Money worries in the repertory: tracing the source evidence

Remedies associated with anxiety about money, poverty, livelihood and financial loss.

Money is not one symptom

Worry about money can take very different forms. One person fears that there will not be enough for the family. Another lies awake over debts. A third is preoccupied with business failure, loss of independence or actual poverty. These experiences may sit close together in ordinary speech, but they are not automatically the same repertory symptom.

The rubric Mind; cares, worries, full of; money, financial matters, about therefore needs more than a list of remedy names. A prover's own words, a patient's history and a later materia medica author's interpretation tell different kinds of stories.

What a proving can show

A proving records experiences observed after a medicine was taken by a healthy participant. It can support the presence of a symptom in the remedy record, but only when the participant, timing and source can be followed clearly.

Calcarea fluorica [calc-f.] offers one of the clearest older examples. In T. F. Allen's Encyclopedia of Pure Materia Medica, a 29-year-old prover reported anxiety about money and the fear that he might come to want, although there was no apparent reason for it. The thought returned on later days. Later writers repeated the passage, but those repetitions remain one observation, not several independent provings.

Ozonum [ozon.] has the brief diary entry “Am worried about money,” assigned to a particular prover and day. Bambusa arundinacea [bamb-a.] has a prover thinking repeatedly about the family's financial future and the pressure of scarce cash. A separate participant described a broader fear of poverty.

For Panthera leo [pant-l], the proving author says that two participants experienced financial worry because of expenses. The statement is useful, but the original diary passages still need to be checked. Lamprohiza splendidula [lampr-s.], or Firefly, also has proving material about low earnings and dread over what action may become necessary; this should not be confused with a separate published clinical case of the remedy.

Promising proving leads

Several remedies deserve further study, but are not thereby approved additions:

• Hoodia gordonii [hood-g]: two participants wrote about debts, fees or frustration over finances.
• Gavia immer [gav-i.]: one participant wrote, “I'm trying not to worry about money.”
• Phascolarctos cinereus [phas-c.] (Koala): a participant reported being unable to sleep and having money worries.
• Ixodes ricinus [ixo-r.]: a diary records, for the first time in the participant's life, the feeling that there might not be enough money.

These passages invite further reading. The diary, dose, timing and the participant's state before the proving need to be clear before the remedies can be weighed with confidence.

What patient reports can and cannot prove

Clinical reports tell a different kind of story. They may show that money worries formed part of a patient's condition. They do not necessarily show that this particular worry disappeared after the remedy, even when the patient improved generally.

In one of Kent's Sarsaparilla [sars.] cases, a 52-year-old man had endured ten years of worry after financial losses and had turned to whisky. Kent reported substantial improvement and a return to work and temperance after treatment. The financial worry is clearly part of the history, but its separate disappearance was not measured.

E. G. Jones described a man who had failed in business and had been driven nearly insane by worry. Jones prescribed Kali phosphoricum [kali-p.] and reported recovery, although the published account gives little long-term follow-up.

In the clinical material for Pinus contorta [pin-co.], patients speak directly of worrying about finances and family. The financial passages belong to clinical cases, not to the proving section. Each case still needs to be followed through before claiming that the money worry itself was cured.

F. M. Peake's Calcarea fluorica [calc-f.] series says that adult patients later felt happier, feared the future less and worried less about money. This is valuable clinical testimony, but the summary and the individual case descriptions must not be counted twice.

Clinical leads that remain open

A Psorinum [psor.] case describes an unreasonable fear of poverty. Cases of Neodymium carbonicum [neod-c.] and Thulium carbonicum [thul-c.] include anxiety about not having enough and fear of being unable to support the family. In each report, general improvement is described, but the source does not yet establish that the financial fear itself improved.

The situation is especially delicate with Cuprum aceticum [cupr-acet.] and Natrum sulphuricum [nat-s.]. One long treatment history mentions financial worries while several remedies were prescribed in sequence. A temporary response followed Cuprum aceticum [cupr-acet.], while more lasting recovery was reported after Natrum sulphuricum [nat-s.]. This is one patient and one complicated course; the earlier money worry cannot simply be awarded to whichever remedy came last.

A German Lac caninum [lac-c.] case states that the patient's financial situation caused worry, but the course contains several treatment phases and does not clearly report the fate of that particular symptom.

When the source is an author's interpretation

Materia medica commentary can preserve an important clinical idea, yet it is not the same as a proving diary or a patient report.

Kent describes Calcarea silicata [calc-sil.] as having fear about family and financial matters. Scholten discusses loss of money, loss of independence and fear of poverty under Erbium oxydatum [erb-o.]. A later discussion of Bryonia [bry.] includes fear of poverty and dreams of anxious attention to business. These passages belong in the conversation, but their underlying individual observations have not yet been recovered.

Hering's Arsenicum album [ars.] includes melancholy after financial losses and fear that the family will starve. Kent's Sepia [sep.] includes fear of poverty and starvation. Hartmann discusses Ignatia [ign.] where illness arose amid continuing worries about livelihood, grief and sorrow. The wording is relevant, but these are broad materia medica or therapeutic statements rather than newly identified individual provings.

