Kalmia Latifolia - General symptoms

GENERAL

General

A red spot, about the size of a pea, appeared on the outside of the left leg, a little below the knee, which itched excessively and was followed by a burning pain.

this was succeeded by a second on the outside of the leg close to the knee, with excessive itching (from the afternoon of the sixth to the seventh day).

on the morning of the seventh day a small spot appeared on the right knee, also with some itching of short duration,.

Slight prickling sensation, such as I have felt often in the spring, attended with increased tendency to sweating, immediately.

considerably increased, and was most conspicuous in the scalp.

this prickling sensation is peculiar, and can be compared to nothing but the effect produced on the mouth by essence of Mentha Piperita ^peppermint, which is a sense of coolness, with pricking by innumerable minute points at the same time (after two hours),.

GENERAL SYMPTOMS.

Objective.

Very languid (fourteenth day); in the morning (eleventh day),

Great weariness, in the evening, particularly in the extremities, so that it is nearly impossible to go upstairs,

Very tired all the evening; do not feel like recording the symptoms (fourteenth day),

Fatigue of the muscles, my legs feeling on going upstairs as though I was struggling under the utmost weight they could bear (after two hours and three-quarters),

Could not go above three steps without being completely exhausted, and likely to fall from weakness and dizziness,

Muscular prostration was such that I could scarcely walk across the room,

Restlessness, frequent turning,

Restless, went from one place to another looking for something and did not know what (half an hour after second dose, fourth day),

Indisposition to move, with aversion to exercise,

Subjective.

A feeling of lassitude over the whole body (after first dose, fifth day),

Feel very tired, can hardly walk, in the evening (eleventh day),

Sensation of great fatigue in all the muscles, especially when exerted; this appeared first in those of mastication, which were excessively affected by a very moderate exertion,

Faint feeling, which left me with vertigo (soon after first dose, fourth day),

A faint feeling, with violent palpitation of the heart (second day),

A feeling all over the body as if I had been exposed to a soaking rain (first day),

Rheumatic pains all over the body (sixth day),

Slight rheumatic pains over the whole body, but of no particular moment (first day),

Pressing pains in the whole body (in one hour and a half after taking the third dose of six globules, which had been repeated every fourth day),

Sticking pains in different parts of the body (third day),

Bruised feeling all over the body (one hour after first dose, eleventh day),

(Relief of pain and watchfulness),

Want to stretch myself (first day),

The symptoms subsided gradually and successively, having all disappeared on the sixth day,

A momentary shivering, without coldness, about 10 P.M., in bed, which seems to pass from the top of the head to the neck, under the scalp, attended with a cracking noise, and at the same time alarm, without palpitation of the heart.

a sensation as if the body were surcharged with electricity.

this sensation was repeated four times in the course of half an hour, and the whole ended with the sound of a horn before the ears,.

A rheumatic remedy. Pains shift rapidly. Nausea and slow pulse frequently accompanying. Has also a prominent action on the heart. In small doses, it accelerates the heart’s action; in larger it moderates it greatly. Neuralgia; Pains shoot downwards, with numbness. fulgurating pains of locomotor ataxia. Protracted and continuous FEVERS, with tympanites. Paralytic sensations; pains and achings in limbs accompany nearly every group of symptoms. Albuminuria.

Aching, bruised, stiff feeling Tingling, numbness, trembling or paralytic weakness Changing pains; shoot outward along nerves; or dull tearing, crushing, moving downward, then suddenly, to heart or alternating with cardiac symptoms, or between upper and lower limbs

Neuralgia

Rheumatism

Vertigo

Cracking noise in head

Shooting from nape to vertex and face

Maddening supra-orbital [right] pain

HEART; irritable; pains, sharp, burning; formication; numbness; weak; radiating to l

scapula or arm; taking away the breath; fluttering; palpitation, visible; paralysis

Pulse very slow; weak, tremulous

Brachialgia

Stiff, eyelids, lips, skin, etc

Ledum Palustre ^Ledum floribus bullatis. Cistus chamaerhododendros. Mountain Laurel. American Laurel. Calico Bush. (Rocky sterile hills, near water, in New England States. Flowers May and June.) N. O. Ericaceae. Tincture of fresh leaves when the plant is in flower.

