Coniferae family in homeopathy

Dr Lizme Ajith

Coniferae is a large order of cone bearing plants. From this order we obtain the different varieties of pine, hemlock and spruce from which the various preparations of turpentine have been obtained. These are trees or shrubs, mostly evergreen, usually resinous. Leaves needle like or scale like. Flowers monoecious or dioecious. Male flowers in deciduous catkins. Female flowers in cones. Fruit usually a woody cone or sometimes a berry. They are seen through out the world, chiefly in cold regions.

Medicines belonging to coniferae

• 1) abies canadensis
• 2) abies nigra
• 3) cupressus australis
• 4) cupressus lawsoniana
• 5) juniperus communis
• 6) juniperus virginianus
• 7) larix decidua
• 8) pinus cupressus
• 9) pinus lambertiana
• 10) pinus sylvestris
• 11) pix liquida
• 12) sabina juniperus
• 13) sequoia sempervivens
• 14) taxus baccata
• 15) terebinthina
• 16) terebinthina chios
• 17) thuja lobii
• 18) thuja occidentalis

Common characteristics
1) Action on urinary system – producing cystitis, urethritis, dysuria, strangury, haematuria etc. Urine may be scanty or suppressed. Urine has the odour of violets. Gonorrhoeal urethritis.

2) Action on female genital organs – Dysmenorrhoea, uterine haemorrhages, tendency to miscarriages, uterine prolapse, uterine and ovarian tumours.

3) Action on gastro intestinal tract – causing indigestion, dyspepsia, flatulence, constipation etc. Pain in stomach always after eating.

4) Action on skin – warts, ulcers, pustules, urticaria, scaly eruptions, cracks and fissures; much itching.

5) Rheumatic and gouty affections – pain and stiffness in all joints, especially fingers, ankles and heels.

6) Miasm predominantly sycotic – with gonorrheal affections or suppressed gonorrhea.

7) Action on respiratory organs – producing cough, chronic bronchitis, asthma, haemoptysis, nasal polyps, chest pain etc.

8) Ailments from vaccination

Individual drugs in detail
Abies canadensis

• Common name – Hemlock spruce
• Part used – fresh bark and young buds
• Affections of gastric mucus membrane, catarrhal condition of stomach.
• Gnawing hungry faint feeling at the epigastrium. Great appetite, craving for meat, pickles, radish, turnips, coarse food.
• Tendency to eat far beyond the capacity for digestion. Distension of stomach and abdomen with palpitation.
• Flatulence disturbes the heart’s action.
• Canine hunger with enlarged torpid liver.
• Uterine displacements. Sore feeling at the fundus of uterus > by pressure. Thinks womb is soft and feeble.
• Prostration wants to lie down all the time.
• Fever with cold shiverings, as if blood were ice water. Chill runs down the back. Cold water feeling between the shoulders.

Abies nigra

• Common name – Black spruce
• Part used – Gum
• Gastric disturbances. Pain in stomach always comes on after eating.
• Sensation of a lump, as if a hard boiled egg is lodged in the cardiac   end of stomach. Total loss of appetite in the morning, craving for food at noon and night. Dyspeptic troubles of the aged, also after tea or tobacco. < After eating. Constipation.
• Heart’s action heavy, slow.
• Painful sensation in chest as if something were lodged in and had to be coughed up.
• Lungs feel compressed, cannot be fully expanded. <coughing Water brash succeeds the cough.

Cupressus australis
Part used – fruits and leaves
Sharp, piercing, pricking pains.
Pains in shoulders, knees, ankles.
Pains from left occiput to left temple.
Rheumatism and Gonorrhea
Pricking pains from kidneys to bladder with increased desire to urinate.
Itching of glans penis and orifice of urethra.
General feeling of warmth.

Cupressus lawsoniana
Part used – berries and leaves
Acts like THUJA.
Terrible pains in stomach.
Tumours; Cocks-comb growth in the mouth.
Lipoma of thigh; warts; keliods.

