Mirza Tahir Ahmad - James Tyler Kent - William Boericke -
This remedy is also called Cimicifuga. It is extraordinarily effective in women’s diseases, especially those complicating pregnancy.
Normally, if during menstruation copious bleeding occurs, most menstrual complaints cease automatically. But in the case of Actaea Racemosa, the more the bleeding, the more is the pain and associated discomfort. Sometimes, the symptoms continue even after the cessation of the menstrual period.
Actaea Racemosa is very useful for joint pains. The tissues hurt like an abscess. There is a lightning type of pain in the muscles of the neck and back, spreading in all directions. Rest relieves the discomfort, while movement makes it worse. Cold and humidity relieve the symptoms. In Actaea Racemosa, there is also shifting of the disease from one part of the body to another, like Abrotanum. Generally, the physical illnesses transform into mental illnesses. If the physical illnesses in children are suppressed by some kind of treatment, mental symptoms appear and can produce conditions like hysteria. A sensitive girl of a touchy disposition will become totally silent. If called in a loud voice, she will simply start crying. She would be indifferent to the rest of the world, and seem totally lost in herself. In such a case, Actaea Racemosa is the best possible remedy.
This remedy is deeply related to sadness. Grief and sorrow can result in physical illnesses. Mental shock in sensitive women can result in irregularity of the menstruation, joint pains or other physical illnesses. Mental shock will make them fearful and superstitious. They will not even like to take any medicine in case it is mixed with poison. If there is preponderance of suspicion in addition to other symptoms, two doses of Actaea Racemosa can clear the symptom of suspicion and make the patient well again.
In Actaea Racemosa, there are symptoms of two apparently opposing remedies. In some aspects, it is like Bryonia, and in another aspect, like Rhus Tox. In Bryonia, it is movement, and in Rhus Tox, it is rest which aggravates the discomfort. In Actaea Racemosa, the person will feel discomfort on whatever side he or she lies. There would be twitching of the muscles. The headache is mostly behind the eyeballs and the back of the head, which is relieved by pressure, but movement makes the headache worse. The person feels dizzy and there is heaviness in the head. The vision becomes dim. Engrossed deep in studies, worry and bladder symptoms cause headache.
Like Abrotanum, in Actaea Racemosa, constipation and diarrhoea alternate with each other. There is severe pain in the stomach, which gets better on bending forward. Due to pressure on the backbone and over the reproductive organs, there is a tendency towards nausea and vomiting. Young girls experience severe vomiting during their first pregnancy, which does not seem to be relieved by any medicine. In such a case, one should study carefully the temperament of the patient and the symptoms of the ailment before prescribing any remedy. If the patient is of Actaea Racemosa type, then she would definitely get better with Actaea Racemosa.
In feeble-minded women, at the time of delivery, the labour pains, instead of pushing down to facilitate the childbirth, scatter right and left, causing spasms over the hips. This is the main feature of Actaea Racemosa. Actaea Racemosa, when given in time, will normalise the direction of labour pains and facilitate the childbirth. Caulophyllum is another very important remedy at the time of child delivery. In Caulophyllum, instead of pains bearing down, the Homey scatter down inside of the thighs and the mouth of the uterus does not open. Sometimes, physicians and midwives try to alleviate this problem by using ergot but instead this closes the mouth of the uterus tightly and makes the woman suffer further. Unfortunately, some women die in such circumstances. Once, while I was in Anwarabad, Sindh (Larkana), in a convention, a person came to me and very humbly submitted that his wife was in the process of labour but the mouth of the uterus was tightly closed, and there was a danger that his wife might die. I took Colophylum out of my travel bag and gave it to him to give to his wife. Within ten to fifteen minutes, a healthy baby boy was born normally. Homoeopathic medicines should not be taken lightly. Their timely use can save from potentially serious complications.
Women with weak uterine muscles and associated organs abort repeatedly or conceive after great difficulty. Caulophyllum may be very useful in such women. At the time of labour, Gelsemium should also be kept in mind, like Actaea Racemosa and Caulophyllum. If during labour, the pains remain localized at the back and after bearing down return to the back, then Gelsemium would be very useful in such a case. In Kali Carb, instead of bearing down, the labour pains scatter to the outer side of the thighs. In Pulsatilla, due to nervous disability or fear, the labour pains are very weak and rare.
