Repertory › Remedies in the repertory

Veratrum album (Verat.)

Veratrum album (Verat.) appears in 1,803 rubrics in the Repertory. Of these, 106 are single-remedy rubrics in which only this remedy is listed, and 118 are small rubrics with at most two other remedies. The emphasis lies on Delusions, Delirium, Insanity, Mania, Anxiety and religious affections; the share of rubrics concerning Children is also large. The picture that emerges is of a person whose excitement knows no measure: restless, loud and destructive, with religious and social grandiose ideas, and yet undermined by an anxiety that expresses itself physically. No King-Pin symptom is recorded for the remedy.

Delusions of rank and calling

A large part of the Delusions, the broadest area, revolves around exaltation. The person believes herself to be a prince or princess, a person of rank, a hunter, and has the feeling of being called. Haughtiness is listed in its own right, also in its religious form, and it appears in close connection with the cycle and pregnancy, namely before menses and during pregnancy. At the same time there are rubrics of a reckless attitude toward money and rules: squanders money, behaves insolently and disrespectfully in her actions, and behaves childishly. This can be read as self-exaltation that disregards measure and order.

Religious excitement

The religious has its own weight and appears throughout in excess. Listed are constant praying in religious mania, desire to do penance, piety at night, talking about religious subjects and, as a single-remedy rubric, "Preaching – religious, psychotic preaching". With piety the identity wavers: the person believes herself to be Jesus or the Virgin Mary, and a single-remedy rubric gives the delusion "Delusions – God – messenger of God, he/she is a". The exalted is countered by despair. The rubrics record religious despair of salvation, especially with suppressed menses, and the disposition to suicide from religious despair. Excessive occupation with religion causes excitement up to convulsions and, in catalepsy, rigidity. A vow also appears as a burden: the person must keep it, or fears breaking it.

Raving, noise and destruction

Where the excitement discharges, it becomes loud and physical. The mania is noisy, makes much noise and stamps the feet; any noise can trigger a wildness that ends in wild dancing, from which the person can only be held back. The rubrics know continued raving, rage with heat of the body and cursing at night, as well as scolding whenever the person is irritated, and quarreling at night. How far this can go is shown by one rubric: the person drives the family out of the house. In addition there is a destructiveness that discharges on things, on clothing, which is cut up, and on her own skin, which is torn open with the fingernails. Turned inward, the same pattern appears as swallowing feces, as recorded in the single-remedy rubric "Delirium – feces, swallows her/his own", as biting a shoe and swallowing the pieces, and as the delusion of eating dirt.

Compulsive doing

Activities that exhaust themselves in repetition and lead nowhere form a group of their own. The person works aimlessly, does useless things, piles up or tears up objects, and her cutting of paper is so persistent that it is recorded as a single-remedy rubric several times over, including "Gestures, makes – repeats the same actions – cutting paper". In children the same is found as cutting with scissors, continued for hours without tiring. Behind this stands a restlessness that discharges in doing without a goal and is not calmed by it. Walking about and wandering also belong to this field, in mania, in pregnancy, in fits in the evening and at night.

Anxiety, fear and misfortune

The anxiety is richly articulated and yet remains bound to the body. It ends with eructations, it is associated with cold sweat on the forehead, with nausea and vomiting when standing, it prevents breathing and leads to fainting. Some rubrics make stool the scene of fear: the "Fear, phobia – apoplexy, of – stool, during", the fear of an exhausting green stool in a gush, the anguish during stool. The anxiety also follows fixed times, after midnight and after three o'clock, in the evening after the midday meal as anxiety of conscience. Finally it attaches to misfortune: listed are anxiety about impending evil, the feeling that a misfortune is approaching, and the rubric "Inconsolable – misfortune, over imaginary". In its fully developed form the sufferer runs about screaming and bellowing or sits brooding, lamenting and weeping, worse in the evening.

Delirium and delusion

Delirium sets in easily and has many concomitants: coldness, cold sweat, thirst, cough and formication; it may be violent or apathetic and is connected with the puerperium, with the lochia and with convulsions after childbirth. The Delusions reach far beyond the exaltation of rank. The world is on fire, the person is abroad or not in her own house, she has gone too far, she is deaf or mute, and the idea of an incurable disease appears. In dreams robbers come, and on waking the dream is held to be true. The head too is involved, for inwardly it seems to be entirely in motion, and things whirl in circles. These Delusions can be read as the expression of a reality that slips away from the person, in which she falls out of the environment and, as one rubric says, is dissociated from it.

Feigning and pretending

Feigning is a peculiarity of the remedy picture. Simulated are blindness, deafness and pregnancy, and the single-remedy rubric "Simulating – blindness" stands beside the feigned states of deafness and being blind. One delusion pretends to have labor pains, another assumes deaf-mutism combined with cancer. The border between conscious pretense and delusion remains open in the rubrics. Screaming too is listed as a simulated state. This possibly shows a tendency to stage a suffering that does not yet exist in that form.

Silence, sadness and melancholy

The loud side is countered by a silent one. Mania alternates with quietness and silence, the insanity can be mild and quiet, there is stupor with sadness, and the sufferer looks down while walking in the street. Silence recurs at certain points, during cough and in pregnancy, and brooding alternates with screaming. Here too the states arrange themselves into opposites: mania and sadness belong together, and the disposition to suicide is tied to mania, pregnancy and delusion. The alternation appears as a basic trait, not as an exception.

Summary

In the Repertory, Veratrum album sketches a person whose drive knows neither measure nor pause. He calls, cuts, tears and runs, raises himself above others in rank and calling, and falls back into religious despair as soon as the exalted no longer sustains him. Underneath lies an anxiety that becomes tangible in cold sweat and in the body. That feigning and silence stand beside it suggests that the remedy knows not only the loud discharge but also its counterpart: withdrawal into silence and pretense.

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