Carcinosinum — The Cancer Nosode: A Homeopathic Remedy Profile

Prepared from the discharge of a breast carcinoma and shaped into a clinical remedy first by John Compton Burnett and later, more systematically, by Donald Foubister, Carcinosinum belongs to the small class of nosodes the homeopath reaches for when a family history of cancer, a childhood infection the patient never really recovered from, or a long stretch of severe fear stands between the indicated remedy and its action. The nosode has no herbal register. Crude cancer tissue is not prescribable. What acts is the dynamic preparation, met by the self-governing principle, at 30C and above.

At a Glance

Source and Preparation

Foubister's material was drawn from a breast carcinoma; Burnett's preparations varied by case and were made largely on his own judgment. There is no tincture and no low-decimal Carcinosinum in the classical sense, because the substance becomes a remedy only through dynamization, and Murphy's pharmacy note records "all potencies" as the historical range. Contemporary practice concentrates on 30C and 200C for intercurrent and acute constitutional use, with 1M and higher potencies reserved for the deep miasmatic case whose response is watched over months.

Because the register is never dosimetric, the safety and pharmacology arguments that attach to herbal drugs are structurally inapplicable. Absence of substance explains why crude toxicity does not apply. The reason the remedy acts at all is that its materia medica image, drawn from more than a century of clinical observation, meets the case in front of the practitioner.

The Cancer Miasm and Its Reader

Clarke, according to Murphy, used Carcinosinum more frequently than any other as a miasmatic remedy, and the reason lies in the sort of patient it describes. Foubister followed two hundred pregnant women who had had cancer, and their children afterwards. The children showed a striking tendency to birthmarks and to a bluish shading in the sclera. The observation is quiet, but load-bearing. A child arrives with café-au-lait spots on the trunk, a smoky blue tinge to the whites of the eyes, strikingly long silken eyelashes and a great many moles, and on questioning the mother reports that her own mother died young of cancer. The case has already begun to prescribe.

The mental picture completes it. Carcinosinum belongs to the sympathetic, dutiful, over-extending patient. The daughter who nursed a parent through a long dying and whose sleep never came back. The child of an unpredictable household who learned early to feel the room before speaking. The survivor of protracted sexual abuse who cannot cry in the consulting room and is worse when consoled. Foubister's clinical observation, more useful than any single rubric, was that people who had lived under severe fear for a long period often needed this remedy. The etiology is chronic and cumulative.

Grief and mortifications occupy some of the same territory as Ignatia and Staphysagria, and the practitioner learns to distinguish them by the register in which the shock persists. Where Ignatia trembles and sighs on the surface, Carcinosinum has closed, and the closing has taken years.

Clinical Portrait

Mind and Temperament

Murphy's keynote phrase for the type is precise: these are passionate people who over-extend themselves. Fastidiousness of the Arsenicum album kind. Everything in its place, anticipation of what might go wrong, the child who cannot begin an exam without arranging the pencils. Obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Fears of the unknown, of the dark, of being alone, fears of failure, of heights, of crowds, fear of not being able to accomplish one's goals. Fear of getting cancer, or that one already has it, is sometimes the presenting complaint. Chronic nightmares and night terrors in children.

Two features surprise the new reader. The first is the love of thunderstorms, which Carcinosinum shares with Sepia: the patient reports feeling well as the sky darkens, and more alive when the barometer drops. Approaching storms may equally aggravate, and both directions belong to the picture. The second is the desire for dancing, for music and for travel, a mobility of temperament in a patient otherwise weighed down.

Restlessness with a subjective sense of being hurried, easily bored, difficult concentration. The mental picture overlaps with attention deficit and with what Foubister described in autism and in Down's syndrome. Where an indicated polychrest has failed a child on the spectrum, or acted briefly and then stopped, Carcinosinum is often the intercurrent that reopens the case.

Ameliorated from weeping, aggravated by suppressing tears, worse when reproached and worse with consolation. History of emotional suppression and deep guilt. History of nursing a loved one through some long, debilitating illness.

The Body's Markings

Signs on the skin are often the confirming feature. Café-au-lait spots, copper-colored or brown, on trunk and limbs. Moles and nevi in unusual number. Warts on palms and soles. Keloids form after minor injury, or the patient reports a family tendency to them; Carcinosinum is credited with preventing keloid formation when given early. Deep pigmentations. Strawberry angiomata. Birthmarks the mother mentions in passing.

Above the neck, bluish tinge or spots on the sclera, particularly in children, blueness of the iris, frequent blinking and small twitches of the lower eyelids and eyebrows, recurrent styes, and eyelashes strikingly long and silken. The teeth may be decayed and hollow. The child grinds them at night.

Sleep and the Genu-Pectoral Position

The single keynote most often cited from Foubister is the sleep position. The child, or the adult, sleeps in the knee-chest posture, on knees and elbows with the face forced into the pillow. Sleeping face-down, or with the arms thrown over the head, belongs to the same picture. The finding is prosaic. One asks the parent, or the patient of any age, how they fall asleep, and the answer confirms the case when it appears alongside the other features.

