Veratrum album

Veratrum album is a perennial plant native to mountainous regions of Europe. It belongs to the Melanthiaceae family and contains powerful alkaloids including veratrine, jervine, and protoveratrine. The tincture is prepared from the fresh rootstock harvested in spring before flowering or in autumn after seed ripens. In toxicology, it is known for causing violent purgation, collapse, cold sweats, and cramping.

Historically used as an emetic, vermifuge, and in certain traditional European remedies for cholera. It is highly toxic in crude form and no longer used in conventional medicine due to its narrow therapeutic window

Hahnemann first proved Veratrum album and included it in his Materia Medica Pura. Later elaborated by Hering, Allen, and Kent, especially in relation to collapse states, severe gastroenteritis, and mania.

• Gastrointestinal tract – violent diarrhoea, vomiting, cramping
• Circulation – collapse, shock, coldness, low vitality
• Nervous system – convulsions, mania, alternating excitation and prostration
• Muscles – cramping, spasms, twitching
• Skin – cold sweat, especially on forehead
• Mind – religious mania, despair, loquacity alternating with silence
• Head – neuralgia, cold sensation
• Female organs – menstrual disturbances, collapse during labour
• Extremities – cramps, restless limbs, icy coldness
• Heart – feeble pulse, palpitations with weakness
• Left side – left-sided complaints more marked

• Warm drinks (strangely, despite being cold)
• Lying down with head low
• Hot applications to abdomen
• Movement during cramps (restless relief)
• Open air (unless very cold)
• Bending double (colic)
• Sleep or quietude (after exhaustion)
• After stool or vomiting (partial relief)

• Cold, wet weather
• Least motion (triggers cramps)
• Cold drinks, cold food
• During menses or labour
• Mental exertion
• Standing erect or rising from bed
• After fright or grief
• Night and early morning
• Suppressed eruptions or discharges

• Camphora – Cold collapse, but more dry and asphyxiated; less cramping
• Carbo vegetabilis – Similar collapse and coldness, but craving for air, not vomiting
• Arsenicum album – Burning, restlessness, vomiting and diarrhoea, but more anxiety and periodicity
• Secale cornutum – Collapse with dry heat, vs. Veratrum’s icy cold sweat
• Cuprum metallicum – Cramps and collapse, but more tonic spasms, less vomiting

• Complementary: Cuprum, Arsenicum, Camphora
• Antidotes: Camphora, Aconite
• Follows well: Acon., Arsen., Cupr.
• Precedes well: Carbo veg., Sulph., Lyc.
• Inimical: Phosphorus (in acute collapse)

Veratrum album embodies the polarity between extreme excitation and complete collapse. The patient can be driven by ecstatic visions, grandiosity, and religious fervour, yet fall into utter prostration, icy coldness, and near-death states. The remedy powerfully addresses violent expulsive discharges—vomiting, diarrhoea, sweat—that deplete vital force. It is a quintessential remedy for shock, cholera, collapse, and manic states that oscillate with physical exhaustion. Whether in acute or constitutional prescribing, Veratrum album brings balance where vital force has been overextended and broken down.

• One of the top remedies for cholera, violent gastroenteritis, food poisoning
• Use in collapse during childbirth, with cold sweat, weakness, and blue lips
• Consider in religious mania, especially alternating with prostration
• Useful in acute neurological crises with cramping and twitching
• Low to moderate potencies (6C–30C) for acute collapse; higher potencies cautiously in constitutional work
• Cold sweat on forehead is a strong keynote in almost all indications

Mind

• Mania, religious
• Delirium, alternating with prostration
• Praying constantly
• Restlessness with collapse

Gastrointestinal

• Vomiting and diarrhoea, simultaneous
• Thirst for cold drinks, vomited
• Cramping, agonising

Skin

• Cold sweat, forehead
• Icy coldness of body
• Blue, livid skin

Female

• Collapse during labour
• Lochia suppressed
• Menses, cold and offensive

Generalities

• Collapse, sudden
• Coldness, extreme
• Spasms, cramps, twitching

• Samuel Hahnemann – Materia Medica Pura: Provided initial provings and core symptom structure
• C. Hering – Guiding Symptoms: Described collapse states, cold sweat, and gastric symptoms
• William Boericke – Pocket Manual: Offered practical modalities, gastroenteric crises
• James Kent – Lectures on Homeopathic Materia Medica: Gave mental symptoms and profound insight into religious mania and despair
• John Henry Clarke – Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica: Added expanded rubrics, mental states, and differential indications