Hydrocyanicum Acidum

The pathogenesis of Hcyan. ac. is mainly composed of symptoms observed in

poisoning cases and clinically verified, but it has also been proved by Joerg and his pupils. Hen.

is one of the deadliest and most rapidly acting of poisons. Hence its applicability in cases of

critical intensity, such as the collapse stage of cholera, when it supervenes on sudden cessation of

all discharges; convulsion during severe attacks of illness. It acts powerfully on the coeliac

ganglia, causing intestinal cramps and colics. Convulsions and paralysis are the leading notes of

the medicine's action. In the convulsions the body is stiffened and thrown back; cramp in nape of

neck is very characteristic; breathing comes in paroxysms; jaws set; foaming at mouth; face

• ▸flushed, bluish tint.
• ▸A.
• ▸H.
• ▸Croucher cured a boy, 3 1/2, of convulsions.
• ▸First attack occurred six

months previously. His father's sister had died of epilepsy. Before the fits came on he could walk

well, but could not afterwards. The fits occurred at intervals of about three weeks when a

succession of them occurred, each lasting about five minutes, during two or three days. During

the intervals between the fits he would generally scream. In the morning on awaking, patient

cried out, then convulsions occurred; body and limbs convulsed, eyelids twitched but remained

• ▸open, eyeballs turned up and to right.
• ▸Seemed quite unconscious.
• ▸Hcn.
• ▸2x, one drop three times a

day, increased afterwards to two drops and continued for a fortnight. No more convulsions, but

three months later a rash developed all over him.—The characteristic blue tint of Hen. is apparent

after death in some poisoning cases: livid spots on limbs; nails violet. In one case there was a

brilliant violent hue all over. The tetanic spasm of Hcn. is persistent and tonic, and has none of

the reflex excitability of the Nux state. Hcn. acts most powerfully on the muscles of face, jaws,

and back; the risus sardonicus is pronounced; lividity; frothing. It acts on the medulla and

through the vagus nerve on heart and respiration. The breathing is irregular and gasping. The

heart is greatly disturbed; blueness and coldness of surface; pulse feeble, imperceptible. The

patient clutches at the heart as if in distress. The prostration of Hcn. is profound: drinks roll

audibly into the stomach. It cured a boy of four of fever who had this symptom: "when

swallowing a teaspoonful of liquid it sounds like water rolling into an empty barrel." Paralysis

attacks first the lower, then the upper limbs. A dry tearing cough < at night is among the

symptoms of Hcn.; and it relieves a similar cough often met with in consumptives. For it must

not be imagined that the remedy is only of use in desperate cases of acute illness; it answers to its

minute individual symptoms just as truly as does Camph., but it is only those who know the drug

in the higher as well as the lower attenuations who will be able to profit by a knowledge of these.

"Feels as if a cloud were going over his brain," is a symptom Cash removed with Hen. in a case

of sunstroke. There is much disturbance of the digestion, which is < after eating. The headache is

< at night and the vertigo < in the open air. Coldness is a great feature with the remedy, marble

coldness within and without. Blue tinge of the skin is also characteristic.

Unconscious. Wild delirium. Fear of imaginary troubles.

Fears everything-horses, wagons, houses falling, etc.

Depression; discouragement.—Anguish and oppression; anguish in the pit of the

stomach; fear of imaginary ills—Very great irritability; sadness; peevish temper: incapacity for

labour.—Inability to think; memory enfeebled; aversion to all mental fatigue-—Could not remain

in middle of road when a vehicle approached even at a considerable distance; was forced, as it

were, against his will, to stand aside without waiting for it to come nearer (after recovery from

poisoning).

Speedy failing and weakness of the limbs, esp. of the thighs; extreme

weakness and weariness; nervous weakness.—Spasms; spasms at the back; spasms of face and

jaws; convulsions.—Paralysis of inferior extremities, afterwards of the upper ones; loss of

sensation, then stiffness of the parts; trembling and staggering, immobility, insensibility; stiffness

of the body.—Cataleptic attacks; great flexibility of the limbs; pulsations of the heart become

slower, weaker, less appreciable, until lethargy supervenes; diminution of vital heat—Muscles of

back and face principally affected—Activity of the senses stimulated; internal feeling of ease;

gentle languor with sensation of agreeable weariness.—Dulness of the senses, and insensibility to

external influences; disappearance of all pain; insensibility; loss of consciousness; wandering of

the senses; shivering and lassitude.

