Cuttlefish.
Introduction
OF Sepia Hahnemann says, “This brown-black juice which, before me, had only been used for drawing, is contained in the abdomen of the sea-insect, ink-fish (sepia octopoda), and is some times jerked forth by the insect to darken the water around, either for the purpose of securing a prey or opposing an attack.”
(For the manner of Hahnemann’s spotting this great remedy, which he introduced, after provings, into his Materia Medica, see p.652.)
It is imperative to get a true realization of SEPIA: one of our most important remedies in chronic diseases-related to Nat. mur. and Phosphorus, both of which enter into cuttlefish juice and determines some of its symptoms. Yet Sepia provides a special stimulus all its own, that neither of the others can supply.
I am told that Dr. Gibson Miller, that great prescriber, used to say that, if he might have only one drug, he would choose Sepia And Sepia has made some very wonderful cures, when the unit dose has been left to act over several months,-goitre-insanity- rheumatoid arthritis, etc. Sepia is one of the drugs that does not bear repetition-anyway in chronic cases, and in the potencies.
Now, how to spot Sepia? And here, as it seems to give, pretty graphically, the Sepia mentality, we will reproduce our Sepia drug picture from a paper read to the British Homoeopathic Society some years ago, and still to be found with a few other drugs in a small pamphlet.
Sepia has been called the Washerwoman’s Remedy, and not without cause.
Picture her-the sallow, tired mother of a big family, on “washing day”.
She is perspiring profusely: pouring under the arms. She cannot be shut in, because of the heat and the stuffiness which make her feel faint-yet the cold wind that rushes in at the open door is almost unbearable.
Her back aches fearfully. She wants to press it-to support it (Nat. mur.). She feels she MUST sit down, or cross her legs, as her whole inside seems to be dragging down, and coming out of her. She simply must sit down to keep it in (Lilium tig).
The worry of the children is more than she can bear. Her Chamomilla baby wants to be picked up and carried, and wails and screams. The quarrels of the penultimate babies engaged in scratching out each other’s eyes, are more than she can bear. And when her six- year-old starts drumming with a spoon on a tin pot, she can stand no more. She snatches the tin pot and hurls it away, and smacks her small son; which does not improve matters. He howls dismally, and she does not care.
Oh! how she wants to run away and leave it all, and have a little peace!
Her head aches. The pain is left-sided to-day: last time it was on the right side, as she remembers dully.
She is so nervous and jumpy, she has to hold on to the edge of the wash-tub to prevent herself from screaming. If she could only go away from everybody and everything, and lie down, alone, in the dark, and close her eyes!
Her husband comes in: she has no smile to greet his. Nothing but dull indifference, and weariness, and suffering. He must leave her alone. She has her work to do.
Ptosis-ptosis everywhere. Her whole body dragged down, “inside” and out. Veins-piles-all stagnant and dragging her down. Even her eyelids are too heavy to hold up.
If she could only lie down and close them! She knows even ten minutes sleep would make her a new woman!-but there are the soapsuds-the steam-the stuffiness-the terrors of her restless children, with their noise and fidgeting. Sleep is not for her.
Her little Pulsatilla maid creeps up. “Can’t I help you, Mummie?” but she pushes her off. And the little maid creeps away, weeping: and Mummie feels that she is indifferent to her tears.
The dinner is cooking-and the smell of the cooking makes her feel deadly sick. The children are hungry, and her husband waits for his dinner. She is indifferent. Let them wait. She is irritable-indifferent-apathetic.
He looks at her sadly. Her dull face has lost it contour-its bloom-its pleasing lines. Browny bands or blotches are on forehead, and saddlewise across nose and cheekbones.
She was a bright and bonny girl when he married her-now she is SEPIA.
Give her her drug, and he will come and bless you for giving him back the wife he chose and loved. (This has actually happened: for out of ten, one sometimes returns to give thanks!)
BLACK LETTER AND SUGGESTIVE SYMPTOMS
(from HAHNEMANN, ALLEN’S Encyclopedia, HERING’S Guiding Symptoms.)
Very irritable.
Very indifferent towards everything, and apathetic.
Aversion to one’s occupation and family.
Great indifference to one’s family- to those they love best.
Indolent mood.
Uneasiness in the presence of strangers.
Propensity to suicide from despair about his miserable existence.
“One dose takes away my ambition, I simply do not want to do anything, either work or play: an exertion even to think.”
“So nervous that I felt unless I held on to something, I should scream.”
Headache, right side head and face, with surging sensations like waves of pain rolling up and beating against frontal bone.
Darting pains, from left eye over side of head towards occiput.
Tearing in left temple to upper part of left side of head.
Headache with aversion to all kinds of food, a feeling of emptiness and goneness in stomach, very distressing.
Headache every morning with nausea, vertigo, epistaxis.
Headache in women of sallow complexion, or moth-patches on forehead: smell of food repulsive.
Headache better after meals.
Great falling out of the hair.
Smarting right eye, evening; lids close against one’s wish.
Grain of sand sensation, especially right eye.
Inflammatory affections of asthenic character; conjunctivae dull red, some photophobia and swelling of lids, worse in a.m. lachrymation morning and evening.
Drooping of eyelids, heavy or not enough sense to lift them.
Fiery sparks before eyes. Flickering looking at light. Black spots. Fiery zigzag:zigzag wreath of colours (Nat. mur., Graphites).
Pale Face. Yellowness of face and whites of eyes.
Yellow spots on face and a yellow saddle across the upper part of the cheeks and the nose. Yellow saddle across bridge of nose.
Large offensive-smelling plugs from nose (Ozaena).
Crack middle of lower lip (Nat, mur., Drosera, etc.)
Dry coryza: nostrils sore, swollen, ulcerated and scabby; discharging large, green plugs.
Very sensitive to noise, music and odours.
Smell of cooking nauseates (Arsenicum, Cocc., Colchicum, Digitalis, Ip., Thuja).
Nausea, mornings only, passing off after eating something.
Gnawing and weakness in stomach, which ceased at supper.
Emptiness of stomach, with nausea as soon as she thinks of food which she would like to take. Peculiar faint, sinking emptiness.
Nausea: after eating, also in the a.m. fasting: from smell of food or cooking: when riding in a carriage: with anxiety when exerting eyes: with weakness.
Morning sickness of pregnancy. Toothache, esp. of pregnancy.
Vomiting: of food and bile in a.m.: frequently strains her so that blood comes up: of mucus, after taking the simplest food.
Burning in pit of stomach. Stitches in pit of stomach. Stitches in pit of stomach.
Canine hunger, or no appetite.
Desire for vinegar, for wine, for sweets.
Aversion to food, particularly to meat and fat, to bread during pregnancy; to milk which causes diarrhoea. Loathing.
Worse for bread, milk, fat food or acids.
“Sepia creates an aversion to drinking beer.”
Feeling of bearing down of all pelvic organs.
Pot belliedness of mothers.
Many brown spots on abdomen: chloasma.
Weight in abdomen: distension: rumbling and grunting.
Sensation of emptiness in abdomen.
Pain and weight in abdomen, on rising in a.m.
Pain, tenderness; heaviness, load during motion in abdomen.
Sensation of bearing down in pelvic organs, with slow dragging pain from sacrum.
Pressure in abdomen as though the contents would issue through the genital organs. Pressure in uterus, as if everything would issue through vulva. Feeling of crowding and pressure downwards.
Rolling in abdomen, as if something alive were there (Croc., Thuja). Then rises up towards her throat.
Constipation: during pregnancy: slow and difficult discharge even of soft stool: excessive straining.
Sensation of weight, or ball, in anus, not (>) by stool.
Pressure on bladder and frequent micturition with tension and painful bearing down in pelvis.
Involuntary discharge of urine at night, especially during first sleep. The bed is wet almost as soon as the child goes to sleep, or passed within two hours after going to bed.
Urine clear like water: thick, slimy and very offensive, depositing a pasty sediment next morning. Sediment adheres like cement.
Turbid, clay-coloured urine, with reddish sediment in the chamber.
Uterus congested, and a yellowish leucorrhoea pouring form it; beginning to prolapse. Slightly displaced.
Great dryness of vulva and vagina, causing a very disagreeable sensation when walking, after cessation of menses.
Pressure in uterus, as if everything would issue through vulva.
Sensation in rectum not (>) by an evacuation: sensation that limbs must be crossed to prevent everything being pressed out of vagina. (See Lil, tigr.)
