Areca catechu

(Betel Nut)

PHARMACY

Areca catechu. Betel nut. Areca nut. N.O. Palmaceae. Titration of the nut. Titrations and solutions of the two alkaloids: Arecoline and Tenaline. Historical dose: Titration and all potencies.

CLINICAL

Helminthiasis. Myopia. Parasites. Salivation. Tapeworms.

HERBAL

The betel nut is in very common use in the East as a masticatory for sweetening the breath and hardening the gums.

The chief medical use of the Areca nut has been in helminthiasis in dogs, but it is also used for rheumatism.

HOMEOPATHIC

Argemone mexicana has been used for rheumatic disease associated with Bright's disease. Colicky cramps and spasm of bowels. Painful neuro-muscular conditions, preventing sleep. Rheumatism. Left knee stiff and painful. Feet swollen. Weakness.

Female

• Menses suppressed.
• Diminished sexual desire with weakness.

Head

• Throbbing headache in eyes and temples.
• Head hot.
• Throat very dry.
• Pain on swallowing.

Kidneys

• Passes less urine.
• Changing color.

Modalities

• Worse at noon, weakness.
• Stomach feels sick like vomiting.
• Griping.

Emaciation. Symptoms appear slowly, but progressing. Deeply penetrating. Decay.

Malfunctioning of the pituitary gland, the optic thalamus, the ovaries, and testicles. Infectious encephalomyelitis, caused by influenza. Parkinson's disease. Sensation of electric shocks and nervous trembling over the whole body. Sleeping sickness. Twitching, contraction, and trembling of limbs, needs to get up and walk about.

Secretions of mucus membranes are thick, gray, or tenacious, or like boiled starch. Lies down on account of tiredness and weakness. Pains gradually increase, become violent, then suddenly cease, worse by touch. Painless twitching or electric-like shocks. Pains are accompanied by polyuria. Cramps in muscles, limbs feel powerless. Bones are painful, tender. Sore rawness.

MIND

Forgetful. Loss of control over mind and body. Loss of mental power. Total diminution of memory and difficulty in concentrating. Mental exertion aggravates. Mental agitation causes headache and indigestion.

Neurosis from worry. Worried, feverish, more or less hasty. Hypochondria. Anxiety about health. Fear of apoplexy during palpitations. Nightly fears in children. Restless anxiety which drives him from place to place. Hurried feeling.

Cries for a long time about trifles. Weary, sad, painful state. Cries from nervous irritation with talkativeness, agitation, and mental strain. Talkative or disinclined to talk in society, changes subjects. Hasty, deceitful. Bars out all sympathy for friends.

Loquacity in daytime. Takes on all sorts of whims, often does strange and unaccountable things. Constant feeling of being drunk. Increased cheerfulness and disposition to talk the whole time.

Melancholy. Depressive psychosis. Maniacal and depressive state. Pre-senile and senile dementia. Delirium after epilepsy. Cerebral inhibition, following psychological stress. Delirious rage with jumping about and striking those near, after epileptic attack. Starting as if electric shocks through body during sleep, waking her. Time passes slowly.

Abdomen

Loud croaking with hunger in abdomen. Painful soreness of abdomen, worse riding in a carriage. Abdominal distention. Noisy rumblings in the bowels like frog croaking with drawing, cutting pains. Feeling as though a live worm were coming out of the anus.

Back

Severe backache, must walk bent with oppression of chest. Icy cold feeling near sacrum.

Cautions

• Onanism.
• Sunstroke.

Chest

Raw, sore feeling when coughing. Great weakness in the chest (left), stitches in chest impeding breathing, while reading aloud or talking. Feeling of raw spot near suprasternal fossa. Boil near the last rib. Pain in left lower ribs. Neuralgic pains along the entire border of left lower rib. Aching and shooting pains in the right side of the chest and sternum. Prickling pains in different areas of the chest.

Constitutions

Suited to thin patients with hollow eyes, pale skin, tendency to tubercle, decay, cancer, deep ulcers, imbecility. It is adapted to tall thin irritable people.

Ears

Itching of ear lobes, has to scratch until it bleeds. Shooting pain in the left ear, spreading to the brain. Blocked feeling in the right ear. Sub-acute ear infection. Diminution in auditive acuity. Buzzing in the ears.

