Rheumatoid arthritis - Medorrhinum (med.) Case

-GEORGE VITHOULKAS

Rheumatoid arthritis

This is a two year old case of a male who is about 60 years old. He had a rheumatoid arthritis. He is a retired commercial airlines pilot. Initially for the previous six and a half months before I saw him, he had had a whole bunch of remedies prescribed through the computer. He had taken Lyc. 3x, 6x, 200x, and Calc. 6x, Lyc. 1m and 6m, Tub. 200 and so on and so forth. The last remedy had been given to him two weeks prior to the time I saw him. The remedies had been given over a six and a half month period.
Question: Did any of them help him?
Response: There was no response to any of them. In 1962 he had a myocardial infarct at the age of 38. Prior to that he had been in good health. He was having marital problems because of gambling and he had gambling debts of thousands of dollars. He was full of anxiety.
Question: Was this in 1962 or just now?
Response: That was in 1962. He is 56 now. At that time also he was wrongly accused by his Chief Pilot and suspended from flying. He stewed over that problem for three months, figuring out how to get back at the Chief Pilot, but he never expressed his anxiousness or anger. Shortly after returning to work in 1972 he had the MI. Three months later, after the myocardial infarct, his arthritis began and it was mostly in his hands, elbows and feet. It was severely painful. He was treated with Cortisone for six years. He also had one Gold shot, tried DMSO, mineral baths, vitamin therapies, colonic therapy and nothing helped, except drinking wine. (Laughter) He did this every evening. He said that he had had no medications for ten years. Seven years ago the pains diminished and about that same time he began to develop these large synovial cysts around the joints. He has very large bags around the elbows, ankles, wrists, and also nodules which are huge, arthritic, rheumatoid nodules around his joints. The hands are very deformed because of this. During the period of time when his arthritis was severe, it was worse in August (underlined twice). He would sit in total pain for the entire month of August. It is a hot time then.
George: What remedy can we give?
Response: Nat-s.?

George: No. Lach.
Response: He says, "I have no pep or energy at all" (underlined twice), "I feel lousy all the time." He has had ringing in his ears since his myocardial infarct and a different pitch in his ear. That is a different tone in his ears. Four years ago he had epistaxis which was copious from his left nostril. It poured out. It was cauterized three times. It was a horrible experience for him and he still has a tremendous fear that this could happen again.
Question: Is it always the left nostril?
Response: Yes, it was the left each time. He has some shortness of breath on exertion and angina (underlined once). He drinks one or two bottles of wine an evening. He has loose stools in the mornings. He had stringy mucus in his stools until he had a colonic and he has not had any of that since. He has a small external haemorrhoid, but this does not bother him. At age 33 he had what he called a "measles-like eruption" on the glans penis one morning after he had had sex with a strange woman in the Orient. (laughter) It was very itchy and it was treated with antibiotics.
Question: I am confused. In all of these symptoms you gave us just a minute ago, were they from ten years ago?
Response: Everything since "no energy" is all current. He still gets a few red dots and itching occasionally and he has strong urine with an ammonia odor following the red eruptions. He has been married for 39 years. He has two children and he argues with his 18-year -old son. He says, "I don't think very much of myself" (underlined once), "I don't feel like doing anything." Impatience (underlined twice). Three years ago he lost everything in a real estate venture and he had to start all over. He says that he has little anxieties all the time, but what can be done about it? He has been a Catholic all of his life and he "found the Lord". This was five years ago. He smokes two packs of cigarettes per day. He is disgusted with himself each morning on waking because of his drinking and smoking.
George: But he has found the Lord. (Laughter)
Continuing: He repents every morning. (Laughter)
George: Sounds like Phos.
Continuing: He has a tremendous fear every day that his nose will start oozing again. He has a "boring life" (underlined at least once). "Day after day I feel like a bum and dress like a bum." He has no sexual desire (underlined three times). He has very little feeling and very little seminal discharge with masturbation. That occurs about twice a year that he masturbates.
George: He is married?
Response: Yes, for 39 years. He says, "Sex went out of the window seven years ago." They have separate bedrooms. That was not when he got the eruptions - that took place many years prior to that. He is worse in a draft (not underlined), and he is warm blooded. He says that he is too warm in a room which is 68 degrees. He has very painful soles of the feet and it feels as though he is standing on marbles. I believe that this is secondary to the arthritis of the metatarsal heads. He has weak ankles (underlined once). He seldom gets cold. He is worse from eggs. He gets right lower quadrant abdominal pains when he eats eggs. Desires salt (underlined twice). He says that he does not know what he is anxious about.
A past medical history observation is that in 1949 he had a streptococcal infection of the nose with TREMENDOUS swelling.
He was treated with antibiotics. In 1942 he had pyorrhoea. He had a head injury at age 5 and he had had headaches for three years after that. His blood pressure was 194/104. His liver is about 2 c.m. below the costal margin. The joints themselves do not appear deformed as a result of the arthritis. The knees are normal but the other joints have nodules on them. So that was the case at that time. I gave him Staph. with no benefit.
George: What is the reaction to weather?
Response: The weather changes do not seem to bother him. He does not have any pain now. There is some stiffness, but little or no pain.
George: Rheumatoid arthritis with no pain?
Response: Right. It is interesting. We will get to this later.
George: Why no pain with rheumatoid arthritis?
Response: It was very severe at the time. It was all diagnosed at the time through laboratory tests.
George: So actually the arthritic pains and symptomatology are not much apart from the sexual picture, which is very low.
Response: There is more symptomatology as we go on.
George: But let us see the case as it is now what the remedy would have been Let's wait for further information and think about what we have here now. Is he open or closed in nature?
Response: Closed.
George: A gambling person who incurs so much?
Response: He was buying friends.
George: He incurs so much debt.

