– Jan Scholten
Magnesium sulphuricum is sometimes called ‘bittersalt’, because of its very bitter taste. It is used in bowel cleansing programmes, in the form of Epsom salts, because it does not get absorbed by the intestinal walls into the blood. The picture of Mag-s shows us many gallbladder and liver troubles, but very little is told about the mental aspects.
Concepts
Magnesium Sulphuricum
Pacifism Clothing
Aggression Beauty, grace, harmony
Fear of loss Joy
Pain Love and relationships
Jealousy
Group analysis
The group analysis gives us a very clear theme: Mag-s is afraid of getting angry, out of fear of losing his love or his loved one. They therefore keep their irritation inside. But because of the held-in irritation, they lose contact with their loved one. The irritation starts to come between them. They start to project their irritation on to their partner, and all sorts of little reactions of the partner will be seen as anger. They get the feeling that their partner is always angry, trying to obstruct them and making life difficult for them. A variation of this theme is that Mag-s might feel they have to show their aggression to their partner, otherwise the partner might leave. They feel that they have to stand their ground and keep their partner under control, otherwise he or she might start to look for another. Jealousy is thus very much in the picture, as well as the feeling that they have to show who they are in order to be acceptable to the partner.
Case
A woman of 43 comes with skin complaints. She has a rash on her legs, hips and buttocks, sometimes also on the side of her neck. The rash is on both the right and on the left side. It consists of some kind of ‘cloud-like’ patches under the skin which burn and itch. She has to scratch, but that aggravates the burning. She is allergic to feathers (2), house dust and mites.
She also has problems concentrating: she has the feeling that she does everything unconsciously. Everything feels vague, as if she has cotton wool in her head. Her vision is also hazy sometimes. It gets better by blinking her eyes or opening them very wide. She often has pains in her feet: they are stitching pains, especially in the left metatarsal bones. It is caused by walking or dancing a lot, and is worse when it is raining (2), and when she bends her toes.
Sometimes she feels suffocated, with a slight wheezing sound. This is worse on laughing, and better on being quiet.
She has been tired and listless for 4 years and feels this mostly in her chest and stomach. She feels that a burden lies on her shoulders. Everything is too much for her, especially visitors and holidays. She has bad breath in the morning.
Her heart jumps sometimes, and her breathing stops momentarily when she gets afraid.
Her nails are pitted and split easily.
She starts to tremble if she does not eat at 11 am.
Dry and chafing eyes.
Dry, raw throat, (