Musca domestica :a proving

- Musca domestica :a proving (R. Stewart and S. Sonz)
 If thought is life and strength and breath and the want of thought is death then am i a little fly if i live or if i die. -william blake

Musca domestica 

Musca domestica
 The common housefly is ubiquitous. Wherever you find human habitation, you will hear its infernal buzz. It is as close to humanity as is any mammal. It is therefore surprising that it has never been proven before. During the last century, an ambitious homeopath proved a parasite of the fly (Trombidium), but until now no one has thought to prove the host.
 Insects are strange creatures. Voiceless and fully armored, they don't really have limbs so much as they have tools-an assortment of saws and scissors, hammers and hooks. It is an awkwardlyjointed, segmented world where a mother may as dispassionately eat its young as it may eat its mate. It is a world that comprises over three-quarters of the total animal world. As the great naturalist, Maurice Maeterlinck, whose work on the ant is classic, puts it: "Something in the insect seems to be alien to the habits, morals and psychology of this world, as if it had come from some other planet, more monstrous, more energetic, more insensate, more atrocious, more infernal than our own."
 Musca domestica belongs to the family muscoidea, the order diptera, the class insecta and the phyllum arthropoda. In the homeopathic materia medica, the chordates are mostly represented by the milks. There is a large grouping of arthropoda represented by the spiders. From the order coleoptera, we have the important remedy Cantharis. There is only one other member of the fly family in the materia medica, the mosquito (Culex), whose common name is actually an alliteration of muscoidea.
 Obviously there are still plenty of areas in which to expand our materia medica. (We would suggest to prospective provers at least four missing members of the animal kingdom: the centipede, the stingray, the chrysalis of the butterfly, and the feathers of different birds.)
 The common fly is incredibly prolific. In one season, beginning in April, a single fly can produce more offspring than the entire human population by a factor of four. Luckily, the fly is a great food source for many other insects. This is especially true for the spider, its most natural enemy. There are even traditional songs to that effect.
 The fly, like all members of the class insecta, and unlike the vertebrates (the chordates), has no internal skeletal system, but is encased in an external support called the exoskeleton. The so-called wings are not real limbs as in the bird but are a kind of skin growing out of the thorax that vibrates to produce flight. The wings have to be continually cared for or they become un-usable.
 The head is dominated by two large eyes composed of hundreds of hexagonal lens each of which permit 360 degrees of fractured vision. Between these complex eyes are three smaller eyes.
 All members of the muscoidea family, like the butterfly, a distant cousin, go through complete metamorphosis. While most insects merely increase in size, periodically shedding their exoskeleton, flies, butterflies and moths become totally and magically transformed from one stage to the next: from egg to maggot/caterpillar to pupa/chrysalis to fly/butterfly. The butterfly has been called, for this reason, an apt symbol for the soul. The common housefly, however, has never shared that distinction.
 The fly has very unique feeding habits. For one thing, it is capable of tasting with its legs as it walks over the surface of potential food. For another, it has no real mouth, no chewing apparatus, and therefore is unable to digest solid food. It drinks its food. It extends a long, soft proboscis which emits a saliva that literally dissolves the material and the fly then sucks it up like a straw. Favorite sources for food material are garbage dumps, trash cans, fecal matter, unprotected cooked vegetables and meats, and spoiled and rancid food in general. Flies don't discriminate. They are often thus vectors for disease.
 Science made great strides when it overcame an anthropomorphic interpretation of the natural world. The same must be extended now to the practice of homeopathy. Neither nature nor our patients are served by a facile "zoo-pomorphic" clinical judgment. Just because a patient is endlessly busy, is given to a sarcasm that stings, and has a regal bearing is no justification for a prescription of Apis mellifica. We must always collaborate intuition with reliable symptomology from the provings. There are, however, a few characteristics of the life habits of the fly that have been confirmed by the proving and by (a limited) clinical experience.
 1) Unlike most insects, which seem to exist in a milieu of dry warmth and air, flies have a connection to the wet and the earthly. Wherever you find animal moisture, you will find flies. You see them collect en masse along the edges of wounds and on the eyelids of all farm animals. They seem to have an insatiable thirst. This is because, as noted before, they are unable to eat food-they must drink it. Many provers had dreams of water. Water was a theme that kept repeating itself in many ways in this proving.
