Bryonia alba

White Bryony, tincture of root procured before flowering
J.H. Clarke, J.T. Kent

• Aversion to motion (movement), and the patient does not know why.
• Desire to keep perfectly still.
• Extreme state of irritability - every word which compels him to answer a question or to think will aggravate him.
• Sluggish state of the mind, not an excitable state as in Coff, Nux-v, Ign.
  • < from motion
  • < from being talked to
  • Wants to lie still in bed
  • Very great irritability (as extreme as that found in Nux-v or Cham)
• From early sluggishness to a complete stupefaction (quite unconscious, as in typhoid).
  • Acute complaints aggravated from anger, from being aroused, from being disturbed, from controversy.
  • Goes from a state of partial unconsciousness to one of complete unconsciousness.
  • When he is aroused from this stage of stupefaction (in rheumatic complaints, in pneumonia, and in typhoid conditions) he is confused, sees images, thinks he is away from home and wants to be taken home.
  • Sometimes he will lie and say nothing but that he "wants to go home".
• Delirium
  • The delirium is of a low type (not the flashing wild excitement of Bell. or Stram.) - he talks and wanders and does not say much unless he is disturbed.
  • You disturb him and he says, "Go away and let me go home," and if you let him alone he will relapse into a perfectly quiet state and seldom speak.
  • Irrational talk or prattle of his business, aggravated after 3 PM
  • Usually commencing about 9 PM, and keeping up all night like the fever.
• He wants something and he knows not what. Desire for things that cannot be had, which are refused, or not wanted, when offered (compare Kreosote, Chamomilla).
  • A key-note which really applies to a dozen or more remedies.
  • A symptom that calls for Bryonia only when the rest of the symptoms agree.
• Apprehensiveness (afraid that something bad or unpleasant is going to happen); fearfulness.
• Anxiety in whole body compelled him to do something constantly.
  • This is a feature worthy of consideration because it sometimes makes a case appear inconsistent. It is due to his anxiety that pervades the whole body.
  • In Bryonia, as in Arsenic, there comes an anxious and uneasy feeling which compels him to move, but he is worse from motion, yet so uneasy and anxious that he must move.
  • There are pains so violent that he cannot keep still, and yet when he moves he screeches from the pain. Even though he knows that the motion is going to make him worse, he cannot keep still, for the pain is so violent.
  • Early in the case he was able to keep still, and found that he was better from keeping still, and that the mental state was better from keeping still, and that the anxious restlessness increased the more be moved, until finally a reaction comes and he is obliged to move.
• Fear of death.
• Full of fear, anxiety, despair of recovery, great despondency.
• Both mental and bodily quietness is required, that is, he wants to keep still.
• Often he wants the room dark.
• It has complaints from getting excited.
• Bryonia patients are nearly always worse from visitors.
• Morose. Do not cross a Bryonia patient for it makes him worse.

• Complaints develop slowly, i.e. slowly for acute conditions.
• Complaints gradually increase into violence - it conforms to a type of disease with continued fever; to rheumatisms that come with gradually increasing severity, gradually increasing and involving one joint after another, until all the white fibrous tissues are in a state of inflammation, pain and distress.
• He does not feel very well, is languid and tired, does not want to be spoken to, does not want to move, and this gradually increases; pains begin to flit over the body, they move around here and there over the fibres in one place and another, and every time he moves the pain increase, until they end in a steady and continuous pain. The parts become hot and inflamed, and at last he is down with rheumatism.
• The effort to talk will be attended with horror. Yet he is perfectly capable of talking, although he has an aversion to it and appears to outsiders to ignore everything that is said.
• Modalities
  • < by movement
  • < after eating
  • < in the morning on waking
  • Aggravation begins at 9 PM, and may run on through the night
    • Cham is aggravated at 9 AM
    • Bell aggravation will begin at 3 PM and run on towards midnight
• It is common for Bryonia to be ameliorated from cool air, and from cool applications. Now, if he moves, he gets warmed up, the pains are worse, but there are rheumatic complaints of Bryonia which are better from heat, and under these circumstances he is better from continued motion.
• Not only is there mental sluggishness, but there is a slowing down of his sensations, his whole state is benumbed.
• In everything of a nervous nature, nervous excitement, and commonly the bodily state, the patient is:
  • worse from a warm room,
  • worse from too much clothing
  • worse from the warmth of the bed
  • wants the windows open
  • wants to breathe fresh, cool air

• Head
  • Dizziness - worse in a warm room
• Mouth
  • Loss of taste. Taste flat, insipid, pasty.
  • His tongue is no longer intelligent; so that something that is sour tastes as though bitter; his senses deceive him.
  • Tongue thickly coated white - in typhoid, in cerebral congestion, in sore throat, in pneumonia, in all diseases of the respiratory apparatus, in rheumatic affections.
  • Bad odor from mouth.
  • Aphthae.
• Nose & Respiration
  • He cough comes on with great violence, racking the whole body and increasing the headache, and with copious discharge of mucus from the respiratory tract.
  • Frequent sneezing.
  • Sneezing between coughs.
  • Loss of smell.
  • The cough comes on with great violence, racking the whole body and increasing the headache, and with copious discharge of mucus from the respiratory tract.
• Skin
  • ?
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• Stomach
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• Abdomen
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• Stools and Anus
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