Interviews

Dr. Joachim F. Grätz is interviewed by Alan V. Schmukler

Written by Alan V. Schmukler

Dr. Joachim F. Grätz is interviewed by Alan V. Schmukler Dr. Joachim F. Grätz has practiced over 30 years and originally studied with Dr. Otto Eichelberger in Munich.

Dr. Joachim F. Grätz has practiced over 30 years and originally studied with Dr. Otto Eichelberger in Munich.  He has lectured on classical homeopathy at academies of naturopathy in Munich, Salzburg and Vienna.  He is the author of Gentle Medicine – The True Causes of Disease, Healing, and Health.

A.S.  How would you characterize your special approach to treating patients homeopathically?  Are there aspects that might differ from how homeopaths generally practice?

J.G.   That is a very good question. I can only answer it in a certain context from the point of view of what I call “Gentle Medicine”, because this is also about something more than just homeopathy. It’s about medicine as a whole. And that includes our basic medical knowledge as well as the therapy based on it.

Let’s start first with the therapy, classical homeopathy.  I don’t know if I would call it a specific approach to treating patients homeopathically, but maybe you can look at it that way. My treatments are mostly chronic diseases.

For chronic therapy, we usually need a medical life history. For example, if the patient is 45 years old, we have to go through 45 years with all the health ups and downs. This includes both current and previous illnesses and general health problems as well as psychological abnormalities and complaints. Furthermore, previous treatments as well as vaccinations or naturopathic therapies play a major role. Also, the frequent use of so-called food supplements and a lot more.

A pregnancy history from the birth mother may also be relevant and will be examined carefully if information can still be obtained.

In addition, I also get a picture of the patient’s blood relatives and take a so-called family history, in which only a rough search is made for chronic diseases in order to better assess the miasmatic potential. For example, were there migraines, allergies, gout, rheumatism, arthritis, trichomonads, fungal infections, discharge, miscarriages, childlessness, tuberculosis, pneumonia, epilepsy, anomalies, depression, etc. on the mother’s or father’s side?

For the preparation of such a large medical history, I work with a questionnaire specially designed for this purpose (see: , so that the patient can prepare himself at home and get an idea of what is important in chronic homeopathy. But the anamnesis interview remains of central importance; on the basis of the questionnaire alone one cannot determine a simile. Such a medical history usually takes about two hours for adults.

In this way we can arrange all past and present diseases in time and string them together, like the pearls of a pearl necklace, so that one can also uncover possible causalities.

I then assign the prominent symptoms and abnormalities to the respective miasms. Which miasms are present? Which ones have been added in the course of time? Which one is currently dominant and should be treated first? Here I rely on the experience of John Henry Allen with his brilliant book “The Chronic Miasms” from 1921.

Of course, I also treat acute illnesses, but these almost exclusively during a chronic cure, which can last about two to three years, in individual cases even longer.

For chronic cases I use mainly LM-potencies (Q-potencies), because they can be administered very individually. For diseases such as anxiety disorders, neurodermatitis or epilepsy, it is wonderful to start slowly and cautiously and dose the remedies individually.

In addition, there are also very sensitive contemporaries who do not tolerate high C-potencies at all. And last but not least, with LM-potencies we can interrupt the cure at any time for acute intermediate treatments (e.g., acute exacerbations of chronic conditions, acute infections, injuries, psychological traumas, etc.) and continue again later without having to ask ourselves whether the chronic remedy is still effective after the intermediate treatment or should be repeated.

During the chronic cure with a single homeopathic remedy, which is usually to be taken every few days for four months, I pay close attention to the rewinding process that usually occurs (according to Hering’s law), since this can be very important for the ongoing treatment, but also for any follow-up remedy.

Thus, I sometimes keep my patients on one and the same chronic remedy for more than a year, if this is still indicated, usually starting with LM18, then LM24, sometimes continuing with LM12, LM15, LM21 or higher, until finally a change of medication or a miasmatic change is forthcoming. Of course, acute treatments also occur during this time, whereby the patient is intermediately treated in lower LM-, C- or D-potencies, depending on the case.

