• Contradiction remedy. For example, pain in ears better music; piles better by walking; empty feeling in stomach not relieved by eating; spasmodic laughter from grief; thirst and red face during chill, no thirst in fever.
• Pain in small spots covered by a finger
• Headache, better by profuse urination
• Sweats on a small spot on the face while eating

Source: Vegetable kingdom
Synonyms: St. Ignatius bean
Family: Loganiaceae
Prover: Dr Hahnemann in 1805
Duration of Action: 9 days
Miasmatic Background: Psora
Temperament: Very sensitive and nervous
Diathesis: Hysterical
Thermal Relationship: Neither chilly nor hot but easily affected by cold

Introduction and History: It is a well known woman’s remedy. The medicine is named after the name of the founder, the jersuits who highly esteemed the seeds as a medicine. It is a wonderful remedy of great contradictions. It is described as the feminine of masculine Nux vomica.

Habit and Habitat: It is found in southern Phillipines islands and is cultivated in China. It is a large shrub or climbing tree, having fragrant white flowers; belongs to the natural order of Loganiaceae. Ignatia beans are dull, dark gray, irregularly ovoid and about 25 mm long, usually having one large curved side and three or four smaller flattish surfaces with round angles.

Preparation and Parts Used: The mother tincture is prepared from the seeds of the tree.

Constitution and Physiognomy: It is adapted to women of dark complexion, dark looking with dark hair, and those who are easily excited, sensitive and hysterical in nature.

Ailments From: Grief, fear, disappointed love, jealousy, old spinal injuries, tobacco, shame and mortification, suppressed mental feelings, alcohol, tea, coffee, bad news, vexation, etc.

Seat of Action (Pharmacodynamics): Brain, nervous system, sensorium, spinal cord, particularly medulla oblongata, etc.

Active Principles (Chemical Constituents): Like Nux vomica, it contains strychnine and brucine in about the same quantity.

Physiological Action

1. The toxicology of Ignatia closely resembles that of Nux vomica. Both produce similar excitation of spinal reflexes with the resultant tetanic spasms and muscular twitchings.
2. Death is caused by asphyxia occasioned by tetanic contractions of the respiratory muscles.
3. Susceptibility of the nerves of special senses and all sensory nerves; initially they are excited but later, numbness and mental anguish succeed.
4. Potter says in his materia medica, ‘Cerebrospinal irritability is diminished by small doses, though excited by large ones, Ignatia being probably the most efficient controller of functional phenomena of the cerebrospinal axis.’

Physio-pathological Changes (Pathology)

1. It acts especially on the medulla oblongata and the spinal nervous system, producing tetanic convulsions, dyspnoea, spasms and chorea.
2. It acts on the entire nervous system producing hyperaesthesia of all special senses.
3. Also increases susceptibility to external impressions – mental and physical. The co-ordination of function is disturbed.
4. It predominantly acts on the nervous system of women producing hysteria and a nervous temperament.
5. It produces a rapid change in the mental and physical condition, opposite to each other with great contradictions.

Characteristic Mental Symptoms (Psychology)

1. Patient is absentminded, sad, morose, moody, silent and has fixed ideas.
2. Desire to be alone, weeps inwardly, full of suppressed grief.
3. Easily offended, slightest contradiction excites anger, making one angry with oneself.
4. Rapid changing of mental condition from joy to sorrow, laughing to weeping, happiness to sadness.
5. Patient is good natured when well, but easily offended by the slightest disturbance.
6. Great grief after loosing people or objects that were very dear. Anger followed by quiet grief or sorrow.
7. Involuntary sighing with a weak, empty feeling at the pit of the stomach.
8. Children, when reprimanded, scolded or sent to bed get sick or have convulsions in sleep.
9. Roaring in ears better by music.
10. Persons mentally and physically exhausted by long concentrated grief.
11. Anxiety, as if she had committed some great crime; finely sensitive mood.
12. Howls, cries himself on account of trifles.
13. Indifference to everything, unreasonable complaint about noise.
14. Full of suppressed grief, seems weighed down by it, broods over imaginary troubles.
15. All complaints and troubles are aggravated by consolation.
16. Quarrelsome, inconstant, impatient, irresolute, restless and very timid.
17. Always commits mistakes while writing and talking.

Characteristic Physical Guiding Symptoms

It is a wonderful remedy of great contradiction and is full of surprises, as follows:

• Thirst during chill, no thirst during fever
• Piles are better by walking
• Roaring in ears better by music
• Sexual desire with impotency
• The colour of the face changes when the patient is at rest
• Sore throat feels better by swallowing
• Cough aggravates the more he coughs; cough on standing still
• Spasmodic laughter from grief
• Empty feeling in stomach not better by eating
• Red face during chill, and pale during heat
• Piles protrude when the stool is soft, but not during hard stool. Also prolapse of anus when stool is loose
• Liquid is more painful, than solid to swallow.
• Inflamed parts not painful, sometimes relieved by hard pressure.
• Constipation with excessive urging, felt more in the upper abdomen.
• Suddenness – sudden loss of function.

Suddenness: Sudden loss of function in any organ; relaxation. Tumours of piles prolapse with every stool. Feeling as if the stomach were relaxed. Prolapsus ani from moderate straining at stool, lifting or stooping.

