Actea racemosa
Actaea racemosa · Plant · Ranunculaceae
Actaea racemosa is especially suited to women of nervous, rheumatic constitution who suffer from characteristic mental gloom — a sense that everything is overshadowed by a dark cloud. The remedy is indicated where menstrual disturbances, spinal irritation, and emotional volatility occur together, with the patient alternating between loquacity and despondency.
Key symptoms
- Sense of gloom and dejection as if a black pall hung over everything
- Incessant talking, rapidly changing from subject to subject
- Severe back, spinal, and musculoskeletal pains in women
- Menstrual irregularities and disorders during pregnancy or climacteric
- Chorea and tremors with nervous excitability
- Rheumatic pains alternating with mental symptoms
- Fear of death; hysteria and hypochondriasis
- Hyperpyrexia; cerebro-spinal meningitis
Introduction
This remedy has been only meagerly proved, yet there are a few useful points in it.
From its proving we can perceive that it is similar to diseased states in the human family, and especially in women, namely, hysterical and rheumatic conditions.
The patient is always chilly, easily affected by cold, sensitive to cold and damp weather, which rouses the rheumatic state and develops a state of rheumatism not only in the muscles and joints all over the body, but also along the course of nerves.
In the general nervous disturbance there is a lack of will balance, or great disturbance in the voluntary system, which is the underlying feature of hysteria, the symptoms are intermingled with rheumatism.
Cimicifuga racemosa. Actæa monogynia. C. serpentaria. Macrotys racemosa. Botroflus serpentaria. Black snake root. Black Cohosh. (Canada, Georgia, Western States of America.) N. O. Ranunculaceæ. Tincture of the root. Trituration of the resinoid, Macrotyn.
Clinical
Abortion, tendency to. Angina pectoris. Appetite, disordered. Back pains. Breast, affections of. Cerebro-spinal meningitis. Change of life. Chest, pains in. Chorea. Delirium Tremens. Diaphragm, rheumatism of. Dyspepsia. Epilepsy. Faintness. Headache. Heart, affections of. Hyperpyrexia. Hypochondriasis. Hysteria. Lumbago. Melancholia. Meningitis. Menstruation, disorders of. Myalgia. Neuralgia. Ovaries, affections of. Perichondritis. Pleurodynia. Pregnancy, disorders of. Puerperal mania. Rheumatic gout. Rheumatism. Sciatica. Side, pain in. Sinking sensation. Sleeplessness. Spinal irritation. Stiff-neck. Tinnitus aurium. Tremors. Uterus, affections of. Vomiting of pregnancy.
Black Cohosh (Ranunculaceae.)
Puerperal mania; thinks she is going crazy (compare, Syph.); tries to injure herself. Mania following disappearance of neuralgia. Sensation as if a heavy, black cloud had settled all over her and enveloped her head so that all is darkness and confusion. Illusion of a mouse running under her chair (Lac. c., Aeth.). Ciliary neuralgia; aching or sharp, darting, shooting pains in globes, extending to temples, vertex, occiput, orbit, < going up stairs, > lying down. Heart troubles from reflex symptoms of uterus or ovaries. Heart's action ceases suddenly; impending suffocation; palpitation from least motion (Dig.). Menses: irregular; exhausting (Alum., Coc.); delayed or suppressed by mental emotion, from cold, from fever; with chorea, hysteria or mania; increase of mental symptoms during. Spasms: hysterical or epileptic; reflex from uterine disease; worse during menses; chorea < left side. Severe left-sided infra-mammary pains (Ust.). Sharp, lancinating, electric-like pains in various parts, …
Extremities
Rheumatic pains in small joints, as wrists, fingers, ankle, or toe joints. < after fatigue.
Sight and Eyes
Aching pains in the eyeballs, or in temples extending to eyes; so severe, especially at night, it seems as if patient would go crazy. (Ciliary neuralgia).
Female Sexual Organs
Severe pain in the back, down the thighs, and through the hips, with heavy pressing down.
Respiratory Organs
Cough excited by every attempt to speak, so that one is obliged to desist.
Neck and Back
Rheumatic pain in muscles of back and neck, a feeling of stiffness and retraction.
Neck and Back
Server aching pain in the lumbar and sacral regions, down the thighs and through the hips, with heavy pressing down.
Extremities
Rheumatism of the limbs affecting the muscles of the belly.
Classical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
