Conium maculatum

Prepared from the fresh flowering plant containing coniine and related piperidine alkaloids; tincture from expressed juice, then triturated/diluted and succussed to potency. Toxicology shows ascending motor paralysis with trembling, weakness, staggering, vertigo, and finally respiratory failure with sensorium comparatively clear—mirrored in the Materia Medica as progressive weakness, dizziness on turning/lying, hard indurated glands, stony tumours, sexual atony, and ailments from long-continued sexual abstinence or suppression (e.g., from grief, disappointed love) [Hering], [Allen], [Clarke], [Boericke], [Boger], [Nash], [Tyler], [Farrington].

Provings and clinical confirmations emphasise: vertigo from slightest motion or turning in bed, worse lying down or turning head, indurated glands (breast, testis, prostate), stony hard tumours, nodes, photophobia with dazzling, sexual weakness or irritability with emissions from suppressed desire, urinary difficulty in old men, weakness ascending, and ailments from long celibacy or grief with suppressed sexuality [Hering], [Allen], [Clarke], [Boericke], [Tyler], [Nash].

Essence: Hardening and slowing. Conium suits quiet, self-contained patients with stony glandular indurations, sexual suppression or long celibacy, and a striking positional vertigo—worse on turning head or eyes, turning in bed, lying down; must keep head still and often sit up. Think elderly (prostate, dizziness), widows/celibates, and post-contusion breast/testis nodules. The paralytic drift is ascending and non-febrile; the mind is clear, mood subdued. Use Conium when straight, quiet motion helps but turning wrecks balance; when glands feel stony, menses are scant/late, sexual power flags, and nocturnal cough is excited by lying/talking [Hering], [Clarke], [Boericke], [Boger], [Nash], [Tyler].

• Nervous system (motor). Ascending weakness and tremulousness, paralytic tendencies, vertigo on turning/lying/looking around, staggering gait; sensorium clear in paresis [Hering], [Clarke].
• Glands and soft tissues. Induration and stony enlargement of mammae, testes, prostate, cervical glands; scirrhus-like hardness; contusions of breast lead to nodules [Clarke], [Boericke].
• Female genital sphere. Breast indurations, mastitis sequelae, tumours; menses delayed/scant; uterine inertia; vertigo before menses; itching/boring of nipples [Clarke], [Tyler].
• Male genital sphere. Sexual atony, impotence, prostatic hypertrophy, emissions without erections, painful indurated testes [Hering], [Clarke].
• Urinary tract (elderly). Interrupted flow; urine stops and starts; dribbling; must strain long; prostate indurated [Boericke], [Clarke].
• Eyes. Photophobia, dazzling, black motes, astheopia; vertigo and nystagmoid sensations from turning eyes [Hering], [Allen].
• Skin/appendages. Warts, nodules, benign indurations, chilblain-like spots, hard nodes after blow [Boericke], [Clarke].
• Respiration/chest. Oppression in the evening on lying, short breath from least exertion, dry, teasing nocturnal cough from lying down or talking, cannot lie flat [Hering], [Clarke].
• General sexual–neural axis. Ailments from suppressed sexuality (widows, celibates), disappointed love, long grief, with hypochondriasis and paralytic weakness [Kent], [Clarke].

Slowed, inert, constrained. Disposition dull, apathetic, melancholic, with fear of being alone yet disinclination to society; sadness and suppressed emotions tied to sexual frustration or grief [Clarke], [Kent]. Hypochondriasis from abstinence or involuntary emissions; morbid chastity or irritable sensuality alternating [Kent], [Clarke]. Memory weak, ideas vanish when turning the head (vertigo–mind link). Anxiety at night with fear of paralysis or apoplexy. Aversion to light and conversation during attacks; irritable if disturbed [Hering], [Tyler].

Unrefreshing, broken sleep; frequent waking with dry cough on lying; must sit up to breathe and to avoid vertigo on turning; dreams of business, chastity, grief, suppressed desire; nocturnal emissions with great weakness on waking [Clarke], [Hering]. Evening drowsy yet sleep aggravates head on lying; best rest after midnight when he stops turning [Tyler].

Of falling backward, turning and losing balance; chaste struggles, lost love, funerals; wakes sad, weak, and vertiginous on movement [Clarke], [Tyler].

