Chamomilla

C H A M O M I L L A

Botanical name:German Chamomile.

Common name: Matricaria Chamomilla,(Aster family).

Medicinal Part: The flowers.

Description:

This is a perennial herb with a strong fibrous root.  The stems in a wild state are prostrate, but in gardens more upright, about , about a span long, round, hollow, furrowed and downy; the leaves pale green, pinnate, sessile, with thread shaped leaflets.  The flower heads terminal, rather smaller than the daisy, and of yellow color or whitish.

Chamomile is indigenous to Southern Europe, we have also a common or wild Chamomile (Anthemis Cotula)  growing in the United States, but it is not considered as good as the German Chamomile for medicinal purposes. The white flowers are the best; they have an aromatic, agreeably bitter taste and peculiar odor.  They yield their properties to alcohol and water.

The herbalists use this herb for flatulency, colic, cramps in the stomach and as mild sedative conditions.

 Homeopathically, it is a well proved  and widely used drug.

Constitutional taint:

That Chamomilla is a constitutional remedy is often not known. But it corresponds to sycosis and is suited to arthritic diathesis.  Swelling of prepuce(sycosis).  Excoriation at the edge of prepuce(sycosis).  So it has a sycotic taint.

Constitution:

  The general constitutional state of Chamomilla is great sensitiveness; sensitive to every impression, sensitive to surroundings; sensitive to persons and, above all, sensitive to pain. The constitutional irritability is so great that a little pain brings forth manifestations as if the patient were in very great suffering.  It naturally belongs to the woman's nervous system when she is wrought up and extremely sensitive and in pain.

  The mental state goes along with this.  Sensitiveness of  the  mind. Great irritability.   These two run through Chamomilla so closely that they are inseparable.  Easily affected by mortification (humiliation or indignation), by chagrin(a feeling of embarrassment or humiliation caused by failure or disappointment),so that the nerves become extremely sensitive from these causes and pains, convulsions, colic, headaches and other kinds of nervous symptoms set in.  The nervous child when punished will go into convulsion. The oversensitive nervous women will suffer from chagrin. Jerking and twitching of muscles  from mortification and excitement.  Excessive sensibility of the nerves, so excessive that only a few remedies equal it, such as Coffea, Nux Vom, and Opium. 

  Convulsions of children. Dr. Kent says that "it is not an uncommon thing, even now-a-days, and especially when practicing in the country,for the young mothers and nurses to give Chamomile tea for colic, and the baby goes into convulsions. No one attributes it to Chamomile tea, but the doctor will see at once; if he knows Chamomilla, that these convulsions are due to Chamomile."

Chamomilla is particularly suited to light or brown haired persons.  It is suitable to new-born children, and in particular to children during the period of dentition. It is adapted to diseases of pregnant woman- she says ,"Oh; I cannot bear the pain," during labor pains and a single dose of  Cham200 do the job.  Children who are mischievously disposed. Persons who are urgently inclined to remain lying . A Chamomilla patient is so sensitive to his ailments that he would rather die than to suffer from  them.

  Charles J. Hempel called this "the catnip of Homeopathy", because it was particularly adapted to nervous affections, especially children.  This is one of the remedies that finds its leading characteristic symptoms in the mind of the patient.  To "boil down" all the different ways in which the Chamomilla mind can be and is expressed:" The patient is cross ugly, spiteful, snappish. She knows it, admits it, and so do every one also.  She will return mean, uncivil, spiteful answers to her best friends, and then confess her fault, to repeat it again and again, and stoutly affirms she cannot help it, she feels so." This state of mind is always present in the marked Chamomilla case whether it be adult or child. Of course the young child cannot give vent to its feelings by talking so it comes as near to it as it can by whining and crying, sometimes it seems without cause, and also when it shows by fever, diarrhoea, teething and many other complaints that it is actually sick and suffering. It wants this or that thing, put out its little hand for it, and when it is offered pushes it away and points to something else, to reject it in turn.  Now the child does not know what it wants, but he homeopathic physician does.  It wants a dose of  Chamomilla.   This peevish disposition in which nothing pleases, takes possession of the child, mother, father or any and all grades and classes of subjects when Cham, is the remedy, and it is could in connection with all kinds of diseases.  It is also especially adapted to ailments brought on by fits of anger.  In short, it is the leading anger remedy of the Materia Medica.  The other leading anger remedies, or for ailments brought on by anger, are Aconite, Bryonia, Colocynth, Ignatia, Lycopoidium, Nux Vomica, Staphysgaria.

