(Original Title "Ueber die Wirkungsweise von Heilmitteln." Merkurstab Amim, FIL.)

Sulfonamides and antibiotics have been used to combat diseases to such an extent that the nature of healing itself has been called into question. It is part of any physician's duty to ensure that biological processes are not destroyed and that human beings are not deprived of the fruits of their destiny but that those fruits are given the chance to mature. In modern medicine we experience an absolute dualism in the attitude to life. On the one hand we have successful chemical drugs which take no account of developmental aspects, and on the other hand we have semi-psychological therapies without any knowledge of the spiritual origin of matter. To advance beyond this we have to reflect on the meaning of illness and look at the deeper significance, the mystery, of healing and recovery. 1994; 47: 168-28. English by Christian von

Human beings are made up of the spiritual elements of astral body and "I" as well as of their physical and etheric bodies. These two pairs are related as inner and outer elements: the inner spiritual elements live in the shell-like garments of the two lower human aspects as their essential core. This differentiation between inner and outer enables us to understand the nature of illness. Every time the two are out of harmony, the potential for ill health arises. We may be affected by an external event - say we are struck by a brick - or we may have an upset stomach, or ingest protein that cannot shed its inherent plant- or animal-based characteristics, but essentially it comes to the same thing. It is some form of external penetration which the inner human being cannot resist. When we cut our finger, which is an outer event, the inner human being ("I" and astral body) withdraws from the outer human being (the garments of the physical and ether body), just as it does when the kidney develops some form of nephritis. The resulting pain in the finger or protein elimination and enlargement of the tubular epithelium is due to the astral body no longer being able to engage the limb or organ fully. A large number of diseases are due to such disharmony between the inner and the outer human being.

The cure consists in re-establishing harmony, which may be done in a number of ways - either by changing the external physical or climatic conditions or by strengthening the inner human being so that it can cope again with the over-powerful outer elements and penetrate the damaged shells.

This train of thought leads to a further mystery of human nature, that of sleeping and waking. Every time human beings fall asleep, the astral body and "I" withdraw from the physical and etheric bodies and are no longer able to utilize them. This dynamic of the higher constituent elements is similar to organic disease. The difference is that during sleep the whole of the physical and the etheric bodies will be affected, compared to only the kidney or finger in the case of illness. In terms of the sleeping and waking rhythm, illness thus corresponds to sleeping. That, however, is only one side of the story. The more mysterious aspect becomes clearer if we recall that comprehensive regenerative activity takes place in the nervous system, for instance, during sleep.

The question arises whether such regenerative activity also takes place during illness. To ask the question is to provide the answer, because it is obvious that as the illness runs its course we must assume that it is possible for the diseased part to recover. This phase of me illness serves the purpose of clearing the path for the "I" and astral body to return to their normal, customary functions in the organs. It is a process, if we take the analogy one step further, which must be compared with waking up. Comparison between waking up and healing reveals the mystery of recovery. Just as human beings rise to a level of consciousness that is higher than sleep when they wake up, so the inner human being reaches a level higher man before in the process of recovery. The inner human being is strengthened during sleep so that he can fully penetrate his outer constituent elements again. Similarly the inner human being is strengthened during illness so that he can awaken refreshed, as it were, as he recovers, having become powerful enough to regain control over the sick organism. The more profound significance of illness is thus revealed as an opportunity for the inner, higher human being to gain something by encountering resistance; the only other way of doing this is through the systematic raising and strengthening of consciousness.

Illness is a challenge to the human being's inner powers of transformation which are linked to his core being. These powers awaken and are, indeed, born, in the conscious pursuit of higher development. Further comparisons can be made between illness and sleep, recovery and wakening, and their importance will emerge more and more clearly. Thus sleep may be too deep and therefore unhealthy, and a person can lose himself in illness; or someone may keep waking up and falling asleep again, and in a similar way a changeable, unstable state of recurring ill-health may develop. The significance of the relationship between waking and recovery becomes clear when we consider that human beings have been allotted a specific period for sleep which is governed by cosmic laws, namely the movement of the sun. Many diseases also have a regular pattern which is connected with the rhythm of the human constituent elements (pneumonia or measles, for instance). The duration of sleep and the pattern of a disease both point to anorder which is superior to human consciousness.

