- Email: [email protected]
The lichens
The lichens Their place in nature and as remedies WILHELM
PELIKAN
In the lichens, two lower forms of life, the algae and the fungi, have combined to form a higher order of life. The sphere in which the algae live is water permeated with light, in every possible f o r m - - h u m i d air, water vapour, rain drops, water from melting ice and snow, rivulet, brook, stream, river, small pond, wide lake, or ocean. Every single one of these m a n y different forms of water has one or more species of algae: unicellular, filamentous, fiat and leaf-like or many-branched forms, floating freely on the surface of the sea, or in weightlessly swaying, bushy growths up the face of underwater cliffs. Depending on the amount of light in the water, one finds green, blue-green, brown or red algae. The 8 000 known species of algae also include some which manage to live on stones moistened by spray, or on the shady northern aspect of tree-trunks; green algae have even been found quite regularly in the hairy coat of sloths living on the shady sides of trees. Being able to form chlorophyll, the algae are the first " t r u e " plants in the line of evolution, and quite a number of algae show remarkable similarity to higher plants. They resemble leaf-bearing stems, though they are denied the ability to form proper roots and flowers. Their vitality is unbounded, putting them very much on the anabolic, constructive side in the ledger of physical life. I t is not just that they build up their bodies from inorganic matter (water, the air dissolved in it, trace elements attracted with tremendous power over considerable distances where they exist in extremely high dilution, iodine, sulphur); they also provide the foundation of life for plant-eating aquatic animals and consequently for all other creatures that live in water. But not only do they maintain the fauna of the oceans; producing oxygen in the process of assimilation they create air t h a t m a y be breathed above the waters, air t h a t also benefits land animals and men as it is brought ~o them b y the winds. A harmonious equilibrium is maintained between the existence of plants and the existence of animals throughout the earth. The algae are in a way an organ providing a healthy balance between the vegetative and the animal aspects of life, chiefly in the watery spheres of the earth. Knowing these facts, we m a y be able to find a way of implementing the suggestion made by Rudolf Steiner that algae should be used as remedies where, in childhood, the balance between the activities of the vital organism (body of formative forces, life-body) and the soul-organization (soul-body) is u p s e t ) There are tens of thousands of species of fungi. Unlike the algae, they belong to the dark, damp, mouldy, warmth-filled sphere of the soil. By helping to T r a n s l a t e d from bhe G e r m a n b y R. E. K. Meuss, F.LL.
]04
TItE
BRITISH
HOM(EOPATHIC
JOURNAL
produce humus, they are at the same time creating for themselves the half living soil in which they "root" whilst they develop their peculiar organs of reproduction up above. The middle region, the truly vegetative aspect with stems and green foliage, is lacking; but in m a n y respects the fungi incline towards the animal form of life. Instead of typical plant starch they form glycogen (the form of starch found in the liver and in muscle); their cell-walls consist not of the usual plant cellulose, but a nitrogenous form of cellulose, chitin, the supporting substance found in insects, and also in molluscs, worms and coelenterates. The most highly developed fungi, such as the Agarieus and Boletus species, look like a grotesque combination of root and flower processes, with the central element cut out. I n the processes of nature, the fungi are as much on the side of katabolism, of the breaking-down of matter, as the algae are on the side of anabolism. Anything from which life has departed, which has been rejected by life, or never fully taken up and formed through b y it, provides the ground in which fungi m a y develop their activity. They cause and promote fermentation, moulding, rotting, humification. On living green plants, too, the fungi produce effects t h a t strike one as animal in nature. On the plants they attack, fungi cause the development of structures