Crocus Sativus - General symptoms - Clarke

GENERAL

General

Crocus sativus. Saffron. N. O. Iridaceae. Tincture of dried stigmas. Cooper makes a tincture of the fresh young shoots.

Abortion, threatened. After-pains. Anger. Asthenopia. Blepharospasm. Brain, congestion of. Chorea. Dysmenia. Fainting. Gastric affections. Haemoptysis. Haemorrhages. Headache. Heart, affections of. Hysteria. Lachrymation. Laughter. Leucorrhoea. Mania. Menstruation, profuse. Metrorrhagia. Nose, bleeding of. Operations, effects of, Ophthalmia. Pregnancy, imaginary.

affections of. Tumours. Ulceration. Wounds.

Crocus has three characteristics which clearly call for its use when met with. The first is haemorrhage from various parts (nose, uterus, &c.), when the blood is black, viscid, clotting, forming itself into long black strings, hanging from the bleeding orifice. The second is a peculiar sensation as if something alive were moving about in the abdomen or chest. This may be a definite sensation, or it may be a hallucination or fixed idea. A curious circumstance in this connection is the fact that Crocus has often been successfully given to pregnant women who have complained of violent foetal movements, as well as in cases of imaginary pregnancy. The remaining characteristic is in the mental sphere. It is a rapid alternation of mental conditions anger with violence rapidly followed by repentance.

laughter quickly followed by tears. I once cured with a few doses of Crocus a young artist who had become subject to violent outbursts of rage in which he would take up a knife to throw at his mother, with whom he lived, and almost immediately after would be abjectly repentant. The household was on the point of being broken up when the trouble was completely removed by Crocus. Uncontrollable laughter is also in the Crocus symptomatology. Hysterical laughter is one of the effects observed by the older physicians. Teste cites from Murray the case of several children "who were seized with an extraordinary laughing mania, from having smelled of leather bottles that had contained essence of saffron." On one occasion, in hospital, I happened to see a young girl who was really desperately ill with heart failure and valvular disease, in a fit of hysterical laughter. This made me think of Crocus. The only definite sensation she complained of in the heart region was a "jumping" sensation. Crocus 30 was given, and very soon she was able to lie down flat (after having been propped up for weeks), and from that time she made a rapid recovery. Another Crocus symptom is Sensitive to music, involuntarily joins in on hearing any one sing. Stitches, shocks, throbbings, broad thrusts, cuttings and jerkings are among the commoner sensations. Twitchings of single sets of muscles (chorea). A warm sensation ascending to the heart, impeding breathing and amel. by yawning is a peculiar symptom. Tingling, crawling, pricking and itching are met with in the skin. Scarlet redness of the whole body, or scarlet spots on skin. (It is a domestic remedy for "bringing out" the eruption of measles.) Painful suppuration of bruised parts.

evening and night. during new and full moon.

looking fixedly at an object.

during pregnancy. in a hot room.

in hot weather. amel. By yawning (desire to take a long breath, amel. by yawning).

in open air (for which there is craving).

after breakfast. Great thirst for cold drinks.