Its ability to smother and spread rapidly is one of most predominant features of this plant, according to Gerard’s Herbal (published in 1579).

‘Herb Gerard groweth of itself in gardens without setting or sowing and is so fruitful in its increase that when it hath once taken roote, it will hardly be gotten out againe, spoiling and getting every yeare more ground, to the annoying of better herbe’.

(called Herb Gerard because it was dedicated to St. Gerard, who was formerly invoked to cure the gout, against which the herb was chiefly employed)

According to Green’s Universal Herbal:

‘This weed is not uncommon in hedges, orchards, etc. It is a perennial plant, and as it is a greet creeper, cannot be admitted into gardens without great caution — it is not admitted into medical use, nor had it any title to its name goutweed, though formerly used by the Germans to assuage the pains of gout and piles. Linnaeus says it is eaten in Sweden, boiled for greens when tender in the spring. Culpeper says ‘it is not to be supposed that goutweed hath its name for nothing, but on experiment to heal the gout and sciatica; as also joint-aches and other cold griefs. The very bearing of it about one easeth the pains of the gout, and defends him that bears it from diseases.’ Meyrick and Hill are however more reasonable; the former calls the roots and leaves ‘a good external application for the sciatica and other pains, whether they are employed as a fomentation or a poultice’; and though many extol their efficacy in the gout, he says they are well omitted in that complaint as ‘they are seldom productive of any lasting good effects, and may sometimes be the occasion of much distress and mischief.’

According to Richard Mabey in Flora Britannica:

‘Ground elder ( common name for this weed) is best known as one of the ineradicable of garden weeds, and many of the popular names refer to the daunting persistence of the roots; "Devil’s guts" is another name for ground elder. My father comes from Dartford (a quarrying area). After digging 30ft deep they could still find the roots. It even comes through paved paths. "Housemaid’s knee" is, I imagine a fairly modern gardener’s tag, referring to the likely effects of trying to weed away a plant which can occupy three square yards in a season.’

Ground elder was almost certainly introduced to Britain from continental Europe as a pot-herb and a medicine against gout. Its herbal use - and popularity as a vegetable - eventually declined but the plant itself did not.’

 The following case was taken:

Female. DOB: 7.1.58 Occupation: Teacher of Biology

Very pleasant, grounded type of woman, very calm and centred. Average weight.

Gilberts Disease. People with this disease are unable to excrete bilirubin and thus become jaundiced at times. Most of the time the patient is symptom-free but from time to time will become slightly yellow. She tends to notice this if she is a bit run down. It is very up and down. She can feel lethargic when she is jaundiced. Will have a huge dip of energy after lunch around 2 to 3 pm. She doesn’t eat much lunch as the tiredness will be exacerbated if she eats too much. The dip of energy will last an hour or so.

Otherwise she feels quite healthy. Never has colds or has to go to bed because feels ill. She has thrush which comes and goes. The Gilberts Disease is not a huge issue but would like her energy levels to be better.

Menses - Feels a dip of energy at the beginning of period and can feel a bit low.

Always feels much better in the 2 weeks prior the period. Has periods every 3 weeks, lasting for 5 days.

Sometimes the period will start and stop.

She went to see a consultant a few years back who said that her cycle was messed up. She couldn’t have hormonal treatment because progesterone will trigger off Gilberts Syndrome, so she went for homoeopathic treatment at this point. She was given Sepia which helped her periods.

Over the years she has been given Natrum Muriaticum, Sepia, Tuberculinum and Phosphorus. Sepia and Natrum Muriaticum have been the most frequently prescribed remedies for her over a number of years, the states seeming to alternate and both remedies seem to help maintain energy and reasonable periods.

Much worse from fatty food especially cream and worse from alcohol

Loves chocolate

Vegetarian

Loves curries, spices, herbs, garlic and highly seasoned food

Tends to eat late in the day. Can eat more in the evening than during the day

Thirsty for cold water and tea

Can get colicky pain in lower abdomen just prior to stool.

Warmish, can’t tolerate heat, gets overheated very quickly. Can often wake up sweaty at night and has to stick out a limb to reduce heat. But dislikes cold and has much less energy during winter.

Much better from a lot of exercise.

