.... has been more than 30 years in the making so far, and it needs a lot more. It is essentially a system by which a remedy is chosen based on the inborn characteristics and genetics (innate characteristics) of an individual, as it turns out that ONLY one remedy will resonate with that set of innate characteristics, and cause the individual to become more robust and resistant to illness, and/or to use its own immune system to overcome any illness, by repairing it.
How I got there started with my very early interest in genetics, thanks to a 2 inch tailed stray cat delivering five variable length tailed kittens. I was about 7 yrs old and just HAD to understand this weird event.
Classic genetics teaches that genes come in pairs, one each from father and mother, at random from THEIR gene pairs (taking one of a pair from each parent, randomly) - and one was supposed to study peas, with and without wrinkle genes for example (experiments by Mendel, the father of genetics) and so on, to prove the inheritance mechanisms of what we now call "major genes". Major genes are the ones found on the main chromosomoes, in pairs, one from each parent. For example blue eyes and brown eyes are major genes, one dominant and one recessive, which just means one of them can hide in a little recess and nobody would know it was there by looking at the person - unless there were two of them, one from each parent, then no other gene could dominate them and be "expressed" to be visible.
So then I stuck my foot in it when I married young. My inlaws were BOTH blond, blue eyed and straight haired, all three of which are recessive genes, so their kids could ONLY get those genes and no others as there could not be any other genes in that couple to pass on. Obvious right? (I assumed).
But one of the five kids was NOT blue eyed, blond and straight haired, he had curly brown hair and brown eyes. So I asked who his father was?
Oh dear, hell to pay, nobody had realized. Multimillionaires....Inheritance issues and you name it...
So maybe not everyone understands dominant and recessive genes.
As a hobby I bred cats, and taught and helped others to breed well - by well I mean healthy cats as well as show cats.
My genetics studies had taught me the one most important thing about health and genetics:
The more gene pairs you have that include two DIFFERENT genes - a different one from each parent, not two the same - (called "heterozygous pairs" for the technically minded)
- the healthier and more robust the offspring will be - called "HYBRID VIGOR". A hybrid means a mixture of two types.
Side note: Hahnemann refers to "robustness" in aph 141 which is the same principle - a healthy constitution overall.
Unhealthy example:
Cheetahs have so few genes left that there are very few gene pairs with two DIFFERENT genes in any cheetah - the gene pairs on all the chromosomes nearly all have two of the same genes. This causes immune system weakness in proportion to the number of gene pairs with two the same (called "Homozygous pairs" for the technical types).
It was customary for cat breeders to select for identical genes in each pair, and the terrible result is a lot of horridly sickly cats (or dogs, horses, etc) - and it is why there are rules against marrying a close relative - too much risk of many identical gene pairs and resultant ill health.
So I wanted to find a HEALTHY (heterozygous) way to breed and still get show quality features in show cats. Breeders believed it was impossible. They kept putting recessive gene pairs in one cat (eg "blue" fur coat) with the SAME pair in another cat, and "brededing true" - lots of same gene pair results, all blue as they wanted - but they were sickly and smaller with each generation.
So I bred a healthy version with LOTS of different gene pairs, carefully selected for OPPOSITE polygene features.
(Polygenes are the ones used in ICT) Polygenes also come in pairs but there are a LOT more of them than there are major genes and cat breeders were not taking any of them into account. SO using polygenes you can multiply up the heterozygous pairs enormously, improving size and robustness and immune system - and STILL get the major genes desired, like color, that are judged in the show ring.
The cats I bred - were so healthy they stood tall and proud, were the picture of superb health, had calm and friendly temperaments, did not freak out at shows, and consistenty got best in show, and the sickly little competition cats lost all of the competitions - despite what THEIR breeders thought was clever breeding - by inbreeding identical gene pairs.
Four Examples are below of the healthy breeding you can see just by looking (show winners in multiple continents, and each is a different ICT - point being you can breed ANY ICT as a very robust and healthy individual):
Minerva age 9 months, wt 11 lbs:
Sindri age 3 years, wt 15 lbs
Odin age 6 years, wt 18 lbs:
Frigga, age 13, mistaken by judge as 3 yrs, wt 12 lbs
So I started giving breeders workshops - inviting them to bring cats along for discussion. I had them feel the shape of the ribcage, assessing volume - a healthy cat has a large volume for air, and will be less easily stressed or ill. They felt the pelvis shape, noting some were too small for easy birth or too narrow for healthy hips - resulting in hip dysplasia, and some had flatter chests, others deeper chests. Some had narrow and flat, with low volume. Legs were felt for boning size and structure etc.
