Mirza Tahir Ahmad James Tyler Kent
Gelsemium is prepared from jasmine bearing yellow flowers. It is a very frequently used Homoeopathic medicine. To an extent, it resembles Aconite and Belladonna; however, diseases of Gelsemium progress rather slowly compared to both Aconite and Belladonna. There is sudden rush of blood towards the head, causing headache. The mouth becomes dry. These three symptoms are common to Aconite, Belladonna and Gelsemium. In the case of Aconite, the face is flushed and warm, but there is no such warmth in case of Gelsemium. Constitutionally, it is a cold remedy. The mouth is dry, yet there is no thirst. Gelsemium symptoms do not appear until after two to three days after exposure to the cold. Gelsemium would certainly be indicated if a child contracts illness after having been exposed to the cold. If the illness comes on suddenly and severely from exposure to cold, then Aconite and Belladonna combined will be much more effective.
According to Dr. Kent, the symptoms of nasal catarrh set in a few days after exposure to the cold. One might presume that being a cold natured medicine, Gelsemium’s illnesses would be more prevalent in the winter and similarly the illnesses of Aconite would be more prevalent in the summer. In fact, the situation is the exact opposite (Aconite is used more often in the winter and Gelsemium more in the summertime). When one is exposed to cold in the summertime, Gelsemium will be of greater benefit. Thus, Gelsemium is most commonly used in dry, hot weather. However, when acute dysentery (along with the passing of lot of blood) is contracted in the drier part of the summer, Aconite will be the best treatment to work and does so equally well in the dry months of summer as well as winter.
Gelsemium is commonly used to treat headaches and catarrhal illnesses but not for the treatment of diarrhoea. However, it has been found to work extremely well for the chronic type of diarrhoea associated with the body being cold, a heaviness of the head and a complete absence of thirst in spite of the mouth being dry. Thus, it is a treatment of diarrhoea as well.
In spite of the fact that the Gelsemium ailments progress rather slowly, it is rarely used in the treatment of chronic diseases. Its use has been confined to treat diseases of limited duration. In Gelsemium, the blood rushes towards the face and head. The face becomes warm though the hands and the feet are cold. Similar is the case for Arnica. The calves feel cold or even ice cold. These symptoms are also found in Glonoine. However, the difference between Gelsemium and Glonoine is that in Gelsemium, the hands and feet become cold but there is no sweating, while in Glonoine, there is profuse sweating in addition to the hands and feet becoming cold. Due to the straining of the back muscles causing severe stiffness and spasms, the pain spreads over the shoulders and up to the back of the head. The stiffness of the neck causes great difficulty in turning the neck. The headache is mostly on the right side. Extreme spasm of the neck muscles (torticolis) at night, is better treated with Gelsemium and Belladonna combined. In case the rigidity of the neck resembles meningitis, the back does not feel cold but the hands and feet become cold. In addition to the severe muscular stiffness, the patient may become convulsive but there is no associated cyanosis. In this condition, one should not forget to use Gelsemium.
In Gelsemium, the patient is restless before going to sleep. He fears that he may not be able to sleep well. The head starts hurting, while still, there is no headache, per se. The headache becomes worse on sleeping (like Lachesis), though the overall picture of the patient is still Gelsemium. He does not sleep well. By the time the patient has got up in the morning, his headache has become very severe. The one difference between Gelsemium and Lachesis is that the Gelsemium pain does not remain confined to the head; instead, it radiates down the shoulders up to the back of the head and is most often on the left side.
Gelsemium is the antidote of Glonoine. Combined with Natrum Mur, it happens to become a complete immediate panacea.
Gelsemium is of great value for the treatment of women. It will immediately relieve the tightness of the cervix of the uterus as well as the associated lightning type of labour pains radiating to the back. The tightness of the muscles of the back becomes released and the child is delivered smoothly. It is also of significant use in relieving the severe backache accompanying the menstrual period, as well as the chills and relentless fever due to infection.
