Conium Maculatum

(Hemlock)

Hahnemann published two provings of Conium : one, more brief, in Materia Medica Pura ; one, later, in Chronic Diseases. We will quote from the introductory remarks of the latter.

After describing its homoeopathic preparation, he says :

" The great medicinal powers of this plant may be inferred from what has been written by Stoerk and his followers on the brilliant results obtained by means of Conium in the years 1770, 1771, etc.

However, although some good results were obtained, at least in the beginning, in the treatment of some horrible diseases, yet, on the other hand, the repeated use of excessive doses of this drug has done irreparable injury and has destroyed a number of human lives.

" The apparently contradictory statements of honest observers based upon their respective experience, some of which had a tendency to gladden, others to sadden the heart, have been recently reconciled by Homoeopathy. It has shown that it is impossible to obtain beneficial effects from the use of heroic remedies by employing large and repeated doses of a comparatively unknown and powerful drug in the treatment of equally unknown diseases, ' but that the drug ought first to be proved upon healthy persons, and ought to be exhibited in the highest potencies in diseases, to the symptoms of which its own pathogenetic effects are homoeopathic.'

" Such doses are indeed strange contrasts of the doses which have been employed by allopathic physicians, 140 grains of the extract, or a wineglassful of the recent juice, even six times a day. The true homoeopathist has the advantage of never using this drug to the prejudice of his patient.

" Those terrifying examples have prevented me from investigating the effects of that drug until lately : then it was that I discovered its anti-psoric qualities.

" This remedy, in order to act beneficially, has frequently to be preceded by some other drugs, and must then be used in the smallest possible doses. . . . '

One remembers years ago, in Athens, visiting the prison - of Socrates , where the old philosopher calmly met death.

One can see it now — that excavation, some way up in the solid rock of the hillside : long and shallow (as one recalls it, after all these years) but of special interest to the homoeopath, because of the manner of his death.

He had been condemned to die by drinking the expressed juice of hemlock. It took time to prepare. He asked his executioner, " What must I do ? " " Walk about," he was told, " and when there is a heaviness in your legs, lie down." He drank the draught of death, while his devoted friends looked on, mourning him ; and he walked to and fro till, motion and sensation failing in his legs, he lay down.

His executioner investigated, and found his legs cold and senseless — then, soon, his abdomen — then the deadness rose higher, and with a convulsive flicker he passed out. That is the way with hemlock : it kills from the extremities upwards, while the brain remains clear.

Who was it that taunted his persecutors, " You may kill my body ; you may kill my soul, too — if you can catch it." Something of the sort said Socrates when asked, " In what way are we to bury you ? " " As you please — at least if I do not escape you. When I have drunk the poison, I shall not stay with you. . . . None may say at the burial that he inters Socrates — say you are burying my body ; and bury it as you please."

In thinking of Conium, one always remembers Socrates, and how the drug paralyses, and paralyses from below upwards.

The mentality of Conium is dull and uninspiring ; the very antithesis of the mentality of Cannabis ind. " Weakness of memory : forgetfulness : inability to sustain mental effort. He is averse to society, yet dreads to be alone. Disinclined for business : dullness : indifference.

Hypochondriasis and hysteria from suppression of, or too free indulgence in sexual instinct, with depression, anxiety and sadness. Likes to wear his best clothes, makes useless purchases, cares very little for things, wastes or ruins them ; does not want to work, prefers to play." So we see that mind, also, is slowed down, and its energies blunted and paralysed.

We will run through what Kent tells us, gleaning and condensing : This medicine is deep-acting, long-acting. Complaints from taking cold, when the glands become affected all over the body . . . infiltration in the region of ulcers and inflamed parts ; in the glands along the course of the lymphatics, so we get a chain like a string of beads.

Conium has been used extensively for malignant, cancerous affections of glands, and no wonder, because it takes hold of glands from the beginning and infiltrates, and they gradually grow to a stony hardness, like scirrhus.