Every aspect of the cat's structure and proportions was studied and discussed.
The objective on healthy breeding is to mix the features up, You did not have to have a great cat to breed from - you had to have a compenasting PAIR of cats.
A male with a wide shallow chest and a female with a deep narrower one.
A male with a short face for the breed, and a female with a long one for the breed
One with finer boning, and one with heavier boning.
females with broad hips, males with narrow..
and so on for as many gene variations (caused by polygenes) as possible in the two parent cats.
So that you bred two cats who were VERY different as regards many genes, especialy polygenes.
In fact you can breed siblings also, if they have many different genes, and they will be healthy and robust.
BUT - you can breed unrelated cats with many genes in common and they will produce very unhealthy and inbred cats (inbred is lots of same pair genes, it has nothing to do with relatedness actually, only to do with how many gene pairs are "two the same".)
Thousands of kittens later, I saw there were problems with what should have been predictable.
Try as I might, some combinations just could NOT be made to occur. It was a statistically ridiculous finding UNLESS the theory that genes combine randomly from parents' gene pairs, was WRONG.
TO make a long story short I proved it is wrong.
Gene pairs do NO combine randomly from each parent.
Instead as I put it then, "genes come in cans". If it is beef stew can, you will not find any mushroom in there no matter how many breedings you do from parents that do have a mushroom gene. If the can is a clam chowder one, you will find no beef gene in there.
I started documenting what genes would allow themselves to get combined with which other genes.
Pretty soon I saw repeating types far more often than they had any right to be so, by random inheritance rules.
I could find nothing to tell me WHY those specific genes were always in those groups of genes in one individual, and not ever muddled with any other group's "can of genes".
There is always a discrete "can of genes" from a finite number of available cans.
It is like having a factory with soup recipes but each recipe is very specific - and you never got something halfway or partway between two soups.
Certain things just never went together.
For example one "can of genes" involved a very sociable cat with long body and long fur but no matter how much it was crossed with the type that is short-bodied with a high milk production - I could never get the long-bodied plus high milk production combined into one cat. You either got the one combination or the other combination - or a still different one - but never the one I wanted.
The inherited traits of any cat (or any other species) always came in sets - a "can of genes" from a specific set of options in nature. (IN truth it is not only genes but ANY inherited trait that fits this fiding. Hence the different traits of identical twins are relevant for example.)
There are NOT random combinations from the two parents' gene pairs as classical genetics claims, but only certain specific possible final combinations in the offspring, "cans of genes/traits", actually do occur.
(I did not know then that I was documenting ICT types - and that there are no in-between ICTs - much less did I know then that a single unique homeopathic remedy matched one and only one "can of genes" or ICT.)
So at that stage I published the book "Cat Genetics - What will the kittens look like?"
THis book has charts by which a breeder can list the genes of a cat just by looking at it.
It then shows how to choose cats to mate based on opposite polygene characteritic matching, and on selection of major genes.
A bookmark lists the major genes and which are dominant over what other genes.
The text is designed as a more interesting way to learn the basics of genetics than the traditional study of wrinkled peas. (with apologies to Mendel whose pionering work with peas was the start of genetics as a science.)
It also had other charts - for example "who was the father" chart, based on what the mother and kittens look like.
And also charts for "what will the kittens look like", based on the parents. And how to choose parents when you wish a specific offspring result, such as bringing out a double recessive gene (like golden fur in cats) without inbreeding.
The idea was to make genetics fun to learn, and useful to breeders to make HEALTHY selections for healthy kittens that would also win at shows from pure robust healthy stance and looks..also cuttring vet bills of course.
I did not realize till later what the wider significance was - for the "cans of genes" that nature had chosen to use as limits on what breeding results - what combinations - could actually exist or be obtained by breeding.
At that point I just knew that some combinations are not possible - they do not exist - and that genetics is NOT random - that it comes only in specific groups of features - and that health has a whole lot to do with a LOT of logical combinations of genes into a "can". THose cans are in no way random, they are designed by nature to work well together as a whole and fit in an intelligent way into the universe to make it well balanced.
The connection with homeopathy came later.
For now it was nice to know how to NOT get hip dyplasias or too small a ribcage for good health, or how to get a HEALTHY showcat.
The principles of course apply to any species or breed, though humans do not consciously use them, unless you count the "opposites attract" maxim
Namaste,
Irene
PS Questions always welcomed.
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.Furryboots.info
(Info on Feline health, genetics, nutrition & homeopathy)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."