Lacs in Homeopathy

Review

This book review is reprinted with permission from Volume 19, Spring 2006 Edition of Homeopathic Links.

Reviewed by Jay Yasgur, R.Ph., M.Sc., USA

In 1880 Dr. Kent said that the value of Lacs would only be recognized in about hundred years of time. In 1905 Kent wrote his first homeopathic materia medica. Here with Lac caninum he made a very important statement about the Lacs. He said: "Milk is food of early animal life and therefore corresponds to the beginning of our innermost physical nature. "

Though the name, Farokh J. Master, is on the cover, in his opening remarks he graciously gives credit to the many, many persons who helped him, especially Rene Otter, the editor.

This short book, which is based on his seminars and PowerPoint slides (the 460 slides are included and presented on 80 pages), details nine lacs: caninum, caprinum, delphinum, equinum, felinum, humanum, leoninum, lupinum, and vaccinum defloraturn. Dr. Master states that there are about 24 lacs which have been made into homeopathic remedies.

The first forty pages serve to introduce the various milks and to discuss their themes, of which there are six: relationship and separation, emotional turmoil (primarily forsaken feelings), friends (desires to belong to a group), falling down (both physically falling and falling down into an animal/bestial state), impulsiveness under control (rage and sexuality coupled with a history of abuse), and antagonism.

The next eighty pages consist of the slides (six per page) before coming to the final section (70 pages) where cases are discussed. Here Master presents not only his own cases but also those of E. W. Berridge, J. H. Clarke, C. Lippe and S. Swan (this material is not referenced). This last-mentioned individual is considered not only the 'father of nosodes' because he employed so many of them clinically but as the first homeopath to introduce various lacs into homeopathic practice, for which, according to Master, he received a fair amount of opposition from his colleagues.

This book contains a number of interesting caveats such as the following material concerning Lac humanum:

"Jacqueline Houghton and Elizabeth Hallahahn from England proved this remedy in 1993. It was prepared from the milk of a woman and the proving was done with nine provers. A similar proving was done by Tinus Smits but instead of taking milk from one woman he took milk from nine women from different stages of lactation and gave it to ten provers. Smits feels that the advantage of this method is that a broader spectrum of mind and physical symptom would come out of the proving.

It is a very common practice in India that lactating mothers put a drop of their own milk in the eyes of newborn, whenever they suffer from conjunctivitis, hence for Indian culture the use of mothers milk in treatment of children diseases is not uncommon.

Human milk is full of hormones, especially female hormones, and hence this remedy will turn out to be particularly useful for the majority of female disorders, especially menstrual disorders, pregnancy-based disorders or emotional disorders of females.

"The most striking feature in Lac-humanum is detachment; there are so many symptoms in the proving that give us a feeling that the person wants to be detached ".n p.122

If one were to combine this volume with Homeolinks Publishers: The Materia Medica of Milk (editors Hiwat and van der Zee) and N. Herrick's Animal Mind, Human Voices, the reader would have a solid base to work upon. The production quality (sewn and wrapped) of this hardback book is excellent.

However, there is no bibliography and no index.

I leave you with one of Dr. Master's cases:

"A case of bronchial asthma due to upper respiratory tract allergies. He was 28 years old and had symptoms characterized by rubbing or itching of the eyes which was followed by sneezing, running nose, irritation in the throat, finally ending in wheezing. He was working and studying together. He never wanted to visit a doctor as he had a fear of injections. He had very low self confidence ever since he was a young boy. In his childhood before exams, even though he was well prepared, he would be anxious and nervous. He was not able to decide about his career or goals in life and was always changing like the wind. He always felt the need to keep on working with his father, so he could support himself in case the profession that he selected would prove to be a failure.

He was a very religious person. He was conscientious and would never do anything wrong in his life, and he was fastidious. He was constipated, the stools were always very unsatisfactory. He had a desire for milk and an aversion to fat. He was using many purgatives and bronchodilaters (sic).

Initially when I studied the case I was thinking of Silicea because he was conscientious, low self-confidence, nervous before examination, fastidious. Later on when repertorising the case using Synthesis at the rubric Mind-fastidious I saw a crossreference 'dreams of organizing'. Out of curiosity I checked the remedies in this rubric arid saw the remedies: Adamus, Lac-equinum and Lac-felinum. I have also studied the rubric 'dreams of cleaning'. And then I repertorised all of them together viz.: Conscientious, fastidious, dream of organising, dream of cleaning, low self-confidence, irresolution.

