Part 20

In the generalities we find great MUSCULAR WEAKNESS OR PROSTRATION AND TIRED FEELING OVER THE ENTIRE BODY. A feeling as though one had just gotten up from a severe spell of sickness. Nervous trembling as if from hunger. The least exertion produces a tremulousness. _The muscles feel treacherous and unsteady as though one did not dare to trust them._ A desire to change position without any definite cause or reason, and without any change for the better or worse. Later in the proving there was a desire to lie down and be quiet, with a drowsy, sleepy feeling. _A sensation as if a chill would come on_; a tired, aching, stretching, gaping, disagreeable feeling. All sensations are worse in the left side.

In my own experience I have used the remedy from the mother tincture up. I got no results from the tincture. Hardly any from the 30th, but a marked, decided, and very rapid action from the CM. I use nothing lower than the CM, and prefer the higher.

ORIGANUM MAJORANA.

NAT. ORD., Labiatæ.

COMMON NAME, Sweet Marjoram.

PREPARATION.--The whole plant without the root, gathered when in flower, is macerated in two times its weight of alcohol.

(A treatise on the "Sexual Passion," by the late Dr. Gallavardin, Lyons, France, contains this item on _Origanum_):

The person who discovered a remedy that in a certain sense may be considered as a specific against sexual passion was a clergyman of Mizza, the founder of an orphan asylum. This remedy is _Origanum majorana_ (or common marjoram), which proves effective in masturbation and in excessively-aroused sexual impulses. The author uses it in the 4th dilution, as he has not found the higher potencies effective. He dissolves five or six globules of this dilution in four teaspoonfuls of fresh water, and the young masturbator takes of this every two days, a quarter of an hour before the meal, one teaspoonful. If the cure is not accomplished eight days after this solution is used up, the same dose is repeated in the same way. When desired, this remedy can be used, according to the author, without the knowledge of the patient, by pouring a teaspoonful into the soup, milk or chocolate.

The effect frequently appears very rapidly, but sometimes it does not appear.

OXYTROPIS LAMBERTI.

NAT. ORD., Leguminosæ.

COMMON NAMES, "Loco" Weed. Rattle Weed.

PREPARATION.--The whole plant without the root is macerated in two times its weight of alcohol.

(The following proving of the "loco weed" was conducted by the late Dr. W. S. Gee, of Chicago, in 1887):

OXYTROPIS LAMBERTI, Pursh.--_Commonly taller, as well as larger_, than other varieties (the scapes often a foot or more high); silky,--and mostly silvery-pubescent, sometimes glabrate in age; leaflets from oblong-lanceolate to linear (4 to 16 inches long); _spike, sometimes short-oblong and densely flowered_, at least when young; _often elongated and sparsely flowered_; _flowers mostly large_ (often an inch long, but sometimes much smaller), variously colored; pod, either narrowly or broadly oblong, _sericeous pubescent_, _firm-coriaceous_, half-inch or more long, _imperfectly two-celled_. Includes _O. Campestris_ of Hook, Fl. Bor. Am., in part. Common along the Great Plains from Saskatchewan and Minnesota to New Mexico, Texas, etc., and in the foot-hills.--From Coulter's _Manual of the Botany of the Rocky Mountain Region_.

It is one of the poisonous members of that family. It is found in California and New Mexico.

It is a perennial plant, with herbaceous or slightly shrubby stems, the foliage remaining green during winter when grass is scarce, and so attracting animals that would otherwise probably instinctively shun it. The plants do not appear to be equally poisonous at all seasons or in all localities, and it has been doubted whether the active properties they possess are due to a normal constituent of the plant. No medical use has ever been made of these plants, although their poisonous character has often led to the suggestion that they might be found valuable. No physiological study has been made of the action of the poison, and no complete chemical analysis has as yet appeared.

The stockmen speak of it as causing intoxication in the animals which eat it, and a prominent symptom is the "loco" condition, in which the power of co-ordination is lost or greatly limited. They cannot readily readjust for changes in gait, etc. A horse travels on level ground, but finds great difficulty in changing to pass over an elevation or depression, or, when going up hill, he has great difficulty in starting down hill; it is difficult, when he is still, to impress him that he must go, and as difficult to stop him when desired. The same rule applies to eating and other necessaries. Such a horse is said to be "locoed." Professor Hawkes procured specimens from which Boericke & Tafel made a tincture. To further test the merits of the remedy, the students of the class at Hahnemann Medical College of Chicago kindly participated in a proving.