A malarial fever, which comes on every day with a tendency to be very high in the afternoon, will respond well to Gelsemium. Symptoms of Gelsemium become much worse in the evening. On the other hand, the symptoms of Arsenic are at their peak at midday and midnight. The pain of Kali Carb commences at about three o’ clock in the afternoon while the symptoms of Gelsemium become worse between four and seven o’clock.
The heartbeat is slow and weak. Typically, the patient thinks that his heart will beat as long as he keeps walking and will stop as soon as he stops, as if the functioning of the heart is being sustained by physical movement. Over the heart area there is a feeling of vacuum and weakness. The patient believes that moving around is a must to keep the heart functioning or it will stop as soon as he sits down. Slow walking is good to strengthen the heart gradually while sudden rapid movement can do harm to it. The heart of a Gelsemium patient is weak and cannot bear sudden, severe physical stress. He will either faint or may even die. Gentle physical exercise gradually strengthens the heart muscle so that it may subsequently be able to take relatively rapid physical movement.
In Gelsemium, there is a feeling of weakness and emptiness at the stomach. Gelsemium can be of use in treating the diarrhoea of psychogenic origin. The stomach, like the heart, is subject to emotional stress. Fear, stress and bad news are known to upset the stomach. This is also seen in Argentum Nitricum although other symptoms are quite different.
Gelsemium can be compared also to Natrum Mur in some ways. The headache of Natrum Mur is as if being hammered, while the Gelsemium headache generally begins as throbs over the nape of the neck. Gelsemium is very effective in treating the left-sided headache that becomes settled at the nape of neck or radiates to the neck. In addition, Onosmodium may also be very useful. Both Gelsemium and Onsomodium combined can be used to treat migraine. At times, the headache may just be due to excessive heat but this may not come to one’s mind, therefore all the symptoms should be considered carefully. It is essential to have a good working knowledge of the working of the disease as well as the nature of the remedy. Whenever the correct Homoeopathic remedy is used, the patient will have a good sleep or will start passing urine freely. In the case of Gelsemium, the urination is free and clear like water. Reduction in the severity of symptoms shows that Gelsemium was certainly the right choice. Often in Gelsemium, emotional stress and grief can induce physical illnesses.
Gelsemium is known for eye troubles also, such as temporary blindness. This kind of blindness is also found in other medicines, though not as commonly as in Gelsemium. If one eye is affected, Rhus Tox will suffice. In some cases, Lachesis may also be useful. In Gelsemium, there is drooping of the eyelids, which are difficult to keep open (ptosis). If this condition becomes chronic Gelsemium will not be of much use any more. It is useful in the beginning of the condition. The vision becomes blurred. One pupil happens to be dilated and the other constricted i.e. the pupils are unequal in size. The eye becomes red and swollen. Vision is foggy or the field of vision becomes occupied with spider webs. Gelsemium is also useful to treat the neurological weakness of the eye muscles. Hands and feet become partially paralysed. The limbs quiver and feel drawn. The patient does not wish to walk for want of physical energy.
Regarding the catarrhal diseases (affecting the inner linings/mucous membranes), the symptoms of Gelsemium resemble those of Natrum Mur. However, the patient of Natrum Mur is very thirsty and the patient of Gelsemium not thirsty at all. In Gelsemium the patient sneezes repeatedly. The tip of the nose becomes insensitive. Ears may also become numb over the skin surface. The skin is warm, dry and itchy. Gelsemium can prove effective immediately for these conditions.
Boils form on the face and scalp. Blisters form over the nerve ends, which can be very painful and even harmful. This is called Shingles (Herpes Zoster). Gelsemium is also of significant advantage in treating this condition. I usually prescribe a combination of Ledum, Arnica and Arsenic. Natrum Mur is also useful. Generally, I prefer to suggest a combination of any three, which proves very effective i.e. by substituting one of the first three with Natrum Mur or Gelsemium as indicated. By the grace of Allah, in my experience, within these five remedies (Ledium, Arnica, Arsenic, Natrum Mur and Gelsmium), most cases of shingles come under control.
