Mary Glaisyer, originally published in Homeopathic Links, Winter 1998.

In this journal, it is not often I read of cases where the theory of miasms and the relationship of remedies have provided useful tools in the search for the remedy. I find both helpful and would not be without my copy of “The Relationship of Remedies” by the elder Dr. P. Sankaran. In this article, I’m going to speculate on the miasmatic history of New Zealanders and relate my understanding of how the theory of miasms and the relationship of remedies has helped me in the treatment of one particular family.

New Zealand, like North America, is a country of immigrants. Much of the immigration to North America and Australia was voluntary; however, much of it was not. The early settlers in Australia were convicts and their guards, while a large number of early American immigrants were African slaves. In contrast, all the immigrants to New Zealand came voluntarily. The first immigrants were Polynesians, the Maori, who courageously sailed their canoes across the Pacific. More recently, the immigrants were Europeans and Asians, who came here in search of a better life. The already settled Maori named the newcomers “Pakeha,” which means “pale man.”

I arrived ten years ago from England, having practiced homeopathy there for three years. Initially, I could not understand the reasons for the ‘heaviness’ of the cases I was treating. I was bowled over by the wonder of the landscape, the cleanliness of the air, sea, and rivers, the quality of the fresh food, the comparative lack of poverty, the spaciousness of it all. Surely people should be healthier here, yet this did not appear to be so. However, I perceived patients responding to remedies much quicker than in England, and symptom pictures changing rapidly required, it seemed to me, a faster pace of prescribing. The vital energy seemed good, but wherefore the misery? I was shattered by the number of patients who had been sexually abused. At first, I thought this was a New Zealand phenomenon, but now I realize that it is part of the country’s strength—often to be the first: the first to see the sun in the morning, the first country to give women the vote, the first to realize that the best way to deal with past trauma is to acknowledge it and let it see the light of day.

Now sexual abuse is acknowledged to be prevalent worldwide. I did not think sexual abuse alone could explain the degree of suffering. I think New Zealand carries a miasmatic load which has its own special characteristics, shared with other countries largely composed of immigrants. To try to explain this, let us look at the motivations behind would-be  pakeha in Europe. Why did they want to leave their native country and their families to come to live in a country that could not be further from their homeland? The people who came believed they would be better off here than in Europe. Many believe that they would be better off somewhere else, but they remain where they are. These people moved! I see the dominant miasm here as sycotic; they were driven by the desire for more. The voyage to New Zealand can be seen as a positive expression of the sycotic miasm. Some people came for the goodness of their health and brought with them their tuberculosis, which rapidly infected the Maori already here.

So, we have two dominant miasms: sycosis and tuberculosis. Before I am picked off back to England by my New Zealand colleagues, I must add I am aware that miasms never come singly and that syphilis and psora are here too and in every individual, there will be a different mix. However, I do see evidence for my theory. The positive aspect of sycosis is the drive to go out and get. This could be the drive to climb mountains—Sir Edmund Hillary summing up of his climb of Everest: “We knocked the bastard off.” It could be winning the America’s Cup, or it could be just a genuinely held belief which astonished me when I arrived, that anyone could do anything if they just have a go. The negative aspect of sycosis is disappointment when you ‘don’t feel you can’. New Zealand has the highest rate of youth suicide in the world, according to UNICEF.

I was inquiring about these figures at the local library when someone offered to give me his own insights into the problem. He had worked in Auckland for a funeral director, and while I’m not surprised at his assertion as to the ubiquity of death by suicide, I was interested in his view that suicide runs in families. Another negative aspect of sycosis is what Hahnemann would call figwart disease. No statistics as to the comparative incidence of gonorrhea, genital warts, and chlamydia are available, but in the Nelson area last year, there were only three or four cases of gonorrhea per year in the last five or six years, according to the doctor in charge of the STD clinic. However, it has been said that in New Zealand, genital warts and chlamydia have reached epidemic proportions.

The positive aspect of tuberculosis is the urge to move, and New Zealanders are known for their urge to travel. It is generally accepted that young people gain overseas experience, the big O.E. as it is called, which is not a holiday but an extended trip which might last more than a year and is a genuine attempt to understand other cultures. I see the tubercular miasm in the arts too. The arts and crafts here are vibrant, colorful, and soul-searching. The negative aspect of TB is the prevalence of asthma and other respiratory difficulties. In March 1998, a New Zealand doctor was lauded for his research which shows that by giving mice a BCG vaccination, it is possible to prevent them from getting asthma.

