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Materia Medica
Ictodes Foetida.
Pothos foetidus. Symplocarpus foetidus. Skunk-weed. Skunk Cabbage. N. O. Orontiaceae (Calliaceae, Orontoidae, allied to Araceae). Tincture of whole fresh plant-including root.
Clinical.-Asthma. Catarrh. Cough. Dropsy. Herpes. Hysteria. Rheumatism.
Characteristics.-The Treasury of Botany thus epitomises the traditional uses of this plant in medicine: "The roots in cases of asthma; the leaves as an application to ulcers. The seeds are also considered to be anti-spasmodic, and useful in coughs." Hering and others proved it, and largely confirmed its popular reputation, as also its clinical relationship to the Arum family. Burning sensations from fauces down throat; enlarged glands of throat; swelling of nose and sneezing; spasmodic cough and skin affections are common to Ictod. and the Arums. Motion in open air. Asthma is < or caused by dust.
Relations.-Compare: Arum t., Asaf., Meph.
SYMPTOMS.
1. Mind.-Cross; impetuous; inclined to contradict.-Absence of mind and inattention; enters sick-room without knocking, does not listen to patient.
2. Head.-Vertigo and dimness of sight.-Headache in single places, lasting a short while, then changing place; dulness; pressing in temples, now more in one, then more in the other, with violent pulsation of arteries.-Drawing in forehead in two lines from protuberances to glabella, where it draws outward as from a magnet.
5. Nose.-The nose is swollen as far as the nasal bones extend, red like a saddle, sore to touch, < l. side.-Cartilage cold and bloodless, with red spots on cheeks and small pimples on l. side of face.-Violent sneezing, with pains in palate, fauces, and oesophagus to stomach, hurting for a while after in cardiac end of stomach.
6. Face.-Swollen submaxillary glands.
7. Teeth and Gums.-Scurvy.
8. Mouth.-Numbness of tongue, cannot touch teeth with it.-Papillae elevated.-Tongue red and sore on tip and edges.
9. Throat.-Burning from fauces downwards through chest.-Å’sophagus painful on sneezing.
10. Appetite.-Inclined to smoke, but it does not taste good.
11. Stomach.-Nausea and vomiting.-With every firm step, pain in pit of stomach as from something breaking loose.
12. Abdomen.-Expansion and tension in abdomen.-Pain in abdomen here and there in single spots.-When walking, sensation as if the entrails were hanging loose and flabby without any pain.
14. Urinary Organs.-Great urging; urine darker.
15. Male Sexual Organs.-Titillation, voluptuous but painful, around corona glandis.
16. Female Sexual Organs.-Amenorrhoea.
17. Respiratory Organs.-Spasmodic asthma.-Sudden anxiety, with dyspnoea and sweat, followed by stool and relief of that and other complaints.-Inclined to take a deep breath: with hollowness of chest; with constriction in fauces and chest.-Asthma, < or caused by dust.-Heaves in horses from dusty hay.-Spasmodic cough.-Senile catarrh.
18. Chest.-Pain in chest and in axillae; seems to have a connection with burning in oesophagus.-Pressing pain in sternum.
23. Lower Limbs.-Aching along r. crista tibiae.
24. Generalities.-Hysterics.-Epilepsy.-Erratic and spasmodic pains.
25. Skin.-Herpes and cutaneous affections.
