Homeopathy, Environmental Toxins & Detoxification

Homeopathy, Environmental Toxins & Detoxification
by Shandor Weiss, DNM (P)

All forms of life are exposed to natural sources of toxins from the environment. Natural exogenous toxins come from bacteria, molds, mineral, plant and animal poisons, smoke, volcanic fumes, ultraviolet light, and so on. All forms of life also create endogenous toxins within their bodies. For the most part, living beings (even humans) have adapted to both exogenous and endogenous natural toxins and have found ways to avoid, neutralize and/or eliminate them as a normal biological function. As long as humans lived a natural life, the degree of toxic damage to individuals and larger populations was minimal.

But as people became more civilized they lived in larger and more concentrated communities, and concentrated and changed raw materials and their toxic products through farming, technology and industry. These changes increased the proportion of diseases caused by toxicity. To the extent that humans have created unnatural living conditions, doctors of natural medicine have had to increasingly treat toxicity as a cause of disease.

Even before the Industrial Revolution, mining, metallurgy and the practice of medicine had increased exposure of naturally toxic substances like lead, arsenic and mercury to unnatural levels. Of course, with industrialization and population growth humanity’s exposure to pollutants has escalated. Nowadays we are well aware of the problems. We may even think of toxicity as a problem of modern times. But before the introduction of xenobiotic (foreign to life) compounds starting in the mid-twentieth century, before the arrival of synthetic drugs, pesticides, herbicides and plastics, and before the modern proliferation of radioactive materials, heavy metals and electromagnetic fields, people were poisoned extensively. By the time Naturopathic medicine started as a distinct profession, humanity had been toxic for centuries.

In addition to a long history of environmental exposure to toxins, humanity has accumulated toxicity through inheritance. Not only did children inherit the sick environment of their parents, but the mother’s toxic burdens would also be passed directly into the developing fetus. The baby would be born toxic, and then become more toxic from drinking contaminated breast milk. To make matters worse, the ova and sperm of the developing fetus would also be affected by toxins, increasing the likelihood of genetic damage in the 3rd generation and beyond. Since many of the health effects of chronic, low-level poisoning are indistinguishable from common maladies like allergies, arthritis, cancer, immune depression, and auto-immune diseases, it has become difficult to tell which illnesses are truly inherited or acquired, and which are caused by current or inherited environmental toxicity. One thing that we can be certain of, though, is that virtually everyone on the planet suffers from a toxicity miasm that has been growing and accumulating in proportion to the growth of civilization and the proliferation of xenobiotics.

It’s even possible that environmental toxins and Nature have created “natural” homeopathic remedies out of toxins, and that humanity has been “proving” these “remedies” for a long time. Pesticides, metals, drugs, plastics, and so on are often found in minutely diluted concentrations in the air and water and soil. That is like the “dilution” step of making a homeopathic medicine. The next steps, those of succussing or percussing along with continuing dilutions, could be occurring as natural waterways flow, tumble, fall, swirl and mix with more water, as toxins travel down a watershed from small streams to large rivers. Isn’t this very much like making a homeopathic remedy? Similarly, toxins in the air are mixed and diluted as the wind percusses them against objects and particulates and gases in the air, spreading from a high concentration near the source, to lower and lower concentrations (higher potencies). In fact, just the movement of kinetic energy in solutions is a form of percussion. The same process may be happening in soil particles that have absorbed toxins like pesticides and metals, as they are eroded and washed into gullies, streams, rivers and oceans, and mixed with more soil, sand, or sediment. Nature has become a vast homeopathic laboratory, and we all are taking homeopathic toxins all the time, in addition to “regular” toxins. People who are sensitive to these natural toxin remedies may be proving them and having symptoms from them, even if they are not actually toxic. This may explain why some hypersensitive patients can become ill from exposure to toxins at levels below a few parts per billion. Such concentrations fall within the range of low potency homeopathic remedies.

The point is, we are more toxic than most of us realize. Our toxicity has been going on for a long time, and toxicity is affecting us in a variety of ways.

Most of us probably associate detoxification with images of enemas and colonics, massage, hydrotherapy, saunas, herbs, fasting and cleansing diets. Dr. John Kellogg made these treatments famous over 100 years ago at his Battle Creek Sanitarium, which was shown in our time to the public in the 1994 film, “The Road to Wellville” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111001/). Back then the popular concept of detoxification and its goal was bowel cleansing. This was appropriate at the time, as many people did have toxicity from poor diet and impaired bowel health. These toxins were of the “classical” type, caused by slow bowel transit time, putrefaction, and absorption of toxic waste products. This was a common problem because:
the population was shifting from rural/agricultural to urban living;
there was no rapid food preservation and distribution system as there is now, so in the urban centers there was a lack of fresh produce, grains, legumes, etc. (fiber);
food was often contaminated with micro-organisms and/or parasites;
there was an almost ubiquitous use of narcotic prescription and over-the-counter medicines, which led to widespread constipation.

All this led to “bowel cleansing” as the goal of early “modern” detoxification. Of course, now we know that detoxification goes beyond bowel cleansing. Even though maintaining normal bowel function is important, the introduction of more and more xenobiotic toxins has shifted the paradigm in detoxing from bowel cleansing, to liver detoxing, to cellular detoxification and beyond.

Before the use of enemas, colonics, purgatives, and so on, homeopathy was an earlier detoxification therapy. In fact, homeopathy was probably the first modern system of medicine to specifically treat toxicity from environmental sources. By its very nature, homeopathy is based on the study of toxicology. The Materia Medica of a remedy is composed of the gross toxicology of a substance, the provings of potentized dilutions, and cured cases. For example, in the discussion on the remedy Mercurius, Clarke states “To the symptoms of Hahnemann’s pathogenesis of Merc. sol. are added observed effects of Mercury in those engaged in working with the metal, in patients taking Mercury, and effects in those applying mercurial injunctions to patients… . There is no difference between these effects and the symptoms of the proving so far as the general characteristics are conce
ed.”

By proving remedies in potentized forms, homeopaths developed far more information on a substance’s toxicology than toxicologists ever did. In fact, homeopathic doctors are the most informed toxicologists in the world. By combining gross and subtle symptoms, homeopaths can diagnose toxicity due to outright and acute poisoning, chronic subclinical toxicity, and vitalistic or energetic toxicity.

There are countless examples in the homeopathic literature of cases cured by administering the homeopathic version of the same substance with which the patient was poisoned. In addition, at least one study has shown that a homeopathic poison (arsenic) increases elimination of crude doses of the same poison, at least in rats.

Sometimes remedies were used to treat toxicity that was different than the original toxin, and sometimes the poisoning was treated with the homeopathic equivalent of the agent of poisoning. In actuality, it is probably impossible to distinguish between remedies which are “the same” and “similar”, even though it is common to discuss this issue in homeopathic circles. That’s because substances and medicines change anyway. The remedy Mercurius is not the same at all as the mercury in our bodies from dental fillings. One of the brilliant discoveries of homeopathic medicine may be that the most popular remedies are similar to, but not the same as, the substances that humanity is most toxic from.

Homeopathic medicine is perhaps the most powerful detoxification therapy there is. But it should be used carefully. A problem can occur if homeopaths think of homeopathy only as the practice of “like cures like”. There is a tendancy to forget that toxicity may be involved because of a focus on getting the “right” remedy.

Homeopathy also opens a door to understanding that our own toxicity links us to the environmental poisoning of the planet and all other living things.

To read a more extensive version of this article please go to http://www.original-health.com/index.cfm?id=1411918&fuseaction=browse&pageid=289

Copyright 2008 by Shandor Weiss.