Allen’s Keynotes Easy 1

BELLADONA
Deadly Nightshade Solanaceae

Constitution
• Adapted to bilious1, lymphatic2, plethoric constitutions; persons who are lively and
entertaining when well, but violent and often delirious when sick.
• Women and children with light hair and blue eyes, fine complexion, mild skin;
sensitive, nervous, threatened with convulsions; tubercular patients.

Mental Generals
• Imagines he sees ghosts, ugly faces, and various insects (Stram.); black animals,
dogs, wolves.
• Fear of imaginary things; wants to run away from them; hallucinations3.
• Violent delirium4; wants to bite, spit, strike and tear things; breaks into fits of
laughter and grinds the teeth; wants to bite and strike the attendants (Stram.); tries
to escape (Hell.)

Physical Generals
• Great liability to take cold; sensitive to drafts of air, especially when uncovering the
head; from having the hair cut; tonsils become inflamed after riding in a cold wind
(Acon., Hep., Rhus-t. takes cold from exposure of feet, Con., Cupr., Sil.).
• Quick sensation and motion; eyes snap and move quickly; pains come suddenly,
last indefinitely and cease suddenly (Mag-p.).
• Pains usually in short attacks; cause redness of face and eyes; fullness of head
and throbbing5 of carotids6.
1
bilious: relating to an illness, caused by too much bile, that can cause vomiting.
2
lymph: a clear liquid containing white blood cells that helps to clean the tissues of the body and
helps to prevent infections from spreading.
3
A hallucination is the experience of seeing something that is not really there because you are ill or
have taken a drug.
4
delirium: a mental state where somebody becomes excited and not able to think or speak clearly,
usually because of illness.
5
throb (of a part of the body): to feel a series of regular painful movements.
6
carotids: denoting the two main arteries which carry blood to the head and neck, and their two
main branches.
2 BELLADONA

Head
• Vertigo7 when stooping8, or when rising after stooping (Bry.); on every change of
position.
• Rush of blood to head and face (Aml-ns., Glon., Meli.).
• Headache, congestive, with red face, throbbing of brain and carotids (Meli.);
< from slight noise, jar9 [=shake], motion, light, lying down, least exertion;
> pressure, tight bandaging, wrapping up, during menses.
• Boring the head into the pillow (Apis, Hell., Podo.).

Gastro-intestinal System
• Abdomen tender, distended10 < by least jar, even of the bed. obliged to walk with
great care for fear of a jar.
• Pain in right ileo-caecal11 region, < by slightest touch, even of the bed cover.
• The transverse colon12 extends like a pad.

Female Reproductive System

• Pressing downwards as if the contents of abdomen would issue from the vulva13;
> standing and sitting erect; worse mornings (Lil-t., Murx., Sep.).
Nervous System
• Convulsions during teething, with fever (without fever, Mag-p.); comes on
suddenly, head hot, feet cold.

Fever
• Head hot and painful; red-faced; eyes wild, staring, pupils dilated14; pulse full and

7
vertigo: the feeling of dizziness and fear, and of losing your balance.
8
stooping: bending one's head or body forwards and downwards.
9
jar: an unpleasant shock, especially from things being suddenly shaken or hit.
10
distended: larger than normal due to pressure from inside.
11
ileo-caecal: the valve formed by two folds of mucous membrane at the opening of the ileum
into the large intestine
12
transverse colon: the middle portion of the colon that extends across the abdominal cavity.
13
the outer opening of the female sex organs.
 Allen’s Keynotes Easy 3

bounding, circular, like buckshot15 striking the finger; mucous membrane of

mouth dry; stool delayed, and urine suppressed;
sleepy, but cannot sleep (Cham., Op.).

Skin
• Skin: Of a uniform, smooth, shining scarlet redness; dry, hot, burning; tells a
burning sensation to examining hand; the true Sydenham scarlet fever, where
eruption is perfectly smooth and truly scarlet.

Modalities
• Aggravation: From touch, motion, noise, draft of air, looking at bright shining
objects (Lys., Stram.); after 3 p.m., night, after midnight; while drinking;
uncovering the head; summer sun; lying down.
• Amelioration: Rest; standing or sitting erect; warm room.

Relation
• Complementary: Calcarea.
• Belladonna is the acute of Calcarea, which is often required to complete a cure.
Similar: To, Acon., Bry., Cic., Gels., Glon., Hyos., Meli., Op., Stram.

14
Dilated pupils are pupils that are larger than normal in size.
15
buckshot: balls of lead that are fired from a shotgun.