Iris Versicolor

[blue flag, natural order, iridace^b.]

The common iris is a perennial herb with a one-angled stem, from two to three feet high, with two, ranked, equitant, sword -shaped leaves which are more than half an inch wide. It springs from a root-stock or subterranian stem, and is furnished with two-leaved spathes, and ephemeral blue flowers, variegated with green, yellow, and white at the base, and veined with purple. These are followed by oblong pods, with three rounded angles and convex sides. The perianth consists of six parts : three outer, larger, reflexed ; three inner, smaller, erect.

Alternate with these last, and under the petaloid stigmas, are the three stamens. These parts are apparently seated upon the obtusely triangular, flat-sided ovary, which develops into oblong, three-celled pods, filled with flat seeds.

"This common plant can be confounded with no other indigenous species except the iris virginica, which has a round stem, leaves less than half an inch wide, and each side of the ovary deeply two- grooved. The iris lacustris, a dwarf species, grows on the shores of Lakes Huron and Michigan. Iris cristata, another dwarf species,

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210 IRIS VERSICOLOR.

may be found in the mountains of Pennsylvania, and several foreign species are common in cultivation." (Dr. C. Wesselhoeft.)

Iris acts upon the lining mucous membrane of the gastrointes- tinal canal, including its glandular structure ; it produces also a very interesting group of skin symptoms. Acidity of the gastric and intestinal secretions is a prominent symptom of the remedy.

CEPHALIC GROUP.

Iris has caused : staggering from rising ; dull, heavy headache ; much pain in the forehead and temples, coming on every few . minutes ; slight pain in the right temple ; nausea with slight mo- mentary dullness of the head, resembling vertigo; dizziness, with pressure in the forehead and outward in the ears ; pain in the fore- head andjeft temple ; severe frontal headache, worse in the evening, and increased by violent motion, better in the open air, which speedily relieves ; pain in the posterior fontanelles.

HEADACHES. — Blue-flag is used extensively in the treatment of headaches depending upon gastric or bilious disturbances, and in headaches of a nervous origin.

The headache begins with a blur before the eyes, is dull and heavy (tired ache from mental exhaustion), at times intermitting. It may be of a throbbing, hammering nature ; is usually confined to one side at a time, with a preference for the right side. Eest, cold air, coughing and violent exercise aggravate ; moderate, continuous mo- tion relieves. Nausea, vomiting of sour, bilious matter, and erup- tions upon the body are reliable indications.

Sometime ago, a young lady, aged twenty-seven years, consulted me in regard to a severe headache which had troubled her since she was quite young. Her father and his whole family were subject to similar attacks. The patient, a tall, slender person, of light complexion, flat chest and somewhat stooping, has an attack about once in two weeks, but it is brought on at any time by broken rest, undue excitement, riding in a carriage or boat, and always precedes the menstrual flow. The headache com- mences with a feeling of prostration and blurred vision and is accompanied by con- stipation and nausea.

The pain is in the left temple and is hard and pressive. It always passes from the left temple to the right between retiring at night and awaken- ing in the morning, when it becomes settled in both temples, radiating from both sides to nearly the top of the head. Quiet and sleep relieve ; eating, reading and excitement aggravate greatly. Iris versicolor, 2d decimal, two drops four times each day, produced a permanent cure including the constipated habit of the patient.

(Dr. I. N. Eldridge.)

CHYLO-POIETIC GROUP.

Provers have recorded : nausea, with headache and fainting ; ful- ness of the stomach, followed by eructations of tasteless gas; great acidity of • the stomach; nausea and slight vomiting of watery and

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extremely sour fluid ; great burning distress in the epigastric region, not relieved by drinking cold water.

GASTRALGIA. — The above symptoms justify the use of iris in gastralgia and in a type of dyspepsia which partakes to a large extent of the symptoms of cardialgia. The writer has found the drug eminently serviceable when there existed painful acidity of the stomach, sometimes causing a burning, which extended into the pharynx ; increased flow of saliva ; sensation of extreme fulness in the stomach, with nausea and retching, followed either by vomiting of intensely sour, greasy water or by eructations of tasteless (some- times very sour) gas ; diarrhoaa, with burning in the anus and rectum after stool ; great burning in the throat and in the epigastrium.

