Acalypha Indica

NAT. ORD., Euphorbiaceae.



COMMON NAME, Indian Acalypha, Indian Nettle.



PREPARATION.--The fresh plant is macerated with two parts by weight of

alcohol.



(Dr. Tonnere, of Calcutta, India, seems to have been the

first to call attention to this plant as a remedy. In a

small work, Additions to the Homoeopathic Materia

Medica, collected and arranged by Henry Thomas, M. D.,

and published in London in the year 1858, appears the

following credited to that physician.)



Tincture of the Acalypha Indica, prepared and administered in the

sixth decimal dilution, is specific in haemorrhage from the lungs. In

three cases in which I have employed it, the persons were affected with

phthisis. In one case there was a tuberculous affection of the upper

portion of the left lung, of some two years' standing. Haemoptysis had

been going on for three months; the expectoration had been in the

morning pure blood; in the evening dark lumps of clotted blood, and the

fits of coughing were very violent at night. In this case all

homoeopathic remedies had been tried unsuccessfully, when I

accidentally discovered the virtues of the Acalypha Indica, that

remedy having been given me by a native for jaundice. I prepared the

mother tincture upon the homoeopathic principle, and took 10 drops,

which brought on a severe fit of dry cough, followed by spitting of

blood. Having noted all the symptoms experienced by myself, and finding

that they were nearly all similar to those of my patients, I gave six

drops 6th [decimal] dilution in half a tumbler of water, a spoonful to

be taken every half hour, beginning immediately (9 A.M.). At 6 P.M., the

blood stopped. I continued this for eight days, and the blood has never

reappeared (now three months since). The patient is improving, and

auscultation proves the disease has decreased, and I am in hopes to

affect a cure, yet one month since I have been giving them the medicine

they have not spit any blood, although previously one of them never

passed a day without spitting a great quantity. Calcarea carb. is an

antidote to the Acalypha.



Another transatlantic medical friend writes:--"I hope you obtained some

of the Acalypha Indica while you were here. I have found it perfectly

successful in arresting haemoptysis in three cases of consumption in the

last stage; I could not perceive any other effect from its use, but the

cessation of the hemorrhagic sputa was, I think, a great advantage."



Its use in my hands has been very satisfactory, but I have only tried it

in similar cases to those already cited. The first instance of my using

it--in a hopeless case of phthisis--a continued and wearisome haemoptysis

succumbed to its exhibition, and quiet sleep succeeded its use--the

patient eventually died of pulmonary paralysis.



In a case of passive haemorrhage from the lungs, after Arnica was used

with little benefit, Acalypha benefited, and then failed; after which

the use of Arnica entirely stayed the haemorrhagic flow. (Perhaps

Hamamelis would have at once cured, but it was not at hand.)[A]



[A] Homoeopathic Review, vol. 1, p. 256.



K., a phthisical patient, had haemoptysis to a considerable extent; in a

short time his voice failed him; he took half-drop doses of 7th

[decimal] dilution of Acalypha in water every half hour, and in a few

hours the blood spitting left him entirely.



(In 1885 Dr. Peter Cooper, of Wilmington, Delaware, read

a paper on the drug Acalypha Indica of which the

following is an abstract:)



Professor Jones recapitulates as follows: "Time. Haemorrhage occurs in

morning. Blood. Bright-red and not profuse in morning; dark and

clotted in afternoon. Pulse. Neither quickened nor hard; rather soft

and easily compressible. Cough. Violent and in fits at night; patient

has a played-out feeling in the morning and gains in strength as the day

advances.



"N. B.--Worthy of trial in all pathological haemorrhages having notedly

a morning exacerbation."



Such is an outline presentation of the drug given us by so eminent an

authority as Professor Jones, of the University of Michigan. It was his

"N. B.," his suggestion that Acalypha was worthy of trial in all

pathological haemorrhages from any source, providing the morning

aggravation was present, that fixed my attention upon the drug

especially. At the time I had a case of haemorrhage per rectum that had

baffled me for several months. No remedy had aided the case in the

least, so far as I could see, unless it was Pond's Extract used locally

in the form of injection; and I finally came to the conclusion that the

relief apparently due to the Hamamelis was merely a coincidence. I had

given all the haemorrhagic remedies I knew of or could hear of. Still the

bleeding came just as often, with increasing severity. Each time the

patient was sure she would "bleed to death," and I was not positive she

would be disappointed. In fact, I was so hopeless that I used to delay

the answer to her summons as long as possible, so that the bleeding

might have time to exhaust itself. She became reduced in flesh and the

haemorrhagic drugs became reduced in number, until like the nine little

Indians sitting on a gate the last one tumbled off and then there was

none. As soon as I read Dr. Jones' monograph on Acalypha Indica, I

determined to try it. She had all the symptoms--bright-red blood in the

morning; dark and clotted in the afternoon and evening; weak and languid

in the forenoon, stronger during the afternoon--except one, i.e.,

instead of the blood coming from the lungs it came from within the

portals of the anus. I procured the 6x dil. and served it in water. It

gave speedy, almost immediate relief. Each subsequent attack came less

profuse and at longer intervals. She has not had a haemorrhage now for

two months, while before she was having from seven to one (continuous) a

week. She is gaining in flesh, is in every way improved, and keeps

Acalypha Indica constantly by her.