Eyes

Itching in eyelids and canthi. Abundant purulent discharge. Lachrymal stricture. Eyelids and tarsi become thick. Eyelids red and thick. Obscurity of vision. Violent itching of the corners of the eyes. Blepharitis with eyes closed. Catarrhal, purulent conjunctivitis. Follicular conjunctivitis. Ulcerated keratitis. Iritis.

Face

Pale, sallow with weakness. Red. Sudden heat with palpitations. Pain in facial bones.

Female

Ovaries feel too large. Pain in left ovary. Ovarian cysts, tumors. Bearing-down pain. Prolapse uterus with pain in left ovary and small of the back, extending in front and downwards. Eroded spongy cervix. Palliative in scirrhus of uterus. Menopausal hemorrhage. Sore feeling throughout abdomen. Scirrhus of uterus.

Leucorrhea, foul, excoriating, bloody water. Palpitations during pregnancy.

Food

Want of thirst, even during hot stage of fever. Desire for wine. Aversion to even the thought of food. Appetite very much increased, hungry after eating a full meal. Great hunger. Hungry in the morning, giving her nausea. Appetite good, at times loss of appetite with aversion to smoking.

Head

Dull paroxysmal neuralgia over left side, gradually increasing and ceasing suddenly. Head feels empty, hollow. Pain between left eye and frontal eminence. Exostosis on skull. Crawling and emptiness in head. Scalp very tender to touch. Drilling, boring headache.

Heart

Stops, then trembles, then throbs, better inspiration. Palpitations with cardiac unrest, better by lying on left side. Palpitations during pregnancy, better deep inhalations. Pulse intermittent and very irregular during palpitation.

Kidneys

Frequent urination, polyuria. Diuresis. Urine profuse, turbid, sweet odor. Diabetes, if there is swelling of the ankles. Urine like whey of sweet odor. Chronic urethritis. Frequent need to urinate and profuse emission of urine. Yellowish-green urinary secretions. Chronic cystitis. Hydronephrosis. Pyelonephrosis. Pyelitis. Proteinuria and glycosuria.

Limbs

Rheumatic disorders of joints, especially elbow and knee. Involuntary contractions of fingers, partial paralysis of forearm, writer's cramp. Swelling of ankles. Arms feel powerless. Legs weak and trembling worse descending stairs. Calves feel as if too short on going down stairs. Swelling of ankles (Diabetes). Writer's cramps. Limbs feel numb or stiff. Burning in corns.

Lungs

Easy expectoration of gray, gelatinous or starchy mucus. Cough from laughing. Hectic fever at noon. On reading aloud, must hem and hawk. Alteration in timbre of voice. Fits of coughing with violent expectoration of mucus resembling cooked starch.

Male

Crushed pain in (right) testicles. Clothing increases pain when walking. Seminal emissions without sexual excitement and erection. Frequent urination with burning. Yellowish-green discharge. Frequent emission of sperm at night. Testicular pain, on the left side, as if bruised. Impotence and nightly seminal discharge. Sterility. Loss of libido. Inflammation of the glands and prepuce. Orchitis. Tumors of the testicle. Acute and chronic inflammation of the prostate gland.

Modalities

Better in open air, cough. Better at night when lying down (opposite Hyos.). Better from motion. Better coffee. Better wrapping up. Worse from touch, pressure. Worse toward noon. Worse 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Worse from using voice, speaking, singing. Worse from mental strain. Worse cold damp. Worse during carriage. Worse from lying on back. Worse sitting, stooping. Worse from entering warm room. Worse in the sun.

Mouth

Dry feeling in the mouth, although the tongue is moist. Stomatitis and gingivitis. Bringing up of thick, sticky, grayish, gelatinous mucus in the morning.

Nose

Copious flow of nasal mucus. Exhausting coryza with sneezing. Violent fluent coryza with frequent sneezing, causing exhaustion. Nosebleed with tickling, worse blowing nose. Nostrils blocked with or without sneezing. Boils on the nose. Adenoids. Chronic rhinitis. Nasal polyps. Lupus of the nose.

Perspiration

Sweats only on abdomen and chest. Sweats during and after meals. Sweats after midnight.

Rectum

Vomiting during stool. Stools, soft, passed several times during the day.

