Mirza Tahir Ahmad James Tyler Kent
Ergot, a dreadful poison, has been used since ancient times in labour, despite the fact that its slightest overdose can prove extremely dangerous. The general health of the woman can be seriously affected and she may suffer from some sort of serious internal problem throughout her life. There is no known cure for such complications so far.
Ergot has a constricting effect on the arteries and other tissues of the body, resulting in serious life-long illnesses. A woman overdosed with Ergot suffers from continuous dark coloured vaginal bleed. The body becomes thin and wasted. The skin becomes dark and contracted. The limbs can become paralysed. The patient cannot tolerate heat. He/she likes to be in the open air and cold. As in Arsenic, the patient feels very restless and a burning inside. The difference is that the Secale patient feels hot inside though the body feels cold to touch. The hands and feet may become ice cold, yet, the patient feels hot and under fire, putting the feet out of the bed. Whereas, in Arsenic, the patient feels severe burning inside, and the body may not be cold. He feels better in the heat and likes to keep himself covered and still feels cold, although his body may be warm on the outside. He feels better with hot fomentation i.e. external heat seems to suppress his feeling of heat inside. Concersely a Secale patient feels comfortable with cold applications. Even if it is very cold outside, he feels hot. Sometimes, it may be very difficult to distinguish Arsenic from Secale due to similarities of symptoms. They are also complimentary. In other words, they can compliment each other, if used one after the other.
On proving, it was discovered that Secale works better on patients of thin and lean build. Obese people are rarely Secale patients. This is why the remedy is described to be ideal for the patients who are thin, lean and rather emaciated. Their skin is dry, shrivelled and very unhealthy. As already mentioned, every Secale patient does not have to be so. It can also be effective in obese people. Additionally, Secale patients exhibit violet coloured spots or red spots with bluish hue. It is the bluish tinge or the cyanosis, which is important. These spots are indicative of diminished blood supply to that part of the body, such as the legs, calves, hands and wrists, especially over the superficial bones.
In Secale, there is a tendency towards the formation of chronic sores and ulcers, which can turn into gangrene, on further deterioration. For example, a simple cut on the finger may not heal. Instead, the wound becomes infected and the process of infection may gradually spread upwards. It smells terrible. The affected part can become rotten leading to the need for amputation through the joint, or the infection can spread beyond the joint, turning the rest of the limb gangrenous as well. In homoeopathy, by God’s grace, there is treatment available for gangrene. I myself have treated many such patients successfully. By God’s grace, none of them needed amputation, whereas, the doctors had definitely made the diagnosis of gangrene and advised surgery for them. The first sign of recovery is change in the colour of the affected part, which starts becoming pinkish instead of a dark colour. Secale and Arsenic are both very useful in the treatment of gangrene. Addition of Arnica further adds to their beneficial effect.
In Secale, a feeling of burning sensation everywhere, affecting the nose, the throat, as well as the upper respiratory passages.
In Secale, the bleeding, whether from the uterus, the nose or from any wound or cut, is of dark colour. This means that the bleeding is of venous origin. In the treatment of patients rapidly advancing towards death, whose blood has become thick, dark and cyanotic, Secale must be remembered and put to use.
Secale in homoeopathic form is very useful in the treatment of internal diseases of women such as ulceration of the uterus, causing continuous dark vaginal bleeding interrupted with short periods of dark coloured and offensive smelling discharge. The discharge contains dark blood clots that putrefy. Secale is very important and a very effective treatment for this condition as well as against the risk of formation of gangrene inside the uterus. General symptoms of Secale being present, it will cure the abortive tendency of the patient also. When treated with Secale for a month or two, the uterus recovers completely and becomes capable of carrying the foetus to full term.
At the time of childbirth, if the uterus is contracting to push the baby down, but the mouth of the uterus (cervix) becomes tightly contracted, the child cannot be born. In this condition, Secale must be used without delay, otherwise immediate surgery would be required to save the life of the patient. If left untreated with Secale and without immediate surgery, the patient would die in agony. Secale can also cure the pain and the excessive dark coloured bleeding from the uterus after delivery. Sometimes, the breasts shrink in size during pregnancy and an insufficient amount of milk is produced. Secale will restore the normal amount of lactation, which is enough to feed the baby.
Another symptom of Secale is that the urine is rather black, resembling the urine of Terebinthina. In Terebinthina, the black colour is due to the excess of protein in the urine, resulting from damage to the kidneys. Terebinthina is very effective in this situation. In Secale, the black colour is not due to an excess of albumin in the urine; instead, it is due to the mixture of blood from the dark coloured vaginal bleed.
