Book review: Miasms and Nosodes by Louis Klein

It was a delight to open Louis Klein's long - awaited first volume on Miasms and Nosodes.  This new book will fill a huge gap in our homeopathic Materia Medica.

As always, Klein stretches our homeopathic brains to accommodate new understandings of well- known remedies like Tuberculinum and introduces us to some completely new ones, such as Clostridium Perfringens. Firstly, Klein lays out the context for prescribing nosodes, including an excellent history of miasms, a microbiological classification model, and a cogent argument on why we now need more than three miasms to effect cures for our patients. From there, he classifies the nosodes according to their biological families. The groupings, themselves, are a revelation.We discover, for instance, that both the bacteria responsible for acne, Propionibacterium acne nosode and Diphtherinum are in the same family! Who knew that? Klein gives us a scientific understanding of the nosode and then follows on with his own clinical stories and indications for use, ending with references from the traditional homeopathic literature. I find this format very helpful when considering prescribing these remedies for my patients. Klein connects other remedies - from plant, mineral or animal sources - to the nosodes that underpin them. He shows, through a case example, the link between the nosode Yersinia (the Plague) to both remedies Ignatia and Rattus.

It is critical that homeopathy evolves with the time we are living in; new remedies are needed. Old remedies, too, are resurfacing but in a new context. Klein describes situations where he has successfully prescribed Leprominium (or other related remedies in the Leprosy miasm) to young people who feel too ugly to show their faces and hide in their rooms, relating to the world only through their computers ("social connection without contact"). At the same time, he has unearthed some old texts, with very relevant information; John Young, MD, in the Homeopathic Recorder, 1891, for example, talking about cases of Bacillinum. The proving of Johneinum is included in the section on Actinomycetales. This is a remedy Klein sought out, and Hahnemann Pharmacy made it, because he believed (correctly) that in this mycobacteria lay the elusive cure for many of our unsolved cases of Crohn's Disease.

The clinical gems in Miasms and Nosodes are to be found nowhere else. Even for those of us who have been lucky enough to attend Klein's Homeopathic Master Clinician classes and lectures, there is here plenty of new material to delve into. The book itself is a beautiful edition, well bound and artistically laid out, with an intriguing cover photo.

I urge you to buy this book, enjoy the treasures it holds, and solve some of your most intransigent cases in the process!

Miasms and Nosodes by Louis Klein
Narayana Publishers, 2009
528 pages, €49