Carcinosinum Anhang
Dr. Tinus Smits † 27-4-2010
Staufen 58 different tumors (exclusion of bowel tumors)
Dolisos 15
VSM 58
Homeoden 1
UNDA 48
Dolisos 15
DHU 17
Dolisos 15
Schmidt-Nagel 12
Boiron 1
Nelson mehr als 10
Remedia.at 10 und 52
This means
that homeopaths all over the world use and discuss quite different remedies if
they talk about Carc. It is clear that the one-tumor Carc. is different from a
15 or 48 tumor Carc. I suggest that one-tumor-Carc. should
be named
after the tumor that is used, e.g. Carcinoma mamma, Carcinoma rectum. Only the
remedy made with different tumors should be called Carc., followed by the
number of tumors used, e.g. Carc. (15T) 30K.
The mixture
of different tumors is important in my opinion because this makes it a
universal remedy, applicable in a very wide range. That’s the reason that I
made Lac Maternum out of 10 different samples of mother’s milk,
the same
procedure followed for Vernix caseosa.
For many
years I verified all these symptoms with every prescription and it became
clear what symptoms to focus on and
what symptoms should be eradicated from the picture to have a more reliable and
practical picture to
prescribe
on. It seems to be difficult, once a symptom is entered in the Materia Medica,
to get rid of it, even when it turns out to be based on an error. I started to take out symptoms from the
picture that were of no value in enhancing
the image
of Carc. and to add some others that seemed important to me from the essence.
The fears of Carc. are a good example.
FEAR of
cancer; fear in a crowd; fear in narrow places; fear in high places; fear of
spiders, mice, snakes; fear of failure in examinations; fear of failure; fear
of thunderstorms.
I removed
fear of dogs, fear of the dark, fear of frogs. That doesn't mean that a
Carcinosin patient cannot have fear of the dark or fear of dogs, but once we
understand the essence of the remedy and we see this essence in our patient
fear of the
dark and fear of dogs are not reliable symptoms and do not add any reliability
to our prescription. Therefore such symptoms should be taken out of our materia
medica to make the real picture more evident. When the essence
of a remedy
is not clear then we are obliged to collect every symptom that comes out of a
proving or out of one or more clinical cases and this makes the picture more
confused. When we really understand the essence of a remedy it is possible to
build up the whole picture in accordance with this essence.
To discover
the essence of Carc. we have to understand the basic problem of the cancer
patient and what exactly is a tumor, because Carc. is made from the
materialization of the cancer problem. The cancer patient has permitted cells
that are
'not him' to grow in his body without activating his defense mechanisms
sufficiently to destroy them. The tumor is a foreign entity that does not
respect him and finally destroys him, without even respecting structures such
as
blood
vessels, muscles, lymph nodes. It grows by transgressing every structure, every
border. We can easily understand what happens when we compare the patient to a
country that has borders and an army to defend its integrity as a country. If
an enemy soldier crosses the border and establishes himself inside the country
and the army is not well-trained enough to capture the enemy, to imprison him
or to kill him, the enemy will call his friends and other soldiers
will pass
the border and settle down. Their base will be stronger and stronger. Without
any respect for the original people, they will destroy everything around them
which is not to their own advantage and will take all the food that was
intended for the indigenous people. They will send soldiers to other places in
the country (metastasis) to take over all the power of the country. The only
possibility the country has finally is to ask other countries to help it and to
attack the enemy with heavy weapons (surgery, radiation and chemotherapy). But
such a massive fight greatly weakens the country and the outcome is very
uncertain.
On the
cellular level the same process takes place. The membrane of the cell is
unstable and weak and the cell is ingesting toxins, not able to defend its
integrity. These ingested poisons damage his normal functioning, creating
anarchy and estranging himself from his own essence. But the whole process had
already started long before on the emotional and mental level. What happens the
most on the emotional/mental level to a patient having taken Carc. is that his
self confidence grows and that he starts to listen more to his own needs and to
defend himself better. He fortifies his borders and gets into a process of more
awareness of what is ‘him’ and what is ‘not him’, no longer allowing the poisonous
energy from outside to settle within his borders. He takes more care of
himself, being attentive to his own needs and desires. A process of cleaning
out at all levels takes place, poisonous relationships are broken off or
corrected, a consciousness of being someone that deserves respect and love
blooms gradually, and a marked influenza or inflammation with high fever for
the first time in twenty years cleans the poison from his body. All this means
that the reactivity is increasing.
Influences
from outside that are experienced as attacking him or weakening him without
giving him the possibilities to defend himself can stimulate the same process:
first of all massive vaccination. I once asked a lady during regression therapy
to go to her first vaccination and to tell me what this vaccination meant to
her and without hesitation she said: ‘It took away an opportunity to defend
myself.’ With massive vaccination in early childhood we give the message to the
child and his immune system that his own defense mechanism is not reliable and
that he has to be protected from outside. This not only weakens his immune
system but also gives his personality the feeling that he is not strong and
good enough and that he has to rely upon other people rather than upon his own
force and vitality.
Also the
suppression of fever, a defense mechanism par excellence, the use of
antibiotics and corticosteroids can lower the defense mechanisms. If during
every infection the parents suppress the reactivity of the child by giving
aspirin and penicillin, how can he still believe that he is able to defend
himself against his invaders (bacteria, viruses, etc.)? This practice engenders
a lack of reactivity and the development of severe illnesses in childhood as
pertussis, pneumonia, chronic inflammation (otitis, bronchitis, rhinitis,
etc.).
The
Carcinosin patient has a tendency to place strength outside himself and to feel
weak and vulnerable inside. That's also what happens when he finally gets a
tumor and he has to be operated on, radiated and treated with chemotherapy. He
is helpless, desperate and completely dependent on his doctor. I always insist
with cancer patients that they have to decide for themselves and feel what is
good for them and what they want and do not want. You have to give them back
their strength and they have to take it back. Dr. Bernie Siegel, an American
surgeon, insists in his excellent book Love, Harmony and Cure, that as a
patient you have to be assertive, to ensure that when hospitalized you have a
room with a view, to ask for your favorite music during the operation, etc. To
stand up for yourself and to fulfill your own needs is of primary importance in
cure.
Maria Late,
who was one of my patients, can help us to understand how difficult it can be
for these people to stand up for themselves. She was a young woman, a doctor,
with operated breast cancer and metastasis. One day she had to undergo an
examination of her bladder. The surgeon decided to do a suprapubic puncture,
but she felt strongly that a catheter would be better for her. So she asked the
doctor not to do the puncture, but he had to ask the surgeon responsible, who
said ‘no’ and decided she should undergo the suprapubic puncture. She finally
felt unable to contradict him. Then the contrast fluid was injected by error in
her abdomen. She was very ill and recovered only slowly during two months of
hospitalization, but died some months later.
