Open Materia Medica
The classical materia medica, in plain language.
“Prove all things.” — after 1 Thessalonians 5:21, the old provers’ watchword
344 remedy portraits, drawn from the public-domain classics and set beside the real toxicology and modern pharmacology of each source substance. A study and reference companion — not medical advice.
I built this so that the great nineteenth-century remedy portraits — Boericke, Clarke, Kent, Allen, Nash, Farrington — could be met whole, in everyday words, and weighed against the science of our own time. Read the classical picture; then read the pharmacology beside it; then judge for yourself.
— Dr. Sohil Momin, BHMS
Remedy of the day
Loading…
344remedy portraits
70+conditions indexed
16natural families
100%works offline
Search by symptom
Type any sensation, keynote, modality or substance — the whole library answers instantly, offline.
By condition
70+ everyday conditions, each with its most-used remedies in a single line.
By rubric
A working mini-repertory — the most-used rubrics with their first remedies.
By kingdom
Animal, vegetable, mineral, sarcode and nosode — each kingdom's signature.
By family
Snakes, spiders, nightshades, the Kali family — sixteen natural groups.
Compare
Any two portraits side by side, to tell look-alikes apart at a glance.
On every remedy page
- The substance, in plain words — what the remedy is made from.
- The traditional picture — the classical portrait merged from the great authors: mind, body, modalities, affinities.
- Where the picture comes from — the real toxicology and history behind each portrait.
- The substance in real medicine — where the source material has genuine, documented uses in modern pharmacology.
- Look-alikes — how the classical authors told each remedy apart from its neighbours.
- A plain-language glossary for every technical term.
The research debate on ultra-dilute preparations — supporting work and the placebo question — is discussed once, on the Evidence page.
Remedies — all 344, A to Z
| Remedy | Made from | In a few words |
|---|---|---|
| Abies canadensis | The hemlock spruce | A hunger that cannot be satisfied: the canine, gnawing hunger of the books, the flatulent dyspepsia with the… |
| Abies nigra | The black spruce | A stomach that hurts as the meal ends: the pain after eating of the books, the sensation of a hard, immovable lump… |
| Abrotanum | Southernwood | A child melting away: emaciation that defies feeding — the legs thin to sticks while the belly stays big — hunger… |
| Absinthium | Wormwood | A nervous system over-wound: sleeplessness with trembling and startings, sudden spasms and twitchings, visions and… |
| Acalypha indica | The Indian copperleaf | A cough that greets the morning with blood: the dry, hacking morning cough with blood-streaked sputum of the… |
| Acidum benzoicum | Benzoic acid | Urine that announces itself: dark, hot, offensive-smelling urine that irritates everything it passes; joint pains… |
| Acidum carbolicum | Carbolic acid | The chemistry that changed surgery and the remedy of the same molecule: offensive, acrid discharges from every… |
| Acidum fluoricum | Hydrofluoric acid | A constitution hot and dissolving: varicose veins with old, hard ulcers that refuse to heal, bones that soften and… |
| Acidum hydrocyanicum | Hydrocyanic acid | A spasm that alternates and locks: convulsions of the clonic-tonic type — relaxation and rigidity alternating… |
| Acidum lacticum | Lactic acid | A body made rheumatic by milk: rheumatic pains and stiffness worse for milk, the hot flushes and the copious sweat… |
| Acidum muriaticum | Hydrochloric acid | Strength draining out through the lower parts: hemorrhoids so weak they protrude and cannot be drawn back, blue… |
| Acidum nitricum | Nitric acid | A system that bleeds at the least touch: warts that crack and bleed, fissures that will not heal, ulcers with… |
| Acidum phosphoricum | Phosphoric acid | A person emptied to apathy: grief or over-study or a growing spurt has drained the colour and the interest from… |
| Acidum salicylicum | Salicylic acid | Rheumatism with deafness: wandering joint pains with sudden deafness or roaring in the ears, profuse sweating… |
| Acidum sulphuricum | Sulfuric acid | Strength draining through a sieve: trembling weakness from the least cause, bruising and bleeding at the slightest… |
| Aconitum napellus | Monkshood (Aconite) | A state that comes on suddenly — after a sharp cold wind, a fright, or exposure to dry cold — with intense fear… |
| Actaea spicata | The black baneberry | The small joints in revolt: rheumatic pains of the wrists, fingers and ankles — the small joints the big remedies… |
| Adonis vernalis | Pheasant's eye | A heart made irritable by kidney trouble: a fluttering, irregular pulse, dropsy that shifts with position, urine… |
| Adrenalinum | The remedy prepared from adrenaline itself — the hormone of the fight-or-flight that modern medicine injects to reverse anaphylaxis and restart the heart | The body in full alarm: pounding heart, surging blood to the head and chest, trembling and anxiety, the sensation… |
| Aesculus glabra | The Ohio buckeye | A rectum that burns and descends: the burning, protracted rectal pains of the books, the prolapse and the… |
| Aesculus hippocastanum | Horse chestnut | A rectum purple and dry: hemorrhoids that are purple, swollen and intensely painful, with a characteristic dry… |
| Aethusa cynapium | Fool's parsley | The baby who cannot keep its milk: vomiting of curdled milk in great lumps, exhaustion to stupor after the feed, a… |
| Agaricus muscarius | Fly agaric | A nervous system that cannot hold still: constant twitching and jerking of single muscles, chorea-like movements… |
| Agnus castus | The chaste tree's berry | A fire gone out: sexual vitality extinguished — cold, flaccid, indifferent — with a deep, hopeless sadness, a… |
| Ailanthus | The tree of heaven | A throat turning dusky and dark: malignant sore throat with the dusky, dark-red membrane of the old books, great… |
| Aletris farinosa | Unicorn root | A woman emptied by her own life: prolapse and bearing-down, constipation that no laxative reaches, anaemic… |
| Allium cepa | The common onion | A hay fever with a chemical signature: a burning, smarting, watery nasal flow that reddens the upper lip, eyes… |
| Alnus rubra | The red alder bark | A skin and glands that never settle: the chronic eczema and eruptions of the books, the swollen lymphatics, the… |
| Aloe socotrina | Socotra aloe | A rectum that will not be trusted: a constant bearing-down and urging as if the stool will escape the moment it is… |
| Alumina | Aluminium oxide | A system gone dry and slow: a mouth and throat so dry there is no saliva to swallow food down, a constipation so… |
| Ambra grisea | Ambergris | A nervous system worn thin by age and company: extreme nervousness and excitement from the least company… |
| Ammonium carbonicum | Sal ammoniac | A nose that blocks the moment the head lies down: suffocative night-catarrh, nose-blocked-at-night of the books… |
