Syphilinum

Syphilis

Syphilinum

Syphilis, the bacterium from which this remedy is made, is a sexually transmitted infection that first appeared in Europe in the 15th century. It was thought to have been brought from the North American continent by early explorers. Original treatments, made with mercury and arsenic preparations, were almost as dangerous as the disease itself. According to Hahnemann, syphilis was responsible for the third miasm or inherited trait.

Parts Used

Secretion from chancre.

Uses

This remedy is used to treat chronic, although relatively painless, ulceration with recurrent abscesses typically in the groin. It is also used for chronic conditions such as asthma, constipation, painful menstruation, iritis (inflammation of the iris), and neuralgia. Symptoms appear gradually and resolve slowly.

Source

Syphilitic lesion or chancre.

Personality profile

Syphilinum is a strange and hence fascinating constitutional type. It is uncommonly seen, and its mental features are very poorly dealt with in the older materia medicas.

We can analyze the three miasms simplistically in functional terms as follows:

• Psora-Lack of function (e.g. constipation, apathy)
• Sycosis-Excess function (e.g. diarrhea, hurriedness)
• Syphilis-Distorted function (e.g. ulcerated bowel, insanity)

Those remedies that correspond to mentally disturbed personality types, such as Stramonium, Hyocyamus and Anacardium, belong in the main to the syphilitic miasm. Small wonder then that Syphilinum itself has a strange and disturbed mental picture. Some Syphilinum individuals possess few or none of the more abnormal mental features of the remedy, and can be spotted almost exclusively on the basis of physical symptomatology, family history and general features.

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