In Actaea Racemosa, the periods are irregular or delayed. There is severe spasmodic pain at the uterus and in the back. The organs feel heavy. A typical Actaea Racemosa woman is very lazy, sad and confused. Her mind is clouded. She observes dreadful dreams, speaks constantly but does not concentrate on anything. She becomes easily frightened; especially the fear of death prevails in her mind. This reminds one of Aconite.
In Actaea Racemosa, there is irritation of the throat, a dry cough is very bothersome at night and becomes worse on talking. The heartbeat is fast while the pulse is weak and irregular. There are symptoms of angina, like numbness of left arm, which is typical of Actaea Racemosa. The muscles and bones of the back hurt a lot. The neck and the upper part of the back are very stiff. There is sense of discomfort and restlessness of the arms and legs. The person feels itching, and there is jerking of the limbs. There is lack of sleep and the mind remains perturbed and undulating. The person feels as if his head has grown bigger in size. The ears are very sensitive to noise. The symptoms of Actaea Racemosa are aggravated in the morning and in cold weather, except the headache, which gets better in hot weather and by taking food.
Antidotes: Aconite, Baptisia
Potency: 30 to CM
ACTAEA RACEMOSA
Introduction: This remedy has been only meagerly proved, yet there are a few useful points in it.
From its proving we can perceive that it is similar to diseased states in the human family, and especially in women, namely, hysterical and rheumatic conditions.
The patient is always chilly, easily affected by cold, sensitive to cold and damp weather, which rouses the rheumatic state and develops a state of rheumatism not only in the muscles and joints all over the body, but also along the course of nerves.
In the general nervous disturbance there is a lack of will balance, or great disturbance in the voluntary system, which is the underlying feature of hysteria, the symptoms are intermingled with rheumatism.
With the pains we have soreness all over the body. Trembling, numbness, jerking of muscles.
Inability to exercise the will over the muscles of the body, turmoil in the voluntary system, with stiffness.
Tendency to take cold and thereby she takes on sensitiveness in the glands and larger organs, such as the liver and uterus.
Complaints in these organs come on from cold damp weather (Dulcamara) and from being chilled.
The patient is sensitive to cold in all parts except the head, and is aggravated from becoming cold both in parts of the body and in general.
The headaches, however, are better in the open air and from cold, which is an exception and a particular, for the general feature is aggravation from cold.
Mind: There is a terrible mental state that alternates with physical states. It is an overwhelming sadness or gloominess, she is bowed down with sorrow.
Sits and mopes in great sadness, like Psorinum and Pulsatilla.
This may pass off instantly, or be brought on and aggravated from motion, from fear, from excitement, from taking cold.
Very commonly there is muscular soreness, a bruised feeling all over, with drawing and jerking.
This will let up very suddenly and leave a nervous, hysterical girl in a state of sadness, and she will sit and say nothing. When questioned perhaps she will break into tears or ex press in various ways the overwhelming sadness.
With the headache there is marked sadness. Changeable moods. The physical and the mental are all the time changing. Other symptoms alternate and change.
The jerking has made physicians see the resemblance to chorea in these hysterio-rheumatic constitutions.
The rheumatisms will change in a day into chorea, and again the choreic movements will keep on with the soreness throughout the muscles of the body.
The jerking and soreness and numbness often keep on together.
There are certain features about the chorea that should be noted. Jerking of the muscles when in a state of emotion or from becoming chilled. If any part of the body is pressed upon jerking of the muscles of that part will take place.
One of these nervous, rheumatic, hysterical subjects may not have chorea constantly, but as soon as she retires at night the whole of the side lain on will commence to jerk and prevent her from going to sleep. If she turns on the back the muscles of the back and shoulders will jerk and prevent sleep.
She turns over on the other side, but after a little while the muscles pressed on commence to jerk. All this time she has become so restless and nervous that she is driven to distraction.
