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In - vitro activity of Thuja Occidentalis against
   Human pathogenic Aspergilli   by Dr. Girish Gupta & Dr. Sreevastava

Aspergilli are wide spread in the environment and are common inhabitants of soil.Infection due to species of Aspergilli have become common and often prove fatal in immuno compromised patients of TB, DM,cancer, bronchiectasis, sarcoidosis, and those with renal transplants.

Aspergillus flavus –cutaneous aspergillosis
Aspergillus niger- otomycosis

Modern system of medicine-
Antifungal drug such as Amphotericin B
Drawbacks for this:
Unsuccessful in neutropenic patients
Side effects
Long treatment duration

Suggestion for finding out a non toxic safe remedy
Antifungal action of Thuja occi. Against candida albicans Trichophyton rubrum, Trichophyton mentagrophytes is reported. This article explores in-vitro antifungal potential of Thuja occi.Q, 30,200,1M,10M, and 50M against human pathogenic aspergilli.

Materials and Methods :
Fungal isolates-
Aspergillus niger- from chronic ear discharge of patients
Aspergillus flavus- from skin of the patients showing
Hyperpigmentation with severe itching

Medicines: Thuja occi.Q and potencies
Controls:
Sterile water
Rectified spirit
Ketoconazole

Experimental protocol:
-0.5 ml. of each drug was mixed with 10 ml. of Sabouraud’s
Dextrose agar just before solidification in 50 mm petridishes

-SDA plates with 0.5 ml sterile water,0.5 ml. of rectified spirit and 0.5 ml. containing 5mg. Ketconazole for Aspergillus niger and 0.75 ml. for Aspergillus flavus were kept as controls.

-All the plates including controls were inoculated centrally with
1.5 mm diameter of disc of test fungi aseptically from 8 to 10
days old SDA plates culture.

-All the Petri dishes are incubated at 37 degree C
- Linear diametrical growth of colonies were measured in cm.
on 3rd, 6th and 9th days of post inoculation

Percent growth inhibition = dc-dt x 100/dc
[dc—colony diameter of control, dt ---colony diameter of treated plate]

parameters for assessment :
percent growth inhibition
sporulation
exudation

Results:
On careful study of the tables and plates, Thuja 30 and 200 are found to inhibit the linear diametric growth of Aspergillus flavus equally on 9th day of post inoculation. Thuja 1M showed no effect , the growth of Aspergillus was almost equal to the control ( SW). Other potencies showed less sporulation in comparison to controls , but Thuja 30 and 200 showed no sporulation. Thuja 30 and 200 showed maximum inhibition(77.77 %) in each as compared to control 1.

Thuja 50 M was very effective against Aspergillus niger . Colony diameter observed was 2.2 mm. almost equal to Ketoconazole (2.1 mm) on 9th day of post inoculation However no significant effect on sporulation was noted. Thuja 200 showed effect on sporulation but linear diametric growth of colony was insignificant. Thuja 50 M showed maximum percent growth inhibition (52.17 ) of aspergillus niger as compared to control 1 (SW) Thuja 50M is equally effective as the allopathic drug Ketoconazole.

The most controversial aspect of Homoeopathic dilution is that succession and trituration actually increase the power of remedy. Clinical efficacy of high dilution is well established in Homoeopathic science. But in the present investigation it is proved that there is no increase in activity of higher dilution. It contradicts the theory of high dilution and high energy. e

CLINICAL RESEARCH
Evaluation of Homoeopathic therapy in Osteoarthritis

A study conducted by CCRH
Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis. The prevalence of osteoarthritis increases with advancing age. It usually affects weight bearing joints and it is the major cause of pain and disability in the elderly.. There are several predisposing factors like overuse of joints, heredity, obesity, hypermobility , endocrine diseases etc.

Homoeopathic medicines have been reported to be effective in OA. This research was done to see the effect of Homoeopathic medicines and their reliable indications, their most useful potencies and frequency of administration.

The work was conducted at clinical research unit, Patiala and Central research institute, Kottayam.