Response: He is more like a Phos.
George: He is a wild type. He was in the army and there he was gambling. He was accused of being drunk while he was flying. He drinks a lot, almost to the point of being an alcoholic and he has the businesses. Okay, now what could the remedy be?
Response: Med.
George: Either Phos. or Med. Why Med.?
Response: I was thinking of all the symptoms of arthritis alone with the impatience ...
George: He is the kind of person who has a keynote symptom tied to Med. He has painful soles, very painful. We have said that this is a keynote. The desire for salt is also a keynote and there are weak ankles. It is interesting that Med. affects the ankles and causes an inflammation. So in your repertory, you must see it as "swelling of the ankles". And what did he get from the woman he was with?
Response: Measles-like eruptions on the glans penis. He was treated with antibiotics.
Question: How was his sexual energy before?
Response: Low sexual desire.
George: So in this case we shall be thinking either of Med. or Phos.
I don't see Lach. since the August aggravation.
Response: Lach is for a rheumatic swelling of the ankles.
Response: They are not usually gambling, wild types, Lach.
Question: What about the epistaxis?
George: Yes, the epistaxis brings us to Phos.
Question: Is angina Med.?
George: Yes. Is it not in the repertory? When you get a history of heart disease in the parents, especially the man - the father - look for gonorrhoea. We spoke about this before. This is another thing I want to tell you. Med. patients will go wild and do all these things. They may have gonorrhoea at the age of 20. Their sexual desire is increased and they will go wild. They will have no symptoms. They will show no symptoms of angina, but then they will go into a BIG angina crisis with myocardial infarct (MI) and usually will die. This is at a young age - between 38 and 48 years old. I just passed this age. (Laughter)
Question: How did you find this out about Med. and the heart?

George: How? Because you see a person whom you suspect to be Med. and you ask him about the father. He will say that he has had no gonorrhoea, but when you inquire about the father, many times you will find that the father had suddenly died from heart attack. So you will find these symptoms for Med. through the father. That means that he had constitutional gonorrhoea which was suppressed and badly affected the heart the way that I described to you before.
Question: That means that the father had gonorrhoea?
George: Yes.
Question: And you would see such a low sexual desire?
George: Yes.
Response: To me this is extremely important because of all the heart disease which we have. There is a correlation.
George: It is not ALL due to that, but I believe quite a lot.
Response: Diet too.
Question: Will the father die at a relatively young age? Before 50?
George: Yes, but it can be 55 or so.
Question: But have you got some confirmatory evidence that people who die suddenly have had gonorrhoea?
George: Yes. Or they have a really big heart attack. Or you get people who worry and think about their heart all the time, they may have an attack without gonorrhoea. You get another one and there is no problem at all with the heart. Suddenly there is a big cardiac accident or death, and that is likely to be sycotic.
Question: What about the painful soles?
George: It is very characteristic of Med. in that case.
Question: Would you expect nodules of the soles?
Response: Inside his feet he has the swollen heads of the metatarsal joints which were deformed by the arthritis and he was walking on that. Also there were painful callouses on the soles.
Question: So that is what you call "painful toes"?
Response: Right. Actually it is there. The pain is from the callouses on the bottoms of the feet that he walks on.
Question: Have you given Med.?
Response: He has been given Med. with no effect. (Laughter)
Response: At this point, because of the suppressed anger episode, I gave him Staph.
He had a slight decrease in his stiffness and soreness for two and a half weeks after the Staph., but then it came back. He says that he feels a little better now. He has itching in the lateral side of his left ankle. He has applied Cortisone to this all along.
George: Cortisone?
Response: Yes, he was applying that to the skin of the ankle. This was being put on an eruption of the skin of the left ankle. His blood pressure was 120/100 and I checked the blood count. The haematocrit was 66.9.
George: That is hyperemic.
Response: Very much so. And the blood pressure is 194?
Response: Well, it is 170 at this point.
George: He will have another heart attack.
Question: He is a smoker since?
Response: Heavy smoker, yes.
Continuing: So at this point I talked to his wife. I made an appointment for his wife to come and see me because I was not getting the full case from the man. She said that he loved flying, but unknown to her at the time that he was flying, he was frightened (underlined three times), each time he flew a plane. He said that the myocardiac infarct was a good excuse to quit. His gambling was a way of buying friends. He had not gambled since 1962. He was the only survivor of a 15 man crew in an airplane crash in a hurricane in 1942. As a pilot, he had had two accidents as a commercial pilot. She said that he also lacked self confidence (underlined twice). He had great empathy and he does volunteer work for St. Vincent's de Paul. He has guilt (underlined once), and, "He does not accept himself as he is. He seems to need to prove himself over and over."
I talked to him again later and he said, "I have never found anything that I am interested in doing. If someone is in need, I will go and help." He is indifferent to socializing. "Fun to me is just drinking wine." "Life is not very exciting." (Underlined three times), too serious (underlined once). Ten years ago he was a happy-go-lucky kind of person. He had a lot of joint pain at that time.
At the time that his joint pain went away, he lost his happiness and became apathetic.
Question: Why did it go away?

