St. Petersburg, Florida.
Synonym: Full, hard pulse.
Terminology: English: High blood pressure. German: Cross spanning.
Spanish. Hypertension, Italian: Hypertension.
The inequality of the blood pressure does not constitute a special disease, but a pathological condition which is met in a great number of diseases and which plays a more and more important role in modern therapeutics. It is important then, to keep an eye on it, and it is not exaggeration to say that it is wise to examine ones blood pressure from time to time for the enjoyment of long life.
In a number of disease the measurement of the pressure facilitates the choice of the remedy. At the very onset we will group some medicaments together, and eliminate others that are similar, but absolutely useless, if not harmful.
In conserving the ordinary symptomatology of the remedy, one also adds a characteristic symptom which dissipates the uncertainty, and then proceeds more surely and directly to the suitable medicine. Thus, a remedy is not prescribed for a fever.
There are fevers with hypertension and fevers with hypotension. there is a group of remedies for sthenic fevers and a group of remedies for adynamic fevers: and even if the remedy suits all the symptoms, one tends to be mistaken if the remedy aggravates the blood pressure already charged. For example, ACONITE is a remedy for hypertension; it is useless and harmful to employ ACONITE in diseases with hypotension, even the other symptoms indicate ACONITE.
In disease of the heart and blood vessels, in some conditions of the lungs, without taking into account a number of other diseases, the study of the blood pressure becomes the key to the therapeutics. It is important that the homoeopathic school of practice should not remain behind in this modern research, and in the face of the practice of contraries by the dominant school.
For the regulation of the blood pressure, we are able to offer the action of similars, that is to say, the cure of hypertension by hypertensors, and of hypotension by hypotensors. How do we arrive at such opposite conclusion? By the modification of the doses. A substance which is hypertensive in strong doses becomes hypotensive in feeble doses or vice versa. One can almost be sure that not a single agent exist which changes the pressure that does not show opposed phenomena during various phases of its action.
This confirmation of physiological law is admitted by all physiologists and therapeutics who use the contrary action a poison according to its degree of intoxication. This fundamental law if found again in therapeutics: the same remedy which is hypotensive in large doses becomes hypertensive in small (homoeopathic) does and vice versa.
Let us then consider a certain number of substances having an action on the blood pressure, and study their degree of homoeopathicity according to three points: 1st. their action as modifiers of the pressure in the category of hypertensors or of hypotensors; 2nd. their affinity for certain organs-kidneys, lungs, brain, uterus, etc; 3rd. their mode of action: nerve poisons, muscle poisons, of the myocardium, or of the muscular walls of the arteries, vaso-constrictor or vaso-dilators of the arterioles, etc.
This is not all: a system of glands having internal secretions (the suprarenal capsules, pituitary gland, thyroid gland) play a role in this regulation.
There are even external secretions which modify the tension in the vessels: bile for example, and spermine. It is then an ensemble of phenomena which contributes in the regulation of this tension, and the last word is not yet said on his subject.
We will consider substances having a hypertensive action and consequently homoeopathic to this condition.
ACONITUM NAPELLUS stands at the top, perhaps the principal medicament in the present condition of homoeopathic science for acting quickly in cases of acute hypertension. In always remains useful in the acute phases of chronic hypertension or at the beginning of treatment. Clinical experience confirms it every day, and there are numerous cases where the blood pressure has fallen as measured by the sphygmomanometer.
POUCHET in his PHARMACODYNAMICS say “ACONITE, and especially ACONITE, have an influence on the peripheral circulation through nervous system which is shown by its effects on the heart and circulation. The contractility of the myocardium is conserved during the whole duration of the action of Aconitine.
At the beginning, the pulse is full, vibrant, with more or less marked rhythmic contractions to such a degree that there is a persistence of the contractility of the myocardium even at a late period. In nearly all sphygmographic tracings reported, an increase of the force and number of contractions have even doubled the primary rhythm. At the beginning, under the influence of very small doses, the blood pressure increases and later it still increases. It is only in the last phase of its action that one observes a circulatory depression.”.
In our homoeopathic school, Hahnemann, in 1796, spoke of it in Hufelands Journal, and later, i 1811, in his Materia Medica mentions a group of drug that would produce alternate chills and heat, at the head of which he placed ACONITE.
At that time we were far from the modern science of today, but Hahnemann in his time had some idea of it.
He clearly indicated the circulatory action of ACONITE. Since Hahnemann, all homoeopaths have prescribed Aconite, being guided by the indications of a full, bounding, vibrating pulse: so when bleeding was done for almost everything, Aconite was called the homoeopathic lancet.
This action of ACONITE has not failed for a century and it is astonishing that most physicians hardly ever use the hypertensive action of Aconite.
It may by summed up by this expression: for acting quickly and rapidly in a case of acute hypertension, nothing equals it. Aconite is then suitable for acute cases which still have no profound lesions; for in its intoxication the changes in the tissues are not very evident if at all. Its power is entirely functional; it poisons the cerebro-spinal nervous system. Congestion of the endocardium and pericardium may be found, but it has not produced arterial lesions like the chloride of barium, adrenaline, lead, tobacco, etc.
As Dr. Richard Hughes said, the predominating condition for the use of Aconite is one of tension: tension of the pulse, tension of the arteries, tension of the pulse, tension of the arteries, tension of the arterioles, which causes the characteristic tingling of the extremities, of the fingers and of the tongue caused by excitation of the sensibility of the peripheral organs. Its points of election, outside of the peripheral organs are the brain and nervous centers. Aconites mental characteristics are great anxiety, restlessness, fear, and fear of death.
This subject of hypertension shows in a remarkable way the excellent properties of Aconite in the first stage of fever, in the sthenic period, congestive, with the skin hot and burning, the pulse full, tense, bounding and frequent, the real period of febrile hypertension. I would emphasize also the premonitory period of chills; where vaso-constriction of capillaries raises the tension in the larger vessels.
ACONITE always remains the first remedy for reducing blood pressure, and it prevents subsequent congestion.
Thanks also to the study of blood pressure, we are warned of the uselessness of Aconite in adynamic fevers where hypotension is marked: Aconite becomes then a danger. For examples, Aconite must be listed as always contraindicated in typhoid fever, because it is a fever with hypotension.
I would always recommend Aconite for the sthenic heart which is overworked and which lead to hypertrophy, and even in the clearly confirmed hypertrophy of youth. Nothing equals. Aconite in these forms of cardiopathies where the heart still has not undergone degeneration.
The impulse of the blood waves is felt throughout the arterial system; beating of the carotid arteries, pulse bounding, dilatation and elongation of the arteries; the patient complains of palpitation, constriction, suffocation, precordial anxiety, attacks of dyspnoea.
It remained for the sphygmomanometer to verify the action of Aconite in homoeopathic doses. Examples of the reduction of a blood pressure form 180mm- 200mm. to normal, and others lowered somewhat, but not to normal. These observations have been confirmed many times. How long does the action of Aconite last? That is difficult to say. The duration of the action of a remedy varies according to the disease.
A hypertension without lesions can be cured in an illimitable way. In arteriosclerotic individuals we can lower the blood pressure for several days or weeks, perhaps some months in certain cases, but the arteries bring a return of the hypertension.
I would also like to mention the remarkable action of Aconite in the strained heart or asystole without lesion. Nothing is more illuminating than the comparison of the overworked heart with the proving of Aconite. We can help runners, athletes, fliers, and all persons who overwork their hearts with this remedy given in potentized form. “These sportsmen have early or confirmed hypertension and gradually develop asystole and a dangerous hypotension.
