Homeopathy Papers Materia Medica

Carcinosinum (15T)

Written by Tinus Smits

Aiming at a deeper understanding of the remedy the author describes the remedy Carcinosinum, pointing out the different qualities of different preparations, the history of its development and essential features. A synthesis of the remedy picture of Carcinosin is given and two cases are described.

Lack of confidence

Connecting the inner force

Cancer, a deeper understanding

INTRODUCTION

For many years already Carcinosinum has had a special place in my practice and I have been always seeking for the essence and deeper understanding of it. Slowly this remedy has revealed its secrets to me and I felt the need to publish my understanding and experience with this nosode, the more because Carcinosinum has become part of a total new way of treating patients, namely the treatment of universal layers.

PRODUCT

Until recently I thought that the Carcinosinum we use all over the world, was everywhere the same. The one I used all the time was from Dolisos in Holland, which is the same as that from Nelson in London and is made with at least 15 different tumors. Colleagues who attended my seminars in the past and tried to apply my way of treatment told me that they were not able to obtain the same cures with Carcinosinum as I did and that they didn’t see as often as I did the shift to the next layer (most of the time that of Saccharum officinale) after a prolonged treatment with this remedy. One colleague from the USA even wrote to me: ‘Maybe you have special ability to connect and transmit healing through your understanding, because our results with Carcinosinum are not as good as yours.’ Though his explanation was very flattering for my ego, I was seeking for another explanation that I found only two years later: the quality of their Carcinosinum was not the same as the one I used. The one-tumor-Carcinosinum, made with a mammary tumor of one woman is surely not universal enough to resolve the whole Carcinosinum layer and not capable of causing a shift to the next layer. In many cases the one-tumor Carcinosinum will give only partial results for a short time and that’s what happened to my colleagues in the USA when they tried out what I taught them.

The Nelson Carcinosinum (London) is made of the following different carcinomas: Carcinoma Adeno (stomach), Carcinoma Papillary (colon), Carcinoma Papillary (ovary), Carcinoma Papillary (uterus), Carcinoma (bowel), Carcinoma Co. (bowel), Carcinoma Co. (K) -(K is a composite of carcinomas supplied by Koch Light)- Carcinoma Scirrhus (mamma), Carcinoma Scirrhus (stomach), Carcinoma Squamous (pulm). (source: A. Nelson & Co Ltd., London).

A little investigation in different countries taught me that there are Carcinosinums made out of 58 different tumors (source Stauffen, Germany) and of only one tumor. This gives us the following listing:

This means that homeopaths all over the world use and discuss quite different remedies if they talk about Carcinosinum. It is clear that the one-tumor Carcinosinum is different from a 15 or 48 tumor Carcinosinum. I suggest that one-tumor-Carcinosinum should therefore be named after the tumor that is used, e.g. Carcinoma mamma, Carcinoma rectum. Only the remedy made with different tumors should be called Carcinosinum, followed by the number of tumors used, e.g. Carcinosinum (15T) 30K. The mixture of different tumors is important in my opinion because this makes it a universal remedy, applicable in a very wide range. That’s the reason that I made Lac Maternum out of 10 different samples of mother’s milk, the same procedure being followed for Vernix caseosa.

HISTORY

When we look at how Carcinosinum was born as a new therapeutic tool for the homeopath of this century, the first step, the basis of this remedy, was established by William Boericke, J.H.Clarke and J.H.Compton Burnett in the first part of this century and put under renewed attention by Dr. D.M. Foubister from England in the fifties. He mainly experienced the remedy in practice and never did full provings. The origin of the remedy he used is still not very sure until our days. I quote from the article published in October 1982 by Dr. Dorothy J. Cooper in the British homoeopathic Journal, Vol.71, no. 10. ‘ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF CARCINOSIN’. ‘Initially we must identify the substance under discussion. The preparation used by Dr. Foubister and Dr. Templeton in clinical practice and trials, was the original preparation of Carcinosin, the source of which is unknown. It was brought over from the United States and was probably prepared from an epithelioma of breast’…..

And then several other homeopaths published their experiences or did provings. Slowly the number of symptoms grew, but the deeper understanding of Carcinosinum remained unknown. In the ‘Journal of the American Institute of Homoeopathy’, volume 82, number 4, December 1989, Jonathan Shore says in his article: ‘Carcinosinum: an overview with case studies.’ “I cannot say that I have identified a single thread or idea around which the whole image crystallizes, a kernel which sets this remedy clearly apart from all the others such as the idea of being overwhelmed which one often sees in Calcarea, “The desires and aversions are often the first clue that sets the prescriber’s mind thinking of Carcinosinum; the diffusion of Phosphorus, or the cowardice of Lycopodium.” and further on:

But if we understand the essence, desires and aversions become much less important and in this remedy the desires and aversions are not stable indications for its choice. That’s why I retained only ‘desire chocolate’ as a valuable symptom in the synthesis of keynotes.

