Homeopathy

Photo: Samuel Hahnemann 1755-1843 Father of Homeopathy

An unseen force pulls at all of us who enter the world of healing. It is like a small voice inside each of us, telling us to look for a better way of achieving health and wellness than whatever is being practiced were we are. And it does not matter in which century you live, or from which country you come, the effect is always the same. Men and women will become discontent, walk a different path, searching for whatever it is that will satisfy the desire within us to make things better.

This story begins with Hippocrates, a Greek physician born in 460 BC. He became known as the founder of medicine and was regarded as the greatest physician of his time. He based his medical practice on observations and on the study of the human body, and he taught that illness had a physical and a rational explanation. In his time, illness was considered to be caused by superstitions and by possession of evil spirits and disfavor of the gods. He rejected this explanation. Most importantly, Hippocrates believed that the body must be considered as a whole entity, not just a series of parts. For those times, his ideas were revolutionary, and quite on the mark. Much of what he taught is still applicable today.

Let's skip a few centuries to the late 1700s, when Samuel Hahnemann, a physician, chemist, and linguist practiced in Germany. In his time medical protocols of treatment were crude, harsh and invasive, involving such techniques as bloodletting, purging, and blistering. Healers of his time used a lot of Mercury. Today, of course, we condemn all such practices, but it was all they had then.

Hahnemann felt the pull of the force, and was interested in developing a less-threatening, less-invasive approaches to medicine. He had an epiphany one day as he was translating an herbal text and read about a treatment using cinchona bark to cure malaria. He was a curious person, and, being a healthy man, not afflicted with malaria, he took some cinchona bark to see what, if anything, would happen. He noticed that after taking the cinchona, he developed symptoms that were very similar to malaria symptoms.

Genius has been described as, "...looking at the usual and seeing it in a unusual way..."

Based on his observation of cinchona bark, Hahnemann considered that substances used to treat conditions might also cause the very symptoms they are designed to relieve. It sounds ridiculously simple now, but it, also, was revolutionary. From this observation, Hahnemann developed the concept of the "similia principle": Like Cures Like. He also recognized the possibility that symptoms are part of the body's attempt to heal itself. For example, a cough may help to eliminate mucus, and proper therapy is to give medication to support this self-healing response, instead of giving drugs to suppress the cough (as we do today).

Living up to the best standards of his time, Hahnemann tested single, pure substances on himself and, in more dilute forms, on healthy volunteers. He kept meticulous records of his experiments and participants' responses. Then he combined these observations with information from clinical practice, the known uses of herbs and other medicinal substances, and eventually began treating according to these new concepts.

Classical Homeopathy today is a system of health care using natural remedies to help people with their problems, both physical and emotional. It stresses the need to uncover and remove the cause of a malady, not merely cover it up or suppress it.

Homeopathy used to be taught in U.S. medical schools, but it is a system that violates the principles of our economy and way of life.

First, a good homeopathic physician may spend an hour taking a thorough health history of his/her patient. Insurance companies will not pay much for such a service. Sadly, we have become dependent upon insurance for our healthcare to the extent that I have had patients tell me, "If insurance doesn't cover it, I don't want it." So homeopathy fails to pass the "Can I make a living doing this?" test.

Second, homeopathic remedies (medicines) are cheap and easy to produce or reproduce, and this threatens Big Pharma. NOTHING threatens Big Pharma and survives in our country. If you don't believe this, just count the number of ads on TV for various pharmaceutical products during any hour of prime time broadcasts. So homeopathy fails to pass the "Can I take on Big Pharma and win?" test.

Did you know that drug reactions and side effects have become the third largest cause of death? Just behind heart attack and cancer- for now.

Finally, organized medicine and the drug industry have combined their efforts to discredit homeopathic practice to the extent that  homeopathy is no longer considered "scientifically defensible". If interested, there is an excellent article that counters all the misinformation that has been spread about homeopathy. See Rense.com for an excellent rebuttal.

All the propaganda aside, homeopathy remains the main source of medical therapy for millions of people world-wide, including the British Royal Family. Although I find frequency medicine to be much faster and easier to do, I personally use homeopathic remedies every day.

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