Baptisia is a remedy for serious infections or sepsis. It has also been used for types of diphtheria, flu, and typhoid fever. The person needing it is drowsy and falls asleep while responding to questions but also restless from body aches and pains. Delirium and confusion may also be present. The mouth or discharges (stool, perspiration, urine) have a putrid odour and the face confused and dusky color. Baptisia may be used with conventional medicines, without interactive or toxic side-effects.
Materia Medica of Baptisia
- Mind – Irritable; holds everything in contempt. Full of desires, for what they know not.
- Head – Bones of skull feel crushed or bruised. Pain extends to teeth and root of the tongue.
- Eyes – Inflamed, red. Pain through eyeballs. Profuse lachrymation. Cornea dim. Eyes tire from near vision. State of vision constantly changing. Spasm of accommodation from the irritable weakness of the ciliary muscle. Nausea from looking on moving objects.
- Face – Blue rings around eyes. Periodical orbital neuralgia, with lachrymation, photophobia, and smarting eyelids.
- Nose – Coryza, with stoppage of nose and nausea. Epistaxis.
- Stomach – Tongue usually clean. Mouth, moist; much saliva. Constant nausea and vomiting, with pale, twitching of face. Vomits food, bile, blood, mucus. Stomach feels relaxed as if hanging down. Hiccough.
- Abdomen – Amebic dysentery with tenesmus; while straining pain so great that it nauseates; little thirst. Cutting, clutching; worse, around the navel. Body rigid; stretched out stiff.
- Stools – Pitch-like green as grass, like frothy molasses, with griping at the navel. Dysenteric, slimy.
- Female – Uterine hæmorrhage, profuse, bright, gushing, with nausea. Vomiting during pregnancy. Pain from navel to the uterus. Menses too early and too profuse.
- Respiratory – Dyspnœa; constant constriction in chest. Asthma. Yearly attacks of difficult shortness of breathing. Continued sneezing; coryza; a wheezing cough. A cough incessant and violent, with every breath. Chest seems full of phlegm but does not yield to coughing. Bubbling rales. A suffocative cough; the child becomes stiff, and blue in the face. Whooping-cough, with a nosebleed, and from the mouth. Bleeding from lungs, with nausea; feeling of constriction; rattling cough. Croup. Hæmoptysis from slightest exertion (Millef). Hoarseness, especially at end of a cold. Complete aphonia.
- Fever – Intermittent fever, irregular cases, after Quinine. Slightest chill with much heat, nausea, vomiting, and dyspnœa. Relapses from improper diet.
- Sleep – With eyes half open. Shocks in all limbs on going to sleep (Ign).
- Extremities – Body stretched stiff, followed by spasmodic jerking of arms towards each other.
- Skin – Pale, lax. Blue around eyes. Military rash.
Indications of Baptisia
- Relief from Sneezing, Runny Nose, Itchy Eyes and Sinus Congestion.
- As Antipyretic- Reduces fever, diaphoretic, pain with fever and
- Cold, typhoid fever, headache after mental labor with chiles, chills run up and
- Down with shivering.
- As Analgesic – Used in neuralgias a toothache, headache,
- Pain in the car, pains in joint, cramping of muscles with radiating pain,
- Pain in lower limbs and cramps.
- Abortion threatened
- Appendicitis
- Brain softening
- Cancer
- Diphtheria
- Dysentery
- Enteric fever
- Gall-bladder, affections
- Gastric fever
- A headache
- Hectic fever
- Hysteria
- Influenza
- Esophagus stricture
- Plague
- Relapsing fever
- Sewer gas-poisoning
- Shivering
- Stomatitis
- Tinea capitis
- Tongue ulcerated.
Dosage of Baptisia
- Adults and children 5 to 10 drops orally, 3 times daily or as otherwise directed by a health care professional. If symptoms persist, consult your health care professional. Consult a physician for use in children under 12 years of age.
- The higher the potency, the longer the effect. A 6C potency may need to be repeated every 1 – 2 hours for a period to improve symptoms while an M potency may only have to be given once.
- Medium potencies such as 30C are a good choice for home prescribers who have some familiarity with homeopathy. They may be given every 2 – 4 hours until symptoms are relieved, and then only repeated if symptoms return. Improvement should be noticed by 1 – 3 doses if the correct remedy has been selected.