BACK TO THE ESSENTIALS

The problem with this remedy is that so many homeopaths added symptoms of which a certain number turned out – at least in my experience – not to be reliable or not relevant. For many years I verified all these symptoms with every prescription and it became clear to me what symptoms to focus on and what symptoms should be eradicated from the picture to have a more reliable and practical picture to prescribe on. It seems to be difficult, once a symptom is entered in the Materia Medica, to get rid of it, even when it turns out to be based on an error. So I started to take out symptoms from the picture that were of no value in enhancing the image of Carcinosinum and to add some others that seemed important to me from the essence. The fears of Carcinosinum are a good example. The most important fears of Carcinosinum are: FEAR of cancer; fear in a crowd; fear in narrow places; fear in high places; fear of spiders, mice, snakes; fear of failure in examinations; fear of failure; fear of thunderstorms. Therefore I removed fear of dogs, fear of the dark, fear of frogs. That doesn’t mean that a Carcinosin patient cannot have fear of the dark or fear of dogs, but once we understand the essence of the remedy and we see this essence in our patient, fear of the dark and fear of dogs are not reliable symptoms and do not add any reliability to our prescription. Therefore such symptoms should be taken out of our materia medica to make the real picture more evident. When the essence of a remedy is not clear then we are obliged to collect every symptom that comes out of a proving or out of one or more clinical cases and this makes the picture more confused. When we really understand the essence of a remedy it is possible to build up the whole picture in accordance with this essence. That is what I shall try to do.

THE ESSENCE: WEAK EGO AND ITS COMPENSATION MECHANISMS

To discover the essence of Carcinosinum we have to understand the basic problem of the cancer patient and what exactly is a tumor, because Carcinosinum is made from the materialization of the cancer problem. The cancer patient has permitted cells that are ‘not him’ to grow in his body without activating his defense mechanisms sufficiently to destroy them. The tumor is a foreign entity that does not respect him and finally destroys him, without even respecting structures such as blood vessels, muscles, lymph nodes. It grows by transgressing every structure, every border. We can easily understand what happens when we compare the patient to a country that has borders and an army to defend its integrity as a country. If an enemy soldier crosses the border and establishes himself inside the country and the army is not well-trained enough to capture the enemy, to imprison him or to kill him, the enemy will call his friends and other soldiers will pass the border and settle down. Their base will be stronger and stronger. Without any respect for the original people, they will destroy everything around them which is not to their own advantage and will take all the food that was intended for the indigenous people. They will send soldiers to other places in the country (metastasis) to take over all the power of the country. The only possibility the country has finally is to ask other countries to help it and to attack the enemy with heavy weapons (surgery, radiation and chemotherapy). But such a massive fight greatly weakens the country and the outcome is very uncertain.

On the cellular level the same process takes place. The membrane of the cell is unstable and weak and the cell is ingesting toxins, not able to defend its integrity. These ingested poisons damage his normal functioning, creating anarchy and estranging himself from his own essence. But the whole process had already started long before on the emotional and mental level. What happens the most on the emotional/mental level to a patient having taken Carcinosinum is that his self confidence grows and that he starts to listen more to his own needs and to defend himself better. He fortifies his borders and gets into a process of more awareness of what is ‘him’ and what is ‘not him’, no longer allowing the poisonous energy from outside to settle within his borders. He takes more care of himself, being attentive to his own needs and desires. A process of cleaning out at all levels takes place, poisonous relationships are broken off or corrected, a consciousness of being someone that deserves respect and love blooms gradually, and a marked influenza or inflammation with high fever for the first time in twenty years cleans the poison from his body. All this means that the reactivity is increasing.

MEDICAL INFLUENCES

Influences from outside that are experienced as attacking him or weakening him without giving him the possibilities to defend himself can stimulate the same process: first of all massive vaccination. I once asked a lady during regression therapy to go to her first vaccination and to tell me what this vaccination meant to her and without hesitation she said: ‘It took away an opportunity to defend myself.’ With massive vaccination in early childhood we give the message to the child and his immune system that his own defense mechanism is not reliable and that he has to be protected from outside. This not only weakens his immune system but also gives his personality the feeling that he is not strong and good enough and that he has to rely upon other people rather than upon his own force and vitality. (See my publication about ‘The Post-Vaccinal Syndrome’)

Also the suppression of fever, a defense mechanism par excellence, the use of antibiotics and corticosteroids can lower the defense mechanisms. If during every infection the parents suppress the reactivity of the child by giving aspirin and penicillin, how can he still believe that he is able to defend himself against his invaders (bacteria, viruses, etc.)? This practice engenders a lack of reactivity and the development of severe illnesses in childhood as pertussis, pneumonia, chronic inflammation (otitis, bronchitis, rhinitis, etc.).

The Carcinosin patient has a tendency to place strength outside himself and to feel weak and vulnerable inside. That’s also what happens when he finally gets a tumor and he has to be operated on, radiated and treated with chemotherapy. He is helpless, desperate and completely dependent on his doctor. I always insist with cancer patients that they have to decide for themselves and feel what is good for them and what they want and do not want. You have to give them back their strength and they have to take it back. Dr. Bernie Siegel, an American surgeon, insists in his excellent book Love, Harmony and Cure, that as a patient you have to be assertive, to ensure that when hospitalized you have a room with a view, to ask for your favorite music during the operation, etc. To stand up for yourself and to fulfill your own needs is of primary importance in cure.

