acute treatment colic in homeopathy

In case of acute colic, renal, hepatic, or intestinal one can give quick relief by fairly snapshot prescribing. When you go to such a case and know that morphia and atropine will relieve the spasm, it is very tempting to use them. If you cannot get your homoeopathic drug in a snapshot way I think you are bound to give the patient relief with your hypodermic. To my mind the disadvantages of this procedure are twofold. First, there is the disadvantage that after such relief it is necessary to begin to treat the case now masked, if not actually complicated, by the action of the morphia. Secondly, there is always the danger that in an acute case of this kind the morphia may conceal the development of a surgical emergency which in consequence may be missed. Suppose you have a hepatic colic, it is quite likely to be use to a stone pressing down into the bile ducts, which may perforate. If morphia has been used it is quite possible - one has seen it happen - that owing to the sedative, indications of the perforation are not detected for hours afterwards. The clinical picture is masked, and you are exposing the patient to a very grave risk. So if there is a method of dealing with these colics apart from morphia I think it is wise to use it. But, as I say, you are only justified in using it if you are getting relief;
the patient need not suffer merely because you would prefer using a homoeopathic drug to a sedative. Fortunately the indications in these colics are usually pretty definite.
 If you have a case of a first attack of colic, whether it be hepatic or renal it is a very devastating experience for the patient and he is usually terrified. The pains are usually extreme and nearly drive the patient crazy, and if, in addition, the patient feels frightfully cold, very anxious, faint whenever he sits up or sands up, and yet cannot bear the room being hot, Aconite will usually give relief within a couple of minutes.
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 You will seldom get indication for Aconite in repeated attacks. The patients somehow begin to realise that although the condition is frightfully painful it is not moral, so the mental anxiety necessary for the administration of Aconite is not present, and without that mental anxiety Aconite does not seem to act.
 Another case having repeated attacks, each short in duration, developing quite suddenly, stopping as suddenly, associated with a feeling of fullness in the epigastrium, and where the attacks are induced, or very much aggravated, by any fluids, and accompanied by flushing of the face dilated pupils and a full bounding pulse, Belladonna relieves them almost immediately.
 Consider another patient who has had liver symptoms for some time, just vague discomfort, slight fullness in the right hypochondrium, a good deal of flatulence, intolerance of fats, and who is losing condition becoming sallow and slightly yellow. He develops an acute hepatic colic, with violent shoots of pain going right through to the back, particularly to the angle of the right scapula, which subside and leave a constant ache in the hepatic region, and then he gets another violent colicky attack. These attacks are relieved by very hot applications, or the drinking of water as hot as it can be swallowed. Chelidonium relieves these attacks in the most astonishing way.
 In these cases, X-rays usually reveal a number of gallstones. And, in contrast with what happens with morphia and atropine treatment, subsequent X-rays after Chelidonium has been given frequently show that one or more of these gallstones have passed almost painlessly. So with Chelidonium you are well under way with your treatment of the gallstones, whereas with morphia and atropine you merely relieve the acute attack of pain. In other words, you have already taken a long step in the treatment of that patient towards clearing the condition altogether. That is one point to be said in favour of your homoeopathic treatment rather than the merely sedative relief.
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 There are quite a number of other drugs for these colics, some of them hepatic, some renal, and some intestinal, and they all have their own individual points which are very easy to pick up at the bedside. If one memorizes them in this way it is astonishing the ease of your work in acute cases. You see I am not giving you the full description of these drugs, I am picking out only the points which apply too this type of case. That is how you have to do it in practice, but you must remember that these drugs I am giving you for these conditions are the common ones, and that every now and then you meet a case which appears to call for one of these drugs and yet the patient does not respond. There are certain homoeopathic physicians who sometimes call me out in consultation for acute cases and I know perfectly well before I leave my room that it is no use my thinking of these drugs as they will already have been given; and what I have to get is something that is not common but out of the way.
 I remember seeing a case of gallstones colic with one of our very good physicians. It was an elderly woman, and she had that typical Chelidonium picture. Of course she had had Chelidonium already, but without benefit. The doctor said, "I don't understand this case at all; I think she must have a malignant lever." I asked why, and he said, "Because she has all the Chelidonium indications and she does not respond." This is the sort of old case you will meet with, so if that should happen to be your first one do not think therefore that Homoeopathy does not work; you will find that as time goes on you get more and more cases that do work and the exceptions are fewer and fewer. As a matter of fact that particular case responded to a dose of one of the Snake Poisons, but I have never seen another case that had a Snake Poison for that condition, and one gave it purely because she had already had her Chelidonium; had I seen the case in the first instance I should certainly have given Chelidonium.
 In spite of the old cases it is worth while getting these ordinary drugs at your finger ends so that when cases crop up you can prescribe easily on the few indications of the acute condition as presented to you.
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 There are one or two other drugs that I can touch on which you will find very helpful in these colics.
 For instance, Berberis, which is extremely useful in colics whether renal or gallstone. The outstanding point about the Berberis colic, no matter its situation, is that from one centre the pain radiates in all directions. Suppose you have a renal colic - and when Berberis is indicated I think it is more commonly on the left side than the right - you will find that where you get indications for Berberis the colicky pain starting in the renal region, or in the course of the ureter, there is one centre of acute pain, and from that centre the pain radiates in all directions. If you have a hepatic colic you get the centre of acute intensity in the gall-bladder, and from there that pain radiates in all directions, it goes through to the back, into the chest, into the abdomen. That is the outstanding point about these Berberis colics.
 In addition to that, where you are dealing with a renal colic you almost always get an acute urging to urinate, and a good deal of pain on urination. Where you are dealing with a biliary colic, it is usually accompanied by a very marked aggravation from any movement; this is present to a slight extent in the renal colics, but it is not so marked; and in both the patient is very distressed, and has a pale, earthy looking complexion. The pallor, I think, is more marked in the renal cases, and where there has been a previous gallstone colic you may get a jaundiced tinge in the hepatic cases.
 It is a very useful drug, and I do not know any other which has the extent of radiation of pain that you get in Berberis. It is surprising how widespread the area of tenderness can be which is associated with a Berberis colic, so much so that in gallstone attacks you get so much tenderness and resistance that you are very afraid of a perforated gall-bladder you get such a resistant right upper rectus, and you may be very suspicious of a peri-renal abscess in the renal cases, again because of the extreme resistance of the muscles on the side of the abdomen.
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 In a Berberis renal case the urine is as rule rather suggestive. More commonly it is not bloodstained, but contains a quantity of greyish-white deposit which may be pure pus, but mostly contains pus and a quantity of amorphous material usually phosphates, sometimes urates. Although it is a very dirty looking urine it is surprisingly inoffensive.
 There are two drugs which one always thinks of for colics of any kind, and they are Colocynth. and Mag. Phos. It does not matter where the colic is; when you have an acute abdominal colic of any kind one always thinks of the possibility of either Colocynth. or Mag. Phos. Both remedies are often useful for colic in any area, uterine, intestinal, bile ducts, or renal - it does not matter which it is. The point about these drugs is that they are almost identical, that always in their colics the pain is very extreme, and the patients are doubled up with pain. In both cases the pains are relieved by external pressure, and by heat. In Mag. Phos. there is rather more relief from rubbing than there is in Colocynth., which prefers steady, hard pressure.
 The next thing about them is that their colics are intermitting. The patients get spasms of pain which come up to head and then subside.
 There are one or two distinguishing points which help you to choose between Colocynth. and Mag. Phos. With Colocynth. in the attacks of colic you always find the patient intensely irritable. He is frightfully impatient, wants something done at once, wants immediate relief, and is liable to be violently angry if the relief is not forthcoming. In Mag. Phos. there is not the same degree of irritability, and the patient is distraught because of the intensity of the pain rather than violently angry.
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 Another point that sometimes helps in your selection is that Colocynth. tends to have a slightly coated tongue, particularly if it is the digestive tract that is upset, whereas when Mag. Phos. is indicated it usually is clean.
 Both these drugs have a marked aggravation from cold, a little more marked in Mag. Phos. than in Colocynth. For instance, Mag. Phos. is exceedingly sensitive to a draught on the area, whereas Colocynth, though it likes hot applications, is not so extremely sensitive to cold air in its neighbourhood.
 Another distinguishing point between the two is that in Colocynth. there is apt to be a tendency to giddiness, particularly on turning more especially to the left, but this is not present in Mag. Phos.