| Amyl nitrosum | Amyl nitrite | A surge of blood with a pounding heart: violent flushing and heat of the face, the sensation of blood rushing… |
| Anacardium orientale | The marking nut of the cashew family | A person torn in two: one moment gentle and repentant, the next cursing and wicked — 'an angel on one shoulder, a… |
| Angustura | The calumbo bark | A toothache that wanders into rheumatism: the rheumatic, drawing toothache of the books, the dyspepsia of the… |
| Antimonium crudum | Black antimony sulfide | A stomach-and-skin remedy of children: a tongue coated so thickly white it looks whitewashed, a child who snaps… |
| Antimonium tartaricum | Tartar emetic | A drowsy, sinking person with a chest full of rattling mucus they are too weak to raise: audible rattling with… |
| Apis mellifica | The honeybee's venom | Rosy-pink, puffy, stinging swelling — of an eyelid, a throat, a joint or the whole face — burning and stinging… |
| Apocynum androsaemifolium | The spreading dogbane | Water passing and the body filling: the profuse, watery diarrhea of the books, the dropsy of the genuine diuretic… |
| Apocynum cannabinum | Canadian hemp | A body filling with water and refusing drink: dropsy — ankles, belly, chest — with a peculiar thirstlessness… |
| Aralia racemosa | The American spikenard | A wheeze that owns the lying hours: asthmatic breathing and a hacking dry cough worse the moment the head lies… |
| Aranea diadema | The cross spider | A cold that runs by the clock: the marked periodicity of the books, the deep coldness of the parts, the bone pains… |
| Arctium lappa | Burdock root | A skin that never clears and glands that never settle: the chronic eczema and acne of the books, the swollen… |
| Argentum nitricum | Silver nitrate | Hurry in the nerves: the person who cannot wait — walks fast, talks fast, decides in a flash and regrets at… |
| Arnica montana | Leopard's bane | The person who says 'I'm fine' while leaning on a lamppost: bruised, sore, lame after a fall or a blow, everything… |
| Arsenicum album | Arsenic trioxide (As₂O₃) | A person who is frightened and cannot keep still, who feels burning pains yet is shivering and craves warmth, who… |
| Arsenicum bromatum | Arsenic tribromide | Psoriasis that itches beyond bearing: the scaling, peeling skin of the books' arsenic-skin chapter, the intense… |
| Arsenicum iodatum | Arsenic triiodide | Arsenicum album set on fire: the same anxious restlessness and prostration, but with intense heat, burning… |
| Arsenicum metallicum | Metallic arsenic | Skin that scales and peels: the exfoliative dermatitis of the books' arsenic chapter, the scaling that lifts and… |
| Asafoetida | The gum resin of the giant fennel | Wind and nerves knotted together: hysterical flatulence with the sensation of a lump rising, throbbing about the… |
| Asarum | Asarabacca | Nerves shattered by the least sound: the oversensitivity to noise of the books — a cough, a footfall setting the… |
| Asclepias tuberosa | Pleurisy root | A chest that hurts with every breath: sharp, stitching pains of the chest wall, worse for the deep breath and the… |
| Asterias rubens | The common starfish | A left-sided trouble around the breast: a breast that hardens and ulcerates in the old books' cancer chapter… |
| Aurum metallicum | Gold | The proud, responsible person broken by grief: lost position, lost money, lost love — and with the loss comes a… |
| Avena sativa | The oat plant | A nervous system spent past its reserves: trembling weakness after illness or overwork, sleeplessness with the… |
| Bacillinum | The classical nosode prepared from the tubercle bacillus — the twin of Tuberculinum of the consumptive era, and the classical remedy of the ringworm-and-adenoid child | The child marked by the family disease: ringworm that comes and goes with the chest, adenoids and tonsils that… |
| Balsamum peruvianum | Peruvian balsam | A bronchitis that runs and runs: a chronic cough with profuse, purulent, copious mucus — yellow, sticky and free… |
| Baptisia tinctoria | Wild indigo | A fever that turns the face dark: drowsiness sinking toward stupor, a dusky, dark-red, almost sooty face, the body… |
| Baryta carbonica | Barium carbonate | The child who cannot catch up: small for age, slow to speak and understand, large and swollen-looking glands in a… |
| Belladonna | Deadly nightshade | Heat, redness and throbbing that come on suddenly: a blazing hot skin, flushed face, glassy staring eyes with… |
| Bellis perennis | The common daisy | The bruise nobody remembers: deep soreness of muscles and inner parts after a blow or strain long past, the trunk… |
| Berberis aquifolium | The Oregon grape | A complexion gone dull and sallow: muddy, blotched skin, liver spots and muddy patches of the face, a sallow… |
| Berberis vulgaris | Common barberry | Pains that bubble and radiate: a bubbling, stitching sensation in the kidney region shooting down to the bladder… |
| Bismuthum subnitricum | Bismuth | A stomach that vomits and burns: vomiting of the drink as soon as it warms, burning and pressure as of a load, the… |
| Blatta orientalis | The oriental cockroach | Persistent bronchial asthma with a history: the cough and breathlessness of the bronchitic, worse in damp and cold… |
| Borax | Sodium borate | A child with a mouthful of sores and a terror of being put down: white aphthous ulcers of the mouth that bleed… |
| Bothrops lanceolatus | The fer-de-lance venom | Bleeding with the brain involved: dark oozing blood from any opening, purple discoloration, and — the distinctive… |
| Bovista | The puffball | A woman whose troubles run by night: menstrual flow that comes only in the dark or floods when lying down, blotchy… |
| Bromium | Bromine | Glands that soften rather than harden: swollen glands that yield and suppurate, a throat-and-larynx picture of… |
| Bryonia alba | White bryony root | Someone who hurts so much they dare not move: every stitch of motion, even breathing deeply, aggravates. |
| Bufo rana | The toad's poison | A mind slipping toward seizure: strange sensations before the fit, the convulsion itself with the biting and the… |
| Cactus grandiflorus | The night-blooming cereus | An iron band around the heart: a sensation of constriction, of clutching or vise-like gripping, with pain shooting… |
| Cadmium sulphuratum | Cadmium sulfide | A stomach that will not stop: persistent vomiting of yellow, acid fluid, the nausea that nothing touches… |
| Caladium seguinum | Dumb cane | An itch that owns the skin: intolerable pruritus of the genitals and skin, an aversion to — yet craving for… |
| Calcarea carbonica | Oyster-shell calcium carbonate | The fair, plump, easily-tired person — flabby muscles, cold damp feet, sour-smelling sweat on the head of a child… |
| Calcarea fluorica | Calcium fluoride | Tissues losing their elasticity and turning stony: hardened glands, varicose and knotted veins, loose teeth… |
| Calcarea phosphorica | Calcium phosphate | Growth that can't keep up: children slow to walk, slow to teeth, thin and puny with big heads and soft bones… |
| Calendula officinalis | The pot marigold | A wound that must close cleanly: torn, jagged lacerations, raw grazed surfaces, surgical cuts — soreness out of… |