Maria Late, who was one of my patients, can help us to understand how difficult it can be for these people to stand up for themselves. She was a young woman, a doctor, with operated breast cancer and metastasis. One day she had to undergo an examination of her bladder. The surgeon decided to do a suprapubic puncture, but she felt strongly that a catheter would be better for her. So she asked the doctor not to do the puncture, but he had to ask the surgeon responsible, who said ‘no’ and decided she should undergo the suprapubic puncture. She finally felt unable to contradict him. Then the contrast fluid was injected by error in her abdomen. She was very ill and recovered only slowly during two months of hospitalization, but died some months later.

The Carcinosin personality has a tendency to let others violate his own space. He doesn’t take sufficient space for himself, but his space is invaded by others and he is too weak to throw them out. The Carcinosin personality has to learn to take his destiny in his own hands.

RESTORATION OF HOPE

Part of the allopathic damage is unfortunately often the complete annihilation of any hope for cure for the patient. To be sent away without any hope for better, without any support, leaves the patient in despair. But the patient needs hope. In hospitals this hope is often killed completely, because of some curious thinking of the doctor and the use of inexorable statistics. Giving any hope for cure to the patient is often considered by allopathic doctors as giving ‘false hope’. But what is false hope? False hope is saying to your patient that you will surely cure him, that he will not die, etc. But no patient can be cured if he, himself, does not decide to survive and for that he needs hope. Hope that he will not necessarily die, that his doctor will sustain him in his effort to find a solution to his life threatening illness and that he is also capable of doing so. He has to be respected in his attempt, knowing that his doctor will give the best treatment that is available. Statistics should not be decisive about how many chances he has of cure, but the patient himself should be decisive. He has to reconnect with his inner force, even if during the operation, radiation and chemotherapy he felt completely delivered to the authority of his doctor. He has to be helped to again take up responsibility for his own life and he has to be guided to do more than only wait and hope that there will not be any relapse. I have a patient that reacted wonderfully on chemotherapy and had almost no side effects and after 7 cycles her doctor decided to give her two more cycles to see if even more progress was possible. But she didn’t have a good feeling to do so and decided herself not to take more cycles and to wait to see if the tumor would shrink without further chemotherapy.

Dr. Bernie Siegel gives us a clear vision on false hope. “The concept of false hope is one of the most ridiculous things I know of. Why should we try to authorize hope according to the statistics? Hope is a variable that can change the statistics. If only 99% die of a condition, then let’s stress the fact that that person has a chance of not dying. If you tell a group of those people that they are the 10% who will survive, you may find that 30% or 40% or 50% get better.”

To take one’s own destiny in one’s hands and to discuss the treatment as someone who is completely responsible for his own health and life is very important and enhances the possibilities of cure. The patient has to be strong to face remarks from her doctors and other people who don’t believe in any possibility of cure.

RESTORATION OF REACTIVITY, from the tumoral stage back to the infectious stage

Reactivity can be defined as the capability of a person to maintain his mental, emotional and physical integrity by an efficient system of protection against perturbing influences from outside. On the mental level the person has to be equipped with reinforcing ideas about himself, his life, and about the surrounding world, i.e. that his life is meaningful, that he came on earth with a purpose, that what he is doing is good for himself, for others and for the world – namely a positive outlook. On the emotional level he needs joy, feeling of love toward himself and other people, to nature, to the earth and the universe. He needs the capability to express his emotions, even those that are commonly labeled as negative: anger, grief, irritability, for example. On the physical level he needs a good immune system, capable of cleansing his body of indisposing bacteria, viruses, toxins, etc. Surely the best reaction of our organism to activate our immune system when our equilibrium is in danger is fever. Therefore it is hard to accept that anyone who really understands this mechanism still considers that fever is an enemy to be suppressed. For most people and doctors this is even common practice nowadays. Children often have sudden high fever for only one or two days, and this is in fact a sign of good reactivity. But when again and again such reactions are suppressed by antipyretics and antibiotics or in more serious illnesses with corticosteroids then slowly but surely the reactivity is broken down and there is a slide from infectious disease to tumoral disease. The infectious stage is a more reactive state (with fever) than the tumoral stage (without fever). In the tumoral stage the organism is weaker than the tumor, whereas in the infectious state our energy is mostly strong enough to overcome an infection or can be fairly easily activated by a well-chosen homeopathic remedy.

In the infectious stage the energy of the person organizes everything to overcome the disease: high fever which enhances the metabolism of the body enormously, an increase of white blood cells, acceleration of blood circulation, vascular dilatation in the affected area or all over the body, loss of appetite to give our digestive system the possibility to concentrate on the elimination of toxins, diarrhea, sweating, a running nose and eruptions, are all elimination mechanisms. These kinds of elimination processes occur frequently after the administration of a homeopathic remedy. But also an infection can be a sign of a curing process. I remember this man, 45 years old, who got a double otitis with running ears after a dose of Saccharum officinale 200K. He had never had otitis since the age of 5 and had no ear problems. But shortly after this inflammation and elimination process his joint pains disappeared completely and his general condition was much better.

