Mirza Tahir Ahmad James Tyler Kent
The Poppy plant is abundantly grown in Eastern countries like Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and the Indo-Pak sub-continent. Its flowers can be of various colours. Its petals are very soft and tender. They easily fall and disperse with the wind and even light rain. The juice squeezed out of the capsule containing the seeds contains two alkaloids and many other chemical substances. Morphine is prepared from the shavings of the plant. In allopathy, Morphine, the most important component of Opium, is used as a hypnotic and as an analgesic for the quick control of severe pain. According to Dr. Hahnemann, it is more difficult to understand the effects of Opium in comparison to other remedies, because of its contrasting mode of action. A change in the amount of this drug produces opposing effects. For example, a small dose of Opium allays nausea and vomiting, while a larger amount induces nausea and vomiting. An Opium patient is insensitive, but on the contrary can be extremely sensitive too. In allopathy also, the effects of Opium have been divided into the primary and secondary type.
It is said that the initial action of Opium is to ameliorate the pain sensation, but after some time, the same patient becomes hypersensitive to pain and in fact experiences more pain than before.
Opium exhibits some of the symptoms of Arnica also i.e. a dry nature, the thickening of the blood (hyper-coagulable), and the tendency to clot. The Homoeopathic form of Opium, like Arnica, works as a blood thinner and helps in the dissolution of a clot already formed (anticoagulant and thrombolytic). In particular, it is a must in the treatment of clotting of blood inside the brain (cerebral thrombosis). In case of sudden rupture of the arteries in the brain (cerebral haemorrhage) causing unconsciousness, prompt administration of Arnica and Opium given together in very high potency, works wonderfully well. In this situation, Arnica alone is not of much use. Arnica and Opium given together give a new lease of life to the blood. The patient starts to gain alertness, the body starts warming up and the coagulability of the blood becomes normalized.
As already mentioned, Opium is a strong hypnotic. The patient of Opium remains either asleep or drowsy. On the other hand, he may sometimes be unable to sleep altogether. In Coffea also the patient loses sleep and becomes hypersensitive. When unable to sleep, the Opium patient becomes hypersensitive, restless and confused. If the patient loses sleep due to Opium, then Coffea will induce sleep. If the patient loses sleep after drinking coffee, then Nux Vomica as well as Opium will help the patient go to sleep. People suffering from severe constipation with the dried up intestines and who have no feeling for opening the bowels, can be treated with Opium. Sometimes, the Opium patients can suffer from dysentery associated with severe gripes. The stools are very soft.
A typical patient of Opium is a complete coward. He is scared of the dark. His thoughts are fearful. He lacks comprehension so much so that he cannot even understand his own disease. He remains drowsy or semi-conscious. On beings startled, he feels dizzy.
Opium resembles Sulphur also. Sulphur stimulates the natural percepivity of the patient. Sometimes, even the true homoeopathic remedies fail to work as expected; a dose or two of Sulphur makes them effective once again. Opium also, reactivates the suppressed and inactive body defences. Moreover, a typical Sulphur patient also happens to be extremely lazy and a philosopher.
In Opium, the muscles at the upper end of the throat become weak. They cannot direct the food to the gullet, which may then enter the nose or the windpipe and cause severe choking. The person can even die. Opium plays a significant role in averting this tendency.
The Opium addict can be extremely insensitive and unresponsive to his own sickness. His mind remains preoccupied with all kinds of fears. He has to be subjected to treatment under duress.
Similarly, Opium produces dryness in the body. However, during a fever, the patient may sweat profusely, yet the fever does not subside. This is peculiar for Opium. There is frequent hot sweating as during the summer rains. It does not lower the body temperature. Rather, it makes the patient feel hotter.
