Group V – Hyperactive and Hypersensitive Remedies


Group V includes homeopathic remedies that are hyperactive or hypersensitive and irritable. They include Chamomilla, Cina, Arsenic album, Ignatia, Magnesia carb, Zincum, Stramonium etc….


Arsenicum Album. [Ars]

      The last group of drugs includes all the outstandingly nervy children, and the key to the whole group is ARSENICUM ALBUM. ARSENICUM children are possibly the most attractive of the children. They are very highly strung, usually finely made, finely built, often with a very fine skin and fine hair; they are delicate-looking children.

They are always very nervy, very easily scared, very easily frightened, anything unusual will frighten them, they are afraid of being left alone in the house, afraid of going out alone, terrified of the dark, and they always have a very vivid imagination. They suffer from night terrors and wake up in the middle of the night terrified, jump out of bed and wander through the house to find somebody to talk to.

It is always the feeling of some horrible occurrence hanging over her, very often she does not know what it is and is just terrified. When comforted and consoled, she will quieten down and go to sleep again, particularly if taken into the parents bed and has somebody near.

They are usually of a variable colour and tend to be rather pale but flush on excitement. They are not sallow. It is a rather fine skin, and when flushed they often get hot heads, and cold hands and feet on excitement or over-exertion.

In spite of their delicate appearance these ARSENICUM children are always restless, always doing something, and not just sitting about looking at their fingers. They may take up a thing do it for a while, then go on to something else, but they never spend their time doing nothing.

When they are nervy they go from their mother to their father, from their father to the nurse, then back to their mother. Each one gives them a certain amount of comfort but not for long, and they turn to someone else.

In spite of their restlessness and their activity, they get completely exhausted. They will be all right for a couple of hours, busy, happy, occupied, rather restless, and too mentally active, then suddenly become completely exhausted, grow pale, tired and lie down. Often they become depressed, and in a nervy, frightened state, feel they are going to be ill and want to have somebody near.

These children are inordinately tidy. A small girl will keep her dolls in a most astonishingly tidy condition. Even small boys, who normally break their toys and leave them lying about on the floor, if of ARSENICUM type, will put them away and be distressed, not because the toy is broken but because it is in a mess. They are upset if they spill jam over themselves and get into a mess, and their distress is out of all proportion to the cause.

Another very definite thing about them is that they are liable to catch cold, particularly from exposure to cold, and these colds are fairly typical. They usually start as an acute coryza, with watery, excoriating discharge, very violent attacks of sneezing and a tendency for the cold very rapidly to spread on to the chest.

In 24 hours the history of an acute coryza develops rapidly to bronchitis. With that extension the ARSENICUM child becomes hoarse between the development of the coryza and the onset of the definite bronchitis.

The other ARSENICUM types get a very similar mild coryza without any hoarseness at all, without any sign of bronchitis but they suddenly develop an acute asthmatic attack.

The asthmatic attack in ARSENICUM children is a very typical, very tight, dry, spasmodic asthma and it is always accompanied by acute terror. It is always terrifying for a child to get asthma, but ARSENICUM children are almost beside themselves with terror.

They are liable to get asthmatic attacks either early in the afternoon abut 1 p.m to 3 p.m. some time after lunch, or early in the morning any time after midnight.

Another typical asthmatic characteristic is that the attack subsides the dryness seems to disappear and the chest gets flooded with mucus with quantities of white, frothy sputum. When the attack is subsiding the dry whistle disappears and the chest gets moister. ARSENICUM will clear up the whole trouble.

ARSENICUM children are very sensitive to cold, and exposure to cold is certain to upset them. It either provokes an acute respiratory attack, or an acute digestive attack. These children get digestive upsets very easily; from exposure to cold, and also from over-indulgence in any watery fruits. Melons, strawberries, any of the juicy fruits may give the ARSENICUM child acute gastritis, usually with diarrhoea.

ARSENICUM children are extremely chilly, and in most of their chest and general conditions, they are thirsty with a desire for cold drinks, but when suffering from gastritis or gastroenteritis, the condition is aggravated by cold drinks.