In Secale, a patient of pneumonia can develop gangrene in the lungs (necrotizing type of pneumonia), which must be treated with Secale. Timely use of Secale works profoundly and offers immediate beneficial effect. Wherever there is a tendency of sores and ulcers to become necrosed and gangrenous, be it in the stomach, lungs or anywhere else on the mucous membranes, Secale must be an essential part of the treatment in all these conditions.
In Secale, cramps and tightness are common, and may be localized to the soles of the feet, calves or a part of the upper extremities. If other symptoms of Secale are also present, then Secale will provide immediate relief of the symptoms. It is also very useful in the treatment of neuralgias (the lightning type of pain along the course of the nerves). These pains are very troublesome. These pains get better on covering the affected part of the body.
Insanity is also common in Secale. The patient becomes delirious and violent. Being out of his mind, he exerts his utmost even if he is physically weak. It becomes really difficult to control him in this situation.
In Secale, the stools are black and smell stinky. The patient is unaware of his diarrhoea. The body becomes extremely cold and weak, yet he feels hot inside and does not like to be covered.
Secale is also useful in the treatment of Asiatic cholera. As in Camphor, the body becomes extremely cold, although the patient feels warm and uncomfortable inside. In Camphor, the body is cold but the patient does not feel cold inside.
In Secale, the patient may have paralysis of the legs or any one particular part of the body. The paralysis may also affect one side of the body with no special predilection. It may affect the right or left side. Without wasting time on the diagnosis of the paralysis, if the general symptoms of Secale are present, it should be used without delay. In Secale, whatever part of the body is affected, it feels numb with a burning sensation. The cramps and tightness always become worse at night. The patient feels better in the open air. The symptoms become worse in heat, with hot fomentation and before the onset of periods. Camphor and Opium annul the effects of Secale.
Adjuvants: China, Arsenic, Aconite, Belladonna, Pulsatilla
Antidotes: Camphor, Opium
Potency: 30
by Mirza Tahir Ahmad
SECALE CORNUTUM
The best provers of Secale, those who are most susceptible to its action, are scrawny people, and they are the ones who will most likely need it as their curative remedy.
Aspect: Of course, it is not necessarily contra-indicated in fat people. Certain constitutions are mentioned in connection with a remedy as being suited to it, but it must not be inferred that no action will result in others when the symptoms agree. Scrawny people are especially related to Secale.
Emaciated, withered, wrinkled, unhealthy appearance of the skin; purplish, bluish skin, general or in spots; purplish I spots on withered skin, especially where the circulation is feeble as on the back of the hands and feet and on the tibia.
These parts become numb, tingle and wither. The extremities prickle, burn, and tingle; creeping and crawling, as of insects under the skin, as if between the skin and the flesh; numb, dead, wooden sensation in the fingers and especially in the toes.
The toes become black, gangrenous. A senile withering, such as is found in feeble old people; the blood-vessels close up; no blood goes to the toes and they become numb and black, devoid of sensation. Hence, Secale improves the circulation of the aged and postpones senile gangrene.
Burning is a feature of this remedy; the skin burns; the extremities burn, sensation of burning when the parts feel cold to the touch and really are cold, a sensation of heat with coldness.
Burning, especially of internal parts. Dryness with burning; burning in the stomach and bowels; dryness and burning in the mouth and throat, the nose and air passages; burning in the lungs.
This remedy produces ulceration even to sloughing. Old ulcers take on a strange, withered appearance; dryness with no, granulations; a shiny, blackish aspect and all at once blackish granulations shoot out, indolent, and finally forming a black sphacelus which slowly separates; the part is dry; there is no discharge except now and then a little bleeding of black blood.
Oozing of black, liquid blood, oozing when there is no inflammation; nose-bleed of dark, venous, offensive, fluid blood, bleeding from the throat, lungs, bladder, and rectum, of dark blood; urine like ink.
Women: Prolonged uterine haemorrhage so that one menstrual nisus runs into another; withered subjects; considerable flow on the first day, fluid, and blackish; this goes on for a couple of weeks and then a dark watery flow comes on which lasts until the next period.
Then comes the thick, black, fluid, horribly offensive flow again. Such a state is found in the woman who has taken ergot to produce abortion, or in sensitive women who have been dosed with it to facilitate delivery. Of course, if the woman is not sensitive you will not get the lingering provings,
Some women are so insane that though they die they will get rid of their offspring. On all hands women say,
"I have had no health since I aborted."
