Sarsaparilla - General symptoms

GENERAL

General

Urgent desire, with contraction of intestines, and enormous pressure downwards, as if contents of abdomen were to be pressed out, for several minutes.

then at last something passes with a jerk, with severe tearing and cutting in rectum.

thereupon immediately again desire to go to stool, as if rectum were being pressed out, so that he can scarcely sit on account of pain,.

Renal colic; marasmus and periosteal pains due to venereal disease. Eruptions following hot weather and vaccinations; boils, and eczema. Urinary symptoms well marked.

Thin frail, shrivelled and old looking Marasmus

Tendency to gravel and itching eruptions Parts feel screwed together

Nightly bone pains

Rheumatism

Very sore, gouty nodes

Sycosis

Pain depresses him

Pain from occiput to eyes or root of nose, which is swelled

Painful urination, extorts screams, better standing; worse before menses; passes drops of blood or white, acrid material at close

Urine dribbles while sitting

Renal colic [right]

Gassy urine

Crusty urinary sediment

Sand in the stools

Moist, foul genitals

Bloody semen

Retracted or cracked nipples

Backache with colic

Deep cracks on fingers and toes, worse sides

Cutting under nails

Ulcerated finger-tips

Blotchy, hard or shrivelled skin, worse about neck

Itching, scaly spots

Irritating pus

Chill starts from region of bladder; to back

Wild Liquorice. The rhizome of several species of Smilax. (The Officinal Sarsae radix is imported from Jamaica.) N. O. Smilaceae (by some classed as a sub-order of the Liliaceae). Triturations and tincture of the dried rhizome.

Asthma. Bladder, affections of. Bones, affections of. Breast, scirrhus of. Bright's disease. Calculi. Climaxis. Constipation. Dysmenia. Dyspepsia. Dysuria. Enuresis. Eruptions. Eyes, affections of. Faintness. Glands, enlarged. Gonorrhoea. Gout. Gravel. Hands, chapped. Headache. Hernia. Herpes.

of prepuce. Hiccough. Intermittents. Marasmus. Masturbation, effects of. Melancholia. Merc Viv ^Mercury, abuse of. Mycosis. Nipples, retracted. Plica polonica. Renal colic. Rhagades. Rheumatism.

and the concomitants of these diseases, such as ulcers, cutaneous eruptions, nodes, indurated glands, caries, necroses, articular swellings, and rheumatism, often improve under a protracted course of it." Some, he adds, "think it a kind of restorative after an exhausting course of Merc Viv ^Mercury." This well summarises the ancient reputation of Sars. as a "blood purifier," which Hahnemann's proving has amplified and put on a fixed scientific basis. Sars. meets the sycotic as well as the psoric (scrofulous) and syphilitic constitution.

and it is "restorative" after over-dosing with Merc Viv ^Merc. because it is a homoeopathic antidote to Merc Viv ^Merc. The chief localities of the action of Sars. are The urinary organs.

genitals. rectum. skin and bones.

right lower extremity.

right lower side. inner semilateral head. In the urinary sphere there are symptoms which are very severe and also peculiar There is great pain at end of micturition, just as the urine ceases to flow.

inability to pass water freely except in the standing position, when sitting it only dribbles.

excessive pain in urethra which may run back into abdomen.

passage of gravel which looks like grey sand. Many cases of renal colic and dysuria in infants with passage of sand have been cured with Sars. Gonorrhoea and the effect of suppressed gonorrhoea have also been cured with it.

herpes preputialis. spermatorrhoea, with swollen cords. In the female generative sphere it has many symptoms of painful and disordered menstruation. A peculiar symptom is "moist eruption in right groin before menses." There are moist eruptions also on scrotum and thighs of the male, and offensive odours about genitals in both sexes. The semen may be bloody. In all cases if the other symptoms are associated with the peculiar urinary symptoms of Sars., this will be a strong corroborative indication. The skin is severely affected by Sars. One of its popular uses is for "clearing the complexion." When it succeeds it is by virtue of its homoeopathicity, for I have seen a very extensive crop of blotches produced by it in a young lady. Sars. produces herpetic eruptions in all parts, and tettery eruptions, moist and dry. Rhagades. Itch-like eruptions prone to appear in spring. Itching eruption on forehead during menses. It causes great emaciation, causing the skin to be shrivelled and lie in folds. It is suited to children with faces like old people and enlarged abdomens.

Sars. has many symptoms relative to the female breast, and scirrhus of the breast has been cured with it.

The nipples are soft, unexcitable; they are retracted and cannot be made to come out.

Sarsaparilla shrivelling of the nipples is part of the shrivelling, withering, wrinkling, and hanging in folds which characterises the skin generally.

Burnett (H. W., xv. 62) records the case of Miss X., 32, whom he found ill in bed and in great pain.

