Medorrhinum: A Study
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 2004 Jan / Feb VOL VI NO 1.
Dr Jawahar Shah
'Medo

Medorrhinum is a remedy which is predominantly indicated for the people who are very comfortable at night. They are happy, exhilarated and excited as evening sets in. Such behaviour can be expressed by the phrase, "Cross by day, Merry by night".
It is an important remedy for children who are very passionate, affectionate and loving. They have strong desire for love and affection. It is also indicated for behavioural problems of children. Children who are rude and aggressive, throw temper tantrums, fight with other children and kick and strike their parents or relatives can be Medorrhinum.
At night, these same children become very playful,comfortable and affectionate.
It is an important remedy with H/o Gonorrhoea, in parents or patient. The other causative factor is Anticipation. Anticipating the sickness brings on the trouble and also thinking of the complaints < +++.

Right from childhood, they have intuitions, which often comes true. On many occasions, they predict accidents, natural calamities or results of exams. The other extreme of love ie hate, is a much more stronger feeling in Medorrhinum. A child who was getting "A" grade, in school, suddenly starts getting "F". The child who loved his parents starts hating them! A child with tremendous attachment to animals (Aethusa, Nuphar-luteum) starts hating them; becomes violent towards animals, esp. rats, mice, etc.

Comparision: (Tarent, Anac, Mosch). All these remedies are very cruel towards animals. In Tarentula, you will find violence, with physical restlessness and mobility. In Anacardium-two wills and confusion as to what is right and what is wrong. While in Moschus, you will find lot of sexual excitement and violence of the last degree. Moschus is an important remedy for sexual perversions and nymphomania starting at an early age.

The child is very sensitive and emotional. Loves flowers, beauty and takes good care of them. The child who was polite, soft, passionate and loveable turns into a devil. He feels a strong desire to bite, kick, hit, strike. He is very rude and aggressive. All his actions become erratic, he develops inner hardness and that is why, it is very difficult to handle these children.
They love to do whatever is forbidden. If you tell them not to do certain things, they do it first. This quality is similar to Tarentula. That is what makes them courageous and brave. Both these remedies are courageous, but in Tarentula, they have no soft corner for anything. They can lie with so much confidence, that the other person believes it as the truth. For eg, If he was given some money, he will not return the balance amount. He will spend it on himself. On being asked details, he will say maybe the balance money fell from his pocket. If you point out the chocolate marks around his mouth, then he will give an explanation that the chocolate was given by a friend. He will never admit the truth, even in the worst circumstances.
Whereas Medorrhinum child may start with a lie but does not know how to finish and gets caught half-way through, starts fumbling and doesn’t have the same confidence as the Tarentula child.

When grows into a teen-ager, he wants to experience everything. He wants to try out new things in life. He likes to go out with girls for parties, discotheques, etc and wander around in the streets till late at night. They never obey. If the father says, come back at 10 pm, they will come back at 2 am. They will sneak out of the house, once parents have gone to sleep. They smoke, drink and have sexual relationship at a very young age. They don’t like bindings. That is why, the idea of marriage seems unendurable. They remain unmarried till very late in life, but may have many boyfriends or girl friends.
Medorrhinum is predominantly an extremist; self centered, hard hearted and don’t want any connection with people around them. At times, they are very crude and violent. They are cruel and violent towards people, to their own children and towards animals. Compare Lycopodium and Sepia. Both do not like their children. (Lycopodium don’t like to take up responsibility,so remain unmarried. They are anxious about sexual performance and duties that will be thrust upon him. Sepia has aversion to children, male members and sex).
Along with aggression, other extreme responses like shyness are also quite obvious. This is so pronounced that they are not able to speak during an interview.

Their tremendous sexual appetite, takes them to different girls or prostitutes and thus contract sexually transmitted diseases, esp Gonorrhoea. Suppression of gonorrhoea is the cause of all their illnesses.
Medorrhinum is an important remedies for mental retardation and poor reaction. These children are physically very weak with enlarged lymphatic glands. They catch infections easily, which progress slowly and steadily, remain for longer duration and take time to resolve. The infection can act as a shock to the system and may have long lasting effects. At the mental level, there could be shock from some act of the parents. It could be some kind of hatred, jealousy, negligence and abuse from parents or relatives. The shock goes very deep into their systems and the child totally withdraws from the parents.

This withdrawal and hardness can lead to 3 things:
1. They become excessively religious and start feeling that life is unreal.
2. They develop anxiety.
3. They develop suicidal tendency
So, Medorrhinum becomes an important remedy for suicidal tendency in young adults.
Degeneration sets in early. They lose their memory for names and words, to the extent that they have to ask the names of their close friends. They begin a sentence and halfway through, forget what they were going to say.
Time passes too slowly (Arg-nit, Cann-ind.)
Recent events appear as if had occurred years ago or things done today feel as if were done one week ago.
The patient is predominantly hurried in nature, a workaholic type who is totally absorbed in his profession. He starts thinking that people are very slow and that people must hurry all the time. Right from childhood, they have fear of dark; fear that somebody is behind him and fear of monsters around him.
Anxiety that something will happen all the time. Anxiety about imaginary things.
Anxiety of losing fortune and Fear that he/she will say some things wrong.
The anxiety is expressed by biting nails of fingers and toes. It is probably the only remedy where the patient bites his own toe nails.

Most of the time, when patient is sad with weeping tendency, we think of Pulsatilla. But Medorrhinum is a very important remedy where patient cannot express his symptoms without weeping. Weeping ameliorates sadness.
The last important symptom is obsession. Like Syphilinum, Medorrhinum is also an important remedy where patient wants to wash hands repeatedly.
Medorrhinum is predominantly hot. Always searches for a cool place, so much so that the child rolls out of the bed and onto the ground in search of a cold spot. They do not like their feet covered. Uncovering ameliorates. Desire for A/C, fast fan and gets aggravated in the sun. They also have a craving for ice and cold drinks. They get easily exhausted, both at mental and physical level.

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