The mind is full of all sorts of imaginations and the body is full of all sorts of uneasiness, because she can find no place to rest upon.
Sometimes the muscles are so sore that they cannot be lain upon for any length of time; sometimes it is a numbness, sometimes a jerking.
These things are queer, but they belong to the patient, affecting not one part, but the whole economy.
Full of fear, anguish and restlessness. Fear of death, excitement, suspicious, "Will not even take the medicine because there is, something wrong about it" .
It has a mania such as occurs in nervous, hysterical women, and it has cured puerperal mania.
Puerperal mania from taking cold during or soon after confinement. The remedy belongs especially to women, because its symptoms are so commonly associated with the affections of women.
Mental states following the disappearance of rheumatism is a strong feature. The rheumatism gets better, but the mental state becomes worse.
Sometimes the rheumatism disappears in short order and the mind is not disturbed, but then it is because a diarrhea has come on, with great soreness and aching in the bowels, or because a flow from the uterus has given relief.
There must be some relief or a disturbance will take place like Abrotanum. Some flow must be established, and hence the menstrual flow or diarrhea gives relief; otherwise the mind takes on trouble, the patient becomes gloomy, or has a low form of mental excitement.
One of the symptoms is quite descriptive of this sadness I have referred to:
"Sensation as if a black cloud had settled all over her," while at the same time it weighed like "lead upon the head."
This is entirely figurative. It can all be expressed in the word "sadness".
We will find "melancholy," "gloominess ... .. low spirited," etc., running all through out text, but the word "sadness" is just as broad as any of them.
Head: The headaches are rheumatic.
"Sore, bruised feeling all over the head. Bruised sensation in the occiput. Sore, bruised feeling in the top of the head, as if the top of the head would fly off."
"As if cold air was blowing upon the brain."
Yet most of these headaches are better by being in the cold air.
"Headache brought on from catching cold, from the weather changes, cold, damp weather."
There are many headaches. Pressing headache. Many of the headaches are intense, and described as if a bolt were extending down into the back of the neck. Soreness in the back of the neck. Pain in the back of the neck. Hysterical girls; they have much pain in the back of the neck.
With the headache the eyeballs are very sore, "painful to turn in any direction."
"Pain in the eyes, bruised pain in the head."
"Soreness in the abdomen; sore and bruised. Alternate diarrhea and constipation. Alternation of diarrhea and physical complaints."
Genitals female: We pass now to the female genitalia, which form a center for a great deal of trouble in the remedy. A routine saying about Actea is that it makes confinement easy.
That is not a legitimate saying concerning any remedy and such expressions encourage routine practice. It is true that when this remedy has been given to pregnant women in accordance with its symptoms it has proved capable of making confinement easy.
But the way it has been given has been the routine practice of giving it in the tincture or in the 2d or 3d, until the patient was under its influence even when it was not indicated, as it was not similar to the case.
But the homoeopathic physician never practices in this way. A remedy fits a general condition when the symptoms of that general condition are found in the remedy.
Remember that it does so because all the symptoms agree.
"Pain in the uterine region, darting from side to side. Bearing down and pressing out."
These bearing down sensations, taken with all the other states that relate to the patient in general, show that it is a very useful remedy in prolapsus of the uterus.
It has the relaxation of the parts. Do not suppose that our remedies are not sufficient to cure these conditions, when the symptoms agree. It is true that remedies will cure prolapsus when the symptoms agree, and at no other time.
If it fits the patient in general, these bearing down sensations will go away, the patient will be made comfortable, and an examination will finally show that the parts are in normal condition. You cannot prescribe for the prolapsus; you must prescribe for the woman. You cannot prescribe for one symptom, because there are probably fifty remedies that have that symptom.
There are menstrua! disorders in these hysterical rheumatic constitutions. Irregularity of the menstrual flow. It may be copious, suppressed or scanty. Severe pain all through the flow.
The more the flow, the greater the pain. That is very peculiar. Generally the flow will relieve pain, but with this remedy the pain is during the flow. Generally the most severe and most painful attack is at the beginning of the flow, and with some women again just after the flow has ceased.