Response: I don't know.
Question: That was after the Cortisone?
Response: He had had Cortisone, but that had never helped him.
George: He had Cortisone as a treatment of the rheumatoid arthritis?
Response: For six years. He continued to have pain that whole time.
Continuing: So I gave two other remedies - Lyc. and Aur. - during this period of time, and there was no change. He says that the arthritis clears up after anger (underlined once). In the first six years of his arthritis, the stiffness was much worse at the seashore (underlined three times).
I also tried Nit-ac. without relief. He is impatient (underlined three times). He says that erections were lost during intercourse. He had apathy (underlined three times), he was irritable (underlined twice), and he says he gets involved in other people's problems and he weeps if someone close to him is hurt. He desires salt. "I don't tell anyone my problems", he says, "When people tell me about their aches and pains, I want to turn around and walk away. I am tired of hearing about sick people." He has no sympathy for a complainer (underlined twice). I gave him Nat-m.
So it was still "the same old routine" every time he would come in. He is still very nervous when he is a passenger on an airplane (underlined twice). His marriage is in a rut and he is completely bored. He is restless in bed (underlined twice). He awakes at 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom and then takes an hour to go back to sleep. Sleeping on his abdomen is impossible since his MI (underlined twice).
George: So the case develops now. Do you have more?
Response: A little more until the last part. I am almost finished. He is worse when he becomes heated (underlined twice), and I gave Sulph. 1m, which was followed in two weeks with SEVERE pain in the left shoulder joint which lasted for a day and a half. It was more severe than even the pain he had had with his arthritis. Then he was back "to the same old routine", although maybe the angina was a little worse.
George: You see here that this is a kind of proving for Sulph. He has pain in the left shoulder joint.
Response: To give an idea of the way he would talk, he was speaking disparagingly about his son-in-law. He said, "He is a pin head, with about as much ambition as a door knob." (Laughter) He described his son-in-law as a heathen. It so happens that his son-in-law is Oriental.
The angina is worse in cold, wet weather (underlined twice). He prays morning and evening. He is sighing quite a lot. So I discovered that while he was taking the remedies that I had given him he was using Cortisone cream for his haemorrhoids, and that he had done so for years.
He says he tends to interrupt his children and so they go to their mother with their problems and then he feels left out. He will then go downstairs and drink more wine.
George: So this is the last information that you have?
Response: Yes, I gave him Sulph. last. I gave him Med. in September of 1979, right before he told me that he was still very nervous as a passenger on a plane.
Question: Is praying underlined?
Response: No. I have also given him Ign. I will tell you the remedies which I gave him: Staph., Lyc., Aur., Nit-ac., Nat-m., Med., Sulph., Ign. and then Sulph. again.
Pardon me, there was one more remedy, which I do not have written here. I had a consultation with Lou. K. and he prescribed Kali- bi., but there was no effect.
Question: So he had a deformative arthritis and he was burned out ...
Response: His joints are not deformed. He just has these large synovial cysts and nodules. His hands are covered with these things.
He is a real estate buyer and seller, but there has not been anything happening in his life in real estate for a couple of years. He owns some land which he is sitting on. Every day he gets up late in the morning, then goes out and drives around to visit friends, and then he will go to the tavern for a few glasses of wine, buys a couple of bottles of wine and takes them home. Then he drinks those and goes to bed. That is every day.
George: A bottle of wine every day?
Response: At least one and usually two every day, yes.
Question: How much other family does he have?
Response: His wife. His son is living in a trailer mobile home in his backyard. He made money in real estate and has some things happening for him regarding money.
George: When he says he is a serious person, does he look to you to be serious?
Response: His wife said that.
Response: I don't think that he is overly serious, but there is not an awful lot of emotion that he can display at all.
George: Would you say that it is a person who is conservative in the way he dresses and so forth?
Response: Oh yes, he has a white belt. That is what real estate people always wear.
George: How was his desire for sex before?
Response: I don't have that information. When he started losing his erections during intercourse he and his wife had a falling out sexually. (Laughter)
The MI was three months before his arthritis symptoms began. The MI came first and during a time when he had a lot of anger.
Question: So it was not a matter of the arthritis being suppressed into the heart?
Response: No, it is the other way around.
Question: Doesn't that wreck our theory?
George: No, it was relieving the heart by having less reaction.
Question: The body trying to cure itself?
George: Yes, it was a curative action of the body which took away from the center of gravity of the disease. It took it away into the joints. Because some of the angina stayed. He was in a very precarious state because of the blood and the kind of vessels he has.
Question: Does he have a lot of dyspnoea?
Answer: No, not a lot. He can walk a couple of blocks.
Response: That can't be secondary polycythaemia.
Question: Couldn't the Cortisone cream which he was using have kept the other remedies from working?
George: Yes, but it should have a kind of reaction for at least one or two days.
Response: There were reactions both from the Staph. and the Sulph.
George: No, I mean aggravations. You see, a curative action in that case would go immediately aggravating the haemorrhoids. He still uses steriods?
Response: No, he has stopped the Cortisone now.
George: And the haemorrhoids are not bothering him?
Response: Intermittently, but they do not bother much now. They were bothering him a lot when I talked to him in May. There was a lot of itching which was worse at night.
George: The way that I see this case pathologically with that type of blood and with this high blood pressure, with angina already there, the haemorrhoids are an outlet. This is a very sensitive place to touch. Put Cortisone on there, and you will have another one. So why he doesn't have another one, in spite of using Cortisone, is because of the disease going into the joints and also going into the emotional level because of the flatness and boredom which he talks about. It makes him flat.
So we have to be very careful in prescribing for that man. If I had seen him from the beginning and had all of this information, I would have considered Med., but I wouldn't have given it. I would be afraid of going too deep and disturbing the body too much.
I think that this case is one that will not give us the deep remedy and perhaps we should not go searching for a deep remedy because there is so much possibility of damaging his heart or the brain.
I would like to know the condition of the arteries. I would have an opthalmologist look at his eyes to determine the condition of the arteries. I believe that he has arteriosclerosis.
Response: If I remember correctly, in my actual records I have done that and there were moderate arterial changes.
George: Oh, you looked?
Response: Yes.
Question: When did you find his hematocrit?
Response: 1967. That was about the second visit, but I have checked it since then.
Question: Did he ever know that it was high before?
George: He looks very solid.
Question: Is he overweight?
Answer: He is not thin, but fairly thin.
Question: But his face is red?
Response: Yes.
Question: George. A lot of his symptoms fit Aloe. It is worse with heat and desires salt. They are beer drinkers and they have joint pains and they feel bad about themselves - their image. And haemorrhoids too.
Response: "They are weary people, beer drinkers, dissatisfied and angry with themselves. They usually have low back pain."
Question: How did you come up with that?

