Ranunculus bulbosus
Bulbous buttercup, bulbous crowfoot. · Plant · Ranunculaceae
This remedy is most suited to those who are irritable, depressed, and quarrelsome. They feel weepy and inadequate, and worse for thinking about their symptoms. Restlessness and insomnia are common characteristic traits.
The classic symptom picture for Ranunculus bulb. includes muscle, joint, and skin problems, possibly occurring simultaneously. Typical muscle problems include soreness, deep, bruising pain, and, particularly, chest pain between the ribs. The classic skin symptoms for this remedy focus on eczema or herpes, especially herpes zoster (shingles), with intense burning and itching.
Key symptoms
- Acts especially upon the muscular tissue and skin, and its most characteristic effects are upon...
- Bad effects of Alcohol; delirium tremens.
- Irritable, pains in forehead and eyeballs.
- Creeping sensation in scalp.
- Day-blindness; mist before eyes; pressure and smarting in eyes, as from smoke.
- Pain over right eye; better, standing and walking.
- Various kinds of pains and soreness, as if bruised in sternum, ribs, intercostal spaces, and...
- Inter-costal rheumatism.
Worse (aggravation)
Better (amelioration)
Buttercup
Acts especially upon the muscular tissue and skin, and its most characteristic effects are upon the chest walls, like pleurodynia. Bad effects of Alcohol; delirium tremens. Spasmodic hiccough. Hydrothorax. Shocks throughout the whole body. Sensitive to air and touch. Chronic sciatica.
Head
Irritable, pains in forehead and eyeballs. Creeping sensation in scalp. Pressing pain in forehead from within outward.
Eyes
Day-blindness; mist before eyes; pressure and smarting in eyes, as from smoke. Pain over right eye; better, standing and walking. Herpes on cornea. Vesicles on cornea, with intense pain, photophobia, and lachrymation.
Chest
Various kinds of pains and soreness, as if bruised in sternum, ribs, intercostal spaces, and both hypochondria. Inter-costal rheumatism. Chilliness in chest when walking in open air. Stitches in chest, between shoulder-blades; worse, inspiring, moving. Rheumatic pain in chest, as from subcutaneous ulceration. Tenderness of abdomen to pressure. Muscular pain along lower margin of the shoulder-blade; burning in small spots from sedentary employment.
Skin
Burning and intense itching; worse, contact. Hard excrescences. Herptic eruptions, with great itching. Shingles, bluish vesicles. Itching in palms. Blister-like eruption in palms. Corns sensitive. Horny skin. Finger-tips and palms chapped. Vesicular and pustular eruptions.
Modalities
Worse, open air, motion, contact, atmospheric changes, wet, stormy weather, evening. Cold air brings on all sorts of ailments.
Relationship
Incompatible: Sulph; Staph.
Compare: Ranunc acris (pain in lumbar muscles and joints by bending and turning body); Ranunc glacialis-Reindeer flower Carlina--(Pulmonary affections; broncho-pneumonical Influenza-enormous weight in head with vertigo and sensation as of impending apoplexy; night-sweats-more on thighs); Ranunc repens (crawling sensation in forehead and scalp in evening in bed); Ranunc flammula (ulceration; gangrene of arm). Compare, also: Bry; Croton; Mez; Euphorb.
Antidotes: Bry; Camph; Rhus.
Dose
Mother tincture, in ten to thirty drop doses in delirium tremens; third to thirtieth potency generally. Chronic sciatica, apply tincture to heel of affected leg (M. Jousset).
Generals
This buttercup gives off an acrid ethereal vapor very poisonous to such as are sensitive to it, and has been many times mistaken for Rhuspoisoning.
This common field buttercup is not used as often as it is indicated, and it must be that it is not as well known as many other remedies. It is a rheumatic remedy of great usefulness when the chest muscles are involved. Pain in the spinal nerves, pleura and costal muscles always with extreme soreness. It is as sensitive to motion as Bryonia, and to the cold, damp weather as Dulcamara.
It has sudden weakness even to fainting, and it has cured epilepsy. It is extremely excitable, and resembles the much broken state of sensitive invalids; hence it has complaints from fright and vexation.
Ranunculus bulbosus. Buttercup. Bulbous Crowfoot. N. O. Ranunculaceæ. Tincture of whole plant.
Clinical
Alcoholism. Breast, pain below. Chest, pains in. Chilblains. Corns. Delirium tremens. Diarrhœa. Dropsy. Dyspnœa. Eczema. Epilepsy. Feet, pains in. Gastralgia. Hay-fever. Herpes zoster. Hiccough. Hydrocele. Jaundice. Liver, pain in. Neuralgia. Nyctalopia. Ovaries, neuralgia of. Pemphigus. Pleuritic adhesion. Pleurodynia. Rheumatism. Spinal irritation. Warts. Writer's cramp.
Characteristics
The caustic and pain-producing properties of the Ranunculaceæ reach their highest expression in the Buttercups themselves. R. bulb. forms a constituent of some arsenical plaisters used to disperse cancers. R. bulb. was proved by Franz, and some effects of its external application have been observed, and results of inhaling the fumes whilst preparing the plant, or when it has been burned. The last caused headache, and in one instance epilepsy, followed by cachexia, nodous gout, headache, and death. In a child who was …
Buttercup. (Ranunculaceae.)
One of our most effective remedies for the bad effects of alcoholic beverages; spasmodic hiccough; delirium tremens. Day blindness; mist before eyes; pressure and smarting in eyeballs (Phos.). Muscular pains about margins of shoulder blades in women of sedentary employment, often burning in small spots (Agar., Phos.); from needle- work, typewriting, piano playing (Act.). Pains: stitches, sharp, shooting, neuralgic, myaligic or rheumatic in walls of chest, coming in paroxysms; excited or brought on by atmospheric changes; inflammatory; depending upon spinal irritation (Agar.). Pleurisy or pneumonia from sudden exposure to cold, while overheated, or vice versa (Acon., Arn.). Corns sensitive to touch, smart, burn (Salic. ac.). Intercostal rheumatism; chest sore, bruised, < from touch, motion or turning the body (Bry.); in wet, stormy weather (Rhus). Shingles: preceded or followed by intercostal neuralgia (Mez.); vesicles may have a bluish appearance.
Skin
Blister-like eruptions, especially in the palms of the hands.
-
Intercostal rheumatism; chest feels sore and bruised, as from subcutaneous ulceration.
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Neuralgic, arthritic and rheumatic affections. always worse from damp weather, or from change of temperature.
Phatak's chapter on Ranunculus bulbosus is available in the app.
Read Phatak in the appClassical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