GASTRIC DISORDERS OF PREGNANT WOMEN We find a similar group of symptoms in this trouble, and are frecpiently able to prevent a vast amount of suffering, incident to this state, by the timely exhibition of this drug. Iris has caused: a feeling of nausea in the abdomen like the beginning of sea-sickness ; a faintness, as if the peristaltic action were carried on inversely; in the afternoon, severe colic, first in the right, than in the left side, with urging to stool ; colic in the epigastric and in the umbilical region, followed by watery stools, with rumbling in the bowels ; faintness and trembling of the knees ; bloating of the stomach and abdomen ; pain in the bowels, relieved by an emission of flatus ; sharp, griping pain in the bowels ; thin, watery discharges from the bowels ; awaking with great rumbling and distress in the abdomen and with desire for stool, followed immediately by a copious, thin, watery stool which could not be retained a moment without pain ; copious, watery dis- charge, tinged with bile, running from the bowels in one continuous stream ; watery stool followed by straining, with passage of blood and mucus; large, yellow, papescent stool without pain, followed by a watery stool, and with intense burning in the pancreas ; greenish- black stools, with burning at the anus.

The anus feels sore, as if sharp points were sticking in the parts ; the anus feels as if on fire after a watery stool, with straining and bearing down. Constipation ; congestion. Iris may be used in

DIARRHOEA, accompanied by nausea, acidity of the stomach ; burning in the fauces and oesophagus ; rumbling of gas ; burning in the rectum and anus after a stool. The stools are watery and copious ; or they may be mushy and not veiy frequent, while the

212 IBIS VEKSICOLOE.

general characteristic symptoms are strongly marked ; there is also also an occasional free admixture of mucus. Bilious diarrhoea.

CHOLERA INFANTUM with similar indications, among which the gastric disturbances and the burning in the anus and rectum after stool will be found especially reliable.

DYSENTERY with much straining, pains in the umbilical region; rumbling in the bowels; burning in the anus and rectum after stool ; bilious dysentery.

CHOLERA MORBUS, with "vomiting and diarrhoea, with violent pain in the pit of the stomach, or around the navel, or still lower down in the abdominal region, at or before every fit of vomiting or purging; burning in the rectum and anus; periodical spells of aggravation about 2 or 3 a. m." (Raue.)

CONSTIPATION has been successfully treated with iris, when accompanied by characteristic gastric derangements, nervousness, headaches, flatulency. The constipation of iris is apt to be followed by a thin, watery diarrhoea.

COLIC. — A glance at the provings will show that iris is not so much a remedy for true colic as it is apt to cure that colicky distress which accompanies various forms of intestinal disorders. Derange- ments of the biliary apparatus are frequently productive of such spmptoms. The colic of iris is accompanied or increased by accu- mulations of flatus and is relieved by bending double.

EXANTHEMATOUS GEOUP.

Iris has caused an interesting group of skin, symptoms, such as : vertex and sides of the head covered with a thick crust from the exudation of lymph; under the scab it looks red, and bleeds if in- crustation is disturbed ; the top of the head has twenty -six pustules on it, some of them as . large as a three-cent piece, situated on an inflamed base of a rose-color, with red streaks running from one to the other ; they contain matter, are very tender to the touch, last- ing four days.

Clinical experience has amply demonstrated the curative power of iris in tinea capitis, herpes, h. zoster, impetigo, and other diseases of the skin. In making a selection of the proper remedy, a careful individualizing is of the greatest importance, and both the case and the remedy must be studied in all their bearing. While specialists have done much toward enabling us to prescribe with precision, basing the choice of the remedy upon the characteristics of the

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eruption itself, the true homoeopath never overlooks the intimate connection between the constitutional and the local symptoms and often finds in an exhaustive study of the former the means of accom- plishing a speedy cure, where the most careful treatment, based upon local symptoms, ma}7 prove unavailing.

