|
Jose Miguel Mullen, MD, MD (H), MFHom. |
| HOMEOPATHIC
NEWSLETTER |
number six |
|
|
|
Homeopathic Prevention and Treatment of Influenza |
|
| |
Homeopathy has an important role to play in the prevention and
treatment of influenza, or "flu".
Allow me to remind you that Homeopathic remedies have no side
effects and no toxicity, that they don't elicit allergic reactions
and that they have no ill effect in embryos or in fetuses at the
dosages suggested below.
In my experience, these remedies should preferably
be given every 15 days, from October to April, at the potencies
indicated below.
Influenzinum 200 CH This remedy is prepared with dead flu
viruses. It has been around for about a Century, and has been tested
in Europe. In Argentina, its effectiveness was experimented in a
convent, where half of the nuns received it throughout the winter
while the other half didn't. Very few of those who received
Influenzinum developed flu and, in those who developed it, the
disease was very mild and short lived. Among the untreated nuns the
incidence of the flu, as well as its intensity and duration, was as
high as in the general population (personal communication, Escuela
Médica Homeopática Argentina, Buenos Aires, Argentina).
Oscilococcinum 200 CH
Gelsemium sempervirens 30 CH These two remedies,
Oscilococcinum and Gelsemium, important in the treatment of the flu,
are also recommended as preventives.
Please remember to consult your Doctor as soon as
possible if you have the flu.
Remedies should be given preferably several times a day, for up to 5
days on a row as needed. If treatment needs to be continued after 5
days, it should be suspended for one or two days before re-starting
it. Pellets should be tapped from the container into the cap (one
half capful is sufficient), and from there into a clean glass
containing 1-2 ounces of water. Glass contents should be stirred
with a clean plastic spoon for about one minute. Then, and using the
same plastic spoon, about 1 teaspoon of the supernatant water
(free of pellets) should be administered to the patient every 5
minutes or so until the glass is empty. The patient can also take
the remedy in sips. In either instance, it is recommended that the
patient swish the liquid in his or her mouth for about 1 minute
before swallowing it.
Preferably, 30 CH potencies should be used with the exception of
Oscilococcinum, that should be administered at a potency of 200
CH.
The patient should be observed closely. It is not unusual that,
after responding to a remedy, the patient may not respond to it any
more, but start developing symptoms that correspond to another
instead. Here the attendant should be able to recognize the shift,
and start administering the new remedy promptly.
The patient should receive one dose of his or her Constitutional
remedy after the pathology clears up.
Following are the main remedies used in the treatment of the flu.
Aconitum napellus useful when the clinical picture develops
suddenly, with high fever, usually after exposure to a blast of cold
Northern wind. The patient is extremely anxious and pale, and
predicts that he or she is going to die and when. The head is hot
and like bursting with pain. The face is red and swollen, but
becomes deathly pale on rising. The patient demands quiet, and
startles painfully when one does as much as touch his or her bed.
There is intense thirst. This remedy should be administered soon
after the onset of symptoms. If one waits until the anxiety subsides
and the color of the face becomes normal, the remedy will not work.
Baptisia tinctoria offers a clinical picture of extreme
prostration, to the point that the patient's jaw slacks and he or
she may slide to the bottom of the bed. The onset of the disease is
usually slow. There is severe muscle pain, and the patient feels
sore and bruised all over. The patient has the illusion that he or
she is broken or double, and may toss about attempting to get the
pieces together. He or she looks besotted and his or her breath is
fetid. Baptisia can only swallow liquids, solid food make the
patient gag. He or she is afraid of going to sleep for fear of
suffocation. Fever tends to be low.
Belladona is useful in very anxious, restless and excited
patients. The clinical pictures appear suddenly and with high fever.
The face is red, the pupils dilated and the tongue has a
strawberry-like appearance. There is no thirst. Patients reject
water even tough their mouths are dry. They may suffer from
delirium, which is often elicited by pain. The extremities tend to
be cold. They worsen by touch or jar.
Echinacea angustifolia displays a picture of extreme weakness
and prostration with pain all over, especially in the back, worse
bending. Extremities are very weak and achy. The tongue is white
with red edges in AM, or else brown. There is desire for cold water.
Chills, and also waves of cold, go up the spine and are accompanied
by nausea.