(Re its action upon the nerves.) Nerves in a state of great debility : trembling, jerking, twitching. . . . Gradually growing paralytic weakness, somewhat like Cocculus. Liver becomes indurated, sluggish, enlarged. Bladder can only expel a part of the urine : or a paralytic condition and no expulsive power.

Action so deep that it gradually brings on a state of imbecility. Mind gives out : tired like the muscles of the body. . . . Inability to stand any mental effort or to rivet the attention upon anything, are some of the most important symptoms in this medicine. Passive forms of insanity.

Thinks slowly ; — for weeks and months, if he recovers at all. " Mental cases with more or less violence and activity are such as correspond to Bell., Hyos., Stram., Ars. — you will see nothing of that in this medicine. The mind is full of strange things that have come on little by little. Conium is of a slow, passive character.

Complete indifference."

Great unhappiness of mind, recurring every fourteen days, showing a two-weeks' periodicity.

Kent emphasizes this : — " Whenever under homoeopathic treatment the physical improves and the mental grows worse, the patient will never be cured." . . . That does not mean the aggravation caused by the remedy. If the mental does not improve, it means that the patient is growing worse. There is no better evidence of the good action of a remedy than mental improvement.

Conium patients cannot endure even the slightest alcoholic drink . . . any stimulating beverage will bring on trembling, excitement, weakness of mind and prostration.

Numbness : it is a general. Numbness with pains (Plat., Cham.) ; very often numbness with the weakness.

Vertigo. Vertigo when turning the head, like turning in a circle ° when rising from a seat. Worse lying, as though the bed were turning in a circle : when turning in bed, or looking around :while lying in bed on rolling the eyes, or turning the eyes (compare Cocculus). . . . The Conium patient is unable to watch moving things without getting sick-headache. . . . Riding on the cars, watching things in rapid motion, and inability to focus rapidly :slowness of accommodation.

(Then, sign) : Objects look red ; rainbow-coloured ; striped : double vision weakness of sight. . . . Aversion to light without inflammation of eyes.

Lids indurate, thicken and are heavy and fall. Has cured epithelioma of the lid, and of the nose and cheek. Ulcers of lip with induration. Deep down under the ulcer there will be hardness, and along the vessels that send lymph towards that ulcer there will be a chain of knots.

Paresis of oesophagus extending to paralysis : food goes down part of the way and stops : — when about to pass the cardiac orifice it stops and enters stomach with a great effort. Pressure in throat as if a round body were ascending from stomach.

Inability to strain at stool, to expel contents because of the paralytic weakness of all the muscles that take part in expulsion : — while urine stops and starts : intermits. Stops, and without any pressure whatever it starts again — two or three times during urination.

And Kent says, Conium has cured fibroid tumours of the uterus : has restrained cancerous growths of the cervix. Conium has actually produced induration and infiltration of the cervix.

The Conium cough — almost constant : worse lying in bed : worse first lying down ; from taking a deep breath. Has to sit up and cough it out.

Ill effects from bruises and shocks to spine : injuries, especially lumbar.

Conium differs from a great many medicines. It is common for pains and aches to be relieved by putting the feet up on a chair or in bed. But the sufferings and conditions of Conium are better by letting the limbs hang down. The patient with rheumatism or ulceration of legs and the other strange sufferings of the legs, will lie down and permit his legs to hang over the bed as far up as the knee. . . . " Up to date, we have no explanation."

Another grand feature of the remedy : he sweats copiously during sleep. He may say that if he merely closes the eyes he will sweat.

Then, stenoses and strictures. . . .

Burnett tells a quaint little story : He had prescribed Conium for the wife of a certain Bishop who was developing malignant disease of the tongue. On his next visit he " found the lady in a fearful tantrum, and on enquiring, she screeched at me — ' I have not taken your medicine, not a single drop of it.'

Why not ? ' Why not, indeed ! It is Conium, and you prescribed it because I am an old woman ! ' In vain I protested." Burnett adds a footnote, " To the uninitiated I may explain that in the homoeopathic ` little books ' it is stated under Conium that it is good for the complaints of old women."

