A Homoeopathic Treatise on Homoeopathic Help, Research and Allied Work – Part VI

Chamomilla Matricaria

Chamomilla matricaria is a wild plant commonly known as ‘Corn-fever-few’ that grows in sandy areas all over Europe. This homoeopathic remedy is prescribed to persons who are exceedingly irritable, discontented (fretful), ill-tempered (peevish) and easily quarrelsome (snappish).

These patients, mostly the infants and young children, become quite stiff, bend backward, kick and scream particularly during teething time, sometimes without reasons and seasons. They would only be pacified on being carried in the lap or on the shoulder.

They may demand this or that, become angry and moan most piteously when refused anything. When anything is offered, they reject it unreasonably or impatiently (petulantly). At times, they want such things that are not to be had, or when procured and offered, are refused with disdain and discourteously. Thus, it is very difficult to please such children as they don’t know what they want or why they are unhappy and make every else around them so. The children at times will go into convulsions when punished.

The child whines (low and long-lasting cry) and is confused, sputters about everything. It wants something new every time. He refuses everything that he has asked for, whether it is something to eat, or toys. When these are handed over to the child it throws them away with force across the room, or strikes the nurse or anybody else present in the face.

Adults also howl and mourn continuously on account of some trifling displeasure or a slight insult.

Chamomilla is an excellent medicine when the patient cannot tolerate pain or other people near him. He cannot bear to be spoken to and thus may be averse to talking (taciturnity). Both adults and the children answer harshly (snappish) and in an ill-mannered way. Chamomilla also addresses complaints coming from feeling insulted (mortification), contradiction and from anger.

It is an effective medicine in gastralgia, when there is constrictive pain or, as if a stone were in the stomach (particularly felt in coffee drinkers, morphine and opium eaters).

Chamomilla is a good medicine for colic when the abdomen is distended like a drum, with gripping pains accompanying urge to stool. Indicated for cramps in the bowel, especially in infants and little ones when they double up, scream and kick due to pain. Such attacks generally come in the evening from 9 p.m. till midnight. At times, colic may be experienced while urinating.

It is an excellent medicine for toothache mostly of left side and for lower teeth. Worse night, when anything warm is taken into mouth, by talking, in open air, getting warm in bed, during menstruation and pregnancy. The teeth feel too long with swollen gums.

Chamomilla is a good medicine for diarrhoea during dentition, especially in summer when stool resembles grass or eggs and spinach mixed and chopped together. It is sometimes yellow and white intermingled with mucus, feels hot when passed and smells like rotten eggs (sulphuretted hydrogen) and may be copious and watery. At times, scanty brown watery stool after much straining specially in dysentery, which may be accompanied with fever, crankiness, twitching of the muscles and colic. Also, for diarrhoea from cold, anger, chagrin and after tobacco.

Chamomilla is great standby in some of those difficult labor cases when there occurs irregular hour glass contractions owing to rigidity of os uteri. The pain may be cutting or tearing in nature making the patient so irritable that she not only scolds the pain, the doctor, the nurse or whoever else is present, but drives them out of the room. When she realises her folly, she calls them again and apologizes. At times, when the patient is put to breast, cramps occur in the womb, back and the belly of the mother. When a mother flies into fury with bleeding from the genitalia and jaundice, such fits sometimes makes her milk unfit for the baby.

Chamomilla is the remedy of young children when they catch cold in winter then and get a dry, rough and scraping cough during sleep without waking. It arises from the suprasternal fossa and is worse from 9 o’clock to midnight. The child may have fever with one side of the face flushed. At times, the patient is sleepy, but cannot sleep owing to irritability of the mind. In whooping cough, patients who have spells of spasmodic cough from being irritated.

It is one of the best pain reliever remedies, whether the pain is in teeth, the ear, the belly, etc. The pain is unendurable and often causes her to scream. The patient seems to be driven to frenzy and despair, worse at night and accompanied with unquenchable thirst and profuse warm sweat on covered parts, especially the head and face. When the child has pain, the nurse or the parents are compelled to carry him all the time, as it seems to relieve.

The adults too cannot keep still and get up at night, toss in bed owing to severe pain with or without getting relief. Chamomilla is indicated in those violent pains where the patient prefers to die rather than suffer so much. When such pains occur in limbs, they not only they drive the patient to desperation but also give rise to almost complete loss of sensation of the skin and a benumbed feelings. At times, the limbs ache as a result of the over sensitiveness to pain. The patient may sometimes feel as though she were walking around on the ends of the bones of her legs and did not have any feet (as though the feet were gone).

Chamomilla antidotes bad effects of coffee when taken in excess, especially for nurses who are tired and drink it to keep up at night to look after patients.