Sometimes, epilepsy-like conditions can develop due to the disorder of the stomach. It is as if a flame or a flash erupts from the stomach and rises up towards the head or the heart. The patient may either become unconscious or very dizzy, losing balance. This is a symptom of Gelsemium. It results from gastric hyperacidity often seen in sportsmen. Gelsemium will be found very useful in treating this condition. Certainly, this is not epilepsy as such.
The Gelsemium ailments become aggravated in humidity and with emotional stress. Passing large amounts of urine freely and constant light movement in open air give relief.
Antidotes: China, Coffea, Digitalis
Potency: 30 to 200
by Mirza Tahir Ahmad
GELSEMIUM
Weather: If you will observe the weather conditions in sharp climates, such as Minnesota, Massachusetts and Canada, you will find that the cold spells are very intense and that people when exposed, come down with complaints very rapidly and violently.
That is the way the Bell. and Acon. cases come on, but Gelsemium complaints do not come from, such causes nor appear that way. Its complaints are more insidious and come on with a degree of slowness.
A Gels. cold develops as symptoms several days after the exposure, while the Acon. cold comes on a few hours after exposure. The Aconite child exposed during the day in dry, cold weather will have croup before midnight. But in the South diseases are very slow. Like the people themselves, their organs are very slow, and their reaction is slow.
Their colds are not taken from the violent cold, but from getting overheated. Hence, they take colds and fevers of a low malarial type; they have congestive headaches and congestive complaints that do not come on suddenly. When we think of the climate, and consider the people, and the pace of remedies, we see that Gels. is a remedy for warm climates, while Acon. is a remedy for colder climates.
Certain acute complaints in the North will be like Aconite, while similar complaints will have symptoms in the warmer climate like Gels. The colds and fevers of the mild winters will be more likely to run to this medicine, whereas the colds and fevers of a violent winter will be more likely to run to Bell. and Acon.
It is true that Acon. has complaints in hot weather, fevers and dysentery of hot weather, but they are different from the complaints of winter.
Gels. has been used mostly in acute troubles. In lingering acute troubles and in those resembling the chronic it is very useful, but in chronic miasms it is not the remedy. It is only a short-acting remedy, though slow in its beginning. In this it is like Bryonia. Bry. complaints come on slowly, and hence it is suitable for fevers coming on in the southern climate, but it also has sudden violent complaints, though not to the extent we find in Bell.
Complaints: The complaints of Gels. are largely congestive. Cerebral hyperemia, determination of blood to the brain and to the spinal cord. The extremities become cold and the head and back become hot. The symptoms are manifested largely through the brain and spinal cord. In connection with brain affections there are convulsions of the extremities, crampings of the fingers and toes and of the muscles of the back.
Coldness of the fingers and toes; sometimes the extremities are icy cold to the knees, while the head is hot and the face purple. During the congestion the face is purple and mottled. The eyes are engorged, the pupils dilated (sometimes contracted), the eyes are in a state of marked congestion with lachrymation and twitching.
The patient feels dazed and talks as if he were delirious; incoherent, stupid, forgetful. It is like this in intermittent fever that gradually develops towards a congestive chill. Great coldness running up the back from the lower part of the spine to the back of the head. Shuddering, as if ice were rubbed up the back.
The pains also extend up the back. With the coldness of the extremities, the very dark red countenance, the dazed condition of the mind, the glassy eyes and dilated pupils, we have the neck drawn back and rigidity of the muscles of the back of the neck, so that the neck cannot be straightened, and there are violent pains up the back and coldness in the spine.
This state would remind one of cerebro-spinal meningitis. Pain in the base of the brain and in the back of the neck. With all states there is a very hot skin and a high temperature, with coldness of the extremities. Sometimes the troubles are ushered in with a violent chill.
This is a very important remedy to study when such symptoms are present in intermittents and in a few days the tongue begins to coat, nausea comes on, ending in vomiting of bile, and instead of there being an intermission a continued fever extends from one paroxysm into another, with a higher temperature in the afternoon.
