Ricinus Communis

The castor-oil plant is a native of India. In the tropics it is a small tree growing

to the height of eight or ten feet. Under the name of Palma Christi it is cultivated as an annual in

this country, its stems reaching from three to five feet. The oil of medicine is obtained from the

• ▸seeds.
• ▸The blandest which is in common use is "cold drawn," i.
• ▸e.
• ▸, expressed without the aid of

heat, and contains the smallest amount of the acrid principle. A decoction of the seeds, which is

used in the East and West Indies, contains a much larger proportion. The homeeopathic

preparation should be made in such a way as to secure the full properties. The leaves have an

especially powerful action on the breasts and female generative organs. Hale made the first

collection of the pathogenetic effects of Ric., and pointed out its analogy to cholera, which Salzer

(On Cholera) confirmed. Cases of poisoning, some of them fatal, have been recorded from the

ordinary oil, but the greater number of the pathogenetic effects have resulted from eating the

seeds. Fatal effects have followed eating three seeds, and one seed has caused violent effects.

After twenty seeds gastro-enteritis and death preceded by general convulsions and collapse

occurred. The most detailed case is that of a sergeant who ate seventeen seeds (two years old) as

a purgative. Four hours later he had several loose stools, pyrosis, cramps in the stomach, nausea

and vomiting, the vomit containing fragments of seeds and drops of oil. The stools became more-

numerous and more copious of serous liquid mixed with mucus, and were passed without

tenesmus or colic. Later the diarrhoea was accompanied with cramps and chilliness. Other

symptoms were: Pale face; forehead covered with cold sweat, features drawn, eyes convulsed

and turned up, conjunctiva injected, copious lachrymation. Intelligence quite clear. Headache,

vertigo, buzzing in ears, and sensation as if a bar were laid over his stomach, with profound

anguish, Burning thirst; pyrosis, vomiting fluid lightly coloured with bile, and containing some

glairy filaments. Epigastrium very sensitive, pains radiate therefrom to navel and hypochondria,

not < or > by light or strong pressure. At the same time he felt a sensation of violent constriction

• ▸in intestines.
• ▸Diarrhoea became colliquative, stools like cholera-stools.
• ▸Complete anuria.
• ▸Voice

• ▸veiled.
• ▸Profound adynamia.
• ▸Next day severe fever followed.
• ▸A small quantity of dark, thick urine

was passed, and was found to be highly albuminous. On the fourth day pronounced jaundice

appeared. On the sixth day the urine had ceased to be albuminous, and the patient was

discharged. Salzer gives to Ric. the same importance in cholera with diarrhea that Camph.

occupies in relation to spasmodic cholera. The stools of Ric. correspond exactly to the rice-water

• ▸stools in cholera, whilst those of Ver.
• ▸a.
• ▸do not.
• ▸Ric.
• ▸also has painless evacuations which are met

with in many cases of cholera. Ric. therefore corresponds to the diarrhceic stage of cholera, and

• ▸also to the collapse stage if vomiting and purging still continue.
• ▸Salzer quotes B.
• ▸L.
• ▸Bhaduri as

having observed "rice-water stools, cramps, and suppression of urine brought on by eating the

seeds." Hale says that before he had learned to use Ric. as a homoeopathic remedy he had often

been discomfited by seeing aphthous diarrhoea cured with small (half-teaspoonful) doses of

castor oil, repeated three or four times a day, by old nurses or impatient mothers. Such-diarrhoea

often arises in improperly-fed children. It begins with sickness, frequent and griping evacuations,

greenish yellow to dark green, becoming more liquid and more or less mixed with slimy or

gelatinous mucus or blood. Each stool is accompanied with pain and tenesmus, mouth dry and

aphthous, anus inflamed, belly tumid and painful, child becoming more and more feverish and

somnolent. Hale later gave a 1x trituration of the oil with sugar. In acute and chronic dysentery,

and in those cases in which there is impaction of feeces, Hale has seen the oil promptly curative.

Post-mortem examination in the fatal poisoning cases has shown the gastro-intestinal mucous

membrane abraded and inflamed. In one case the whole intestinal membrane was coated with

blackish blood and that of the stomach reddened and softened. Hering remarked that puerperal

fever had become much less common in Philadelphia (where it used to be very common) since

homeeopaths interdicted the use of castor oil in confinements. Ric. has great power over

lactation. O. McWilliams (quoted by Hale) observed in the Cape Verde Islands that the leaves of

the plant were applied to the breasts to increase the flow of milk if it were delayed, and even to

produce it in women who had never borne children or who had not suckled for years. In

increasing the flow of milk in nursing women the breasts were fomented with a decoction of the

leaves of the plant, the boiled leaves being afterwards thinly spread on the breasts. For producing

milk in others more vigorous measures were resorted to. The women had to sit over a boiling

decoction of the leaves, care being taken to prevent the escape of steam. When the decoction was

sufficiently coot the parts were bathed with it, and also the breasts, to which the leaves were

applied as in the other case. Women with well-developed breasts are more easily influenced.

When the breasts are small and shrivelled this treatment acts more on the uterine system,

bringing on the menses long before their time or causing immediate flow if the time is near.

