Family Name: Ranunculaceae

Introduction

Anemone is a really curious little plant. Its primary use is with nervous problem, and on that I hold particular dear. Abnormal fear. In the last century, anxiety and catastrophic thinking were the lead conditions treated with this plant. To get to know it, it pays to read what the Eclectic Physicians had to say about. They really did a lot of work with it, and their experience with it, is invaluable. They said it was great for people suffering from a gloomy mentality. We all know a few of them.

I have changed the name of the “News” to the “Scares”. The time slot in which news used to appear has been abducted and replaced with nothing but scare tactics and stories designed to scare people. Is it any wonder people have walk around in a state of panic and depression? Anyhow, the Eclectics said that this herb was ideal for people who tend to focus on the dark side of life. It might be just the thing for the person who watches the news on a regular basis.

On a serious note, the Eclectic physicians specifically said that this was a great herb for people who were worn out and suffering nervous depletion, which is something that is super common today. A forgotten herb, when running my shop in London, I found it highly effective for modern people approaching nervous exhaustion.

Resources

Fact Sheet
Eclectic Physicians Notes

Fact Sheet

Part Used: Plant

In a Word: Removes abnormal fear

Uses: Insomnia, irrational fear, anxiety

It would seem that many people in the modern world have lost the ability to sleep! So much so that people spend billions each year on sleeping pills. Modern living is making sleep difficult and some experts feel the problem is reaching epidemic proportions. If the idea of hitting the pillow and immediately dropping into deep slumber has become nothing but a dream, you are in good company.

There are many herbal medicines that can be used to treat the insomnia phenomenon. One of my favourites is a plant called Anemone pulsatilla . However, before we talk about this specific herbal medicine, we need to look at insomnia in general. As a practitioner, I see a lot of patients suffering from insomnia.

Sleep is a natural process and should not be the struggle that is has become. The fact that getting a good night’s sleep is a problem for so many has forced me to ponder the insomnia problem.

My conclusion is that living in the modern world overworks the nervous system. The end result of this nerve exhaustion is insomnia. We spend our days thinking, coping, adapting, adjusting, dealing, worrying, and responding. Will the train get us to work on time? Will our company survive the economic slump? How can we get our children into the best schools? Will the National Health Service provide for us? Thinking your way through the modern day is extremely hard on the mind and spirit.

To make matters worse, we heap more work onto the nervous system. For example, a patient came to me complaining of insomnia. She worked a full time job and had a house full of children. When she got home from work, she spent her “free time” hauling kids to lessons and sports activities, volunteering for charitable organisations, and attending adult education classes. After all this came the household chores. The patient described herself as being mentally exhausted. With this “Super Woman” schedule, is it any wonder?

This raises an important and little understood point. People who spend their days working physically tend to sleep like the dead. On the other hand, people who spend their days working mentally often suffer from insomnia. In a state of nervous exhaustion, as one lays down to sleep, rather than drifting into slumber, the mind starts churning, rushing from one thought to the next. After an hour of tossing and turning, the fatal thought enters the mind: “Oh no, I only have six hours to sleep!” Then it becomes “Oh no, I only have five hours to sleep!” Panic sets in. Why nervous exhaustion makes it difficult to sleep is unknown, but the fact that it causes sleeplessness is well noted. I have had more than one patient say they were too tired to sleep. The fatigue is never of the physical variety.

The situation sounds rather dire and it is, when you are too tired to sleep. However, there is a solution and there is hope. You may have to change the way you live life, but that in my opinion is a small price to pay for a good night’s sleep. In my experience, a combination of life style change and herbal medicine is a winner.

In my opinion, the first step to ending the insomnia problem is to slow down. The modern world encourages us to move faster, faster, and still faster. The pace at which we are living makes sleep difficult. Make the decision to slow your life down to a human pace. Rather than planning action filled evenings, plan evenings without motion. When you get home from work, do not turn on the television or the radio. Unplug the phone. Spend the evening listening to soft music and reading a good book. Make a list of the activities you must undertake and those that are optional. Eliminate the non-essential activities from your list. The message is simple, take control of your life and slow things down to the point that you can sleep.

