Ratanhia peruviana
Krameria lappacea · Plant · Krameriaceae
Ratanhia is suited to dark, thin, scrawny persons with a marked tendency to fissures and cracks — in the anus, nipples, and other surfaces. The predominant feature is intense rectal burning persisting long after each stool, occurring in both constipated and diarrhoeic states. The remedy also acts as a tonic for delicate nervous women prone to miscarriage.
Key symptoms
- Fissure of the anus with burning persisting long after stool
- Sensation as if splinters of glass sticking in rectum and anus
- Dry heat at anus with sudden knife-like stitches
- Straining so hard the patient cries out with great protrusion of haemorrhoids
- Bursting headache during and after straining at stool
- Rapid twitching of right eyelid; pterygium
- Fissure of nipples in nursing women
- Toothache at night compelling patient to rise and walk
- Pin-worms with intense itching of anus
Worse (aggravation)
- Night and evening
- Anxiety and uneasiness of mind
- Exertion
- Touch
- Straining at stool
- Sitting bent over (headache)
- Stooping
Better (amelioration)
- Hot sitz-bath for rectal symptoms
- Cool bathing
- Walking in open air and exercise
- Emission of flatus relieves abdominal pain
- Pressure relieves chest pain
Krameria-Mapato (RATANHIA)
The rectal symptoms are most important, and have received much clinical confirmation. It has cured pterygium. Violent hiccough. Cracked nipples (Graph; Eup ar). Pin worms.
Head
Bursting in head after stool, and when sitting with head bent forward. Sensation as if scalp from nose to vertex were stretched.
Stomach
Pain like knives cutting the stomach.
Rectum
Aches, as if full of broken glass. Anus aches and burns for hours after stool. Feels constricted. Dry heat at anus, with sudden knife-like stitches. Stools must be forced with great effort; protrusion of hæmorrhoids. Fissures of anus, with great constriction, burning like fire, as do the hæmorrhoids; temporarily relieved by cold water. Fetid, thin diarrhœa; stools burn; burning pains before and after stools. Oozing at anus. Pin-worms (Sant; Teuc; Spig). Itching of anus.
Relationship
Compare: Paeon; Croton (rectal neuralgia); Sanguin nit (diseases of rectum); Macuna prurens-Dolichos-piles, with burning; hæmorrhoidal diathesis; Silico-sulphocalcite of Alumina; Stag-blast iron furnace cinder--(anal itching, piles, and constipation; housemaid's knee); abdominal flatulent distension and lumbago. Analogue to Lycopod.
Dose
Third to sixth potency. Locally, the Cerate has proved invaluable in many rectal complaints.
Rhatany Root. Ratanhia. Mapato. Pumacuchu. The root of several species of Krameria, especially Krameria triandra. N. O. Polygalaceæ (or Leguminosæ according to some). Tincture of the root.
Clinical
Anus, fissure of. Breath, offensive. Constipation. Diabetes. Dysentery. Dyspepsia, atonic. Epistaxis. Eyes, pterygium. Fissures. Gonorrhœa. Hæmorrhages. Hæmorrhoids. Hiccough. Hydrothorax. Infra-mammary pain. Itching. Metrorrhagia. Miscarriage. Nipples, fissures of. Pimples. Pleurisy. Scurvy. Snoring. Speech, arrested. Stomach, distension of; ulceration of. Throat, contraction of. Tinnitus. Worms.
Characteristics
"Krameria triandra, remarkable for its entire, obovate, acuminate leaves, covered on both sides with silky hair, is one of the species most known as yielding the Rhatany root of commerce, but all the species (of Krameria), as far as known, are intensely astringent. In Peru an extract is made from this species which is a mild, easily assimilated astringent medicine, possessed of great power in passive, …
Rhatany. (Polygalaceae.)
Terrible toothache during early months of pregnancy; tooth feels elongated; < lying, compelling to rise and walk about. Constipation: stool hard with great straining; protrusion of haemorrhoids followed by long lasting aching and burning in anus (Sulph.); bowels inactive; pain after stool as if splinters of glass were sticking in anus and rectum (Thuja). Excruciating pains after stool; burning after soft stool (Nit. ac.). Fissures of anus, great sensitiveness of rectum. Fissures of nipples in nursing women (Graph., Sep.).
Relations
. - Compare: Canth., Carb. ac., Iris, Sulph., Thuja.
Phatak's chapter on Ratanhia peruviana is available in the app.
Read Phatak in the appClassical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
