Germanium metallicumProving: Hans Eberle and Friedrich Ritzer
Translation and adaptation: Alex Leupen
1. Scope of action• Main themes: Numbness, emptiness, menopausal symptoms, headaches, stomach complaints, knee pain, bladder problems, susceptibility to infection.
• Mental and emotional characteristics: Loss of interest, formal behaviour in relationships and family life, feeling stuck in family relationships, gloom and depression.
• Physical complaints: Stomach and intestinal problems, recurrent bladder infections, joint pain (knees), tendency not to fully recover from infections.
2. Main symptoms• Formality and emotional detachment: People operate on autopilot and take on all sorts of obligations (e.g. informal care) without genuine emotional involvement.
• Strong family ties, but with rigidity: Parents, children and (in-laws) live together, support one another but also make mutual recriminations.
• Menopausal symptoms and bladder problems: Hot flushes, burning cystitis that worsens in the cold (e.g. cold feet).
• Knee pain and lingering symptoms after infections: Knee complaints, joint pain, and a tendency towards protracted flu or other infections.
3. Mood / Life situationa) General impression
• Formal, old-fashioned appearance: People dress neatly and rather stiffly; their appearance is somewhat dated.
• Children and young people: They are often tired, have few or no friends, but paradoxically can lead youth groups or other clubs.
• Inner restlessness yet “absent”: Nervous behaviour (fidgeting in the chair), difficult to make genuine contact.
• Lack of awareness of the need to learn: Children from problematic family backgrounds in particular do not feel the need to study or develop themselves.
b) Emotional life and relationships• Emptiness behind a façade: Someone may laugh, but no real connection is possible.
• Formal family relationships: Several generations live close together; there is mutual support but also much frustration over broken promises.
• Heavy focus on the mother’s caregiving: Strong feelings of guilt when one feels they are falling short; a heavy burden due to this care.
• Formal marriages: Sexuality is unsatisfying; the relationship may have been over internally for a long time, yet the couple still live together. Significant stomach complaints due to marital problems.
• Grief: A prolonged grieving process for deceased family members, as if the sadness never ends.
• Problems with neighbours: Fear of neighbours overstepping boundaries, feeling threatened or caught up in power games.
c) Emotional states•
Depression and gloom: Feeling lonely and inferior, withdrawing, worrying a great deal (“others can do everything better”).
• Financial worries: May become obsessively fixated on stock market losses.
• General tension and restlessness: Constantly expects setbacks, which can make one nervous or indecisive.
4. Physical symptomsa) Head
• Headache with minimal exertion or jolts: As if the head is expanding; pressure pain at the temples and forehead.
• Clumsiness: Frequently bumping into objects, possibly due to being lost in thought.
b) Eyes
• Nervous blinking, sensitivity to light, grey/dull vision.
• Desire for brighter light, as everything seems too dark.
c) Nose
• Itching, watery eyes, sinusitis, blocked nose.
• Dry sensation in the nose and throat; sometimes, conversely, a preference for strong smells (perfume).
d) Throat and voice
• Sore throat, often on the left, radiating to the chest.
• Hoarseness and low voice, tendency towards laryngitis.
• Coughing fits with palpitations.
e) Stomach and abdomen
• Pressing stomach pain, nausea, heartburn, feeling of fullness.
• Sometimes increased appetite, even with nausea.
• Recurrent gastritis, positive for bacterial stomach infections, allergy to fish.
• Craving for alcohol (especially beer).
f) Bladder and kidneys
• Constant urge to urinate, worse with cold feet or during the menopause.
• Pain and burning sensation when urinating.
• Greenish or yellowish discharge with a fishy odour.
• Colic-like pain in the kidney region, accompanied by a feeling of overload.
g) Genitals
• In men: Excessive masturbation at a young age, fear of impotence, sex seems strange or unnecessary.