Eupatorium perfoliatum the main characteristic of this remedy
is its severe bone pains, which appear or worsen with chills. Bones
feel as if they are broken, particularly in back, head, chest and
extremities and especially wrists, that feel as if they had
dislocated. There is also bruised pain all over with great
sensitivity. Pains are worse during chills and fever. Chills are
very violent with lots of shaking. There is intense thirst before
and during the chill and the subsequent fever. Thirst disappears
when the patient breaks in sweat. Thirst is insatiable. There is
thirst before vomiting, and nausea before and during the chill and
fever. There is vomiting before, during and after the chill, and
also during fever and when the patient breaks in sweat. Sweating
relieves everything except the patient's headache. There is
hoarseness and cough, with very painful throat and chest. Chills are
felt particularly in the back, as if traversing upwards or
downwards. The back hurts as if bruised, as if the back were broken.
The patient may yawn during chills. There is intense prostration.
Chills can appear, or be elicited, by drinking cold water.
Ferrum phosphoricum is important in the first stage of the
flu. The patient is very congested. There is a tendency to bleed
bright red blood. There are severe, sharp pains that come in bouts
and go from below upwards. Pains are worse by movement, excitement
and heat, and better by cold and slow movements. Patients are worse
at night, especially between 4 and 6 AM. There is a severe,
congestive and pulsating headache with vomiting, worse at 5 PM.
Gelsemium sempervirens here the patient wants to be left
alone, especially during fever. He or she tends to be confused and
to have dullness of mind, sleepiness and weakness, the latter
particularly in extremities, eyelids and muscles of the eyes. There
is headache that starts in the cervical spine and then goes up to
the occiput and from there to the whole head. The patient has a
besotted expression in his or her face. The nose tends to be stuffy,
with watery and excoriating secretion and sneezing, the latter
usually early in the morning. The tongue is coated, sometimes
heavily, and there may be difficulty swallowing. There are chills
that start in hands and feet and then go up and down the spine,
usually daily at the same time. Feels that the heart may stop if he
or she remains still. There is fever without thirst, and profuse
urination when symptoms improve or abate. Also neuralgic pains here
and there.
Lobelia purpurascens useful in nervous prostration brought
about by influenza.
Lobelia syphilitica gives the perfect picture of sneezing
influenza, with pain in forehead over the eyes, pain in knees and
prickling in soles. There is great oppression in lower chest, and
pain in chest under short ribs and dry, hacking cough.
Oscilococcinum has fear of storms, of dirt and of pollution.
It needs to wash hands frequently. Very useful at the onset of the
disease, also during convalescence. Oscilococcinum has
chills, fever, malaise, generalized aching and headache.
(Data has been obtained from the Materia
Medicæ of Drs. Hahnemann, Vijnovsky, Boericke and Kent and from my
own experience).
|
|
|
|
Are Homeopathic Remedies Specific? |
|
| |
Homeopathic treatments are based on the principle that Like cures
likes.
To fulfill this principle, the profile of a chronic patient and that
of his or her Constitutional Homeopathic remedy must correspond like
two images in the viewfinder of a good photographic camera, as
briefly discussed in Simillimums
and Similars, in Newsletter # 5.
This correspondence is the basis of the specificity of
Homeopathic remedies.
Any Homeopathic treatment will be useless if such a correspondence
does not exist.
Yet, each Human Being is unique, and thus different from any other
one who has existed, exists or will ever exist.
This same principle of uniqueness applies to chronic patients. The
totality of each chronic patient (that is, the chronic
patient + the disease the patient is bearing + that disease-bearing
chronic patient's circumstance) is unique. And the totality of that
unique chronic patient has to be proffered the Constitutional
Homeopathic remedy that is specific for him or her, if the
treatment is to be successful.
But then, how can that happen if there are several billions of
people in Earth and only some 3,000 + Homeopathic remedies? How can
each of the billions of chronic patients fit into some 3.000
remedies and expect those relatively few remedies to become specific
for each of them?
Let me compare now the visit of a chronic patient to a Homeopathic
Physician to that of a client to men’s clothing store. A store that
has suits of clothes of only 3,000 sizes. Those 3,000 sizes must fit
whoever walks into the store.
There are clients whose measurements are such that one of the suit's
sizes in the store will fit them perfectly.
Most clients, however, are bound to have measurements that are not
adequately fitted by any of the 3,000 sizes available. In those
instances, the suit of clothes closer to that client’s dimensions
will have to be modified. Sleeves may have to be elongated or
shortened, shoulders padded, etc.
