Curious Rubrics
Back, pain, throwing shoulders backward, ameliorates – Cyclamen
Head Up!
Cyclamen is lamed and pressurised by duty. They feel disabled and as if they are not doing all they can. This can be so bad as to be described as ‘terrors of conscience’, it can paralyse them and they can even develop a sense of being double, maybe to compensate for the other half not doing their duty and so an extra alternating persona is always useful – one irritable or sad, weepy and depressed and the other joyous. They grieve over their neglected duty but it is a silent grief, cannot be seen to be lamenting as this also goes against their ‘upright and dutiful’ image. Eventually the inwardness takes on a taciturn and morose nature.
The plant itself hangs the flower heads in a downward position mimicking the pain in the back and shoulders and you see this in people as well. They walk along with their head hanging down as if in shame. It is this part of the neck and back that is most affected – the nape of the neck, that part which connects the mind and the body. They take their troubles to bed with them and have frightful dreams. They are trapped in this need to serve their conscience well.
Being trapped will mean they feel better moving about, cannot rest, always need to be doing something, being industrious. If they stop they become dull, sleepy and morose.
Feeling forsaken Cyclamen is often considered to be similar to Pulsatilla and the female organs are another focus of this abandonment and self reproach. Dysmenorrhea that is accompanied by a migraine that in turn alters the vision, there is a flickering of the vision, even blindness but the menses remain changeable (like Pulsatilla) and can even be suppressed, internalised like the pervading grief.
So hidden is the grief that it is unlike they will tell you much about it but you know from their hanging head and sense of sadness and the importance they put onto the duties of life that something sad has happened to them but we know that no amount of self reproach will heal, matters just get worse.
So, it’s head up, shoulders back, smile and get on with it! Or take a dose of Cyclamen.
Coughing, like the tick of a clock in its regularity – Niccolum
Periodicity
The curiosity in this rubric in centred around understanding what it really means – is it a cough like a ticking clock – could you even imagine that, no, it is the regularity that is pertinent here and regularity = periodicity and the ticking of the clock is an exact periodicity and this is the relevance of this rubric as almost everything about Niccolum is periodic.
Periodicity in itself isn’t curious though as our whole life is governed by it but not all remedies have this so to us it is a precious symptom when we encounter it. In Niccolum the periodicity is usually every 2 weeks, every year, or before noon, 9, 10, 11 a.m although there is a modality of being << after midnight as well.
The cough itself is either hacking or at least dry with a tickling in the throat that keeps the cough coming. The coughing can get so violent that the brain feels as if is being cut to pieces and so there is a tendency to want to hold the head when coughing. Eventually the cough causes hoarseness and there is a sensation as if they are being strangulated. Although usually dry the cough can eventually disperse thick white mucous. The coughing can also be associated with a stiff neck, it feels as if sprained with all the movement that the coughing causes and this is another reason why the head must be held whilst coughing. Other concomitants are dyspnoea with a feeling of pressure in the chest and pains that are described as shooting, stitching and excoriating.
The periodicity influence really plagues those who need Niccolum. It is a constant reminder of their state and embellishes a fear that some misfortune will come their way, as if something bad will happen. It is an anxious mood that can develop further towards a nervous restlessness, sadness, a lack of social integration, spitefulness, violence and quite deep depression.
Niccolum is in the periodic group 10, along with Palladium and Platinum – 2 remedies that are forever searching for their faultless ideals in life, mainly through ego and self image and as Niccolum is above both of these remedies in group 10 it is an indication of a somewhat lighter approach within the same diseased state.
Nickel is found in meteorites and it takes on a high polish (aiming to look good and perfect maybe), it is hard but also malleable and can be transformed into foil, powder, flakes, wire, mesh and rods. But this adaptation leads to confusion and suppression and the ultimate result is rendered as something plastic and mechanical.
However, as the diseased state progresses and they can no longer sustain a malleable containment, an intensity of negative emotions emerges – anxiety; fear; irritability; impatience; argumentative; unkind; spiteful; malicious; vindictive; cruel to the point of being brutal. There will be some anguish and sadness en route but this too is easily acquiesced.
