Ergotinum
Ergotin (extract of Claviceps purpurea) · Fungus
Ergotinum is suited to patients with profound debility and loss of muscular tone, especially of sphincters and the heart. It is indicated in conditions of paralytic weakness following severe illness or trauma, where Secale has been insufficient.
Key symptoms
- Complete loss of sphincter control with anal incontinence and no warning
- Rectum loses all sensation, patient never clean
- Paralysis of heart with rapid filiform pulse and cyanosis
- Gangrene from arterial spasm
- Uterine haemorrhage with atonic uterus
- Pulmonary haemorrhage
- Fainting spells in rapid succession
Ergotin. The alkaloid of Secale cornutum, Ergot of rye. Trituration.
Clinical
Anal incontinence. Gangrene. Hæmorrhages. Heart, paralysis of. Sphincters, paralysis of.
Characteristics
Ergotin is best known by its physiological use as a hæmostatic in uterine and pulmonary hæmorrhages. It acts by causing contraction of the arterioles, and its effect is produced most promptly when it is administered by subcutaneous injection. Its homœopathic uses are in the main identical with those of Secale, but Ergotin will sometimes succeed when Secale fails. Koeck, of Munich, has recorded a case in point (H. Monatsblätter, Sept., 1898). Secale, like Phosph., has "wide-open anus" in its symptomatology. Koeck's patient had suffered from diarrhœa since the Franco-German war, and latterly had lost all power of retention. It was for this that the doctor was consulted. The rectum had lost all sensation, so that the patient had no warning and was never clean. The odour may be imagined. Old-school treatment had failed to …
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