Owned by Illness Part 2

Author: An interview with Gerald Karnow, M.D.
Issue: LILIPOH #41 - Fall 2005: RESTORING OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD
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We interviewed Gerald Karnow, M.D., at the Artemisia conference in Ann Arbor, MI. Dr. Karnow has been a practitioner of anthroposophically-extended medicine and a co-worker at the Fellowship Community in Chestnut Ridge, NY, a residential community based on the care of older individuals, for more than 30 years.

LILIPOH: How does anthroposophic medicine “lift off” from the territory of conventional allopathic medicine?

Gerald Karnow: A central distinction is the recognition in anthroposophic medicine that the human being is a multi-dimensional being. There is a physical dimension, a life dimension, a soul dimension, and a spirit dimension. They all constitute our totality. From the anthroposophic perspective the physical aspect is merely the resultant of the interaction of all dimensions or aspects, so that the origins of health or illness lie in the higher dimensions.

LILIPOH: But doesn’t conventional medicine recognize other dimensions of the human also?

GK: Certainly, but I challenge you to look through the flood of conventional medical literature drowning the medical profession and find any significant discussion about the origin of diseases residing in non-physical aspects of the human being and that there is a meaning in a spiritual sense for the various illness that human beings suffer. However, as we are seeing in this conference, the scientific evaluation of the time structure of human physiological processes is gaining respectability in the field of studies called chronobiology.

LILIPOH: How is this time structure addressed in the practice of anthroposophic medicine?

GK: To begin with, one attribute given to the life aspect, the etheric body, of the human being is “time body.” It is that aspect which is revealed in the temporal aspects of body function, in the rhythms, without which the physical body would cease to function. We are very familiar with many events that have a time structure in our body: the menses, respiration, pulse and heartbeat, daily temperature changes, food intake and elimination, wound healing, body growth patterns, and so on?
In anthroposophic medicine, as in conventional medicine, we look at the most obvious of these rhythms, to come to the assessment of the health status. Is the heartbeat regular, too slow, too fast? Is the respiration too slow, too fast? What are the rhythms of elimination, food intake, waking and sleeping, activity and rest, work and play, head and limb activity, and so on.

LILIPOH: Can you give us a concrete example?

GK: It has been observed that most relatively healthy human beings have a diurnal fluctuation of body temperature – cooler in the morning, warmer in the evening. There are others who do not have this rhythmic fluctuation of body warmth, and instead often have a lower body temperature overall and a chaotic, un-rhythmic fluctuation over time. One could say here that the time structure of the warmth body is disordered. It is now interesting that this phenomenon is often observed in patients with cancer.

LILIPOH:How would you then go about and address this problem?

GK: In general, in the overall assessment, in the history-taking, in the physical exam, I try to explore as many aspects of the time structure of a person’s life as possible. This includes, of course, the soul life. There are time structure components, for example, in broken relationships that need to be understood and respected as they often have a tremendous effect on physiologic time structures. We see that in appetite changes, sleep pattern changes, and so on. All this needs to be explored and brought to awareness.
Taking the simple example of a sutured laceration, I can’t just take out the sutures after three days because I know that healing takes a certain number of predictable days, a little longer on the extremities, a little shorter on the head, but always about 7-10 days; I have to respect this. So I have to attempt to gain an overview of how the person’s life is rhythmic or chaotic, or what aspect of life is rhythmic or chaotic, and then I would address the issues for which my advice was sought with words and with a prescription for medication or therapies.
If for example we had the situation with a chaotic warmth organism, with the inability to generate a fever, I would suggest, among other remedies, Mistletoe. It has been shown – and my experience confirms this also – that Mistletoe may bring about a healing of the warmth organism. Such healing is then also intimately connected with an activation of the immune system which has failed in cancer. So it’s really trying to get a hold of the total person, of the unique interconnectedness of the inner life of a person and their illness and try to bring a person to be more and more self-directing, to encourage self-regulation.

LILIPOH: I was very taken with the metaphor that Broder [Hans Broder von Laue, MD] used of the conductor, orchestra and instruments. How do you see that working?

GK: I like this example also. I equate the conductor with the spirit, the I of the person and the players of the orchestra with the soul; then I would squeeze in the instrument maker as the life component, and finally, the instruments as representing the physical aspect. There is then the possibility that you have bad instruments. You have either a hereditary or genetic disorder where your soul as musician has received a bad instrument and the co