In addition, there are a number of herbal medicines that can help a person in this process. One such plant is Anemone pulsatilla , commonly known as pasque flower. It was a popular nerve remedy in the last century and one that doctors of that day relied upon. It was specifically used when nervous exhaustion was causing all kinds of problems, including insomnia. Here is a quote from a medical textbook written in1898, “King’s Dispensatory,”

“Pulsatilla is a remedy of wide applicability, but more particularly for those conditions in which the mind is a prominent factor. A gloomy mentality, a state of nerve depression and unrest, a disposition to brood over real or imagined trouble, a tendency to look on the dark side of life, sadness, mild restlessness, and a state of mental unrest generally denominated in round terms “nervousness” are factors in the condition of the patient requiring pulsatilla. A pulsatilla patient weeps easily, and the mind is inclined to wander, to be unsettled. The whole countenancy and movements of the body depict sadness, moroseness, despondency, and lack of tone. Hysteria of the mild and weeping form may be a symptom. The whole condition is one of nervous depression, the nutrition of the nerves are at fault….

Pulsatilla may be given to produce sleep, when there is great exhaustion and opiates are inadmissible. If the insomnia depends upon determination of blood to the brain, pulsatilla will not relieve, but when due to nervous exhaustion it is a prompt remedy to give rest, after which sleep obtains. Where sleep is disturbed by unpleasant dreams, and the patient awakens sad and languid, pulsatilla should be given.”

Practitioners Advice
The doctor’s description of this herbal medicine makes it seem ideal for the modern person suffering from nerve exhaustion based insomnia. In many ways it is. Anemone pulsatilla helps a person relax enough to fall into sleep and stay there. The mind stops whirling around and the much-craved sleep arrives.

QUICK REVIEW
History: A popular nerve remedy in the last century
Practitioners’ Opinion: Excellent for slowing the brain down in order to get sleep

Notes from the Eclectic Physicians Notes

1874: Scudder
We employ the German tincture prepared form the fresh herb according to the homeopathic pharmacy. That prepared from the imported dried herb will not give good satisfaction. We usually prescribe it in this proportion: Rx tincture of pulsatilla, 3j.to 3ij.; water 35ij. A teaspoonful every four hours.

The principal use of pulsatilla is to relieve certain symptoms with difficulty relieved by other remedies. In some diseases of women, in spermatorrhea and prostatorrhea, in heart disease, and some other chornic afections, we find certain head symptoms playing an improatn part, and giving a good deal of trouble. The patient is nervous, restless, has an active imgaintion for disease, a fear of impending danger, etc. These symptoms are very unplesantn, and ot unfrequently prevent the curative action of remedies. Pulsatilla reaches them and gives prompt relief.

I would not treat some cases of spermatorrhea without I could employ this remedy. For with the unnatural excitement of the mind, no remedy would exert a curative influence.

So in some cases of heart disease, the head symptoms are the mot prominent and unpleasant fetaures. Relieve the unpleasant mental sensations and dread of danger, and we have removed a permanent cause of excitment.

1895: Watkins: PULSATILLA, SP MED:
Amenorrhoea, nervousness, despondency, pain in top o fhead, hysteria, sexual derangement. Ten to twenty drops in four ounces of water; teaspoonful every two hours.

1898: Felter and Lloyd – PULSATILLA (U.S.P.) – PULSATILLA
Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage -Topically applied, the fresh plant of pulsatilla is irritant, and if kept long in contact witht he skin, may produce vesication. When chewed, it produces a benumbing sensation and tingling formication, somewhat like that produced by aconite or prickly ash. Taken internally in overdoses, it acts as a gastric irritant, producing a sense of rawness, burning, pain in stomach, with endeavors to vomit, all accompanied with marked prostration. A case of poisoning with these symptoms is on record in the Medical Gleaner, Vol.IV, p.173. A sense of constriction and tightness of the chest, with chilliness, marked weakness, and some congestion, has been produced by large doses. Full doses depress the action of the heart, lower arterial tension, and reduce temperature. Sensory and motor paralyses have followed large doses of pulsatilla, while toxic doses may produce mydriasis, stupor, coma, and convulsions. In medicinal doses, pulsatilla increases the power and regulates the action of the heart, and gives a better character to the pulse rate, particularly slowing the irritable, rapid and feeble pulse due to nervous depression. It improves the sympathetic system an dcerebral functions, an despecially strengthens sympathetic innervation, this action being very marked in troubles of the reproductive organs of male and female.

