Ipecacuanha – Ipecac

Ipecacuanha – Ipecac

The mother tincture is prepared from the dried underground parts of Cephaelis ipecacuanha [Brot.] A. Rich., a plant growing in Brazil, India and Malaysia. N.O. Rubiaceae.

Ipecacuanha is one of those homoeopathic remedies whose indications are few, but typical. Nausea, vomiting and retching are characteristic, occurring not only in gastric disorders but also with coughing. There is also purging at both ends, with fer- mented, grass-green or mucous stools which may be dysenteric and contain blood. With gastric and duodenal ulcers there is often nausea, but especially in whooping cough and other types of cough, and also in asthma, where an excessive accumula- tion of mucus always suggests Ipecacuanha. This nausea is also characteristic of Ipecacuanha in feverish states, not only in intermittent fever and malarial illnesses but also in influenzal feverish catarrhs or in rattling respiration, the expectoration being difficult to loosen, e.g. in emphysema and asthma.

Haemorrhages also suggest Ipecacuanha, bright red, gushing haemorrhages, oc- curring both acutely and profusely, e.g. menorrhagia and metrorrhagia, but also from the rectum, lungs, nose, bladder and any orifice of the body.

A summary gives us the following characteristic symptoms:

  1. 1.   Nausea, not relieved by vomiting, frequently with a clean tongue.
  2. 2.   Gastroenteritis with frothy, grass-green, mucous or bloody stools.
  3. Cough with retching, as if the stomach were turning over. Whooping cough.
  4. Burning in the stomach with thirst, restlessness and nausea. Duodenal ulcer.
  5. 5.   Asthma. Emphysema.
  6. Bright red, gushing haemorrhages. Menorrhagia and metrorrhagia.

The German Monograph-Preparation Commission for the Homoeopathic Field of Therapy has, under the Preparation Monograph for Cephaelis ipecacuanha, pub- lished the following indication(s) in the German Bundesanzeiger (German Federal Gazette) for ipecacuanha: bronchitis; bronchial asthma; whooping cough; gastroin- testinal inflammation; mucosal bleeding; circulatory disorders.