Iscador and Mistletoe
Iscador is a derivative of Viscum album, a mistletoe plant that grows in many parts of the world. Medical Iscador is the result of many years of painstaking effort to explain the suggestion made by Rudolf Steiner that mistletoe could be rendered effective in the treatment of cancer.
This is the story. Steiner was a mystic and founder of Anthroposophy, considered by some to be an off-shoot of Theosophy that came about during the war years when communications to the German-language world were disrupted. Steiner was not, however, derivative. He was, in many respects original.
The researchers who developed Iscador took their hints from the vision that Steiner had that mistletoe could be emancipated from both Cosmic and terrestrial forces. How so?
Mistletoe is a parasitic plant. It does not grow in the soil (not the species referred to by Steiner) but in the bark of trees. It grows perpendicular to the branch in which it thrusts its sucker, and it does not obey many of the laws of the plant kingdom. For instance, its berries ripen in winter, without warmth. It stores up chlorophyll and is green all year long and is indifferent to light. It is thus neither geotropic or phototropic and this is the fact that fascinated Anthroposophical researchers Kaelin and Leroi.
While Steiner felt that mistletoe could replace the scalpel, Anthroposophical doctors are quick to admit that Iscador is not there yet. They use Iscador in conjunction with conventional therapies, such as irradiation, to protect against injury. Iscador itself comes in many varieties. It is made by fermentation and is thus not really a conventional preparation of mistletoe such as one occasionally finds, i.e., it is not a powder or alcoholic extract.
A word to the wise . . .
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