The Materia Medica of Fungi is as elusive and mysterious as the fungi themselves. The repertories list 72 fungi, of which 27 have less than 20 symptoms; 40 exist in name only, and perhaps 13 might appear in a repertorisation. Our knowledge, themes and signatures have to date come from the alphabet of Agaricus, Bovista and Claviceps [Secale].
In The Hollow Men T. S. Eliot wrote:
Between the idea
And the reality,
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
This is where we find the fungi. They are the critical link in the biological cycle of life and death. They exist in the penumbra, of our fields and forests; our homes and rafters; our literature and folklore; our medicines and drugs; our fridges and food stores; our living and dying.
In Spectrum Fungi we are led ineluctably down the road of excess, to a palace of homeopathic wisdom. We begin to understand the evolutionary role of fungi in plant life, as in Monera we learnt that bacteria form the engine of human evolution. We walk in the shadows of the transformative nature of the fungi, without which we should be forever swamped in the unrotting debris of our own making. As fungi deliquesce our solid flesh, fertilising the waiting earth and delivering us back to the silent depths, so they also transubstantiate the grape into wine and the flour into bread.
With speed and strength, the fungi penetrate, like an invisible fifth column through the soil of our being, the Psora of our materia medica, hydra-headed, bizarre, unexpected, infiltrating, colonizing, absorbing and decomposing. Sinister? Infinitely so, in their hidden power.
This book contains all the fascinating details you need to make a prescription in this strange, chameleon-like kingdom. Fungi, Moulds, Yeasts, Lichens. They are all here some as well-known drugs ~ Cyclosporin, Penicillin ~ some as the scourge of lung diseases ~ Aspergillus ~ some you love to eat and drink ~ Camembert, Roquefort, Beer, Alcoholus, Lager, Quorn, Agaricus campestris, Cantharellus, Bovista ~ and some to blow your mind ~ LSD and Psilocybe.
Vermeulens' library of books about fungi expanded from one single book to 80 during the course of his research. As the homeopathic materia medica of fungi is far from complete, most of the information is synthesized from other sources. In the past, the fungi have been grouped into the Kingdom Plantae, and sometimes as excrescences of the earth! Now, however, particularly with the means of DNA testing, it is important that these organisms, and also the fungus-like moulds and yeasts, take their place in their own Kingdom. We must desist from making any comparison between the plants and fungi.
Much of the classification used in homeopathy is incorrect, and for this book, and to be continued throughout the coming Spectrum Volumes on Plants, Frans has adopted the current standards.
As well as the extant information available to the homeopathic world on Fungi, Yeasts and Lichens, the book, hardcovered and Fly Agaric red, contains a Glossary to help you through the sometimes arcane terminology. Other useful information, all placed at the back of the book, makes connections between fungi and minerals; fungi and pathology; fungi and trees and fungi and insects. There is the usual extensive index, a sprinkling of black and white drawings and a few recipes to whet your taste buds. The book leaves enough space for your own important jottings.
Fungi, the second book in the Spectrum Materia Medica series, continues the fastidious research and production standards that we expect of Emryss Publishers. As well as being a valuable materia medica, it also makes fascinating reading.
- Author: Frans Vermeulen
- ISBN: 9789076189208
- 808 pages
- Hardback
- Printed in Netherlands
Reprinted with the permission of The Homeopathic Links Journal, Volume 21, Summer 2008. Reviewed by Dr Joseph Rozencwajg, New Zealand.
He has done it again! In the second volume of the Spectrum Materia Medica, Frans Vermeulen has once more demonstrated his mastery of remedies and of writing.
This book focuses on the world of fungi, the first 105 pages covering the generalities and the common facts about fungi, from their general biology, nutritional value, pathology and diseases to signatures and themes.
I thought I would be smart and just read this bit, then sample the materia medica of a few remedies and be finished with this review in no time.
No way! Once you start reading about a remedy, you feel compelled to continue, then to discover the next one and the next one, and, before you know it, you have spent most of the night with this book.
Not good for family life...
Candida only is 23 pages long and yet everything is there: biology, clinical symptoms, psychology, proving materia medica and rubrics.
Those fungi which have not been proved or used in homeopathy are compared with major polychrests in order to give a feeling of what they might be should they ever be proved; another way to look at this type of comparison would be to use them the same way bowel nosodes are used; a remedy that has major features of different other well-known ones.
The amount of information is overwhelming, and that might be one of the drawbacks of this book, even the whole series; how do you use that information in your daily practice?
I hope that by the end of the series Frans will have compiled a repertory that allows us to search his work and, even better, will have all the books available in electronic form, allowing us to search quickly within that wealth of information.
That being said, I look forward to the next volume... not that I consciously remember anything from reading the first two, but it was so enjoyable and informative that I can only ask for more... new rubrics:
Mind, Appetite, ravenous, canine, excessive, for information, and Ailments from information overload.