It is not by coincidence that children go through a certain number of eruptive diseases, as Rubella, German measles, Scarlatina, fifth or sixth disease, etc. and that they have easily a running nose or infections with high fever. Everybody who is aware of these facts knows that vaccinations, antipyretics, antibiotics and other suppressive drugs that are so largely used in routine modern medicine practice have also their reverse. It pushes the human being already at a very premature age in the direction of the tumoral stage. This fact was already described by Hahnemann 200 years ago. Therefore it is not surprising that we have to face cancer as one of the most wide spread diseases on this earth and that the number of cancer patients increases still every year.

The tumoral stage is a low reactivity stage. There is not an acute phase, no fever, no eruption, no accelerated or enhanced evacuation of toxins. There is no acute outbreak followed by a restoration of balance as in the infectious stage. There is a chronic unbalance sometimes even without any visible or noticeable physical expression. Cancer can grow without any perceptible sign that something is wrong. Sure, for the holistic doctor there are already a lot of symptoms not only on the mental and emotional plane but also on the physical plane, which he can interpret as a precancerous stage. He is able to help his patient to return from this insidious tumoral stage to the infectious stage and can prevent that his patient slips down to chronic internal diseases as heart diseases, cancer, etc. In But such preventive treatments are still more the exception than daily practice. The majority of patients are suddenly confronted with cancer and often wonder that this happened to them, because they were almost never ill, had no influenza, no fever, no major health problems for decades and believed themselves to be in excellent health. It is as if cancer manifested suddenly in the body, but we know that tumors grow slowly for years, even decades before they attain sufficient volume and invasive power to become a major health problem.

In aging there is a spontaneous shift from infectious to tumoral diseases enhanced by vaccination and other suppressive treatments. So reactivity is an important quality not only of our physical but also of our mental and emotional body. If a person has a tendency to let himself be suppressed by others, then the immune system does the same thing on the physical level. In the USA they found out that the immune system of optimistic people was about 60% stronger than that of pessimists. Therefore it is of great importance that cancer patients believe in their cure, that they feel stronger than their tumor(s) and that they ‘go for it’. It is a bad sign that cancer patients are so often robbed of any hope of cure. One of my cancer patients had this experience several times. I saw her for the first time five years ago, completely desperate after two breast amputations in one year followed by metastasis in the spine, lungs and liver. The first physical signs of cure were the calcification of the metastases in the spine about six months after the beginning of the ‘alternative’ treatment. Seeing this she expressed her joy and the radiologist said: ‘Oh Madam, you surely don’t believe that you can still be cured?’ Now all her tumors are almost completely gone and she is in an excellent state, convinced that it is only a matter of time before she is cured completely. But her surgeon said at her last visit, perturbed by her enthusiasm and that of her husband: ‘Madam, are you well aware that you have an incurable disease?‘ These kind of experiences taught me to make an appointment as soon as possible after hospital check-ups, because a depressive state weakens the immune system and has to be repaired as soon as possible.

THE FATHER PRINCIPLE

The father takes an important place in this remedy, or rather the father principle. The father is the symbol of self confidence, of strength, of social position and realization of the possibilities of the child. The basis for the Carcinosin problems lies therefore in childhood. The father has to confirm the child’s capabilities and encourage him when things seem to go in the wrong direction. If he is criticizes the child and never gives any praise when he has done well, or when he is simply not there to stimulate and approve of him, or if he is too demanding, the child will feel incapable of fulfilling his father’s expectations and feels too weak to do anything. By being given too much responsibility, or being punished too severely when he has done something wrong, or by being given the impression that whatever he does is never good enough, his self confidence is slowly but surely undermined. Then he will try hard to please his father, mother, teacher, etc. by being very industrious, being fastidious in his work, being the best in his schoolwork and being a nice, good boy or girl to have the approval or praise of his father. He will be afraid to make mistakes and will be anxious before examinations. He will avoid every criticism by being on time, doing what others ask him to do and accepting whatever people inflict on him to avoid quarrels and to please the other person. So he hasn’t learned to defend himself and to watch over his boundaries. Already as a child he is teased by his school mates, who feel his weak defenses. All this doesn’t mean that the father is the only person that is responsible for the weak defense mechanisms and the fear of failure of the child. Every authority can contribute to this situation; the mother, a priest, a nun, an older sibling or a teacher saying, for example, in the class that he is stupid and that he will never learn anything. The fundamental lack of self confidence is a universal problem and everybody in some way has to work this out. Many people have completely compensated for it by working hard and performing on a high level, thus earning the praise and esteem of everybody. Often the baby is already born with this fundamental lack of self confidence and in his early life this problem is only activated, so that the father is not always to blame for it.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE CARCINOSINUM PICTURE FROM THE ESSENCE

The Carcinosin patient has a very low self esteem and fundamental lack of self confidence combined with weak defenses. Therefore he is very sensitive to everything that can undermine his self confidence (see causations) and is not able to stand up for himself. One way to survive is adaptation and avoidance of criticism as much as possible. He is very fastidious in his work, but not especially when he hasn’t to perform, e.g., at home he can be rather untidy. He adapts to the demands of others trying to regain their approval.

