Page 8 - Spring 15

Anhalonium – a hidden personality? By Edward de Beukelaer, UK
In the spring of 2010, a client who runs a small flock of Cotswold sheep, asked me to treat her 4 months old ewe lamb. She told me that this particular lamb lacked in presence. I am asked to ‘light her fire’.
Lambing did not go well that year: they had lost a few lambs ‘because the ram was no good’. This one lamb was the healthiest. On inspection she looked normal but after a while you could tell, she was not like the others. She was a bit absent; she did not respond like the others, it was not fear, it was something else. She avoided being caught but once caught, she did not put up much resistance. She was not running away in fear, when we went to catch her, she just avoided us.
This is the summary of the owner’s narrative:
‘She had a very good mother. When we moved the sheep to another field, she stayed behind: we had to go and catch her. It took three attempts to catch her and once caught, she only put up a token resistance. We forget her. All the others in the group are extroverts and she is in the back.
She has no confidence. Is she fearful of strangers? She is almost resigned, as if she has been grinded down so often that she does not try, as if she has been beaten up too many times. She is weary of the others.
She can’t be bothered, it is despair. She is not brave: she does not have the courage. The others don’t go for her. She used to follow her mum and she even followed her mum when this one escaped from the field.
We did not like the ram: he used to hang out with the wether (castrated ram) and used to swipe the lambs when they got close.
There is no personality to her, no spark. She is isolated, there is nobody in there; we need to come and push her out. We can’t get her to enjoy with the rest. She feels isolated. It strikes me, as if she needs a friend. Alfie (a handicapped old gentile wether) does his best, he tries to befriend her but not in the way she needs. He occasionally walks over
the lambs, he can’t stop early enough because he is too clumsy.
She needs a friend of her own sort, somebody who is careful with her. I worry she is not happy. I feel helpless. If I could get close enough to her, I could make a difference but she doesn’t trust me. I can’t bridge the gap.’
Based on these observations I make the following repertorisation in Radar with two entries:
Entry one: the apparent state this lamb is in and for entry two I make a group of rubrics that illustrate the lack of reaction in this lamb.
1) Mind, forsaken
2) Group: Mind, yielding + Mind, will, weakness of + Mind, Resignation + Mind, Mildness + Mind, Answering, unable to answer, hurt emotionally, when.
36 remedies are present in these two groups in my version of the program. It is on purpose that I create a repertorisation with a large number of possibilities to increase the chance that a good remedy is present to choose from. I run through the proposed remedies to see, whether any fits this patient and notice Anhalonium.
A remedy picture proposed by Marc Brunson says the following: For Anhalonium surviving in this world is difficult. The way to deal with this is to live in autarky, to refuse the world and the effects, it can have on us. Anhalonium will increase their inner life in detriment to their exterior life. They create the absence of need, so they don’t need to depend on the outside world. They imagine their world. The remedy will be associated with problems of the mind and the senses. There is often an increased mental capacity and a taste for art. They don’t respond to pain, they are detached. In dogs they may follow anybody and appear detached from their family.
This remedy picture fits the case: she was the one, who did not have any physical problems, she is ‘in her own world’ (she does not even follow the herd, which is very unusual in
sheep), she is not depressed or anxious, she is just not there.
Anhalonium 200C, two doses are given during 24 hours.
Follow up
After a few weeks the lamb became a normal member of the group. She gives birth to her own lamb the following year.
Turkey love story
A client brought in her 7 year old male turkey. He had not been well for the last few days and he was also picking his lower legs. There were little crusts on the legs from the picking but there was no mange or any other disease visible. He was a bit agitated and kept walking around the room picking at his legs all the time. He was easy to pick up and examine and appeared generally healthy. At home she had used bandages to stop him damaging his legs. His legs felt very warm and congested and I send him away with Sulphur 30C based on the idea of itch, warm feet and congestion.
A remedy prescribed too hastily often does not work: the sulphur did nothing but the turkey got a bit better, when the owner started giving it meloxicam. A few weeks later he was brighter but he was still picking at his legs: his owner kept bandaging them to avoid any damage. She then said, she was sure, all this had started some time after his companion-lady died.
A simple repertorisation:
• Mind, ailments from death of a loved one
• Extremities, itching, legs lower lips over the
tibia (even though tibia is the wrong anatomy, the tibia with its skin running over the bone resembles the metatarsal appearance in poultry, he was picking the dorsal side of his metatarsals).
Phos ac 1m three doses and I have a phone call a week later to say thank you for the fantastic result, even though the new girlfriend had not arrived yet. He stopped picking his legs almost overnight.
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