Minutus

Hi all,

This list recently alerted me to the proving of wheat, triticum vulgare, but I'm finding the long list of rubrics unenlightening. Does anyone know more characteristic and condensed materia madica for this remedy? Anyone used it for anything? I'm wondering whether celiac disease (gluten intolerance) could be looked at as wheat poisoning/proviing, maybe epigenetically transmitted through the generations?

Gail

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Gail,
I'm having the same problem, and would also love to know if there's
further information.

But about celiac disease, I have been told that celiac disease is quite
curable in the "usual" way--prescribing based on the patient's symptom
picture. I assume (but was not specifically told) that symptoms
specific to celiac would be de-emphasized, and symptoms more peculiar
to the patient would be emphasized. In other words--treating
homeopathically, rather than isopathically. (And as always, the
isopathic approach would not heal the broader picture, the reason for
the vulnerability; I suppose that would be similar to the
"desensitization therapy" that is sometimes referred to as homeopathic,
tho technically isopathic instead.)

Can anyone share cases regarding celiac?
Thanks,
Shannon

I agree, Gail. I thought the same thing about celiac and wondered whether this or a related remedy might be helpful, but the list of symptoms didn't seem to support that idea. It's a really interesting question. I also looked it up in EH, and came up pretty empty handed, so information on it isn't widely available. Rosemary

Hi Gail,
Gluten intolerance is a specific condition for a rage of clincial
malabsorption syndromes.
I wouldn't look too deeply into a heriditary state unless this has
developed in an infant.
OFten the main cause is stress, repeated antibiotics, and suppressed
allergies.

HEre is Triticum repens (not sure if its related to VUlgare)

Burnett (Organ.
Diseases of Women, 115) tells how he learned of a herbalist the
use of Trit-r., the herbalist having cured with it a patient of
Burnett's, a man suffering from dysuria.
Burnett has found it no less valuable for women than for men.
"Frequently in dysuria from an inflamed state of the urethra, I
found Trit. right, ten drops in a little water, frequently repeated,
of prompt effect, often giving complete relief in a few hours, and if
the ailment is primarily in the urethra the relief is an abiding cure,
if from a tugging of the heavy womb, it is only relief." He gives this
case: A window, suffering from complete procidentia uteri and very bad
hemorrhoidal bleeding, wrote that she was driven almost mad with
painful micturition, the burning and straining were truly awful.
Trit. right, as above, was ordered, and brought a most grateful
letter from the patient.
She keeps a supply always at hand.

----------------------------------------------
Triticum 5C - Tightness and soreness in the middle of the sternum. It
catches him every time he coughs; pain across the chest at the
diaphragm. Soreness down the sternum and in the epigastrium; pain
going through to the back from the sternum; sneezing caused distress
across the upper part of his chest. (The Homeopathic Physician,
January, 1894, page 16. "Provings and Clinical Observations with High
Potencies," Malcolm Macfarlan, M.D., Philadelphia, Pa.)
Triticum 5C. - Soreness in the middle of the sternum; pain
catches him every time he coughs; constant coughing; always blowing
his nose; pain across the front of chest, low down; sore to touch and
pressure. Nostrils clogged with mucus. Soreness all along the sternum
and in the stomach; pain runs through to the back from the sternum;
itchy around the lower eyelids - they burn and sting; coughs a little,
without expectoration. General soreness in chest. Symptoms of cold in
head with some cough; much sneezing, which strains him across the
upper part of his chest; slightly hoarse, brings up with coughing some
tough phlegm. Soreness across the upper part of the chest in all the
provers. (The Homeopathic Physician, April, 1892, page 134. "Provings
and Clinical Observations With High Potencies," Malcolm Macfarlan,
M.D., Philadelphia.)