If we compare this fact with modern attempts simply to eradicate disease, we can understand me dubious nature of such an approach. What might be an appropriate measure for a surgical condition may be open to question with reference to disease in general. Measures need to be assessed solely on the basis of the nature of the human being and not by any "success rate." Spiritual research has shown that we should be grateful for every illness because a cure signifies a step forward in development. An intensive process takes place in illness which can be compared to human beings turning to the divine. The god who is active in destiny addresses human beings through illness and the imperatives of their destiny - destiny which wants to restore lost health and freedom. In our context freedom would have to be seen as the gift of waking up in the morning, illness as a journey through the dark night of necessity.

In view of this, the pharmaceutical industry's advertisements of "robot" drugs have to be seen as obscuring spiritual reality. Professionally physicians are committed to guiding their patients through their night of trial, but the temptation soon arises to give up their right to decide for themselves and go for an "instant" cure. This deprives the patient of the best part, namely the fruits of a destiny which caused the illness in the first place. Illness has to be seen as a fact of life and part of the development process, like all other key points in life. It is the physician's duty to heal, but that duty should flow from an independent insight which does justice to the whole human being.

For me, the swarms of magic potions are one of the seven plagues let loose on medicine so that we should learn to become more aware of its true nature. We are experiencing something like a symptom in the body medical from which we have to awaken in order to liberate medicine from impulses that are not our own and present as imperatives. I feel everyone must be free to make his or her own decisions; my aim is simply to draw attention to some fundamental considerations which success makes it all too easy to forget.

The following brief exposition of some typical medicinal processes in anthroposophic medicine should not be interpreted as the final word on the matter.

Medicinal actions based on spiritual science take the soul and spiritual characteristics of human beings into account as a matter of principle as well as the spirit active in nature.(1) Human beings and nature are still closely linked, and evolution has left certain markers of this relationship which provide clear evidence of the relationship. Medicines are such markers. Why does digitalis stimulate the heart? Why do drops of it, put into the conjunctival sac, improve vision?(2)(Scrophulariaceae) and the sensory part of the human being. Plants grow poisonous through contact with the sensory principle; humans develop sense organs and acquire a higher level of consciousness instead. The action of digitalis on the heart is due to increased sensory activity, leading to a reduction in pulse rate and improved blood flow so that the heart gains a better orientation in me fluid organism. We are looking at a level of organization which transcends that of chemical details (glycosides, etc.). Such "levels of organization" will be involved when reference is made to certain medicinal actions below. In anthroposophy, the less abstract and more human term "constituent elements" is used for these levels. Because there is an archetypal relationship between foxglove

Even foods, special diets, have a medicinal effect on many diseases. With infants, healing consists essentially in regulating me food intake. Dietary treatment will prove even more successful if the quality of vegetables improves and medicinal plants are also included.

Medicines may be given by the same route as food, low potencies of Silicea, for instance, or medicinal teas. At this first level, therefore, the medicines are still given in quantities comparable to foods. Examples are bee's venom and formic acid:

If the necessary amount of formic acid is produced, the organism will properly remove products which are tending to the lifeless state. If the power to create formic acid is unduly weakened, rheumatic and gouty conditions are the outcome. By introducing formic add into the organism from outside, we can come to its support, giving it what it is unable to create for itself.(3)

Recognizing the disease, we have me medicament: a rheumatic condition proves to be reduced formic acid production, and at this level of the therapeutic process the missing substance is administered to restore the balance. The formic add given to the patient also stimulates the body to produce its own.(4)

