Author:
Jan Scholten
Book:
Wonderful Plants
Type:
Remedy
Chapter:
642.13.14
642.13.14 Helleborus niger
English: Snow-rose; Black Hellebore; Christmas rose.
French: Hellebore noir; Rose de Noel.
Culture: daughters of Proetus, king of Ephyra, saved from insanity by Melampus; protection against evil influences, to purify and bless the cattle, in the British Isles; Celts in Ireland smeared their arrowheads with Helleborus extract.
Introduction
The biggest fear is of being rejected, of losing one’s family as a child. They have the feeling that that the safety of the family is threatened but they cannot do anything about it. They feel powerless and can only avoid the problems, hoping they will pass. They have seen and heard things that they would have been better off not having seen or heard. They fear that if they tell what they have seen the family will be destroyed, that their parents will send them away and will not want to have anything to do with them anymore. So the best thing they can do is deny what they have seen and heard. But that is almost impossible and in stress situations it comes back. They will try to deny it. The shaking of their head is an expression of their saying “no, no”.
An example is of a woman who had been sexually abused as a child and threatened that if she told her parents, they would abandon her; when she went into labour of her own child she got into big trouble, being absent-minded, having a very difficult labour and shaking her head.
Another example is of a woman who could not trust her observations and intuition anymore when her husband denied his adultery.
Alone
They fear being left alone when they do something. They feel powerless. They fear that if they do something it will be wrong and they will be left alone. So they suppress their unpleasant and inappropriate experiences. This can happen for instance after sexual abuse or incest.
Stupefaction
They can make all kinds of automatic movements, waving with their head or hands. This can happen after a stroke or during labour. They can be foggy, absent, difficult to reach. They are in their own world and will not talk or answer.
Mind
Love is turned into religious insanity.
Stupor, dull, senses dull, lost, stupid, slow of perception.
Apathetic, doing nothing, saying nothing, staring; idiocy; indifference, to loved ones, to pleasures; no desire, no will.
Senses good, cannot trust their own senses, nothing is perceived.
Forgetful.
Gloomy, melancholy, woeful, despairing, silent, with anguish, < puberty, < menses absent.
Unconscious; stupid; answers slowly when questioned; a picture of acute idiocy.
Envious seeing others happy.
Hysterical mania from self accusation.
Irritable, < consolation, does not want to be disturbed.
Homesick.
Alcoholism, vagabond; tramp.
Delusion: cannot walk, must run or hop; has done wrong; helpless.
Cri encephalique.
Genera.
Sensation: sinking.
Weather: cold body, limbs.
Sweat: cold.
Time: < 4 to 8 pm.
Desire: cold water.
Aversion: vegetables, meat, sauerkraut.
Sleep: soporous; sudden screams, shrieks, startling; light, not refreshing.
Physical: < motion, exertion; < uncovering; < stooping.
Body
Energy: weakly, delicate, psoric children; dropsy, brain, chest, abdomen, < scarlatina, < intermittent, < suppressed urine exanthemata.
Fever.
Infection: scarlatina; tetanus, tuberculosis.
Nervous: convulsions, epilepsy, > noise; coma; paralysis, one-sided; stroke, apoplexy; automatic motions, chewing, arms, picking lips bedclothes, boring into his nose, < sleep.
Head: headache, stupefying, < injury, < stooping; concussion; brain disorders, < dentition; meningitis; hydrocephalus.
Electric shock passes through brain before spasms.
Eyes: turn upwards, squinting; vacant look, thoughtless staring; eyes wide open; insensible to light; pupils dilated, contracted; night-blindness.
Face: pale, cold, sunken, oedema; red hot; cold; forehead is wrinkled; neuralgia, left side, < chewing.
Nose: suffocating constriction; nostrils, sooty, dry, dilated.
Mouth: aphthae; taste lost; lips dry, cracked; grinding teeth; toothache, shooting, tearing, < cold, < heat, < night; dry, yellow tongue, red edges; breath horribly offensive; bitter taste in the throat, < eating.
Throat: suffocating constriction.
Lungs: sighing respiration; cough, dry, < night, < smoking.
Heart: palpitations; pulse faint, imperceptible.
Chest: pain under left nipple, pains all over her, forced her menses on, had to get up at night to pass water.
Stomach: nausea, with excessive hunger; vomiting, greenish-black; colic.
Abdomen: pain, gurgling; distended.
Rectum: diarrhoea, typhoid, < hydrocephalus, < dentition, < pregnancy; cholera; stools, loose, watery, frequent, clear, tenacious, colourless, mucus, white, white jelly like mucus, involuntary, like frog-spawn; pain burning, hot, smarting, < stool; powerless.
Urinary: cystitis; urine albumen, suppressed, scanty, red, black, dark, coffee-grounds sediment; kidneys, congestion, nephritis.
Male: hydrocele.
Female: amenorrhoea; menses suppressed, < disappointed love.
Back: pain gnawing, obtuse lancinations, spine; neck rigid; hernia.
Limbs: heavy, painful; thumb drawn into palm; legs drawn up.
Skin: pale, dropsical, itching; ulcers; wounds; oedema of legs.