Urtica Urens

Burnett may be said to have rediscovered Urtica as a remedy. The history of

how he came to use it (Gout, p. 33) is one of the most fascinating passages of his works. As a

remedy for a fit of the gout the discovery is entirely his own, and the result of great therapeutic

acumen. Its use in gravel and urinary affections is very old. "Being eaten, as Dioscorides saith,

boiled with periwinkles, it maketh the body soluble, doing it by a kind of cleansing faculty: it

also provoketh urine and expelleth stones out of the kidneys: being boiled with barley cream it is

thought to bring up tough humours that stick in the chest." Gerarde, from whom I quote,

mentions these other uses: (/) The juice inserted into the nostrils stops nose-bleed; it is "good

against inflammation of the uvula." (2) Pleurisy, pneumonia, whooping-cough. (3) Antidote to

Hemlock, Mushrooms, Quicksilver, Henbane, Serpents, Scorpions. "The leaves or seeds of any

kind of nettle," says Gerarde, "do work the like effect, but not with that good speed and so

assured as the Roman nettle "(U. Pilulifera).""A bundle of nettles," says Cooper, "applied to a

rheumatic joint or part, has long been a favourite country remedy. A leaf of the nettle placed on

the tongue and pressed to the roof of the mouth stops bleeding from the nose." Burnett's tincture

is made of the small nettle, U. urens, which is the correct one in homeeopathy. Burnett had used

Urt. u. a good deal in spleen affections, and found patients under its use often passed large

quantities of gravel. To a middle-aged maiden lady who had enlarged spleen, and "who smelled

so strongly of nettles that it almost nauseated me whenever it was my duty to examine her,"

• ▸Burnett gave Urt.
• ▸u.
• ▸@.
• ▸Whilst taking it she passed large quantities of gravel.
• ▸But this did not

attract much notice, as the lady was in the habit of passing considerable quantities of gravel with

her motions. Localised abdominal pain preceding such an occasion by a number of days. The

painful spot, just under her spleen, she called her "gravel-pit." Putting this and other points

together, the fever-action of Urtica among the number, Burnett concluded that Urtica was a

remedy for acute gout, which would cut short the attack "in a safe manner, namely, by ridding

the economy of the essence of the disease product, its actual suffering-producing material." He

usually ordered five drops of the tincture in a wineglassful of quite warm water every two or

three hours. Under its action the urine became more plentiful, dark, and loaded with uric acid.

Burnett remarks of the nettle that it springs up everywhere near human habitations, and he has

noticed it flourishing more by the side of ditches which carry off fluid sewage, "thus possibly

living to some extent on uric food." A very severe case of ureemia was cured by him with Ut.

His discovery of its fever action was through the cure of a lady patient of his of ague (which he

• ▸had not succeeded in curing) by drinking nettle-tea on the advice of her charwoman.
• ▸Urt.
• ▸ur.
• ▸was

his sheet-anchor in cases of the fevers of the East-India, Burma, and Siam. This action of Urtica,

as well as its antigout action, I have had abundant opportunity of verifying. Urtica causes fever

as well as cures it, and one of Burnett's patients was obliged to stop taking it: "It sets all my

pulses beating, makes me terribly giddy, makes me feel as if I was going to topple (forwards) on

my head, and then a bad headache comes on; and when I take it at night, it makes me very

feverish." When she took the dose in the morning she did not have the fever, and Burnett says,

"The fever of gout generally comes on at night." He has often cured vertigo with Urt. The

provings of Urtica are not very extensive, but supplemented by clinical observations, the picture

is fairly complete. Headache, with spleen pain; rush of blood to head; soreness of abdomen;

dysentery; burning and itching of anus; cedema; urticaria; rheumatic and gouty pains, and fever

were all evoked. Among the rheumatic pains a pain in the right deltoid muscle is very striking.

• ▸The relation of this symptom to Burnett's use of U/t.
• ▸is illustrated by the case of Dr.
• ▸W.
• ▸H.

• ▸Proctor (A.
• ▸H.
• ▸, xxvii.
• ▸126).
• ▸The doctor was suddenly seized with agonising pain in right deltoid

muscle, due, he believed, to retention of uric acid in the system. Hypodermic injections of

Morphia and Atropia had to be resorted to. Then followed, for three weeks, scanty, pale urine,

sour sweat, sleeplessness, restlessness, nervousness, loss of appetite, almost constant pain in

deltoid with great soreness and lameness of the muscle, an intense sensation of general sickness

and weakness with continued fever. Nothing did any good. Finally there appeared: An intense

burning sensation in the skin after sleeping: he was afraid to go to sleep for fear of the suffering.

