Remedy snippet of the day – Causticum by Rajan Sankaran

From The Soul of Remedies

‘The main feeling in Causticum is that the person is the one who has to take care of the group or family.  He is facing the threat from outside and in order to face this threat, he requires that the whole group should fight together.  Being the strongest member of the group, one who is the most capable of putting up a fight, he regards a threat to any one member of that group as a threat to himself. If he doesn’t forestall the threat, it will affect the whole group and he will be weakened.’

Homeopathic Arnica as effective as the usual post-operative painkiller

Visit Dr Briffa’s blog for a report on recent research on the comparable effectiveness of homeopathic Arnica D4 (4X) post-operatively after bunion removal compared to the usual painkiller (diclofenac). It was decided that giving placebo would not be ethical.  Treatment with Arnica also gave fewer side-effects, greater mobility and was less costly.

References:

Karow J-H, et al. Efficacy of Arnica Montana D4 for healing of wounds after hallux valgus surgery compared to diclofenac. J Altern Comp Med 2008;14(1):17-25

Dr Briffa: ‘Homeopathic arnica found to be an effective post-operative aid’

Downloadable research on very low dose/high dilution effects

GIRI: ‘Groupe International de Researche sur l’Infinetismal’ / International Research Group on Very Low Dose and High Dilution Effects is a group that ‘organises workshops yearly throughout the world. It convenes systematically in congresses during each of the International Encounters of Monaco. The aim of the GIRI is to bring together pharmacologists, biologists, physicians, chemists and physicists to communicate, exchange experiences and develop joint research projects; the distinctive feature of the research activities of the group is the study of ultra low dose impulses or very high dilutions, homœopathics included. Although the mechanism of action of the very diluted solutions of active principles on biological systems is an important concern of the GIRI, the major interest of the Group is directed towards the possible medicinal and therapeutic relevance of the very low doses. More than one hundred persons are GIRI members, coming from 20 different countries.’

They are publishing a book (downloadable here):

“Signals and Images”

Selected papers from the 7th and 8th GIRI Meeting, held in Montpellier, France, November 20-21, 1993, and Jerusalem, Israel, December 10-11, 1994
Edited by Madeleine Bastide, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Montpellier I, France
Kluver Academic Press

We are now able to propose a book which includes 23 full papers from more than fifty contributors corresponding to the two last GIRI meetings: the 7th (held in Montpellier, France, on 20-21 November 1993) and the 8th (held in Jerusalem, Israel, on 10-11 December 1994). The GIRI gets bigger every year and now includes more than 100 members from 22 different countries. This evolution stimulates more and more researches on this subject often considered as scientific nonsense or a scientific error. All these papers have been reviewed according to the standards of scientific publications and many of them are now published in regular scientific journals. They illustrate perfectly the evolution of the ideas and the new experimental and theoretical approaches of this uncommon research. It becomes obvious that different hypothesis can enlighten the interpretations of these different papers. Part of them can be interpretated according to the classical way of thinking; but the true interpretation of the similia law of homeopathic medicine is quite different from the mechanistic approach.

To help the reader, the papers will be organized into four chapters; each chapter will be introduced by a short analysis of the papers included.

The “Introduction” debates the question of scientific evolution and revolution in the context of modern science.

The 1st chapter “Hormesis” gathers together all the papers related to this concept: these models are often evoked to demonstrate or to explain the similia law although hormesis is always based on a relationship of identity.

The 2nd chapter “In Vitro and in Vivo Experimental Models” includes many experiments which demonstrate low dose or high dilution activity and is introduced by a summary of classical receptology.

The 3rd chapter “Therapeutics and Provings “ discusses the question of analysis of the symptoms in a systemic way of thinking and also includes pathogenetic studies (provings) as well as homeopathic therapeutic studies in humans or in animals.

The last chapter presents an “Epistemologic Approach” which become necessary in order to enlarge the possibility of interpretation of the law of similarity and the high dilution effectiveness considering that these dilutions are above the Avogadro number.

This new field of research is very exciting and introduces new scientific concepts supported by experimental results. Above all, we observe that this nascent science is totally concerned by “living” organisms and as such, it becomes necessary to define what we design as “information” brought by non-molecular high dilutions.

This book presents the brain-storming work of this research group and is one of the starting points of a scientific evolution: ” The proliferation of concurrent variants of the conventional paradigm, the fact of being willing to try anything, the expression of marked discontent, recourse to philosophy and discussion on the theoretical foundations, all signs are many symptoms of a passage from normal research to extraordinary research”. T.S.Kuhn, 1962, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.MB