There was vomiting of bitter matter, diarrhoea, and fainting, the initial stage of a painful period.

Conjunctivae yellow, and apparently a sharp upset of the liver.

Card. m. Ø removed the pains and vomiting; Chelidonium Majus ^Chel. 1 relieved tenderness of the liver which remained.

The patient had had painful menses for twenty years, that is, continuously from the commencement, except one year when at school at Tunbridge Wells.

She used to begin, generally early in the morning, with bitter vomiting; diarrhoea and fainting fits, with exceedingly cold perspiration; the pain in back, thighs, and hypogastrium she described as dreadful.

She had to lie down the first day, the second day the pain continued still very bad, and went off on the third.

The left nipple was considerably retracted, arising from a fall when patient was a little child, and in addition to the above-named symptoms she had severe pain in left breast extending down left arm, and the breast was so tender that she would often hold her hand in front of it to ward off any contact.

Twenty-four powders, each containing Sars 30 gtt. i., were ordered, one at bedtime.

The next flow was painless; but the breast was as painful as ever.

Twelve doses of Sulphur ^Sul. 30 were given in as many days, and then Sars. 30 again.

The painful menstruation remained cured, but the breast was unchanged.

Twenty-four powders were now ordered, the first, twelfth, and eighteenth containing each ten globules of Sars. 100, the rest unmedicated.

Patient reported The first two or three weeks she thought she had taken a severe cold, as she had such a peculiar pain between the shoulders as if the flesh were taken hold of and twisted round.

After a few days it got better, and "there has been scarcely any pain in the part since." The retraction of the nipple seemed to Burnett a little less.

With the same remedy Skinner (ibid.) cured many cases of retraction or flattening of the nipple in nursing women.

On two occasions with high potencies of Sars. he enabled a lady to nurse her child when it was utterly hopeless without the simillimum.

Peculiar Sensations are As if in a dream.

As of a great weight in head.

Buzzing as if a large Belladonna ^bell had been struck in head.

As if he had been hit with a hammer on top of head.

As if something pressing on head.

As if gauze spread over left eye.

As if a grain of sand in eye.

As of a needle pricking point of nose.

Face as if bruised. Jaw as if being broken.

As if he had eaten nothing.

As if diarrhoea would come on.

As if bowels were pressed out.

As if bound down to bed by a sort of suction.

As if breath were stopped by a spasm.

Breast-bone as if bruised.

As if chest were too short.

As if tips of fingers ulcerated, or as if salt were put on a wound.

Limbs as if paralysed.

There is general sensitiveness.

Pains shoot in different directions.

Anxiety accompanies the pains of Sars.; and the pains = depression.

The symptoms are agg. by touch, pressure, tight clothes, scratching.

Scratching = itching to begin in another place = eruption on forehead to become humid.

Rest amel., motion agg.

Lying down agg. asthmatic breathing.

Sitting agg. Standing amel. (difficult micturition).

Stooping = pains from occiput to forehead.

Walking agg. agg. Going up (or down) stairs.

Many symptoms are agg. on moving. agg.

In spring. Warmth amel.

Warm diet agg. Cold diet amel.

Warm room agg. vertigo.

Entering cold air from warm room = rash.

Cold air amel. pain in molars.

Cold, wet weather agg.

Washing agg. Chilliness agg.

Seminal emission agg. dim sight.

Bread agg. Yawning agg.

SASSAPARILLA.

especially, when the treatment had to be continued for years, as was sometimes the case. It was, as may be seen, not perceived, even in the course of several centuries, that the root, which in itself is very strong, loses almost all its effective parts by boiling. It was therefore no great loss for the patient, when the apothecary mixed in or substituted for the very expensive sarsaparilla root, the similar long and thin roots of the sea-zeed-grass (carex arenaria) which had no medicinal virtures at all, drawing an immense profit from the transaction. For a long time even the physicians supposed that the root of the carex arenaria might with propriety be substituted for the sarsaparilla, because it also was a long, thin root, and probably of similar virtues. This was an arbitrary action of the fabricators of the common , having no foundation in fact, as they also decreed, that the bark of Salix and of Aesculus Glabra ^Aesculus hippocastanum was of like medicinal virtue as the cinchona bark.

The truth is, that the genuine sarsaparilla, especially the brown kind which grows on Hayti (San Domingo), is a drug which is very powerful even in a small dose; but it must be given to the patient in some other from, and not as a decoction, as it thereby, as before mentioned, loses nearly all its virtue.

Homoeopathy only uses the most genuine medicines (it needs but a small quantity of each), and it uses them in their most effective form.

The tinctures drawn out with alcohol from all the dry drugs, do not contain all of their medicinal virtues. I have become convinced of this by experience now for several years.

