Belladonna

Latin name: Atropa belladonna

Short name: Bell

Common name: Deadly nightshade | Belladonna | Devil’s berries | Death cherries | Banewort

Primary miasm: Acute Secondary miasm(s): Psoric

Kingdom: Plants

Family: Solanaceae

https://qandil.co/3GvtfZS Copied!

Symptomatology
Remedy Information
Differentiation & Application

Expand All | Collapse All

Mind

Belladonna is a remedy of intense mental activity, often bordering on delirium. Hahnemann described states of fear, sudden anger, and hallucinations. Clarke noted the “violent and erratic shifts” in emotion: laughing, singing, screaming, or trembling with fright. Kent emphasised the rapidity and violence of mental symptoms: the patient is acutely sensitive to light and noise, prone to visions, talks of ghosts or wild animals, and often strikes out in fear. Hallucinations may include distorted perceptions of people, animals, or light. Restlessness alternates with stupor. Children may strike, bite, or throw themselves around in feverish delirium, often with glassy eyes and hot, flushed faces. There is fear of dogs, black things, or sudden fright from imagined danger. Despite the intensity, these states can vanish as quickly as they appear.

Sleep

Restless, broken sleep with startling and moaning. Clarke noted vivid dreams and tossing about. Fever often worsens at night, disturbing sleep. May fall asleep easily but wakes in fright.

Dreams

Dreams of fires, monsters, or frightening animals. Clarke recorded wild, confused dreams, often with screaming or talking during sleep.

Generalities

Sudden, violent onset is a keynote. Heat, redness, dryness, and throbbing define many symptoms. Oversensitivity to light, noise, and touch. Right-sided symptoms prevail. Clarke and Kent stressed its suitability in acute states with high reactivity, including convulsions, fevers, and inflammatory crises.

Fever

Sudden, violent onset with high temperature, dry burning heat, red face, and cold extremities. Sweating is delayed or absent. Pupils dilated, eyes glassy, and throat dry. Fever has a paroxysmal nature—it escalates quickly, often around 3 PM, with delirium and restlessness. Clarke described the classic Belladonna fever as “stormy, intense, and florid.”

Chill Heat Sweat

Chilliness is internal sensation that may precede heat. Heat follows with red face, throbbing pulse, and dryness. Sweat is profuse when it breaks through, but often suppressed early on. Sweat tends to be oily or sour-smelling.

Head

One of the most prominent Belladonna spheres. Headaches are intense, throbbing, and often right-sided. The pain feels like “a hammer striking the skull,” as Clarke described. The face is red, eyes are injected, and pupils dilated. Scalp is hot, dry, and sensitive to the lightest touch. Pain worsens from stooping, jarring, or heat. Hering reported that headaches often come on suddenly and are worse around 3 PM. Pain may radiate to the neck or eyes, and is aggravated by the sun or motion.

Eyes

Red, inflamed, dry, and glaring. Pupils are dilated and react sluggishly to light. There is photophobia and pain from the least glare. Clarke described stabbing or pressing eye pains, often with heat and dryness. Eyes may protrude or seem glassy. Lachrymation may be scant or acrid. There is blurred vision and sometimes double vision. Sudden onset of conjunctivitis or iritis, especially with throbbing pain, indicates Belladonna.

Ears

Sharp, stabbing or throbbing pain in the ears, often right-sided, with redness and swelling around the ear canal. Hearing may become hypersensitive or muffled. Kent noted Belladonna in acute otitis media, especially when pain radiates to the throat or jaw. Noises seem louder, more irritating.

Nose

Dryness of the nose with burning heat. Sudden onset of violent sneezing and nasal congestion. Clarke described nosebleeds during fevers or headaches. Smell may be altered, or the patient complains of odours that aren’t present.

Face

Face is flushed, hot, red, and sometimes swollen. Children with Belladonna fever often have one cheek red and the other pale. Clarke noted that the face may twitch or contort in convulsions. Lips are dry, cracked, and bleeding. The expression can be wild, frightened, or staring. Sweat appears mostly on the face and forehead.

Mouth

Dry mouth and throat with a burning sensation. Clarke noted a bright red tongue, often with a strawberry appearance. Speech may be thick, rapid, or incoherent during fever. Mouth may have a foul odour or excessive salivation in cases of paralysis or seizure.