• ▸Urt.
• ▸ur.
• ▸@ was now taken.
• ▸After three doses he drifted into a quiet, refreshing sleep of two or

three hours and woke absolutely free from all skin irritation. The nerves were quieted and all

symptoms passed away. Soon after, Proctor had an opportunity of curing a patient of lameness of

the deltoid of some standing in the same expeditious way. In this case there were no additional

• ▸symptoms.
• ▸J.
• ▸L.
• ▸Nottingham (H.
• ▸R.
• ▸, xv.
• ▸244) treated (/) Mrs.
• ▸W.
• ▸, 38, tall, slender, with auburn

hair, for eczema vulve with violent itching and burning, swelling and thickening of labia,

smooth, pale, dry appearance of the mucous surface, a dry, scaly, fissured appearance of labia

majora and skin. Thirteen years before, she had had a sinus from the right ovary emptying into

• ▸the uterus.
• ▸(The husband had sycotic warts on the glans penis.
• ▸) Urt.
• ▸ur.
• ▸1x relieved all the

symptoms and removed sexual excitement induced by the itching and uncontrollable desire to

• ▸rub.
• ▸(2) Mr.
• ▸N.
• ▸, 21, had swelling, stinging, burning of face, hands, and feet, with redness.

Rubbing with finger-tip would leave a white line for some time. When out in the cold, damp,

snowy air, hands, feet, and face became purple red, puffed, and stinging cold; going into a warm

room he had increased swelling, stinging, itching all over him, especially of hands and face. Urt.

ur. relieved in twenty-four hours. In four days he returned home better than he had been for

years. (3) A woman with a lump in her left breast of some years' duration, was seen six weeks

after childbirth, complaining of stinging pains in that part, entire absence of milk, stinging pains

in whole right lower limb, with great soreness and stinging pains accompanying movements

involving muscles of left side of head, cervical vertebrae, sacrum, and upper limbs, front of chest

• ▸and both breasts, especially the left.
• ▸She was very despondent.
• ▸Act.
• ▸r.
• ▸relieved her, but the

improvement ceased after a week. Con. improved the difficulty in moving the head but not the

• ▸other symptoms.
• ▸Urt.
• ▸ur.
• ▸was given, and after three days the breasts filled with milk and the pain

was relieved. The breasts had now to be supported on account of their fulness. The right leg

• ▸became natural.
• ▸The action of Urt.
• ▸in causing flow of milk has been often confirmed.
• ▸In the case

given in A//en it caused swelling of the breasts and profuse flow of milk in a woman years after

the birth of her last child. Urt. is one of the best remedies for burns of the first degree, used

locally and given internally. Gerarde mentions its antidotal action to snake-bites. A writer in

• ▸Monats.
• ▸f.
• ▸Hom.
• ▸of July, 1900 (H.
• ▸Envoy, xi.
• ▸51) says it is the specific for bee-stings.
• ▸An

application of the tincture even on the most sensitive parts of the face or eyelid gives instant

relief. In cases of stings about the eyes the application may have to be repeated every five

minutes; and a compress must be kept on all night. Eclectics regard" "profuse discharge from the

mucous surfaces" as a specific indication for Urt. In Sweden nettles are regarded as a remedy for

anzemia, and fresh nettles are cooked and eaten like spinach for the purpose, or a nettle-tea is

prepared from dry nettles. The juice of nettles with sugar is in vogue for hemorrhages of all

• ▸kinds.
• ▸Sensations of Urt.
• ▸are: As from a blow in the eyeballs.
• ▸As of sand in eyes.
• ▸Muscles of

right arm as if bruised. Burning, stinging, itching, and soreness are the principal pains. The right

side very much affected; but also the left hypochondrium (spleen). The symptoms are apt to

return at the same season every year. This periodicity is a point in the correspondence of U/t. to

• ▸ague.
• ▸The symptoms are < by touch; lying on arm.
• ▸< Violent exertion (hemoptysis).
• ▸Lying down

= soreness of bowels; > nettle-rash. Burning in skin is < after sleep. < From application of water.