• ▸Violent stupefying headache.
• ▸Brain feels on fire.
• ▸Pupils motionless or dilated.
• ▸Supra-orbital neuralgia, with flushing on same side of face.

Head confused and weighty; giddiness with sinking of the body; giddiness, sometimes

with a feeling as of intoxication —Dulness of the senses, sometimes with apparent wavering of

objects, and of a veil before the eyes, with difficulty to stand on rising from a stooping or sitting

posture; symptoms < in the open air.—Vertigo, sometimes with staggering, the patient feels as

though something moved in the air and drew him along with it, or else as if everything revolved

about him.—Feels as if a cloud were going over his brain (cured in a case of

sunstroke).—Cephalalgia with vertigo; stunning cephalalgia, dull pain in the forehead, beginning

at the temples.—Head heavy and stupid.—Headache, only at night —Pressive cephalalgia in the

forehead, or else at the occiput to the |. towards the forehead.—Violent headache in sinciput and

• ▸occiput, from vertex to forehead and orbits of the eyes; in the side of the head (r.
• ▸or 1.
• ▸) esp.
• ▸in

vertex and forehead; at different parts of the head.—Tension in frontal region.—Shootings in the

head, sometimes in one place, sometimes in another.

Eyes half open; reversed; protruding from the head; immoveable; difficulty to move

the eyeballs.—Pupils dilated and immoveable; insensible to light—Eyelids wide open,

immoveable, as if paralysed; spasmodic quivering in the upper eyelids—Dimness of sight;

cloudiness and mist (gauze) before the eyes; amaurotic blindness.

Aching in the interior of both ears; sometimes with roaring (buzzing) and

ringing.—Hardness of hearing.

Smarting in the upper part of nostrils —Dilation of the alee nasi, which have a bluish

tint—Dryness of the nose.

Jaws clenched in rigid spasm. Froths at mouth. Pale, bluish lips.

Puffing of the face; oval visage; visage wears a look of age; pale and bluish;

complexion earthy and grey.—Expression of beatitude in the countenance.—Contortion of corners

of mouth; trismus; frightful contraction of the facial muscles.

Dryness of mouth.—Augmented secretion of saliva——Tongue coated, sometimes

white, afterwards dark and dingy; contraction at the root; sensation of coldness on the tongue;

burning at the tip of the tongue paralysis and stiffness of the tongue, which often protrudes from

the mouth loss of speech.—Pains in the palate; inflammation of the palate.

Spasms in the back part of the throat, and the cesophagus.—Scraping in the throat,

and in the gullet painful scraping in the throat; heat in the throat and in the cesophagus burning in

palate, throat, and cesophagus; inflammation of the throat, and of the cesophagus.

• ▸Tongue cold.
• ▸Drink rumbles through throat and stomach.
• ▸Gastralgia; worse when stomach is empty.
• ▸Great sinking at pit of stomach.
• ▸Pulsative pain in praecordial region.

Taste: sweetish; fetid, acrid, and irritating; much gas in the mouth, with taste of

prussic acid.—Anorexia, repugnance to food.—Adypsia, with heat throughout the body; ardent

thirst—Loathing, inclination to vomit; vomiting of a black liquid.—Pains in stomach; sensation of

coldness in stomach, sometimes with lancinations; pressure and squeezing in pit of stomach,

with great oppression.—Fluids enter stomach with gurgling noise.—Great sinking at pit of

• ▸stomach.
• ▸—Spasmodic contractions in the stomach.
• ▸—Heat and burning in stomach.
• ▸—Inflammation

of the stomach and intestines —Pulsative pain in the precordial region.

Coldness of the whole abdomen (with stitches), sometimes alternated with

burning.—Rumbling and borborygmi in the abdomen; flabby inflation of the abdomen.

Involuntary stools.—Involuntary stools, hiccough, and great

prostration.—Sudden cessation of all discharges —Cholera sicca.

Retention of urine; frequent emission of urine; copious emission of an

aqueous urine, pale or a pale yellow, depositing a turbid cloud.—Urine with sediment thick and

reddish.—Involuntary emission of urine.—Burning in the urethra.