Insomnia is chronic and often causeless in the Coffea sense of having no story to explain it, though the etiology when present is characteristic: grief, mental activity, anticipation, and the loss of sleep incurred by nursing a loved one. The patient is a deep and heavy sleeper when sleep comes, but wakes after midnight, characteristically at four in the morning, as from a fright or a small shock through the body. Short naps refresh. A full night does not. The whole rhythm is broken.

Children of the type must be carried or rocked to sleep. In infants, cyclic vomiting and colic accompany the wakefulness. A young mother brings a nine-month-old to a first consultation, unable to describe why the child cannot be put down, and on questioning reports that the baby sleeps face-down with the knees drawn up. The case has begun to open.

Never Well Since

Carcinosinum's reputation in modern practice rests substantially on the "never well since" cases, and Murphy's rubric list is precise about the causations that call it. Mononucleosis. Pneumonia. Whooping cough early in life. Influenza that keeps relapsing. Glandular fever. Rheumatic fever in childhood. As prominently as any, the effects of vaccination. The remedy antidotes vaccination sequelae alongside Thuja and Silica, and Murphy names asthma in children worse from vaccinations as a specific indication. Where a child's acute illness was too severe, absent, or came too late, and development has paused since, Carcinosinum will often act where the age-matched polychrest has not.

Chronic fatigue sits at the core of the picture. Trembling on waking. Low blood sugar that improves with food. Short-lived revival from a nap. High fevers of unknown origin recur. Multiple allergies to foods and chemicals accumulate over years. Swollen glands, sometimes tubercular in character, sometimes open. The lymphatic and immune features overlap with the AIDS symptom picture Murphy explicitly notes.

Head, Chest, Abdomen

Headaches on the sides, pressing in the right temple, deep aching within the brain, worse in windy, stormy weather and after physical exertion. The pain extends from forehead to the eyes, or sits behind them. Head injuries figure in the etiology.

In the chest, oppression on inspiration, constriction, and a deep sighing desire to breathe. The patient must draw a long breath. Recurrent bronchitis and asthma, worse in the morning, worse after fright, in wet weather. Cough while dressing in the morning. Cough on entering a warm room from the open air. Cough on laughing, singing or shaving.

The abdomen shows flatulence prominently, and burning pains like fire in the ascending colon. Cramping is better bent double, better with pressure, better with hot drinks, worse from four to six in the afternoon. Chronic ulcerative colitis. Inguinal hernia in children. Constipation and inactivity of the colon without desire, the stool black, dry, hard and tarry-looking, better at the seashore, worse from itching and scratching. Hemorrhoids and rectal fissure. Diarrhea in children from excitement.

Food cravings frame the case. Chocolate, coffee, sweets and sugar, fats of every kind, eggs, butter, cheese, cream, milk, ham fat, bacon and smoked meat, raw potatoes and onions, garlic, vinegar, fruit, salt and pepper, spicy food. The patient is drawn toward the food that makes them worse. Aversions run in the opposite direction and are equally contradictory. Thirst is often large. Murphy names this among the remedy's hallmarks — contradictory and alternating states — and the food picture is among the clearest demonstrations.

Female Sphere

Frequent menses, too early and too soon. Intermenstrual bleeding. Violent tension in the breasts before the period, with swelling and tenderness. Induration. Chronic mastitis. Retraction of nipples. The fear that often brings the patient to the consulting room, the family history of breast cancer. Uterine fibroids and ovarian cysts. Increased sex drive and a disposition to masturbation. Hot flushes at menopause with profuse offensive perspiration. Murphy records that Kent used Carcinosinum in incurable cancer cases presenting with sharp, burning, tearing pains, and observed that it palliated for years without curing. The note is worth keeping. It separates the miasmatic register from the pathological one.

Skin, Neck, Throat

Eczema in children, psoriasis at any age, acne on face, back and chest, warts on soles and palms, boils, itching without eruption worse on undressing. Wounds slow to heal. Bed sores. The moles and pigmentations already named.

At the neck, hypothyroidism with goitre, induration and swelling of the thyroid, clothing aggravates. Recurrent tonsillitis with enlargement of adenoids. Chronic hoarseness. The patient clears the throat before speaking, and the lump in the throat is worse from empty swallowing.

Recurrent sinusitis with excoriating thick yellow discharge, catarrh in cold weather, hay fever, frequent nosebleeds.

Modalities

Worse:

• Warm room
• Extremes of weather; windy, stormy weather
• Air at the seashore; sea-bathing
• Full moon and new moon
• Suppression of tears; consolation; reproach
• Hormone preparations
• Vaccinations
• Physical exertion (may also ameliorate)

Better:

• Open air
• Thunderstorms (approaching storms may equally aggravate)
• Weeping
• Short naps
• Warmth of the bed for pain in the limbs
• Dancing
• Gentle exertion, quick motion, for the lower limbs
• Hot drinks, pressure and bending forward, for abdominal pain

In the constitutional case, 200C or 1M as a single dose, waited on and read over weeks. For acute intercurrent use in a stalled polychrest, or for vaccination sequelae in a child, 30C is usually adequate and may be repeated cautiously. Carcinosinum is not a scheduled remedy. It is given, watched and left alone.