The
Carcinosin personality has a tendency to let others violate his own space. He
doesn't take sufficient space for himself, but his space is invaded by others
and he is too weak to throw them out. The Carcinosin personality has to learn
to take his destiny in his own hands.
Part of the
allopathic damage is unfortunately often the complete annihilation of any hope
for cure for the patient. To be sent away without any hope for better, without
any support, leaves the patient in despair. But the patient needs hope. In
hospitals this hope is often killed completely, because of some curious
thinking of the doctor and the use of inexorable statistics. Leave any hope for
cure to the patient is often considered by allopathic doctors as giving ‘false
hope’. But what is false hope? False hope is saying to your patient that you
will surely cure him, that he will not die, etc. But no patient can cure if he,
himself, does not decide to survive and for that he needs hope. Hope that he
will not necessarily die, that his doctor will sustain him in his effort to
find a solution to his life threatening illness and that he is also capable to do
so. He has to be respected in his attempt, knowing that his doctor will give
the best treatment that is available. Not statics are deciding how many chances
he has to cure, but the patient himself. He has to reconnect with his inner
force, even if during the operation, radiation and chemotherapy he felt
completely delivered to the authority of his doctor. He has to be helped to
take up again responsibility for his own life and he has to be guided to do
more than only wait and hope that there will not be any relapse. I have a
patient that reacted wonderfully on chemotherapy and had almost no side effects
and after 7 cures her doctor decided to give her two more cures to see if even
more progress was possible. But she didn’t have a good feeling to do so and
decided herself not to take more cures and to wait to see if the tumor would
shrink without further chemotherapy.
Dr. Bernie
Siegel gives us a clear vision on false hope.4 "The concept of false hope
is one of the most ridiculous things I know of. Why should we try to authorize
hope according to the statistics? Hope is a variable that can change the
statistics. If only 99% die of a condition, then let’s stress the fact that
that person has a chance of not dying. If you tell a group of those people that
they are the 10% who will survive, you may find that 30% or 40% or 50% get
better."
Take one’s
own destiny in one’s hands and discuss the treatment as someone who is
completely responsible for his own health and life is very important and
enhances the possibilities to cure. The patient has to be strong to face
remarks from her doctors and other people who don’t believe in any possibility
to cure.
Restoration
of reactivity, from the tumoral stage back to the infectious stage
Reactivity
can be defined as the capability of a person to maintain his mental, emotional
and physical integrity by an efficient system of protection against perturbing
influences from outside. Mental level: the person has to be equipped with
reinforcing ideas about himself, his life, and about the surrounding world,
i.e. that his life is meaningful, that he came on earth with a purpose, that
what he is doing is good for himself, for others and for the world, namely a
positive look.
Emotional
level: he needs joy, feeling of love toward himself and other people, to
nature, to the earth and the universe. He needs the capability to express his
emotions, even those that are commonly labeled as negative: anger, grief,
irritability, for example.
Physical
level: he needs a good immune system, capable of cleansing his body of
indisposing bacteria, viruses, toxins, etc. Surely the best reaction of our
organism to activate our immune system when our equilibrium is in danger is
fever. Therefore it is hard to accept that anyone who really understands this
mechanism still considers that fever is an enemy to be suppressed. For most
people and doctors this is common practice nowadays. Children often have sudden
high fever for only 1 or 2 days, and this is in fact a sign of good reactivity.
But when again and again such reactions are suppressed by antipyretics and
antibiotics or in more serious illnesses with corticosteroids then slowly but
surely the reactivity is broken down and there is a slide from infectious
disease to tumoral disease. The infectious stage is a more reactive state (with
fever) than the tumoral stage (without fever). In the tumoral stage the
organism is weaker than the tumor, whereas in the infectious state our energy
is mostly strong enough to overcome an infection or can be fairly easily activated
by a well-chosen homeopathic remedy.
In the
infectious stage the energy of the person organizes everything to overcome the
disease: high fever which enhances the metabolism of the body enormously, an
increase of white blood cells, acceleration of blood circulation, vascular
dilatation in the affected area or all over the body, loss of appetite to give
our digestive system the possibility to concentrate on the elimination of
toxins, diarrhea, sweating, a running nose and eruptions, all elimination mechanisms.
These kinds of elimination processes occur frequently after the administration
of a homeopathic remedy. But also an infection can be a sign of a curing
process.
It is no
coincidence that children go through a certain number of eruptive diseases
(Rubella/German measles/Scarlatina/fifth or sixth disease) and they have easily
a running nose or infections with high fever. Everybody who is aware of these
facts knows that vaccinations, antipyretics, antibiotics and other suppressive
drugs that are so largely used in routine modern medicine practice have also
their reverse. It pushes the human being already at a very premature age in the
direction of the tumoral stage. This fact was already described by Hahnemann
200 years ago. Therefore it is not surprising that we have to face cancer and
all kind of internal diseases as one of the most wide spread diseases on this
earth and that the number of cancer patients increases still every year.
The tumoral
stage is a low reactivity stage. There is no acute phase, no fever, no
eruption, no accelerated or enhanced evacuation of toxins. There is no acute
outbreak followed by a restoration of balance as in the infectious stage. There
is a chronic unbalance sometimes even without any visible or noticeable
physical expression. Cancer can grow without any perceptible sign that
something is wrong. Sure, for the holistic doctor there are already a lot of
symptoms not only on the mental and emotional plane but also on the physical
plane, which he can interpret as a precancerous stage. He is able to help his
patient to return from this insidious tumoral stage to the infectious stage and
can prevent that his patient slips down to chronic internal diseases as heart
diseases, cancer, etc. In But such preventive treatments are still more
exception than daily practice. The majority of patients are suddenly confronted
with cancer and often wondering that this happened to them, because they were
almost never ill, had no influenza, no fever, no major health problems for
decades and believed to be in excellent health. It is as if cancer manifested
suddenly in the body, but we know that tumors grow slowly for years, even
decades before they attain sufficient volume and invasive power to become a
major health problem.