The gastritis may be brought on by ice cream, and a mixture of fruit and ice cream is particularly dangerous for ARSENICUM children. During the acute stage of gastritis the pain is usually severe and is eased by warmth, either warm fluids or external heat applied to the abdomen. When a child likes warm drinks and is made easier by them, one should not ignore ARSENICUM.

Another point about these acute abdominal attacks is that the child is rather delicate and one that can go downhill extremely rapidly; an ARSENICUM child with an acute diarrhoea will become collapsed in a few hours.

With this collapse they are restless, worried, anxious, and liable to have constant small stools, little spurts of diarrhoea, and a marked aggravation of the exhaustion after each stool. The child appears absolutely grey, cold and sweaty. Nearly always in the ARSENICUM diarrhoea the stools are offensive.

In summer after over-indulgence in strawberries, etc., the children have been perfectly well the previous day and the next morning they are in a collapsed state after purging all night. It is remarkable how quickly the ARSENICUM children recover if given ARSENICUM.

In acute cases with violent onset ARSENICUM CM every fifteen minutes will clear up the trouble immediately. But ARSENICUM in low potency is not effective. The patients do not have enough vitality to respond to low potencies, and in extreme cases satisfactory results are unlikely from potencies of under 10 m.

There is also a general hyperaesthesia in the ARSENICUM children. They are over-sensitive to everything, to smell, to touch, to noise, to excitement; smells will make them all jumpy and nervy, excitement will give them a nightmare.

They are highly strung children. If pushed at school they are liable to get chorea; and if they are not very gently, quietly handled they develop periodic headaches, recurring once in 7 or 14 days, violent sick headaches lasting anything up to from 24 to 48 hours and they may last two or three days making the child completely prostrated.

It is always an intense congestive headache with intolerance of noise light, or disturbance of any kind. And this is one of the ARSENICUM contradictions, with these congestive headaches they want their heads as cool as possible.

The child feels its body may be cold, sweaty and damp; it has extreme nausea; it is restless and frightened, wants to be well covered-and yet wants its head cold, cold cloths, Eau de Cologne applications – anything to keep it cool.

ARSENICUM is less valuable in skin conditions than might be expected. It is more valuable in some of the chronic conditions than in the acute dermatitis. The secondary syphilitic eruption is the kind of condition in which ARSENICUM is indicated.

Alternation of asthma and skin conditions is a very definite ARSENICUM indication; where asthma and diarrhoea alternate it is useful. A case of recurring headaches in which asthma developed cleared on ARSENICUM. ARSENICUM very definitely has these alternations, but more frequently in adults than in children.

Chamomilla. [Cham]

      The symptoms of CHAMOMILLA are almost identical to those of ARSENICUM and yet they are entirely different drugs, and entirely different children. First there is hyperaesthesia, over- sensitiveness to noise, pain, people; there is exactly the same hyperaesthesia in CHAMOMILLA.

There is the restlessness of ARSENICUM, moving from one person to another, never still; and exactly the same in CHAMOMILLA, the child goes from one person to another and is never completely still never at peace. And yet the two types are different.

In CHAMOMILLA there is extreme hyperaesthesia, the CHAMOMILLA pains are more intense probably than any other pains from which patients suffer; but the reaction is entirely different from that in ARSENICUM. CHAMOMILLA cases have an absolute frenzy of rage; they resent it; they resent having it; and they are furious that the doctor has not cleared it off at once. A CHAMOMILLA child is liable to strike out at you because it is hyperaesthetic.

There is intense restlessness in the CHAMOMILLA child, it goes from one person to another, and each time it is dissatisfied with the person it goes to, and as it leaves them it is quite liable to strike at them. It is quite different from the soothing that the ARSENICUM child gets from each one.

Douglas Borland
Douglas Borland M.D. was a leading British homeopath in the early 1900s. In 1908, he studied with Kent in Chicago, and was known to be one of those from England who brought Kentian homeopathy back to his motherland.
He wrote a number of books: Children's Types, Digestive Drugs, Pneumonias
Douglas Borland died November 29, 1960.

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