Constipation: Constipation from carriage riding, of paralytic origin, with excessive rumbling; felt more in the upper abdomen.

Hypersensitiveness: Extremely hypersensitive to all external impressions, such as noise, touch, odour.

Desires: Great desire for onion, bread, cold food, butter, acid things, undigestible things, to be alone, etc.

Aversions: Great aversion to warm food, eating, open air, milk, mental exertion, physical work, tobacco smoking, etc.

Headache: Severe headache, as if a nail was driven out through the side, better by lying on it.

Sweat: Perspiration on the tip of the nose or on the face on a small spot only while eating.

Pain: Oversensitiveness to pain, on a small spot which can be covered by the tip of a finger. Sharp stitches from anus deep into the rectum. Pains change their locality, appear gradually and disappear suddenly.

Fever: During fever, face is pale but red during chill.

Sighing: Involuntary sighing with a weak, empty feeling at the pit of the stomach.

Thirst: Thirst during chill only better by external heat, but no thirst during heat.

Spasms: Spasms and convulsions after grief, fright or any violent emotion. Twitching, jerking of single limbs or whole body, when falling asleep.

Periodicity: Complaints return at precisely the same hour. Cramp-like pain in abdomen.

Emptiness: Empty, sinking feeling in stomach; weak, empty feeling in the pit of stomach, not relieved by eating.

ill-effects: ill-effects of worries, of fright, of bad news, of jealousy, of mortification, of shame, of suppressed grief, and of old spinal injuries.

Lumpishness: Feeling of a lump in the throat which cannot be swallowed. A lump rises from the stomach into the throat, as if she would choke, she swallows it down.

Insomnia: Sleeplessness from grief.

Menses: Menses are scanty, of putrid odour and blackish in colour.

Yawning and palpitation: There is violent spasmodic yawning, palpitation and stitches in the heart.

Important Characteristic Features

Hysteria: Ignatia is a great homeopathic remedy for hysteria. Patient is
very sensitive to external impressions. Patient laughs and cries alternately; the face flushes on the slightest emotion; spasmodic laughter often ends in screaming; globus hystericus is present and so is clavus hystericus which shows itself as a sharp pain, as if a nail was being driven into the top of the head.

In Ignatia, there is emission of profuse, pale urine and this often relieves the headache. The paroxysms are provoked by grief, fright, disappointed love or some other similar cause. The hysteria is often associated with menstrual disturbances. The nervous system is over impressionable, in co-ordinate in function and contradictory in action. Also, the mind is in an introverted state. Changeable mood – mind changes with wonderful rapidity. Drinking water causes an aggravation of the convulsive action in the throat. The patient may fall into an unconscious state, with clenched thumbs and a blue face. At the height of the paroxysm, the patient becomes restless and chilly, and often sees fiery zig-zags, when looking out of the line of vision. The patient frequently sighs heavily or deeply.

Susceptibility to odours, which causes the patient to feel faint. Headache is relieved by stooping; soreness of teeth is better by eating; sore throat is better from swallowing. Fever without thirst and chilliness is relieved by uncovering. The cough is contradictory, for the more the patient coughs the more he wants to cough, and it is only stopped by an effort of will.

Intermittent fever: Paroxysm of fever comes with marked periodicity. In fever, the face is red during chill and pale during heat. Fever comes exactly at the same hour every day. Great thirst during chill stage of fever and no thirst during heat stage of fever. Chill is relieved by wrapping up the body or by the warmth of the stove or other forms of artificial heat. Before the attack of fever, there is great yawning and stretching.

General Modalities

Aggravation : From consolation, coffee, brandy, tobacco, after meals, grief, mental emotions, walking fast, strong odours, contact, touch, etc.

Amelioration: Swallowing, hard pressure, walking, warmth, change of position etc.

Remedy Relationships

Complementary: Nat-m, Aur-m, Sulph, Phos.

Follows well: Calc, Sulph, Ars, Sep, Sil, Bell, Lyc.

Antidotes: Arn, Coff, Puls, Nux-v, Camph, Cocc.

Incompatible: Tab, Nux-v, Coff.

Antidotal to: Cham., Coff.

Compare: Aloe, Sulph, Croc, Nat-m, Anac, Spig, Lyc.

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

Dosage: Tincture to 30 potency. In case of spinal cord, brain and nervous system, higher potencies are recommended.

Repetition: Lower dilutions can be repeated, but higher potencies are to be given in a single dose.

THERAPEUTIC VALUE: Abdominal disorders, Anxiety, Appetite, Chorea, Constipation, Convulsion, Cough, Croup, Debility, Dentition, Epilepsy, Flatulence, Genital organs, Headache, Heart affections, Hysteria, Intermittent fever, Locomotor ataxia, Melancholia, Menstrual disorders, Numbness, Paralysis, Piles, Prolapse of anus, Respiratory troubles, Sleep disorders, Throat trouble, Tremors, Voice lost, Yawning.

Note

1. The action of Ignatia is quick, while its duration is short.
2. The best time for its administration is in the morning. If administered shortly. before bedtime, it is apt to produce restless sleep.
3. Ignatia when taken at night produces insomnia.