Materials and methods:
A total of 726 cases were studied. 273 cases were studied at central research instituite, Kottayam. All cases of joint diseases which seem to be degenerative nature and excluding known cases of inflammatory , metabolic, suppurative and systemic arthritis. Cases were classified according to their age, sex, occupation constitution etc.

Assessment of intensity of the disease :
Mild – Asymptomatic cases but only radiological abnormalities
Moderate-Cases with severe pain, stiffness with or without swelling etc.
Severe- Cases with night pains

Assessment of improvement of cases :
Done by considering subjective symptoms, objective symptoms, and radiological findings.
Cure- Complete dissappearence of subjective and objective symptoms with no reccurence for the next 5 years.

Marked- Complete disappearance of subjective and objective symptoms (excluding radiological findings) with no recurrence during the period under report
Moderate – Disappearance of the symptoms like morning stiffness, lock knee, limitation of motion etc. But only mitigation of pains.

Mild- Reduction in pain and other symptom with recurrence after least exertion.

Not improved- No improvement even after considerable period of treatment with similar remedy

Worse- Aggravation of signs and symptoms even after treatment with well selected remedy.
Among 273 cases of kottayam (39 males)

By going through this article it is clear that women are affected 3 times more than men. The prevalence of this disease sharply increases with advancing age. Heredity, overuse of joints obesity etc are important in the causation of the disease. In majority of cases in which symptoms recurred only in less intensity and in short duration. The X ray examination shows that in a few cases even the osteophytes deposition decreased.

Drugs found effective are:
Ars.alb.
Calc.carb.
Lyco
Medo
Nat.mur
Puls.
Rhustox
Sulph. All in 30, 200, 1M ,10 M potencies.

There is no information regarding the repetition of medicine ,though they aimed it.

CLINICAL VERIFICATION:
Lac.caninum.
The symptoms which are given in literature were clinically verified by CCRH.

Common name : Dog’s milk
Preparation of Homoeopathic
medicine : The secretion of the  mammary glands of a  lactating female dog  collected at least 15 days after  parturition. Solution 1/100
in distilled water-Class B
Period of study : April 1984- March 2003
Potencies used : 6, 30, 200, 1M
Number of cases studied : 4347

Symptoms like forgetfulness, making mistakes in writing, anxiety with palpitation in crowded place etc are clinically verified. They prepared a medicinal picture basing on the clinical verification studies and the symptoms found relieved in more than 30 patients each. Certain clinical conditions with prescribing symptoms are concluded from this medicinal picture.

Clinical conditions :HA, coryza, tonsilits, anorexia, mastitis, leucorrhoea, bronchitis, cervical spondylosis, lumbago, rheumatic pain, sciatica

Prescribing symptoms are ;
Headache- on alternate sides <morning, noise, talking-> keeping quiet
Coryza- fluent from both nostrils, catarrh.
Pain in eyes < reading , sensation of film over them required to wiped off before seeing
Noise in ears
Cracking of jaw while eating
Gums swollen, bleeding, teeth loose, sensitive to cold water.
Tonsillitis- Tonsils inflamed, sore, red, shining
Anorexia
Flatulence < eating after
Pain in urethra while passing urine
Leucorrhoea – whitish/ thick yellow discharge < during day, standing, walking
Mastitis- painful with swelling < from going up or down stairs, before mensus, motion
Cough from tickling in larynx < Talking and lying down
Perspiration in axilla very foetid
Pain in sacrum < stooping, by leaning back , spine sensitive to touch and pressure
Shifting pain in joints with numbness
Rheumatic pain in joints < movements, from cold, on alternate sides
Sciatica Rt. Sided, with numbness in legs< Movement
Pain in extremities with numbness
Cramps in calf muscles < at night
Pain rt hip, back, legs< walking

DRUG RESEARCH
Pharmacognostic and physico chemical evaluation of Psidium Guajava
by P.Subramanian, P.Padma rao, M.Prabhakar

The problem of quality control with homoeopathic potencies serve one of the areas of greatest challenge. The extremely high dilution of Homoeopathic potencies make it almost impossible to apply analytical tests by methods in lab.