When a chronic patient is prescribed a Constitutional Homeopathic
remedy, that remedy may fit the patient’s profile perfectly, and
then again it may not. Something like what happens in the men’s
store and its 3,000 sizes of suits of clothes.
If the remedy prescribed fits the patient's profile perfectly the
results of the treatment will be curative in most instances, often
spectacularly so.
However, let us recall that, and like what happens in men’s store,
only the profile of very few patients will fit into the profile
of the Homeopathic remedies we have available nowadays.
Most chronic patients are not a perfect fit.
The only way of knowing who fits and who doesn’t is to study each
individual patient.
After a complete History and Physical Examination the Homeopathic
Physician will likely know whether or not the patient is acute or
chronic.
After determining that the patient is chronic, the Doctor will have
to determine whether or not the totality of that chronic patient's
profile corresponds perfectly or almost perfectly with the profile
of a particular Homeopathic remedy.
If the profile of both the chronic patient and of the remedy
coincide, that is, if the remedy is the simillimum of the
patient, then the Homeopathic Physician will dispense that remedy,
relax and enjoy the very gratifying results of the treatment.
However, if the profile of the patient and that of a particular
remedy or remedies correspond only partially, that is, if the
remedy is a similar of the patient, then the Physician will
dispense the Constitutional Homeopathic remedy whose profile most
closely coincides with that of the chronic patient. This
similar remedy will only be capable of achieving some measure of
therapeutic success because it corresponds with only a part of the
patient's profile, and not with its totality, as it happens with
simillimums.
A similar will achieve only partial success and then exhaust
its usefulness. This exhaustion of usefulness occurs when the
profile of the remedy and that of the patient cease to coincide.
The Doctor must at this point re-evaluate the patient and then
dispense another similar whose profile coincides, again
however partially, with that of the patient.
This changing of remedies according to the changes found in the
patient's profile must be continued until the patient achieves an
acceptable degree of balance.
Most of a Homeopathic Physician's day to day work consists in
skillfully prescribing to patients whose profile does not correspond
perfectly to the profile of any known remedy.
Here the Homeopathic Physician will give the patient the remedy
closest to the patient's profile. Then, when the effect of that
remedy is exhausted, the Physician will administer another one, and
then another, until the patient is either cured or else as close to
health and balance as possible—or else until he or she tires and
abandons treatment.
Such a métier requires a great deal of concentration,
observation and knowledge—as well as a lot of time spent with the
patient.
This daily routine is always gratifying because the remedies
administered lack side effects, toxicity, allergy inducing capacity
and ill effects in embryos and fetuses.
Meaning that whether the Physician is successful or not in finding
the right treatment, he or she will never hurt the patient.
Administering one partially effective remedy after another may also
allow the Homeopathic Physician to attain the success that can only
be achieved by a remedy that fits the patient perfectly—even though
reaching balance and harmony here takes more than one remedy and
consequently a longer time to be achieved.
|
|
|
|
The chronic miasmas (III):
SYPHILIS |
|
| |
The keyword here is ulcer; that is, the
festering sore that remains after the sycosic’s mantle of arrogance
is blown away, together with the Psora that fills it.
A second keyword for the syphilitic miasma would be destruction—ultimately,
nothingness.
This chronic miasma, if left untreated, ends up destroying the Whole
patient. The first thing that vanishes, or is sucked into
nothingness if you wish, is the fine system of checks and balances
that allows us to live and interact with others and with Nature.
We all make blunders.
But in a syphilitic, the progressive derangement brought about by
the extinction of checks and balances will cause blunders to become
more frequent and serious as time goes by. Some of those blunders
will be clearly asocial and/or harmful, yet the syphilitic is bound
to experience genuine surprise at how society’s reacts at his
behavior.
Al Capone, when brought to trial, is recorded as having said “But
all I did was to make people happy!" He was reportedly suffering of
advanced clinical syphilis at that time.
Another thing that soon disappears is the dam that separates our
unconscious and conscious minds.
As the result, the powerful and embroiled currents of the
unconscious flush into the syphilitic’s conscious mind. These
currents subvert, disorganize, overthrow and wash away any semblance
of coherent ideas and feelings.
Consequently, the syphilitic feels desperately frightened and
confused.
Particularly at night.