There is also a tendency to escape this demanding, critical and unfriendly world by entering a world of fantasy, dreams and harmony by reading for hours, being in nature, playing with animals, being transported by music and dancing, thus giving expression to the emotions that have been suppressed as part of his survival strategy. Often he weeps with the music. Also traveling is a way of escaping the harsh world he lives in. The outer world is threatening and he has a strong need to escape this threatening world. So horrible things affect him profoundly, because he has weak boundaries. In situations that he cannot flee from he becomes anxious as in narrow and high places and in a crowd. But reading, music and dancing can also harmonize his energy and help him to get rid of perturbing energies.

Because of his weak self confidence and his fear of failure this person can also try to nourish his confidence by seeking approbation by being brilliant. He feels ill-at-ease with people that are as good as him. This can make him arrogant with a tendency to talk just a little bit too much about his achievements. He is critical about the achievements of others and is very sensitive to criticism. He needs to be admired. This can push hem to very great heights, working continuously to stay on top and having no other interests in life. We feel the big ego problem that he is manifesting, but what manifest itself as a big ego outside, is in fact a weak ego inside. In a more passive person feeling less talented the projection on to a master can be very helpful. He knows that he is less brilliant, but he likes being in the shadow of the master trying to do as he does and approach his excellence, even while knowing that he will never attain that.

It is true that all this compensation can in some way calm the weak ego, but it’s like taking sweets when you need love and affection: you never feel completely satisfied. Here Carcinosinum can be very helpful, because it can resolve the ego problem from inside. After treatment for one or two years with this remedy people are really more confident in themselves and their ego is satisfied and can sleep peacefully like a cat on the sofa.

There is still another way to escape from this weak feeling, namely by refusing to do whatever is required and say ‘No, I cannot do this’ without even trying. These kind of children are very uncertain, shy and every negative experience confirms their incapacity. They are very easily offended, sensitive to reprimands, very obstinate, incapable of admitting their errors, sometimes refusing to obey their parents. They are very afraid to have to perform and avoid every disappointment. This makes them very unhappy and easily angered and aggressive at home, but weak and yielding at school, so they are teased a lot.

Another way to resolve his problem of feeling weak and worthless is to prove that he is capable by controlling everything. So he becomes very persevering, extremely well organized, plans everything, leaves nothing to chance. This attitude is known as the Cuprum metallicum picture that exists in so many Carcinosin patients. Cancer patients very frequently have high copper concentrations in their blood and the copper concentration of tumors is higher than that of normal tissues. I have already said in my publication about the mental picture of Cuprum metallicum (Homoeopathic Links 2/92) that Cuprum is the closest remedy to Carcinosinum. We often see in the same patient both the Carcinosinum and the Cuprum picture. That’s why I now use frequently a combination of both, called Carcinosinum cum Cuprum from Dolisos in Holland, that was potentized from C5 to 30K and upwards. This gives really marvelous results. I will publish this later, but will stay now with the Carcinosinum picture.

WHAT CARCINOSIN PATIENTS TELL US BEFORE THE TREATMENT

If we have understood well what Carcinosinum is all about, it is interesting to see how patients express this. I noted carefully what they told me and give here some examples.

* I am not allowed to fail, to make mistakes; everything has to be beyond reproach

* I didn’t get praise, rather my father used to tell me I was not capable of doing this or that; I let myself be suppressed easily; there is still a lot of suppressed anger in me

* I feel less worthy than other people, I am the black sheep; my father criticized my appearance

* I cannot say no, I accept everything otherwise I feel guilty; I always avoid conflicts

* I easily agree with everything and everybody, I cannot stand up for myself

* I cannot remember that I ever had fever

WHAT CARCINOSIN PATIENTS TELL US AFTER THE TREATMENT

* I feel that I am someone; I don’t feel less valued than other people any more; I am more confident

* I can take time for myself without feeling guilty; I can help others’ problems without taking them on my shoulders; I feel more clearly what is mine and what is theirs

* I can more easily say no and defend my own space; I don’t feel guilty any more when I take time and care for myself

* I allow myself to be angry when anybody shows me a lack of respect

* I express now what I think and what I feel; I do my best and then it is okay, it doesn’t have to be perfect

* I now do what I want to do myself

* I keep at a distance from my father, I also have my own life

* I set boundaries for my children and satisfy my own needs

PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS

Physical complaints are most of the time not our best guides to finding the correct remedy, but can sometimes, especially in acute illnesses, be of great value and confirm the remedy or help us to think about a special remedy. In my opinion every physical problem can be helped by Carcinosinum if the mental and emotional symptoms indicate it. Nevertheless some physical signs are often seen in this remedy: the blue sclera, the moles, caf-au-lait spots, the blinking of the eyes, the nails too short from biting, the warts on palms and soles, molluscum contagiosum, acne, cysts, fibromas, all kind of tumors, sinusitis, coryza, swollen and painful breasts before the menses, painful menses. Certainly it is possible to add other symptoms. I selected only the symptoms that seem to me of some importance.