Relationships

Consider Carcinosinum when the well-indicated remedy fails to act, or acts briefly and stops. Murphy's compare list runs through the miasmatic company: Tuberculinum, Medorrhinum, Syphilinum, Psorinum on the nosode side, and on the polychrest side Natrum muriaticum, Calcarea phosphorica, Lycopodium, Phosphorus, Arsenicum iodatum, Pulsatilla, Sulphur, Opium and Alumina. In frank cancer cases the comparison narrows to Arsenicum, Hydrastis, Bufo, Conium, Phytolacca, Asterias and Scirrhinum.

The remedy is often placed as an intercurrent between doses of the indicated polychrest, particularly where a strong history of cancer, diabetes, tuberculosis or gonorrhea in the family points to layered miasms. Better from naps recalls Phosphorus. The love of dancing and the mood in thunderstorms recall Sepia. Fastidiousness recalls Arsenicum. Moles, birthmarks and freckles recall Thuja. The overlap with polychrests is broad; the differentiation belongs to the sleep position, the sclerae, the family history and the arrest.

Clinical Uses

Never-Well-Since in Children

A three-year-old whose speech and eye contact retreated after a bout of whooping cough, or a course of vaccinations, and whose case has not moved on the age-matched polychrest. Sleeps face-down with knees drawn up. Café-au-lait spots on the trunk. Long silken lashes. Bluish sclerae. The mother had breast cancer scares in her thirties; the maternal grandmother died of cancer at fifty. Carcinosinum 200C, single dose, then several weeks of watching. When it acts, sleep changes first, the position, the depth, the four a.m. waking, and appetite follows.

Chronic Insomnia After Nursing a Loved One

A woman in her fifties cared for her mother through fourteen months of oncology, and she has not slept since. She wakes at four in the morning, exhausted, and cries only when alone. She was fastidious before. She is now fastidious and hurried. She loves thunderstorms and feels lighter in the open air. Coffea helped for a week, Ignatia for two. Carcinosinum 1M, one dose, and the sleep returns over three weeks.

Autism and Developmental Arrest

Where autism is met with the constitutional remedy and the child moves partially and then stops, Carcinosinum is the intercurrent Foubister named, and modern pediatric practice has confirmed. It is a remedy for the case that shows the picture, not a remedy for autism as a diagnosis, and the picture is the sleep position, the sclerae, the family history, the arrest.

Recurrent Sinusitis, Tonsillitis, Glandular Fever

Recurring sinusitis with excoriating yellow discharge. Recurrent tonsillitis with adenoid enlargement. Glandular fever the patient never quite got over. The polychrest that suited the acute stops suiting the chronic. Carcinosinum, given once at 200C, often reopens the ground on which the acute remedies then act.

Family History of Cancer, No Present Disease

The consultation that is difficult to write about because the patient is well. Mother and maternal aunt with breast cancer, herself anxious and fastidious, poor sleep, moles and pigmentation, café-au-lait, long lashes. Foubister's constitutional prescription. The register is miasmatic in the classical homeopathic sense, meeting the ground the family has passed down. The prescription should be sober and infrequent.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Carcinosinum only for people with cancer?

No, and the name is misleading. Carcinosinum is a miasmatic and constitutional remedy in the great majority of its prescriptions. Kent used it in cancer for palliation of sharp burning tearing pains. Foubister and Burnett used it far more widely, in children whose development had arrested, in adults with chronic insomnia after grief or nursing, and in cases with a strong family history where the indicated remedy would not hold. The nosode's origin does not fix its scope.

What potency is used, and why is there no tincture?

30C is adequate for intercurrent work in a stalled polychrest, or for vaccination sequelae in a child. 200C and 1M are the constitutional potencies, given as a single dose and watched over weeks. The remedy has no herbal or low-decimal register: it is a nosode, prescribable only after dynamization, and Murphy's pharmacy note records "all potencies" as the working range.

What signs tell the practitioner Carcinosinum is indicated?

Rarely a single symptom, always a convergence. Café-au-lait pigmentation with bluish sclerae and long silken eyelashes. Sleeping in the knee-chest position or face-down with the knees drawn up. A history of severe protracted fear, sexual abuse, nursing a loved one, or a childhood infection the patient never fully recovered from. Family history of cancer, diabetes or tuberculosis. A well-chosen polychrest that stalls.

Can it be given to children?

Foubister's practice was largely a pediatric outpatient clinic, and much of the modern image comes from that setting. Because Carcinosinum is prescribed only in potency, the dosimetric concerns that attach to herbal drugs do not apply. The prescription remains a serious one. It is a deep-acting nosode, given rarely, and its action is read over months rather than days.

References

• Foubister, D. Tutorials on Homoeopathy and collected papers on Carcinosinum.
• Burnett, J. C. Curability of Tumours by Medicines, London, 1893.
• Clarke, J. H. A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica, entry Carcinosinum. Delete the line. The References list should end with the Murphy entry, with no Kent citation.
• Murphy, R. Nature's Materia Medica, Carcinosinum entry.