Repertory › Remedies in the repertory

Helleborus niger (Hell.)

Helleborus niger (Hell.) appears in 724 rubrics in the repertory. Of these, 30 are single-remedy rubrics in which only this remedy is listed, and 30 are small rubrics with at most two other remedies. The emphasis lies on gestures, sadness, indifference, delusions, stupefaction and imbecility, along with children. The overall picture is that of a person whose perception and mind darken after grief or shock.

The veiled perception

The core lies in dullness. Recorded are indifference in which nothing is noticed or perceived, stupidity in which what is happening is not understood, and stupefaction after disappointed love. A single-remedy rubric states that the sense organs of hearing, taste and sight are not impaired, yet the senses still seem blunted. Reception is thus not defective; it is not processed. Difficulty concentrating goes with the dullness; whoever wants to collect himself rubs the forehead.

Disappointment and sadness

The mental rubrics often tie in with loss: disappointed love, sadness at the time of menarche, melancholy in girls at puberty, grief after typhus fever, typhoid and scarlet fever. Two of these rubrics link lovesickness with amenorrhea. Added to this are self-reproach that can lead to insanity, and the thought of suicide from despair over the loss of mental faculties. The remedy seems to stand where grief sinks inward and slows thinking there.

Helplessness and childishness

Helplessness shows in the feeling of being like a small child, and after vomiting. The child takes up much room in this picture: 65 rubrics, including screaming in sleep in meningitis and melancholy at puberty. Feeble-mindedness occurs with negativism or with screaming when attention is paid to the patient. One can see in it a person who has withdrawn and is disturbed by attention.

Movements of the hands

Gestures are a focus of their own. The hands pick at the bedclothes and at the lips, the thumbs are bent into the palms, the lips are picked until they bleed, the hands grasp at the head. The picture is one of restlessness as consciousness fades. Consistent with this are rubrics on unconsciousness bordering on insensibility, on coma, and on indistinct muttering alternating with sensory apathy and staring gaze.

Mistakes, wrongdoing and escaping

Beside the dullness stand rubrics of failing: the delusion of doing something wrong, the tendency to do things wrong, and lack of self-confidence in the intention to finish. The single-remedy rubric "Escape, attempts to – plunge into the river, tries to" is among the sharpest manifestations. Fear also turns into mania and vice versa, and the mania makes the hands wring day and night.

Summary

In the repertory, Helleborus niger shows a person whose mind is extinguished after grief, fever or injury: he takes in nothing more, loses himself in childlike helplessness, and gropes with his hands where consciousness falls silent. Self-reproach remains as a sting and can turn into despair.

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