We therefore scrape off one grain of the bark from a small piece of good sarsaparilla root which has not been kept on hand too long.

the same is triturated for homoeopathic use with ninety-nine grains of sugar of milk to the hundred fold powder-attenuation, and so on to the millionth powder-attenuation.

one grain of this is solution is then potentized further, as taught at the end of the first part of this work.

In cases where Sarsaparilla was homoeopathically indicated, it also removed the following ailments, if they happened to be present Nauseas, blood with the stool; cold feet before going to sleep; perspiration on the forehead, in the evening in bed; stuffed coryza of many years standing; bruised weariness of the hands and the feet.

Smelling of Camphora ^Camphor is an antidote; Vinegar seems to aggravate the ailments in the beginning.

The abbreviations are . ; , ; ., ; ., ; . ; ., .

In the (vol. iv) Sassaparilla has thirty-four symptoms from Hahnemann and one hundred and eleven from four others. Nenning then proved it (in his usual manner) for , the second volume of which contains three hundred and forty-seven symptoms from him. In the present pathogenesis these are incorporated, together with some new symptoms from SchréTerebinthina ^ter. -Hughes.

SARSAPARILLA.

Not accessible.

Intense urging to stool, with contraction of the intestines and excessive forcing downward, as if the abdominal intestines should be forced out with it, for several minutes.

only then something is discharged by jerks, with severe tearing and cutting in the rectum, succeeded at once again by tenesmus, as if the rectum was being pressed out, so that he can hardly sit still for pain.

* * * * *

.

A root from South America. Hahnemann. Smilaceae.

Sarsaparilla is suitable in low forms of chronic disease, especially in complex states resulting from mixed miasms.

Weakness The tissues become flabby, refuse to heal when injured, ulcerate from slight causes. After an injury an open sore remains and is indolent or becomes phagedenic and spreads like. Arsenicum Album ^Ars., Lachesis ^Lach and Mercurius Corrosivus ^{Merc. cor}.

Weakness over the whole body; a paralytic feeling. In the mental sphere it manifests itself in a dazed state, he is unable to comprehend, the mind is slow, it is a weakness bordering on imbecility, which in the end it may reach. Weakness of the mind and the tissues.

All the organs are slowed down, weak, sluggish, become congested. Weakness and dilatation of the veins, tendency to form varices in the limbs, varicose ulcers, hemorrhoids, varicose veins of the face and body.

The face is often red and discolored in patches. When the circulation is feeble the parts turn blue, over the shin bones; on the backs of the feet, toes; blue spots like approaching senile gangrene, Useful in old age when black and blue spots appear on the backs of the hands and elsewhere.

Moist, itching, scurfy, and scabby eruptions. The skin of the backs and the palms of the hands becomes thick and indurated with a bran like scurf resembling psoriasis, intermingling with blue spots.

Sarsaparilla has many features as to cold and heat. The use of heat internally aggravates all complaints, but there is an external coldness relieved by heat; taking warm food and drink aggravates; wants cold food, but heat applied externally is grateful.

Secale Cornutum ^Secale also produces great weakness of tissue, with venous stasis ulceration and gangrene. But the two remedies, though similar in appearance, differ in regard to heat and cold.

The stomach is in a most miserable condition. Flatulence, continuous nausea, eructations and vomiting of sour food. Always complaining of fermentation and uneasiness of the stomach as if he had overeaten or as if the food had spoiled; digestion is slow and feeble.

Organs become tumid and congested. The throat, tongue, and mouth look as if about to ulcerate; purple spots look as if they would break down, but remain intact for weeks and months.

Oedema of tissues, of lower extremities, pitting on pressure dropsical conditions.

Bright's disease. Suitable in old syphilitics whose complaints have been suppressed by Merc Viv ^Mercury.

mind and body in a state of prostration.

paralytic weakness of the lower extremities, no endurance.

the heart palpitates on exertion.

suffocation on the least exertion.

always tired. ulcers here and there on the body.

the skin is flabby and full of distress at night. Bone-pains worse at night. Sars. antidotes the Merc Viv ^Merc and establishes reaction.

The child is always passing sand in its diaper, yellowish, or whitish like chalk.

the child screams when it is about to urinate, because it remembers how painful the passing of urine is. Sometimes at the close of urination it gives forth an unearthly yell. This symptom is found in old broken down constitutions, a clutch in the bladder just as it shuts down causes him to carry out.

pain at the end of urination.

Old debauches, enfeebled by wine and women, with weak heart, lungs, brain, and bladder, emaciated and shrivelled. Prematurely old, a man of forty looks to be eighty, feet swollen, totters about on a staff. Nux Vomica ^Nux will palliate in early periods of breakdown, but the time comes when he is weak in body and mind and must have such remedies as Sars., Lachesis ^Lach., Secale Cornutum ^Secale, etc.

