Ipecacuanha
Made from ipecac root — the emetic of poisoned children for generations, and the source of emetine, once the only cure for amoebic dysentery.
The whole picture, in one breath
Think of nausea that never stops: constant, unrelenting queasiness with a surprisingly clean tongue, vomiting that brings no relief, worse in warm stuffy rooms, with a pale, distressed face and thirstlessness — and the same remedy in bleeding states and cough with gagging. Constant nausea, clean tongue, no thirst: that is Ipecac.
The substance, in plain words
Ipecac root from the Brazilian rainforest gave medicine two real drugs: syrup of ipecac, the standard home emetic for swallowed poisons for most of the twentieth century, and emetine, for decades the only effective treatment for amoebiasis. Its alkaloids target the brain's vomiting centre directly — the toxicology is the portrait.
The traditional picture Classical sources
The inner state
- Whining restlessness. Complaining, moaning, worse from the least annoyance; child clings and whines.
- Anxiety with sickness. Fear of death, sighing, despair in the long nausea.
- Indifference in fever. A dull, detached state accompanies the hot complaints.
The body
- Constant nausea. The keynote: nausea unremitting, unrelieved by vomiting, with a clean or only slightly coated tongue.
- Worse in warmth. Hot rooms and warm wraps aggravate; open air and rest relieve.
- Thirstlessness. Little or no thirst despite vomiting — a leading differential.
- Spasmodic cough with gagging. Cough in fits ending in choking or vomiting, like Drosera but with the nausea dominant.
- Haemorrhages. The books use it in bright bleeding — nose, lungs, womb — when nausea accompanies.
- Colic and diarrhoea. Grinding colic, summer diarrhoeas of children, stools like fermented froth.
Modalities (worse and better factors)
| Worse from ⬇ | Better from ⬇ |
|---|---|
| warmth and warm rooms; rich food; motion; suppressed eruptions. | open air; rest; lying still; . |
Where it acts (organ affinities)
Stomach and vomiting centre, respiratory mucosa (cough with nausea), blood (haemorrhage), bowels.
Where the classical picture comes from
The alkaloids cephaeline and emetine trigger the vomiting centre with precision — the proving recorded exactly the drug's known action: constant nausea, clean tongue, relief only in fresh air. Ipecac is one of the clearest cases where a remedy's portrait and a poison's pharmacology are the same text.
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.
Ipecac's real-medicine story is extraordinary: syrup of ipecac stood on every nursery shelf as the emergency treatment for swallowed poisons until protocols moved to activated charcoal; emetine cured amoebic liver abscess when nothing else could, before safer drugs arrived; and ipecac alkaloids remain reference tools in research on nausea pathways.
Look-alikes (how the classical authors told it apart)
| Remedy | Looks similar because… | Tells it apart because… |
|---|---|---|
| Antimonium tartaricum | Vomiting, chest complaints | Ant-tart is drowsy and coated; Ipecac is bright-eyed with a clean tongue and constant nausea. |
| Nux vomica | Nausea, vomiting | Nux is irritable, chilly and retches little; Ipecac is mild, thirstless and vomits much. |
| Arsenicum album | Vomiting, diarrhoea, anxiety | Arsenicum burns, craves warmth and sips; Ipecac is thirstless, clean-tongued and warmth-worse. |
| Drosera rotundifolia | Cough ending in vomiting | Drosera's cough is paroxysmal and gagging; Ipecac's cough is secondary to the ever-present nausea. |