Methodology of Homoeopathy
(with 10 new provings). Dr P. Souk-Aloun.
Unintentional Provings
Summary: curious effects of some substances (drugs,
nutritional and culinary additives), often ennoying but useful for Homeopathy
Once Samuel Hahnemann noted symptoms of a gonorrhea at an acclesiastic
patient above all suspicion. Fortunately the master’s piercing eye noticed that the priest
from time to time chewed leaves pulled to a bush, a Thuja, in front of the house; after
making some inquiries, it turned out that this insignificant habit already lasted a
certain time before the apparition of the inexplicable illness; Hahnemann stopped this
habit and the recovery occurred in some days. This is how it happened with Thuya
occidentalis, used in therapeutic notably in gonorrhea. With an exceptional observation
sense, Hahnemann raised interesting properties from much ordinary substances; but
especially he took extensively in toxicology books, where massive poisoning symptoms often
fatal were related. Nowadays, with the development of the drug monitoring, the undesirable
effects of drugs, nutritional additives and other substances are signalled abundantly; it
is a gold mine for homeopaths because are mentioned sometimes slight disorders inducing by
low doses.
I. Some curious and useful effects for futur provings.
1. L-Tryptophan, its dimère and Serotonin.
Since the works of R. Wurtmann on the rat showing the relation between
the concentration of the serotonin and the supply of tryptophan, this last was used
against insomnia, premenstrual syndrom and depression. This amino acid in free sale was
distributed by the Japaneses in the whole world notably in Europe and USA.
In 1989, the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) incriminated
this amino acid in myalgia-eosinophilia syndrom that regroups some acute myalgic pains
with nocturnal predominance and a strong eosinophilia, associate with fatigability,
muscular weakness, fever, arthralgias, dyspnea (without radiological pulmonary signs),
eruptions and oedema of extremities or sometimes of face, lung desease (2, 3). In Europe,
the same syndrome was noted and related to the tryptophan, following by its interdiction
for free sale. A long epidemiologic investigation led by J.C. Dillon shows the truly
guilty, the DTAA, a dimère of the tryptophan put in circulation by the Japanese firm
Showa Denko. But the L-Tryptophan himself as shows Winkelman, have a similar effect but
slighter.
The 3 stages of the syndrome described by Kaufman are:
– early stage (1st month): pains and muscular hypotony, moderate fever, loss of weight,
oedema of hands and feet, sometimes pulmonary disease.
– intermediate stage (2nd month): persistence of symptoms, with myopathy, peripheral
neuropathia, myocarditis, eruption.
– avanced stage (7th month): sclerodermia, with collagen deposits at skin,
muscles, lungs, stomach, liver and vessels; the death can occur by a polyradiculonevritis
syndrom, an accident of pulmonary hypertension or a cardiac accident; the survivors have
strong aftereffects (sclerodermia, polyneuropathy, myopathy).
The symptoms provided by the medical press of cases of
myalgia-eosinophilia give an interesting toxicologic picture:
– women are more numerous than men (but there is more female users).
– myalgias often appear after an effort and persist after with nocturnal
predominance, the muscles are sensitive to pressure, sometimes with oedem, hardened;
arthralgias without articular objective sign.
– muscular weakness electively at root of members follows the pain.
– early and varied eruptions: rougeola like, itching, hives, rash,
angiooedem, hardened symmetrical plates on forearms and legs, sclerodermia of the face,
dermographism, livedo reticularis,…
– multiple subcutaneous nodules and alopecia are sometimes present.
– fever and adenopathy.
– less frequently: dyspnea of neuro-muscular cause, gain then loss of
weight, polynevritis, trismus, Gougerot-Houver-Sjögren syndrom …
The resemblance with the syndrome of Spanish poisonous oil is striking
and can explain himself by the presence of quinoleins contaminating the oil of colza, that
are the metabolites of the Tryptophan (3).
The Tryptophane in homeopathic preparation was in sale under the
appellation of Tryptophanum. Tryptophanum is useful in influenza and parainfluenza,
especially in beginning of cold.
The serotonin, whose tryptophan is a precursor, is a chemical mediator
(with receptors 5 HTS 1A) of the nervous system. Serotoninergic syndrom described by H.
Sternbach (4) corresponds to troubles caused by antidepressant drugs:
– confusion or hypomania.
– restlesness.
– myoclonias.
– hypereflexy.
– abundant sweats.
