HOMOEOPATHIC LINKS
Vol 12 2/99

This issue contains articles from Australian / New Zealand Homoeopaths. Dr Sue Davis discusses a case of UTI, and enuresis in a little girl, cured with Calcarea-silicata. Starting with Thuja the doctor gave Causticum and Mercurius without any lasting effect. During treatment she developed smelly urine, croupy cough, chilliness and ear infection for which Hepar-sulph gave some relief- incontinence and chilliness were less, but her sensitiveness to reprimand was worse On re-evaluation, Calcarea-silicata covered the sensitivity to reprimand, enuresis, anxiety about family & recurrent tonsillitis. The doctor suggests that this remedy may be useful in young children having recurrent UTIs.

Dr Keith Avedissian of Australia discusses an interesting case of Camphora. The patient, aged 39 years, came and asked for immediate appointment for relief. He was recently divorced from a Hindu wife and had tearful, anxious and panicky feeling. He stated that as he was a catholic and his wife was a Hindu, he had difficulty in adjusting culturally and the problem was aggravated when his mother-in- law stayed with them. He had a feeling that forsaken and all alone in the world. He had a bad childhood and was beaten a lot by his father and he was never close to anyone. Sometimes he dreamt that he was dead and watching if anyone missed him! He got cured with few doses of Camphora 10M. The author has also summarized three more cases which were cured in their similar acute condition with this remedy. The strongest feeling is " I must be dead... the external world does not exist for me any more." He says that he has also seen in many Camphora cases, a positive attitude- believing that things will become better and finally turn out all right.

• An unusual remedy Digitalis cured a pregnant woman of hyperemesis gravidarum; apart from persistent nausea and inability to take food, she would often wake up from sleep in a panic and say, "my heart and lungs are going to stop". Pulse was only 70 - slow considering the state of her panic. This clinched the remedy. Digitalis 30c one dose and Digitalis 6c for acute-SOS helped.
• Deborah Collins discusses two cases of Hura. Both patients were born illegitimate; their mother abandoned them and they were raised by relatives: causing feelings like all-alone in the world/ redundant/ not needed. One patient felt deeply humiliated when, while visiting her mother, she was introduced to the neighbours as a niece! Both patients had deep depression because of the above (as if they were lepers). Hura removed their depression; but one patient experienced anger against her mother and succeeded in making her mother divulge her father's name (her mother was raped when she and her friend were hitchhiking in Amsterdam.)
• Main Rubrics:
  • alone in the world
  • Friends have lost confidence in him. Lost affection of friend.
  • Deserted, forsaken, despised; forsaken feeling; reproaches himself.

Three cases, where Eichinacea proved effective in septic infections and consequent blood poisoning discussed. These ulcers arose after operation following fracture and treatment for monkey bite. The usual allopathic antibiotic treatment did not work. In the third case of ulcer in a 84 year old female, it was used in tincture for dressing the wound along with Secale because of senile gangrene. All the patients improved tremendously by this remedy as it removed foul discharges, emaciation and great debility. Following the successful treatment of the very old lady, the nursing staff in that hospital started using Eichinacea and Calendula tincture on the small skin tears that are inevitable in the fragile skin of old folk.

• Dr Gwyneth Evans answers a question " what does it mean to be a Homoeopath" -the satisfaction of improving the inner being of the patient! She gives3 case illustrations.
• The other articles include provings of Latrodectus-hasseltii, a red back spider of Australia, Lithium carbonicum and Phascolarctos- cinereus: the serum extract from the chest scent of male Koala, a native animal of Australia which is near extinction. Mary Glaisyer explores the basic miasms of New Zealanders & concludes, with case illustrations, that the sycotic and tubercular are the dominant miasms in that country.

HOMOEOPATHIC LINKS
Vol 12 2/99

• Devoted to the theme of provings & the types of provings done all over the world. The editorial expresses a concern about the lack of scientific approach to Homoeopathic drug provings, little access to provings already done and emphasizes the need for reliable information on a remedy to be used for curing. Dr Jeremy Sherr has taken the lead to publish a website.

• Of late, dream provings has become one of the easiest ways of proving the remedy. In Dreams & Homoeopathy, Kees Dam says "a good dream proving is a sort of a hologram of the remedy-the mental and emotional dynamics of the remedy can be revealed in these dreams."
• Advantages of dream provings:
  • easily evoked with dynamic potencies
  • Dreams appear very soon after the remedy is taken.
  • single dose is sufficient and keeps the symptoms to the minimum.
  • in one characteristic dream it is often possible to find not only many central themes characteristic of the remedy but also the way they are connected to each other.
• While such provings can never replace the standard type of provings, they can form a good addition.
• Examples of dream provings of remedies like Puls, Stram, Hyos, and Zinc-met. He demonstrates how the dreams of the provers coincided with the rubrics culled from past provings.

The recommended guidelines to Homoeopaths for scientific provings which can stand scientific scrutiny are given.

Dr Tinus Smits writes that when we resolve one problem with the help of a well-chosen remedy, our energy is pushing up another disturbance/layer enabling us to take the next step to tackle it and hence health as a stable balance does not exist at any point of time. eg in his experience Lac-maternum ( prepared from mother's milk during the first 3 days to 10 months after the birth of the child) was needed as subsequent prescription in cases which earlier responded to Saccharum off.