The next level of medicinal actions can be seen in medicaments like the well-known Gencydo. In hayfever - an instance isolated from a whole complex of symptoms, and the following also applies to it - the centrifugal forces predominate. The astral body withdraws as in sleep. Here we have the allergic sensitivity of our time: people begin to sleep while awake. The medicament has to help them to wake more fully. This is done with me juice of fruits with a leathery skin, which supports the reverse process in humans, so that they can incarnate more fully in the senses. If that happens, a cure has been effected. The natural substance thus provides the direct, simple opposite of the pathological process in the human being. The iron used in Bidor acts on a similar principle. It imposes "restraint on me purely vegetable metabolic activity,"(5) with me iron taking over the role of the "I" which would normally regulate metabolism. The use of ointments, e.g. antimony ointment for eczema, goes in the same direction.

The action of iron already takes us to the next, third level of medicinal actions, where we find many well-known medicinal agents which have been famed throughout history. We can use chamomile root, chicory and horsetail as prototypes. Everything Rudolf Steiner said about these and other plants says one and the same thing: the plant imitates the human pathological process. We recognize the evolutional markers indicative of the archetypal relationship between human beings and nature. The concept of organotropism in the homeopathic literature remains a riddle or has to be interpreted as pure chance unless seen in the context of the mutually-encompassing development of human beings and nature. When an organ develops pathological symptoms, the organism is using the pathological process to direct the human being beyond himself to the place in nature where the natural process takes place. Chamomile root, chicory and horsetail can take over some of the functions of the "I" and the astral body. The functions, which have thus been relieved, are then able to create a new and better link with the diseased organ. A small-scale waking-up process has taken place. Thanks to the specific composition of their substances the above plants are a kind of "human phantom;" this can replace the human constituent elements because it has a differentiated relationship to the human being. The concept of the phantom in spiritual science can thus throw a light on the relationship between human beings and nature as an evolutionary archetype. The concept of organotropism is based on empirical findings. The phantom concept assumes an understanding of nature and the human being; organotropism is based on empirical and experimental evidence. Here we have one of the significant differences between anthroposophic medicine and therapy and all other methods of finding the indicated medicine. Horsetail provides a phantom of the kidney, chicory of the hepatobiliary system. The treasures of the ancient theory of signatures are built on the phantom concept.

Beautiful nature out there is really the imitation of a whole lot of pathologic processes. In the human being we have inner pathological processes, outside we have nature in its beauty. But one has to understand the context and know how the wide range of natural processes is reflected in the higher aspects of human nature.(6)

A new possibility, the fruitful exploration of which has already been started, opens up at this point. It involves the enhancement of medicines by using their models in nature. The pharmacist's art can find renewal and a culmination here.(7)

A central place is taken by the substances of the next or 4th level, the metals. In the human being they provide the balance between upper and lower processes, between right and left, like iron for example, or between inner and outer, excretion and absorption, like mercury for instance, in short, they act universally in processes to establish a specific equilibrium.(8) All metals have material and spiritual activities so that the metallic process of establishing an equilibrium can also be said to be between matter and spirit. Depending on the intended effect, the metal can be prepared and given either in the form of a salt or in mirror form, the salt in a lower potency (like level 1 medicines), the mirror preparations in higher potencies. Antimony has one of the most comprehensive effects on the human being. Iron has a similarly comprehensive effect but from different directions by virtue of its origin. Physicians can use it in its earthly or cosmic form (meteoric iron). We can see the way in which iron as a medicinal agent is particularly sensitive to the balancing process between earth and cosmos, which is immediately obvious in respiration where cosmic principles are transformed into earthly life.

It would require a separate article to explain the particular aspect of the relationship between the human being and nature which underlies the 5th level of medicinal action.

