Cheerful and lively: A case of Sabadilla 

A five-year-old girl with a severely itchy eczema in the elbow area was brought to my practice by her mother. She is a very pretty, chubby girl with blond hair and brown eyes. She sits on her mother's lap and is constantly laughing and giggling. Her mother urges her to behave because she is shy and embarrassed during the case-taking, which is not usual for her. Typical for her, however, is the cheerful, lively, giggling behaviour. Either she laughs or she cries; there is nothing in between.

She is very affectionate and likes to cuddle, and she tries to attract attention. When her mother criticises her, she immediately begins to cry. She is afraid of ghosts and storms. When she was younger she was frightened of ladybirds; now she is afraid of flies and wasps. She loves water, but after swimming her eczema is worse.

She wants her mother to read her a fairy tale at night. Once she dreamed of a dragon. Her favourite activities are dancing, singing, reciting poems, painting, playing with dolls and toy cars, and playing hide-and-seek. She can ride a bike by herself. Her favourite colour is yellow.

She often quarrels with her brother, who is three and a half years older. When he refuses her something, she does not—unlike him at her age—have temper tantrums.
She likes to eat honey (3), chocolate, tomato soup, sweet noodles, Nesquik balls with pasta, sausages, biscuits, crisps and apples, but otherwise she can be very picky about food. She refuses lentils, bean soup, vegetables, cabbage and meat. She drinks a lot.

Her eczema began when she was 18 months old. She was sitting in the hallway when a neighbour began drilling into the wall. She was so frightened by this noise that she cried loudly and trembled all over. Over the next seven days she had severe constipation with rock-hard stools, which had to be removed manually from the rectum. Since then she has been afraid to sit on the toilet. One month after this incident the eczema appeared. In addition to the eczema she now has conjunctivitis in the left eye.

Medical history: chickenpox, 3 × otitis media, rupture of the eardrum in the right ear with yellow-green pus. She sometimes had high fevers, twice about 40°C. In her sleep she throws off the covers.

The child resembles her mother, so I also questioned her. Like her daughter, she is cheerful and likes to dance. She says her father died when she was fourteen. For four years she has had allergic symptoms in the eyes; the eyes feel dry when she moves them, as if the surface of the eye folds and crackles, but only up to the pupil. She has swelling of the lower eyelids, and around the eyes it itches; then she also has pain under the eyes. Sometimes she needs to sneeze. Her condition improves when she places spoons chilled in the freezer on her eyes.

She had chickenpox at the same time as her daughter four years ago.
She loves spring and summer. When asked what she would compare herself to, she says she could be a plant.
Most of the time she is cool. She likes meat and does not like sweets.

She is afraid to drive a car so as not to hurt anyone. If something were to happen, it would always be before her eyes. She cares for others and is worried about her children. She cannot stand loud voices.
Her brother had eczema until the age of two and four middle ear infections.

Analysis

I noticed the obvious resemblance between mother and daughter. The characteristic symptoms were the girl's excessive cheerfulness and her enormous craving for honey. I used the following rubrics:

- Complaints from fear
- General: Eating and drinking: Honey, craving for
- cheerful

Hamamelis, Sabadilla and Veratrum album were considered. When repertorising I always pay attention to the connections between the remedies under consideration.

Of these three remedies two belong to the same family: Sabadilla and Veratrum album.

We come to further clarification if we include one rubric from her mother: - Very concerned about others

The only remaining remedy now is Sabadilla.

This remedy is also found under the rubrics "hard stool" and "constipation", but as these rubrics are very large I did not use them. Most important, however, is the genius of the remedy Sabadilla: shrinking, the sensation of shrinking (e.g.: Mind and disposition: delusion that parts are shrinking and shrivelling). It is the sensation that the mother had concerning the eyes: the shrivelled surface of the eye.

Botanical names of Sabadilla are: Schoenocaulon officinale, Melanthium sabadilla, Veratrum officinale. This plant belongs in the APG III classification to the family Melanthiaceae (like Veratrum album), order Liliales. According to the latest findings of Jan Scholten, the Melanthiaceae family belongs to Subphase 5 of Phase 6 (Liliales) of the class of Monocotyledons. The subphase or Phase 5 brings the nitrogen quality of joie de vivre, vitality, liveliness, strength and enthusiasm. That may be the reason why both mother and daughter have a tendency to laugh, sing and dance. I believe that nothing happens completely by chance. Shrinking can be the opposite reaction to the spreading nitrogen tendencies.

In the case of the Sabadilla girl the remedy corresponds to the class of monocotyledons, which have a strong theme of silicon and carbon. The mother of our patient lost her father at fourteen, in a life phase that corresponds to the silicon series. I do not mean to say that we can automatically attribute everything to this, but it is sensible to capture a case as comprehensively and meaningfully as possible.

Prescription: on 25 May 1998 I prescribed Sabadilla 5 CH 3 x 2 globules to the girl.

Follow-up
28 July 1998: Her mother told me that the eczema had worsened one week after taking the remedy; therefore she stopped the remedy. After a further three days the rash and the itching subsided and have not recurred since. The mother also reported that her daughter has much less craving for honey. In the meantime 15 years have passed, and the eczema has not recurred.

This article was published on www.interhomeopathy.org

Photos
Young girl posing in park ©shutterstock.com - Monkey Business Images
Hand holding autumn leaves ©shutterstock.com - el lobo

Category : Cases
Keywords: Eczema, excessive cheerfulness, constipation, sensation of shrinking, craving for honey, worries about others, APG III – plant classification, Scholten.
Remedy: Sabadilla