Skin

Nervous itching, crawling, tickling on various parts. Itching, burning sensation spread unevenly over the surface of the skin without the need to scratch. Tingling sensation, as if an insect were crawling over the skin. Rosy pityriasis. Prurigo. Itching. Senile pruritus.

Sleep

Electric shocks on dropping to sleep. Nausea in dreams. Sleep disturbed by terrifying dreams, which leave him worried on waking. Sleeping sickness.

Stomach

Feeling of hunger and empty stomach in the morning. Burning in stomach, ascending to the chest. Anxiety and pressure in the pit of stomach. Appetite increased or repugnance to all food. Hiccough on smoking. Nausea in dreams.

Temperature

Hectic fever at noon. Feeling of cold and shivers by day and night. Very high temperature between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Throat

Hoarseness and aphonia, worse using voice. Larynx feels sore and raw. Total loss of voice in professional singers. Worse from use of voice. Hawking, viscid, gray, jelly-like mucus and throat sore, on coughing. Chronic pharyngitis. Profuse and easy morning expectoration. Tension in throat worse yawning. Fauces numb. Abscess on the tonsils.

Vertigo

Attacks of vertigo on looking at running water. Whirling, as if drunk. Vertigo on entering a room after a walk. Worse entering warm room. Vertigo with intoxicated feeling.

COMMENTS

The muscular system is affected with cramps in limbs, calves feel too short going downstairs, stiffness, numbness, electric-like shocks in joints and limbs, painless twitchings. The heart is especially affected, frequent, spasmodic, though painless twitchings in the whole heart muscle, worse lying on back, fears having a stroke.

Sensation as if heart stood still, followed by trembling, then irregular violent throbbing. Palpitation at night during pregnancy. In social interaction, disinclined to talk, discouraged (Reaction from this is a great inclination to talk, mind very clear.) Frontal headache of businessmen. Headache increasing gradually and ceasing suddenly, at acme as if a nerve being torn, usually left side.

Sticky saliva and mucus expectoration, which is easy. Secretion like boiled starch from the mucus membranes, or there may be a thin and at the same time thick yellow or greenish discharge.

Great hunger even after a full meal. Extreme dryness of mouth, tongue sticks to palate. This symptom with the polyuria points to diabetes in which Arg. is particularly indicated if there is swelling of the ankles. Spasmodic bedwetting at night. Effects of onanism: impotence, atrophy of penis, bruised pains in testicles.

Pains in left ovary, feels enormously swollen, prolapse of uterus (scirrhus). Metrorrhagia, large lumps with violent pains, worse by every motion. Arg-m. acts more on the left side than the right, left ovary is affected. "Prolapse uterus with pains in left ovary."

Juvenile disorders of growth in bones. Fracture of the tip of the second metatarsal bone. Fracture of the scaphoid and tarsal bone. Fracture of the anterior tibia. Deforming arthritis of the hip. Vertebral arthritis.

Prominent tenderness. Tearing pressure and pains in the bones. Joint rheumatism without swelling. Parts feel bruised when pressed on. Hoarseness of singers and speakers, worse speaking or singing. Laughing causes cough. Restless sleep, electric shock through body wakes her.

Very specific for the ligaments and cartilage infections, fibrositis, condylitis (Arg-n.). Severe laryngitis is a keynote, clergyman's sore throat.

RELATIONS

Test classes Arg-m. with Merc. and with Ars. Antidotes: Merc., Puls., Zinc, Pall. (ovaries, Pall., right, Arg., left). Stann.

Cough excited by laughing. Antidoted by: Merc., Puls. - an occasional dose of Puls. favors action of Arg-n. in ophthalmia. Compare: (1) Arg-n. - Anxious unrest with great hastiness. Irritation of the mucus membranes with nervous and muscular weakness. Phobias. (2) Alum., Calc., Plat., Puls., Sel., Sep., Stann., Zinc. (3) Med. - Amnesia for recent facts. Hasty and fidgety, burning of the heels. Itching secretions from the skin and mucus membranes, smell of brine. Joint pains improved at the seaside. Ameliorated by resting in 'knee-chest' position. (4) Psor. - Demineralized weak, chilly. Anxious with periodic migraines and offensive eruptions. (5) Ampelopsis - Chronic hoarseness in scrofulous patients. Follows well: Alum., Plat. Followed well by: Calc., Puls., Sep.

REFERENCES

Boericke, Clarke, Julian, Murphy.