standard of cure

[Hart Matthews]

Hi all,

I, too, would like to applaud Didi for her thorough casetaking and resourceful prescribing (as well as for her organization's work). But when I finished reading her post, I was also surprised at the use of the terms "cure" and "miasm" in the subject line.

Leaving aside entirely the idea of a pertussis miasm (as opposed to a disease layer), I agree with John that it would be good to apply a rigorous standard of cure when publishing our cases..

So, what do the people on this list think is a reasonable amount of time without relapse to claim a cured case? At a recent talk in the U.S., Massimo Mangialavori proposed a disease-free period of 4-5 years.

For an infant, perhaps a shorter time would be reasonable?

Regards,
Hart Matthews
Durham, North Carolina

[Sue Boyle]

Hi,

Cure is such a loaded word now, especially with all of the denialists wanting to destroy homeopathy. A significant improvement of say 80% might be a better marker and the length of time might be 5 years like Massimo said. After all cancer cases are "cured" after 5 years even though we , as homeopaths know there is no cure there.

Sue

[Ellen Madono]

Hi,

Better decrease in intensity, length and frequency of major symptoms. Could add a percent. 80 percent decrease within 6 months. This came from Melissa Burch and I don't know her source, but at least there is some sense of truth.

I am studying Vilthoukas's levels of health (2010) and am working on a questionaire with the idea that if I can identify the prospective patients approximate level of health, I can also some something concrete about prospects for timing and intensity of the healing process. This to me seems better than saying in general I can get xx% results. Also, it is a way to interact with prospective pxs without spending a lot of time and also without them having to invest too much personal contact which is threatening to many people.

If anyone has the book and wants to discuss the ins and outs of this, let me know.

Blessings,
Ellen Madono

[Andrew Vincent]

Hi,

I’ve been watching this thread from the sidelines ... (as usual), but I wanted to add a comment that I now avoid the word ‘cure’ altogether.

Not because of the snipers in the trees who would like to reserve the term for their particular brand of medicine, but more because ‘cure’ is an ‘ideal’ target that in this day and age is rarely achievable (in my opinion). My thoughts are that if the human being is a dynamic and ever changing organism, then ‘cure’ can only ever be temporary?
I personally tend to use terms such as ‘improvement’ and ’amelioration’, and then note that the improvement has lasted for x days/months/years ...
Not sure if this is helpful for writing up and publishing cases or not? But I guess it’s less contentious to claim a significant improvement in health v’s cure
Cheers,

Andy
From: minutus@yahoogroups.com [mailto:minutus@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Ellen Madono
Sent: 14 July 2011 00:25
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] standard of cure
Hi,
Better decrease in intensity, length and frequency of major symptoms. Could add a percent. 80 percent decrease within 6 months. This came from Melissa Burch and I don't know her source, but at least there is some sense of truth.
I am studying Vilthoukas's levels of health (2010) and am working on a questionaire with the idea that if I can identify the prospective patients approximate level of health, I can also some something concrete about prospects for timing and intensity of the healing process. This to me seems better than saying in general I can get xx% results. Also, it is a way to interact with prospective pxs without spending a lot of time and also without them having to invest too much personal contact which is threatening to many people.
If anyone has the book and wants to discuss the ins and outs of this, let me know.
Blessings,

Ellen Madono
Hi,
Cure is such a loaded word now, especially with all of the denialists wanting to destroy homeopathy. A significant improvement of say 80% might be a better marker and the length of time might be 5 years like Massimo said. After all cancer cases are "cured" after 5 years even though we , as homeopaths know there is no cure there.
Sue
Hi all,

I, too, would like to applaud Didi for her thorough casetaking and resourceful prescribing (as well as for her organization's work). But when I finished reading her post, I was also surprised at the use of the terms "cure" and "miasm" in the subject line.

Leaving aside entirely the idea of a pertussis miasm (as opposed to a disease layer), I agree with John that it would be good to apply a rigorous standard of cure when publishing our cases..

So, what do the people on this list think is a reasonable amount of time without relapse to claim a cured case? At a recent talk in the U.S., Massimo Mangialavori proposed a disease-free period of 4-5 years.

For an infant, perhaps a shorter time would be reasonable?

Regards,
Hart Matthews
Durham, North Carolina
--
English: tokyohomeopathy.com

Japanese: tokyohomeopathy.jp
Computershare Technology Services (UK) Limited is registered in England & Wales Company No. 3199675. Registered Office: The Pavilions, Bridgwater Road, Bristol BS13 8AE
Please visit the following website to read the Computershare legal notice: http://www.computershare.com/disclaimer/emea

[John Harvey]

"Cure" is a term that's relative to a particular disease state, so in theory the supervention of a novel disease state shouldn't be relevant. It may be hard to say with certainty that a "new" illness has not arisen from suppression of the old, of course, as in "curing" eczema only to see asthma succeed it. (And this may be where it becomes particularly hazardous to base treatments on the existence of novel chronic miasms with no certainty that they even exist.)
But a useful rule of thumb, one that won't overstate the case, may be to assume that a new illness is related to an older one unless there's good cause for any uninvolved informed person to believe that the new illness has a novel infectious or medicinal (either toxic or dynamic) basis.
I don't see any need for the cure to have come about in a particularly short time as Ellen mentions Melissa Burch suggests. Most homoeopathic practice I see written up these days is insufficiently precise to produce rapid cures, instead zigzagging at best to a slow cure. But a cure is a cure, no matter how long it has taken to reach it, and having taken unfortunately long to arrive at it seems no rational basis for discounting it.
Cheers --
John

[Ananda Ruchira]

Hi all,

Thanks Hart for opening up this line of discussion. I hope to learn from it.

