Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg
4th completely revised edition
The rapid increase in new developments in and knowledge of the field covered by the Antihomotoxic Materia Medica that has occurred in recent years has made a comprehensive revision of the contents of Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg’s Homoeopathia Antihomotoxica an urgent necessity.
In addition, to simplify matters for the practising therapist, volume I (A Selective Pharmacology) and volume II (Index of Symptoms and Modalities) have for the first time been combined into a single work.
The Homoeopathia Antihomotoxica is now also available for the first time on CD-ROM, allowing information to be retrieved rapidly and conveniently, so that the user can browse backwards and forwards between the homoeopathic remedies described in the first part and their characteristics in the second part.
The first part of the book assigns remedies to clinical indications, symptoms and modalities. Shown here in bold under ‘Indication’ is the indication as defined by the Monograph Preparation Commission D for the Homoeopathic Field of Therapy, which in many cases is also the principal indication according to the Materia Medica Antihomotoxica. Also listed are the main (secondary or tertiary) symptoms established in clinical provings, which have been included in part II (A Selective Pharmacology).
Since the clinical indications are listed in alphabetical order, the user can easily gain a detailed picture of each of the substances listed and – taking account of the cardinal symptoms and modalities – narrow them down to find the one best suited to the patient. More detailed information about the profile of the individual remedies is given in the Materia Medica in part II.
This contains, in alphabetical order, monographs on all the antihomotoxic substances. Each monograph contains full definitions of raw materials, their names as listed partly in the current official German Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia and/or the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia US (HPUS), plus clinical information such as indications, symptoms and modalities.
In addition to the already documented drug provings in the previous edition comprehensive, homoeopathic remedy profiles have been produced for up to 40 antihomotoxic substances, the clinical indications and use of which have hitherto been based exclusively on practical experience.
For greater ease of reference to part II (A Selective Pharmacology), an extensive index has been compiled that includes the substance names used in the classic homoeopathic literature (repertories), in the German Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia (2001) and in the titles of the corresponding Commission D monograph published in the German Bundesanzeiger (German Federal Gazette). The index also includes colloquial names.
Ingredients that are no longer used in homoeopathic antihomotoxic therapy have been omitted from this text. This may, for example, be to protect endangered species or – particularly in the case of certain nosodes – because the considerable difficulties involved in obtaining the raw materials make it impossible to guarantee a supply of these substances in the quality and quantity required.
An overview of the ingredients contained in antihomotoxic products (homoeopathic compound remedies) is included as a separate supplement.
We hope that the new, completely revised edition of the Homoeopathia Antihomotoxica will also prove a useful reference work for those wishing to familiarize themselves with the substances used in antihomotoxic medicine and their therapeutic capabilities. This work allows the therapist to see at a glance the characteristics of the substances contained in antihomotoxic combination remedies and single-agent Injeels. Their classification by indication, symptoms and modalities in part I also allows similars to be identified.
The author and the publishers always welcome readers’ suggestions, praise and criticisms.
Baden-Baden, September 2002.
Dr. Wilfried Stock
Now that homotoxicology has given scientific substance to the working principles of the homoeopathic remedies through extensive literature on homotoxins, it has become increasingly necessary to make these remedies accessible to physicians for their therapeutic work by supplying a description of the chief individual homoeopathic remedies used in treatment to effect antihomotoxic stimulation of the body’s defensive systems.
Over the past 40 years, combination remedies have been developed, and these exhaustively described in specialist literature. Descriptions also exist of numerous individual homoeopathic remedies, among them the most commonly used polychrests in homoeopathy. However, these descriptions are dispersed throughout the relevant literature, and it is therefore highly necessary to collate them into one volume.
This is all the more necessary since the range of individual substances used in antihomotoxic therapy far exceeds that of the homoeopathic remedies in common use and which are described in the homoeopathic materia medicas.