Response: I started with the desire for salt and followed it with the fact that he is so hot.
Continuing: The guy said that I am his last hope. He has tried all the quacks there are.
George: I would like to think more about it. There are several possibilities. One is Ph-ac. and Asc. Ph-ac. is light and it is going to touch him a little bit.
Question: I asked that Question in class the other day - about a history of physical disease and then the patient changing into the Ph-ac. state where the emotional level has been affected. For them the natural progression was to Ph-ac.
George: It might be that being thrown out of the army produced this indifference.
Response: He has had a lot of little griefs.
George: If he was not worse with heat, I would have given Sep. Kali-i. should also be considered.
Digression on how to study the remedies: Sep.
George: I will try to give you the idea of how you study the remedies in the materia medica and things that are important to remember.
From my observation in seeing how you deal with cases, I have noticed that there are certain aspects of Sep. which are not clear yet. And I would like to say that perhaps we have not talked about the whole thing. We may never be able to talk about the whole thing, but anyhow ...
I would like to be able to talk about an aspect of Sep. which is the first stage of Sep. - let's say when the person developed first into a young girl or a young boy. YOU WILL NOT SEE THE SEP. WHICH WE HAVE DESCRIBED SO FAR IN THESE YOUNG PEOPLE. YOU WILL SEE EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE. You will see that they are over-excitable and nervous, thin and pale children. They are bothered by noises. They are bothered by quarrels, much more so than their age would justify. They are little girls and they will look almost like Phos. They are very active and usually you will find a tendency in them to want to dance. They have a talent and flair for dancing. It seems that dancing expressed that extra excitability which is there and makes them more quiet and balanced. They tend to be apart from the other children and they tend to go by themselves and enjoy that. They do not need actual social company though they do not like to be by themselves. They are like the Lyc. in that respect. They want people around as long as they do not have to have personal contact and as long as you don't talk to them personally. There are people who say that they feel okay in a group as long as they are not confronted on a personal level. They have inside them the idea of being a "loner".
Question: Is this the same as in Lyc. where they want to be in a room alone, but with somebody in the next room?

George: Yes, but this is for another reason. In Lyc. they want to do that because they are afraid. They have a kind of fear and where they come together is with the fear of ghosts that they both have. As we advance in seeing Sep., we will see that it is very sensitive. They feel easily hurt in case something goes wrong. They are excitable to the extent that they may fear ghosts and things. The children may say, "I don't want to go into the next room alone because I feel the presence of something". They may express it with the words ghosts or spirits, or whatever.
Later on, the same symptom will be seen in the grown-ups, especially those who have been quite weak in vitality. They go into a state of mind which is very dull. The books say dull and stupid, but it is not dull. It is a state of mind where the mind does not work quickly. But at the same time there is this sensitiveness and there is a kind of mediumship which eventually develops. You know how the mediums look? Their eyes are a bit far away. They have that kind of a look. There is an air of spiritualism in them - in Sep.
When they go away from that exciteable state into a state of more progress towards Sep., they will be like ... you see, when one is very quiet in his mind - because the mind does not work fast in Sep. - they have the look of being burnt out. This state is very sensitive to other people's feelings and thoughts. And because of that state they are able to understand the feelings and thoughts of others and be affected by them. So if you progress with this idea, you will see finally a medium there. A medium, who understands how you feel and think, how others think and feel, and so on, not because they have developed a specific talent for that, but because the sensitivity of their organism brings them to that state and that is not dullness or stupidness. It is something else.
From their physique you always have the feeling that they are going to be a sensitive person. They are not stout or fat usually. They are lean and they give the impression of being fragile. So when you say stupid and dull and things like that, we say it is for a different remedy. You have an entirely different understanding for each one of them.
So the first is the exciteable state in which they have a lot of sexual energy and appetite. And during that state they will act on that sexual appetite, not promiscuously. In order to have a relationship, they have to have a kind of deep relationship. So if a man or woman gives you his case, 21 or 22 years old, and they are excitable and they want sex, but they want a different relationship which will not hurt them. They cannot understand a relationship which is superficial, such as a Lyc. You see how you go away on the one time where it touches Lyc. because it is spirit-like and there is fear of ghosts and spirits and the presence of spirits which they feel, like Lyc., but yet on the other hand they will go entirely away from Lyc. In the repertory it says they are better when alone. They will tell you that from their headaches and pains, but mainly they will give you that symptom on their mental and emotional level symptomatology. Their mental and emotional level is in peace when they are alone. Why ? They are sensitive and when they get all of this impact from the people, it will tire them, especially when they have personal transactions. That which is excitable in the beginning is eventually going to break down and we will have the opposite state in all directions.
So it is the same with the Sep. And that which is excitable is very refined in the love element. They are not ... and that is a very prominent symptom because Sep. acts mostly on the hormonal system which is connected with sex. So what they want is a relationship which is deep and harmonious. Why do they seek that? Because they do not have the energy, the power, or the strength in their emotional level to communicate on a level which is superficial. You have to have a superficial heaviness... you have to have a person who is quite insensitive or insensitive to a certain extent, to have a superficial relationship without being hurt.

