The Halogens



The oxidative action of thyroxin comes into expression primarily in the increase of basal metabolism (O2 use). The metabolic increase is bound to destruction of proteins. Moreover, from small doses of iodine there is observed a reversed depression of the previously increased basal metabolism, not only in hyperthyroidism, but in other diseases associated with an increase in cell-destruction processes. Small doses of iodine depress the action of the thyroid and effect an increase in weight; large doses increase thyroid action in rats.

The oxidative catalytic action of iodine in the physiologic organic compound of thyroxin is distinct, that is, produces symptoms in the disturbance of the thyroid. With the excessive flooding of thyroxin out of the thyroid into the blood stream as iodothyroglobulin, which stimulates the sympathetic nerve endings (which thyroxin itself doses not do) the predominance of the oxidative process in the organism increases in a parallel manner; there appear the well-known symptoms of thyrotoxicosis and Basedow’s disease. In the untreated primary hyperthyreosis, the primary Basedow, the goiter is iodine and colloid poor. There also exists a defective property of absorption. In the secondary hyperthyreosis in the colloid nodular goiter, the toxic adenoma, high iodine values are found. In these cases an overproduction also occurs. Reversely, too little or absent output of thyroxin from the thyroid into the blood leads to the symptoms of myxedema, with lowered metabolism and slowed oxidation, etc.

From these opposites the role of thyroxin as an oxidative catalysor becomes distinct in special symptoms of the deficiency or excess in the blood. The common goiter is considered as an adaptation of the thyroid to an insufficient supply of iodine, covering the normal thyroxin formation in spite of small concentration of iodine in the blood. If the thyroxin formation is insufficient or completely absent, then the picture of cretinism develops.

Since in disturbed thyroid function all grades of hyperthyroidism can be produced through proportionately small doses of iodine also in the inorganic form, so the entire picture of thyrotoxicosis belongs to the drug picture of iodine as an iodine effect in thyroid sensitive persons. It represents an indirect metabolic fraction of the iodine drug picture and is characterized though the general actions on the metabolism, vegetative nervous system including the psyche, circulation, and blood picture. This action takes a subacute to chronic course with organic iodine compounds.

IODINE AND THE SEXUAL GLANDS

To the intermediary incretory field of iodine actions also belongs that on the sexual glands. Whether they are subordinate to the thyroid gland or immediately upon the action of iodine is uncertain. In any case, the ovaries and tastes have the highest content of iodine at the height of their functional capacity. By the long continued introduction of iodine in animals, distinct signs of increased activity can be induced in the sexual glands. On the other side one know of the atrophy of the ovaries and testes as the end-effect of chronic iodism.

Iodine pass into the milk, and single observations refer to an increased secretion of milk through small doses of iodine (iodized salt). On the other side it has been reported that the secretion is limited by iodine. This agrees with the final atrophy of the mammary glands in chronic iodine intoxication.

The abortion in swine and the sterility of cows can be attacked by iodine medication. However, the physiologic range in the genital sphere is later and more rarely surpassed than that of the thyroid.

DIRECT ACTIONS OF IODINE

From the indirect, intermediary, incretory actions of iodine one can separate the direct influences of iodine. The organic compounds prepared by the thyroid are note responsible for the symptoms of this kind and they are also different from the actions of thyroxin. Whether the indirect or direct actions appear, is dependent less upon the iodine preparation, since the inorganic compounds of iodine can also produce thyrotoxicosis, and more upon the functional state of the organs, primarily, on the central regulator, the thyroid. But these direct and indirect actions cannot be sharply separated by any means and one can only separate the actions in which the participation of the thyroid is clear or probable from those in which it is apparently absent. The direct actions of iodine refer primarily to the skin, and mucous membranes and, among the latter especially on those of the air passages.

Of the diverse possibilities of iodine influence on the organism, naturally the local mass actions give just as few therapeutic indications as the end states of poisoning (for example cardiac and liver fatty changes, glomerulonephritis). There we no longer find any symptoms in which the special defense processes against iodine activity express themselves. However, the protein coagulation by iodine (iodine tincture, iodoform) plays a role in disinfection and this mass action has been tried internally, particularly in encephalitis lethargica (in the form of Pregl’s solution or Septojod) with more or less success. With the single introduction, particularly of organically bound compounds of iodine, one may have rapid excretion and relative lack of danger. Indeed, it is exactly this rapid excretion of certain iodine compounds which permits their use for diagnostic purposes, for making visible the gallbladder and renal pelvis for x-ray examination (Tetragnost, Uroselektan, Abrodil). For the drug picture of iodine, however, only the reaction of the organism after the resorption of repeated doses of iodine is useful. They are best known as the untoward actions of iodine or its salts with prolonged medicinal use.

