• Sensation as if something above in the abdomen, as if limbs were made of glass and would break
• Bad effects of vaccination
• Teeth decay at the roots, crowns remain sound
• Eruptions only on covered parts

Source: Vegetable kingdom
Synonyms: Tree of life, American arbor vitae, False white cedar
Family: Coniferae
Prover: Dr. Hahnemann in 1819
Duration of Action: Upto 60 days
Miasmatic Background: Sycosis – Thuja is the king of antisycotic remedies
Temperament: Sluggish and lymphatic
Thermal Relationship: Chilly patient

Introduction and History: Thuja is derived from the Greek word ‘thuja’ which means sacrifice. The wood of this tree was burnt in ancient days to show that the person has been sacrificed for God; hence, the common name is ‘Tree of life’. It was introduced into homeopathy by Dr Hahnemann in 1819. Thuja is the ‘king of antisycotic remedies’. Its chief use is in chronic diseases originating from sycosis or what may be called constitutional gonorrhoea. Thuja is apt to work wonders, especially when there is a history of sycosis. Thuja is one of Hahnemann’s greatest discoveries. It is a well known left sided remedy.

Habit and Habitat: It is found in North America, from Canada to mountains of Virginia and Carolina. It is an evergreen tree. it grows near about 20 to 50 feet high. Branches are spreading and flat, dark green above and pale beneath. It yields a pungent aromatic oil. The wood is very durable. Bark is of light redbrown colour. Leaves are persistent, small, smooth and pointed; flowers are minute, solitary; male and female flowers are generally on different branches. Male flowers are yellowish and abundant. Flowers appear in May. Leaves, when rubbed between the palms of hands gives of a pungent, aromatic odour.

Preparation and Parts Used: Mother tincture is prepared from the fresh green leaves and twigs of the tree.

Constitution and Physiognomy: Especially adapted to the hydrogenoid constitution of Grauvogl, having dark hair and dark complexion; unhealthy, oily, greasy skin, bearing warty excrescences and dirty brownish-white spots all over the body. Thuja patients look like ‘Ganeshji, with a distended abdomen and bulky body, having lavish growth of various tissues every where.

Ailments From: Vaccination; gonorrhoea – badly treated or suppressed: sunstroke, sexual excesses, tea, coffee, beer, sweets, tobacco, fat, meat, onions, sulphur, mercury.

Seat of Action (Pharmacodynamics): Mucous membranes, gastrointestinal tract, mind, nerves, occiput, especially the brain, genitourinary organs, glandular epithelium, skin, etc.

Doctrine of Signature: It is prepared from the Tree of life. This plant has pedunculated wart-like growths at the junction of the branch and the stem, or between two branches, and this medicine is one of the best medicines for pedunculated warts.

Active Principles (Chemical Constituents): Main constituents are thujic acid, oil of thuja, thujone, piperine, pince, fenchon and tannin.

Physio-pathological Changes (Pathology)

1. It acts on the skin and genitourinary organs, producing a condition that corresponds with the Sycotic dyscrasia, whose chief manifestation is the formation of wart-like excrescences upon mucous and cutaneous surfaces, fig warts and condylomata.
2. It acts chiefly upon genitourinary organs, anus, skin, producing irritation.
3. It has the property of absorbing fluids of the body, which become acrid, probably caused by Thuja which perverts the lymphatic secretions; it also disturbs digestion and produces a tendency to destruction and dissolution of fluids.
4. The chief action of this drugs lies on the female sexual system where it causes delayed menses, ovaritis and leucorrhoea. It produces tubercles, fig warts, condylomatous growths on the mucous membranes followed by corroding ulceration.
5. Acts on hard tissues like, nails, warts, etc., making them soft, and causes their absorption.
6. Has a special action on the nervous system (general irritation and arousing of emotions).
7. It has a specific antibacterial action as in gonorrhoea and vaccinosis.
8. It acts on the kidneys and produces inflammation.

Characteristic Mental Symptoms (Psychology)

1. Fixed ideas, as if a strange person was at his side, as if the soul and body were separated.
2. Cannot think, talks slowly, as if hunting for words, uses wrong words.
3. Hurried, with ill-humour, talks hastily.
4. Sensation as if the body, especially the limbs were made of glass and would break easily.
5. Music is unbearable, causing the patient to weep with trembling of the body.
6. Loss of memory, the patient is extremely forgetful.
7. Sensation as if the lower limbs were made of wood; the sensation comes particularly when walking.
8. Emotional sensitiveness; as if something was alive in the abdomen.
9. Insane women – will not be touched or approached. Anxious apprehensions regarding the future.
10. Very depressed, irritable. Aversion to life.
11. Very obstinate children; throw themselves angrily upon the floor, if least opposed.
12. Sensation as if urine is trickling in the urethra.
13. Sensation as if flesh were beaten and scrapped from the bones.
14. Sensation as if a convex button were pressed on the head.
15. Sensation as if a nail had been driven into the parietal bone.
16. Sensation as if he is under the control of some superhuman being.
17. Slowness and sluggishness prevail all over the mental sphere.
18. Dissatisfied, quarrelsome, overexcited, angry at trifles.
19. Vertigo, with eyes shut.
20. Sensation as if anus would fly into pieces during stool.
21. Sensation as if moisture or a drop were running through the urethra.
22. Sensation as if boiling lead were passing through the rectum.

Characteristic Physical Guiding Symptoms

Left-sidedness: It is a left sided remedy; complaints always start from the left side.

Greasy: Greasy skin; face looks shiny, waxy or oily, greasy or oily stool, oily sweat.

Sensitiveness: Vagina extremely sensitive; coition is impossible or extremely difficult.

Oedema: Dropsical bloated face; oedeomatous erysipelas of the face. Oedema about the joints.

