Condensed Materia Medica

Camphora Officinarum camph.

Hering (1877)In every bookSave

Mind

Loss of memory.
Awkwardness.
Delirious, somnolent, with slow fever, at night.
Afraid to be alone, especially at night.
Anxiety, precordial; restless tossing about; palpitation of heart.
Mental excitability.
Thinking about an existing pain causes it to disappear.

Sensorium

Feels lighter, as if not touching the ground.
Vertigo: in frequent short attack; after nausea and retching; and heaviness of head, worse on stooping.
Totters in walking.
Staggers as if drunk.
Vanishing of all the senses, even touch.
Sunstroke or inflammation of the brain arising from exposure to the sun.
Stupor.
Fainting.
Apoplexy.

Inner Head

Rush of blood to the head, with heaviness of head; better from external pressure.
Frontal headache; pressure outward; also left-sided.
Contraction, as if laced together, in the cerebellum, and glabella, with coldness all over.
Throbbing, like beats with a hammer, in the cerebellum, synchronous with the pulse; head hot, face red, limbs cool, better standing; mostly with such as were deprived of their usual sexual intercourse.
Pains run from head to tips of fingers with trembling and uneasiness.

Outer Head

Spasmodic motion of head.
Premature grey hairs.

Eyes

Objects appear too bright, at the same time black spots are seen.
Sparks and fiery wheels, alternating with mistiness.
Letters run together, while reading.
Eyes fixed, staring, turned upwards or outwards.
Eyes closed at first, and later staring, looking upwards.
Pupils contracted, immovable.
Conjunctiva injected, pupils dilated, lachrymation in open air; lids stiff, sore or tense; quivering of upper lid.
Chronic inflammation of the eyes.
Eyes worse in the sunlight.

Ears

Singing, ringing or buzzing in the ears.
Pain in left ear from dark red pimple, which suppurated in thirty-six hours.
Ear-lobe hot and red.
Yellow blisters around the ear, with erysipelas of the face.

Nose

Fluent coryza, with headache, on sudden change of weather.

Face

Face: red, with warmth of body; bluish and pinched, deathly; pale, with crawlings; pale, distorted and sunken; pale and haggard; pale and livid; cold.
Wild, staring, unconscious look.
Cold sweat on face, with vomiting.
Erysipelatous red cheeks and ear-lobes.

Lower Face

Lockjaw, with coldness and pale surface, (and brownish look of eruption, during partial repercussion, in scarlatina).
Froth or foam at the mouth.

Teeth

Teeth seem too long, cutting toothache, which seem to originate from the swelling of a submaxillary gland.

Tongue, etc

Taste: acute beef broth tastes too strong.
Food tastes bitter, meat more so than bread.
Speech: feeble, broken, hoarse.
Tongue: cold.

Mouth

Saliva, running together, watery.
Coldness in the mouth.

Throat

Heat: on hard palate; in throat; in œsophagus.

Desires and Aversions

Neither appetite not thirst.
Drink pleases, yet has no thirst.
Burning thirst, drinks large quantities without relief.

Eating and Drinking

Circulation worse after eating.

Nausea and Vomiting

Belching and gulping up the contents of the stomach.
Vomit: bilious; of some blood; mostly sour.
Chronic vomiting, in the morning, of sour mucus.
Watery, slimy vomit. θ Summer complaint.
Coldness after vomiting.
Absence of nausea and vomit; body icy-cold. θ Cholera.

Stomach

Sensation of heat in the stomach.
Coldness in the stomach.
Anguish and burning on œsophagus and stomach.
Pain, as if beaten, or overstretched, in the pit of stomach, with fullness of the abdomen; sensitive to touch.

Hypochondria

Aching in the anterior part of liver.
Constrictive pain below short ribs, extending to lumbar vertebræ.
Aching pressure in both hypochondria.

Abdomen

Coldness in the upper and lower abdomen, followed by burning heat therein.

Stool, etc

After taking cold, cutting pain, with a loose discharge of dark brown or black feces, like coffee grounds.
Rice-water stools. θ Summer complaint.
Diarrhœa, great prostration, cold, yet will not be covered.
Diarrhœa, with colicky pains, with chilliness and sensitiveness to cold air.
Absence of discharge; body icy-cold. θ Cholera.
Constipation from inactivity of the rectum.
Urging to stool, and insufficient discharge.

Urine

Urine: scanty, not often; by drops; burning; yellowish-green turbid of musty odor; reddish in dropsy. See 23.
Unsuccessful urging to urinate.
Retention of urine: strangury.

Male Sexual Organs

Want of sexual desire, with weakness of the parts; want of erections; testicles relaxed; impotence.
Gonorrhœa, with constant sticking together of the meatus.
Chordee.

Female Sexual Organs

Menses increased.
Dropsy of the uterus; red, some times greenish urine, deposits a thick sediment; urine passed slowly, bladder being nearly paralyzed, body cold.

Pregnancy

Labor-pains: weak or ceasing; will not be covered, restless; skin cold.
Suppuration of the mammæ; fine stinging on the nipples.
Newborn children: hard places in the skin on the abdomen and thighs, quickly increasing and getting harder; sometimes with a deep redness spreading nearly over the whole abdomen and thighs; violent fever, with startings and tetanic spasms, with bending backwards.

Larynx

Voice: hoarse; husky; hollow; weak; uncertain.
Cutting, cold feeling deep in trachea, causes a slight cough.

