Classical homeopathy according to Hahnemann (1811) orients itself based on the so-called ‘drug picture’ to determine the appropriate remedy. It claims that symptoms of disease behave reciprocally towards those symptoms which the healthy test person develops after the intake of a mother tincture or a diluted substance (potency.) The principle of action which can be derived thereof is known as the Simile Principle (Similia similibus curentur = Likes may be cured by likes.) The clinical syndrome occurring in a patient can be overcome by an artificially induced, similar disease. The Aequalia Principle (Isopathy = the condition may be healed by the causative substance) can also be applied with potentised allopathic substances or partly with nosode preparations in anti-homotoxic medicine and/or with vaccines in conventional medicine.
Classical homoeopathy works with single remedies which are only partly truly single- constituent remedies, (e.g., sulphur, mercury, arsenic, etc.), or which are otherwise botanical extractions containing a highly complex mixture of numerous constituents. Repertories (lists of symptoms produced by drugs) facilitate the selection of the most appropriate remedy in homoeopathy.
Anti-homotoxic medicine usually pursues an indication-oriented approach. The anti- homotoxic remedies predominantly represent mixtures of substances of low to middle potencies. Through practical application in homoeopathy it became obvious that the use of concentrated or poisonous tinctures could damage the patient and that, therefore, they could only be used in homoeopathic dilutions, i.e., potencies. This practice was scientifically supported by Rudolf Arndt (psychiatrist, 1835-1900) and Hugo Schulz (pharmacologist, 1853- 1932) through a quantitative differentiation of the medicinal effect on bio-systems and still applies as the Arndt-Schulz Principle. It states:
- weak stimuli stimulate the life functions (retro-action of homoeopathic preparations)
- moderately strong stimuli accelerate them
- strong stimuli act as inhibitors
- the strongest stimuli suspend the life functions
Since several tissue-incompatible substances are usually involved during the development of a disease, the simultaneous use of several potentised ”antitoxins“, as present in the anti- homotoxic preparations, is justified.
Against the background of the conflicting medicinal and therapeutic concepts promulgated in humoral pathology, cellular pathology, molecular pathology, and related fields including modern cybernetics, the German physician Dr. Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg formulated Homotoxicology in 1952. This conception was developed from homoeopathy for the purpose of providing a holistic perspective on the synthesis of medical science.
Reckeweg formulated an essential tenet of Homotoxicology, as follows:
”According to Homotoxicology all of those processes, syndromes, and manifestations, which we designate as diseases, are the expression thereof that the body is combating poisons and that it wants to neutralize and excrete these poisons. The body either wins or loses the fight thereby. Those processes, which we designate as diseases, are always biological, that is natural teleological processes, which serve poison defence and detoxification.“
Referring to conventional medical indications connects anti-homotoxic medicine with allopathy, while therapy with potentised substances unites it to homoeopathy. Anti-homotoxic medicine is the connecting link between allopathic medicine and homoeopathy.
Fig. 1
Conventional medicine:
The higher the concentration, the stronger the effect (dose-effect relation; increase of side effects).
Homoeopathy:
Increase of the effect with decreasing concentration (effect optimum not definable). Anti-homotoxic medicine:
Connecting link between conventional medicine and homoeopathy.
Homotoxins
Homotoxins are all of those substances (chemical/ biochemical) and non-material influences (physical, psychical), which can cause ill health in humans. Their appearance results in regulation disorders in the organism. Every illness is due therefore to the effects of homotoxins. Homotoxins can be introduced from the exterior (exogenic homotoxins) or originate in the body itself (endogenic homotoxins).
Homotoxons
These are understood as chemical reaction products from compounds of homotoxins with each other or with other substances (e.g., products of metabolism) which neutralize the poisonous property of the homotoxins. The best example thereof is the liver, in whose cells homotoxins and metabolic products are united to detoxify the organism.
