Asa Foetida

• ▸Asclep.
• ▸syr.
• ▸has especial influence on nervous tissues.
• ▸Nervous headache; as if

a sharp instrument were thrust through from one temple to the other; with vomiting; followed by

sweating or profuse urination. Belching of food with its proper taste. Influenza and hay-fever.

Dropsy after scarlatina or heart disease. Headache from checked sweat or retention of effete

matters. Ureemia. Acute rheumatism confined to large joints with much pain and swelling.

Intermittent, pressing, uterine pains; threatened miscarriage.

Nervous irritability and exaltation of the senses.—Merely thinking some one might

scratch with finger-tip or nail on linen, &c. = disagreeable thrill through him, arresting thought

and action.—Cold "shivers" from any emotion.—Condition of mind as if just falling asleep; a

gradual vanishing of ideas.—Imagines he is hovering in the air like a spirit; when walking in the

open air.

Asthma of different kinds.—Sense of rigor—Body heavy and

bloated —Hysterical attacks.—Hysteria, with much trouble about throat or

cesophagus.—Twitching and jerking in the muscles.—Dull stitches (periodically) from within

outwards, changed or relieved by touch.—Pains mostly in the inside (flexor side) of the joints and

limbs.—St. Vitus' dance.

Irritable; complains of her troubles; sensitive. Boring above eyebrows. Pressive pain from within outward.

Vertigo, dulness, and stupidity, with headache (1.).—Violent headache between the

eyes; sense of constriction across the forehead—Headache from suppressed perspiration, or from

the retention of effete matters in the system.—Nervous headaches, followed by sweating or

profuse urination—When the drug did not cause sweating or profuse urination, it caused violent

headache with quick, full pulse and nausea.—A feeling (after vomiting) as if some sharp

instrument were thrust from one temple to the other.

• ▸Orbital neuralgia; better, pressure and rest.
• ▸Iritis and intraocular inflammations, with boring, throbbing pains at night.
• ▸Stitches under left frontal eminences.
• ▸Boring pains in and around eyes.
• ▸Syphilitic iritis.
• ▸Superficial corneal ulcer with digging pains; worse at night.

Obscuration of sight.—When reading, sensation in eyes as if they would be pressed

• ▸asunder.
• ▸—Inflamed eyes, blear-eyedness.
• ▸—Inflamed eyes, burning in the lids, esp.
• ▸the

canthi—The eyes stare.—The cold air is pleasant to the eyes; sunshine, light, and wind are

intolerable —Painful dryness of the interior of the eyes.—Asthenopia with congestive headache;

eyes < morning and evening; > middle day, and by bathing them in cold water.—Sharp pain over

l. eye, running of tears, and sensitive to light.

Offensive otorrhoea, with boring pains in mastoid bone. Mastoid disease with pain in temporal region with pushing out sensation. Offensive, purulent discharge.

Over-sensitiveness of nerves; scratching of linen or silk is insupportable.—Pressure and

tension in the region of the orifice of the meatus auditorius—Deafness in one or both

ears.—Sensation as if ears closed or plugged with some foreign substance.

Syphilitic ozaena, with very offensive purulent discharge. Caries of nasal bones (Aurum).

Ozzena; discharge of very offensive greenish matter from the nose; bones swollen and

inflamed after Mercury or in scrofula.

Warm feeling in face; all symptoms disappear on applying cold water, but return soon

after.

Globus hystericus. Ball rises in throat. Sensation as if peristaltic motion were reversed, and oesophagus were driven from stomach to throat.

• ▸Great difficulty in bringing up wind.
• ▸Flatulence and regurgitation of liquid.
• ▸Hysterical flatulence.
• ▸Great distention.
• ▸Sensation of emptiness and weakness, with distention and beating in stomach and abdomen.
• ▸Forcible eructation of gas.
• ▸Pulsation in pit of stomach.
• ▸Violent gastralgia; cutting and burning in stomach and region of diaphragm.
• ▸Gurgling and rolling of wind, which escapes afterwards with loud and difficult eructation.

Great appetite even a few hours after a meal.—Increased appetite, notwithstanding

the vomiting and headache, with constipation.

Excessive nausea; with violent headache; violent vomiting and retching.—Severe

and long-continued vomiting, leaving behind it a sensation of rawness in the stomach and a slight

pain, coldness of the surface of the skin, and feeble pulse, and a feeling as if a sharp instrument

thrust through from one temple to the other.

Oppression around navel, three or four times after each meal, lasting one

hour.—Pain in region of descending colon, with discharge of stringy mucus.

