Page 9 - Spring 24
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Cyclamen Europaeum
The substance
The plant is rare and grows in woods and among rocks in middle Europe.
In Sicily, the plant is used by poachers to take fish out of rivers. The tubercules of the plant contain a poisonous substance for fish.
According to Pline, the poison was used in the past to poison arrow tips.
It is a very strong purgative, even at small doses. Its herbal use was therefore abandoned.
The mother tincture has been used to treat gout. Homeopathy.
Key notes:
• aversion for open air
• feels abandoned
• pathologic scrupulousness, with feeling guilty
• sad, weeping, grumpy, irritability
• worse during and before the season
• coryza, chronic; lots of sneezing, nose dry
alternated with blocked nose, better in open air, but does not want to go out in the cold. The patient is depressed and lacks energy.
• intolerant to fatty food
• the type is similar to Natrum muriaticum but with
a slight fear of being abandoned
• better in a warm room
• irregular female cycle
• migraine with sight issues (sees flies, coloured
patches,..) (common concomitant)
• desires lemonade, sardines, salted fish
Translation and synthesis, with additions, by Edward De Beukelaer of the original work by Bernadette Jeannin and Jacques Millemann.
• aversion fatty food, butter, bread, meat, beer
• better for walking back and forth, worse sitting and
standing
• swelling of the mammary glands during and after
seasons.
The remedy resembles Pulsatilla, but Cyclamen is more depressed and reserved, is worse from cold (better in open air but does not want to go out), is better in a warm room.
A study of the remedy by the AFADH, confirmed with cases, proposes that Cyclamen tends to feel culpable because of a desire for perfection. They do not want to become perfect, they just desire to be perfect. They want to be the immaculate conception : they feel culpable for causing an irreparable fault but have forgotten what this fault is. They feel they did not fulfil their duty but do not know what this duty was. They would like to be perfectly white without any spots. They have the feeling that everything related to the body is imperfect, which they therefore want to ignore as much as possible. They want to be perfect withing themselves. Contact with others risks revealing their imperfection: hence their reactions to those around can be quite contradictory.
Delusion neglected duty, delusion done wrong.
Pulsatilla fears not to be loved by all, Cyclamen fears that others will see their imperfection.
Cases
A Cyclamen cat. Herve Gratien, France
A female Siamese-cross cat, 5 years old, presented for eczema started scratching 6 months before (during the autumn): crises appear approximately every 2 weeks. An
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