This picture kind of reminds you of a damaged child who has gone way beyond the plastic compliance that society expects or imposes, i.e. that which suppresses real and conscious feelings into something much more unacceptable. The end result is something quite monstrous if allowed to go full term and without the interception of healing. Often though, the child will appear to escape into premature adulthood, becoming serious, knowledgeable and quite sophisticated. All emotions are controlled (suppressed) – reaching for higher, safer, ground just like Platina and Palladium. This early suppression is highly damaging and eventually will dissipate into cruelty.
Nickel is also a trace element and thus has some relevance within our dietary needs. It lodges in the liver and the pancreas – 2 organs that are extremely busy and productive. Liver disturbance often gives rise to much irritability and rage, and pancreatic dysfunction (which centres mainly on digestive disorders) will have a range of lethargy, restlessness and emaciation. The action of Nickel within our bodies is similar to that of Cobalt (the vital Vitamin B12 has 4% cobalt). There is a vast range of pathology that could emanate from any abnormality within either of these 2 organs.
Our materia medicas also make a connection between Cobalt and Nickel. Nickel received its name (devil) from miners who considered it to be ‘false ore’ and Cobalt was named “german silver’ a belittling name for a substance making pretentious claims. Damaged goods seeking a superior level of acceptance.
As I wrote above the main delusional fear of Niccolum is that something evil will happen – most of the time it already has happened and this will be the damage done. Responses might become mechanical and periodic because any conscious effort will result in this fear of deviating from the straight line. Thus – very angry from the least contradiction; trembling and fear with desire for solitude; anxiety on moving as if sweat will break out; cannot relate to the conversation. So, you have someone who is walking a fine line, someone who wants to be highly polished but the fear of something evil happening, prevents this. The strangest sensation that encases this is ‘sensation as if brain were cut to pieces’ and ‘sensation as if a nail were sticking in the head’. To accompany this there is a physical cracking in the cervical vertebrae when moving the head – they are not able to see the larger picture from all sides.
However they are not static people. There is great restlessness that results in debility. This evolves out of not only a need to be rid of this confusing state but also out of a chemical reaction that is going on in the body, primarily originating from the digestion and the role that Nickel plays in this – many of the symptoms within the picture of Niccolum derive from a dysfunction at this level as well as those that are happening within the emotional sphere. It brings us back to the 2 main organs – the liver and pancreas.
Keynotes include:-
Most symptoms are >>> after eating
Restlessness with vomiting
Abdominal pains go from left to right (passing through the pancreas to the liver?)
Periodicity is marked
Colic associated with menses
Risings from the stomach taste like roasted meat
Violent thirst (pre-disposition to diabetes?)
Increased secretion of urine
Migraines with vomiting of bile
Accumulation of sweet saliva
Offensive breath
Nasal catarrh and stoppage (congestion due to digestive cause?)
Constipation with very hard stool
Yellow diarrhoea with much flatulence
Skin itching all over not >> scratching (bile secretion?)
Sleepless from midnight to 4 am with agitation (agitated digestion?)
Stomach feels empty without desire for food
Intense hiccoughs (the cause is associated with liver disorders and pancreatic diseases)
Decaying teeth and gums that emit a foul odour
Serious physical pathology can develop in the liver and pancreas and many of the above are suggestive of the beginnings of Diabetes but it is the emotional pathology, born from the liver, which creates the fear that something evil will happen, as though it is compulsory, as though a necessary act of inhumanity has to be committed. The polish has worn off and the real cruelty is witnessed in the final act of the unkindness that belongs to Niccolum. And they are witness to this periodically, like a ticking clock – not fun!