| Camphora | Camphor | A person turning to ice: generalised icy coldness — cold breath, cold sweat, blue lips — that astonishingly is not… |
| Cannabis indica | Indian hemp | A mind unmoored from time and space: minutes stretching like hours, the body feeling enormous or tiny, sounds and… |
| Cannabis sativa | The hemp plant | A urinary passage aflame: burning, smarting pain along the urethra after urination, with the sexual excitement and… |
| Cantharis vesicatoria | The Spanish fly | Burning on urination so violent that the person screams before the stream starts: constant urging, urine passed… |
| Capsicum annuum | Cayenne pepper | A burning throat and a homesick soul: raw, burning sore throat with the uvula elongated and red, burning cough, a… |
| Carbo animalis | Animal charcoal | Glands that turn to stone: hard, indurated glands — cervical, axillary, inguinal — in a person worn thin and… |
| Carbo vegetabilis | Vegetable charcoal | A person drowning in their own exhaustion: gasping for air, wanting the fan turned on their face, cold breath… |
| Carcinosin | The classical nosode prepared from cancer tissue — the disease modern oncology now treats with growing success, and the classical remedy of the cancer-linked constitution | The constitution the old books linked to the great wasting diseases: a history of cancer in the family, dark moles… |
| Carduus marianus | Milk thistle | A liver swollen and sore: fullness and stitching under the right ribs, pain going to the left shoulderght… |
| Cascara sagrada | Cascara bark | A bowel bound to the portal system: obstinate, chronic constipation with a sensation of fullness in the portal… |
| Caulophyllum thalictroides | Blue cohosh | A uterus that will not do its work: irregular, painful, ineffective contractions; menses that wander and… |
| Causticum | Made by Hahnemann himself from slaked lime and bisulphide of sulphur — his 'burned' preparation, and the classical voice of injustice and gradual paralysis | The person who cannot bear injustice — weeps at others' suffering, burns with sympathy for the wronged — while the… |
| Ceanothus | The New Jersey tea | A spleen that aches and swells: the deep, splenic pains of the books, the enlargement of the chronic chapter, the… |
| Cedron | Cedron seed | A fever that keeps perfect time: attacks that arrive with the punctuality of a clock — every day at the same hour… |
| Cerium oxalicum | Cerium oxalate | A stomach that will not keep anything down: intractable vomiting of pregnancy of the old books, the vomiting of… |
| Chamomilla vulgaris | German chamomile | A child in red-faced rage: one cheek hot and red, the other pale; demanding to be carried, then furious when… |
| Chelidonium majus | Greater celandine | The liver speaking through the back: pain under the right ribs that shoots straight to the right shoulder blade, a… |
| Chimaphila umbellata | Pipsissewa | A bladder that urges but cannot empty: constant desire to pass water with straining and dribbling, a sense of a… |
| China officinalis | Peruvian bark | The drained, bloated invalid: weakness out of all proportion after blood loss, vomiting or long fevers; a belly… |
| Chininum arsenicosum | The combination of quinine and arsenic | The fever that never quite left: periodic fevers with the enlarged spleen and the dropsical swelling, the sallow… |
| Chininum sulphuricum | Quinine sulfate | The bark's own signature in remedy form: periodic fevers returning on schedule, violent ringing and roaring in the… |
| Chionanthus virginica | The fringe tree | A liver that will not empty its gall: pain under the right ribs with a sensation of fullness and blockage… |
| Chrysarobinum | Chrysarobic acid | Skin thick with psoriasis: sharply defined red patches crowned with silvery-white scales, unbearably itchy, worse… |
| Cicuta virosa | Water hemlock | A seizure of pure rigidity: sudden convulsions with the whole body arched and fixed, the eyes staring, the attack… |
| Cimex | The classical remedy prepared from the bedbug — the uninvited companion of every old bed, and the classical remedy of the intermittent chills | Chills that return on schedule: the intermittent fever with chills of the books, the anxiety and anguish of the… |
| Cimicifuga racemosa | Black cohosh | A dark cloud over a suffering woman: depression that settles like November, pains that shoot from the neck and… |
| Cina maritima | Wormseed | A child at war with everyone: irritable, cross, cannot be touched or looked at without fury, grinds the teeth at… |
| Cinnabaris | Cinnabar | The mercury family's red twin: throat complaints of the old syphilitic chapter, ulcerated gums and mouth, red… |
| Cistus canadensis | The rock rose | A patient who is always cold: chronic swelling of the glands, the cold feeling that never leaves, the chronic… |
| Clematis recta | Upright virgin's bower | A slow, inflamed urinary passage: burning at the end of urination, the stream hesitating and trickling, the… |
| Cobaltum metallicum | Cobalt | A back that will not hold up: a constant, low backache worse for sitting and lying, the weakness after the… |
| Cocculus indicus | Indian cockle | The carer who has emptied herself: motion sickness from the least ride, a hollow, empty, all-gone weakness… |
| Coccus cacti | Cochineal | A whooping cough with a signature: violent paroxysms ending in the expectoration of bright red mucus drawn out in… |
| Cochlearia | The horseradish root | A polyp that blocks the nose: the nasal polyp of the books, the chronic sinus congestion, the watering eyes and… |
| Coffea cruda | Raw coffee | A mind over-lit: sleepless from sheer excitement — good news, new ideas, an argument replayed — senses sharpened… |
| Colchicum autumnale | The autumn crocus | Gout in its purest drama: a joint — the great toe, the knee — swollen beyond recognition, red, shiny, agonising at… |
| Collinsonia canadensis | Stone root | A pelvis congested: hemorrhoids that burn and bleed with constipation alternating with looseness, a raw, dry… |
| Colocynthis | Bitter apple | Colic with fury: agonising, gripping pains that drive the sufferer to bend double over a cushion, pressing the… |
| Condurango | Condurango bark | A swallow that narrows: food sticks and regurgitates, the oesophagus feels strictured and ulcerated, painful… |
| Conium maculatum | Hemlock | A slow paralysis with hard glands: dizziness on every turn of the head, glands that grow hard and stony — breast… |
| Convallaria majalis | Lily of the valley | A heart too weak to move its blood: breathlessness on the least effort, a fluttering irregular pulse, fluid… |
| Copaiva officinalis | Copaiba balsam | Discharges that never quite end: chronic catarrh of the bladder and urethra — mucous, stringy, persistent; the… |
| Corallium rubrum | Red coral | A cough that fires in bursts: paroxysms so rapid the coughs seem to run together — a dozen in one breath — then a… |
| Crataegus oxyacantha | Hawthorn | A tired heart in an old person: breathlessness on the least effort, a weak irregular pulse, swelling of the… |
