Coffea

The effects of Coffea cruda have to be considered separately from those of

Coffea tosta, since the roasting converts much of the Coffeine into Coffeone or Methylamine,

which gives to coffee its aroma. But the effects are scarcely distinguishable, and I have not

attempted to keep them strictly apart. The provings of Co/f: c. were made with the raw berries.

Coffea belongs to the same family as China, Ipecacuanha, and like these remedies has many

symptoms of intermittent fever. It has been noticed that coffee-drinkers who do get ague are

more difficult to cure than those who do not drink coffee. The great characteristic of Coffea is

exaltation of the senses and sensibility in general. Sight is improved, fine print can be read

easily; hearing is more acute, and noises are intolerable. The sense of smell is heightened. All

kinds of pains are intolerable; and are accompanied with fear of death. The mental activities are

exalted. Sudden emotions, especially joy, produce dangerous symptoms. Great sensitiveness to

touch or contact. These symptoms will recall Acon. Guernsey places it in the front rank of

remedies for irritability. He compares four others with it, all of which have irritability in high

degree, but have different concomitants: Acon., "fearful and anxious; dreads things"; Aur.,

"suicidal, will thrash around in bed (as females in confinement) as if wishing to injure or kill

• ▸themselves"; Cham.
• ▸, "spiteful, uncivil"; Coff.
• ▸, "wakeful, on the constant move"; Nux v.
• ▸, "sullen,

keeps the eyes shut; doesn't wish to speak or have anything to do with any one." Staph. and

• ▸Coloc.
• ▸deserve mention also.
• ▸Teste groups Coff.
• ▸with Causticum.
• ▸He remarks that dynamised

• ▸Coff.
• ▸crud.
• ▸prevents or neutralises, in many persons, the effects of roasted coffee.
• ▸This quasi-

isopathic action, as Teste truly remarks, is by no means confined to Coffea; dynamisations of

many other drugs being antidotal to secondary effects of the crude substances. Hahnemann

describes the migraine of coffee-drinkers thus: "It comes in the morning after waking, increasing

little by little. The pain becomes intolerable, and sometimes burning, integument of head very

sensitive and painful on slightest touch. Body and mind excessively sensitive. Patients look

exhausted, retire to dark places, close their eyes to avoid light of day; remain seated in an

armchair or stretched on a bed. The least noise or motion excites the pain. They avoid talking,

being talked to, or hearing others talk. The body is colder than usual though no chills are

experienced; the hands and feet are especially cold. They loathe everything, especially food and

drink, on account of a continual sickness at the stomach. If the attack is very violent a vomiting

of mucus takes place, which, however, does not relieve the headache. There are no alvine

discharges. This kind of megrim scarcely ever leaves before evening. If the paroxysm is less

violent, a little strong coffee which was the first cause of such a headache will produce a

temporary palliation of the pain, but the disposition to relapse becomes so much greater. The

attacks come irregularly, every fortnight, or every few weeks, without any apparent cause, and

quite suddenly, so much so that the patient often does not feel a single unpleasant symptom the

evening preceding the attack. Such a headache has never been seen by me except in real coffee-

drinkers." It is well to inquire carefully into the dietary of patients who come complaining of

headaches of this kind. More recently Dr. Gilles de la Tourette (Lancet, July 20, 1895) has

described the effects of coffee. In his opinion they are very frequently mistaken for the effects of

alcohol: "morning vomiting of glairy mucus, pain in the pit of the stomach, thickly-coated

tongue, loss of appetite. The disgust excited by even the idea of solid food is such that these

patients eat nothing else but bread soaked in their poison-coffee. There supervene then nausea,

vomiting, and painful acid eructations." The pulse is slowed. Insomnia is common, and if there is

sleep it is disturbed by dreams of a terrifying nature, like those met with in alcoholism. The

effects of coffee are less deep than those of alcohol, and quickly disappear when the habit is

discontinued. Peculiar symptoms are: as if head too small; as if something hard pressing on

surface of brain; as if head would burst and fly to pieces if she moved; as if intestines were being

cut; as if body would burst; "tight" pain; sensation of warmth. Coffea is suited to tall, lean,

stooping persons, with dark complexions. Sanguine choleric temperament, complaints during

infancy and dentition. Diarrhoea in housewives who have much care and trouble in managing

their households. The symptoms are > by warmth, and < in open air (though in toothache warm

drinks <, cold drinks >). Touch <; would like to rub the part but it is too sensitive. Slight passive

movements are perceived as enormous; children at times cannot bear to be carried about. Most

symptoms are < at night, sleeps till 3 a.m., after which he only dozes.

