Introduction
ONE remembers well one’s first introduction to Collinsonia, performed by a hospital gynaecologist in whose clinic one worked for many years, and to whom one is indebted for much good training. He had an enormous opinion of the value of the drug in “gynae” cases with haemorrhoids. And this is where it seems to have been found invariably useful: but the drug seems never to have been adequately proved.
A single proving of the crude drug is to be found in the Appendix to Vol. X of Allen’s Encyclopedia by an American doctor who took two and a half teaspoonfuls of the powdered root. And Clarke (Dictionary) records another proving, of the tincture. Also a number of writers have described its value in Constipation during gestation, Prolapsus ani, prolapsus uteri, with pruritis and dysmenorrhoea, in Dysmenorrhoea with menstrual convulsions; even Sympathetic aphonia, and Pulmonary haemorrhage. Hering’s Guiding Symptoms from which we take Black Letter symptoms, and curious symptoms, seems to ignore the proving of the powdered root: which we will, however, quote extensively, since it gives a curious picture of its drug action, suggestive of the rather trying conditions (at times) grouped under “nettle rash”, and “angioneurotic oedema.”
We quote rather at length, because the curious symptoms of this proving are not to be found in Clarke, or in Hering.
First was experienced a warmth in lips, and pain at a spot where the left supraorbital nerve emerges. Some ten minutes later, an increasing warmth spread along internal surfaces of both lips, which rapidly enlarged, with a sensation of the pricking of innumerable needles, darting back and forth. Then face, cheeks, forehead and hairy parts under chin, from ear to ear, were involved, the numbness and needle-like darting to and fro spreading down to the breast-bone. There was no burning, ever, in throat pit or gullet. While inner lips and whole cavity of mouth were experiencing an intensity of excitement, the face seemed to grow broader and broader: the mind being pleasurably excited.
Now the right forearm grew numb and heavy: then the left arm and its fingers: the balls of both thumbs being worse than the fingers. Then came a sense of nausea, almost to vomiting, not better in open air; while the lips seemed growing larger all the while, and mouth seemed to stand open, like a huge catfish’s: lips dry, no saliva. While lying, the pulse under the finger would become a mere thread, then return with more volume. Hot things seemed to intensify the effects of the medicine. It was as if Aconite or Arum triph. had been taken: Nux vomica proved the antidote and the effects of the Collinsonia seemed to pass away like a vapour or aura from above downwards. First relief was felt in forehead: then cheeks lost their grotesque largeness; then lips lost their pungent glow, and arms, down to finger tips were severally bettered. But the balls of thumbs persisted in their numbness and felt unnatural even the next day. When walking in the cool open air, feet and limbs felt strangely light, as if he could run like a deer. Then the lower limbs were affected, as if asleep. Nux. Ic, sipped, felt like removing a swaddling cloth that embarrassed nervous action by its tightness and weight.
BLACK LETTER SYMPTOMS.
Mucous or black and faecal stools, with colic and tenesmus (after confinement).
Haemorrhoidal dysentery with tenesmus.
Obstinate constipation with haemorrhoids, stools very sluggish and hard, accompanied by pain and flatulence.
Piles with constipation, or even with diarrhoea, bleeding, or blind and protruding: feeling of sticks, gravel, or sand in rectum: evening and night: better in morning.
Flowing piles, haemorrhoids incessant though not profuse, with alternate constipation and diarrhoea.
Chronic, bleeding, painful haemorrhoids.
Dropsy from cardiac disease.
ITALIC, OR CURIOUS SYMPTOMS
Gastric or haemorrhoidal headaches with giddiness.
Tongue coated yellow, centre or base, with bitter taste.
Nausea; with cramp-like pains in stomach; with chronic constipation; during gestation.
Dyspepsia with waterbrash and haemorrhoids.
Congestion of portal system and pelvic viscera, with flatulent rumbling: sluggish stool with distended abdomen. Piles.
Chronic diarrhoea of children.
Light-coloured lumpy stool with hard straining, followed by dull pains in anus and hypogastrium, lasting about half-an-hour.
Congestive inertia of lower bowel. Weight and pressure in rectum, with intense irritation. Great itching and burning in anus: tumefaction, rectum and anus.
