Blackheath Natural Health

31/12/2025

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Acupressure and or massage can be used as a supportive therapy to ease cough, chest tightness, and sticky phlegm — but it should not replace medical treatment. On the upper chest, LU-1 (Zhongfu) sits just below the collarbone toward the shoulder; gentle pressure here for 30–60 seconds may help “open” the chest and move mucus. In the inner crease of the elbow on the thumb side is LU-5 (Chize), commonly used for wet cough and wheezing, especially when symptoms feel like bronchitis.

For dryness, irritation, or throat tightness, LU-7 (Lieque) is found about one-and-a-half finger widths above the wrist crease on the thumb side; slow massage here can calm the upper airways. In the middle of the breastbone lies CV-17 (Danzhong), useful when shortness of breath is worsened by stress or when the chest feels “locked.” Many people pair this point with slow breathing (exhale longer than inhale) to help the chest relax.

When thick phlegm sits in the throat, CV-22 (Tiantu) is located in the small hollow just above the breastbone — use very light pressure only with tiny circles (pressing too hard can be uncomfortable). This set of points may help ease severe cough, sticky phlegm, asthma, bronchitis, lung problems, short or difficult breathing, and may support recovery with pneumonia or emphysema. Stop if you feel pain, dizziness, or worsening symptoms — and seek medical care urgently for severe shortness of breath, chest pain, high fever, or rapid worsening.

13/10/2025

06/10/2025

05/10/2025

Dr. Adolph Lippe on the importance of single symptoms...

"The importance of a single symptom becomes most apparent when we detect in the patient a single characteristic symptom corresponding with a similar single characteristic symptom observed in the proving of a drug. To illustrate this position I will, first, quote a case from my own case book in which an objective symptom indicated the truly specific remedy.

This case was one of very malignant “ship fever.” The patient had been sick nine days when I found him in the morning, lying on his back, perfectly unconscious; eyes wide open, glaring, and fixed on the ceiling, pupils dilated; cheeks red and hot; mouth wide open, the lower jaw hanging down; tongue and lips dry, black and cracked; picking of bed coverings; pulse 200. The pathological condition was most certainly approaching paralysis of the brain. Now if I had followed the advice of retrograding physicians, I should have gloried in having found in this pathological condition the important single symptom. Should I then have administered Morphine, or Helonia, Hydrastis and O***m in alternation, by the spoonful, drop, or more?

The unconsciousness in this case reminded me at first of Belladonna, Hyoscyamus, Muriatic acid, O***m, Rhus tox., or Stramonium. The eyes indicated Belladonna, Hyoscyamus, O***m, or Stramonium. The tongue and lips of Arsenicum album, O***m, or Rhus tox.. The picking of the bed-clothes of Arnica, Arsenicum album, Hyoscyamus, O***m, or Stramonium. The hanging of the lower jaw of Arsenicum album, Lycopodium, or O***m. Not being able to select a remedy, I further examined the patient and found that he had passed urine involuntarily all night, but this single symptom again left me to choose between Arnica, Arsenicum album, Belladonna, Hyoscyamus, or Rhus tox.; but upon still further examination I found on the sheet of the patient, that the urine involuntary discharged, had made a large deposit of red sand, resembling brick dust. Here was the objective symptom characteristic of the case and of the remedy. I now concluded to give Lycopodium, therefore I dissolved six pellets of the 200th potency in half a tumbler full of water, and had a spoonful, every two hours, put in the open mouth of the unconscious patient. When I saw him again, at 2 P.M., I found him with his eyes and mouth firmly closed in a natural sleep and in a very heavy perspiration. He finally recovered fully and enjoyed perfect good health for many years."
Source: Homœopathic Physician 1883; 3: 149-155.

09/09/2025

Homeopathy during WWI...

Difficult cases that were often encountered near the front in WWI were the shelled-shock cases. Dr. Theodore Bacmeister of Chicago, assigned to Hospital No. 28 at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, for the disabled or wounded ex-servicemen and women, explained the burden created by “the soldier of the shattered or broken nervous system—universally called the shell-shock case—is a tremendous problem. His name is legion, his condition is pitiable, his cure tedious and precarious, and in the past, he has been a much-neglected patient. The thorough study, painstaking analysis, and careful classification of these psychopathic cases—most of whom prove to be types of dementia praecox—is a huge problem.”

However, Dr. E. Petrie Hoyle of the U.S. Army Medical Corp describes how the burden of these cases for a base hospital were quickly dealt with under homeopathic care: “For traumatic shock: in war, many a man has been blown up and thrown twenty to thirty yards by a near-by shell explosion yet never with a skin wound to show. He may have turned black, blue, and green in a few hours and be or have been but partially conscious. Give such a case a few doses of Arnica internally, and he will show remarkable improvement in some hours or by the next day, with very little soreness considering all things. Such cases recover mentally and physically, and you have emptied another bed quickly. Without such treatment, some of these men will linger on the verge of being absolutely unfit for weeks or months, as I have seen. In a French mental hospital in Lyon, I have seen squads of such nerve wrecks being exercised by scrambling round a yard on their hands and knees. They could not even stand erect. They should all have been medicated and not whipped into crawling; they needed some medicine."

Source: E. Petrie Hoyle. Medical and surgical experiences in the first World War and some statistics and medical measures of greatest value to all army medical corps. Homoeopathic Recorder 1942; 58: 57-74, 109-127

17/04/2025

Dr. Adolph Lippe on the significance of a single symptom...