Where caution changes the reading

Clematis erecta [clem.] is represented by a patient who was depressed because of unemployment and disappointed hopes. That is evidence of distress over livelihood, not an explicit statement of worry about money. It may fit a broad interpretation, but not necessarily a strict one.

The 1944 article cited for Staphisagria [staph.] does not contain an explicit financial-worry passage. That absence is not enough to remove the remedy, but the connection remains uncertain until a clearer passage is found.

An early report also uses the remedy name Suprarenalin in connection with grief, worry and financial affairs. It is not yet clear how that name should be matched to modern remedy names, so it should not yet be assigned to a modern remedy.

Related rubric names

A passage about money may belong more precisely under one of these neighbouring rubrics:

• Mind; anxiety; money, financial matters, about
• Mind; cares, worries, full of; business, about
• Mind; anxiety; business, about
• Mind; business; worries
• Mind; fear; financial loss, of
• Mind; fear; poverty, of
• Mind; fear; poverty, of; prosperous, although
• Mind; fear; ruin, financial, of
• Mind; anxiety; money, financial matters, about; making enough to support family
• Mind; anxiety; money, financial matters, about; retire, of having enough money to
• Mind; loss, financial, ailments from, agg.
• Mind; grief, sorrow; financial loss, from
• Mind; business; ailments from; cares, worries; agg.
• Mind; business; ailments from; failure; agg.
• Mind; thoughts; persistent; business, of
• Mirilli's themes; avarice
• Mirilli's themes; money
• Mirilli's themes; poverty

These names are not interchangeable. Fear of future poverty is not the same as grief after an actual financial loss; business preoccupation is not always money anxiety; and unemployment may concern identity and purpose as much as income.

Bibliography

• Allen, T. F. Encyclopedia of Pure Materia Medica, 1874–1879. Calcarea fluorica, Mind, symptom 1, authority [2].
• Begin, M. Firefly proving, prover 10, entries 207–210; and “Out of the Darkness, into the Light: A Case of Firefly,” Interhomeopathy, July 2012.
• Hartmann, F. Specielle Therapie acuter und chronischer Krankheiten, vol. II, 1848, p. 425.
• Hayes, R. E. S. “The Bach Remedies: Comments and Results,” Homoeopathic Recorder, vol. L, 1935, Clematis erecta case II, p. 154.
• Hayes, R. E. S. “Tell It All,” Homoeopathic Recorder, vol. LXI, 1945–1946, pp. 145–147.
• Hering, C. Guiding Symptoms of Our Materia Medica, vol. II, 1879, Arsenicum album, p. 33.
• Hesse, J. Ixodes ricinus Prüfungstexte, 2008, diary day 19.
• Homoeopathic Recorder, vol. LXII, 1946–1947, “Does the Homoeopathic Remedy Work?”, pp. 70–71.
• Homoeopathic Recorder, vol. LXVII, 1951–1952, “Bryonia Alba,” pp. 290–291.
• Huenecke, J. A., and Northwestern Academy of Homeopathy. Gavia immer Proving Journal, 2006, Mind, prover 21; later presentation in The American Homeopath, 2009, p. 79.
• Hutchinson, J. W. “Staphisagria,” Homoeopathic Recorder, May 1944, p. 442.
• Jones, E. G. “Reading the Pulse for the Indicated Remedy,” Homoeopathic Recorder, vol. XXX, 1915, p. 3.
• Kent, J. T. New Remedies, Clinical Cases, Lesser Writings, Aphorisms and Precepts, Chicago, 1926, Sarsaparilla case III, pp. 576–577; Calcarea silicata, mental symptoms.
• Kent, J. T. Lectures on Homoeopathic Materia Medica, Sepia, mental symptoms.
• Lehman, S. W. “Clinical Cases,” Transactions of the International Hahnemannian Association, 1918, pp. 173–179, especially p. 178.
• Müller, K. J. Lac caninum, 1994, p. 72; and Cuprum aceticum, 1996, pp. 6–7.
• Naidoo, K. A Homoeopathic Proving of Panthera leo, 2015, discussion “Money,” p. 358.
• Olsen, S. “Pinus contorta: A Proving and Cured Cases,” American Journal of Homoeopathy, vol. 99, no. 1, Spring 2006, pp. 31–64.
• Peake, F. M. “A Few Calcarea Fluorica Cases,” Homoeopathic Recorder, 1939, pp. 29–30 and following.
• Robbins, P. Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus), die Prüfung, 1996, prover 11, day 23, p. 21.
• Rückert, T. J. Klinische Erfahrungen in der Homöopathie, 1861.
• Schadde, A. Proving of Ozonum, 1993, prover 21, C6, day 11.
• Scholten, J. Secret Lanthanides: Road to Independence, 2005, Neodymium carbonicum section 6.5, Erbium oxydatum section 14.7 and Thulium carbonicum section 15.5.
• Schuster, B. Proving of Bambusa arundinacea, 2nd ed., Verlag für Homöopathie, 1998; see prover 10, C30, day 8.
• Swana-Sikwata, T. S. Hoodia gordonii Proving Thesis, 2015, p. 50 and repertory table pp. 102–103.

Roger van Zandvoort