Synthesis

AG = Alphons Geukens, Belgium; DF = D.M. Foubister, England; DC = Dorothy Cooper, England; HH = Hui Bon Hoa, France; PL = Pladijs, Belgium; PO = Proceso Sanchez Ortega, Mexico; TS = Tinus Smits, Holland; WT = Templeton, England

1. ESSENCE: WANT OF SELF CONFIDENCE WITH WEAK DEFENSES

CAUSATIONS: rudeness (PO,TS), sensitive to rudeness (3); domination for a long time (?,TS); excessive parental control (DF), harsh upbringing (TS); absence of the father (TS); too much responsibility too early (DF,TS); a too great effort to please his parents, especially the father; lack of approbation or constant disapproval (TS), undermining of self-confidence (TS), too high expectations from the parents (TS); lack of opportunities to realize his abilities, to make a career; being obliged to do things against his will; long lasting grief (TS), prolonged fear (DF,TS), long lasting unhappiness (DF,TS); mental, emotional and physical suppression (TS); anticipation (DF,TS); vaccination (PO,TS)

2. ASPECT: blue sclera (DF,TS); frequent blinking of eye lids (WT,TS); numerous moles, especially on the back (DF,TS); cafe-au-lait spots (DF,TS); warts on soles (AG,TS) or on palms (TS); patient whose life has been a long hard struggle (DF,TS)

3. FAMILY HISTORY of cancer (DF)

4. WEAK DEFENSE MECHANISMS on the mental, emotional and physical plane (TS)

5. LACK OF REACTIVITY; no fever for a very long time (DC,TS)

6. The usual childhood illnesses appear later in life and are often very severe; common childhood illnesses often absent or occur more than once (DF); tendency to have an inflammatory illness very early in life (whooping cough or pneumonia) (DF); from repeated suppressions of inflammatory diseases in childhood (?,TS)

7. LACK OF CONFIDENCE (?,TS); fear of failure (TS); anxiety about making mistakes (TS); sensitivity to reprimand (DF) TIMIDITY (WT)

8. EASILY OFFENDED, takes everything in bad part (4)

9. FASTIDIOUS (3) in his work (TS); UNTIDY except for what he is working on (TS); desire to ARRIVE ON TIME for an appointment (TS); fears to make mistakes (TS); tendency to adapt overly to the requirements of other people to deserve their approval, fears to be criticized (TS)

10. Excessive sense of DUTY (WT,TS), feeling responsible for everything (TS)

11. WORKAHOLIC; feeling of guilt when taking rest without having finished all the work; even when sitting he has the feeling that he must do something: reading, knitting, crocheting, etc. (TS)

12. INABILITY TO REFUSE ANYTHING; WANTS ALWAYS TO PLEASE EVERYBODY; feeling of guilt when refusing anything; occupied with the needs of others, but completely unaware of his own; permits others to overstep his own boundaries (TS)

13. ANTICIPATION, anxiety anticipating an engagement (WT,TS); anxiety when people are late (DF); anxiety about others (1)

14. SYMPATHETIC (2); anxiety about others (1)

15. FEAR of CANCER (?,TS); in a crowd (HH,TS); in narrow places (PL,TS); in high places (?,TS); spiders (TS), mice (TS), snakes (TS); failure in examinations (1,TS); failure (TS); thunderstorms (?,TS)

16. HORRIBLE THINGS affect him profoundly (HH,TS); cannot watch murder, suffering, cruelties, surgery, etc. on TV (TS)

17. Sensitive to MUSIC (DF,TS); weeps from music (DF,TS)

18. Loves DANCING (3); marked sense of rhythm (DF,TS)

19. Desire to READ (PL,TS) or DYSLEXIA (AG,TS) or impossibility to read because of a difficult concentration (TS) or mental exhaustion; difficult concentration during conversation (TS)

20. Desire to TRAVEL (2); NAUSEA RIDING in an automobile (1,TS)

21. LOVES NATURE, SEA (?,TS); loves ANIMALS (DF,TS); LOVES THUNDERSTORMS (DF,TS); loves storms (TS)

22. SLEEPLESS (2); difficult to fall asleep, overactive ideas (DF,TS), needs several hours to fall asleep (TS); wakens at 4 a.m. (DF,TS); short sleep amel.; sleepless during a large part of the night (WT,TS); unrefreshing sleep (WT,TS); waking at 4 a.m. (DF,TS); sleepless after 4 a.m. (DF,TS)

23. EXHAUSTION (DC,TS), when overtaxed and overworked, too much pressure

24. DULLNESS (1); confusion of mind (1); difficult concentration while studying, reading, etc. (TS); weakness of memory (1)

25. Obstinate (DF,TS)

26. Bites nails (DF,TS)

27. MAIN PHYSICAL COMPLAINTS: hayfever (?,TS); chronic, long continued coryza; chronic tonsillitis and sinusitis (DF,TS); infectious MONONUCLEOSIS (DF); acne (1,TS); fibromas (1,TS), ovarian cysts (TS); sterility (TS); warts on soles and palms of hands (AG,TS); acne, pustules on the back (TS); severe acne (TS); molluscum contagiosum (TS)

28. AGG.: BEFORE MENSES: aggressiveness, sadness, irritability, industrious, swelling of mammae, painful mammae (TS)

29. AMEL.: short sleep (1,TS); occupation (TS)

30. DESIRES: chocolate (2)

 

CHILDREN

1. ESSENCE: WANT OF SELF CONFIDENCE WITH WEAK DEFENSES; fear of failure

2. Aspect: tics, grimaces (1,TS); frequent blinking of eyelids (WT,TS); biting nails (DF,TS); timidity (WT)

3. CAUSATIONS: vaccination (PO,TS), too much responsibility (DF,TS), harsh upbringing (TS), excessive parental control (DF)

