Arnica Montana

Introduction of Arnica Montana

Common name: 

• Mountain tobacco [1] 

Synonyms:

• Leopard’s bane [1] 

Family / Group / Class / Order:

• Compositae [1] 

Habit and habitat / Description:

• It is found in Europe, Russia and Siberia.  
• It is a perennial creeping plant. 
• Roots are 2-5 cms long and 5 mm thick.  
• Stem is 25-30 cms in length.  
• The stem and leaves are hairy.  
• Flowers are yellowish in colour. [1] 

Name of prover:

• Dr Hahnemann in 1805[1] 

Introduction and history:

• It is popularly known as the injury remedy.  
• Arnica is the king of traumatic remedies. It is very well known to the world since ancient times.  
• This drug is very beneficial in the most severe wounds; by bullets and blunt weapons; also, trauma and injuries due to falls.  
• The name ‘arnica’ is derived from the Latin word which means lambskin – the appearance of its leaves is like a lambskin that is, wooly; montana means mountains, from the place where it grows.[1] 

Parts used:

• The whole plant is used in the preparation of the mother tincture. Higher potencies are prepared from the mother tincture.[1]

Active principles:

• The main alkaloid is arnicin which is bitter in taste and acrid, having a yellowish colour.  
• It also contains arnicinic acid, tannin and insulin, betaine, cnoline, scopoletin, eupatofolin and Arnifolin.[1] 

Preparation:

• The whole plant is used in the preparation of the mother tincture.  
• Higher potencies are prepared from the mother tincture.[1] 

Constitution of Arnica Montana

Physical make up  : 

• Nervous, sanguine, plethoric persons with a very red face.[1] 

Temperament  :

•  Nervous [1] 

Diathesis  : 

• Haemorrhagic[1] 

Relation with heat & cold: 

• Very chilly patient[1] 

Miasm  : 

• Psora [1] 

Clinical conditions Arnica Montana 

• Haematemesis, Haematuria, Headache, Heart affections, Injury from blunt instrument, Meningitis, Paralysis, Post-partum haemorrhage, Rheumatic fever [1] 

Sites of action / Pharmacodynamics : 

• Blood vessels and capillaries, muscles, blood, nerves, hair, skin, digestive organs, etc. [1] 

Causation (Causes / Ailments from): 

• Fall or blow, mechanical injury, inhaling charcoal vapours, anger, fright, confusion, doing hard work, from spirituous liquors, etc. [1]

Physiological action:

Arnica probably has some direct action on the heart and blood. It is also said to be the ‘homeopathic asprine’, as it helps in stopping platelet aggregation. Hence, it can be used in thrombosis. 

• Arnica is an irritant, stimulant, depressant, antipyretic, diuretic and vulnerary.  
• It irritates the gastrointestinal tract.  
• In some cases the alcoholic preparation of the flowers has excited the erysipelatous fly which sometimes infests the blossoms. Small doses internally increase the action of the heart, raise arterial tension and stimulate the action of the skin and kidneys. 

• In large doses,

Arnica produces a transient excitement followed by depression of circulation, respiration and nerve centers. 

• It has produced headache, unconsciousness and even convulsions with lowering of body temperature, dilatation of pupils and muscular paresis. A  poisonous dose paralyses the sympathetic nervous system, causing collapse and death. 
• It acts upon venous capillaries and stimulates the absorption of exudates at the site of blunt injury. 
• It also stimulates the terminal ends of sensory and motor nerves, and muscular fibres at the junction of tendons, and may result in paresis and myalgia. 
• It also acts on cardio inhibitory centers, serous membranes and skin.[1] 

Patho-physiological changes / Pathogenesis : 

