M.T. Ahmad J.T. Kent
The plant of Berberis Vulgaris grows in hilly areas. Its fresh leaves are used in the treatment of typhoid fever. Berberis is normally used in the form of Mother Tincture and most homoeopath physicians use it in the treatment of kidney problems. However, it is a very effective remedy for gall bladder stones and deeply-rooted illnesses of the liver. When liver dysfunction has affected the heart also, Berberis Vulgaris will be useful, though by itself it is not a tonic for the heart. Primarily, it is a remedy for liver dysfunction. The ailment of the heart, secondary to the liver failure would certainly be responsive to Berberis Vulgaris.
Berberis is also very effective for joint pains. Its use promotes the excretion of injurious acidic substances through the urine and the body feels relieved. The joint pains decrease. The Berberis patient feels irritation and itching as if something is creeping inside the nose. Often, the cold settles in the left nostril and becomes chronic. The mouth is dry and the tongue sticks due to dryness. It feels burnt and abrased. Sometimes, there is frothy sputum at the mouth with the consistency of thrashed cotton which does not, however, make the mouth moist. Sometimes blisters develop on the tongue.
In men, there is undulating pain along the course of the spermatic cord, which becomes worse during infection of the kidney and the bladder. The patient cannot empty his bladder completely and keeps on straining to evacuate himself fully. Sometimes the urine contains pus or mucus and sometimes, also red cells. The urine smells extremely foul. The undulating type of pain at the shoulders, arms, hands, legs, feet and the nails, associated with generalised weakness, are the special symptoms of Berberis Vulgaris.
The typical sign of Berberis pain is that it starts at one point and spreads out, radiating like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. The kidney pain also behaves in the same way. The throbbing pain radiates downwards towards the bladder and upwards towards the back and the liver. The pain radiating downwards reaches the testicles through the nerves. Often, the patient feels intense desire to pass urine when he stands or walks, and the urge is uncontrollable. At the urinal, when one passes urine, although a major portion is passed, the weak stream of urine is never-ending. It appears as if the kidney is continuously making urine.
Regarding the urinary symptoms of Berberis, either the urine is plenty and dilute or sparse but thick and smelly due to an excess of waste products. The frequency or relative infrequency of urination are both present in Berberis Vulgaris. When the urination is copious, the kidneys are washed out and the bad smell of the urine dissipates. When the urine becomes less in quantity, it becomes deep-coloured and offensive. When the quantity of the urine is decreased, the patient feels a burning sensation along the urethra.
The kidney pain of Pareira Brava usually radiates only in one direction and that is often from the kidney down into the thigh. In Berberis Vulgaris, however, the pain from the kidney or the gall bladder radiates in all directions. In this particular symptom pertaining to the gall bladder pain, Berberis is very effective. In a week to ten days, the stones of the gall bladder start breaking and are excreted in the stools.
In Berberis Vulgaris, the joint pains resemble gout in that they affect the small joints of the hands and the feet much more, as compared to the joint pains involving the big joints (in Rheumatism). The pains in the hands and the fingers, like Benzoic Acid, are deeply related to Berberis Vulgaris. The pain at the hip or the leg starts as soon as the person stands up and worsens after walking a short distance. The feet also hurt, especially the heels and the soles. In gouty pains, Benzoic Acid may prove to be the best substitute of Berberis Vulgaris. Both may also be used alternately.
Experienced homoeopaths believe that when the heart becomes weak secondary to liver failure, Berberis first corrects the state of the liver and as a result, the heart becomes normalized automatically. When there is a retention of acidic products and urea in the body, Berberis Vulgaris mobilizes them from there and redirects them to the blood. They are then excreted through the kidneys. When acidic matters increase in the blood, they can affect the heart. The heart will not improve unless these acidic waste products are excreted. Otherwise, Berberis Vulgaris does not have any direct effect on the condition of the heart. If during the use of Berberis Vulgaris, the heart is adversely affected, the patient should be made to drink a lot of water so that the amount of urine increases. The waste products and acidic matter can be washed out of the body rapidly thus preventing them from affecting the heart again. During a severe cramp, the Berberis Vulgaris patient cries uncontrollably. The gouty pains of Berberis become worse on movement. The patient walks very slowly and guardedly. The symptoms take time to disappear.