4. LACK OF REACTIVITY (DC); no fever (TS); the usual childhood illnesses appear later in life, often very severe; common childhood illnesses often absent or suppressed (DF,TS)

5. Tendency to severe INFLAMMATORY illness, usually whooping cough or pneumonia in early life (DF,TS)

6. Tendency to be a model child, adapting overly to the requirements of the parents to deserve their approval and love (TS)

7. PRECOCITY from too much responsibility (DF,TS)

8. SCAPEGOAT (?,TS); he is teased a lot by other children because they feel his weak defense (TS)

9. Sensitive to REPRIMANDS (DF,TS)

10. Desire to read (PL,TS)

11. Loves ANIMALS (DF,TS); loves nature (?,TS)

12. OBSTINATE (DF), disobedient children (WT), resisting the parental control (WT); intolerant of CONTRADICTION (?,TS)

13. SLEEPLESS children (DF)

14. Fear of spiders (TS), thunderstorms (DF)

15. ANGER with tendency to DESTROY things (?,TS)

16. Frequent coryza (WT)

17. Infectious MONONUCLEOSIS (DF)

18. Bites nails (DF,TS)

CASES

CASE 1: To give a clear example of this state that can easily lead to cancer this 62 year old man is a perfect case. He came to see me in rather a bad state: he was emaciated and there was a look of death in his eyes. Investigation in hospital revealed cancer in the colon with metastasis (ingrowing hydronephroses) in the right ureter. He is operated on for removal of the right colon, sigmoid, jejunum, the right kidney and gallbladder. His life expectation is only some months and the surgeon didn’t take pains to close the wound properly. But the patient refuses palliative chemotherapy and immediately starts the homeopathic and orthomolecular treatment. The most important thing now is to understand why he got cancer. He is the eldest of three children, a dreamer with an enormous tendency to fantasy and with a certain paranormal gift. He is left handed and already at the nursery school and at primary school he is forced to write with his right hand, the teacher caning him on his fingers and on his buttocks; he still has the mark on his buttocks, he says. He doesn’t feel accepted in his family, because he is so different. When he was six the second world war broke out and he remembers clearly how a German solder broke his toy saxophone when he was serenading to a column of German soldiers marching into his town. At ten he is sent to a boarding-school, where he is happy because he is accepted as a person and can exercise his painting abilities. His father is a world-famous artist and he knows him as a good and incorruptible man, open to everything that is good and worthwhile. But later he will have problems with his father, when he starts his own career as a painter, in finding his own identity and not as the son of the famous …. He grows up in a very severe dogmatic family, strongly under the influence of his grandparents, his father mostly being busy or absent and his mother running a shop. He receives a lot of disapproval in his early childhood and his self-confidence is below zero. Later he works as a teacher in painting and drawing in a secondary school and marries at thirty. His hobbies are drawing, music, theater, reading and nature. He has a phobia of water, some fear of high places, can enjoy lightning and storms tremendously. He is always on time and inwardly angry when other people are late. His work has to be perfect (100%), but otherwise he is rather untidy. His marriage is catastrophic. ‘I gave up everything for her. All my activities, all my personal ambitions and pleasures such as the theater, music, painting. I painted at school, telling my wife I had to stay longer because of a teachers’ meeting. I felt deeply unhappy, I sacrificed myself because I had committed myself with her and I wanted to stick to my word. I loved her and accepted everything also because of the children. I am not able to fight and only feel an enormous anger inside. She always wanted to change me, and even my own children don’t accept me as I am. When she left me after 22 years I felt broken, as I could never have done that, but later I felt a sense of liberation and was happy with it.’ This strong feeling of adapting to what he once promised and to never give up brings us to another aspect of his character. He is very organized, plans everything, wants to finish things the same day, he follows rules conscientiously (when meaningful). He is angry when other people disobey traffic rules. He can be very angry in his heart about injustice. He says: ‘The greatest injustice is that I am never accepted.’ He is very persevering: when he wants to achieve something, he is sure to attain it. All this indicates clearly his Cuprum side and therefore the homeopathic remedy he needs will be Carcinosinum cum Cuprum. Besides there is a lot of cancer in his family. His father died at age 49 from cancer, all his uncles and aunts from both sides got cancer and he also has a lot of cousins and nieces with cancer. His mother died at age 87 from ‘old age’. But a homoeopathic remedy alone will probably not be sufficient to cure this patient. The patient has to be convinced that it is worthwhile to go for it, if it is for prolongation of life, for a better condition of life or for cure. Any possibility is valuable and worthwhile to go for. This is not false hope as so often said. This is giving yourself as much of a chance as you can get. Cure is only possible if you believe in it, if you feel stronger than your cancer. Therefore the support by the doctor is important. Other measures are also important to sustain the body in its effort to throw the cancer out. The treatment of free radicals with vitamin C, E, Selenium and bioflavonoids, the restoration of the copper and zinc equilibrium, the harmonization of the home, organic food with a good quantity of vegetables and fruit and little or no meat, sufficient rest, natural clothes and connection with the earth by wearing shoes with leather soles to minimize static electricity. Also good bowel movement is important. Shark cartilage can be important to check vascularization of the tumor. I give this in 4CH now because good shark cartilage is very expensive and because I believe that in potentised form it can transmit also the quality of the shark, namely be more aggressive and defend yourself better. The killing of millions of sharks every year for this purpose is also an important aspect for me that urged me to look for another solution. But I have been doing this only for quite a short time and cannot say much about the results. The first two persons who were controlled with life blood tests after taking this remedy for one month have very active white blood cells. So the first results are very encouraging.