 Where you have a report that the colic - and I think this applies much more commonly to uterine than to intestinal colic - has followed on an attack of anger it is almost of anger it is almost certainly Colocynth. you require.
 If the colic is the result of over-indulgence in cheese it is Colocynth. that is indicated, not Mag. Phos. If the pain is the result of exposure to cold, either a dysmenorrhoea or an abdominal colic, it is much more likely to be Mag. Phos. than Colocynth.
 These are two of the most useful drugs in the Materia Medica for colics, and it is surprising the relief you can get, even in cases of intestinal obstruction, from the administration of Colocynth. or Mag. Phos. I have seen cases of intestinal carcinoma with partial obstruction in which the patients were suffering from intense recurring colicky pains coming to a head and then subsiding. Mag. Phos. has given the most astonishing relief. Less commonly in such cases where there has been marked irritability in addition to the local symptoms, Colocynth. has also done wonders. Very often one or other of these drugs has kept a patient in a surprising degree of comfort till death supervened. In these malignant colics I never go high; a 30th potency is sufficient. In an ordinary acute colic, say dysmenorrhoea, I give a 10M and the relief is almost immediate, and the same applies to intestinal colics.
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 There is another drug which is very useful as a contrast to these two, and it has very much the same sort of pain, a very violent, spasmodic colic coming on quite suddenly, rising up to head, then subsiding, and that is Dioscorea.
 Dioscorea has the same relief from applied heat, and it is sometimes more comfortable for him pressure, but, in contradistinction to the other two drugs, instead of the patients being doubled up with pain they are hyper-extended; you find them bending back as far as possible. And the only drug I know which has that violent abdominal colic which does get relief from extreme extension is Dioscorea. I have seen it useful in gall-bladder attacks, in a few intestinal colics, and in a case of violent dysmenorrhoea. I have never tried it in renal case. Where you get that extreme extension of the spine you can give Dioscorea every time without asking any further questions.
 There is one other drug I want to mention because one tends to forget it as a colic medicine, and that is Ipecacuanha. Ipecac. is one of the most useful colic drugs we haven and the indications for it are very clear and definite.
 The character of the pain described in Ipecac. is much more cutting than the acute spasmodic pain occurring in most other drugs. But the outstanding feature of Ipecac. is the feeling of intense nausea which develops with each spasm of pain. Accompanying that nausea is the other Ipecac. characteristic that in spite of that feeling of deathly sickness the patient has a clean tongue. You will see quite a number of adolescent girls who get most violent dysmenorrhoea, they are rather warm-blood people, and with the spasm of pain - they very often describe is as cutting pain in the lower abdomen - they get hot and sweaty and deadly sick so that they cannot stand up and any movement makes them worse. They have a perfectly clean tongue and a normal temperature, and very often Ipecac. will stop the attack, and even the tendency to dysmenorrhoea altogether. It is one of the very useful drugs and, as I say, one of the ones one tends to overlook.
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 I have seen several cases of renal colic, associated with the same intense nausea, which have responded to Ipecac., but I think that is more rare; it is more commonly in uterine cases that you get indications for it.
 There are three drugs I always tend to associate in my own mind for colics : Lycopodium, Raphanus and Opium, the reason being that in all three the colic is accompanied by violent abdominal flatulence. It Is always an intestinal colic in which I expect to find indications for one or other of these drugs. It may be associated with a gall-bladder disturbance, and if so it is much more likely to be Lycopodium than either of the other two.
 In all three there is a tendency for the flatulence to be stuck in various pockets in the abdomen, that is to say, you get irregular areas of distension. In all three you are likely to get indications in post-operative abdominal distensions, semi-paralytic conditions of the bowel. Where you have definite paralytic conditions like a paralytic ileus following abdominal section you are more likely to get indications for Raphanus and Opium than for Lycopodium, but if the paralytic condition happens to be more in the region of the caecum the indications are probably for Lycopodium rather than for the other two.
 That is the general picture, and there are one or two distinguishing points which help you. For instance, in Lycopodium the colicky pain is likely to start on the right side of the abdomen, down towards the right iliac fossa, and spread over to the left side, whereas in the other two it remains more or less localised in the one definite area.
 In Lycopodium you are very liable to get a late afternoon period of extreme distress, the ordinary 4 to 8 p.m.  aggravation of Lycopodium. There is likely to be very much more rumbling and gurgling in the abdomen in Lycopodium, and there is more tendency to eructation, whereas in the other two the patient does not seem to get the wind up to the same extent. Where there is eructation the patients usually complain of a very sour taste in Lycopodium cases.
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 In Lycopodium you usually have a somewhat emaciated patient with a rather sallow, pale complexion.
 There are one or two points that lead you to Opium instead of the other two. In Opium, as I said, there is apt to be a definite area of distension, and the patient may say that he gets a feeling as if everything simply churned up to one point and could not get past it, or as if something were trying to squeeze the intestinal contents past some obstructing band, or as if something were being forced through a very narrow opening.
 Another point that leads to the selection of Opium is that which these attacks of colic the Opium patient tends to become very flushed and hot, feels the bed abominably hot, wants to push the blankets off, and after the spasm has subsided tends to become very pale, limp, and often stuporose.
 The area of distension in Opium is likely to be in the centre of the abdomen rather than in the right iliac fossa, and it is one of the most commonly indicated drugs in a paralytic ileus.
 Another point that sometimes puts you on to Opium is that when the pains are developing and coming up to a head the Opium patients develop an extreme hyperaesthesia to noise. I remember one patient who had a paralytic ileus after an abdominal section and as he was working up to another attack of vomiting he had that hyperaesthesia to noise more marked than I have ever seen it. If the nurse in the room happened to jangle the basin into which he was going to be sick he nearly went off his head and he turned and fairly cursed her. That hyperaesthesia to noise made me think of Opium, and it completely controlled his attack and the whole condition subsided. This hyperaesthesia is worth remembering as it is so different from the sluggish condition induced by the administration of Opium in material doses.
 The Raphanus type of post-operative colic is again slightly different. Instead of getting the right side of the abdomen distended as in Lycopodium, or the swelling up in the middle as in Opium, in Raphanus you get pockets of wind, a small area coming up in one place, getting quite hard, and then subsiding, followed by fresh areas doing exactly the same. These pockets of wind may be in any part of the abdomen. In acute attacks of pain the patients tend to get a little flushed, but not so flushed as the Opium patients, and they do not have the tendency to eructation that one associates with Lycopodium, in fact they do not seem to be able to get rid of their wind at all either upwards or downwards. But it is these small isolated pockets coming up in irregular areas throughout the abdomen which give you your main lead in Raphanus cases, and I have seen quite a number of them now, post-operative cases, and it is astonishing how quickly after a dose of this remedy the disturbance subsides and the patient begins to pass flatulence quite comfortably.
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 In post-operative cases I usually give Lycopodium in 200th potency. In Raphanus I always use the 200 s; having found this potency worked I have stuck to it. In Opium, I usually give a higher potency because these cases are pretty extreme.
 There are, of course, endless other drugs which have colic, but I am trying to pick out those most useful in emergencies. There is one other which you ought to know Podophyllum. Podophyllum you will find useful in hepatic colics mainly. It is helpful in intestinal colics associated with diarrhoea, I mean with acute diarrhoea, but then you prescribe it much more on the diarrhoea symptoms than on those of the colic. But you do get indications for it in hepatic colics purely on the local symptoms.
 I think in these cases where you have Podophyllum indicated in hepatic colic you always have a degree of infection of the gall-bladder, and one of the first things that makes you think of the possibility of Podophyllum is the fact that the maximum temperature is in the morning and not in the evening. It has a 7 o'clock in the morning peak temperature.
 In addition to that, the Podophyllum patients are very miserable and depressed, almost disgusted with life.
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 There is always a degree of jaundice in the gall-bladder cases, and it may be pretty marked.
 In the majority of these cases the pain is not definitely localized in the gall-bladder area, it is more in the epigastrium as a whole, and tends to spread across from the middle of the epigastrium towards the liver region. The pains are twisting in character, and they are much aggravated by taking food.
 In these Podophyllum cases when the acute pain has subsided there is a horrible feeling of soreness in the liver region, and you find these patients lying stroking the liver, which gives a great sense of comfort. When I see an infected gall-bladder with a morning temperature instead of an evening one I immediately think of Podophyllum. It is astonishing how often one gets this indication, and then you generally see the patient lying in bed stroking the liver region. In every case where the morning temperature and that relief from stroking have put me on to Podophyllum I have found that the other symptoms fitted in.

