Kent's - Classical Homeopathy Online

The wakefulness produced by Coffea is well known, even to the laity. It is taken by nurses tokeep them awake nights with their patients. The Coffea patient is quick to act and to think. so full ofideas that she lies awake nights making plans, thinking of a thousand things; utterly unable to banishthe thoughts that flood the mind; hears the clocks on the distant steeples, as do Opium, China and Nuxvom.Hears the dogs barking. So great is the brain activity, the mental excitement, that she hears noisesthat are purely imaginary. Memory active, easy comprehension; full of ideas; increased power to thinkand to debate. Coffea increases the mental capacity. But after a while reaction follows; she becomesstupid and sleepy. There is no end to the fancies, to the visions. Fanciful visions come before the mind.Recalls things not thought of for years; recalls poetry that was recited in childhood. Eyes brilliant;pupils dilated; face flushed; head hot.With all these nervous states the patient dreads the fresh air. He is extremely sensitive to cold,sensitive to the wind and cold weather. Complaints come on in the cold weather, from the cold air. Painin the mouth and jaws, better from holding ice- cold water in the mouth. This applies to toothache andfaceache where it is deep in the jaws. Hot head; inflamed condition of the gums. Pain in the teeth;rending, tearing pain in the teeth, brought on from exposure to cold, from emotions, from excitement,from joy; aggravated from motion; ameliorated by ice or ice cold things; aggravated by warm food.Cannot drink warm tea, it so intensifies the pain. That is a particular. The particulars contrast with thegenerals. In one place you may see "better from cold" in black-faced type, but it relates to the face andjaws.Worse from cold is a general. Aversion to cold air, aversion to the open air unless it is verywarm and still. Aversion to wind."Neuralgic toothache entirely relieved by holding cold water in the mouth, returning as itbecomes warm. Toothache during the menstrual period. Complaints of anemic children duringdentition". Those nervous, excitable children that talk to the nurse and the mother very rapidly withbrilliant eyes, red face, cannot go to sleep. It will quiet the patient and actually favor the growth of thetooth in a painless manner. That is the description of a nervous child with many nervous brain andmental troubles. This child is extremely sensitive; it takes cold. The routine prescriber gives Belladonnato a child who has hot head, hot face and throbbing carotids, and when it does not help he gives moreBelladonna and increases the size of his dose until the child has a proving. He makes a Belladonnachild out of it when Coffea would have cured it. In most instances where Belladonna is indicated thechild is sluggish and stupid, and would like to sleep. With Coffea there is excitement. The child hearsthings its mother cannot hear; sees things; imagines things. Wakes up in fright. Sees this, that and theother thing in the room. Wakes up excited as if it had visions. Looks for things, and finally sees theyare not there. Such things are strong features of Coffea.At times the head is hot, the face is flushed and the eyes so brilliant that one fears apoplexy.Patients will often tell you that they hear a "noise" in the head, a ringing and roaring in the occiput. Theear is the one organ capable of registering sounds. But strange to say, the ears are sometimes verydeceiving. Roaring in the ears sometimes seems as if it were in the occiput. Sometimes it isaccompanied with a sensation of tingling or bubbling in the head. When patients say, "I have a roaringin the head", you know that means in the ear; many times accompanying roaring, ringing in the ears,buzzing in the ears, is a peculiar sensation of vibration in the head that is mistaken by the patient for asound. I mention that because the Coffea patient feels a crackling or a bubbling in the occiput. Thehead feels badly; it feels too small. Headache, as of something pressing hard upon the surface of thebrain. You would naturally suppose there was a pressing because of the congestive state heretoforedescribed. "Headache as if the whole brain were torn and bruised, or dashed to pieces. Worse frommotion, noise or light". The eye and the head symptoms are worse from noise and light. "Headacheintolerable. Head feels small, and as if filled with fluid. Nervous hysterical headache. One-sidedheadache".There is another head symptom which is quite common. A feeling as if a nail were driven intothe head Coffea headaches are worse from walking, from motion; from the mere moving across thefloor, he says he feels a draft of air on his head. And that is true of the pain in any part of the body. If aCoffea patient should have a pain in the hand, swinging of the hand through the air will aggravate. It isworse both from the motion and from the air. I want to illustrate that in this way in order to show howsensitive he is to air, and especially the painful part to cold air; when he moves against the air, againsteven still air he feels it. But the amelioration of the toothache from cold is an exception, is a particular.The neuralgia of the face is a common feature of old coffee drinkers. Sensitive persons takecoffee and finally become habituated to it. They say they cannot get along without it. They must havecoffee. Such individuals should stop coffee. When coffee furnishes a crutch it is a sure indication thatdrinking it must be stopped. So it is with tea or any beverage. Such persons sometimes become