In ageing
there is a spontaneous shift from infectious to tumoral diseases enhanced by
vaccination and other suppressive treatments as . So reactivity is an important
quality not only of our physical but also of our mental and emotional body. If
a person has a tendency to let be suppressed himself by others, then the immune
system does the same thing on the physical level. In the
The father
takes an important place in this remedy, or rather the father principle. The
father is the symbol of self confidence, of strength, of social position and
realization of the possibilities of the child. The basis for the Carcinosin
problems lies therefore in childhood. The father has to confirm the child in
his capabilities and encourage him when things seem to go in the wrong
direction. If he is criticizes the child and never gives any praise when he has
done well, or when he is simply not there to stimulate and approve him, or if
he is too demanding, the child will feel incapable of fulfilling his father’s
expectations and feels too weak to do anything. By being given too much
responsibility, or being punished too severely when he has done something
wrong, or by being given the impression that whatever he does it's never good
enough, his self confidence is slowly but surely undermined. Then he will try
hard to please his father, mother, teacher, etc. by being very industrious,
being fastidious in his work, being the best in his schoolwork and being a
nice, good boy or girl to have the approval or praise of his father. He will be
afraid to make mistakes and will be anxious before examinations. He will avoid
every criticism by being on time, doing what others ask him to do and accepting
whatever people inflict on him to avoid quarrels and to please the other
person. So he hasn't learned to defend himself and to watch over his
boundaries. Already as a child he is teased by his school mates, who feel his
weak defenses. All this doesn't mean that the father is the only person that is
responsible for the weak defense mechanisms and the fear of failure of the
child. Every authority can contribute to this situation, the mother, a priest,
a nun, an older sibling or a teacher, saying for example in the class that he
is a stupid and that he will never learn anything. The fundamental lack of self
confidence is a universal problem and everybody in some way has to work this
out. Many people have completely compensated for it by working hard and
performing on a high level, this earning the praise and esteem of everybody.
Often the baby is already born with this fundamental lack of self confidence
and in his early life this problem is only activated, so that the father is not
always to blame for it.
The
Carcinosin patient has a very low self esteem and fundamental lack of self
confidence combined with weak defenses. Therefore he is very sensitive to
everything that can undermine his self confidence, and is not able to stand up
for himself. One way to survive is adaptation and avoidance of criticism as
much as possible. He is very fastidious in his work, but not especially when he
hasn’t to perform, e.g at home he can be rather untidy. He adapts to the
demands of others trying to regain their approval.
There is
also a tendency to escape this demanding, critical and unfriendly world by
entering a world of fantasy, dreams and harmony by reading for hours, being in
nature, playing with animals, being transported by music and dancing,
thus giving
expression to the emotions that have been suppressed as part of his survival
strategy. Often he weeps with the music. Also traveling is a way of escaping
the harsh world he lives in. The outer world is threatening and he has
a strong
need to escape this threatening world. So horrible things affect him profoundly,
because he has weak boundaries. In situations that he cannot flee from he
becomes anxious as in narrow and high places and in a crowd. But reading, music
ans dancing can also harmonize his energy and help him to get rid of perturbing
energies.
Because of
his weak self confidence and his fear of failure this person can also try to
nourish his confidence by seeking approbation by being brilliant. He feels
ill-at-ease with people that are as good as him. This can make him arrogant
with a tendency to talk just a little bit too much about his achievements. He
is critical about the achievements of others and is very sensitive to
criticism. He needs to be admired. This can push hem to very great heights,
working continuously to stay on top and having no other interests in life. We
feel the big ego problem that he is manifesting, but what manifest itself as a
big ego outside, is in fact a weak ego inside. In a more passive person feeling
less talented the projection on to a master can be very helpful. He knows that
he is less brilliant, but he likes being in the shadow of the master trying to
do as he does and approach his excellence, even while knowing that he will
never attain that.
It is true that
all this compensation can in some way calm the weak ego, but it's like taking
sweets when you need love and affection: you never feel completely satisfied.
Here Carc. can be very helpful, because it can resolve the ego problem from
inside. After treatment for one or two years with this remedy people are really
more confident in themselves and their ego is satisfied and can sleep
peacefully like a cat on the sofa.
There is
still another way to escape from this weak feeling, namely by refusing to do
whatever is required and say ‘No, I cannot do this’ without even trying. These
kind of children are very uncertain, shy and every negative experience confirms
their incapacity. They are very easily offended, sensitive to reprimand, very
obstinate, incapable of admitting their errors, sometimes refusing to obey
their parents. They are very afraid to have to perform and avoid every
disappointment. This makes them very unhappy and easily angered and aggressive
at home, but weak and yielding at school, so they are teased a lot.
Another way
to resolve his problem of feeling weak and worthless is to prove that he is
capable by controlling everything. So he becomes very persevering, extremely
well organized, plans everything, leaves nothing to chance. This attitude is known
as the Cuprum metallicum picture that exists in so many Carcinosin patients.
Cancer patients very frequently have high copper concentrations in their blood
and the copper concentration of tumors is higher than that of normal tissues. I
have already said in my publication about the mental picture of Cuprum
metallicum that Cuprum is the closest remedy to Carc. We often see in the same
patient both the Carc. and the Cuprum picture. That's why I now use frequently
a combination of both, called Carc. cum Cuprum from Dolisos in
If we have
understood well what Carc. is all about, it is interesting to see how patients
express this. I noted carefully what they told me and give here some examples.
* I am not allowed to fail, to make
mistakes; everything has to be beyond reproach
* I didn't get praise, rather my father
used to tell me I was not capable of doing this or that; I let myself be
suppressed easily; there is still a lot of suppressed anger in me
* I feel less worthy than other people, I
am the black sheep; my father criticized my appearance
* I cannot say no, I accept everything
otherwise I feel guilty; I always avoid conflicts
* I easily agree with everything and
everybody, I cannot stand up for myself
* I cannot remember that I ever had fever
After the
treatment:
* I feel that I am someone; I don’t feel
less valued than other people any more; I am more confident
* I can take time for myself without
feeling guilty; I can help others’ problems without taking them on my
shoulders; I feel more clearly what is mine and what is theirs
* I can more easily say no and defend my
own space; I don’t feel guilty any more when I take time and care for myself
* I allow myself to be angry when anybody
shows me a lack of respect
* I express now what I think and what I
feel; I do my best and then it is okay, it doesn’t have to be perfect
* I now do what I want to do myself
* I keep at a distance from my father, I
also have my own life
* I set boundaries for my children and
satisfy my own needs
Physical
complaints are most of the time not our best guides to finding the correct
remedy, but can be sometimes especially in acute illnesses of great value and
confirm the remedy or help us to think about a special remedy. In my opinion
every physical problem can be helped by Carc. if the mental and emotional symptoms
indicate it. Nevertheless some physical signs are often seen in this remedy:
the blue sclera, the moles, caf-au-lait spots, the blinking of the eyes, the
nails too short from biting, the warts on palms and soles, molluscum
contagiosum, acne, cysts, fibromas, all kind of tumors, sinusitis, coryza,
swollen and painful breasts before the menses, painful menses. Certainly it is
possible to add other symptoms. I selected only the symptoms that seem to me of
some importance.
[Don Webley]
Carcinosin
is a remedy that, in my experience, is one of the great polychrests of the
homeopathic Materia Medica. It is frequently used by European and Latin
American homeopaths, but much less so by American practitioners.