Angina pectoris. Blindness. Bright's disease. Dropsy. Dysmenorrhoea. Gastralgia. Globus hystericus. Gout. Headache. Heart, disease of. Herpes zoster.

neuralgia after. Keratitis. Leucorrhoea. Locomotor ataxia. Lumbago. Neuralgia. Paraplegia. Ptosis. Pregnancy, albuminuria of. Retinitis albuminurica. Rheumatism. Rumination. Scleroderma. Sclerotitis. Somnambulism. Sun-headaches. Syphilitic sore throat. Tinnitus. Tabacum ^Tobacco, effects of. Vertigo. Vomiting.

Kalmia is the name of a genus of heathworts, natives of North America. K. latifolia, which has large and showy flowers, is found in the northern parts of the United States. Kalmia Latifolia's flowers "yield a honey said to be deleterious, and its leaves and shoots certainly are so to cattle. K. angustifolia, probably for the same reason, has received the name of Lambkill. The powdered leaves of some are used as a local remedy in some skin diseases. The hard wood of K. latifolia is used in the manufacture of various useful articles. The Canadian partridge is said to become poisonous as human food after feeding on Kalmia berries" (Treasury of Botany). Hering introduced Kalmia into homoeopathic practice, himself and his friends being the first provers. The head, including eyes and face, shows the chief intensity of its action, and scarcely less so, the heart. A number of skin symptoms confirm the popular use of the leaves.

and among them a "stiffness" of the skin (especially of the eyelids) is the most remarkable. Neuralgias (especially of right side).

wandering rheumatic pains which tend to travel from above downwards.

tumultuous action of the heart and slow pulse.

these are the cardinal features of Kalm. Though Kalm. acts most markedly on the right side of the head, it acts very markedly on the left (heart-) side of the chest and left arm. Von der Luhe cured with Kalm. 200 an intercostal neuralgia of left side, so intense that the patient could not lie down or sleep at night. The chief guiding symptom was a concomitant numb sensation of whole left arm (H. W., xxxiii. 503). With the same potency I cured in a married woman the following symptoms "Sick feeling and pains flying about, especially down left side.

headache at vertex. chilliness".

and in a case of hypertrophied heart in an unmarried woman, "pain through heart region with inability to lie on left side." Lambert has recorded (H. W., xxx. 64) the case of a gate-keeper, 54, who had smoked since he was seven years old, and who suffered from "tobacco heart," palpitation, occurring on least exertion or fright, and sometimes awakening him in the night.

pulse intermittent. no valvular lesion.

tingling in left arm and leg and sensation as if the blood did not circulate in them. He could walk all right, but not far. The chief thing he complained of was sharp pain in right temple like pins and needles, of eighteen months' duration. It was induced by touch and turning head quickly. Kalm. 3x cured the temporal neuralgia and greatly alleviated all the other symptoms. Kalm. also relieved an old ataxic patient (man) of "vertigo and pains in legs which shoot and shift their position frequently." In connection with this spinal case the effects on animals are worth recalling. Meadows (C. D. P., quoting Southern J. of H., Apr., 1890,) says cattle eat Kalm. in the latter part of the winter when they are in want of something green. The first symptom is intense thirst.

then follow trembling, weakness, staggering, and jerking, the abdomen being full of wind. Then clonic spasms, every fifteen to twenty minutes, increasing to violent convulsions, which are renewed if the animal tries to rise in the intervals between the seizures. Eyes become fixed, pupils turned up, head drawn back, limbs rigid, abdomen bloated, bowels loose. If the animal recovers there is prostration for a week or more, and for three or four months it is weak, nervous, and walks as if intoxicated, tottering as if unable to control its limbs. The spinal action is unmistakable here, and the provings give "weakness and paralytic condition of limbs".