Professor Hawkes received some reports from his group, but has mislaid his papers, and he is unable to give in detail the symptoms produced. He stated, however, that the principal action corroborated that given above.

During 1886-'87 term I made another attempt, and a few reports were received. The remedy was given by number, that the prover should not know what he took, nor the strength of it. Some were given the [Greek: theta], others 1x^d, 2x^d, 3x^d, 12x powders, 30x powders, and some higher.

A few reported "no effect" from the [Greek: theta]. The following includes the report from five persons:

1. (Mr. S. P. F., 10 drops of [Greek: theta].) 2. (Mrs. W., 10 drops of 3x^d repeated.) 3. (Mr. G. H. A., 15 drops of 3x^d.) 4. (Mrs. P., powders of 12x repeated.) 5. (Mrs. L., powders of 30x.) 6. (Mrs. L., powders of 12x.)

SYMPTOMATOLOGY.

_Mind._--Great mental depression,^1,^3. Cannot think or concentrate his thoughts,^1,^3. Very forgetful of familiar words and names,^3. No life,^1. Disinclination to talk or study,^3. Wants to be alone,^3. Is better satisfied to sit down and do nothing,^3. Feels perfectly despondent,^3. A feeling as if I would lose consciousness,^3. All symptoms worse when thinking of them,^1,^3.

_Sensorium._--Strange sensation about the head,^4. A feeling as if I would lose consciousness, or as if I would fall when standing,^5. Sense of fulness of the head, and of instability, when standing or sitting,^6.

_Head._--The head has a feeling of great pressure, especially on moving the eyeballs,^4. Head hot,^6. Was unable to move around on account of this strange, uncertain feeling of numbness, with prickling sensation in left arm and hand,^4. Full, uncomfortable feeling in the head,^5. Slight headache in vertex and occiput in forenoon, over the eyeballs about noon,^1. Pain in the helix of the ear for two or three minutes, then pain commenced between the eyes and went in a straight line up over the head and down to the base of the brain,^2. Pain across the base of the brain,^2 ("gone in a minute or two"). Dulness in frontal region, must lie down,^4. Pain in occipital region is constant since 1 P.M.; heavy ache, as if a weight were attached to the lower edge, pulling it back, but pain does not extend down the back,^2; all stop at 3 P.M.,^2. A pressing headache from 2 to 5 P.M.,^3 (on 2d day). Awoke with slight pressing pain in forehead, which increased gradually until about 2 P.M., and then gradually decreased,^3. Pain, dull and heavy, in the head, with sense of pressure,^4. Head very sensitive, < on the side on which I lie,^3. Pressure upon the head disappearing after sleep,^4. Dull, heavy feeling in the head, with uncertain gait and walk, so that she was obliged to lie down, when she fell into a deep sleep and woke up with the metallic taste.

_Eyes._--Feel dull and heavy, blurred, pupils dilated,^3,^4. When reading, it seems as if a light were reflected from a bright copper plate seen at the left side, as if the light were at the end of the room,^6. Pain in the eyeball,^4. Pain over the right eye,^6.

_Ears._--Roaring sound in the ears,^3.

_Nose._--Very dry; scabs form in the nose,^3. Frequent violent sneezing, with fluent coryza in the evening,^1. Nose feels as if sunburnt; red and shining, especially on alæ,^1. Feeling of pressure over the bridge of the nose,^1. Fluent coryza, somewhat bloody,^1.

_Mouth._--Very dry, especially in the morning,^3. Metallic taste in the mouth, strongly marked,^1. Gumboil on left lower maxillary; profuse saliva,^1. Pain in left lower maxillary,^1. Tenderness of all the molars,^1.

_Throat._--Slight inflammation of the pharynx, a "husky" feeling,^1. Dry and sore,^3.

_Eating and Drinking._--Appetite gradually increasing,^1.

Appetite good; symptoms, < after eating, > after an hour,^2. Loss of appetite,^6 (unusual).

_Nausea and Vomiting._--Eructations, as after taking soda-water (after each powder), with colicky pains,^5, and looseness of the bowels (constipated before taking the remedy),^5. Eructations, empty, frequent,^1. Slight nausea, all day at intervals,^2 (first day). A very tired, languid feeling all forenoon, accompanied by nausea on lying down, passing away on getting up, and returning on lying down again (not at night).