Varicocele with extreme constipation.
Terrible dysmenorrhoea with haemorrhoids.
Violent convulsions preceded by severe pain in region of womb.
Pruritis vulvae, accompanied by haemorrhoids.
Obstinate constipation during gestation.
Severe attacks of dyspnoea with great weakness. Irritation of cardiac nerves. Heart’s action persistently rapid but weak.
After heart is relieved, piles reappear; suppressed menses return.
Palpitation in patients subject to piles, dyspepsia and flatulence, Can neither walk, lie down, or sit, except on edge of chair, parts so swollen and inflamed; during pregnancy.
The slightest excitement aggravates heart symptoms.
Faintness, oppression, syncope and difficulty of breathing, from irritation of cardiac nerves.
Feeling of sticks, or gravel, or sand, in lower part of rectum and anus. Extreme tenderness in rectum.
Burning in anus. Heat, stomach and anus.
One notices in these “indications”, that they are mostly cured conditions: they are not “Caused and cured.” There was once a big controversy in regard to such. It was contended that a drug should not be accepted from the scientific homoeopathic point of view, unless it was known to have produced also the symptoms it had cured. Dr. Clarke entered the arena fiercely: he called it a birth by breech presentation; and later showed that the drug in question had, when proved, evoked the exact symptoms for which it had been found curative. Let us get it! what a drug can cure, that it can cause; and what a drug can cause, that, that only, it can cure. This is the very essence of Homoeopathy.
But there is no doubt about it: Collinsonia has a tremendous effect on the pelvic organs: and a great sphere in disease of the rectum. It also affects circulation of blood, controlling congestions and haemorrhages.
Dr. W.J. GUERNSEY, in Haemorrhoids”, describes the haemorrhoids of Collinsonia as with aching, dull pain; increasing after hard stool.
Burning: heat: heaviness: itching.
Sticking sensation in rectum as from sticks, sand or gravel lodged there.
As bleeding, flowing incessantly, though not profusely.
Blind: chronic: obstinate: external: protruding.
With paralysis, and congestive inertia of rectum.
Worse : evening, night; during pregnancy: after hard stool.
Concomitants: constipation: pain epigastrium; loss of appetite.
Much flatulence. Congestion of pelvic viscera with haemorrhoids: especially in later months of pregnancy.
Catarrh of bladder with haemorrhoids.
Stools mostly only in the evening.
Severe colicky pain, hypogastrium, every few minutes, with fainting: has to sit down to get relief.
FARRINGTON mentions Collinsonia. It is indicated in haemorrhoids when there is a sensation as of sticks in the rectum. Constipation is usual. The bowel symptoms are worse in the evening and night.
Collinsonia is also useful in prolapsus uteri complicated with haemorrhoids. It is just as frequently indicated in this condition as is Podophyllum in prolapsus uteri with diarrhoea and prolapsus recti.
We find Collinsonia has one of the Opium symptoms: dry balls of faecal matter are passed from the rectum; but they differ from those of Opium in that they are of a light colour.
NASH says, it is not thoroughly proven, but enough has been learned from what we have, and from clinical experience, to indicate its great value. As a remedy for haemorrhoids or rectal trouble it may be compared with Aesculus hipp., for both have a sensation as if the rectum was filled full of sticks he proceeds to note some of the differences.
Aesculus has a prominent sensation of fullness: Collinsonia has not. Collinsonia piles often bleed persistently.
Aesculus, great pain, soreness and aching in back: Collinsonia does not, as yet, develop that symptom.
Aesculus sometimes has constipation, sometimes not. C. is greatly constipated, with colic on account of it.
He tells of two of his cured cases:-Very frequent, very severe colic for years, which had baffled old school doctors. He chose the curative remedy because of the obstinate constipation, the great flatulence and the haemorrhoids present.
He also cured one of his most obstinate cases of constipation. The patient, for two years only averaged a movement of the bowels once in two weeks, under the action of powerful cathartics, after which he would be sick two or three days in bed. Collinsonia cured him within a month, perfectly: his bowels moved every day, and the trouble “never returned for several years, i.e. so long as I knew him”.
Truly, a remedy worth knowing. Let us, in turn, pass on the introduction.