Sweating: Sweats only on covered parts; or all over except the head, when he sleeps, stops when he wakes.

Periodicity: Symptoms appear periodically at 3 am, annually, during menses, during increasing moon.

Headache: As if a nail had been driven into the parietal bone, or as if a convex button were pressed on the part, worse from sexual excesses, over heating, etc.

Piles: Piles swollen; pain most severe when sitting.

Diarrhoea: Early morning, expelled forcibly with much flatus; gurgling, as if water was passing from a bunghole, worse after breakfast, coffee, etc.

Warts: Fig warts, condylomata and wart-like excrescences upon the mucous membranes and cutaneous surfaces of the body.

Vertigo: Vertigo on closing the eyes.

Foul smelling: Muco-purulent, copious, foul smelling discharges from all the mucous membranes of the body.

Sensitiveness: Coition prevented by extreme sensitiveness of the vagina.

Teeth: Teeth decay at the root, crown remains sound.

Skin: Skin looks dirty; brown spots here and there; warts large and seedy.

Catarrh: Chronic nasal catarrh; discharge thick, yellow, greenish, offensive.

Desire: Great desire for salt, cold food and drinks.

Important Characteristic Features

Skin: The skin looks very unhealthy, Warts on any part of the body, with a little stalk called fig warts; also tubular warts, flat warts; black senile warts, even condylomata may be seen. Dirty brownish colour of the skin, brownish white, mottled spots on the skin. There may be white, scaly, dry eruptions on the skin. Eruptions burn violently after scratching. Eruptions on covered parts only. Pustular eruptions like smallpox. Boenninghausen found in Thuja both the preventive and curative for an epidemic of smallpox. Thuja aborts the process and prevents pitting.

Headache: Patient suffers from headache due to exposure to heat, sun, and suppression of gonorrhoea, syphilis. His headache is of a chronic nature and syphilitic in origin. Left sided temple and parietal bones are affected. Sensation as if the head was pierced by a nail through the parietal bone. Violent congestion with heaviness in the occiput. Headache in the morning. Boring pain through the temples. Screwing in the frontal eminence, temple as if a convex button were pressed upon the part, Headache is aggravated from sexual excess, overeating, coffee, exposure to heat and sun and relieved by open air, and turning the head upward.

Fever: Intermittent fever, Chill beginning in thighs. Sweat only on uncovered parts or all over except head, when sleeping; profuse, sour, smelling like honey. Orgasm of blood in the evening, with throbbing in the blood vessels.

Urinary complaints: Urethra swollen, inflamed. Urinary stream split and small. Sensation of trickling after urinating. Severe cutting pain after. Frequent micturation accompanying pains. Desire sudden and urgent, but cannot be controlled. Paralysis of sphincter.

Constipation: Thuja patient suffers from chronic constipation, when stool partly goes back after being partly expelled. While passing stool, it produces violent rectal pain which ultimately compels the patient to cease the effort. The anus of the patient is fissured and painful to touch, surrounded by flat warts or moist mucous condylomata. Along with constipation, piles may also appear which is swollen and painful. Pain is aggravated while sitting.

Diarrhoea: Diarrhoea after bad effect of vaccination, from onion, tea, coffee, bread, fatty food. Chronic diarrhoea, worse after breakfast. Discharges forcibly expelled; with a gurgling sound. Brown spots. Flatulence and distention; protruding here and there. Rumbling and colic. Anus fissured; painful to touch, with warts.

General Modalities

Aggravation: At night, from heat of bed, afternoon, 3 am to 3 pm, motion, from cold damp air, narcotics, deep inspiration, talking.

Amelioration: Lying on affected side, lying on back, wrapping up after labour.

Remedy Relationships

Complementary: Ars, Med, Nat-s, Calc, Ign, Sab, Sil, Sulph.

Follows well: Kali-c, Lyc, Puls.

Antidotes: Camph, Cham, Merc, Puls, Sab, Staph.

Antidotal to: Merc-i-r, Nux-v, Sulph.

Compare: Cann-s, Canth, Op, Staph.

Comparison

Ranula with foetid breath: Ambr, Thuj, Tarent.

Worse at 3 pm: Apis, Bell, Thuj.

When drinking, the fluid descends with a gurgling sound: Ars, Cupr, Thuj.

Warts fleshy, large, smooth; on face and back of hands of fingers: Dulc, Thuj.

Polypi and fungus excrescences in external meatus of ear: Merc, Teucr, Thuj.

Warts with tickling pains: Nit-ac, Staph, Thuj.

Pain after stool as if splinters of glass were sticking in anus and rectum: Rat, Thuj.

Fig warts with intolerable itching and burning; exuberant granulations: Sab, Nit-ac, Thuj.

Fissures in anus and rectum: Syph, Thuj.

Chronic nasal catarrh; discharge thick, yellow, greenish, offensive: Puls, Ther, Thuj.

History of animal poisoning, snake bite: Ars, Thuj.

Suppressed gonorrhoea: Med, Thuj.

Squeezing pain in left testicle: Puls, Thuj.

Sensation as if urine were constantly running along the urethra: Kali-bi, Petr, Thuj.

Potency: 3x, 6x, 12x, 30, 200, 1000, 10M.

Dosage: 30 to highest potency. Mother tincture to be applied on fig warts and condylomata.

Repetition: Bears repetition well in low potencies. Occasional doses of high potency.

Therapeutic Value: Abortions, Asthma, Constipation, Diarrhoea, Distended abdomen, Epilepsy, Eve affections, Gonorrhoea, Headache, Polypus, Rheumatism, Teeth affections, Urinary affections, Vaccination, Warts, Whooping cough, etc.

Note: Thuja should be given at bedtime for better results like Nux vomica.