• Pains which dart about or radiate to distant parts
• Colic, worse bending forward, lying; better bending backwards, walking about, rising up, standing erect
• Seminal emissions without erection, then weakness in knees
• Nausea felt in ears
• Bites tongue when not eating or drinking
• Sensation of sticks in eyes, as if hot air streaming out of them
• Sensation as if tongue is burnt
• Angina pectoris with flatulence

Source: Vegetable kingdom
Synonyms: Wild yam
Family: Dioscoreaceae
Prover: Dr. W. Burt
Duration of Action: Not definite

Introduction and History: Dr W. Burt made the heroic proving of this remedy. According to him, ‘The grand sphere for the use of Dioscorea is among colic of the intestines and stomach, where the coeliac and umbilical plexuses are in a great hyperaesthesia, the pain and spasms being unbearable.’

Preparation and Parts Used: It is prepared from the tincture of fresh roots or trituration of the fresh resinoid.

Active Principles (Chemical Constituents): Dioscorin.

Constitution and Physiognomy: It is suited to people who drink tea excessively, or perform excessive fasting, masturbation.

Ailments From: ill-effects of excessive tea drinking, fasting, masturbation.

Seat of Action (Pharmacodynamics): It mainly acts on abdominal nerves, abdomen, sciatic nerve and spinal cord.

Physio-pathological Changes (Pathology)

1. Through the spinal nerves, it particularly acts upon the intestinal canal, producing hyperaesthesia of the sentient nerves of the bowels.
2. It also acts on the liver and upon many portions of the nervous system.

Characteristic Mental Symptoms (Psychology)

1. He feels cross, nervous and easily troubled.
2. Feels depressed after seminal emissions.
3. Calls things by wrong names.

Characteristic Physical Guiding Symptoms

Feeble digestion: Suited to persons of feeble digestive powers, old or young.

Flatulence: Flatulence after meals or after eating, especially in tea drinkers and they are often subject to colic.

Griping pains: Griping type of pain in abdomen, about the umbilicus.

Collic

(i) Violent twisting colic occurring at regular paroxysms, as if intestines were grasped and twisted by a powerful hand.

(ii) Colicy pains, worse from bending forward and while lying; better by standing erect or bending backward.

Emissions

(i) Seminal emission during sleep with vivid dreams of women all night.

(ii) Knees weak, genitals cold, great despondency

Felons: Early felons where pains are sharp and agonizing when pricking is first felt; nails brittle.

Paronychia: Disposition to paronychia.

General Modalities

Aggravation: Lying, sitting, bending forward.

Amelioration: By motion, walking difficult, compelled to walk even though tired, bending back, standing erect, from stretching out.

Remedy Relationships

Compare: Coloc, Phos, Podo, Rhus-t, Sil.

Antidotes: Cham, Camph.

Dosage: Tincture to 3c potency, upto 30c.

Repetition: Bears repetition well.

Therapeutic Value: Acne, Angina pectoris, Biliousness, Chorea, Constipation, Cough, Cramps, Diarrhoea, Dysentery, Dyspepsia, Dyspnoea, Gall stone colic, Haemorrhoids, Kidney Stone, Lumbago, Paronychia, Rheumatism, Sciatica, Spinal irritation, Spermatorrhoea, Toothache, Whitlow.