Pulsatilla forms an important remedy with the Eclectic physicians as well as with the Homoeopaths, who make extensive use of it. According to the late Prof. J. M. Scudder, M. D., who used it largely in his practice, its most important use is to allay irritation of the nervous system in persons of feeble health, thus giving slep and rest, preventing unnecessary expenditure …….erve force, and, by this means, facilitating the action of tonics and restorative. In feeble women, and men who have become nervous from sedentary habits or mental over-exertion, as well as in the nervousness and restlessness of masturbators, or persons addicted to the excessive use of tobacco, he has found it very certain in its action. It is the remedy for nervous women, when there is debility and faulty nutrition of the nerve centers.

Pulsatilla is a remedy of wide applicability, but more particularly for those conditions in which the mind is a prominent factor. A gloomy mentality, a state of nerve depression and unrest, a disposition to brood over real or imagined trouble, a tendency to look on the dark side of life, sadness, mild restlessness, and a state of mental unrest generally denominated in broad terms “nervousness,” are factors in the condition of the patient requiring pulsatilla. A pulsatilla patient weeps easily, and the mind is inclined to wander – to be unsettled. The pulse requiring pulsatilla is weak, soft, and open, and the tissues have a tendency to dryness (except when the mucous tissues are discharing a thick, bland material), and, about the orbits the parts appear contracted, sunken, and dark in color.

The whole countenancy and movements of the body depict sadness, moroseness, despondency, and lack of tone. Hysteria of the mild and weeping form may be a symptom. The whole condition is one of nervous depression, the nutrition of the nerve centers are at fault. With such symptoms, pulsatilla may be confidently prescribd in the conditions and disorders enumerated in this article. Pulsatilla may be given to produce sleep, when there is great exhaustion and opiates are inadmissible. If the insomnia depends upon determination of blood to the brain, pulsatilla will not relieve, but when due to nervous exhaustion it is a prompt remedy to give rest, after which sleep obtains. Where sleep is disturbed by unpleasant dreams, and the patient awakens sad and languid, pulsatilla should be given. Pulsatilla has a lrge field in troubles incident tot he reproductive organs of both sexes. As an emmenagogue, it serves a useful purpose in amenorrhoea in nervous and anemic subjects, with chilliness a prominent symptom. When menstruation is suppressed, tardy or scanty from taking cold, or from emotional causes, pulsatilla is the remedy.

In dysmenorrhoea, not due to mechanical causes, and with the above-named nervous symptoms, no remedy is more effective. Leucorrhoea, with a free, thick, milky, or yellow, bland discharge and pain in the loins, and particularly in scrofulous individuals, calls for pulsatilla. It is a remedy for mild forms of hysteria, where the patient is weak and weeps easily, has fears of impending danger, and passes large quantities of clear, limpid urine, and menstruation is suppressed.

The long-continued use of pulsatilla as an intercurrent remedy, is accredited with curative effects in uterine colic, but it is of no value during an attack. Pulsatilla frequently proves a good remedy in ovaritis and ovaralgia with tensive, tearing pain. Sluggish, ineffectual, and weak labor-pains are sometimes remedied by this drug. It is frequently a remedy for pain, when dependent on or associated with debility, and sometimes when due to acute inflammation. It is a leading remedy in epididymitis and orchitis, whether due to gonorrhoeal infection or to metastasis from mumps. Pulsatilla increases sexual power, but lessens morbid sexual excitement. It is especially valuable in relieving urethral irritation and consequent spermatorrhoea and prostatorrhoea. In these troubles it overcomes the nervous apprehensions so frequently a troublesome feature. It also alleviates the nervous irritability accompanying or produced by varicocele. In gonorrhoea, particularly of the chronic type, pulsatilla is of value, when the urethral membrane is swollen. Pulsatilla has been used by some for the relief of hydrocele, but for this affection we possess better remedies. Many unpleasant conditions of the urinary apparatus ae relieved by pulsatilla, as frequent but ineffectual attempts at urination, the bladder giving a sensation as if bloated; dribbling of urine from movement, the dysuria of pregnancy, and in involuntary micturition from colds or from nervous debility.