The chill practically subsides, leaving a state which has the appearance of typhoid, with dry tongue, not much thirst and marked head symptoms, dazed in mind. If this continues many days delirium and all the features of typhoid will come on and the fever will change its type altogether from the intermittent to the continued.
In congestive chill with high temperature occurring in the afternoon, the chill part of it subsiding and the fever becoming continued, Gels. is a useful remedy. It is also a very important remedy in afternoon fevers without chill in infants and in children. You will find in malarial districts that it is a common thing for the infants to have remittent attacks, while the adults are having intermittents. it is only occasionally that you will see a child or infant shake with a distinct chill, but they often go into a remittent fever, an afternoon fever which will subside along towards morning, to be followed the next afternoon by fever. With Gels. the child will lie as still as in Bry. but there is more congestion to the head there is the dark red face and duskiness like Bry.
Running through the febrile complaints, in the spinal meningitis, in congestion of the brain, in intermittents or remittents that change to a continued fever, and even in a cold when the patient is sneezing and has hot face and red eyes, there is one grand feature, viz., a feeling of great weight and tiredness in the entire body and limbs.
The head cannot be lifted from the pillow, so tired and so heavy is it, and there is such a great weight in the limbs. The Bry. patient lies quietly because if lie moves the pains are worse. He has an aversion to motion, because he is conscious that it would cause an increase of suffering.
The heart is feeble and the pulse is feeble, soft and irregular. There is palpitation during the febrile state. Palpitation, with weakness and irregularity of the pulse. There is a sense of weakness and goneness in the region of the heart, and this weakness and goneness often extend into the stomach, involving the whole lower part of the left side of the chest and across the stomach, creating a sensation of hunger, like Ignatia and Sepia. There is a hysterical element running through Gels. and it has the nervous hunger, or gnawing.
There are cardiac nervous affections like Digitalis, Cactus and Sepia. Sepia is not known to be as great a heart remedy as Cactus, but it has cured many cases of heart troubles. Sepia has cured endocarditis, and a remedy that will take hold in endocarditis and root it out must be a deep acting remedy. He feels that if he ceases to move the heart will cease to beat.
The headaches are of the congestive type. The most violent pain is in the occiput, and it is felt sometimes as a hammering. Every pulsation is felt like the blow of a hammer in the base of the skull. These headaches are so violent that the patient can not stand up, but will lie perfectly exhausted, as if paralyzed from the pain. There is an occipital headache that compels walking or rolling the head.
There is commonly relief from lying in bed, bolstered up by pillows, with the head perfectly quiet The face is flushed and dusky and the patient is dazed. After the headache progresses a while, the whole head seems to enter into a state of congestion, there is one great pain, too dreadful to describe, and the patient loses his ability to tell symptoms and appears dazed; lies bolstered up in bed, eyes glassy, pupils dilated, face mottled, and extremities cold.
Gels. has also headaches of a neuralgic character in the temples and over the eyes, with nausea and aggravation from vomiting. The headache is relieved by passing a copious quantity of urine; that is, the urine which has probably been scanty becomes free and then the headache subsides.
There is much nervous excitement. Complaints from fear, from embarrassment, from shock that is attended with fear, from sudden surprises that are attended with fright. A soldier going into battle has an involuntary stool; involuntary discharges from fright and surprises accompanying fright. On becoming suddenly overwhelmed by some surprise he becomes faint, weak and exhausted, he becomes tired in all the limbs and unable to resist opposing circumstances. His heart palpitates. This is similar to Arg. nit. Arg. nit. has the peculiar condition that when dressing for an opera a sudden attack of diarrhea comes on, causing more or less sudden exhaustion, and she must go several times before she can finish dressing.
They who are to appear before an audience are detained because of a sudden attack of diarrhoea. A lady has an attack of diarrhoea when about to meet friends over whom she expects to become excited at the meeting. The anticipation brings on the diarrhoea. Such a state is Arg. nit. These medicines are so closely related to each other that there are times when they will appear to do the work of each other.
