• Child very cross and ugly, does not want to be touched or carried or caressed, wants to be rocked
• Dark rings around the eyes; white and bluish around the mouth; one cheek red and the other pale
• Child gets on hands and knees while asleep, on abdomen, child flops over on its belly, sleeps better that way, wakes when turns over.

Source: Vegetable kingdom
Synonyms: Artemesia maritima, Wormseed
Family: Compositae
Prover: Dr Hahnemann 1829
Duration of Action: 14 to 20 days
Miasmatic Background: Psora
Temperament: Irritable
Diathesis: Scrofulous
Thermal Relationship: Neither hot nor chilly

Introduction and History: It is a very well known remedy for worms, especially in children. Cina is very useful in diseases of children and has become a household remedy with us. Although homeopathy does not believe in specificity, this is a drug which is a near specific for worm affections in children. The name Cina comes from one of its common name ‘cynae’. Cina also known as the Wormseed.

This medicine was introduced in Europe by the Crusaders as an antihelminthic, but was not used so much after the discovery and isolation of the proximate principle Santonin.

Habit and Habitat: It is indigenous to the deserts of Russia, Turkistan, west Pakistan, in temperate regions and western Himalayas. It is an evergreen perennial shrub with many slender, erect, flowering stems upto one metre high. The bracts enclose 3-5 florets, which are oblong, pale brownish-green in colour, odourous with a bitter taste. After exposure to light, flowers become brownish green. They somewhat resemble seeds and appear in September.

Preparation and Parts Used: Mother tincture is prepared from the seeds. Higher potencies are prepared from the mother tincture.

Constitution and Physiognomy: It is especially adopted to children or people with black eyes, black dark hair and complexion, cross, ill-humoured, sensitive women, who have a pale face, sickly body, whitish or bluish appearance around the mouth, one cheek red and the other pale, and a big, fat, rosy, scrofulous constitution.

Ailments From: Masturbation, worms, yawning overeating, sweets; by eating chalk, charcoal, stone, coal, etc.

Seat of Action (Pharmacodynamics): Brain, nervous system, mind, abdomen, stomach, thermic centre, urinary bladder, respiratory system, etc.

Active Principles (Chemical Constituents): The active principle of this drug is ‘santoninum’ which powerfully affects the abdominal ganglia. It also contains ‘artemisinin’ and volatile oil consisting chiefly of ‘cineol’.

Physio-pathological Changes (Pathology)

1. Powerfully affects the abdominal ganglia as a reflex of which there is convulsive twitching and jerking of the limbs and spasms.
2. It acts on the gastrointestinal tract, causing irritation and inflammation.
3. Due to some inexplicable action it promotes the expulsion and death of worms.
4. It acts on eyes and produces xanthopsia (yellow vision).

Characteristic Mental Symptoms (Psychology)

1. Child is ill-humoured, very cross, does not want to be touched or carried.
2. Desires many things, but rejects everything when offered.
3. Abnormal consciousness, as if having committed some evil deed.
4. Mentally, the patient is highly irritable and peevish.
5. Pitiful weeping when awake.
6. Frightened, jumps out of bed, sees imaginary objects.
7. Talks hurriedly, anxious in the evening and before midnight.
8. Not satisfied by anything uneasy and distressed all the time.

Characteristic Physical Guiding Symptoms

Sensitiveness: Child is very sensitive, cannot bear even touch.

Irritation: Child is very irritable, rubs its nose constantly. Itching of anus and grinding of teeth.

Cravings: Abnormal hunger shortly after a meal, craving for sweets and different things.

Aversions: Aversion of the sucking child to its mother’s milk.

Periodicity: Periodic cough returning every spring. Intermittent fever, at the same hour every day, in the evening.

Alternation: Diarrhoea alternating with constipation. Canine hunger alternating with loss of appetite. Headache alternating with pain in the abdomen.

Spasms and jerking: Jerking during sleep, screaming out as well as convulsive attacks, especially during the night.

illusion: All sorts of colours, especially yellow appear before eyes; objects look yellow.