_Stomach._--Tenderness in the epigastric region,^1. A kind of pressing soreness,^3. Cold during the chill,^2.

_Abdomen._--Sharp, lancinating pains all through the abdomen, early in the evening,^5 (observed but once). Sharp pain, running from right to left across the bowels, for several minutes, followed by a very strong desire to go to stool; entire relief after stool; slight griping pain in the region of the umbilicus, working down at 8 P.M., followed at 10 P.M. by discharge of flatus; full feeling in abdomen, causing short breathing after lying down in bed,^1.

_Stool._--Symptoms marked and constant. Fæces of the consistency of mush, which slips through the sphincters in little lumps, very similar to lumps of jelly,^3. Stools dark brown, or like jelly,^3. Urgent desire for stool, sometimes removed by passing wind; quantity normal,^3. Sore feeling in the rectum,^3. Crawling sensation in rectum as if little worms were there,^3. Stool inclined to be hard; unsatisfied feeling, as though not done,^1. Stool solid at first, then diarrhoea,^1. Movement of the bowels at an unusual time,^2 (6:30 P.M., had moved the morning of same day). Sharp pain from right to left across the bowels, followed by very strong desire for stool,^2. Stool, first hard, then loose,^2. Entire relief from pain after stool,^2.

_Urine._--Symptoms very marked,^3. Characterized from the first by a very profuse flow of clear, or almost colorless urine, nearly the color of water,^3. Three to four times the normal quantity,^3,^1,^4,^2. When thinking of urinating I had to go at once,^3. No sediment whatever,^3,^1. Pain in the kidneys, hardest in right, with some tenderness,^1. At the expiration of every two or three hours after stopping the remedy, there was an enormous flow of pale, straw-colored urine, and with this would gradually disappear the metallic taste which was so marked,^4. Free urination, dark in color, no distress,^2. Urine scanty, and looked like that of a child troubled with worms, light red-colored stain on bottom of vessel,^2 (second day). Awoke with a heavy pain in the kidneys,^2 (third day). Urine clear on passing, but becomes as above described on standing,^2 (third day). During day urine scanty, with considerable irritation, as if the muscles of the bladder were contracting, > moving about,^2.

_Male Sexual Organs._--From being naturally of a passionate nature, the _desire_ and _ability_ diminished to impotence,^3. No sexual desire or ability,^3. Bruised feeling in the testicles, beginning in the right and extending to the left--came on after going to bed,^1. Occasional pain, of short duration, in glans penis,^1. Pain in testicles, worse with extension along spermatic cord and down thighs,^1 (third day).

_Sexual Organs, Female._--At 1.30 P.M., felt a pain in left ovary, like something grasping or holding tightly for about an hour, then disappeared,^2.

_Larynx._--Slight accumulation of mucus in the larynx, hard to cough it up,^2.

_Breathing._--Short and quick breathing from the full feeling in the abdomen,^1. Hard breathing, as though lungs and bronchi were closing as the chill passes off.

_Cough._--A dry cough, from any little exercise,^3 (eleventh day). A short, hacking cough, with tightness across the chest,^2 (third day).

_Lungs._--Oppression at 9 P.M.,^1 (first day).

_Heart and Pulse._--Palpitation after lying down at night, for 15 to 20 minutes,^1 (seventh day). On going to bed, pain, like a wave, over the heart,^2 (second day), < lying down. Pulse 84, intermittent,^2 (2 P.M. of third day).

_Outer Chest._--A warm, tingling sensation over left chest, just under the skin,^2 (lasted five minutes).

_Neck and Back._--Neck pains. Pain and stiffness of the muscles of the back of the neck.

_Upper Extremities._--Stitching pain in right wrist for half an hour, leaving a tired feeling in joint,^2. At 12:30, a sharp, cutting pain running from point of shoulder down front of chest to point of hip bone, going suddenly,^2. Flesh feels as though she had taken a heavy cold,^2. Sharp pain, with coldness, from left shoulder-joint extending down the arm < in shoulder-joint, > sleep; goes away gradually,^4. Prickling sensation in left arm and hand,^4.

_Lower Extremities._--Stitching pain in right leg and knee-joint for half an hour, leaving a tired feeling in the joint,^2. Hard pain in the left big toe-joint,^2. Pain inside of left leg from the groin to the knee,^2.