acute treatment of Post-herpetic neuralgias in homeopathy

Post-herpetic neuralgias
 There is another group of conditions of the same type, the post-herpetic neuralgias, which are sometimes very troublesome. You know the ordinary shingles neuralgia where the patient comes with acute burning pain along the course of the intercostal nerve and gives a history that he has had a small crop of shingles, very often so light that he paid little or no attention to it. Well, if you can get the same modalities as you got in the facial neuralgias under Mag. Phos., that remedy will often relieve. Much more commonly you find that these post-herpetic cases respond to Ranunculus. The particular features for this drug are the history of herpes, the very sharp shooting pains extending along the course of the intercostal nerve, that the painful area is very sensitive to touch, that the pain is induced or aggravated by it, and you may get the statement that the patient is extremely conscious of any weather change because it will cause a return of the neuralgia again. Well, that type of case responds in almost every instance to Ranunculus.

 You will get a few of these cases which have not responded to Ranunculus, with much the same distribution of pain, and the same modalities, but without the marked aggravation in wet weather, where the affected area is extremely sensitive to any cold draught, particularly sensitive to any bathing with cold water, and where the pains are likely to be very troublesome at night, and with a marked hyperaesthesia over the affected area. And these cases usually respond to Mezereum.
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 Sciatica
 Then you get another type of neuralgia - the sciaticas. And there again you can get helpful leads. In cases of sciatica, in which I can get no indications at all but the ordinary classical symptoms of sciatica, that is to say, acute pain down the sciatic nerve, which is aggravated by any movement, is very sensitive to cold, more comfortable if kept quiet and warm, then it depends which leg is involved what drug I give. If it is a right sided sciatica I give Mag. Phos., but if it is a left sided I give Colocynth. And you would be astonished how often one gets almost immediate relief from either Mag. Phos. or Colocynth.
 Some sciatica patients are frightfully uncomfortable the longer they keep still, they have got to start moving, and there are two drugs which seem to cover the majority of these cases. If the patient is warm-blooded, and the sciatic pains tend to be more troublesome when warm, particularly warmth of bed, and rather better when moving about, in the majority of instances one gets relief from Kali Iod.
 If, on the other hand, you have very much the same modalities with a chilly patient, particularly if he is sensitive to damp as well as cold, and again more comfortable when moving about, Rhus will clear the majority of such cases.
 Then there are one or two odd indications which sometimes help you in a sciatica where you can get no other distinguishing symptoms. For instance, if you get a sciatica which has, associated with the acute sciatic pain, marked numbness, there are two drugs which cover most of your cases. One is Gnaphalium, which has this sensation of numbness associated with pain and tenderness over the sciatic nerve more marked than any other drug in the Materia Medica.
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 The second drug which has this numbness associated with pain and tenderness of the sciatic nerve is Plumbum, and the main indication which suggests this remedy is that. I have never seen a sciatica giving indications for Plumbum which was not associated with extreme constipation as well as the pain and numbness.

Themes of plutonium nitricum By jeremy sherr, fshom

Plutonium nitricum
 Since the proving of Plutonium Nitricum we have witnessed quite a few cases cured by this remedy. Common to many of these are the intensity and depth at the core of the case. It seems that other remedies could not touch the deep nucleus of the generative energy, the will, which Plutonium detonates. The inner essence of Plutonium must forever remain hidden in the deep, but these cases have enabled us to fuse new clinical observations with proving themes. By carefully gathering and transmitting this information from generation to generation, a full picture will emerge.
 I must stress that the following ideas represent only certain aspects of the proving. Neither is it necessary for any of these ideas to appear in every specific case-they may be partially present or not at all.
 During the proving some provers felt light and elated, even spacey, as if a great burden had been lifted of their shoulders. This enabled a relaxed calmness with an ease of being, cheerfulness and laughing.

 On the other hand provers felt incredibly heavy and weighed down. Depressions that were often described as 'deep' or 'heavy', originating from the very core of being. This was sometimes accompanied by a withdrawn feeling and aversion to communication. The extreme of this state is a sense of deep isolation with intense despair, as if totally alone in the world. With these polarities it is obvious that the remedy may be of use in certain manic depressive cases.
 We may deduce that the tension in Plutonium nitricum is on the vertical axis, with the lower heavy side being pulled downwards and the light top side floating up. This idea is confirmed in a diversity of ways. A few provers had a sensation of the soul leaving the body (often upwards and to the left). Others had a sense of elongation, of being very tall, also dreams of extremely tall, thin people. One prover felt the sensation of a cavity in his chest with vibrations moving upwards and downwards and eventually exiting through the vertex and rectum, respectively. We may compare this elongation of Plutonium to the radioactive mushroom resulting from an atomic explosion and rising 50,000 feet above the ground. This theme of heaviness and lightness also features in the proving of Helium, an element which Plutonium discharges as alpha radiation. There are several other similarities between the remedies Helium, Hydrogen and Plutonium-as if the head of the periodic table meets its own tail. They share a sensation of leaving the body, spaciness, lightness and elation combined with the opposing heaviness and isolation. Some Plutonium patients spoke with the deep voice of Plutonium, while others voiced the higher tones of Helium.
 This vertical dichotomy is given further expression through dreams. The prover dreamt of a woman sitting high up in a tree, while far below an aggressive man searched for her. Another prover dreamt many peculiar dreams, always recurring twice in the same night, but from two different vantage points. The first dream was experienced by an observer looking from above, while the second was dreamt from down below as a participant. In one dream the prover, observing from above, saw a bank robbery followed by a police chase. Later that night a similar dream occurred, but this time the dreamer was the bank robber, who, having previously observed the scene, knew the best route of escape. Therefore, alongside the elongation theme, there are aspects of a split between higher and lower aspects of ourselves and our ability to learn from past experience.
 This low, deep and heavy aspect expressed in Plutonium seems to relate to our most primal nature. Anger with a tendency to quarrel. Dreams of warriors fighting or of aboriginal people throwing stones and spears at each other. Dreams and sensations of being a primitive Neanderthal man hunting with a dog. Plutonium delves deep into the centre of our being, where our most primitive instincts of survival lie buried. These instincts fuel our claim for land and territory, as well as the connection through history to hereditary roots.
 As the ancient god of the underworld, Pluto rules mercilessly over the imprisoned souls of the dead. This myth symbolises our connection to ancestral roots, genetic lineage and archaeological history. A central theme of Plutonium is a deep feeling of suffering originating from one's forefathers, like a punishment echoing down through the generations. Just as the half life of plutonium is almost 25,000 years, so the roots of our suffering may stretch far into the past. In a similar way the consequences of our actions will effect many future generations. The hundreds of tons of plutonium that have been manufactured over the last decades will poison the earth for the next quarter of a million years. Thus, plutonium will radiate our genetic lineage through history, affecting our core, our marrow, our DNA. The same primitive person who once threw a rock at a neighbour is now hurling atomic weapons of mass destruction across the border. A graphic visual image of this idea is in Stanley Kubric's film '2001', which opens with a group of apes fighting each other, then cuts to a space ship hurdling into the depth of space and carrying nuclear cargo. The external form has changed but our inner nucleus remains the same. Can we learn from past mistakes? Can we rise above old instincts before our world is destroyed? Can we leave a habitable planet for future generations?
 Yet the source of this violent and destructive energy is also the root of our survival. The seventh radioactive period represents the core that energises our beings. It is this power source, will, basic instinct or cell nuclei, which generates the force to create and propagate. Like bubbling bone marrow which churns out red blood cells of life, natural underground power plants energise our existence.
 The ability to use this core energy creatively depends on two factors: integration with all levels of being and slow release. When chakras revolve harmoniously, root energy can ascend to power us toward the higher purpose of our existence. When the radioactive power sources split from the helium of our soul, there is no channel connecting heaven and earth. This results in compressed nuclear violence, which some Plutonium patients have described as intense enough to destroy the world.
 Like the raw energy of radioactive elements, this confined force should percolate to the surface slowly, naturally and gently from its habitat in the depth of marrow earth. When dragged incongruously to the surface it becomes dangerous and must be controlled. Some cured Plutonium patients were powerful individuals who had to suppress their deep and vital inner core due to fear of unleashing incredibly destructive violence. This suppression resulted in frightful black depressions or deep and enormous rage. We should remember that the remedy is Plutonium nitricum, and that nitric usually tends to limit and restrict the ions it associates with. The tremendous explosive power of plutonium is limited by the restrictive boundaries of nitrogen.
 Violence and the association with blood and marrow are reflected in the Plutonium desire for red meat, liver, bacon and blood. Some provers had delusions of vampire bats, creatures that thrive on blood and live upside down in the underworld.
 Naturally the power of the remedy manifests on the sexual level, the generative sphere of our existence. Powerful sexual urges, images of enormous phalluses and dreams of sexual abuse highlight the explosive energies of unbridled testosterone. This aggressive and base sexuality is coupled with aversion to 'new age men' or cultured people such as art dealers -middle men who do not generate or create. On the other hand a tendency towards effeminate men or masculine women was increased. Radioactive remedies may possibly be indicated in the AIDS pandemic. In an HIV patient, Plutonium nitricum has cured persistent anal warts and increased the white blood cell production.
 Pluto was the ancient god of material wealth, the source of crop growth and world economy. Yet, this power is extremely dangerous and will scorch if prematurely unleashed. Since 1945 we have lived in this radioactive world, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Deeper and deeper we dig, violently excavating elements of our being that until now have been left buried in the deep.
 PLatinum moves to PLumbum, PLUmbum to PLUtonium. The boys took their new chemistry set down to the basement, 94 bottles of cheerfully coloured chemicals waiting for a wizard. Too late, Pandora, too late! The box is open, your secret is out. Chronos lies dead at Hiroshima, his Kingdom split for all time. Radioactive corporations power governments of media-ocracy, fuelling the cancerous economics of a Mickey Mouse medicine. Shamans market secret potions while ancient occult traditions expose hidden codes on TV. Enigmatic genetic puzzles are cracked and engineered to statistically useful norms of insane sameness. Nations fuse to supernations as decaying empires emit tribal particles. X-rays probe the depth of our psychic mysteries in plastic magazines, ripping deep unconscious veils of mystery to expose hidden planetary aspects. Soft micro soap operas expose the roots of our souls to digital audiences. Particle accelerators kiss the speed of light, corporate genetic food engineers generate leukaemic nuclear bunkers in our children's marrow. Tcell warheads threaten genetic bundles of decoded viral information in mutual mutating deterrence. Across the fence at the common, savage peacekeeping men glare peaceful warrior women as the drip drip drip of toxic radiation seeps the underworld. Deep below in Hades, shades of the dead scream the message down the generations. Too late, Pandora! Too late! Your Plutonic Pandemic will power the earth long after our solar-fueled fossils obscure the sun.
 Printed with permission of Jeremy Sherr from The Homoeopathic Proving of Plutonium Nitricum Dynamis Books, 1999.

