Hepar sulphuris calcareum (the sulphurette of lime, CaS) is a syphilitic remedy. It was first prepared by Hahnemann who used the white interior of the oyster shell; he heated it to a high temperature along with pure flowers of Sulphur.
Hepar sulphuris is different from Calcarea sulphurica probably due to its mode of preparation; it has elements of both Calcarea and Sulphur, but has an added element of violence and cruelty.
Like Calcarea, the Hepar sulphuris person has a tremendous fear of being alone and is very concerned about the health of relatives. But he feels that people upon whom he depends for support push him down, treat him badly, humiliate him.
He becomes very violent, so much so that he wants to set things on fire, wants to kill. He is very hurried, especially in speech, quarrelsome and very dissatisfied – nothing pleases him. There is in him a great touchiness.
Thus, Hepar sulphuris represents the violent extreme of Calcarea sulphurica.
Phatak gives:
- Ferocious, wants to kill those who offend him, wants to set things on fire.
Hepar sulphuris has a feeling of being terribly offended. It is the feeling that precedes a violent revolution, the feeling of being terribly insulted/offended by the person who is supposed to look after you (e.g. the king). In such a revolution, things are set on fire and people are slaughtered: arson and murder.
I have seen that in anger, they can get violent, suicidal, homicidal with firearms or a sharp weapon. Even trifles make them extremely violent. For example, I had a patient who found a stain on a shirt that had just come back from the laundry, and in a rage he set the shirt on fire.
On another occasion, out of anger, he poured kerosene all over his house to set it on fire. He improved remarkably with Hepar sulphuris.
Like Sulphur, Hepar sulphuris is also concerned very much with appearance. He feels unappreciated like Calcarea sulphurica. But the feelings are much more intense, as seen by comparing the symptom “Sits and meditates” of Calcarea sulphurica to that of Hepar sulphuris “Dementia with complete stupidity, sits silent and speechless in a corner”, “Sad mood for hours, must cry vehemently”. Whereas Calcarea is fearful, Hepar sulphuris has “violent fright” as is seen in the symptoms:
- Frightful visions of fire and dead persons.
- Violent fright on slumbering.
The irritability of Sulphur is present but again in a violent form:
- Violent, passionate, fretfulness.
- Wrathful irritability even to the most extreme violence, threatening to end in murder and arson.
Physical concomitants:
- Desires: fats, sour, spices.
- Tendency to suppuration, boils, extremely tender.
- Eruptions ameliorated by heat.
- Very offensive odor of discharges.
- Very, very sensitive; oversensitive to noise, pain and draught of air.
- Pains are splinter-like.
- Hasty speech.
- Violent from pain.
- Extremely chilly.
Rubrics:
- Abrupt.
- Cruelty, inhumanity
- Delusion, fire, visions of
- Fear, alone, of being
- Fire, wants to set things on
- Kill, desire, to
- Kill, knife, with a
- Kill offence, sudden impulse to kill for a slight
- Sensitive, pain, to
- Suicidal, fire, to set oneself on
- Violent, deeds of violence, rage leading to
Kent:
- Desires fat
- Desires highly seasoned food. Phatak:
- Besides oneself
- Craves condiments
- Touchy
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To read about the philosophical approach to developing these remedy pictures, see Dr. Sankaran’s introduction to Soul of Remedies:
