QUIZ #5 – Petr Zacharias Understanding What Has To Be Cured

Petr Zacharias, founder of the Prague College of Classical Homeopathy, presents Quiz #5 in his series.

Dear Friends,

Here is another quiz for you. Before you find the remedy, try to understand the case and spot what represents the pathological process. If you spot it, it helps you to realize the whole picture, which is needed in order to prescribe correctly.

This is a quiz for understanding what has to be cured in every particular case. I put the followup below in the analysis. Your goal is to find the remedy and tell me what you expect as a curative reaction (what should happen) after the remedy is given.

Enjoy it J

Petr

A male, 21 years old, suffering from warts since 8 years of age. When he was 8 years old, one wart appeared on his toe. It was removed with local treatment but the next month it appeared again and was even worse. Then he tried homeopathy and after several remedies the warts got worse and finally he developed 13 warts.

When he was 12 years old, he had developed allergy to sagebrush and it was manifested as lachrymation whenever he came into contact with it. Now he has 13 warts on his toes, 12 warts on soles and one on his right hand‘s finger. Since childhood he has played handball on a very advanced level and had many accidents during his life including many dislocations of joints, concussion of the brain, sprains, broken tendons, etc.

Thirst is normal and he suffers from skin eruptions when being exposed to sun. He has troublesome sleep in the evening when coming from training, and it takes 1-2 hours to fall asleep.

He is warm blooded, but very aggravated by WET weather, especially COLD WET. He is very sensitive to changes of weather.

Psychological condition: He says he is “better” now, but that he wasn’t in the past. When he was a young boy, he felt handicapped because he was little and skinny (though he never feared stronger boys and could fight them). At some point he decided to exercise strenuously to become strong and muscular. Now he says, his psychological condition is “better” because he is not affected by things that affected him in the past. He is less open emotionally.

Try to solve this case and when you want to know the correct answer, click on the link below.

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ANALYSIS OF THE CASE

When Dr. Hahnemann wrote his Organon, he mentioned many times that the goal of homeopathic treatment is to change disease into health. The ability that a homeopathic practitioner must develop every day, is to recognize what in every patient represents a deviation from perfect health on the mental, emotional and physical planes.

To be able to recognize such subtle changes which are the result of pathological processes in the organism, we have to understand perfectly what it means to be healthy on all levels.

Prof. Vithoulkas put forth a definition of health which for me is one of his biggest contributions, because if we understand it in depth, we can recognize subtle changes that are slowly progressing when chronic disease sets in.

To solve this case it is neccesary to perceive these subtle changes in order to see the whole picture of the disease. Once we have it, we not only know the remedy but we also know what the curative path will be after the correct remedy is given.

The main problem here are warts and the fact that this man has had them since his childhood means there is a strong predisposition to warts. We often connect this predisposition with the sycotic miasm. Anyhow, this is only part of the whole picture. What was very important for me was the how the patient´s psychological state has been developing during his life.

He used to be quite sensitive when younger, felt handicaped and due to his strong will, he decided to change what he understood to be a cause of this feeling of inadequacy, his physical appearance. Here we have a very important point. Let me give you an example which will explain what I mean. Let us say we have a patient who has warts on her face. She comes to us saying: “I don‘t have any confidence because I have warts. Please make these warts disappear and I will be self confident again” This is how plastic surgery works. It makes people believe that cutting off the skin‘s defects will give them self confidence but in reality it is a false idea of self confidence.

Warts are only a triggering factor for their lack of self confidence which is there in latent form and only becomes stronger (worse) whenever the patient comes into contact with stressors for which he is sensitive. This person, after cutting off the warts, will feel better psychologically because his skin is perfect. But when other difficulties in life occur, the lack of self confidence will appear again. If somebody is really confident, having warts will not make him feel inadequate.

Now, when we are coming back to our case, this boy felt like this because he was skinny and when he changed his physical appearance and his feeling of inadequacy disappeared, what happened?

This feeling was replaced by a loss of emotional sensitivity. He is not affected anymore by emotional things to such degree as he used to be. Why? Because the pathology progressed to a deeper level and part of his emotions became less flexible and he lost a certain sensitivity which is neccessary for being involved in life to the fullest.

That is why he says: I am not affected by things as I used to be in the past. So when he takes a correct remedy, what should happen except disappearing warts? His sensitivity is going to come back again.

This trait I described is very typical for Natrum sulphuricum. We have a patient who feels inadequate or handicaped due to physical complaints and he tries to overcome it. He has strong will and plans how to do it. He desires to be first, to do things in the correct way. He is very hard on himself and loses sensitivity and slowly becomes less involved in life. He is very responsible and he must take care of everything, his work and his family. Life becomes a burden for him and eventually he develops suicidal depression. Life is no longer a source of joy but he must stay and take care of everyone. His strong feeling of responsibility which prevents him from commiting suicide. He cannot stand the pain that his suicide would bring to his relatives and family. This is in short how the pathology of Natrum sulphuricum develops on the emotional level.

So the remedy for him was Natrum sulphuricum 200C which is further confirmed by warts and aggravation from wet weather. Natrum sulphuricum is a warmblooded remedy, exactly like this patient.

Follwup after 2 months:

After an initial aggravation that lasted for three days, ten warts disappeared completely and the two biggest ones became very small. He now sleeps well following his afternoon training and says he is more easily touched by romantic movies and emotions generally.

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