And so Sep. has very much love, but it is a quite refined love. The affections are strong and stronger than other remedies. You see now the idea for Sep. thus far is falling apart in the younger ages, although it can be a man of 40 or a woman of 40 who has remained as a child. They have remained with that attitude of mind and spirit. We are not talking about the real age. We are talking about an experience and a state of affection which is young and inexperienced. And of course that state of affection is a much more healthy state than that in which they go eventually after crashes. And what brings about a Sep. state mostly?
Response: They are overwhelmed by the demands.
George: Yes, but it starts at the physical level from abortions.
Response: Abortions? And hormonal imbalances.
George: Yes, And what is an abortion? You discontinue the hormonal patterns and the organism cannot find its rhythm again. Therefore you will see after an abortion that the woman immediately loses sexual urges and drives and she even goes into the opposite where she will have an aversion to sex. She does not want to be involved with it. Many times you will see the woman has become almost flat - chested. This can be within 24 hours. Or within 3-4 days you will see this tremendous hormonal change taking place and the woman becomes wiped-out from all energy and suddenly she has become irritable and she does not want to see anybody. She wants to stay by herself all of the time and she is without appetite. She is nauseated. Everything has gone wrong.
Now what is another state in which Sep. also is very prominent?
Response: During pregnancy.
George: During pregnancy. You will see the nausea and the aversion to sex, the feeling of isolation which comes about during pregnancy where the hormonal system also has not been able to regulate itself. You will see the same phenomena or rather similar phenomena. Then you will see the nausea, the same as in pregnancy especially in the mornings, coupled with an aversion to sex. One more keynote will be leucorrhoea. Leucorrhoea during pregnancy, coupled with nausea in the morning and aversion to any sexual contact is only Sep.
So this is on the physical level and these are the usual causes which can bring about a Sep. state. Now on the emotional level we have distresses on emotional problems. The Sep., because of our society, will tend to form relationships. They will remain apart and say that it is not good for them. They withstand all the pressure, but the society or the family will wonder what is wrong with the person because she does not have a boy-friend, etc. And there is a pressure. Then she goes into a relationship without feeling anything. The woman can act without feeling anything.
Okay, so they are less protected than men. You will hear a Sep. story where the girl will say, "I never felt anything in the sexual intercourse." This is usual. Why? Because she was pressed by society and circumstances to go into relationship in which the circumstances were not ideal for her.