The idea is that future humans may be vaccinated at a young age with the hope of similar results. The only interest of the research for us is the support it gives to the theory that asthma is a legacy of TB in past generations. To support my contention that the TB miasm is ‘heavier’ here than anywhere else, I quote: “The highest rates of hospitalization (for asthma) are in the 0 to 14 age group. Mitchell has shown that the hospitalization rate for this age group during the period 1952 to 1982, was higher and increasing faster than corresponding rates in Canada, Tasmania, USA, England, and Wales.” It could be argued that asthma is increasing worldwide and the reason hospital admission rates were higher here is because asthma here was less controlled, i.e., people were not taking their conventional medication.

According to the Household Health Survey in 1992-3 by the Ministry of Health, 13% of the population said that they had been diagnosed as having asthma. According to the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, which began in 1972 and followed a cohort of 1,037 babies born in Dunedin, upper respiratory tract infections were the most common problem of 5-year-olds reported to the medical doctor. A recent study of asthma which involved 450,000 children in 56 countries confirmed that New Zealand has one of the highest rates of asthma in the world. One-quarter of New Zealand teenagers reported they had experienced wheezing within the past year.

I conclude that there is evidence to show that the sycotic and tubercular miasms are alive and well in New Zealand. Statistically, it is harder to prove that URTIs and non-syphilitic STDs are worse here than in Europe. My belief is that the miasmatic pattern here is similar to that of the United States (the same sycotic urge that brought people from Europe to that country). How the people of the United States can expect their own President to be exempt from the sycotic miasm defeats me. It appears that some of the Presidents of the country are the epitome of the dominant miasm: deceitful hypersexuality allied with the love of power.

Now, let’s look at my treatment of one family. First of all, the family tree. The family is composed of both Maori and Pakeha members. I have not identified them as from a miasmatic point of view, it is not relevant. Miasms are now shared.

Jill, Age 30

Case Taken December 14th, 1990

Jill lives with her fiancé and works as an office manager, a position usually held by a man. She has loose stools and sometimes diarrhea. When she has diarrhea, it happens in the morning and is urgent. There is pain before the bowel movement in the hypogastrium. Her condition is aggravated by alcohol, salad dressings, spicy food, dips, and MSG. She has had the problem on and off for four and a half years. She has had pimples on her back for the last eight months. She had a stressful time and then a year after the stress; the problem developed. She traces the onset of her problem to her marriage to a confidence trickster who physically abused her three times. She says she was naive initially in her marriage. She has one large kidney, one small kidney, and in each kidney, she has two ureters.

Desires: Fruit, raw carrots, and fish. She could eat a lemon and likes sweet things as well.

Aversions: Fat, cakes, and eggs. She hates ice cream.

She prefers cold drinks. She is warm-blooded and can have red-hot feet, which she uncovers at night. She does not like stuffy rooms, but wind irritates her. She does not cry easily, but when she does, she likes to be comforted. She has some fear of heights and hates mice. She perspires under her arms and in the middle of her back. She sleeps on her abdomen with her arms over her head. She has a sour taste in her mouth in the morning and burps all the time.

Remedy: Pulsatilla 1MK

Follow-Up After Three Weeks:

Jill has no more diarrhea. She has had a cold, and the spots on her back have gone. Some little white spots came and went around her nose. She has a little pain in her abdomen, a drawing pain. I gave her no remedy at the time but repeated the Pulsatilla 1MK in May (5 months) and September (9 months) 1991.

I next saw Jill on August 9th, 1996. She has now remarried and is five months pregnant with her second child. There has been no recurrence of the diarrhea and abdominal pain. Jill has returned because her obstetrician has recommended a homeopathic cream for her aching varicose veins, but she prefers to have an individualized prescription. The pain started two weeks ago. Jill is extremely tired. The varicose veins are in the left leg only, but both legs ache. The pain is worse from lifting anything and standing. She has throbbing in the vagina; ‘it’s like gravity pulling everything down’. She has a bitter, sour taste in her mouth, which she has had since the beginning of the pregnancy. Recently, she had a blister on her palm, which felt like having a splinter in her hand.