The patient feels as if the head is wrapped in something. In Glonoine also, there is a feeling of the head being tied up in a bandage. A cap and buttoned-up collars are unbearable. But in Berberis Vulgaris, even if there is nothing covering the head, the person feels as if something is holding tight. As in Psorinum, the patient also feels bouts of hunger pains. One symptom of Berberis is that the person feels as if he has been stabbed in his liver and gall bladder with a knife. The pain radiates like fireworks in all directions from the affected part of the body.
In Berberis, the patient is jaundiced and the stools become claycoloured. In this condition, Carduus Marianus may also be given along with Berberis Vulgaris to enhance its beneficial effect. These two remedies work as adjuvants to each other. In the case of liver diseases, I give Berberis Vulgaris in the form of mother tincture, while in kidney troubles and gout, I use it in potency 30. Berberis Vulgaris and Carduus Marianus have similar constitutions.
Berberis Vulgaris is useful in the treatment of severe kidney pain as well as kidney stones, but it has to be used over a long period so that the stones gradually dissolve and are excreted. Berberis Vulgaris has no affect on the Oxalic Acid stones. The oxalate stones are very hard, and they are treatable by using ultrasound rays. In my experience, Silicea and Calcarea Flour 6X given together for some time, dissolve and then expel the oxalate stone.
In Berberis Vulgaris, one of the symptoms is that the mouth feels sticky due to thick, sticky sputum. Small spots develop on the tongue that feels raw. In the morning, one feels nauseated and has a burning sensation in the chest. In Berberis, with movement and on standing, the legs start hurting, and the urinary symptoms intensify.
Antidotes: Camphor, Belladonna
Potency: Mother Tincture (Q)
by Mirza Tahir Ahmad
BERBERIS
Generalities: When we have finished the study of Berberis we will see that it is not a very extensive remedy, but it is a very important one.
Like Benzoic acid, it fits into the gouty and rheumatic sphere. It corresponds to such gouty conditions as do not determine to their proper places.
A low state of the economy is present; anaemic condition; feeble constitution; pallid and sickly, old and worn out; prematurely old and wrinkled men and women.
They are too feeble to determine the gouty deposits to the finger joints, where they naturally belong, and the trouble is yet, as it were, wandering around through the economy.
Wandering pains in the nerves, and nerve sheaths. The wandering, stitching, tearing, twinging pains that run through Berberis are found in old gouty constitutions, and that is where we get the greatest benefit from Berberis.
Pains and urines: Its proving would lead us to see it is similar to the wandering, twinging and tearing pains of old gouty constitutions, in persons who are pallid, and sickly, and chilly, where the deposits have not been so marked in the joints; but where the twinging in the fingers and in the toes are just such as are found - where the deposits do exist.
Of course in all of the gouty states we must look to the liver and kidneys for pains and various distresses; they are centers of observation, because these organs are more or less disturbed. And very often cardiac troubles go along with them.
The kidneys, liver, and heart are more or less disturbed in their functions and we see that Berberis takes hold of these organs. We have the uraemic state, and the state of disorder that ends in these conditions. We will have twinging pains along with kidney disturbances.
Irregularities of the urine. Copious discharges, alternating with scanty discharges. Light urine, and heavy urine, excessive deposits of uric acid and urates.
It is changeable, like Benzoic acid. These two remedies run very much together, yet their symptoms are wholly unlike. We find among these sensations that stitching pains are found in almost every region of the body, and they are all the time changing.
Wandering and stitching pains; little twinges. As you sit by his side and talk to a gouty patient-
"Ow," he will say. What does he mean by it?
He has had one of those twitching pains. The next thing he knows it is in his knee; then it is in his toes; then it is in his head, all over him.
Finally the gouty deposits become prominent in the fingers, and after the gout has determined itself, then we have sore fingers; but these corresponds more particularly to Ledum, Sulphur, Aesculus and Lycopodium, where the disease has become marked and has located in the joints.
In Berberis these twinging, tearing, stitching, burning pains are everywhere, they never remain in one place, but are always moving, and they are not often affected by motion.
Whether he moves, or keeps still, they keep coming. In a few instances we have pains aggravated by motion, but a very few in proportion to the many pains in Berberis.
He moves many times, because he cannot keep still. He moves, because he suffers. There are also many pressing pains. But the burning, stinging, tearing, stitching, wandering pains are the main feature, the grand feature of Berberis.
If you single them out in places, in a given joint, from that one joint they will radiate in every direction. If it is the knee joint, they will go up; and down, and every way; if it is the finger joint, they will run in every direction.
If it is the kidney, they will go down the ureters; if it is the liver, they will go down into the abdomen in every direction.