Breathing

Quiet; deep and slow; difficult, slow; anxious.
Suffocative oppression.
Asthma, worse from bodily exertion.
Hot breath with acute eruption.
Cold breath; also after cold feeling in chest.

Cough

Dry cough in the forenoon.
Violent dry cough, with hoarseness after measles.
Every inhalation starts the cough.

Lungs

Mucus in the air-passages.
Influenza, when during the stages of invasion the patient feels cold and chilly, body and mind seem in a depressed condition.
Stitches: from the shoulders into the chest; in left side of chest when walking.
Sensation of coldness, extends from the pit of stomach over the whole sternum.
Congestion of the chest.

Heart and Pulse

Trembling palpitation, with anxiety.
Palpitation: with sudden oppression of breathing; with cold face, limbs and body; with pale face and cold body; after eating; after waking, with twitches.
Precordial distress when loudly spoken to; sensation of severe coldness and irresistible sleepiness.
Pulse: full; weak; not perceptible.
Diminished flow of blood of those parts remote from heart.

Outer Chest

Fine rash on outer throat and chest.

Neck and Back

Pain in fifth, sixth and seventh cervical vertebræ; worse moving the head; better from pressing the hand thereon.
Painful drawing and stiffness on the side of neck when walking in open air.
Drawing stitches through and between the shoulder-blades extending into chest when moving arms.
Cold feeling, or chilliness in the back.

Upper Limbs

Convulsive rotation of the arms.
Arms: stiff; powerless.
Painful pressure in right elbow-joint, extends to the hand when leaning on it.
Hands: tremble; cold; bluish.
Fingers stiff, open, distorted; thumb drawn back at nearly right angles with its metacarpus.

Lower limbs

Cracking and creaking in the hip, knee, and ankle-joints.
Drawing, bruised pain in the right thigh, and on inner side near and below the patella.
Knees give way; tremble.
Cramps in the calves.
Drawing, crampy pain on the dorsum of the feet, especially on moving them.
Tearing, crampy pain on the dorsum of the feet, extending up the outer side of the calves to the thighs.
Tearing in tips of toes of left foot, and under the nails, when walking.

Limbs in General

Coldness of the limbs.
Drawing in the fingers, then in the toes.
Rheumatism returns repeatedly, attacking part after part, even internal organs.

Position, etc

Every motion: 40. Moving, head: 31; arms: 31; feet: 33. Walking: 2, 28, 31, 33. Bodily exertion: 26. Standing: 3. Stooping: 2.

Nerves

Attacks of malaise.
Trembling of inner parts.
Great prostration.
Easily started when awake, and then feels throbbing or palpitation.
Spasms of children, with sopor; from suppressed eruptions.
Eclampsia, with anæmia; coldness.
Tetanic spasms of the arms, hands, feet and lower jaw; body stiff, with slight opisthotonos; from suppressed scarlatina.
Epileptic spasm.
What of bodily irritability; insensibility to touch.

Sleep

Sleepy in daytime.
Sleep: stupid; deep; unrefreshing.
Dreams: anxious, fearful.
Sleeplessness, alternating with coma.

Time

Morning: 16. Forenoon: 28. Night: 1.

Temperature and Weather

Sun: 5. Open air: 5, 31. Cold air: 40. Change of weather: 7. Will not be covered: 20, 46.

Chill, Fever and Sweat

Icy-coldness all over, with deathlike paleness of the face.
Great coldness of the surface without the usually accompanying change of color, and at the same time a desire to be uncovered.
Chill, chilliness and sensitiveness to the cold air.
Chill, with shivering and shaking; teeth chattering.
Chill: with anxiety; with unconsciousness; with pale face; with clonic spasms.
Heat, with distension of veins increased by every motion.
Cold, clammy, exhausting sweat.

Attacks

Rheumatic attacks remit, go to one part after another.
Attacks come on suddenly.

Sides

Right: 18, 32, 33. Left: 3, 6, 28, 33. Above downwards: 3, 32. Below upwards: 28, 33. Behind forward: 31.

Sensations

Sensations of dryness all over the body.
Cramps all over.

Tissues

Soft parts drawn in.
Cyanosis.
External parts turn black.
Internal congestions.
Cramps in inner an outer parts.
Cracking of joints.
Stenosis after inflammations.
Dropsy of external parts; less of internal.
Glands inflamed.

Contact, Injuries, etc

Touch: 17, 36. Pressure: 3, 31.

Skin

Dryness of skin, not a trace of sweat.
Blood blisters.
Erysipelas.
Gangrene.
Hard spots.
Sequelæ of measles.
Sudden sinking away of variola pustules.
Measle eruption delays; tetanic rigors; skin cold, bluish; dysuria.
Scarlatina: with cold, blue, hippocratic face; rattling in throat; with hot breath, hot sweat on forehead, child will not be covered.

Stages and States

Irritable, weakly; blondes most affected.
Scrofulous children are most sensitive to Camphor.

Relationship

Antidotes: Opium, Spir. nitr. dulc, Dulcam.
Camphor antidotes Canthar., Cuprum, Squilla.
In most other cases, the smelling of Camphor is not antidotal, but palliative, by producing the symptom "pain better while thinking of it".
Camphor. aggravates the effect of Nitrum, and seems to be injurious if given after it.
Tea, coffee and lemonade do not interfere.