resembling the galls produced b y insects, sclerotia (e.g. ergot), or witches' besom. The development of an inflorescence is a process which brings the vegetative specifically plant aspect of life into a particular relation with the animal aspect. The loss of the green colour peculiar to the leaves, the appearance of other colours, of scent, the way in which the shape of flowers approaches and fits t h a t of animals, the limits set to anabolic processes and the increase and preponderance of certain katabolic processes which m a y even go so far t h a t plant poisons are formed--all these are indications of plant nature turning towards animal nature. Here we are moving in a sphere t h a t lies between plant and animal. Seen against this background, the fungal form of life shows aspects which give the basic indications as to how fungi might serve as medicinal agents--this would be pathological conditions where the soul aspect of life (the soul-body) is very much distracted from its actual task, the proper organization of the forces of the life-body, particularly in the area of the brain. (There has been much discussion recently on the psychedelic actions of certain fungal substances, or of their derivatives. These, too, point to such processes developing between the vegetative and the psychic spheres.) The lichens, of which there are about 16 000 species, manage to find conditions for life under the most difficult circumstances. Where life is dying out, freezing, congealing, there we find them, the hardiest plants on earth. The frozen ground of the polar regions, primitive rock, dolomites, or chalks, the lifeless bark of tree-trunks, branches and twigs, in all climatic zones--all sorts of different species of lichens live on these; they m a y even be found on the hot, parched soil of the desert. I n the tundra, where only the very top soil is free from ice in summer, they are the only common plants, providing sustenance for reindeer and musk-ox. They cover the walls and stone-slabs of buildings, or at least give them a touch of violet, grey-blue, brown, greenish or golden-yellow colour, providing the air is sufficiently pure. They disappear from cities and other areas where air-pollution has gone beyond a certain limit. I n spite of their tremendous vitality the lichens, looked at without prejudice, give the impression of life t h a t has shrunk. The legends of nordic countries
THE LICHENS
105
express this most vividly, telling of a time when these plants were strong and luxuriant, with cattle thriving on them and giving much milk; until one day the farmers offended against the gods, and a curse was laid upon the land. Then plants which before had grown to the height of a man shrank down and were dwarfed. But it is only the physical body that has been reduced; the forces of the life-body have retained their power, enabling the lichens to hold out in regions where life is practically impossible. Of course one must first get used to the idea of~eeing plants in shrivelled-up things such as something looking l i k e n dusting of powder, a filmy coating, or jelly-like lumps. This is easier with the slightly larger forms which even to the layman look like plants, with gnarled leaves, tough and leathery, dry as cardboard, curled up, contracted and often in miniature, herbs, low shrub-forms, or beards, some feet long, floating down from twigs and branches. The species that have proved of greatest value both medicinally and as food for m a n and beast are among the lichens t h a t have shrunk least and bear the closest resemblance to the higher plants. Let us look at some of them.
Cetraria islandica, Iceland moss, grows in the tundras of the northern continents, in dry forests and on heath soil in the mountains of central Europe. Its thalli are about the length of a finger; they grow upright like small bushes and are lobate.
Cladonia rangiferina, reindeer moss, is the "grass" of the tundra, with its gnarled or coral-like, bushy, many-branched, grey-green thalli about a hand high.
Lecanora esculenta, manna moss, is found The thalli are nodular, with small lobules, blown in drifts by the wind, providing an starvation; in Japan, the related Iwatake
in Asia Minor, Persia, North Africa. grow rapidly after rain, and m a y be important source of food in times of lichen still serves as a food today.