One may add that it is also stigmatized as being good for old bachelors and old maids !

But the above exemplifies one of the reasons for not telling patients what you are prescribing. The knowing ones among them, i.e., the possessors of " the little " homoeopathic books, look up the medicines, and criticize your prescriptions, approving or disapproving from that dangerous thing, a little knowledge : or they come to . wrong, even at times disastrous, conclusions, deduced from what they can find in regard to the uses of the remedy : — or, having found benefit from what you have given, they proceed to abuse it, not realizing that, not only " what a drug can cause, it can cure," but also that " what a drug can cure, it can also cause."

The remedy is not everything in Homoeopathy, but the manner of prescribing it.

Here is a resume of NASH'S contribution to our clinical knowledge of Conium. His epitome is that of all the writers on homoeopathic Materia Medica. Viz.

< turning head, or looking around sideways, or turning in bed.

or uterine affections.

Breasts sore, hard and painful during menses.

In regard to the Eye symptoms of Conium, Nash points out that, the peculiar, prominent and uncommon symptom is, photophobia intense, out of all proportion to the objective signs of inflammation in the eye.

In its Scirrhus affections, he points out, the pains of Conium are burning, stinging, or darting (Apis).

" Sweats day or night as soon as one sleeps, or even when closing the eyes, is a characteristic found under no other remedy that I know of (reverse of Sambucus)." Lippe , he says, once made a splendid cure of a complete one-sided paralysis in a man eighty years of age with this remedy, guided thereto by this symptom. " I think it would be difficult to give a correct pathological explanation of such a symptom : but there is a reason, and whether we can give it or not we can cure it if we have corresponding one appearing under a remedy ; — where a cure is at all possible."

Of these two, Phosphorus has vertigo looking upwards ; looking downwards ; in the open air ; after eating ; in the evening.

I do not think that vertigo is especially noticed as a symptom of Ceanothus : but it should be ! Personal experiences are what most impress one, and are best remembered :--therefore Hahnemann says, " The physician should make himself the infallible and unreceptive subject of his own observations."

Then, in regard to sweat — even that common symptom, when qualified, can be most useful in pointing to a remedy that may turn out to have the other characteristic symptoms of a patient, and be therefore curative.

" Sweats the moment the eyes are closed : or at once if he sleeps, day or night." As we have seen, Conium has this. But, for sweats on closing the eyes, Kent gives also, in lesser type, Bry. and Lach (and in still lesser type, Calc., Carb. an. and Thuja).

Sweat on uncovered parts : no sweat on covered parts : a most curious and inexplicable symptom, which has led to the successful use of Thuja ; — as we have seen, and as has been reported in cases.

Sweat of painful parts (Kali c.).

Sweat only while awake, SAMBUCUS .

The only competitor here is Sepia, in lowest type. (Sepia being one of the sweating remedies, and especially a remedy of offensive sweat, and offensive axillary sweat.)

Lachesis sweats with palpitation.

" Cold sweat while eating : anxiety and cold sweat while eating," MERC . only is given.

Profuse sweat from music, Tarent.

" On making any motion, sweat disappears and heat comes on," Lyc.

Sweat that attracts flies, Calad. One has observed this with horror in some poor old almshouse people, where it was impossible to keep the flies off the face !

Then there are the one-sided sweats : — the sweats of single parts, front, back, upper, or lower parts of body. And the sweats that stain different colours : — or bloody sweats (especially LACH . and Nux Mos.).

But perhaps the most useful of all these " sweat-peculiarities " are the head-sweating during sleep, soaking the pillow of CALC . and SILICA : often priceless symptoms in treating babes and small children.

One of the paralytic effects of Conium is, " cannot expectorate : swallows sputum ".

Black Letter Symptoms

Inability to sustain any mental effort.

Hypochondriasis and hysteria from suppression of or too free indulgence in sexual instinct, with low-spiritedness, anxiety and sadness.

Want of Memory .

Excessive difficulty to recollect things : to comprehend that which one reads.