The actions of the first 3 levels are still on a relatively external level. Now we come to actions which lie completely inside the human being and receive their impulse from there. The medicinal actions become more mysterious and profound, the medicines themselves more powerful. Here we find phos- phorus, Carbo vegetabilis and others. What is the basis for the action of phosphorus? The relationship between human beings and phosphorus has to be understood as a monument to the evolution of human beings and the mineral world. We perceive that the human being transforms the qualities of nature into their related opposites. Through earth he develops the life ether, through water the chemical ether, through air the light ether.(9) He is perfected anti-nature, and owes his existence to the fact that he thoroughly overcomes and transforms nature. This relationship between human beings and their natural environment also forms the basis of certain medicinal actions such as the effect of phosphorus on rickets. The poisoning symptoms - here we touch on the vast field of experimental materia medica - indicate "that the origin of rickets in the human organism is a similar process to the one which takes place with the creation of phosphorus in nature."" If a child has rickets, small doses of phosphorus provide the fulcrum, the stimulus, for me T to counter the rickets process from the head. Like (rickets in the human being) is cured by like (the phosphorus-rickets process in nature). This medicinal action is based, however, on the principle of reversal which characterizes the human form with its upright posture as opposed to the recumbent basis of nature. With the principle of reversal we can understand, on a physical level, upright posture and the surmounting of nature in the metabolism and muscular system. On a soul and spiritual level this is the ability to create a mirror image of nature in the sphere of ideas. In the life of the will it represents the force of sacrifice which transforms what already exists into future potential, illness into health, bad into good. In this sense the medicinal action is a special case of forces that lie deeply embedded in me human being.

Medicinal actions as markers of the evolutionary process are still a true creative principle today, for the substances concerned represent an appeal to the archetypal forces of the human being, to the power of transformation in the "I.",(11) they include phosphorus and other similarly powerful substances.(2) The Law of Similarsthat the 3rd and 5th levels provided the opportunity for homeopathy to develop, with its experimental basis and its extremely valuable empirical knowledge. If more recently people have again started to practice their insight into inner relationships, the experimental aspect will begin to recede of its own accord. One can see that important medicines are created on the basis of this principle, which might be described as an anti-process or anti-nature can thus be given a meaningful context from the perspectives of both natural science and spiritual science. We can see that allopathy is relevant to the first 2 levels, and

The following two medicinal processes take us even deeper into the inner core of human beings. This article would become much too long if we were to deal with the spiritual scientific background in detail. Using an expression of Rudolf Steiner we can describe the 6th level as one of transformation. The inner powers of human beings are addressed by this and the previous levels in such a way that they can respond with their own archetypal power of metamorphosis and change, which allows the spiritual functions to act down to a physical level. They arise as an immediate enhancement of the equilibrium (and of anti-nature) which has been achieved. This is where the action of Oxalis belongs. "Oxalic acid results in a stronger etheric body because the power of the ‘I' is transformed through the acid into a force of the astral body which in turn has a stronger effect on the etheric body" or "the effect of oxalic acid is such that the activity of the ‘I’ is transformed into the activity of the astral body.""

In the case of Bidor, sulfur, as one of its three components, has the task of moving rhythmical activity from an inclination towards metabolism into an inclination towards respiration. Honey works in a similar way in Scleron. In this case, honey transfers the catabolic activity of the astral body to the ’I’. Honey has the task of maintaining the volatile nature of the processes involved so that they do not become fixed prematurely.

It seems significant that the supportive, relieving medicinal functions which were discussed at the 3rd level can turn into the present ones of volatile metamorphosis or transformation within the human constituent elements. With this kind of reasoning compound medicines also acquire an entirely rational basis that is fully justified if one considers the metamorphosis of medicinal functions. Genuine homeopathy rightly rejects throwing together a whole lot of medicines simply to ensure an effect.