"Radiating from a particular point," is a distinguishing feature, and it puts Berberis almost alone for radiating pains. This is such a strong feature that Berberis, has cured renal colic in many instances because of its well known ability to shoot out in every direction.
It cures gall-stone colic when these little twinges go in every direction from that locality. We see these twinging, shooting pains in gouty constitutions are associated with urinary troubles, and with liver troubles, and we begin to lay a foundation for the study of Berberis.
The joints sometimes swell.
"Enlargement of the joints."
But the swelling is not so common as the pains without swelling. Soreness, lameness in the joints, with these radiating pains. There will be burning, stitching, tearing, and the pains will radiate and appear in one part of the body then in another.
"A pain in the heel as if it were ulcerating," and then the pain shoots off in every direction. Numbness. Lameness.
As to the heart, the pulse becomes slow. Very often it is slowed down astonishingly.
Mind: The mental symptoms are very defective, that is, we do not know the mental symptoms. There are a few. We know this, that the mind is weak, that he is unable to sustain a mental effort, and that he is forgetful.
"Defective recollection and weak memory. Terrifying apparitions in twilight."
It is not a strange thing for a child in the dark to imagine all sorts of things, because they have heard graveyard stories from old people; but with this remedy between the daylight and darkness he sees ghosts, imaginary forms - coming round him. It has melancholy, apathy, prostration of mind.
Head: Some dizziness. The headaches are of the game character as the general pains in uraemic subjects, where there is plenty of sand in the urine, red pepper deposit.
The head comes in for its share of these wander ing, pains. Stitching, tearing, twinging in the scalp; in the skull; in the eyes, ears, back of the head. Burning pains.
"A feeling in the head, as if it was becoming large," is a peculiar symptom; a puffy sensation.
Always putting the hand to the head; it feels as if he had on a skull-cap. It fits down over the brow, and it is not an uncommon thing with such patients to put the hand to the head to take off the cap.
"Feels as, if he had a cap on the head," when there is none there.
This symptom is not always described like a cap on the head. It is convertible into numbness of the scalp; many patients describe a sensation of numbness in the scalp, as if they had on a cap.
Some times patients will deny that it is a sensation of numbness, and say it is just a cap. At one time I fully believed the "cap" belonged to two sensations. If it was painful I placed it under "pressure." If it was not painful it was supposed to belong to "numbness;" but I have now made a new rubric, "the sensation of skull-cap," which I now think is entirely distinctive, from numbness; but they both have to be compared.
Eyes: Then the eyes take on that same gouty condition, with stitching, tearing pains, twinging pains, shooting pains. Shooting off in various directions.
There is one grand feature about Berberis, that it has no particular direction; it has all directions. Most remedies have pains taking a direction from one part to the other, pains going from the eye to the temple, etc., but in Berberis it cannot be said the pains go to any place in particular.
They are wandering pains and they radiate. Pains in the ears of the same character. In every part of the body we have these twinging, tearing, burning, shooting pains coming and going, causing the patient to scowl and make a sharp noise.
The patient has a sickly look; face pale, earthy complexion, with sunken cheeks and hollow, blue-encircled eyes.
That is a description of a sick face. Berberis has been very useful in phtisical conditions; and in the pains, and twinging, and sufferings in persons who have been operated on for fistula in ano.
When the fistula has been closed, these pains will come if it is a Berberis case. The kidney manifestations will come on, or the liver manifestations, or the enfeebled heart, or these wandering pains.
At one time feverish, full of pains, with violent thirst; alternating with the very opposite state.
Prostration land - aversion to water. Want of appetite at one time; canine hunger at another.
The stomach is disordered, digestion is glow and feeble, and we have manifestations usually known to patients as "bilious."
Liver: Eructations that are bitter and of bile. The liver is full of suffering.
In the liver we have these pains, and added to them sudden stabbing like a knife puncturing the liver. Shooting, tearing, burning, stitching, twinging pains, wandering from one place to another.
"Gall-stone colic."
These pains with jaundice. The liver seems to slow down in its actions, and the patients becomes, jaundiced.
The stool becomes white, bileless.
"Sharp, pinching pains in the liver, which come suddenly and with great severity. Violent stabbing pain in the region of the liver, taking his breath away. Had to bend double."
These pains last a moment and pass away. In gall- stone colic pains are spasmodic, increase in intensity and diminish, but do. not let up entirely.
