Veratrum album
Veratrum viride · American white hellebore. · Plant · Melanthiaceae
People who respond best to this remedy are often restless, quarrelsome, and prone to complaining. Veratrum vir. has a strong affinity with lung conditions such as asthma, pleurisy, and pneumonia. Symptoms appear rapidly, including a strong or slow pulse, high fever, anxiety, and vomiting. There may be a red streak in the center of the tongue.
Another rapid-onset condition for which Veratrum vir. is given is intense fever with twitching, especially during sleep, spasms, delirium, chorea (involuntary, random, jerky movements), or even manic behavior or puerperal fever (infection in the genital tract after miscarriage, an abortion, or childbirth). Violent, rapidly appearing headaches may occur, with a bursting, congested sensation in the head, as if it contains too much blood.
Key symptoms
- Extreme coldness, blueness, and collapse with cold perspiration on forehead
- Profuse violent retching and vomiting with purging and cramps in extremities
- Post-operative shock; pale face with rapid feeble pulse
- Cold sweat on forehead with nearly all complaints
- Sensation of lump of ice on vertex; face very pale, blue, cold
- Violent mania alternating with silence and refusal to talk
- Icy coldness of tip of nose and face
- Delusions of impending misfortunes; attacks of pain with delirium
Worse (aggravation)
Better (amelioration)
White Hellebore
A perfect picture of collapse, with extreme coldness, blueness, and weakness, is offered by this drug. Post-operative shock with cold sweat on forehead, pale face, rapid, feeble pulse. Cold perspiration on the forehead, with nearly all complaints. Vomiting, purging, and cramps in extremities. The profuse, violent retching and vomiting is most characteristic. Surgical shock. Excessive dryness of all mucous surfaces. "Coprophagia" violent mania alternates with silence and refusal to talk.
Mind
Melancholy, with stupor and mania. Sits in a stupid manner; notices nothing; Sullen indifference. Frenzy of excitement; shrieks, curses. Puerperal mania. Aimless wandering from home. Delusions of impending misfortunes. Mania, with desire to cut and tear things (Tarant). Attacks of pain, with delirium driving to madness. Cursing, howling all night.
Head
Contracted features. Cold sweat on forehead. Sensation of a lump of ice on vertex. Headache, with nausea, vomiting, diarrhœa, pale face. Neck too weak to hold head up.
Eyes
Surrounded by dark rings. Staring; turned upwards, without luster. Lachrymation with redness. Lids dry heavy.
Face
Features sunken. Icy coldness of tip of nose and face. Nose grows more pointed. Tearing in cheeks, temples, and eyes. Face very pale, blue, collapsed, cold.
Mouth
Tongue pale, cold; cool sensation, as from peppermint. Dry in center not relieved by water. Salty saliva. Toothache, teeth feel heavy as if filled with lead.
Stomach
Voracious appetite. Thirst for cold water, but is vomited as soon as swallowed. Averse to warm food. Hiccough. Copious vomiting and nausea; aggravated by drinking and least motion. Craves fruit, juicy and cold things, ice, salt. Anguish in pit of stomach. Great weakness after vomiting. Gastric irritability with chronic vomiting of food.
Abdomen
Sinking and empty feeling. Cold feeling in stomach and abdomen. Pain in abdomen preceding stool. Cramps, knotting abdomen and legs. Sensation as if hernia would protrude (Nux). Abdomen sensitive to pressure, swollen with terrible colic.
Rectum
Constipation from inactivity of rectum, with heat and headache. Constipation of babies, and when produced by very cold weather. Stools large, with much straining until exhausted, with cold sweat. Diarrhœa, very painful, watery, copious, and forcibly evacuated, followed by great prostration. Evacuations of cholera morbus and true cholera when vomiting accompanies the purging.
Respiratory
Hoarse, weak voice. Rattling in chest. Much mucus in bronchial tubes, that cannot be coughed up. Coarse rales. Chronic bronchitis in the aged (Hippozanin). Loud barking, stomach cough, followed by eructation of gas; worse, warm room. Hollow cough, tickling low down, with blue face. Cough comes on from drinking, especially cold water; urine escapes when coughing. Cough on entering warm room from cold air (Bryonia).
Heart
Palpitation with anxiety and rapid audible respiration. Pulse irregular, feeble. Tobacco heart from chewing. Intermittent action of heart in feeble persons with some hepatic obstruction. One of the best heart stimulants in homeopathic doses (J. S. Mitchell).
Female
Menses too early; profuse and exhausting. Dysmenorrhœa, with coldness, purging, cold sweat. Faints from least exertion. Sexual mania precedes menses.
Extremities
Soreness and tenderness of joints. Sciatica; pains like electric flashes. Cramps in calves. Neuralgia in brachial plexus; arms feel swollen, cold, paralytic.
Skin
Blue, cold, clammy, inelastic, cold as death. Cold sweat. Wrinkling of skin of hands and feet.
Fever
Chill, with extreme coldness and thirst.
Modalities
Worse, at night; wet, cold weather. Better, walking and warmth.