The dark, quiet hours when folk rest peacefully are the ones that
make the syphilitic suffer the most. There will be no slumber for
him or her, no peace at night.
No distraction will suffice to lure the syphilitic’s mind away from
the roaring chaos alternatively skulking and howling within. The
syphilitic will go out and look for noise and entertainment, and so
attempt to run away from his or her inner horror. Nightclubs,
cabarets and drug alleys are full of syphilitics wanting to drown
their inner turmoil and bewilderment. There are syphilitics, though;
who will seek refuge in work or any suchlike similar constructive
activity, who will say their best time to work is at night. They
feel fine at night and can think more clearly—but only as long as
they are busy. Their capacity to work is at its peak during the
night hours. These patients are unable to rest at night. They choose
work instead of noise or drugs to run away from night’s stillness.
Doctors should suspect the syphilitic miasma when a patient states
that his or her best time to work is at night. By the same token,
patients who feel worse at night—or infants who cry and cry all
night long—may also be victims of this miasma.
Syphilitics will drug themselves.
Sycosics and psorics also do. But psorics drug themselves to
anesthetize their anxiety and vulnerability. Sycosics, in turn, will
drug themselves to develop a sharper mind, and so deal more
successfully with their problems—or else in search of a spurious
buttress for their flagging self-aggrandizement.
Syphilitics, on the other hand, will abuse drugs in order to gain
access to some kind of ephemeral paradise, away from their constant
inner swirls of horror—and also as a means to slowly continue
destroying themselves.
The syphilitic’s self-esteem, like everything else, is in a constant
and frantic roller coaster, a gross exaggeration of the ups and
downs experienced by psorics and sycosics.
Syphilitics will go from feeling omnipotent one moment to imagine
they are the scum of the Earth the next.
Eventually, as self-destruction advances, syphilitics may become
fixed in one of the two extremes.
Some will delude themselves into believing that they are Napoleon
Bonaparte or some other suchlike exalted historical figure, while
others may congeal their minds in an extreme self-debasement and
-recrimination—and eventually end up committing suicide.
Frustration, that occasional and inevitable side effect of
interacting with others and with Nature, becomes unbearable for
syphilitics.
They have as much control of their frustrations as 3-year-old,
perhaps less. This state of affairs can lead to fury and fury to
violence impossible to control, due to the syphilitic’s lack of
checks and balances.
There is an impulsive desire/fear of violence and destructiveness
that can be triggered by many factors and circumstances. There is a
need of hurting themselves and/or others when things don’t go the
syphilitics’ way, or else when whatever they may want does not
materialize immediately.
The consequences of uncontrolled fury and violence can be
devastating. Once fury subsides it may bring about a guilt so
crushing, and a self-recrimination so brutal, that the patient may
well end up killing him or herself on impulse.
With this crushing guilt comes awareness of vulnerability. This
awareness is infinitely more severe and devastating than that
experienced by psorics.
In psorics, vulnerability is related to themselves and also to their
surroundings; that is, towards elements readily perceivable by the
patient.
In syphilitics, instead, vulnerability is the consequence of
confronting and helplessly being attracted into nothingness.
Nothingness, in turn, is the content of the ulcer that constantly
grows, attracts and devours the patient in the same fashion that an
astronomical black hole sucks in and devours whole universes.
Humans are totally incapable of even contemplating Nothingness, let
alone dealing with it.
Syphilitics will attempt to run away from Nothingness, and to
project their vulnerability onto surroundings that have substance
and existence. They will consequently become extremely frightened
and suspicious of everything and everybody, for they will consider
their surroundings as a real threat to their existence—like the
nothingness they are incapable to face but that nevertheless
surrounds and fascinates them.
Suspiciousness and distrust will urge syphilitics to destroy
whatever they consider as threatening for their survival.
The destruction summoned by their suspiciousness unleashes yet
another wave of self-destructive nausea, recrimination and guilt—and
also an even greater awareness of vulnerability as syphilitics see
how easy it is to destroy someone, and therefore how easy it also is
to be destroyed themselves.
As the syphilitic miasma progresses, memory starts to wane and with
it, the awareness of the syphilitic personal identity.
The physical organism also shows evidence of this self-destructive
process, which seems to have a perverse predilection for the most
important and vital organs of the patient.
The heart, brain and/or main arteries slowly erode until decay
becomes incompatible with mental sanity or with life.
