Author:
Jan Scholten
Book:
Wadstories 1
Type:
Case 1
Chapter:
Sorbus aucuparia
SORBUS DOMESTICA Closed about love affairs
By Jan Scholten
A 52 years-old-man consults me with complaints of palpitations. His heart beats irregularly and sometimes very fast with a rhythm of 180 beats a minute. The complaints are worse in the evening around 7 till 8 pm when he comes to rest and in the night around 3 and 4 a.m. when he wakes from the palpitations. It’s also worse from lying on his left side. These complaints started some 15 years ago and are becoming gradually more problematic. His cardiologist prescribes him Tambocor, Sotacor, Ritmoferine and Digoxine. The conduction is going to fast he says. He proposes an operation to cut the heart in strips and then knit them together again.
His blood sugar has a slightly too high level. His past history shows an appendectomy 23 years ago and an accident 15 years ago when he fractured his right calcaneus from a fall from 6 meters high. The remainders from this accident are fixed toes and sore pains in his foot, worse from long standing and walking, better raising his foot. When asked about his inner agitation he tells about his business. He started as a mechanical engineer. He invented a special machine and got a patent for it. With that he started a business that grew gradually and now he has 50 employees. So he’s very successful in business, but he feels more like a technician than a manager. One of his managers is
cheating him, charging his company with false bills. He cannot understand that and it gives him much sorrow.
A closed wife
When I ask more deeply about how much this affects him he comes with his other problem which affects him much more. His wife isn’t open with him, doesn’t tell him about her past and what has really happened. She has been married before and has two children from that marriage. She told him that she divorced because her husband was an alcoholic and beat her. She is from Finland and when they are visiting that country and her family, they tell all kinds of other stories, for example that she had many men and even doesn't know who the fathers of her two first children are or that she has been forced sexually and there are stories of incest. But when he asks her about those stories she says that it’s not his concern, stops talking about it, starts weeping and goes to bed. This worries him a lot. It’s not that he cannot handle it if such would have been the case, but that she doesn't want to talk about it. He says " When she would say it, it would all be over" and " as husband and wife one should open each others heart for each other, otherwise one isn’t complementing each other". He has the feeling that the relationship misses trust due to the misleading stories of his wife. He feels cheated, being made a fool of. Deep in his heart this gives pain and grief. In other aspects their marriage is good, his wife is caring well for the four children and sexually it’s going well.
Weather: he doesn’t like it when it’s very hot. Time: < 7-8 pm, < 3-4 am. Desires: sweet, chocolate, vegetables, raw food. Aversion and aggravation from shrimps (2), oysters (2), lobster (2). He starts vomiting from them. He dreams about technical problems and finds solutions for them in his dreams. He wakes around 3 am with worries about his wife. In his youth he has been harassed by his peers with words like "dirty German", because his mother was German. But she came from the Baltic countries and had suffered herself in Russian concentration camps. From these experiences he developed an attitude of proving himself: "I’ll show them what I’m able to do". This attitude led him to start his own business. His expression is serious and worried. He has a bit of a sloppy outlook and keeps his coat on during the consultation.
Analysis
The main physical complaint is the palpitation. The main psychological complaint is that his wife is closed. These go together. The heart is symbol of love. He expresses it himself with "deep in my heart this gives pain and grief". In the mineral kingdom this leads to the sulphuricums, which fit his outlook and being an inventor. But there isn’t a sulphuricum that fits well with his love problem. I thought about Natrium sulphuricum, because of the taciturnity and his wife being closed. But with Nat-s one would expect him to give up and retire himself.
Repertorisation doesn’t lead to a clear remedy. Nowhere in homeopathic literature such a problem as he had with his wife is mentioned. So for me this was a case where I applied the rule "in an unknown case, prescribe an unknown remedy". I knew the plant family of the roses, the Rosaceae, to have much love problems.
The rose is a big symbol for love in our culture. And as a consequence Rosaceae have many heart problems as is known for Crataegus, Laurocerasus, Prunus spinosa and others. But which one to give?
Sometimes differentiation is possible with fruit desires and aversion. But he had no special relations to the many fruits out of the rose family: peach, prune, apple, pear, strawberry or blackberry. So these remedies didn’t fit well. I first chose Spiraea ulmaria which didn’t do anything and then Sorbus domestica.
Reaction
The first prescription Spiraea ulmaria didn’t have any real effect. One month after Sorbus domestica MK he feels better, his palpitations are less frequent and less violent. He fells less stress and is able to tolerate the pressure of his work, without feeling hurried. Three months later and after three repetitions of the Sorbus domestica he feels much better. The palpitations diminished for more than 50%. The relation with his wife is better. His wife is still as closed as before, but he is able to let it be instead of worrying about it. Sometimes the worries come back in his dreams. One night he had palpitations after a dream that his wife betrayed him with another man. In general he’s less busy with the past and so he’s less agitated. He sleeps much better, doesn’t wake at 3 am so often anymore.
Sorbus domestica
This remedy isn’t known in our Materia Medica, as is the case with many plants of the rose family, the Rosaceae. The English name is rowan tree or mountain ash tree. It’s a tree or shrub that produces a lot of orange berries in autumn. Sorbus has the same love problems as the other Rosaceae. And problems with the heart and blood vessels. The special symptom is he can’t stand his wife being closed. Behind this is a fear of being betrayed.
I once presented this case in a seminar where there was a homeopath married to a husband from Finland. She said that people from Finland have the tendency to tell nothing about other love affairs. In general they are quite closed, but with love affairs this is even more extreme. And Sorbus is a very common tree in Finland. They make syrup from the berries, cautiously caring that poisonous seeds are separated from the berries. This syrup is often eaten with meat. In Finland Sorbus also has a connection with love. Near the coast is an island that’s full of the rowan tree and is called "Rowan Tree Island". Love couples go to the island for their love affairs. So the theme of taciturnity and love affairs is connected with the tree culturally in Finland.
It’s difficult to say which symptoms are real keynotes for Sorbus from only one case. But in a good case like this, many modalities and symptoms are keynotes for the remedy: a remedy can only cure what it can produce in a proving. So my ideas about symptoms are as follows:
Palpitations, fast pulse, < lying left side, Weather: < too hot. Time: < 3 am (2), < 7 pm