Veratrum Viride

Variously named American white hellebore : American green hellebore : Poke weed. ( Veratrum alb. is a different plant of different symptoms and uses : it grows in Europe and Asia. )

Veratrum viride " grows in swamps ; wet meadows ; along mountain creeks from Canada to the Carolinas "

Veratrum viride has produced and cured pneumonia : it is, in fact, one of Homoeopathy's greatest pneumonia medicines, symptoms agreeing. One has seen astonishing cases, in the hands of one of our doctors especially, who knows exactly when to prescribe the drug. These are his indications : " The case looks very like a Phos . case. The face is red, flushed ; with profuse sweat.

Red streak down centre of tongue . High temperature ; bounding pulse : perhaps delirium. Thirst. The patient has an aversion to sweets, and may complain that water tastes sweet." So we can all " go and do likewise "

A red streak ( perhaps dry ) down the centre of the tongue is its most suggestive and arresting symptoms. But, like so many drugs, it may have just the opposite : for, looking down the provings, one finds that it has also produced a white streak down the centre of the tongue. It evidently has some action on the blood supply to the tongue.

It has, " tongue white, not coated ; looks bleached . . . Tongue white in centre, with red edges and white tip. It does not look like a coated tongue, but as if the blood were pressed out . . . Tongue feels scalded With Red Streak In Centre." And this last is the classical appeal of Veratrum viride for employment not only in pneumonia but in any of the conditions it can so greatly benefit.

Glancing down the provings, as given in the Cyclopedia of Drug Pathogenesy, one is struck by several of its other peculiarities. For instance, nearly all the provers promptly developed hiccough . And again, the astonishing effect it had — quickly on pulse-rate. Pulses dropped, sometimes to 40, 34, or lower. Or, in other cases, perhaps better observed, the pulse would rise at once, and then fall. Pulse generally very small and weak ; often hardly perceptible.

NASH says this remedy had once a great reputation in the first, or congestive stage of inflammatory diseases . . . for a time the journals fairly bristled with reported cures of pneumonia ; and its curative action was attributed to the influence of the remedy to control the action of the heart and pulse . . .

I was a young physician and thought I had found a prize in this remedy. " But one day," he says, he " left a patient relieved by Verat. vir., and returning later found him dead." He watched others treated by this remedy, and " found every little while a patient with pneumonia dropping out suddenly when reported better. Now we do not hear so much of Veratrum viride as the greatest remedy for the first stage of this disease.

(I) It was (like other fads) used too indiscriminately.

(2) It is wrong to control or depress the pulse, regardless of all other considerations.

(3) The patients who had weak hearts were killed by this powerful heart-depressant. A quickened circulation is salutary in all inflammatory diseases, and is evidence that the Natural power to resist diseases is there, and at work."

One presumes that as Nash is alluding to his early experiences ; that the dosage " to bring down the pulse " was, as it would have to be, a physiological dose. In homoeopathic prescribing, the drug is used, like any other, in accordance with symptoms, not to do something subversive, perhaps dangerous, but to stimulate the patient to do something curative : a very different proposition. As a matter of fact one would think of Veratrum viride where the pulse is slow.

Nash gives, as his chief indications for the remedy, " A narrow, well-developed red streak right through the middle of the tongue : intense fever, with twitching, and tendency to spasms."

CLARKE ( Dictionary ) gives an instructive case, which we will quote — a nearly fatal accidental proving of the drug.

He says, " Burt made a heroic proving of the liquid extract ; and his infant daughter (twenty-one months) very nearly died from taking a few drops of the tincture from a phial. In two minutes she began vomiting. Coffee and camphor were given as antidotes. In five minutes her jaws were rigid ; pupils widely dilated ; face blue ; hands and feet cold ; no pulse at wrist.

Abdomen and back were rubbed with camphor, when she went into spasms with violent shrieks. These spasms were frequently repeated, a hot bath being most effective in relaxing the muscles. Vomiting ropy mucus kept up for three hours. Pulseless ; hands and feet shrivelled.

After three and a half hours she slept quietly and soundly and next morning was well but a little weak."

Glancing down the provings, one thing one notices is the rapid recovery from the drug, especially after sleep. " Slept well, and awoke without any trace of trouble." " Next morning felt well."

In some cases, the prover " dreamt much, especially of water ". Again, a cup of hot, strong coffee did more good than anything else.