(In the one observation with U. crenulata, an attack like lockjaw was induced in a man who

lightly touched the plant, and this was renewed for some days in full force whenever he put his

hand in water.) < Exposed to cool, moist atmosphere—Some new symptoms of Burnett's I have

marked (B) in the Schema.

Symptoms returned at the same time every year—Hzemorrhage from various

organs.—Dropsy.—Sets all my pulses beating (B)

Vertigo, headache with spleen pains.

Terribly giddy, as if I were going to topple forwards on my head; then headache

(B).—Fulness in head, sensation of rush of blood and dulness; all day, with giddiness.—Headache

• ▸< over eyes.
• ▸—Headache with stitches in region of spleen.
• ▸—Pain: in r.
• ▸side of sinciput; and in r.

side of face, extending to malar-bone; over r. eye and eyeball; over eyes during the day and

• ▸evening; neuralgic, in r.
• ▸side of forehead and face at 9 p.
• ▸m.
• ▸—Stinging pain in r.
• ▸parietal bone

forcing me to rub and press it—Dull aching in occiput and over eyes.—Urticaria of scalp

suddenly appearing and determining internally.

• ▸Pain: in r.
• ▸eye; in |.
• ▸at 3 p.
• ▸m.
• ▸—Pain in eyeballs as from a blow, with feeling as if sand

were in eyes.—Eyes feel weak and sore.

Burning in throat; with frequent hawking of frothy mucus; causing cough,

expectoration scanty, frothy.

Diarrhoea chronic disease of large intestine characterized by large secretion of mucus.

Soreness of abdomen at 10 a.m. when lying, and on pressure a sound as if

• ▸bowels were full of water.
• ▸—Pain in 1.
• ▸hypochondrium at 10 p.
• ▸m.
• ▸—(Tumour of liver stored

gout."—Burnett.)

Stool omitted in morning, but at 2 p.m. scanty, dysenteric stool, a

greenish-brown slime, with urging and tenesmus, afterwards constipation, then small stool with

straining, later dysentery, frequent urging, small painful stool, mucus mixed with white matter

like boiled white of eggs, at times a little blood, pain in abdomen for a week.—Stool omitted for

three days, then six hours after Nux 3 a natural stool, four hours later several dysenteric stools of

whitish slime, with pain around umbilicus, then for the next five days, daily, two to four white,

and yellow stools mixed with mucus, with colic and tenesmus.—A small hemorrhoid, with raw

burning in anus during and after stool, and in afternoon and evening itching and

burning.—Ascarides with great rectal irritation.

Urine suppressed for eight days, everything disappeared with

desquamation.—Suppression of urine for twelve days; cedematous swelling of whole upper body

to umbilicus.—Strangury; gravel; disease of bladder and kidneys ——Hzemorrhage from bladder.

• ▸Diminished secretion of milk.
• ▸Uterine haemorrhage.
• ▸Acid and excoriating leucorrhoea.
• ▸Pruritus vulvae, with stinging, itching, and oedema.
• ▸Arrests flow of milk after weaning.
• ▸Excessive swelling of breasts.

Menorrhagia; intense heemorrhage.—Leucorrheea, very acrid or

excoriating.—Pruritus vulve with great itching, stinging, and cedema of the parts.—A woman

who had had no children for three years and a half, and had nursed none of her children, had at

first great swelling of breasts, which discharged serum, then copious milk (from a pint of hot

infusion of the herb).—Arrested flow of milk after weaning.

Itching of scrotum, keeps him awake; scrotum swollen.

Itching of scrotum, kept him awake at night and tormented him

nearly all day; scrotum swollen; stinging and itching; no moisture.

• ▸Sore feeling as from a blow in I.
• ▸side of chest.
• ▸—Intermittent soreness in r.
• ▸chest

during day—Hzemoptysis from least exertion of lungs.

• ▸Pain in r.
• ▸deltoid, < 9 p.
• ▸m.
• ▸, could not put on his coat alone.
• ▸—Cramp-like pain

in r. deltoid in evening; < rotating arm inward, with soreness to touch, with rheumatic feeling in

l. arm; next day pain in r. arm < by lying on it; and on moving it a stitch darted through arm,

• ▸extending over front of humerus.
• ▸—At times pain in |.
• ▸arm, muscles of r.
• ▸arm feel sore as if

bruised, cannot raise or stretch r. arm on account of pain, afterwards rheumatic stiffness and pain

• ▸in r.
• ▸wrist, later rheumatic pain in |.
• ▸arm, wrist, and fingers.
• ▸—Raised, red, itching blisters on skin

• ▸of hands and fingers.
• ▸—(Nodous joints of fingers.
• ▸—R.
• ▸T.
• ▸C.
• ▸)

Pain in acute gout deltoid; pain in ankles, wrists.

