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Ignatia Amara

 
 

 

 
 

IGNATIA

(St. Ignatius Bean)

 

 

Botanical name: Ignatius Amara.

 

Ignatia is a branching  tree with long, taper, smooth, scrambling branches.  The leaves are veiny, smooth and a span long.  The flowers are long, nodding and white, and smell like jessamine.  The fruit is small

And pear shaped and the seeds number about  twenty, are angular, and are imbedded in a soft pulp.

 

The tree is indigenous to the Philippine Islands, and the seeds thereof are the  'St. Ignatius' Bean of the           drug shops.  The bean yields its properties best to alcohol, but will also yield them to water.  It contains about one-third more strychina than nux-vomica, but is seldom used for the production of strychina on account of its extreme scarcity.

 

Considering its active ingredients i.e. Strychina, it produces a marked hyperaesthesia of all the senses and a tendency to clonic spasms.  Mentally, the emotional element is uppermost and co-ordination of function is interfered  with

 

Ignatia is one of the long list of our nervous remedies.  Its peculiar mental symptoms like those of Aconite, Chamomolla , Nux Vomica  and many others, are most characteristic.  Like these remedies, it seems to exalt the impressionability of all the senses; but unlike the others, it has in it a marked element of sadness, and disposition to silent grieving. Anyone suffering from suppressed, deep grief, with long drawn sighs, much sobbing, etc., and especially if inclined to smother or hide that grief from others, is just the subject for this remedy.  She desires to be alone with her grief.  Sighs much and seems so sad and weak.  The weakness is complained of right in the pit of the stomach.  She feels weak, faint, and  "all gone".

Another equally charactgeristic state of mind is a changeable mood.  No remedy can equal Ignatia, for this.  Aconite, Coffea, Nux Moschata and a few others have it, but Ignatia in the greatest degree. And so this remedy becomes one of our best in the treatment of hysterical affections.  The patient is at one time full of glee and merriment, to be followed suddenly with the other extreme, of melancholy sadness and tears, and so these states, of mind rapidly alternate.  Again, we have in Ignatia an impatient quarrelsome, angry mood(but not to the degree of Chamommila) at times. Again the Ignatia patient is, because of her excessive impressibility, easily frightened.  Here it becomes one of our bes remedies for the effects of fright, vying with Aconite, Opium and Veraturm album.  In short, Ignatia may justly be termed pre-eminently the remedy for moods. those gentle,

 

Kent says, Ignatia is frequently required and is especially suited to sensitive, delicate women and children; to hysterical women.  You will not cure the natural hysterics with Ignatia, but you will cure those gentle, sensitive fine fibred, refined, highly educate, overwrought women in their nervous  complaints  with Ignatia when they take on the complaints that are similar to such symptoms as come in Hysteria. The hysterical diathesis is one that is very singular and difficult to comprehend.  But a woman, when over-wrought and overexcited and emotional, will do things that she herself cannot account for.  She will do things as if she were crazy in her excitement.  Will do things she regrets, while the hysteric is always glad of it.  No matter how much foolishness there is in it she has only made an exhibition that she is proud of.  But our efforts go out for those who imitate them unconsciously.  Those who will to do well.

 

A women has undergone a controversy at home. She has been disturbed, is excited  and goes into cramps, trembles and quivers .Goes to bed with a headache.  Is sick.  Ignatia will be her remedy.  When she has great distress; un -required affections.  A sensitive, nervous young girl finds out that she has misplaced her affections; the young man has disappointed her; she has a weeping spell, headache, trembles, is nervous, sleepless; Ignatia will make her philosophical and sensible. A women loses her child, or her husband.  A sensitive, delicate woman, and she suffers from this grief.  She has headaches, trembles, is excited, weeps is sleepless; unable to control herself.  In spite of her best endeavors, her grief has imply torn her to pieces.  She is unable to control her emotions and her excitement.  Ignatia will quiet her and tide her over the present moment.  In all of these instances where all of these conditions brought on from such troubles keep coming  back , where your patient dwells upon them, dwells upon the cause, and the state keeps recurring, Natrum mur. Will finish up the case.  It will nerve  her up and help her to bear her sufferings.  Especially useful in constitutions that have been overwrought at school, in science, music, art.  Of course, it is natural for very sensitive girls to go into the arts, such as music, painting, etc.  A daughter comes back from Paris after a number of years close application to her music.  She is unable to do anything.  She flies all to pieces.  Every noise disturbs her.  She cannot sleep nights. Excitable, sleepless, trembles, jerks, cramps in the muscles; weeps from excitement, and from every disturbing word.  Ignatia will tone her up wonderfully.  Sometimes it will complete the whole case. But especially in these oversensitive girls is Naturm mur. very commonly the chronic.  It is the natural chronic of Ignatia.  When the troubles keep coming back, and Ignatia comes to a place when it will not hold any longer.