 2) Flies are attracted to sweets. This is what attracts them to flypaper. Over five provers had a craving for sweets, specifically for chocolate.
 3) Flies are very sensitive to cold. They move more slowly as the temperature drops, bumping stupidly into windows and walls. With the first frost, they "drop like flies." Almost all the provers experienced an increased sensitivity to the cold.
 4) All insects are encased in an exoskeleton. They have no real skin. The fly is especially attracted to wounds and abraded skin. (Some fly species even bury their eggs in the skin of live animals; when the eggs hatch, the maggots feed on the flesh and a terrible ulcerative patch forms.) Many skin eruptions appeared in the proving. Like Lac caninum, its closest clinical analog, Musca domestica may be indicated in recurring herpetic eruptions.
 5) Filth, trash, decomposing flesh, garbage and fecal matter are areas of special interest to the fly. So, too, with the provers. One prover thought he was being followed by garbage. There was a theme of corruption and decay. "Perverted" images appeared in life and in dreams. Many provers experienced disgust with their surroundings.
 6) As mentioned before, flies are incredibly prolific. Many provers experienced an increased libido. But there was this caveat: the proclivity of specific gender seemed to be quite ambiguous. A common theme throughout the proving was homosexuality and pornography. It appeared in dreams and in delusions. Also "Delusion of being watched by a thousand eyes." Menstrual irregularities appeared as well.
 7) Finally, flies have always been connected with Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies. They say that when the devil is abroad there's a smell of sulphur in the air, of something burnt, of something rotting. With the some of the provers, there were either delusions of smell or increased sensitivity to smell in general.
 The proving
 When The New York School Of Homeopathy decided to conduct a Hahnemannian proving, we reached out to the larger homeopathic community in New York for both provers and supervisors. Why did we select the common housefly? Because we wanted to expand the materia medica from the animal kingdom and we wanted to prove a very common substance. What better choice than a common pest that has plagued mankind from its beginning?
 And so, after many amusing experiences at fly-gathering and attempted storage, we realized that a pupa should be sent to Michael Quinn at Hahnemann Pharmacy so it would be easily classified. As a promoter of provings, Michael generously made twelve vials of 30c potency for us. (It should be noted that there was no way for Michael to know whether it was male or female, and we are not sure whether or not this is important.)
 We followed the instructions laid out in Jeremy Sherr's The Dynamics and Methodology of Homeopathic Provings, and printed separate pages of instructions for provers and supervisors to be handed out at our first meeting on January 27, 1999. There was one supervisor for every prover and they were asked to communicate daily. The remedy was distributed on February 10, after two weeks of journal entries in order to help establish previous states. Each prover was asked to call the supervisor after each dose of the remedy, and they were told not to take even a second dose if they felt any symptoms at all. Needless to say, some provers took more of the remedy than they needed, and perhaps some took less. One prover took the remedy in the midst of a terrible cold, and so we eliminated her from the proving as it would have been difficult to know which symptoms to attribute to the remedy. Another prover discovered she was pregnant shortly before remedy distribution, so we only allowed her to put the vial under her pillow. We were now left with ten viable provers.
 As Master Provers, one of us was concerned that there would be no symptoms, and the other was afraid there would be over-reactions. The fact is that with most provings, the truth lies somewhere in between. We had one prover who experienced a remarkable cure of her pain from rheumatoid arthritis. And yet, at the other extreme, we had a prover who suffered terribly from the mumps. When hearing information of this sort, it is important to remember that, as Hahnemann said, no matter what the results of the proving, we are all in a higher state of health or awareness from the experience. Not only have we helped to expand our materia medica, but one is a healthier person as a result. The kind of introspection that one experiences during a proving alone is a mind-expanding treat. So, rather than feel as though it is some form of Russian roulette, be confident that whether you temporarily suffer or not with unusual symptoms, somehow you will be a better person for the experience.
 Some of the general reactions were quite interesting: some provers enjoyed the experience in many ways, some got angry with their supervisors, and some were angry with us, the master provers. One prover who had seemed to enjoy every moment of the proving got quite upset after finding out it had been "a grotesque substance." At the extraction meeting six weeks later, almost all the provers said they would take part in another proving. Both of the master provers slept with the remedy under our pillows and experienced strong symptoms. Robert Stewart called it a feeling of being a depressed Nux vomica. Irritability was a strong factor for everyone. As always there was a lot of guessing as to the substance they were proving. Not surprisingly, there were some close guesses: one prover thought it was a cockroach, another prover's wife believed it was a fly.