Then we have paralytic affections of the sphincters, and so with the febrile conditions there is involuntary loss of stool and urine. There is also paralytic weakness of the extremities and of the hands. With paralytic states there is aching along the spine and in the muscles of the back; drawing, cramping in the muscles of the back and aching under the left shoulder blade.
There are many disturbances of vision; double vision, dimness of vision, appearance of a gauze before the eyes; confusion of vision and blindness. These symptoms come on before going into attacks, in connection with chill, at the coming on of sick headaches and congestive headaches. All sorts of objects are seen; the field of vision appears full of black spots, or full of smoke or little waves of various colors. It is useful in inflammation of all the tissues of the eye and of the eyelids. The eyeballs oscillate laterally when using them.
Drooping of the eyelids or ptosis is a marked feature and is in its paralytic nature.
The muscles are relaxed, they do not hold the lids tip. The lids close when he is looking steadily; they simply fall down over the eyes.
The patient in general is thirstless, and it is the exception that there is much thirst. It has a profuse, exhaustive sweat and is aggravated from motion, or rather motion seems to be impossible. It seems that he is unable to move, that be is too weak to move, and this runs through all complaints. At times it is a remedy for coryza, with sneezing and running of water from the nose, with coldness in the extremities, and the trouble will go down into the throat and produce sore throat, with redness, tumefaction, enlargement of the tonsils, hot head and congested face.
With this, as with the other febrile conditions, there is heaviness of the extremities. The red face, the heaviness of the extremities and sore throat that has come on gradually, a little worse from day to day, until it has become a severe throat, will lead you to Gels., especially if there is paralytic weakness all over, and as the throat trouble progresses the food and drink come back through the nose.
This is due to a paralysis of the muscles of deglutition. The tongue also becomes paralyzed and don not perform its work in an orderly way. There are times when the paralytic weakness is not sufficiently marked to account for things seen, but there is an incoordination of muscles and he is awkward. He undertakes to, take hold of an article and takes hold of something else. When he does grasp his hands feel weak. He is awkward and clumsy and the muscles do this and that and something not ordered to do.
The trembling incoordination and paresis are especially noticed during high excitement and afterwards, and these states occur with the febrile condition and remain sometimes after. Useful in paralytic cases that begin with fevers. Tearing is felt in the nerves all over the body and seems to be due to an inflammatory condition. It has cured sciatica, with tearing pains, associated with great weakness of the limbs.
Loss of sensation is sometimes found; numbness of the end of the nose, of the ears, of the tongue, of the fingers, of the hands and feet, numbness, here and there, of the skin.
In the male, the sexual organs arc in the same condition as the patient in general. The semen dribbles away; there is impotency, no ability to perform the sexual act; the sexual organs are relaxed.
The sleep is greatly disturbed. He cannot go to sleep; every excitement keeps him awake. During marked febrile conditions he has a profound sleep or coma. When he is not in this comatose sleep during congestion he is in a state of nervous excitement in which he lies awake thinking, and yet thinks of nothing in particular, because his!mind will not work in an orderly way.
The symptoms of Gels. may be present in inflammation of any organ, uterus or ovaries, stomach, the lungs and of the rectum. It has congestion of organs, but it has also high grade inflammation. There is nothing peculiar in the inflammation itself that would indicate Gels., neither should Gels. ever be given because there is inflammation, but when the mental symptoms are present, the delirium, the flushed face, the determination of blood to the head with the cold extremities, the great heaviness of the limbs, the disturbance of sensation, the paralysis of sphincters, then Gels. would be good for inflammation of any organ of the body.
In a most distressing and violent, rapidly spreading erysipelas that seems destined to cause death in a few days all the symptoms point to Gels., and though Gels. may not have produced erysipelas, it will stop the progress of the disease in a few hours and the patient will go on to a quick recovery.
Many times when erysipelas has spread over the face and scalp and in the most dangerous manner with the dusky red color that belongs to Gels., and other symptoms such as I have described in a general way, Gels. has taken bold of the erysipelas and cured. If we master thoroughly the Materia Medica we do not stop to see if a remedy produces certain kinds of inflammation, etc., but we consider the state of the patient.
by James Tyler Kent