Plantago major
Greater plantain. · Plant · Plantaginaceae
People who respond best to Plantago are dull, irritable, and impatient. Mental activity exhausts and flusters them, and this is made worse by physical exertion.
Key conditions for which this remedy may be prescribed include earaches and toothaches. Aches are typically caused by sharp, neuralgic pains, often in the head and ears. Twinges of pain may move around the head from front to back, or from ear to ear, and there may be a sensation in the head as if the brain has turned over. Plantago is also given for bed-wetting problems.
Key symptoms
- Has considerable clinical reputation in the treatment of earache, toothache, and enuresis.
- Sharp pain in eyes, reflex from decayed teeth or inflammation of middle ear.
- Eyeball very tender to touch.
- Periodical prosopalgia, worse 7 am to 2 pm, accompanied with flow of tears, photophobia; pains...
- Hearing acute; noise painful.
- Sticking pain in ears.
- Sudden, yellowish, watery discharge.
- Teeth ache and are sensitive and sore to touch.
Worse (aggravation)
Better (amelioration)
Plantain
Has considerable clinical reputation in the treatment of earache, toothache, and enuresis. Sharp pain in eyes, reflex from decayed teeth or inflammation of middle ear. Eyeball very tender to touch. Pain plays between teeth and ears. Pyorrhea alveolaris. Depression and insomnia of chronic Nicotinism. Causes an aversion to tobacco.
Head
Periodical prosopalgia, worse 7 am to 2 pm, accompanied with flow of tears, photophobia; pains radiate to temples and lower face.
Ears
Hearing acute; noise painful. Sticking pain in ears. Neuralgic earache; pain goes from one ear to the other through the head. Otalgia, with toothache. Loud noises go through one.
Nose
Sudden, yellowish, watery discharge.
Mouth
Teeth ache and are sensitive and sore to touch. Swelling of cheeks. Salivation; teeth feel too long; worse, cold air and contact. Toothache, better while eating. Profuse of saliva. Toothache, with reflex neuralgia of eyelids.
Stool
Wants to defecate; goes often, but cannot bad, can hardly stand. Diarrhœa, with brown watery
Urine
Profuse flow; nocturnal enuresis (Rhus arom; Caust; Bellad).
Skin
Itching and burning; papulæ. Urticaria, chilblains (Agar; Tamus).
Relationship
Compare: Kalm; Cham; Puls.
Dose
Tincture, and lower potencies. Local use in toothache in hollow teeth, otorrhœa, pruritus, and Poison-oak. Incised wounds.
Plantago major. Plantain. Ribwort. N. O. Plantaginaceæ. Tincture of whole fresh plant. Tincture of the root.
Clinical
Ague. Breast, inflammation of. Burns. Ciliary neuralgia. Diabetes. Diarrhœa. Dysentery. Earache. Ear, inflammation of. Emissions. Enuresis. Erysipelas. Erythema. Hæmorrhoids. Impotence. Neuralgias; of herpes. Polyuria. Rhus poisoning. Snake-bites. Spleen, pains in. Tobacco habit. Toothache. Urination, delayed. Worms. Wounds.
Characteristics
Hale sums up the ancient and modern history of Plantago maj. the weed which furnishes food for our cage-birds. (Plant. m. must not to be confounded with Musa, sometimes called "Plantain," which belongs to a different class, viz., the Endogens.) Plantago has had a reputation in medicine from remote antiquity, a reputation which homœopathy has revived. It was used in intermittent fever in remotest times. In A. D. 1558 the Herbal of Dodoens commends the juice of leaves or roots for "toothache and bleeding of gums." John Parkinson in his …
Phatak's chapter on Plantago major is available in the app.
Read Phatak in the appClassical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
