Senna

(Cassia Acutifolia)

Is of much use in infantile colics when the child seems to be full of wind. Oxaluria, with excess of urea; increased specific gravity. Where the system is broken down, bowels constipated, muscular weakness, and waste of nitrogenous materials, Senna will act as a tonic. Ebullitions of blood at night. Acetonemia, prostration, fainting, constipation with colic a flatulence. Liver enlarged and tender.

Stool
Fluid yellowish, with pinching pains before. Greenish mucus; never-get-done sensation (Merc). Burning in rectum, with strangury of bladder. Constipation, with colic and flatulence. Liver enlarged and tender, stools hard and dark, with loss appetite, coated tongue, bad taste, and weakness.

Urine
Specific gravity and density increased; hyperazoturia, oxaluria, phosphaturia, and acetonuria.

Relationship
Compare: Kali carb; Jalapa.

Antidotes: Nux; Cham.

Dose
Third to sixth potency.

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(Reference: Homeopathic Materia Medica by William Boericke)

Senna

(The leaflets of several species of Cassia: C. obovata, Alexandrian Senna, is the principal. N. O. Leguminose. Trituration or tincture of the dried leaves.)

Clinical.─Colic; flatulent, of infants. Exhaustion. Nitrogenous waste. Sleeplessness. Sneezing, with heat.

Characteristics.─Used as a laxative in ordinary practice, Senna has proved an excellent remedy in the colic of infants, with incarcerated flatulence and sleeplessness. Infantile colic when the patient seems full of wind.─The symptoms of the Schema are mostly derived from overdosings. A peculiar symptom is: "Repeated sneezing, which caused heat (especially of hands), exhaustion, and panting breathing," Exhaustion is typical of Senna. Farrington says it is one of the best remedies in the materia medica for "simple exhaustion with excess of nitrogenous waste." The exhaustion is exemplified in the sinking immediately after meals. The pods caused a nasty unclean smell from the body of a woman taking them for constipation (R. T. C.).

Relations.─Compare: Infantile colic and sleeplessness, jal. Exhaustion, K. ca. Sinking after meals, Ars., Cin., Lyc., Sil., Stp., Ur. nit., Calc., Iod., Sep., Tab.

SYMPTOMS.

Head.─Heaviness of the head when stooping, as if it were pressed down.

Nose.─Repeated sneezing, which caused heat (esp. of hands), exhaustion, and panting breathing.

Face.─Livid lips.─Commissure of lips covered with small burning vesicles.

Stomach.─Anorexia.─Thirst.─Empty, or watery and fetid, risings.─Loathing and nausea, with inclination to vomit.─Sinking immediately after meals.

Abdomen.─Colic, esp. in little children.─Painful colic from incarcerated flatulence (particularly in young children).─Sensation of coldness in the abdomen, with emptiness and uneasiness in the stomach.─Accumulation of flatus, with grumbling and fermentation in the abdomen, and discharge of fetid flatus.

Stool and Anus.─Two liquid stools with griping pains.─Loose evacuation, with tenesmus, and followed by a burning sensation in the anus.─Diarrhoa with straining and prolapsed rectum and sore anus (cured in children.─R. T. C.).

Generalities.─Universal swelling.─Exhaustion.─Unclean body swell.

Sleep.─Ebullition of blood, esp. at night, disturbing the sleep.─Sleeplessness, with cries and tossing, esp. in the case of infants.

Fever.─Heat (esp. of hands).

(Reference: "A Dictionary Of Practical Materia Medica" By John Henry Clarke)