 

Another place where Ignatia and Naturm mur. run close together.  A sensitive, overtired girl, after she has been working in music, and in art, and in school, and has tired herself out, is unable to control her affections.  Her affections rest on some one whom she  would despise.  That may be a signular thing, one may not be able to understand it.  A sensitive girl, though who would not let anyone but her mother know of it, falls in love with a married man.  She lies awake nights, sobs.  She says, "Mother, why do I do that, I cannot keep that man out of my mind."  At other times a man entirely out of her stgation, that she is too sensible to have anything to do with, she just thinks about him.  Ignatia, if it is very recent, will balance up that girl's mind.  If not, Natrum mur. comes in as a follower.  We do not know half as much about the human mind as we think we do. We only know its manifestations.  These little things belong to this sphere of action of this medicine.  The one who knows the Materia Medica applies it in its breadth and its length, and sees in it that which is similar.

 

Ignatia has quivering in the limbs.  Nervous, tremulous excitement.  "Weakness of the body coming on suddenly.  Hysterical debility and fainting fits.  Fainting in a crowd."  It is especially useful in the tearful, nervous sad, yielding, sensitive minds.   "Jerking and twitching. Convulsive twitching ."  Children are convulsed in sleep after punishment. Convulsions in children  in the first period of dentition.  Spasm in children from fright. The child is cold and pale, and has a fixed staring look, like CINA.   " Convulsions with loss of consciousness.  Violent convulsions. Tetanic convulsions.  Tetanus after fight. Emotional chorea.  After fright, or grief."  Choreic girls.  Emotional epilepsy, or epilepticform manifestations. Paralytic weakness.   "Great mental emotion. "  Nursing; night watching.  A loss of one arm with as perfect paralysis as if it had come from a cerebral haemorrhage. In a few hours this passes off, and the arm is as well as ever.  That is a hysterical paralysis.  "Numbness of one or the other arm. Tingling and prickling in the arm."

 

Mind:

 

Mentally the patient does the most unaccountable and most unexpected things.  Seems to have no rule to work by , no philosophy, no soundness of mind, and no judgment.  The opposite of what would be expected, then will be found.  The patient is better lying on the painful side.  Instead of increasing the pain, it relieves the pain. He has a changeable mood; introspective, silently brooding. Melancholic, sad, tearful.  Not communicative. Sighting and sobbing.  After shocks grief, disappointment.

 

Head:

 

Ignatia, like its male partner, Nux Vomica,  is a great remedy for headaches of nervous, especially hysterically nervous, subjects.  That would be about the same as saying, that while Nux Vomica is adapted to nervous men Ignatia is the same for women, which is quite true.  You will remember that hysterical, nervous headaches are often one-sided.  Hence Ignatia is such an efficient remedy for headaches as expressed in these words:  "Headache as if a nail were driven out through the side of the head relieved by lying on it."  These headaches come on in highly nervous and sensitive subjects, or in those whose nervous systems have suffered from over anxiety, grief, or mental work. The ever-changeable and contradictory  so characteristic  of the drug show here as elsewhere.  Not only does the pain in head change localityh, but at one time the pain will come on gradually and abate suddenly (like Sulphuric acid),  or, like Belladonna, it will come on suddenly and abate as suddenly as it came.  Like Aconite, Gelsemium, Silicea and Veratrum album, the headache often terminates  with a profuse flow of urine. That is often the case in headaches of nervous hysterical women (Lac defloratum, profuse flow during headache.

Congestive headaches following anger or grief; worse smoking or smelling tobacco,alcohol,smokestooping, inclines head forward while it is sometimes relieved while eating, aggravated soon after.  The Ignatia headache is sometimes accompanied by hunger like that of Psorinum.  It is also<by cold winds, turning head suddenly, change of position, running, looking up long, moving the eyes noise and light.  It is > by warmth, lying on it, soft pressure, external heat and profuse flow of limpid urine.

 

Eyes:  Asthenopia, with spasms of lids and neuralgic pain about eyes (Nat. Mur.).  Flickering zigzags.

 

Face:- Twitching of muscles of face and lips. 

 

Mouth :Sour taste. Easily bites inside of cheeks.  Constantly full of saliva.  Toothacahe;< after drinking coffee and smoking .Some of the particularly valuable guiding symptoms of Ignatia, is "extreme aversion to tobacco smoke."[ This is a general aversion and aggravates many, many complaints.]

