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Spongia
tosta
Extracts from the book Sea Remedies,
Evolution of the Senses, by Jo Evans. For the full contents
list and sample chapter download
a pdf
SPONGIA (summary)
MAIN POLARITIES: Expanding or Contracting. Pressed apart or
Pinched together. Hardness or Flabbiness.
MIND: Haunted. Strong anxiety concerning health. Suicidal depression.
Loose [expansive mood: joking, witty, over-the-top, singing,
as if drunk, wild fantasies, delirious] or Uptight/rigid [contracting
mood: irritable, abusive, obstinate, argumentative, vindictive,
rejects people].
SENSATIONS: Expanding or Contracting. Flabby or Hard. Burning.
Pressed apart or Pinched together. As if something is alive
inside; foreign body sensation: plugged, corked, wedged. Itching
and crawling. Pressure: as of a weight or stone, compressed.
Pulsation. As if the contents of the skull would burst through
the forehead.
SYSTEM AFFINITIES: Lymphatic, glands. Cardiovascular, heart
valves, blood vessels. Respiratory, lungs. Skin. Musculoskeletal,
joints.
CLINICAL AFFINITIES: Whooping cough. Asthma. Croup, membranous
croup. Diphtheria. Problems with the heart valves. Complaints
of blood vessels, varicose veins. Aneurysm. Arteriosclerosis.
Cyanosis. Tissue death. Gangrene. Complaints of the glands.
Abscesses. Tumours: benign, angioma [tumour consisting largely
of blood vessels]. Cancer. Complications of TB. Ailments from
worms. Catalepsy. Arthritis.
GENERALS: Aggravation: midnight, full moon, cold dry air, winter,
menstruation, pressure. Amelioration: Eating a small amount,
warmth, descending.
Classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Porifera Class: Demospongiae Order:
Dictyoceratida Family: Spongiidae Genus: Spongia Species: Officinalis
Homeopathic name: Spongia tosta. Abbreviation: Spong.
Latin names: Spongia officinalis; Spongia tosta and Carbo Spongae
(when roasted as a medicine).
Common names: Common sponge. Sea sponge. Bath sponge.
Etymology: Porifera: Latin porus = pore; ferre = to bear.
Remedy source
Common Mediterranean sea sponge, roasted until brown and then
triturated. This differs from other sponges in that it does not
contain spicules, (calcareous or siliceous skeletal forms), only
spongin, a collagen protein. Dr Otto Leeser notes that, for preparation
as a remedy, the sponge should be roasted to a brown colour and
not burnt black.
Provings
Samuel Hahnemann conducted the original proving, resulting in
156 symptoms from provers under his own supervision and 235
symptoms extracted from papers by 10 other authors; Hahnemann
considered his own account incomplete. Materia Medica Pura:
Reine Arzneimittellehre, Volume VI. Hahnemann was said to be
primarily interested to see the medicine's effects on goitre.
B. Finke MD: "A New Proving of Spongia Tosta", American
Homeopathic Review, 1859, p. 317. Finke performed a clinical
experiment on a patient who was displaying general indications
for the remedy. This confirmed the remedy's affinities with
the throat and larynx. The patient also had a history of a tumour
in the left breast.
Remedy Relationships
Porifera: Badiaga.
Marine invertebrates: Corallium rubrum, Asterias rubens.
Vertebrate: Mephitis.
Plant: Fucus, Aconite, Drosera, Ipecacuanha, Pulsatilla.
Mineral: Iodum, Bromium, Calcarea-iodatum, Kali-iodatum, Calcarea
carbonica, Lapis-albus.
Nosode: Tuberculinum.
After a detailed materia medica of sensations and symptoms,
the rest of the chapter explores the evolution, natural history
and other medical uses of the marine sponge, as well as its
Signature as a homeopathic remedy. Brief extracts below:
Sponge Senses: Pliny, in the first century AD observed
that the sponges, like anemones and coral, were "neither
beasts nor plants, but a third nature between or compounded
of both," and "have yet a kind of sense with them".
He observed the sponge to flinch and contract when his hand
drew near to pull it from a rock - a surprising act for an animal
with no obvious nervous system. No intracellular gaps or junctions
have yet been found in sponges; these are present first in the
Cnidaria (hydra, jellyfish and anemones) and onwards in evolution,
and allow electrical currents to be passed between cells. Sponges
are thought to react to touch and pass messages via chemical
signalling, and may be able to pass calcium signals between
cells via normal ion channels.
In 2005, researchers April and Malcolm Hill, at the University
of Richmond, Virginia, USA, discovered that sponges carry sophisticated
genes which would normally control the growth of eyes, the brain,
central nervous system and sensory systems in other animals,
including humans. They have the black box of sensory genes,
but do not unpack it, remaining as simple bodies.
Clearing the Airways: Do Sponges Cough?
Spongia is perhaps best known as a cough remedy. Do sponges
actually cough? It would appear so:
"Sponges exhibit contractile behaviors (reviewed by Leys
and Meech 2006; Elliot and Leys 2003). In the small, freshwater
sponge Ephydatia, an inhalant expansion phase precedes a coordinated
contraction that forces water out of the osculum. This contractile
activity generates high-velocity flow in the finer channel systems
that then propagate toward the osculum. Effectively, this seems
to be a ''coughing'' mechanism that eliminates unwanted material,
chemicals, or organisms from the vasculature."*
Just like the Spongia patient, the sponge in nature 'coughs'
to relieve the sympoms of blockage and suffocation.Sponges are
hosts, acting like hotels to all sorts of creatures, such as
crabs and worms. They have also formed symbiotic relationships
with bacteria and algae. The proving of Spongia tosta has a
strong sensation of a foreign body internally: a stone, something
plugged, or especially something alive: itching and crawling
or giving the feeling of 'fine digging,' internally.
*Jacobs et al., Evolution of sensory structures
in basal metazoan, Integr. Comp. Biol.2007; 47: 712-723
Extracts from the book Sea Remedies,
Evolution of the Senses, by Jo Evans. For the full contents
list and sample chapter download
a pdf
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