MORPHINUM

MORPHINUM

(An Alkaloid of Opium)

Morph.

Morphine is to Opium what Atropine is to Belladonna, representing its nervous side. It is less stimulating and convulsant, and more hypnotic. It causes less constipation and affects bladder contractility more. It is less diaphoretic and more pruritic.

Mind: Profound depression, irritability, fault-finding, and hysteria. Shock induced by terror, dream-like state.

Head: Vertigo with slight head movement, headache with a sensation of being “wound up,” bursting pain, head drawn back (tetanus, convulsions).

Eyes: Bluish, drooping lids, eye itching, visual delusions when eyes are closed, staring, injected, diverging strabismus, pupils unequally contracted, unsteady look, ptosis, paresis of rectus interni.

Ears: Painful throbbing in the left ear, relieved by heat, sensation of hearing the body’s circulation.

Nose: Paroxysmal sneezing, itching, and tingling on the nose tip.

Face: Dusky red or pallid lividity of the face, lips, tongue, mouth, or throat.

Mouth: Very dry mouth, tongue dry and brown violet in the middle, thirst, loss of appetite with aversion to meat.

Throat: Dry and constricted, paralyzed pharynx making swallowing almost impossible; improved by hot drinks, worsened by solids.

Stomach: Incessant and deathly nausea, faintness, constant retching, vomiting green fluid (bile), nausea and vomiting when rising.

Abdomen: Distended, acute pain in the abdomen and along the spinal cord, tympanites.

Stool: Watery diarrhea; brown or black with severe tenesmus, constipation with large, dry, knotty stools prone to bruise and fissure.

Urinary: Paresis of the bladder, strangury, slow and difficult micturition, urine retention due to prostatic hypertrophy, acute and chronic uremia.

Male: Impotency, pain in the right spermatic cord (Ox-ac.).

Respiratory: Faint and struggling for breath, diaphragmatic paralysis, hiccough, dyspnea, paroxysmal on first falling asleep (Lach., Grin.), Cheyne-Stokes respiration, tight chest, pain in the middle of the sternum, dry, hard, teasing, exhausting cough worse at night, strangling cough with scanty, viscid mucoid sputum that sounds loose and abundant.

Heart: Alternating tachycardia and bradycardia, cardiac muscle tissue remains intact despite severe exhaustion, small, weak, dicrotic pulse.

Back: Pain along the spine, weakness in the loins, aching across the lumbosacral region, difficulty walking erect (Cimic.).

Extremities: Staggering gait (locomotor ataxia), numbness.

Sleep: Yawning, drowsiness, prolonged deep sleep, sleeplessness, restless sleep with frequent startings, sleepy but unable to sleep.

Nervous System: Restlessness, hyperesthesia, trembling, twitching, jerking, convulsions, extreme pain sensitivity causing limb twitching and jerking (chorea), violent, sudden neuralgic pains, sudden fainting, melancholic delirium, intensely painful neuralgias; left supraorbital, right intercostal, improved by heat, multiple neuritis, overall soreness, bed feels too hard, symptoms worsen after sleep (Lach.), neuralgia after zoster (Mez.).

Fever: Chills, icy coldness, burning heat, profuse sweat.

Skin: Livid, purple spots, zoster-like herpes, itching, loss of skin elasticity, urticaria at climaxis.

Dose: Third to sixth trituration.