Strychninum purum 200c

– VERMEULEN Frans,
Stry.
Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heavens.
[Rabindranath Tagore]
Signs
Strychnine. Strychnia.

SUBSTANCE Strychnine is a poisonous alkaloid obtained from the dried ripe seeds of Strychnos nux-vomica and related Strychnos species. It was discovered by the French chemists Caventou and Pelletier in 1818 in the seeds of Strychnos ignatii, a woody vine of the Philippines. The nux vomica tree of India is the chief commercial source. Strychnine is practically insoluble in water and is soluble only with difficulty in alcohol and other organic solvents. It has an exceptionally bitter taste.
TOXICOLOGY Strychnine attacks the nervous system by antagonizing the action of glycine, an amino acid responsible for transmitting inhibitory nerve impulses which control muscle contraction. The reflex irritability of the spinal cord is increased. Opisthotonus is a common symptom of poisoning. Strychnine rapidly enters the blood, whether taken orally or by injection, and poisoning symptoms usually occur within 15 to 30 minutes. The symptoms begin with cramps, uneasiness, restlessness, anxiety, muscle twitching, heightened perception, and muscular stiffness of face, neck and legs, and soon culminate in powerful and agonizing convulsions that subside after a minute but recur at the slightest touch or noise, or some other minor stimulus. The pupils are dilated. Movements may be intermittent at first, but then there is hyperextension, with the body arched convexly, resting on head and heels, the legs extended, arms flexed over chest or rigidly extended, fists clenched, jaw clamped, the face fixed in a grin, and the eyes bulging. Breathing stops and the patient turns blue. The muscles relax completely between convulsions, there is cold sweat, and the pupils may contract. Other symptoms include joint stiffness, restlessness, headache, severe blood-oxygen deficiency in body tissues, and cyanosis. Kidney failure may occur as a secondary effect of central nervous system toxicity. Death is usually due to respiratory arrest. Skin contact with strychnine causes irritation with redness, itching, and pain. Strychnine is highly toxic to fish and moderately toxic to aquatic invertebrates. The action of strychnine resembles those of tetanus toxin and of botulinum toxin [both produced by bacteria of the genus Clostridium]. Diazepam is considered the best form of treatment for victims of strychnine poisoning.
SENSES In small doses strychnine acts as a stimulant, rendering more acute the senses of touch, smell, and taste, and in particular auditory acuity and colour perception. One to two milligrams of strychnine “cause extension of the field of vision, including the blue-vision field, and enhanced capacity to distinguish fine gradations in the intensity of light. After a single two-milligram dose of strychnine this sharpening of the senses may persist for several days. With a larger dose, sensitiveness to light increases to photophobia.”1 Grimmer mentions ‘increased peripheric sensibility for blue’ as a symptom of Strychninum.
USES In the past strychnine has been used as an antiseptic, stomach tonic, circulatory stimulant, central nervous system stimulant, and as a medication for the relief of constipation. It was available until the 1970s as a component of some ‘nerve tonic’ preparations. Strychnine has been used in the 1960s as doping in sports, but it too often produced cramps as a ‘side effect’ to leave athletes undetected. Strychnine is still in limited use today as a bird, mammal, and insect control agent. It is primarily used in a cracked corn bait to eliminate unwanted bird populations, but occasionally other wildlife species are inadvertently poisoned. All animals are susceptible to strychnine poisoning, but birds are more frequently affected. Following ingestion, strychnine is rapidly absorbed through all mucous membranes esp. the stomach and small intestines and is rapidly eliminated by the kidney and liver. Birds affected by strychnine poisoning exhibit feathers fluffed or held tightly against the body, ataxia, wing droop, salivation, tremors, muscle tenseness, and convulsions. Death occurs as a result of respiratory arrest. No post-mortem lesions are observed with the exception of small pinpoint haemorrhages in the lungs resulting from death due to asphyxia. Rigor mortis occurs shortly after death and persists for days. 2 High concentrations [500 ppm] of soluble strychnine salts inhibit, and low concentrations [10 ppm] stimulate, germination and growth of cereal [Triticum].
PROVINGS •• [1] Robinson – 2 provers [1 female, 1male], 1868; increasing doses of ‘liquor strychniae’, 2-4 times daily for 7 days, after one week followed by intakes 4 times daily for 11 days [male prover]; single doses ranging from 15 to 35 drops of liquor strychniae with intervals of 3-4 days.
•• [2] Meyhoffer – 3 provers [2 males, 1 female]; increasing doses of 1x dil.
Allen includes about 160 toxicological reports.
[1] Schenk, The Book of Poisons. [2] Strychnine Poisoning; Michigan Wildlife Diseases; website.
Affinity
SPINAL CORD. RECTUM. Genito-urinary organs. BRAIN. Eyes.
Modalities
Worse: TOUCH. Noise. Motion. Exertion. Walking. After meals. Morning.