• It acts on the cerebrospinal nervous system. It acts on the skin producing vesicular and erysipelatous inflammation. 
• It acts on the venous system and stimulates absorption of extravasated blood and prevents sepsis, thus helping in the part to recover. 
• It acts on the muscular system and tendons producing paresis and myalgia. 
• It acts on digestive organs and produces gastrointestinal inflammation. 
• It acts on serous membranes and produces inflammation with effusion. 
• It acts on circulation and accelerates it with high temperature. 
• Due to its action on blood, it produces haemorrhage and anaemia.[1] 

Characteristic Mental Symptoms (psychology) 

• Patient is forgetful and absentminded.  
• Patient is in a state of consciousness, delirium and stupor but the patient answers correctly when aroused and then again relapses. 
• Fear of being touched or struck by people coming towards him. 
• Low muttering type of delirium; patient is irritable, sad and despondent. 
• Feels he is all right and nothing has happened to him. 
• Wants to be alone, greatly depressed and gloomy. 
• Patient is fearful, easily frightened.[1] 

Guiding symptoms of Arnica Montana

1. Generalities  

• Bruised feeling of the flesh everywhere. 
• Stitches in various parts.  
• General weakness with sluggishness.  
• General aggravation from touch or motion; ameliorated in clear, cold, stimulating weather. General aggravation evenings and nights. [4] 

2. Head: 

• Vertigo on rising and on moving.  
• Confusion.  
• Heaviness.  
• Feeling as if brain were shattered.  
• Head hot, rest of body cool.  
• Pressing pain in the forehead, aggravated after eating. 
• Aching, aggravated by walking. [4]  
• Sensation as if brains were rolled up into a lump, aggravated near stove.  
• Stitching and tearing in the temples. [4] 

3. Eye: 

• Inflammation of conjunctiva, dryness and soreness between ball and lid on moving eyes.  
• Lachrymation burning. 
• Dizzy on closing them.  
• Feel tired and weary after sight-seeing, moving pictures, etc. [3] 

4. Ears: 

• Dullness of hearing after concussion.  
• Pain in cartilages of ears as if bruised. 
• Noises in ear caused by rush of blood to the head.  
• Shooting in and around ears.  
• Blood from ears. [3] 

5. Nose: 

• Bleeding after every fit of coughing, dark fluid blood.  
• Nose feels sore; COLD. 
• Epistaxis of dark, thin blood. 
• Pain as from a bruise, from above downward. [3] 

6. Face: 

• SUNKEN; very red.  
• Heat in lips.  
• Herpes in face. 
• Pale, sunken.  
• One-sided heat and redness or heat of face and head; rest of body cool.  
• Lips chapped, burning.  
• Trembling of lower lip. [3] 

7. Mouth: 

• FETID BREATH.  
• Dry and thirsty.  
• Bitter taste.  
• TASTE AS FROM BAD EGGS.  
• Soreness of gums after teeth extraction. 
• Empyema of maxillary sinus. [4] 

8. Throat: 

• Swallowing prevented by a kind of nausea.  
• Swallowing noisy.[4] 

9. Stomach: 

• Repugnance to food.  
• Craving for vinegar.  
• Thirst.  
• Eructations, fetid, like bad eggs, of bitter mucus.  
• Nausea.  
• Empty retching.  
• Vomiting of food, mixed with blood, of dark, clotted blood.  
• Cramps in the stomach, pinching, stitches, pressure extending to the spine.  
• Constriction extending into the chest. [4] 

10. Abdomen: 

• Distention, hard.  
• Stitches in the region of the spleen, taking away the breath.  
• Pains (after lifting).  
• Colic, with retention of urine.  
• Bruised pains in the sides of the abdomen.  
• Flatulence, extremely foul. [4] 

11. Rectum & Anus: 

• Tenesmus.  
• Undigested evacuations. [3] 

12. Stool: 

• Stool loose, diarrhoea very putrid, like brown yeast; involuntary, especially at night during sleep.[3] 
• worse lying on left side. 
• Dysenteric stools with muscular pains.[3] 

