Scilla (Squilla)
Made from the sea onion — the ancient expectorant of the Mediterranean whose squill remained an official cardiac and cough drug for two thousand years.
The whole picture, in one breath
Think of a chest and a body filling with fluid: a loose cough with difficult expectoration, short breath worse lying, dropsy of the chest and the whole body, scanty urine, and the books' great expectorant of the hydrothorax era. The fluid-filling remedy: that is Scilla.
The substance, in plain words
The sea onion is the Mediterranean bulb of the squill, sliced and dried for two thousand years of pharmacy — a genuine, official expectorant and cardiac diuretic of the pharmacopoeias, working the same ground as foxglove's gentler cousin. The proving gave the remedy its fluid portrait.
The traditional picture Classical sources
The inner state
- Anxiety with the breathlessness. Worry and dread with the difficult breathing, worse at night.
- Irritability. Cross, worse from exertion, which the chest cannot bear.
- Despondency. Gloomy in the chronic filling states.
The body
- Loose cough, difficult expectoration. The keynote: a rattling, loose cough with tough, hard-to-raise mucus — the ancient expectorant's own complaint.
- Breathlessness lying down. Worse recumbent; must sit up for the breath — the hydrothorax-era sign.
- Dropsy with scanty urine. Fluid in the chest and body with diminished urine — the squill's ancient territory.
- Worse cold damp and night. Wet weather and the night thicken the chest and the fluid.
- Palpitations with the dropsy. The heart flutters behind the filling — the books' cardiac shading.
- Better for sitting up and expectoration. Upright, and the mucus finally raised, ease the chest.
Modalities (worse and better factors)
| Worse from ⬇ | Better from ⬇ |
|---|---|
| cold damp weather; lying down; night; exertion. | sitting up; expectoration; rest. |
Where it acts (organ affinities)
Respiratory tract (cough, chest), heart and fluid balance, kidneys and urine.
Where the classical picture comes from
The two-thousand-year official expectorant's proving gave the fluid-filling portrait; Scilla became the classical remedy of the rattling chest and the dropsied body, standing beside Digitalis and Apocynum in the water-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.
Squill is genuinely one of pharmacy's most ancient official drugs: an expectorant in the pharmacopoeias from Dioscorides to the twentieth century, and a cardiac diuretic in the same family as the foxglove chemistry — retired when modern expectorants and diuretics arrived. The fluid it moved is now furosemide's territory; the bulb's two-millennium career is among the longest in the dispensary.
Look-alikes (how the classical authors told it apart)
| Remedy | Looks similar because… | Tells it apart because… |
|---|---|---|
| Digitalis purpurea | Dropsy, weak heart | Digitalis is slow and nauseated; Scilla is the rattling chest with the scanty urine. |
| Apocynum cannabinum | Dropsy, thirstless | Apocynum is the thirstless sinking dropsy; Scilla the cough and the fluid together. |
| Senega officinalis | Old chest, tough mucus | Senega is the aged sore-walled rattler; Scilla the dropsy-behind-the-cough. |
| Strophanthus (Boericke supplement) | Cardiac family | Strophanthus serves the rapid weak heart of the same chapter. |