Each woman is a law unto herself. In this remedy the sufferings are during the menstrual flow as a rule. The most severe mental symptoms, the most severe rheumatic symptoms, the most extreme jerking and cramping of the limbs and sleeplessness are during the menstrual flow.
During menses, epileptic spasms. All sorts of sufferings in the nerves. Soreness along the course of the nerves, soreness in the muscles or joints during the flow. Increase of mental symptoms.
Cold and chilly, must be wrapped rip.
"Rheumatism. Dysmenorrhoea."
"Soreness in the uterus and ovarian region. Lame, bruised feeling all, over; painful menstruation,"
and some one has named that rheumatic dysmenorrhoea, not a bad name.
Pregnancy: Many symptoms during pregnancy. It cures all sorts of conditions, in this kind of constitution, these nervous, rheumatic, fidgety women with jerking in the muscles.
So markedly do her troubles alternate with each other that alternation is in the nature of her case. You will commonly find that all the rest of her troubles have passed away, and that now nausea has come on. In all the years past she has had a hysterical constitution, but now when she is pregnant she has nausea all the time.
You will find when one set of symptoms becomes extremely severe others have temporarily subsided, and so they change about like Pulsatilla.
But the symptoms have to be taken collectively to get at the image of the patient. A woman will come to you with one group of symptoms today and may come back to you with an entirely different group in a couple of weeks.
These are very troublesome cases to prescribe for, and you have sometimes to take the symptoms a dozen times and put them all together as if she had felt them all in one day, and so make your prescription.
A hysterical patient is difficult to manage because of this changing of symptoms, and also because she has a tendency to deceive the doctor.
"Shivering in the first stage of labor. Hysterical manifestations through labor."
Pains have all ceased or are irregular, so that they do not good. No dilatation has taken place. But when the regular pains come on we have some important symptoms.
A pain comes on and it seems to be about to finish satisfactorily; it has been regular and prolonged until about two-thirds through, and all at once she screams out and grasps her hip-the pain has left the uterus and gone to the hip, causing a cramp in the hip, and she has to be rubbed and turned over.
This medicine will regulate the pains, and when the next pain comes it will hold on to the end.
So impressionable is this woman during confinement that if she is subjected to any emotion - such as having an emotional story told in the room - or if anything excitable occurs, the pain will stop.
If she has passed through the labor and the lochia has been established, from such a cause the lochia will stop, as if she had taken cold, and she will have cramps and troublesome after-pains, the milk will be suppressed, she will feel sore and bruised all over, and have fever.
This remedy should be compared with Caulophyllum, which has the following symptoms:
Weakness in the reproductive system of the woman. From weakness she is sterile, or she aborts in the early months of gestation. During parturition the contractions of the uterus are too feeble to expel the contents, and they are only tormenting.
Labor-like pains during menstruation with drawing pains in the thighs and legs, and even the feet and toes. Uterine haemorrhage from inertia of the uterus. Relaxation of muscles and ligaments. Heaviness, and even prolapsus. Subinvolution. Excoriating leucorrhoea. Menses too soon or too late.
She is sensitive to cold and wants warm clothing-quite unlike Pulsatilla. She is hysterical, like Ignatia. She is fretful and apprehensive. She is rheumatic, like Actea, only the small joints are most likely to be affected.
Later she suffers from after-pains, and they are felt in the inguinal region. Rheumatic stiffness of the back and very sensitive spine.
She is sleepless, restless and withal very excitable. This remedy has cured chorea at puberty when menstruation was late.
You need not be surprised that such an emotional subject has a fluttering, quick pulse, and irregular, action of the heart, but many of the most marked hysterical features are present without any disturbances whatever in the action of the heart.
"A feeling in the region of the heart as if the heart were sore, and as if it were enlarged."
"Back of head and neck sore."
The head is drawn back from contraction of the muscles at the nape. Violent aching down the back.
Rheumatism in the back. Impossible to lie upon the back because of the contraction of the muscles of the back. impossible to lie upon the slide of the body because of the contraction and jerking of the muscles.
"Numbness of the limbs. Trembling. Soreness."
The symptoms of the nerves are simply a reiteration of what I have said.
