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Arsenicum album (Ars.)

Arsenicum album (Ars.) appears in 2,872 rubrics in the Repertorium. Of these, 224 are single rubrics in which only this remedy is listed, and 312 are small rubrics with at most two other remedies. The emphasis is on Anxiety, Delusions, Fear and Restlessness, and also on the rubrics for Children, Suicidal disposition and Unconsciousness. From them results the picture of a person who secures himself through order, precision and foresight against a threat he suspects everywhere, and who falls apart into anxiety, restlessness and despair as soon as this security fails.

Order at the center

The core lies in order. The king-pin symptom reads: "Rest – cannot rest (repose) when things are not in the right place". The source's note sums it up thus: things do not seem in order to the patient, and they must be as he imagines them; there is no rest until order is restored, and, with regard to illness, not until he is cured or the illness is under control. Around this center is grouped a large number of single rubrics: Prussian and military order, the need for everything to stand in rank and file, impeccability, precision, pronounced awareness of quality, overcorrectness and overorganization, mathematical manner of expression and even the need for marching in step. The pattern repeats itself in children too: the rules of the game must be observed exactly. Disorder, conversely, acts as a threat: recorded are fear of chaos, sensitivity to confusion and the feeling of being threatened by chaos.

Severity, duty and rank

What is order inwardly shows itself outwardly as severity. The rubrics name a rigid, stiff and strict bearing, a strict conduct of life and belief in a strict God. Duty belongs to severity: the person acts from a sense of duty, applies the greatest effort to the fulfillment of his tasks and has the feeling of having to work constantly. A single rubric records the reverse side: "Work – substitute for feelings and relationships, as". The goals are set high, in part unattainable; whoever misses them reproaches himself for not having achieved enough. At the same time the person ranks himself. He is aristocratic, elitist, sees himself as something better, but fears having to give or obey orders and is submissive toward authorities.

Property, security and contamination

Whoever has so much to preserve worries about possessions. The rubrics record anxiety about possessions, fear of losing achievements, the need for absolute security and many security precautions. The Delusions place the danger before the eyes: thieves lurking under the bed at night, a bed full of vermin and worms, people in the house planning an attempt on his life, the fear of being poisoned. The threat is conceived materially, as contamination, pathogen or parasite. A single rubric even names fear of living things; another fear of chance, of the event that cannot be planned for.

Health and death

The same worry is directed at one's own body. The person thinks constantly of his complaints, talks about his health, reports diagnoses, changes practitioners and demands that the practitioner heal him at once. Being alone aggravates the hypochondriacal anxiety. Fear of death has many forms, from the nocturnal time window between one and two o'clock to dyspnea with restlessness, and it can devalue healing itself: "Fear – death, of – medicines, therefore it is useless to take". Where despair gains the upper hand, the rubrics report suicidal disposition, by hanging, by jumping from the window out of fear, by stabbing the heart; among the delusions appear people who have hanged themselves. Death can also be experienced as deliverance.

Restlessness and alternation of states

Behind the self-control lies unrest. The restlessness is anxious, drives the person to some activity, throws him about in bed or makes him roll on the floor; the anguish finds no rest in any place. It occurs in asthma, pneumonia and edema and alternates with weakness, with unconsciousness or with drowsiness and stupor in fever. Mental states likewise alternate: indifference with despair, irritability and hatred with despair, indignation with mildness. Discouragement and discomfort occur in chill, and the delirium becomes refractory and unmanageable.

Sharpness toward others

The severity is also directed against others. The rubrics record laughing at the faults of others, joy at the misfortune of others, a strong need to correct, fault-finding, a tendency to tattle and the impulse to poison or kill someone. Corresponding to this, the person evaluates himself. A single rubric names "weeding out", another harassing; one can read in it an order that will not tolerate what does not fit.

Children

The rubrics for Children are numerous. They show the small person already marked by the state: he always has something to do, keeps strictly to the rules of the game, is full of fear for safety, works himself up to panic and despair, and in difficult teething can be calmed only if carried quickly.

Summary

Arsenicum album appears in the Repertorium as a remedy of safeguarding. The person holds the world together through order, severity and foresight and, when a piece of it breaks, loses his footing in fear and restlessness. The hardness toward oneself and others, the worry about property and health and the fear of death and chaos appear as parts of the same effort to leave nothing to chance.

A reference work for professionals; it does not replace diagnosis or treatment.