China is a popular name of cinchona officinalis in homeopathy though its common name is quinine and belongs to plant kingdom. The bark of this plant is used to extract out quinine. China is the most precious medicine in homeopathy because it was the drug that obliged Hahnemann to think in a new direction to evolve a new system of medicine called homeopathy. In old schools it is used in malarial affections and intermittent. It is also given in debility as a tonic. In homeopathy it is a well proved medicine and has certain definite symptoms that work as key to use it, in different type of ailments; starts from fever, rheumatic complaints, and ends to gastric disorders etc. etc., when the patient produces china type picture.
It is extensively used after hemorrhage and loss of other vital fluids in the form of diarrhea, dysentery, seminal emission, suppuration even through leucorrhea etc. Sometimes excessive perspiration and salivation also cause cachexia and other complaints which can be cured of. The patient is anemic, sunken eyes, Hippocratic face, blue rings below eyes and ringing in the ears. The patient is oversensitive to noise and touch. Touching the affected part causes him aggravation but is felt better by hard pressure which though a strange symptom, is a key to use it.
Marked periodicity is a keynote of the remedy like Eupatorium Perforatum, Natrum Mur and Arsenic Album. The symptoms appear every other day. The patient sometimes has a loss of appetite but canine hunger is predominantly present. It causes great accumulation of gas in the abdomen which presses upward and makes the patient unable to breathe out. Even eructation doesn’t relieve him temporarily. At the meal time he can eat a lot though abdomen is bloated to its full extent.