Cactus Grandiflorus

[NIGHT BLOOMING CEREUS. NATURAL ORDER. CACTACEiE.]

Creeping, rooting ; stem with about five angles ; flowers terminal and lateral, very large, nocturnal ; petals spreading, shorter than the linear-lanceolate sepals. From the West Indies. Stems cylindrical or prismatic, branching, the angles not very prominent. Flowers expanding by night, and lasting but a few hours, eight to twelve

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inches in diameter. Sepals brown without, yellow within. Petals white; a magnificent flower of difficult culture. (Wood.)

Cactus acts upon the heart, arteries and lungs, causing irritation and congestion. It finds its greatest sphere of usefulness in the treatment of functional and organic diseases of the heart and is a valuable remedy in certain disorders of the female generative organs. The following symptom points to it with almost unerring certainty : feeling of extreme distress in various parts of the body, especially in the chest and about the heart, as if bound with an iron hoop, or as if somebody were clutching or grasping, with great violence, the suffering organ.

The following symptoms belong to cactus: Great weakness, with sadness and irresistible desire to weep. Unrefreshing sleep, causing one to awake in the morning with a feeling of fatigue ; inability to go to sleep ; slight delirium, interrupting sleep. Chilliness in the evening lasting a short time (at times, however, several, three or more, hours), followed by pretty active fever, which is accompanied with dyspnoea, pain in the head, insensibility, thirst, and which terminates in more or less, prof use perspiration.

Red bloated face, heat in the face and head ; violent congestion to the head ; pressive headache ; weight on the vertex ; pressive pain in the forehead ; heavy, throb- bing pain in the temples. These are accompanied by sensitiveness to light and noise ; are relieved by pressure, and show a tendency to locate in the right side. The eyes and ears show the effects of this congestion. The former have dimness and weakness and even momentary loss of sight ; in the ears we have continued pulsations, buzzing and hardness of hearing.

There is profuse bleeding from the nose and great constriction of the oesophagus. Digestion is im- paired; appetite poor; we find nausea and copious vomiting of blood. There are very troublesome pulsations of the cceliac artery, corres- ponding with the pulsations of the right temporal artery. Sensation of weight in the stomach.

Morning diarrhoea ; the evacuations are preceded by pain in the bowels. Irritation of the urinary organs, which shows itself in a constant desire to void urine, frequently in- effectual and accompanied with a great deal of heat in the urethra. The urine is reddish, turbid, deposits, on cooling, a red sand, and is usually very abundant. The effects upon the sexual organs are notable only in women, and there we find congestive symptoms, viz : heaviness, weight, pulsating pains in the uterus and ovaries ; severe pain in the thighs ; extreme pain during menstruation, which is

618 CACTUS GRA.NDIFLORUS.

premature. Dark, pitch-like menstrual discharge. The chest and heart symptoms are very interesting. There is obstinate, dry hack- ing cough ; or cough with thick, yellow, starch-like expectoration.

Extreme constriction of the chest, with a feeling as if some one were pressing upon it very violently. Sharp, stitching, wandering pains ; difficulty of breathing ; periodical attacks of suffocation, with faint- ing, cold perspiration on the face, and loss of pulse. Sanguineous congestion in the chest, which prevents the prover from lying down. Pain in the heart.

Sensation of constriction in the heart, as if an iron band obstructed its normal movement. Dull, heavy pains in the region of the heart, increased by external pressure. Pricking pains in the heart. Very acute pain, and such painful stitches in the heart, as to cause him to weep and cry out loudly, with obstruc- tion of the respiration.

Continued palpitation of the heart, worse when walking, and at night, when lying on the left side. Formica- tion and weight in the arms ; oedema of the hands, feet and legs up to the knee. Dry, scaly eruption on various parts of the body, especially upon the extremities, with violent scratching and restlessness.

CARDIAC DROPSY. — The following case illustrates the curative action of cactus in cardiac diseases :

Mrs. B., aged sixty years, was attacked on July I, 1868, with violent palpitation of the heart, accompanied with very distressing dyspnoea. Upon examination I found evidence of structural change of the mitral valves, with regurgitation and congestion of the lungs. These symptoms continued two weeks, when dropsy supervened.

At this juncture I gave an unfavorable prognosis. The breathing became more and more labored. It was impossible for the patient to assume the recumbent position. Two weeks later, the limbs became cedematous.

Cannabis indica, digitalis, etc., failed to do any good and the case became hopeless. Cactus grand, tincture, aggra- vated the symptoms ; the 3d and 20th dilution cured in three months. Every vestige of dropsy has disappeared. The regurgitation has ceased and there are no abnormal symptoms remaining, except slight valvular murmur.

(Dr. E. J. Morgan, Horn.

Times, April, 1879.)

RHEUMATIC DIFFICULTIES OF THE HEART, charac- terized by the feeling above described, as if the heart were com- pressed by a band of iron.

The late Dr. Carroll Dunham relates as follows:

A. B., aged twenty-eight years, who had generally been healthy, enlisted in the army in July, 1864. After three months he was attacked with acute articular rheum- atism in the back and limbs. After a long sickness in the hospital he was mustered out of the service as incurable.