It is also a remedy for bad effects of violent emotions resulting in headache, colic or jaundice.

In a nutshell, whatever the ailment, when anger is the cause, Chamomilla is one possible remedy.

A typical patient needing a dose of Chamomilla, is the ugliest, in the sense that nobody likes the company of such a person. If it is the husband, the wife soon gets tired of him. If he is the father, the child is afraid to approach him. If he is the child, everybody else in the house except the parents would rather have him dead.

Chelidonium Majus

Chelidonium majus is also known Celandine, a perennial herb found in Germany, France and other European countries. This homoeopathic drug is prescribed to patients who suffer from jaundice and other liver disorders, where the skin and whites of the eyes are yellow in colour, the stool is white, clay or yellow in colour, but pasty and may float in water. The urine is profuse, foaming, yellow like beer and stains the linen yellow. Such patients may have a desire for very hot drinks, almost boiling.

These patients may be dyspeptic with a bitter taste in the mouth and the tongue coated. At times, they may have disgust for food. In gall stone colic, the pain may be dull or severe and shooting, stabbing, tearing or lancinating, fixed or extending to left flank (hypochondrium). Chelidonium has a characteristic fixed pain in the back at the lower angle of the right shoulder blade.

Chelidonium is useful in pneumonia when the patient feels tightness in the chest, difficult breathing, dry spasmodic paroxysmal cough, especially at night and due to change of weather or in the spring season as found in humid asthma owing to a liver disorder.

It is effective in neuralgia of the right side of the face, eyes and ears, when there is excessive gushing of tears from the eyes on account of pain. At times, the neuralgia may be preceded with pain in the liver. The pain may extend from the right cheek to the teeth or the eyes.

Such patients may also experience icy coldness on the tips of the fingers. The right foot may feel cold, while the left remains normal.

Cina

Cina is also known as worm seed (basically an unopened bud). The active principle of this drug is santonine.

This homoeopathic remedy is often prescribed to young children and sometimes adults who suffer from worms, particularly the Ascaris round worm (Mulap in Punjabi), or worm like complaints. In such cases the child is generally cross, ugly and cries when touched, looked at or approached. He frets, kicks, gnashes and strikes everyone around him, especially when they try hold or carry him. There is great irritability of the mind along with naughtiness. The child weeps pitifully when awake. He will lay awake crying, so must be rocked or carried constantly day and night. Sometimes he cannot be quieted, as he is immune to all caresses.

The child grinds his teeth in sleep, may be restless and tosses about in bed, whining and crying as if delirious in his sleep. He may like to sleep on his belly or sometimes sleeps on his hands and knees. The child cries (screams) and talks in his sleep and may awake frightened owing to night terrors.

Very often he is obstinate, willful and extremely touchy. The slightest provocation offends him. He wants many things which he refuses when offered, and the offer goads him to further fury. Thus, distressed all the time, the child is not pleased or satisfied with anything.

There occurs itching of the nose and anus owing to reflex irritation, compelling the child to have a constant desire to rub, pick or bore his finger into these parts all the time. At times, the child rubs his nose on the pillow or the shoulder of the mother or attendant.

The child turns his head from side to side and her eyes roll during sleep with dilated pupils. There is twitching of the eyelids with dim eyesight and sometimes dark rings around the eyes. All sorts of colours may be noticed before the eyes, particularly blue, violet, yellow or green. Sometimes objects look yellow. Squint (strabismus) from abdominal irritation owing to worms, is also observed in such patients. At times, there is intense localised (circumscribed) redness of the cheek alternating with cold and paleness, with or without fever. The face looks sickly pale with a white and bluish appearance of mouth.

All this is there despite excessive (ravenous) appetite, as these children generally feel hungry immediately after the meal is over. Thus, they want to eat all the time and may be passing lienteric stools (containing undigested food particles).

The child may have gnawing or pinching pain in the abdomen or twisting pain about the navel. Such victims may occasionally have night convulsions and jerking movement of fingers of the right hand. The child stretches and frets spasmodically and the left foot may be in constant motion. At times, choreic movements (stiffens out straight) of the face and hands are also noticed whenever the child yawns due to worm spasm. Sometimes there is trembling while yawning.

The child may be afraid to speak or move for fear of bringing on an attack (paroxysm) or cough, which may be so violent as to bring tears and pain under the sternum. Gurgling or clucking noises from throat down to the stomach after coughing may also be experienced by these patients. Cough is normally dry and with occasional spasmodic sneezing.

The children very often pass involuntary urine at night (bed wetting). At times, the urine turns milky and turbid after standing.

A single dose of 200 for a week or two, is sufficient to annihilate the worms and other wormy symptoms.