Frankly, I
do not understand why this is the case. Cancer is more widespread here than
elsewhere, and common sense would suggest that the miasmatic nosode of this
disease would be frequently indicated.
Indeed it
is, and I assume that its under-application is due to lack of familiarity with
the remedy and perhaps also to a prejudice that goes along with such
unfamiliarity. I hope that this article will help practitioners to feel a
little
better
equipped and more inspired to search for this remedy. It will never work out in
the repertorization; one does have to look for it. But it will resolve a good
number of those cases that seem to make only fair progress under a
"perfectly indicated" remedy. I deliberately chose to have this
manuscript in essentially completed form before consulting other published works
on the subject, so that, for better or worse, it is my personal experience that
is reflected
here. It
was, however, instructive for me to read the proceedings of the Hechtel
conference on Carcinosin, as well as
had
recorded verified in the experience of others. I also saw one or more authors take agnostic positions on
indications that are leading indicators in my experience. Of course, I also saw
indications with which I had been unfamiliar.
This
article does not purport to be the final source on Carcinosin. Much material
that is either my own experience or part of the general body of knowledge on
the remedy is not represented here. I do hope eventually, however, to publish
a
definitive work on this nosode. Therefore, I
actively solicit responses and cured cases, for I do not feel I have
plumbed the depths of this remedy.
The Carcinosin
remedy picture is difficult to summarize in a single all-encompassing keyword.
There is no cowardice, as in Lyc., or fear of the universe, as in Ars. It is
also difficult to make any categorical assertion about the remedy,
for the opposite
of anything said about it might just as well be true. Perhaps more than any
other in our homeopathic armamentarium, Carcinosin is a remedy of polar
opposites. I have very often had a
disbelieving mother walk out in a state of more than a little doubt
because I gave her mild-mannered,
introverted child the same remedy that I gave to her obstinate, hyperactive
brat who bounces off the walls. Yet this very amorphousness and this bipolar
character
suggest the
image of Carcinosin.
It is
commonly stated that the epidemic of cancer that now plagues the industrialized
world is directly related to the
suppression of tuberculosis. It would be difficult to prove this thesis beyond doubt, but a number of
observations point strongly in this direction. First of all, one of the factors that alerts one to a
possible need for the cancer nosode is tuberculosis in the family history. Carcinosin shares some noteworthy symptoms
with Tuberculinum, for instance, the hair on the spine, blue sclerae,
genupectoral sleep position, and the desire
for travel. I have also observed the perspiration on the head during
sleep with sufficient frequency to add
it to the repertory.
I have had
the opportunity to treat the parents of many children who have benefited from
this nosode and have found more often than not the remedy has not been
indicated in these people. What one
typically observes is a very
suggestive
history on one side - usually the
mother's - and a somewhat less tainted past on the other side. Often
neither parent needs the nosode, even
though it may be indicated in one or more of their children. It is as if
the number of suggestive illnesses in
the family tree needs to rise to a certain "critical mass" before the cancer miasm explodes into being.
Thus a child will be a Carcinosin type, while
the parents take other remedies. Significantly as well, I have rarely
seen a case where parents need
Carcinosin and the children do not. Taken together, these facts do not
augur well for the future of humankind.
We are, as it were, witnessing the unleashing of a new horseman of the apocalypse upon the world in
this generation. We have seen this reflected
in the steep increase in the occurrence of cancer over this same period,
but the fact that the nosode is
appearing, ex nihilo, as it were, in this generation, suggests that we have
perhaps glimpsed the tip of this monstrous miasmatic iceberg. Carcinosin is
destined to be the nosode of the age in
much the same way that Tuberculinum-bovine was the star of Kent's day. There are shadows of Medorrhinum in
this nosode, also. We see the hyperactivity in
children, increased sexual desire, amelioration by the ocean,
genupectoral sleep position, desire for
salt, sweets and fats, and insomnia.
The other
chief components of the Carcinosin picture come from the Natrum-muriaticum and
Sepia family. We see the fastidiousness and a desire for salt indicative of
Natrum- muriaticum, the worse with consolation (although the opposite is as
often present), sensitivity to sea air, desire for chocolate, and aversion to
fats and milk of both remedies. We see the love of dancing of Sepia, as well as
its childhood hyperactivity. Like both remedies, it is very easily offended.
Cancer has been called the great masquerader, and so it is with its nosode. One often sees a symptom
picture which is a perfect example of, say,
Tuberculinum-bovinum, like case B.J.S. at the end of this article, but
which has one or two symptoms that
don't quite fit. As I have indicated, these "sore thumb" symptoms, and
the family history, often lead to the
use of Carcinosin.
Sometimes
one sees a case which seems to have, for example, a Phosphorus symptom group.
Then a Sepia aspect and finally a Natrum-muriaticum set of symptoms. Knowing
this remedy, one sees its aspect as the unifying thread running through the
case. Such an instance is patient C.D., whose case is quoted later on. Whitmont
calls cancer, "The penalty for the
unlived life," and Wilhelm Reich referred to it as the end result of the
"Carcinomatous Shrinking Biopathy." Natrum-muriaticum and Sepia
reflect these tendencies perhaps more than any other remedies, and it is
significant that they should be so
closely related to this nosode. The tubercular and gonorrheal tendencies
provide the groundwork or, perhaps more accurately, the miasmatic sod upon
which the poisonous seeds may germinate
into the cancer miasm. It is for this reason that Carcinosin has all these remedies hinted at in its picture.
Unless one has a clear feeling for the essential process occurring in Carcinosin, one will tend to be confused,
because the remedy appears as one type
then another, and then yet another. Consider the disease itself, for a moment.
Cancer may manifest in any organ, and, as a result, show itself by a wide
variety of symptoms. Yet what is common to all cancers is unrestrained, chaotic
growth, wherein the limitless generative energy that animates the life of the
body and its cells is freed from the normal controls and results in the chaotic
growth and spread of a malignant and consuming tumor throughout the affected
system. Here we begin to see the process that underlies the remedy.
Rudolf
Steiner once characterized cancer as having two phases, that of fever, heat, or
inflammation, and that of tumor formation. This heat, this intensity, this fire
kept barely within check, suggests something of the essence of Carcinosin.
Carcinosin is the name we give to the pathological picture that arises when the
life force itself, present in an individual
with great intensity, is thwarted and turns upon its host organism,
consuming it in its mad search for
outflow and resolution. The Carcinosin child, therefore, has frequent and
often very high fevers, is often
hyperactive, and has a difficult time going to sleep and staying asleep. He has "exceedingly strong food
cravings which often alternate with aversions," so that frequently one hears, "I used to
LOVE eggs, but now I hate them." In the Carcinosin family history, and in the personal history
of the patient, this intensity is also present as addiction to alcohol, or to drugs, cigarettes, and particularly
to caffeine, and great sensitivity to
foods. It likewise manifests as great passion and sexual intensity, beginning
often at a young age, love of dancing and music, desire for travel, and
exhilaration in a thunderstorm. I have
also observed very early eruption of both deciduous and permanent teeth in
a number of cases. It would, of course,
be very difficult to add this to the repertory, as, by its very nature, it is not a symptom that can be
cured. But I have seen it on a few occasions.