Nux moschata : three cases

Nux moschata : three cases (J. Cicchetti)
 Nux Moschata was proved by Dr. Helbig in 1833. Many of the symptoms have been obtained from poisonings. The nutmeg tree grows to thirty feet high, begins bearing fruit in the seventh or eighth year, and then continues to do so for the next seventy or eighty years. The ground nut is used in cooking and a distillation of the oil, Myristica oil, has been used in medicine as a flavoring agent, carminative, and as a local stimulant to the gastrointestinal tract. The main active ingredient, Myristicin, is a poisonous narcotic.
Case
 Nux moschata
 Case 1
 In the spring of 1996, I became aware that an acquaintance of mine was having one accident after another. The accidents became more and more serious, including one that almost cost her life. Later she began to have strange physical symptoms-severe gas and bloating-and went from one doctor to another, receiving no help or even a clear diagnosis. I couldn't stand to see this anymore and suggested that she come in for homeopathic
treatment.
 The reason for the accidents and the confusing digestive problems soon became clear. She was in a Nux Moschata state-a state where the mind is disassociated from the body. No wonder she was having so many accidents. A few doses of 200c helped a lot. I lost track of her and thought very little about this remedy until I met Melissa.
 Case 2
 In November of 1997, Melissa, a 36-year-old married woman, came to me with the complaint of "hormonal sensitivity" and high blood pressure. Melissa was a lively strawberry blonde, very personable and friendly, speaking quickly and laughing a lot, even at serious matters. She also seemed overexcited, very jittery, and tense. She has two children.
 Melissa's symptoms included: Joint pain before menses (Searing, penetrating, sharp pains. A nerve-type pain. Like being really cold and then warming up. amel. movement. agg. in knees, but could be in any joint); Dry eyes before menses; Weeps easily and becomes depressed and sympathetic before menses; High blood pressure (160/100. Taking low dose of beta blocker. agg. evening. agg. before menses. Pounding in blood vessels, jittery and on edge.)
 Melissa is very sympathetic and loves animals. She faints easily, especially in warm, stuffy rooms. She craves chocolate, sweets, spicy food, and cinnamon. She has an aversion to fried foods, greasy foods, and white bread. There is a tendency towards hypoglycemia. She also has a history of terrible morning sickness during both her pregnancies; she threw up the whole nine months. The only thing she could eat was meat and potatoes, with a craving for potatoes. Even during labor, she was still throwing up.
 Melissa had postpartum depression after her second child; she became very anxious and worried. She weaned the baby early and went on birth control pills and antidepressants. She went off birth control pills a year ago because of her high blood pressure.
 Actually, Melissa has had periods of depression since she was 19. As a child, she worried a lot. She couldn't sleep from worrying. She was always afraid of disappointing her parents, who were very controlling. Her father was very health-oriented and controlled her diet very strictly-allowing no fat or salt.
 "They are into being skinny, exercising, and eating a low fat diet."
 "I'm the only one who is married and on my own. There's a real tradition of not going out on your own".
 "I just wouldn't make any waves-never disappoint them."
 "I rebelled in college and paid the price with inner turmoil."
 "My parents say it's important to have a real job-a doctor or a lawyer. Any time I mentioned any other career, my parents went ballistic." (She became a physician).
 Analysis
 The dryness of the eyes, symptoms worse before menses, the extreme giddiness, and severe vomiting during pregnancy led me to Nux Moschata, along with a few polychrest remedies. What really helped me see the full picture was Gina Inez's article, "My Advice on a Spice," in the Spring 1994 issue of The American Homeopath. Gina mentions the case of a brilliant woman who blossoms after taking Nux Moschata.
 She comments:
 "One wonders about the "classic woman" of this remedy type in the nineteenth century. Did she need this remedy only because she was so prone to fainting on the hot days she was being fitted for a tight fitting corset? One wonders about her dreams, her creativity, her artistry, and her sense of being able to be comfortable and true to herself in a social environment which she may have found as restrictive as the tight garments she wore."
 Dorothy Sheperd tells us more about the use of nutmeg by society ladies:
 "A drink which was concocted by our great-great-grandmothers for domestic requirements was nutmeg tea. One crushed nutmeg would make a pint of tea, a small cupful of which produced a sleep of several hours' duration.
 It was fashionable for society ladies to carry a silver grater and a nutmeg box suspended from the waist on their chatelaines. Naturally, as it was so commonly used, it led to some abuse, and ladies often developed the habit of drinking nutmeg tea in order to go to sleep easily and quickly."
 Why did they want to go to sleep all the time? Perhaps we can understand this more deeply by looking further at Melissa's case. Her story reveals the pressure that was put on her to live her life the way her family wanted her to live it. I began to think that many of the symptoms of the state, especially the fainting, the sleepiness, and the "out of body" experiences of Nux Moschata, were an attempt on the part of the vital force to leave a situation that was unacceptable to the individual. Such is the situation of a woman (and most cases of Nux Moschata are women) who is unable to express her creativity and intelligence, to know herself, because of family or societal pressure.
 Remedy: Nux Moschata 200c, split dose.
 4 months after first prescription. After a brief aggravation she was much better. Could exercise without feeling tired. No longer needs to nap. Blood pressure normal-120/80. No pains in the limbs. No depression before menses.
 6 months after first prescription. She reports that after eating a eucalyptus candy the blood pressure went back up.
 Repeat Nux Moschata 200c.
 7 months after first prescription. Blood pressure went back to normal after last dose of 200c. She reports being much calmer. The hormonal pains and mood swings are gone. "I can't believe it's this easy to get well. Is this all I have to do?" But blood pressure has gone up to 140/90.
 Assessment: Needs higher potency-Nux Moschata 1M, split dose.
 9 months after first prescription. She feels great. No depression, no pains in the limbs. She feels much stronger emotionally and physically. Feels stronger about confronting people when she needs to. She has been able to visit her parents without being upset by them. Blood pressure is completely normal except for slight rise just before menses. Assessment: Doing well, Nux Moschata 30c before menses, if needed.
 Case 3
 Sandra is a 40-year-old businesswoman, married with three children. She comes to me because she wants to strengthen her immune system.
 "I'm the mom. I get sick when my kids bring things home."
 "I'm beginning to feel the symptoms of arthritis. I can feel it in my fingers."
 "Horrible menstrual cramps with PMS-very sleepy, emotional, angry." (Feels better as soon as the flow starts. Menses are beginning to be irregular.)
 "Whenever I was taking a self-help seminar or doing yoga or meditation and I had my period, I didn't have cramps."
 "I'm in a stage of my life where I want to get away from everything, my work, my kids."
 "I'm very creative and artistic, but I haven't done much of this in the past five or six years."
 "I need to get away now. Mother overload. I love my kids, but I don't like the maintenance."
 Sandra has dark red hair and lots of freckles. She is very lively and extremely loquacious. She has recurrent dreams about being late and missing a plane or a car. Her father died of cancer when she was 15; he started getting sick when she was 13. She was devastated by this. "That loss was always with me." She doesn't need to sleep more than six or seven hours each night and feels refreshed after a nap of less than five minutes.
 At first, I suggest Lachesis 200c for Sandra. After this, her periods become regular again and she has no PMS or food cravings. She feels more relaxed and the "desperate feeling of having to get out from under my family" is gone. She has a very interesting dream where she sees herself as a snake coming out of its skin. As she touches the snake, it becomes a big fertile mother pig. She says, "That was me for the last year." Assessment: Doing very well-no remedy needed. Seven months later, I repeat the remedy because of what appears to be a relapse after dental work.
 Eight months after the first prescription, Sandra develops terrible pains in her neck-stiffness with tingling in the back of the head. "Feels like my neck can't support my head." She has a lump on the side of her neck that has been diagnosed as a fatty cyst. She is going to many doctors and cannot get a diagnosis. She has great anxiety about her health.
 What is going on here? Is she proving Lachesis after all this time? I don't think so. Her symptoms are still covered by Lachesis. Perhaps she is moving to a deeper level of healing. I give Lachesis 1M which does nothing. This is a very tricky time during treatment. I feel that there has been some very deep healing for Sandra, and know from experience that transformation often kicks up other symptoms. I let her know this and, at the same time, support her in her search for the allopathic reason behind her symptoms. She visits many doctors and develops other strange symptoms, one thing after another-gastric reflux, dry eyes, dryness of the mouth, wandering arthritic symptoms, and muscle twinges that feel like electric shocks. She has gone to many doctors who rule out MS and Sjogrens syndrome.
 13 months after first prescription.
