Compare with digitalis & adonis ver in cardiac disorder.

Both are cardiotonic glycosides with the same fundamental MoA — inhibit cardiac Na⁺/K⁺-ATPase → ↑ intracellular Na⁺ → reverses the Na⁺/Ca²⁺ exchanger → ↑ intracellular Ca²⁺ → stronger contraction (positive inotropy). They also share negative chronotropy, negative dromotropy (AV node), and a mild diuretic effect

This is the classical Hahnemannian / Boericke / Clarke style mental, emotional, modality-driven symptom pictures rather than pharmacology. Both are “cardiac” remedies but with strikingly different temperaments.

1. Constitutional Type & Mental Picture

Digitalis purpurea
Slow, sluggish, heavy: mental and physical torpor.
“As if the heart would stop beating if he moved”
fear of death, great apprehension, especially when alone.
Melancholy, sighing, desires to be alone.
Sadness with a sense of impending dissolution.
Mental confusion, dizziness, dim vision everything seems darker or yellowish (xanthopsia “everything looks yellow”).
Memory weak; cannot think clearly.
Worse from warm drinks, motion, lying on left side.
Better from lying still, fresh air.

> “Constant fear: something is going to happen. Sits as if in a trance.” Boericke

Adonis vernalis
More active, restless, anxious, nervous heart symptoms tied to emotional turbulence.
Cardiac anxiety with fear of death, but in a nervous, fidgety way (less “trance-like” than Digitalis).
Vertigo, mental confusion after exertion or sleep.
Melancholy with cardiac oppression; sighing respiration.
Worse from exertion, ascending, emotional excitement.
Better from rest, lying quietly, in open air.

> Distilled: Digitalis = heavy, slow, half-dead fear; Adonis = nervous, restless, palpitating fear.

2. Heart & Circulation The Core

Digitalis
Sensation as if the heart would stop beating if he moved (keynote).
Slow, weak, irregular pulse intermittent, every 3rd or 4th beat missing.
Sensation of sinking at the heart, faintness, as if dying.
Palpitation from the slightest motion.
Pulse slow at first, then rapid, weak, thready
Constriction of chest, dyspnoea, cannot lie down.
Worse lying on left side.
Marked sensation of coldness in the heart region.

Adonis
Palpitation: violent, rapid, irregular, with anxiety.
Heart feels as if it would burst or stop suddenly
Sharp, cutting pains about the heart; radiating to left arm.
Pulse rapid, weak, irregular; sometimes intermittent.
Oppression, constriction, sense of weight on chest.
Worse from motion, excitement, lying on left side.
Better from rest, deep breathing.

> Boericke’s key: “Violent palpitation; rapid, irregular pulse; cardiac pain, dyspnoea; cannot lie on left side.”

3. Respiration

| Digitalis | Adonis |

1. Difficult, sighing breathing | Short, rapid, anxious breathing
2. Dyspnoea, especially at night | Dyspnoea on least exertion
3. Respiration slow, irregular | Respiration oppressed, with sighing
4. Cannot lie down, must sit up | Same, but more from anxiety than weakness

4. Sleep

Digitalis: Sleep restless, full of anxious, frightful dreams of death; wakes with palpitation. Sleepiness during the day; sleepless at night.
Adonis: Sleep disturbed by palpitations, jerking, starting; dreams of falling or accidents; wakes anxious.

5. Clinically — When to Choose

Choose Digitalis when:
Slow, weak, irregular pulse with fear of death from heart stopping
Edema liver congestion + scanty urine.
Patient is sluggish, depressed, “half-asleep”
Symptoms worse from motion; fear of being alone.
Dreams of death; sighing respiration.
Classical “Withering’s patient” dropsy with a feeble heart.

Choose Adonis when:
Rapid, irregular, violent palpitations with acute anxiety
Heart pains are sharp, cutting, radiating.
Patient is nervous, restless, fidgety, more “alive” than Digitalis patient.
Symptoms from emotional stress, overexertion, or functional cardiac disturbance.
Edema is mild; urinary changes are not dominant.
Useful in “cardiac neurosis” functional palpitations in nervous people.

6. Repertorial Snapshot

Heart: “fear heart will stop”:
Digitalis 3 / Adonis 2 / Gelsemium 2 / Cimicifuga 2

Heart,: “palpitation, rapid, irregular, with anxiety”:
Adonis 3 / Aconite 3 / Spigelia 3 / Cactus 3 / Digitalis 2

Heart “worse lying on left side”:
Cactus 3 / Adonis 3 / Digitalis 2 / Spigelia 3 / Phosphorus 2

Edema, cardiac, with slow pulse:
Digitalis 3 / Apocynum 3 / Helleborus 2

Dreams of death:
Digitalis 3 / Anacardium 2 / Thuja 2

Bottom Line in Materia Medica Style

Digitalis = the sluggish, dropsical, “almost-dead” cardiac slow pulse, fear heart will stop, hepatic congestion, edema, dreams of death, worse from motion.
Adonis = the nervous, palpitating, “alive but afraid” cardiac rapid pulse, sharp pains, anxiety, restlessness, mild edema, worse from