Basically, for me, there are two types of treatment in homeopathy: acute treatment, usually with small non-miasmatic remedies, and chronic treatment with profound anti-miasmatic remedies, where the miasms are always of central importance. Here we deal with the patient’s tendency to suffer from certain diseases.

The second aspect of my method of treatment refers to the basic medical knowledge on which every therapy is based. Much stands and falls with this basic medical knowledge.

Nowadays, this basic medical knowledge is primarily based on the assumptions and hypotheses of conventional medicine. But these doctrines and scientific findings are anything but natural laws. According to statements by doctors, their half-life is currently only about five to seven years! – Homeopathy, on the other hand, has been around for over 200 years and its laws have not changed – and never will!

You know this from mathematics: If the approach is not right, we can calculate no matter how well, the result is and remains wrong.

This is exactly how it is in medicine. If we start from wrong assumptions and doctrines (mind you “opinions” – no natural laws at all), then our homeopathic treatment can be as good as it may be, the result will not be as we wish.

Assuming that we could draw on natural laws not only in therapy – our classical homeopathy – but also in basic medical knowledge, then we would have a completely different lever arm to successfully treat serious diseases.

Then we would be in a much better position to question conventional medical diagnoses, to recognize causal connections, to assess the conventional course of disease and, last but not least, to check our homeopathic course of therapy and – in the sense of biology – to make better decisions. We would then have natural laws across the board: not only in therapy.

This new medical basic knowledge – based on biological natural laws concerning diseases including a derived diagnostic system – already exists. It is based ontogenetically and essentially implies that all diseases proceed in two phases, which is controlled by our autonomic nervous system (sympathicotonia, vagotonia). And the microbes, which are still demonized nowadays, always appear in the second stage, the natural vagotonic healing phase of the disease, and fulfill a physiological task – as strange as it may sound now.

These so-called “pathogenic germs” don’t originate from the outside and attack an organism; they come from within, from one’s own body, specifically targeting certain types of organs and tissues. They develop from a common stem cell “at the push of a button” of our brain when they’re needed. They are “caused by their surroundings”, so to speak, and only appear when the permanent sympathicotonia has ended and, moreover, only in very specific, previously damaged areas of the organ.

I have linked this new basic knowledge, based on natural laws, with Classical Homeopathy and use it as the basis of my acute as well as chronic homeopathic therapy. I thus replace a large part of conventional medicine with its hypotheses, additional hypotheses and doctrines with genuine biological laws of nature. Thus, I have natural laws at the basis and in the therapy. In other words, laws all along the line.

The only exception to this substitution is emergency medicine with its surgery; we are glad that we have such advanced modern medicine.

All this together I call “Gentle Medicine” and describe it in my book of the same name with very many case studies of serious diseases of our time.

AS:  Various homeopaths have suggested that there are other miasms beyond what Hahnemann identified.  (Eg. AIDS, typhoid, ringworm, malaria, leprosy). Do you use Hahnemann’s original ones or the expanded list?

J.G.  For me, there are only Hahnemann’s four miasms and John Henry Allen’s addition of the tubercular miasm about 100 years ago. These are:

  • Psora
  • Sycosis
  • Syphilis (syphilinia, the syphilitic constitution)
  • Drug miasm
  • Tuberculinia (the tubercular diathesis, pseudo-psora = active psora with latent syphilinia)

Everything can be wonderfully classified and explained as well as excellently treated using these five “classic” miasms listed above.

Of course, many diseases of our time are mainly multi-miasmatic, i.e. when several miasms are present at the same time. But additionally defined types of miasms are really not needed to explain the chronic correlations. This is also true for cancer, AIDS, and vaccine loads. Furthermore, acute diseases as well as childhood diseases can also be wonderfully classified in this scheme.

Furthermore, I mainly follow the old homeopathic masters, who showed us with case studies. The many new movements in homeopathy don’t have much to do with Hahnemann’s miasmatics. My teacher Dr. Otto Eichelberger from Munich, who was one of the first to take the miasms into account in chronic therapy and who made the LM-potencies (Q-potencies) public in the German-speaking countries, always demanded:  “Publish chronic case studies, for only from real experiences and lived knowledge one can learn!”