Berberis when it is indicated will let the little gall-stone loose, and it will pass through, and the patient will take a long breath and wish he had sent for the doctor sooner. Any thing that is spasmodic can be relieved instantly.
Anus and Stools: Pains through the abdomen. Copious, thick, mushy stools, and these are yellow, like yellow corn meal mush.
"Diarrhoea; mush-like yellowish discharges."
"Clay-colored."
From what we have seen it is not surprising that it is clay-colored, that it is bileless, that it is white.
The action on the liver does that. When you have these symptoms associated, with radiating pains, and with wandering pains in broken down constitutions, persons who are suffering from cold, who are pallid and sickly, you have a Berberis case.
Then the patient becomes constipated, but the stool is white, or very light colored.
"Burning, stinging pain before, during, and after stool."
"Enlargement of the prostate gland, which causes a constant pressure in the perineum. Pressure as if there were a lump, or as if something was pressing down."
"Tearing extending around the anus. Herpes around anus. Fistula in ano."
Now the surgeons nearly all advocate that if there is a fistulous opening around the anus it must be operated upon. Homoeopathy cures such cases. I have, not operated on one for twenty years. The remedy that is indicated for the patient will cure the patient, and the fistula.
Above all things they should not be operated on. To close up that fistulous opening, and thus neglect the patient, is a very dangerous thing to do. Knowing all that I know, if such a trouble should come upon me and I could not find the remedy to cure it I would bear with it patiently, knowing I was keeping a much less grievance.
Nor I could I advise my patient to have, a thing done that I would not have done upon myself. It is a dangerous thing to operate upon a fistula in ano.
It is a very serious matter. If it is closed up, and that patient is leaning towards phthisis, he will develop phthisis; if he has a tendency towards Bright's disease, that will hasten it; if he threatens to break down in any direction; his weakest parts will be affected and he will break down.
Occasionally time enough elapses so that the physician who is ignorant does not see the relation between the two. But now that you have heard it, you can never forget it.
Kidneys: And then the kidneys and the urinary organs come in for their troubles. There is such a soreness in the lumbar region, in the region of the kidneys, that he can bear no pressure.
He cannot step down from a carriage to the pavement without letting himself down very carefully. A jar is a great shock to him, and sometimes the soreness is so great that he almost faints.
Soreness in the back; in the muscles of the back, and in the region of the kidneys; and this associated with all sorts of disturbances in the urine, with excessive deposits.
The kidneys radiate in every direction. Pains run up into the kidney, and they become worn out if he does not get relief, he will have some serious disease. Hence we have these symptoms.
"Burning and soreness in the region of the kidneys. Burning stitches, single or several in succession, in regions of loins and kidneys. Much pain, soreness and tenderness in back, in the region of the kidneys. Sensitiveness in the region of the kidneys so great that any jarring motion, riding in a wagon, jumping from it, was intolerable. After kidney complaints, a foul, bitter taste, rush of blood to the throat. Great urging, with pain in the neck of the bladder, with burning, scanty urine. Violent, cutting, tensive pain, deeply seated in left side of bladder, at last becoming a sticking, obliquely in female urethra, as if in its orifice, lasting a 'few minutes."
Now we see how these symptoms manifest themselves. Sore, inflamed, sensitive kidney, one or both.
And then, the formation of little calculi in the pelvis of the kidney - little stones like pinheads; and every now and then one of them takes a start down the ureter to the bladder, and, oh, how he suffers.
Then it is that the pains in the kidneys radiate in every direction. Pains run up into the kidneys and down into the bladder.
In the male they appear as if, they ran down the spermatic cord into the testes, and he is a great sufferer. You will, be astonished to know how quickly Berberis will relieve this particular kind of renal colic. Burning pain in the bladder; burning pain in the kidney.
"Urine dark, turbid with copious sediment. Urine very slow to flow. Constant urging."
The bladder becomes very irritable. Catarrhal conditions of the bladder. Smarting, burning, stitch ing pains. Many troubles, pains and aches in the spermatic cord and testes in gouty constitutions. Burning pains along these regions.
Berberis especially fits a woman who is tired, with a gouty constitution; though not old in years she is physically tired, so that all of her domestic affairs fret and tire her.
Coition becomes painful, and she has an aversion to it. The orgasm is delayed, or is entirely absent, and she is prostrated by it.
In all the affairs of her innermost life she is a drudge.
Full of twinging pains in all of her nerves.
"Burning in the female urethra. Burning pain in the vagina".
A lack of sensation normal to these parts in the woman.
by James Tyler Kent