Echinacea Angustifolia – Coneflower

The mother tincture is prepared from the whole fresh plant in flower, with root, of Echinacea angustifolia DC., a native of North America. N.O. Compositae.

The main indications are:

Fever, sepsis, inflammations of every kind.

Echinacea is an “internal antiseptic”, acting on the lymphatic system. In the com- prehensive provings (Fahnestock), the first symptom was a biting, prickling sensa- tion on the tongue, on the lip and in the throat; a feeling of fear and pain in the praecordium followed. After that there appeared fever-symptoms with a sensation of fullness in the head, a red face and rapid pulse. Many provers also complained of weakness and sharp, neuralgic pains moving here and there, also of catarrhs of the digestive and respiratory organs, with griping abdominal pains and discharge of evil- smelling flatus and thin, yellowish stools. In two provers a decrease in the red blood corpuscles was established.

In America, Echinacea was formerly used not only for typhoid fevers, diphtheria, malignant scarlet fever, carbuncles and boils, but also for snake bites. Later on, diar- rhoea, cholera infantum, adynamic feverish states, appendicitis, blood-poisoning, puerperal fever, pyaemia and toxaemia from poison-ivy were added as indications.

Echinacea was used as well for the bad consequences of vaccination, in gangrene, abscesses, ulcers of a tubercular or syphilitic kind, or when a malignant degenera- tion began in the course of acute or subacute illnesses.

The German Monograph-Preparation Commission for the Homoeopathic Field of Therapy has, under the Preparation Monograph for Echinacea angustifolia, pub- lished the following indication(s) in the German Bundesanzeiger (German Federal Gazette) for echinacea angustifolia: adjuvant therapy for serious and feverish in- fections.