You can’t learn anything from theorists! Neither from teachers and lecturers with small practical experience concerning chronic therapy! But only from good casuistry with follow-ups of experienced practitioners, who have meticulously tested the procedure and have successfully implemented it in their practice for decades and who have lasting successes to show. Only this can work!

Everything else is mere theory! Theoretical case studies can never be used as valid teaching examples, because they have never proved their truth, for they have never happened! They are not based on real experiences! They are purely hypothetical, mythical and made-up! Strictly speaking, they are “stories”, as they have never proven their authenticity in the sense of truly healing a patient!

And finally, I would like to point out that “miasm” does not equal “nosode”. Unfortunately, this is still too often confused. For example, to get an idea of what anti-sycotic remedies are available, see the Kent rubric “Generalities – Sycosis” with 52 entries, and what anti-syphilitic ones, see the rubric “Generalities – Syphilis” with 48 remedies.

AS: When you determine a patient’s current miasm, does that automatically limit your choice of remedies?

J.G:  Here I would first like to quote John Henry Allen, who has worked very intensively on psora as well as the venereal miasms and their heredity, and has also clearly recognized the interplay between miasms as well as the effect of their suppression: “The fact is, we cannot select the most similar remedy possible unless we understand the phenomena of the acting and basic miasms; for the true similia is always based upon the existing basic miasms, whether we be conscious or unconscious of the fact. The curative remedy is but the pathopoesis of a certain pathogenesis of an existing miasm.”

This means, in the case of chronic anti-miasmatic treatment, the indicative symptoms in the sense of §153 of Hahnemann’s “Organon of Medicine” are the miasmatic symptoms.

Anti-miasmatic prescription is done only for the currently active miasm and should be done on the basis of its corresponding symptoms. All other symptoms must be set aside temporarily and are only taken into account in a subsequent prescription when the remedy has brought the entire system into the appropriate state and another, previously latent miasm flares up and becomes active!

The simile can therefore only be determined on the basis of the currently active miasm with a very small selection of matching symptoms. It is never based on the totality of symptoms! Even acute symptoms have to be ignored most of the time.

In practice, for example, this can look as follows: in the case of neurodermatitis, ten good symptoms indicate Calcium carbonicum but only three ones Medorrhinum. Nonetheless these three symptoms must be treated first!

I am thinking of a child who suffered from extensive, weeping, itchy skin rashes from head to toe and who had previously been treated for the totality of the symptoms. In this child, everything pointed to Calcium. However, this remedy aggravated the case so much that the doctor did not know how to proceed. Only an anti-miasma approach, with a few most important and prominent symptoms related to the active miasm, brought relief and finally cured.

This law, first formulated by John Henry Allen, is clearly confirmed in retrospect by the founder of homeopathy! Due to the research work of Dr. Rima Handley (UK) concerning Hahnemann’s final Paris medical journals it is irrevocably certain that “towards the end of his life, he no longer prescribed based on the totality of the symptoms as he had been advocating for so long, but often on a miasmatic basis before switching to a more individual prescription”! – However, Hahnemann – probably due to his advanced age – no longer incorporated these findings into his works and thus made them available to the public. His Paris medical journals, however, provide honest evidence.

AS:  You’ve written that vaccinations can exacerbate existing miasms and even add completely new ones. Could you briefly discuss the dynamics of that?

J.G.  This is a very important issue, especially in our present obscure times. Thank you so much for this question, Alan. More than 100 years ago John Henry Allen already pointed out an increasing sycotization of humankind. This can be recognized already in tender infancy.

However, most pediatricians regard this as “normal”, because that’s all they get to see and because in conventional medicine these correlations are not known. Unfortunately, not yet with many homeopaths either, worldwide! “Vaccination causes all the race to be sycotic … and is especially dangerous to children, and most especially to the tuberculous child.”, so wrote John Henry Allen, already a century ago!

Due to additional sycosis, two very destructive miasms (tuberculinia [= active psora with latent syphilinia] and sycosis) are combined in the children’s organisms, which carries the risk of malignancy. And back then, vaccination was nowhere near as common as it is today!

Who is not familiar nowadays with the many infants with their so-called bloating colic, sore bottoms (diaper rash, diaper thrush, diaper mycosis), purulent eyes, runny nose, difficulties sleeping, foreskin or vaginal adhesions, and even phimosis or synechia?