Juniperus communis
Common name – Juniper berries
Part used – fresh ripe berries
Catarrhal inflammation of kidneys. Chronic pyelitis. Bloody, scanty urine, strangury. Urine has the odour of violets. Renal hyperaemia. Dropsy with suppression of urine. Prostatic discharge.
Old persons with poor digestion. Abdominal colic and flatulence.
Dysmenorrhea.

Juniperus virginianus
Common name – Red cedar
Part used – twigs and berries
Hyperaemia of the kidneys. Pyelitis and cystitis. Dropsy of the aged with suppressed urine. Dysuria, burning cutting pain in urethra while urinating. Constant urge for urination, violent vesical tenesmus, strangury.
Persistant dragging in the back.
Uterine haemorrhages. Dysmenorrhoea. Restores the flow in suppressed menses.
Pain and tenderness at the pit of stomach. Vomits black matter.
Pulse slow, feeble, irregular.
Apoplexy, convulsions. Twitching of muscles. Loss of consciousness.

Larix decidua
Common name – Larch
Lack of energy, low self confidence, drooping sensation.
Weary limbs, reluctant posture.

Pinus cupressus
Gonorrheal urethral discharge

Pinus lambertiana
Common name – Sugar pine
Part used – inspissated sap
In suppressed menses restores the flow and removes the painful sensations resulting from suppression.
Produces abortion in pregnant women.
Constipation, gentle laxative action.

Pinus sylvestris
Common name – Scotch pine, Baltic pine
Part used – leaves and young twigs
Rheumatism and gout. Paralytic pain in limbs, bones and joints. Weak ankles, tardiness in walking. Cramps in calves. Emaciation of lower extremities. Scrofulous and rachitic children.
Nettle rash, urticaria. Itching all over, especially about joints and abdomen.
Chest walls sensitive with a peculiar feeling of thinness, as if they would give way to a touch.
Burning pains on micturition. Flow increased. <exertion, walking, touch, in the morning.

Pix liquida
Common name – Pine tar
A product of dry distillation of coniferous woods.
Action on mucus membranes.
Mucopurulent sputum, offensive odour and taste. Rales through the lungs. Chronic Bronchitis. Bronchial irritation after influenza.
Pain at a spot about the third left costal cartilage, where it joins the rib. This is really a pain of the left bronchus.
Scaly eruptions, psoriasis, eczema, acne, alopecia. Eruptions on back of hands. Skin cracked itches intolerably. Bleeds on scratching. <night.
Black vomitus, black stools, dark urine. Constant vomiting with pain in stomach.

Sabina juniperus
Common name – Savine
Part used – Young fresh tops of the branches
Chronic ailments of women. Ailments following abortion or premature labor.
Haemorrhage from uterus, flow partly pale red fluid, partly clotted <least motion.
Menses too early, too profuse, protracted, with colic and labor like pains. Discharge of blood between periods. Menorrhagia at climacteric.
Retained placenta, intense after pains. Tendency to miscarriages, especially at the third month. Inflammation of ovaries and uterus after abortion. Promotes expulsion of moles.
Drawing pains in small of back from sacrum to pubes.
Bruised pain in anterior portion of thighs. Arthritic pain in joints. Gout. Red shiny swellings. Shooting pain in heels and metatarsal bones.
Music is intolerable, produces nervousness.
< least motion, heat, warm air. > cool fresh air.

Sequoia sempervivens
Skin affections – itching and burning.

Taxus baccata
Common name – Yew
Part used – Young fresh shoots or berries
Gastric complains – Empty feeling in stomach, must eat frequently. Violent hunger soon after breakfast.
Hot, acrid saliva. Nausea and vomiting of bile.
Feeling of pins and needles at the pit of stomach.
Pain in pit of stomach and region of navel. < before and after each meal. Cough after eating.
Erysipelas. Large flat itching pustules. Podagra. Badly smelling night sweats.
Gout and chronic rheumatism, pain in hips and knees, fingers and elbows. Drawing pains in muscles of neck and back. <by movement, left side.