It has been made clear in the scientific explanation of the working principles of homoeopathy that homoeopathic preparations of whatever kind achieve their effect according to the Law of Similars of Hahnemann and the Reversal Effect of Arndt and Schulz. All the individual and combination remedies used in antihomotoxic therapy are derived from substances or compounds referred to in the German Pharmacopoeia and of course in the Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia, including chemical compounds, plant-tinctures, poisons of animal origin, etc.
Particularly in view of the many toxic aspects of civilisation, such as insecticides, pesticides, and especially also in view of the increasing incidence of iatrogenic damage by chemical drugs and other non-biological treatments, a number of environmental toxic factors and toxic drugs in homoeopathic potency are also in therapeutic use. Thus it may still be possible to compensate for some of the damage which has been caused, by employing stimulative methods according to the Reversal Effect and the Law of Similars.
Here, descriptions will be found of sarcodes (remedies from healthy organs and tissues), intermediary catalysts (intermediate products playing a part in intermediary metabolism), other factors in enzyme-activity such as vitamins (particularly in combination remedies), and especially the so-called nosodes (i.e. morbid material in homoeopathic potency), both morbid bodily exudates and also bacterial cultures, isopathic excreta such as perspiration, discharges, pus, etc., and also, for example, viral excreta or cultures (such as Coxsackie Virus A9 and B4). The result of this is a substantially more comprehensive compendium of the remedies needed for the treatment of patients in a homoeopathic, antihomotoxic way: remedies which have since come into wide use in general therapeutic practice.
All substances which have an action on the body can be homoeopathically potentized and used in a wide variety of medicaments to achieve antitoxic effects in counterpoint.
In consequence of this, practically every substance and every material in everyday life, including foodstuffs, common medicines, bodily secretions etc. – in other words, everything around us – can be used in an antihomotoxic way, i.e. in the form of homoeopathic single remedies. These also include homoeopathic attenuations of synthetic drugs, substances such as nitrosodiphenylamine, which do not otherwise occur in nature, environmental toxins and factors which are isolated from them, as well as quinones etc.
People often enquire why the sarcodes are obtained from organs and tissues of the pig. The reason for this is the similarity between these and human tissues. Because of this, the organs and tissues of the pig act like organ-specific nosodes, the toxic effects of pork coming into their own as a result of homoeopathic potentization, both according to the Reversal Effect and as homoeopathic Similars. Thus they are ideal remedies to use in stimulative treatment where damage has occurred to the organs and tissues in question: (mostly impregnation and degeneration phases, but they may also be used experimentally in neoplasm phases).
Experiments carried out over a period of years have shown that the action of homoeopathic remedies, whether single or in combinations, is in no way impaired by adaption to the familiar dispensing methods of Galen. This applies not only in the case of ampoules, but also in the case of suppositories, ointments, eye-drops, nose-drops and ear-drops.
The recent investigations by Veith, Snell and others of the molecular combinations which take place in aqueous solutions and in colloids have shown – along with earlier investigations by Junker, Kolisko, Nebel, Cahis and others – that several stages of attenuation (potencies) of one and the same original substance may be combined within one remedy yet still retain their own individual action.
As has been shown in experiments carried out on plant-shoots, certain interferences are possible in this process. Whenever there are various stages of attenuation, culminating points result. When several potencies of the same substance are combined, these culminating points interfere with the intervals between one potency and another.
One important outcome was the establishment of action – explainable in molecular terms – of potencies above Avogadro’s number (6.02X1023).
The action of homoeopathic attenuations, triturations, powders etc. is not impaired by their incorporation into ointments and suppository-bases, not even, for example, by preservatives added to the ointments, but is maintained independently. This means that homoeopathically potentized antihomotoxics have had widespread external use. In these cases the choice of a suitable base for the ointment is of importance. It must have an affinity for the skin, must penetrate it easily yet be free of side-effects.
So as not to present the antihomotoxic therapist with too confusing an array of the extremely many-sided treatment methods involved in the use of individual remedies, in this book we thought it important to offer a selective materia medica. Of course, any other homoeopathic remedies which are recommended in other materia medicas and which fit the symptomatology of the case may be used when working along antihomotoxic lines. This is because the symptomatology corresponds to a particular “toxic state”, which must be broken down by the homoeopathic or antihomotoxic remedy by stimulating either the mechanisms which create antidotes, the organs of the “Defensive System”, or the intracellular detoxification mechanisms.