In women: Pain in the pubic region following a fall, indifference to sex, can imagine living without sex. Stabbing or cramp-like pain in the vagina and uterus.
h) Chest / Breathing
Feeling of a “film” over the airways, constant coughing or clearing of the throat to breathe freely.
Shortness of breath and a feeling of pressure on the chest or heart.
i) Limbs
• Pain in the knees and toes (especially the joint of the big toe), also in the fingertips.
• Joint pain with flu-like symptoms.
j) Sleep
• Insomnia between approximately 3:00 and 5:00 am.
• Restless tossing and turning.
k) Skin
• Strong-smelling, sour or musty perspiration, particularly after exertion.
l) General
• Tendency towards flu-like infections (headache, sore throat, fatigue).
• Feeling of cold, weakness, fatigue (also following chemotherapy or surgery).
• Hot flushes with alternating chills during the menopause.
5. IssuesDuring the homeopathic proving, various mental and emotional symptoms emerged:
• Mood swings and self-doubt: Fluctuations between cheerfulness and hopelessness, feeling excluded or, conversely, feeling part of a large ‘family’.
• Relationships: Platonic tendencies, reduced interest in sex, or, conversely, a longing for emotional and physical closeness.
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Family and heritage: Strong emphasis on genealogy, caring for elderly parents, feelings of guilt regarding family obligations.
• Rigidity and lack of empathy: One finds it difficult to show understanding towards others; this can also shift towards greater empathy.
• Thinking and awareness: Sometimes sudden clear insights into one’s own behavioural patterns, philosophical interest.
• Lifestyle: Oppression by social conventions (single-family homes, ‘respectable’ lifestyles), but also a longing for comfort and homeliness.
• Overwhelm: The feeling of no longer being able to cope with tasks, fatigue and an urge to withdraw.
• Breaking rules: Neglecting tasks, deliberately acting “rebelliously” or distancing oneself from obligations.
• New beginning: Clearing out old belongings, a desire for renewal, travel or expeditions.
• Brief psychotic episodes: Brief contact with voices or unusual hallucinations.
• Money: Being preoccupied with stock market prices or financial problems, sometimes feeling relief when letting go.
6. Dreams• Violence and war:
Dreams about aggression, murder, amputations and war situations.
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Family conflicts: The relationship with parents or children is central, sometimes with heroic or magical elements (sacrifice, mourning).
• Historical and mythical scenes: For example, visions of lost civilisations or ‘grand’ travel adventures in an early 20th-century atmosphere.
• Search for truth and liberation: Leaps into an abyss, trials through which one finds healing or insight.
Essence• Inner emptiness and cold formality: Behind outward fulfilment of duty and polite family gatherings lies little genuine warmth.
• Strong sense of duty towards parents and family: Often directed primarily towards the mother, with intense feelings of guilt over perceived shortcomings.
• Emotional detachment in social and sexual matters: Everything becomes a chore; there is a lack of genuine interest or passion.
• Mood swings between hope and despair: On the one hand, loneliness and self-doubt; on the other, the desire to be part of something bigger.
• Physical complaints: Stomach and bowel problems, cystitis, knee pain, extreme fatigue and susceptibility to infections.
• Tendency to ‘break with convention’: When the pressure becomes too great, fantasies of leaving, rebellion or radical changes arise.
Brief medical historiesDyslexia• Reading difficulties, problems with text comprehension. The mother moves countless times with him to his father’s home, only to leave again and return to her own mother.
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Dyslexia, failure to keep appointments: Young person with persistent difficulties in reading and writing, struggles to keep appointments (e.g. study sessions or other commitments).
Mother, guilt, attachment to the mother, informal care
• Persistent feelings of guilt towards her mother: She constantly feels she is not doing enough for her mother.
• Grief and guilt following the mother’s death: Fear that she did not mean enough to her mother, whilst the mother had focused her entire life on her daughter.
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Warts and calluses in a 12-year-old girl: The girl is extremely attached to her mother and has severe crying fits if her mother does not go along with her wishes.