Evernia prunastri, oak moss, shall stand as the representative of the m a n y greybeard lichens floating down from the branches of trees in d a m p mountain forests. I t grows attached to the bark on the branches of deciduous trees, in the warmer parts of our regions, dividing like antlers, stretching away to the length of a span. Among the lichens, this is the one with the strongest scent; it is often added to the subtle, evanescent scents of flowers to make them more lasting, full and rounded, and also to give them a certain sultry, more animal, accent, of the type otherwise only achieved b y adding extracts from animal glands (from beavers, musk-deer, civet). Is it possible to discern the essential nature of lichens from the details just given? The lichen is a truly threefold plant structure; the processes of root, leaf and flower m a y not be fully formed out, but, as we shall see, they are inherent as processes. The lichens do not have roots in the strict sense of the word; but the mycelia of the symbiosis between fungus and alga (which is what the lichen is) secrete strong acids. These eat their way into the ground beneath, even into chalk and primitive rock, dissolving the mineral constituents and even, through a form of chelation, traces of metals. This gives the plant a high mineral content, up to 28 per cent. of the dry weight. The amount of acid in t h a t m a y be up to 8 per cent. One particular characteristic of the lichens is therefore their intensive relation to the dead mineral kingdom, and in this they differ from fungi and algae. 4
106
THE
BItITISH
HOM(EOI?ATI~IIC
JOUI~qAL
The lichens also do not form flowers in the usual sense; but a flower-like process arises from their fungal aspect, causing the plant to assume colour, in some instances even scent, and in special cases to form poison (this is often connected with premature, displaced, or over-intensive flowering processes; instances of it are Belladonna, Mandragora, Digitalis, Conium). For centuries the pigment from lichens has beer~ used to dye wool and silk; every laboratory still uses litmus as a reagent nowadays. The lichens growing on walls, rocks and on the bark of trees positively draw the eye with their colours of every shade on the p a l e t t e - - a s though wall, rock and bark were flowering themselves. W h a t in the higher plants represents the leaf element is taken over b y the algal aspect in the lichens. The algae--usually globe algae, like drops of mercury form a middle layer in the fungal mycehum, the "mercurial element", mediating between the absorbent salt processes of the root and the outwardgoing flowering, colour and scent processes. I f one considers the algal activity, one m a y come to understand the anabolic processes which in the lichens form such typical polysaccharides as moss starch (lichenin and isolichenin), mixtures of sugars, pectins, lignins, mucins. Many species of lichen show intensive antibiotic activity, and this recalls the fungal component in the symbiosis. Here one thinks of the antibiotics deriving from yeast fungi, penicillin and related substances. Out of 100 species of lichen examined in the U.S.A., 52 contained bactericidal substances; and 38 of the 58 Swiss species investigated were found to have antibiotic and tuberculostatie properties, 17 of t h e m to a considerable extent. Pulmonary moss, Iceland moss, reindeer moss were for a long time popular remedies for tubercular diseases of the lung. I n Chinese medicine, and also in the native medicine of Africa and South America, species of Usnea were used to treat festering wounds. The usninic acid obtained from species of Usnea has such a powerful bacteriostatic action t h a t in the Russian a r m y extracts of the lichen were used to impregnate field dressings. The antibacterial substances found in lichens do, however, differ from antibiotics such as penicillin in their chemical structure. They are non-nitrogenous acids. This will be obvious if one compares the structural formula of four important acids obtained from lichens with that of penicillin:
CHS-CIH-COOH CI2H2~CH-COOH
HOOC-I'IC--(~=CH 2 CH5 (C H2)I~.HCo/CO
-
OH OH ~ H3C,~ 3-COCH3
HO- o COCH3 X:toccellic acid
Protolichesterinic acid
COOH OH I I
c=c--c=c
%r
Vulpinic acid (vulpine poison)
Usninic acid
e-co-,,-c,-c C=(CHsJ2
,,,
CO-N--CH-COOH l~enicillin
All in all, it m a y be said that just as the algae have chosen the many different forms of hght-filled water as their habitat, and the fungi have chosen moist and humid, half living humus, so the lichens inhabit, enliven and open up the mineral substance of earth, rock, stone and the products of their deterioration-and also the bark-forming processes of plants, where mineralization is an aspect.