Much proof indicates that these mechanisms are brought into play by the introduction of specific enzymes which have detoxifying action. In this process, both the Law of Similars (along the lines of the Law of Matrices, which is generally valid in biology: mirror-image effect) and the Reversal Effect are valid. The Reversal Effect follows the basic biological law of Arndt and Schulz governing the opposing action of large and small doses: small doses have a stimulative effect, medium doses act indifferently, large doses inhibit, disable or kill. These pharmacological points of view are likewise scientifically confirmed and established by homotoxicology.
Of course it would be pointless to attempt to treat a case of arsenic poisoning with higher attenuations of the same poison, i.e. Arsenicum 6X, or some similar potency. The receptors of the relevant enzyme-systems are blocked or engaged by the action of massive toxic doses, so that smaller doses can no longer get through. However, it is possible to administer another homoeopathic preparation, and so activate other similar defence-mechanisms (which are still held in reserve) by creating a similar remedy-picture. According to Hahnemann’s theory, this would be a “second healing-illness”: according to homotoxicological theory, which sees illness as equal to the repelling of toxins, a second, reserve defence-mechanism is being brought into action. From this it may be seen that arsenic poisoning may very well be susceptible to treatment with homoeopathic preparations of substances which have a similar effect, e.g. with potentized aluminium tartrate, and vice-versa.
In view of the operation of the Law of Matrices (Law of Similars) it is understandable how even homoeopathic remedies which do not provide a 100% identical match with the remedy-picture or disease-picture at hand may nevertheless prove highly effective. In that case, usually, further remedies will be needed to clear up the case, until the point at which the simillimum (i.e the remedy providing the closest match with the picture of the patient’s illness) brings about the final healing.
It also follows that, where a mixture of states of illness is present, in which the effects not only of the patient’s own intermediary toxins are evident, but also side- effects of allopathic drugs (so-called “iatrogenic pathology”) and possibly the burdens of environmental toxins as well (insecticides and others), then a mixture of antidotal therapies must be applied.
This provides the basis for the development of combination remedies, which are also more suited to the treatment of a syndrome than to the symptomatology of a single homoeopathic remedy, although the aim of the therapist should always be to find the simillimum which gives an exact match with the picture of the patient’s illness.
However, in a large number of cases this is not in fact possible. Thus, in such cases, the use of a combination- or compound-remedy is required, especially in degenerative phases to the right of the Biological Division. This sets the whole toxic state once more into motion, which is indicated by recurrence of inflammation and other symptoms along the lines of a regressive vicariation.
There may be a recurrence of earlier illness which had apparently been cured, such as fistulae, eczema, abscesses, etc. These now form channels of elimination for the homotoxins which have been set in mobilized.
Thus it should be self-evident that such changes in a state of illness must be correctly assessed in the light of homotoxicology. This means that these detoxifying processes – and an inflammation must be understood as such (in other words, nature’s self-healing tendency) – must not be curbed with antibiotics, chemical drugs or other suppressive measures such as suppression of fevers or discharges, use of anti-perspirants etc., at the first signs of a slight cold or sore thorat; only when there are indications of vital significance are such measures justified.
Homoeopathic remedies, properly applied, are capable of rehabilitating blocked enzyme-systems and thus re-stimulating the process of detoxification. This is expressed by the restoration of detoxifying mechanisms (e.g. inflammations), which should therefore only be welcomed by any therapist working along antihomotoxic and biological lines.
If antihomotoxic biotherapists wish to steer a course of “accelerated natural healing” (for this is the only way of understanding the action of homoeopathic remedies), aware of the biological context and fully in control with antihomotoxic methodology, then they must not only be fully conversant with the combination remedies – thus easing substantially the work-load of the practice – but will also find the single remedies of inestimable value.