• ▸Distended, griping, with hunger.
• ▸Obstinate constipation.
• ▸Pain in perineum, as if something dull pressed out.
• ▸diarrhoea, extremely offensive, with meteorism, and regurgitation of food.

Increased secretion of bile.—Slight inclination to evacuate the bowels; with

nausea and diuresis.—Diarrhcea, with nausea and vomiting, with excoriation of the

anus.—Copious stools of soft, fluid consistence, yellowish in colour, and attended with some

griping pain.—Constipation; pain in r. side, lower limbs, loss of appetite.

Ardor urinz.—Increased flow of urine. —Pale coloured urine, with light

specific gravity.—Increase of solid matters in urine.

Mammae turgid with milk in the unimpregnated. Deficient milk, with oversensitiveness.

Intermittent, bearing-down, labour-like pains (during dropsy);

pressing from sacrum to hypogastrium, with scanty flow.—Suppression of menses (during

dropsy).

Increase of the bronchial secretions.—Burning and tickling in

• ▸fauces.
• ▸—(Influenza; catarrhal fevers; bronchitis; hay-fever.
• ▸).
• ▸—Pain in |.
• ▸side of chest on deep

inspiration (pleurisy).

Spasmodic tightness, as if lungs could not be fully expanded. Palpitation more like a tremor.

Sharp pressure in region of last ribs as with the back of a knife.—Pain round both

lungs as if they were constricted by a wire.—Frequent stitches in both lungs during inspiration.

Fine burning stitches in and behind r. scapula, extending to ribs.—Very

violent sacral pains.—Cannot work on account of the backache.—Crawls run over back in

afternoon.

Dull pressure in the right hip.—Chronic sciatica—Gurgling sensation in

patella.

24. Generalities—Excessive sensibility of all the nerves; when merely thinking (and this he

must continually) that some one might, with the finger-tip or nail, scratch even lightly on linen or

similar materials, a most disagreeable sensation thrills through him, arresting momentarily all his

thoughts and actions.

Itching, better scratching; ulcers painful on edges. Suppressed skin symptoms produce nervous disorders.

Itching, better by scratching; pricking, burning skin.—Ulcers with high, hard edges,

sensitive to touch, easily bleeding; old ulcers on forearm, wrist, hand; ulcers, esp. when affecting

the bones; pus profuse, greenish, thin, offensive, even ichorous.—Ulcers, very painful to contact,

esp. in the circumference, gangrenous.

• ▸Abortion.
• ▸Bronchitis.
• ▸Catarrhal fever.
• ▸Dropsy.
• ▸Dysmenorrhoea.
• ▸Hay-fever.
• ▸Headache.

• ▸Indigestion.
• ▸Influenza.
• ▸Pleurisy.
• ▸Rheumatism.
• ▸Ureemia.
• ▸Uterine pains.

Antidotes: China; Mercur.

Compare: Moschus; China; Mercur; Aurum.

Second to sixth potency.

This remedy in olden times was freijucntly abused for man and

beast. Our grandfathers supposed it was a j^totection against disease,

and hence they used it in the stables. Lumps of “foety,” as they called

it, where put in the corn for the horse, to keep off distemper. What it

has accomplished I am unable to say, but it is certain that these farmers looked upon Asafoetida as a great protective against disease. It

has been used also by the laity as a medicine for fainting, for hysteria,

and all sorts of nervous symptoms and complaints. The use is justified by the proving. These things are scarcely worthy of note, but it

shows the general use among the people, as a domestic medicine, in

crude form. It has been used more extensively in this form than in

professional practice in a legitimate way.

There is one class of patients you will find who will trouble you.

Those cases that come into your office with puffed, venous, purple

faces ; they have an appearance of plethora ; the face looks puffed,

bloated and dropsical at times ; it is a dark red, dusky face ; such a

face we shall cure sometimes with Asafoetida. Carho an,, Aurum,

Cabo veg, and Pulsatilla are also related to this kind of face, but it

is a very troublesome face, it shows more or less cardiac disturbance

and venous stasis. The venous side of the heart will often be involved,

or be about to be involved, when you have this kind of face. I never

like to see them come into my office, for they are hard cases to manage. They have deep-seated troubles, with bleeding, they arc subject

to sudden inflammations, and they do not rally quickly. In this constitution we have ulcerations ; a little place will ulcerate and suppurate,

and the ulceration will burrow ; this is just what this remedy does.

