GELSEMIUM.
Leaders.
(1) Fever without thirst.
(2) Chilliness. (Bapt).
(3) Great heaviness of eyelids, cannot keep them open.
(4) Pulse slow, accelerated by motion.
(5) First stage, comparatively mild cases.
(6) Patient feels sore and bruised all over as if pounded.
(7) Dread of motion, headache, drowsiness.
(8) Red face.
(9) Patient dull and apathetic.
(10) Trembling of limbs and tongue.
(11) Dizziness, Drowsiness and dullness.
(12) Muscular weakness, complete relaxation and prostration.
(13) Desire to be quiet, to be left alone.
(14) Delirious on falling asleep.
(15) Wants to have head raised on pillow.
(16) Pain in muscles of back, hips, and lower extremities, mostly deep-seated.
Mind: Confusion of mind; cannot collect his thoughts (Bapt.).
Great irritability, does not wish to be spoken to.
Liveliness, followed by depression of spirits (Lach.).
Confused, dazed, dull or indifferent, answers slowly.
Irritable, sensitive, excitable.
Desire to be quiet, to be left alone, does not wish to speak, nor have any one near her for company, even if the person be silent.
Fear of death.
Delirium in sleep, half waking, with incoherent talk.
Desires to be left alone.
Loquacity, brilliant eyes.
Solicitude about the present.
Bad effects from great fright or fear.
Delirium occurring soon as sleep comes on.
Drowsiness. Dizziness. Dullness.
Dullness, languor, listless.
Apathy regarding his illness.
Incapacity to think or fix attention.
Unconnected ideas.
Acts as if crazy.
Stupor, cannot open the eyes.
Confusion, when attempting to move, the muscles refuse to obey the will.
Dread of being alone.
Head: Vertigo spreading from occiput.
Staggering as if intoxicated when trying to move.
Light-headed and dizzy, worse by sudden movement and walking.
Giddiness as if intoxicated, as if he should fall down.
Dizziness and blurred vision.
Giddiness with loss sight, chilliness accelerated pulse, dullness of vision, double vision.
Head feels big as a bushel.
Severe pain in forehead and vertex, dim sight, roaring in ears.
Head feels enlarged. (Bapt.).
Wild feeling.
Fullness in the head, heat of face, chilliness, pulsation of the carotids (Bell.).
Thick speech.
Brain feels as if bruised (Bapt.).
Eyeballs feel raw when moving them. Double vision.
Heaviness of the head, relieved by shaking the head; better after profuse urination.
Dull dragging pain in occiput, mastoid, and upper cervical regions, extending to shoulders better quietly resting the head on a high pillow, with eyes half closed; eyes heavy, sleepy, red.
Scalp sore.
Sensation of a band around head above ears.
Sensation of contraction of skin in the middle of the forehead.
Wants to have head raised on a pillow.
Feeling of expansion (Bapt.).
Eyes: Eyes feel bruised. Double vision.
Pupils dilated. Eyeballs sore.
Eyes look heavy.
Eyelids heavy; can hardly open then or keep them open.
Aversion to light; more to candle light.
Blind spells.
Ears: Sudden loss of hearing, rushing and roaring.
Nose: Epistaxis.
Face: Red. Crimson flush of face. Suffused red face. Heat of the face with fullness of the head, and cold feet. Hot, heavy, flushed, besotted-looking (Bapt. Op.). Dusky hue of face with vertigo and dim vision. Facial muscles contracted especially around mouth.
Chin quivers.
Lower jaw dropped.
Hot to touch (Bapt. Bell. Op.).
Mouth: Lips dry, coated with dark mucus.
Lips dry, hot and coated.
Tongue: Coated yellowish-white with fetid breath.
Thick coating of the tongue.
Tongue red, raw, painful, Numbness of the tongue, feels so thick he can hardly speak.
Thick brown coated tongue.
Tongue red, raw, painful in centre, can hardly protrude it.
The tongue trembles if he attempts to protrude it.
Tongue yellowish-white or thick brown.
Tongue nearly clean.
Tongue, margin red, centre white.
Can hardly put tongue out, it trembles so.
Saliva: blood-coloured; coloured yellow.
Putrid taste and fetid breath.
Mouth dry.
Thirst: No thirst.
Abdomen: Tenderness in right iliac region.
Sensation of soreness of abdominal walls.
Distention of abdomen with pain and nausea.
Rumbling.
Stool: Diarrhoea, bilious, fermented with much flatus and great nervous weakness more than stools could cause.
Stools painless or involuntary.
Cream-coloured, tea-green.
Soft stool is passed with difficulty.
Stools loose, colour of tea, dark-yellow.
Clay-coloured stool. Yellow fecal.