"shuns all exertion, can hardly go upstairs".

and many symptoms of pain in back. Neuralgias appear in almost all regions.

in eye. in uterus (dysmenorrhoea).

in stomach as well as head, chest, and limbs. Pains in the periosteum preventing sleep. The rheumatic pains proceed from above downwards, but some of the sensations ascend as if a ball was rising in the throat. Sensation of weakness in abdomen extending to throat. Every heart-beat has a strumming as if it would burst, along sternum to throat. Pain between shoulders coming up over head. Also in rheumatism, the lower limbs are affected first, then the upper. Other peculiar sensations are As if something loose in head diagonally across the top. As if the body was surcharged with electricity, a shuddering without coldness. As if something would be pressed off below pit of stomach. As if the stool was glazed. As if one squeezed throat with thumb and finger. Pain in chest (in hands, in feet) as from a sprain. Pressure like a marble from epigastrium to heart. Cracking in head frightens him, ending in sound in ears like blowing a horn. As if something was being pressed away from under sternum. The pains and conditions requiring Kalm. frequently have nausea and slow pulse as concomitants. Among noteworthy symptoms are Dry throat. Dry, stiff, swollen, cracked lips. Tingling in salivary glands immediately after eating. Stitches in tongue. Vomiting with ruminating action.

without the least nausea. Pressure on rectum after stool. The sensation of "rigidity of the skin" should make us think of it in scleroderma. There is much external sensitiveness Face, pit of stomach, muscles of neck sore, agg. by touch. Rubbing eyes = stinging in them. The pains are agg. during early part of night, or soon after going to sleep. Pain in forehead conies on in morning on waking. The headache is agg. again in evening, when eye-symptoms and pains generally are agg. Kalm. has a "sun-headache," agg. and amel. with the sun. (H. G. Grahn cured in a girl, 18, a headache "beginning in occiput, going over forehead; comes on at sunrise, gets agg. towards noon and declines as sun sets," with Kalm. 2x. A few weeks later exposure to the sun brought on another attack, which was promptly cured with the same remedy.) A sudden chill, or exposure to a sudden wind = the pains. Heat agg. and cold amel. pain in head. Open air agg. headache and eyes. Every summer there is roughness of cheeks. Mental effort agg. headache. Motion agg. Lying down, mental faculties and memory perfect, least motion = vertigo. Lying on back amel. breathing.

on left side agg. palpitation. The agg. from motion is very marked, almost equalling that of Bryonia ^Bry.

even motion of eyes and eyelids is painful. The pains in the stomach are agg. sitting bent, though he feels impelled to do so, amel. sitting or standing upright. But symptoms of vision are agg. in erect position. Vertigo is agg. on stooping.

on looking down. on rising from a seat. Palpitation is agg. on bending forward.

and agg. by mental effort. (Proell cured with Kalm. 1, 2, and 3 headache and weakened memory preventing him from continuing his studies, in a boy of 13 who had insufficiency of the mitral valve.) The neuralgic pains are amel. by food.

wine amel. vomiting. Symptoms agg. during leucorrhoea. A leading concomitant of the Kalmia neuralgias is a paralytic weakness and trembling.

Mountain Laurel. Hering. Ericaceae.

*

s The symptoms that indicate Kalmia Latifolia show themselves especially in the muscles, in the tendons, in the joints, along the course of the nerves, in rheumatic complaints.

Pains The pains change about, wandering pains, and they axe aggravated from motion. The sharp pains spread from the centres to the extremities, the wandering pains go downwards, down the arms, down the back and down the legs; from the shoulder to the fingers, and from the hips to the toes.

These pains sometimes shoot like lightning, again they tear along the nerves, along the sciatic and crural nerves, down through the calves. In rheumatic constitutions the pains are dull, tearing, crushing and pressing, and are aggravated by motion and go from the lower to the upper limbs. Motion will bring on the pain or aggravate it when it is present. The head pains are very severe. They often begin in the back of the neck or back of the head, and extend to the top of the head. There are also pains in the front of the head, pains over one or both eyes, tearing neuralgic pains aggravated by heat and motion.

