Phytolacca decandra
Phytolacca americana · Virginia pokeroot, reading plant, garget, pocon,Phytolacca rigida,Phytolacca americana · Plant · Phytolaccaceae
This remedy has a strong affinity with the glands. It may be given for mastitis with hardness, burning, and pain in the breasts that radiates through the whole body on breast-feeding. Breast ulcers, hard lumps, and even breast cancer may also be helped, as may psoriasis.
Phytolacca may be used for hard, inflamed neck glands, with pain in the throat on swallowing. The tonsils may be inflamed, painful, and discolored dark red, and the tip of the tongue may be red. Inflamed parotid glands—for example during mumps—may be helped by the remedy, as may mononucleosis. Breathing feels difficult, restricted, and oppressed, with a sense of suffocation and emptiness in the chest.
Key symptoms
- Aching, soreness, restlessness, prostration, are general symptoms guiding to Phytolacca.
- Pre-eminently a glandular remedy.
- Glandular swellings with heat and inflammation.
- Loss of personal delicacy, disregard of surrounding objects.
- Feeling of sand under lids.
- Coryza; flow of mucus from one nostril and from posterior nares.
- Teething children with irresistible desire to bite the teeth together.
- Teeth clenched; lower lip drawn down; lips everted; jaws firmly set; chin drawn down on...
Worse (aggravation)
Better (amelioration)
Poke-root (PHYTOLACCA)
Aching, soreness, restlessness, prostration, are general symptoms guiding to Phytolacca. Pre-eminently a glandular remedy. Glandular swellings with heat and inflammation. Has a powerful effect on fibrous and osseous tissues; fasciæ and muscle sheaths; acts on scar tissue. Syphilitic bone pains; chronic rheumatism. Sore throat, quinsy, and diphtheria. Tetanus and opisthotonos. Decrease of weight. Retarded dentition.
Mind
Loss of personal delicacy, disregard of surrounding objects. Indifferent to life.
Head
Vertigo on rising. Brain feels sore. Pain from frontal region backward. Pressure in temples and over eyes. Rheumatism of scalp; pains come on every time it rains. Scaly eruption on scalp.
Eyes
Smarting. Feeling of sand under lids. Tarsal edges feel hot. Fistula lachrymalis (Fluor ac). Abundant lachrymation, hot.
Nose
Coryza; flow of mucus from one nostril and from posterior nares.
Mouth
Teething children with irresistible desire to bite the teeth together. Teeth clenched; lower lip drawn down; lips everted; jaws firmly set; chin drawn down on sternum. Tongue red tip, feels rough and scalded; bleeding from mouth; blisters on side. Mapped, indented, fissured, with yellow patch down center. Much stringy saliva.
Throat
Dark red or bluish red. Much pain at root of tongue; soft palate and tonsils swollen. Sensation of a lump in throat (Bell; Lach). Throat feels rough, narrow, hot. Tonsils swollen, especially right; dark-red appearance. Shooting pain into ears on swallowing. Pseudo-membranous exudation, grayish white; thick, tenacious yellowish mucus, difficult to dislodge. Cannot swallow anything hot (Lach). Tension and pressure in parotid gland. Ulcerated sore throat and diphtheria; throat feels very hot; pain at root of tongue extending to ear. Uvula large, dropsical. Quinsy; tonsils and fauces swollen, with burning pain; cannot swallow even water. Mumps. Follicular pharyngitis.
Abdomen
Sore spot in right hypochondrium. Rheumatism of abdominal muscles. Colic at navel. Burning griping pains. Bruised feeling through epigastrium and abdomen. Constipation of the aged and those with weak heart. Bleeding from rectum.
Urine
Scanty, suppressed, with pain in kidney region. Nephritis.
Female
Mastitis; mammæ hard and very sensitive. Tumors of the breasts with enlarged axillary glands. Cancer of breast. Breast is hard, painful and of purple hue. Mammary abscess. When child nurses, pain goes from nipple all over body. Cracks and small ulcers about nipples. Irritable breasts, before and during menses. Galactorrhœa (Calc). Menses too copious and frequent. Ovarian neuralgia of right side.
Male
Painful induration of testicles. Shooting along perineum to penis.
Heart
Feeling as if heart leaped into throat (Pod). Shock of pain in cardiac region alternating with pain in right arm.
Respiratory
Aphonia. Difficult breathing; dry hacking, tickling cough; worse at night (Mentha; Bellad). Aching pains in chest, through mid-sternum; with cough. Rheumatism of lower intercostals.
Back
Aching pains in lumbar region; pains streaking up and down spine into sacrum. Weakness and dull pain in region of kidneys. Back stiff, especially in morning on rising and during damp weather.
