China officinalis

Cinchona officinalis · Peruvian bark, cinchona bark, Jesuit’s bark, china bark, calisaya bark, loxa bark, red bark, yellow cinchona. · Plant · Rubiaceae

BoerickeKentClarkeAllenNashPhatak

China is thought to work best for idealistic, artistic people. Despite problems articulating their feelings, they prefer meaningful talk to trivial chat, but their own intensity often tires them, causing irritability, laziness, depression, violence, or intolerance. Easily offended, they may feel paranoid and mistreated, or that they have been born unfortunate, as if the world is hostile to them. A highly active imagination can lead to a preoccupation with future plans and to egocentric, heroic fantasies that later cause embarrassment.

Physical symptoms may be linked to weaknesses in the liver and digestive system and generally include a dislike of butter and other fatty foods, and cravings for alcohol and foods that are sweet or spicy.

The remedy is used for exhaustion following illness or extreme fluid loss. It is also given for fever, insomnia, gastric upsets, and headaches.

Key symptoms

exhaustion after fluid loss
great imagination
desire for alcohol and for sweet or spicy foods
oversensitivity

Worse (aggravation)

Alternate days; periodically
Touch; slightest touch, though hard pressure may relieve
Loss of vital fluids; exhausting discharges
Draught of air; open air
Motion

Better (amelioration)

Hard pressure
Warm room
Bending double

William Boericke

Homoeopathic Materia Medica · 1901

Peruvian Bark-China (CINCHONA OFFICINALIS)

Debility from exhausting discharges, from loss of vital fluids, together with a nervous erethism, calls for this remedy. Periodicity is most marked. Sensitive to draughts. Seldom indicated in the earlier stages of acute disease. Chronic gout. Chronic suppurative pyelitis. Post operative gas pains, not relief from passing it.

Mind

Apathetic, indifferent, disobedient, taciturn, despondent. Ideas crowd in mind; prevent sleep. Disposition to hurt other people's feelings. Sudden crying and tossing about.

Head

As if skull would burst. Sensation as if brain were balancing to and fro, and striking against skull, receiving great pain (Sulph; Sulph ac). Intense throbbing of head and carotids. Spasmodic headache in vertex, with subsequent pain, as if bruised in sides of head. Face flushed after hæmorrhages, or sexual excesses, or loss of vital fluids. Relieved from pressure and warm room. Scalp sensitive; worse combing hair. Aches worse in open air, from temple to temple. Worse by contact, current of air, stepping. Dizzy when walking.

Eyes

Blue color around eyes. Hollow eyes. Yellowish sclerotica. Black specks, bright dazzling illusions; night blindness in anæmic retina. Spots before eyes. Photophobia. Distortion of eyeballs. Intermittent ciliary neuralgia. Pressure in eyes. Amaurosis; scalding lachrymation.

Ears

Ringing in ears. External ear sensitive to touch. Hearing sensitive to noise. Lobules red and swollen.

Nose

Checked catarrh. Easily bleeding from nose, especially on rising. Coryza, sneezing, watery discharge. Violent dry sneezing. Cold sweat about nose.

Face

Sallow complexion. Face bloated; red.

Mouth

Toothache; better pressing teeth firmly together, and by warmth. Tongue coated thick, dirty; tip burns, succeeded by ptyalism. Bitter taste. Food tastes too salty.

Stomach

Tender, cold. Vomiting of undigested food. Slow digestion. Weight after eating. Ill effects of tea. Hungry without appetite. Flat taste. Darting pain crosswise in hypogastric region. Milk disagrees. Hungry longing for food, which lies undigested. Flatulence; belching of bitter fluid or regurgitation of food gives no relief; worse eating fruit. Hiccough. Bloatedness better by movement.

Abdomen

Much flatulent colic; better bending double. Tympanitic abdomen. Pain in right hypochondrium. Gall-stone colic (Triumfetta semitriloba). Liver and spleen swollen and enlarged. Jaundice. Internal coldness of stomach and abdomen. Gastro-duodenal catarrh.

Stool

Undigested, frothy, yellow; painless; worse at night, after meals, during hot weather, from fruit, milk, beer. Very weakening, with much flatulence. Difficult even when soft (Alum; Plat).

Male

Excited lascivious fancy. Frequent emissions, followed by great weakness. Orchitis.

Female

Menses too early. Dark clots and abdominal distention. Profuse menses with pain. Desire too strong. Bloody leucorrhœa. Seems to take the place of the usual menstrual discharge. Painful heaviness in pelvis.

Respiratory

Influenza, with debility. Cannot breathe with head low. Labored, slow respiration; constant choking. Suffocative catarrh; rattling in chest; violent, hacking cough after every meal. Hæmorrhage from lungs. Dyspnœa, sharp pain in left lung. Asthma; worse damp weather.

Heart

Irregular with weak rapid beats followed by strong, hard beats. Suffocative attacks, syncope; anæmia and dropsy.

Back

Sharp pains across kidneys, worse movement and at night. Knife-like pains around back (D. MacFarlan).