Effects of sudden emotion, especially pleasurable ones. Fear or fright. Wine (wine-

drinkers should take coffee; beer-drinkers should take tea). Over-fatigue and long journeys.

• ▸Gaiety, easy comprehension, irritability, excited; senses acute.
• ▸Impressionable, especially to pleasurable impressions.
• ▸Full of ideas, quick to act.
• ▸Tossing about in anguish (Acon).

Over-sensitiveness; weeping mood.—Great anguish; cannot be composed; is not able

to hold the pen; trembles —Sentimental ecstasy; excited imagination; increased power to

think.—Excessive weeping and lamentations over trifles.—The pains seem insupportable, driving

to despair.—Fright from sudden pleasant surprises.

Painful sensitiveness of the parts affected —Great flexibility of the muscles,

and activity of the whole body.—Mental and physical excitability—Aversion to the open air, with

uneasiness and aggravation of the symptoms during a walk in the open air.—T witching of the

limbs.—Convulsions, with grinding of the teeth, and coldness in the limbs.—Violent shivering,

with feverish increase of bodily heat.—Fever with inconsolable anguish.—Shuddering with colic

and violent agitation —The pains are felt intensely, driving to despair, and inclination to

• ▸weep.
• ▸—Tears, howls, cries, tossing and discouragement, esp.
• ▸during the paroxysm of pain.
• ▸—Cries

of children. —Anxiety of heart and of conscience, with apprehensions.—He feels unusually

well.—Vivacity and excessive loquacity.—Vivacity and elevation of the imagination, with

acuteness of the intellectual faculties.

Tight pain, worse from noise, smell, narcotics. Seems as if brain were torn to pieces, as if nail were driven in head.Worse in open air. Sensitive hearing.

Pains in the head, as if the brain were bruised (as if the brain were torn or dashed to

pieces).—Semi-lateral cephalalgia, as if a nail were driven into the parietal bone.—In the vertex

he feels and hears a cracking, when sitting quietly.—Heaviness of the head.—Congestion in the

head, esp. when speaking (or after a pleasant surprise).

Eyes lively and red, with unusually clear sight; can read small writing more distinctly.

Excessive sensibility of hearing —Musical sounds seem to be too loud, and too

sharp.—Hardness of hearing, with buzzing in the ears.

Dry heat, with red cheeks. Prosopalgia extending to molar teeth, ears, forehead, and scalp.

Toothache; temporarily relieved by holding ice-water in the mouth (Mangan opposite). Hasty eating and drinking. Delicate taste.

Successive pullings, and sharp pains in the teeth, with inquietude, anxiety and tears,

esp. at night and after a meal.—Toothache, > by cold water.

Sore throat; with great and painful sensibility, and swelling of the velum palati; <

when swallowing.

Excessive hunger. Intolerance of tight clothing. After wine and liquor.

Taste of hazel nuts, or sweet almonds, in the mouth.—Tobacco-smoke appears

particularly agreeable.—Sensation of immoderate hunger, with rapid, hurried eating.—Thirst

• ▸increased, esp.
• ▸at night, it wakens him.
• ▸—Bilious vomiting.
• ▸—Cramps in the stomach, with

pressive, shooting pains.

Anxiety and oppression in the region of the epigastrium.—The clothes are

oppressive.—Colic, as if the stomach had been overloaded, as if the abdomen would burst; cannot

suffer the clothes to be tight on the abdomen.—Pressure in the abdomen as from incarcerated

flatulence —Abdominal pains which induce despair, esp. in women.

• ▸Menses too early and long lasting.
• ▸Dysmenorrhoea, large clots of black blood.
• ▸Hypersensitive vulva and vagina.
• ▸Voluptuous itching.

Immoderate irritation of the sexual parts of females, with

voluptuous itching, great secretion of mucus, and frequent flow of

blood.—Metrorrhagia.—Labour and after-pains insupportably painful.

17, 18. Respiratory Organs and Chest.—Short, jerking, dry cough, with great irritation in the

larynx, and anxious tossings.—Oppression of the chest; obliged to take short inspirations; the

breathing heaves the chest visibly.—Night cough (cough with measles).—Fits of suffocation.

Great excitement of sexual desire, with flaccidity or strong irritation

of the genital parts; without emission of semen, and with dry heat of the body.

Short, dry cough of measles in nervous, delicate children.

Violent irregular palpitation especially after excessive joy or surprise. Rapid high tension pulse and urinary suppression.

Palpitation of heart; violent, irregular, with trembling of limbs.—Nervous

palpitation.—Palpitation after excessive joy, surprise.