Headache as if head were too full and would burst.

Sick headache with inability to urinate.

Great giddiness, worse lying, when everything seems to go round.

Vertigo as if turning in a circle.

Intoxication when taking the least liquor.

Accumulation of Ear-Wax : blood red, or like decayed paper, with pus or mucus.

Weakness of Sight : amaurosis.

Objects look red, rainbow-coloured, striped : confused spots.

Weakness and dazzling of eyes, with giddiness and debility of whole body, especially muscles of arms and legs, so that when I attempted to walk I was apt to stagger like a person who had drunk too much strong liquor.

Aversion to light without inflammation of eyes.

Burning in eyes.

Ulcers on cornea, right to left.

Could scarcely raise lids, they seemed pressed down with a heavy weight.

Intermittent flow of Urine with cutting after micturition.

Some sexual symptoms.

Bad effects from suppressed desire, or excessive indulgence.

Shrivelling of mamma, without sexual desire.

Dry spot in larynx, where there is crawling and almost constant irritation to a dry Cough .

Cough, almost only when first lying down, during day or evening : obliged to sit up and cough it out, then had rest.

Powerful spasmodic paroxysms of cough, excited by itching and tickling in chest and throat, or by a dry spot in larynx, worse at night or lying down.

Greatly fatiguing patient.

Lying down and taking a deep breath causes cough.

Stitches as with needles in left Mamma .

Hardness of right breast, with painfulness to touch and nightly stitches in it.

Pain in mamma, which often swell and become hard.

Hard, scirrhus-like tumours (breast).

Indurated and swollen cervical Glands in scrofulous children.

Tremulous weakness and palpitation after every stool.

Paroxysms of hysteria and hypochondriasis from abstinence from sexual intercourse.

Great heat internal and external, with great nervousness.

Sweat day and night, as soon as one sleeps, or even when closing eyes.

Swelling and induration of Glands , with tingling and stitches, after contusions and bruises.

With all his efforts he could not keep off Sleep : must lie down and sleep ; or he only gets sleep after midnight.

Queer Symptoms : Suggestive Symptoms : Cured Symptoms

Likes to wear his best clothes, makes useless purchases ; cares very little for things, wastes or ruins them : does not want to work, prefers to play.

Dislike to society, yet a dread to be alone.

Superstitious and full of fear, with frequent thoughts of death.

Feeling at times of a foreign body under skull, in vertex.

Sensation in right half brain as of a large foreign body.

Headache with inability to urinate.

Tremulous look as if eyes were trembling.

Eyes feel as if pulled outwards from nose.

Lids only opened with great difficulty, and when done, a flood of hot tears spurts out.

Smell of animals in back part of nose.

Ulcers on face and lips : cancer of cheek : cancerous tumours lips and face.

Cancer lip from pressure of pipe.

Spasmodic constriction of throat.

Lump in throat, with involuntary attempts to swallow.

Craves coffee, salt, sour things. Aversion to bread.

Violent vomiting ; of mucus ; black masses like coffee grounds, of chocolate-coloured masses.

Pain in liver with accumulation of ear-wax.

Acute inflammation of pancreas.

Hypogastric pain goes down legs.

Twitchings right side face, with curious noise in larynx.

Loose cough with inability to expectorate : must swallow what is raised.

Clothes lie like a weight on chest and shoulders.

Tickling behind sternum.

Sharp thrusts from sternum to spine.

Violent palpitation, with pain as if a knife were thrust through occiput with each pulsation.

Itching breast and nipple.

Inflammation of breasts with stitches above nipple.

Mammary induration following breast abscess, remains without change for two years.

Hard and painful lumps in mamma.

Stony hard lumps in breast after contusions.

Hypertrophy of breast, followed by atrophy.

Complete atrophy of mammary gland, leaving a flaccid, bag-like skin.

Peculiar tumour in centre of back, as large as a cherry, on half-an-inch pedicle : tumour and pedicle bluish.

After falling from a height on back, pain in lower part and small of back, worse laughing, sneezing, taking a quick breath.

