Ranunculus Bulbosus – Buttercup

The mother tincture is prepared from the whole fresh plant, gathered when in flower, of Ranunculus bulbosus L., which occurs in Europe and North America.

N.O. Ranunculaceae.

Ranunculus Bulbosus, the buttercup, a member of the Ranunculaceae family, is used to treat rheumatic and neuralgic symptoms, and likewise skin-eruptions, partic- ularly crops of vesicles which occur grouped closely together (herpes zoster with burning and itching).

Attacks of vertigo, swimming in the head and a sensation of heaviness may also be present, also stabbing, tearing headaches with congestion of blood, and burning and itching of the eyelids with redness. There may be earaches deep in the ear and in the area of the ear drum.

There are characteristic complaints in the chest muscles, with drawing pains in the nape of the neck and in the axilla, bruised, sore pain in the sacrum, and soreness in the right lower arm and small muscles of the hand, as well as a painful sensation of jerking and tearing. There may also be blisters on the fingers; and drawing pains in the hips and inner side of the knee and ankle, stabbing pulsations in the heel with a clamping pain in the calf muscles, weakness and giving-way of the legs, and pain in the heels as if from external pressure, which are all typical of Ranunculus.

There may also be coryza with a discharge of viscid mucus, and possibly ulcera- tion of the nasal mucosa with a painful red swelling of the tip of the nose, usually accompanied by the characteristic chest complaints with shortness of breath and a sense of construction, so that the patient has to hold the chest with his hands when coughing (cf. Bryonia). Thus Ranunculus is also a good remedy in adhesions fol- lowing pleurisy.

Typical of Ranunculus are burning, pressing pains, and a bruised soreness which is felt particularly in the left and right hypochondria. These may be accompanied by gastric symptoms with purging, eructations and nausea, burning in the stomach, ab- dominal rumbling and bleeding haemorrhoids, as well as erections and seminal emissions in the early hours of the morning.

Thus Ranunculus Bulbosus is chiefly indicated in illnesses of a neuralgic or rheu- matic kind with spasmodic and paralytic symptoms, in gouty complaints, but also in oozing eczemas and vesicular eruptions (as in herpes zoster, in pemphigus and par- ticularly in coryza with a red, swollen nose). Complaints are aggravated by change of temperature and by damp weather. The skin eruptions are frequently also present on the palms of the hands in the form of desquamating vesicular eruptions.

A summary provides us with the following remedy-picture:

1. Intercostal neuralgia and rheumatism of the chest muscles. Disc prolapse in the area of the dorsal spine, but also generally.
2. Pleurisy, dry or with serous effusion, consequent adhesions and pleuritic com- plaints.

• 3.   Skin eruptions of a vesicular nature, particularly herpes zoster and pemphigus (according to Dahlke, especially in children). Should also be tried as a supporting remedy in epithelioma and skin cancer. Vesicular eruptions on the palms of the hands.
• 4.   Chronic rheumatism of the joints, and gouty symptoms.
• Acute excoriating coryza, possibly lasting for weeks, with a red, inflamed nose.

The German Monograph-Preparation Commission for the Homoeopathic Field of Therapy has, under the Preparation Monograph for Ranunculus bulbosus, published the following indication(s) in the German Bundesanzeiger (German Federal Gazette) for ranunculus bulbosus: virus diseases of the skin and the cornea; dis- eases of the parietal pleura; rheumatism in the thoracic region; neuralgia.