Monera. Kingdom Bacteria & Viruses. Spectrum Materia Medica. Volume 1

Frans Vermeulen
Emryss bv Publishers: Haarlem, The Netherlands, 2005
Price: 44.00, ISBN:90-76189-15-3

This is the first volume of a bold new materia medica. Frans Vermeulen, with categorising and cataloguing zeal, aims to give us an encyclopaedic work, including all the remedies we know, those we think we know at least a bit about and those we have never even heard of. This first volume is concerned with remedies made from bacteria and viruses and so includes most nosodes (including all the bowel nosodes). Subsequent books on non-vascular Plants, Plants, Minerals and Compounds, Gases, Imponderables and Animals of air, sea and land will follow in due course.

Some of the remedies listed here have quite wide use, such as Streptococcinum, but can you put your hand easily on a materia medica where the substance is discussed, the source shown and successful cases given? If you are faced with a post-infectious pathology and wish to know something of work that might have been done on the use of the homeopathic remedy made from the organism involved in that infection, this is the place to look. Everything from Lyme disease to Hepatitis B is mentioned. You will find fascinating stories about the organisms, their origins and their interaction with humankind over the centuries. You will find materiae medicae of as many substances as possible, always with references to any provings that have been done (you will be surprised how many) and to other sources of symptoms. It is absolutely fascinating to read the accurate Oscilloccinum story and find that it was used by Hui Bon Hoa for a while instead of Carcinosinum.

The endpapers of the book provide an overview of its scope. At the front is a current classification of all bacteria and their products which have interested homeopaths. Part of this table is a list of remedies associated with the organisms and which are discussed in the text, from Brucella melitensis, through the Enterobacteraceae (which includes all the bowel nosodes), Medorrhinum and Syphillinum to antibiotic products like Neomycin and Chloramphenicol. The bowel nosodes are uniquely bacteriologically identified as accurately as is possible in modern terms. The rear end paper has a similar list for viruses and includes such remedies as Variolinum, Polio nosode, Morbillinum and Oscillococcinum. It is very interesting that the author has quite often been unable to locate detailed symptoms for these remedies, often giving as the only real guide a ‘never well since…’ indication. This is probably how most people use many of these nosodes and is really quite reassuring!

Some of the text is made up of quotations from other authors, but these are appropriate and helpful. It is unusual to encounter illustrative cases (again, nearly all quoted from others) in a detailed material medica and these are some of the best features of the book, illustrating as they often do the close links between pathology and the helpful homeopathic remedy.

The foreword to the whole enterprise has some insightful reflections on why it is worth systematising the homeopathic materia medica. Vermeulen points out many uncomfortable facts which might be getting in the way of communicating with other fields of science. The rush to describe features of ‘families’ in homeopathy might be confusing (as well as formally incorrect), as for example ‘snakes’ is a sub-order and ‘spiders’ is an order. Some homeopaths might feel a more useful grouping would be into categories which put together remedies which exhibit similar homeopathic features in cases, so that for example, Lyssinum should be grouped with the toxic solanaceae like Belladonna and Stramonium and not as here with the other viruses. This though, can only be a matter of opinion.

It is hard to imagine that anyone but Frans Vermeulen could have the vision, the stamina and the literature-searching resources to undertake the massive task that is this materia medica. On a downside, this book sometimes reads as being as un-filtered as the internet and can seem as if the author is sometimes a little credulous, taking all things at face-value without really weighing the arguments. On the other hand, it is very obvious when you come up against a bit of straightforward prejudice, such as any information that touches on vaccination and much of the discussion of antibiotic use.

All in all though, you will not find such a treasure trove of homeopathic microbiological material anywhere else and I strongly recommend the book.