Dioscorea villosa
Made from wild yam — the American vine whose diosgenin gave the modern contraceptive pill its starting material, and the classical remedy of the colic better for stretching.
The whole picture, in one breath
Think of colic that wants to stretch: agonising, twisting, griping abdominal pains that send the sufferer stretching the body backward and twisting for relief — worse bending double, worse pressure, better upright and extended; pains that dart and radiate. The stretch-better colic: that is Dioscorea.
The substance, in plain words
Wild yam is the twining vine of the American woods, its root carrying diosgenin — the steroid sapogenin that became the industrial starting material for the first contraceptive pills and a family of steroid drugs. The proving gave the remedy its famous stretching portrait, the opposite of Colocynthis' doubling.
The traditional picture Classical sources
The inner state
- Anxiety with the colic. Fear and worry during the paroxysms, worse at night.
- Irritability. Cross from the constant twisting pain.
- Despondency. Gloomy in the chronic recurrent states.
The body
- Colic better for stretching. The keynote: griping, twisting abdominal pains relieved by stretching the body backward and twisting — the books' celebrated opposite of Colocynthis.
- Worse bending double and pressure. Doubling over, which relieves Colocynthis, worsens Dioscorea — the quoted differential.
- Pains darting and radiating. Pains that shoot and radiate from the abdomen to back, chest and limbs.
- Worse eating and lying. Food restarts the gripes; lying down worsens; better upright.
- Flatulent fermentation. Gas, rumbling, the books' bilious flatulent colic.
- Better for motion and stretching. Walking, stretching and hard extension of the trunk bring the only relief.
Modalities (worse and better factors)
| Worse from ⬇ | Better from ⬇ |
|---|---|
| bending double; pressure; eating; lying down. | stretching and twisting; motion; walking. |
Where it acts (organ affinities)
Digestive tract (colic), nerves (radiating pains), gall and liver region, general spasm.
Where the classical picture comes from
The vine's proving gave the stretching colic — the exact mirror of Colocynthis' doubling; Dioscorea became the classical remedy of the colic that must stretch, read in every colic chapter of the old books.
The substance in real medicine Pharmacology
What this section is: the pharmacology and toxicology of the source substance. It is not clinical evidence that a homeopathic preparation of it treats any condition. What controlled trials do and do not show is set out on the Evidence page.
Diosgenin is genuinely one of pharmaceutical history's most consequential molecules: the starting material from which the first oral contraceptives were synthesised in the 1950s — the chemistry that changed the modern world more than almost any other plant extract. The vine that relieved colic by stretching gave the world the pill's raw material: no remedy in the library has a more quietly monumental source.
Look-alikes (how the classical authors told it apart)
| Remedy | Looks similar because… | Tells it apart because… |
|---|---|---|
| Colocynthis | Cramping colic | Colocynthis doubles over and presses; Dioscorea stretches backward — the mirror pair of the colic chapter. |
| Magnesia phosphorica | Cramping pains | Mag-phos' cramps are heat-and-pressure-loving; Dioscorea's are stretch-loving. |
| Dioscorea's bilious cousin | Bilious colic | Chelidonium's colic is right-sided, scapula-shooting and food-better; Dioscorea's is stretching. |
| Nux vomica | Gastric colic | Nux is spasm-bound and irritable; Dioscorea twisty and stretch-better. |