This book review is reprinted from The Homoeopath with permission from Nick Churchill of The Society of Homoeopaths.
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The Homeopathic Proving of Bambusa arundinacea (Bamboo)
by Bernd Schuster
Germany, 1997, pp. 237
Reviewed by Camilla Glantz

It is always exciting for me to get my hands on new proving material. I find it a challenge and an adventure to peek into the world of a new remedy and especially one with such an attractive cover as Bernd Schuster's proving of Bambusa arundinacea!

Apart from the few points which I will comment on here, the text itself is riot a disappointment and proves to a be a good and solid piece of work. However, the book's biggest drawback in my view is its lack of structure in presenting the proving symptoms. The author claims that he uses Kent's structure of the repertory as a basis, but if he does then it's certainly a different Kent from the guy I know! It is almost impossible for the reader to comprehend what is happening when similar as well as opposite symptoms are not arranged together. For instance, the headings for the Mind section are Depression, Irritable, Inner Restlessness, Totally Switched Off and Less Afraid, which makes it difficult to grasp the main ideas, let alone try to check if a specific type of symptom is present in the proving.

On the other hand, symptoms such as 'Want to sleep naked'; 'Inclination to take the medicine again'; 'Feeling that time passes too quickly'; 'Thinking less about sex'; 'Cry out because of the intense pain in the middle of the sole of my right foot'; 'Fullness around heart', and 'Right and left side feel completely different', are all arranged together, also under Mind, reflecting a lack of order which is apparent throughout the text.

The author seems at some point to have noticed this flaw, because the book does also contain some sections in which symptoms are reorganised into themes, summaries and analyses, along with a presentation of 'The idea of Bambusa'. This is in fact one of the principal redeeming features of the book since, while a few of these summaries are somewhat loose and theorising, others are fascinating. The collation of all the Wave-like symptoms together, for example, serves to highlight this unique characteristic of the remedy. Overall, though, Schuster himself admits that he doesn't yet understand the complex idea or pattern of the remedy himself - a confession which explains why many of Bambusa's repertory rubrics seem very flat.

In my opinion, part of the reason for this lack of understanding is the unsatisfactory arrangement of the proving symptoms. It is only by arranging and re-arranging the symptoms time after time and in a million different ways, that the simple language of the provers starts to become more apparent and meaningful to the editor. It is this process which is key to understanding the remedy - to connecting the symptoms, seeing how the physicals speak the same language as the mentals, and pulling them all together to make a whole. If this process is omitted, then it becomes very difficult to perceive the fine and hidden aspects of the remedy. The pure information is all there, but it only becomes evident if the proving is well-conducted and the symptoms well-collated. Schuster's failure to do this means that he is forced to lapse into speculation and to put excessive emphasis on the signature of the remedy.

The book's overall lack of structure appears to reflect a similar problem in the setting up of the proving. The same prover sometimes took two different potencies of the substance (in 30c, 6c or 1 M) in three different 'phases', in which the last phase was possibly placebo. Confusing? To me it was. Also, the book gives no information on time- scales, in terms of how much time elapsed between the different doses. When I read a proving, I like to know what was primary and what was secondary reaction for each prover and which potency did what. in any case, how does one differentiate the placebo effect of Phase 3 from remedy reaction, when the prover has already taken an active remedy in Phase I ? How does one know that the action of the first or second dose has finished before giving the placebo at all?

In addition to this, there seemed to be a marked lack of supervision in the proving. There was an 'observation period' of two months, during which time the author himself acted as supervisor 'in the event of any problems'. This concerns me a great deal, since in my experience many symptoms are lost without proper superivision. Ideally, every prover should have their own supervisor, who takes their case before the proving starts and then remains in daily contact with the prover in order to evaluate their symptoms and ensure that everything is properly documented. Without having someone objective to talk to, one tends to interpret what are actually proving symptoms as normal and therefore many important aspects of the remedy can remain unnoticed.

My final criticism of Schuster's book is over-repertorisation of the remedy. There is a definite overflow of created symptoms in relation to the total amount of proving symptoms available and it shows. Bambusa arundinacea comes up in every other repertorisation, often together with the big polychrests such as Calcarea carbonica, Phosphorus, Silica and Sulphur. It may be true that Bamboo will become a 'major remedy', as the back cover suggests, but surely it won't be THAT big?

Despite these drawbacks, Schuster's book is nevertheless a highly valuable piece of work. Knowing how much time and energy it takes to put a proving together, I can really appreciate his huge input and, all in all, I believe that he has made a great contribution to homeopathy. Bamboo as a remedy looks set to be an immense asset to everybody who studies and attempts to understand it.

The Homoeopath
Number 69 - Spring 1998