Homeopathy, HIV, and psora (was Peter Chappell PC1...)
Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2004 1:45 am
Hi David,
I like your emphasis on classical homeopathy for the treatment of HIV+
people. The symptom picture of HIV is protean and many-headed. It much more
resembles a chronic miasm (like psora) than it does an acute one (like
cholera). For that reason, it seems unlikely to me that there will be any
homeopathic "silver bullet." It is possible that there would be a small
number of indicated remedies for acute HIV infection with its flu-like
symptoms, but at the chronic stage we are most likely to see, the picture is
much more complex.
In fact, to me, the resemblance to the psora of Hahnemann's Chronic Disease
(not the re-painted picture of psora presented by some modern writers) bears
a very startling resemblance to HIV/AIDS
1. Hahnemann succinctly describes psora as the main chronic wasting sickness
(Org. #103). HIV in Africa is known as "the slim disease," and even in the
US, where this wasting quality is masked by nutrition (fat replacing lost
muscle), AIDS patients tend to die when they reach a certain point of loss
of lean body mass--a unifying factor, no matter what the immediate "cause"
of death.
2. Like Hahnemann's psora, HIV can have a long period of healthy-seeming
latency.
3. HIV is characterized by the following symptoms: lack of reaction (immune
deficiency), lymphadenopathy (swelling and hardening of lymph glands), night
sweats, fatigue, diarrhea and susceptibility to intestinal parasites, many
skin problems (including rashes and fungal problems), dementia. All of these
symptoms are also, in Hahnemann's account, common manifestations of psora.
Depression is endemic in HIV+ people, with "despair of recovery" a common
thread, (common also to many of Hahnemann's anti-psorics, and rated by him,
along with the many forms of insanity, as a manifestation of psora).
In short, I think we should recognize in HIV a new virulent manifestation of
what Hahnemann calls psora; and we should conclude that we will need the
same tools to cure this "new" manifestation that we have needed for the old.
Obviously, we are also looking a a generous admixture of other miasms
(sycosis, syphilis, TB, and the many "opportunistic infections" that plague
people with declined immune systems), and this complex disease picture, as
always, complicates and impedes cure.
I would also like to see research in this area; homeopathy has so much to
offer the "third world" here (if we could train as many classical homeopaths
as we would need!)
In the US, the newer anti-viral combination treatments (not the older mono-
or duo-therapies such as in the research you quote) are so successful in the
shorter run of a decade or so that homeopathy is unlikely to get much play
in people whose immune systems are already declined. In the longer run, the
compounding of residual disease symptoms with the slowly accumulating
toxicities of the drugs makes a very disturbing disease picture, one that I
suspect is resistant to homeopathic treatment. Perhaps homeopathy could come
into play in preventing immune system deterioration in people who are
HIV-infected, but not yet immune deficient (and therefore not on anti-viral
treatment).
Gail
I like your emphasis on classical homeopathy for the treatment of HIV+
people. The symptom picture of HIV is protean and many-headed. It much more
resembles a chronic miasm (like psora) than it does an acute one (like
cholera). For that reason, it seems unlikely to me that there will be any
homeopathic "silver bullet." It is possible that there would be a small
number of indicated remedies for acute HIV infection with its flu-like
symptoms, but at the chronic stage we are most likely to see, the picture is
much more complex.
In fact, to me, the resemblance to the psora of Hahnemann's Chronic Disease
(not the re-painted picture of psora presented by some modern writers) bears
a very startling resemblance to HIV/AIDS
1. Hahnemann succinctly describes psora as the main chronic wasting sickness
(Org. #103). HIV in Africa is known as "the slim disease," and even in the
US, where this wasting quality is masked by nutrition (fat replacing lost
muscle), AIDS patients tend to die when they reach a certain point of loss
of lean body mass--a unifying factor, no matter what the immediate "cause"
of death.
2. Like Hahnemann's psora, HIV can have a long period of healthy-seeming
latency.
3. HIV is characterized by the following symptoms: lack of reaction (immune
deficiency), lymphadenopathy (swelling and hardening of lymph glands), night
sweats, fatigue, diarrhea and susceptibility to intestinal parasites, many
skin problems (including rashes and fungal problems), dementia. All of these
symptoms are also, in Hahnemann's account, common manifestations of psora.
Depression is endemic in HIV+ people, with "despair of recovery" a common
thread, (common also to many of Hahnemann's anti-psorics, and rated by him,
along with the many forms of insanity, as a manifestation of psora).
In short, I think we should recognize in HIV a new virulent manifestation of
what Hahnemann calls psora; and we should conclude that we will need the
same tools to cure this "new" manifestation that we have needed for the old.
Obviously, we are also looking a a generous admixture of other miasms
(sycosis, syphilis, TB, and the many "opportunistic infections" that plague
people with declined immune systems), and this complex disease picture, as
always, complicates and impedes cure.
I would also like to see research in this area; homeopathy has so much to
offer the "third world" here (if we could train as many classical homeopaths
as we would need!)
In the US, the newer anti-viral combination treatments (not the older mono-
or duo-therapies such as in the research you quote) are so successful in the
shorter run of a decade or so that homeopathy is unlikely to get much play
in people whose immune systems are already declined. In the longer run, the
compounding of residual disease symptoms with the slowly accumulating
toxicities of the drugs makes a very disturbing disease picture, one that I
suspect is resistant to homeopathic treatment. Perhaps homeopathy could come
into play in preventing immune system deterioration in people who are
HIV-infected, but not yet immune deficient (and therefore not on anti-viral
treatment).
Gail