That means that she did not have the right person, but she was pressed and all appetite and sexual desire were lost. The trauma of the experience with Sep. becomes powerful and she cannot overcome it. It becomes the background theme in Sep. after that. That is how the Sep. has developed. So there is actually a weakness on the emotional level and especially of the affections. There is a weakness of the affections which is easily hurt and going into a stasis. There is a sort of inertia of the affections. There is no power behind the affections and that is when they say, "I do not love my children", and that is the time where the irritability becomes tremendous. If you analyze behind irritability there is a lack of affection. By the warmth of affection we feel connected with others. In Sep. there is no warmth, therefore she feels isolated - not connected. Therefore the outside world is a foreign world. So when anybody makes ANY kind of contact, there is an irritability. Sep. becomes very irritated. You will hear the story: "I love my husband, he is very nice. We have been in love all these years. We have been very much in harmony." After an abortion, will then come the state in which she will say, "I do not feel anything, not only in sex, but in affections." Then the children become so noisy. She cannot really hold herself. The irritability is so great that she cannot control it. And she tells them to shut up. Sep. together with Nux-v. burst out in hitting the children. If you ask them, "Do you feel like taking the child and throwing it out of the window?" They will say, "Exactly". This is the confirmation if they say it themselves. Many times they will say that they really feel like taking the child and throwing it out of the window. This is a state where they have lost their emotions. Their affections are nil. And when we come to the mind, what are the cases which bring about a Sep. state?
I have met a lot of Sep. people who have been going from one spiritual practice to the other. And they have tried every kind of spiritual practice. What they have been able to do is to subdue the emotions. Usually in spiritual practices they - the gurus - say detachment is the important thing. So sublimation and detachment. For Sep. it is very nice and they can do it easily. They sublimate and kill their emotions easily because there is already a weakness on the emotional level, and the weakness which exists on the physical level in regard to the sexual urge. You see this weakness and there is no power - animalistic power - in sex. They have refined ideas about sex. It is not this instinctive power which usually drives a person.
Question: In the days before abortion, there were not the same causes. How do you explain that?
George: Yes, but another cause can be that while the woman ...
Question: Could it come from birth control pills?
George: Yes, and from cutting down the lactation of milk abruptly. The child may die and the milk dries up.
You go and have an experience in life and if it is a positive one you will integrate and then another level will show up as the remedy. Or if the experience is negative it can lead you to a destructive kind of life. Neither can we avoid negative experiences, through drugging, whether homoeopathic or other.
Neither must you expect that you will change the characteristics of a person because every personality is unique. Even if you wanted to you could not save every personality. You have a very nice vase - ancient Greek. You drop it and it falls to pieces. Now you want to put every piece in its place. It takes all of the pieces to make the vase whole. This is the function of every piece. There is going to be a whole there when you are finished. In every work which we do as a group, as a family, as a nation, everyone has his own function which is absolutely unique. You cannot say that I am the teacher and you are the student and therefore I am greater. Forget it! I am not great and I have said it many times. I don't feel it towards you and many of you of course do not feel this way. But sometimes the idea will come to our mind, "You can do things which I cannot do. And if you were not there to do those things, we could not do the whole thing altogether." This is a great thing if we manage finally to do that which is whole and complete. So everyone has his own personality. To say why this man is so closed or this one is so open. He is so open because he must be because he was created like that. The other one if he is open like that, he would not stay and study for 12 hours a day. He would go out with a woman and do this and that. He would disperse his energies. He should be closed then in order to sit and work for hours and do the job. But I believe as healers that we want to be. Our job is doing what we are doing and no more or less. So let's continue with Sep.
Question: I had a Sep. suppressing emotions and becoming sublimated and detached. I became detached with what was going on.
George: The spiritual attitude of the person that goes from one guru to the other and mixes things up. The guru says that you sublimate and detach and eventually a Sep. patient is much more prone to putting into practice what she thinks should be done. Eventually you have a mind which is confused and not able to apply and concentrate. They become dull.
But at the same time they are perceptive. It is perceptive on another level - on an intuitional level. That is why they say that a Sep. can really hurt if they want to.
It is interesting that in order to move the emotions she will hurt exactly those whom she loves the most. She will find by intuition what is the most painful spot for you and she will say it at the right moment. Even though she has been dull in her mind and not able to think clearly, but understanding what is going on in the situation around her, especially with those she is close to. She picks up feelings.
That is why in the books it is described as "spiteful".
Question: What do these people come complaining about? Do they usually come complaining that their mind is not clear?
George: They will complain about the memory and the lack of concentration, and you will notice a kind of spirit-like attitude of the person. When a person's eyes are shining and bright, you have the picture of a clear mind. Then when it becomes more and more withdrawn you will have more and more the picture of a mind which cannot work. So this is where the mind of Sep. belongs and you will get this kind of sensitive person, especially in women, who have been doing spiritual practices for years and then they have that look. Their symptomatology is weak.
Question: You said people who have a spiritual look about them?
George: No. It is not that the people are spiritual. There are people who have been doing practices and have suppressed themselves.
Response: It is a far away look?

