BERBERIS VULGARIS
Common Name:-
Barberry.
Medicinal Part:-
Bark and berries.
Description:-
Barberry is an erect
deciduous shrub, from three to eight feet high, with
leaves of an obovate-oval form, terminataed by soft
bristles, about two inches long, and one-third as wide.
The flowers are small and yellow in clusters, and the
fruit bright-red oblong berries, in branches, and very
acid.
This shrub is found in the New England
states, on the mountains of Pennylvania and Virginia,
among rocks and hard gravelly soil. Occasionally it is
found in the West on rich grounds. It flowers in April
and May, and ripens its fruit in June. Its active
principle is berberine.
Properties and uses:
It has been used by the herbologists as tonic and
laxative. The berries form an agreeable acidulous
draught, useful as a refrigerant ; the bark of the root
is the most active ; a teaspoonful of the powder will
act as a purgative. A decoction of the bark or berries
will be found of service as a mouth was or gargle.
Homeopathically
it is one of the excellent remedy for the following
ailments:-
Urinary disorders
-
Renal colic/kidney stones or Gall-stones-
Rheumatic and
other locomotor disorders-
polyneuropathy
Constitutional taint:-
Tuberculous.
"Phthisical
condition."
Action:
This remedy affects particularly the lumbar region;
kidneys; uterus. The patient is sometimes unable to tell
the exact locality, but the pain is somewhere in the
back, and shoots up the back; or into the spermatic
cord, or testes, bladder, buttocks, or legs. The pain
may shoot up or down, or both ways. Pains all over the
body, emanating from the region of the back; sticking,
pinching, pricking lancinating or jerking character,
flying about, now here and now there. There is often a
bubbling sensation in the region of the kidneys; this
sensation may occur elsewhere, but it is usually found
here.
Typical subjects:
Persons of bilious diathesis. Gouty and rheumatic
patients. Old gouty constitutions. Persons who are
mentally and physically fatigued.
"Prematurely
old and
wrinkled men and women."
Acts well in fleshy pesons, good livers, but with little
endurance."
Cases where renal and vesical symptoms are prominent.
Notes and features:-
1. Bruised pain, with numbness, stiffness
and lameness in region of kidneys< in bed in the
morning.
2.Soreness
in the regionl of the kidneys; bubbling sensation, <
stepping or jarring motion.
Typical pains:
Berberis is all pains. Everything expresses
itself in pain, particularly pains in lumbar region,
kidney, ureter, bladder, urethra, spermatic cords.
Pains wander and fly about from place to place;
appear and disappear and as they appear they cause the
patient to
"scowl
and make a sharp noise. Pains shoot up and down or both
ways. They fly at no particular direction. Then there
are radiating pains, that is to say, they raidate
from one point. . Rheumatism or pains, like
gouty pains in the joints; the pains raidate from a
centre.
Characteristic peculiarities:
Rapid change of symptoms
-pains
change in regard to place and character, so that we have
thirst alternating with thirstlessness, hunger with loss
of appetite,"
etc. Bubbling sensatin or bubbling stitches. Paralytic
weakness in some parts. Great lassitude, increased by
walking, or by remaining long in a standing posture.
Sinking after the slightest effort. Heels pain as if
ulcerated on standing. Cold sensation in various parts,
as if spattered with cold water.
Side affinity:
Renal colic, worse left side. Painful
shootings in left side of chest.
Mind:-Indifferent,
calm, apaathetic. Intectual Labours prove fatiguing, es.
In morning. Mind weak, forgetful.
Head:-
Listless, apathetic, indifferent. Puffy sensation,
feeling as if becoming larger. Vertigo with attacks of
fainting. Frontal headache. Chilliness in back and
occiput. Tearing pain in auricle, and gouty concretions.Sensation
of a tight cap pressing upon the whole scalp.This
symptom is not always described like a cap on the head.
It is convertible into numbness of the scalp;
many patients describe a sensation of numbness in the
scalp as if they had on a cap. Sometimes the patients
will deny that it is a sensation of numbness and say it
is just a cap. At one time Dr. Kent says,
"I fully believed the "cap" belonged to two sensations.
If it was painful I placed it under "pressure".If
it was not painful it was supposed to belong to "numbness",
but I have now made a new rubric "the sensation of skull
cap," which I think is entirely distinctive, from
numbness; but they both have to be compare.
Nose:-
Dry; obstinate catarrh of left nostril. Crawling in
nostrils.
Face:/Appearance:
Face
"usually
expressive of deep-seataed diseases.".
Small pustules in the lips. Great paleness of face,
dirty grey complexion, with hollow cheeks and sunken
eyes, surrounded by a bluish or dark grey circle.
Aspect, one of the great and prolonged dejection.
Eyes:-Gouty
conditions of eyes with stitching, tearing pains,
twinging pains, shooting pains . Shooting off in various
directions.
As already described above, there is one
grand feature about Berberis that it has no
particular direction; it has all directions. Most
remedies have pains taking a direction from one part to
the other; pains going from the eye to the temple, etc.
but in Berberis, it cannot be said the pain go to
any place in particular
Mouth
:-Sticky sensation. Diminished saliva. Sticky, frothy
saliva, like cotton (Nux Moschata). Tongue
feels scalded, vesicles on tongue.
Stomach:-
Nausea before breakfast. Heartburn.