At this stage the syphilitic may well die suddenly, or may end up in
a mental institution.
Or in a Hospital for chronic incurable diseases, or in prison, a
death chamber, or an early grave.
(From Chapter 4 "The chronic miasmas" of my
book "Understanding Homeopathy and Integrative
Medicine").
|
|
|
| Profiles of Homeopathic
remedies: Sepia Officinalis |
|
| |
I have already described two remedies related to the pathology of
love.
The first was Natrum muriaticum, enslaved to bygone sad and
unpleasant events, so much so that resentment and distrust don't
allow him or her to love in the present tense (Newsletter
# 4). The second was Pulsatilla nigricans, who demands
lots of love, but is unable to return it (Newsletter
# 5).
Now is the turn of Sepia officinalis, a remedy that can
indeed love, but only in minute amounts.
When discussing Pulsatilla I mentioned that mature Human
Beings generate love because each one of us is, in essence, love—or,
if you wish, the source or fountainhead of love. Love flows
abundantly through us after being produced and, on its way out
toward our environment, impregnates us and becomes the best
stimulant for our integration and development into full Humanhood.
Once out in our environment, the love we radiate originates the
lives of our offspring, stimulates the production of love in those
who surround us and also makes this world of ours a nicer, gentler,
kinder and friendlier place where to live.
Let me call "A" the point where love produced in the fountainhead
pours into us, and "B" the point where love, after coursing through
each one of us, is discharged out into the world. The difference
between points A and B creates a gradient of pressure that not only
is fundamental for our integration, but also elicits a pleasant
feeling of well being and fulfillment.
In some special individuals, such as Jesus of Nazareth, Saint
Francis of Assisi or Mother Theresa of Calcutta, to mention only
three, the intake of love at point A is huge, as it is its
inexhaustible output at point B.
In most of us, enough love pours through point A as to keep a good
gradient of pressure as long as we keep the output in point B within
certain limits of generosity, that are usually pretty ample.
Little love pours through point A into Sepia patients, so
they must be very parsimonious in point B if they want to keep the
inner gradient of pressure at a satisfactory level. Meaning that a
Sepia person can function well as long as the circulation of
love within is slow, and as long as the love being poured out into
the world through point B remains so small as to not to produce a
vacuum inside.
Within this context, I like to divide Sepias into two groups,
the potential and the actual. The difference resides on how much
pressure love exerts in each.
In potential Sepias the gradient of pressure exerted by the
love within holds at satisfactory levels. They thus experience well
being and fulfillment, are healthy, and integrate and function
adequately.
In actual Sepias this gradient of pressure is diminished.
They have spent most or all of the love they had inside, and that
love is being replaced at a snail's pace if at all. They are like
deflated balloons, and experience a horrendous feeling of emptiness
that throws these poor patients into intolerable pits of stress and
subsequent pathology.
Lovelessness, then, is at the core of the Sepia profile.
Potential Sepias are rarely seen by Homeopaths. They are too
snug, down-to-earth, formal and organized to feel inclined to mingle
with this rather abstruse form of diagnosis and treatment.
Males tend to be unremarkable, except for an excessive sensitivity
to cold and anger at contradiction. They also tend to be profligate.
Let us not forget that, in males, sexuality tends to be rather
anarchic. A good and steady amount of love is needed to integrate
the sex drive to the rest of the individual, and Sepias have
precious little of that.
Females may have their shoulders broader than their hips and walk
with a gait remindful of somebody encased in a body cast. They are
also sensitive to cold and angry at contradiction.
Both sexes are characteristically distant and cold in demeanor.
Different is the story with actual Sepias.
These unfortunates flock the offices of Alternative Medicine
practitioners after Allopathy's failure to adequately deal with them
and their health problems.
I believe that the reason why Sepias have such a sluggish
circulation of love within is because they have not been taught how
to love when little.
A child is teased into learning how to love when joyfully loved by
parents, family and other significant adults.
This happens when adults are thoughtful of the child's needs and
frequently tell him or her that he or she is loved and respected. It
happens when grown ups spend time and play with the child and kiss,
love, cuddle and fondle the little one, and assist him or her with
his or her endeavours. It happens when parents are not afraid to be
themselves in front of the child, to demonstrate that they love each
other, to show happiness when they are happy, sadness when they are
sad, anger when they are angry or worry when they are worried. And
also when they display genuine concern—yes, even tears—when the
child is ill or distressed. It happens when parents and other
significant adults actively include the child in family affairs,
discussions and decisions, trust him or her implicitly, and
unabashedly voice their sincere appreciation and respect for the
child in front of him or herself and/or of anyone within earshot.
