Differentiation
between Melilotus, Glonoin and Belladonna.
By William Boericke, M. D.
Presented by Sylvain Cazalet
Dr W. Boericke
Our worthy chairman of
this bureau asked me to differentiate Belladonna, Glonoin and Melilotus.The idea of
differentiation of remedies had its origin with Hahnemann ; it was
forced upon him as it is forced upon every student of Homœopathic
Materia Medica by the bewildering general likeness of many drugs to cadi
other.But it may be asked,
why try and differentiate remedies so very similar as these three ?
Is not homœopathy the method of meeting morbid state by similars, and
may not a drug be more or less similar, more or less homœopathic to a
condition ? Why, then, place boundaries to its similarity ?
The clinical test must be the court of final appeal-and what does
clinical experience prove to us ? What else but the certainty of
curative response by the organism to remedies of greater and less homœopathicity
and that the homœopathic relationship is not anything absolute ;
it can never be that, for it is a similar, the very conception of that
term being-elastic. But your purist exclaims it is the simillimum we
want- that is the goal. Granted, but the simillimum is again dependent
on present knowledge, on your and my interpretation of the patient’s
totality plus your and my knowledge of our Materia medica. It, too, is
an elastic thing, not absolute. The simillimum in any case is the
ideal-a realizable ideal only when modified and interpreted by and
adapted to these inevitable limitations. Thus we see that the practical
application of similia brings with
it a wide range of adaptability. From the beginning of our school the
question has been asked and answered more or less tentatively,
“What do we mean by similarity,” similar to what Objective
conditions, -ultimate anatomical lesions, if disease processes, as
such-or subjective symptoms of the patient ? Undoubtedly all these
go to make up the grand totality, and curative’ response is to be found
to some extent in following any of direction but clinical experience
again has taught us that for purpose of homœopathic prescribing the
characteristic individual symptoms of the particular patient offer the
surest similar to be met and covered by a remedy having similar
characteristics. Close individualization of remedy and patient is the
only method sanctioned by experience as characteristic of homœopathy,
the one prolific method for enhancing and previsionizing our knowledge
of drugs as curative agents. With these thoughts in view, let us
precisionize our remedial trio in the field that they occupy in
common-they all three produce symptoms of congestion, they differ in
degree and area invaded, and respond somewhat differently to various
stimuli, hence we look for different modalities. For practical purposes
the circulation in the brain, the headaches and mental states are only
lesions common to all three. Here as elsewhere those characteristics
determine the choice-that express the genius of the drug, its peculiar
life manifestation, its special mode in action.I hardly need to call
attention to the familiar classical picture of Belladonna-the sudden,
determined, fierce entrance into the bodily arena as shown in its rush
of blood to head and face, hot red face, dilated pupils, throbbing
carotids, sparkling eyes, bounding pulse, excited mental state,
sensorial hyperæsthesia, restless sleep- the red, burning hot skin,
dryness of mouth, yet frequently associated with aversion to water and
dread of drinking, all drinks being loathsome with the possible
exception of lemonade, which is taken in small sips. The tendency to
delirium is always marked, the brain irritation, especially in children,
an early and constant symptom. So many pains run downward from the
head ; they come and go quickly, no matter where they appear or how
long they last. With all this general circulatory storm, sooner or later
localizing somewhere, the Belladonna patient is chilly and very
sensitive ; he feels better wrapped up in a room. Any draught, cold
application, having his hair cut, aggravates. Very marked and
characteristic is the afternoon aggravation. The sensitiveness is seen
ill the great aggravation from any noise, jar, light, touch. Position,
too, influences the comfort of the Belladonna patient. He feels better
in a semi-erect position, worse lying down. The right side is more
markedly affected than the left. These symptoms when present in any type
of patient will certainly yield to Belladonna in almost any potency, and
do not hesitate to use the higher of this greatest of drugs. Remember it
was Belladonna that led Hahnemann in 1800 to go beyond the chemical and
