His name was Kurt and not only was he a patient, but a close friend whom I had been treating for the last three years. He had had a heart attack several years before I met him and had recovered nicely after a stent was placed. He had asthma and various joint pains in the back, hips and lower extremities. He had received a number of homeopathic medicines and claimed that each one had helped him, some significantly.
One day in late 2010 he began to complain of a severe pain in the left wrist accompanied by swelling of the condyles of the wrist. It was a new symptom and suggested to me that he was not improving. In fact, I believed that my medicines, to date, had not been helping him. I knew I had to try again and find a homeopathic medicine that more precisely covered his symptoms. We began again to talk and he told me the following story:
“When I was five years old my parents decided to send me to live with my uncle and aunt and their two sons. At that time we were living in Tucson, Arizona. My aunt and uncle were living in Virginia, more than 2,000 miles to the east. Without telling me a thing, I was put on a train with a young woman who was my chaperone. I had no idea where we were headed but it was a great trip and I enjoyed myself immensely. One day, we arrived at this house. The woman who was taking care of me rang the bell and my aunt opened the door. My traveling companion bid me good-bye and vanished. It was quite a shock. But it got worse, much worse. My Uncle Luke had a distant manner and never showed me anything but indifference. He never treated me with affection. My oldest cousin, he was seven years older than I was, was neither friendly nor affectionate. My Aunt Ruth did little more than find jobs for me to do and issue orders. The other cousin, Billy, was 2 ½ years older than me and he really disliked me and did everything he could to make my life miserable. I remember his first words to me, ‘If you touch my things, I’ll kill you.’ It went downhill from there.
“The atmosphere in that house was very hostile for me. Aunt Ruth was like a drill sergeant. She assigned tasks, and little else. Tessie, the German immigrant maid, played the motherly role. She was the only one who ever touched me and showed me love.
“It was in those years that I developed asthma and food allergies and became a bed wetter.
“There was one area of my life that I guarded and did not permit any meanness about. That was my mother. She was, in my mind, a sweet, distant woman. The only thing I had that was mine was my memory of my mother. It was an important, even sacred, memory for me.”
“One morning, I think I was about six at the time, we were sitting at breakfast. There was Tessie, who was cooking, and Billy and me. As usual, he was giving me a hard time. He said something mean about my mother. He never said anything that was not mean.
“When he said, ‘Your mother is stupid, just like you,’ I said to him, ‘Don’t talk about my mother.’
“Tessie must have heard something in my voice. She was frying eggs. Billy acted pleased he’d found something that upset me. He kept on about my mother.
“I warned him again. “I mean it. Lay off about my mother.’ I felt tears and anger welling up. It was the one thing that belonged only to me in that house. Her specialness.
“Again, Billy persisted. He disregarded my warning and started in on my mother again.
“On the table was a steak knife. I grabbed it and lunged at his throat. The tip of the knife went into his throat about half an inch at which point Tessie’s powerful hand grabbed my wrist and pulled me out of the chair. She was strong, a two hundred pound German woman. And she screamed.
“At that point, Billy began to scream and cry. He put his hand to his throat and there was a small amount of blood on his fingers.
“Tessie’s screaming and Billy’s screaming brought Aunt Ruth into the room. Tessie was still holding me. I’m still holding the knife. Aunt Ruth arrives and she starts screaming and rushes to her son, Billy.
“They don’t know what to do with me. I’m not stopping. I’m still trying to get at him. So they decide to lock me in the pantry. They called Uncle Luke.
“I spent about two hours locked in the pantry. I remember it well. I found a fruit cake and I ate the whole thing in those two hours before they let me out. It was delicious.”
Kurt had just given me a perfect description of the way a person who needs the homeopathic medicine, Mercurius, behaves. In fact, in the Repertory we find the following symptom: “Anger, so angry that he could have stabbed someone.” Mercurius is there.
From that day on, Billy was careful never to push Kurt too far.
People who need Mercurius tend to have violent anger. They react first and think about it later. They can be so angry they can punch holes in walls. Their anger translates into violence almost instantly.
After receiving Mercurius, my friend’s wrist pain diminished and was gone within four to six weeks. He has continued to improve. The bony swelling of the wrist has diminished more than fifty percent.
It is interesting that Kurt went on to become a man unusually interested in weaponry. He has always had rifles and pistols in his house and a couple of years ago he passed an examination allowing him to carry a concealed weapon. He became an excellent shot and still is. What he learned that morning at the breakfast table as a child changed his life. At some deep level, he decided that no one, EVER, would mess with him again. “I have no intention of killing anyone. On the other hand, I will not be anyone’s goddamned victim.”