Mother tinctures can be subjected to a qualitative and quantitative analysis that evaluates the identity, potency, purity and stability of preparation.

Psidium Guajava-Guava-Myrtaceae (Common fruit tree,Native tropical America , cultivated throughout India)

Leaves are used as-
An application in wounds , ulcers
Astringent for bowels(Unani)
A tonic in diseases of digestive functions (Young leaves)
Cholera(Decoctionof leaves)
Antispasmodic
Cerebral affections
Nephritis
Cachexia
Rheumatism(Local application)
Epilepsy, chorea

Leaves contain catachol
Pyrogallol tannin besides oils and vitamins

Presently there is a growing urge to introduce indigenous drugs in to Homoeopathic system. Leaves of Psidium Guajava is one of the drug used in Unani. Review of literature reveals that there is no reported work on the pharmacognostic and physico- chemical aspects of the leaves of this. This article is a presentation of detailed study on these aspects of Psidium Guajava.

Materials and methods:
Leaves of Psidium Guajava –Collected from the botanical garden – Osmania University, Hyderabad

Epidermal peels of leaves and petiole
Microtome sections of 10-15 mue m thick of leaf and petiole
These sections were stained with crystal violet and Basic fuchsin
Air dried leaves are powdered-coarse powder 0f sieve size(10/44)

Subjected to determination of –
Moisture content
Ash values
Extractive values

All these parameters are determined in accordance with the procedure given in Pharmacopoea of India

Mother tincture –Prepared by Percolation
Alcohol content for preparation of mother tincture was fixed as per maximum Extractive value (MEV)

This alcohol extract was subjected for
-Physico chemical constants
Organoleptic characters
Wt/ml.
Total solids
Alcohol content
PH value
  -Chromatography
  -UV absorbance

After analysis they have reached at a conclusion about the pharmacognostic features of the drug. ie; by noting down all the features we can identify the drug and genuineness of mother tincture can be tested.

Preparation of mother tincture:
Coarse powder of leaves of P. Guajava-100 g.
Purified water -300 ml.
Strong alcohol - 735 ml.

Standardisation of mother tincture:
Organoleptic characters
Appearance –clear, nonviscus
Colour- tab brown
Odour –fruity and aromatic
Sediments -absent
Wt./ml. -0.887g.
Total solids -2.34%
PH at room temperature-4-4.5
Alcohol content -68%

           A systematic review of Homoeopathic pathogenetic trials from 1945 to 1995

              HPI are clinical trials designed to assess the effects of highly diluted medicines in healthy volunteers and the results are applied in clinical practice. The methodology of HPT was first proposed by Hahnemann. Healthy volunteers are given various potencies and effects of highly diluted medicines are studied. A critical analysis of Hahnemann’s method to conduct HPTs raised many flaws and systematic errors. Which may lead to an over estimation of medicinal effects.

1)Absence of control group
2) use of well known friends and lecture audiences as  volunteers (believers)
3) Volunteers informed that they were using a medicine to  observe effects up on them
4) Recording of all complaints, symptoms which was present  even before
5)Sudden prohibition of coffee , tea etc.
6)Vague definition of healthy volunteers- inclusion of non  healthy volunteers
7) No random assignment of subjects

These errors are sufficient to cause serious doubt on the scientific acceptability of the pathogenetic symptom reported in the Hahnemann’s writings.

A systematic review of published studies (156) was designed to assess the methods and outcomes of HPTs published in 6 languages (English, german, Spanish, French, Portuguese and dutch) in the five decades from 1945 to 1995 and to help design and conduct future HPTs to get more valid and reliable information

Methods:
All the published HPTs were reviewed by 2 experts with experience in clinical research. They give scores for each HPTs by considering their peculiarities in different parameters Grouped them in to 4 classes according to the scores obtained. Class 1 is the worst and class 4 is the best quality HPT. Studies show that the former HPTs were incomplete and we have to improve the quality of HPTs to get better results in our clinical practice and research.