13. Urinary Organ: 

• Tenesmus, with ineffectual straining.  
• Tenesmus associated with a diarrhoea.  
• Retention of urine with dull pain in the bladder.  
• Involuntary micturition nights in bed or or when running during the day.  
• Urine brownish-red, with brick-dust sediment.  
• Bloody urine. [3] 

14. Sexual Organ: 

• Bruised parts after labor.  
• Violent after-pains.  
• Uterine haemorrhage from mechanical injury after coition.  
• Sore nipples.  
• Mastitis from injury.  
• Feeling as if foetus were lying crosswise.[3] 

15. Respiratory System: 

• Coughs depending on cardiac lesion, paroxysmal, at night, during sleep, worse exercise. Acute tonsillitis, swelling of soft palate and uvula.  
• Pneumonia; approaching paralysis.  
• Hoarseness from overuse of voice. 
• Raw, sore feeling in morning.  
• Cough produced by weeping and lamenting.  
• Dry, from tickling low down in trachea.  
• Bloody expectoration.  
• Dyspnoea with haemoptysis.  
• All bones and cartilages of chest painful.  
• VIOLENT, SPASMODIC COUGH WITH FACIAL HERPES.  
• Whooping cough, child cries before coughing.  
• Pleurodynia [4] 

16. Heart & Pulse: 

• ANGINA PECTORIS; pain especially severe in elbow of left arm. 
• Stitches in heart.  
• Pulse feeble and irregular.  
• Cardiac dropsy with distressing dyspnoea.  
• Extremities distended, feel bruised and sore.  
• Fatty heart and hypertrophy. [3] 

17. Neck & Back: 

• Pains in the cervical vertebrae, with tension on bending the head. 
• Pains in the back as from long stooping.  
• Feeling as if the spine were too weak to support the body. [4] 

18. Extremities: 

• General bruised, paralytic feeling.  
• The arms feel strained or wrenched.  
• The veins on the hands are distended.  
• The hips feel sprained.  
• Weariness and tension in the thighs.  
• Arthritic pains in the toe joints; the feet become hot and inflamed. 
• Cannot bear to have one approach for fear of being hurt.[4] 

19. Skin: 

• Numerous boils.  
• Small, hot, tense swellings.  
• Ecchymoses.  
• Soreness of parts on which one lies.  
• Inflammations of a dark.  
• bluish colour.  
• Erysipelas. [4] 

20. Sleep: 

• Sleepless and restless when overtired.  
• Comatose drowsiness; awakens with hot head; dreams of death, mutilated bodies, anxious and terrible.  
• Horrors in the night.  
• Involuntary stools during sleep. [3] 

21. Fever: 

• Febrile symptoms closely related to typhoid.  
• Shivering over whole body.  
• Heat and redness of head, with coolness of rest of body.  
• Internal heat; feet and hands cold.  
• Nightly sour sweats.[3] 

Important characteristic features of Arnica Montana

Keynotes / Redline:

• Hot head with cold body. Icy coldness of nose.  
• Putrid foul discharges.  
• Dysentery with long interval between stools.  
• Symmetrical eruptions.  
• Ribbon like stools due to enlarged prostate or retroverted uterus. 
• Fears being struck by those coming near him. 
• Many boils painful one after another. [2] 

Guiding: 

• Soreness 
• Oversensitiveness 
• Haemorrhage 
• Prostration 
• Putridity 
• Relaxation 
• Hot and cold 
• Constipation 
• Hair fall 
• Boils 
• Injury 
• Gases. [1] 

PQRS : 