Teeth

Grinding of teeth during fever or sleep, particularly in children. Clarke listed Belladonna for toothache with red, swollen gums, and pains that radiate to the ear or jaw, worse from chewing or cold air.

Throat

Sensation of constriction or a lump when swallowing. Throat is dry, red, inflamed, and shiny. Clarke noted intense right-sided tonsillitis, often with difficulty swallowing, especially liquids. Pain may extend to the ear. Swallowing may provoke coughing or spasms. Glands in the neck are often swollen and tender.

Expand All | Collapse All

Belladonna is prepared from the fresh flowering plant Atropa belladonna, a toxic herbaceous perennial native to Europe and North Africa. It contains potent alkaloids including atropine, hyoscyamine, and scopolamine, which act on the parasympathetic nervous system, causing dry mouth, dilated pupils, flushed skin, and delirium. The plant has long been associated with witchcraft and poisons, but was also historically used in eye drops and pain relief.

In conventional medicine, atropine (extracted from Belladonna) is still used today to dilate pupils, treat bradycardia, and as an antidote to organophosphates. Historically, Belladonna was used as a sedative, muscle relaxant, and in medieval cosmetic practices to enlarge pupils.

Proved by Samuel Hahnemann and published in his Materia Medica Pura (1811–1821). Symptoms were confirmed both through provings and toxicological reports from poisoning cases.

Brain and nervous system
Head (especially right side)
Eyes
Throat and tonsils
Mucous membranes
Circulation and blood vessels
Skin
Glands

Lying in a dark, quiet room; warmth; bending backward; standing or sitting upright; sleep.

Light, noise, touch, jarring; 3 PM; exposure to cold air or drafts (especially on the head); lying down; movement; uncovering the head.

Expand All | Collapse All

Aconite: Fever with fear, but more anxiety than heat.
Stramonium: More intense delusions and violence.
Hyoscyamus: Twitching and erotic mania, but less flushed and hot.
Sulphur: Redness and heat, but more chronic, less sudden.
Ferrum phos.: Less violent and not as congestive.

Complementary: Calcarea carb., Sulphur
Antidotes: Camphor, Coffea
Inimical: Acidum nitricum (in some traditions)
Follows well: Aconite, Chamomilla
Precedes well: Sulphur, Hepar sulph.

Belladonna captures the drama of sudden inflammation, the violence of acute neurological overstimulation, and the raw fear of the unknown. The Belladonna state is one of heightened sensitivity: everything is too loud, too bright, too much. The patient becomes hyper-reactive, like a child woken from a nightmare—terrified, flushed, and incoherent. Its healing power lies in soothing this flame.

Ideal for sudden onset fevers, right-sided tonsillitis, throbbing headaches, febrile seizures in children, and scarlet fever. Dose: 30C for acute; 200C for intense febrile states; LM potencies for longer-term neurological or glandular complaints with sensitivity and flare.

Mind

MIND – Delirium, with visions
MIND – Fear of black things, dogs
MIND – Rage, striking, biting

Head

HEAD – Pain, throbbing
HEAD – Congestion, worse 3 PM
HEAD – Hair sensitive to touch

Throat

THROAT – Tonsillitis, right side
THROAT – Swallowing, painful, liquids worse

Skin

SKIN – Hot, dry, scarlet
SKIN – Rash, sudden onset

Generalities

GENERAL – Sudden onset
GENERAL – Touch, aggravates
GENERAL – Draft of air, aggravates

Samuel Hahnemann, Materia Medica Pura
James Tyler Kent, Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica
John Henry Clarke, A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica
William Boericke, Pocket Manual of Materia Medica
Constantine Hering, Guiding Symptoms of Our Materia Medica

Belladonna

Mind

Sleep

Dreams

Generalities

Fever

Chill Heat Sweat

Head

Eyes

Ears

Nose

Face

Mouth

Teeth

Throat

Chest

Heart

Respiration

Stomach

Abdomen

Rectum

Urinary

Food

Male

Female

Back

Extremities

Skin

Mind

Sleep

Dreams

Generalities

Fever

Chill Heat Sweat

Head

Eyes

Ears

Nose

Face

Mouth

Teeth

Throat

Chest

Heart

Respiration

Stomach

Abdomen

Rectum

Urinary

Food

Male

Female

Back

Extremities

Skin

Sign up to stay tuned!

Sign In

Register

Reset Password