01 Anthroposophic medicine (AM), therapies and health

Among the approximately 400 species considered to be venomous, only a few have so far qualified for the inclusion in our materia medica: chiefly Lachesis muta, Crotalus horridus and Naja tripudians (Naja naja). Other species of Crotalus (the Central American Cr. durissus terrificus and the South American Cr. terrificus terrificus under the name of Cr. cascavella), Bothrops lanceolatus (B. atrox), three species of the genus Vipera W. berus, V. redii and V. Russellii), Agkistrodon mokeson under the name of Cenchris contortrix, and lastly Elaps corallinus are still of minor importance. These few represent the most poisonous families fairly well. …

From the foregoing survey it will be obvious to what different degrees the drug pictures of the snake venoms have been elaborated up to the present juncture. Any survey of this kind is bound to be pro tempore and to expose the gaps of our knowledge and experience. On the other hand, this chapter of our materia medics stands to gain in perspicuity, when seen in the broader context with the venoms of other classes of animals, such as spiders, scorpions and insects.

Reprinted with permission from The British Homeopathic Journal, 74, 153, 1958.

This lecture provides historical background and insight into the nature of cancer. It was given in German in the Summer of 1980 at The Fellowship Community in Chestnut Ridge, NY. Translated by Christine Murphy. Dr. Lorenz was head of the Medical Section of the School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland.

Open access: Anthromed Library gratefully acknowledges permission to share this publication by Mercury Press and SteinerBooks, 2023.

Authorized translation of Seelenpflege-bediirftige Kinder Band I, published by the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland, 1976. Originally translated by Madge Childs and edited by Henry Williams, M.D. and Gerald F. Karnow, M.D.

INTRODUCTION: The following presentations are based mainly on a school doctor’s experiences at the Waldorf School in Ulm, Germany, and at the Rudolf Steiner School in Basel, Switzerland. The observations and insights come from the medical care of handicapped children, first at the Waldorf School in Ulm and later in institutions for retarded children, “children needing soul care,” in West Switzerland. These two areas of work complement each other. What was seen and experienced in the institutions in bold, graphic images sharpened the eyes for barely perceptible deviations of the same kind in school chil-dren. What was used in the schools as a remedy for a certain type of child had to be adapted for its extreme manifestations in the institutions.

The reports on individual children included here were written as they arose in the practical work. For reasons of discretion, personal details have occasionally been modified, but never to the extent that the understanding of the problem involved was affected.

Along with the descriptions of the psychological conditions, the corporeal appearances have also been included, since, in these, the spiritual form materializing within the physical is seen most clearly.

The reports contain the contributions and observations of the teachers and educators as they were given in discussions and conferences. Medical-pedagogical thoughts provide a fruitful exchange: from the pedagogical report to the doctor an image can be formed that can be the inspiration for a therapeutic idea, while for the teacher, insight into the medical connections can offer new pedagogical possibilities. Just to-day the medical complement is needed most urgently by the teacher, since increasing numbers of children are coming to school with the most varied health disorders, posing new pedagogical problems and difficulties. Until now, these prob-lems were held to be a matter for curative education, and naturally and rightly so. The connecting link between the thoughts of the educator and those of the doctor is Rudolf Steiner’s knowledge of man.

This book intends to present viewpoints without striving to be a finished work. In the series of the types of children described, an inner connection is visible in some. Others seem to stand alone. However, the guiding idea behind the whole presentation will be seen in the final chapter, “The Human Organization in the Directions of Space,” becoming visible as the result of the preceding chapters.

It was hoped that this kind of presentation might be a stimulant toward the understanding of the nature of the child and a step toward solving the mystery that approaches us in each individual child. For this, it must reckon on the inner activity of the reader. It gives no prescription in the real sense of the word.

Open access: Anthromed Library gratefully acknowledges permission to share this booklet by Mercury Press and SteinerBooks, 2023.

Report of a lecture by Otto Wolff, M.D., Ph.D. Given at the Waldorf School Teacher Conference, Sacramento, CA 1986.

Open access: Anthromed Library gratefully acknowledges permission to share this booklet by Mercury Press and SteinerBooks, 2023.

*Based on a paper read in Stuttgart on February 25, 1984. Translated by A.R. Meuss FIL, MITI.