An Opium addict loves to eat. He is ever hungry but continues to feel weak. In spite of overeating, he is thin and lean. The patient vomits frequently after injection of morphine. With homoeopathic Opium treatment, the patient feels better. Opium can also be a good remedy for vomiting during the pregnancy untreatable otherwise. In Opium, the patient continues to feel hungry even when nauseated. However, soon after taking the food he throws up. Due to a slowdown of the digestive system, the food stagnates in the stomach, causing nausea and vomiting. Later on, the appetite is completely lost. The patient cannot eat any more and becomes very weak. In this particular situation, Chamomilla may be found as effective as Opium in controlling the vomiting. Seasickness can be effectively treated with Chamomilla or Opium used alone or in combination.
In Opium, the patient feels cramps in his head, hands and feet. The hands are shaky and numb. Tonic convulsions / spasms of the extremities are not uncommon. The limbs may also shake. The pupils of the eyes become dilated and show no reaction to light.
In an Opium patient, the headache begins at the nape of the neck, which then spreads downwards to both sides of the neck. The entire head feels numb and heavy. The patient becomes intolerant to the slightest movement like the blinking of the eye. Therefore, he remains lying down completely still with his eyes closed.
The sudden spasm of muscles, wrenching of the hands and feet and convulsions of all types may be treated with Opium if other symptoms of Opium are also present.
Opium plays a very important role in treating meningitis, which usually affects children severly. A timely use of Opium can save the child from serious sickness. In this condition, it is difficult to make the correct diagnosis based on the apparent symptoms alone. A good homoeopath should be well conversant with these remedies beforehand for their effective use.
If, out of fear a patient starts suffering from spasm of the muscles, wrenching of the hands and feet or starts having hysteria or epilepsylike fits, then Opium should be given in high potency.
The severe form of epilepsy arising out of fear and tending to be permanent can sometimes be cured with a single dose of Opium in very high potency. It must be remembered that Opium will be effective in the treatment of epilepsy arising only out of fear. The epileptic fits associated with Opium usually occur during sleep. They begin with a scream. The patient has nightmares about black objects, devil, fire or massacre. A strange type of fear sets in the mind of the patient. Sometimes, he feels as if someone is taking him away. If besides fear, the mind becomes affected due to sudden joyful news leaving bad aftereffects, then the patient can be treated with Coffea besides Opium.
An Opium patient is given to gossiping and telling lies without any reason. Unfortunately, the patient does not realise this himself but continues in this bad habit.
Lead poisoning causes gripe and colic in the abdomen. A single dose of Opium can immediately relieve the colic. However Opium is not of much use in the treatment of chronic lead poisoning. It works only in the acute form of lead poisoning.
An Opium patient is always dozing. He has no special wish or demand. His pulse becomes slow. Generally, he is severely constipated. Sometimes, out of fear, he may develop diarrhoea passing dark offensive stools. The bladder becomes weak. The patient may have retention of urine or passes only scanty amounts. The hearing of the patient becomes unusually sharp. He can perceive noises from a great distance. The patient snores a lot and may even feel choked. The ailments become worse during sleep. His symptoms subside with cold drinks and on walking about.
In women, periods may stop out of fear. The labour pains may also stop during childbirth. The woman becomes unconscious and has convulsions. She may suddenly become unconscious or drowsy. Sometimes, she may even abort due to fear. Breathing becomes difficult. There is a sort of burning sensation inside the chest. During a severe bout of coughing, the face may become cyanosed interspersed with red spots.
In Opium, the patient is insensitive to pain. The nerve endings become functionally dead and unable to convey the true message of pain sensation. Thus, the wounds neither heal properly nor hurt. Homoeopathic Opium will rekindle the inner body response activating the natural defence system of the body.
Antidotes: Ipecac, Nux Vomica
Potency: 30 to CM
by Mirza Tahir Ahmad
OPIUM
Generals: Among the striking features of Opium is a class of complaints marked by painlessness, inactivity, and torpor.
Many of the provers taking small doses had torpor, inability to realize or feel their surroundings, or to take in the nature of states and judge of things.
Deception in vision, taste, touch; deception of the state he exists in; in his own realization; a perversion of all the senses with much deception.