THE
LICHENS
107
From the essential nature of lichens we m a y also derive the main indications for their medicinal use. On the one hand they are vulneraries. I n the wound, the physical body has met with destruction. The lichens cause it to be permeated again with the forces of the vital principle, of the body of formative forces, so t h a t regenerative growth results. This growth must at the same time obey the laws t h a t pertain to the h u m a n form, a form in which the spiritual nature of man, the ego, chiefly finds expression. This is what plants are able to do particularly well; they combine great vitality with the ability to make mineral elements very much part of themselves. The different aspects of m a n ' s being (both physical and non-physical) each have their own particular relation to the different kingdoms of nature. The spiritual principle of man's being, the ego, is particularly concerned with the mineral, the dead sphere. A demonstration of this is the complete mastery of the chalk-process in the formation of the skeleton. Quite generally speaking, mineral remedies will therefore act on the ego and its organizing activities. On the other hand, the lichens have also always been used as remedies for diseases of the lung. The lung is an organ which in its development has been linked with the evolution of dry land; only when life found a foothold on this firm earth and was no longer unfolding only in the water, was it possible for lungs to develop. And in addition such organs are only thinkable in conjunction with the atmospheric conditions now prevailing on earth (in the early stages of the earth, the atmosphere was quite different, containing no oxygen and much sulphur). This special relationship between the lung and solid earth and air finds an echo in the relations we have described between the lichens and these two elements. A third area where lichens might be used therapeutically arises from a suggestion made b y Rudolf Steiner, t h a t remedies made from lichens might be used in the treatment of sarcoma. W h a t happens with a sarcoma, much as it does with carcinoma, but even more so, and in the mesenchymal sphere, is t h a t the physical organization grows too independent of the delimiting, formgiving impulses coming from the spiritual and soul aspects of the h u m a n being, and above all the ego. The explosive, active growth of the tumour which results is in marked contrast to the contracted, slowed-down growth shown b y lichens. This is not the place to go into further details about this, but perhaps it m a y be mentioned that the Society for Cancer Research in Arlesheim, Switzerland, is about to publish a paper on sarcoma and the treatment of sarcoma. The suggestion made by Rudolf Steiner links up with another he put forward, and which has become very widely known in the meantime, t h a t Viscum album, prepared b y special methods, would be fruitful in the t r e a t m e n t of cancer. I t has now been established t h a t Viscum contains substances with the most powerful cytostatic action so far achieved with plant substances, and recently, forty-six years after Steiner made his suggestion, Japanese scientists have also reported on remarkable antitumour activities shown by polysaccharides obtained from lichens, particularly Cetraria islandica var. orientalis Asahina. 2 These actions were demonstrated on experimental mouse sarcomata. The lichens, almost forgotten as remedies for a long time, are once again gaining attention in modern medicine. REFEREI~CES 1 F o r details, see F. H u s e m a n n (1956). Das Bild des Menschen als Grundlage der Heilkunst~ c h a p t e r on diseases of childhood. Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgart. 2 The Japanese Journal of Cancer Research, 59, 5. Tokyo, 1968.
PELIKAN
In the lichens, two lower forms of life, the algae and the fungi, have combined to form a higher order of life. The sphere in which the algae live is water permeated with light, in every possible f o r m - - h u m i d air, water vapour, rain drops, water from melting ice and snow, rivulet, brook, stream, river, small pond, wide lake, or ocean. Every single one of these m a n y different forms of water has one or more species of algae: unicellular, filamentous, fiat and leaf-like or many-branched forms, floating freely on the surface of the sea, or in weightlessly swaying, bushy growths up the face of underwater cliffs. Depending on the amount of light in the water, one finds green, blue-green, brown or red algae. The 8 000 known species of algae also include some which manage to live on stones moistened by spray, or on the shady northern aspect of tree-trunks; green algae have even been found quite regularly in the hairy coat of sloths living on the shady sides of trees. Being able to form chlorophyll, the algae are the first " t r u e " plants in the line of evolution, and quite a number of algae show remarkable similarity to higher plants. They resemble leaf-bearing stems, though they are denied the ability to form proper roots and flowers. Their vitality is unbounded, putting them very much on the anabolic, constructive side in the ledger of physical life. I t is not just that they build up their bodies from inorganic matter (water, the air dissolved in it, trace elements attracted with tremendous power over considerable distances where they exist in extremely high dilution, iodine, sulphur); they also provide the foundation of life for plant-eating aquatic animals and consequently for all other creatures that live in water. But not only do they maintain the fauna of the oceans; producing oxygen in the process of assimilation they create air t h a t m a y be breathed above the waters, air t h a t also benefits land animals and men as it is brought ~o them b y the winds. A harmonious equilibrium is maintained between the existence of plants and the existence of animals throughout the earth. The algae are in a way an organ providing a healthy balance between the vegetative and the animal aspects of life, chiefly in the watery spheres of the earth. Knowing these facts, we m a y be able to find a way of implementing the suggestion made by Rudolf Steiner that algae should be used as remedies where, in childhood, the balance between the activities of the vital organism (body of formative forces, life-body) and the soul-organization (soul-body) is u p s e t ) There are tens of thousands of species of fungi. Unlike the algae, they belong to the dark, damp, mouldy, warmth-filled sphere of the soil. By helping to T r a n s l a t e d from bhe G e r m a n b y R. E. K. Meuss, F.LL.