| Crocus sativus | The saffron crocus | A pendulum in the soul: gay, singing, dancing one hour; weeping, raging, despairing the next; a sensation as of… |
| Crotalus horridus | Rattlesnake venom | Dark, oozing states: blood that is black and fluid and will not clot, purplish-blotched skin, drowsiness deepening… |
| Croton tiglium | Croton oil seed | A purge like a broken dam: yellow, watery stool gushing out as if the reservoir had burst, with griping, hot sweat… |
| Cubeba officinalis | Cubeb pepper | A urinary catarrh that deposits: chronic discharge of mucus with sediment that sticks to the vessel, burning in… |
| Cuprum metallicum | Copper | Cramps and spasms: fingers that claw, toes that twist, a cough that ends in a gagging spasm, calf cramps at night… |
| Curare | The arrow poison of the Amazon | A body going quiet from below: weakness that climbs from the feet — the legs fail, then the trunk, then the… |
| Cyclamen | The sowbread | A woman whose cycle and sight are joined: menses delayed or suppressed with the visual dimming and the spots… |
| Cypripedium | The lady's slipper | A child too excited for its own good: the nervous excitability and sleeplessness of the books' children's chapter… |
| Digitalis purpurea | The purple foxglove | A heart beating too slowly and too weakly: a pulse that flags and intermits, a sensation as if the heart would… |
| Dioscorea villosa | Wild yam | Colic that wants to stretch: agonising, twisting, griping abdominal pains that send the sufferer stretching the… |
| Diospyros virginiana | Persimmon bark | Dysentery's grip: painful urging that returns the moment the stool passes, cramping gripes, a fever that rises and… |
| Dolichos pruriens | Cowhitch | An itch with nothing to show: intolerable pruritus of the whole skin with no visible eruption, worse at night… |
| Drosera rotundifolia | The sundew | Coughing fits that come in storms: violent paroxysms one after another, gagging and retching, waking the child… |
| Dulcamara | Bittersweet nightshade | Everything that follows getting wet: after sitting on damp ground, being caught in a rainstorm, or the first cold… |
| Echinacea angustifolia | The purple coneflower of the American prairies | A system fighting poison: boils and carbuncles one after another, a snake- or insect-bite that swells and darkens… |
| Elaps corallinus | The coral snake's venom | A venom state gone cold: bleeding of black blood, coldness and blueness of the parts, cold sweats, disorders of… |
| Electricitas | Electricity | A nervous system with the current switched on: the tremors, the sudden anxiety, the dread of an approaching… |
| Equisetum hyemale | Horsetail | A bladder that cannot bear its own work: constant urging with intolerable tenderness at the neck of the bladder… |
| Erigeron canadense | Canada fleabane | Bleeding with burning: bright-red blood from the bladder with smarting and burning, bleeding piles that sting… |
| Eupatorium perfoliatum | Boneset | A fever that breaks the bones: violent aching as if every bone were being snapped, thirst before the chill, the… |
| Euphrasia officinalis | Eyebright | A cold that lives in the eyes: burning, smarting tears that redden the lids, a bland, non-irritating nasal flow… |
| Fagopyrum | Buckwheat | An itch that prickles beyond the rash: the eczema of the books with the peculiar prickling, itching worse for… |
| Fel tauri | Ox bile | A gall that will not empty: pain and obstruction in the biliary passages, the jaundiced tint with the torpid… |
| Ferrum metallicum | Iron | A paradoxical flush: a face that reddens easily and looks full of health, yet its owner is exhausted by the… |
| Ferrum phosphoricum | Iron phosphate | Illness at its very first hour: the sudden flush of heat, the pounding pulse, the congested face of a fever or… |
| Ferula glauca | The giant fennel's blue-green resin | A frame that cannot bear tobacco: the vomiting and headache at the smell or taste of tobacco, the books' ferula… |
| Formica rufa | The wood ant | Rheumatic joints that sting like ant-bites: sudden swellings of ankles or wrists that come with the sting-like… |
| Fraxinus americana | The white ash bark | A womb that drags and bleeds: the bearing-down sensation of the fibroid state, the heavy, dragging periods of the… |
| Galium | Cleavers | Glands that swell and kidneys that gravel: the swollen lymphatics of the books, the chronic skin behind them, the… |
| Gambogia | Gamboge | A purge that arrives suddenly: a gushing, yellow, watery stool that comes on with griping and a hot sweat, as if… |
| Gelsemium sempervirens | Yellow jasmine | Trembling paralysis before the event: the student unable to stand for the exam, the speaker whose legs shake and… |
| Ginseng | The ginseng root | A fire banked low but not out: weariness with the appetite for life diminished, the limbs heavy, the breath short… |
| Glonoinum | Nitroglycerin | A head full of surging blood: throbbing, bursting, waves of blood beating against the skull — after the sun's… |
| Gnaphalium polycephalum | Cudweed | A sciatic nerve that burns then numbs: intense sciatic pain down the back of the thigh and leg, worse lying and… |
| Graphites | Graphite | A stout, chilly person whose skin weeps a thick, sticky, honey-coloured fluid: eczema behind the ears and at the… |
| Grindelia robusta | Gum plant | Asthma with a fear of sleep: suffocative attacks on lying down, the breath stopping just as sleep arrives — the… |
| Guaiacum officinale | Guaiac resin | A joint that stiffens toward stillness: a swollen, rigid, immovable joint — wrist or ankle — that aches all night… |
| Hamamelis virginiana | Witch hazel | Blood that bruises and veins that ache: varicose veins that feel bruised and beaten, bleeding piles that smart… |
| Hecla lava | The ash of Mount Hekla | The bones of the face and jaw: gum trouble that will not settle, facial bone discomfort after dental work, hard… |
| Hedera helix | The ivy leaf | A cough that racks the warm room: a spasmodic, racking cough worse in the warmth, the violent coughing fits of the… |
| Helleborus niger | The Christmas rose | A brain going quiet and swollen: drowsiness deepening toward unconsciousness after brain injury or inflammation… |
| Heloderma horridum | The venom of the Gila monster | A cold, bluish, convulsive state: coldness and cyanosis of the parts, the slow pulse and the stupor, the tendency… |
| Helonias dioica | False unicorn root | A tired mother whose prolapse lifts when she is busy: dragging in the pelvis, backache across the sacrum, debility… |
| Hepar sulphuris | Oyster shells heated with sulphur | The most hypersensitive patient in the materia medica: the slightest touch, the lightest draft, a splinter-like… |
| Hippozaenium | The classical remedy prepared from the nasal mucus of the glandular horse — the ozaena chapter's faithful record, and the classical remedy of the offensive gland | The offensive gland chapter: the chronic, foul nasal discharge of the ozaena chapter, the swollen glands that… |
| Hydrangea arborescens | Hydrangea root | The stone-former's life: gravel and sandy sediment in every season, pain in the bladder region that burns as the… |