 At the extraction meeting, there was a lot of talk about putrefaction, rotting garbage, maggots, corruption, excrement, toilets, sewers, tunnels and dirty water. There were many dreams of water; it was probably our most common symptom. There were lakes; oceans; beaches; dirty, dreary beaches; public bathhouses. Two provers dreamt of Mediterranean scenes by the sea. There was floating on water, swimming in water, falling into water, and so on. The case that follows was based somewhat on the numerous dreams of water along with other fly symptoms.
 There were many other vivid dreams: of tunnels, houses underground, trap doors, cellars, and tree roots. There were dreams of the dead, dreams of fire, dreams of houses, and dreams of floating, flying and lightness. One prover dreamt of being covered in excrement (flies lay their eggs in excrement), and another dreamt of being a baby elephant covered in mud or oil.
 There were many sexual dreams and we found it interesting that the repertory does not cover sexual dreams. Four of our provers had recurring sexual dreams; another dreamt of rape; three others had recurring dreams of gay men or homosexual issues. And there were dreams of committing unlawful acts or being the victim of a crime, as well as threatening dreams. One prover also dreamt of imprisonment, while two dreamt of the police and two others dreamt of soldiers.
 Among the mind symptoms revealed at the extraction meeting was a general confusion of mind. It seems this is a common symptom in provings, possibly because of the introspection and the common expectations of symptoms. In this case though, there was some interesting confusion of sexual identity. A toddler child of two provers began calling his mother, "Daddy" and the father, "Mommy." Our most reliable prover had strong feelings of lurking homosexuality. He felt men were watching him, touching him, and were attracted to him. He admitted to a homophobic reaction, one that he believed was an entirely new symptom.
 There was an unusual fastidiousness. Three provers said that they could not stop cleaning until everything was in its place, and this was for them a definitely new symptom. Another strong mind symptom was a sensation of isolation, which is listed as a rubric in the Complete Repertory, but without remedies within the rubric. Isolation was a strong feeling within the group. One supervisor said she only wanted to communicate via e-mail (this was against our instructions). Another supervisor stopped communicating in any way at all, leaving that prover feeling completely isolated. Many others expressed this sensation, using the word "isolation." In addition, those same provers expressed feelings of self-pity. It is not clear if these two ideas would exist separately or if they fed on each other. The feeling was strong enough for us to use the rubrics "Pities herself " and "Forsaken feeling" (or "Delusion forsaken").
 Physically, the most common symptom was a heaviness in the limbs ("Heaviness, externally") and, for some, a heaviness alternating with lightness. Going along with this was an awkwardness in the extremities. Seven out of ten provers felt one or both of these sensations. There was also numbness of the extremities, particularly the arms. And, there were many skin eruptions. Every prover who had ever had herpetic eruptions, had an outbreak during the proving. The good news is that these same provers had the longest period of relief ever, following the proving. It is clearly a useful remedy for herpetic eruptions as you will see in the following case.
 Lack of vital heat and a desire for chocolate must also be mentioned, as well as a kind of constipation that did not include the urge to go (urging absent?, must strain?, insufficient?, incomplete?, unsatisfactory?). All the physical symptoms (and mind symptoms) that have been mentioned here so far were shared by at least four out of ten provers, and therefore seem unmistakably part of this remedy.
 ...there was a lot of talk about putrefaction, rotting garbage, maggots, corruption, excrement, toilets, sewers, tunnels and dirty water.