Pulsatilla frequently proves a useful remedy in headache of various types. It relieves the frontal headache from nasal catarrh, nervous headache, particularly when due to gastricdisturbances, with greasy taste, menstrual headache, with chilliness and suppressed menses, …….. and gastric headaches, of a dull and heavy character, with greasy taste and nausea, and headaches due to uterine irregularities or to a rheumatic diathesis. These headaches are all of anemic character – the opposite of those relieved by gelsemium.

Though ordinarily not a remedy for acute inflammations (contraindicated in gastro-intestinal inflammation), there are some conditions where small doses of pulsatilla are beneficial when the usual symptoms calling for the drug are present. These conditions are acute inflammation of the nose, fauces, larynx, or bronchiae. It is especially effective in the secondary stage of acute nasal catarrh, when the naso-pharynx is affected and there is a sense of rawness and moisture, and an abundant discharge of thick, yellow, bland, inoffensive mucus or muco-pus. Pulsatilla frequently serves a good purpose in asthma superinduced by pregnancy, or by suppressed menses, and it favorably influences whooping-cough in properly selected cases. So-called “stomach cough” is frequently cured by pulsatilla.

Pulsatilla should be remembered as a remedy of much value to control the catarrhal symptoms of the exanthemata; it also controls the irritability frequently accompanying these disorders. In measles, it has done good service in checking the coryza and profuse lachrymation, as well as the dry, tight, painful cough, and when retrocession of the eruption has taken place, it has reversed this unpleasant condition. It relieves the irritable condition in varicella. Pulsatilla is very efficient in real and imaginary cardiac affections. It has proved useful in cardiac hypertrophy and in dilatation of the venous heart. It is especially effective in functional heart disorders with giddiness, imperfect voluntary motion, impaired vision, and with a symptom described as a sense of pressure over the larynx and trachea, with imperfect respiratory movement, and sense of impending danger; the symptoms just preceding are those not unfrequently associated with functional heart disease, dyspepsia, uterine disease, or over-excitation of the sexual system, and are generally very unpleasant and annoying. It often relieves that form of venous congestion which stops short of inflammation, as in threatened ovaritis, orchitis, varicocele, and crural phlebitis. Varicocele and other varicoses are frequently improved by its administration with other indicated remedies. Its chief advantage, outside of some control over the venous structure, is its relief of the nervous complications. It has been used to good advantage for the relief of hemorrhoids.

Constipation in the hysterical female yields to nux vomica and pulsatilla, and the latter has a pleasing action in some forms of indigestion and dyspepsia. These cases are those in which there is a thick, creamy paste upon the tongue and a greasy taste. Such troubles are frequently brought about by indulgence in pastries and fatty food. Pain is not marked, but there is pyrosis and greasy eructations, gastric distension, uneasy gnawing sensations in the stomach, and chilliness may be a pronounced symptom. The patient is nervous, sad, and may have a soft, yellow diarrhoea. For such cases pulsatilla is an excellent remedy. It is also said to relieve alternativing constipation and diarrhoea with venous congestion.

Pulsatilla is a prompt and decisive agent in earache, brought on by cold, wet, and exposure to winds. There is an absence of fever, the pulse is open and soft, the child sobs, the face is pale, the tissues full and waxen, the pain is intense and frequently paroxysmal and tearing in character – evidently a neuralgic condition, for physical signs of local disturbance are seldom observed. In purulent otitis media, with thick, yellow, bland discharge, and impaired hearing, and tinnitus aurium, pulsatilla is the indicated remedy.
One of the earliest uses of this plant was for the relief of “amaurosis, cataract, and opacity of the cornea,” conditions in which the reputed value of pulsatilla is very much overrated.

There is a condition, sometimes known as “nervous blindness,” which has been benefited by pulsatilla, and this is probably the condition formerly referred to under the elastic term amaurosis. Pulsatilla stands out prominently as a remedy for hordeolum or “style”.

It is also a prompt remedy when the conjunctiva is hyperemic and the vision weakened, especially after reading, or from sexual abuse or sexual excesses, and in profuse lachrymation from exposure to winds or when in the wind. It should be used locally (gtt. x to aqua 3ij) and also given internally in small doses. In chronic conjunctivitis, with bland, yellow discharges, in scrofulous individuals, or due to the exanthemata, and in ophthalmia neonatorum, with like discharge, pulsatilla has been used with signal success. It relieves deep-seated, heavy pain in the globe of the yee, and has been recommended in inflammation of the lachrymal sac. Storck, who was one of the first to use pulsatilla, considered it useful in secondary syphilis, and in some forms of cutaneous diseases, as well as in amaurosis and other ocular affections.