George: Yes, it is ethereal, spiritualistic. Far away. They are not present Sep. will be more withdrawn and detached. And that is due to a slowing down process on the mental and the emotional level. And then this process goes towards a stage which is beyond the neutral point. That means in emotions. They go into neutral emotions. They feel indifference and then they keep on going towards a state which is negative. Then the young children become suicidal. The grown-ups also think of suicide. Here also is the same idea in the physical level of the prolapses of the internal organs. Whether it is the stomach or the kidneys or the genitals. There is a prolapse which is painful.
Question: I would like to ask something further about this spiritual look you are talking about. If you have somebody who is going from being a hyper-sensitive person into an actual negative kind of phase, and they are involved in spiritual practices and groups and have an intellectual mind that will indicate that they are not to express negative emotions, and that will come out, so ...
George: Usually the spiritually inclined people will stay in that neutral state which is very close to a really spiritual state. It is a state which is not negative or positive, a state which the yogis call an emptiness of the mind. But emptiness of the mind which is quite good may bring Samadhi; but emptiness of the mind which is not coupled with maturity and the healthiness of the body, may bring about destructive tendencies. In one case the person becomes very whole and in the other case the vase breaks into pieces. It is the responsibility of the spiritual leaders today to know what they are doing. They must know how to handle a Sep. case, a Nat-m. case, or a Phos. case. In a Phos. case, you say detach, and he will do it in moderation. In a Sep. case, tell them to attach and know the feeling of human love first. These are just my ideas and if does not mean that they are correct. This is the way I understand them.
Nobody is perfect and therefore there is disturbance and therefore we are here to help every time we can.
Question: What does he say to the Nat-m.
George: They need contact and expression - the Sep. and Nat-m. That is why they are closed and they go from one state into another. They interchange their states. The loneliness, or the desire to be alone of Sep. and the aversion to company of Nat-m. are the same thing with a little difference in the state. Sep. wants to stay at home alone and feels better. The Nat-m. does not want company. It is not necessarily that he stays in the house. He is antisocial. But without these people we would not have the scientists, the poets, etc.
Question: Are they antisocial or asocial?
George: It is asocial. They are not actively against society. They don't want to destroy society. Caust. wants to destroy society. So we have the prolapse state which is characteristic. Another characteristic of Sep. is the amelioration by violent exertion. It seems that the stasis which has been created in the body starts moving about and creates more the idea of life in Sep. A Sep. will feel that life is lost, does not exist. They may say, "I don't care if I die." There are all the stages and in this mind which is hazy and dull they feel that they may be going insane. And it is in the state of mind that they have fear of presences in the body. A great relief for Sep. is the leucorrhoea. You may have a great leucorrhoea, white, yellow. These are the colours of Sep. This is thick and profuse. And it will be cured by Sep. You have another case where you have stomach trouble or kidney trouble or whatever it is and you give Sep. and produce that, don't give Sep. again to stop the leucorrhoea which came about after you have given Sep. When you have the leucorrhoea person who wants to be treated for that specific condition, you give Sep. But if you bring about the leucorrhoea by relieving the different elements in the body, then don't succumb to the person who says, "Give me a remedy. I now have too much leucorrhoea". The leucorrhoea may last for from 1-6 months or even a year. And unless you have a good picture, don't prescribe it. In this state, they last quite a lot and there is where you will have trouble because they will want to see a gynaecologist. And then they will take Flagyl and this and that. This will destroy the case. Every husband will have ailments from this because the woman has leucorrhoea, even if it is trichomonas. Sep. also has certain symptomatologies which you may confuse with Lach. There is a lump in the throat, and they cannot sleep on the left side because there are palpitations. The person will go back to sleep and then trouble will come. She will wake up in the morning and there are all the troubles. They are very similar to Lach. But where Lach. is plethoric and vital, Sep. is sedate and quiet. You will have a loquacity in Lach. and a taciturnity in Sep.
They will say very few words and will just answer your questions with yes and no. They are silent, taciturn people. And they are unpredictable. Before you reach that stage which is really dull, they will jump from one state to the other. They will be nice and sweet, and will talk and then they will go into a tacitum state where they will not talk and they will be withdrawn and want to stay by themselves. They don't want company. And depending on the shocks they have, finally they will withdraw.
Question: Do you say that they withdraw and stay withdrawn?
George: Yes, they will stay withdrawn. And if you have a case which has stayed in a Sep. state for a long time and they become very grounded and a kind of philosopher. "I believe it is better to be alone". That is a way of life and they integrate it into their way of life. When you see Sep., they will say that life is coming back and they are enjoying life, and they have started going out with friends as they did ten years ago. This means that this state is now a pathology and not the real character of the person. They have warts, especially around the genitalia. Sep. is one of the best remedies for vitiligo.
Question: Does it stop or reverse it?
George: It reverses it, but not always. When you have a vitiligo which has been present for 5-10 years and it is extensive, don't expect to reverse it. But if it is just starting and there are only little white blotches for about a year, you may expect that it will disappear when you give the remedy.
Question: The pigment tends to go from the white spots to the surrounding spots and that makes it appear more white.
Question: One of the books says that Sep. "dreads to be alone".
George: I have not seen that in Sep. There is a state in which they want people around and the state of mind is that they have a kind of fear about ghosts. When that fear comes into a kind of spiritualistic kind of state, then they want people around, but not company. They do not want somebody to talk to. It is similar to Lyc. in that respect.

Question: How does this fit in with the 19th century idea that the woman who works in a damp laundry or someplace like that and becomes tired out and then becomes angry with her children?
George: That is a good point. I don't know who asked that. Kent? The woman used to bend to wash like this. Whatever needs that position of bending forward and putting pressure in the arms, then pressure is put on the inner organs and the tendencies which Sep. has for prolapses is exaggerated. And then they will feel exhausted and have pain. And they have prolapses of the uterus and sometimes there is a dull pain with a feeling that the intestines will fall out. There is a heavy feeling together with pain, as if everything was pulled down. And that is why you will see that the best position for Sep. is to sit cross-legged.
They usually have feeling of a lump in the rectum or in the perineum which is ameliorated by sitting like that and keeping the legs tight. This same tendency of prolapse is depicted also in Sepia's tendency to lose urine. They have to go fast, especially the women, otherwise they will lose a portion of the urine and if they don't, while they are talking with somebody and they have an urgency, they cannot stop the discussion, they have to keep their mind constantly on the sphincter so that they will not lose their urine. So with coughing, laughing, sneezing, they are apt to lose urine.
Somebody brought me such a case and I said Sep. What was that?
Response: It was a lady with constant dribbling. She had pressing pain on bearing down.
George: Sep. is aggravated in the sea. Okay? That is one of the main remedies. The others are Tub., Nat-m., Mag-m., etc. Their condition is aggravated before and during menses and during pregnancy. They are worse with cold.
I forgot to give you more tips about the eruptions - psoriasis.
One of the prominent ailments is lupus erythematodes disseminata. I have seen it as a very fine discolouration of the skin above the nose. There is a fine discolouration of the skin. You will definitely see that it is a different colour. I have seen it only once in a man.
Question: Do you see it in a woman fairly frequently?
George: No.
Response: And all of the books have it. Everybody knows about that, but nobody has ever seen it.
George: I saw it once in a man in my lifetime and it was very slight.
Question: Does Sep. have pains which go up from the vagina and rectum and radiate straight up?
George: No, this will be Ign. mostly.
Question: Do you see the start of Sep. problems with taking birth control pills?
George: No, I have not seen it. Abortions, yes. I said that when you disrupt a pregnancy.
Question: You said that when an infant dies and the milk stops, that there is a disruption.