Tyler Smith experimented with the leaves. In his cases the application produced: Swelling of the

breasts, throbbing and other pains in them; swelling of the axillary glands, with pains running

down the arms. Pains in the back like after-pains were caused in every case. Leucorrhoea was

increased. Soon discharges from the breasts became milky, and menses came on too soon. The

radiating pains; bar sensation; constricting and cramping pains are the most peculiar.

Pale and listless —Anaemia.—Profound

• ▸adynamia.
• ▸—Collapse.
• ▸—Convulsions.
• ▸—Muscular contractions.
• ▸—Very painful cramps in trunk and

limbs.

Vertigo, occipital pain, congestive symptoms, buzzing in ears. Face pale, twitching of mouth.

Vertigo.—He cannot go into open air after a dose of Castor Oil as the brain seems

• ▸exhausted and easily overpowered (R.
• ▸T.
• ▸C.
• ▸).
• ▸—Headache; severe.
• ▸—Acts on base of brain (R.
• ▸T.

C.).—Sudden pain as if seized by something in occiput extending round to backs of ears, eyes,

and forehead with rush of blood to head and shocks which come and go as from electricity, thirty

• ▸times in five days (agg.
• ▸—R.
• ▸T.
• ▸C.
• ▸).

Eyes convulsed and turned up; conjunctivee injected, copious lachrymation; pupils only

moderately dilated.

Features drawn.—Face slightly congested.—Face pale; features strongly

contracted.—Twitchings of mouth.

Anorexia with great thirst, burning in stomach, pyrosis, nausea profuse vomiting, pit of stomach sensitive. Mouth dry.

• ▸Anorexia.
• ▸—Thirst, great; burning.
• ▸—Pyrosis.
• ▸—Nausea and vomiting persistent;

vomited mattery liquid, slightly coloured by a little bile; contains only a few mucous threads in

suspension.—Vomiting profuse; with burning in gullet and all the symptoms of Asiatic

• ▸cholera.
• ▸—Vomiting and purging.
• ▸—Painless vomiting.
• ▸—Vomits pultaceous substances.
• ▸—A kind of

bar across stomach, which caused profound anguish.—Pit of stomach very sensitive; pains radiate

from this centre, shooting to umbilicus and hypochondria.—Cramps; burning, in stomach.

Rumbling with contraction of recti muscles, colic, incessant diarrhoea with purging. Rice water stools with cramps and chilliness.

The different segments of the recti muscles can be seen successively and

individually contracting under the skin——Rumbling.—Feels as if all the intestines violently drawn

together.—Violent colic; and yellowish-green vomiting.—Cramps with the diarrhcea—Pain over

abdomen < by pressure.

• ▸Loose, incessant, painless, with painful cramps in muscles of extremities.
• ▸Anus inflamed.
• ▸Stools green, slimy, and bloody.
• ▸Fever, emaciation, somnolence.

Violent purging with the diarrhcea—Bloody diarrhoea.—Diarrhcea without

• ▸pain.
• ▸—Diarrhcea almost incessant, colliquative, like cholera.
• ▸—Rice-water stools.
• ▸—Stools serous

liquid mixed with mucus.—Diarrhcea incessant, with cramps and chilliness—Complete

confinement of bowels for five days; this made him uncomfortable, and caused headache.

Complete anuria.—Passes a little dark, thick, highly albuminous urine

(lasted four days).

Menses too early; excessive.—Leucorrhcea.—Breasts thick, swell,

with swelling of axillary glands and pains running down arms.—Thin discharge from breasts

becomes milky.—Brings milk in breasts of virgins and women who have not suckled for years.

Pulse: extremely small, scarcely perceptible, though normal in frequency; very

frequent.

Pronounced jaundice; skin saffron yellow.—Pruriginous eruptions, or redness and

itching, at wrists and bends of knees.

Chilliness with the diarrhcea.—Perspiring freely —Skin moist and cool, esp. lower

limbs.—Forehead covered with cold sweat.

• ▸Albuminuria.
• ▸Aphthz.
• ▸Cholera.
• ▸Cholera infantum.
• ▸Diarrhoea.
• ▸Duodenum, catarrh of.

• ▸Dysentery.
• ▸Eruptions.
• ▸Gangrene.
• ▸Gastro-enteritis.
• ▸Jaundice.
• ▸Lactation.
• ▸Peritonitis.

• ▸Compare: Croton.
• ▸, Jatr.
• ▸, and Euphorbiacez.
• ▸In cholera, rice-water stools, Agar.
• ▸ph.
• ▸,

• ▸Jatr.
• ▸Bar sensation, Hematox.
• ▸Galactogogues, Agn.
• ▸c.
• ▸, Asaf.
• ▸, Puls.
• ▸Duodenal catarrh, Berb.
• ▸,

• ▸Chi.
• ▸, Hydrs.
• ▸, Lyc.
• ▸, Merc.
• ▸, Pod.

Compare: Resorcin (summer complaint with vomiting); destroys organic germs of putrefaction; Cholos terrapina (cramps of muscles). Ars; Verat.

Third potency. Five drops every four hours for increasing flow of milk; also locally a poultice of the leaves.