These are, after all, the first indications of a very deep-seated chronic disorder, called sycosis, which over time eats its way further and further into the young organism. John Henry Allen described all this already at that time in the form of his “sycotic infant”!  Every homeopath should know John Henry Allen’s sycotic infant because this is very important for anti-miasmatic treatment, even in adults.

In Allen’s time, however, there was only smallpox vaccination, which is known to have a very strong sycotic effect. That is why Thuja was always the main remedy for vaccine consequence. Nowadays, this is still wrongly assumed worldwide. For example, I have seen parents give their son Thuja after each vaccination, but he later developed epilepsy anyway.

However, for several decades now, there have been a large number of different vaccines that can also enhance or cause other miasms. Just think of their many pathogenic ingredients such as the foreign proteins, formaldehyde (also known as formalin, which is used in medicine as a preservative for corpses), thimerosal (50% pure mercury [a strong neurotoxin!]), aluminum compounds, acetone (a solvent), phenol (corrosive and extremely toxic) and last but not least MRC-5 cells (Medical Research Council cell strain 5; fibroblastic cells from the lungs of a 14-week-old aborted male fetus!) as well as human WI-38 lung cells (Wistar Institute-38, Philadelphia), to name only the most important ones.

Most of these ingredients are the cause of permanent encephalopathy, which Harris L. Coulter has clearly shown us in his book “Vaccination, Social Violence, and Criminality: The Medical Assault on the American Brain”.

In this way, autoimmune diseases, neurological disorders and many other serious chronic diseases are pre-programmed. Especially with children in the developmental phase! Autoimmune diseases due to the foreign proteins contained in vaccine ampoules as contamination by the breeding media which enter directly into the bloodstream bypassing our immune system.

And neurological disorders, for example, due to thimerosal, which consists of 50% mercury and is deposited in the brain, as well as aluminum, which has been repeatedly found in biopsies of the brains of Alzheimer’s and autism patients.

Destructiveness by setting multiple miasms! And these miasmas are passed on hereditarily. Then vaccinations are added to the next generation. Thus, our children are loaded further miasmatically as well as earlier. Thus, the spiral towards destruction turns faster and faster from generation to generation.

Regarding postencephalitic syndrome and vaccine consequences, whether acute or chronic, see also my article in “Homeopathy 4 Everyone”

https://hpathy.com/homeopathy-papers/remedies-for-adverse-event-following-immunization-aefi/

Dr. Grätz’s last book is in English and published in the USA: Gentle Medicine – The True Causes of Disease, Healing, and Health, 2021, Balboa Press, Bloomington, USA.
https://www.dr-joachim-f-graetz.de/THE-book/

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A review of the book appears in Hpathy here:

https://hpathy.com/book-reviews/gentle-medicine-the-true-causes-of-disease-healing-and-health-by-joachim-f-gratz-reviewed-by-francis-treuherz/

About the author

Alan V. Schmukler

Alan V. Schmukler is a homeopath, Chief Editor of Homeopathy for Everyone and author of ”Homeopathy An A to Z Home Handbook”, (also in French, German, Greek, Polish and Portuguese). He is Hpathy’s resident cartoonist and also produces Hpathy’s Tips & Secrets column and homeopathy Crossword puzzles each month. Alan is a recipient of the National Center for Homeopathy Martha Oelman Community Service Award. Visit Alan at his website: Here.

3 Comments

  • Respected Dr.joachim…
    Sir we have our 1st and 4th baby with west Syndrome.
    1st baby girl died at the age of 6 years.
    Now a baby boy of 1.5 years with same condition.
    No recovery with neurophysitian’s treatment.
    We Want your treatment.
    Is it possible?

    • Hi Mamoona Liaqat,

      I am very sorry for the suffering you have experienced with your children. I hope things will be better with the second child. But one thing is for sure: she should NEVER have your child vaccinated again.

      I would be happy to take over the homeopathic care of your child, but you would have to come to my practice for the initial medical history, since remote treatments are not permitted in Germany. It will take about 2 to 3 hours.

      You are welcome to answer me. Please use the following form:
      https://www.dr-joachim-f-graetz.de/e-Mail_jfg_en/

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