All of the above within a context of rules, regulations and limits
clearly outlined in a day-to-day orderly routine encompassed by
discipline.
In my experience, most Sepias have never been taught how to
love. I believe this is due to the fact that most grew in loveless
though well structured homes.
These homes are typically strict. Parents are distant and mysterious
figures who, like all other adults, live in an Olympus of their own,
totally inaccessible to the child. Parents are stiff and serious
people, always with a frown, always with a dour downward twist in
the corners of their mouth, paradigms of duty, stoicism and
respectability.
Things are done in a certain way because that is the way they are
supposed to be done, no questions asked. Displeasure is expressed by
a frown or a suddenly darkened countenance—signs children soon learn
to fear because they are harbingers of prompt and harsh punishment,
whether the children know what they did wrong or not.
Parents' duties are usually sharply delineated. Dad must work
outside and bring home the bacon, and Mom has the duty to keep the
home tidy and spotless and provide for the family. The fact that of
late Mom is required to work outside home does not alter much her
enslavement to duty nor her profound, cold and distant
respectability.
In loveless homes, children are treated, as a nuisance adults are
responsible for and have to put up with. Children are expected to be
seen but not heard. Spare the rod and spoil the child. A place for
everything and everything neatly in its place. And, of course,
parents never play with the children nor give any inkling that they
are pleased with their offspring. They will never sit their children
in their laps nor will read them a story. Parents will help children
with schoolwork, though, but only because of their sense of duty,
and so that their children may perform better and obtain better
marks. Only an occasional nod of approval if the little one brings
home an "A" from School—or a sharp rebuke, usually followed by
punishment if marks fail to satisfy the parents' high expectations.
All within a clear set of rules, regulations and routine. Everything
encompassed by subjugation, because in those homes subjugation
replaces discipline. Let us recall that "discipline" is defined as
the disciple's yearning to emulate the master he or she loves,
respects, understands and admires.
Even at the risk of digressing, I would like to comment here that,
within this context, I believe we can divide homes into three tiers.
In the first there is love, rules, discipline, limits and routine.
These homes tend to produce well adjusted, resilient, adaptable and
loving individuals.
In the second there are limits, rules, routine and subjection, but
no love. These homes, in my experience, tend to produce offspring
who are extremely well behaved, social conformists, totally
inhibited, rigid, completely dutybound and with very little capacity
to love. They eventually become hard working citizens as well as
pillars of society. In time, and if challenged to give away more
love than what they can produce, these children will almost
inevitably become full-blown Sepia patients.
In the third tier there is no love, limits, rules, routine nor
subjection. Again in my experience, these family structures tend to
produce asocial individuals and/or delinquents.
The love we constantly produce has the nasty habit of stirring up
emotions. Consequently, most of us are continually at the mercy of
our feelings. It is great when we're happy, mournful when we're sad
and terrible when we're angry. All very lively and multicolored.
Lots of fireworks. But the problem is that, no matter what mood
we're in, those emotions and feelings inevitably interfere with,
distort and bias our thinking and planning.
Potential Sepias are blessedly oblivious of all this turmoil.
Limited production and sluggish flow of love also mean a limited
emotional life. Consequently, these people have enviably clear
thinking and precision of purpose—as long, that is, as they do not
yield to a demand of love that may be excessive for them. If such
extravagance occurs, a potential, well-controlled and
self-sufficient Sepia will become full blown, actual Sepia
who, as we shall presently see, will almost invariably display
mental and emotional muddleness, imbalance and disease.
Children with a sluggish flow of love tend to be very well behaved,
orderly and obedient—again, as long as the demand or output of love
remains low.
They may suffer rashes, particularly in elbows and back of knees,
and girls may have a vaginal discharge every now and then that can
become very itchy and make the little one miserable during
thunderstorms. Little girls may also wet the bed during their first
sleep. Other than that, their pathology is usually unimportant.
They are detached since early in life. Like cats, they will allow
you to hold, kiss and caress them sometimes, but only as long as
they like. Then they will wiggle away.
Potential Sepia children tend to be excellent students and it
goes without saying that their thinking and planning are very clear.