He slowly gathered strength, but applied to me in March, 1865, in the following condition: Muscular condition fair, limbs free from stiffness or swelling. Lumbar muscles tender on pressure and stiff, especially on first moving after repose. The dullness in the praecordia extensive; blowing, with the first sound of the heart heard most distinctly at the apex of the heart. A constant sense of constriction in the region of -the heart and epigastrium, as if the heart were grasped and compressed as by a band of iron.

This sensation is very distressing. It is much increased by muscular exertion, and especially by reading aloud or loud talking. Cactus100, two doses, relieved the patient entirely.

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PALPITATION OF THE HEART — Women who labor under uterine difficulties, menstrual derangements, nervous affections, etc., often suffer severely from distressing palpitation of the heart. Gas- tric troubles also develop it. If the totality of symptoms point to cactus, the remedy relieves this condition very promptly, even though depending upon an organic disease.

PERICARDITIS. — Raue mentions cactus in his list of remedies for pericarditis with the following symptoms : Sensation of constric- tion in the heart, as if an iron band prevented its normal movement ; acute pains and stitches in the heart ; difficulty of breathing ; attacks of suffocation with fainting ; cold perspiration in the face, and loss of pulse ; palpitation when walking, and at night when lying on the left side.

ASTHMA. — You have observed that many of the symptoms given under cactus resemble those of asthma, of an aggravated form, with an excited state of the heart's action ; and of

ANGINA PECTORIS. In both of these very painful maladies you may find the remedy useful.

CATARRH. — Cactus has also caused a set of symptoms which point to its possible usefulness in catarrh of the larynx and bronchia. We have dry, tickling cough ; oppression of breathing ; constriction of the chest ; spasmodic cough, worse at night ; tickling in the throat ; viscid or mucous expectoration like boiled starch, and very yellow, all of which may be found in the difficulties mentioned.

Dr. F. W. Ingalls reports as cured by cactus, a case pronounced hopeless, of a lady of twenty years of age, whose menses had been sup- pressed and whose cough and pain was accompanied by nervous palpitation of the heart.

(Transactions of N. Y. Horn. Med.

Society, 1868.) Dr. Duhring was cured of chronic bronchitis, accompanied with frequent rattling of mucus through the day and at all hours of the night ; oppression in breathing with a spasmodic cough and ex- pectoration of mucus, also frequent attacks when attempting to go up and down stairs. He used the mother tincture. (Am.

Horn. Observer, 1865, page 269.)

HAEMOPTYSIS—

A young lady, aged seventeen, presented the following symptoms : Considerable cough with expectoration of pure blood, rapid pulse, skin rather warm, tumultuous action of the heart and arteries, accompanied by violent burning pain in the epigas- trium. Had suffered thus for several days. Cactus grand., 3d trit., was given with relief within two hours. Next day she seemed as well as usual. No return since. {American Observer, August, 1874).

PROSOPALGIA. — The head symptoms of cactus point to its use

620 CACTUS GRANDIFLORUS.

in prosopalgia or neuralgia of the face, if on the right side of the face, and aggravated by motion and strong light ; said to be brought on by wine, music or missing an accustomed meal ; also in

CEPHALALGIA or nervous sick headache, with similar symp- toms ; worse on the right side, and aggravated as before stated.

Dr. Hale recommends cactus in

CEREBROSPINAL MENINGITIS when the heart is impli- cated, presenting the characteristic symptoms of the drug and when there is "pains everywhere, head, arms, legs, back, chest, heart, springing like chain-lightening, terminating with a sharp, vice-like grip, only to commence again a moment afterward, with restlessness and gnawing." (TJ. 8. Med. and Surg. Jour., April, 1873.) He adds "Dr. H.

B. Fellows has communicated to me a case of cerebro- spinal irritation with sudden anguish and pain in the heart, followed by pain and retraction of the head, and opisthotonos ; he always re- lieved the patient with cactus."

/Next to its use in diseases of the heart ranks the applicability of cactus to certain derangements of the sexual organs of women. Not that it covers a very large sphere of action, but it is of use in a few difficulties of common occurrence and not easily reached.

CONGESTIVE DYSMENORRHEA finds an almost exact coun- terpart in the pathogenetic record of the drug. We have the spas- modic, remitting, excrutiating pain; the dragging and painful soivness and constriction in the hips ; the heaviness in the uterine region and the dark, almost black, scanty flow, which are so fre- quently met with in aggravated forms of this painful disorder. In such cases, especially when the heart symptoms of cactus were present, we have found it a most valuable remedy.

UTERINE HAEMORRHAGE, with discharge of clots of black blood, which are expelled with bearing-down, labor-like pains. Char- acteristic heart symptoms. Fullness in the head.

Dr. Rubini, with the usual enthusiasm of a discoverer of a new drug, recommends cactus for all possible affections, especially for fevers. Clinical experience has not developed any particular value in fevers, except perhaps in

INTERMITTENTS, where the following symptoms indicate its use : "Regular paroxysms at 11 a. m., or p. m. ; first chill, then burn- ing heat, with headache, coma, stupefaction, insensibility; thirst, short- ness of breath, inability to remain lying. Sweat profuse, and attended with inextinguishable thirst. The apyrexia is complete." (Raue.)

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