 

Throat:

 

Ignatia has some strong throat symptoms.  In the first  placae it has the so commonly observed symptom called "globus hystericus", or as if a lump came up from stomach into the throat as if she would choke.  She swallows it down but it comes right back and is very distressing.  It is especially apt to come if she gets grieved and wants to cry.  These are of course purely nervous sensations, but Ignatia goes further and also cures real serious affections of the throat like tonsillitis and diphtheria.  In these cases the real characteristic symptom is, that the pain and suffering in the throat is relieved by swallowing or is worse between the act of deglutition.(Capsicum).A very peculiar symptom for such troubles, for such cases are generally aggravated by swallowing, hence we would not expect to frequently find a case in which this would be the remedy. But such cases do arise occasionally and baffle us if we haven't  the remedy.  With Ignatia cases, in addition to the <  when not swallowing, there is sometimes < when swallowing liquids and > from swallowing solids.  This is like Lachesis, but is the reverse of Baptisia, which can swallow liquids only; the least solid food gags.  It is necessary to keep these correspondences and opposites in mind, for it often enables us top make what are called  "snap shot" prescriptions and save much time, study and sufferings.

 

Stomach:

 

"Weak, empty, all  gone feeling at the pit of stomach."  Sinking in stomach, > by taking a deep breath. In the case of Ignatia this symptom is apt to be accompanied by a disposition to sigh or take a long breath. Two other remedies have this symptom of goneness in the stomach as prominently as Ignatia.  They are Hydrastis and Sepia.  The other symptoms must decide between them.  This weak feeling in the stomach in Ignatia is sometimes described as a feeling of flabbiness, as though the stomach hung down relaxedIpecacuanha has a similar feeling. Sometimes we come across very severe cases of gastralgia.  In women of hysterical tendencies.  Here this remedy is the first to be thought of.

 

Abdomen:

 

Rumbling in bowels. Weak feeling in upper abdomen.  Throbbing in abdomen.(Aloes; Sang.)Colicky, griping pains in one or both sides of abdomen.

 

Rectum:

 

Ignatia has a positive action upon the anus and rectum as does Nux Vomica.  Prolapsus of the rectum is marked (Ruta G.) Like Nux Vom. It has frequent desire for stool, but in place of stool or with it comes the prolapsed rectum. The patient is afraid to strain at stool, to stoop down or lift, for fear of the prolapsus.  A contractive sore pain follows after a stool and lasts for hour or two.  This is like Nitric acid, which has the same symptom only after a loose stool.   There is also some pain in anus without reference to stool.  Dunham, that prince of observers, gave us the characteristic:  "Sharp pains shooting upwards into the rectum."(Sepia has similar pains in uterus.) Nash says that it is a gem, and has often been verified.  So we see that Ignatia is one of our important anal and rectal remedies.

 

Urine:  Profuse watery.

 

Respiratory:

 

Dry, spasmodic cough in quick successive shocks.  Spasm of glottis (Calc.) Reflex coughs.  Coughing increases the desire to cough.  Much sighing.  Hollow spasmodic cough, < in the evening, ,little expectoration, leaving   pain in trachea.

 

Female:

 

Supprssion of menses from grief. Menses, black, too early, too profuse,. Or scanty.  Spasmodic pains in stomach and abdomen during periods.  Feminine sexual frigidity.

 

Extremeties:

 

Jerking of limbs.  Pain in tendo-Achilles and calf.  Ulcerative pain in soles.

 

Sleep:

 

Insomnia from grief, .  Jerking of limbs on going to sleep.

 

Fever: Intermittent fever. Chronic cases that have resisted the Quinine treatment for years are often quickly and permanently cured by the 200th and upwards.

 

This remedy is very unique in its fever symptoms. The following symptoms indicate Ignatia:

Thirst during chill and in no other stage.

Chill relieved by external heat.

Heat < by external covering.

Red face during the chill .

 

These are the four legs to the stool and we may sit upon it in perfect confidence.  No other remedy has thirst during chill and in no other stage. In Nux vomica, you will remember, the chill is not relieved by the heat of the stove, or the bed and during the heat Nux vom must be covered, as the least uncoverings brings back the chill. So we see that notwithstanding the alkaloid of both drugs is strychnia they differ widely when we come to apply them to the cure of the sick.  Dr. Nash says that , "the red face during chill led him to the cure of an obstinate case, and after he noticed the red face he also noticed that the boy  was behind the stove in the warmest place he could find, the 200th promptly cured.  Two other cases in the same family, at the same time, and from the same malarious district, were cured, one by Capsicum 200 and the other by Eup. Per. Same potency.  The former had chill beginning between shoulders, in the latter the chill in the A.M. , great in bones before, and vomiting of bile at the end of the chill.

 

Skin:

 

Itching, nettle-rash(during fever). Very sensitive to draught of air.  Excoriation especially around vagina and mouth.

 

Modalities:

 

Worse: morning, emotions, grief, tobacco smoke coffee, Cognac, Smoking, Light touch

Better: Lying on the painful side, Warmth, Waling, Hard pressure, Swallowing.

 

Relations:

 

Incompatible with Nux vomica, coffea cruda and Tabacum

 

Naturm Mur is complementary.

 

Summary of indications:

 

Emotions problems(mostly of women)- chorea-headache.

 

Antidotes:

 

Acetic acid, Arnica, Chamomilla, Cocculus indicus, Pulsatilla nigricans.

 

 
 

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