Axillary glands swollen.

Arms when lifted fall like inert masses and remain immovable.

Painless loss of power, lower limbs : faltering, vacillating gait ; staggers as if drunk : drags legs after him.

Red spots on calves, turning yellow or green, as from contusion ; preventing movement.

Heaviness, weariness, bruised sensation in all limbs.

Paralysed feeling : difficulty in using limbs : unable to walk.

Unpainful lameness : trembling of limbs.

Paralysis of lower, then upper extremities : or reverse.

Numbness of fingers and toes : fingers look as if dead.

Letting limbs hang down relieves pain.

Sick-headache worse when lying in bed : — worse after going

to bed must sit up or walk about for relief.

Violent pain in stomach, better knee-elbow position.

Vertigo downward motion.

Paralysis of old people, especially old women.

Paraplegia after concussion of spine.

Five minutes after falling asleep wakes up bathed in sweat : most profuse on head and upper part of body.

Always feels worse after going to bed : must sit up or walk about.

Blueness of whole body.

Blackish ulcers ; bloody, fetid, ichorous discharges, especially after contusions.

In the Repertory we find, " Coldness in anus during flatus and stool, Con." And Clarke gives a case of the cure by Conium of diarrhoea where the stools were cold. (Nit. acid has cold urine.)

No wonder Old School doctors are such poor prescribers. What they are not taught about Materia Medica would fill a whole bookshelf of big volumes.

After taking 3 iii of " succus conii ", set out walking. After a bit, felt a heavy clogging sensation in heels : distinct impairment of motor power — " the go " taken out of me : as if a drag was suddenly put on me, and I could not have walked fast. . . . On putting a foot on the scraper, the other leg shaky and almost too weak to support me : my movements seemed clumsy, and I must make an effort to control them. At the same time a sluggishness of the adaptation of the eye : vision good for fixed objects, but on looking at an uneven object in motion there was haze and dimness of vision causing giddiness: Accommodation was more or less paralysed — retarded.

In another experimenter, — on raising eyes from a near to a more distant object, vision confused and giddiness carne on suddenly : but so long as eyes were fixed on a given object, the giddiness disappeared, and the definition and capacity of vision for the minutest objects were unimpaired : but all was haze and confusion on directing the eyes to another object, which continued till the eyes rested securely on one object again. . . . Then, muscular lethargy with heavy lids and dilated pupils : . . . weakness in legs, which became cold, pale, and tottering.

Legs felt as if they would soon be too weak to support me : . . to complete paralysis as far as hamstrings, and it required a great effort to open the lids.

The mind clear and calm, the brain active, but the body heavy and well-nigh asleep. (Symptoms declined rapidly, and disappeared.)

A young woman, remained calm, but without the power to move arms or legs.

Such are, again and again, the effects of big doses : the rapidly extending — upwards — of paralytic phenomena : and not only muscles of the extremities, but all eye muscles affected, with those of the lids. The pulse generally rises, then quickly subsides to normal : and the mind remains clear and calm.

In one prover, with the paresis, he found that even with eyes shut any movement involving the balance of the body was attended with a singular uncertainty, and falling short of the desired effect, invariably accompanied by a fresh rush of sea-sick feelings.

He settled himself in an arm chair, and kept absolutely still and relaxed, when the sea-sickness completely disappeared and he lost consciousness of the poison, till he opened his eyes, " to find out whether the enemy was still with me, or not."

In some of the poisonings quoted, there was delirium, even convulsions in some. One doctor who experimented with Conium found that provided that his eyes were shut, he could walk straight and steadily, whereas when he tried to walk with eyes open, he had giddiness, nausea, and staggering gait (reverse of locomotor ataxia).

In addition, then, to its action on muscle — even to eye muscles and especially to those of accommodation, one must remember Conium as one of the drugs of indurations, infiltrations, stenoses and strictures.

By the way, the Conium death is from paralysis of diaphragm and muscles of respiration. It should be useful in some forms of asphyxia.