TISSUE DEEP CLEANSING
Despite a clumsy name, homotoxicology is a wonderful natural healing science. It is a therapeutic branch which enables deep cleansing of the body tissues, removing old toxins, disease processes and degenerative debris, leaving the fluids clean, fresh and able to function as intended.
Based on homeopathy, but not quite the same thing, homotoxicology is the brain child of German doctor Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg (1905-1985). Knowing homeopathy and drawing on a vast knowledge of herbal lore and medicines, he compounded a store of remedies which trod a line between folk medicine and basic plant pharmacology. In the course of time it has proved itself so well that tens of thousands of German doctors use it in daily practice, although less well known in the rest of the world. It has been also called the German system of homeopathy, though this is slightly comical, since the original system of homeopathy was also invented by a German, Samuel Hahnemann.
THE MATRIX IN HEALTH AND DISEASE
Whereas so much molecular medicine is aimed at the cell, as if it were the sole seat of disease, Dr. Alfred Pischinger, then professor of Histology and Embryology in Vienna, saw with great insight that the extracellular fluids were the key to health. These fluids, which Pischinger called the “matrix”, or ground regulation system, because it supports everything else, brings nutrition, oxygen, hormone messengers and other vital substances to the tissues and removes excretion products, toxins and the residue of old diseases. Cells may be important but not a separate entity, because they cannot exist without being nurtured in this matrix. Reckeweg pursued Pischingerís matrix model and devized ways to use natural substances to support, clean and revitalize the extracellular matrix. Most of the classic homeopathic remedies are still there, though used slightly differently.
I have reproduced a diagram of the matrix here. It’s the best I could find. I hope it sheds some light.
It shows the matrix being fed by blood from the heart and drained away by venous blood and lymphatic drainage (doctors tend to forget this aspect of tissue hygiene). The connective tissue cells are floating in the extracellular fluid. The whole is supplied by the nervous system, which helps regulate it. But many chemical messengers also control this matrix: hormones, of course. Also cytokines (literally means cell motivators).
HOMEOPATHIC MIXTURES
The key variation is the use of mixtures, which classic homeopaths frown upon. But Reckeweg ignored the dogma and carried out decades of practical research, demonstrating conclusively that the formulations worked and worked well. He made compounds which would support the liver and kidneys, which would work for flu, diabetes, women’s problems, stimulate metabolism, tone up the immune system, retard tumours, repair inflammation, act as pain-killers and so on. In other words these are function-based medicines. The mixtures give rise to yet another name you may encounter “complex homeopathy”. Not all remedies are mixtures of substances however; some are single remedies in a mixtures of potencies (called a “chord”, after the musical term for several notes sounding at once).
There are key advantages to using potency chords:
- Deeper action
- Fewer initial aggravations than classical dosing
- Doses can be repeated
- Broader spectrum of effect
- No problems selecting the appropriate potency
- No problems in assessing the duration or spectrum of action
- Mixing high and low potencies produces an effect that lies somewhere in between: rapid onset (low potency) and long-lasting action (high potency)
- Faster action
- Potency stages retain their own effects
FORMULA
To give an instance of this mixture modality and explain it more clearly, let us consider in detail one of Reckewegís original compounds called Tonsilla compositum. It contains 30 remedies in all, some herbal, some mineral, potentized vitamin C and powerful healing substances called nosodes, which are based on original disease processes but diluted many many times (quite safe). In addition there is the “message” or “formula” for healthy key tissues, to help the body get its act together in harmony, as it should be (we call these remedies “sarcodes”, a term which should not be confused with the disease sarcoidosis).