| Hydrastis canadensis | Goldenseal | Membranes that have stopped working: thick, yellow, ropy mucus hanging in strings from nose or throat, a weak… |
| Hydrocotyle | Gotu kola | Skin that thickens and will not soften: psoriasis-like thickening, the lupus-like states of the old books, the… |
| Hyoscyamus niger | Henbane | Suspicion made flesh: jealousy, the fixed idea of being poisoned or wronged, muttering and picking at the… |
| Hypericum perforatum | St John's wort | The injury that strikes a nerve: a smashed fingertip, a blow to the spine or the tailbone, dental work, any wound… |
| Iberis amara | Candytuft | A heart that flutters with the stomach: violent palpitations with vertigo and the sensation of the heart stopping… |
| Ignatia amara | St. Ignatius's bean | Grief that cannot find its way out: silent sobbing that starts and stops, deep sighing, a lump in the throat that… |
| Iodum | Iodine | A furnace that burns its own house: ravenous hunger with progressive emaciation, heat that pours off the body, a… |
| Ipecacuanha | Ipecac root | Nausea that never stops: constant, unrelenting queasiness with a surprisingly clean tongue, vomiting that brings… |
| Iris versicolor | Blue flag | A headache that ends in burning vomit: a sick, blinding headache over one eye with fiery, sour, acrid vomiting… |
| Jaborandi | The jaborandi leaf | Every gland flowing at once: profuse sweat, streaming saliva, nausea and vomiting with the secretions, a constant… |
| Jacaranda | The caroba flower | The syphilis chapter's obstinate surfaces: the ulcers that will not heal, the eruptions of the old books' venereal… |
| Juglans cinerea | Butternut bark | A torpid liver announcing itself: an occipital headache like a tight band, a liver region that feels full and… |
| Justicia adhatoda | The Malabar nut tree | A chest cold that begins with sneezing and a tight, dry cough, then turns loose with rattling mucus, worse in the… |
| K carbonicum | Potassium carbonate | 2 a.m. |
| Kali bichromicum | Potassium dichromate | Strings and punched-out holes: mucus so ropy it can be drawn out in long threads, sinus pain at a single precise… |
| Kali bromatum | Potassium bromide | A mind dulled by its own chemistry: once-excited nerves now blunted, memory failing, hands that feel anaesthetic… |
| Kali iodatum | Potassium iodide | Hot, sweaty, wandering states: profuse hot sweating that does not relieve, wandering periosteal pains that jump… |
| Kali muriaticum | Potassium chloride | Inflammation paused at the white stage: congestion that should have resolved but instead has stalled… |
| Kali nitricum | Saltpetre | Asthma that owns the small hours: the breathlessness and suffocative cough that wake the sufferer between three… |
| Kali phosphoricum | Potassium phosphate | A mind run dry: the student or clerk after weeks of overwork — grey exhaustion, slighted worry, dread of the… |
| Kali sulphuricum | Potassium sulfate | Pulsatilla's yellow discharges but in a hotter, drier person: yellow-green mucus, shifting rheumatic pains that… |
| Kalmia latifolia | Mountain laurel | Pains that march downward: neuralgia that starts at the upper body and descends — shoulder to elbow to wrist… |
| Kreosotum | Wood-tar creosote | Everything acrid and corrosive in a child: teeth that decay the moment they appear, gums spongy and purple… |
| Lac caninum | The classical remedy prepared from dog's milk — the diphtheria era's faithful companion, and the classical remedy of the complaint that alternates sides | A complaint that crosses over: throat trouble that begins on the left and moves right, or right and moves left… |
| Lac defloratum | The classical remedy prepared from skimmed cow's milk — the sick-headache chapter's great remedy, and the classical remedy of the migraine with the blind spell | A sick-headache that steals the sight: a violent migraine with transient blindness or dimming before and during… |
| Lachesis muta | The venom of the bushmaster, South America's giant viper | A hot, talkative, passionate person — purple-flushed, worse on the left side, who cannot bear anything touching… |
| Lapis albus | The classical remedy prepared from the Gastein spring's silicofluoride — the thermal-water salt of the Austrian Alps, and the classical remedy of the glandular induration | Glands that turn stony: the indurated, stony glands of the books' cancer chapter, the epulis of the gum, the slow… |
| Laurocerasus | Cherry laurel | A heart that forgets to breathe: gasping, irregular, sighing respiration, a blue dusky face, the heart weak and… |
| Ledum palustre | Wild rosemary | The puncture and the cold joint: wounds from nails, bites and pricks that are cold to the touch and refuse to… |
| Leptandra virginica | Black root | A liver-bound bowel: a torpid liver with a black, tarry, sticky stool, the tongue coated dark, the right side dull… |
| Lilium tigrinum | The tiger lily | A woman who cannot be still: heart-pounding and chest congestion, a bearing-down in the pelvis as if the organs… |
| Lobelia inflata | Indian tobacco | Asthma married to nausea: a sensation of oppression at the chest, breathlessness with faintness, cold sweat… |
| Luna | Moonlight | A body that answers to the moon: the sleepwalker who rises as it climbs the sky, the woman whose periods… |
| Lupulinum | The hop's lupulin | Nerves too twitchy for sleep: nervous irritability with sleeplessness, the genital oversensitivity of the proving… |
| Lycopodium clavatum | The spores of clubmoss | The polite, capable person who is quietly dictatorial at home: anticipatory anxiety before every big event… |
| Lyssin | The classical nosode prepared from rabies — the disease whose conquest by Pasteur opened the age of vaccines, and the classical remedy of the water-and-sound spasm | A nervous system that spasm at the senses: a mere draft of air, the sight of water, the sound of running water… |
| Magnesia carbonica | Magnesium carbonate | A stomach that cannot bear milk: cramping colic and diarrhea brought on by milk, the books' great milk-remedy… |
| Magnesia muriatica | Magnesium chloride | A liver and a bowel bound together: obstinate constipation that milk makes worse, pain and fullness of the right… |
| Magnesia phosphorica | Magnesium phosphate | A cramp with a compass: pains that radiate and shoot along the nerves, griping and spasmodic, doubling the… |
| Magnetis poli ambo | The whole magnet | A body under a magnet: burning lancinations everywhere, joints that ache as if the bones were broken where their… |
| Magnetis polus arcticus | The north pole of the magnet | Cold where the magnet is applied — an eyeball that feels like a lump of ice in its socket, a coldness running… |
| Magnetis polus australis | The south pole of the magnet | The south pole's pull: an ingrowing toenail that feels as if it is cutting into the flesh, feet painful when they… |
| Mancinella | The manchineel | A mind in restless despair: an anguish that walks and cannot sit, the sensation of a foreign body in the throat… |
| Mandragora | The mandrake root | The legendary root's real portrait: rheumatic pains with the contraction of the muscles, the ulcerated stomach of… |