Sorry for this lengthy email. Here was my way of thinking on why or what I wrote. I look forward to you all, please, teaching me more.
Hart wrote:

See my below comments

Hart wrote:

I don't disagree. And I apologise for throwing out the term too loosely.

Hart wrote:
See my last paragraphs below.
I would say that respected Dr Mangialavori has not treated extensively in countries where acute disease is the primary form of disease treated rather than old 'encrusted" diseases born of generations of diseased states.

When practitioners from highly sophisticated & industrialized countries talk about "disease" and when practitioners from less developed countries talk about "disease", I think we're not talking about the same thing every time. That's another email, that I'll write after.
POINT:
Miasm = state of suppressed disease, or acute disease unfully cured, leading to chornic, degenerative -or in this case, congenital- disease. While the actual germ of the acute infection may not be present, the vital force has not returned to balance normalcy and still presents various symptoms.

A miasm creates a blockage to cure.

POINT:
The use of nosode in "clearing" the block to my understanding and experience, correct. In my experience, the direct nosode of the immediate "culprit" is among the very effective ways forward.

(example; one may wish to categorize the patient as "psora" "sycosis" etc, but I'd rather give the fellow some influenzinum, malaria co, typhoidinum, brucellosinum, etc instead.)
POINT:
New miasm? NO!
I not trying to name some new-fangled miasm, but rather simply saying that a miasmic state had been induced by the apparent suppression or apparent uncured whooping cough. I'm not scholarly enough to label this state "psora" or whatever.

"The proof is in the pudding" - That Pertussin acted so dramatically demonstrates to me that the hypothesis of suppressed or uncured whooping cough is validated. Generally, my practical experience in using nosodes leads me to believe that if Whooping cough wasn't a factor, then Pertussin would have had no/little effect one way or another on the child.
POINT:
On the other hand, some lines of thought in the modern thinking have named "new" aspects of miasm - eg "acute miasm", "typhoid miasm", "malaria miasm", etc. Which, by the way if you see these last two in action you'll understand very well that they create miasmic states. I'm not scholarly enough to agree or disagree or comment as to whether these suppressed diseases deserve their own special labeled miasm, but indeed miasmic they are.
Even the most common medics & nurses in Kenya observe and acknowledge that there are post-typhoidal and post-malarial states that they seem to have no idea how to treat. However when we apply homeopathic principles of miasm & suppressed disease to the medicine for these states, they clear immediately (within hours or days) and stay cleared ("cure"). I have witnessed this a number of times. Some lines of allo-thought are now pointing to cytokines as a factor. Perhaps if cytokines are factor in these miasm-like post acute states, then nosodes and tautopathics seem to be logical choices both from allopathic view as well as homeopathic view. Or perhaps better said - that now there's an allopathic concept that may help explain why nosodes - which have a kind of innoculating effect - are appropriate.
(FYI - some local nurses here nickname post-typhoid symptoms "hala-hala disease" meaning "this and that disease". Post typhoid creates nebulous wandering pains in body and joints, fatigue, unsettled stomach, etc. Often it is misdiagnosed and medicated as rhuematism.)

(FYI- post-malaria can run from 2-week periodic episodes of headaches or joint pains, chills or fever yet without any malarial parasite in the blood tests. It can also lead to convulsions or catatonic states being misdiagnosed and treated as epilepsy)

(FYI- It's still not clear to me whether these are suppressed diseases or side-effects of drugs or both.)

(ALSO I'm no expert about cytokines, only this is what I hear from discussions with local researchers.
DEFINITION Cytokine: A small protein released by cells that has a specific effect on the interactions between cells, on communications between cells or on the behavior of cells. The cytokines includes the interleukins, lymphokines and cell signal molecules, such as tumor necrosis factor and the interferons, which trigger inflammation and respond to infections.)
POINT:
It's my hypothesis that the congenital lobal emphysema was actually a state of suppressed or uncured whooping cough of recent history - ie a state that's "early chronic" or "post-acute". Tho after the operation and doctors have cleared the infant of any signs of emphysema, the infant is still prone to respiratory distress, wheezing, shortness of breath etc.

What is really still making me ponder is this question:
Hypothesis or no, then - Why / how did the whole family get sick with whooping cough and NOT the mother? Or what did really happen?