"Hysterical spasms. Convulsions. Trembling of the legs; hardly able to walk."
The numbness is such as is associated with paralysis. Paralytic weakness.
The best effects have resulted from the 30th, 200th, 1000th and still higher potencies, and from the use of medicine in single doses.
It is similar in some of its conditions to the Blue Cohosh.
Compare it with Puls., Sepia, Natr. mur., Lit. t., Caulophyllum, and Ign.
by James Tyler Kent
CIMICIFUGA RACEMOSA
Black Snake-root
(CIMICIFUGA - ACTAEA RACEMOSA - MACROTYS)
Has a wide action upon the cerebrospinal and muscular system, as well as upon the uterus and ovaries. Especially useful in rheumatic, nervous subjects with ovarian irritation, uterine cramps and heavy limbs. Its muscular and crampy pains, primarily of neurotic origin, occurring in nearly every part of the body, are characteristic. Agitation and pain indicate it. Pains like electric shocks here and there. Migraine. Symptoms referable to the pelvic organs prominent. "It lessens the frequency and force of the pulse soothes pain and allays irritability".
Mental.--Sensation of a cloud enveloping her. Great depression, with dream of impending evil. Fears riding in a closed carriage, of being obliged to jump out. Incessant talking. Visions of rats, mice, etc. Delirium tremens; tries to injure himself. Mania following disappearance of neuralgia.
Head.--Wild feeling in brain. Shooting and throbbing pains in head after mental worry, over-study, or reflex of uterine disease. Waving sensation or opening and shutting sensation in brain. Brain feels too large. Pressing-outward pain. Tinnitus. Ears sensitive to least noise.
Eyes.--Asthenopia associated with pelvic trouble. Deepseated throbbing and shooting pains in eyes, with photophobia from artificial light. Intense aching of eyeball. Pain from eyes to top of head.
Stomach.--Nausea and vomiting caused by pressure on spine and cervical region. Sinking in epigastrium (Sep; Sulph). Gnawing pain. Tongue pointed and trembling.
Female.--Amenorrhœa (use Macrotin preferably). Pain in ovarian region; shoots upward and down anterior surface of thighs. Pain immediately before menses. Menses profuse, dark, coagulated, offensive with backache, nervousness; always irregular. Ovarian neuralgia. Pain across pelvis, from hip to hip. After-pains, with great sensitiveness and intolerance to pain. Infra-mammary pains worse, left side. Facial blemishes in young women.
Respiratory.--Tickling in throat. Dry, short cough, worse speaking and at night. Cough when secretion is scanty-spasmodic, dry with muscular soreness and nervous irritation.
Heart.--Irregular, slow, trembling pulse. Tremulous action. Angina pectoris. Numbness of left arm; feels as if bound to side. Heart's action ceases suddenly, impending suffocation. Left-sided infra-mammary pain.
Back.--Spine very sensitive, especially upper part. Stiffness and contraction in neck and back. Intercostal rheumatism. Rheumatic pains in muscles of back and neck. Pain in lumbar and sacral region, down thighs, and through hips. Crick in back.
Extremities.--Uneasy, restless feeling in limbs. Aching in limbs and muscular soreness. Rheumatism affecting the belly of muscles, especially large muscles. Choreic movements, accompanied by rheumatism. Jerking of limbs. Stiffness in tendo-Achilles. Heaviness in lower extremities. Heavy, aching, tensive pain.
Sleep.--Sleeplessness. Brain irritation of children during dentition.
Skin.--Locally and internally for ivy poisoning.
Modalities.--Worse, morning, cold (except headache), during menses; the more profuse the flow, the greater the suffering. Better, warmth, eating.
Relationship.--Compare: Rhamnus Californica (muscular pains, lumbago, pleurodynia, acute rheumatism). Derris pinnata (Neuralgic headaches of rheumatic origin). Aristolochia milhomens (pain in tendo-Achilles; diabetes). Caulophyl; Pulsat; Lilium; Agar; Macrotin (especially for lumbago).
Dose.--First to thirtieth attenuation, third most frequently used.
by William Boericke