Reflex symptoms: Worm cough, reflex cough, caused by writing or reading.

Sickly look: Pale face, sickly white or bluish in appearance around the mouth, dark rings around the eyes.

Digging of nose: Constantly digging and boring at the nose, picks the nose all the time, itching of nose, rubs nose on pillow.

Urine: Turbid when passes, turns milky and semisolid after standing, white and turbid, involuntary.

Restless: Restless at night, screams out sharply at night, Scratches nose.

Cough: Gagging cough in the morning, whooping cough, Violent attacks in the morning without expectoration.

Aphonia: Aphonia from exposure to cold air.

Worms: It is pre-eminently a worm remedy. Patient is mentally and physically nervous; nausea and vomiting, nocturnal enuresis, pain in abdomen, clean tongue.

Sleep: Patient sleeps in knee-elbow position.

Important Characteristic Features

Cina baby: It is especially suited to children with dark hair and complexion, pale face, sickly body, whitish or bluish appearance around the mouth, with dark rings around the eyes; one cheek red and the other pale.

The baby is highly irritable. All complaints are caused by worm infestation due to which the baby always grinds the teeth and bores the nose or rubs the nose on the pillow or against the shoulder of the nurse. Baby Screams during sleep and weeps pitifully after waking up. While sleeping, the baby grinds the teeth due to worm irritation.

The child looks very pale, has a dark complexion, dark hair and dark rings around the eyes. There is a bluish-whitish appearance around the mouth. The child is very irritable, cross, peevish and ill-humoured, does not want to be touched or looked at. Cannot bear to have anyone near him, wants many things but refuses everything when offered. Even carrying does not give him relief.

There is canine hunger; hungry soon after a full meal, craving for Sweets and different things. Urine turbid when passed, turns milky and semi-solid after standing; white, turbid, involuntary urine. Baby wants to lie on abdomen while sleeping. Due to worm irritation, children may also have nocturnal enuresis. Child may often get an attack of convulsion, especially during sleep. Child usually suffers from diarrhoea, caused by taking sweets; stool being watery, thin, white; contains undigested food particles with a clean tongue. Great desire for indigestible things and aversion to mother’s milk.

Worms: When there is the mental picture of a wormy child, Cina is decidedly the remedy for worms. ‘Cina is most powerful for the elimination of roundworms.’

‘Cina corrects the abdominal organs and so far tones up the abdominal ganglia, so that the mucous membrane of the alimentary tract pours forth a normal secretion, and the worms, no longer having a proper pabulum (food) on which they survive, die and are expelled. This is the use of Cina.’

Whooping cough: Cina is one of our best remedies for whooping cough; also jerking, trembling, twitching and convulsions; Cina is very efficatious when worm symptoms are present.

General Modalities

Aggravation: Night, before midnight, after taking sweets, overeating, after anger, in open air, from touch, yawning, cold air, summer, sun.

Amelioration: Being carried, lying on the abdomen, on mother’s shoulder, turning the head from side to side, rubbing eyes.

Remedy Relationships

Follows well: Calc, Chin, Ing, Nux-v, Plat, Puls, Rhus-t, Sil.

Antidotes: Arn, Camph, Chin, Caps.

Compared with: Ant-c, Ant-t, Cham, Kreos, Bry, Staph, Sil, etc.

Potency: 3x, 6x, 12x, 30x, 100, 200, 1000.

Dosage

1. Pierce recommends third potency.
2. Boericke – for nervous and irritable children – 30 to 200 potency.
3. Nash – it is more efficacious for worms in 200 or higher potencies than the lower potencies.

Repetition: Bears repetition very well.

Therapeutic Value: Abdominal trouble, Affections of the eye, Anaemia, Asthma, Boring of nose, Chorea, Colic, Convulsions, Dentition, Diarrhoea, Enuresis, Fever, Grinding of teeth, Hydrocephalus, Irritation, Leucorrhoea, Milky urine, Spasms, Twitching, Whooping cough, Worms.

Note: It is more efficacious for worms in 200 or higher potencies than the lower ons.