The general characteristic is painlessness, but now and then an alternate state is produced, in which a small dose of Opium will cause pain, sleeplessness, inquietude, nervous excitability; the very opposite state from that produced in the majority of cases.
The majority are constipated, but in some there is dysentery and tenesmus. The patient is sleepy, yet at times the drug is characterized by sleepless nights, anxiety, increased sensitiveness to noise, so that he says ho can almost hear the flies walking on the wall, and hears the clock striking in the distant steeple.
It is generally supposed that in these opposite conditions one is primary and the other is secondary. This is true, e. g., those exhibiting stupor and painlessness will go into a state of increased insensibility, inquietude, anxiety, and irritability, and also one who has a state of increased sensibility first will have a docile state following.
Head and mind: Some oversensitive provers will get a basilar headache in the first hour after taking a dose, so that they cannot raise the head from the pillow; they are paralyzed from it; the pain holds them down. This does not come on in most provers until the waning of a large dose. This has been debated over as the primary and secondary actions. What is the action in one is the reaction in another, but all are the effects of the drug, and all the actions that follow are the symptoms of the remedy.
The sluggishness and painlessness are most striking. The inaction is shown in the lack of reaction to the properly selected homeopathic remedy. It here competes with Sulphur. On studying the case you may find many Opium symptoms, and when given thus indicated, it rouses the system out of the state of sluggishness and causes reaction.
Ulcers which are perfectly painless, which do not granulate, and do not eat or spread, with numbness or lack of sensibility in the ulcer that ought to be sensitive; Opium will often heal insensibility in parts that are in a high grade of inflammation.
Paralytic conditions or paresis, partial paralysis; inactivity, sluggishness. Such a condition is found in the bowels so that they do not move, and rectum fills with round, hard, black balls, which can be dug out with the finger or spoon. There is no activity, no ability to strain at stool.
The bladder is in a similar state. There is no ability to use the abdominal muscles; he cannot strain to urinate retention of accelerator muscles are in a state of paresis.
When drinking the oesophagus seems to have no action and the fluid does not go down but passes out through the nose; a paresis fluids go down the wrong way or out through the nose.
Weakness of limbs and muscles; weakness and paralysis.
Often there is a state of peace. Wants to be let alone. She tells you she is not sick; and yet she has a temperature of 105-106°, is covered with a scorching hot sweat, has a rapid pulse; is delirious. You ask her how she is and she says she is perfectly well and happy; no pains or aches; wants nothing and has no symptoms. But the nurse tells you that the patient has passed no stool or urine.
Face: The face looks besotted, bloated, purple; the eyes are glassy and the pupils contracted. The brain is in a state of confusion, yet she can answer questions. Or the mental symptoms may be more marked and the physical condition less prominent; there is confusion of mind, delirium, loquacity, but this is rare, more commonly only talks when aroused; a condition of stupor in which the patient will say nothing and do nothing. Delirium with a happy turn of mind.
The stomach is in a state of undue warmth, sinking, all-gone, hungry, and this is not relieved by eating. He fills the stomach full and yet the faint feeling remains. The food sours in the stomach and is vomited. He can take no more food. He becomes covered with a cold sweat; great exhaustion; nausea, retching and the vomiting continues. This nausea is a troublesome symptom following the administration of Opium or Morphine. It is a prolonged vomiting and nausea. He can take nothing into the stomach and nothing will stop the vomiting for him.
The homoeopath knows the use of Chamomilla and one dose will give wonderful relief at once and stop the deathly sinking and nausea.
There is never any use for the crude Opium in the sick room. In surgery at times it is admitted that something seems necessary, and we will not quarrel with the surgeon. But in disease, in sick people, it is not necessary. It performs no use and in the end it is an injury; it prevents finding the homoeopathic remedy. It has masked the symptoms and spoiled the case, and you cannot do anything for days.
Opium has been much abused and much has been learned about it, but this abuse has not helped much in its proving, for the individualizing symptoms are not obtained. Big doses cause gross effects, and the symptoms thus obtained are sometimes useful, e. g., in cerebral apoplexy with stertorous breathing, jaw dropped, pupils dilated or contracted, generally the latter, face mottled, purple, or hot, hot sweat, one sided paralysis.
