Repertory › Remedies in the repertory

Sabadilla (Sabad.)

Sabadilla officinalis (Sabad.) appears in 404 rubrics in the repertory. Thirty-eight of them are single-remedy rubrics, listing only this remedy, and 35 are small rubrics with at most two other remedies. The emphases lie, with 43 specific rubrics, in delusions, as well as jumping out of bed, thoughts, and insanity. The picture is that of a person who is deceived about the state of his own body and whose mind seems to detach from the body.

The Body as Deception

The core lies in the distorted body image. Listed are the delusion that the body has shrunk like a corpse, dried up, atrophied, and withering, that the abdomen has fallen in, that the stomach is being eaten away or gnawed by an ulcer, that the scrotum is swollen and the chin enlarged. "Delusions – Body – erroneous ideas about the condition of his body" sums up the group. Added to this are fear of a gastric ulcer and the belief of suffering from a fatal disease of the inner throat. A person who experiences his body predominantly as decaying seems to be portrayed here.

Separated from Oneself

A second group detaches the mind from the body. The thoughts are outside the body, they are separated and strange, mind and body are separated, and the person is separated from himself. The persistent thoughts circle around this separation. The brain also seems to turn around, and things revolve around each other, the air trembles, everything is in motion. This can be read as a perception that has lost its firm hold and falls into motion as soon as the eyes close.

Intoxication and Imagination

Several delusions concern intoxication: being drunk, having drunk wine or liqueur, having taken a stimulant. These are deceptions about a state the person ascribes to himself without its existing. Pregnancy is also feigned by flatulence.

Restlessness and Self-Reproach

Restlessness follows from the deception. The person jumps out of bed and runs about, excited or wild, recklessly in the room, and the single-remedy rubric "Jumping – Impulse to jump – runs recklessly and heedlessly, and" stands beside it. A small rubric describes the desire to kill oneself, lacking the courage. Anxious talk about his own condition wakes wife and child. The sadness carries the feeling of being the greatest criminal.

Cold and Worms

Some single-remedy rubrics are unusually precise: washing the head with cold water ameliorates insanity, mania, and raving, head compresses relieve raving, and complaints from worms reach to catalepsy, in the small rubric also to nymphomania. Also belonging here is oversensitiveness to the smell of mice.

Summary

In the repertory, Sabadilla shows a person who perceives his body and himself falsely: as decaying, eaten away, or disfigured, and as separated from his own mind. From this deception springs a restlessness that drives him out of bed and through the room, and a state in which fear and self-reproach may be strong but judgment is not.

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