_Extremities in General._--Flesh on under side of limbs sore,^2. Sore feeling of all the muscles of the right side of the body,^2. All the pains come and go quickly, but the muscles remain sore and stiff,^2. Frequent fine pains all over the body until 3 P.M., when all disappeared and felt as well as usual,^2.

_Position._--All pains better when moving about and when in the cool air,^2. Nausea, heart symptoms and breathing, < lying down,^1,^2.

_Nerves._--At 10 A.M. a very sick, exhausted feeling appeared,^2.

_Sleep._--Not very sound,^3. Dreams of a pleasant or lascivious character,^3. Wakes often,^2. On rising feels sad, weary, despondent,^3. Twitching of the muscles on falling asleep roused him,^3 (once three or four nights). Dreamed of spiders, bugs,^2 (first night), of swimming in water,^2 (second night--am not in the habit of dreaming).

_Chill._--Chill at 11:40 A.M., beginning in back between shoulders, down over body to feet; stomach feels cold; pains all over body during chill; a peculiar sensation of crawling or contraction of the abdominal muscles, hardest about the navel, lasted about half an hour,^2. As the chill passes off a smarting in the throat and a feeling as though the lungs and bronchi would close up, making breathing very difficult; chill lasted until 1 P.M., followed by perspiration of palms of the hands and soles of the feet; the changeable pains remained until 3 P.M., when all disappeared,^2. No thirst in either stage,^2. Felt badly for three days at same hour as chill,^2. For four weeks on every seventh day had a chill with all the above symptoms; the coldness of the spine was continuous for eight weeks, and was then removed by _Gelsemium_,^2.

(Dr. W. D. Gentry, while at Las Vegas, New Mexico, made the following summary of the action of the remedy. _Homoeopathic Recorder_, 1895):

For the present I will only give a few of the leading symptoms produced by the _Loco weed_:

Brain and Mind: Stimulation of mind; pleasant intoxicated feeling. Satisfied indifference to all influences and interests.

Head: Full, warm feeling about the head.

Eyes: Strange feeling of fullness about the eyes, with sight obscured, so that it appears that one is looking through clear water which produces about all of the seven prismatic colors, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and violet.

Paralysis of nerves, and muscles of the eyes, producing amblyopia. Pupils contracted and do not respond to light.

Eyesight lost with feeling as if in consequence of long exposure to strong, arc-electric lights.

Neck and Back: Numb, pithy or woody feeling about and in the spine.

Lower Extremities: Loss of power to control movements of body or limbs.

Swaying, staggering gait.

Reflex action of tendon-patella lost.

General: Weakness and insecurity of all powers of locomotion.

Feeling of intoxication, with almost entire loss of vision.

Amblyopia: sense of touch greatly weakened.

(From the _Kansas City Star_.)

The loco weed of the Western plains is to vegetation what the rattlesnake is to animal life. The name comes from the Spanish and signifies insanity. It is a dusky green and grows in small bunches or handfuls and scatters itself in a sparse and meagre way about the country. It is in short a vegetable nomad and travels about not a little. Localities where it this season flourishes in abundance may not see any of it next year, nor indeed for a number of years to come.

The prime property of the loco is to induce insanity in men or animals who partake of it. Animals--mules, horses, sheep and cattle--avoid it naturally, and under ordinary circumstances never touch it. But in the winter, when an inch or two of snow has covered the grass, these green bunches of loco standing clear and above the snow are tempting bits to animals which are going about half starved at the best. Even then it is not common for them to eat it. Still, some do and it at once creates an appetite in the victim similar in its intense force to the alcohol habit in mankind.

Once started on the downward path of loco a mule will abandon all other forms of food and look for it. In a short time its effects become perfectly apparent. You will see a locoed mule standing out on the shadowless plain with not a living, moving thing in his vicinity. His head is drooping and his eyes are half closed. On the instant he will kick and thresh out his heels in the most warlike way. Under the influence of loco he sees himself surrounded by multitudes of threatening ghosts and is repelling them.

The mind of the animal is completely gone. He cannot be driven or worked because of his utter lack of reason. He will go right or left or turn around in the harness in spite of bits or whip, or will fail to start or stop, and all in a vacant, idiotic way devoid of malice. The victim becomes as thin physically as mentally, and after retrograding four or five months at last dies, the most complete wreck on record. Many gruesome tales are furnished of cruel Spanish and Mexican ladies who, in a jealous fit, have locoed their American admirers through the medium of loco tea. Two or three cases in kind are reported in the Texas lunatic asylum.