They tend to know quite early in life what they want to do, and will
tenaciously move in that direction. They do so well in School
because the impersonal environment prevailing there matches quite
well the Lovelessness they are so used to at home.
They may have friends, but will keep them at arm's length. This
characteristic will remain throughout their whole lives. They will
also end a friendship for whatever reason, without any compunction
and at the drop of a hat.
Another characteristic that starts in childhood, and that all
Sepias also preserve along their lives, is a need to exercise
hard. They will tell you that they only start feeling well when they
break into a good sweat. The same thing happens when dancing.
Adolescence is bound to be a rather flat period for boys and girls
with a sluggish flow of love, as long as they don’t scatter their
love around.
Interest in sexual matters typically entails little emotional and
romantic involvement.
They may do whatever others do, go to parties, date and the like,
but always with their characteristic detachment. Interest in parties
is mainly due to the fact that they can uninhibitedly dance like
unhinged dervishes till they are exhausted.
In boys we will likely find plenty of repression, self-control and
attachment to duty, very little love—and not unlikely promiscuity.
In girls there is little romanticism and very few and wane romantic
daydreams. Duty tends to replace love, and not infrequently also
hypocrisy.
Both boys and girls will remain excellent students throughout their
adolescence, and adults will point at them as paradigms of how their
emotionally messed up normal coevals should be.
Potential Sepia adults are respected and very much sought
after in the workplace, as long as they keep their love and their
emotions firmly in check.
They are very hard workers, submissive to superiors and
clear-minded.
They also become veritable martinets when they reach a position of
command. They have little interest and even less sympathy with their
subalterns' problems due to their emotional shallowness. And nobody
can complain of their insensitivity because they tend to demand of
others what they first demand on themselves. General Montgomery of
El Alamein, for instance, would ask his men to run I don't know how
many miles a day, but he would run every day ahead of them all.
Sepias age gracefully as long as they don't squander their
love. They fear poverty, so they take good care of building a nice
nest egg as they grow into pleasant old age, reserved, cold, polite
and distant, generally liked and respected at a superficial level by
the members of the group they frequent.
To boot, they are free of guilt feelings.
Marriage is an entirely different proposition. This is the realm of
big time mutually committed love, and potential Sepias have
precious little of that to offer. Unfortunately, few potential
Sepias are aware of how unprepared they are, and rush into a normal
marriage with enthusiasm, thinking that they have what it takes.
Then come the problems.
Perhaps the most successful Sepia marriage I know of is that
of Victorian Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and his wife. He
married a woman 20 years older than himself who belonged to a rich
and very well connected family. It was an arranged marriage. Very
little demands were made from each other. It was reported to be a
very kind, proper, charming, polite and companionable marriage where
they were both devoted to each other, kept each other company,
socialized and helped each other a lot. I understand that this
couple was childless.
Marriage is generally not such a big deal for males. They tend to be
detached and quietly skirt creating a truly intimate relationship
with their wives along the years. When demands become intense they
have a way of withdrawing to another room to play with the computer,
read the paper or watch TV. And so their output of love remains
consistently small. It is another kettle of fish with paramours.
Here sexual fun can be intense and varied, although relationships
will remain emotionally shallow and volatile. At home potential
Sepia males will become very involved with the welfare of their
families, but more in an intellectual and providing than in a loving
way. And so they may reach old age gracefully after letting off very
little of their love into their dear ones. There are snares along
the way, though. A Sepia male may be more in love with his
wife than what he is aware of, and it is almost impossible not be
become lovingly attached to one's children. I've seen potential
Sepia males deflate into actual Sepias as the consequence
of protracted disease and/or the demise of a beloved wife and/or of
their offspring.
It is said that Sepia is a woman's remedy. This is true only
insofar as women carry the heaviest burden of responsibility in a
life-long mutually committed sexual relationship. Sepia's is
the imbalance that develops in people who love beyond their means,
that is, in people who give more love than what they can produce,
thus generating a situation of vacuum within. Here well balanced,
potential Sepia women are helpless. There is no way of
circumventing the love that grows and grows toward the child they
carry in the womb, or to avoid feeling crushed by the separation
that is felt at the time of birth. Or going through the exhaustion
brought about by suckling their babies. Here is when many potential
Sepia women become actual ones.