This drug has been used with much success in rheumatism, when the pains were shifting and relieved by cold and aggravated by warmth. Depression of spirits is here a prominent feature. It has also aided in restoring the flow of milk in agalactia in nervous an dfear-depressed women, whose breasts were painful and swollen. Prof. W. E. Bloyer emphasizes its value in “jerking” or “jumping” toothache, usually due to the formation of a pus cavity near the nerve. He applied the full strength specific pulsatilla, or diluted one-half with water, besides giving the drug internally. He also recommends this treatment as “especially useful in inflammations caused by dead teeth, and the inflammatory, painful, and unpleasant conditions of the pulp cavity in those in which the nerve has been destroyed” (Ec. Med. Jour., 1895, p.248). The dose of specific pulsatilla is from a fraction of a drop to 10 drops, administered in water; of the fluid extract, from 1 to 15 drops; of the extract, from 1/6 to 1 grain; of anemonin, 1/20 to 1/4 grain.

Specific Indications and Uses – Nervousness and despondency, sadness, unnatural fear, tendency to weep, morbid mental excitement, marked depression of spirits; pain, with debility, nervousness, headache, not dependent on determination of blood to the head; insomnia, from nervous exhaustion; neuralgia in anemic, debilitated subjects; pasty, white, or creamy, thick coating upon the tongue, with grasy taste; stomach disorders from indulgence in fats and pastries; thick, bland, inoffensive discharges from mucous surfaces; alternating diarrhoea and constipation, with venous congestion; amenorrhoea and dysmenorrhoea, with gloomy mentality and chilliness; severe pains in the ear, non-inflammatory and evidently neuralgic; pain from exposure to wind; jumping toothache, from abscess near the dental pulp; styes.

1898; Webster; (Articulations) – Pulsatilla
Of the action of pulsatilla on the joints, Hughes remarks (Manual of Pharmacodynamies): Pulsatilla seems to fall short of the true serous membranes, but compensates itself by acting powerfully upon their near relations, the synovial membranes. The joints chiefly affected are the knees, the ankles, and the small joints of the hands and (most especially) the feet.

1905: Petersen
Syn – Pulsatilla; Wind Flower; Pasque Flower
P. E. – Plant
N. O. – Ranunculaceae
N. H. – Europe
Properties: Alterative, sedative, antispasmodic
Physiological action: In large doses it is an irritant to the gastro-intestinal tract, depresses the heart’s action, lowers arterial tension and will reduce the temperature and pulse rate. In toxic doses it causes dullness of mind, lessens sensibility, having a mildly paralyzing effect on both sensory and motor nerves, pupils dilate; coma and convulsions have resulted from very large doses. However this drug is never given in such large doses.

Indications: Nervousness, sadness, disposition to look on the dark side of life. Despondency, mental depression, fear of impending danger. Pain in top of head. Use: Relieves nerve irritation of reflex nature referable to the reproductive organs. It controls sexual excitement in both male and female. A remedy in amenorrhoea, dysmenorrhoea, spermatorrhoea and in reproductive disorders which are a cause of anxiiety to the patient. In nervous headache with determination of blood to the brain. In headache at menstrual period with scanty or obstructed menses, patient pale and nervous. In hysteria, nervous exhaustion with feeble pulse, deficient capillary circulation, cold extremities, nervous headache of anaemic nature. In orchitis it acts well associated with other indicated remedies. A valuable remedy in threatened insanity the result of sexual wrongs, if not contra-indicated. Pain of pulsatilla is generally limited in location and of a despondent nature.

1911: Fyfe
Irritation of the nervous system, associated with wrongs of the reproductive organs of both men and women, menses scanty or tardy, sense of fullness and despondency and fear of impending danger, conditions in which the patient is frequently moved to tears(even in sleep in extreme cases,and still she is unable to give any sufficient reason for doing so, nervousness, with sleeplessness, head symptoms common to functional affectiosn of the reproductive organs of both men and women, nervous conditions caused y over mental exertion, masturbation, or the excessive use of tobacco.