Urinary Catarrh of the bladder and kidneys.

Involuntary urination of children at night in bed, in feeble children. There is a spasmodic condition of the sphincter when sitting to urinate, which makes the act impossible in that position, but when he stands up the urine flows freely.

Sarsaparilla is especially important when the symptom occurs in women, because they have great difficulty in urinating while standing. Copious urine at night; he floods the bed, but during the day be can pass it only when standing.

It is fifteen years since I reported the following case and the man has remained well ever since

"A man, aet. 52, addicted to whiskey for years, had a copious flow of blood from the bowels some four months ago.

the exertion of walking a few blocks causes suffocation.

after the loss of blood, feet began to swell, both limbs to middle of thigh very oedematous, has had two or three nondescript chills.

a few months ago, sudden paralytic weakness of left arm and leg, passed off in three hours leaving a numbness in left hand and a tearing pain in left side of face and head.

no appetite. bloody discharge with stools.

feels as if in a dream all the time.

loss of memory. face covered with varicose veins and very red.

general venous stasis.

feeling on the top of the head as if struck with a hammer.

must pass urine several times in a night.

urine thick and cloudy after standing.

but clear when first passed.

has bad much worry from financial troubles.

cannot pass urine, when sitting at stool, but flows freely when he is standing, albumen in the urine.".

When Sars can take such a man, 52 years old, and restore him to health it is worth considering.

"Jerking sensation along the male urethra."

"Each time she makes water, air passes out of the urethra with a gurgling noise."

Sarsaparilla symptom is common in catarrh of the bladder; it is caused by fermentation of the mucus and consequent formation of gas.

"Frequent ineffectual urging to urinate with diminished secretion,"

Sarsaparilla medicine has many times dissolved a stone in the bladder; it so changes the character of the urine that it is no, longer possible for the stone to build up, and it grows smaller by the continual dissolving off from the surface.

I have seen the high colored, bloody, and mucous urine cleared up after the administration of Sars, but on standing, the sand would appear. When the urine again becomes cloudy, it is time for another dose. The urine holds in solution, that is, actually dissolves the substance of the stone.

Some years ago there was an old man upon whom a surgeon was expected to operate. They had sounded his bladder and said that he had a stone, but he came to the conclusion that he would not permit the operation. In spite of their warnings he sent for me and I took charge of his case. His symptoms called for Sars The enormous amount of sand he passed in the next year was wonderful. It mitigated the catarrh and kept the bladder comfortable. At the end of a year, after a night of great suffering, he passed a stone the size of a pea. He passed several small stones after that and then returned to health.

A young man passed so much crusty deposit that I ordered him to use one commode and let it settle, pouring off the urine. At the end of a month there was a layer a sixteenth of an inch thick. This patient under Sars had no stone. The sand continued to pass, but was held in solution and deposited only on cooling. In the course of time it disappeared. He was of a gouty nature and this was relieved.

Sars. has gouty nodes with extreme soreness. After the remedy has been given, there is a deposit of sand in the urine, which shows the good action of the remedy and should not be stopped.

"Obstinate constipation with violent urging to urinate; urging top stool with contraction of the intestines; excessive pressure from above downward, as if the bowels were pressing out; during stool, violent tearing, cutting, in the rectum.

"Old, dry, sycotic warts remaining after Mercurial treatment for gouty pains."

White sand in urine; also slimy or flaky urine.

Much pain at the conclusion of passing urine; almost unbearable.

Marasmus; neck emaciates and skin lies in folds.

Sarsaparilla is another remedy which has excruciating neuralgia of the kidneys. Renal colic and passage of gravel and formation of vesicle calculi. Dr. Hering gives many testimonials to the efficacy of Sarsaparilla to relieve the sufferings attendant on gravel, especially with rheumatic symptoms. Lycopodium ^Lycopodium has red sand with clear urine.

Sarsaparilla white sand with scanty, slimy or flaky urine. They may both be very useful in chronic rheumatic troubles, with these urinary complications. The most characteristic symptom of Sarsaparilla is "much pain at the conclusion of passing urine; almost unbearable." (Berberis Vulgaris ^Berberis, Equisetum Hyemale ^Equisetum, Medorrhinum ^Medorrhinum, Thuja ^Thuja.). There is often in this case great tenesmus of the bladder at the same time. No remedy has this symptom so strongly as Sarsaparilla. Pulsatilla ^Pulsatilla has something similar, so far as tenesmus is concerned, in connection with enlarged prostrate. Nat Mur ^{Natrum muriaticum} has also, -"After urination burning and cutting in the urethra.

Retractions of nipple (Silicea ^Silicea).

Dose

First to sixth potency.

Region

Genito-urinary organs

Skin

Right side; lower