Homeopathy Book Reviews

“Bowel Nosode Materia Medica” and “Repertory of the Bowel Nosodes with Therapeutics index, Themes and Regional Leaders”by Anthony Bickley – reviewed by Rochelle Marsden

BOOK
Written by Rochelle Marsden

Homeopath Rochelle Marsden reviews two books by Anthony Bickley: “Bowel Nosode Materia Medica” and “Repertory of the Bowel Nosodes with Therapeutics index, Themes and Regional Leaders”

Publisher:  Independent.  Printed by Amazon

Obtained from : Amazon.co.uk  and Amazon.com

Price :   M.M. £7.95 (Kindle Edition £7.17) $9.95 (Kindle Version $8.80)

Rep. £10.45, $12.95

IBSN:  M.M. – 9781520180946   Rep – 9781520199924

No. of pages – M.M. 113  /  Rep. 70

Format – Paperback with a substantial stiff cover.  M.M. 6 x 0.3 x 9 inches  Repertory 8.5 x 0.2 x 11 inches

It’s not often I review books as a pair, but to be quite honest if you are buying the M.M. I think you need the Repertory and vice versa! I personally have got to a point in my career where I seem to be getting rather complex cases and I am looking to the bowel nosodes to help out me and my patients. These books are therefore a godsend.

The aim of both these books has been to bring the bowel nosodes to a wider audience than the author had been able to do with just teaching. The information in these books include s not only historical use but also his own and others clinical practice notes. He has written about 9 bowel nosdes: Bacillus No. 7, Bacillus No 10, Colibactillinum which includes E.coli and Mutabile as he says that they are virtually indistinguishable, Dysentery Co., Gaertner, Morgan , Morgan Pure, Proteus and Sycotic Co.

Materia Medica

Reading about the first remedy, Bacillus No 7, I noticed that the author uses simple, modern, understandable English. This is unlike many of the little pamphlets that we have on the bowel nosodes which were written 50-60 years ago (although Bach discovered them in 1925 and Patterson continued his work in 1928.)  Bickley states in his foreword that he has not wasted space on rehashing the history of these remedies as it is easily accessible elsewhere and in fact he has listed some sources at the end of the M.M.

The format of each remedy is to give the Keynote which he then expands upon, then the Therapeutics, Generalities and Physical symptoms, the General Modalities and the related remedies.

This MM is up to date from Bickley’s clinical experience. He tells us how he has used Bacillus No. 10 to “get cases moving or even cure patients after inhalation of poison gases as in Gulf War Syndrome or after inhalation of poisonous weed killer.” He describes how he has used it successfully for internal traumas and even rape.

Bickley compares Dysentery Co. to Arg. Nit., finding in both the certainty that something will happen when they go round the next corner. He describes the patient as someone who says that they are worried and when you ask them why, they say they don’t know.  How many times do we see that? He explains why patients tell us that their symptoms have gone but that they still feel tired. There is much detail (6 pages) about how these patients feel – their anxiety and panic. I’m sure this will really help me to prescribe it better.

The modern slant on Gaertner I found very interesting, as I know it for antibiotic poisoning and not much more. Bickley suggests its use in ADD and ADHD children because of their lack of concentration and the fact that they are supposed to be allergic to colourants etc. He suggests that it often matches those conditions for which antibiotics have been given and he calls it the “infection link breaker.”

Here is an example of the great differentiating symptoms in this book. Bickley describes Morgan Pure as having water brash and heartburn but in Morgan Gaetner you have water brash and eructations . He also states that the latter is important for GORD which is worth considering if your patient tells you that prescriptions like Zantac don’t work for them. Morgan Pure can have an aetiology of past penicillin treatment.

The mental and emotional picture given for Proteus is very comprehensive, running nearly 3 pages. After the usual MM section on Proteus there is a full account of a proving the British School of Homeopathy carried out in 2003, which Bickley supervised. It was a very interesting read and most illuminating especially the female side of the remedy. All the dreams of the 11 provers are included.

Overall I loved this MM and it has definitely given me the confidence to try out bowel nosodes with my patients more often. It has a good size print and easy readability.  What would I change? I would have liked the print to be black rather than a mid- grey and would like page numbers on the Contents page.

Repertory

In the Introduction we are told that this repertory has grown out of many years of practice. He also invites readers to contact him with any additions they would like to make for the next edition. The repertory follows the usual pattern and also includes a therapeutic index and a list of themes. The book is very easy on the eye with bold type for remedies that have been found from provings and frequency of symptoms amelioration, which is useful to know.

I do have a criticism of this Repertory, and that is, there are no page numbers and therefore no index. This meant me having to thumb through the book to find the section I wanted to check a symptom in. However, this repertory is so far superior to the repertories in the bowel nosode books I have, that I am willing to overlook this!

Finally you will be interested to know that Anthony Bickley has informed me that he is working on a third book, ‘How to Use Bowel Nosodes in Practice‘ which I look forward to reading and learning from. Also look out for a future hard back edition which will incorporate all 3 books, illustrative cases and additions he has obtained since these books.  It will however, be a year or two before this is available.

About the author

Rochelle Marsden

Rochelle Marsden MSc, RSHom, MNWCH, AAMET is a member of the Hpathy team, a registered classical homeopath (Society of Homeopaths), and has run Southport Homeopathic Practice in the UK SINCE 1999. Rochelle completed a 2 year post-grad course with Dr. Ramakrishnan and another with Dr. S. Banerjea, and an intense Clinical Training in India with Dr. Ramakrishnan. She is a tutor for The British Institute for Homeopathy (BIH) and is a regional tutor for local homeopathic colleges. She is also a practitioner in meridian therapies, EFT (Cert. Advanced) and Matrix Reimprinting. Visit Rochelle at : http://www.southporthomeopathy.co.uk/

1 Comment

  • Thank you so much for this info, I will certainly look into acquiring these books. And a special thank you for pointing out the Amazon kindle version.

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