Nutmeg Nuances
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 1997 Jul / Aug VOL 5 NO 4.
Dr [Ms] Meena T Mankani N D
'Nux-mosch

"This remedy has proved useful in such and such conditions" they say, but a true Homoeopath knows that "any given medicine produced such and such effects on provers."
DR J T Kent

So for Homoeopaths, like any other healing agent, the nanny's nutmeg has a greater application than the simple crude granny's formulas for which it has been well known from time immemorial. When potentised,it has proved useful for various conditions which it is known to have produced. In order to be cured it should only be given to those individuals who are susceptible to it at the dynamic level. At the moment, we will focus on just one of the various effects that it is known to produce and cure-the Pre Menstrual Syndrome [PMS]

PMS is the periodic acute projection of the latent characteristics of the deranged dynamism, which furnish a significant part of the picture of the disease to be understood and healed. So, logically it follows that Nux-moschata could act curatively as per the Homoeopathic principles only when it is given considering the general characteristic symptoms of the person suffering from the PMS and not just for the PMS alone.

I give a case to illustrate my point.
This was a 31 year old suffering and sighing wife of a famous film producer who had a mistress. The lady loved her husband immensely and could not come to terms with the facts of life, and continued to hope that her husband who had gone astray would be back to her soon; which actually never happened. She nervously entered my room on the 7th of Aug. 1995. Her voice was tremulous and her lips very dry. She cleared her throat often and took little water, just enough to moisten her dry mouth and throat. She complained of periodic fits of fainting which occurred just 2-3 days prior to her menses. Her fainting fits began 4 years back during her first pregnancy. and has continued since then. She suddenly feels a blackout and falls down, injuring herself almost always. She revives in a few minutes after vigorous splashing of cold water.

She passes her painful days by sleeping over her grief, as keeping awake for long was getting very difficult for her. She loved warm blankets and hated milk and water, no matter how parched her mouth remained.

On examination, her pulse was 66/min and BP 90/60 mm of Hg.
Now, the marked tendency to fainting and the threatening heart failure, alongwith the following totality pointed clearly to Nux-moschata. The rubrics;

Nux-moschata in various potencies given single dose at a time, brought back the healthy bloom in her. Soon she took charge of her life and took the vital decision of divorcing her husband and thereby freeing herself from the false security of her illusions and facing the stark reality of life. Though the process was very painful, yet she went through it courageously. She is now settled independently - relieved of all her tensions and so also of her fainting.

Some Notes:
1] PMS - being essentially the intense, clear and acute manifestation of the basic disturbance; the individualizing symptoms are almost always an infallible pointer to the curative simillimum, which we may have otherwise missed. I remember a case where I was giving Lachesis to a lady without much benefit, until one day she casually mentioned that she always gets a sore throat prior to her periods. Based on this information and the other essential totality, she was given one dose of Lac-caninum 10M which eased off all her sufferings in no time.
2] The other remedy that runs very close to Nux-moschata in the case presented above is Ignatia. But Ignatia generally gets sleepless from any disturbance of the vital force, whereas our patient was exteremly drowsy, also Nux-moschata is the only remedy against the rubric, 'sleepiness, hysteria, during'. Besides, the particular characteristic, 'Faintness, menses before is covered by Nux-moschata and not by Ignatia.