Camphora
Cinnamomum camphora · Plant · Lauraceae
Camphora suits irritable, weakly blondes and scrofulous children who are physically and mentally weak and excessively sensitive to cold. The constitutional picture is coldness and collapse alternating with internal burning, with the paradoxical feature that the cold patient refuses covering. It is a leading remedy for sudden collapse from shock, cholera, sunstroke, and conditions from suppressed eruptions, and corrects spoiled cases from other medicines.
Key symptoms
- Icy coldness of the whole body yet patient throws off all coverings
- Sudden and complete prostration of vital forces with collapse
- Cholera: initial dry chill with little vomiting or purging
- Most pains disappear when thinking of them
- Tetanic spasms with deathly coldness; drawing of head to one side
- Cramps in calves with icy coldness of limbs
- Suppressed eruptions causing internal complaints
- Erysipelas spreading to central membranes
Worse (aggravation)
- Cold air and cold drafts
- Motion and night; contact
- Shock and suppressions of eruptions
- Mental exertion; when half asleep
Better (amelioration)
- When thinking of the existing complaint
- Warmth and warm air
- Drinking cold water
- Free discharges and sweat
Camphor. C10 H16 O. - N. O. Lauraceæ. A gum obtained from Laurus camphora. Solution in rectified spirit.
Clinical
Angina pectoris. Bed-sores. Cholera Asiatica. Chordee. Cold. Convulsions. Epilepsy. Eruptions, suppressed. Erysipelas. Gonorrhœa. Heart affections. Hyperpyrexia. Influenza. Measles. Memory, loss of. Priapism. Rheumatism. Sexual mania. Sleeplessness. Snake-bites. Spasms. Strangury. Sunstroke. Taste, disordered. Tetanus. Tobacco habit. Twitching. Urethra, spasmodic stricture of. Urine, suppression of.
Characteristics
"Chill; cramp; convulsion with mental anguish"─these give an idea of the essential action of Camphor. It causes retreat from the circumference to the centre; and its chief remedial action is in correcting just such conditions─cold, collapse, repercussed eruptive diseases. "Great coldness of surface, with sudden and complete prostration of the vital forces." Feeling as if a cold wind were blowing over body. In all kinds of sudden internal pains arising from chill, or …
- Cholera and choleric conditions; first stage or when discharges are scanty or suddenly suppressed; dry skin; icy coldness of the body and collapse.
Classical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