It may be helpful to think of the toxins as first being surrounded by an army (of one or more combination remedies etc.). Other units (complex remedies etc.) may be brought in to give support in the detoxification-battle for the cure of the disease. Finally the last remaining basic homotoxin – the commander of the enemy troops, as it were – is finished off by the “pistol shot” of the simillimum.
The physician working along antihomotoxic lines has need not only of combination- and complex-remedies in every medical form (drops, triturations, powders, ampoules, ointments, suppositories, etc.), but also of single remedies in both low and high potencies, in order to achieve the best therapeutic results.
A knowledge of single-remedy methodology can be combined with general biotherapy, not to mention other additional procedures such as Niehan’s therapy, hydrotherapy, Felke mud-baths, ozone therapy, acupuncture, climatic treatments, massage etc. All this affords both a freedom of action conducive to true healing, and a profound degree of professional satisfaction.
Baden-Baden, January 1977
Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg
For thousands of years, those concerned with healing have been seeking the causes of and explanations for diseases. Whereas originally it was thought to be the gods, or spirits which had attacked or possessed the sick person, as early as Babylonian, Egyptian and Greek times it had been found that damage to, or a faulty combination of, bodily “humours” might be responsible. From the 18th Century onwards, the theory of toxic damage has diminished in significance. In the 19th Century Rudolf Virchow developed his theory of cytology, and with it a theory of disease based on the assumption that the body is a “country peopled by cells”, with the individual cells being mutually dependent upon and cooperating with each other. Thus it is in disorders or pathological changes in the individual cells that we must look for the cause of every disease.
As a result of this cellular pathology, scientific medicine had an extraordinarily fruitful period spanning the second half of last century and into the present century. However, areas of weakness occurred, making it necessary to supplement existing theories or seek out other explanatory models for disease in medical science.
Reckeweg’s theory of homotoxicology represents a further development in individual etiological research, with the aim of utilising an integral combination of the various areas which have proved important in the diagnosis of disease.
Thus, according to Reckeweg, illnesses are agent-determined reactive processes in which homotoxins can bring about an inflammation, for example. In the course of the inflammatory process, these toxins are then rendered harmless and eliminated by the body, which is capable of reacting to them.
The theory of homotoxicology proceeds from a completely new, dynamic concept of disease. Illnesses are processes, images of the physical state, and symptoms which show that the body is fighting with toxins, with the intention of rendering them harmless and eliminating them. The logical consequence of this new view of the disease-concept has to be a corresponding alteration in treatment-methods. Even such modern concepts as the change of flow-equilibrium and cybernetic control processes have found their way into Reckeweg’s theory of homotoxicology.
It is Reckeweg’s contention that therapeutic measures should introduce the absolute minimum of noxious side-effects into the body, already damaged as it is. This notwithstanding, they should achieve the optimum in healing or alleviation of complaints. This may mean that, depending on the state of the illness, corrective surgery may be called for or, after careful consideration of the patient’s holistic situation, even chemotherapy or other measures such as radiotherapy may be employed. To inhibit and suppress an illness, for example an inflammation, would thus be to prevent the body from eliminating the homotoxins and poisons in a physiological way. In treating patients with his antihomotoxic therapy, Reckeweg employed single homoeopathic remedies for an extremely wide variety of complaints, or else suitable combination remedies, which he called Homoeopathica Anti- homotoxica. Substances of all kinds are used, according to homoeopathic principles. These substances include preparations from plants, organs and tissues, morbid material (nosodes), trace elements, intermediary agents, potentized allopathic drugs, as well as attenuations of toxins and of chemical compounds of all kinds.
According to Reckeweg, in the body’s defensive fight against homotoxins we can differentiate among six separate antitoxic defence-phases of disease. In the case of the first three, i.e. the excretion phase, the reaction phase and the deposition phase, the body’s defensive energy has dealt with the detoxified toxins by elimination or deposition. These are designated “humoral phases”. There is no damage to either organs or cells.