The 7th and final level belongs with the 3rd, which dealt with the minor phantoms, as the highest intensification of medicinal actions. It is referred to as the level of the major phantoms. Its action rests on deeply spiritual facts which we can only touch on here. It is, as already stated, an intensification of conditions which were discussed in connection with the 3rd level, where the archetypal relationship between human beings and nature was described as the beauty of external nature being an imitation of pathological processes. The plant world essentially covers this situation for the astral body. The descent to the mineral world extends this relationship to the more comprehensive conditions of the "I." This relationship finds its greatest intensification in the fact that certain substances in high potencies, antimony for instance, not only take over or relieve certain functions of the higher human constituent elements but create these anew. In this context antimony is one of the most powerful medicinal agents, which is why, in the past, it was considered to be a universal remedy.(14) The antimony action varies depending on whether it is applied internally or externally. In external use as an ointment its effect is that of level 2 in that it counters centrifugal forces which come to expression in eczema, for instance. It works differently when given internally to treat typhoid.

If the organism is given antimony, the missing astral forces are created artificially. It will always be observed that when antimony is taken the result is enhanced powers of memory, greater creativity and coherence of the soul state. The organism is regenerated by the strengthened soul.(15)

The medicinal action lies not in the substance itself but in its spirit, which addresses the soul and spiritual part of human beings creatively, as it were. The encounter with the substance produces the physical healing effect. Similarly the higher potency of other metals - iron and arsenic, for example - also intensifies their action so that the phantom becomes effective. Scorodite 30x is used, for instance, to create astral functions artificially.

There are, of course, other ways of looking at medicinal actions. Here a sevenfold order enabled us to observe the multifaceted nature and differentiation of the physical and spiritual aspects of human beings. The seven- fold order only becomes fully comprehensible, however, if extended in two directions. The medicinal actions need to be continued firstly into the vital and metabolic process, downwards as it were, and secondly upwards to where they can be rediscovered in the mirror of the various levels of consciousness. The following remarks are intended to complete mat picture.

The nutritional process starts with the supply of foodstuffs (level 1). De- pending on me degree to which the food substance is related to human beings, the organism has to make use of its defensive forces to break it down, deprive it of its particular nature and make it more like something inorganic (levels 2-4). Antimony can be used here since it "deprives protein of its own forces and makes it more amenable to control by the formative forces of me 'I.'"(16)

The "I"-related protein lives in the blood. Foreign process and individual process, nature and human being, meet in the intestinal wall, if we consider morphology. Here the swing of the pendulum from natural substance made inorganic to the organism's own vital substance takes place. Birth and death as a physiological process of equilibrium lies at the heart of the occurrence. This is the 4th level of medicinal actions, connected with the balancing function of metals. Since the transfer of nutritional substance into the etheric element of the rhythmical system is combined physically with an extension of surface area, the action of metals turns out to be an intensive, surface one.(17) We realize that physically the metals are present only in traces or not at all; yet they can still have an effect, which is wholly in the etheric sphere.

The same is true of the next level of medicinal actions which relates to protein production. At this level the natural action has been eradicated so that the inherent process becomes increasingly predominant and reaches its conclusion with the nutritional process being taken into the higher human constituent elements of the astral body and the 'I' or physically into the kid- neys and the hepatobiliary system. The natural basis provides the stimulus to create new human substance; nature goes through a zero point, and human substance is newly created in the counter-space (anti-space) of the inner human being.(18) These processes are associated with the medicinal actions of the 5th-7th levels. We can thus say that the medicinal process, viewed in the mirror of the vital or metabolic processes, becomes an internalized higher metamorphosis of the metabolic processes. Internalized metabolic nature provides the physician with information about the effects of deep-acting medicines. Such a reflection also makes clear that the levels of medicinal action can, indeed must, form a continuum, like the life processes if the cure is to be complete, even if there are frequent cases when only one or two levels are gone through. Hence the points on our scale should not be taken schemat- ically but must be seen as a dynamic process of metamorphosis in which the action passes from one to the other and undergoes intensification at each level.