The worst state of health is produced by ergot; it establishes a miasm as deep as psora itself. The duke to destroy the offspring is an engraftment on psora and by ergot she takes on a miasm as dangerous as sycosis or syphilis.
I have patients who took ergot to cause abortion, and I can do nothing more than palliate them. They have Secale symptoms, sequelae, and their psoric symptoms are suppressed, held down, just as syphilis holds down psoric manifestations; only by covering the Secale miasm and getting at the psora can we help the patient.
They have placed themselves beyond the help of the physician and the ergot will shorten their lives many years unless they are fortunate enough to have careful prescribing continuously while they live.
Modalities: The general constitutional state is aggravated from heat; there are only a few exceptions to this.
Wants cold though the limbs are cold as ice, wants to be uncovered, wants the windows open; a patient with hemorrhages wants the covers off though the room is cold. A patient with ulcers wants to be uncovered; in inflammatory condition of the stomach and bowels, wants the abdomen uncovered.
At times there is a lingering state of heat of the skin and the patient wants to be covered up; there are also sharp, stinging neuralgic pains, which burn like fire and cut like a knife and are relieved by the application of beat; headache worse in cold air.
But the general state is ameliorated from uncovering, in a cold room, and from cold air blowing on the patient.
Violent inflammation of any part of the body; gangrenous pneumonia; gastritis; peritonitis; inflammation of the uterus and ovaries. In inflammatory conditions it competes with Ars.
The symptoms are so nearly alike in both that it is difficult to differentiate; both have violently distended abdomen; tympanites; burning like coals of fire; violent thirst; extreme sensitiveness and tenderness to touch, so that motion or jar is unbearable; vomiting of blood; expulsion of blood-clots; horrible, offensive, bloody discharge from the bowels; but they are different in the generals. Ars. wants to be covered up, to be kept warm, to have hot applications, either wet or dry, while Secale wants to be uncovered, wants the cold air.
Convulsions of single parts or of the whole muscular system; opisthotonos; cramps in the calves, thighs, soles of the feet, and hands, hysterical contractures, a hysterical diathesis.
Convulsions begin in the face. Active manias with great excitement; exposes her body and tears at the genitals; puts her finger in the vagina and scratches until the lips bleed; all idea of modesty lost.
The spasms, nervous, and mental symptoms are worse while she is flowing, so that a puerperal convulsion comes on in the midst of a hemorrhage.
From the hemorrhagic tendency and the ability to destroy the red blood corpuscle, there is anemia. The face looks like dried beef, wrinkled, shrivelled, scrawny, as if it had not been washed; as if grey dirt had dried on the skin, and this especially on the extremities a dirty, grey appearance.
Catarrhal affections of all mucus membranes; they are dry and bleed; blood oozes from the catarrhal surfaces, liquid, black, and offensive, coagulating slowly or not at all.
"Nosebleed, blood dark, runs continually, with great prostration, small thread-like pulse; in old people or drunkards; of young women; from debility."
Those poisoned by ergot become victims of opacity of the lens as in senile debility; cataract of old persons.
The withered scrawny person with tendency to ulcerations, unhealthy skin and aggravation from heat, is striking in both acute and chronic states.
Chronic diarrhoea exhaustive, watery discharges, cholera. It is related to Camphor, Scrawny people take cholera, skin cold and blue; better from cold. Violent and continued thirst.
Diarrhoea and hemorrhages are likely to come together; diarrhoea of bloody water or dark liquid blood.
Large doses produce such contractures of the uterus that its contents are expelled and an exhausting hemorrhage follows; expulsion of large clots and in the early stages mixed with some red blood, but the most striking feature is liquid, black discharge.
"Asiatic cholera with collapse, sunken, distorted face, particularly the mouth, crawling sensation as of ants."
Paretic condition; paralysis of lower extremities; of one side; of one arm or one leg; paralysis of the upper extremities with tingling, numbness, and prickling. Numbness and burning down the whole length of the spine; general emaciation or only of diseased part.
Eruptions, abscesses, boils carbuncles; green pus discharged; a green, purplish appearance; boils small with green contents, mature and heal slowly.
Establishes sterility; so weak is the uterus that it can never hold the foetus, hence the value in sterility and repeated abortions.
Dwindling of the mammae. Absence of milk after confinement.
"Thin, scrawny children with shrivelled skin, spasmodic twitchings, sudden cries, feverishness."
Purpura hoemorrhagica. Paralysis of the extremities. Spinal irritation. Cachectic females with rough skin, pustules tending to gangrene.
by James Tyler Kent