In one case " clothes would not fit him, seemed as if they were scratching him somewhere : constant twitchings of different parts of the body."

In a case of severe poisoning, with excessive : and prolonged vomiting; cold surface ; clammy sweat ; pulse feeble and irregular, forty-four beats to the minute ; a couch in front of a warm fire, and brandy repeated at short intervals restored warmth to the surface and improved the pulse, and after about an hour he fell asleep, slept for fifteen minutes, and woke saying, " I'm all right now ", as he appeared to be. Next day there was only soreness of muscles from retching.

H. C. ALLEN ( Keynotes ) says, for full-blooded, plethoric persons.

Congestions, especially to base of brain, chest, spine and stomach.

Inflammation with violent pains.

Acute rheumatism, with high fever . .

Cerebral congestion ; intense, almost apoplectic, with violent nausea and vomiting.

Congestive apoplexy, hot head, bloodshot eyes, thick speech, slow full pulse, hard as iron.

Child on the verge of convulsions, continued jerking or nodding of head.

Cerebro-spinal disease (compare Cicuta ) : spasms : dilated pupils : tetanic convulsions : opisthotonos : cold clammy perspiration.

Sunstroke (see Gels., Glon., Bell .).

Pulse suddenly increases and gradually decreases below normal : slow, soft, weak.

And then the characteristic tongue : (here we need not repeat).

He also says, " Veratrum viride should not be given simply ' to bring down the pulse or control the heart's action ' but like any other remedy, for the totality of the symptoms."

BOGER ( Synoptic Key ) , with later experience (?), has quite a lot to say about Verat. vir. " SUDDEN VIOLENT CONGESTIONS (brain, chest, etc.) with nausea and vomiting.

Muscle prostration.

Head thrown back : nodding or rolling motions . . . Vision of red spots, purple on closing eyes.

LIVID, TURGID FACE, BUT BECOMES FAINT ON SITTING UP.

Red or dry streak down center of tongue.

Violent vomiting without nausea . . . Slow, heavy breathing.

Full, large, soft pulse, or slow, with strong or violent heart-beat.

Violent cough from the very start. Hyperpyrexia, or rapidly oscillating temperature . . .

Cerebo-spinal fever ."

BLACK LETTER SYMPTOMS

Quarrelsome and delirious.

Dilated pupils.

Face flushed.

Dry mouth, and lips, dry all day.

Tongue somewhat red in center.

Tongue ( ? coated _yellow ) with red streak in centre.

Tongue : white or yellow, with red streak down middle dry or moist, with white or yellow coating, or no coating on either side.

Feels scalded.

Vomiting.

Menstrual colic, with dysmenorrhoea : much nausea and vomiting ;

plethora cerebral congestion.

Suppressed menses, with cerebral congestion.

Pneumonia, pulse hard, strong, quick ; engorgement of lungs, with faint feeling in stomach, nausea, vomiting : — or slow, or intermittent pulse.

Congestions, especially to base of brain, chest, spine and stomach.

Pain and soreness just above the pelvis.

OTHER MARKED, OR CURIOUS SYMPTOMS

Immense green circles appear round candle, which, as vertigo comes on, turn to red.

Hiccough : almost constant : painful, with spasms upper end of oesophagus.

Vomiting, long-continued, of glairy mucus, after food ; painful empty retching, with inflammatory and cerebral diseases ; smallest quantity of food or drink is immediately rejected ; with collapse, very slow pulse and cold sweat.

Puerperal convulsions ; furious delirium ; arterial excitement ; cold clammy sweat.

Hands and feet shrivelled.

Convulsions with mania.

Breathing : labored, must sit up, cold sweat on face ; difficult, convulsive, almost to suffocation ; sensation of a heavy load on chest.

Pleurisy : holds side : " can't breathe " stitching pain. ' ( Bry .)

Bathed in cold perspiration. (Compare Verat. alb .)

Chorea : twitchings and contortions of body, unaffected by sleep. (Reverse of Agar .)

Head jerking or continually nodding, is peculiar here.

Makes faces : bobs head : face livid and covered with cold sweat.

When rising makes a series of springs, apparently from impossibility of raising one foot from the ground without lifting the other.

Sensations : as if head would burst : as if stomach tightly drawn against spine (compare Plumb., Plat .).

As if damp clothing on arms and legs ( Sepia ).

Tongue as if scalded : a load on chest.

Excruciating pain lower part stomach.

As if boiling water were poured over parts.

Dreams of water.