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Bees – Lectures by Rudolf Steiner

December 12th 1923

……………… You can always create medications with these poisons… But if you want to apply such a medication, you really need to know the patient in question.

Say, for example, someone has gout or rheumatism. The first question to ask is whether the heart is healthy, that is, does it function well when the circulation of blood works upon it? If this is so, then you can heal such a person with bee or wasp poison. If the heart is not healthy, you'll need to make a decision between alternatives.

If the individual has heart disease caused by a nervous condition, the negative effects of administering bee or wasp poison will not be very great, but if the diseased heart condition is due to a defective heart valve, you'll need to be very careful about using this type of medication.

The blood will push very hard upon the valve and the heart in general. On no account should this type of medicine be given if the heart valve is diseased. This is the way things are.

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Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2007 Nov-Dec;32(6):533-5.  Bee stings--a remedy for postherpetic neuralgia? A case report. Janik JE1, Wania-Galicia L, Kalauokalani D. 1Department of Anesthesiology and Pain, University of California Davis Medical Center, Sacramento, CA, USA. james.janik@chw.edu

OBJECTIVE:  This case report describes the effects of bee stings on painful postherpetic neuralgia in a 51-year-old man.

CASE REPORT:  The patient was stung by 3 bees in the distribution in which he had been experiencing postherpetic neuralgia. One day after the bee stings, the patient's painful postherpetic neuralgia was completely relieved, and the relief lasted for 1 and a half months. Subsequently, the patient's pain returned, but at significantly less intensity and frequency than what he had experienced prior to the bee stings.

CONCLUSIONS:  Bee venom and bee sting therapy have been shown to have both antinociceptive and anti-inflammatory properties, which may explain why the bee stings relieved the patient's postherpetic neuralgia. Bee sting or bee venom therapy should be further investigated as a potential treatment modality for postherpetic neuralgia. PMID: 18035302

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World J Hepatol. 2011 Oct 27;3(10):268-70. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v3.i10.268.  Bee sting therapy-induced hepatotoxicity: A case report.  Alqutub AN1, Masoodi I, Alsayari K, Alomair A.   1Adel Nazmi Alqutub, Ibrahim Masoodi, Khalid Alsayari, Ahmed Alomair, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh 11525, Saudi Arabia.

The use of bee venom as a therapeutic agent for the relief of joint pains dates back to Hippocrates, and references to the treatment can be found in ancient Egyptian and Greek medical writings as well. Also known as apitherapy, the technique is widely used in Eastern Europe, Asia, and South America. The beneficial effects of bee stings can be attributed to mellitinin, an anti-inflammatory agent, known to be hundred times stronger than cortisone. Unfortunately, certain substances in the bee venom trigger allergic reactions which can be life threatening in a sensitized individual. Multiple stings are known to cause hemolysis, kidney injury, hepatotoxicity and myocardial infarction. The toxicity can be immediate or can manifest itself only weeks after the exposure. We describe hepatotoxicity in a 35-year-old female, following bee sting therapy for multiple sclerosis. She presented to our clinic 3 wk after therapy with a history of progressive jaundice. The patient subsequently improved, and has been attending our clinic now for the last 9 mo.

KEYWORDS:  Bee sting therapy; Hepatotoxicity; Mellitinin; Prothombotic state PMID: 22059110