• Pain in the left knee and wandering muscle aches in a 57-year-old woman: She is convinced that her brother is neglecting the care of their mother. She continues to hold herself accountable and wears formal, conservative clothing (for example, a starched white blouse and a brocade-patterned coat), which reminds her of earlier, more genteel times.
• Chronic laryngitis and sciatica in a 47-year-old woman: She mentally ended her marriage seven years ago, but still lives with her husband and his extended family. She cares for her sick parents-in-law as well as her own sick mother. Due to feelings of guilt and the pressure of duty, she does not dare to leave this situation (a purely ‘formal’ relationship and formal care).
• Tired, exhausted, listless for months, a 36-year-old man: Heavily burdened by his seriously ill mother (cancer), an alcohol-dependent father and high work pressure.
Persistent infections• Exhausted, tired, overburdened, emotionally unstable, self-critical and full of self-doubt since suffering from flu with a sore throat in a lesbian woman: She has a tendency towards philosophy and profound reflection.
• Chronic cough, recurrent bronchitis, pain in the hip and back.
Back problems• Lumbago-sciatica in a man who has “travelled extensively”: For example, a sport shooter or someone whose job requires prolonged standing or travelling, suffering from back and sciatic pain.
Police officer, trainer• Neat, perfectionist police officer: With painful, prolapsed haemorrhoids. He is very rigid in his habits.
• Severe, foul-smelling flatulence and bloated abdomen in a football coach: Under enormous pressure to perform from those around him.
Menopause (climacteric), cystitis• Former model, unhappy during the menopause, with recurring cystitis: In her dreams, for example, she gives advice that her boss should advertise more or that a friend should dress up better. The dreams seem very ‘formal’ in nature, typical of someone in a rigid straitjacket (possibly stage 14 of a particular classification).
• Cystitis and exhaustion in a woman caring for her elderly mother: Her mother always wants everything done in exactly the same way and at the same time. The carer consequently feels systematically constrained.
Family clan, normality, formality• Unrelenting coughing fit at night lasting two hours: In a teacher who is extremely orderly and lives within a family clan (parents, uncle and aunt in the immediate vicinity).
• Stomach pain caused by stress: Someone who lives with his family next door to his parents and close to his brothers’ and sisters’ families, with everyone working in the same (family) business.
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Multiple sclerosis flare-up with depression following her daughter’s graduation and celebrations: Everything revolves around formal gatherings and ceremonies.
• Knee pain on the left, sometimes also on the right, when getting out of the car: A 57-year-old woman can no longer go for walks or do Nordic walking with friends. She comes from a very orderly family, several members of which live close to one another.
Numbness, lack of interest, including in sex, acting in a formal manner
• Mother who felt no emotional bond with her children: She cared for them like a nurse, but never really connected with them; she would have handed her children over to anyone if necessary.
• Flu-like symptoms with sinusitis, tickling in the nose and watery eyes: In a married woman who has absolutely no desire for sex.
• Man with pornographic fantasies, fear of impotence, looks lustfully at young girls: He mentions that his ‘sexual wound’ has become slightly less painful, but it remains an issue.
• Woman who, during sex with her husband, has never felt that it had anything to do with her: She experiences no emotional connection with it.
• Patient undergoing intensive cancer treatment: He endures everything without complaint, is friendly, not desperate, but completely apathetic and exhausted; in his behaviour, he seems empty inside.
• Depressed woman: She is primarily concerned with keeping everything neat, tidy and harmonious in the home. After taking the homeopathic remedy, she experiences a brief period of renewed zest for life. She shows a little more interest in her surroundings.
• Woman (58) with facial nerve pain (trigeminal neuralgia): She complains of an inner emptiness, a loss of interest, is tired, and has been separated for some time.
• Man with feelings of despondency: Overwhelmed by failures on the stock market, anxious about loss, deriving little pleasure from his work, feels unappreciated.