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Graphites naturalis (Graph.)

Graphites naturalis (Graph.) appears in 940 rubrics in the repertory. Of these, 36 are single-remedy rubrics in which only this remedy is listed, and 67 are small rubrics with at most two other remedies. The emphasis lies on sadness, anxiety and fear, thoughts, cheerfulness, laughing and restlessness, along with moaning, voice and children. Together they yield the picture of a simple, coarse person whose mood swings between cheerfulness and melancholy, who seems unaffected by reproach, and who is plagued by fear, ruminating thoughts and restlessness at night.

Alternation of cheerfulness and melancholy

The point of orientation is the daily course of mood. Cheerfulness in the morning and sadness in the evening follow one another, in several versions: "Sadness – alternating with – cheerfulness – evening", cheerfulness in the forenoon, grief in the evening, grief at night in bed. Irritability also alternates with weeping and with laughing over trifles. The sadness is physically colored: it comes with heaviness in the feet and in the body, with pressure in the chest, and it improves in the forenoon. Despair relates to trifles in a single-remedy rubric, and discouragement to the night and to waking.

Laughing at reproach

A special group of single-remedy rubrics concerns the way criticism is handled. The person laughs when reproached ("Laughing – reproaches, at"), laughs when reprimanded, and laughs when blamed. The rubric on reproaching oneself records that laughter accompanies the reproach ("Reproaches oneself – laughs when one reproaches her/him"). Small rubrics add insolence and a tendency to provoke, which point in the same direction. This can be read as insensitivity or as a defense through cheerfulness.

Simplicity and coarseness

Several rubrics draw the character: coarse, unscrupulous, uncultivated, rude and clumsy, anti-intellectual. A small rubric names "Simple people with a simple mind," another the endurance of a great deal. Consistent with this are the dialect that is suppressed and the desire to learn. Scientific work exhausts. The result is a person who bears strain in body and mind but seeks little mental refinement.

Fear and nocturnal thoughts

Fear and anxiety are recorded at many times of day: fear in the morning, anxiety at two o'clock at night, fear of business, panic and despair in children. The role of eating is striking: fear of suffocation improves while eating ("Fear – suffocation, of – eating amel."), and further fear rubrics improve after eating. The thoughts are persistent, especially before midnight, and improve when walking in the open air. Restlessness increases after midnight and on waking, also with lascivious thoughts and after dreams.

Voice, sounds, smell

The voice shows its own signs. When singing it is intermittent, failing or without resonance ("Voice – resonance, lack of – singing, while"); before and during menses it fails. Organ music aggravates and causes weeping. Noise and sounds, by contrast, ameliorate, while the smell of flowers and of wood is disliked ("Flowers, odor of – aversion to"). Moaning is recorded from weakness and in sleep with frightful dreams.

Children

Among the children rubrics (69), teasing children stands as a single-remedy rubric. The inclination to tease children fits the coarse cheerfulness that runs through the picture.

Summary

Graphites naturalis appears in the repertory as a remedy of a coarse, simple temperament that alternates between cheerfulness in the morning and melancholy in the evening, answers reproach with laughter, and is beset at night by fear and circling thoughts. The body resonates with this: heaviness in the limbs, failure of the voice, and amelioration from eating.

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