 But what does a master prover do with the symptoms from one really sensitive prover? After much deliberation, we decided that every one of his symptoms was valid. Even before he took the remedy he was having sensations (he smelled the remedy and it smelled like "quite ripe peaches"). He was drawn to garbage and the brackish water in the subway, he constantly used language like "being surrounded by corruption and decay," he saw garbage "moving," in fact he said he believed the remedy was about garbage and that the remedy was degrading and decomposing. A week into the proving he opened a new book to a random page and it was about maggots cleaning pearls-and he knew this was important enough to write up in his journal. His wife (who got a bit fed up with all his new symptoms from the proving) tells him that it is a sea worm or a fly. He had many skin eruptions, though after the proving his herpes did not erupt for at least another year, and his TMJ (tempo-mandibular joint) pain of one year duration resolved completely. Our "magic prover" felt like an "animal with his eyes darting about," and he had visions of a "dead squirrel with beetles and wasps burrowing into its collapsed eyes." Lots of other images (listed below) haunted him, and he was the prover who had many fears and obsessive thoughts about homosexuality. Every symptom that he mentioned seemed relevant-and that became clear to us immediately at the extraction meeting. It was clear that he enjoyed the special proving experience. You could tell that by the way he made his report. He seemed to feel that he had been possessed temporarily and it was an interesting trip. He enjoyed being a fly.
 Before we list the rubrics that Musca domestica should join, we must mention the two provers at the extreme ends of reaction. Prover 1 took the remedy and a few days later found himself quite ill with the mumps. Did this remedy give him the mumps? It's such an interesting question-and quite an unanswerable one. It certainly pushed him over an edge. He must have been exposed to the mumps (he is a school teacher), and it is not a stretch of the imagination to assume that the remedy helped the disease develop. Would he have gotten the mumps without the remedy? We will never know. But it is particularly interesting that Culex musca, the mosquito, has "pain as if he were going to have mumps" (in Kent).
 And then there is prover 2 who had been suffering with severe arthritic pains for 15 years. She tested positive for rheumatoid arthritis and her main complaint was that she felt heavy, tired and old with the pain. When she first took the remedy she fell asleep for a nap and dreamt that she was flying from room to room, flying all over her house. When she woke up, her pain was gone. Throughout the proving, she experienced many other symptoms as well, but her pain never returned. It was not a simillimum (her case is not "cleared") but it was obviously curative on this level.
 Repertory Additions For Musca Domestica :
 Generalities: Food, chocolate, desires
 Generalities: Food, sour
 Generalities: Food, water, aversion
 Generalities: Food, cheese, desires
 Generalities: Food, cheese, agg
 Generalities: Heat, lack of vital
 Generalities: Heaviness, externally
 Generalities: Heaviness, internally, alternating with lightness
 Generalities: Weakness, enervation, exhaustion, prostration, etc (nearly all provers had some form of weakness)
 Mind: Anxiety
 Mind: Confusion of mind
 Mind: Confusion of mind, identity, sexual
 Mind: Delusion, he/she is being watched
 Mind: Dreams, dirt
 Mind: Dreams, disgusting
 Mind: Dreams, excrements (many provers used the word "shit")
 Mind: Dreams, falling
 Mind: Dreams, fire
 Mind: Dreams, floating
 Mind: Dreams, flying
 Mind: Dreams, house
 Mind: Dreams, police
 Mind: Dreams, soldiers
 Mind: Dreams, threatening (threats?)
 Mind: Dreams, water (recurring dreams)
 Mind: Dreams, water, dirty
 Mind: Dreams, water, falling into
 Mind: Dreams, water, people bathing
 Mind: Dreams, water, swimming in
 Mind: Fastidious (cannot rest when things are not in proper order)
 Mind: Forgetfulness
 Mind: Forsaken
 Mind: Isolation, sensation of
 Mind: Memory, weakness of
 Mind: Memory, weakness of, for words
 Mind: Memory, weakness of, for proper names
 Mind: Pities herself
 Mind: Sadness,
 Mind: Weeping, tearful mood, tendency
 Abdomen: No significant symptoms
 Back/neck: Sensation of gap in mid-back; as if back were separated (SRP)
 Chest: Pain; mammae, menses, before
 Chest: Pain; general, mammae, nipples
 Chest: Swelling; mammae, menses, before
 Ears: No significant symptoms
 Expectoration: No significant symptoms
 Extremities: Awkwardness
 Extremities: Numbness, insensibility
 Extremities: Numbness, upper limbs
 Extremity Pain: General (many odd symptoms reported)
 Face: Eruption, herpetic, lip
 Face: Eruption, herpetic, lip, lower
 Face: Eruption, herpetic, mouth, corners of
 Face: Inflammation, parotid gland
 Face: Pain, TMJ
 Head: Eruptions, forehead
 Mouth: Hemorrhage, gums
 Mouth: Salivation, with mumps
 Nose: No significant symptoms
 Female: eruption, herpetic
 Female: menses, brown
 Female: menses, intermittent
 Female: menses, painful, dysmenorrhea
 Female: menses, profuse
 Female: pain, sharp, cervix
 Female: pain, sharp, left ovaries
 Female: sexual desire, increased
 Male: pain, pinching, testes (R. and radiating to thigh)
 Male: sexual desire, increased
 Smell: No significant symptoms
 Stomach: Unclear symptoms
 Rectum: Constipation
 Rectum: Constipation, must strain?, urging absent? insufficient, incomplete, unsatisfactory?