You would wonder on seeing such a case whether be had been paralyzed, had Opium, injured himself in a fall or bad been indulging in the bottle, and you would.. examine the case to distinguish. This is a mechanical trouble, there is pressure of blood on the brain. This alone may not kill but later on inflammatory action is set up around the clot.
Opium causes a flow of blood to the brain, and when given homeopathically it checks this, and in six hours he will become rational, his skin cool, face normal color, pulse normal. We thus see the usefulness of the crude effects of Opium in giving us a picture of apoplexy.
Nervous headaches beginning in the back of the head and spreading over the whole face; worse in the morning. He feels as if his head were held down to the pillow by the intense aching pain in the base of the brain and yet when he gets up he is unable to lie down again.
Women: This is common in women; a false plethora; excitable; going through pregnancy or menstruation; headache. The patient sits up and is unable to lie down. The pain begins in the morning and is so violent that the patient cannot move, cannot wink the eye, turn the head, cannot bear the least jar or the ticking of the clock; face is mottled, purple, blue; eyes injected. It is difficult to get symptoms from her. Opium will relieve at once.
But most of the complaints are painless.
It takes on the appearance of drinkers, besotted; fever with besotted countenance. Delirium tremens with awful anxiety, vomiting, congestive headache, contracted pupils; violent headache after drinking, exhaustion; not able to get out of bed; delirium. Most of the complaints are attended with stupor; lies in a stupor like apoplexy, cannot be aroused.
Convulsions: The Opium patient is full of convulsions. The patient wants to be uncovered, wants the cool air, the open air. Convulsions if the room, is too warm. Opisthotonos; head drawn back, cerebro-spinal meningitis.
In a case of cerebro-spinal meningitis we find convulsions approaching, opisthotonos, head drawn back, kicks the covers off, wants a cool room; skin red; face red and mottled, pupils contracted. Now if the mother puts that child into a hot bath, to relieve the convulsions, it will become unconscious and cold as death. If you are called to see such a case be sure to give Opium, and in twelve hours you will be astonished to see the state of quietude. It competes here with Apis. Puerperal convulsions.
A mental state appears in these constitutions. Fear and its results. The Opium patient, when not too stupid, rouses up as if startled, rouses up with the appearance of awful fear or anxiety. The old Opium eater is overwhelmed with anxiety and fear. If a dog jump at him suddenly, he will be thrown into convulsions, have diarrhea, fits of some sort, and it will be days and weeks before that fear is gone.
Complaints from fear when the fear remains, or the idea of the fear remains, or the cause of it comes before the eyes. A pregnant woman is frightened and an abortion is impending, and the object of the fright continually looms up before her eyes. Epilepsy dating back, to a fright, and that object comes up before the eyes before the attack comes on, and the fear of the fright remains.
Hysterical attack; physical shock with diarrhea and sometimes constipation; retention of urine or return of the menstrual flow as results, or it may stop the menses for months. In these conditions there is great fear and the object of the fear remains before the eyes.
An Opium prover, when coming out from under the influence of the drug, sees frightful images, black forms, visions of devils, fire, ghosts, someone carrying her off, murder. Imagines that parts swell and that he is going to burst.
There is also a sensation of bodily well being; great happiness great state of confidence in the first hours of the drug. Hence, complaints from sudden joy, anger, shame, sudden fright. Coffea has a similar state of beatitude. It is both a physical and mental beatitude in Opium. Opium and Coffea are related; they antidote each other.
Opium eaters like whisky drinkers are constitutional liars. They have no conscience left.
"Great sensibility to sound, light, and faintest odors."
"Drowsiness with headache, amounting almost to stupor."
"Marasmus; child wrinkled and looks like a little dried up old man; stupor."
Old cases of lead poisoning. Pulsatilla cures the diarrhea following the abuse of Opium.
by James Tyler Kent