The first three phases of disease are separated from the next three, the cellular phases, by what is known as the “Biological Division”. These three phases are called the impregnation phase, the degeneration phase and the neoplasm phase. They represent cellular impregnation, degeneration and neoplastic change or proliferation (carcinogenic processes). From the fourth to the sixth phase, the body succumbs increasingly to the deleterious action of the homotoxins. The body endeavours to preserve the best possible level of life for as long as possible, although it can no longer prevent cell-damage, organic disorders and finally unbridled growth of the organism. During the first three phases – the humoral phases – the principle of excretion holds good, the enzymes remain intact, and the body’s tendency to heal itself is maintained. In the last three phases, however, the prognosis is unfavourable. Here the enzymes are damaged and the body’s flow equilibrium is upset. The tendency is towards deterioration, and the prospects of recovery are doubtful.
So how does the body defend itself against the influence of the homotoxins? Reckeweg’s view of the body’s counter-reaction is that of a Greater Defensive System. This system consists of five subsidiary systems which are mutually interlinked and render homotoxins harmless in the course of their defensive fight. These subsidiary systems include, for example: antibody formation; defence through the use of neuronal adaptation hormones; antitoxic defence by way of the nervous system; detoxification via the liver; detoxification via the connective tissue, which represents an extensive storage and drainage system taking up the waste material which comes from the cells and transporting it away via the lymphatic system, or else storing it.
If this system is affected, for example by the chemotherapeutic drugs, sulphonamides, antibiotics, immuno-suppressives, salicylates etc. which are in common medical use nowadays, the intervention in the normal course of biological defence may in part be extremely effective, but it will also be attended by tremendous danger. However, if the Greater Defensive System can be influenced in a harmonic way, then the progress of disease can be reversed bringing about a change of phase in the direction of recovery. Thus, to give an example of what may occur, a duodenal ulcer may regress into a carbuncle and, after this has healed, the pathology in the duodenal area will also have disappeared. This process in a positive direction was termed regressive vicariation by Reckeweg. The continued progression of a disease so that the patient’s condition deteriorates Reckeweg called progressive vicariation.
In homotoxicological treatment, it is therefore of great importance to administer homoeopathic remedies in the appropriate homoeopathic attenuations, since otherwise they would reinforce the body’s toxic state or exert a negative influence upon it.
Building upon the foundation of Samuel Hahnemann’s homoeopathy, Reckeweg has made a compilation of homoeopathic single and combination remedies for the treatment of the various diseases from a homotoxicological point of view. An extremely wide variety of therapeutic agents is employed. Homotoxicological therapy has as its objective the stimulation and regulation of the body’s self-healing powers. As an essential part of holistic medicine, this also includes a biologically correct life-style, the avoidance of iatrogenic damage, which can be caused by the use of excessively strong chemical drugs – among other things – and, finally, a further aim of this mode of treatment is the achievement of self-help and motivation by the patient. However, where extreme cases require them, it does not exclude the employment of other therapeutic measures, of which familiar examples are antibiotics and corrective surgery.
Bad Kissingen, Germany Claus-F. Claussen
The single homoeopathic remedies in common use are usually available in the form of attenuations, triturations, powders and ampoules and there is normally no difficulty in procuring them within the geographical area in which a physician working along antihomotoxic, biological lines is prescribing. However, when prescribing unusual single remedies there are sometimes difficulties which must be resolved by the local pharmacist.
In general, the following rules apply:
- The more violent the symptoms, the more frequent the dose.
- When improvement sets in, reduce the frequency of the dose.
- In case of aggravation (this is often a “healing reaction”), temporarily reduce or completely discontinue the dosage for a period of hours or possibly days.
- It is also possible to give several single remedies in succession. This is necessary in cases in which recognition of the symptom picture of an indicated remedy is insufficiently clear. One then uses two (or possibly even three or four) remedies in succession, (or administers them simultaneously). Thus a particular area of symptoms is eradicated. As Leimbach puts it, “the homotoxins are gradually excavated”, rather in the same way that a buried monument is gradually exposed during an archaeological dig.