------------------------------------------------
Botanical Name: Agropyrum repens Beauv.
Family: Graminae
Common names
English Couch; French: Chiendent; German: Queckenwurzel.
Description: A widely diffused grass with a slender creeping
rhizome which extends for a considerable distance just beneath the
ground, giving off lateral branches occasionally. Leaves: flat with a
long cleft sheath and are rough on the upper surface, having a row of
hairs on veins. Flower in two - rowed spikes somewhat resembling those
of eye or beardless wheat consisting of 8 or more oval spikelets on
alternate sides of the spike each containing 4 - 8 florets.
Part used: Rhizome.
Macroscopical: Short, straight pieces hollow except at the nodes,
about 3 - 20mm long and 2 - 3mm in diameter, straw - coloured,
lustrous and strongly furrowed longitudinally. At the nodes are small,
circular, root - scars and somewhat larger stem scars; very short
pieces of stem or root are some - times attached; Odourless; taste
faint and sweetish.
Microscopical: Narrow hypodermal band of sclerenchyma; nearer the
centre, a wide band of sclerenchyma in which the principal vascular
bundles are embedded; in surface view, the epidermis which consists of
wavy - walled rectangular cells in parallel rows, in which long cells
alternate with small twin cells. The twin cells are together about one
- tenth the length of a long cell, the latter being about eleven times
as long as it is broad.
Distribution: A native of Europe, naturalized throughout the
northern hemisphere.
History and authority: Proved and introduced by Burnett; Clarke:
A Dictionary of Practical Mat. Med., Vol. III, 1456; Blackwood, Mat.
Med., Therapeutics and Pharmacology, 587.
*Preparation*
(a) Mother tincture Q, Drug strength 1/10
Triticum Repens, moist magma containing
solid 100 g plant moisture 233 ml 333
Purified water 167 ml
Strong Alcohol, in sufficient quantity
To make one thousand millilitres of the Mother Tincture.
(b) Potencies: 2X to contain one part Mother Tincture, three
parts Purified Water six parts Strong Alcohol; 3X and higher with
Dispensing Alcohol.
--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, "Rosemary C Hyde"
wrote:
whether this or a related remedy might be helpful, but the list of
symptoms didn't seem to support that idea. It's a really interesting
question. I also looked it up in EH, and came up pretty empty handed,
so information on it isn't widely available. Rosemary
vulgare, but I'm finding the long list of rubrics unenlightening. Does
anyone know more characteristic and condensed materia madica for this
remedy? Anyone used it for anything? I'm wondering whether celiac
disease (gluten intolerance) could be looked at as wheat
poisoning/proviing, maybe epigenetically transmitted through the
generations?

Thanks, Leela, for the additional info on Triticum. Interesting. It indeed doesn't seem to have a particular affinity for the small intestine, which is where the destruction of celiac disease/ syndrome occur.

In many cases, celiac disease itself seems to have a hereditary character. It occurs much more frequently in certain ethnic groups (e.g. Irish), and concentrates heavily in certain families. I have no doubt that various forms of gluten sensitivity are much more common than usually thought, and that they can be idiopathic rather than familial.

The form of gluten intolerance that's usually called celiac disease is not mediated by the same immunoglobins as allergic reactions, and actually involves clinically verifiable and eventually irreversible destruction of the vili of the small intestine (leading to the inability to absorb nutrients) as a result of intolerance to the gliadins which are the proteins in certain grains. If left untreated for a long time -- usually because it hasn't been recognized-- it quite dramatically increases the risk of colon cancer.

Children with celiac disease often have early digestive problems and often also have eczema or other apparently allergic conditions, probably abetted by the nutritional deficiencies that result from the celiac disease. Unless the family has already discovered that it expresses the gene for celiac disease, these symptoms may be considered as "allergies" and the diagnosis may not be made for decades, if ever. But the person will have multiple illnesses and suffer from ongoing sub-acute episodes of ill health. There is also a higher incidence than average of learning disabilities of various kinds in these families and children.

I would consider Calc-phos a major remedy for this condition where other symptoms also indicate this remedy. I have treated several people for celiac disease, using Calc p where indicated as a remedy, and giving it as a cell salt otherwise in addition to indicated remedies. My family -- my siblings and our children and grandchildren-- is one in which 80% of individuals, across generations, have celiac disease to some clinically verifiable extent (obviously it existed in both my parents' families, and looking back, we can identify from their health histories who the affected individuals probably were, even though they were never diagnosed and have long since died.) The tendency doesn't go away, but the actual reaction to the gluten certainly diminishes with homeopathic treatment.

Major stresses can reactivate the condition after the remedy has helped, so the remedy action is more palliative than curative of the underlying tendency, at least in clinically verified cases of celiac disease. My feeling is that this indicates that the condition in this form basically involves a genetic defect in some critical food processing ability -- something along the lines of PKU or certain other genetically transmitted metabolic defects. As far as I know, medical research hasn't identified the exact process that's deficient in Celiac disease. They've hypothesized that it's a missing enzyme, but that should be replaceable. So it seems not to be very well understood yet. Perhaps the human genome project will eventually shed some light on all of the metabolic defect syndromes.

