British Homoeopathic Journal April 1993, Vol. 82, pp. 132-134

International press abstracts and reviews

Can vaccines cause diseases? JOAN MORA, XAVIER URIARTE Dr Mora, a homoeopathic physician, and Dr Uriarte, a naturopath, from Spain, question the role of mass vaccination in the causation of allergic and autoimmune diseases. They believe that one should not make this correla- tion with all diseases that affect the human race, as some authors have, and try to give a more scientific explanation based on their clinical practice.

They have observed that children especially may develop allergic diseases after vaccina- tion, and even though many patients have a history of allergy in the family, there is a clear connection between application of the vaccine and the appearance of allergic disease.

There are also many indications that these diseases have increased in the last 20 years and that although environmental factors have influenced this increase, mass vaccination must not be underestimated. The authors' therapeutic success with the medications listed in the rubric 'Vaccination, after' seems to prove their hypothesis.

Another factor is the low IgA level in chil- dren under 4 (vaccination period), which is found to be even lower than normal in chil- dren who have post-vaccine reactions.

Finally, the authors observe that many vac- cines introduce attenuated viruses. They believe this can result in autoimmune disease.

Revista Homeopatica 1991; 17: 4-8.

Mental symptoms of Actaea racemosa LUIS R E C A R D E DE SILVA The mental symptoms of Actaea racemosa (or Cimicifuga) are described, starting with those extracted from the Spanish repertories of Drs Murata and Eizayaga from Argentina. The same is then done based on different materia medicas from authors such as Allen, Boericke, Kent, Lathoud, Jouanny, Vannier, Vijnovski, Nash, Wheeler and Marzetti. A practical analysis of Actaea follows, relating certain mental and physical symptoms to Actaea's

inability to react, which the author considers is the nucleus of the remedy.

Some examples of the inability to react are: - -d reams that her limbs are broken --delusions that heavy black clouds over her,

sees dark objects and people -- thinks she is going crazy --unconscious during labour --indifferent to housework tasks which pre-

vents her from doing anything else. Revista Homeopatica 1991; 17: 12-24.

The Lueticum child JACQUES L A M O T H E A French homoeopathic paediatrician tries to establish a new picture of Lueticum, describ- ing its characteristics in children. He states that considering only the syphilitic miasm as characteristic of Lueticum, we would only find it in criminals and aggressive psychopaths, and not in children. However, in children the picture is as follows:

Physical appearance: Various congenital malformations, small children with elderly aspect, cephalic disproportion, large head, small eyes), rickets, scoliosis, dental caries.

Mentals: Unstable children, variable moods (sometimes irritable and sometimes indiffer- ent), aggressive reactions, violent and destructive actions, difficult to educate, vari- able development, can be brilliant students with cruelty to other children or animals or present psychomotor difficulties. Tendency to lie, aversion to company, wary, extremely obsessive with fear of contagious diseases.

General symptoms: Skinny children, burn- ing pains worse at night, symptoms worse at sea but better in mountain climate, ulcer- ations in different body parts, growing pains worse at night, insomnia, infantile epilepsy, chronic catarrh and recurring abscesses.

Revista Homeopatica 1991; 17: 25-32.

The 'constitution' in hom~eopathy M. F U R L E N M E I E R The concept of 'constitution' has caused much confusion in the field of homoeopathy. Over

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