Pains come and go with the sun, that is, they begin in the morning at the rising of the sun and increase till noon, then gradually decline and disappear at sunset. He is incapacitated for mental work when in motion and even when sitting up, but, when lying upon his back perfectly quiet, making no motion, the mind works well and with clearness.

with the slightest motion, however, even of the hand, on comes vertigo and confusion of mind.

Moving about disturbs makes him incompetent. The pains are also worse the first half of the night. With these symptoms there is cardiac trouble of rheumatic origin. The condition has increased until organic disease has come, even hypertrophy of the heart and valves.

You will be guided to it especially if the pains wander from place to place, and if they go from above down wards, if they go from the shoulder down toward the fingers, from the hips toward the feet, or down the spine. It is also suitable in old cases of gonorrhoeal rheumatism when the symptoms agree.

The slightest motion, the slightest effort or exertion brings on the vertigo, and this is due to disturbance of the circulation. The heart is so susceptible to any exertion that disturbance of the circulation of the blood in the brain comes on from the slightest motion.

"In a recumbent posture mental faculties and memory perfect, but, on attempting to move, vertigo."

If the patient persists in moving, nausea and vomiting will follow. It has palpitation, shaking the whole frame, audible, vehement palpitation. He cannot lie on his left side.

It is suitable in old, troublesome, recurrent headaches associated with cardiac affections. A headache will come on daily if the sun comes out, but it will not come on if the day is clouded. He is aggravated from the light of the sun and the increasing brightness of the sun's rays.

In addition to these there are paroxysms of pain that are nightly. These are the bone pains, pains in the shin bones as if the periosteum would be torn off.

Medicines also have such I queer whims. We must study remedies as we would human character. Some of them seem to be extremely whimsical, and it is by knewing these whimsical, strange and peculiar things that we are able to mark the character of the remedy, When we know these peculiari ties we have found the circumstance under which the remedy Works

Kidneys There are kidney affections.

All the organs are related. to each other but especially the heart and kidneys. When the kidneys are not working well, the heart is very often troublesome. All through the varying forms of BrightAEs disease the heart is troublesome.

Difficulties of breathing, difficult heart action, with albuminuria. It will relieve the breathing. Again, associated with kidney affections, we have many eye complaints, difficulties of vision, and these also especially call for Kalmia Latifolia. It is often indicated in Bright's disease, with disturbance of vision, occurring during pregnancy.

Pains For the pains in the eyes, the stitching, tearing pains that occur during kidney disturbance in pregnancy, or during albuminuria, Kalmia becomes a remedy,

Kalmia Latifolia is useful in neuralgia; neuralgia of the eye, neuralgia of the face, violent, tearing pains in the face. Sometimes it takes the form of a nightly worse and sometimes it takes the form of daily worse. The aggravation in the daytime comes and goes with the sun. The worse at night time comes with the lying down.

"Anxious expression of countenance" associated with rheumatism of the heart.

"Flushing of the face, with vertigo."

After the disappearance of a herpetic eruption, violent neuralgic pains, shooting, tearing pains in those nerves that supply the part where the eruption was. When shingles, ring-worm, cold sore, or isolated vesicular eruptions disappear, suddenly from some violent cause or inappropriate treatment, or from catching cold, violent neuralgias come in their place and continue until the eruption comes out again.

Kalmia Latifolia becomes suitable if the symptoms agree; that is, if the whole patient is in agreement with the state of the remedy.

The pains are stitching and tearing, very severe, sometimes cutting and shooting when Kalmia Latifolia is mw useful. The pain will seem to take hold of a nerve and will hold on to it for many minutes, Coming with violence, coming suddenly and letting loose suddenly. Pains come in the extremities in the same way, taking hold as if the nerve were being pinched by nippers, or as if it were being torn to pieces.

"There, now it is gone!" says the patient.

Pretty soon, again, you will see his face in a state of horrible distress. The pain is there again and he cannot move a muscle, and "there, it is gone!" he says, and it remains away for some minutes and sometimes for hours.