We are dealing with a typical concept of healing which manifests itself at various levels. The medicinal function has its roots in nutrition, it blossoms in the higher potencies with the action of the phantom, and its archetypal organ can be found in the center with the metals. ("The healing action of the blood is based on iron.") Where the archetypal plant manifests itself in me leaf, the physician, who has to embody healing, encounters the substance of metals. It is significant that a substance is active in the plant leaf which can be described as a sister-metal of iron-magnesium. Both have the "old Sun" as their common ancestor.(9) The metals point both to me metabolic processes of the lower human being and the consciousness processes of the higher human being; they guide the physician to the lower and the upper gods. He has become the mediator between the spirit in nature and in human beings, between macrocosm and microcosm.

The way, finally, in which the associated processes of consciousness can be elucidated is best seen at level 4. People today have a reflective conscious- ness, that is to say, their thinking is working normally when it deprives perceptions of life and reduces them to mere mirror images. This fact, which corresponds to the events in the first metabolic phase, is taken into consideration in the clinical use of metal mirrors. It is impossible to understand this relationship without a certain artistic understanding of the world. We refer to Rudolf Steiner with these words, since he tends to appeal to the artistic understanding in similar passages in his writings. Metal mirrors take account of the fact that the whole of the human being provides the basis for consciousness and that it is therefore possible to intervene in the various vital processes with metal mirrors. If the intention is to direct the action towards metabolism, towards the roots of the healing process, a metal salt is used; if it is directed more towards the higher human constituent elements or more closely to the consciousness within the vital processes, then a metal mirror can be prescribed. Here lie great opportunities to influence the soul and spiritual elements in human beings through substances - without the physician having to say a word to the patient: medicinal "psychotherapy," with antimony as the prototype. This does not in any way touch on the physician's dialog with the patient.

The 3rd level of medicinal actions reveals the inner nature of the archetypal relationships, so far merely assumed to exist, once they are observed in the mirror of consciousness. The consciousness which preceded the mirror consciousness of the earth level was a picture consciousness. This takes us back to the embryonic stage of the earth, namely the old Moon. The human picture consciousness of that period consisted in dream-like experiences of consciousness which did not reflect the external world but had a relationship to the latter that was based on certain laws. Hence, such consciousness can be described as symbolic. The symbols of consciousness which guided people at that time have been stripped of life today and have become mere reflections in our mirror consciousness. But in the plant world the laws which govern the relationship between the natural environment and human beings have been preserved as a marker of that level of development. As a result one can also use the term "symbolic medicines" for the 3rd level of medicinal actions if one wants to refer to the archetypal context. Accordingly, the plant world could be described as humankind's dream of the Moon in the Earth sphere.

In the sequence of consciousness processes, the 5th, anti-nature level would have to be compared with the first stage on the path of systematic schooling of our thinking to achieve cognition independent of the body. Spiritually it thus belongs to the metabolic phase in which the human being's own nature has asserted itself against external nature by producing its own food substance. The perceptions put to death in our thinking are given new life through Imaginative cognition and restored to the context from which they had been removed by the kind of thinking which is determined by the nervous system. Creation begins once more at this level: through protein on a physical level, through Imagination on a spiritual level.

If the therapeutic processes are thus seen as a scale of healing functions in relation to human vital and consciousness processes, they are seen to be situated in the middle between the two. Like the processes in the rhythmical system, they maintain the balance between the metabolic and nervous systems. It is the task of the physician, as representative of the middle, to guide his patients through their disturbed equilibrium by prescribing substances to restore the natural harmony of their essential nature. Ideally, the healing process only comes to an end when the patient's future path has been newly illuminated in his mind. It may perhaps help him to throw a light on a section of his path of destiny. The path of the physician, seen from the middle, thus leads to substance. It takes the latter from below through the vital processes, where healing is based, to the consciousness process. There recovery is ensured when an advance is made in the patient's thinking. The patient owes this advance to his illness.