This is one of our most useful and most frequently indicated remedies. In the treatment of abnormal conditions peculiar to females it occupies a place which cannot be filled by any other drug. Pulsatilla nigricans is sedative, nervine, emmenagogue, and alterative.

1919: Ellingwood: PULSATILLA – ANEMONE PULSATILLA
Synonyms – Pasque-flower; meadow-anemone; wind flower.

Preparations – Extractum Pulsatillae Fluidum, Fluid Extract of Pulsatilla. Dose, from one-half to two minims. Precipitates upon addition to water.

Extractum Pulsatillae, Extract of Pulsatilla. Dose, one-sixth of a grain.

Tinctura Pulsatillae, Tincture of Pulsatilla. Dose, from five to thirty minims.

Specific Pulsatillae, Specific Pulsatilla. Dose, from five to twenty drops in four ounces of water. Teaspoonful every two hours.

Anemonin. A crystallizable camphoraceous body; volatile, easily converted in the presence of alkalies into anemonic acid. Dose, from one-twentieth to one-fourth of a grain.

The medicinal properties must be extracted from the fresh herb, as the volatile character of anemonin permits of the rapid dissipation of these properties on drying.

Physiological Action – The agent has a direct influence upon the brain and spinal cord. In toxic doses it produces mental hebetude, dilated pupils, coma, and in extreme cases, convulsions. It lessens general sensibility.

It paralyzes to a mild degree both sensation and motion. It increases, in proper doses, the cerebral functions and imparts tone to the sympathetic system.

In toxic doses it is a heart depressant; it lowers arterial tension, reduces the pulse rate and temperature.

It exervices an influence upon the heart similar to that of cactus, increasing its power, improving the strength and rate of the pulse and slowing the rapid and feeble pulse of nervous prostration.

The influence of full doses of pulsatilla, taken into the stomach and intestinal canal, is that of an irritant. In the mouth it acts like aconite or xanthoxylum, producing tingling, burning and subsequent numbness. It produces a sensation of rawness, and is followed by acid eructations an dunpleasant taste. It produces tightness and constriction of the chest, with congestion, chilliness and great weakness. The agent is seldom given in sufficient doses to produce the physiological effects. It operates much more satisfactorily in doses too small to produce such action. It has long been popular with the homoeopathists in minute doses.

In studying its medicinal influence on the circulation, pulsatilla is said to act in much the same manner as aconite during fevers, where there are high nervous manifestations. It equalizes the circulation somewhat like belladonna it is thought. Where catarrhal disorders are present, subacute in character with congestion and a free discharge of thick bland, yellow or yellowish green mucous, it seems to act directly, except in chronic catarrhal conditions. This remedy will act satisfactorily only when the precise indications for which it should be prescribed, are present.

Specific Symptomatology – Homeopathic physicians declare fearfullness as an indication, anticipation and dread of calamity, fear of trouble or death; in male patients suffering from sexual excesses, with spermatorrhoea, threatened impotency, prostatorrhoea, with fear of approaching imbecility. We find it indicated in amenorrhoea, with mental perturbation, great apprehension of trouble. Spermatorrhoea, with fear of dire results. The remedy is especially efficacious when existing disorders of the reproductive organs are a cause of extreme anxiety.

In addition to the well known indication, I might say that it is of value in disorders of the reproductive organs which depend upon defective innervation, and which are usually accompanied with manifestations of hysteria or malancholia, or which depend upon sexual derangements and menstrual disorders which are accompanied with loss of strength, chilliness, more or less headache, and gastric derangements, such as nausea, eructation of sour water and other nervous manifestations.

Its best influence is exercised in women of blond temperament, particularly of lax muscular fiber, and of mild and yielding disposition, and smaller doses with these patients will produce better results than larger doses with other patients. Some writers claim that it may be given during the progress of inflammation of the mucous membranes, prescribed in much the same manner as aconite would be prescribed, or as cactus is given.

It acts best in the catarrhal stage of inflammation rather than in the initial stage, and in this it differs somewhat from aconite.

Therapy – Its influence is especially directed to that portion of the sympathetic nervous system influencing the reproductive organs. It increases the tone and functional power of these organs, and overcomes irregular, imperfect or deficient action. It is prescribed in uterine disorders which induce melancholia and hysteria.

