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Chamomilla vulgaris (Cham.)

Chamomilla vulgaris (Cham.) appears in 1,580 rubrics in the repertory. Of these, 75 are single-remedy rubrics in which only this remedy is listed, and 158 are small rubrics with no more than two other remedies. The emphasis lies on children (299 rubrics), followed by anger, anxiety, irritability, delusions, ailments from particular causes, restlessness, weeping, and moaning. The picture is of a person who cannot bear pain and interruption, reacts with anger, complaints, and rejection, yet at the same time needs attention and finds calm only when carried or in motion.

The carried child

The picture of the child is unusually detailed. The child is morose and wants to be carried, can be quieted only when carried, is calm only then, and does not cry only then. Among the small rubrics are irritability that demands carrying, sleeplessness that ends only by being carried, melancholy with the wish to be carried, and moaning that falls silent when carried. At the same time there are contradictions: one single-remedy rubric records aversion to being looked at, another calmness only in the arms, a third equanimity when carried. The child becomes stiff and kicks when carried; it refuses caresses, is forward, and throws away toys or anything one gives it. In infants, anxiety of the heart, starting, convulsions in the initial stage, disturbed sleep, and screaming day and night are recorded. The picture is of a child who demands attention and in the same moment rejects it.

Dentition, pain, and moaning

Dentition is an anchor point of its own: recorded are morose mood, starting, fear and anxiety, difficult weeping, the desire to bite everything, and moaning during dentition. Moaning (32 rubrics in all) is a leitmotif: in sleep, with grinding of teeth, in colic, from spasmodic pains in the abdomen, from bad mood or ill humor, in discouragement and restlessness. In children it is a pitiful, miserable whimpering because they do not get what they want. Even old, slight, and long-past offenses are lamented. Pain provokes rage and delirium; stupefaction with pain, anguish in neuralgia, a sullen facial expression, and the tendency to become vexed or to blame others during pain belong to the picture. Pain is not borne quietly but is transformed into voice, gestures, and reproach.

Anger and impatience

Anger (56 rubrics) has many occasions: people coming near, interruption, pain, heat, spasms, becoming stiff with backward bending of the body, attacks of suffocation, menses, and childbirth. One single-remedy rubric records that anger suppresses the milk; another, that the infant vomits milk after nursing if the mother was angry. Intolerance shows toward being spoken to, interruption, and one's own complaints, and in parents also toward the complaints of their children. The impatience demands that the doctor cure at once; the person sends the doctor home and says he is not ill, sends the nurse out of the room, and rejects examination and anything offered with violence. There are rubrics in which the person chases family and food out of the house, curses the mother, and throws food or medicines across the room. Anger and indifference alternate, and catalepsy can follow after anger.

Nagging, rudeness, and dwelling

Alongside the outburst stands chronic irritability. Recorded are dissatisfaction that everything others do is wrong; rudeness; snappish, tart answers; impolite answers, without the person being able to be polite; short, clipped speech. Two single-remedy rubrics describe that the person cannot stop talking about old vexations, and dwelling on past unpleasant events. Added to these are excitement about everything, laughing at reproaches, impudence, and silence from obstinacy and stubbornness. Whoever has been vexed apparently cannot let go of the occasion.

Menses, pregnancy, and childbirth

A closed group of single-remedy rubrics ties the mood to cycle and childbirth. Before the menses stand snappish answers, insulting behavior, obstinacy, and changeability of mood; at the beginning of the menses, quarrelsomeness and morose mood. During labor there occur malice, quarrelsomeness, impatience, rage from pain, hysterical behavior, nervous irritability, and the wish to get out of bed; after the birth the malice continues in the puerperium. In threatened abortion irritability and anguish appear. Also recorded are irritability in pregnancy and grief leading to colic. Puerperal fever too is linked with excitement. The physical events and the mood are closely interwoven.

Anxiety and delusions

The anxiety is colored by the body: anxiety when urinating with urging, as for stool, after nursing, before the wind, and anguish with urging for stool and toothache. Peculiar is the amelioration of anguish after going to bed. Among the delusions are animals under the bed, voices of strangers or absent persons and in vulgar language in sleep, a head going round and round, the wish that obstacles be cleared aside, the idea of holding a council meeting, and vexation about insults. In sleep the person talks about obstacles that have to be removed. Belonging here is the picture of an insanity in which she is motionless as a statue.

Motion and restlessness

Restlessness combines with stomach complaints, anger, and convulsions. Relief comes from tossing about in bed, throwing oneself about, and rapid rocking. Restlessness too is thus a way of discharging tension that needs no words.

Summary

Chamomilla vulgaris appears in the repertory as a remedy of intolerance toward pain, interruption, and being told what to do. Children demand to be carried and at the same time refuse attention; adults send doctors and nurses away and want to be cured at once. Cycle, birth, and dentition appear as times of highest susceptibility. The picture is of a person who suffers and for that very reason is hard to reach.

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