| Manganum | Manganese | A chest that answers the weather: the chronic cough and hoarseness of the books, the chest and throat complaints… |
| Medorrhinum | The classical nosode prepared from gonorrhoea — the disease that shaped a century of chronic-disease theory, and the classical remedy of the hot, hurried constitution | A constitution always in a hurry: hot, restless, forward-leaning — the books' great 'anticipatory' nosode; history… |
| Melilotus officinalis | Sweet clover | A head congested beyond bearing: throbbing, bursting, congestive headaches with a dazed, stupid feeling, relieved… |
| Menispermum | The Canadian moonseed | A liver that sours everything: the bilious headaches and nausea of the books, the jaundiced tint and the yellowed… |
| Mephitis | The skunk's secretion | A cough that steals the breath: whooping-type cough with suffocative spells, the books' great skunk remedy of the… |
| Mercurius dulcis | Calomel | The old liver-and-bowel purge in remedy form: the torpid liver and jaundice of the books, the scrofulous swollen… |
| Mercurius iodatus flavus | Yellow mercuric iodide | A throat of the old syphilitic chapter: swollen, hardened tonsils and glands, the mucous patches and the throat… |
| Mercurius iodatus ruber | Red mercuric iodide | Tonsils that harden: swollen, hardened tonsils and glands of the throat, the diphtheritic and quinsy states of the… |
| Mercurius solubilis | Mercury | A damp, sweating, trembling person whose every secretion is offensive — metallic-tasting saliva dripping at night… |
| Mezereum | Mezereon | Skin that burns beneath its own crust: thick, chalky, offensive crusts — scalp, face, eyebrows — under which the… |
| Millefolium | Yarrow | Blood that won't behave after knocks: bright red bleeding from wounds or orifices after the least injury, blood… |
| Morphinum | The remedy prepared from morphine itself — the alkaloid that founded the opioid era, the strongest pain-reliever known to medicine, and the classical portrait of the opioid state | The opioid's portrait in miniature: heavy, drowsy sleepiness sliding toward stupor, contracted pinpoint pupils… |
| Murex purpurea | The purple murex | A pelvis in overdrive: intense, driving sexual excitement with the least touch unbearable, a uterus that feels it… |
| Naja tripudians | Cobra venom | A heart that fails with a strange calm: palpitations with a slow, feeble pulse, pain and constriction about the… |
| Natrum carbonicum | Sodium carbonate | A head that cannot bear the sun and a stomach that cannot bear food: headaches that explode with the least heat or… |
| Natrum muriaticum | Common salt | The person who suffers in silence: grief long held without tears or with tears that embarrass, a reserved… |
| Natrum phosphoricum | Sodium phosphate | A child whose chemistry has turned sour: the sour eructations and the creamy-coated tongue, the worms with their… |
| Natrum salicylicum | Sodium salicylate | Ears that ring and whirl: the noises in the ears, the Meniere-like vertigo of the books' hearing chapter, the… |
| Natrum sulphuricum | Glauber's salt | A person whose enemy is the wet season: asthma that owns the small hours and the wet weather, ailments that began… |
| Nux moschata | Nutmeg | A person half-asleep in a dry world: drowsiness so deep it borders on stupor, an absurd changeability — laughing… |
| Nux vomica | The strychnine seed | The driven, irritable, sedentary person — desk, deadlines, coffee, spicy food, late nights — whose digestion has… |
| Ocimum canum | Basil | The right kidney in crisis: colic that seizes the right kidney and drives the sufferer wild, urine with red sand… |
| Oleander | The oleander leaf | A heart and a skin in concert: palpitations with a weak, irregular beat, an eczema of the scalp and behind the… |
| Opium | The poppy's latex | Profound dullness: heavy, stupid sleep with stertorous breathing and a dark, bloated, dusky-red face; a body that… |
| Osmium metallicum | Osmium | A deep, spasmodic cough with the eyes involved: violent coughing spells, a sensation of a foreign body or dust low… |
| Paeonia officinalis | The peony | The anus in torment: fissures that burn like fire with every stool and for hours after, offensive ulcerations… |
| Paraffinum | Paraffin | A bowel bound in old age: the chronic constipation of the elderly of the books, the abdominal tumours of the old… |
| Pareira brava | Pareira root | A bladder that strains and radiates: the person kneels to urinate, pressing the forehead against the seat to bear… |
| Passiflora incarnata | The passion flower | A mind that cannot dismount: sleeplessness from nervous excitement — worry, grief, overwork — with restless… |
| Pepsinum | Pepsin | A stomach that cannot begin its work: food sits like a stone, fermenting and souring, because the first chemical… |
| Petroleum | Rock oil | Skin that shatters in winter: deep bleeding cracks in the fingers, heels and behind the ears, rough leathery… |
| Petroselinum | Parsley | An urge that cannot wait: the sudden, overwhelming necessity to urinate — arising at a knock on the door, at the… |
| Phosphorus | Elemental phosphorus | The tall, slender, sensitive person — open-hearted, sympathetic to everyone's pain, startled by thunder and the… |
| Phytolacca decandra | Pokeweed | A breast in trouble: a hard, swollen, painful breast — nursing or not — radiating pain at every touch, a throat of… |
| Pinus sylvestris | The Scots pine | A cough that owns the winter: the chronic bronchitis of the books, the cough with its copious expectoration, the… |
| Piper methysticum | Kava | A root of ceremony turned remedy: urinary difficulties with the sediment and the urging, the pain and the mind… |
| Pix liquida | Pine tar | Skin that itches through the winter: the chronic eczema and psoriasis of the books, the oozing, crusted surfaces… |
| Plantago major | The plantain leaf | A toothache that reaches the ear: decayed teeth aching and throbbing into the ear, with restlessness, aversion to… |
| Platinum metallicum | Platinum | Pride that has become a cage: arrogance alternating with a sense of worthlessness, sexual excitement and numbness… |
| Plumbum metallicum | Lead | A body slowly drawn inward: paralysis that creeps with the muscles contracting — the wrist drops, the fingers… |
| Podophyllum peltatum | The mayapple | Morning gushing: profuse, hot, yellow-green, offensive diarrhea that drives the person out of bed at dawn… |
| Polygonum | The smartweed | A plant that stings and stanches: the smartweed's peppery burn on the tongue, the bleeding the old dispensary… |
| Populus tremuloides | The aspen bark | A bladder that irritates the night: frequent urging and dribbling, the night restlessness of the proving, the… |
| Prunus spinosa | The blackthorn | A heart oppressed with anxiety: a sensation of oppression and anxiety about the heart, difficulty breathing lying… |
| Psorinum | The classical nosode prepared from scabies-infested skin — a remedy born of the most common skin disease of the old world, now curable by modern medicine | The filthiest-feeling patient in the library: skin eruptions that look dirty and smell offensive, a body that is… |