Better: Lying on back.
Main symptoms
M Resentment.
• “RESENTMENT against one’s fate [a persistent sense of unfairness or inequity]. Feeling of being trapped, of being stuck in their fate with no possible way out, giving rise to a great discontent.” [Sh]
Feeling of RESTRICTION.
• “Nobody is nice to me; everybody hates me; everybody is against me.” [Sh]
M Fear – panic.
• “FEAR [may be in the form of panic attacks that overshadow the resentment]. Episodes or attacks of panic. [Compare the sudden pains at intervals!] Fears of death, insanity or some terrible disease predominate, in addition to fear of the dark and fear of being alone in the dark.” [Sh]
• “Extreme nervous excitability.” [Allen]
• “A kind of internal twitching and nervous feeling, radiating as it were from pit of stomach.” [Hughes]
M Psychic entities.
• “Great sensitivity to certain impressions on the psychic plane. Sense of the existence of psychic entities, esp. those of a malevolent nature; leading to terror. They fear psychic attack, and this fear is expressed either directly or as a fear of the dark, esp. being alone in the dark.” [Sh]
• “Contrary to expectation there is no fear of ghosts. These subjects do not see things, they are neither clairvoyant nor clairaudient. They pick up physical energies through their nervous system, they sense something in the room, something which they often cannot articulate, but which terrifies them.” [Sh]
G HYPERSENSITIVE to DRAFTS of AIR.
G Sexual desire increased.
• “The female prover noticed a curious fact, viz. That any touch on the body, it mattered not where, excited a voluptuous sensation.” [Meyhoffer, cited in Hughes]
• “Thrilling sensation in vagina with momentary pulsation coming on at short intervals.” [Allen]
G < LEAST TOUCH.
SPASMODIC affections.
• “I have experimented with this alkaloid on myself and on two other persons, one of whom was a woman of lymphatic temperament. It always brought on electric shocks, occurring whenever the prover was touched, or whenever any one lightly shook the bed on which he or she was lying. This happened to all of us, only the lymphatic [and feeble] woman needed a stronger dose.” [Meyhoffer, cited in Hughes]
CRAMPING PAINS.
G < NOISE.
• “Every spasm seemed to him like an electric shock; the moving of a chair or any other noise, however trifling, gave rise to a spasm; he says it seems to him as if the noise itself were material, or that from the noise came something material down his spine; seems as if a stroke of lightning came to him from the place where the noise was produced; the slightest touch, even of a feather, upon his toe gave rise to a hard spasm; when no motion or noise occurred in the room or in the house, and nothing touched him, he seemed more quiet.” [Allen]
Every sound appears to beat at back of brain. [Hughes]
G Pains and sensations appear SUDDENLY, and return at intervals.
G TWITCHING here and there.
Twitching < touch.
G STIFFNESS.
• “This is a leading note of Stry. and Cooper gives “rheumatism with stiff joints” as an indication”. [Clarke]
G CHOREA, when the convulsions do not cease during sleep.
P Feeling as if head and face were enlarged.
[Hence Nux-v. and Stry. are remedies for the after-effects of debauches – Clarke.]
HANGOVERS.
P CHOKING sensation; as if the throat were squeezed from outside.
• “She felt and looked as if strangled.” [Allen]
[Sh] = Jonathan Shore, Strychninum; Homoeopathy International, Vol. 5 no. 3, Winter 1991-92.
See also: Shore, A new flower from an old seed: cultivating the materia medica; IFH 1991.
Rubrics
Mind
Answering, aversion to answer [2], hastily [1]. Being approached by persons < [1]. Delusions, sees dead persons [1], he was pursued by enemies [1]. Fear of being injured [2]. Desire for mental exertion [1]. Senses acute [1]. Painful sensitiveness to noise [1A], to the slightest noise [1A]. Starting when touched [1].
Head
Sensation of a cold skull-cap [1H].
Eye
Feeling of coldness in eyes [1G]. Pain, burning, < light [1G].
Vision
Colours, black sparks [1/1], green [1], red sparks [1], white sparks [1]. Large field of vision [1].
Ear
Noises, roaring, with vertigo, while lying [1G].
Teeth
Constant inclination to clench teeth together [1].
Stomach
Anxiety, radiating from pit of stomach [1H].
Rectum
Flatus smelling like fresh putty [1G].
Chest
Constriction, heart, grasping sensation [1H].
Back
Coldness, sacral region, as if iced [1H]. Pain, as if chopped in half about waist [1H]. Sensation of stiffness on bending head forward [1H].
Limbs
Motion hands towards face [1/1].
Chill
Internal, coldness in blood vessels [1G].
Generals
Convulsions, < draft [3]; epileptic, with bluish face [1]. Twitching, from touch [1], < touch [2].
* Repertory additions: [A] = Allen; [H] = Hughes; [G] = Grimmer, The Collected Works of Arthur Hill Grimmer.