Jatropha curcas
Plant · Euphorbiaceae
Jatropha curcas suits patients in cholera-like states with profound abdominal symptoms: easy copious vomiting, rice-water diarrhoea, and loud intestinal gurgling with muscular cramps. Coldness of the whole body accompanies the violent purgation.
Key symptoms
- Sudden profuse watery diarrhoea like rice-water with forced discharge
- Loud gurgling noise in abdomen like water coming out of a bung-hole
- Diarrhoea associated with coldness, cramps, nausea, and vomiting
- Hiccough followed by copious vomiting; very easy vomiting
- Heat and burning in stomach with crampy constrictive epigastric pain
- Great thirst; nausea and vomiting brought on by drinking
- Cramps in muscles, especially calves, legs, and feet; heels sensitive
Worse (aggravation)
- Covering
- Morning
- Summer
Better (amelioration)
- Placing hands in cold water
Purging Nut (JATROPHA)
Of value in cholera and diarrhœa. The abdominal symptoms are most important. Suppressed measles (H. Farrington).
Stomach
Hiccough, followed by copious vomiting. Nausea and vomiting, brought on by drinking, with acrid feeling from throat. Great thirst. Very easy vomiting. Heat and burning in stomach, with crampy, constrictive pain in epigastrium.
Abdomen
Distended, with gurgling noises. Pain in hypochondria. Pain in region of liver and under right scapula to shoulder. Violent urging to urinate.
Stool
Sudden, profuse, watery, like rice-water. Diarrhœa; forced discharge; loud noise in abdomen like gurgling of water coming out of a bung-hole, associated with coldness, cramps, nausea, and vomiting.
Extremities
Cramps in muscles, especially calves, legs, and feet. Coldness of whole body. Pain in ankles, feet and toes. Heels sensitive.
Modalities
Better, by placing hands in cold water.
Relationship
Compare: Camph; Verat; Gambog; Croton; Jatropha urens--Sponge-nettle--(œdema and cardiac paresis).
Dose
Third to thirtieth potency.
Phatak's chapter on Jatropha curcas is available in the app.
Read Phatak in the appClassical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