Even though the remedies like Phosphorous, Sulphur and Silica were coming high, I still selected Lac-felinum which was further behind in the analysis because of his extremely low self-esteem, extreme degree of conscientiousness and his irresolution. In his past history I also found that as a child he had a peculiar craving for slate, lime and paper. This further confirmed the prescription.

I gave him one dose of Lac-felinum 1 M. Within a few weeks he was almost completely cured. Later on I had to repeat the remedy about four times over the next two years to fully and permanently cure his asthma." p. 174, 5

Reviewed by Mary English

Farokh Master founded the Homoeopathic Health Clinic in Bombay, where he still works; he has gained hands-on experience of the remedies that he writes about in his new book. He is medically trained, and through his work in the Bombay Clinic he comes across a wide range of pathology that we in the UK rarely see. I recently met him during a teaching weekend in Bath, and he came across as a friendly, sincere individual, whose homeopathic knowledge is extensive.

So far, so good. The book, which discusses 12 Lac remedies, is largely based on a PowerPoint demonstration that Dr Master shows, as part of his lectures, to homeopathic students all over the world. Around 80 pages are devoted to this demonstration, but in my opinion it doesn't carry over well in the form of a printed medium. Although it may well be very good as a teaching aid, PowerPoint leaves much to be desired when presented in the flat, two dimensions of the printed page.

The whole book took two days, on and off, to read from cover-to-cover. It is full of very new and interesting information. Take, for instance, the proving of goat's milk - Lac caprinum. The remedy shares many features of the astrological sign of Capricorn. One prominent feature of the star sign is that people born under its influence tend to take some time to achieve success in life. This same quality can be seen in the first proving, done in 1996 by Kees Dam and Yvonne Lassauw:

"In the proving I also saw that the person wants a high position. Such a high position that nobody can come above you and you are the only one who is in control (this is the most safe position for him)...People dreamt of going upstairs, on the roof, on the terrace, on the highest peak of the house because they thought it was the safest place. In another way we can also explain that a high social position is just as safe and you have to keep up to that at every cost because it is life saving. In Lac caprinum, to come to a high post, or high position, is not out of ambition or love of power, but it arises from insecurity. The person wants security because there is a threat."

There is no shortage of such information in this publication. Farokh covers the themes of the remedies, and he compares them to each other, sometimes adding information from his own cases. He also explores remedy relationships of the various 'milks'. He examines the origins of the remedies, and stresses the necessity of studying the physiology of the reproductive tract if we are to truly understand them. For example, he characterizes menstruation as a "disappointment", which is a new slant on the subject:

"But then, if there is no fertilization, the corpus luteum degenerates, and also the build up in the uterus the stromal tissue, the glands, the blood vessels which had multiplied and were enlarged (ready to receive the ovum) is 'disappointed' at the level of the uterine cavity. Then on the 20th day the membranes of the endometrium are shredded because the influence of hormones no longer exists: this is menstruation

"So one theme that has a very strong presence in most of the Lacs that of disappointment If you look in the repertory, however, you will see that not a single Lac remedy is mentioned in the rubric 'Mind, Ailments from, Disappointment' - or, indeed, in any of its sub-rubrics. However in practice we have seen enough Lac patients who have disappointment"

Continuing with this theme of disappointment, Dr Master shows us that many of the Lacs can be found, "in the rubric 'Abuse, ailments from"'. He then goes on to describe how some animals have been 'abused' by domestication to make them adjust to our society.

He then discusses the physiology of the mammary glands. I got a little rankled when I read: "Breasts are nothing but modified sweat glands that produce milk". I would have preferred the word 'nothing' to not have been used: - I'm sure any mother who has breast-fed her child will agree with me there!

Further discussion centres on what sort of pathology the Lacs are useful for, with especial emphasis on Freud's ideas of psychosexual development.

One slight problem with the book is a linguistic one: - I found it distracting to read a passage, and then be stopped by the grammar, punctuation or spelling. I like to be able to read words that flow. This didn't flow, it plopped. What is needed is the careful eye of an editor, or at least a proofreader who has English as a first language. On the other hand though, I'm sure I couldn't write anything in another language, least of all more than 30 publications in English, which is what Farokh Master has achieved to date.

By way of an afterthought, I must mention that during the week I was reviewing the book, I came across a case of Lac humanum in my practice. Having just read the book made it much easier for me to see the prescription. (Only time will tell if the prescription was correct!) So, if you know nothing about the Lacs, this book might be a good introduction, as it covers the basics all in one volume. If you are rusty, maybe now is the time to refresh your knowledge.