“Milk remedies — the essence of mammals”, under this title we originally announced this issue. Milk is the substance that stands for the particular characteristics of this class of animals and their remedies: providing and nourishing, closeness and warmth, the security of being within a group. Maternal attachment is particularly pronounced in marsupials, as Savitha Ananth’s case study of Lac macropus clearly shows. Luke Norland’s account of another marsupial milk, that of the koala, is likewise marked by dependence on the affection of others. In clinical practice we mainly see a lack of the typical mammalian qualities — suffering from coldness, distance and neglect, being insufficiently provided for. This gives rise to problems of dependency and addiction, eating or digestive disorders, often in connection with milk, or diseases of the mammary glands.
All these themes are exemplified in the long-known remedy Lac defloratum, which is represented in this issue by three case studies. Ose Hein points to susceptibility to bullying and abuse, Jonathan Hardy describes the great longing for warmth and Andreas Richter differentiates the neediness of Lac defloratum as opposed to Lac vaccinum and Lac vaccinum flos. The relationship to the mammary gland is illustrated by Obidullah Nayaghar in the Lac bubali case of a mammary carcinoma. And Ganshyam Kalathia, whose group of Indian homeopaths again contributed substantially to this issue, summarises the common features of the cow’s milk remedies using Lac ovis as an example. The marked dependency and lack of independence in the remedy pictures of these medicines also stem from the fact that they come from domesticated animals.
Although this also applies to the milk remedies from horses and camels, these differ markedly from those of the bovines, as Jürgen Weiland and Ganeshwara Rao illustrate with their case reports. Lac equinum wants to move untamed and resists rigid rules, and Lac lama proves stubborn and opinionated in Rao’s case. Quite different is the remedy picture of Lac loxodonta africana, the milk of the wild African elephant. In the case studies by the South African homeopath Natalya Dinat we encounter strong, dignified and caring personalities.
All the remedies mentioned so far are derived from the milk of peaceable herbivores and herd animals. This group, alongside the milk remedies from dogs and cats, which we already presented in SPEKTRUM 3/11, long shaped our image of mammal remedies. In recent years our materia medica has been enriched by other facets of the most highly developed animals. Thus Misha Norland introduced the mustelid predators into homeopathy with the badger. While his contribution is still based on a classical provings, in Wyka Feige the group analysis according to the animal system of B. und J. Joshi and knowledge of behavioural biology lead first to the Mustelidae and then to new, unproven remedies such as Lutra lutra (otter) or Mustela erminea (stoat). Deborah Collins and Michael Takacs likewise have to rely on zoological knowledge about bears and squirrels respectively in their contributions due to the lack of a proving. Their treatment successes confirm the hypothetical remedy diagnosis and thus “resolved cases” can broaden our homeopathic experience.
Because the substrate of many of these new remedies is no longer milk, we had to give this issue a more general title. Mammal remedies do not automatically mean milk remedies. There is the blood of the bear, the flesh of a road‑killed badger, the hair of the fallow deer or the secretion of the scent gland of the musk deer. The two deer remedies have, incidentally, also found their way into the zoological apothecary of this issue. It is an interesting question whether these lactose‑free source substances have a similar relation to the female breast, to milk allergies or to eating disorders as milk does.
Even this brief introduction to our topic offers a number of different characteristics that allow a rough differentiation of mammal remedies according to their origin. It can make a difference in the remedy picture whether the substance is the secretion of the mammary gland or a scent gland, whether it comes from a domesticated or a wild animal, from a herbivore or a carnivore, from a predator or a prey species. And then there is the distinction between land and marine mammals. The largest mammals in the world must not be missing from this issue and Sigrid Lindemann has carefully differentiated between dolphins, sperm and blue whales. This makes the issue very extensive and yet it offers only a small selection of our closest relatives.
