Secale Cornutum – Ergot of Rye

The mother tincture is prepared from carefully dried ergot, a poisonous fungus which is growing on rye throughout Europe: Claviceps purpurea (Fries) Tulasne.

N.O. Clavicipitaceae.

The tincture of ergot, gathered just before harvesting, contains as active ingredients several alkaloids, such as ergometrine, ergotamine, ergosine, agro- clavine, xanthone derivates, including, among others, secalonic acid, ergoflavin and

anthracene derivates e.g. clavorubine and endocrocine as well as amines, also fatty oil, phosphates, potassium, magnesium, calcium and sodium.

The acute poisoning symptoms present as headache with enlargement of the pupils, abdominal pain, depressed pulse rate, nausea, retching, vomiting a sensation of increased warmth in the stomach, and salivation. Animal experiments produced negative results, however.

Typical of the longer-term action of Secale is the subcutaneous sensation of crawl- ing, ergotism, raphania, and also gangrene, “ergotismus gangrenosus”, in which there may be a preponderance of nervous symptoms such as lassitude, vertigo, crawling under the skin, formication and convulsive twitching alternating with spas- modic contractions of individual areas of muscle, and later possibly amaurosis, or else the tendency towards gangrene may predominate, primarily in the lower limbs, but also in the upper limbs and the nose. Glaucoma may also occur.

Apart from drowsiness with anxious dreams, there is usually a tendency towards despondency, depressive sadness, and melancholia with episodes of insanity and frenzy.

On the skin there are sensations of prickling and formication, with pains below the skin moving like lightning, the skin being withered, pale, cool and shrivelled, and possibly displaying anaesthesia when pricked, there being a certain emptiness of the capillaries. (Wounds do not bleed.) However, petechiae in the capillaries, ecchy- moses in the mucosa, cynaosis of various parts with purple eruptions and burn-blis- ters, and ulcers discharging pus may all be prominent.

The emotional and intellectual functions are particularly disordered. Predominant symptoms include difficulty in thinking and speaking, deficient understanding and comprehension, a certain dullness of intellect, great forgetfulness and weakness of reason with sensory delusions, even madness and delirium, which may reach the point of true insanity.

There is congestion of blood in the head with attacks of vertigo and a state as of intoxication or narcosis, with staggering and an inability to stand upright.

The head is heavy, with a pulsating sensation and a dull headache. The facial fea- tures are sunken, and show a pale, yellowish colouration, or else the face may be dark red with a sensation of heat, and possibly with lockjaw.

The eyelids may swell up, with either contraction or enlargement of the pupils (ac- cording to the dosage), and diplopia, strabismus, visual disturbance with sparks, spots or mistiness, or total paralysis of the sense of sight may occur.

In the ears there are roaring and rushing noises with hearing-impairment. Symp- toms of meningism may occur, with stiffness of the neck, muscular weakness and periodic muscular pain with spasm and heaviness of the limbs and with drawing and jerking pains. There may also be cramps, twitching and trembling of the limbs, or rigidity and stiffness of the limbs and joints, associated with anaesthesia and a sen- sation of numbness, crawling and formication, coldness and paralysis of the limbs, contractures with tetany of fingers and toes, cramps in the calf muscles, and also gangrene of the hands and feet.

There are spasmodic palpitations, possibly with initial hesitation in the heart-con- traction; the pulse is often small, frequent and misses beats, and there is burning in- ternal heat with great thirst and anxiety, general cold, sticky sweat, and also con- striction of the chest, air-hunger, and possibly haemoptysis or epistaxis.

In the digestive tract there is salivation, a creeping sensation of the tongue with burning and dryness in the gullet, an unaccustomed and scarcely quenchable thirst, possibly with extraordinary, ravenous hunger which, however, is impaired by eruc- tation of unpleasantly-smelling gas, by heartburn, disgust for food, nausea, vomiting of mucus, bile, worms or small quantities of food (without loss of appetite), by pressing, cramping pains in the stomach with flatulent abdominal distension. There may be tenesmus without evacuation, or else exhausting diarrhoea and involuntary passage of watery stools.

Also typical of Secale are difficulties in urination with burning in the urethra and urine passed seldom and drop by drop; also a sensation of spasmodic drawing in the spermatic cord, as if the testes were being drawn up towards the inguinal canal.

The menses may be absent, with violent contractions of the womb and intensified labour-pains.

The main action of Secale Cornutum affects the peripheral circulation where gan- grene may develop – the “St. Anthony’s Fire” of the Middle Ages, when rye-bread polluted with ergot was eaten.

A further characteristic of Secale is the impairment of the central emotional con- trol by the brain, distinguished by exaltation, dullness or insane excitement, corre- sponding somewhat to the motivation of the “children’s crusades” of the Middle Ages; or else the impairment of the autonomic central control, with spastic symp- toms developing in the whole abdomen and not least in the genitalia, particularly characterised by a tonifying action on the uterus, in which area Secale has earned a commanding position in post-partum haemorrhages.

If the main symptoms are summed up, the result is the following typical remedy- picture:

1. Tendency to ward petechiae, ecchymoses, epistaxis, pulmonary haemorrhages, uterine haemorrhages.
2. Sensation of numbness. Formication. Cramps and paralysis of the extremities. Gangrene, especially in adipose diabetics. Intermittent claudication (“Smoker’s leg”). Varicose ulcers.
3. States of cerebral excitement with Sydenham’s chorea, hysterical spasms with maniacal states of excitement.
4. Stomach cramps, colics, exhausting diarrhoea, paralysis of the anal sphincter. Greedy appetite with craving for sour food. Hiccoughs. Vomiting. Distension. Stools as in cholera with icy coldness. Cannot bear to be covered up. Involuntary stools with the anus remaining wide open. (Boericke).
5. Copious menses, also post-partum haemorrhage. Relaxation of the uterus. Seep- ing haemorrhage from insufficiently contracted uterus post partum. When giving doses of the fluid extract, observe Pagot’s rule, “So long as anything remains in the uterus: child, placenta, afterbirth, do not give Secale!” (Boericke).

• 6.   Secale has a typical craving for the cold, and great, sometimes unquenchable thirst. Nash also points out the important leading symptom: great objective cold- ness of the body-surface, but the patient cannot bear to be covered up. This is found in both cholera and gangrene, likewise the symptom: burning in all parts of the body, as if sparks had fallen on them.

The German Monograph-Preparation Commission for the Homoeopathic Field of Therapy has, under the Preparation Monograph for Secale cornutum, published the following indication(s) in the German Bundesanzeiger (German Federal Gazette) for secale cornutum: spasmodic conditions of the uterus; muscular cramps; spasmodic conditions; paralysis; blood circulatory disorders associated with arterial diseases; tendency to haemorrhage.