– tremors and thrills.
– diarrheas.
– incoordination.
– fever.
2. Diazepam and Triazolam.
One knows some of the curious side effects of the Valium, like
anterograde amnesia (in anesthesia), others are it minors. Thus, following the unfounded
accusation of a surgeon-dentist for rape by a patient, the attention of the drug
monitoring specialists is attracted by hallucinations of rape at the woman under Valium:
they point out that it is frequent enough (5, 6). J.W. Dundee says that 5 women on 1.000
under benzodiazepin (BDZ)have sexual fantasies reaching the hallucination of the sexual
act! He quote thus 43 similar cases. The effect of the BDZ is enough persistent and let
like a mark modifying the response to other tranquillizers.
The Triazolam (Halcion) has been put in the hot seat, after have been
incriminate in a murder trial in the USA. To my own knowledge, a colleague having taken
Halcion before going to bed and having wakened up in the night for an emergency, had no
memory of it the following day.
3. Betablockers.
The medical literature concerning their side effects is important. It is
very well known on this plan, except for some allopaths that don’t seem so informed: one
can see in his practice iatrogenic effects of betablockers.
The drug monitoring often signals for this group of remedies, psychic and
physical weakness, neuralgias, etc… These troubles are often recovered in proving.
The Propranolol 30 CH give a striking mental symptom recovered at two
women provers (from afar of 3 years, in 2 independent provings), “anxiety as if she
is waiting for something”; one knows that the Propranolol is used in allopathy for
the stage fright and exam nerves.
The Pindolol, another betablockers, product often of the colorful dreams.
4. Leucocyt Interferon and other cytokins.
Used in some cancer treatments, Interferon give frequently astheny, a
influenza-like syndrom (with chills, myalgias, arthralgias and headaches), anorexia and
loss of libido.
F. Adams had studied effects of the Human alpha leucocyt interferon on
the mind of a set of patients and raised these troubles (7):
– behavior: reduction of the energy, psycho-motor slowness, sleepiness,
indifference, loss of appetite.
– cognitive functions: troubles of the memory, of the concentration,
speech and thought difficult, bradypsychie, indifference, sensation of irreality, spatial
desorientation, conceptual disorganization.
– affectivity: curiously depression, anxiety and suicidal tendencies are
improved.
The author’s description goes in in categories of the Kent as:
abstraction of mind, horrible, sentimental, fretfulness.
The experimentation of the Cyclosporine 30 CHS, substance that possesses
the property to block the interleukine 2 also decrease the anxiety.
Let’s signal to finish with these active substances on immunity, the
curious property to make grow hairs of the interleukine 2.
5. Glutamate and the Chinese restaurant syndrome.
Glutamate monosodique is used to cook in Asia (notably in China and in
Japan) where one puts sit systematically at the time of the preparation of dishes; it is
in sale in the Asian grocery stores in France.
The apparition of uneasiness after absorption of meal containing the
glutamate in the Asian restaurants is what one calls the Chinese restaurant syndrome.
Troubles appear in the hour that follows the meal, with headache, nausea, redness and heat
of the superior part of the body, pains in the region of heart; rarely, one observes some
asthma crises. To notice: this kind of uneasiness is not signalled by the Chinese or
Japanese medical authorities, and can be the westerners are predisposed to make this
syndrome.
II. Some involuntary provings of confirmation.
1. Cannabis and psychiatric troubles.
The Cannabis, well-known soft drug is not so “soft” for
predisposed persons, at which it provokes the apparition of psychiatric syndromes
described for a long time by physicians of the countries having a customary use of this
plant (Maghreb) (8):
– cannabic drunkenness, with predominance of hallucinations (described by
Moreau de Tour in 1845).
– acute cannabic psychosis, with violences, strangeness of behavior,
panic.
– chronic cannabic psychosis, characterized by a daily consumption more
than 4 years and of persistence of troubles when stopping the drug, without
psychopathological antecedents before. One distinguishes 2 types of it: Schizophrenic form
with distortion of real-live, emotional conflict, mannerism, paranoid delirium. Chronic
deliriums of persecution, of body transformation, of influence, of megalomania, mystical,
sexual, messianic.
Evidently, one should have known when reading the medical matter of
Cannabis indica. Sometimes in our practice, we raise symptoms at people smoking little but
assiduously the herb; as Cannabis indica dynamisé doesn’t exist anymore in pharmacy, we
should counsel them to chew their joint from time to time instead of smoke it.