Notes and features:

Oversensitiveness:  This condition relates to pain and to the patient; pains seems intolerable and drives him or her to despair.

Numbness:  Numbness with pain. Numbness in affected parts.

Excoriation: Soreness of skin in children.  Excoriation(raw,chapped) about anus(in children). Corrosive leucorrhoea (watery, acrid).  Excoriation at the edge of prepuce

In nutshell Chamomilla is sensitive, irritable, thirsty, hot, and numb. Oversensitiveness from abuse of coffee and narcotics.

Boerricke says that A disposition that is mild, calm and gentle; sluggish and constipated bowels contra-indicate chamomilla.

Mind:  "Spiteful, sudden, or uncivil irritability." So irritable that the patient can hardly return a civil answer. Child exceedingly fretful, wants to be carried all the time to be quieted.  Oversensitive to pain (thinks that the pain is too severe to be borne) associated with great irritability.  Disposition to weep, and be angry, with great sensitiveness to offence. Whining restlessness. Impatient , intolerant of being spoken to  or interrupted.  Mental calmness contraindicates Chamom.

Face:  Yellow color of the skin of the face. Lips cracked , excoriated and ulcerated. One cheek red,

The other pale."One cheek red and hot, the other pale and cold" Face hot, rest of bold cold.  Red miliary eruptions on cheeks. Wrinkles on the forehead. Wrinkled skin of nose.

Head:  Throbbing headache in one-half of the brain. Inclined to bend head backward. Warm sweat about head.

Ears: Almost specific in infantile earache; the pains are violent, worse from  warmth, the cheeks are red, the patient is restless, fretful and there is great hyperaesthesia and much suffering.  Patient < at night and from slightest cold.

Eyes: There are pains in the eyes.  Inflammation of the eyes with bleeding.  Oozing of a bloody water from eyes of the new born infant.  Chammomilla will cure if there is irritability of the temper.  Profuse acrid discharges; pressure in the orbit.

Nose:Sensitive to all smells.  Sneezing , watery coryza with loss of smell . Loss of smell lasting while the cold lasts. Coryza with inability to sleep.

Mouth:  Toothache, if anything warm is taken> taking cold things.  from coffee. During pregnancy.  Nightly salivation. Teeth feel too long. Swollen gums.".  The little one has inflamed gums, painful gums , the coming forth of the teeth is painful, and it seems to want to prolong the cold in the mouth; when it is so young you would not think it would realize the good of making use of the cold edge of the glass.

Throat: Spasms of the throat.  Sore and inflamed.  Cham. Cures sore throat when the throat is of a uniform redness spreading pretty evenly over the whole throat, with considerable swelling.  Inflammation of tonsils.  Much redness; when the mental state is present.  It will never cure a sore throat except in these irritable constitutions, such as suffer from pain, such as are easily angered, in a constant fret.  The Cham. Mental state determines when you are to give Cham. In sore throat. 

Stomach: "Want of appetite. Great thirst for cold water and desire for acid drinks.  Unquenchable thirst."

Aversion to coffee, warm drinks, to soups and liquid foods. The aversion to coffee is a strange thing. Cham. And coffee are very much alike in the general sensitivity of the economy.  They antidote each other.  When persons have been overdrinking coffee, nurses drinking coffee to keep up at night to take care of the patients; persons overdrinking coffee when tired and overworked, Cham. Is its antidote.

Cham. Has much vomiting. Eructations of gas which smells like sulphuretted hydrogen. Regurgitaion of food. Buitter, bilious vomiting. Pressive gastralgia as from a stone.   Tongue yellow, tastes bitter.

Abdomen: Colic, especially in the little ones, in the infants.  Pain in the stomach and abdomen. The child doubles, up, and screams, and kicks; wants to be carried; is extremely irritable ; attack comes on one the evening; one side  of the face is red, the other side pale, wants things and when they are given does not want them and you have a Cham colic.