Rosemary

In my recent work on recruiting provers and supervisors I have been
told that someone is doing a new proving on Triticum vulg because they
thought that the current allergy situation with wheat will be linked
with a new strain of wheat (possibly gmf). But it doesn't look like a
rx for coeliac disease anyway. Best wishes, Joy
http://www.homeopathicmateriamedica.com
http://www.homeopathicmateriamedica.blogspot.com
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Dear Rosemary, this is a good piece, thanks. This might be a shot in
the dark but with you mentioning that Coeliac disease is prevalent in
Irish communities I am wondering whether the potato and the Irish
dependency on them in the past have something to do with this. Being a
poisonous plant the potato might well have set up a destructive
susceptibility that shows itself in the gut, or part of it. Maybe the
Solanum group of rx might be useful. Just a thought. Best wishes, Joy
http://www.homeopathicmateriamedica.com
http://www.homeopathicmateriamedica.blogspot.com
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

HI Rosemary,
Very interesting information, thanks!

ACtually we see so much of malabsorption here in India, that I wasn't
specifically refering to celiac disease - though I was considering
malfunction of the small intestine villi as the casue of
malabsorption. ONe cause I forgot to mention earlier was the presence
of parasites (ameobic cysts, giardia and various worms in different
stages of development - very common here).

So then I being to wonder if this is simply a chicken and egg
situation. A familial weakness of the small intenstine must definitely
exist, but what helps progress the destruction of the villi is what I
was thinking of. HEnce the various causes I mentioned came to mind.

Would there be any way to guage whether there was any common factor
that made the manifestation of disease more quickly? Eg: early lactose
intolerance, or suppressed eczema, or antibiotic courses, eg.
thanks,
leela
--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, "Rosemary C Hyde"
wrote:
It indeed doesn't seem to have a particular affinity for the small
intestine, which is where the destruction of celiac disease/ syndrome
occur.
character. It occurs much more frequently in certain ethnic groups
(e.g. Irish), and concentrates heavily in certain families. I have no
doubt that various forms of gluten sensitivity are much more common
than usually thought, and that they can be idiopathic rather than
familial.
is not mediated by the same immunoglobins as allergic reactions, and
actually involves clinically verifiable and eventually irreversible
destruction of the vili of the small intestine (leading to the
inability to absorb nutrients) as a result of intolerance to the
gliadins which are the proteins in certain grains. If left untreated
for a long time -- usually because it hasn't been recognized-- it
quite dramatically increases the risk of colon cancer.
often also have eczema or other apparently allergic conditions,
probably abetted by the nutritional deficiencies that result from the
celiac disease. Unless the family has already discovered that it
expresses the gene for celiac disease, these symptoms may be
considered as "allergies" and the diagnosis may not be made for
decades, if ever. But the person will have multiple illnesses and
suffer from ongoing sub-acute episodes of ill health. There is also a
higher incidence than average of learning disabilities of various
kinds in these families and children.
other symptoms also indicate this remedy. I have treated several
people for celiac disease, using Calc p where indicated as a remedy,
and giving it as a cell salt otherwise in addition to indicated
remedies. My family -- my siblings and our children and
grandchildren-- is one in which 80% of individuals, across
generations, have celiac disease to some clinically verifiable extent
(obviously it existed in both my parents' families, and looking back,
we can identify from their health histories who the affected
individuals probably were, even though they were never diagnosed and
have long since died.) The tendency doesn't go away, but the actual
reaction to the gluten certainly diminishes with homeopathic treatment.
helped, so the remedy action is more palliative than curative of the
underlying tendency, at least in clinically verified cases of celiac
disease. My feeling is that this indicates that the condition in this
form basically involves a genetic defect in some critical food
processing ability -- something along the lines of PKU or certain
other genetically transmitted metabolic defects. As far as I know,
medical research hasn't identified the exact process that's deficient
in Celiac disease. They've hypothesized that it's a missing enzyme,
but that should be replaceable. So it seems not to be very well
understood yet. Perhaps the human genome project will eventually shed
some light on all of the metabolic defect syndromes.

FWIW--Triticum repens is "couch grass", aka "quack grass", whereas
Triticum vulgare (aka Triticum aestivum) is common wheat.
Cheers,
Shannon

Thanks Rosemary, this is great!
I'm interested that celiac symptoms are not apparently within the
homeopathic picture of wheat. I suppose this situation would be
analogous to (as Hahnemann describes) that "good advice" (I forget what
phrase he used) will cause aggravation in someone with mental /
emotional disease--the fault is not in the words / substance, but in
the person's inability to "metabolize" them / it.

Can you say a bit about why you find calc-p so closely connected?
In case where you give the cell salt along with the more indicated
remedy, what do you find it adds?
Thanks!
Shannon