Trembling of the hands, while grasping anything. —Cramp-like contractions

of the fingers.

Cramps in the calf of the leg, on bending the knee.—Cramps in the soles of

the feet on bending the instep.—Trembling of the feet.

Crural neuralgia; worse, motion, afternoon and night; better, by pressure.

• ▸Wakeful; on a constant move.
• ▸Sleeps till 3 am, after which only dozing.
• ▸Wakes with a start, sleep disturbed by dreams.
• ▸Sleepless, on account mental activity; flow of ideas, with nervous excitability.
• ▸Disturbed by itching of anus.

Sleeplessness, from over-excitability of mind and body (sleeplessness of lying-in

women).—Sleeplessness from excitement of the imagination, flow of ideas, and fantastic

visions.—Inclination to lie down and to shut the eyes, without being able to sleep.

Chilliness increased by every movement.—Internal chilliness, with external heat of

the face and body.—Chills running down the back.—Dry heat in the evening after going to bed,

with chilliness in the back.—Nightly, dry heat, with delirium.—Perspiration on the face, with

internal chilliness.

• ▸Apoplexy.
• ▸Asthma.
• ▸Aural neuralgia.
• ▸Colic.
• ▸Convulsions.
• ▸Diarrhoea.
• ▸Ecstasy.

• ▸Excitement.
• ▸Headache.
• ▸Heart, hyperzesthesia of.
• ▸Hernia.
• ▸Hyperzesthesia.
• ▸Hysteria.
• ▸Intermittents.

• ▸Joy, ill-effects of.
• ▸Labour pains.
• ▸Metrorrhagia.
• ▸Neuralgia.
• ▸Over-sensitiveness.
• ▸Sciatica.
• ▸Shock.

Sleeplessness. Toothache.

• ▸Antidoted by: Acon.
• ▸, Cham.
• ▸, Ignat.
• ▸, Nux, Merc.
• ▸, Puls.
• ▸, Sulph.
• ▸, and especially Tabac.

• ▸(Teste).
• ▸Antidote to: Bell.
• ▸, Cham.
• ▸, Cicut.
• ▸, Coloc.
• ▸, Lyc.
• ▸, Nux v.
• ▸, Strych.
• ▸, Valer.
• ▸It is incompatible

• ▸with: Canth.
• ▸, Caust.
• ▸, Coccul.
• ▸, Ignat.
• ▸Followed well by.
• ▸Aur.
• ▸, Bell.
• ▸, Op.
• ▸, Nux v.
• ▸, Lyc.
• ▸Compare:

• ▸Cypr.
• ▸(ecstasy); Bry.
• ▸and Cham.
• ▸(toothache > by cold); Aco.
• ▸(predicts hour of death); Coca,

Codein, Coff. tost.

Incompatible: Camph; Coccul. Complementary: Acon.

• ▸Compare: Coffea tosta (Roasting develops certain vitamin-like substances (P.
• ▸T.
• ▸Mattei).
• ▸Pigeons which have developed "deficiency" neuritis and paralysis on diet of polished rice lost their disabilities on the addition of 8 cc to a 5 % infusion of coffee to their food.
• ▸Unroasted coffee was useless).
• ▸Caffeine.
• ▸--(A crystalline alkaloid-is a direct heart stimulant and diuretic.
• ▸Dropsy depending on cardiac insufficiency.
• ▸Myocardial degeneration.
• ▸Cardiac insufficiency in pneumonia and other infectious diseases.
• ▸Raises the blood pressure, increases pulse rate and stimulates the heart muscle; hence, a support in extreme feebleness or threatened failure.
• ▸Stimulates the respiratory center, nerve centers and increases diuresis.
• ▸One of the best stimulants of the vaso-motor centers.
• ▸Acute pulmonary oedema.
• ▸Brachialgia and other neuralgias characterized by nocturnal exacerbations.
• ▸Jousset uses equal parts of caffeine and sachar lac.
• ▸3 grains taken in divided doses every other day.
• ▸Hypodermically, 1/4 grain.
• ▸Excruciating facial neuralgia from decayed teeth); Acon; Cham; Nux; Cyp; Caffeine and plants containing it, as Kola, Thea, etc.

Strong black coffee, drunk as hot as possible, is indispensable as an antidote in a large number of poisons, especially narcotics. Hot coffee by rectum in cases of extreme collapse.

Antidotes: Nux; Tabac.

Third to two hundredth potency.

The Coffea state is brought on by emotions or violent excitement

of the mind, but especially by joy ot ‘‘pleasant surprise.’* The result

is sleeplessness, nervous excitement, neuralgia, twitching of muscles,

toothache, faccache, red face and hot head.

