• Bending of the head, neck and spine backwards
• General action of the patient is violent, with frightful distortions. Violent, strange desires
• Sensation of internal chill
• Violence – violent convulsions, hiccough, distortions, strange desires, vertigo
• Spasms – clonic, tonic, dentitional, pregnancy
• Downward direction – violent spasms which move downwards
• Strange desires – coal, chalk, indigestible things
• Injuries – trismus, tetanus. Suppression of eruptions causes brain disease
• Honey coloured scabs with no itching, especially on the head

Source: Vegetable kingdom
Synonyms: Water hemlock
Family: Umbelliferae

Preparation and Parts Used: Tincture is prepared from the fresh root at flowering time.

Ailments From: Dentition, worms, concussion of brain and spine, head symptoms relieved by emission of flatus, indigestion, during and after labour, from opium, fall or blow, suppressed eruptions, puerperal period, birth injuries, suppressed menses, mechanical injuries like a splinter in flesh.

Seat of Action (Pharmacodynamics): General. It has an action on the nervous system, producing spasmodic affections, viz, hiccough, trismus, tetanus and convulsions.

Characteristic Mental Symptoms (Psychology)

1. Confounds present with the past, feels like a child. Stupid feeling.
   Melancholy, with indifference.
2. Mistrustful.
3. Epilepsy; moaning and whining, falls on the ground and rolls about.
4. Vivid dreams.
5. CHILDISH, SILLY, excited. Delusion he is a child again and acts like a child, feels like a child. Childish behaviour, sings, dances, shouts, moans, howls, weeps. Looks ‘like an angel’ after convulsions.
6. NAIVE.
7. RETARDATION (Bufo, Bar-c, Bar-m) after a head injury.
8. AVERSION TO MEN, aversion to company, avoids the sight of people;
   aversion to the presence of strangers.
9. Excessively affected by sad stories. Horrible things affect her profoundly. Sad on seeing others happy.
10. Mania, with dancing, laughing and ridiculous gestures.
11. Feels as if in a strange place. Does not remember what has happened, does not recognize anybody, but answers well. Answers when spoken to, yet knows no one.
12. Suspicious or mistrustful.

Characteristic Physical Guiding Symptoms

1. Suited to women subjected to epilepsy, chorea, convulsions or spasms. Suited to children during teething or from worms.
2. During dentition, grinding of teeth, gums, compression of jaws, as in lock Jaw.
3. Suffer VIOLENT SHOCKS through head, stomach, arms, legs, which cause jerking of parts; head hot. Electric-like shock sensation.
4. CONVULSIONS, after injuries to head, spine (Arn, Hyper, Nat-s).
5. In pregnancy, eclampsia, meningitis, encephalitis.
6. PUERPERAL convulsions – frequent suspension of breathing for a few moments, as if dead; upper part of body most affected, CONTINUE AFTER DELIVERY
7. Spasms are renewed when touched, from noise or jar.
8. Grand mal and petit mal in the same person.
9. Multiplies, one fit followed by the other (main remedy).
10. Shrieking before (Cupr, Op) convulsions.
11. Anxious before convulsions.
12. Starting in head, while going downwards.
13. Grimaces of the face.
14. Drawing of the head backwards. Arching of the back.
15. OPISTHOTONUS, VIOLENT with contortions of the whole body and distortion of limbs. RIGIDITY – spasms in muscles is so great that neither the curved limbs can be straightened nor the straight ones curved. Whole body becomes HARD like WOOD.
16. Biting of the tongue.
17. Vomiting (during or alternating), with loss of consciousness.
18. Long post-ictal state (>30 minutes).
19. Placid between the convulsions.
20. EPILEPSY, with swelling of the stomach, as from violent spasms of the diaphragm, Screaming, reddish or bluish face, lock jaw, loss of consciousness and distortion of limbs, frequently during the night, recurring initially at short, then at long intervals.
21. SPASMS more DOWNWARDS, with terrific VIOLENCE followed by utter prostration. Produces SPASMODIC AFFECTIONS – hiccough, trismus, tetanus, convulsions.
22. Craving for chalk, clay, lime, indigestible things, coal or charcoal; child eats them with relish.

Important Characteristic Features

Head: HEADTURNED OR TWISTED TO ONE SIDE. CEREBROSPINAL MENINGITIS. CERVICAL MUSCLES CONTRACTED. Vertigo with gastralgia and muscular spasms. Sudden, violent shocks through the head. Stares persistently at objects. CONVULSIONS from concussion of brain. Thick, yellow scabs on head. Head symptoms relieved by emission of flatus.

Eyes: When reading, letters disappear. PUPILS DILATED, INSENSIBLE STRABISMUS. Objects recede, approach and seem double. Eyes stare. Pupils get behind upper lids as head inclines. Effects of exposure to snow. Spasmodic affections of eyes and its appendages. Strabismus, periodic, spasmodic after a fall or blow.

Ears: Difficult hearing. Sudden detonations especially on swallowing. HAEMORRHAGE FROM EARS.

Face: Pustules which run together forming thick, yellow scabs on the face and head, corners of mouth and chin, with burning pain. RED FACE. Trismus; disposition to grind teeth.

Throat: Dry. Feels as if grown together. Spasms of oesophagus; cannot swallow. Effects on oesophagus from Swallowing a sharp piece of bone.

Stomach: Thirst; burning pressure; HICCOUGH. Throbbing in the pit of stomach, which has become raised to the size of a fist. Desire for unnatural things, LIKE COAL (Alum, Calc); indigestion with insensibility, frothing at the mouth.

Abdomen: Flatulence with anxiety and crossness. Rumbling in the abdomen; distended and painful. Colic with convulsions.

Rectum: Diarrhoea in the morning, with an irresistible desire to urinate. Itching in the rectum.

Respiratory: Chest feels tight; can hardly breathe. Tonic spasm in pectoral muscles. Heat in chest.

Back and extremities: Spasms and cramps in muscles of nape of neck, spasmodic drawing backward of head. Curved limbs cannot be straightened nor straight ones bent. BACK BENT BACKWARD, LIKE AN ARCH. Jerking, tearing in coccyx, especially during menses.

Skin: Eczema; no itching; exudation forms into a HARD, LEMON COLOURED CRUST. Suppressed eruption causes brain disease. Elevated eruptions, as large as peas. Chronic impetigo.

General Modalities

Aggravation: At night, touch, noise, jar, tobacco smoke, concussions, draughts.

Amelioration: From warmth, thinking of the complaints.

Remedy Relationships

Antidote to: Op.

Antidoted by: Arn, Op, tobacco.

Compare: Art-v, Bar-m, Bufo, Con, Cupr, Oena, Hyper, Hyos, Hell, Nat-s, Nux-v, Stry.

Comparison

Cicuta maculata (Water hemlock): Effects very similar; the most prominent symptoms being – falls unconscious, tetanic or clonic convulsions. Body covered with sweat. Consider in epilepsy and tetanus. Give in tincture and lower potencies.

Potency: 3x, 6x, 30, 200, 1000.

Quotations

Nearly a specific in epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis – Dr Lilienthal

Therapeutic Value: Concussions of brain or spinal cord, Convulsions, During dentition or worms, Head injury, Mental retardation, Opisthotonus, Seizure disorder; Spasms, Strabismus, Twitches.

Note

1. During dentition or worm, when Cina fails.
2. For chronic effects of concussion of brain or spinal cord, after Arnica fails.