Stool:-  Stools green,( like grass green) watery, corroding, like chopped eggs in spinach; hot, very offensive, like rotten eggs with colic.  Diarrhoea during dentition. Haemorrhoids, with painful fissures.

Female: The woman, as already described above, arre oversensitive to  pain, snappish, suffering intensely from a little pain, takes on many symptoms at the menstrual perilod.  The menstrual flow is black, clotted, offensive.  Cramping pains in the uterus, clutching and griping, > by heat.  Menstrual colic following anger. It is a very useful remedy in membranous dysmenorrhoea.  It, perhaps has existed from the first menstrual period.

In pregnancy the woman has also Cham. conditions. Irregular contractions; false labor pains. Labor pains that are felt in wrong places. Labor pains that are felt too much in the back. Contractions that are most painful, cutting , tearing, bringing our screams. So irritable, she scolds the pains, she scolds the doctor, she scolds every body; drives the doctor of the room, drives the nurse off, and then calls for her again; refuses things that are offered. Here is the time when Chammomila  help.  After confinement ., after pains. Post partum haemorrhage.  Every time the child is put to the breast cramping of the uterus; cramp in the back. The two principal remedies you will have to rely on for these two conditons, cramping in the back and cramping in the abdomen every time the child is put to the breast, are Chammomilla and Pulsatilla.   They two decidely different remedies in the mental sphere. One is mild and gentle, though whimsical; and the other is snapish and irritable.  Both are sensitive to pain but Chamommila is far more sensitive to pain than Pulsatilla. Nipples  inflamed. Infants breasts tender.  Yellow acrid leucorrhoea (Ars.Sep.Sulph.).

Respiratory: Irritable, dry tickling cough- with tickling in supersternal fossa < at night.  The child goes to sleep at night and coughs and does not wake up.  It is a little feverish, has taken cold and one side of the face is flushed. Most of the complaints of Chamomilla are > after midnight, getting warm at the bed.From 9 o' clock to midnight they are worse. It is  common remedy for whooping cough when the child wants to be carried ; keeps nurse busy all the time.

Kent says that you can now easily detect the chest symptoms. They go with the mental symptoms and the irritability and cough.

Back: Insupportable pain in loins and hips.  Backache, stiffness of neck muscles.

Extremities: Violent rheumatic pains in the limbs[which drive him out of bed at night; compelled to walk about] and sometimes in other parts, but  deadness, pains accompanied by a benumbed feeling, sometimes almost complete loss of sensation of the skin, yet the pains in the long nerves, in the extremities are very  violent and patient seems just as sensitive to pain as at other times.  Extremely sensitive to pain, but the pains themselves cause a benumbing feeling to follow them.It has been called in the older books as "a paralyzing pain". "Cramps in the legs and calves. Tearing pains in the feet following a severe chill. Burning of the soles at night; puts the feet out of bed(Sulphur)All the routine prescribers whenever the patient is known to put the feet  out of bed give Sulphur, yet there is a large list of remedies with hot feet, burning soles and all of them will put the feet out of bed, of course, to cool them off.  There is no reason why they should all get Sulphur..Nightly paralytic loss of power in the feet, unable to step on them.  Ankles give way in the afternoon.

Sleep:Drowsiness with moaning, weeping and wailing during sleep; anxious, frightened dreams, with half-open eyes.

Thermal:  The Chamommila patient in general state,  is chilly and is better by heat. The pains in general are better by heat. In particulars the pains of teeth and jaws are < heat.(Dr.Kent).

Desires:Excessive thirst for cold drinks

.

Aversions: Want of appetite and dislike to food.

Aggravating influences:  Worse from damp; cold weather, Dreads wind to a great extent. The patient is better by heat, although warmth aggravates most symptoms.

Ameliorating factors.: The patient is better from warm, wet weather.  Desire for open air and yet oversensitive to itChild is happy when carried about.

Comparisons:  Chammomilla has one cheek red and hot, the other cold and pale.  This is like Acon., Mosch., Nux v.  It is only Digitalis which has one hand hot, the other cold. "One foot hot, while the other is cold." is a peculiar symptom which belongs to Lycopodium.

Drug relationship:   Complementary to Bell., Mag. Carb.

Potency: 30, 200