Reprinted with the permission of The Alliance of Registered Homeopaths, from the Journal 'Homeopathy in Practice', Autumn 2007 edition. Reviewed by Theresa Partington MARH.
There is a fungus colony in Oregon that weighs about 150 tonnes and extends over 890 hectares; 60% of the strands are identical in DNA and it is 2,400 years old. Another 'single' in Washington State has a bio-mass equivalent to that of a blue whale. The Stinkhorn can breakthrough a concrete floor and can grow from one to ten inches in height in just two hours. Muscarine and LSD are derivatives of fungi as is Penicillin - although the one I'd like to prove is the laughing Mushroom.
There are 112 species of fungus listed in this book alone ranging from Fly Agaric and Puff Balls to Ergot, Candida, lichens and the moulds that make Roquefort different from Camembert. Fungi have toxic, therapeutic and magical properties know to us all - yet naming ten fungus remedies is a challenge on a par with naming five famous Belgians. There is clearly much work to be done.
Once again Frans Vermeulen is presenting us with a definitive book which will be used as source material by generations of teachers to come. The taxonomy of mushrooms, moulds and yeasts has been debated over the years but it is necessary to pursue accuracy in classification if we are to use family groupings as a springboard for the creation of new materia medica. The organisms classified as fungi here have far more in common with each other than with animals or plants and deserve their own kingdom.
Because provings are so sparse (only 13 have more than 20 symptoms ascribed to them in the literature) Vermeulen looks at mycology, toxicology, folklore and therapeutic and culinary usage in his attempt to build up a picture of what the main themes and characteristics of each group might be.
On the face of it, the Agaricales order seems to provide the most potential. It includes many, but far from all, the fungi with mind and mood altering capabilities and some of the most toxic. It also includes supermarket mushrooms and shitake mushrooms. However, from another order altogether comes Pityrosporum orbiculare, a yeast that lives on human skin and which, when out of balance, gives us pityriasis and probably dandruff and cradle cap. ('Probably' because research into the nature and actions of organisms like this is ongoing.) An interesting aspect of this is that Pityrosporum is often indicated as a potential allergen in atopic eczema and is also what Gross used for his proving of Psorinum. So some listed Psorinum symptoms are actually symptoms of Melitagrinum - the nosode of pityriasis. Yet another order is home to the Claviticipitaceae family which gives us Secale and LSD, not to mention the Cyclosporin used to control organ rejection.
There are fascinating sections on Candida and the yeast used in fermentation of bread and alcohol (remedy: Torula). Discussion of alcohol (not normally considered a member of the fungus kingdom) has a place here and of Alcoholus (Herscu) and Ignis alcholis (Eising). Lichens (symbiotic compounds of fungi and algae) make up the final group in the book: they are traditionally used in the treatment of TB and are sometimes called the 'lungs of the earth' because of the way they breathe and metabolise. They even look like lungs in structure. Some of them have been proved in the past including Sticta pulmonaria (the only one I have ever used) but there is huge potential here, beginning to be further explored by modern provers (Norland, Azgad and Floyd).
Bearing in mind how many of our own remedies (including Ustilago and Secale) were originally investigated with an eye to their herbal usage, the wide use of fungus of all orders medicinally, especially in China and Japan, makes me think that had we had more eastern homeopaths early on, our materia medica might now be very different And, of course, the fact that fungi are involved in the recycling of minerals makes them a rich source of the good guys and also of the bad guys, giving us links in symptomatology with Alumina and Cuprum, for example, as well as nutritional benefits.
The main themes of each species are listed as 'Keys' for easy reference; in fact the whole book is very well indexed and arranged. The themes vary according to whether we are looking at fleshy fungi, moulds or yeasts, but there are some that run through all groups to a greater or lesser extent: Puffiness, Expansion, Invasion, Opportunism, Speed and Decay are mentioned throughout the Keys but Hiding and Secrecy also seem to come up a lot in various chapters. Amelioration is often from coolness and dampness and there are affinities for mind, skin and lungs (though some have an obvious affinity with stomach, liver and kidneys in arms of toxicity). Charts at the end of the book draw the links between species and pathology, between species and trees and between species and minerals. They are aIso grouped into miasms.
All that is missing is a little repertory so that one could launch off into this fascinating new world of potential remedies - however, that would have been highly controversial and rightly so. After all, relatively few of these substances have been proved or subjected to clinical use and at the moment this is all quite speculative. Like Scholten's Elements and Sankaran's plants, this has to be seen as a 'work in progress' as far as establishing a homeopathic materia medica is concerned but, like them, it is opening doors and providing a framework. Vermeulen himself plans to continue the Spectrum series through minerals, Plants, Animals and the 'Imponderables'. At this level of erudition and completeness it is a mind-boggling enterprise and the resulting oeuvre will be unequalled in the history of homeopathic literature.
Definitely a book needed on every homeopath's bookshelves.