Loves singing - sing in a choir regularly and this is a great outlet.

Sleeps on stomach - requires 7 hours per night.

Has a lot of dreams.

Recurrent dream of swimming very fast over the surface of water in a race, skimming the water very fast.

Also dreams of flying and sexual dreams

One big issue patient has is of not knowing quite what she wants to do in life. There is a conflict between being an earth mother, close to her family, and her career ambitions. Sometimes she feels trapped by her family and feels guilty about not giving them enough time and energy.

She never thought that much about her career until she was promoted to Head of Biology in her school. She loves her work and gets a lot of kicks from it. She says she needs a lot of space for her work, that she needs a lot of space to be alone, even though she loves her friends and family.

If she gets upset she will shut herself away and will rarely cry in front of others. Says that she finds it impossible to cry in front of anyone, even her husband. If she feels tearful she finds it difficult to speak. However, she is rarely tearful. She says that if others were sympathetic to her she would become more tearful. She feels that friends and work colleagues would say that she can come across as rather hard even though she may be feeling very upset inside.

People think of her as a perfectionist, very efficient and clinical. They think it is a joke if she makes a mistake. She says that she has a problem with failure and has to have the appearance of strength.

Patient’s mother is weepy and emotional and this always made her uncomfortable. She didn’t want to be like her mother. Her parents gave her a lot of confidence and expected a lot from her. There was a lot of pressure at home to succeed.

Patient says that she wants to be the best. She was the best in her year. She got the impression that she was wonderful at school. Her mother thinks she is marvellous and she never criticises her. She says that she never allows her mother to see the other side of herself.

She says that she is not sure whether she has a lot of confidence or that she is just fearful of failure.

When she takes on a new project a part of her is scared but not generally anxious about most things. She doesn’t generally experience much anxiety about making mistakes. She thinks that she is good at avoiding failure. She has to have things perfect.

At the moment she is applying to be Head of Sixth Form but feels torn about this. She could stay at home but another part of her feels the need for more stimulation at work.

She can get upset if other people are bloody- minded. She is quite forceful when she voices her opinion. Dislikes it when people bring emotions into issues. She feels that she is very pragmatic. She can be forceful if someone forceful is trying to over- ride her. She needs logic, to understand someone’s view rationally. She says that the kids at school are frightened of her at times.

She can get angry if she feels her opinion is not taken seriously. She can also get angry over an injustice e.g. one of the younger teachers was not being treated fairly and that angered her. If it is a just decision then she feels ok. She says that although she doesn’t bottle up anger, she feels that she bottles up sadness.

It is easy to see why Sepia and Natrum Muriaticum have been so often prescribed for this patient. The suppressed grief and anger over injustices indicating Natrum Muriaticum and then the conflict between motherhood and ambition, plus the amelioration from exercise, pointing to Sepia.

There are a number of other elements but Sepia and Natrum Muriaticum seem to sum up her state quite well and both remedies had done remarkably well previously. Her qualities of pragmatism might even direct one to considering a Kali salt but she demonstrates a deep sensitivity which tends to revolve around the question of responsibility and a certain objectivity and control on the mental level which can be overwhelmed by a deep sympathy for others which would further stress the Natrum Muriaticum quality of this patient.

At the same time she is both pragmatic and objective, strives for perfection and a quality of surety in her own abilities which can make her a formidable opponent. Nevertheless, her narrative still seemed to indicate a sensitivity that might point to a plant and she does not seem to fall into states of deep resentment but is more upset by the sheer illogicality of an individual when presenting his case.

Using the bioliminal technology as a diagnostic tool, we photographed the patient holding both Sepia and Natrum Muriaticum; both pictures were almost clear and better than the base photograph, and we would have been happy to prescribe Sepia, in view of her present conflict between motherhood and career. Due to the research possibilities arising from the use of the bioliminal technology, I decided to try a small remedy, Aegopodium Podagraria, as, in my search for new materia medica, I had noticed on reading Vermeulen’s picture that it appeared to simulate many of the symptoms of both Sepia and Natrum Muriaticum.

We asked the patient to hold this remedy and, to our surprise, she produced a totally coherent picture that signified that it was possibly a better similar for her than either Natrum Muriaticum or Sepia.