 Sandra has not had a remedy for five months. She reports the aforementioned symptoms and is preoccupied with aging and her own mortality. Assessment: The Lachesis has uncovered a deep existential anxiety that was previously experienced during the illness and subsequent death of her father. I prescribe Nux Moschata 200c based on the dryness, ailments from grief, and wandering arthritic symptoms. (Note that all three cases had suspected Sjogrens syndrome, which was found to be negative.)
 15 months after first prescription.
 Sandra reports that she's better. Dryness of eyes and mouth cleared up quite a bit.
 "I don't feel as anxious." "Still have some muscle spasms, but I'm operating under the assumption that this is going to clear up." "I also realize that I've held anger in; I'm continuing to feel layers of it. Now is the time to get back to who I am." "When I wasn't feeling well, I couldn't do certain things but I was without guilt. I was able to speak with my children. It improved my relationship. For a long time I felt there was something seriously wrong with me. I was holding so much fear and tension. That was what this was all about."
 Assessment: The remedy is the simillimum.
 Repeat Nux Moschata 200c.
 20 months after first prescription.
 Sandra reports, "I am well. Muscle spasms are gone. Sleep is good. Have been practicing Zazen-something for myself. I think I wasn't accepting where I am-that I have three kids and this is where I am. I love them and this is my life. I had been frustrated, it was a state of mind and that has shifted. I've started making more time for myself." Assessment: Doing very well. She is very conscious of what has gone on in the healing process. This is, in my opinion, very important. No remedy required.
 22 months after first prescription.
 Sandra reports that she is feeling good. There is some residue of the muscle twitches. "I'm not really concerned about them." "I feel I'm really defining who I am and what I want to do. When I had tried to define who I was-I was trying to be who I was before I had my children. That wasn't possible. My excuse was, "the kids wear me out." The truth was, I didn't want to confront the real me." Assessment: She's doing well and will probably not need another remedy for a long time.
 Lachesis mutus
 Case 3
 Sandra is a 40-year-old businesswoman, married with three children. She comes to me because she wants to strengthen her immune system.
 "I'm the mom. I get sick when my kids bring things home."
 "I'm beginning to feel the symptoms of arthritis. I can feel it in my fingers."
 "Horrible menstrual cramps with PMS-very sleepy, emotional, angry." (Feels better as soon as the flow starts. Menses are beginning to be irregular.)
 "Whenever I was taking a self-help seminar or doing yoga or meditation and I had my period, I didn't have cramps."
 "I'm in a stage of my life where I want to get away from everything, my work, my kids."
 "I'm very creative and artistic, but I haven't done much of this in the past five or six years."
 "I need to get away now. Mother overload. I love my kids, but I don't like the maintenance."
 Sandra has dark red hair and lots of freckles. She is very lively and extremely loquacious. She has recurrent dreams about being late and missing a plane or a car. Her father died of cancer when she was 15; he started getting sick when she was 13. She was devastated by this. "That loss was always with me." She doesn't need to sleep more than six or seven hours each night and feels refreshed after a nap of less than five minutes.
 At first, I suggest Lachesis 200c for Sandra. After this, her periods become regular again and she has no PMS or food cravings. She feels more relaxed and the "desperate feeling of having to get out from under my family" is gone. She has a very interesting dream where she sees herself as a snake coming out of its skin. As she touches the snake, it becomes a big fertile mother pig. She says, "That was me for the last year." Assessment: Doing very well-no remedy needed. Seven months later, I repeat the remedy because of what appears to be a relapse after dental work.
 Eight months after the first prescription, Sandra develops terrible pains in her neck-stiffness with tingling in the back of the head. "Feels like my neck can't support my head." She has a lump on the side of her neck that has been diagnosed as a fatty cyst. She is going to many doctors and cannot get a diagnosis. She has great anxiety about her health.
 What is going on here? Is she proving Lachesis after all this time? I don't think so. Her symptoms are still covered by Lachesis. Perhaps she is moving to a deeper level of healing. I give Lachesis 1M which does nothing. This is a very tricky time during treatment. I feel that there has been some very deep healing for Sandra, and know from experience that transformation often kicks up other symptoms. I let her know this and, at the same time, support her in her search for the allopathic reason behind her symptoms. She visits many doctors and develops other strange symptoms, one thing after another-gastric reflux, dry eyes, dryness of the mouth, wandering arthritic symptoms, and muscle twinges that feel like electric shocks. She has gone to many doctors who rule out MS and Sjogrens syndrome.
 13 months after first prescription.
 Sandra has not had a remedy for five months. She reports the aforementioned symptoms and is preoccupied with aging and her own mortality. Assessment: The Lachesis has uncovered a deep existential anxiety that was previously experienced during the illness and subsequent death of her father. I prescribe Nux Moschata 200c based on the dryness, ailments from grief, and wandering arthritic symptoms. (Note that all three cases had suspected Sjogrens syndrome, which was found to be negative.)
 15 months after first prescription.
 Sandra reports that she's better. Dryness of eyes and mouth cleared up quite a bit.
 "I don't feel as anxious." "Still have some muscle spasms, but I'm operating under the assumption that this is going to clear up." "I also realize that I've held anger in; I'm continuing to feel layers of it. Now is the time to get back to who I am." "When I wasn't feeling well, I couldn't do certain things but I was without guilt. I was able to speak with my children. It improved my relationship. For a long time I felt there was something seriously wrong with me. I was holding so much fear and tension. That was what this was all about."
 Assessment: The remedy is the simillimum.
 Repeat Nux Moschata 200c.
 20 months after first prescription.
 Sandra reports, "I am well. Muscle spasms are gone. Sleep is good. Have been practicing Zazen-something for myself. I think I wasn't accepting where I am-that I have three kids and this is where I am. I love them and this is my life. I had been frustrated, it was a state of mind and that has shifted. I've started making more time for myself." Assessment: Doing very well. She is very conscious of what has gone on in the healing process. This is, in my opinion, very important. No remedy required.
 22 months after first prescription.
 Sandra reports that she is feeling good. There is some residue of the muscle twitches. "I'm not really concerned about them." "I feel I'm really defining who I am and what I want to do. When I had tried to define who I was-I was trying to be who I was before I had my children. That wasn't possible. My excuse was, "the kids wear me out." The truth was, I didn't want to confront the real me." Assessment: She's doing well and will probably not need another remedy for a long time.
Summary
 In all three cases we see the "out of body" experience of Nux Moschata-the feeling of being far away from oneself, of going to sleep to oneself. This is typical of any remedy, like nutmeg, that has narcotic properties. But, unlike some of our more exotic narcotic remedies, nutmeg is commonly found in the kitchen. It has its own unique "flavor"-grappling with the great existential question "Who am I?" within the context everyday life. None of these women has gone to Tibet or taken psychedelics. They are at home, in everyday situations, struggling with this question.
 As we understand the essence of Nux Moschata, we will use it more often. I believe it is a commonly needed remedy, often confused with Lachesis (loquacity, excitability, agg. before menses), Pulsatilla (wandering pains, changeable moods, symptoms during pregnancy), or Opium (sleepiness, out of body experiences).
 The following categorizes many symptoms that I have seen in my cases cured with Nux Moschata:
 Out of body
 Faints easily. Fainting from the sight of blood.
 Overpowering sleepiness. Narcolepsy. Extreme drowsiness.
 Bumps into things. Has accidents because she is not in her body.
 Clairvoyance.
 Can seem intoxicated, as if on drugs.
 Feels as if in a dream. Spaced out.
 Numbness of body parts.
 Changeable
 Dullness of mind or extreme clarity of mind. Spaced out or chatters.
 Changeable moods.
 Laughter, cheerfulness, giddiness alternating with depression. Wandering rheumatic pains in joints and muscles.
 Laughter
 Giddiness, laughs at serious matters. Loquacity and laughter.
 Dryness
 Dryness of mucus membranes and eyes.
 Dry mouth without thirst.
 Lack of perspiration.
 Nux Moschata is an important remedy for Sjogren's syndrome -dryness of eyes and mouth, rheumatoid-like symptoms.
 Freckles
 Nutmeg has been used to remove freckles. I have six cases of Nux Moschata who are doing well. They all have reddish hair and freckles-lots of freckles.
 Female hormonal system
 Symptoms worse before and during menses, during pregnancy. Complete change of personality during pregnancy (Vasillis Ghegas).
 Digestion
 Tremendous bloating and constipation with soft stool.
 Very chilly
 Ailments from mental shock, grief, disappointed love, intermittent fevers.
 Kent: "Useful in the coma of typhoid and intermittent fever. When aroused she remembers nothing; looks about and wants to know who the people are around and what are they doing... We find such a state in typhoid, in hysteria, after shock, after fear, blighted affections or the loss of a friend."