Relationship
Compare: Veratrinum-alkaloid from seeds of Sabadilla.--(electric pains, electric shocks in muscles, fibrillary twitchings); Cholos terrepina (cramps in calves); Camph; Cupr; Ars; Cuprum ars (intermittent, cold, clammy sweat); Narcissus poeticus (gastro-enteritis with much griping and cutting pain in bowels. Fainting, trembling, cold limbs, small and irregular pulse); Trychosanthes--(diarrhœa, pain in liver, dizziness after every stool); Agaric emetic (vertigo; longing for ice-cold water; burning pains in stomach); Agaric phalloides (cholera, cramps in stomach, cold extremities, urine suppressed). Veratrine (Increased vascular tension. It relaxes it and stimulates the elimination of toxins by skin, kidneys, and liver).
Dose
First to thirtieth potency. In diarrhœa, not below the sixth.
You will be astonished at the wonderful coldness running through this remedy.
Coldness
Hardly a group of symptoms will arise without this accompanying coldness. Coldness of discharges, coldness of the body. You would also wonder at the remarkable prostration attending the various groups of symptoms, complete relaxation and exhaustion, coldness. Profuse sweat, vomiting and diarrhea.
Profuse watery discharges. These conditions occur without apparent provocation. In cholera or cholera morbus, it seems that the fluids run out of the body.
Lies in bed, relaxed prostrated, cold to the finger-tips, with corresponding blueness, fairly purple; lips cold and blue, countenance pinched and shrunken; great sensation of cold ness as if the blood were ice-water; scalp cold; forehead covered with cold sweat; headache and exhaustion; coldness in spots over the body; extremities cold as death. Full of cramps; looks as if he would die.
Veratrum album. White-flowered Veratrum. White Hellebore. N. O. Melanthaceæ (of the Liliaceæ). Tincture of the root-stocks collected (in the Alps and Pyrenees) early in June before flowering.
Clinical
Amenorrhœa. Anæmia. Anasarca. Angina pectoris. Apoplexy. Asthma. Bronchitis. Cholera asiatica. Cholerine. Colic. Collapse. Constipation. Coprophagia. Cramps. Debility. Diaphragm, affections of. Diarrhœa. Dysmenorrhœa. Emphysema. Epilepsy. Fainting. Gastric catarrh. General paralysis. Headache; sick; nervous. Hernia. Hydrocephaloid. Hysteria. Influenza. Intermittent fever. Intussusception. Labour, constipation after. Lips, cracked. Liver, hyperæmia of. Lock-jaw. Lungs, œdema of. Mania. Measles. Mendacity. Melancholia. Meningitis. Menstruation, nausea before; diarrhœa before. Neuralgia, palpebralis. Nyctalopia. Œsophagus, stricture of. Peritonitis. Pernicious fevers. Plica polonica. Pneumonia. Pregnancy, imaginary. Ptosis. Pyæmia. Rheumatism. Salivation. Scarlatina. Sleep, whining in. Spleen, swollen. Sternum. Throat. Toothache. Typhoid fever. Vertigo. Water-brash. Whooping-cough. Yellow fever.
While Hellebore. (Melanthaceae.)
For children and old people; the extremes of life; persons who are habitually cold and deficient in vital reaction; young people of a nervous sanguine temperament. Adapted to diseases with rapid sinking of the vital forces; complete prostration; collapse. Cold perspiration on the forehead (over entire body, Tab.); with nearly all complaints. Cannot bear to be left alone; yet persistently refuses to talk. Thinks she is pregnant or will soon be delivered. Mania with desire to cut and tear everything, especially clother (Taran.); with lewd, lascivious talk, amorous or religious (Hyos., Stram.). Attacks of fainting from least exertion (Carbo v., Sulph.); excessive weakness. Sinking feeling during haemorrhage (fainting, Trill.). Sensation of a lump of ice on vertex, with chilliness (Sep.); as of heat and cold at same time on scalp; as if brain were torn to pieces. Face: pale, blue, collapsed; features sunkden, hippocratic; red while lying, becomes pale on rising up …
Mind
Mania with desire to cut and tear, especially clothes, with lewdness and lascivious talk, or praying and talking about religious things.
Mind
Despairs of her salvation; with suppressed catamenia.
Mind
Disposed to talk about the faults of others; or silent; but if irritated, scolding and calling names.
Mind
Despairs about his position in society; feels very unlucky.
Head
Coldness on top of the head as if ice were lying there.
General Face
Cold perspiration on face, particularly on forehead.
General Face
While in bed face is red, after getting up it becomes pale.
General Face
Face pale, sunken, cold, hippocratic, and nose pointed, or face bluish.
Nose
The nose grows more pointed; seems to be longer; face cold, and sunken.
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Religious mania; praying, cursing and howling; loquacious.
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Attacks of pain with delirium, or driving to madness.
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Coldness on the vortex, as if ice were lying there.
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Cold perspiration on face, especially on forehead; particularly in colic and choleric conditions.
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Nose grows pointed, seems to be longer; face cold and sunken.
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Violent colic about the navel, as if intestines were twisted in a knot; better after stool.
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Dysmenorrhoea with vomiting and purging, or exhausting diarrhoea with cold sweat.
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Neck so weak child can scarcely keep it erect, especially in whooping cough.
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Difficult walking, first right, then left hipjoint feels paralytic.
Phatak's chapter on Veratrum album is available in the app.
Read Phatak in the appClassical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