You may be called to the bedside of a woman who has been laboring for some great cause. She works persistently, is successful, but

goes to bed with weeping, delirium, neuralgia, sleeplessness. Her

heart palpitates, her pulse flickers, she has fainting spells, and without

Coffea she may die. Coffee drinkers who keep up through some

ordeal and then break down are similarly affected.

The Coffea patient is sensitive to wine. A small amount of wine

intensifies the nervousness, produces sleeplessness, flushed face, feverishness, great excitement. Not necessarily intoxication, but nervous

excitement. Coflea has a painful sensitiveness of the skin beyond

comprehension. I remember one particular case. A woman had her

lower limb out of bed and it was as red as fire down one side. I

walked toward it to put my hand on it. But she said, “Oh, don't

touch it, I can’t bear to have it touched ; I can’t touch it myself.” I

asked how long this had been coming on. She said, “Oh, it all came

on within an hour. Such a symptom is common in coffee drinkers.

There was no fever. Intense stinging, burning pains in the skin with

the redness and heat with coarse rash coming on suddenly, leaving just

as suddenly. The sensitive part is aggravated by cold air, aggravated

39 ^

C^FFEA

by any wind or from fanning, from motion, yet aggravated by

warmth. Aggravated from anyone walking across the floor. The

woman I referred to scowled when I was walking toward the bed.

A number of times I have seen such things relieved within a few

minutes by Coffea.

Fainting from sudden emotions. Hysteria, nervousness, weeping.

Pitiful weeping from pain ; trembling and weeping from hurt feelings ; the slightest neglect. The greatest mental and physical exhaustion : great restlessness ; lying awake most of the night. The

wakefulness produced by Coffea is well known, even to the laity. It

is taken by nurses to keep them awake nights with their patients. The

Coffea patient is quick to act and to think. So full of ideas that she

lies awake nights making plans, thinking of a thousand things ; utterly

unable to banish the thoughts that flood the mind ; hears the clocks

on the distant steeples, as do Opium, China and Nux vom. Hears

the dogs barking. So great is the brain activity, the mental excitement, that she hears noises that are purely imaginary. Memory

active, easy comprehension full of ideas ; increased power to think

and to debate. Coffea increases the mental capacity. But after a

while reaction follows ; she becomes stupid and sleepy. There is no

end to the fancies, to the visions. Fanciful visions come before the

mind. Recalls things not thought of for years ; recalls poetry that

was recited in childhood. Eyes brilliant ; pupils dilated ; face flushed ;

head hot.

With all these nervous states the patient dreads the fresh air. He

is extremely sensitive to cold, sensitive to the wind and cold weather.

Complaints come on in the cold weather, from the cold air. Pain in

the mouth and jaws, better front holding ice-^cold water in the mouth.

This applies to toothache and faceache where it is deep in the jaws.

Hot head ; inflamed condition of the gums. Pain in the teeth ; rending, tearing pain in the teeth, brought on from exposure to cold, from

emotions, from excitement, from joy ; aggravated from motion ;

ameliorated by ice or ice-cold things ; aggravated by warm food.

Cannot drink warm tea, it so intensifies the pain. That is a particular.

The particulars contrast with the generals. In one place you may

see ‘'better from cold” in black-faced type, but it relates to the face

• ▸and jaws.
• ▸Worse from cold is a general.
• ▸Aversion to cold air, aversion to the open air unless it is very warm and still.
• ▸Aversion to

wind. “Neuralgic toothache entirely relieved by holding cold water

in the mouth, returning as it becomes warm. Toothache during the

menstrual period. Complaints of anaemic children during dentition.’'

’'Those nervous, excitable children that talk to the nurse and the

mother very rapidly with brilliant eyes, red face, cannot go to sleep.

It will quiet the patient and actually favor the growth of the tooth in

a painless manner* That is the description of a nervous child with

many nervous brain and mental troubles. This child is extremely

sensitive ; it takes cold. The routine prescriber gives Belladonna to

a child who has hot head, hot face and throbbing carotids, and when

it does not help he gives more Belladonna, and increases the size of

his dose untli the child has a proving. He makes a Belladonna child

out of it when Coffca would have cured it. In most instances where

Belladonna is indicated the child is sluggish and stupid, and would

like to sleep. With Coffea there is excitement. The child hears

things its mother cannot hear ; sees things : imagines things. Wakes

up in fright. Sees this, that and the other thing in the room. Wakes

up excited as if it had visions. Looks for things, and finally sees

they arc not there. Such things are strong features of Coffea.

