The Acidifying Principle
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 1995 Sep / Oct Vol IV No 5.
Manu Kothari & Lopa Mehta.
The Homoeopathic practice of using many an acid as a therapeutic agent may be traced to the culinary practice of employing citric - tartaric - acetic acid for preparing a tasty dish. The Homoeopaths also picked up from the kitchen, of course, the art of pleasing their patients by giving them the proverbially sugar coated pill. From pantry to pharmacy, Homoeopathy has travelled a long way. The Homoeopathic menu card thrives on its acid members.
The term acid in multilinguistically derived. In Greek, Latin, Luthuanian, Old Slavonic, Sanskrit and German languages the root acere - acro - acris astrus means sharp pointed pungent, sour tart. The acromion of anatomy and the acu - of acupunctuer (from acus = needle), are related etymologically to the term acid, much as are the words acetic, acrid and acute. The Lithuanian root astrus meaning sharp has its equivalence in Hindi and Gujarati wherein an astra means a razor. Astrus in Greek is oxus and hence the term Oxygen meaning an acid-producer. Lavoisier, the French discoverer of oxygen called it the acidifying principle, hence rightly called oxygene. To live is to be oxygenated or acidified. To be cured is to be acidified via Homoeopathy.
From womb to tomb the human existence is one damned acid after another. The moment (or the millimoment) you burn glucose - fat - protein you spawn pyruvic, lactic, carbonic, sulfuric, phosphoric, uric acids. And you stay alive till tombs time by assiduously neutralising the acid or eliminating it. The rallying cry, the cardinal motto of our physiology is to fine tune acid elimination so that we stay just on the alkaline border of neutrality, as summed up by the ace physiologist Arthur Guyton "When one speaks of acid-base balance in the body he means regulation of hydrogen ion concentration in the body fluids.
Many chemical reactions of the cells are accelerated or depressed by changes in hydrogen ion concentration. For this reason the regulatory mechanisms for controlling hydrogen ion concentration are among the most important control systems of the body. Without these control system s the metabolic function of the cells would either cease or become so active within a few minutes that the cells would die. When the normal acid base balance regulatory systems of the body becomes deranged, the patient may die of coma resulting from acidosis, or he may die of tetany or convulsions resulting from alkalosis".
Walter Bradfard Canon, epitomised the animal bodys ceaseless vigilance vis-a-vis, the pH or hydrogen-ion concentration of body fluids through the classical term homoeostasis. Homoeostasis spells health and life; disturbed homoeostasis begets disease and death. Will Homoeopathy be known one day as a homoeostatic science - one that restores vital equilibrium of various symptoms in the human or animal body?
Let us come down from the academic esoterica to down-to earth, grandmother vade - mecum. It is a popular-cum-naturopathic-cum-Ayurvedic belief - experience that acidic diet precipitates illness and arthritis. Going merely the rule of the thumb, we advise our patients of arthritis - lumbago - fasciitis to abjure items of diet that were - are - will be sour. And it works.
This is supplemented with alkaline vegetable juices. It is a poorly recognised principle of gastric physiology that it produces alkali for the body by throwing acid into its lumen in the hope that alkaline food will arrive to neutralised it. Therein lies some fundamental principle of managing hyperacidity and peptic ulcer.
A word or two about "Non-acids" acids namely, the nucleic acids. The cell nucleus rich in DNA is highly acidic (and so takes a basic stain) and cytoplasm, despite having RNA is essentially alkaline (and hence takes an acidic attain). Nucleus forms 2 percent of cell volume; hence cell (and all life) is essentially alkaline.
The enchanting dialogue between acids and the alkalies called life, is an interplay between yin and yang, yin being acid, yang being alkali; or the other way round. IN electromagnetic terms, one (acid) is north pol and positively charged, the other (alkali) south pole oppositely charged. Life is the game between yin - yang, yoni lingam, positive charge negative charge. north pole - south pole, male female, Nar Nari. Life is a coin with one face made of acids, the other of alkalis.