At that time, I did not have access to a computer repertory. I used the standard Kent Repertory. I crossed ‘splinter-like pain, varices’, and ‘sour taste in the mouth’, only one remedy comes through: Fluoricum acidum. It is complementary to Pulsatilla according to the relationship of remedies by Dr. P. Sankaran. So, that confirmed my choice of Fluoricum acidum. A good thing I did not refer to Gibson Miller’s table, which is in the back of most standard Kent Repertories, as he omits Fluoricum acidum from the list of Pulsatilla complements. I am grateful to Sheilagh Creasey for her recommendation of Sankaran’s table.

Remedy: Fluoricum Acidum 30C

Four pills given, one to be taken whenever the legs ache.

After the remedy, the extreme tiredness went away and returned only when she overtaxed herself. The blisters on her hands got worse and then went away. The pain in the varicose vein disappeared after the first dose and returned occasionally when she did too much, for example, when she was on her feet all day at a trade fair.

January 27th, 1998:

Jill telephones me. She has a kidney stone and is in tremendous pain. A scan has revealed a stone lodged in a ureter. I am unable to see her as I am attending a birth. However, this time I have the complete repertory on the computer. Jill knows what I need to know. Jill has had the pain for five days. I find it hard to understand that someone who has had such happy experiences with homeopathy should wait five days before telephoning. Jill can’t understand it either, but that’s the way it is for her and for many of my patients. At least after five days, the modalities are clear.

Jill has hot flashes. The right side of her face is bright red and hot to the touch. She is definitely not thirsty. She is restless, hot, and nauseated with the pain. No perspiration. She wants to be on her own but likes her back rubbed. The pain is on the left side of her back and feels like labor pain. She wakes around midnight in agony, which lasts two to three hours.

Remedy: Pulsatilla 1MK

Jill reports that the pain disappeared within three hours. “Where did the stone go?” she asks. There was never a stone passed.

Helen, Age Two Years One Week

Case Taken March 14th, 1996

Helen is Jill’s first child. She suffered brain damage at birth and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. She did not move for six months, never cried, and did not react to stimuli. However, now the only trace of the condition is that if she lies on her back, she cannot sit up. The reason for this miraculous recovery is the intensive physiotherapy Helen has had under the direction of Marjan Hermsen at the Nelson Public Hospital. From birth, two mothers and a team of helpers put Helen through exercises for four hours every day. Ms. Hermsen stresses that to be successful, the treatment must begin very early.

The reason Jill has brought Helen to me is because she has a mild skin rash diagnosed as keratosis pilaris. She has had it for six months. Helen spent most of the session drawing our attention to a chicken in the fireplace. The fireplace looked empty enough to us, but the chicken was very real to Helen. As soon as she could move, she chose to sleep on her abdomen. With such a delusion (‘delusion: people sees’) and ‘sleep position abdomen’’ and a sycotic family history, I prescribed Medorrhinum 30C. There is evidence of sycosis on both sides of her family. Her mother has four ureters, surely an excess, and her grandfather on her father’s side was an alcoholic.

Several months later, Jill reports Helen’s rash has almost disappeared. It just began soon after taking the remedy. Three days after the remedy, her behavior improved dramatically. Hitherto, this behavior had been dismissed as the “terrible twos.”

Paul, Age 11.5 Months

Case Taken November 24th, 1997

Paul is Jill’s second child. He has been taking antibiotics for two months since a viral infection which began at the end of September. The doctor diagnosed a persistent ear infection in both ears. He occasionally has a runny nose. He is a child of independent nature; he throws everything, bangs things on walls, and is rough. It did not take long to find the remedy as a tell-tale bald patch on the scalp revealed that Paul was a head roller. The history of TB in the family confirms Tuberculinum.

Remedy: Tuberculinum 1MK

After a second dose of Tuberculinum a week later, Jill reports a year later that Paul’s ears cleared and there has been no recurrence of the trouble.It was Dr. Alfons Geukens who drew our attention in New Zealand to the close relationship between Thuja and Tuberculinum. They may often be indicated in the same patient at different times. I have found that Medorrhinum, Lycopodium, and Tuberculinum are very frequently indicated remedies in my practice. This really is the best evidence for the theory that sycosis and tuberculosis are the dominant miasms, at least in the Nelson area of New Zealand.