Normal people can go through a situation of temporary love
exhaustion, thus mimicking Sepias. This is commonly seen in
situations that demand a lot of love for prolonged periods of time.
However, the production of love in these people is strong enough to
rapidly return its gradient to normal levels, thus making these
Sepia-like states of Lovelessness rapidly disappear.
Potential Sepia women tend to make the most faithful of
wives. In time they become the sturdiest and most trustworthy of
companions. But don't expect passion from them because their level
of desire is characteristically low.
Children of Sepia mothers tend to be successful. They have
grown in homes that are as abundant in sternness as they are scarce
in love, that is, a situation quite similar to that they will find
first in School and afterwards in life. Furthermore, Sepia
mothers sometimes immerse themselves completely in the life of their
children to guide them toward success. They may even follow them
into College or Military School, as it happened with FDR's and
General Douglas McArthur's mothers, both of whom rented an apartment
close to Harvard and West Point where their children were studying
their careers.
Menopause can be rocky. Here is when depletion of love and pathology
may appear even in Sepias who have successfully managed to remain
potential until then. Again here, if this hurdle is passed
successfully, their lives may continue uneventfully, save for some
minor pathology here and there, till the day they die.
So far I have discussed potential Sepias.
Let me now discuss full-fledged Sepia patients.
The first thing that one perceives is their dullness. Dullness at
every level; intellectual, emotional and physical. Dullness and
exhaustion.
Their faces are characteristically sallow and haggard, and often
exhibit like a butterfly-shaped rash athwart the bridge of their
noses and spreading onto their cheeks.
They may be careless in their attire.
But what a sharp tongue they have! Demand something, anything, and
you'll get a sharp tongue lash and a flash from their eyes. "Why do
you demand things from me?" they seem to be saying "don't you
realize that I have nothing left to give?"
There is an exhausted indifference toward dear ones, and a long list
of complaints regarding their demands and the lack of consideration
and sympathetic response they all seem to display toward Sepia's
exhaustion.
Often Sepias will break down and sob, and attempt to hide
their tears in an agony of shame. They will reject consolation.
They tend to be severely constipated, and it makes sense. Sigmund
Freud went to considerable lengths to equate constipation with an
unconscious desire to retain valuable things within.
And why won't Sepias attempt to retain within, at any cost,
whatever scraps of love they may still have left!
There is no little or no sexual interest or desire both in Sepia
men and women.
As expected, this is seen with more intensity in females. They tend
to despise everything that has to do with their sex, to reject it
even, as it happens with their spouses' demands. Menses are
horrible, accompanied by severe bearing-down pains, as if they were
having a baby. There is pain in the small of their backs, around the
sacroiliac joint, so severe at times that they describe it as if it
was breaking their spines. This low back pain tends to considerably
worsen during periods.
Every imaginable form of pathology is predictably found in their
menstrual flows, discharges pregnancies, deliveries, post-partum
periods and lactations.
They often have a bearing-down feeling, as if their womb would slide
down through their vaginas. And it often does, to the point that
they frequently must cross their legs or push their uteri back in
with their fingers to avoid it prolapsing. They seem to want to get
rid of the womb and everything feminine it represents—to destroy it,
even—and so end, once and for all forms of sexual demand placed upon
them. I have found an overwhelming majority of cervical cancers in
Sepia patients.
In males there is genital flaccidity and mental and physical
exhaustion after intercourse and also after nocturnal pollutions.
Other forms of pathology can be found in practically every organ and
system.
The list is too long to detail here—in Kent's Repertory Sepia
is vis-à-vis 6,424 symptoms–but in all instances symptoms are
accompanied by their characteristic dullness, their rejection when
being requested to give love, the exhaustion and their painful
indifference toward dear ones.
And so they go on living.
Females carrying with then on the misery of their deflation—a misery
that increases with each successive menstrual cycle and pregnancy,
with having to put up with the sexual demands of husbands while
feeling no desire whatsoever, with having to take care of their
children, of their home their menopause and their old ages.
And males living the coldness of their loneliness, a coldness that
accompanies their dullness and the routines they desperately cling
to in order to giver some sense to their existences.
(Data has been obtained from the Materia
Medicæ of Drs. Hahnemann, Vijnovsky, Boericke and Kent and from my
own experience).
|
|
|
|
Edited by Jose Miguel Mullen, MD, MD
(H), MFHom.,
Homeopathic Physician. |
|
|
