Naphtalinum, Impetigo infectiosa ... think of Naphtalinum in a case of

Case:
The mother of a little girl, R., just 4 years old, called me to ask if I could see her daughter as soon as possible. She had an impetigo contagiosa and was not allowed to visit her kindergarten because she was contagious. The GP explained the mother that it usually takes 3 weeks to heal and prescribed antibiotics. She didn’t want to give these medicines and came to see me. I knew the little girl since her early life. In the past she suffered from heavy coughs and did well on Spongia. Before that she was given Jalapa to treat her abdominal cramps. The last time I saw her in my practice was Oct.’99.

She now had a beard of fierce eruptions and in the right side corner of her mouth. Before the outbreak of the eruptions she had a cold and was restless. R. snores terribly, barely coughs and has little discharge from the nose. As her mother tells me all this, she sits at her mothers lap looking timidly at me, although she knows me and sees me regularly as they are neighbours of my practice. She has fine blond hair, slightly curly around a round face. R. doesn’t say anything and doesn’t answer my questions, but listens carefully with her head leaning against her mothers chest.

She goes to the kindergarten and likes it a lot. Next month she will go to the elementary school. In the Netherlands children go there from the age of 4. Mother tells that R. is growing up, making herself less dependent on mom and dad, but carefully. She wants to be grown-up and talks about having a baby in her belly. One of her neighbour girlfriends just got a new sibling and she would like to have a baby brother or sister too. She asks questions about life. Physically she has grown fast and at the moment her sleeves and trousers are too short in just a little time. She is quite hungry, likes cake with cream, sausage, and chicken. She dislikes pumpkin and cabbage. She desires fruits except oranges, mandarin, lemon etc. At night she still wets her bed from time to time. Her stool is soft, stinking and quite flatulent.

She starts to quarrel with her friends and to challenge her parents. Her vocabulary is rather large and she is very sensitive to the atmosphere. She comes telling as soon as she sees injustice done to anyone. She gets restless and ‘de-structured’ by chaotic situations. It takes time and care to get her back to herself. At home she needs rituals before going to sleep. She likes lively situations very much, but too much disorders her, she cannot handle it. R. is playful takes the lead in games and is friendly to other children. At home she can be very hot tempered. She needs time to change and adapt.

Analysis:
The rubric I looked at during the interview was; Eruptions , corner mouth.
My eyes running over the remedy-names stuck at NAPHTIN.
Then I remembered a case shown by Tunde Barwulf, some years ago. She gave her idea of the essence of Naphtalinum showing us a case of a man suffering from bronchitis. He was an immigrant of the Middle East and built up a life abroad by hard work and making quite a fortune, but still felt uprooted. He did very well on Naphtalinum.

The remedy consists of H and C compounds of the table of the elements. Both in the second row out of the carbon series, namely:
- loss of roots /identity
- feels different
- needs security /money, fear of poverty
- needs order tidyness.

I wrote these characteristics in my Materia Medica.
In this case I realized through the story of this girl and the difficulty she has with changes in life, that even a change of schools can cause the feeling of ‘lost roots’ and insecurity which can originate in Naphtalinum symptoms.

I gave her Naphtin. 200K

Two days later I met the mother in the street and she told me that the same evening, after taking the remedy, R’s face started to clear up and the next day there were only eruptions to be seen for the meticulous observer. She went to kindergarten right away.

8 months have past since then and she is doing well.

D.D. in the repertory rubric:
Graphitis or Petroleum, both from the Carbon group, but I missed the disorientation for Petrol. and the roughness of the skin or plumpness for Graph..

Concerning the compounds H and C in the second row called the Carbon series of the table of elements, Jan Scholten gave us an excellent picture in his book Homeopathy and the Elements well known to most of the homeopaths today. In short, the elements Lithium till Neon stand for the stages of self in relation to the outer world and the insecurity on all levels which is connected to the struggle to develop the self awareness and self worth of the individual. The basic theme of Naphtalinum fits the translation into the rubrics above.

N.B.
This is the first case of the Naphtalinum article of WadStories 2 (J. Scholten - ISBN 9074817106) which had been accidentally left out. The next two cases in the book might thus be more difficult to follow without the basic information of Naphtalinum which fits the translation into the rubrics above.
And: See the next edition for 2 more naphtalinum cases.