| Ptelea | The wafer ash bark | A liver that turns every meal against its owner: the nausea and the heavy fullness after eating, the sick-headache… |
| Pulsatilla nigricans | The pasque flower | A gentle, tearful person whose symptoms wander: now here, now gone, never two hours alike. |
| Pyrogenium | The classical nosode prepared from the pus of the septic wards — the disease that modern intensive care now conquers, and the classical remedy of the foul, fevered, restless sepsis | The septic fever of the old wards: burning heat with a bounding pulse, restlessness that must move constantly to… |
| Quassia amara | Quassia wood | A stomach that has forgotten its work: no appetite, food tasteless, the dyspepsia of the debilitated with gas and… |
| Radium bromatum | Radium bromide | The slow, deep action of radium: severe aching in the bones and joints that eases on moving, an ulcer that appears… |
| Ranunculus bulbosus | The bulbous buttercup | Pains that follow the nerves between the ribs: sharp, stitching, intercostal neuralgias, the vesicular eruption of… |
| Ranunculus sceleratus | The cursed crowfoot | Blisters that burn like fire: the burning, smarting blisters of the buttercup chapter, the vesicular eruption… |
| Raphanus | The black radish | Wind trapped after the surgeon's knife: retained gas after operations, the books' great post-operative colic, the… |
| Ratanhia | Rhatany root | An anus full of splinters: fissures that feel as if a splinter or knife were lodged, burning for hours after the… |
| Rauwolfia serpentina | The snakeroot of the Himalayas | A mind both over-wound and sedated: drowsiness with an irritable, over-sensitive nervous system, periodic… |
| Rhamnus frangula | Frangula bark | A bowel bound to the portal system: chronic, obstinate constipation with the hepatic congestion, the books' great… |
| Rheum | Rhubarb root | A child who is sour all over: sour smell of the whole body, sour-smelling stool and sweat, colic and restlessness… |
| Rhododendron chrysanthemum | The snow rose | A barometer in the joints: rheumatic pains that worsen before the storm and ease when it breaks, wander from joint… |
| Rhus glabra | The smooth sumac | A mouth full of sores and a cycle that will not come: the aphthous, ulcerated mouth of the books, the suppressed… |
| Rhus radicans | Poison ivy | The poison-ivy state in the classical mirror: vesicular eruptions that burn and itch, joint stiffness worse for… |
| Rhus toxicodendron | Poison ivy | Stiffness that loosens with movement: sore, bruised, restless, worse after rest and on first motion, better once… |
| Rhus venenata | Poison sumac | The sumac's mirror of the ivy: the same blistering, itching, rest-worse state, but with the books noting its own… |
| Robinia pseudoacacia | Black locust | A stomach that runs on acid: burning acidity rising to the throat, sour eructations, vomiting of intensely sour… |
| Rumex crispus | Yellow dock | A cough that lives in a single spot: a tickling, dry, teasing irritation low in the throat-pit, just above the… |
| Ruta graveolens | Common rue | The overused wrist and the bruised bone-covering: lame, sore, deep-boned lameness after straining the wrists or… |
| Sabadilla officinalis | Cevadilla seed | Sneezing that takes over: fits of sneezing on a single trigger — dust, perfume, the smell of food — with an itchy… |
| Sabal serrulata | Saw palmetto | The older man's slow stream: urination that starts late, dribbles, stops and starts, with a constant sense of… |
| Sabina officinalis | Savin | A bleeding that threatens a pregnancy: bright-red blood with clots, pains dragging from the small of the back… |
| Sambucus nigra | Elder | A child fighting for breath at night: attacks of suffocative coughing — or croup — that wake the child suddenly… |
| Sanguinaria canadensis | Bloodroot | A right-sided storm: a sick-headache beginning in the right occiput, rising over the head to settle at the right… |
| Sanicula | The classical remedy prepared from the Sanicula spring water — the mineral water of the Michigan health resort, and the classical remedy of the sweating head and the foul stool | A head that sweats and a stool that stinks: the drenching sweat of the scalp of the books, the foul, sour stool… |
| Saponaria | The soapwort | A chest that rattles into old age: the cough and the rattling of the books' aged chapter, the difficult… |
| Sarothamnus scoparius | Scotch broom | Two organs speaking to each other: the bladder that, when emptied, eases the heart — and the heart that, when… |
| Sarracenia | The pitcher plant | A cough with a calendar: the cough and the expectoration of the books' chest chapter, the skin eruptions that… |
| Sarsaparilla officinalis | Sarsaparilla | The last drop screaming: urination that passes with tolerable ease until the final moment, when pain and burning… |
| Scilla (Squilla) | The sea onion | A chest and a body filling with fluid: a loose cough with difficult expectoration, short breath worse lying… |
| Scrophularia | The knotted figwort | A fistula that will not close: the fistulous abscesses of the books, the chronic piles of the same chapter, the… |
| Secale cornutum | Ergot | A body drying and blackening: cold dry skin that does not sweat and cannot get warm, cramps and tingling, bleeding… |
| Selenium metallicum | Selenium | A vitality leaking away unseen: great debility after the least exertion, involuntary emissions with the… |
| Senecio aureus | Golden ragwort | A cycle that will not come: delayed, scanty, suppressed menses — from cold, from emotion, from travel — with the… |
| Senega officinalis | Seneca snake-root | The chest of the elderly asthmatic: tough, tenacious mucus that rattles but is hard to raise, soreness of the… |
| Sepia officinalis | The ink of the cuttlefish | The utterly depleted woman — after childbirth, years of caring for others, or the grey stretch of life between… |
| Silicea | Flint | The fine-boned, delicate, chilly person with a weak spine and sweaty, offensive icy feet, who is yielding yet… |
| Sinapis nigra | Black mustard | A cold that bursts out sneezing: violent sneezing with watery streaming from the nose and eyes, the hot, flushed… |
| Sol | Sunlight itself | A person the sun itself overwhelms: the violent headache from working bare-headed in bright light, the glare that… |
| Solanum carolinense | The horse nettle | A child's body seized by spasms: the convulsions and spasmodic complaints of the books' children's chapter, the… |
| Solidago virgaurea | Goldenrod | A kidney that aches with its work: a dull, bruised backache over the renal region, urine heavy with sediment and… |
| Spigelia anthelmia | Pinkroot | A left-sided agony in waves: stitching, tearing pains over the left eye and orbit, worsening with every beat of… |
| Spongia tosta | Roasted sea sponge | A dry, sawing, barking cough like a saw through wood: absolutely no mucus, throat and larynx dry as bark, waking… |
| Stannum metallicum | Tin | A chest too weak to cough: a hollow, empty weakness of the lungs, short breath, a cough that ends in a sweetish… |
