Hamamelis virginiana
(Witch-hazel)
Botanical name: Hamamelis virginiana Linn.
Family: Hamamelideaceae
Known: Eng: Witch hazel; French: Hamamelis; Ger: Hamamelis, Zamberhasel.
Description:
A deciduous shrub upto 5 metre high with numerous long flaxuous, forking branches, smooth, brown bark, becoming greyish and fissured with age.
Leaves 7-15 cm long, obovate or oval, straight veined, wavy dentate, somewhat downy when young, becoming smooth with age.
Flowers yellow, in small axillary heads, usually surrounded by a scale-like, three leaved involucre.
Distribution: Indigenous to U.S. A. and Canada.
History and authority:
Introduced in Homoeopathic practice in 1851 by Preston
Allen’s Encyclop. Mat. Med., Vol. IV, 528.
Part used: Stem and root bark
Characteristics: The Mother Tincture is a reddish brown liquid with astringent taste
Potencies: 2x to contain one part Mother Tincture; three parts Purified Water and six parts Strong Alcohol.
3x and higher with dispensing alcohol.
Prescribed Dose: Tincture, to sixth attenuation
Clinical Use:
Traditional Uses: A mixture of 1 part fresh of bark from the branches and 2 parts of the tips of shoots of Hamamelis virginiana Linn. It is antibacterial, astringent, haemostatic, skin tonic and tumours and ulcer.
- Venous congestion
- Hæmorrhages
- Varicose veins
- Hæmorrhoids, with bruised soreness of affected parts, seem to be the special sphere of this remedy.
- Acts upon the coats of the veins causing relaxation with consequent engorgement.
- Passive venous hæmorrhages from any part.
- Great value in open, painful wounds, with weakness from loss of blood.
- After operations, supercedes the use of morphia (Helmuth).