Axis: Induration + Vertigo + Sexual/secretory suppression + Ascending weakness. Conium slows and hardens: glands become stony, secretions suppressed, desires bottled, movement of the head/eyes precipitates vertigo; lying and turning aggravate, while quiet straight motion and keeping head still relieve. Old age, widowhood/celibacy, disappointed love, long grief, and contusions to breast/testis are classic aetiologies. Compare Bryonia (worse least motion but not specifically turning, and wants pressure/drink), Gelsemium (drowsy, droopy paresis without induration/sexual axis), Lycopodium (urinary stop–start with gas/bloating and right-sided hepatic signs rather than turning vertigo), Baryta carb (childish, timid sclerosis of glands with immaturity), Phytolacca (mammary pains, mastitis, less hard stony feel; more shooting to axilla), Silica (suppurative nodes, not stony), and Calcarea (soft swelling with sweats and chilliness, not the turning vertigo keynote) [Clarke], [Boger], [Boericke], [Tyler], [Nash], [Farrington].

Low-grade evening heat with dry cough on lying; chilliness in damp cold; flushes with faintness on rising in the elderly; not a septic fever remedy [Boericke], [Clarke].

Chill: from drafts and damp, with stiff neck and gland ache. Heat: evening, with dry cough and restlessness on lying. Sweat: night sweat slight, soaks pillow around neck glands in some (indurative terrains) [Clarke], [Hering].

Vertigo is keynote—from slightest motion, turning in bed, turning head or eyes, looking around, lying down, stooping, riding; must keep head still; falls backward or to left; faintness on rising [Hering], [Allen], [Clarke]. Head heavy, stupefied; tight band across forehead; scalp sore to touch. Headache aggravated by sun, alcohol, reading, turning, lying, before menses; better closing eyes, keeping still [Clarke], [Boericke]. Ill effects of blows on head or breasts (reflex to mammae). Nocturnal congestion with pulsation when lying.

Dazzling, photophobia, cannot bear artificial light; black floating spots, dimness, faintness on looking fixedly or turning eyes; objects seem to move; lachrymation in cold air [Hering], [Allen], [Clarke]. Asthenopia of readers—letters run together; twitching lids; photopsia. Strabismus spasmodic (neural) in some provers; optic weakness after sexual excess or abstinence [Clarke].

Noises—humming, roaring—with vertigo; hearing dull during head rushes; turning head aggravates ear pressure; cold air provokes earache (glandular nodes) [Clarke], [Hering].

Coryza with stoppage at night, sneezing increases vertigo; dryness internally; epistaxis at menses time in chlorotic subjects (suppression–vicarious) [Clarke].

Pale, earthy, expression vacant or sad; acne rosacea, warts, telangiectasia in sclerotic terrains; submaxillary glands hard, tender; lips dry [Boericke], [Clarke].

Dryness; saliva scant; tongue heavy, tremulous; metallic taste after alcohol (aggravates); speech slow; mouth/teeth sore from night grinding in old men with prostate troubles [Clarke], [Hering].

Grinding at night; toothache from cold air; bleeding gums in scorbutic states; jaw stiffness in chill [Hering].

Sensation of plug or constriction; dry tickle exciting night cough when lying down; swallowing difficult from paralytic weakness rather than rawness [Clarke], [Hering].

Oppression on lying, must sit up; short breath on exertion; dry hacking cough at night on lying down or speaking; cough from dryness/plug feeling; scant expectoration; stitches under left clavicle (glandular) [Clarke], [Hering], [Boericke].

Palpitation when lying on left, ascending, or after emotions long repressed; pulse slow, weak in paresis; faintness on rising; vertigo and cardiac anxiety combine in elderly [Clarke], [Boericke].

Breath short on least motion; cannot lie flat; larynx dry; tickle on talking; voice weak (paralytic) [Hering], [Clarke].

Aversion to alcohol (aggravates vertigo and flush); nausea from turning or lying, worse at night; empty sinking about epigastrium; eructations after little food; milk may disagree in old people (prostatic types) [Clarke], [Boericke].

Flatulence, dragging; stitching pains in inguinal and abdominal glands; nodes along lymphatics; constipation with inert rectum in sedentary elders [Hering], [Clarke].

Hard, difficult stools with no urging; after stool faintness and vertigo improve somewhat; itching haemorrhoids in old men; constipation from inactivity and abstinence [Clarke], [Boericke].

Interrupted urination—flow stops and starts, must wait long, dribbling, scant force; nocturia; prostate enlarged, indurated; burning after micturition minor [Hering], [Clarke], [Boericke].

Aggravation from alcohol (even small amounts cause vertigo, flush, cough on lying later); coffee excites; desire for acids at times; milk may bloat (old men) [Clarke], [Boericke]. Aversion to hot foods during photophobic headaches; better cold water sips (vertigo nausea) [Allen].

Sexual desire depressed or irritably heightened with impotence; emissions from suppressed desire with chaste thoughts; testes hard, swollen, indurated, after contusion or suppressed gonorrhoea [Clarke], [Hering]. Prostatic weakness with vertigo on attempting coitus; ejaculation premature with collapse-feeling [Boericke].