This chaotic energy also sometimes manifests as alternation of symptoms
from one side of the body to the other.
I have seen this in a sore throat, but it is not a symptom that I can otherwise vouch for from experience,
although others make much of it.
How then do
we distinguish the Carcinosin energy and intensity from that of Medorrhinum or Tuberculinum? In cancer, no
poison or foreign principle causes the cells
to begin their destructive and unrestrained growth. What is occurring is
simply a stepped up, if chaotic,
version of the growth process of normal tissue. In the gonorrheal and tubercular miasms on the other hand, there
is the introduction of a foreign principle which intensifies, but also perverts, the energy. Cruelty and hardness
are everywhere manifest in these
remedies, the result, if you will, of this perverse external principle. Thus,
the Tuberculinum or Medorrhinum child
is often cruel, or mean, though sensitivity to reprimand and to others is not
foreign to some Medorrhinum children. A full-blown or typical adult belonging to either of these types is not someone
with whom you would easily leave your
children and pets for a weekend. There is a darkness about the energy of both these types that is completely absent
in Carcinosin. About the only categorical
assertion one can make about this type is that it will never manifest
malicious cruelty. Two very important
facts to bear in mind about the Carcinosin picture is that the remedy is
listed under "sympathetic"
and "anxiety for others" in second type in the Synthetic
Repertory. Concern and regard for
others is fundamental to these cases, and, as we will see, is the source of
some of its
pathology. Thus, even the obstinate kid whose mother says has a terrible temper and hits his brothers and
sisters walks into the office looking so sweet and pleasant you can hardly
believe that she is speaking of the one who sits in front of you. One is immediately drawn to the Carcinosin
child, and likewise to the adult, before onset of deep pathology. There is something attractive and magnetic about
their energy. It is light and warmth
without the dark shadow of the other two nosodes.
In the
young adult case - "young" really referring to an early stage of
pathology - this energy is often tangibly sexual: Carcinosin takes a back seat
to few remedies as regards the
intensity of its libido. A recent female patient, when asked about how
often she and her lover engaged in
sexual intimacy replied: "Once a week, but that's down from the first
year we were married, when we made love
three times a day." One sometimes finds a history of promiscuity, but just
as often a
few long-term relationships, characterized as well by this same intensity. The Carcinosin patient's
relationship to sexuality is emotional rather than genital, more refined and less coarse, and less emotionally
complicated than that of Medorrhinum or
Lachesis, for example. The sexual urge is simply the adult manifestation of the energetic intensity with which the
patient has lived since childhood. Eventually, therefore, the individual
realizes that casual sex is not what he or she really wants. Thus the
promiscuity tends to develop into a long-term commitment, or becomes
complicated by coffee, drugs, and
chocolate to ease the pain of disappointment. Therefore, although one feels the sexual intensity of the Carcinosin
patient sitting across the table, it is not the kind of energy that puts one on guard. Although the intensity is
evident, one does not feel that the
patient is going to make a proposition. As evidence that the high sexual drive
is usually non-pathological, it rarely
declines after a prescription.
A 3rd
fundamental aspect = fastidiousness. The Synthetic Repertory gives Carcinosin
as a black type remedy, and this is my experience. It is much more basic to the
being than, for example, the fastidiousness of the Nat-m. patient,
which it
resembles; it is usually for order, rather than for dirt. Though the latter is
seen, the Natrum-muriaticum relationship to punctuality is only rarely present.
Even though outwardly the Carcinosin patient is not necessarily more
persnickety than Nat-m., it is the part in his life that this tendency plays
that we must examine. It seems to me
that it is the result of a rigidity, a need to control that stems from the
patient's knowledge that he or she is sitting upon a wildfire which is
potentially all- consuming if not strictly contained. It is the same sensation
that generates a fearful reaction when
sickness arises, or that is the root of the fear of cancer. Patient K.A., whose
case is quoted here, always felt that
she would die young. Deep down, the patient knows that there is a pathological time-bomb ticking inside.
The fastidiousness is an attempt to control it. Put another way, the fastidiousness is a valiant effort to keep
mortality at bay. Somehow the
Carcinosin subject feels that if she can keep her environment perfect, or her
figure perfect, then she just might
live forever. Case K.A. illustrates something fundamental about the remedy in this regard. She always
has exercised religiously, owns a health food
store, and has been addicted to all the products that she sold. She
looks several years younger than her
age, but has always planned to have a face lift at age forty-five. She is terrified of aging. She takes meticulous care
of her body, at least its appearance, and her
environment. When she was raped a couple of years ago, she did not tell
her son (she is a single mother) because she did not want him to be concerned.
Another patient presented with herpes
as her chief complaint. She had other symptoms, like constipation and sleeplessness, but the herpes, which in her
case appeared in rather mild form, threw her for a loop. "I feel diseased. Why is this happening to me. I
wasn't born to do a trip like this."
She felt unclean, and became extremely agitated when even the tiniest
lesion would appear. She was the kind
of person who "loves things to be nailed down." Mortality is the
real issue here, and the anxiety upon
the appearance of the herpetic lesions is just a proxy for the dread upon the appearance of the specter
of death. It is fundamentally true that all fear is, when fully inspected, only fear of death. Yet all remedies do
not have fear of death, and some
remedies fear certain things while others have other terrors. Arsenicum is one
of the remedies whose very fabric is
woven upon a fear of death. Carcinosin is likewise. I would not add it to the repertory for this
symptom, and indeed, I have never seen it frankly manifested in a Carcinosin
patient. Yet the same mortal news that, in an Arsenicum patient leads to stark fear and insecurity, is
manifested in Carcinosin as WORRY and
ANTICIPATION. Essentially, the Carcinosin patient fervently hopes that,
with planning, and organization, and by
staying on top of things that, just maybe, she will not die.
The
difference between Arsenicum's fastidiousness and Carcinosin's neurosis is best
illustrated as follows:
Two girls
are leaving on a cross-country trip; anxious mothers stand on either side of
the car, bidding tearful farewells to their "little girls." The Ars.
says, "Honey, drive carefully! I've heard awful things about how they
drive in Ohio. Make sure you fasten your seatbelt, and don't sit on any toilet
seats, and make sure you don't talk to strangers. Oh! your hair needs some
work, the part is crooked. Make sure to call me every night. Yes, it's fine to
call at 1 h., I can never sleep then anyway."