The Drug Picture
The drug picture of Lachesis produced by Constantine Hering includes a number of clearly defined symptoms. Patients in need of Lachesis feel uneasy and cannot bear tight-fitting bands such as collars, belts or brassieres. It is not uncommon for them to feel that there is excess pressure inside. Discharges which may be said to relieve that pressure will therefore ameliorate. A headache will improve with the onset of menses, for example. Another characteristic is the left-sidedness of symptoms, so that a left- sided migraine is more likely to respond to Lachesis than a right-sided one. This is also
the reason why Lachesis addresses the heart, just as more right-sided drugs tend to address the liver.

Aggravation from sleep is an important Lachesis keynote. Patients go to bed in a condition that is bearable and wake up with dreadful palpitations, headache, and paresthesia of the arms. 'Sleeps into the aggravation' is thus indicative of the drug. Concerning the psychology, 'loquacity' is a common sign. An exaggerated desire to communicate denotes a certain lack of stability. Reticence on the other hand is a virtue which physicians in particular are well-advised to cultivate. All symptoms are worse from heat; the sun, the heat of the sun, a hot room — none of these are tolerated. At the same time Lachesis is an antipyretic and has often proved life-saving in serious septic conditions (as reported in case histories from the pre-antibiotic era).

What do the following five symptoms represent? …

One of our projects in blood crystallization research in recent years has been the study of skin diseases. We set ourselves the task of investigating the connection of skin diseases with organ dysfunctions through blood crystallization pictures. The impulse for this came from a number of medical indications given in the anthroposophical literature. Work with these could begin after I discovered the forms corresponding to inner organs in collaboration with Hans Kruger. These organ-characteristic forms enabled us to see organ-function disorders in the blood crystallization pictures. Most of these are still unpublished.

Read more…

Translated by Harold Jurgens with permission from Mitteilungen aus der Behandlung maligner Tumoren mit Viscum album. 19(3), 140, 1987, Verein fur Krebsforschung, Arlesheim. Addendum 1990. ©1991 Mercury Press, JAM 8(2), Fall 1991

Introduction

Anthroposophically oriented medicine is sometimes reproached for being based on a world view and not science. 1,2,3 If one thinks about this view one notices two things.

Firstly, those who utter the reproach about a world view are apparently unaware that this also applies to them, because they also represent a world view, namely the modern scientific one. A science of medicine without a world conception is actually impossible. Every therapeutic method presup­poses specific knowledge, concepts and ideas about man and medicine; in short, it presupposes a definite view of man and nature. One can not really reproach someone for having a world conception. The only justifiable ques­tion is to what extent a world conception can be scientifically established. And this applies to every world conception. Therefore critics would have to say why they think their view is scientific while the anthroposophical view is not. However, one finds no such statements because the critics look neither at their own cognitional foundations nor at the anthroposophical ones. 4,5,6,7

This brings us to the second point; namely, anyone who wants to judge the scientific foundation of the anthroposophical world conception has to know it. However, the critics mentioned do not seem to know it. They ac­cuse anthroposophy of not being scientific, but paradoxically they do this without taking the anthroposophical cognitional foundations and the latter's connection with natural science into account. This is paradoxical be­cause the consideration of this foundation has to be expected precisely from those who believe that they have to defend science against anthroposophy. Under such conditions it is of course impossible for them to understand anthroposophically oriented medicine.

Public discussion about this medical line of thought is usually stirred up by mistletoe therapy for cancer and very often this is in connection with the Iscador therapy developed by the Society for Cancer Research in Arlesheim and Stuttgart. Therefore in this paper we will discuss the foundations of anthroposophically oriented medicine in a general way. We will go into anthroposophical spiritual science and its relation to natural science and then into the relation of the anthroposophical view of man to medicine, and finally into an example of the practical application of these foundations to mistletoe therapy for cancer, as far as this can be done within the framework of this paper. This should make it clear that anthroposophy does not try to oppose natural scientific medicine nor does it try to offer an "alternative" but that it tries to extend natural science in a particular way. Only in this context can mistletoe therapy become comprehensible.

Citation: Heusser, P. (1991). A Basis for the Understanding of Anthroposophical Medicine and Cancer Therapy (H. Jurgens, Trans.). Journal of Anthroposophic Medicine, 8(2), 5–38.