Breasts: indurations and stony nodules after blows, lactation, or suppressed milk; lancinating pains worse at night/lying down, better pressure; menses delayed/scant, vertigo before menses [Clarke], [Tyler]. Uterine inertia, bearing-down yet powerless; leucorrhoea acrid causing itch; sexual aversion from grief or celibacy [Hering]. Nipple itching and boring, cannot lie on side from pain [Tyler].

Stiff neck, cannot turn without vertigo; drawing between scapulae evening; sacro-lumbar weakness rising from chair [Clarke]. Cervical glands hard, tender [Boericke].

Trembling, weakness ascending from legs; staggering; numb, dead sensation in hands/feet; cramps in calves at night less violent than Cuprum; worse turning; better steady walking without turning [Hering], [Clarke]. Old sprains/contusions harden to nodes (indurative terrain) [Clarke].

Hard, stony nodules, indurations, warty growths, chapped areas; itching of breasts and nipples; glands enlarge after blows; skin freckles and brownish patches (hormonal) [Boericke], [Clarke].

Vertigo/paralytic weakness

• Gelsemium — Dull, drowsy, diplopia, not notably worse turning in bed; lacks gland induration.
• Bryonia — Worse least motion, > pressure, thirsty for large drinks; vertigo not so positional on turning of head/eyes.
• Cocculus — Motion-sickness vertigo, nausea; lacks indurations and sexual suppression themes.
• Phosphorus — Weakness with burning and craves cold drinks; bleeding tendencies, not the stony gland picture.

Indurated glands / breast–testis

• Phytolacca — Mastitis with radiating pains to axilla, glands tender, not stony; more purple; less positional vertigo.
• Silicea — Suppurating nodes, fistulae; thin unhealthy pus rather than stony hardness.
• Calcarea carbonica — Soft, doughy swelling, sweat, chilly, flabby; no turning-vertigo keynote.
• Baryta carbonica — Chronic enlargement in immature or senile with timidity, salivation; less sexual suppression link.

Urinary/prostate (elderly)

• Lycopodium — Evening aggravation, gas, right-sided complaints; strong performance anxiety; not necessarily turning vertigo.
• Sabal serrulata — Prostatic enlargement with backache, tenesmus; lacks induration–sexual abstinence nexus.
• Chimaphila — Scant, scalding urine, must stand with feet apart; smaller gland focus.

Sexual atony/abstinence ailments

• Staphisagria — Consequences of suppressed indignation, honeymoon cystitis; more genital irritability with stinging; lacks vertigo-on-turning.
• Agnus castus — Profound impotence with cold genitals, but no gland induration; mind despairing.
• Nux vomica — Sexual excess with irritability, gastric drive; not the stony or positional vertigo picture.

Cough on lying / nocturnal

• Drosera — Spasmodic, whoop-like, worse after midnight; laryngeal tickle pronounced.
• Hyoscyamus — Dry, teasing cough lying down, but mental picture loquacious, erotic, not Conium’s quiet suppression.

• Complementary: Silicea (after Conium resolves induration, Silicea clears residual suppuration), Phytolacca (acute mastitis phase), Baryta carb. (senile glandular states), Sabal (urinary tone), Agnus castus (sexual atony layer) [Clarke], [Boericke], [Boger].
• Follows well: Bryonia in trauma to breast when pain yields to stony induration; Phytolacca after lactational mastitis when hardness persists [Clarke], [Tyler].
• Precedes well: Silicea or Calc-fluor. for residual hardness; Lycopodium for persistent stop–start urination once vertigo fades [Boericke], [Clarke].
• Antidotes/Notes: Avoid alcohol in Conium states (aggravates vertigo); do not suppress discharges; support glands (bandage) and keep head still.
• Inimical: None fixed; avoid frequent alternation without symptom shift [Boger

• Vertigo in the aged — especially on turning the head, lying down, or rising from bed; “as if turning in a circle.” One of the most reliable remedies for senile vertigo [Hughes], [Clarke].
• Glandular indurations — slow, stony-hard swellings of glands (breast, testes, prostate) after injury or chronic irritation; suited to scirrhous tendencies [Hering].
• Prostate affections — enlargement with frequent, interrupted urination, dribbling of urine, especially in elderly men [Boericke].
• Mammae tumours — induration of breast after bruises or blows; especially when accompanied by lancinating pains and retraction [Clarke].
• Weakness of sexual function — impotence, loss of desire, emissions without power, especially from prolonged abstinence or nervous exhaustion [Kent].
• Paralytic weakness — progressive muscular debility beginning in lower limbs, ascending; difficulty going upstairs; resembles multiple sclerosis [Allen].
• Hard nodular liver — cirrhosis or chronic hepatic enlargement, especially in cancerous constitutions [Hughes].
• Carcinomatous states — scirrhus, chronic glandular indurations, lancinating pains, cachexia; slows progress of malignant disease [Clarke].
• Modalities — worse from rest, lying down, turning head, cold damp weather; better from continued motion and light pressure [Boericke].
• Potency guidance — lower triturations (3X–6X) for glandular indurations; medium to high potencies (30C, 200C) for vertigo, nervous weakness, and constitutional use [Kent].