"The importance of a single symptom becomes most apparent when we detect in the patient a single characteristic symptom corresponding with a similar single characteristic symptom observed in the proving of a drug. To illustrate this position, I will, first, quote a case from my own case-book in which an objective symptom indicated the truly specific remedy.

This case was one of very malignant “ship fever.” The patient had been sick nine days when I found him in the morning, lying on his back, perfectly unconscious; eyes wide open, glaring, and fixed on the ceiling, pupils dilated; cheeks red and hot; mouth wide open, the lower jaw hanging down; tongue and lips dry, black and cracked; picking of bed coverings; pulse 200. The pathological condition was most certainly approaching paralysis of the brain. Now if I had followed the advice of retrograding physicians, I should have gloried in having found in this pathological condition the important single symptom. Should I then have administered Morphine, or Helonia, Hydrastis and O***m in alternation, by the spoonful, drop, or more?

The unconsciousness in this case reminded me at first of Belladonna, Hyoscyamus, Muriatic acid, O***m, Rhus tox., or Stramonium. The eyes indicated Belladonna, Hyoscyamus, O***m, or Stramonium. The tongue and lips of Arsenicum album, O***m, or Rhus tox.. The picking of the bed-clothes of Arnica, Arsenicum album, Hyoscyamus, O***m, or Stramonium. The hanging of the lower jaw of Arsenicum album, Lycopodium, or O***m. Not being able to select a remedy, I further examined the patient and found that he had passed urine involuntarily all night, but this single symptom again left me to choose between Arnica, Arsenicum album, Belladonna, Hyoscyamus, or Rhus tox.; but upon still further examination I found on the sheet of the patient, that the urine involuntary discharged, had made a large deposit of red sand, resembling brick dust. Here was the objective symptom characteristic of the case and of the remedy. I now concluded to give Lycopodium, therefore I dissolved six pellets of the 200th potency in half a tumbler full of water, and had a spoonful, every two hours, put in the open mouth of the unconscious patient. When I saw him again, at 2 P.M., I found him with his eyes and mouth firmly closed in a natural sleep and in a very heavy perspiration. He finally recovered fully and enjoyed perfect good health for many years.

In this case, the single characteristic symptom was a guide in the selection of the curative remedy, but not in the diagnosis of the disease. If this single symptom had been a guide in the diagnosis of the disease, it would not have been a guide in the selection of the curative remedy, inasmuch as it is an established fact, true beyond any further controversy, that the diagnosis of the disease, i. e., the name of the disease never can possibly indicate the only truly curative remedy."

11/03/2025

http://blackheathnaturalhealth.com/therapies/homeobotanicals/

12/02/2025

Mushrooms

I am a strong advocate of eating mushrooms every day due to their immune effects. Because this is largely due to the beta-glucans, eating any type of mushroom will have this benefit. Clinical studies are also revealing other advantages linked to a daily mushroom diet.

Pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH) is a disease characterised by high blood pressure detected after 20 weeks of pregnancy, affecting approximately 10% of pregnant women worldwide. Gestational hypertension and pre-eclampsia are the two most common types of PIH. PIH also affects the foetus resulting in limited growth, premature birth and abnormal foetal weight, as well as later health issues like obesity and cardiovascular disorders. Traditional antihypertensive drugs, such as angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) or angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, are often not suitable for preconception or pregnant women.

Chinese researchers designed and conducted a large randomised clinical trial to investigate the impact of mushrooms on these pregnancy-related complications. Trial participants consumed 100 g/day (fresh weight) of white button mushrooms, which could be cooked according to their preference, from pre-pregnancy to the 20th week of gestation.

A total of 582 and 580 women belonging to the mushroom diet (MD) group and placebo groups, respectively, were included in the analysis. Compared to the placebo group, MD significantly decreased the incidence of gestational hypertension (4.1% vs. 8.2%, P = 0.023), preeclampsia (0.7% vs. 2.1%, P = 0.014), mean gestational weight gain (11.8 ± 3.9 kg vs. 12.5 ± 4.5 kg, P = 0.017), excessive gestational weight gain (23.2% vs. 35.3%, P = 0.032), and gestational diabetes (3.9% vs. 5.5%, P = 0.047). The percentage of macrosomia (newborn birthweight larger than 4,000 g) in the MD group was 2.1%, compared to 7.1% in the placebo group (P = 0.007).
Extraordinary results from a simple dietary adjustment.

For more information see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32577117/

14/12/2024

"Two homeopathic physicians, Drs Joseph Pulte and Benjamin Ehrmann, treated 1,116 cases with 35 deaths, or a mortality rate of 3.1 percent, while the allopaths lost 50 percent of their cases. Sixty to seventy cases Drs. Pulte and Ehrmann treated were in a deep stage of collapse, “and many had been mismanaged by allopathy before they received them.”

In 1849, a fearful and deadly epidemic of cholera hit the city of Cincinnati, Ohio hard.

Two homeopathic physicians, Drs Joseph Pulte and Benjamin Ehrmann, treated 1,116 cases with 35 deaths, or a mortality rate of 3.1 percent, while the allopaths lost 50 percent of their cases. Sixty to seventy cases Drs. Pulte and Ehrmann treated were in a deep stage of collapse, “and many had been mismanaged by allopathy before they received them.”

Sources:
*B. F. Joslin. Homœopathic treatment of epidemic cholera. New York :William Radde, 3rd ed, 1854, 90.
*S. R. Kirby. Cholera in Cincinnati. American Journal of Homœopathy 1849; 4 : 77.
*H. C. Allen. New publications. A Treatise on epidemic cholera by A. B. Palmer. Medical Advance 1886; 16: 370.