Mephitis putorius epitomises spasmodic suffocation, expressed through violent, suffocative cough and asthmatic crises. Its essence is the violent nocturnal cough, worse lying down, threatening life with choking and suffocation, but relieved by cold air, sitting up, or drinking cold water. The polarity lies between violent spasm and profound exhaustion. The mental state mirrors this—fear of suffocation, anxiety, irritability, dread of lying down. The animal nature of the remedy gives it intensity and violence, much like its source secretion—penetrating, acrid, and overwhelming.

Its role in whooping cough is classical, where attacks are violent, suffocative, and end in vomiting or faintness. In asthma, it is indicated when paroxysms occur after midnight, with gasping suffocation in bed, forcing patient to rise and seek cold air. Its nervous action produces spasms and twitchings, tying it to Cuprum and Drosera, yet distinguished by the keynote amelioration in cold air. The miasmatic colouring blends tubercular (respiratory spasms, suffocative diathesis) and syphilitic (violence, congestion, bluish face). In essence, Mephitis is the remedy of spasmodic suffocation at night, in whooping cough and asthma, where relief is found only in cold air.

Moschus is the archetypal remedy of hysterical drama and emotional tension embodied in physical form. It deals with the explosion of pent-up nervous energy, often in ways that seem theatrical, irrational, or abrupt. Beneath the surface lies a fragile sensitivity, a body and psyche easily overwhelmed by life’s intensity. There is a deep contradiction: an urge to control and contain, but an inability to suppress. Every emotion finds expression—through the heart, lungs, muscles, or tears.

It is particularly suited for women with exaggerated responses, oppression from clothing or environment, and intense internal storms that must be released—through fainting, sobbing, or spasms.

Core theme: Murex is the remedy of the conscious womb—a woman feels she carries her pelvic organs; they are heavy, sore, dragging down, demanding support. This biomechanical keynote governs the case: the instinct to cross the legs, to press the perineum, to seek a firm seat, to avoid jar and tight clothing at the waist (which heightens pelvic awareness). Upon this mechanical stage is set a striking paradox of sexual hyperaesthesia—great desire in a sick pelvis—so characteristic that it often decides the choice against its rivals [Hering], [Clarke]. The uterus is tender, the adnexa ache (often left), the breasts answer with stitches and swelling, the bladder and rectum complain from pressure; the entire pelvic floor is one reflex system.

Miasmatic colouring mixes sycotic overgrowth (fibroids, adenoid venous stasis) with psoric vasomotor lability (flushes, pruritus) and a syphilitic shade when bleeding and soreness verge on ulceration. Pace: subacute to chronic; reactivity: heat-averse, touch-sensitive, jar-worse; thermal state: better cool air; polarities: obstruction vs. flow (better when menses/leucorrhoea are free), pressure-worse at the waist yet pressure-better when up-supporting the perineum.

Differential anchors: Sepia shares bearing-down and the leg-crossing instinct but shows sexual indifference and moral flatness; Murex craves, blushes, and suffers in the same regions. Lilium tigrinum is more frantic mentally, with harried moral conflict, yet also needs support; Murex is steadier but more erotic. Platina exalts pride with cold erotism but lacks the heavy uterine drag needing literal props. When flooding dominates, Trillium and Sabina may flank; when atony and anaemia prevail after the storm, Helonias or Sepia nurture the convalescence [Kent], [Farrington], [Boericke].

Practical reading: If a woman with fibroid or displacement says, “I know my womb; it feels as if it will fall out unless I cross my legs,” blushes to confess inordinate desire, and is worse sitting/warm rooms/tight waists but better by mechanical support, cool air, and free discharges, think Murex.

The essence of Mygale lasiodora is a wake-driven chorea: a child (or adolescent) who cannot keep still while awake—face twisting, tongue darting, hands flinging, feet tapping or stamping—yet who lies perfectly quiet in sleep. The movements are inco-ordinate, purposeless, often right-sided, and explode under emotion, contradiction, observation, and voluntary effort. The will’s attempt to command produces a counter-jerk, so the act of eating, writing, or speaking—especially with onlookers—magnifies the storm. The mental portrait is less theatrical than Tarentula; there is no marked love of music or erotic playfulness. Instead we see simple excitability, shame at loss of control, and relief in quiet, cool rooms and unobserved spaces ([Better For]). The sleep–wake switch is the master-key: movements stop completely in sleep and reappear on waking, a clinical rule of thumb that, when present with facial grimacing and darting tongue, points with certainty to Mygal. over Agaricus (more frolicsome, chilly, musical), Zincum (fidgety, depressed, evening-worse), and Cuprum (cramp and suppression rather than scatter).

Pathophysiologically the picture reads as cortical–striatal disinhibition with hyperkinesia, precipitated by affective arousal; the patient’s performance-worse axis is an external handle on that circuitry. Nursing measures—cool air, reduced audience, firm but gentle support to a limb during tasks, and spacing of efforts—accord with remedy modalities and often reveal the diagnosis at bedside. In practice, Mygal. has shone in post-infectious chorea (measles/scarlatina convalescence), pubertal chorea in girls with menses-worse, and schoolchildren whose handwriting and mealtimes are wrecked by sudden flings. Prescribe it when the triad stands out: sleep abolishes the movements, right-sided scatter of face/hand/foot with darting tongue, and worse from excitement, observation, and intent; then watch intervals of calm lengthen and the child’s will rejoin the body [Hering], [Allen], [Clarke], [Farrington].