Hura brasiliensis

-SANKARAN R.,
Hura has features that place it exactly between the tubercular and the syphilitic miasms. This is the leprosy miasm. The main feeling in the leprosy miasm is similar to the tubercular miasm, only much worse. The feeling is that even with intense, rapid, hectic activity to come out of this destructive process (leprosy), there is very little hope.
In terms of pathology there are three distinct types of leprosy. There is the tuberculoid type which, though progressive, has a better prognosis than others - there is hope. At the other end, there is the lepromatous leprosy which is rapidly progressive and destructive, resembling syphilis. The intermediate type lies between these two. Leprosy, like tuberculosis, is rampant in India. There is a feeling of tremendous oppression (lepers are often treated worse than animals and are the objects of loathing) and an intense hopelessness with a desire for change.

I choose to study Hura with the purpose to understand its state, because I had never used this remedy before. On going through the symptoms, I found that they concentrated around a feeling of being forsaken, with the specific delusion that the Hura person is about to lose his friends and that his friends have lost affection for him. He feels like a castaway, unwanted; he feels alone in the world, despised and hated. There is a feeling of being unfortunate, unlucky that something has happened to him, because of which he has lost his friends and everyone has started hating him. There is the rubric: "Despair of recovery" which means that it is difficult for him to recover from this position; the chances of getting back to the original position are slim and so there is sadness and mental depression. He becomes quite frustrated and can get destructive, even to the extent of self-destruction. He becomes angry with himself, dislikes himself, reproaches himself, feels unfortunate.
This feeling of Hura gave me a strong impression of leprosy. A leper is a man who, through a stroke of bad luck, comes into a position (having contracted the disease) where all his friends have deserted him. They hate him, despise him, have lost affection for him, and how much ever he may try, he cannot compensate and he cannot get back to where he was before - once a leper, always a leper.
The situation of Hura is that of a leper. Hura feels like a leper. He feels castaway and despised without any chance of recovering from this situation. Having got this idea, you can imagine my joy when I went through Clarke's Dictionary and found that in the proving of Hura the best symptoms were brought out in people with a past history of leprosy, and that it was a known remedy for leprosy.
Ever since I wrote this description of Hura in my book "The Spirit of Homoeopathy", I have had cases that confirm this feeling of Hura. They feel unfortunate, castaway, hated, despised, without any hope of recovery. They try to hide their skin spot or acne or skin infection and keep on looking in the mirror everyday to see whether it is growing or not. They do this secretly as they don't want others too see or notice it. They feel unfortunate: "Why did I get this?" They feel others will find out about it and despise them.
The dreams of Hura reflect this same theme - of feeling like a leper, of being castaway, with a longing to be a part of normal society, to be among his friends, and the feeling of hopelessness of coming out of this destructive process that is leprosy.
Dreams
- Body, parts of, heads, cut off.
- Dead bodies.
- Mutilation.
- Cutting heads of.
- Murder.
- Oxen - putrid.
- Walking among ruins.
- Water-drowning.
- Death.
- Funerals.
- Graves - putting tapers on tombs.
- Prisoner - release of prisoners.
Rubrics
- Delusion, thinks she is about to lose a friend.
- Delusion, lost affection of friends.
- Delusion, she is alone in the world.
- Delusion, his friends have lost all confidence in him.
- Delusion, sees dead persons.
- Delusion, deserted, forsaken.
- Delusion, unfortunate, he is.
- Delusion, despised, he is.
- Delusion, fancies herself lost.
- Delusion, thinks is repudiated by relatives.
- Despair of recovery.
- Despair, religious, of salvation.
- Biting hands.
- Biting himself.
Destructiveness.-