THERAPEUTIC ACTIONS

If one review the total effect of iodine, so on the one side will be found much more extensive possibilities in use than in the old school, and on the other side more definite than when the indications are shaped only by diagnoses. Likewise, one comes to the basis of its therapeutic effectiveness much more closely by the consideration of the simile rule.

Actually the scientific, exact basis of standard iodine therapy is extremely scanty outside of goiter. And even in the therapy of simple goiter, the theory that one must balance a deficient intake of iodine in insufficient. For the prophylaxis of goiter with iodized salt (with iodine in gamma amounts ), the explanation that an iodine deficit is thereby balanced is not enough. According to McCarrison, one type will be favorably influenced, another not at all, and a third type will be unfavorably influenced, another not at all, and a third type will be unfavorably influenced. If one was concerned with a mere balancing of a deficit in goiter therapy, then the goiter should lessen by sojourn in an iodine-rich air and with iodine- rich food. But actually the therapeutic result depends upon the choice of a suitable preparation and the dose. From this one may conclude that the functional stimulation of the thyroid tissue is the essential and this will not be attained through an iodine supply in general, but only through suitable doses of iodine. Certainly food is also a functional stimulus for the tissue which needs this food but only the utilized, adapted food, according to amount and form.

If these relations are considered, so the homoeopathic iodine therapy of goiter can agree de facto with the standard use. The homoeopathic indications, according to the symptom register of Hahnemann, are swelling of the neck with numerous sensations of tension, oppression and compression of the throat. The basis is that with iodine one can under certain conditions obtain a functional increase and tissue hyperplasia of the thyroid also in the apparently sound. That the adaptability of homoeopathic iodine medication of goiter must be considered not only in respect to the dose but that also the choice of the iodine compound must be based on other, especially constitutional symptoms of the individual patient, is self-understandable (perhaps calcium iod. or barium iod., in the lower potencies in the torpid; spongia, with respiratory oppression, etc.).

In myxedema and cretinism, in which the functionally active thyroid tissue fails, iodine lacks the possibility of stimulating function, but here a feeding with thyroid substance is promising.

The outcome in hyperthyroidism is not uniform. Here the iodine sensitivity in single forms is entirely different. In the iodine thyrotoxicosis which develops from mild stationary forms of Basedow, in part also in previously apparently healthy, but sill predisposed, we have the picture of an iodine intoxication with predominant general disturbances before us; with an interval of a few weeks it progresses often acutely but may be chronic and progressive. With this form iodine therapy would not be homoeopathic but a type of isotherapy. Since with inorganic poisons an immunity of a high grade is possible prophylactically (as with arsenic) through gradually increasing doses, as this is not known of iodine, such a therapy does not come under consideration in the acute stage. By continuous use of iodine the follicles finally atrophy so that, during or after hyperthyroidism, symptoms of myxedema appear. So the sites of action, the thyroid, the sexual and mammary glands, are finally threatened with atrophy with iodine.

Otto Leeser
Otto Leeser 1888 – 1964 MD, PHd was a German Jewish homeopath who had to leave Germany due to Nazi persecution during World War II, and he escaped to England via Holland.
Leeser, a Consultant Physician at the Stuttgart Homeopathic Hospital and a member of the German Central Society of Homeopathic Physicians, fled Germany in 1933 after being expelled by the German Medical Association. In England Otto Leeser joined the staff of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. He returned to Germany in the 1950s to run the Robert Bosch Homeopathic Hospital in Stuttgart, but died shortly after.
Otto Leeser wrote Textbook of Homeopathic Materia Medica, Leesers Lehrbuch der Homöopathie, Actionsand Medicinal use of Snake Venoms, Solanaceae, The Contribution of Homeopathy to the Development of Medicine, Homeopathy and chemotherapy, and many articles submitted to The British Homeopathic Journal,