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1. Anacardium - The Essential Homeopathic Features
2. Generalities & other chapters



Anacardium is, of course, also indicated for physical disorders; e.g., stomach troubles, rheumatic and arthritic conditions, cervical stiffness, vomiting during pregnancy, constipation, trembling and paralytic weakness, epilepsy, etc. In many of these conditions a very characteristic sensation is that of bluntness - of a blunt plug in the affected part. This sensation can be located anywhere - in the eye, in the head during a headache, in the stomach, in the rectum in association with constipation, in the spine. This sensation of a plug should not be confused with the iron rod sensation in the rectum of Ignatia nor with the sensation of a lump or a ball in the rectal/perineal area of Sepia.

Another keynote sensation of Anacardium is that of a band around an organ or an extremity; pain in any area may be accompanied by the sensation of a band-like constriction. Other remedies produce a somewhat similar sensation, but each has a distinctive quality. The Anacardium band sensation is similar to the feeling produced by an elastic bandage; in Anacardium this elastic sensation is very well-defined with discrete boundaries. Platina also produces an elastic bandage sensation, but the feeling is more diffuse than that of Anacardium. Tuberculinum produces a hoop-like sensation, especially around the head, which feels as if an unyielding iron band is constricting the head. Cactus produces more painful, wire-like constricting sensations.

A tendency to sighing and amelioration from same is a symptom often met in Anacardium, especially in those individuals with a shy, timid temperament and lack of self-confidence. A general amelioration comes from eating. He eats and in one or two hours is hungry again and has to eat; otherwise he feels very bad. Sometimes there is general weakness not long after eating. Another modality of Anacardium which it shares with Pulsatilla and Ferrum is an amelioration by moving about slowly. Worse from rubbing and when sleeping on the sides. Restlessness that comes every two or three days. Symptoms go from right to left. The patient is usually aggravated by cold, but heat also aggravates sometimes.


Pressing headache in different parts of the head as from a blunt instrument pushing in, worse with motion, mental exertion, coughing and bending the head backwards; better with eating, exercising, hard pressure, and by falling asleep. The feeling of a plug or a blunt instrument is not always described as such; sometimes the description may be of hardness in the head or a heavy feeling in a particular location, of a piece of metal or wood in an area of the head, etc. Hysterical type of headache from strong smells. Gastric headaches. Periodical headaches. Vertigo is worse on stooping and rising, worse on walking. Little boils on scalp.


Pressing pain as from a plug on upper orbit. [Rheumatic tearing.] Objects appear too far off. Vision indistinct [dim]. Blue rings around the eyes.


They imagine that somebody is whispering in their ears. Difficulty in hearing. Loss of hearing. Pain as if from a plug. Painful twitchings in left meatus, like electric shocks. Pain when biting teeth together. Feeling of stoppage, as if from cotton.


Loss of smell. Hay fever. Illusory smell.


Pale. Expressionless; childish expression. Twitchings of mouth and fingers during sleep. Burning dryness of external borders of lips. Eruption on the left side of the face, covered with small blisters which discharge a yellow serum and itch terribly.


A general amelioration by eating is a strong keynote, but symptoms return soon after eating. Nausea (especially morning nausea) and dyspepsia are relieved by eating. Nausea of pregnancy is relieved by constant eating.
Empty feeling in the stomach at 11 a.m., resembling Sulphur. Pressing
pain in the stomach after mental exertion and one or two hours after eating, during the time of digestion. Stitching pain on breathing. Breath stops on eating and drinking. Loss of appetite alternating with excessive hunger. Desire for sweets and salt and aversion to beans and peas.


There is constipation in Anacardium which is similar to that of Nux vomica. Frequent tenesmus during the day without the ability to expel anything. Frequent urging for stool after eating. Pressing pain around the umbilicus. Pain feels like a blunt plug pressing into the intestines. Abdomen hard. Painful flatulence. A lot of rumbling and flatus after eating.


Inactivity. Ineffectual urging; inefficient stool. Rectum feels plugged with a foreign substance, without power of expulsion, even of a soft stool. Intense desire for stool, but during the effort for evacuation the desire goes away. Itching of anus after coition.


Respiration is interrupted (choking) on coughing, on swallowing or drinking. Cough, resembling whooping cough, is excited after talking or eating. Cough after eating with vomiting of food and pain in occiput. Dull pressure, as from a plug, in the right lung. Oppression with internal anxiety and heat.


Heart: Palpitations in the aged which come after mild acute ailments, such as coryza, with accompanying anguish. Heart feels suddenly swollen with great fear of dying. Double stitches in the heart - stitches occur twice in succession followed by a long interval.