Another thing this kind of constitution will do is to set up an inflammatory condition of the periosteum with swelling, periostitis of the

tibia for instance, where the circulation is not very active ; inflammation of cartilages with tumefaction and purple skin, stitching pains and

dropsy, ulcerations and fistulous openings. This medicine is good for

just such states. “Ulcers with extreme sensitiveness.”

Patients often say, “I get no sympathy wdien I am sick because I

look so well fat, flabby and purple. This remedy will seldom be

thought of in lean persons ; they seem to be free from complaints like

those of Asafoetida, but in fat, flabby persons, extremely nervous, extremely sensitive to pain, full of hysteria. Purple w^licn out in the

cold, purple when excited. In other w^ords, you sec before you the

venous constitution, and these people get the worst kind of hysteria :

they go off almost from no cause into fainting : from a close room,

from excitement, from any disturbance ; sometimes cramps come on,

but more especially fainting. They are subject to stitching pains from

the bone to the surface : that ir, from wdthin out. The periosteum'

becomes irritated, and glands become sW'Ollcn. Syphilis sometimes

produces this kind of condition. Vascular disturbances in the body ;

periostitis, necrosis, induration of glands, nerve syphilis and head

pains. In old syphilitics with this kind of venous face, subject to

bleeding, ulcers turn black or become purple. In this there is a similarity to Lachesis. Old scars turn purple, threaten to suppurate, take

on a venous aspect, become painful and turn black. Ulcers form at the site

of old scars in old syphilitic patients and soraciimcs in psoric patients.

Most complaints come on during rest and are better by slow motion.

There is another grand feature running through this remedy : it is

full of discharges, catarrhal discharges, discharges from ulcers, tvaicry

discharges from different places and even watery stool ; and all thesci

discharges are horribly offensive and ichorous. Deep, fiat ulcers from

bone and periosteal affections give out a watery, bloody discharge that

is horribly offensive, with pains shooting outwards. Get the idea of

the venous stasis well fixed in your mind and with this syphilitic state

added to it.

There are many pains running through the remedy and they arc

night pains like those of syphilis, nightly bone pains, and pains in the

periosteum. The ulcers are deep, with bluish edges. Varicose veins

surround the ulcers. Inflammation of the bone and periosteum, with

blueness all around the ulcers. When there has been, an inflanimatQry.

l6o ASAFCETIDA

condition of the periosteum, somewhat passive in character, the skin

adheres to the bone, glues down to it by adhesion. It is too feeble to

ulcerate, it does not get up a likely inHammation, but only a passive

state. The glands all over the body arc hot and throbbing, with shooting,

jerking pains, in syphilis or old psoric and scrofulous complaints.

The bone pains that arc felt in the head arc sometimes very distressing. Old syphilitic bone pains in the head, stitching, penetrating.

It seems where there are lumps and nodules, about the head, this

medicine seems to hurry things. Shooting, stitching, tearing pains

under left frontal eminence. This stitching pain is sometimes described as if a nail or plug were driven into the head. These nervous

headaches are syphilic, hysterical or scrofulous ; hysterical pains described as rending, tearing, stitching. All over the head there is stitching pain, but in the frontal eminence, in the temples, there is a sensation as if a nail or plug were driven in, and most of the pains seem to

bore, as if they extended from the hone to the surface, and hence

are said to be from within out.

It is useful in old syphilitics who arc subject to eye complaints,

ulcers on the eyeball, ulcers on the cornea, ameliorated in the open

air, with a sensation of numbness in the eyes ; inflammation of the iris,

with ragged appearance of the iris ; they arc subject also to severe,

sharp stitching pains that come from within out. The remedy is full

of burning, and so the eyeballs burn, better in the open air. Iritis,

but the inflammation sometimes involves the choroid, the retina, and

mucous membrane, making a general inflammatory condition of syphilitic character. There are tearing pains in various places around the

eyes ; sticking, stitching pains, worse at night. Ulcers, with stitching

pains, worse at night. Burning, stitching in the eyes with dryness, so

that the lids stick to the balls of the eyes, pain worse at night. There

is a misty appearance before the eyes, dullness as if looking through a

fog. It also seems as if the atmosphere were filled with little floating

black flies. “Muscae voliantes.'’ You have looked into the air and

seen little gnats and mosquitoes ; well it appears to these patients as if

these were there when they are not there. The discharge from the

eyes is ichorous, bloody and often offensive.

This same syphilitic miasm may attack the ear and the bones of the

ear. These bones may decay and the hearing he lost. '‘Burning in the

ear with discharge of foetid pus.” Stitching pains in the ears from

'within out,

A horribly offensive discharge comes from the nose ; ulcers high

up in the nose ; caries of the bones of the nose ; syphilitic ozaena.