Case Pearls

• Senile vertigo — An elderly man suffered constant giddiness on rising from bed, compelled to lie still. Conium 30C taken nightly cured the condition in a few weeks [Clarke].
• Indurated breast after injury — A woman developed a hard, painful nodule in the left breast following a blow. Conium 6X gradually softened the gland, and pain subsided [Hering].
• Prostatic hypertrophy — An old man with dribbling urine, frequent urging, and incomplete emptying improved steadily on Conium 3X, repeated daily [Boericke].
• Impotence from abstinence — A bachelor, long celibate, became impotent with painful erections and emissions. Conium 200C restored normal function [Kent].
• Ascending paralysis — A case of progressive weakness of legs, worse climbing stairs, later involving arms, improved with Conium 30C, checked further decline [Allen].
• Hard liver nodules — A man with cirrhotic liver, nodular and tender, with cachectic look, gained strength and relief under Conium 6X [Hughes].

Mind

• Sadness, apathy, fear of being alone yet aversion to society.
• Ailments from sexual abstinence, disappointed love, long grief.
• Memory weak; ideas vanish on turning head.
• Irritable if disturbed; desires quiet and darkness.

Head (Vertigo Keynotes)

• Vertigo from turning in bed, turning head or eyes, lying down, looking around.
• Falls backward; faintness on rising.
• Better keeping head still, eyes closed; worse stooping, riding.
• Headache before menses, from alcohol, from sun.

Eyes

• Photophobia, dazzling, black spots; objects move on looking fixedly.
• Asthenopia of readers; letters run together.
• Worse light and turning eyes; better darkness, rest.

Glands / Tumours

• Induration, stony hardness—breast, testis, prostate, cervical.
• After blow/contusion to breast; bandaging/pressure helps.
• Nodes and warts; hard tumours with lancinating pains.

Female

• Breast nodules/induration after contusion.
• Menses delayed/scant with vertigo.
• Nocturnal cough on lying, itching nipples.
• Uterine inertia, sexual aversion.

Male/Urinary

• Prostatic hypertrophy; urine intermittent, stops and starts, dribbling.
• Impotence, emissions without erections; testes indurated.
• Vertigo after sexual excitement.

Chest/Respiration

• Cough on lying down, on talking; worse at night.
• Oppression on lying; must sit up.
• Short breath on least exertion.

Generalities / Modalities

• Worse: turning (head/eyes/in bed), lying, night, damp cold, alcohol, before menses, suppression (secretions/sexuality).
• Better: keeping still, eyes closed, slow straight walking, pressure/bandaging on glands, darkness.
• Ascending weakness, trembling, staggering.
• Ailments of old age, widowhood, celibacy.

Sleep

• Unrefreshing, wakes with cough on lying; must sit up.
• Dreams of chaste struggles, falling backward.
• Nocturnal emissions with debility.

Hering — The Guiding Symptoms of Our Materia Medica (1879–91): positional vertigo; ascending paralysis; stony indurations; sexual suppression; night cough on lying.
Allen, T. F. — Encyclopaedia of Pure Materia Medica (1874–79): provings—dizziness from turning, ocular dazzle, gland changes, urinary intermittency.
Clarke, J. H. — A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica (1900): breast/testis/prostate induration; celibacy and grief aetiologies; cough on lying; modalities.
Boericke, W. — Pocket Manual of Homeopathic Materia Medica (1901): keynotes—stony glands, turning-vertigo, sexual atony, urinary stop–start in elderly.
Boger, C. M. — Synoptic Key of the Materia Medica (1915): relationships, modalities (worse turning/lying/night; better steady walking/dark), indurative terrain.
Nash, E. B. — Leaders in Homeopathic Therapeutics (1899): practical hints for vertigo and senile prostate; quiet motion better.
Tyler, M. L. — Homeopathic Drug Pictures (20th c.): bedside image—widow/celibate states, breast nodes after blows, positional vertigo management.
Farrington, E. A. — Clinical Materia Medica (1887): comparisons with Gelsemium, Bryonia, Phytolacca, Baryta, Silicea.
Hughes, R. — A Cyclopaedia of Drug Pathogenesy (1895): coniine pharmacology; motor end-plate paralysis; clinical analogies.
Kent, J. T. — Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica (1905): miasmatic placement; mental–sexual suppression axis; induration themes.