OENTHE CROCATA.

PREPARATION.--The fresh root is macerated in two parts by weight of alcohol.

(The following paper on _OEnanthe crocata_ was kindly sent to the editor by Dr. W. A. Dewey, of the Ann Arbor University, Michigan):

_OEnanthe crocata_ belongs to the large family of the Umbelliferæ which furnishes us with _Conium_ and _Cicuta_. It grows in marshy localities in England and France. In Botanical works of the 16th and 17th centuries it was often confounded with _Cicuta virosa_, an error which has even been made in more recent times, in fact, only one Botanist of the 19th century described the plant with sufficient exactness for its recognition, and that was DeLobel, who published his Botany in 1851. It is one of the largest plants of the family, being 3 to 5 feet high. Our tincture is from the fresh root.

HISTORICAL.--_OEnanthe_ was known to Galen and Dioscorides, and numerous citations might be made to show that the drug was used from the earliest times in various affections, affections that nearly every drug was tried in, but it is in the "Cyanosura Materia Medica of Boecler, published in 1729," that we first find a hint as to its true action. "Those who ate much of it were taken with dark vertigos, going from one place to another, swaying, frightened, turning in a circle as Lobilus pretends to have seen."

Hahnemann, in his "Apotheker Lexicon" (Leipzig, 1793), says of the drug: "It is said that the whole plant is poisonous and causes vertigo, stupefaction, loss of force, convulsions, delirium, stiffness, insensibility, falling of the hair, and taken in large quantities will cause death."

He says further: "That, administered with great circumspection, it should prove useful in certain varieties of delirium, vertigos and cramps."

This is interesting coming from Hahnemann at the time when he had discovered the law, but had not as yet given it to the world.

_OEnanthe_ was considered in the last century as one of the most pernicious plants of Europe, especially for cattle, who, having eaten it, can neither vomit nor digest it and they soon die in convulsions; this from the root, however, as they eat the leaves with impunity. It is interesting to note that animals poisoned with it decompose rapidly.

Much of the following study is taken from a series of excellent papers on the drug, which have been appearing for over a year in "Le Journal Belge D'Homoeopathie," from the pen of Dr. Ch. DeMoor, of Alost, Belgium.

GENERAL ACTION.--From a very large collection of observations of cases of poisoning with _OEnanthe_, dating from 1556 to the present time and recorded in "Allen's Encyclopædia," the "Cyclopædia of Drug Pathogenesy," and in the article of Dr. DeMoor, above mentioned, we find that _OEnanthe crocata_ produces, almost invariably, convulsions of an epileptiform character and which are marked by the following symptoms:

Swollen, livid face, sometimes pale.

Frothing at mouth.

Contraction of chest and oppressed breathing.

Dilated pupils or irregular. Eyeballs turned upward.

Coldness of the extremities.

Pulse weak.

Convulsions are especially severe, at first tonic then clonic.

Locked jaws.

Trembling and twitching of muscles.

_OEnanthe_ also produces a delirium in which the patient becomes as if drunken, there is stupefaction, obscuration of vision and fainting.

The Greek name of the plant signifies "wine flower," and so-called on account of its producing a condition similar to wine drunkenness, and there is a difference, so I have heard, between wine and other beverages in this respect. Hiccoughs are also produced by the drug.

There is also great heat in the throat and stomach and a desire to vomit and to have stool, and a great deal of weakness of the limbs and cardialgia. Like other members of the same family, as _Conium_, it produces very much vertigo, this has always been present in the cases of poisoning with the plant. In a number of cases who had been poisoned by the drug the hair and nails fell out.

HOMOEOPATHIC ACTION AND APPLICABILITY.--The uses of _OEnanthe_, homoeopathically, have been taken from the reports above mentioned; the drug has never been proved, and it is doubtful if one could be found who would prove it to the convulsion-producing extremity. All the evidence in all the authorities shows clearly that the drug produces in man all the symptoms of epilepsy, and it is in that disease that clinical testimony is gradually accumulating. Accepting the theory that epilepsy is a disturbance or irritation in the cortex of the brain, it would seem that _OEnanthe crocata_, which produces congestion of the pia mater, would prove a close pathological simillimum to epilepsy. Its usefulness in this disease is unmistakable and only another proof of the truth of the homoeopathic law.