The welcoming brother at the Church door

The patient is a 42 year old postman, who first came to the practice in the 1995 with complaints of tiredness and allergies; he was allergic to tree and grass pollens, which made him sneeze and gave him itchy nose and eyes. After blowing his nose, he would sometimes have a nosebleed. He had eczema between his eyebrows and along his moustache, and from time to time he had a rash on his face. He suffered from food allergies; his throat would close up on eating apples, pears, melons, potatoes, plums, and nuts. His lips would swell and his palate itched. Sometimes, he had bronchitis and would cough up green mucous. He had pain in his right shoulder, worse while sorting letters at work.

He was extremely tired and had hardly any libido. He was very irritable, more so if colleagues or children teased him. “I get wound up really easily.”

Medical history:

Icterus at birth; rubella (German measles) as a child; epidydimus inflammation (right sided); vasectomy; pain in kidney region 7 years ago (uric acid crystals). His father suffers from heart and lung complaints, psoriasis, arthrosis, cataracts, and prostate problems. His mother suffers from arthrosis and headaches.
Temperature: generally warm; perspires on exertion. Enjoys the sun.
Food desires: mashed potatoes with vegetables and meat (Dutch stamppot), pea soup, Greek food, Chinese food, meat, sweets, cheese, sausage, fruit juice.
Aversions: kohlrabi (turnip cabbage), pointed cabbage, broad beans, fish.
Thirst: low to normal. “Coffee is an addiction.”
Sleep: falls asleep easily and sleeps through the night; snores; sleeps on his back or right side, no nightly perspiration.

He is married, has two daughters, and has been a postman for 25 years. He is active in the Apostolic Church community, where he is the “welcoming brother”; the one who stands at the door of the church and welcomes people as they enter. “It is my way of bringing brotherly love into practice. I am always helping people; I have difficulty saying no. I always want to help others to have a pleasant life. I am too good-hearted, I often feel put on by people and let them push me to do things I don’t want to do.” He is the second child from a family of four children. He is always helping his parents, even though his father gives him no recognition or praise. He is hot-headed, becoming easily angered and then later feeling remorseful, forgiving and forgetting. Sometimes, he can have fits of anger: once, at work, he threw his box of letters around.

First prescription: Kalium sulphuricum 200K.

For the first two weeks he had a lot of energy, then influenza with cough and green mucous. He was very tired and had a terrible pounding headache on the right side.

Second prescription: Sanguinaria canadensis 200K

The most remarkable thing is his reaction to an incorrect remedy. It would seem that Kalium sulphuricum was close enough to trigger the symptoms that led to the simillimum.

Sanguinaria is a remedy for these acute complaints (right sided headaches, flushes of heat, affectations of mucous membranes). It belongs to the family of the Papaveraceae, which has as central theme the religious desire to spread love in the world, to reduce the pain of others – Karl Marx called religion “the opium of the people”. Opium has the rubric “Benevolence”, which also applies to Chelidonium and Sanguinaria.

After receiving Sanguinaria 200K, his energy and his libido returned, his allergic complaints diminished, and he was much less irritable. He has taken the last dose of Sanguinaria in the spring of 1997, and he has been doing well since then.

An interesting detail: a 55 year old man with a spastic colon reacted well to Chelidonium; he, too, was a welcoming brother at the door of the church.

Photo: Patricia Maché