The
Carcinosin mother whispers softy to her daughter, "Sweetie, take care of
yourself, and make sure you always wear clean underpants. What if you had an
accident, and they brought you to the hospital with dirty underwear on?"
A little
bit of a caricature, but not much! I have seen it suggested in print that
perhaps the Carcinosin fastidiousness is not primary, that it stems from a
desire to please. This is most definitely
not so in my experience, and this point
would
distinguish Carcinosin from Staphisagria, which is not fastidious.
Nevertheless, the desire to please is there, and because this remedy is so
sensitive to reprimand and sympathetic, the Carcinosin patient is often quite
adept at conforming his or her life to the expectations of those around. Case
K.A. expresses this perfectly. In the second follow-up, quoted below, she says,
"My masks are gone, I don't have
to perform any more. I always figured things out and performed, so that I would not have to deal with the fear."
This issue
of fastidiousness leads into the matter of control, a core issue in the
pathogenesis of Carcinosin.
Foubister:
a history of fright and prolonged unhappiness as features in the history that suggest Carcinosin. These
are in fact often present: the Carcinosin
pathology arises when the boundless centripetal life energy and great
sensitivity
to and concern for others are constricted,
confined, and traumatized by the cold and brutal facts of life. Thus one often hears a life story of
extensive sexual abuse and horrors that tests one's credulity. This is the essential process occurring in the pathogenesis
of Carcinosin, and if one grasps it,
one will find the remedy where it is hidden to others. Yet it is true that Carcinosin is as hard to pin down as the
color of a chameleon. This is because, depending on
which of
its component characteristics is present to the greatest degree, the remedy
may mimic Nat-m., or Med., or Staph.,
or Phos., or Sep., or Tub., or Calc., or yet some other (Pulsatilla too). Thus
a woman with high sexual energy, very
social, sympathetic, and clairvoyant may resemble a Phosphorus and share its food desires. One may be at the point of
giving it until she mentions how much
she likes to drink tea, and no, she never drinks cold water. Or a fastidious, pathologically responsible woman
who loves chocolate and salt, but does not
care for sex, and is not very receptive to consolation, may be about to
receive Nat-m. until it is realized that she loves to sit in her car in the
sun with
the window rolled up, and likes soft,
gooey fat on meat. Control by rigid, almost sadistic parents or spouses is a
form of unhappiness often found in these cases. Case K.A., discussed later,
is such an example. She describes
herself as having been raised by a "Nazi mother" who tolerated nothing short of perfection. Her
first husband was an evangelical Christian (he
also womanized extensively on the side, and was heavily into
pornography) who was
even more suffocating. He could not stand to hear
people breathe or chew, so that she had to
feed the children before he came home. He would never touch a woman, so
their "sex life" consisted of
her fellating him while he smoked cigarettes sitting in a chair.
Nevertheless, one should not feel that
Carcinosin is contraindicated if there is no history of brutalization. Life's ordinary traumas are often sufficient
suffering. Even in the face of such extraordinary suffering, however, the
Carcinosin patient seems not to resist. In this is a resemblance to Staphisagria. Even as a child, the Carcinosin
patient is extremely sensitive to
reprimands. It is hard to distinguish between the two. The distinction, it
seems to me, is that Staphisagria
resists confrontation because the organism is simply too sensitive to tolerate the anger of others and does
everything to avoid situations where that might arise. The Staphisagria child will not show the
ebullient energy of the Carcinosin child, and the outbursts to which he or she is sometimes prone. Carcinosin, by
contrast, remains with the alcoholic husbands
out of something resembling, but not entirely identical to, a sense of responsibility.
It is
rather that if she can somehow keep it together on the home front, it will help stave off the fear of mortality and
disorder lurking beyond. We need to return to the Carcinosin patient's anxiety about others and its sympathetic quality.
A certain
kind of Carcinosin patient will present herself very like Phos., will sit on
the edge of the chair, and lean toward
you, and be very much affected by other people. At times the distinction can be very hard to make,
because this remedy shows all the sensitivity of Phos., feeling the emotions of
others, and also being prone to visions and psychic phenomena. If a distinction can be made it is that this patient
is more "solid" or and less
amorphous than the Phos. patient. One clinician at the Hechtel
conference expressed it quite well:
"Phos.," he said, "is like a chameleon, and has no skin, that is
no boundaries." But it is not
always an easy distinction to make. More usually, however, there is anxiety about others, and a desire to
help, without the loss of boundary between self and other. In such cases, guilt is often part of the complex, again
deriving from the patient's feeling
somehow responsible and obliged to take care of, and protect all around, from mortality. One patient expressed it quite
poignantly: "My middle name is guilt," she said. This is perhaps as good a place as any to
amplify my quick reference to the fact that almost anything said about Carcinosin, though sometimes false, will at
other times be true. I have just
contrasted the energetic, outgoing, intense, Carcinosin child with the more
sensitive and retiring Staphisagria. It
is true that this is the more common manifestation of Carcinosin in children. It is also true that the complete
opposite is sometimes seen. Carcinosin
children can be quiet, shy, depressed, and pathologically sensitive in much
the same way as Staphisagria subjects
of the same age. Even in this type, however, there will usually be the identifying keynotes: the food
cravings, the constipation, the sleeplessness,
and the high fevers suggestive of intense energy lurking beneath the
tranquil surface. I think of such
children as cases where the pathological development has been accelerated
so that the implosion or introversion
of energy that occurs only later with the more common type is the case from an early age.
Generally
speaking, however, the depressed, collapsed stage is seen only later, though
not necessarily in a very old person. In taking the history, it will be
observed that the patient was once outgoing, energetic, sexually vital.
Sometimes, especially in cases of sexual abuse, this is not the case; there
will be indifference to sex. I don't believe that I have ever seen true aversion to sex in a Carcinosin
patient. Even such women are not truly frigid, and their lack of sexual response is situational; they will sometimes
speak of a brief interlude between bad
marriages, or a particular relationship, where their sexuality flowered.
The typical childhood history is also
present. Now she is exceedingly depressed, to the point of attempting suicide. The guilt has become a
profound sense of failure. In these individuals, the history of pain and abuse is often marked. Sometimes it is
astonishing. There will often be
alcoholic parents and a history of sexual abuse. Another patient, a child of
dysfunctional alcoholic parents, and a
woman who herself struggled with addiction to alcohol and cigarettes, confessed to great feelings of
worthlessness, and had suffered bouts of
depression in the past. She hit the nail on the head when she said:
"As a child I never was taught how
to take care of myself."