Retoxins
Deposits of homotoxins with endogenic substances, which cannot be eliminated via excretion or irritation, are designated as ”residual poisons“ (retoxins). The most important example thereof is the non-enzymatic glucosilisation of tissues and cell surfaces in case of glucose excess, as with, among others, latent diabetes mellitus.
Homotoxicosis – The Concept of Disease in Homotoxicology
Homotoxicosis is a non-physiological condition which arises after reaction of a homotoxin on cells and tissues. A homotoxicosis occurs as a humoral or cellular appearance and can be followed by morphological changes on tissues. The homotoxicosis is named after the homotoxin which triggers it. The homotoxicosis leads to defensive measures of the organism whose goal is to eliminate the homotoxins and to restore the physiological conditions when possible.
The Ground Regulation
This refers to the local regulation possibilities of the ground system along with its superimposed nervous, hormonal, and humoral regulation systems. The ground system is composed of the ground substance plus cellular, humoral, and nervous components. The ground substance (extracellular matrix) is formed of highly polymerised sugars (proteoglycans and glycosaminoglycans) plus structural and meshing glycoproteins.
The Phase theory
The Six-Phase-Table illustrates the chronological courses of various symptoms of a disease within the framework of the ground regulation. The single phases are transient into each other and demonstrate typical phasal indicating signs. The Six- Phase-Table is subdivided into three sections (humoral phases, matrix phases, cellular phases), each of which is subdivided into 2 phases. Two phases are allocated to the excretion principle (phases 1 + 2), the deposition principle (phases 3 + 4), and the degeneration and/or deterioration principle (phases 5 + 6). The Biological Division runs within the matrix phases.
Fig. 2: The Six-Phase-Table
The humoral phases
In the humoral phases the intracellular systems are not disturbed. The defence system is intact and can excrete the homotoxins via various paths.
| Excretion Phase | This phase contains manifestations of increased physiological excretion mechanisms. |
| Reaction Phase | Illnesses of this phase are marked by an exudative inflammation, which enables an accelerated excretion of toxins from the body. |
The matrix phases
In these phases the homotoxins are deposited at first in the mesh of the extracellular matrix. During the further course its structural components as well as functions are altered. In case of continuing illness increasing stress and damage of the intracellular structures result.
| Deposition Phase | In this phase the excretion mechanisms of the body are overworked and toxins are deposited in the matrix. This phase often progresses with few symptoms. |
| Impregnation Phase | Diseases in this phase are characterized by the presence phase of toxins which become a part of the connective tissue and the matrix, along with changes in the structural com- ponents as well as their functions. The typically increasingly severe symptoms and signs of this phase demonstrate damage of the organ cells. |
The cellular phases
During the cellular phases of a disease, cell systems are increasingly destroyed. The defence system is no longer able to excrete the toxins out of the cells or out of the matrix by virtue of its own strength. Typical for these phases is the so-called regulation rigidity.
| Degeneration Phase | During this phase, courses of disease cause serious damage, and destruction of larger cell groups of an organ takes place. |
| Dedifferentiation (neoplasm) Phase | Diseases of this phase are characterized by the development of undifferentiated, non-specialized cell forms. Malignant diseases stand at the end of this phase. |
Biological Division
The Biological Division refers to the imaginary boundary between the deposition and impregnation phases. It demarcates the pure deposition in the matrix from the integration of toxins into its structural components. Whereas a simple excretion of the toxins is possible during the deposition phase, structural and functional changes are found in the impregnation phase. Thus the spontaneous endogenic excretion of the homotoxins is impeded.
Vicariation
The term ”vicariation“ refers to the transition of the indicating signs of an illness within one phase to another organ system, or the change of the fundamental symptoms and signs into another phase, with or without a change of the organ system.
Progressive vicariation: Progressive vicariation refers to an aggravation of the total symptoms and signs of illness. Regressive vicariation: Regressive vicariation refers to an improvement of the total symptoms and signs of an illness.