Did it pass thru her and create antibodies and no symptoms in her? Did the state of pregnancy somehow suppress or repel the disease yet could it have passed to the fetus as a suppressed state?

POINT:
I realise that there may be some readers trained and practicing in highly industrialized countries, who may not have had the chance to observe first hand "miasms in the making". Generally they've studied and are treating chronic and inherited miasms that are more common for populations in industrialized countries.

But for those who practice in SAmerica, Africa, India or parts of Asia it can still be readily observed the "live" process in action of active acute infections turning into suppressed disease states. I've frequently observed that these "post acute" miasmic states, when caught early enough, may be readily cured, they don't seem quite so complicated as the chronic cases I frequently read here on Minitus.
Sincerely,
Didi Ananda Ruchira | Director | Tels: +254 (0)733-895466 / +254 (0)723-869133 | www.abhalight.org

[Fran Sheffield]

Hi Didi and all,

Just throwing in another thought ...

Perhaps we can look to the use of homeopathy with plants as one way of collecting evidence much more quickly in this area of nosodes.

Maybe nosodes cannot be automatically applied with a high degree of success to the diseases they are drawn from as we would hope. Could it be that when nosodes are effective, symptom similarity is still the basis of action and if that IS NOT present, the nosode will be of no benefit whatsoever even though there is obvious causation?

I wonder this because in the area of agrohomeopathy where we can observe cause, effect and treatment much more rapidly, the automatic use of a 'nosode' will not always bring treatment or prevention.

For example, Helix tosta (toasted snail) is a fantastic preventative to use with plants against snails - one dose keeps the blighters away for 3 - 4 months in all weather conditions.

But potentised aphid will not do the same for aphid infested plants - here another remedy, Coccinella, will do the job. And this is the case in several other instances of plant protection - the seeming nosode is not always the remedy that is effective.

So, while we have automatically turned to the use of nosodes in the past where there has been a clear causation, will they always help us on this prescibing basis?

This area needs serious research. As nosodes are being routinely used as the preferred form of protection against many serious epidemic and infectious diseases these days instead of noted symptom similarity, we have to confirm that they all do what we are claiming they will do.

Also, Didi, have you seen the recent research from one of our Australian universities, showing that small doses of malaria parasite offer extensive protection against all malaria parasites? You can read about it here: http://homeopathyplus.com.au/university ... r-malaria/

Highly homeopathic if you ask me! (but also able to be patented - of course).

I am just waiting for the day when we can show affected populations how to simply hand make their own prophylactic - free of patents and drug company manipulations.
--
Kind regards,

Fran Sheffield
Homeopathy Plus! (Tutorials - Remedies - Immunisation)
http://www.homeopathyplus.com.au
Do No Harm Initiative (Free Information on Homeopathic Immunisation)
http://www.d-n-h.org
Homeopathy for Autism (Guidelines for Treatment - Search for Practitioners)
http://www.homeopathy4autism.com

[John Harvey]

Didi, this post throws into sharp relief the difference, as you point out, between an established chronic miasm and its incipient form. Hahnemann made a similar point regarding syphilis in particular: that, in its incipiency, it's a relatively straightforward disease to treat, usually using Mercurius, whereas once firmly established, its symptoms vary and its appropriate remedy varies accordingly. The only thing I'd note is that use of the term miasm is not confined to the chronic miasms (however many there be of them) but includes, and originally referred to, the acute ones (such as measles and, in its acute, transmissible form, whooping cough). Good thought about the mother. And who is to say that she didn't actually contract the illness (very mildly)?

Fran, the only problem about that malaria research is that it looks like a pretty standard allopathic approach to developing a vaccine, rather than a homoeopathic approach. That is, rather than use something known to induce a disease state similar to the one to be cured (either in fully developed form, with symptoms abounding, or in incipient form, as commonly relied upon during an epidemic), the researchers relied on the presumption that the body would respond to one organism by producing antibodies effective in rousing immune response to a similar organism: all stock-standard allopathic vaccine dogma without a shred of pathogenetic research behind it. But, as you say, it's superior to homoeopathy because it's patentable.

Cheers --

John
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Fundamentally the science of genetic engineering is crap. One gene expressing one protein is the basis of genetic engineering, but the Human Genome Project discovered 23,000 genes, and there are 200,000 proteins in every cell. With this discovery, genetic engineering should have disappeared into the dustbin, but the biotechnology industry is so strong. Genetic engineering is a product-driven technology. If you have enough money to throw at it, you can do many things. But the industry won't waste money on safety assessment."
—Dr Arpad Pusztai, interviewed for The Organic and Non-GMO Report,

[Jean Doherty]

Wonder if as good as the Malaria nosode which some use as protective .
I had the same thought, Jean

[Shannon Nelson]

Flight of fancy perhaps, but I wonder whether e.g. *toasted* aphid would be any more effective? (As was the snail.) This would make sense from the standpoint of finding that *similarity* is often more effective than identity (i.e. than isopathy). (I wonder whether there is any comparison of toasted vs. raw snail for that use?)

Shannon