Terebinthina chios
Tongue red, smooth, glossy, devoid of papillae.
Urine scanty, smoky, bloody. Albuminuria. Pain in the region of kidneys. Burning micturition.

Terebinthina (terebinthinae oleum)
Common name – Oil of turpentine
The oil distilled from the oleoresin (turpentine) obtained from   various conifers.
Congestion and inflammation of viscera – kidneys, bladder, lungs, intestines, uterus; with malignant tendency.
Has a selective affinity for bleeding mucus surfaces.
Haematuria, blood thoroughly mixed with urine, sediment like coffee grounds. Urine has odour of violets.
Urine cloudy, smoky, profuse, dark or black, strangury, cystitis.
Albuminuria – acute in early stages when blood and albumin abound more than casts and epithelium.
Violent drawing and burning pains in kidneys, bladder and urethra.
Uraemia, uraemic coma, Bright’s disease. Spasmodic retension of urine. Ascitis with anasarca; Dropsy with organic lesions of kidneys.
Tongue smooth, glossy red, as if deprived of papillae, coating peels off in patches leaving bright red spots.
Haemorrhage from bowels with ulceration, passive dark blood.
Excessive tympanitis, abdomen excessively sensitive to touch.
Diarrhoea, stool frequent, profuse, fetid, bloody, burning in anus and rectum, fainting and exhaustion after.
Worm affections – ascarides, lumbrici, tape worm segments passed, with foul breath, dry cough, tickling in anus.
Purpura haemorrhagica, ecchymosis, erythema.

Thuja lobii
Personality problems – Anxious, melancholic, tendency to commit suicide. Weeps, moans. Indifference to everything except for his obsessions. Depressive neurosis, psychosis.

Thuja occidentalis
Common name – Tree of life, Arbor vitae, White cedar
Part used – Fresh green twigs
Adapted to persons of hydrogenoid constitution, lymphatic temperament, fleshy persons, dark complexion, sycotic background.
Ailments from bad effects of vaccination, suppressed or maltreated gonorrhea. Suppressed gonorrhea causing articular rheumatism, prostatitis, impotence, condylomata.
Fixed ideas – as if a stranger was at his side; as if soul and body are separated; as if a living animal were in abdomen; as if limbs were made of glass and would break easily; as if limbs were made of wood. Music causes weeping.
Headache as if a nail was driven through the parietal bone. Vertigo on closing eyes. White scaly dandruff.
Styes and tarsal tumours, chalazae, warts or blisters on eyes.
Chronic otitis, purulent discharges, polyps in ears.
Toothache from tea drinking; Teeth decay at roots.
Constipation, stool recedes after being partly expelled.
Diarrhoea early morning, expelled forcibly with much flatus, as if water from a bung hole. <after breakfast, fat food, onions, coffee, potatoes. Piles swollen, pain most severe when coughing.
Sensation after urinating, as of urine trickling in urethra. Severe cutting pains at the close of urination. Desire sudden and urgent, but cannot be controlled.
Chronic induration of testicles. Prostatic enlargements.
Ovaritis, severe pain in left ovary. Warty excrescences on vulva and perineum. Vagina sensitive.
Skin looks dirty; Warts large, seedy, pedunculated, fig warts, condylomata. Eruptions only on covered parts, burn after scratching. Epithelioma, naevi, carbuncles, ulcers, freckles and blotches, sarcoma. Brown spots on hands and arms. Nails deformed, brittle.
Sweat only on uncovered parts; when he sleeps, stops when he wakes; profuse, sour smelling, fetid. Sweat on genitals smells like honey.
< night, heat of bed, 3 am, 3 pm, cold, damp air and water, moon light, left side.

Dr. Lizme Ajith MD(HOM)
Department of Practice of Medicine
Government Homeopathic Medical College. Calicut. Kerala
Email: lizmyajith@yahoo.co.in