A little girl, three years old, of good physical and mental development, the child of young and well-connected, but intemperate people, had been under alloeopathic treatment for more than one year and a half for a disease of the scalp. The scalp was covered with thick, elevated, dry, hard scabs, of the size of a silver five-cent piece to a nickel. These scabs were isolated, very dry, discharging nothing, but occasionally a scab would become detatched and come off, leaving the surface raw with slight bleeding, to be covered again, in due season, by a new scab.

The average number of these scabs at any one time amounted to about twenty-five or thirty. The child received iris versicolar, 3d decimal dilution, of which a dose was taken four times each day. The scabs soon loosened and fell off, but did not form again. The hair commenced to grow and long before the pellets were all taken, our little patient had fully recovered.

(Dr. I. N. Eldridge.)

NERVOUS GROUP.

Provers have experienced : prosopalgia on the right side ; lame- ness of the arms, extending to the shoulders and the back of the neck, like rheumatism after taking cold ; severe rheumatic paius in the whole right arm and right knee-joint, worse on motion and con- tinuing when at rest ; pain shooting from behind the large trochanter down the posterior part of the left thigh into the foot, on every motion, particularly while walking; sciatic twinges, on bending the body while sitting; sciatic pains, as if the left hip-joint were wrenched or forced to remain long in an awkward position, several times in the day.

PROSOPALGIA. — Clinical experience has shown that iris pos- sesses curative powers in the treatment of prosopalgia, tic douloureux or facial neuralgia, located in the head, temples and eyes, frequently on one side and usually attended with bilious disturbances and vom- iting of sweetish mucus, or with great acidity of the stomach, con- stipation, etc.

Mrs. T.j aged forty-two years, married, mother of five children. Has been suf- fering from neuralgia in the left temporal region, extending down the ramus of the lower jaw into the teeth ; pain sharp and cutting, bowels regular, normal appetite; sleep good, when not disturbed by these neuralgic pains. Prescribed iris versicolor*, ten pellets four times per day. Cured. (Dr. W. I. Mullins in Cin. Med. Advance.)

SCIATICA. — Dr. Wesselhoeft, one of the provers of iris, has recorded a number of symptoms which point to the use of the rem- edy in sciatica. The symptoms are recorded at the head of this group. The left side seems to be affected in preference to the right, and gastralgia or other gastro-intestinal complaints often co-exist with the sciatic trouble.

214 JABORANDI.

A widowed lady, forty-two years of age, tall and of light complexion, had been sick with sciatica for three weeks. The pain was confined to the left leg, was shoot- ing, burning, laming, affecting the posterior femoral muscles, and shooting along the left sciatic nerve to the foot, and was greatly aggravated by motion. I gave Phyto- lacca without any relief. A careful re-examination of the case showed that the posterior muscles of the thigh and leg were affected, and the pain was burning as well as shooting and laming; whereas in the provings of phytolacca, the pains have always been observed in the outer or external part of the left thigh, as well as in the outer portions of the other limbs ; and though decidedly neuralgic, shooting along the nerves, yet they are aching and pressing, and not burning. * * * I gave a powder of sugar of milk moistened with the tincture of iris versicolor, to be dissolved in eight table-spoonfuls of water, a spoonful to be taken every six hours until the patient felt better, when the remedy was to be discontinued.

Immediate and permanent relief followed the use of the remedy. (Dr. W. E.

Payne in the Hahn. Monthly, May, 1869 )

URINARY AND SEXUAL GROUP.

The effect of iris upon the urinary and sexual organs is not very marked.

SPERMATORRHOEA.— The drug has heen used in spermator- rhoea with amorous dreams and mental depression ; it can be of value only in exceptional cases.

Its fever group is limited. It has heat followed by chill, with cold hands and feet ; sweat over the whole body, particularly in the groin. Its mental symptoms are : depression, despondency, dullness, irritability.

The tincture of the fresh root is officinal ; it is of a golden yellow, somewhat lighter than the tincture of bryonia. Triturations of the dried root and of the resinoid, irisin, are also used.