2. Aluminium saucepans and Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr Le Hunte Cooper in the 30’s had launched a warning against the kitchen
utensils in aluminum; one half-century after one knows the increasing impact of the
Alzheimer,s disease and the possible role of the aluminum as factor environnemental making
easy the genetical predisposition expression (1, 9). The symptoms of this disease are
striking by their resemblance with those of pathogenesis of aluminium (as had shown by
A.H. Lockie), of Aluminium phosphoricum and of Aluminium silicatum. These remedies given
in a sick with organic destructions and aftereffects are uninteresting; but if one
intervened since the functional troubles begin, it can change the prognosis.
3. Tobacco.
Curiously, some epidemiologic studies show that the non smokers are more
subject to the Alzheimer’s disease than smokers (one of the allopathic therapeutic is the
nicotin patch, that gives good results). The explanation is probably of biochemical order,
but one finds in the materia medica for Tabacum, cerebral symptoms of old people
(confusion) and also of the cardiac pain (pain, heart); it is verified by a less painful
angor at the smoker after some studies. Let’s signal the impotence (erection, wanting,
impotency) often of the smokers.
III. What does the future have in store for us?
1. Amorphophallus konjax, obesity, malaria and pruritus.
Another product coming from the Japan; there monks eat ritually Konjax;
happens a Japanese industrialist that found these monks very skinny, he analyzed their
austere cooking, and – eureka! – found that the human organism doesn’t have the necessary
enzymes to digest it. Three months after the capsules of Amorphophallus invaded the
Europe, then the USA. Filling the stomach without giving calories, it should help to lose
the weight (provided to consume some quantities: it would be necessary to take more that 6
capsules per day). In fact this plant is known for its medicinal properties; Indians,
Thais, Burmeses, Khmers and Laotians use it against malaria (in Laos: given in decoction
it can stop the fever). The Amorphophallus have an itching effect (except at the malaria
sick: if the sick scrapes himself after the absorption, one knows that he have not the
malarial fever) and t is not indicated at patients with a chronic dermatose because she/it
can be worse; this contraindication is very old and we must pay attention (10).
2. Oscillococcinum.
This remedy knows an incontestable vogue for its efficiency and thanks to
an important advertisement. Americans and Europeans make an enormous consumption of it for
cold and flu. Nicole Cure had made a survey on the Oscillococcinum of the Dr Roy, made
from liver of Barbarian duck, through which one can see that indications are varied and
changeable. No proving has been made (11).
3. Substances of the general pollution.
In fact, insignificant substances don’t exist; it is only question of
individual sensibility and the duration of exposure. The lead is a discreet but
preoccupying pollutant; one knows that Plumbum is indicated in diseases of the spinal
marrow and the intestinal colics. Nitrates, chlorine, fluorine and other products
recovered in the water, with the elongation of the exposure, will be able to give some
symptoms on the future generations.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
– 1. Cooper L. – Maladies provoquées par les ustensiles de cuisine en aluminium.
Actes du congrès de la Ligue internationale homoéopathique. Genève 1931: 435-436.- 2.
Morbidity and mortality weekly report. – Emergence d’un nouveau syndrome toxique? Suppl
rhumatologique du Jama 1990; 199: 24-25.
– 3. Clausw D.J. et al. – Le tryptophane un produit “naturel” dangereur. Jama
1990; 207: 848-850.
– 4. Sternbach H. – The serotonin syndrom. Am J Psychiatry 1991; 148; 6: 705- 713.
– 5. Dundee J.W. – Further data on sexual fantaisies during benzodiazepine sedation.
SAAD Dig 1989; 7: 171-172.
– 6. Brahams D. – Benzodiazepine and sexual assault. Lancet 1990; 335: 157.
– 7. Adams F. et al. – Troubles neuropsychiatriques lors du traitement anticancéreux
par interféron leucocytaire humain.Jama 1985; 96: 178-182.
– 8. Morin D., Cailledreau J. – La psychose chronique du cannabisme. Le concours
médical; 1987; 8: 711-715.
– 9. Mozae H. et al. -Maladie d’Alzheimer: perspectives étiologiques. Jama 1987; 147:
679-691.
– 10. Souk-Aloun P. – Plantes médicinales de la République démocratique et populaire
du Laos.
– 11. Cure N. – Oscillococcinum. Editions Helios; Annemasse 1990.