If there were four words to summarise the psoric miasm, they would be:-
Abandonment
Deprivation
Insufficiency
Survival
These could relate to the emotional, physical, or spiritual sphere and often translate between the four. Psorinum is the quintessential nosode /remedy which summarises this picture and is uncannily indicated across the board of all age groups, but especially in children at this time.
In the article ‘Prolonged Lockdowns can Compromise a Child’s Immune System, Warns Immunologist’ (1), Virgilio Maxin, speaking of the effects of being restricted from going outside, mentions the resulting incubation of such symptoms as allergies, asthma, and even auto-immune diseases. The child may already be harbouring these diseases but they would most likely remain latent as long as the child were to be exposed to the normal environment. The viral immunologist, Dr. Byram Bridle, explains that regular exposure to the environment is central for the immune system to learn to differentiate between safe versus disease-causing germs. A more disturbing point made is that the immune systems of children are not designed to develop in isolation from the microbial world so ‘let’s consider letting children be children again’ is his very valued conclusion.
On top of this, the child may easily pick up on the mental distress created in other family members of the all-pervading news which has been circulating in the media throughout the last year about the pandemic. The increased use of sanitisers, combined with the lack of herd immunity, can also remove the protective layer from the child, the purpose of which is to build up the symptoms through the gut (the second brain) - after all, this is where at least 70% of the immune system is primarily located.
This all applies after a year of uncertainty with the lockdowns becoming increasingly less finite as they come to a tentative end each time. It would still appear when entering into dialogue with teenagers that, on contemplating their future, they are aware that the landscape appears increasingly uncertain as it hollows out before their very eyes. The way in which their lives have become truncated could only have been deemed unfathomable even a few months before the first lockdown became set in place.
Babies are being born and growing up in the time of the pandemic. They may have already become toddlers bearing the burden of carrying all the angst the parents have borne throughout their pregnancy and beyond. Psorinum given to the mother in pregnancy could act to protect her sense of safety and, in turn, that of her yet unborn child. Nosodes given in pregnancy - i.e. when indicated - can have lasting effects for them both. It is well known in the pathogenesis of Psorinum that babies needing this remedy are very fretful day and night, often due to the compromised assimilation of food - after all, babies are very much governed by their digestion at this very young age.
Often, in this remedy picture, there is an excess of exposure to dirt which has created the disease in the patient. However, it could well be the effect of over-sanitisation which has - albeit counter-intuitively - created the ‘failure to thrive’ which has been engrafted on to the young population. This is triggered by the above influences on their health at this time.
Some rubrics of Psorinum which summarise the current picture of our children so well, include (2):
‘Abandoned, forsaken, feelings’,
‘Anxiety, salvation, about’,
‘Delusion, doomed, being’’,
‘Delusion, fortune,that he was going to lose his’ (along with Staphysagria as the only other remedy - both in plain type),
‘Depression, financial, loss, after’,
‘Despair, recovery, of’,
‘’Sadness, loss, after, financial’,
‘Dying, constant thoughts of’,
‘Forebodings’,
‘Hopeless, feelings’,
‘Insomnia, sleeplessness, despair, in’, (in italics, along with only three remedies, Aurum Metallicum in black type, Carcinocin in plain type and Lyssin also in plain type),
‘Reaction, lack of’,
‘Religious, affections, depression, sadness’’,
‘Suicidal, disposition’/’suicidal, disposition, despair from’
‘Thoughts, frightful’.
So, in conclusion, I would like to suggest that ‘maintaining causes’ may remain challenging for some time to come. However, by preparing the ‘soil’ in this way, a solid constitution is going to be better equipped to withstand those continuing pressures. The effects of the lockdowns have, in my opinion, brought out the ‘uncompensated state’ in each individual and this often goes back to ‘root cause’ through the transfer of ancestral stress across the generations.(3)
Samuel Hahnemann defines the meaning of health in his Organon of Medicine by expressing it as the ‘freedom to adjust to changes’. My rationale at this time in our history is the need to ‘pull out all the stops’ to create this reality when so much disintegration is occurring around us. Maybe, one could speculate that over more time, as the new paradigm arises like a spectre in front of us, new miasms will evolve to embrace this very extreme adjustment required of humanity under lockdown.
In the meantime, the nosode - Psorinum - steps onto the stage with its strong indication in history after such events as famines and wars which are so strongly sadly reflected in today’s evolving global scenario evoked by the effects of this pandemic. If both children’s and adults’ health can be optimised despite the odds, this indicates homeopathy’s timeless ability to temper the storm however hard it may be raging in the exterior world.
In fact, in the Lancet this January, there is reference to an incidence of mental health problems having emerged in children since the pandemic.(4) One of the report’s authors, Dr. Tamsin Ford, Professor of Child Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, mentions this is especially the case for children in underprivileged environments. She goes on to say that the risk is hitting those hardest who are already most vulnerable.
Dr. Caroline Jessel, a former GP and founder of the charity, Dandelion Time, specialising in helping children and their families cope with mental health issues, says in a recently published article in the Times newspaper, that unless these problems are effectively treated, the children will go on to struggle later in life.(5) If this cannot be achieved, perhaps they will pass their trauma onto their own children, in the process creating a cycle. This represents a very fitting background to the type of pathogenesis seen in the nosode and remedy - Psorinum.
Virgilio, Maxin, ‘Prolonged Lockdowns Can Compromise a Child’s Immune System, Warns Immunologist’, the Conversation, 3rd March, 2021.
Murphy, Robin, N.D., ‘Homeopathic Clinical Repertory’, Lotus Health Institute, 2005.
Adalian, Elizabeth, ‘Touching Base with Trauma: Reaching Across the Generations - a Three-Dimensional Homeopathic Perspective’, Writersworld, 2017.
Newlove-Delgado, T. et al, 'Child mental health in England before and during the COVID-19 lockdown', The Lancet Psychiatry, 11th January 2021. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(20)30570-8/fulltext
https://dandeliontime.org.uk/news-2/dandelion-time-featured-in-the-times/