Back / Extremities

Stiffness is a characteristic associated with the back pain, especially in the cervical region. Dull pressure in the shoulders, as from a weight. Diseases that affect the spinal cord with paralytic weakness; trembling of the lower extremities, the knees being most affected; the sensation as of a band around the body or certain body parts; and the sensation of a plug being driven into the inner parts, especially when moving. Restlessness of the legs while sitting, better when walking.


Disturbed sleep with screaming and very vivid dreams that seem real the next morning; dreams of dead bodies, of killing others or others killing him, of being pursued, of fires, of old events. In the morning he awakens tired with the inclination to go back to sleep.


There are different types of skin eruptions in Anacardium: one is pustular, another is erysipelatous, and still another is a form of neurodermatitis which consists of small vesicular lesions filled with a colorless, watery fluid. These lesions are grouped closely together. The eruption is rather dry and itches terrifically. The itching is worse at night.
Itching and burning that cause extreme irritability; the patient digs his nails into the skin in order to scratch. Eruptions that look like variola. Excessive desquamation. Skin eruptions with erysipelatous appearance that spread quickly and cause easy swelling. Skin insensible. Warts.


Mental and neurological disorders Anxiety neurosis, paranoid states, schizophrenia, inferiority complex, epilepsy, neuromuscular disorders, myalgic encephalomyelitis. Apoplexy. Brain-fag. Hypochondriasis. Hysteria. Memory loss. Mental depression. Mental weakness. Lack of self-confidence.

Digestive disorders Duodenal ulcer, dyspepsia, hemorrhoids, hyperchlorhydria .

Skin eruptions Erysipelatous, variola-like, pustular neurodermatitis, eczema. Warts.

Other ailments Alcoholism. Asthma. Constipation. Deafness, chronic. Debility. Dysmenorrhea. Momentary mental paralysis before examinations. Headache. Heart affections. Liver diseases. Pemphigus. Rheumatism. Self-abuse. Illusion of smell. Stiff-neck. Tendon injuries. Vomiting of pregnancy. Whooping-cough. Writer's cramp.


Checked eruptions. Prolonged mental exertion with anxiety. Examinations. Sexual excesses. Sudden shocks. Disappointments.


Follows well: Lycopodium, Pulsatilla, Platina.
Followed well by: Lycopodium, Pulsatilla, Platina.


Antidoted by: Clematis erecta, Croton tiglium, Coffea, Ranunculus bulbosus, Rhus toxicodendron, Juglans cinerea, wine. Inimical to it: Alcoholic drink, cold drink, warm food. Antidote to Rhus poisoning.


For mental disorders the high potencies from 200c upwards are more effective.


1. Pain in left abdomen with gnawing sensation in epigastrium; "must eat something or the pain and gnawing become unbearable," a cracker is sufficient. The symptom has appeared daily for years, the hour varies. Anacardium 200 gave such marked relief, even before she left the office, that she forgot to eat her luncheon, which was long overdue. There has been no recurrence in six months. For several days after taking the Anacardium, she noticed a constant taste and smell of peppermint.

2. On November 2, 1922, a retired officer, aged 38, who had suffered from mild fever and dysentery in the East during the war, followed by a nervous breakdown necessitating six months' rest in 1918, came to me complaining that for a year or more he had been much troubled by a sore, tender, condition of the stomach which had baffled his family doctor. It affected the region below the ensiform cartilage, was when the stomach was empty, especially the first thing in the morning, but was after food. There was no acidity, nausea, or vomiting, and the bowels were regular, but the tongue was coated every moming, and he had noticed mucus passing from the bowel for some time. I found marked tenderness in the region complained of, over an area of about half-a-crown, and some tendency to puffiness, but no tenderness over the caecum. I made no alteration in his diet, which was reasonably light, and prescribed Anac, 3 in daily powders, medicated in thirds.

When I saw him a fortnight later, on November 17, 1922, he was able to report that the discomfort and soreness were much less; they no longer woke him at 5 a.m. as formerly. The motions, previously semi-solid, were becoming formed, and he had seen no mucus from the bowel. He was still better a fortnight later, with a continuance of the same remedy, the former flatulence was becoming much less, and he stated that "he had had less discomfort in the stomach than for the last year." The tenderness had greatly decreased, and the bowel mucus had not returned. It was not long after this that he was able to report complete freedom from his trouble, and I could find practically no trace of the former tenderness over the duodenal area. I saw him occasionally for some time after this, and verified the fact that the bowel mucus never returned, so the slight associated colon irritability cleared up with the other symptoms.

1. Anacardium - The Essential Homeopathic Features
2. Generalities & other chapters