Homeopathy XVII – Aconite & Belladonna

Acontite ( Aconitum napellus)

Aconite

False Symptoms

• Cold, Cough, Fever, Indigestion, Motions, Heart Complaints

General Information

• It is a vegetable drug. It is short acting and non-miasmic
• It is often abused in practice.

General Symptoms

• It works mostly on plethoric constitutions
• Complaints from fear (e.g: menstruation stopped due to fever)
• Restlessness, anxiety, sudden effect and sudden relief, burning sensation
• Repeated doses cause poisonous effects

Mental Symptoms

• Violent feelings
• Nervousness about the disease
• Irritation and excitement
• Fear of death
• Fear is evident on his countenance
• Predicts the hour of death
• Develops a state of indifference – loses affection towards friends and relatives
• Weeps with fear
• Suffering from burning sensation all through the body
• Sensation of ants creeping on the body

Modalities

• Aggravation cold and slight exposure
• Longs for water, feels thirsty
• Craves for pungent food but it would be vomited out as soon as it reaches the stomach
• Aggravation music
• Food tastes bitter

Causation

• Exposure to cold or intensive heat
• Fear
• Bad effects of electric shock

Peculiarities

• Sensation as if thin wires are moving in the head
• Sensation of icy water flowing through the spine

Drug Relationship

• Nux vomica and Coffea brings the patient to order if large doses are given

Special Note

• It should NOT be used as a routine remedy/ second prescription.
• Aconite should not be given in Typhoid, as it affects heart and lungs.
• If fever recurs after Aconite, Sulphur may be given
• It is a heart remedy.
• It is a very useful drug for new born babies with breathless-ness. (When a baby is born, he/she undergoes a sudden change in environment. So if the baby doesn’t cry upon birth, a dose of aconite is very useful.)

Belladonna

Belladonna (Atropa belladonna)

False Symptoms

• High fevers with delirium /Brain Fevers/ Meningitis/ Encephalitis, Milk Fevers, Convulsions in children
• Rheumatism, Tonsillitis (aggravation change of weather), Inflammation (predominantly right side)
• Blood Pressure, Hemorrhages
• Menstrual disorders
• Hydrophobia
• Bronchitis, Pneumonia, Pleurisy
• Boils, Carbuncles

General Information

• It is a vegetable drug.
• It is almost similar to Aconite, but a little deeper. It is useful in certain chronic diseases also
• It works in plethoric constitutions.
• Its effects are sudden and violent
• Belladonna can change a person to be become gentle.

General Symptoms

• Head symptoms predominant (hence effects the vascular system – the heart, lungs, brain and nerves)
• People requiring Belladonna are very brainy and high class intellectuals, cunning, destructive intelligence and plotting nature
• Sudden effect, sudden relief, great violence. It leaves suddenly like a storm.
• Heat is predominant, burning
• Red and flashed face, Throbbing carotids, broad face
• Staring and glistening eyes, dilated pupils
• Feels blood hot. Blood seems to be rushing to the head. Intense heat – radiating heat. Feels the heat by touch
• Mucous surfaces hot and dry, discharges hot
• Cerebral congestion

Mental Symptoms

• Commanding and plotting nature, an unwise opportunist, destructive tendencies to spoil constructive will, no capacity to sympathize
• Selfish, poisonous (decisions momentary), destructive mentality
• Excitement – violence – great anxiety – irritability
• Sensorium is very much excited and works vigorously
• Over sensitive to attractions
• Bites, Strikes, tears and does strange things (generally in hydrophobia)
• Startles in sleep, sees ghosts, devils, insects, dogs and all forms of imaginary things
• Wants to run away – wants to escape – even jumps out of the window
• Aversion to company

Modalities

• All pains are aggravated from touch, slight jar, motion, and light
• Convulsions aggravated by cold air
• Unquenchable craving for lemon and lemon juice
• Aversion to light, noise and company
• Aggravation when looking at shining objects
• Aggravation by looking at running water (Hyoscyamus, Stramonium and Hydrophobia)
• Aggravation at 3 PM and on the right side
• Head becomes over sensitive, tongue red, dry with red edges

Causation

• Exposure to heat
• Hair cutting brings headache

Drug Relationship

• Calc Carb is the chronic of Belladonna

Special Note

Headache

• Feels that neck is expensive and a great weight on the neck
• Sensation of nails and hammering
• Aggravation draft of cool air – touch – movement – noise – stooping or bending forward – lying – should sit perpendicular
• Women will not have their hair combed or brushed, they allow it to hang.
• Congestion upwards – rush of blood to head
• Cannot lie on the right side
• Extremes of cold

Vertigo

• Intense excitability – turning in bed and moving makes him dissy

Eyes

• Flashes of heat – flickering before eyes
• Dimness of vision or blindness
• Apoplexy of retina
• Night Blindness
• Dilated pupils
• Strabismus on account of congestion in the circulatory process

Hemorrhoids

• Blood hot, bleeds bright red with clots
• Aggravation motion
• Spasmodic constriction
• Violently painful – cannot move – he must lie with limbs apart – much burning

Bladder

• Feels spasmodic clutching at the neck of the bladder
• Retention of urine due to shock or due to fright or due to anxiety, grief or any mental troubles
• The same clutching may be in the vagina, uterus and the tubes also.

… to be continued