• Sensation of a hard boiled egg lodged at the cardiac end of stomach
• Pain in stomach comes on immediately after eating
• Total loss of appetite in the morning but great craving for food at noon and at night

Source: Vegetable kingdom

Synonyms: Black spruce, Double spruce

Family: Coniferae

Prover: Dr Leaman

Introduction and History: It is one of the strong, dynamic and long acting remedies in various types of diseases, especially when characteristic stomach symptoms are present.

Habit and Habitat: A tree growing in northern United States and Canada.

Preparation and Parts Used: Tincture is prepared from the gum (resin).

Ailments From: Habit of tea drinking, tobacco chewing, etc.

Seat of Action (Pharmacodynamics): It mainly acts on the stomach, gastrointestinal tract, chest, respiratory system, heart and central nervous system.

Physio-pathological Changes (Pathology): Abies nigra acts especially upon the mucous lining of the stomach, causing deranged digestion.

Characteristic Mental Symptoms (Psychology)

1. Patient is low spirited, hypochondriacal.
2. Patient is nervous minded and unable to think or study.

Characteristic Physical Guiding Symptoms

Keynote: The patient describes a feeling as though he had swallowed some indigestible substance, which had got stuck at the cardiac orifice of the stomach.

Generalities: There are rheumatic pains and aching in the bones. Also alternate heat and cold.

1. Appetite: Total loss of appetite but great craving for food in the evening and at night.
2. Gastralgia: Pain in the stomach which always comes on after eating. Breath and eructations are offensive.
3. Heart: There is a sharp, cutting pain in the heart; action of the heart is heavy and slow; trachycardia; bradycardia.
4. Sleep: Sleep of Abies nigra patient is wakeful and restless at night with hunger.
5. Fever: Alternate heat and cold, chronic intermittent fever with pain in the stomach.
6. Headache: Patient has a feeling of dizziness; dull, severe headache with a hot head and flushed cheeks.
7. Menses: Menstruation delayed by three months.
8. Chest: There is a painful sensation, as if something were lodged in the chest and had to be coughed up, lungs feel compressed. Aggravation by lying down.

Important Characteristic Features

Gastrointestinal complaints: Abies nigra is a very useful medicine for dyspepsia. The patient describes a feeling as though he had swallowed some indigestible substance, which had got stuck at the cardiac orifice of the stomach.

There is total loss of appetite but great craving for food in the evening and at night. There is pain in stomach; always comes on after eating. Breath and eructations are offensive.

Abies nigra General Modalities

Aggravation: After eating, coughing.

Therapeutic Value: Bradycardia, Constipation, Cough, Dyspepsia, Dyspnoea, Intermittent fever, Tachycardia.