 Skin: Eruptions
 Skin: Eruptions, herpetic
 Sleep: No specific symptoms
 Teeth: No specific symptoms
 Throat: No specific symptoms
 Urine: No specific symptoms
 Vertigo: No specific symptoms
 Vision: No specific symptoms other than delusion of bug flying in peripheral sight
 New Rubrics To Be Added To Repertory For Musca Domestica :
 Mind: Dreams, sexual
 Mind: Dreams, sexual, violent (rape)
 Mind: Dreams, Mediterranean scene
 Mind: Dreams, beach
 Mind: Dreams, homosexual
 Mind: Dreams, men, gay
 Mind: Dreams, trolls, crones, etc.
 Mind: Dreams, corruption
 Mind: Dreams, decomposition, decay, rotting, etc. (recurring dreams)
 Mind: Dreams, toilet, sewer, etc
 Mind: Dreams, tunnel
 Mind: Dreams, boats
 Mind: Dreams, grass
 Mind: Delusion scratched by 1000 fingers
 Ideas Difficult To Repertorize :
 Prover 4 had image of picking sores until they bled, just before taking the remedy.
 Prover 7 feels this is the spirit of an insect or rodent.
 Prover 9 said "life is a hopeless dump."
 The word "shit" comes up often with provers 1, 2, 3.
 Prover 1 says "I feel like I've woken from the dead" after mumps, and "I feel like I've gone through a metamorphosis."
 Prover 1 had kaleidoscopic images.
 Provers 9 and 10 had paranoia about black men.
 Symptoms surrounding car problems: mixed-up keys, locked keys in car, car went off road.
 Many strange or perverted sexual thoughts and dreams (see Dreams, sexual).
 Sensitive Prover's Symptoms :
 Del. frenzy of hands when washing face
 Del. the water on his wrist looks like many eyes
 Del. lint on robe looks like nest of insects or fish eggs
 Del. sees hundreds of eyes in soap foam
 Del. garbage moved
 Del. surrounded by corruption and decay
 Del. was in Grand Armee and dying of cholera on his return from Russia
 Del. feels like an animal with eyes darting about
 Del. hears retching in subway
 Vision of dead squirrel with beetles and wasps burrowing into its collapsed eyes
 Homophobia, fear/obsession with homosexuality
 Thinks, sees "Italian" people and things
 Desire to stay home and protect wife
 Fears wife is leaving him
 Flinched, thought wife would hit him
 Had a compulsive need to buy things
 Was drawn to brackish water in subway
 Thought remedy was about garbage, the word garbage keeps coming up
 Thought remedy was degrading and decomposing
 Opened a book to random page and it was about maggots cleaning pearls
 His wife guesses that the remedy is a sea worm or a fly
 Seemingly Cured Symptoms:
 TMJ of 1 year duration disappeared (Prover 5).
 Rheumatoid arthritis, with more than 10 years of pain (remarkable cure).
 Several cases of herpetic eruptions disappeared for at least six months.
 Robert Stewart, RSHom (NA), CCH, is current vice-president of NASH and co-director of the New York School of Homeopathy; former President of the New York State Homeopathic Association and Director of Advanced Homeopathic Studies in California. He can be reached via e-mail at: StewartRobtaol. com
 Susan Sonz, CCH, is the director and principle instructor of the New York School of Homeopathy. Greatly influenced as a student and friend of Lou Klein, she is very interested in provings and in using new remedies. Susan also serves as vice-president of the New York State Homeopathic Association (NYSHA). She lives and practices in New York City.
 Credit to John McGonigle, who did the compilation.