material elements and seek drug action in some imponderable force made
evident or developed or set free by his pharmaceutical method. But
Belladonna, however universally applicable to all ages and conditions of
patients, when indicated is especially suitable to persons of plethoric
habit, pleasant and jolly folks, but who become irritable when
sick ; children especially respond quickly to Belladonna. They are
sensitive, twitch from slightest ailment, easily delirious and suddenly
develop serious symptoms. Such ate the main distinctive Belladonna
features. How does, Glonoin differ ? It too, expresses itself as a
congestive drug. In the suddenness and violence of its symptoms, it goes
beyond Belladonna. In the prescientific era of pharmacology, many and
various were the methods pursued to obtain a knowledge of drug action
and drug uses. Among these, on the surface a pure vagary, was a
Paracelsian method of signatures. Some basis to the doctrine of
signatures there is apparently.Well the signature of
Glonoine is easy to read. Nitro-glycerine is explo verso is its action
on the organism. Suddenly and with greatest violence it determines blood
to the periphery, so quickly, so surely it does this that the antipathic
uses of this wonderful drug bid fair to outdo its homœopathic uses. Its
terrible bursting pains coming in shocks certainly are the true
signature of Nitro-glycerine. Throbbing, pulsations, blood rushes to
head and heart and arterioles or great blood waves and surges with
sensation of overfullness and bursting in different parts, this is the
pathological state it produces and cures, especially when we have the
patient frantic with pain, every jar, every concussion, no matter how
slight, increasing the pain. Similar aggravation we have from heat, and
stimulating things. Compared with Belladonna we find its violence
greater, the explosiveness ail its own, while Belladonna is more
persistent, regular, deeply anchored in its organic inflammation and
tissue changes. Glonoin has more tendency to sudden and violent
irregularity of the circulation due to climacteric disturbances,
menstrual suppression, exposure to great heat, hence sun-stroke, open
furnaces, gas jets, summer beat of our interior valleys. Insanity caused
by long-continued heat of sun. With Glonoin headaches, patient has
confusion of ideas, loss of sensation of location is very
characteristic, he loses his way, cannot tell where he is, cannot find
his room, familiar thing seem strange or even with unconsciousness.
Glonoin cannot bear any heat, differing here from Belladonna. The face,
too, is more livid, neck feels full so that the collar must be opened
-he swells up under the ears.
Dr Richard HughesMelilotus seems to me
to typify more a suffusion, a gradual filling up and weakening of
vessels, so that they rupture, and we have epistaxis or other hæmorrhage
to the great and immediate relief of all suffering. Its symptoms are
worse at the approach of a storm or changeable whether. The symptoms are
better from the use of vinegar, differing from Belladonna, with which it
shares the fiery red face, aggravation from talking and motion. With
Melilotus more than either Glonoin or Belladonna we are apt to have a
smothered feeling or oppression of the chest, often combined with a
cough, which is relieved by violent nosebleed. Dr. Leonard, an excellent
and reliable and a recent prover of Melilotus, verifies the above
symptoms, and says that congestions relieved by hæmorrhage, with great
redness-efface and head, and when Belladonna Glonoin do not relieve. Its
action is very rapid, relieving irritability of nerves and any local
hyperæmia in a very few minutes. Its best range of action is on the
brain, especially in insanity and all forms of spasms. In nervous
headaches and conditions of cerebral oppression it relieves at once if
given. The Mother Tincture is given by olfaction. I got this hint from
so sane and a critical practitioner as the late Dr. R. Hughes, who
mentions this procedure in his Pharmacodynamics. To recapitulate, then,
the relief of hæmorrhage and the very red face which proceeds, and the
aggravation by changeable, rainy weather, seems to distinguish Melilotus
from the others. This glowing redness of the face is probably its chief
guiding symptom. Melilotus, like Belladonna, is frequently indicated in
infantile spasms, in nervous children during dentition, by with
Melilotus we are more apt to have constipation marked, there being no
desire for stool until there is a large accumulation, the stool is
painful, difficult, and anus constricted.WILLIAM BOERICKE, M. D.,
SAN FRANCISCO.
Source :
Pacific Coast Journal of Homœopathy,
Oct., 1936.Copyright © Sylvain
Cazalet 2001