If in Luke the sick man is told after his cure that he should go and show himself to the priest, this means that the priest's office comes into play at the point where the advance in consciousness has been made and becomes part of the vital process again to shape a person's destiny. The new direction given to the life processes by natural substances is brought to completion if a new direction is found in destiny.

It is thus possible to show physicians their place again within the framework of an ancient holy order which places them alongside the priesthood: both contribute to the synthesis (not analysis) of destiny, the one with the substance of nature which heals human beings by creating spiritual influences, the other with spiritual substance which nourishes the incarnation of the human being. The spiritual affinity between healing and holy substance becomes clear.

Just as illness and health can be understood on the basis of the sleeping and waking rhythm, the healing functions can be grasped through the rhythm between consciousness and life processes.

Anyone who can bring these thoughts to life within himself will approach modem medicines with skepticism and concern. For the latter intervene in a leveling and thus violent way in the process of illness and destiny instead of assisting its metamorphosis when the true nature of the human "I" is transformation. Even the last-mentioned of their actions must be considered "harmful side effects." We thus wish to contrast the "instant cure" of Ehrlich's "magic bullet" with a differentiated healing process based on metamorphosis. Where Ehrlich said "we have to leam to take chemical aim" our response is that we have to leam to orient the healing processes by the archetypal secrets of the human being, to guide the human spirit to the spirit in nature so that medicine once again remembers its purpose. To leam this lesson can be seen as a challenge to physicians today so that the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession become more strongly aware of themselves by immunizing themselves against foreign influences. Then present developments, which are often so difficult to judge, could be seen in a positive light.

Gisbert Husemann, M.D. Friedrich-List-Strasse 27 73760 Ostfildem Germany

References and notes

1 SchwenkT. Beitr Eno Heilk 1953.

2 Fuchs, Hollwich, Tonisienmg des Ciliarmuskels (toning ciliary muscle). Medizin heuie 3,1953.

3 Steiner R, Wegman I. Fundamentals of Therapy (GA 27) Chapter 17. Tr. E. A. Frorumer & J. Josephson. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1983.

4 This does not preclude the use of formic acid in higher potencies.

5 Steiner, R. & Wegman, I. Fundamentals of Therapy Ch. 20.

6 Steiner R. Lecture given in Den Haag on 15 November 1923. Natura 1931-2; 5

7 See essay by Dr. Treichler. Beitr Erw Heilk 1953.

8 Cloos W. Beitr Erw Heilk 1953.

9 Koenig K. Der dreifache Eisenprozess im Menschen. Beitr Erw Heilk 9/10,1950.

10 Steiner R Physiology and Therapeutics (in GA 314), lecture of 9 October 1920. Tr. A. Wulsin & G. Kamow. Spring Valley: Mercury Press 1986.

11 KruegerH.Bei(r£nuHatt-1953.

12 Regarding Carbo veg., specific reference is made here for reasons of space to Spiritual Science and Medicine lectures 11-13 & 15. Tr. not known. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1975.

13 Steiner, R. & Wegman, I. Fundamentals of Therapy Ch-17.

14 Bessarion. Curus triumphalis antimonii

15 Wotschke C. Der Typhus abdominalis u. seine Behandlung. Beitr Erw Heilk 1953; 1 /2.

16 Steiner, R. & Wegman, I. Fundamentals of Therapy Ch. 1 6.

17 Schwenk T. Loc. dt.

18 Krueger H. Loc. dt.

19 Iron followed the path into the inner animal and human being, whereas magnesium remained in the cosmic outer sphere of the life processes in the leaf.

The publications quoted above essentially contain the original sources on which the above article is based. Others need to be taken into account for a more detailed discussion. For "old Sun and Moon" see: An Outline cf Occult Science. Tr. M.Monges. New York: Anthroposophic Press 1972. 1994

note: The principles of medicinal actions have remained a fundamental problem in anthroposophical medicine. Perhaps the above article could provide a stimulus to add to and deepen the task in hand. and H.