GENERAL ARTICLES
Role of Homoeopathy in Migraine in adolescence : Dr. S. Gopinadhan
Study conducted on 25 adolescent patients in OPD of CRI Kottayam

Headache is a headache for both physician and the patient.This is the commonest but most difficult clinical problem encountered by the physician. Most often headache is a symptomatic expression of some minor ailments, mental tension or fatigue, but occasionally it is of significance indicative of serious intracranial diseases and that is why when a person is having regular headache he may be much alarmed due to anxiety and fear. There are different types of headaches like neuralgic headache , vascular headache, traction headache, referred headache, headache due to meningeal irritation. The commonest form of vascular headache is migraine

Migraine--- megrim = hemicranial

Begins usually in adolescence
Tends to decrease in intensity and frequency as age advances
Female male ratio-4:1

2 types of migraine
Common –without neurological symptoms
Classical – preceded by neurological symptoms especially visual
disturbances

Predisposing factors like emotional stress, overwork, change of weather, menstruation etc.

According to modern medicine the treatment of migraine falls in to 3 groups
1)Avoidance of predisposing factors
2)Control of acute attacks
3)Prophylaxis

Studies show that the persons affected with migraine have peculiar personality. They are ambitious, perfectionists. Failure to attain perfection and ambition lead to mental stress. All these personal attitudes are considered as manifestation of the underlying chronic miasm.

Materials and methods:
25 patients- 9 males, 16 females
Between 13 and 18 years
Period of study-1997-2000
All these patients had aura
Emotional stress as predisposing factor in majority of the patients

In each case detailed case history was taken with special stress given to aggravating and predisposing factors. Personal history and mental disposition was noted. Miasmatic analysis was done. All the cases were followed up for 2 years. The results were statistically analysed with the help of Paired T test.

The assessment of improvement was on the basis duration of episodes,their frequency, and intensity

Improvement indices:
Cured -0 (no recurrence for 5 yrs.)
Improved
Marked -11 (no recurrence for 1 yr.)
Moderate -7
Mild -3
Not improved -3
Aggravated -1

Conclusions
-The study shows that all are having one or other type of psychological stress and anxiety which play an important role in the causation of headache
-Adolescence – most common age group
-Females are more affected than males which is in conforming with what is said in text books.
- predominant miasm-Psora and pseudopsora

-melilotus
-nat.mur
-nux.vom. }
-puls } acute episode
-sang. }
- sil
-sulph
-tabacum

Drugs found effective to avoid relapses
Calc.carb.
Nat.mur.
Lyco
Puls
Sulph
Syph
In higher potencies like 200, 1M,10M

There is no specific remedy for migraine, but only specifics for individual patients.

WEB INFORMATION:
Avian influenza (Bird flu) and Homoeopathy-search on internet
This article is intended for busy scientists engaged in research work in the field of Avian flu

-Avian influenza – A disease of viral etiology-Avian Influenza Virus
-An important disease which was discussed by the mankind in the beginning of this year.
-A fatal disease affecting chicken turkeys and other avian species.
-The cases are reported especially from Australia, England, South Africa, Ireland, mexico, United states and Pakistan.
-It can occur in any country because of its prevalence in wild migratory waterfowl, sea birds and shore birds
Clinical features-
Severe depression
Inappetence
A drastic decline in the egg production
Presence of facial oedema
Petechial hemorrhages on internal membrane surfaces
—sudden death
Diagnosis: Isolation of the causative virus by enzyme linked Immunosorbant assay

-studies show that the viruses do not usually infect humans
-chance for avian influenza infection in humans have resulted from contact with infected poultry( infected birds + surfaces contaminated with secretion/ excretions from infected birds.
Homoeopathy is routinely used for prevention and treatment of ordinary influenza. It is clear that homoeopathy can do something in the conditions of avian influenza.

-first world medical conference on the theme Homoeopathy and Avian influenza- Paris- 19.nov.2005
-a no of known flu remedies like Gels, bry, eup.perf.,arn., ars. may be useful in the avian influenza also

Address for correspondence :
Central Council for Research in Homoeopathy
Jawaharlal Nehru Bhartiya Chikitss Avum Homeopathic Anusandhan Bhavan
61-65 Institutional Area. Janakpuri. New Delhi.110058. India