• Dry, aching in rectum with feeling as if full of small sticks
• Haemorrhoids blind, painful, purplish, with severe lumbosacral backache (alternates with lumbago – Aloe)
• Follicular pharyngitis, dry throat with stitching pains.

Source: Vegetable kingdom
Synonyms: Kastana, Horse chestnut
Family: Sapindaceae
Prover: Dr Cooley of New York in 1873, Dr E.M. Hale
Duration of Action: A few hours
Miasmatic Background: Psora
Temperament: Irritable

Introduction and History: This drug has a marked action upon the lower bowels, producing haemorrhoids with several backache and absence of actual constipation.

Habit and Habitat: Italian oak flourishes well in temperate climate.

Preparation and Parts Used: Mother tincture is prepared from the nuts of the Italian oak and mixed with alcohol; tincture of ripe kernel.

Constitution and Physiognomy: Persons with haemorrhoidal tendency; with bilious or catarrhal trouble; with gastric suffering.

Ailments From: Deranged liver, reflex piles, dentition during hot summer.

Seat of Action (Pharmacodynamics): Liver, veins, rectum, abdomen, nasopharynx, mucous membranes, occiput, sacroiliac region.

Physio-pathological Changes (Pathology)

• It acts on the muscles; paralytic condition with burning and itching.
• Acts on the rectum; feeling of fullness and intense pain in anus for a long time.
• It acts on mucous membranes of the throat; feeling of dryness and constriction with frequent inclination to swallow.
• Acts on veins and produces venous congestion.

Characteristic Mental Symptoms (Psychology)

• Looses temper easily, gains control slowly, miserably cross (Cham).
• Dullness or sluggishness.
• Depressed and irritable.
• Confused.
• Attempts to escape from the window

Characteristic Physical Guiding Symptoms

• Pains rheumatic, flying, wandering, shooting along the nerves.
• Fullness in various parts such as in brain, blood, heart, lungs, stomach, skin, pelvis.
• Venous congestion, especially portal and haemorrhoidal.
• Mucous membranes of mouth, throat, rectum are swollen, burn, feel dry and raw.

Important Characteristic Features of Aesculus Hippocastanum

Rectum: Sensation as if rectum is full of small sticks. Knife-like pains shoot up the rectum. Rectum is very sore; burning and itching

Constipation: Hard, dry stool. Very difficult to pass with dryness and heat of the rectum, accompanied with severe backache.

Haemorrhoids: Blind, bluish, large, painful and burning. Walking makes the person worse.

Backache: Severe lumbosacral backache. Severe knife-like pains in the lumbosacral articulation. Backache with great fatigue. Back ‘gives out’ during pregnancy, prolapsus, leucorrhoea, when walking or stooping. Must sit down.

General Modalities

Aggravation: Morning on awaking, any motion, walking, after eating, afternoon, standing.

Amelioration: Cool open air, bleeding (piles), summer, continued exertion.

Potency: Third to sixth potency.

Dosage: Used in low potencies.

Repetition: Can be frequently repeated.

Therapeutic Value: Ascarides, Atrophic pharyngitis, Haemorrhoids, Jaundice, Leucorrhoea, Lumbago, venous stasis.