Case 5 concerns a 12-year-old boy who had been under my care repeatedly since he was four years old. He suffered frequent colds that sometimes developed into bronchitis. Over the years we had managed to treat the acute colds homeopathically with various remedies without having to resort to conventional medicines, but recently his breathing had become increasingly difficult and he had to use an asthma inhaler. He also developed allergies to various foods and was increasingly sleeping poorly. When he did manage to fall asleep, he often dreamt of the war, and in his dreams he had to run away and hide. For his age he looked very serious, as if he were carrying the worries of the world on his shoulders. He had anxieties his parents could not explain – fear of being alone and of being abandoned by his parents. From time to time I had given him Magnesium muriaticum, which seemed to relieve his sleep disturbances for a few weeks at a time, but they kept returning.
The boy also had a strange fascination with the Second World War, strange because his parents in no way encouraged it and the rest of the family had little to do with the subject. He wanted to read everything he could find about that war; he was not interested in wars in general. Mostly he read adult literature about it, and in particular the situation of the Jews preoccupied him greatly. He also wanted to become a police officer so that he could protect people from harm.
Only after I had successfully treated other patients with similar issues and dreams with Hydrocyanicum did I think of giving him this remedy. This time the sleep disturbances disappeared immediately and did not return. The war dreams and his fascination with books about the Second World War also stopped abruptly. "I've dreamt it all out of me; it's now over and done with." The asthma also lessened and he was able to stop using the asthma inhaler. When I asked about the food allergies his mother reported: "He can now eat everything, even things that used to give him asthma. But the strange thing is that he refuses to eat bread unless it is completely fresh. As soon as it is a day old he refuses to eat it and prefers to have crispbread. Also, he always has to smell the bread because he wants to know whether it is mouldy."
I don't know whether this symptom has since disappeared, but it made me think of someone who had only mouldy bread to eat and now refuses to take anything that even slightly reminds him of it.
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Source: http://www.interhomeopathy.org/case_hydrocyanicum_acidum_5
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