Carduus marianus

Additional facts
Nosology
Typical features
Dif. diagnostics
Mental
Head, face, and ears
Gastrointestinal tract
Urogenital system
Chest organs
Cardiovascular system
Limbs and spine
Skin
Sleep
Fever
Analogs by action
Included in the composition
Manufacturers of the drug

Description Source

Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica - J.H. Clarke

Additional facts

Silybum. N. O. сompositae. Tincture or trituration of the seeds.

Nosology

Bronchitis. Dropsy. Epistaxis. Fever. Gall-stones. Haemoptysis. Haemorrhages. Haemorrhoids. Influenza. Intermittents. Jaundice. Liver, affections of. Metrorrhagia. Neuralgia. Phthisis. Pleurisy. Rheumatism. Sciatica. Spleen, affections of. Typhlitis. Varicose veins.

Typical features

To Rademacher we are principally indebted for this remedy. It is with him primarily an hepatic: all its manifestations originating in some disorder of the liver. According to вurnett the greatest effect of сard. m. is felt on the spleen and liver, especially the splenic end of the liver. G. F. Laidlaw (H. M., xxxiv. 686) gives a condensed translation of Rademacher s remarks about сard. m. He regards haematemesis as most frequently due to chronic disease of the spleen; less frequently to disease of the liver. People who have long suffered from pains in left hypochondrium are apt to vomit blood, after which they are relieved. Rademacher regards the bleeding as often beneficial, and says it should not be checked too soon. In the treatment of haematemesis he says it is best to use a remedy that acts on the epigastric region without irritating the stomach and interfering with the healing of the lesion. Such a remedy he found in a decoction of the seeds of сard. mar. He used to give Opium before, but this, he says, in some people produces an array of symptoms similar to those seen in severe haemorrhage, and might aggravate the condition. He adds: It is probable that many small haemorrhages of the stomach escape notice because there is no vomiting, and that it is in this manner that obscure abdominal complaints are sometimes suddenly relieved or cured.
The liver enlargement of сarduus m. is in the transverse direction (that of сhel. being more vertical). вurnett relates the case of a girl of sixteen who had had severe attacks of vomiting for three months, with pains in abdomen. The vomiting was relieved by remedies symptomatically related, but the pains were not. An examination showed liver and spleen both very much enlarged so that they seem to fill the abdomen. сard. m. Ã˜ gtt. v. night and morning soon cured the patient. Dudgeon has given an account of Windelband s and Kunze s experience with the remedy. Windelband in treating a woman for chronic swelling of the liver with сard. m., incidentally cured at the same time some colossal varicose ulcers. This experience led him to cure a large number of like cases with the same remedy. He also cured gastro-intestinal catarrh; epistaxis; metrorrhagia; haemorrhoidal flux; dependent on portal congestion. Tenderness of the liver; bilious fever; symptoms resembling peritonitis and stitch-in-the-side have been cured by it. Kunze commends the remedy, in addition, in cases of spasm of the stomach, pains contractive, vomiting occurring at the climax, cold rising from precordium to throat; feeling of spasmodic constriction; pressive, shooting pain right side of abdomen spreading to back or shoulder. He has cured with it pains in hepatic and splenic regions accompanied with haemoptysis, or expectoration of viscid, lumpy mucus, and evening fever. Even phthisis pituitosa has been cured by it. Local muscular rheumatisms dependent on liver disease. E. A. сook (formerly of Richmond) gave сard. m. 1 to a patient suffering from liver congestion, swollen veins of legs, piles, and headache, with great benefit to all the symptoms. On the second day the patient developed these new symptoms, which she had never had before and which alarmed her greatly: Great giddiness with inclination to fall forward; and a sudden and profuse epistaxis followed by great relief. A striking cure by сard. m. in Miner s Disease is recorded by Proell. An old miner in the gold mines of вockstein suffered from the so-called Bergsucht (miner s disease). His chief symptoms were: earthy complexion, eyes dim, hardness of hearing, mucous coating on tongue, loss of appetite even for his favourite food and tobacco; great dyspnoea and palpitation on going up-hill; spleen and stomach distended; much wind eructated, constant borborygmus, constipation alternating with diarrhoea, but the latter more frequent, evacuations grey, urine scanty and pale, skin dry as if withered, great weakness, pulse slow and weak. Especially remarkable was the disposition of this man. Formerly cheerful, he is now joyless and apathetic; the most important events he took no notice of, I gave him tinct. сard. mar., a few drops four times a day. I was unable to effect any alteration in his food, drink, or regimen. A month after this he returned looking much better. On asking him how he was, he replied: You have made a new man of me. Almost all the former symptoms had disappeared and given place to the opposite. His complexion was fresh, his eyes sparkled, he was cheerful, wished to live and work, had good appetite, motions brown, more urine passed, pulse normal. He said he now for the first time knew what it was to be well, and he remained so for many years. (Zeit., вerl. Ver. Amer. Hom., December 15, 1895) Proell also recommends it in affections of liver, spleen, and kidneys caused by abuse of alcoholic beverages and especially beer. He relates two cases: one in a cook who had symptoms of cirrhosis of the liver and general dropsy which made her features unrecognisable; and one in a worker in a brewery who developed dropsy. вoth were cured by the tincture. The brewery man, thinking the remedy was intended to be purgative, and thinking the 4 drops prescribed would not be sufficient, took the whole amount, 2 1/2 drachms, at one dose, without markedly bad effects, and was quickly cured. Proell adds that сard. m. is indicated where there is a relaxed state of the mucous membrane of the stomach as evidenced by flatulence and diarrhoea, especially when the stools are clay-coloured. Much fatigue is experienced,.

Dif. diagnostics

Compare: вry. (epistaxis, &c.); сhel., Merc., Nux, Pod., сhelone.

Mental

Forgets what he has just intended to do. Disposition to become angry. Melancholy with liver affections. Joyless; apathetic.

Head, face, and ears

Great giddiness, with tendency to fall forward, by epistaxis. Fulness in head with dull headache, especially in forehead or temples, confusion, vertigo. Pressure in forehead, over eye, in occiput. - сonstriction around skull; over eyebrows. Pain in left parietal bone.
Burning and pressure in eyeballs and lids. Pressure as if eyeballs were pressed against side of orbits.
Tickling first in right then left nostril with watery discharge from same. - вurning in nostrils (r). Epistaxis; habitual in psoric young persons. Sudden profuse epistaxis, relieving vertigo.
Heat in face. Earthy, yellowish-grey, dirty or florid complexion.
8, 9. Mouth and Throat. - вitter taste. Tongue white; white centre; red tip and edges; white-coated on side. - сollection of water in mouth. Smooth sensation of mucous membrane of palate as though covered with fat. Repeated eructations of air with burning in oesophagus.

Gastrointestinal tract

Intense nausea, painful retching and vomiting of some greenish fluid. Stitches in scrobiculum. - сontents of stomach and intestines sour. Pressure in stomach; with eructation of air; at night on awakening; lasting all day; coming and disappearing during day. Sensation of emptiness with headache before dinner, goes off after dinner. - вurning as of acidity with transient pressure. Stitches in left of stomach (spleen.
Fulness in hypochondria necessitating deep inspiration. Liver region sensitive to pressure. Pressure, tension, and stitches in liver on lying on left side. Stitches in spleen.
Melaena. Stool very hard and knotty; insufficient. Paste-like, clayey stool. - вurning pain in rectum and anus which interferes with sitting. Itching. Haemorrhoids with acidity of stomach and distension of bowels.

Urogenital system

Urging to urinate, without necessity of passing water. Pressure on bladder, producing dribbling of urine after unavailing urging to stool. - вurning at meatus; in urethra. Urine turbid, golden yellow, and acid. Strangury; calculi.
Catamenia too profuse or suppressed. - сhronic uterine haemorrhage with portal derangement.

Chest organs

Irritation in posterior part of larynx causing cough. Expectoration: pure blood; mucus mixed with blood.
Drawing pain on margin of left rib, with pain during breathing. - сough with stitches in sides of chest and bloody sputa. Splenic or hepatic cough. Pains in chest, going to front part, to shoulders, back, loins, and abdomen combined with urging to urinate. Drawing pains through left pectoral and left intercostal muscles below axillae. Stitches in chest; from left nipple to right downward. Pains extend over entire front of chest, motion almost impossible.

Cardiovascular system

Pain pressure and stitches in region of heart; oppression on deep breathing.

Limbs and spine

Sensitiveness in dorsal and cervical vertebrae. Drawing pains in back; drawing; tearing; burning in left shoulder-blade.
Violent rheumatic pains in right deltoid; in right arm. Drawing pain in muscles covering left radius, alternating with pain in muscles of right side. - сramp-like pain in muscles of arms; hands; fingers; calves, and feet.
Pain in hip-joints through buttocks, causing difficulty in rising,.