- If one then checks the symptom picture, in many cases it will be found that a clear remedy picture has emerged. This new situation then requires a new simillimum to match the new symptom picture in question.
- Where a completely different symptom picture emerges, corresponding to a different “toxic state”, then possibly a completely different single remedy is called for, or in the case of a new syndrome, a matching combination or compound remedy. From his position as the practitioner, it often appears to the physician as if “the illness” (i.e. the toxin which is at the root of the defence-reaction) were being chased around the body by the stimulative action of the remedy “like a hobgoblin”, until at last it finds the appropriate exit, the correct elimination-route for the particular toxin from which the whole disease process originated. This may be a suddenly-recurring eczema, a fistula, an abscess, an apparent cold, usually a reaction phase associated with secretions, and with its appearance, all the complaints usually finally disappear. Without a knowledge of homotoxicology, particularly of the shifts which occur from one homotoxic phase to another through the vicariation effect, such functions remain shrouded in biological darkness. Otherwise – and this may be attended by devastating consequences for the patient – they may be interpreted incorrectly, in which case medicated creams, for example, may be applied, these days it is usually cortisone, thus inactivating them by blocking the connective tissue, and so the detoxification is halted.
In the early years of my practice in Berlin, a 60-year-old businessman came to me for treatment. He had spent a fortune on medical treatment for his chronic rheumatism with stiffness and swelling at the bones, and in spite of all the hydrotherapy treatments he had undergone at spas he was sinking deeper and deeper
into a state of chronic disease. His big toes were swollen and deformed and his cervical vertebrae were almost immobilised due to exostoses. Following the prescription of Mercurius praec. rub 4X to 6X, Hekla Lava 8X, Kali Iod. 4X, Asafoetida 8X and other remedies, a severely itching eczema erupted on his back. This was treated with Sulphur 30X, Lycopodium 30X, Hepar Sulph., Arsenicum and other remedies. In the space of a few months, this patient, severely immobilised, in great pain and in declining health, was fully cured. The result was that I was almost inundated with patients flooding into my consulting room on the recommendation of this man who had been “sick unto death”. So we may draw this chapter to a close with the words of the great homoeopathic physician Dr. Gisevius: “Excellent therapeutic results provide the best advocacy for homoeopathy.”
– Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg
Anyone who has come to grips with the subject of homoeopathy knows that its basic law: “Similia similibus curantur” (like is cured by like) was born of Hahnemann’s own experience. A large number of experiments has proved that it is possible to influence symptoms and diseases with homoeopathic potencies of a medicinal substance in a holistic way, i.e. on the physical functional, emotional and mental levels of manifestation.
Homoeopathy represents action through stimulation. Through the smallest of impulses, the body is stimulated to react (the Law of the Minimum Dose). Many of today’s diseases are distinguished by a plethora of aspects and symptoms, as, for example, the multi-morbidity which accompanies modern civilisation.
How then does the physician find the effective, stimulative homoeopathic remedy, the simillimum, as it is called?
For this, the physician needs decades of experience. In this difficult search for a particular simillimum, a great advantage can be gained by the use of complex remedies, i.e. medicaments consisting of several homoeopathic components. These mixtures cover a broad spectrum of possible precipitating causes and functional disorders and also take into account both constitutional factors and environmental influences.
It is to the German physician, Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg, that classical homoeopathy owes the acquisition of a well-founded scientific background. Presented below is an outline of the theory of homotoxicology which he developed, and its consequences for the therapeutic practice.
The word “homotoxin” means “poison to humans”. Thus homotoxins are substances which are poisonous to mankind, including metabolic products which are not broken down and eliminated quickly enough. Homotoxicology proceeds from the fundamental fact that all vital processes depend upon the conversion of chemically identifiable agents. In the case of a disease, these chemical substances are the pathogenic toxins. Such toxins, which are active within the diseased tissue, may be detected in the secretions such as sweat and pus. Within the body they are responsible for those processes to which we give the name of “illness”.