Saponaria – Soap Root

The mother tincture is prepared from the dried root of the plant Saponaria officinalis L., which occurs in Europe, Asia and North America. N.O. Caryophyllaceae.

The action of Saponaria may be attributed to the saponins Saporubrin and Saporubrinic acid, which it contains.

Saponaria is used where there is an indifferent, apathetic temperament, and also in depressive states with sleeplessness, and when there are stabbing pains above the eye-sockets, worse on the left side, on movement and towards evening. There may also be throbbing above the eyes with congestion of blood in the head and a feeling of weariness in the neck, prickling in the eyeballs, ciliary neuralgia, photophobia and increased intraocular pressure. The symptoms might make us think of Saponar- ia in the kind of preliminary stages or complaints which are found in glaucoma.

Otherwise included in the symptomatology are difficulties in swallowing, nausea, heartburn, and a sensation of fullness in the stomach which is not relieved by eruc- tations. Palpitations with a slow pulse and anxiety-states may also be an indication for Saponaria, whilst otherwise it is almost exclusively used in the treatment of acute colds, coryza and throat pains, tonsillitis, pharyngitis and laryngitis.

If Saponaria is used in combination-remedies, this is because of a certain blood- cleansing action which Saponaria, as an old folk medicine, is supposed to have. It fa- cilitates the elimination of homotoxins which have been freed through harmless ca- tarrhal symptoms such as an acute cold, or in serious cases tonsillitis. Saponaria then compensates for this by inhibiting inflammation in a biological way by chang- ing the homotoxic “soil”.

The German Monograph-Preparation Commission for the Homoeopathic Field of Therapy has, under the Preparation Monograph for Saponaria officinalis, published the following indication(s) in the German Bundesanzeiger (German Federal Gazette) for saponaria: headaches and eye aches.