Putrid old catarrhs. “Feeling as if the nose stopped high up, as if

he could not breathe through it, with fulness of the head, when riding

in a carriage.'* (Aurum, Aurum mun)

ASAFCEIXDA

l6l

Numbness is a great feature of this remedy, numbness of the scalp^

or deep in the head ; numbness here and there ; numb, dead feeling

associated with the pain ; numbness after pain ; often numbness after

sleep. Other nervous manifestations occur besides those that are

hysterical. It has choreic motions. You would expect such a peculiar

nervous constitution to have almost everything among its nervous

symptoms. ''Constantly chewing and working frothy slime out of

mouth, with swollen tongue.” “Speech unintelligible.” “Grinding of

teeth ; starting at night.” Swelling of the lips, and of the whole buccal

mucous membrane, especially the lower lip, with burning in the mouth.

There are syphilitic symptoms in the throat, attended with the usual

burning, darting, stitching in ulcers ; pain when swallowing ; a sensation of a ball rising in the throat, such as occurs in globus hystericus ;

choking, must constantly swallow. Hysterical and choreic affections

of the oesophagus and trachea. Spasms of the oesophagus. This lump

in the throat, or suffocation, is a sort of hysterical spasm of the

oesophagus. “Dryness and burning in the oesophagus.”

In the stomach troubles, if you have ever seen a typical case of

Asafoetida, you will wonder where all the air comes from ; it comes

up in volumes. “Hiccough-like contractions of the diaphragm.”

Choreic jerkings of the diaphragm, with expulsion of wind like the

sound of a pop-gun going off almost every second. It is a condition

that the patient has no control over. It is like the shooting off of little

guns forcing loud belching, loud eructations of wind from the stomach.

There are a few symptoms mentioned in the text just here that are

worthy of note. “Pulsation in pit of stomach ; perceptible to sight

and touch.” “Pressing, cutting, stitching pains.” A queer observation

has been made that flatus was not passed downward, but all upwards.

“Eructations ; smelling like garlic ; tasting rancid, sharp or putrid.”

Always horribly offensive, Offensivencss is a characteristic of the

remedy. And then there is a “gone empty feeling in the pit of the

stomach,” not a pain. “Pulsations after eating.” “Meteorism of the

stomach.” The remedy has many gastric and abdominal complaints ;

full of bellyache ; stitching pains, colic. The diarrhoea is more or less

troublesome. These patients are afflicted with diarrhoea from the

slightest indigestion, after any indiscretion in diet, a painful, watery

diarrhoea. “Liquid stools of most disgusting smell.” “Blackish-brown

papescent offensive stools, which relieve.”

“Bearing down in genitals, worse when riding in a carriage.”

“Uterine ulcer sensitive and painful.” This medicine has been very

useful in palliating uterine cancer in such constitutions as described ;

those with purple faces, never the very pallid ones. Women of feeble,

flabby, venous constitutions are subject to haemorrhages and miscarriages. Women who are not pregnant sometimes have the breasts

AtJRUM M£TALLICI;M

fill up with milk, wonderfully annoying thing, and but few remedies

have it ; this is one of the few. It has also deficiency of milk. ‘Ten

days after delivery milk diminished.’'

These patients sometimes get hysterical asthma ; all sorts of disturbance in breathing, dyspnoea. “Asdimatic feeling in trachea." “Asthmatic attacks at least once a day all her life, brought on by every bodily

exertion, coition, especially by every satisfying meal." Attacks of

dyspnoea after coition, like Ambra. “Obstinate titillating cough < at

night." Many of these complaints are worse at night ; nightly aggravations. Syphilitic complaints are commonly worse at night and such

antisyphilitic remedies as Mercurius, Staphisagria, Hepar, Nitric acid,

etc., are all worse at night. Among the other chest complaints, I will

read a few of those that are marked here prominently and are striking

ones. “Pressure and burning of the sternum." “Compression of

chest as from a heavy weight." “Stitches in chest." “Single, violent

stitches from within outward, at short intervals.

This remedy is full of rheumatism and gouty symptoms ; gouty

affections in general, in nervous constitutions. When such a nervous

constitution finally produces gouty formations, the nervousness often

disappears ; for it has been relieved by the deposit in the joints ; a

transformation scene has taken place.

Darting pain and caries in bones. Periosteum painful, swollen, enlarged. Ulcers affecting bones; thin, ichorous pus.