• Case Section: Dr Marie Luc Fayeton discusses the essence of Cactus-grandiflorus with an analysis of a case of an autistic child. The Hindu girl, 5 yrs old, was abandoned at the age of 6 months. She never responded to her name and was diagnosed as autistic. However, whenever she visited the clinic she played with the copper handles of chest of drawers, which indicated that she was not deaf. She was found acting on her own: walked on her own on the road and did not like her hand to be held; she did what was forbidden, like splashing water while bathing! She cried when scolded. Her adopted mother said that the child does something because she wants to do it; she learnt because she wanted to and not because she was taught. The determination to act deliberately and symptoms of joking and aversion to be held suggested Cactus. The cactus flower blossoms only in the night and by dawn it withers away. Like that, the girl gave up what she was doing if she was observed. She was given Cactus 12c one dose and by evening she had erratic behaviour and after two days she said in a husky voice "mama" and later she could pronounce more words. Over a two-year period, the remedy was given in higher potencies whenever progress slowed down and she became a normal child.

Dr Jean Pierre Jansen discusses a case of Bellis-perennis: a case of a 43 yr old woman with psoriasis, irregular menses, low back pain, migraine and numbness of arms. The theme was a feeling of being in or out of the world. Her parents were not there for her in her childhood and in school she made drawings during math's classes; her maths teacher would stalk her from behind her desk and smash his hands on her desk, which gave her a shock. She had a desire to connect to other people but had a feeling that others would not help her in return. After witnessing a horrible accident and seeing her niece dying of brain tumour, she became frightened and panicky whenever she had to drive. In her younger days she was not so affected by an accident which she witnessed. Natrum-carb and other remedies did not help her. She was reluctant to come for consultation because of the poor recovery and became depressed and had intense nightmares; she had dreams of being buried alive and her family members being shot at. Her complaints were aggravated and she developed a new symptom of sensation of constriction around her wrist; she had recurrent boils. On the basis of these symptoms she was prescribed Bellis-per 200 for her present acute sinusitis. After that dose she felt better and later the same remedy was given in 1M potency under which her complaints disappeared and her outlook also became more forward looking.

Massimo Mangialavori finds a common image of a wall around the inner world of the patient in the group of remedies viz. Arnica, Bellis-per, Millefolium, Cham, Calendula and Cuprum-met: Seeing the body as a castle with a wall around; aversion to touch, which is perceived as a threat to the wall; injuries which penetrate the wall; sensation of emptiness inside the wall; dictatorial because of aversion to touch; bleeding as a proof that one is vulnerable and a hole in the wall; denying that one has a disease ie keeping up the wall; says he is well when ill, are all illustrative of this theme.

Rhodonite; is a semi-precious mineral and is mined for its manganese content which is used in dry cells. According to a proving of this substance the secret of this mineral is something precious and essential to life, existence or survival; provers experienced ancient and primal feelings of protection and nurturing which occurs in a clan protecting a family as well as its treasure, which is hidden. This medicine is full of new beginnings; one prover dreamt as if each one of the group was given a shell and when opened, pearls ie riches, poured out.

The author Peter Tumminello cites three cases in which the remedy was administered; all the three patients had financial problems and after taking this remedy, their outlook became more positive and surprisingly their financial problems were solved shortly thereafter!

A detailed discussion on Agathis australis: a native tree of New Zealand which was proved by Misha Norland and later by others. Every prover experienced the exhilaration, euphoria, giggling but invariably they descended to a place in their life where there were betrayals and wounds; a sense of being cheated, darkness and sadness. The remedy seems to be about the reconnection to the past especially to what is gone, wasted and destroyed and feelings that arise from that- yearning and longing; there was a tremendous forsaken feeling which arises when parents quarrel and get separated.

Writing under the title " Artificial vs natural diseases, Dr Heinz Pscheidl of Germany draws attention to the observations of Dr Hahnemann in his Organon (Aph 74 and75) where he says "mercury, the most deplorable and the most incurable...it is apparently impossible to discover or hit upon any remedies.."Dr Pscheidl says that introduction of potentially medicinal (toxic) matter into the human organism inevitably leads to a development of chronic disease. He illustrates with a number of cases where the disease was found to be caused by amalgams used for dental fillings. The patients who had such fillings developed allergies or suppurative discharges or asthma or polypi. Any metal implanted into the teeth spreads into the jawbones, from where it is distributed to other parts in course of time. Symptomatic Homoeo treatment was only palliative and relief came only when the offending amalgam was removed. In some cases even after removing the amalgams, the residual poison in the body led to cancerous growth needing surgical removal. Even poison from the mother was transmitted to the offspring. In one case of a 4-yr-old boy of a mother who had several amalgam fillings developed a brain cancer after /in spite of Homoeopathic treatment and he was already operated upon when he came for Homoeopathy. Dr Pscheidl rightly draws our attention to the negligence of present day Homoeopaths to look into the damaging effects of ever increasing environmental pollution and diseases resulting there from.

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