It has an apparent antispasmodic or nerve-soothing influence, which renders it valuable in hysteria and general nervous irritation with convulsive phenomena, in the absence of acute inflammation, blood determination or fever. A few physicians laud it highly in hysterical convulsions and in convulsive conditions due to uterine disorders.

In general nervousness due to chronic uterine disorder, with or without hysteria, with despondency and nervous irritation, pulsatilla is an excellent remedy. It may be given in doses of one drop, frequently repeated. In deficient, suppressed and irregular menstruation, with the above symptoms, it is of rare value. It will quickly promote a normal and regular flow.

It is an excellent agent in small, frequent doses when the mental conditions above named are present during pregnancy, with a general relaxed and atonic condition. Its influence in these cases is enhanced by combination or alternation with macrotys. It certainly improves the general condition and conduces to a normal and easy labor. It is needed during the pregnant state to correct hysterical manifestations and urinary irregularities. It acts better in the catarrhal stage of inflammation rather, than in the initial stage.

In nervous exhaustion, with feeble pulse and deficient capillary circulation, cold extremities and a generally relaxed physical condition, it will serve an excellent purpose combined with other nerve tonics, or in conjunction with the directly indicated remedies.

Dr. Strauss adds two drams to two ounces of water, and gives a teaspoonful every hour in his irritable cases, especially in low forms of headache, light and dull; restlessness, patient rolling and tossing until worn out; a rambling mind with an occipital headache; mild ovaritis; mild neuralgia with irritation of the brain; dragging headache frequently occurring in women.

Pulsatilla is a remedy for nervous headaches, especially if of the anaemic variety, characterized by pallor of the countenancy – the headaches of the menstrual epoch, of pregnancy, and also those of gastric origin with this specific character. It relieves the constipation, enuresis and dysuria of hysteria and pregnancy. It is excellent for the urinary irregularities of the pregnant condition, with ammoniacal urine, catarrh, pain, tenesmus, burning or sharp shooting pains. Its influence in this is facilitated by hydrangea, gelsemium or the benzoate or salicylate of lithium.

Where there are menstrual disorders of any kind, if there be loss of strength, chilliness, headache, gastric derangements, sour stomach, and melancholia, pulsatilla is directly indicated.

Leucorrheal discharges, attended with pain in the loins, weariness, depression of spirits, loss of appetite and general derangement of the nervous system, are also satisfactorily relieved by pulsatilla taken internally in five-drop doses of the tincture three times a day, and continued for a few weeks.

Pulsatilla has been frequently suggested in the treatment of phlebitis. Its indications should be looked for. Dr. Halbert of Nashville gives pulsatilla for the eye complications of diabetes. He finds it a reliable remedy although he does not explain its action.

Our observers in many cases combine pulsatilla with heart remedies and nux for heart trouble, and nervous weakness, especially if there be despondency, or with the alkaline salts in acid stomach. The combinations work very good results if correctly made.

Homeopathists advise pulsatilla in catarrh of the stomach where the patient suffers most when the food is taken, or where the most benefit is derived from taking the food cold. Dr. Huffman prescribed it for the mental symptoms in a patient suffering from chronic catarrh of the stomach. The tongue was heavily coated. It was dark-brown in the center. The tip and edges were red; there was fullness and pain always after eating. Sometimes there was vomiting of the meals. There was a large quantity of mucus in the vomit. This was followed by a burning sensation from an excess of acids.

This case was not permanently benefited by the ordinary treatment. The administration of pulsatilla an dechinacea before meals finally completed the cure. Pulsatilla was given in large doses, from eight to twenty minims.

Another writer cured the excessive acidity of these cases with five-drop doses of passiflora, every two hours. It is given in bronchial and pulmonary irritation and in bronchial asthma.It is used in eruptive fevers, and in those cases of measles in which the eruption produces excessive irritation of the post-nasal cavity, throat and bronchial tubes.It has been lauded in rheumatism, but any specific influence in this condition is not ascribed to it.

In gonorrheal epididymitis or in gonorrheal orchitis, the agent may be iven with excellent results, especially if there be gleet and stricture. Small and frequent doses are better than large infrequent doses. It speedily relieves the pain and nervous excitability. It is advised for internal use for frost bites.