Urine: Relieves headache.
Profuse, clear, watery with chilliness and tremulousness.
Limbs: Pains in head, back and limbs
Cold hands and feet with chilliness.
Legs and arms tremble when moving, with some chilliness.
Extreme prostration, trembling, weak and nervous.
Trembling from weakness.
Muscles refuse to obey the will.
Sore and bruised all over (Bapt.) as if he had been pounded, dreads to move, on account of weakness.
Feeling of expansion, as though the head or some part of body were enormously enlarged (Bapt.).
Dull pain in back part of head; pain in neck, in limbs. Drowsiness.
Sensation as though the skin at the middle of the forehead and about the face were contracted; contraction of the muscles of face, difficult to talk.
Bruised sensation all over the body as if resulting from severe bodily exertion.
Pulsations of carotid arteries. Powerless condition of lower extremities.
Putrid breath and fetid taste.
Coldness of wrists and hands.
Hands dry and hot, especially the palms.
Fevers where muscular power is affected, patient feels so utterly without power.
Muscles feel bruised and do not obey the will.
Trembling in all limbs.
Deep-seated, dull aching in the muscles of the limbs and in the joints.
Fatigue of the lower limbs after slight exercises. Loss of muscular power in legs; they will not obey the will; Staggering.
Palms hot and dry.
Coldness of extremities, especially of the feet with anguish and pain in legs.
Wants to lie still.
Resting on high pillow, head better.
Pains in legs better motion.
Trembling of hands when lifting them up.
Loss of voluntary motion.
Calves of legs feel bruised.
Sleep: Delirious as soon as he falls asleep.
Awakened by headache and colic.
Drowsy, dim sight; a kind of drunken stupor.
Stupor in beginning of fever.
Languid, drowsy, but cannot compose the mind for sleep.
Wakeful or lies in a half awake state, with incoherent talk.
Fever heat, with drowsiness, languid, wants to lie still (Bry. Nux-v).
Pulse: Slow, but greatly accelerated by lifting or turning the patient. Chilliness, full and flowing pulse.
Aggravation: From any movement or touch. From fluids. Damp weather: fog; before thunderstorm. When thinking of his ailment. 10 A.M.
Smoking tobacco (Headache). Fright.
Bad news. When spoken to of his loss.
Summer heat. 4 to 8 P.M.
Spring. Lifting arms.
From sudden change from hot or dry to damp air.
Amelioration: Stimulants. Cool open air; Heat (Headache). Urination. Bending forward. Continued motion. Sweating. Mental effort. Shaking head (heaviness of head). Covering (during fever) Rest.
Quotations: “Heat principally on head and face.”.
“Profuse perspiration relieving the pains.”.
“The mind is sluggish, the whole muscular system is relaxed; the limbs feel so heavy he can hardly move them. This condition exists in the cases of typhoid that call for it; the lassitude is expressed by the patient; with Mur. ac. there is the lassitude, but the patient does not express it.”.
“Trembling of the tongue, which is one indication for Gels., in typhoid, in which it is a leading remedy. The tongue is only thinly coated, and has not the dark streak of the Bapt. tongue. The Gels. face is flushed crimson but not quite as besotted as that of Bapt. there is excessive weakness and trembling but the consciousness is not so clouded.”.
“Typhoid, sore bruised sensation all over the body; early stages, dread of motion, drowsy, red face.”.
“In Typhoid the early and great prostration; the mental confusion, soft feeble pulse; trembling and great weakness with lack of thirst call for Gels.”.
“Typhoid; stage of invasion with sense of extreme prostration; trembling from weakness, muscles refuse to obey the will.”.
Gels. usually precedes Bapt. when there are malaise and muscular soreness, and the patient suffers from chills and creeps, which go down back. This is on the first day, remember, In the afternoon comes the fever with accelerated pulse, this being full and flowing, not tense and resisting as under Aco.
The fever is usually associated with drowsiness; the face is red in colour, uniformly suffused: and even as early in the case as this there may be prostration. Weakness of muscles. By the next afternoon, if the fever rises, despite Gels, you may change to Bapt; provided the above mentioned symptoms develop.
Both (Bapt and Gels.) have this intense muscular soreness and prostration; both have drowsiness and nervous excitement, with prostration; both have this feeling of expansion, as though head or some part of the body were enormously enlarged; and both have afternoon exacerbation of the fever. The relation between the two drugs is one of degree or intensity. Gels. is the milder acting drug of the two.”.
“In typhoid fever Gels. is indicated, particularly in the initial stages; when, during the first week, the patient feels sore and bruised all over as if he had been pounded. He dreads to move. He has headache. More than that he has loss of muscular power. He is drowsy, and has suffused red face.”.
Calcutta