Erosion of the stomach and homeopathy

Veratrum album
 Case
 On the 27th of January 1990, I was consulted by a 40 year old woman I shall call Sarah (not her real name) with a presenting complaint of erosions of the stomach. This is her case.
 In September of 1990 Sarah had a sore throat which developed into a common cold. Then, on the 1st of October at 2:00 am she woke up and vomited large quantities of 'coffee grounds' with great weakness afterwards. She had to lie down on the bathroom floor until she had gathered the strength to get back into bed. The next day she was admitted to hospital and kept in for three and one-half weeks. Endoscopy showed erosions of the stomach. She lost sixteen pounds in this time (her weight went down to 90 pounds).
 Medication:
 Ranitidine 150 mg BD, increased to 300 mg BD when she relapsed.
 Ferrous sulphate (because her Hb went down to 6.7)

 Sarah came to me with a great fear of her symptoms recurring if she came off the Ranitidine and also a fear of suppression from the allopathic medication. Her general state of health had been poor before the erosions and was worse since. She felt exhausted, looked pale, had marked swelling under both eyes and had no appetite. Mentally she was very low-sad, angry and insecure. She was going through a very traumatic divorce and dealing also with her father (83) who was ill, possibly dying. Her husband had left her one and a half years previously under unpleasant circumstances. She was furious with her ex-husband and angry and worried with what was happening to her father.
 In hospital when she had been so very ill she had written the following poem:
 This poem is a lament, there is a desperate quality, a vivid sense of loss and despair, a woundedness that wants to be healed. I wondered whether this was her case, and I chose the following rubrics from the poem:
 Thoughts of death: I must be well, black thoughts
 Stools, black; bloody: No more black blood, black stools
 Despair of recovery; Lamenting: Please make me well
 Stool, cadaverous, offensive: I'm haunted; smell of cadaverous stool
 Desires company: I long to be held close
 Thoughts disagreeable: I keep my images inside-vivid, sometimes dark
 Taciturn; Desire to Hide: Hidden.
 Inflammation of the stomach: Like the erosions.
 Violent symptoms; Sudden effects: Like the blood that erupted from me.
 Ailments from grief: All the pain, the deaths,
 Forsaken: The aloneness.
 Ailments from disappointed love: The pain of a dying love.
 Religious affections: The blood has flown, And I have been purified.
 The emotional injury of the dying marriage had wounded her. The image of injury to already sore wounds is graphic and speaks of her feeling deeply hurt to the point of contamination. The bleeding then cleansed or purified her-another dramatic image with religious overtones. In this last verse she also expresses the tragedy of the death of a dream. This is a woman whose expectation of a happy and enduring marriage has shattered her, slowly and painfully.
 This is her story. Her husband wasn't Jewish and she was. He insisted she didn't practice and wouldn't allow her to join a synagogue. She cut off from her spiritual and religious roots. When he left her she joined a synagogue: "It made me feel like I belonged." His leaving was distressing and complex. "I feel betrayed by him, let down." Sarah felt, above all, distressed that her hopes of a good family life were dashed. She wasn't interested in material goods, it was building a family life that was most important, one she didn't grow up with. It was only after the solicitors talked to her of what she had missed out on (because of the money her husband had earned), of the missed holidays and so on, that she felt she had missed out, been somehow cheated.
 Her own father's family had perished in the concentration camps. He never talked about this. Her own mother was obsessed with her position. She came from an aristocratic background and had married beneath her. She didn't have much time for the children. When Sarah was four, her brother was born and she felt displaced. Her grandmother looked after her a lot because the baby was ill so often. At age nine her grandmother died. "When I cried my mother said 'she was my mother not yours' and told me to stop crying. I felt very alone. I had no-one for me after that." Sarah felt that she had grown up not feeling part of a family, without a place in the family and this situation had been repeated with her husband.
 Sarah had suppressed many feelings in her life, but it has an active feel to it. She said that she bit back her feelings, "I grit my teeth and carry on." She looked very alive as she spoke these words!
 After repertorizing, I differentiated between Arsenicum and Veratrum album. Both have the collapse and the sudden, violent symptoms. Although Veratrum album didn't have the cadaverous stools or the anxiety about health, it had everything else. You will also find it under Ailments from anger with silent grief, with anxiety. Sarah was much better for fresh air, loved being outside and was also better for being busy/occupied. She was still severely anemic and therefore still taking the Ferrous sulphate.
 I decided on Veratrum album because of the focus on her loss of position that came through from her mother and childhood and was still active in her adult life, that had a religious connection. Neither did she have any generals that might have guided me towards Arsenicum. Also, she had an interesting 'edge' in the way she told her story; an edge that I have experienced with most of my Veratrum patients.
 29 Nov. 90 Rx: Veratrum album 200
 15 Dec. 90
 Immediate improvement, in energy and emotions. "I feel I've come alive." Sleeping much better. Hospital checks in mid-December were positive: there is no blood in the stools, her Hb is up to 12.4. She is taken off the iron. The past week she has started to feel low again after a difficult conversation with her husband. Is nauseous a lot of the time and full of flatulence.
 15 Dec. 90 Rx: Veratrum album 200
 29 Mar. 91
 Has been feeling a lot better. Had two migraines within two weeks of the last Rx (law of cure). The hospital has discharged her. She has put on five pounds in the last three months and has been feeling really well until recently. She has resolved to have more fun in her life. Is saying 'no' to her husband (appropriately) rather than going along with his demands. Starting to dream again, "Healing ones. I can leave the past behind now." She has color back/pink cheeks. Appetite is fantastic "I can't stop eating." Had generally become more easily tired but was pacing herself (not rushing around busily!) until lately when she went back to work and became very quickly "frenetically busy". Since then she is exhausted but keeping up with the (hyperactive) pace -"I need to be doing things the whole time."
 29 Mar. 91 Rx: Veratrum album 1M
 9 May. 91
 Many old symptoms returned in the weeks after the last dose of Veratrum; obstructed nose for ten days; a skin rash which was followed by a great sense of well-being. April 15, swollen fingers on waking with itching all over body (recurrence from 1984). April 19, nausea and vomiting for two days. Then leucorrhoea (old chronic complaint) came and went. May 3, sore throat which developed into a cold and lasted a week then cleared. Swellings under eyes are reducing. Work is fine. Getting on well with ex-husband. Is socializing more and has entered into a new relationship and is enjoyed feeling more sexual again.
 Wait/no Rx.
 28 Nov. 91
 Generally very well until the last month. Work going well. MP regular now-normal bleed every 28 days. Weighs 112 pounds again (her normal, healthy weight).
 Emotionally in a very bad place. Having a difficult time with her ex-husband, and her father who has been in and out of hospital. Feeling arrogant, dissatisfied, persecutory towards her children and lover. Abrupt and nasty to those close to her. Getting on her high horse (haughty) a lot. She spent much of this follow up consultation complaining "I don't want the hassle. Who needs this?" Hard and rejecting (the other side of the Veratrum collapse).
 28 Nov. 91 Rx: Veratrum album 1M
 Spring 1992
 Very well generally. Still has her ups and downs because her divorce isn't settled. But she is coping really well. Family life is good, her children are beginning to accept the man in her life. "I feel like a woman now". Her body is rounding out and her breasts have grown. Even when she was formerly well she was always thin and boyish.
 Sarah has developed a sense of herself over the past eighteen months which has included acknowledging the power of her shadow and an acceptance of that side of herself which has led to a deep healing.
 She has gone on to marry happily, someone who accepts all of who she is and who can share in that fully.
 Miranda Castro is a Fellow with the British Society of homeopaths, and is a registered member with the North American Society of Homeopaths for which she acts as the executive director. Miranda lives and practices in Seattle.

