Dr. J.J. Jain, Lecturer, Department of Organon,C.N.Kothari Homoeopathic Medical college is a good academician and practitioner.. Here he elaborates on the Sepia patient illustrating with a case study.   

    Today’s modern women have set up a trend of being away from age-old customs and tradition. They have taken up a challenge of being equally competitive to man or even more. In such an environment where female does not have an orthodox bent of mind, living within four walls of a house is found difficult.

    Sepia basically, a women of modern view doesn’t like working within the walls of a house. They usually have inclination for the artistic and challenging work. There is an imbibe energy in Sepia which is stimulated by the music. It’s natural independence sets her apart from other women.

    It’s natural tendency of human being to have changes in daily life and to do something new. Now if a condition sets in her life where she has to work for hours in her house doing household work, looking after family members and children, she takes up the responsibility on the moral ground. When this work and condition at home controls her independence then the actual disharmony in Sepia sets in. The shrewd Sepia women is often said to suffer from loss of her feminity but rather because she has surrendered her independence. They become irritable when they are not understood and not allowed to be independent, subtle minded
selves.

    Eventually her own mind and body becomes a battle ground as the pressure of conditioning threatens to overwhelm her own identity and she wonders who she is, what is right and why she is so sensitive and irritable much of the time. The tension that results from this battle between Sepia’s independent, sensitive nature and society’s insensitive attempts to mould her into something more pliable often reaches such intensity that she wants to scream.

    Now during this struggle to come out of this environmental conditions or circumstances doesn’t favour her. She unwillingly suppresses her desires leading to indolency and slowly she develops aversion to her work and persons who doesn’t appreciate her.

    Once the Sepia women has compromised her true nature for long enough, she begins to lose her spirit. As this occurs she experiences a gradual deadening of her appetite for life and resorts to religious behaviour as an outlet. The energy in her becomes stagnant which is reflected on physiological ground where there is stasis of circulation initially and later other pathological symptoms develop.

A case of Sepia

    A women aged forty years presented the following complaints
        1. Bitter eructations with nausea since 4-5 yrs.
            < During menstruation
            > after vomiting
    Sometimes associated with congestive headache
        2. Cold and Cough with white expectoration since 6 to 7 years
            < Cold water and getting feet wet
            < 4 to 5 am

Personal findings:

• Desires : Salty foods, warm
• Thrist : Thrist +
• Thermal State : Chilly ++
• Sleep : Sound
• Appetite : Good
• Bowels : Constipated occasionally

Life space Investigation:

    She was born and brought up in a middle class family where financial restrain was always present . Her father was a businessman running a grocery shop, with struggle she could complete her B.com Graduation. She was very jovial person even with this struggle in her life. She rarely expressed her bitterness outside. She got married in a middle class family, her husband being in the same background running a grocery shop.

    Sometime later her husband developed a psychological problem. The behaviors of her husband being, suspicious irritable, marked, she took her responsibility very well. She desired doing some professional job.

    But she could not come out of her responsibility and even her husband did not support this. She unwilling suppressed her desire, looked after her husband and children. A time came when she wished to resign from her responsibility and lead a religious life.

Analysis:

    Now in this case all her sufferings were on superficial level. The character of indolence was not pre-dominant. It was just a feeling of apathy she developed for time being.
    So considering all these, knowing the root cause, I decided to give Sepia 1 M 1 dose, as it showed psora being the dominant miasm in this case.

Follow-ups

    I did observe that Homoeopathic aggravation in her the very next day. Her headache increased, diarrhoea - loose motions - only 2-3 episodes. But general condition was maintained without any other medication.
   
    The third day her headache reduced and other complaints were completely reduced . Hence the case was perfectly cured by single dose and correct potency.