• Injury: Arnica is very useful when the injury is from blunt instruments, falls, blow, trauma, contusion, etc. It is also useful for recent or remote mechanical injuries even if received years ago. Sore, stiff, bruised feeling all over the body as if beaten.  
• Fever: It is generally indicated with the onset of fever. Typhoid fever is slow and gradual; shivering over the whole body. Heat and redness of head with coldness of rest of the body. Sore, stiff, bruised feeling all over the body. Internal heat.  
• Oversensitive: Extreme sensitiveness runs throughout the remedy; especially felt in the abdominal viscera, in the uterus and pelvic region; sensitiveness to the motion of the foetus; sore and bruised. This oversensitiveness is  characterized by soreness.  
• Abortion: It is a very good remedy for threatened abortion. In cases of  shocks, falls, bruises or concussions, a pregnant women should always take  Arnica at once, more particularly if she commences to flow, with or without pain, or to have pains without flow. She has a bruised feeling, so that it hurts her to move. [1] 

Confirmatory: 

• Ribbon like stools due to enlarged prostate or retroverted uterus. 
• Many boils painful one after another. 
• Hot head with cold body. 
• Icy coldness of nose. 
• Symmetrical eruptions. 
• Putrid foul discharges. [2] 

Nucleus symptoms: 

• Trauma- mental or physical with extravasation of blood.  
• Sore, stiff , bruised sensation.  
• Black and blue spots.  
• Foul discharges. [2] 

Therapeutic value of Arnica Montana

• Abscessess, Apoplexy, Boils, Bronchitis, Diabetes, Dysentery, Fever, Haematemesis, Haematuria, Headache, Heart affections, Injury from blunt instrument, Meningitis, Paralysis, Post-partum haemorrhage, Rheumatic fever, Skin diseases, Trauma, Typhoid, Urinary affections.[1] 

Modality of Arnica Montana

Aggravation:

• From motion, exertion, rest, touch, damp cold weather, wine and a flowing nose.

 Amelioration:

• Better by lying down and lying with head low, open air, Uncovering.[1] 

Remedy Relationship of Arnica Montana

Complimentary: 

• Hep, Acon, Ip, Rhus-t, Verat.[1] 

Follows Well: 

• Ip, Apis, Acon, Verat.[1] 

Inimical: 

• Acon, Am-c, Ars, Bapt, Bell, Bry, Calen, Cham, Chin, Croto-t, Euphr, Ham, Hep, Hyper, Ip, Led, Merc, Puls, Ran-s, Rhod, Ruta, Sil, Staph, Sul-ac, Sulph, Symph, Verat.[1] 

Antidoted By: 

• Acon, Ars, Camph, Chin, Ign, Ip.[1] 

It Antidotes: 

• Am-c, Chin, Cic, Ferr, Ign, Ip, Seneg.[1] 

Comparison : 

• Abrot, Absin, Calen, Cham, Cina, Gnaph.[1] 

Dose of Arnica Montana

• In all recent affections it may be given in lower potencies, but for the remote effects of injury we must ascend the region of infinitesimal (Hughes). 
• In lower potencies, Arnica is a tonic and stimulant for the depressed, apathetic, rheumatic, gouty, maniacal and melancholic states.  
• Higher potencies are found useful in nausea and vomiting with disgust for food, diarrhoea and dysentery.[1] 

Potency of Arnica Montana : 

• 3x, 6x, 12x, 30, 200, 1000. [1] 

Duration of Action of Arnica Montana : 

• • 6 to 10 days [1] 

Reference of Arnica Montana

1. Textbook of homoeopathic materia medica by Dr. J. D. Patil 
2. Zomeo lane chapter > Arnica montana 
3. Materia Medica By Boericke W. 
4. A Primer Of Materia Medica by T. F. Allen. 
5. Encyclopedia Of Pure Materia Medica, Vol.1 By Allen T.F. 
6. The Guiding Symptoms Of Our Materia Medica (All 10 Vols.) By Hering C. 
7. Dictionary Of Practical Materia Medica (All 3 Vol.) By Clarke J. H. 

Other Key Terms

Specific Phrases:

• Arnica Montana homeopathy: A good general search term.
• Arnica Montana for injuries: Focuses on a specific use.
• Arnica Montana mental symptoms: Finds information on psychological effects.