At times the head is hot, the face is flushed and the eyes so brilliant

that one fears apoplexy. Patients will often tell you that they hear

a ‘‘noise” in the head, a ringing and roaring in the occiput. The ear

is the one organ capable of registering sounds. But strange to say,

the ears are sometimes very deceiving. Roaring in the ears sometimes seems as if it were in the occiput. Sometimes it is accompanied

with a sensation of tingling or bubbling in the head. When patients

say, “I have a roaring in the head,” you know that means in the ear ;

many times accompanying roaring, ringing in the cars, buzzing in the

ears, is a peculiar sensation of vibration in the head that is mistaken

by the patient for a sound. I mentiop that because the Coffea patient

feels a crackling or a bubbling in the, occiput. The head feels badly :

it feds too small. Headache, as of something pressing hard upon the

surface of the brain. You would naturally suppose there was a pressing because of the congestive state heretofore described. “Headache

as if the whole brain were torn and bruised, or dashed to pieces.

• ▸Worse from motion, noise or light.
• ▸” The eye and the head symptoms are worse from noise and light.
• ▸“Headache intolerable.
• ▸Head

feels small, and as if filled with fluid. Nervous hysterical headache.

One-sided headache.” There is another head symptom which is quite

common. A feeling as if a nail were driven into the head. Coffca

headaches are worse from walking, from motion ; from the mere

moving across the floor, he says he feels a draft of air on his head.

And that is true of the pain in any part of the body. If a Coffea

patient should have a pain in the hand, swinging of the hand through

the air will aggravate. It is worse both from the motion and from

the air. I want to illustrate that in this way in order to show how

sensitive he is to air, and especially the painful part to cold air ; when

he moves against the air, against even still air he feels it. Bur the

amelioration of the toothache from cnld is an exception, is a particular.

The neuralgia of the face is a common feature of old coffee

drinkers. Sensitive persons take coffee and finally become habituated

to it. They say they cannot get along without it. They must have

coffee. Such individuals should stop coffee. When coffee furnishes

a crutch it is a sure indication that drinking it must be stopped. So

it is with tea or any beverage. Such persons sometimes become

sensitive to coffee, and they drink it in great quantities ; the face

becomes red ; headaches come on, and other symptoms of Coffea.

Stopping coffee brings out quite a proving, and you have to study

• ▸Cham, and Nux for an antidote.
• ▸In all these remedies you get opposite effects.
• ▸Now Opium will illustrate that.
• ▸The first effect of

Ophnn is to constipate. Let several doses be given, and as the effects

of the Opium wear off he may have diarrhoea. Opium eaters can

seldom stop because a diarrhoea comes on. If you should ever have

an Opium case and diarrhoea comes on Puls, will nearly always control

it. But there are individuals who reverse that. Often small doses

of Opium will bring on dysentery, and if it is increased, bloody dysentery and inflammation of the bowels come on. Of course, one is

action and the other the reaction.

A woman who is a confirmed coffee drinker will have menses too

soon and lasting too long. Uterine haemorrhage is not uncommon.

Another feature of Coffea is that the woman can scarcely wear the

napkin during menstruation {Platinum). The parts arc in a state

of hyperaesthesia. The vagina is hot and sensitive, often preventing

coition. In the text it reads “Great sensitiveness of female genital

organs, with general excitability. She is in a state of ecstacy. Uterine

haemorrhage with excessive sensitivcncvss of organs and voluptuous

itching. Metrorrhagia ; large black lumps.’' Sometimes large bright

red lumps. “Worse from every motion, with violent pain in the

groins, and fear of death.” Excessive sensitiveness about the vulva

with voluptuous itching, is a strong feature of Coffea, and you will

often find such symptoms in coffee drinkers.

During and after labor we also see this great excitement, all these

nervous manifestations. The nervous system is in a fret, and such

a mental state as described comes on with after-pains ; extremely sensitive to pain, cries out ; sees visions ; hears all sorts of noises. Pains

aggravated from motion ; aggravated from noise. Wants everybody

to keep still in the house.

• ▸Convulsions of children.
• ▸“Puerperal convulsions.
• ▸Extreme excitability.
• ▸” “Palpitation of the heart, pulse fluttering.
• ▸” “Strong,

((uick palpitation of the heart with extreme nervousness, sleeplessness and cerebral erethism caused by unexpected news of great good

fortune.” Let a woman about to go into confinement hear suddenly

some unusually good news and the becomes almost ecstatic ; carries

the symptom all through confinement, The child is affected, the milk

CX51CHICVM

is affected* The milk flows away. Haemorrhage is likely to come on.

Great nervousness, excitability, fear.