A case with serious internal bleeding

Sadhna thakkar's case
 Internal hemorrhage, cirrhosis of the liver, alcoholism
 Crotalus horridus
 Case
 Have you had days when one patient after the other walks into the clinic and says he/she is not better? Well I have. At these times what has helped me renew my commitment to my practice is to go through all my old journals from the early part of my practice. I am so glad that I developed a habit of writing down all my homeopathic experiences from early on. I would like to share a case that I like very much because it has renewed my commitment to homeopathy time and again.
 This was a case I had when I was doing my residency in the homeopathic hospital. We had a new admission on a Sunday of a man in his 20's. He was transferred from the allopathic hospital where they had given up all hopes of saving him. This man was almost in a hepatic coma. He had cirrhosis of liver and his liver enzymes
were at dangerous levels. He was vomiting and passing stools that were coffee brown in color-indicating that he was bleeding internally. His vital signs were quite grave and he was in a collapsed state. His eyes were half shut and on examination, his nails and sclera were golden yellow. He was almost delirious and couldn't answer any questions, yet he would be mumbling and crying periodically-saying "I want to die, I want to die". His color was very dark, almost ashy, and he had petechial hemorrhaging on his body. There were bruises which had turned into blackish discolorations on his buttocks and back from sleeping in the position for too long. He had a very offensive breath.
 The history I got from his family was that he has been an alcoholic since a very young age. This was his third time where he had almost died. He wouldn't listen to anyone. Even though he was out of the hospital after being treated for cirrhosis of liver just a few months ago, he didn't take the advice of his doctors to discontinue alcohol. Family members said he is a very stubborn man and a very angry man. He wouldn't listen to anyone or any advice. The moment someone mentioned his alcoholism he would go into a rage and become violent. He lived alone which is unusual for a man in his 20's in Bombay. He had no friends and he didn't get along with anyone in the family. They said he was a loner.
 I was quite new at that time in my practice. My supervising physician could not be reached as it was a Sunday. Being a resident medical doctor, it was my responsibility to take action. I decided to look up all of the objective signs in this case and see what came through the repertorisation. At the time we still used Kent's Repertory. I took the following rubrics:
 Generalities; COLLAPSE
 Mind; MANIA-A-POTU
 Generalities; HAEMORRHAGE
 Generalities; HAEMORRHAGE; orifices of the body, from
 Stomach; VOMITING; blood
 Stomach; Vomiting; coffee-brown, dark
 Mouth; ODOR; putrid
 Mouth; ODOR; offensive
 Stomach; desires; alcohol
 Skin; DISCOLORATION; blackish
 Eye; YELLOWNESS
 Stomach; DESIRES; alcoholic drinks
 Mind; DEATH; desires
 Mind; DEATH; thoughts of
 I went through all the Materia Medica and looked at the remedies like Ars., Carb-v, Crot-h, Elaps, Lach., Phos., Secale-cor. All of the remedies for the collapsed state with internal bleeding. I decided to give him Crot-h based on the aversion to members of family and the description of Crot-h in Allen's Keynotes.
 "Diseases caused by a previous low state of the system; chronic alcoholism; exhausted vital force; genuine collapse...Hemorrhagic diathesis; blood flows from eyes, ears, nose, and every orifice of the body; bloody sweat. Yellow color of conjunctiva; Prostration of vital force; pulse scarcely felt; blood-poisoning; dark, green vomiting; black or coffee grounds, or yellow fever...Diarrhea; stools black, thin, like coffee grounds, offensive, from noxious effluvia or septic matters in food or drinks.
 Since I was a resident in the hospital, it was safe for me to give one dose and wait for the changes. After half an hour, he asked for water. He had vomited coffee-brown liquid again but his color looked a little better. At that time I repeated another dose of Crot-h 30C. In the next hour, his color kept getting better, and his vital signs improved. No vomiting and no stool. He was given one more dose of Croth 30C during the night. In the morning, to my surprise, he was sitting up in the bed and talking to his mother and sister who stayed overnight with him in the hospital. He asked for breakfast and he seemed quite conscious. His vital signs were almost normal and his color was back to normal. He was discharged from the hospital in 3 days and within a week his liver enzymes came back to normal range. His case was followed on an out-patient basis for the next year. Crot-h was given 3 times in 200C and then 1M during that period. In the meantime, he turned his life around, he came to live with the family, found a job and started working. The last I had heard before leaving the hospital was that he was engaged to be married soon.
 This was my first experience with Crot-h and a remarkable one I think. It is unfortunate that we rarely get to treat these kinds of cases in the U.S.  because such cases can bring back the respect and acceptance homeopathy lost in the early part of the century in this country.
 -Sadhna Thakkar, CCH, BHMS
 Sadhna Thakkar, CCH, BHMS is a founder and director of National Institute of Classical Homeopathy and Homeopathy Health Care. She brought her extensive clinical experience from Bombay to the U.S.  several years ago. She has been teaching seminars in Classical Homeopathy to professionals in the US and Canada since past three years. Her private practice is in Santa Monica and Thousand Oaks in Southern California.

