Dioscorea villosa, Wild Yam.

Botanical name: 
Please read the introduction to Boericke's tinctures.

As a remedy for many kinds of pain, especially colic, and in severe, painful affections of abdominal and pelvic viscera; it ranks with the polychrests of the Materia Medica. Persons of feeble digestive powers; tea-drinkers, with much flatulence. Gall stone colic.
Mind.--Calls things by the wrong name.
Head.--Dull pain in both temples; better pressure, but worse afterwards. Buzzing in head.
Stomach.--Mouth dry and bitter in morning, tongue coated, no thirst. Belching of large quantities of offensive gas. Neuralgia of stomach. Sinking at the pit of the stomach; pyrosis. Pain along sternum and extending into arms. Eructations of sour, bitter wind, with hiccough. Sharp pain in epigastrium, relieved by standing erect.
Abdomen.--Pains suddenly shift to different parts; appear in remote localities, as fingers and toes. Rumbling, with emission of much flatus. Griping, cutting in hypogastric region, with intermittent cutting in stomach and small intestines. Colic; better walking about; pains radiate from abdomen, to back, chest, arms; worse, bending forwards and while lying. Sharp pains from liver, shooting upward to right nipple. Pain from gall-bladder to chest, back, and arms. Renal colic, with pain in extremities. Hurried desire for stool.
Heart.--Angina pectoris; pain back of sternum into arms; labored breathing; feeble action of heart. Especially with flatulence and pain through chest and tightness across.
Rectum.--Haemorrhoids, with darting pains to liver; look like bunches or grapes or red cherries; protrude after stool, with pain in anus. Diarrhoea (worse in morning), yellowish, followed by exhaustion, as if flatus and feces were hot.
Male.--Relaxation and coldness of organs. Pains shoot into testicles from region of kidneys. Strong-smelling sweat on scrotum and pubes. Emissions in sleep, or from sexual atony, with weak knees.
Female.--Uterine colic; pains radiate from uterus. Vivid dreams.
Respiratory.--Tight feeling all along sternum. Chest does not seem to expand on breathing. Short-winded.
Extremities.--Lameness in back; worse, stooping. Aching and stiffness in joints. Sciatica; pains shoot down thigh; worse, right side; better, when perfectly still. Felons in beginning, when pricking is first felt. Nails brittle. Cramps in flexors of fingers and toes.
Modalities.--Worse, evening and night, lying down, and doubling up. Better, standing erect, motion in open air; pressure.
Relationship.--Antidotes: Chamom; Camph. Compare: Colocy (differs in modalities); Nux; Cham; Bry.
Dose.--Tincture, to third potency.


Boericke's Materia Medica, 1901, was written by William Boericke. Excerpt: The Tinctures.