]04
TItE
BRITISH
HOM(EOPATHIC
JOURNAL
produce humus, they are at the same time creating for themselves the half living soil in which they "root" whilst they develop their peculiar organs of reproduction up above. The middle region, the truly vegetative aspect with stems and green foliage, is lacking; but in m a n y respects the fungi incline towards the animal form of life. Instead of typical plant starch they form glycogen (the form of starch found in the liver and in muscle); their cell-walls consist not of the usual plant cellulose, but a nitrogenous form of cellulose, chitin, the supporting substance found in insects, and also in molluscs, worms and coelenterates. The most highly developed fungi, such as the Agarieus and Boletus species, look like a grotesque combination of root and flower processes, with the central element cut out. I n the processes of nature, the fungi are as much on the side of katabolism, of the breaking-down of matter, as the algae are on the side of anabolism. Anything from which life has departed, which has been rejected by life, or never fully taken up and formed through b y it, provides the ground in which fungi m a y develop their activity. They cause and promote fermentation, moulding, rotting, humification. On living green plants, too, the fungi produce effects t h a t strike one as animal in nature. On the plants they attack, fungi cause the development of structures resembling the galls produced b y insects, sclerotia (e.g. ergot), or witches' besom. The development of an inflorescence is a process which brings the vegetative specifically plant aspect of life into a particular relation with the animal aspect. The loss of the green colour peculiar to the leaves, the appearance of other colours, of scent, the way in which the shape of flowers approaches and fits t h a t of animals, the limits set to anabolic processes and the increase and preponderance of certain katabolic processes which m a y even go so far t h a t plant poisons are formed--all these are indications of plant nature turning towards animal nature. Here we are moving in a sphere t h a t lies between plant and animal. Seen against this background, the fungal form of life shows aspects which give the basic indications as to how fungi might serve as medicinal agents--this would be pathological conditions where the soul aspect of life (the soul-body) is very much distracted from its actual task, the proper organization of the forces of the life-body, particularly in the area of the brain. (There has been much discussion recently on the psychedelic actions of certain fungal substances, or of their derivatives. These, too, point to such processes developing between the vegetative and the psychic spheres.) The lichens, of which there are about 16 000 species, manage to find conditions for life under the most difficult circumstances. Where life is dying out, freezing, congealing, there we find them, the hardiest plants on earth. The frozen ground of the polar regions, primitive rock, dolomites, or chalks, the lifeless bark of tree-trunks, branches and twigs, in all climatic zones--all sorts of different species of lichens live on these; they m a y even be found on the hot, parched soil of the desert. I n the tundra, where only the very top soil is free from ice in summer, they are the only common plants, providing sustenance for reindeer and musk-ox. They cover the walls and stone-slabs of buildings, or at least give them a touch of violet, grey-blue, brown, greenish or golden-yellow colour, providing the air is sufficiently pure. They disappear from cities and other areas where air-pollution has gone beyond a certain limit. I n spite of their tremendous vitality the lichens, looked at without prejudice, give the impression of life t h a t has shrunk. The legends of nordic countries
THE LICHENS
105
express this most vividly, telling of a time when these plants were strong and luxuriant, with cattle thriving on them and giving much milk; until one day the farmers offended against the gods, and a curse was laid upon the land. Then plants which before had grown to the height of a man shrank down and were dwarfed. But it is only the physical body that has been reduced; the forces of the life-body have retained their power, enabling the lichens to hold out in regions where life is practically impossible. Of course one must first get used to the idea of~eeing plants in shrivelled-up things such as something looking l i k e n dusting of powder, a filmy coating, or jelly-like lumps. This is easier with the slightly larger forms which even to the layman look like plants, with gnarled leaves, tough and leathery, dry as cardboard, curled up, contracted and often in miniature, herbs, low shrub-forms, or beards, some feet long, floating down from twigs and branches. The species that have proved of greatest value both medicinally and as food for m a n and beast are among the lichens t h a t have shrunk least and bear the closest resemblance to the higher plants. Let us look at some of them.