This patient, five months after his operation, is doing quite well. He feels in good condition, his appetite is good again and his weight is increasing by one kilogram every week, he has no pain and feels happy. He has started painting again. Concerning the homoeopathic treatment I started with CCC LM6 every day, but now he feels better I changed it to CCC 30K twice a week.

CASE 2: this 53 year old lady came to me with osteoporosis as her main complaint. She says about herself that she is not persevering and that she never was able to stand up for herself. She was born during W W II, the third of five children. Her father and mother had a confectioner’s shop and she was brought up by nurses. She had to work all the time even as a child and she wanted to play and run away. There was no place for feelings and she needed attention, which she found with a girl friend of her mother’s who unfortunately died when the patient was just 20. Then she sought consolation with a married man for four years and there she was caressed for the first time in her life. But it was a difficult relationship and finally she got overwrought. Then she was treated by a psychiatrist . Even now my self-confidence is zero she says. In my mother’s eyes everybody was good, all other children were clever, but we were stupid. My sister tried hard to be the best, but I didn’t do anything, and that gave me a lot of trouble with my mother. She was very dictatorial and I fought with her until her death. I still feel angry with her. My father was a nice man, but he never intervened; I never knew him well. I have felt nervous all my life. I have no attachments. My body is as if I have a phobia for it. I have a lot of fears: of high places, of narrow places, of crowds, of cancer, a tremendous fear of spiders and thunderstorms. (I feel nervous before them.) My body is full of static electricity and I walk almost always bare feet. I love to read and do puzzles. My mother had rheumatism, my father died from a stroke. My mother’s father, her brother and my grandfather’s sister on her side died of cancer. I only eat in the evening and dislike bread and farinaceous food (this is the expression of her Saccharum layer). I wake up frequently at 2.30 a.m. and am sleepless after that. I prescribed her Carcinosinum 30K, once a week.

Then gradually she feels better. In the beginning she has cystitis, but she is less tense, feels more confident, and drove for the first time in four years on the highway. Five months later she says: I have become someone else. I feel the need for spiritual books and I feel connected with the cosmos, which gives me a feeling of happiness. I had completely lost my believe in God before, but now I feel his existence again. My mother was a fanatic catholic and sent me to church every day. After a dose of Carcinosinum I feel relaxed and content and don’t have any urge to perform. At the end of the two weeks (she takes now 200K) I feel much more the need to work and to be active. Now again after two months I feel that I have to do something for all these new things, all this love, so I decided to stop smoking, which I never was able to do during my whole life. I made a promise to myself. I sucked my thumb until I started to smoke at age seventeen. But life now seems empty to me, I am missing something.

Here we see the shift to the Saccharum layer: she needed so much attention in her childhood and she compensated it with sucking and later on with smoking cigarettes. This was her only satisfaction and consolation. But at this point I did not change her remedy because she still feels the benefit of it and that will help the saccharum picture to come up still more clearly.

In this case the mother played the role of the disapproving father and the father himself added to it by his absence and non involvement.

 

Reprinted with friendly permission of Yannick Smits.

Parts of the article were already published in Homeopathic Links 1/98 and are republished with friendly permission of Harry van der Zee.

About the author

Tinus Smits

Dr. Tinus Smits, M.D., homeopathic physician, practiced as a lay homeopath before doing his medical training. He studied with Jacques Imberechts, Alex Jacques, George Vithoulkas and Alphons Geukens. He finished his medical studies in 1986 and taught for more than 20 years all over the world. He always believed that the therapeutic possibilities of homeopathy could be improved by careful observation and recording the results of homeopathic treatments. He developed Inspring Homeopathy which treats universal layers to heal the deepest disorders of suffering mankind.
Vaccinations and their impact on children and adults always had his special attention and he published several books and articles on this subject. The last three years he developed an effective treatment to heal autistic children, the CEASE therapy. From 1995 Tinus participated in a homeopathic development program in Nepal and went there for a month every year. He was president of the Bhaktapur International Homeopathic Clinic. In 2009 a Homeopathic Health Assistant Course (HHA) was started and will educate 20 HHA's a year in a four year course. Tinus Smits passed away on the early morning of April 1, 2010.

5 Comments

  • Tinus,
    Thanks for this informative article. One is sometimes not so critical of the exact sources and to which pharmacopoeia the remedies are made.

  • Excellent paper! Congratulations! I’ve eventually understood how Carcinosinum works at an essential level. I also believe that too many symptoms in the repertory does not belong to the essence of the remedy and create confusion about the picture. Maybe each symptom belonging to the essence of the one should be marked in the repertory by a specific sign.

  • sir,your work is expendeble. No one give the full information about carcinocinum. Sir can you tell me that if picture are not match with patient symptom, can we treat cancer by carcinocinum.

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