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Rhus toxicodendron (Rhus‑t.)

Rhus toxicodendron (Rhus‑t.) appears in 1,201 rubrics in the repertory. Forty-seven of them are single-remedy rubrics, listing only this remedy, and 66 are small rubrics with at most two other remedies. The emphases lie in delusions (99), anxiety (82), children, fear, and sadness, as well as restlessness, delirium, thoughts, and memory. From these emerges the picture of a person who at night and in bed is driven by anxiety, abandonment, and threat, cannot rest, finds relief in motion and fresh air, and imagines himself alone in a dead, silent world.

King-Pin Symptom

The repertory records a king-pin symptom for this remedy: fear associated with superstition. It means an uneasy feeling at the thought of something specific, without any logical reason for it. The element of fear and that of superstition must both be present and dominant at the same time. All further rubrics on anxiety, delusions, and night terrors can be read in this light: as fear aimed at an indefinite, unfounded calamity.

The Bed as a Place of Anxiety

Strikingly many rubrics attach to the bed and the night. Single-remedy rubrics describe the delusion that someone is driving the person out of bed or something is pushing her out, anxiety on rising from bed, stupefaction on rising, and falling backward when getting out of bed. Added to this are small rubrics: fear of not being able to lie in bed at night, evening morosity in bed, screaming in sleep, jumping out of bed calling for help, picking at the bedclothes in delirium. Cursing in sleep, playing of the fingers in sleep (also in children), and starting in the forenoon are also single-remedy rubrics. Anxiety increases after midnight and after three o'clock, where unpleasant thoughts and dwelling on past unpleasant events are recorded. Whoever lies in bed remains at the mercy of the restlessness.

Abandonment and Deathly Silence

A second core theme is being alone. Recorded are anxiety about being alone, with the feeling that everything around is dead and still; likewise the delusion that everything is deathly still and the person alone. Alongside stand delusions of having said farewell to a close friend and of being abandoned by a friend, and the anxiety as if the friend had left the person. The rubrics on abandonment ameliorate in the open air. At the same time there is aversion to company with weeping and indifference to company. The feeling of being excluded is supported by everyone looking at and staring at the person. The world appears emptied and at the same time observing.

Delusions of Motion and Persecution

Among the delusions are images of motion: the surroundings whirl around with the person, she is held up while sitting, falls backward or forward, she roams about, especially in fields. A single-remedy rubric describes the delirium of rushing or working hard in fields, another the feeling of having to climb mountains. The feeling of working is also confirmed in smaller rubrics. The threat is concrete: recorded are fear of killing someone, and fear of death, accompanied by loss of strength, vertigo, or bent-over sitting. Also recorded is the feeling that the person cannot straighten up after stooping. The delusions are close to the body and describe movements that do not succeed.

Restlessness and Liberation by Motion

Restlessness is a leitmotif. Recorded are restlessness of the hands by day and in sleep, playing with the hands, restlessness in childbed with lochia and retained placenta, in pneumonia, and with stupefaction. A single-remedy rubric records that the restlessness ends in raving. At the same time there is an unusually clear amelioration by motion: liberation in the open air and by motion, stupefaction and dullness ameliorate by motion, irritability ameliorates when walking in the open air, and rising improves the state. By contrast, the person is irritable and sad indoors, as the small rubrics show. The feeling of being blocked stands opposed to this, as does the lack of a way out. Motion is here the antidote to the inner blockade.

Sadness, Thoughts, and Memory

The sadness relates to thinking: anxiety when thinking of sad things is a single-remedy rubric, as are fear when thinking of sad things and aggravation from sad thoughts. Suicidal disposition at twilight in the evening, fear at twilight, and fault-finding in the evening are recorded. Memory is changeable: good, active memory alternates with dullness, and forgetfulness appears when walking after eating and after nosebleed. Thoughts vanish when turning the head and when standing. Periodic aphonia is attributed to singers. The mind is also interwoven with rheumatic pains: irritability with rheumatic pains, mental symptoms with rheumatism and with toothache.

Driving and Working

A certain compulsion belongs to the dynamic: the feeling of having to work, driving others, and the absence of evasion are recorded. A single-remedy rubric records that the answer is slow but correct. The picture emerges of a conscientious, unyielding person who allows himself no rest.

Summary

Rhus toxicodendron appears in the repertory as a remedy of nocturnal anxiety and inner restlessness. The king-pin symptom, fear with superstition, fits the images of abandonment, deathly silence, and threat that break out above all in bed and after midnight. Opposed to this stands the relief by motion and free air: whoever stirs finds liberation, whoever lies down or stays indoors remains abandoned to the anxiety.

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