Cetraria islandica, Iceland moss, grows in the tundras of the northern continents, in dry forests and on heath soil in the mountains of central Europe. Its thalli are about the length of a finger; they grow upright like small bushes and are lobate.
Cladonia rangiferina, reindeer moss, is the "grass" of the tundra, with its gnarled or coral-like, bushy, many-branched, grey-green thalli about a hand high.
Lecanora esculenta, manna moss, is found The thalli are nodular, with small lobules, blown in drifts by the wind, providing an starvation; in Japan, the related Iwatake
in Asia Minor, Persia, North Africa. grow rapidly after rain, and m a y be important source of food in times of lichen still serves as a food today.
Evernia prunastri, oak moss, shall stand as the representative of the m a n y greybeard lichens floating down from the branches of trees in d a m p mountain forests. I t grows attached to the bark on the branches of deciduous trees, in the warmer parts of our regions, dividing like antlers, stretching away to the length of a span. Among the lichens, this is the one with the strongest scent; it is often added to the subtle, evanescent scents of flowers to make them more lasting, full and rounded, and also to give them a certain sultry, more animal, accent, of the type otherwise only achieved b y adding extracts from animal glands (from beavers, musk-deer, civet). Is it possible to discern the essential nature of lichens from the details just given? The lichen is a truly threefold plant structure; the processes of root, leaf and flower m a y not be fully formed out, but, as we shall see, they are inherent as processes. The lichens do not have roots in the strict sense of the word; but the mycelia of the symbiosis between fungus and alga (which is what the lichen is) secrete strong acids. These eat their way into the ground beneath, even into chalk and primitive rock, dissolving the mineral constituents and even, through a form of chelation, traces of metals. This gives the plant a high mineral content, up to 28 per cent. of the dry weight. The amount of acid in t h a t m a y be up to 8 per cent. One particular characteristic of the lichens is therefore their intensive relation to the dead mineral kingdom, and in this they differ from fungi and algae. 4
106
THE
BItITISH
HOM(EOI?ATI~IIC
JOUI~qAL
The lichens also do not form flowers in the usual sense; but a flower-like process arises from their fungal aspect, causing the plant to assume colour, in some instances even scent, and in special cases to form poison (this is often connected with premature, displaced, or over-intensive flowering processes; instances of it are Belladonna, Mandragora, Digitalis, Conium). For centuries the pigment from lichens has beer~ used to dye wool and silk; every laboratory still uses litmus as a reagent nowadays. The lichens growing on walls, rocks and on the bark of trees positively draw the eye with their colours of every shade on the p a l e t t e - - a s though wall, rock and bark were flowering themselves. W h a t in the higher plants represents the leaf element is taken over b y the algal aspect in the lichens. The algae--usually globe algae, like drops of mercury form a middle layer in the fungal mycehum, the "mercurial element", mediating between the absorbent salt processes of the root and the outwardgoing flowering, colour and scent processes. I f one considers the algal activity, one m a y come to understand the anabolic processes which in the lichens form such typical polysaccharides as moss starch (lichenin and isolichenin), mixtures of sugars, pectins, lignins, mucins. Many species of lichen show intensive antibiotic activity, and this recalls the fungal component in the symbiosis. Here one thinks of the antibiotics deriving from yeast fungi, penicillin and related substances. Out of 100 species of lichen examined in the U.S.A., 52 contained bactericidal substances; and 38 of the 58 Swiss species investigated were found to have antibiotic and tuberculostatie properties, 17 of t h e m to a considerable extent. Pulmonary moss, Iceland moss, reindeer moss were for a long time popular remedies for tubercular diseases of the lung. I n Chinese medicine, and also in the native medicine of Africa and South America, species of Usnea were used to treat festering wounds. The usninic acid obtained from species of Usnea has such a powerful bacteriostatic action t h a t in the Russian a r m y extracts of the lichen were used to impregnate field dressings. The antibacterial substances found in lichens do, however, differ from antibiotics such as penicillin in their chemical structure. They are non-nitrogenous acids. This will be obvious if one compares the structural formula of four important acids obtained from lichens with that of penicillin:
CHS-CIH-COOH CI2H2~CH-COOH
HOOC-I'IC--(~=CH 2 CH5 (C H2)I~.HCo/CO
-
OH OH ~ H3C,~ 3-COCH3
HO- o COCH3 X:toccellic acid
Protolichesterinic acid
COOH OH I I
c=c--c=c
%r
Vulpinic acid (vulpine poison)
Usninic acid
e-co-,,-c,-c C=(CHsJ2
,,,
CO-N--CH-COOH l~enicillin
All in all, it m a y be said that just as the algae have chosen the many different forms of hght-filled water as their habitat, and the fungi have chosen moist and humid, half living humus, so the lichens inhabit, enliven and open up the mineral substance of earth, rock, stone and the products of their deterioration-and also the bark-forming processes of plants, where mineralization is an aspect.
