Homœopathic Links 2017; 30(01): 064-065
DOI: 10.1055/s-0037-1598098
Book Review
Thieme Medical and Scientific Publishers Private Ltd.

Fighting Fire with Fire—Homeopathic Detox Therapy

Reviewed by,
Robert Medhurst
1   Australia
› Author Affiliations
Further Information

Publication History

Publication Date:
23 March 2017 (online)

The focus of this book is detoxification, specifically homeopathic detoxification therapy or ‘HDT’. While it has largely been ignored by orthodox Western medicine, detoxification has formed an integral element of traditional healing arts for millennia, employing tools as diverse as herbal emetics, sweat lodges and breathing techniques, and from its inception, homeopathy has been influenced by it. Early pioneers of homeopathy such as Charles Raue, Kelvin B. Knerr and Samuel Lilienthal all referred to the homeopathic treatment of the ‘congestion’ of various bodily organs. William Boericke in his Pocket Materia Medica refers to the ‘centrifugal’ actions of Sulphur and X-ray, and the drainage effects of Hepar sulphuricum. Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg in the mid-20th century gave us his theory of homotoxicology and its correction using ‘homeopathic combinations’. Authors such as Leon Vannier and E.A. Maury wrote extensively on the use of homeopathy for detoxification around the same era. Developments later in that century bred practices such as ‘Homeovitics’, which used five different potencies of the same medicine for the purpose of detoxification. Following this, Michael Bouko Levy published a repertory of drainage remedies and almost every purveyor of ‘homeopathic’ combination products has offered us items for the purpose of detoxification. Our current homeopathic literature therefore already has quite a lot to say on the subject of detoxification.

Jansen offers us an extension to this work with a six-step approach—totality prescribing, isopathic detoxification, miasmatic treatment, balance remedies, nutritional supplements and dietary and lifestyle considerations. The process he describes is largely built around the notion of using multiple potencies of substances, the ‘causative toxin’, associated with toxicity/blockages to recovery. He also describes his potency preparation, the procedure to follow in various clinical scenarios, strategies to employ in the event of adverse reactions, reminders on case taking and the consultation, timelines, organ layers and miasms and their relationships to the detoxification process.

Nearly half of the book is taken up with Materia Medica notes on the remedies recommended in the protocols and some of these are unique. For example, Jansen lists remedies called ‘Endorphins and Exorphins’, ‘Cytokines’ and ‘Prostaglandins’. Given that these three classes of biologically active substances each contain a significant number of different molecules, many of which are mutually antagonistic, it would be interesting to know what these remedies were made from and where the Materia Medica information has come from, but these points are not addressed.

Some of the statements made in the book are interesting. For example, Jansen states that Oscillococcinum ‘is simply the Influenzinum nosode in a 200K potency’. Influenzinum, of which there are several, is normally made from material taken from a person suffering from influenza. Oscillococcinum, on the other hand, is made from the autolysate of the heart and liver of the duck, Anas barbariae. He also states, ‘for me there is no such thing as a polycrest or a “most used” remedy’, and yet disease-specific remedy recommendations are made throughout the book. For example, ‘In the case of high blood pressure, I prescribe Natrum muriaticum… In all my years as a homeopath, this prescription has worked without exception’. He states that C potencies and K potencies are the same thing after 30C because after this point, they are both made on a machine. As far as I am aware, there are several pharmacies operating that still make all of the higher potencies by hand. Jansen advises the elderly persons, who have difficulty sleeping, to use ‘Melatonin as a homeopathic remedy’, and yet there is very little evidence that potentised melatonin has any role to play in this area.

On the back cover of his book, Ton Jansen states, ‘If you want to genuinely care for your patients, you cannot afford not to read this book’. The implication that the rest of us will not be able to genuinely care for our patients unless we read Jansen's book struck me as slightly troubling; however, much of what is written in this book may be of value to the prescriber who is experiencing difficulties with a case, although some would argue that the cause of these difficulties is often poor case taking or prescribing practices. Either way, some may find Jansen's take on detoxification useful and it adds to the body of literature already produced on this subject.