"Fluttering of the heart, palpitation of the heart."

"Palpitation up into the throat, after going to bed, trembling all over."

Very slow pulse. I remember a patient, an old syphilitic, who was told if he ever made a violent move he would die, the valves of his heart were so badly affected. He had all the murmurs that it seemed possible from the heart valves.

He had traveled all over and had taken large doses of Merc Viv ^Mercury, and his syphilitic condition had to a great extent been suppressed, until finally the whole trouble had located in the heart. Kalmia removed all the dyspnea and palpitation in a few months, and it was nearly two years before there was a marked return of the symptoms and a repetition put him in a state of health, so that be needed no more medicine.

Kalmia Latifolia shows what a deep-acting remedy Kalmia is, how long it may act, what wonderful changes it may effect. A remedy must be capable of going deep into the life to do such things.

"Wandering rheumatic pains in the region of the heart."

"When articular rheumatism has been treated externally and cardiac symptoms ensue."

Rheumatism that goes from the lower to the upper limbs. Not uncommonly you will meet such things. These "rubbers" that go around the streets with a strong liniment and considerable magnetism frequently do cause a rheumatism to leave the knee joint, and when it does that, the heart is likely to be the organ that suffers.

Then Kalmia, Aurum, Bryonia ^Bryonia, Rhus Tox ^{Rhus tox}., Ledum Palustre ^Ledum, Calc Carb ^Calc. and Abrotanum ^Abrotanum, and sometimes Cactus Grandiflorus ^Cactus, are remedies that prove suitable for such cardiac affections. Rheumatic affections that are driven away in this manner are changed without being cured. The people cannot realize the danger, of merely removing symptoms. Every removal that is not in accordance with cure affects the centres of man, that is the heart and brain.

Rubbing is a dangerous thing. When you are importuned with the question,

"Doctor, will it hurt me to have this rubbed?" you reply, "If rubbing does not affect any change in the symptoms, it will do no harm."

In proportion as it mitigates the symptoms or relieves, just in that proportion it does the patient harm, for the whole vital economy is weakened. There are instances where rubbing is of benefit, but not in rheumatism.

In paralyzed muscles it is a beneficial exercise, for then rubbing can take the place of exercise of the patient himself, of the muscles. But rubbing is not admissible if it is used to reduce pain. The more agreeable it is, the worse, it is for the patient.

In a Phosphorus ^Phosphorus patient you would be astonished what wonderful relief they can get from rubbing. There is no person more inclined to be weak in the vitality, in the internal economy, than the Phosphorus ^Phosphorus patient. He is an excitable, weakly patient, and feels better by rubbing and craves it, but if he has rheumatism in the knees and the knee is rubbed the rheumatism may go to the heart, The Phosphorus ^Phos patient loves to be rubbed, because rubbing relieves the symptoms.

he loves to be magnetized.

"Weariness of all the limbs; shuns all exertion."

"Weakness the only general symptom with neuralgia."

Kalmia Latifolia weakness is a state that you can glean something from. When severe pain is fatiguing the economy the heart is threatened. A general weakness, prolonged weakness after confinement, or from the pain, as we find in Hep Sulph Calc ^Hepar, but with the weakness, these pains are threatening to leave their parts and go to the heart. He is perfectly exhausted and continuously tired.

The text speaks only of Aconite ^Aconite and Belladonna ^Belladonna as the antidotes. Spigelia Anthelmia ^Spigelia follows Kalmia Latifolia very well and antidotes it. Benzoic Acid. ^{Benzoic acid} is a natural complement to it. Calc Carb ^Calc., Lithium Carbonicum ^Lith. carb., Lycopodium ^Lyc., Nat Mur ^{Nat. mur}., and Pulsatilla ^Puls. are the remedies that are closely related and should be compared.

Region

NERVES SPINAL

Eyes

Face (R)

HEART

Circulation

Joints

Skin

Right; head; deltoid

Left; chest; arm