THE
LICHENS
107
From the essential nature of lichens we m a y also derive the main indications for their medicinal use. On the one hand they are vulneraries. I n the wound, the physical body has met with destruction. The lichens cause it to be permeated again with the forces of the vital principle, of the body of formative forces, so t h a t regenerative growth results. This growth must at the same time obey the laws t h a t pertain to the h u m a n form, a form in which the spiritual nature of man, the ego, chiefly finds expression. This is what plants are able to do particularly well; they combine great vitality with the ability to make mineral elements very much part of themselves. The different aspects of m a n ' s being (both physical and non-physical) each have their own particular relation to the different kingdoms of nature. The spiritual principle of man's being, the ego, is particularly concerned with the mineral, the dead sphere. A demonstration of this is the complete mastery of the chalk-process in the formation of the skeleton. Quite generally speaking, mineral remedies will therefore act on the ego and its organizing activities. On the other hand, the lichens have also always been used as remedies for diseases of the lung. The lung is an organ which in its development has been linked with the evolution of dry land; only when life found a foothold on this firm earth and was no longer unfolding only in the water, was it possible for lungs to develop. And in addition such organs are only thinkable in conjunction with the atmospheric conditions now prevailing on earth (in the early stages of the earth, the atmosphere was quite different, containing no oxygen and much sulphur). This special relationship between the lung and solid earth and air finds an echo in the relations we have described between the lichens and these two elements. A third area where lichens might be used therapeutically arises from a suggestion made b y Rudolf Steiner, t h a t remedies made from lichens might be used in the treatment of sarcoma. W h a t happens with a sarcoma, much as it does with carcinoma, but even more so, and in the mesenchymal sphere, is t h a t the physical organization grows too independent of the delimiting, formgiving impulses coming from the spiritual and soul aspects of the h u m a n being, and above all the ego. The explosive, active growth of the tumour which results is in marked contrast to the contracted, slowed-down growth shown b y lichens. This is not the place to go into further details about this, but perhaps it m a y be mentioned that the Society for Cancer Research in Arlesheim, Switzerland, is about to publish a paper on sarcoma and the treatment of sarcoma. The suggestion made by Rudolf Steiner links up with another he put forward, and which has become very widely known in the meantime, t h a t Viscum album, prepared b y special methods, would be fruitful in the t r e a t m e n t of cancer. I t has now been established t h a t Viscum contains substances with the most powerful cytostatic action so far achieved with plant substances, and recently, forty-six years after Steiner made his suggestion, Japanese scientists have also reported on remarkable antitumour activities shown by polysaccharides obtained from lichens, particularly Cetraria islandica var. orientalis Asahina. 2 These actions were demonstrated on experimental mouse sarcomata. The lichens, almost forgotten as remedies for a long time, are once again gaining attention in modern medicine. REFEREI~CES 1 F o r details, see F. H u s e m a n n (1956). Das Bild des Menschen als Grundlage der Heilkunst~ c h a p t e r on diseases of childhood. Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgart. 2 The Japanese Journal of Cancer Research, 59, 5. Tokyo, 1968.