• ▸Noisy and agitated breathing.
• ▸Dry, spasmodic, suffocative cough.
• ▸Asthma, with contraction of throat.
• ▸Whooping-cough.
• ▸Paralysis of lungs (Aspidos).
• ▸Marked cyanosis; venously congested lung.

Painful scraping and burning in the larynx; inflammation of the

larynx; sensation of swelling of the larynx; constriction of the throat; tickling in the larynx,

sometimes lancinations and draggings; roughness and hoarseness of the voice.—Loud

voice.—Frequent coughing, caused by smarting (pricking) in the larynx and

trachea—Hzemoptysis.—Respiration rattling, groaning, slow, very difficult, with mucous

rale.—Difficulty of respiration by reason of the lancinations in the larynx.—Want to breathe

• ▸deeply.
• ▸—Respiration profound, frequent, and stertorous.
• ▸—Anxious respiration.
• ▸—Paralysis of the

lungs.

• ▸Violent palpitation.
• ▸Pulse, weak irregular.
• ▸Cold extremities.
• ▸Torturing pain in chest.
• ▸Angina pectoris (Spigel; Oxal ac).

Oppression of the chest, asthma, sometimes painful.—Feeling of suffocation, with

severe pains in the chest.—Great oppression and constriction of the chest.—Sharp pains in the

• ▸chest.
• ▸—Aching in r.
• ▸side of chest—Lancinations in the |.
• ▸side, below inferior cartilage of sternum

or thereabout, in the chest, on breathing deeply.

Pains and pressure in the region of the heart.—Palpitations of the heart.—Irregular

movements of the heart; feeble action of the heart.—(Angina pectoris; sudden outcry; long

fainting spells; suffocation with torturing pains in chest; irregular, feeble heart-movements.)

Itching in various places, esp. between the chin and lips.—Small red pustules on hip;

burning itching vesicles on upper extremities, and neck.—Dryness of the skin —General pallor

with a bluish tint.—Varicose ulcers on legs.

Yawning with shivering. Irresistible drowsiness. Vivid, incoherent dreams.

Frequent yawning, sometimes with shuddering and spasm of the skin.—Drowsiness,

sometimes uncontrollable, or else after a meal; heavy sleep in the morning; continued inclination

to sleep; coma vigil; somnolency.—Wakefulness; to sleep is difficult, almost impossible; frequent

awakening.—Lively dreams, without connection; anxious, disquieting dreams, dreams of death.

Chilliness; frequent shudderings, esp. after midnight or in the morning; shivering,

with yawning or with thirst—Coldness of the limbs; sensation of cold internally and

externally.—Coldness within and without.—Fever, shivering, afterwards burning heat; heat in the

head, with coldness of the extremities, heat and sweat over the whole body, in the afternoon;

general febrile agitation, with intense excitement; heat, at intervals, and irregular motion of the

heart.—During the shivering, giddiness and vertigo; during the shudderings, mist before the sight.

• ▸Angina pectoris.
• ▸Asthma.
• ▸Cholera Asiatica.
• ▸Colic (horses).
• ▸Convulsions.
• ▸Dyspepsia.

• ▸Epilepsy.
• ▸Hemiplegia.
• ▸Hiccough.
• ▸Labour, convulsions in.
• ▸Stings.
• ▸Stomach, catarrh of.
• ▸Sunstroke.

Tetanus. Uremic convulsions. Whooping-cough.

• ▸The closest analogues are Camph.
• ▸, Lauro.
• ▸, and Amygd.
• ▸/t is antidoted by: Camph.
• ▸,

• ▸Coff.
• ▸, Ipec.
• ▸, Nux, Op.
• ▸, Ver Compare; Camph.
• ▸(cholera, coldness); Helod.
• ▸(coldness); Cicut.

(spinal cord; cramp in nape); Con. (paralysis spreading from below upward); (Enanth. (epilepsy);

Lauro. (dry tickling cough; Lauro. has also a cough with jelly-like sputa dotted with bloody

• ▸points); Lach.
• ▸; Tabac.
• ▸(asphyxia); Hell.
• ▸, Solania (paralysis of lungs and heart); Nux (tetanus, but

of different type).

Antidotes: Ammon; Camph; Opium.

Compare: Cicuta; Oenanthe; Camph; Lauroc.

Sixth and higher potencies.