How to Look for Carcinosin
In spite of
what you have read here, you will need to make a deliberate effort to discover the Carcinosin cases in
your practice, at least initially. I can now
recognize them as easily as Natrum-muriaticum or Sulphur or Ignatia, or
any of the other polychrests, but that
was not always the case. The primary difficulty is that the case will never repertorize out to Carcinosin if you
use Kent's Repertory. I myself always use the
Synthetic Repertory first, and Jost Kunzli von Fimmelberg's Repertorium
Generale for the particulars. The
Synthetic Repertory contains the distillation of Pierre Schmidt's vast wisdom, and he evidently used Carcinosin
quite a bit, because there are a number of Carcinosin additions in that
Repertory with a "7" superscript identifying him as their source. Nevertheless, even these do not
provide a complete enough representation of the remedy to have it come out in a repertorization. Rather, you have
to know its hiding places and how to
recognize its tracks. The first thing that will make you think of this remedy
is a case that seems like a perfect
Natrum-muriaticum, except that the patient tells you how she loves to sit in the sun or how much she
loves the juicy fat on pork chops, or you discover that she loves consolation. The same could be said of Pulsatilla,
Sepia, Phosphorus, Lycopodium,
Medorrhinum, Calcarea, and a number of other remedies, but I find that the majority of Carcinosin cases are either
slightly kinky Natrum-muriaticum or Sepia cases or Medorrhinum with a twist: a
little too gentle and without the edge, and maybe with an aversion to salt instead of a desire, and no
amelioration at night. Natrum-muriaticum bears the same special relationship to
the cancer miasm that Mercury does to syphilis, or Thuja to gonorrhea. At least
this is my observation. When you suspect that something is cooking, pay careful
attention to the family history. Look for cancer, diabetes, alcoholism, drug
addiction, insanity. You will occasionally find tuberculosis in the history.
Foubister says that pernicious anemia is also suggestive, but I have never
found this in any patient's history. I think it tends to be the kind of thing
that one's descendants don't know about; it is
not as patently obvious as cancer or a heart attack. I have in recent
times begun to suspect that severe
asthma and hay fever in the ancestry is indicative, but I am not certain
enough of this to assert it. I throw it
out so that others may consider that possibility and report it to our fellows. Foubister says that the
maternal history is more important This is true in my experience,
but this
should not suggest that the paternal history is insignificant. It is not necessary to have all 4 grandparents die of
cancer or diabetes. When that is the case,
then I have to be quite convinced that some other remedy is indicated
before I will give it. You will, however, find Carcinosin cases when half the
ancestors have a suggestive history.
Sometimes
there are fewer tainted forebears but all five of the patient's siblings are alcoholics.
It is not a cut-and-dried matter. Nevertheless, you will rarely use Carcinosin
when there is no suggestive history at all. But you sometimes will. I wrote in
the first draft of this manuscript that I had done so only once. On looking
over some cases, I realized that I had
been mistaken: I have used the remedy a few times - not often, but more than
once - on its indications alone. This
is not surprising. Who only uses Medorrhinum when there is a clear gonorrheal history? Next, examine
the patient's own history. Constipation and
insomnia from childhood are strongly suggestive, as are high or frequent
fevers as a child. A patient of mine
had, as a child, the highest temperature ever recorded at Providence Hospital, in excess of 108 degrees Fahrenheit.
Another child would run about and play outside with a 106 degree fever. These
fevers often accompany earaches or tonsillitis. Hay fever as a child is also a strong indication. Foubister gives a
history of pneumonia and whooping cough
as suggestive. I have seen these, but less frequently. Even rarer, in my practice, are individuals who have had
childhood diseases more than once. Foubister does give this indication. He also writes that Carcinosin is suggested
when there is unusually severe reaction
to vaccination. I mention these for the sake of completeness, but cannot confirm them from my own experience.
Carcinosin children characteristically have very high energy as children. The sleeplessness and fevers are just
manifestations of this.
Then there
are the symptoms associated with the remedy itself. Carcinosin, as we have discussed, is pre-eminent among fastidious
remedies. It loves to dance and travel,
and is affected one way or another by the ocean. Carcinosin is said to be exhilarated by thunderstorms. To be honest,
however, as a western Oregonian, I cannot
vouch for relationship to thunderstorms. Where I live, asking people
about how they react to thunderstorms
is usually only slightly more fruitful than asking Eskimos if they are afraid of elephants. Carcinosin is strongly
moved by music. They tend to like classical
music, though others will like rock. I have observed an aversion to jazz
in several patients. There seems to be real aversion to this kind of music. My
theory, and it is entirely the kind of
idle speculation condemned by our illustrious founder, is that the syncopation
offends their sense of order and
propriety. In small children, you will find head-sweats during sleep. This is a very important rubric in
treating children. Kunzli gives it a black dot in his Repertory, a sign that it is a symptom this is often a
dispositive symptom in his experience.
He gives the following remedies for head-sweats during sleep: Bry.,
Calc., Calc.-p, Cham. Cic., Lyc.,
Merc., Podo., Sanic., Sep., Sil. To this list I add from my own experience:
Tub., and Carcinosin. Often this single
symptom, in conjunction with the genupectoral sleep position, also present in Carcinosin, gives the case away. This
symptom is of little significance in infants, as it is common in the first year
or so of life. The Synthetic Repertory
gives the following remedies in this rubric: Calc.-p, Carcinosin, Con, Euphorbium, Lyc., Med., Phos., Sep., Tub. I
have found these indications to have the force
of generals of high rank: they are proxies for something very deep in
the life of the child. Thus, in a small
child, these symptoms must be present in the pathogenesis of the simillimum. For example, then, if there are
both genupectoral sleep and head-sweats, the field is immediately narrowed to five remedies of all the entire
Materia Medica. Anyone who has treated
children, and wondered how to choose a remedy based on no symptoms at all will
appreciate the value of these indications. It should be mentioned that Carcinosin
also often sleeps spread-eagled, arms
and legs outstretched. This is not at all uncommon in small children, but I mention it so that its presence does not
dissuade one from using Carcinosin. One
often finds the blue sclerae otherwise associated with Tuberculinum, and the cafe-au-lait appearance. The moles often
mentioned as indicative of Carcinosin are of a
very specific type. They are round, dark-brown macules. Carcinosin, like
Medorrhinum, is suggested by a hairy
spine and neck, and by unusual amounts of arm or leg hair, especially in children and women. Many writers have
reported Carcinosin as being worse with
warmth. I have seen this, but I have seen the opposite perhaps more
often. When there is a history of
prolonged suffering, think of Carcinosin. This does not mean a broken heart or
a disappointing date. K.A.'s case, quoted in this article in its entirety,
gives a picture of what I mean by
prolonged suffering. Foubister gives severe fright as another precipitating
cause. I have no reason to doubt him,
but cannot attest to it from my own experience. Unusually restrictive and suppressive parents or
spouses point to this remedy also. When the history is parental, we may surmise that it is likely to have been
causative. When, on the other hand, it
is seen in a series of spouses, it is, rather, a pathological symptom. In other
words, only a Carcinosin, or perhaps a
Staphisagria, would, as an adult, put up with the abuse K.A. endured from her husband. George
Vithoulkas gives as a keynote, "burning pain in the ascending colon." I have seen it only once. I suspect it
is like the Thuja keynote of "nose
runs at stool," dispositive but rare, at least in my experience. One
individual reading this article is
likely to recognize this latter symptom, since I was guided to Thuja in
his case; but I have not seen it again.