Question: I have heard people talk about Sep. as some of these women who are very aggressive and emasculating like Woman's Liberation people trying to outdo the men and that sort of thing.
George: Sep. would be that type of woman, but not a masculine sort exactly. She will be thin and flat, and that is not masculine. It is nervous energy and it is because they do not have experience in sex. A Sep. woman may have sex for 30 years and never experience an orgasm one time. Not even once. So you expect that such a woman is tending to be towards the type who would be such suppressed and dominated by men. They just don't want that. What is it for? That is the idea. And therefore they become champions of these kind of situations.
And they are very irritable of course. I told you that they could just throw the children out of the window.
There is another point where you will find Sep. indicated in people who have taken drugs or those who have taken a lot of allopathic drugs and homoeopathic drugs, mostly allopathic drugs. These and recreational drugs will create a mental state which is more or less similar to Sep. Also you will see in the books that Sep. is indicated after antibiotics or whatever drugging has taken place. The case has been mixed up and don't give Sep. just because someone has taken a lot of drugs. It has to have this kind of confusion. There will be weakness, no vital force to go out, no sentiments, no mind which can go fast. Everything has come to a stasis. This is the time when you are justified to give Sep. But not otherwise.
Also when we have disorder in a person. But not always, for it has to have this element behind it. The essence which I described to you has to be here - this kind of spiritualistic, euphemistic look, brought about by many druggings. Then you give Sep. and there is going to be some response. She is going to sleep better and she is going to be a bit better in that, but don't be in a hurry to prescribe another remedy. You have to leave that case for six months, even if you have to give a placebo. Don't go and throw another remedy on top of it. The person has been weak and that is why they were brought into that state. So every other remedy will tend to create confusion again.
It is also said that Sep. will clear up a confused case of malaria. You see, we don't see these cases anymore. I have seen the drug addicts and the people who have taken a lot of drugs and they have brought about this state. They will be very much ameliorated by Sep.
Question: So it was not the malaria, it was the drug used to treat it?
George: Yes, it was the drug used to treat it. It brought about a disorder.
What are the desires?
Responses: Sweets, sours, bitters.
George: Which is the remedy which desires coffee very much? It starts with A ...? Ang. You should have that in mind because sometimes you will get the person who will be in a tremendous catastrophe. They will take a remedy and they will tell you that they have had no effect, but they will drink their coffee. Ang.
Question: Will it stop the craving?
George: Yes, and it will cure the person. It is a remedy which is indicated in rheumatoid arthritic conditions, conditions which affect mostly the cervical region and the joints. It brings about a kind of irritability which is similar to Nux-v. and a kind of dullness which is similar to Cimic.
Response: You are getting in over our heads.
Question: They like vinegar?
George: Very good! They like vinegar, yes. But acids in general such as vinegar and lemon, should be withdrawn from Sep. That information is very good. When we give Sep. to a patient we tell him to stop vinegar and lemon, or anything which is sour. They have to stop it because they are somewhat antidotal to the remedy.
Question: You have seen that?
George: I don't remember because I have been in the process of telling them.
Response: I have never told them to stop and they always stop automatically from the remedy. They just lose the desire. I have noted it many times.
George: I have been a little bit careful with that because it is a pity to have a remedy which is correct but which is not working because they are taking vinegar.
Question: Is that true with allergic things?
George: Desire for vinegar now, which is the remedy?
Response: Hep.
George: For lemon?
Response: Ars. and Benz.
George: Yes, Benz. is a gasolene like you use in the car.
Response: Merc. and Sabad.
Response: Nat-m. and Bell.
George: Bell. had this characteristic - not only of lemon, but the juice. It is very prominent in acute cases. You may differentiate between Bry. and Bell. by that. They will say, "Yes, I want that."
Question: Is that true of other remedies as well? That you should suggest to them that they abstain from ...
Answer: No, with Sulph. we suggest not to take Cham. tea. With Nat-m., not take menthol or peppermint. Mint in general.
Question: Aren't you supposed to stop strawberries with Ox-ac.?
George: No. Kent writes that sometimes his patients were very much allergic to Ox-ac.
Question: With Puls. you should stop fats?
George: Yes. Why? Because you will have reactions. If you have a Puls. case where she can take fat with immunity, most likely after taking Puls. when she eats fat she will have diarrhoea from it.
Question: Not because it antidotes it?

George: That kind of reaction may antidote if the person has diarrhoea for 4-5 days.
Question: What about Arg-n. and sweets?
George: The one that I am REALLY afraid of is coffee. All the others you can't avoid, but there is going to be a time when you will need to know that. You will give the remedy and it will act for a certain period of time. Then there is a relapse and you do not know why. Because of taking one of the things that we were talking about. In Rhus-t., for instance, you may see a relapse because he is taking a cold bath. Or even if he has a bath twice a day, you may see that the remedy does not act. So you have to have all of this in your mind.
Question: Could you antidote your remedy by taking something you are severely allergic to?
George: Yes, I believe so.
Question: Oysters and Lyc.?
George: Yes. I have seen big reactions from oysters. Also with Lyc. if you hear a story that the person has been repeatedly poisoned by oysters, most probably it is going to be a case of Lyc.