Abdomen:-
Stitches in region of gall-bladder; worse, pressure,
extending to stomach. Catarrh of the gall-bladder with
constipation and yellow complexion. Stitching pain in
front of kidneys extending to liver, spleen, stomach,
groins, Poupart's ligament. Sticking deep in ilium.
Gall stone Colic:
These pains with jaundice. The liver seems to slow down
in its actions; and the patients becomes jaundiced.
Sharp pains in the liver which come suddenly and with
great severity. Violent stabbing pain in the region of
the liver-taking his breath away. Had to bend double.
These pains last a moment and pas away. In gall stone
colic pains are spasmodic, increase in intensity and
diminish, but do not let up entirely. Berberis when it
is indicated, will let the little gall stone loose; and
it will pass through, and the patient will take a long
breath and wish he had sent for the doctor sooner.
Anything that is spasmodic can be relieved instantly.
Stool:-
Constant urging to stool. Diarrhoa painless, clay-colored,
burning, and smarting in anus and perineum. Tearing
around anus.. Fistula in ano-Burning
pain during after the stools.
Urinary
(I)
kidneys:
Burning and Soreness in the lumbar region in the
region of the kidneys- one or both on account of which
he can bear no pressure. BUBBLING SENSATION,in the
region of the kidneys< STEPPING OR JARRING MOTION.He
cannot step down from a carriage to the pavement without
letting himself down very carefully. A jar is a great
shock to him and sometimes the soreness is so great that
he almost faints. Soreness in the back --in the muscles
of the back, and in the region
-5-
of the kidneys; and this associated with
all sorts of disturbances in the urine, with excessive
deposites. And then the formation of little
calculi in the pelvis of the kedne, little stones like
pinheads and everyh now and then one of them takes a
start down the ureter to the blader and , oh, how he
suffers.
2.Urinary:-
Then it is tht the pains in the kidneys radiate in every
direction. Pain run up into the kedneys and down into
the baldder. The bladder becomes irritable. Catarrhal
conditions of the bladder. Smarting burning stitching
pains.Pain in the bladder region. Pain in the
thighs and loins on urinating. Frequent urination.
Urethra buirns when not urinating.
Urine withthick mucus and bright red
Male:-
Neuralgia of spermatic cord and testicles. Smarting,
burning, stitching in testicles, in prepuce and scrotum.
Burning pains in the genital area.Enlargement of the
prostrate gland which causes a constnt pressure in the
perineum. Pressure as if there were a lump or as if
something was pressing down.
Female:-
Berberis fits a woman who is tired, with a goutyh
constitution; though not old in years she is physically
tired; so tht all of her domestic affairs fret and tire
her. Coition becomes painful and she has an aversion to
it. The orgasm is delayed or is entirely absent and she
is prostrated by it. In all the affairs of her innermot
life she is a drudge. Full of twinging pains in all of
her nervds. Burning in the female urethra. Burning
pain in the vagina. A lack of sensation normal
to these parts in the woman. Menses scanty, gray mucus,
with pain in kidneys and chilliness, pain down thighs.
Leucorrhoa, grayish mucus, with painful urinary
symptoms. Neuralgia of ovaries and vagina.
Respirataory:-
Hoarseness; polypus of larynx. Tearing stitches in chest
and region of heart.
Back:-Stitches
in neck and back; worse, respiration. Sticking pain in
region of kidneys radiating thence around abdomen, to
hips and groins. Numb, bruised sensation. Stitches from
kidneys into bladder. Tearing, sticking with stiffness,
making rising difficult, involving hips, nates, limbs,
with numbness. Lumbago (Rhus Tox, Tar.em)
Metatarsus and metacarpus feel sprained. Post-operative
pain in lumbar region; soreness with sharp pain
following course of circumflex iliac nerve to bladder
with frequent urination.
Extremities:-
Rheumatic paralytic pain in shoulders, arms, hands and
fingers, legs and feet. Neuralgia under finger nails,
with swelling of finger-joints. Sensation of cold on
outside of thighs. Heels pain, as if ulcerated.
Stitching between metatarsal bones as from a nail when
standing. Pain in balls of feet on stepping. Intense
weariness and lameness of legs after walking a short
distance.{Rheumatic and gouty
disorders,with diseases of the urinary organs).
Skin:-
Flat warts. Itching, burning and smarting;
worse, scratching, better, cold applications. Small
pustules over whole body. Eczema of anus and
hands. Circumscribed pigmentation- following
eczematous inflammation.
Fever:-Cold
sensation in various parts, as if spattered with cold
water.[Cannabis
Sativa
has characteristic sensations as of dropping of water-especialy
on or from the head, the anux, stomach, heart region]
Warmth in lower part of back, hips, and thighs.
Modalities:
Worse:
motion,standing Waling or riding in a
vehicle; sudden jarring movement-. It brings on, or
increases, urinary complaints.
Better:
With rest.
Relations:
Similar to Cantharis, Lycopodium Clavatum,
Sarsaparilla and Tabacum in renal colic. Acts
well after Arnica
Montana, Bryonia alba, kalium Bich, Rhus
tox
and
Sulphur
in rheumatic affections.
SUMMARY OF INDICATIONS:-
Urinary disorders
-
Renal colic/kidney
stones or Gall-stones-
Rheumatic and other
locomotor disorders-
polyneuropathy
Dose:-Tincture,
to sixth potency.
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