As if head and brain were frozen - Indigo tinctoria
From mildness to madness
Everything about Indigo suggests being on the move all the time. The moods are forever going up and down the ‘mildness to madness’ chain; there is a lot of twitching in various parts of the body; there is a constant desire to urinate; the nerves are always being pushed to the edge and can become convulsive; the abdomen rumbles away until a great deal is belched out; the muscles feel drawn in; lots of sneezing as if the expel something (Indigo is also a worm remedy); the teeth feel as if they are being pulled out. The only parts that are still are the head and the brain – they feel as if they are frozen. This is the phase that comes with epilepsy (often due to worms) before the fury of the attack that then ends in sadness and mildness. This frozen state is unmovable, impassive and unyielding, stuck and waiting for the escape of the thaw – this is what Indigo has to endure. It is an undulating threat that can attack suddenly and without any warning.
The mildness of Indigo is linked in with a sadness and mental depression accompanied by weeping, tiredness, a strong sense of dullness or sluggishness and an aversion to any activity. Outwardly this will appear to be a reserved person, holding back. But there is a core of discontent, fueled by a need to be industrious, to be on the move instead of the lower degree of feeling indolent. This industry is not a healthy state though and is diverted into irritability, restlessness, anxiety and even delirium – all because of this core of discontent that is a stirring undercurrent provoking an attempt to escape.
This stirring is almost representative of the process used for the extraction of the indigo dye. The plant’s fermentation waters are literally beaten and whipped into agitation until the plant waters transform from a golden yellow to a lovely blue – denim blue jeans – from mildness to madness.
Indigo is part of the legume family of plants and it is easy to see the pea trapped inside the pod, stirring with restlessness in readiness to pop and escape.
Indigo has ancient and modern uses, both cultural and medicinal and one of the medicinal use includes that of treating rabies (in high enough doses Indigo becomes a purgative, again, an escape route) and rabies is at the far end of the mildness to madness chain.
Indigo also has a peculiar delusion, that of ‘imagines he has a goitre’ – this again is the pea in the pod, the lump in the neck that so displeases. Goitres also suggest a thyroid affinity and this will also make sense of these mood swings from mildness to madness.
Ears, relaxation, eardrum, sensation of – Rheum
Capricious
Easy words to comprehend but not so easy to actually imagine what is going on with a rubric such as this – is a client even likely to describe an ear symptom in this way?
Whether they do or not, with Rheum we can understand or appreciate what this means by studying the whole remedy picture.
With someone who needs Rheum, whether adult of child, there is a lot going on – a great deal of digestive discomfort defined as colic, that causes shrieking and an accompanying emotional disturbance that shows impatience, irritability, restlessness, crying. Pains are throbbing, pulsating, burning and shooting and there is a sensation of crepitation in various parts. Limbs itch and twitch, the throat contracts and the stomach becomes easily overloaded. The head spins with extreme giddiness and produces copious sweat.
On the passive side there is reluctant dentition, constipation, sensations of numbness, a feeling of heaviness on waking, indifference, aversion to doing anything, little need for food or sleep, and thus asks for nothing. There is also a curious symptom of ‘diarrhoea only during active exercise’.
So there is an active phase and an inactive phase, being reared up or relaxed – the essence of being capricious and never settled in either sphere and hence you get a description of Rheum as being both a tonic and a cathartic.
Rheum is well known for its high levels of oxalic acid that can cause not only the digestive problems but can settle within the body parts, such as joints, extremities, kidneys, as a sediment or small stones, such as you would get in gout, rheumatism and kidney stones. This occurs because oxalic acid locks up certain minerals such as calcium and can cause a mineral deficiency, but oxalic acid, in the same manner, can also cause a thickening of some tissues and with Rheum this occurs in the ears, “its good effect in old middle and internal ear thickenings seems due to the creation of tissue activity in dormant structures” (Cooper). Tinnitus will often accompany such a thickening of the tissues as well as symptoms typical of Meniere’s disease and thus, with this thickening or density, you have the sensation of the eardrum being relaxed, in other words not exerting, appeased.
So somewhere, in the midst of the essence of being capricious, i.e. either relaxed and withholding or vehement and cathartic, there is a thickening, as though part of the journey from a relaxed point to a complete emptying.
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