The homeopathic remedy Helleborus niger is obtained from the homonymous plant, also called Christmas Rose. Helleborus Niger can be useful in case of deep depression of the nervous system, when the patient presents a state of indifference to external stimuli. It is also used in head trauma or edema and anxiety-depressive syndromes.
Helleborus niger or christmas Rose
The Black Hellebore or Christmas (scientific name Helleborus niger) belongs to the Ranunculaceae family and is a perennial herbaceous plant with large white flowers, which blooms around December.
Thanks to its medicinal properties connected to the presence of helleborin, it was known in ancient tradition as the plant that “liberates” from the evils of the soul, especially from anguish, in reference to the relaxing effect.
Originally from the Caucasus and Asia Minor, very widespread in the Balkans as in our peninsula, this plant has been the subject of several legends in the Christian tradition, which want it linked above all to the Nativity. One of them tells of how a bush of white roses, by the intervention of an angel, had sprung up near the cave at the time of the birth of Jesus, to allow a very poor and intimidated shepherdess, to bring like the others a gift to the Child.
The name of the genus Helleborus was attributed by the botanist French Joseph Pitton de Tournefort: the term is formed by the union of two Greek words (elein = to hurt and bora = to feed) whose final meaning is “dish, nourishment or mortal food“.
Helleborus niger: homeopathic remedy
Mother tincture of Helleborus niger, prepared from the fresh root harvested during the winter months, contains:
- essential oils;
- nicotinic acid;
- saponosides (helleborein) with diuretic and anti-migraine properties;
- elebroside, a heteroside with cardiotonic action.
The preparation process with dilution-dynamization extrinsic many healing properties that the raw substance not dynamized does not possess.
Helleborus niger is useful in case of:
- depression of the functionality of the central nervous system;
- head trauma with concussion;
- after-effects of anesthesia after interventions;
- headache;
- nictalopia and visual disturbances;
- heart failure;
- renal failure;
- skin pathologies;
- rheumatic pains.
Helleborus niger: constitutional type
Helleborus niger subjects have the following clinical features:
Local symptoms:
- head: headache with stupefaction, occipital headache, fixed and absent gaze, meningitis, coma, head trauma with mental numbness, encephalitis, severe meningeal cerebrous states with oliguria or anuria followed by coma
- gastrointestinal tract: colitis with very abundant watery and mucous stools, ulcerative colitis, the absence of thirst;
- urogenital apparatus: decrease in diuresis, anuria, edema, anasarca;
- extremities: clumsy movements, involuntary movements.
Mental symptoms:
Difficult concentration, mental slowness, feelings of guilt and remorse, feeling of not making it, depression, apathy and indifference, state of anguish.
The symptoms of this subject worsen from 16 to 20 (as well as in Lycopodium and Alumina).