Interview with David Little

I first heard of David Little when Robin Murphy brought him to the USA a number of years ago to do a seminar about the LM potencies.
 Then, in 1997, David began posting to the lyghtforce list on the Internet. It did not take much reading of his material to realize that the information he was providing was incredibly well thought out and accurate. I started a file called "Little" and put into it almost all the communication that came from him. When the on-line homeopathic magazine, Homeopathy OnLine, had a long piece about "Sequential Therapy," the counter-point by David was an amazing exposition of Hahnemannian thought.
 In January, 1998, David left Hawaii and returned to his home in India. Before he went, I was able to speak with him about his insights and experience in the world of homeopathy. I hope you enjoy his clarity of thought as much as I do.
 -Julian Winston
 such combinations with
 AH: Where did you start out in your early life? Where were you educated?
 Little: I was born in Chicago, Ill. in 1948 and grew up on a lake in a small town near theWisconsin border. My education was one of constant rebellion against the status quo of scientific materialism. It was a good beginning for someone who would study the healing arts rather than orthodox medicine. In high school I wrote a controversial term paper for the most feared teacher in the school comparing the Buddhist view of Enlightenment to the Judeo- Christian doctrine. I was overwhelmed by oriental philosophy because it shows that there is more than one world-view. My professor was most impressed but everyone else thought I was a bit crazy to talk about Buddhists or Hindu yogis.
 By this time the war in Vietnam was growing larger, the draft was introduced, and a clash of the old and new culture had begun. In those years being 18 years old was considered too young to stay out at night, to drink, get married, or vote -but not to be drafted. I decided that it was unconstitutional to draft minors to fight in an undeclared war, which was run without the consent of congress. My views were not very well received by the school authorities nor local establishment. By now I was considered to be a bit eccentric to say the least. This was my first big lesson in life and the beginning of my true education.
 By 1967 I had moved to San Francisco and began what might be called my higher education. Leaving my little hometown and meeting the old beat generation poets, philosophers and diggers was a period of great expansion and wonderment. We were tired of the old mechanistic world-view with its materialistic one-sidedness and were looking for a new paradigm. Comparative religion and philosophy became my major interest and I wanted to travel around the world to learn from other cultures.
 AH: What got you interested in Homeopathy?
 Little: In 1969 I met the late great Dr. Manning Strahl who was a grand master of the healing arts. He had a deep knowledge of Homeopathy, Osteopathy, Craniopathy, Acupuncture as well as yoga and meditation. He lived in China in the 1930's and traveled throughout the Orient. He was a close friend of Aldous Huxley and was physician to Swami Paramahansa Yogannada. He was part of the old L.A.  alternative movement in the 1930's through early 1960's which was before the rise of the baby boom generation. At this time he was semi-retired living in a small town in northern California. I was very lucky to have known him. He introduced me to Classical Homeopathy. I am very grateful to him as he opened the door and put me on the correct path at an important point in my life.
 AH: Where did you study? How did you learn?
 Little: I began my study of the healing arts through the age-old apprentice system. Dr. Strahl and I became very close as we spent his last years together. He is my root teacher and we were like father and son. Very few people knew anything about craniosacral work nor Homeopathy in those years. At this time most practicing homeopaths were quite old and well trained. After Manning passed away I moved to Maui, Hawaii where I did my best to study further what the old healer had taught me. By the early 1970's George Vithoulkas came to California and the rebirth of Homeopathy in the USA was well on its way. Since that time there have been many serious students of our art. Dr. Strahl's generation are, for the most part, gone.
 AH: When did you go to India? Why? When did you return?
 Little: I first went to India in 1978. Ever since I wrote that term paper on metaphysics in school I wanted to go to India. I have always had the greatest interest in yoga and healing. I also heard there were great homeopaths in India and I wanted to deepen my study. Since that time I visited many homeopathic hospitals and clinics and have met many very fine practitioners. It was 16 years before I returned to live in the USA. One of my first exposures to this clinical environment was with Dr. Issac in Kerala, South India. He was a Kentian prescriber who headed a five-year homeopathic college and a large government hospital. They treated thousands in their out-patient department and had over a hundred beds for those who needed hospitalization.
 India is a great place to study Homeopathy because you are exposed to the most virulent acute diseases as well as the most degenerative chronic conditions. In India we see everything from meningitis, malaria and cholera to hydrocephalus, diabetes, cancer, TB and madness. Homeopathy is considered a front-line medicine, not a fringe system to allopathy. Homeopaths have their own schools, boards, government hospitals and rural clinics which can be found even in some remote places. There is also a strong lay movement which follows the lead of the medical officers.
 In India there are five recognized medical systems; Homeopathy, Allopathy, Ayur Veda, Urani and Siddha. The last three traditional systems represent the ancient Vedic, the Greco-Persian and South Indian Drividian lineages. Even in a populated and poor country like India the government and private foundations offer all these services for free or at minimal cost. We can only pray that such an enlightened healthcare system could happen in the USA. What is happening in the USA is shameful.
 AH: What was it like to practice in India?
 Little: India really tested my homeopathy and I quickly came to realize my western training was not sufficient for the clinic situations I was being exposed to every day. I knew that Hahnemann and early homeopaths treated very similar cases under similar conditions so I decided that I needed to review all of the old material very closely. I began my review of homeopathy with the founding classic, the Organon of the Healing Art. As I read the text I quickly began to see that much of the material in this book was totally different than the methods I had been taught. This was compounded by the fact that the pharmacy methods were those of the LM potency not the centesimals. I was confused by all this at first.
 Slowly I realized that there were several editions of the Organon as well as The Chronic Diseases and that I was reading the 6th edition. I then read the 5th edition of the Organon (1833) and was surprised to find that it was fundamentally the same as the 6th edition (c. 1843). They both suggested that a freshly succussed liquid was a much more efficient delivery system then a dry pellet dose. This was my introduction to advanced Hahnemannian homeopathy.
 I soon came to realize that the homeopathy I was practicing was that of the 4th Organon which was published in 1829. Why had we homeopaths overlooked the last two editions of the masterpiece? Why had no one put the aqueous delivery system into practice as both the 5th and 6th editions suggested? In 1984 while I was in Nepal I decided to try to reconstruct the methods that Hahnemann used during his last ten years and put them through a clinical trial stage by stage.
 My first experiment was to make the medicinal solution as suggested in the 1837 preface to The Chronic Diseases and follow as closely as possible the new posology system of the 5th Organon. I immediately noticed that the aqueous solutions were different then the standard dry doses and that Hahnemann was on to something new that we did not understand. I found the succussed solutions were more powerful, yet if adjusted correctly, produced less aggravations. Under these conditions it was possible to speed the cure as Hahnemann had suggested in the 5th and 6th edition.
 This was the start of a 12 year trial I ran while running free clinics in North India. I wondered what this mysterious potency Hahnemann was using in his last three years was, but no one had any of these 50 millesimal remedies. In tribute to Hahnemann's psora doctrine, the first LM remedy I made was Sulphur 0/1. As I began to apply the few LM's I made I could see that they had a different medicinal quality then the centesimal. This greatly expanded the therapeutic range of the Homeopathy I was practicing.
 Fortunately, I met the late Dr. H. Choudury of Calcutta who had used the LM potency for 25 years. My studies with him were enlightening because he and his students loved to discuss various aphorisms of the 6th Organon. He supplied me with over 400 LM remedies in all the potencies. I was truly overjoyed and grateful.
 AH: What are you doing now?
 Little: I have been on Maui for over 3 years! I still have a house in Himachal Pradesh and will be returning there with my family in January, 1998. By the time this is in print I will be home. I am looking forward to seeing the Himalayas from my backyard again and working in the countryside. My mission in life is to understand Hahnemann's full legacy and bring it up to date so that it can be utilized in a practical manner. There is really a lot of material there.
 As it stands now, Homeopathy has stopped growing with the 4th Organon so the techniques associated with the 5th and 6th edition are little understood. Wenda O'Reilly's rendition of the 6th Organon has helped by giving homeopaths a modern English translation, but the revised posology methods are thought to be only for the LM potency. Very few homeopaths really understand how to use the medicinal solutions with both the centesimal and LM potency. Rima Handley's In Search of the Later Hahnemann has offered a great view of the Paris practice but the conclusions she draws from the material are open to question. She has made several fundamental mistakes in her theme. This is because she has not understood the methods of the 5th and 6th Organon in a practical manner. Without some practical experience it is very hard to understand the casebooks.
 AH: What are some of the misconceptions?
 Little: The major problem is that the Organon is not being understood in a practical manner. Ms. Handley's book perpetuated the illusion that the 5th Organon taught the single unit pellet dose although the medicinal solution was first introduced in this work. She also wrote that Hahnemann kept his revised posology methods secret, yet the medical solution and split-dose techniques were published in The 5th Organon and the 1837 edition of The Chronic Diseases. She has also misread the notations for the dosages of the centesimal remedies. Finally, she goes too far by claiming that Hahnemann gave all his remedies "daily" which Hahnemann's casebooks do not support.
 To set the record straight I have obtained the microfiche film from the Robert Bosch Institute of all of Hahnemann's cases between 1840 and 1843. These are the definitive years as they represent the period in which he wrote the 6th Organon. These cases paint quite a different portrait of Hahnemann's final methods than the impression one gets from Ms. Handley's book. To take up all the points is impossible in a short interview such as this. I have written a review of The Later Hahnemann for the Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy which will be published in 1998. This deals with the major questions related to this subject. I will also be posting a more detailed review on my website on the Internet.
 AH: What is the best way to understand Hahnemann's casebooks?
 Little: The only way to really reconstruct what Hahnemann was doing is to study the published works, read the letters he wrote, translate his casebooks and review the eyewitness accounts. Dr. Croserio, a close confidant of the Hahnemanns, who Ms. Handley called the foremost Homeopath in Paris, wrote the following in a letter dated 1844, just one year after Hahnemann died. It takes up the subject of the daily dose. I quote:
 "Only in rare cases he [Hahnemann] would give daily a tablespoonful or coffee-spoonful of the first solution in 8 to 15 tablespoons of water." If he gave a powder to be taken at once in a tablespoon of water, this was never anything else then sugar of milk."
 Dr. Croserio worked with Hahnemann during his last years and was one of his closest confidants. He was well aware of what the Old Master really practiced in his final years. His description of Hahnemann's case management is much more consistent with the cases I have reviewed from his last three years and what is taught in the 6th Organon. This eyewitness account offers a further glimpse of the Old Master's last years.
 "He [Hahnemann] never prescribed two different remedies, to be used in alternation or one after the other, he always wanted to see first the effect of the one remedy, before he gave another, and this even with patients who he treated at a distance of two or three hundred miles. Nor would he change. Even in acute disease it was a rare case to see him allow the patient to take more than one spoonful in 24 hours."
 This paints quite a different picture from the impression Ms. Handley gives! The epoch around the 5th Organon was one of radical experimentation and constant transformation. Due to the limited number of proven remedies it was sometimes very hard to find a remedy that fit the totality of the symptoms in chronic cases. For this reason in the 1830's Hahnemann performed trials with double remedies, remedies in tandem, remedies in alternation and remedies in series. As the materia medica expanded, the simillimums were more perfect leading to the use of less remedies. By the 1840's, Hahnemann's casebooks show that he left these former methods behind as he found more successful techniques.
 As a practitioner of Hahnemannian Homeopathy, I am a little disappointed with the way Ms. Handley portrayed Hahnemann's experiments in his Paris years in her books. She gives those who do not know any better the impression that Hahnemann preferred to use tandem remedies, alternations, the daily dose and gave everyone Sulphur. She mentions several experiments but does not offer the dates of the cases to which she is referring. There is a great difference between the methods of 1830, 1833, 1835, 1837, 1839 and those of 1840 to 1843. All of this information must be placed in a sequential order so one could understand the evolution of his revised methods to their final and most perfected form.
 AH: Why has there been so much misunderstanding around Hahnemann's final ten years?
 Little: Without knowing the historical order of Hahnemann's experiments, this period becomes confusing and contradictory. This is why some say that Hahnemann's private practice was completely different than his published works so the Organon should be totally ignored. Others are using this misinformation to rationalize the use of combination remedies, alternations and frequent changes of the prescriptions. We even have so-called teachers of the Organon who profess mixtures of ultra high potency remedies chosen by an allopathic concept of etiology. All of this in the name of Hahnemann!
 Much of this new material is misrepresented because it is misunderstood. The revised methods of the 5th and 6th Organon must be placed upon the strong foundation of the 4th Organon. The pretenders do not understand this! The single dose, wait and watch method, is the basis on which the careful repetition of remedies to speed the cure is placed. Hahnemann's postulate that his revised posology has the potential to speed the cure to 1/2 or 1/4 the time of the old method must be put to the test by experienced classical homeopaths. Only those with such a deep background can understand Hahnemann's more advanced teachings and use them in a practical manner. I am sure this is what the Old Master would expect of us.
 Those who have access to the Internet are invited to join the Homeolist through the Homeopathic Home Page. This is an open international study group which is dedicated to Classical Homeopathy. Those seeking more information on the subject of Hahnemann's final methods are invited to visit David's Website at:
 http://www. ioa. com/home/davehart/little. htm
 and download the article Hahnemann's Advanced Methods. Sometime in April, 1998 David's writings will have a permanent home at http://www.simillimum.com

UP PSC Interview For Homeopathic Medical Officer

UP PSC Allahabad is going to start interview for homeopathic medical officer from January 17, 2011 and it seems interview is not continuous this time with some gaps as applicants have mainly recieved call letter for interview on dates of 17, 21, and 31 January, 2011.  So If you have not recieved call leter then your interview may be in early Feburary, 2011.

Apparently, there were over 6000 candidate have applied, but around 2500 call leter were issued based on percentage of marks obtained in BHMS (sum of all four profs). A friend informed me that an OBC candidate was not called because of poor marks (57%) though he have no idea about cut list, but as I heard it  seems 57%.  As I know teachers in top ranked Homeopathic medical college i.e. of Lucknow, Allahabad, and Kanpur were used to give only passing marks while candidates from private colleges and candidates from other states get very good percentage so this percentage system is not good and UP PSC should do screening test to justify talent and skill.  We need to do something to correct this error.  Recently, BDS student from KGMC were not called for interview because of poor percentage compared to student from private medical colleges and they went to to court and apparently there is no positive news as far as my knowledge.  I strongly feel selection on the basis of seniority/registration is best way for fair selection as most of medical student got admission in medical college by going through CPMT like medical competition.

Regarding questions asked in UP PSC homeopathic medical officer interview, they mainly asked general medical things and homeopathic expert asks mainly materia medica and things, which he know very well and finds intresting.  To know more, please mail me.

UPPSCE results of homoeopathic medical officer is published Click here to know .
Homeopaths should not be descourged as there would be lots of vacancies in very near future as I read recently in a local newspaper that there are 350 vacant post for homeopathic medical officer Uttar Pradesh and interview for approximately 292 post started from January 17, 2010, which means advertisement for 50 more posts to be published soon along with some more new post should be created or got vacant and NHRM also increasing post of AYUSH doctors every year.

Bestselling New Book Vaccine Epidemic Released

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