The symptoms here compiled were produced by the 3x attenuation and the tincture, using from one drop to thirty drops at a dose. In proving and then compiling the symptoms produced by this drug, I am fully aware of the many difficulties to be met on every side.
The one great trouble that I find is that those who are unaccustomed to proving do not observe what really is going on while attempting to make a proving, and are not capable of expressing the conditions so produced. I find that there are few who can take drugs and accurately define their effects. In selecting and discriminating the effects of drugs there must exist a mental superiority, and no man had this genius so highly developed as Hahnemann.
After making three different provings upon myself, I have undertaken to select those symptoms which to the best of my ability were found in all of these different provings.
I have taken special care not to omit any symptoms, even though it may have been noticed by but one prover; but in the majority of cases you will notice the symptoms occurred two or more times in different individuals, thus confirming the genuineness of the symptoms.
Not giving you the day-book records of these provers, a few remarks, showing its general action, may not be out of place. As stated before, only two recorded symptoms after the use of the 30x attenuation.
After taking the tincture, there is soon produced a biting, tingling sensation of the tongue, lips and fauces, not very much unlike the sensation produced by Aconite. In these provers there soon followed a sense of fear, with pain about the heart, and accelerated pulse. In a short time there was noticed a dull pain in both temples, a pressing pain; then shooting pains, which followed the fifth pair of nerves.
The next symptom produced was an accumulation of sticky mucus in mouth and fauces. Then a general languor and weakness followed, always worse in the afternoon. All the limbs felt weak and indisposed to make any motion, and this was accompanied by sharp, shooting, shifting pains. In quite a number of cases the appetite was not affected.
Those using sufficient quantity of the tincture had loss of appetite, with belching of tasteless gas, weakness in the stomach, pain in the right hypochondriac region, accompanied with gas in the bowels; griping pains followed by passing offensive flatus, or a loose, yellowish stool, which always produced great exhaustion. After using the drug several days the face becomes pale, the pulse very much lessened in frequency, and a general exhaustion follows like after a severe and long spell of sickness.
The tongue will then indicate slow digestion, accompanied with belching of tasteless gas. In most of the provers, however, there was a passing of very offensive gas and offensive stools.
You will observe that the remedy exerts quite an effect on the kidneys and bladder, but I am very sorry to say that the urinary analysis made did not show anything but the variations generally observed in ordinary health.