• ▸Itching blotches.
• ▸Urticaria, burning heat, with formication; violent itching.
• ▸Consequences of suppressed nettlerash.
• ▸Rheumatism alternates with nettle-rash.
• ▸Burn confined to skin.
• ▸Urticaria nodosa (Bov).
• ▸Erythema, with burning and stinging.
• ▸Burns and scalds. Chicken-pox (Dulc).
• ▸Angioneurotic oedema.
• ▸Herpes labialis with sensation of heat and itching.
• ▸Itching and stinging of scrotum.

Itching swellings all over fingers and hands, resembling "bold hives"; lumps and red

spots on hands and fever blisters on lips, itching.—Heat in skin of face, arms, shoulders, and

chest, with formication, numbness and itching, lips, nose, and ears swollen, lids so cedematous

that they could scarcely be opened, after awhile upper part of body as far as navel cedematous

and pale, transparent blisters filled with serum and looking like sudamina, becoming confluent

and making the skin look wrinkled, lids closed, forming transparent, here and there bluish

shining swellings as large as hen's eggs: disappeared on sixth day with desquamation.—(Intense

• ▸burning in skin after sleep.
• ▸) —Erythema.
• ▸—Vesicular erysipelas.
• ▸—Burns and scalds.

General heat in bed with soreness over abdomen. Fever of gout. Tropical fever.

General heat on getting into bed, with soreness over abdomen.—When I take it at

night it makes me very feverish (not when taken in morning.—B).

• ▸Agalactia.
• ▸Anzemia.
• ▸Bee-stings.
• ▸Burns.
• ▸Calculus, prevention of.
• ▸Deltoid, rheumatism

• ▸of.
• ▸Dysentery.
• ▸Erysipelas, vesicular.
• ▸Erythema.
• ▸Gout.
• ▸Gravel.
• ▸Heemorrhages.
• ▸Intermittents.

• ▸Lactation.
• ▸Leucorrhoea.
• ▸Menorrhagia.
• ▸Phlegmasia dolens.
• ▸Renal colic.
• ▸Rheumatism.
• ▸Spleen,

• ▸affections of.
• ▸Throat, sore.
• ▸Ureemia.
• ▸Urticaria; nodosa.
• ▸Vertigo.
• ▸Whooping-cough.
• ▸Worms.

Antidoted by: Dock leaves (Rumex obtus.) rubbed on the stung part lessen the pain;

also the nettle's own juice, and the juice from the common snail. Antidote to: Apis (bee-stings).

• ▸Compare: Gout, fever, spleen, Nat m.
• ▸Dropsy, urzemia, gravel, gout, Ur.
• ▸ac.
• ▸, Urea, Urinum.
• ▸[The

• ▸relation of Urt.
• ▸to Nat.
• ▸m.
• ▸and Urinum is interesting in connection with the fact that nettles do not

grow at any distance from human dwellings or away from parts where animals are fed. Schlegel

• ▸asks (H.
• ▸R.
• ▸, xii.
• ▸179), is this due to the wetting of the soil with urine?
• ▸He says yes; and queries

further, if the sa/t in the urine is the efficient agent, recalling the fact that Barbarossa, after

destroying Milan, strewed sa/t over the ruins "so that nettles might grow there." Schlegel

remarks that the briny waves produce stinging nettles of their own in the shape of Medusez. |

• ▸Fever, vertigo, spleen, Querc.
• ▸Spleen, Cean.
• ▸Rheumatism of right deltoid, Sang.
• ▸Secretion of

• ▸milk, Ric.
• ▸, Puls.
• ▸Urticaria, Apis, Nat.
• ▸m.
• ▸, Ast.
• ▸fl.
• ▸, Medusa, Homar, Pariet.

Compare: Medusa; Nat mur; Lac can; Ricin (diminished mammary secretion); Bombyx; Rhus; Apis; Chloral; Astac; Puls (urticaria); Boletus luridus and Anacard (urticaria tuberosa); Lycop and Hedeoma (uric acid conditions); Formica.

Tincture and lower potencies.