Organ Preparations and Mutual Awareness of Organs (Original title: Organpraeparate und gegenseitige Wahmehmung der Organe. Merkurstab 1995; 48:370-2. English by A. R. Meuss, FIL, MTA.)

Markus Sommer

It was Rudolf Steiner who developed a differentiated range of organ preparations for parenteral use. Before that, animal organs had, of course, been used in medicine for thousands of years. Steiner first suggested brain preparations, some of them highly specific (cerebellum, pineal body, lamina quadrigemina [of colliculi], medulla oblongata, mesencephalon, etc.). This was later extended to include several hundred organs and parts of organs. Experience has shown that Fasciculus atrioventricularis Gl 8x can be used to treat arrhythmias(1) that may not respond to Cor 8x. One is nevertheless tempted to ask if such a vast range is really necessary (particularly at a time when there have been demands to sift the range of medicines) and if the organism is really able to make such subtle distinctions between organs and even sub- units of organs. Even sophisticated chemical analysis will not always show differences between the ground substances of different organ preparations.

Research has yielded some impressive answers, e.g. investigation of the causes of "neuralgic shoulder amyotrophy" (NSA), a rare condition resulting in pain followed by muscular weakness and atrophy in the region of the shoulder, thoracic wall and upper arm, generally on one side only (!). Sierra et al., assuming this to involve autoimmune processes, have done lymphocyte transformation tests, incubating lymphocytes from NSA patients with extracts (protein concentration in 6x potency range) of the long thoracic nerve, upper brachial plexus, distal median nerve and sacral plexus from human cadavers. All lymphocytes responded with marked stimulation to preparations from the long thoracic nerve, those of some patients responded to a lesser degree to the brachial plexus and median nerve preparations, whereas the sacral plexus only elicited a weak response in exceptional cases. It appeared that a patient's lymphocytes would react with preparations of that patient's nerves which had also undergone pathological changes.(2)

Histologic and chemical analysis would be unlikely to differentiate between those nerves the way even parts of the (morbid) organism appear to be able. Here we have scientific evidence of the "mutual awareness of organs" described by Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman(3) (this is not meant to be a reduction to the aspect considered in the scientific research). Diseases involving changes in immune mechanisms may, in fact, be seen as prototypes in this respect. Allergy, for instance, involves a high degree of antigen specificity, yet there is no definite dose-effect relationship at the interindividual level. High dilutions of the allergen are used to desensitize patients. In a recently-reported double blind trial with asthma patients using highly sophisticated methods,(4) D. Reilly et al. showed that the allergen potentized to a level where it can no longer be assumed to be present (30c) will give significant symptomatic improvement. - :;

Similarly, organ preparations have highly selective stimulant or depressant effects on homologous organ structures, often giving remarkable results in clinical use. The paper by Sierra et al. shows that immunologic processes are selectively stimulated by homologous nerve tissue. It is evidently also possible to influence the organ concerned with homeopathic potencies of the homologous organ preparation. The action may be depressant if relatively high potencies are used - a case of treating bronchospasm with Plexus pulmonalis 15x has been reported(5) - or stimulant if low potencies are used. Thus Rudolf Sterner suggested that a patient with postencephalitic Parkinson's dis- ease should be given potentized midbrain (which contains substantia nigra).(6)

Indirect evidence of the importance of a differentiated range of medicines may be as important for official recognition of the need for a differentiated range of medicines as it is for stimulating our clinical powers of imagination, e.g. to treat NSA with Plexus brachialis.

Markus Sommer, M.D.

Parkstr. 16a

D-82194 Groebenzell

Germany
References
1 Vogel HH.Das Herz.Merfarstofc 1991; 44:284-97.
2 Sierra A et al. Blood lymphocytes are seri5itized to brachial plexus nerves in patients with neuralgic amyotrophy. Acta neural scand 1991; 83:183-6.
3 Steiner R, Wegman I. Fundamentals of Therapy. Tr. E. Frommer & J. Josephson. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1983.
4 Reilly D et al. Is evidence for homoeopathy reproducible? Lancet 1994; 344:1601-6.
5 Sommer M. Plexus pulmonalis bei Bronchospastik - eine Kasuistik. Merkurstab 1994; 47:358-9.
6 Case reports and other medical issues discussed with Rudolf Steiner and collected by Dr
Friedrich Husemann at the Stuttgart Institute of Clinical Medicine; edited by Dr A. G.
Degenaar. Printed for private circulation, Stuttgart 1939. Quoted from Medicines indicated by Rudolf Steiner, compiled by H. Kueger, publ. by Medical Section at the Goetheanum in Domach, nd. In German only.