Extremities
Shooting pain in right shoulder, with stiffness and inability to raise arm (see Heart). Rheumatism pains; worse in morning. Pains fly like electric shocks, shooting, lancinating, shifting rapidly (Puls; Kali bich). Pain in under side of thighs. Syphilitic sciatica. Aching of heels; relieved by elevating feet. Pains like shocks. Pain in legs, patient dreads to get up. Feet puffed; pain in ankles and feet. Neuralgia in toes.
Fever
High fever, alternating with chilliness and great prostration.
Skin
Itches, becomes dry, shrunken, pale. Papular and pustular lesions. Most useful in early stages of cutaneous diseases. Disposition to boils, and when sloughing occurs. Squamous eruptions. Syphilitic eruptions. Swelling and induration of glands. Venereal buboes. Scarlatina-like rash. Warts and moles.
Modalities
Worse, sensitive to electric changes. Effects of a wetting, when it rains, exposure to damp, cold weather, night exposure, motion, right side. Better, warmth, dry weather, rest.
Relationship
Compare: Tincture of Phytolacca Berry (sore throats and in the treatment of obesity); Bry; Rhus; Kali hyd; Merc; Sang; Arum triph.
Inimical: Mercur.
Antidotes: Milk and salt; Bellad; Mezer.
Dose
Tincture, to third potency. Externally for mastitis.
This is a very imperfectly proved remedy, and it is only possible to present fragments of it.
The mental symptoms have not been brought out, but the remedy has some striking features.
You will notice the resemblance of this drug to Mercury, and it is an antidote to mercury. In those lingering mercurial bone pains, where the patient has been salivated; the pains come on at night from the warmth of the bed; the body aches; a chronic, sore, bruised state; soreness of the periosteum where the flesh is thin, over the tibia; joints; soreness of the muscles; drawing and cramping; drawing in the muscles of the back; backache, worse at night; worse from the warmth of the bed.
Phytolacca decandra. Virginian Poke. Poke-root. Red Ink Plant. Garget Weed. N. O. Phytolaccaceæ. Tincture of fresh root dug in winter. Tincture of the ripe berries. Tincture of fresh leaves. Solution of the resinous extract, Phytolaccin.
Clinical
Abortion, threatened. Albuminuria. Angina pectoris, Anus, fissure of. Asthma. Barber's itch. Boils. Bone, diseases of; tumours of. Breasts, affections of. Cancer. Cholera. Cicatrix. Ciliary neuralgia. Constipation. Corpulence. Cough. Dentition, difficult. Diarrhœa. Diphtheria. Diplopia. Dysentery. Dysmenia. Ears, affections of. Erythema nodosum. Eustachian tubes, affections of. Glands, enlarged. Gleet. Glossitis. Gonorrhœa. Gout. Granular conjunctivitis. Hæmorrhoids. Headache. Hearing, altered. Heart, affections of; hypertrophy of; fatty. Impotence. Influenza. Intestinal catarrh. Itch. Lactation, abnormal. Laryngismus. Leucorrhœa. Lichen. Liver, affections of. Lumbago. Lupus, Mercury, effects of. Mouth, ulcerated. Mumps. Neuralgia. Nipples, sore; painful. …
Poke Root. (Phytolaccaceae.)
Patients of a rheumatic diathesis; rheumatism of fibrous and periosteal tissue; mercurial or syphillitic. Emaciation, chlorosis; loss of fat. Great exhaustion and profound prostration. Occupies a position between Bryonia and Rhus; cures when these fail, though apparently well indicated. In rheumatism and neuralgia after diphtheria, gonorrhea, mercury or syphilis. Pain flying like electric shocks; shooting, lancinating: rapidly shifting (Lac c., Puls.); worse from motion and at night. Entire indifference to life; sure she will die. Vertigo: when rising from bed feels faint (Bry.). Intense headache and backache; lame, sore bruised feeling all over; constant desire to move but motion < pains (Lac c., Mer. - motion > Rhus). Irresistible desire to bit the teeth or gums together (Pod.); during dentition. Sore throat; of a dark color; uvula large, dropsical, almost translucent (Kali bi., Rhus). Diphtheria: pains shoot from throat into ears on swallowing; great pain at root of tongue when swallowing; …
Hearing and Ears
With every attempt to swallow, shooting pains through both ears.
Mouth and Throat
Difficult or retarded dentition with an irresistible desire to bite on something; restless at night; sometimes diarrhoea.
Mouth and Throat
Great pain in root of tongue when swallowing.
Mouth and Throat
Throat sore, fauces congested and of a dark red color; dryness of the throat, tonsils swollen; with every attempt to swallow severe pains shooting through both ears; sore aching all over.
Urinary Organs
Chalk-like sediment in the urine.
Female Sexual Organs
Mammary glands full of hard, painful nodosities.
Female Sexual Organs
Gatherings in breasts, with large fistulous openings.
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Great pain in root of tongue when swallowing.
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Difficult swallowing; with every attempt excruciating shooting pains through both cars.
Phatak's chapter on Phytolacca decandra is available in the app.
Read Phatak in the appClassical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