Leading symptoms which relate to our patient are:

Aversion to company and to conversation

Consolation aggravates

Withdrawal, shuns people

Feels better when alone

Gloomy, tearful but indisposed to talk

Better from motion

Great tiredness

Craving for chocolate, salt and sour

In the narrative of this remedy we also find causeless anger with oneself and family and a tendency to dwell on the past and be resentful about the past. Also indifference to one’s own mistakes and offended easily.

So the following remedy was prescribed:

A week or so after the remedy the patient’s younger brother was found dead in his flat. He had been a drug addict for many years and had overdosed. It was a great shock to her and to her family and this obviously overshadowed the effect of the remedy. She has been weeping a lot, even in front of her husband which is unusual for her. Her other brother (who is a homoeopathic student) prescribed Arnica and Ignatia for her after the discovery of the body which helped her.

Prior to the brother’s death, the day after the first tablet of Aegopodium Podagraria, the patient reported that she had had diarrhoea which was very unusual and that she had felt an increase of energy. This was noticeable because it was the end of term and she would normally have felt exhausted. Considering what had happened and that she hadn’t slept for a week after her brother’s death, she said that she wasn’t feeling too bad.

She had more vivid dreams after the remedy. The night before her brother died she dreamt that her mother had died.

She also dreamt that she had a new-born baby and was breast feeding it.

Her period was 4 weeks instead of the usual 3 weeks but this could have been a consequence of her brother’s death rather than the effect of the remedy.

The patient’s base photo showed an improvement over the first base photo in spite of the terrible shock she had experienced but it was still far from coherent. We photographed our patient with Aegopodium again but there was no clarity with this remedy. We felt that at this point she needed an acute remedy to help her deal with the grief and shock.

We prescribed Opium 10M and this produced coherency and asked the patient to return in a month. Our assumptions were that this remedy would help with the trauma of the shock and that she should return to her former ‘constitutional state’ of Aegopodium Podagraria.

Patient said that she had felt very up and down emotionally. She had been letting go of her brother and crying a lot which was unusual for her. Feels that she has been working through the grief. She has found that she has been much more open to the support of her colleagues which is unusual as she is normally the one who supports others. Her period is now every 4 weeks.

She has felt anxious at times with butterflies in her stomach and physical pain. There is an agitation there. She has felt more emotional extremes. Energy however has not been low.

She had an interview for a job for which she was short-listed and it was gruelling. She didn’t eventually get the job but the fact that she made it to the second interview gave her a boost. Then her head of department resigned and she will be applying for this job. She says that she no longer feels any dilemma about her career and motherhood.

The patient’s base photo showed an improvement. It is clear that Opium had helped her, freeing her up to go through the grief of her brother’s death. We decided at this point to test out Aegopodium Podagraria again and it produced a totally clear image. We felt justified in following the Opium with this remedy.

After this the patient cancelled her next appointment because she felt so well, and when I rang her recently, towards the end of October, she said that she still felt remarkably well and that her energy and general state of health was good.

This is only one case of Aegopodium and one case is certainly not sufficient for me to make generalisations about the exact narrative of this remedy nor to outline its range of action with any degree of certitude. Nevertheless, I still felt it an interesting enough case to warrant publication in view of its close similarity to both Natrum Muraticum and Sepia. One characteristic that stands out in the patient is her capability as a fine leader – sensitive, rational and logical and with an enormous capacity for perseverance that may well be linked archetypically to the function of this weed in its furious tenacity as a weed.

I have a huge advantage in my practice as a homeopath in that I have now at my disposal a technology that allows me to ‘test out’ newer, less well-known, remedies and thereby am able to ‘fine-tune’ my prescriptions. As mentioned above, I could have prescribed Sepia for this patient and it probably would have worked adequately enough but the technology allowed me to prescribe a remedy which may have been an even closer match for our patient. I feel that this is the enormous contribution which bioliminal technology can offer to homeopathy. Classical Homeopathy is in the throes of a Renaissance with the advent of myriad new provings and novel modes of prescribing and the homeopath these days is faced by what at times can appear an overwhelming and confusing amount of new information. In the midst of such an excess of material medica, I believe that this technology has the potential to become an important research tool in our pursuit of precise and elegant prescriptions for our patients.