The food cravings are very important guiding symptoms to this remedy. Foubister says that an aversion or desire for any
of the following foods is suggestive of
Carcinosin: meat fat, sweets, salt, fruit, milk, and eggs. My own experience
confirms this. What I will add to this is that a particular characteristic of
the Carcinosin type is an alternation,
often over periods of years, between aversion and desire for one or more of these items. The remedy tends to have a
lot of aversions and desires, and that needs to be present for one to really consider this remedy on the basis of
its cravings.
Thus a
desire for meat fat and salt and a neutral feeling about the other items would
lead one away from Carcinosin. There is
often also a sensitivity or allergic reaction to some of these items.
I have
saved what I consider to be the most important food desire for the last:
chocolate. Schmidt give it as second type. I believe he understates the case: I
feel that it should certainly be black type. Nevertheless, you will
occasionally see an aggravation from chocolate, and I think I may even have
seen an aversion to it on occasion. The remedy type also desires onions and garlic. It has a strong relationship to
coffee, but then again, this is the
addictive remedy nonpareil, so that should be expected. I have observed,
however, that it is also particularly
sensitive to coffee. In one of the cases quoted in this article, the
patient, after marked improvement, took
some coffee to stay awake on a transcontinental trip. She noticed her uterine symptoms returning
before she had finished half the cup. Fortunately, she had the presence of mind to throw the rest away, and suffered
no lasting harm. When this manuscript was essentially complete, I scanned
CARCINOSIN, the record of a symposium on Carcinosin in Hechtel, Belgium.
Several of the practitioners mentioned
desire for soup as being of cardinal importance in Carcinosin, second
only to desire for chocolate as food
craving. I did not know this, but the writers all gave ample evidence of a clear understanding of the remedy. This
should therefore be taken as authoritative, and I also will take pains to inquire about soup in suspected Carcinosin
cases. The following case sketch is of
a "pseudo-Staphisagria" woman. The prescription would easily have
been missed had I not known what to
look for.
Her chief
complaint was exhausting (3) menstrual cramps (2). She also had cramps at
ovulation. The patient, M.E., is intimidated by anger (2), and NEVER expressed
anger toward her husbands. She was introduced to abuse early. She recounts that
at age 2 or 3, she lost all her hair. The diagnosis was "stress"; she
now feels that she lost her hair because
she would not cry out, of fear of her father, an alcoholic, who later
left her mother, and died of
metastasized stomach cancer. Her stepfather would ejaculate in her mouth, then
beat her and threaten her with more
serious harm if she ever told anyone. Later, at 11, it was an uncle fondling her, and a couple of years
after that, a cousin forcing vaginal intercourse on her. She proceeded to become involved in successive abusive
marriages. Both were to black men.
Why did I
make a note of this? Prejudice aside, it is a matter of my observation that in
the U.S., whereas the decision to enter into an inter-racial relationship
signifies nothing of interest to a homeopath, the decision on the part of
a white
woman to choose only black men as her sexual partners is noteworthy. Often it
suggests the existence of a Staphisagria-like, or in this case, Carcinosin-like
tendency. Before any readers who do not know the author of this piece
cry
"Racism!", such individuals should know that the author himself is a
black man - one, moreover, who is married to a white woman, who, incidentally,
is neither a Staphisagria nor a Carcinosin.
The first
husband was an unregenerate adulterer, nineteen years older than she. He would
even bring women back to the house and copulate with them while his wife cried
in the next room. Her second husband was an alcoholic who beat her, and with
whom she had sexual intercourse two or three times a day on weekends, but only
out of duty, as she had little interest herself.
Why did I
not give her Staphisagria? This might have been the logical choice. She had all
the food cravings of Nat-m., however: chocolate (2) [at the menses (2)], salt
(1), garlic (1); she also loved the ocean (2) and was fastidious about time (1)
and claustrophobic (1). Perhaps she was a Nat-m., but she was not < sunshine/consolation
(2). That ruled Nat-m. out. I observed that she disliked jazz (2), desired
onions (2), and was < coffee (2). There was also a suggestive history: Her
father was an alcoholic who died of cancer; his parent's history was
unavailable, the mother had no remarkable history, but the maternal grandmother
had DM, and asthma, and died of a CVA. The MGF was a severe alcoholic and died
of cerebral hemorrhage in his 40's. With all pieces of the puzzle in
place, Carcinosin was a much better fit
than either Natrum-muriaticum or Staphisagria.
ZEIT ONLINE
Umwelt
Stimmt's? Können Pflanzen: Krebs bekommen?
Das ist eine Frage der Definition. Wenn man unter Krebs alle abnormen Wucherungen fasst, bei denen Zellen außer Kontrolle geraten und Tumore bilden, dann stimmt es tatsächlich: Auch Pflanzen können von Krebs befallen werden.
Man sieht oft an Bäumen oder Weinstöcken wuchernde Gebilde, die auch als Gallen: bezeichnet werden. Winzer nennen die Krankheit Mauke. Die Wucherungen entstehen durch einen genetischen Defekt in den Zellen. Während gesunde Zellen darauf programmiert sind, nach einer gewissen Zeit abzusterben und die Zellteilung einzustellen, teilen sich die befallenen ungebremst weiter.
Dieser Gendefekt kann unterschiedliche Ursachen haben. Bei Menschen und Tieren wird er häufig durch krebserregende Substanzen und Strahlen ausgelöst. Im Pflanzenreich dagegen sind oft Mikroorganismen die Ursache für die Genveränderung, etwa das Bodenbakterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Das schleust Teile seines Erbguts in die Wirtspflanze ein, es programmiert die Zelle regelrecht um.
Allerdings ist dieser Krebs für die Pflanze in den seltensten Fällen tödlich. Das liegt daran, dass Pflanzen keinen Blutkreislauf haben. Über den verbreiten sich bei Tier und Mensch die Krebszellen weiter und bilden Metastasen in lebenswichtigen Organen. Bei der Pflanze dagegen sind die Wucherungen meist lokal beschränkt, sie kann das befallene Gebiet relativ leicht abkapseln und sozusagen drum herum wachsen. Allenfalls können die Tumore der Pflanze Nährstoffe entziehen und sie so schwächen.
Vorwort/Suchen Zeichen/Abkürzungen Impressum