Extremities

Pains in limbs and joints, as if sprained; worse, slight touch; hard pressure relieves. Sensation as of a string around limb. Joints swollen; very sensitive, with dread or open air. Great debility, trembling, with numb sensation. Averse to exercise; sensitive to touch. Weariness of joints; worse, mornings and when sitting.

Skin

Extreme sensitiveness to touch, but hard pressure relieves. Coldness; much sweat. One hand ice cold, the other warm. Anasarca (Ars; Apis). Dermatitis; erysipelas. Indurated glands; scrofulous ulcers and caries.

Sleep

Drowsiness. Unrefreshing or constant stupor. Wakens early. Protracted sleeplessness. Anxious, frightful dreams with confused consciousness on waking, so that the dream cannot be rid of and fear of dream remains. Snoring, especially with children.

Fever

Intermittent, paroxysms anticipate; return every week. All stages well marked. Chill generally in forenoon, commencing in breast; thirst before chill, and little and often. Debilitating night-sweats. Free perspiration caused by every little exertion, especially on single parts. Hay fever, watery coryza, pain in temples.

Modalities

Worse, slightest touch. Draught of air; every other day; loss of vital fluids; at night; after eating; bending over. Better, bending double; hard pressure; open air; warmth.

Relationship

Antidotes: Arn; Ars; Nux; Ipec.

Compare:-Quinidin--(Paroxysmal tachycardia and auricular fibrillation. Heart is slowed, and the auriculo-ventricular conduction time is lengthened. Dose 1/2 grain t.i.d). Cephalanthus--(Button Bush-Intermittent fever, sore throat, rheumatic symptoms, vivid dreams). Ars; Cedron; Nat sulph. Cydonia vulgaris-Quince (supposed to be of use to strengthen the sexual organs and stomach).

Complementary: Ferrum; Calc phos.

Dose

Tincture, to thirtieth potency.

James Tyler Kent

Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica · 1905

Now we shall take up the study of Cinchona, or China. Persons who have suffered much from neuralgias due to malarial influences, who have become anaemic and sickly from repeated haemorrhages, are likely to develop symptoms calling for China.

China produces a gradually increasing anaemia, with great pallor and weakness. It is sometimes- indicated in plethoric individuals, but this is the exception, and even in this class we find that the symptoms are tending towards the cachectic state, which is avoided by the prompt action of the remedy.

Throughout the body there is a gradually increasing sensitivity, a gradually increasing irritability of the nerves; the nerves are always in a fret, so that these people will say:

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John Henry Clarke

A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica · 1900

Cinchona officinalis. Cinchona calisaya. Peruvian bark. N. O. Rubiaceæ. Tincture of the dried bark.

Clinical

Abscess. Alcoholism. Amblyopia. Anæmia. Aphthæ. Apoplexy Appetite, disordered. Asthma. Back, weakness of. Bilious attack. Catarrhal affections. Coma. Constipation. Cough. Debility. Delirium. Diarrhœa. Dropsy. Dyspepsia. Ears, deafness; noises in. Emissions. Empyæma. Erysipelas. Facial neuralgia. Gall-stone colic. Hæmorrhages. Hæmorrhoids. Headache. Hectic fever. Hip-joint disease. Ichthyosis. Impotence. Influenza. Intermittent fever. Jaundice. Labour. Lactation. Leucorrhœa. Lienteria. Liver, diseases of; cirrhosis of. Menière's disease. Menstruation, disordered. Mercury, effects of. Muscæ volitantes. Neuralgia. Peritonitis. Perspiration, excessive. Pleurisy. Prosopalgia. Psoriasis. Pylorus, disease of. Rheumatism. Self-abuse. Sleep, disordered. Spermatorrhœa. Spleen, affections of. Suffocation, fits of. Taste, disordered. Tea, effects of. Thirst. Tinnitus. Tobacco habit. Traumatic fever. Tympanitis. Varicose veins. Vertigo.

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Henry Clay Allen

Keynotes and Characteristics with Comparisons · 1898

Peruvian Bark (Rubiaceae)

For stout, swarthy persons; for systems, once robust, which have become debilitated, "broken down" from exhausting discharges (Carbo v.). Apathetic, indifferent, taciturn (Phos. ac.); despondent, gloomy, has no desire to live, but lacks courage to commit suicide. Ailments: from loss of vital fluids, especially haemorrhages, excessive lactation, diarrhoea, suppuration (Chin. s.); of malarial origin, with marked periodicity; return every other day. After climacteric with profuse haemorrhages; acute diseases often result in dropsy. Pains: drawing or tearing; in every joint, all the bones. Peristeum, as if strainted, sore all over; obliged to move limbs frequently, as motion gives relief; renewed by contact, and then gradually increase to a great height. Headache: as if the skull would burst; intense throbbing of head and carotids, face flushed; from occiput over whole head; < sitting or lying, must stand or walk; after haemorrhage or sexual excesses. Face pale, hippocratic; eyes …

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