| Staphysagria | Stavesacre seeds | The person who has swallowed an insult: quiet, refined, dignified — and seething. |
| Sticta pulmonaria | Lungwort lichen | An influenza that owns the head and the cough: a stuffed, heavy, frontal pressure across the nose-root and… |
| Stigmata maydis | Corn silk | The irritated, sediment-laden bladder: constant burning and urging, gravelly sediment of red or white sand, urine… |
| Stramonium | Thorn apple | Terror unleashed: rage and raving with a red face and shining eyes, fear of the dark and of water, a furious… |
| Sulphur | Elemental brimstone | Heat that must escape: burning feet shoved out of the covers at night, a hot scalp, redness and itching of every… |
| Sulphur iodatum | The iodide of sulphur | Heat and glands together: a constitution hot, dry and thirsty, with enlarged glands — tonsils, thyroid, breasts… |
| Symphytum officinale | Comfrey | Bones that must knit and eyes that were struck: a fracture that aches and will not unite, an injury to the eyeball… |
| Syphilinum | The classical nosode prepared from syphilis — the disease that shadowed every clinic of the old world, conquered by penicillin, and the classical remedy of the slow, destructive, ulcerating constitution | A constitution that destroys itself slowly: relentless nightly pains that drive the sufferer from bed, ulcers that… |
| Tabacum | Tobacco | Sickness unto death: nausea so profound the face turns deathly pale, cold sweat breaks, the pulse sinks, and the… |
| Tanacetum | Tansy | A cycle suppressed by cold and a body that cannot keep still: the menses suppressed by cold and wet, the… |
| Tarantula cubensis | The Cuban spider's venom | A wound that darkens at its edge: the septic, foul wound with the blue, spreading margin, the swollen glands along… |
| Taraxacum officinale | The dandelion | A liver mapped like a country: the tongue coated in patches — mapped, with islands of clear and coat — a bitter… |
| Tarentula hispana | The Spanish wolf spider | A body that must keep moving: ceaseless restless activity, dancing and rocking to relieve the inner torment… |
| Tellurium metallicum | Tellurium | An ear that announces itself across the room: offensive, acrid-smelling discharge from the ear, eczema of the… |
| Terebinthina | Turpentine | A bladder affecting the whole system: burning, scalding, bloody urine with mucus and gravel; a belly bloating with… |
| Teucrium marum verum | Cat thyme | A nose chronically wrong: a polyp in the nostril growing and obstructing, the chronic dry coryza of the old books… |
| Theridion curassavicum | The orange spider of the Antilles | Vertigo with every sense a trigger: dizziness and nausea at the least motion of the head, at the least noise… |
| Thiosinaminum | Allyl thiourea | Tissue hardened beyond its time: scar tissue that tightens and shortens, strictures of the passages, adhesions… |
| Thuja occidentalis | Arbor vitae | An oily, greasy constitution — skin that shines and sweats, eruptions like fig-warts, sweat that smells sweetish… |
| Trillium pendulum | Bethroot | Bright-red bleeding that weakens: a flow that is scarlet, fluid and profuse — from nose, lungs, womb or anus… |
| Tuberculinum bovinum | The classical nosode prepared from tuberculosis — the disease humanity fought for millennia and conquered with vaccination and antibiotics, and the classical remedy of the tubercular child | The child who catches everything: one infection after another — tonsils, adenoids, ears, ringworm that comes and… |
| Ulmus | The slippery elm | A throat soothed by its own medicine: the irritated, inflamed throat of the books, the cough and the hoarseness… |
| Uranium nitricum | Uranium nitrate | A body drowning in sugar: great thirst, copious urine loaded with sugar, progressive emaciation and weakness, the… |
| Urea | Urea | Watery blisters and a heavy head: the clear, watery vesicles of the books, the headaches and the vertigo, the… |
| Urtica urens | The dwarf nettle | Burns and stings and the heat of the uric-acid constitution: scalds and burns that smart and sting, nettle-rash… |
| Ustilago maidis | Corn smut | A uterus that bleeds and threatens growths: flooding that clots dark as it flows, a sense of congestion and… |
| Uva ursi | Bearberry | A bladder that chronically complains: persistent urging with mucous, stringy sediment, burning and tenesmus, the… |
| Valeriana officinalis | Valerian root | A nervousness that changes by the hour: trembling and restlessness with sudden changes of mood — laughing then… |
| Vanadium metallicum | Vanadium | Arteries ageing before their time: a sense of degeneration spreading through the blood-vessel walls, fatty… |
| Variolinum | The classical nosode prepared from smallpox — the disease whose eradication is medicine's greatest achievement, and the classical remedy of the pustular fever and its dread | The pustular fever and its long shadow: fever with backache and the creeping eruption, the dread of the… |
| Veratrum album | White hellebore | Collapse with cold sweat: a cold bluish face beaded with sweat, especially on the forehead, violent vomiting and… |
| Veratrum viride | American hellebore | A fever with a pounding engine: intense heat with a full, hard, bounding pulse, the whole head and face congested… |
| Viburnum opulus | Cramp bark | A uterus clenched in cramp: spasmodic, agonising menstrual cramps that double the sufferer, miscarriage threatened… |
| Viola odorata | The sweet violet | A cough that brings blood and rheumatic pain: the rheumatic cough of the books, the blood-streaked sputum of the… |
| Viola tricolor | Wild pansy | Crusted, weeping facial eruptions: thick yellow scabs across the scalp and cheeks that crack and ooze, worse in… |
| Vipera berus | The adder's venom | A vein swollen to bursting: painful phlebitis with the vein standing out like a cord, bursting pains on letting… |
| X-Ray | X-rays | The tissue the X-ray has passed through: the skin that reddens, cracks and will not heal, the glands that wither… |
| Xanthoxylum | The prickly ash | A pain that darts like lightning: sharp, shooting neuralgic pains — after labour in the ovaries, along the nerves… |
| Xerophyllum | The bear grass of the American mountains | The psoriatic chapter's most obstinate member: the thickened, scaling skin that resists every remedy, the books'… |
| Yohimbinum | The bark of the yohimbe tree | A vitality that will not rise: sexual weakness with the exhaustion of the books, the cold, relaxed parts, the… |
| Zincum metallicum | Zinc | Nerves that will not be still: feet moving constantly under the desk, legs jerking in bed, twitching of single… |
| Zingiber | Ginger | A stomach settled by the spice rack: nausea and the sickness of travel and debility, the weak digestion after… |
All 344 portraits, in one alphabetical list — use the letters above to jump. The eight imponderabilia, made from forces rather than substances, sit in the same list under their own letters.
The imponderables — remedies made from physical forces rather than substances — complete the library at 344 portraits.