated; (<) r.; P. immovable. Sensation of a band around ball, with stitches. Tearing in l. superciliary ridge, extending into teeth and r. lower jaw.
Lids. Agglutination of l.; A. in morning. Tightly closed, pupils dilated. Injected vessels in a spot in l. inner canthus. Burning jerking in r. lower. A stitch from within l. canthus. Lids cause pain in eyes as if they were too dry and he had not slept enough. Scraping in r. inner canthus. Smarting of inside. Drawing in upper margin of upper on exerting eyes. Burning; in l. external canthus. Itching beneath r. upper, (>) scratching. Itching in r. inner canthus, (>) rubbing. Itching in l. inner canthus; causing lachrymation, (>) rubbing; changing to pressure, and vessels filled with blood branching like a tree towards pupil.
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.