Avena sativa
Oats. · Plant · Poaceae
People for whom Avena is most appropriate are prone to mental and physical exhaustion accompanied by poor concentration. These people typically tend to be nervous or elderly. Alternatively, they may be feeling the effects of a drug or alcohol addiction.
Nervous exhaustion, great weakness, and a tendency to suffer chronic insomnia are key symptoms associated with the remedy. There may be a very low libido or male impotence, possibly linked with excessive sexual activity. The tincture is often prescribed as herbal drops rather than homeopathic pills.
Key symptoms
- Nervous exhaustion and sexual debility after exhausting diseases
- Best tonic for debility; nerve tremors of the aged
- Sleeplessness especially in alcoholics; bad effects of morphine habit
- Inability to keep mind on any one subject
- Spermatorrhoea and impotency after too much indulgence
- Amenorrhoea and dysmenorrhoea with weak circulation
- Numbness of limbs as if paralyzed; strength of hand diminished
- Nervous headache at menstrual period with burning at top of head
Worse (aggravation)
Better (amelioration)
Common Oat
Has a selective action on brain and nervous system, favorably influencing their nutritive function.
Nervous exhaustion, sexual debility, and the morphine habit call for this remedy in rather material dosage. Best tonic for debility after exhausting diseases. Nerve tremors of the aged; chorea, paralysis agitans, epilepsy. Post-diphtheritic paralysis. Rheumatism of heart. Colds. Acute coryza (20 drop doses in hot water hourly for a few doses). Alcoholism. Sleeplessness, especially of alcoholics. Bad effects of Morphine habit. Nervous states of many female troubles.
Mind
Inability to keep mind on any one subject.
Head
Nervous headache at menstrual period, with burning at top of head. Occipital headache, with phosphatic urine.
Female
Amenorrhœa and dysmenorrhœa, with weak circulation.
Male
Spermatorrhœa; impotency; after too much indulgence.
Extremities
Numbness of limbs, as if paralyzed. Strength of hand diminished.
Relationship
Compare: Alfalfa (General tonic similar to avena-also in scanty and suppressed urine).
Dose
Tincture ten to twenty drop doses, preferably in hot water.
Oat. N. O. Gramineæ. Tincture of fresh plant in flower.
Clinical
Alcoholism. Cholera. Debility. Influenza. Neurasthenia. Opium habit. Palpitation. Sexual excess. Sleeplessness. Tuberculosis.
Characteristics
Avena has been used empirically in substantial doses (5 to 15 drops of the tincture, preferably in hot water) in a large number of cases of nerve weakness. The leading indications are: Irregularities of the male sexual system. Nervous exhaustion. General debility. Nervous palpitation. Insomnia. Inability to keep the mind fixed on any one subject, especially when due to masturbation or sexual irregularities. It is most valuable in enabling a patient to overcome the morphine habit. It appears to exert the same kind of soothing action, without creating a habit of its own. When not more than four grains of morphine have been taken daily it may be discontinued abruptly, 15 drops of Avena in a wineglass of hot water being given four times a day instead. The only symptom that has been observed to be caused by it is a pain at the base of the brain from 20-drop doses.
Phatak's chapter on Avena sativa is available in the app.
Read Phatak in the appClassical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
