Homeopathy is both effective and incredible at the same time, and
it seems that no amount of double-blind, controlled studies or clinical
cases seems able to set the issue to rest. Ever since Hahnemann first
set out his theories in the Organon of Medicine in 1810, homeopathy
has been the subject of controversy and debate. After nearly two hundred
years of successful practice, that homeopathy should still be having
problems with acceptance and that it should remain an enigma to the
medical world seems implausible to us. Nevertheless, that is the current
state of affairs.
Discussing homeopathy for many people is akin to discussing religion and politics
at the same time: many opinions, much speculation, and few conclusions. We
are no exception, but we have had the benefit of practicing homeopathy for
many years and seeing both our successes and our failures with patients. This
experience allows us to come down on one side of the issue with a strong opinion
about whether or not homeopathy is effective. Some who have never experienced
homeopathy, either as practitioners or as patients, flatly deny that homeopathy
could possibly work, while those who have experienced homeopathy declare it
either miraculous or totally worthless or somewhere in between.
Clearly, our bias is that homeopathic medicine is effective when properly prescribed,
and a partial or utter failure when misunderstood and misapplied. We have done
our best to master homeopathic practice over the years, and we still have much
to learn. We have seen enough success in practice, however, to know that homeopathy
is a remarkable medicine, however unbelievable it seems.
What makes homeopathy seem incredible? A number of reasons exist that, individually,
might not seem so unbelievable, but they add up, as we shall see. Some of homeopathy's
remarkable virtues are also the very things that strain its credibility. What
is true of homeopathy is truly incredible, in both senses of the word.
Poisons as Medicine
One of the biggest problems in understanding homeopathic medicine lies in homeopathy's
choice of medicinal substances. Every natural substance is a possible homeopathic
medicine, as long as it can produce symptoms in a healthy person. This is called
the "law of similars" or "like cures like," the
foundational principle of Samuel Hahnemann's theory of homeopathy. The
symptoms a substance in nature can produce in a healthy person can be cured
by that same substance in a sick person. If a substance doesn't produce
any symptoms when given over and over to healthy volunteers, it doesn't
make the grade. Only those substances capable of making one sick can also be
candidates as medicines. Counterintuitive? You bet. Nevertheless, it's
true.
Some of the best medicines in homeopathic practice come from the most poisonous
substances in nature. Viewing a homeopathic pharmacy is like going on a global
hunt for the most deadly agents in the natural world: toxic minerals like mercury
(Mercurius), arsenic (Arsenicum), and lead (Plumbum); poisonous plants containing
strychnine, such Nux vomica and Ignatia; hallucinogenic alkaloids from Belladonna
and Datura (Stramonium); and animal poisons from a wide variety of insects
(Apis, Cantharis), spiders (Tarentula, Theridion), snakes (Lachesis, Naja),
sea animals (Murex, Medusa, Sepia), and scorpions (Androctonus). Two thousand
or so additional mineral, plant, and animal substances of less virulence are
also used in the making of homeopathic medicines. The idea of using poisons
as medicine may give pause to potential practitioners and patients alike. Nonetheless,
these are some of the substances from which effective and non-toxic homeopathic
medicines are made.
Astronomical Dilutions
As if the idea of using poisons is not enough to challenge credulity, the process
that makes those poisons more acceptable makes homeopathy even more unbelievable.
Such medicines are made non-toxic by diluting them. That seems reasonable:
you make a poison less toxic by diluting it. The amount of dilution, however,
is so astronomical that it seems that nothing could possibly remain of the
original substance, thereby seeming to eliminate any possibility that the
medicine could remain effective.
An extract of a substance used to make a C potency of a homeopathic medicine,
say table salt (Natrum muriaticum), is serially diluted one part to 99 parts,
six, 12, 30, 200, 1,000, 10,000, or 50,000 times to make various potencies
of the medicine.
Theoretically, no molecules of the original substance remain
past the twelfth dilution, because the dilution factor exceeds Avogadro's
number (i.e., the number of molecules in a mole of the original substance).
This is where the chemists decide that homeopathy can't work because "there's
nothing left in that stuff!" Nevertheless, homeopathic medicines have
been shown to be clinically effective in high dilutions. How is that possible?
No one knows. Various theories have been proposed involving the memory of water
and liquid crystals, but nothing has been definitively proved.
Because of proven clinical effectiveness of homeopathy in many, though not
all, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials, some information must survive
the dilution process to inform the body in such a way as to produce a therapeutic
response. An unknown mechanism does not eliminate the possibility that the
body is able to recognize the unique patterns of substances prepared homeopathically
and to use them beneficially.
A Whole Lot of Shaking
One interesting fact to add to the dilution controversy is succussion, the
process of shaking the vial between each dilution during the preparation
process. Without succussion, the diluted medicines are not effective in producing
clinical changes, especially in the higher dilutions. This implies that succussion
alters the dilutions physically or chemically in some way that preserves
the pattern of the original substance, allowing it to remain active clinically
even when diluted far beyond the 12C potency.
In fact, higher dilutions, such as 200C, 1M, 10M, and 50M — which are prepared
with a far greater number of dilutions and successions — are considered
by homeopaths to be more powerful and to last longer in clinical practice than
the lower dilutions of 6C, 12C, and 30C.
One Medicine is All a Patient Needs
Another startling proposition of homeopathic medicine, especially when compared
to conventional medicine, is that the one medicine that truly matches the
chronic or constitutional symptoms of the patient will stimulate a substantial
portion, if not all, of the healing that a patient needs — physically,
mentally, and emotionally. Such a homeopathic medicine is called the simillimum,
defined as the medicine most similar to the patient's symptoms. Having
seen such results in many of our cases, we know this principle to be true,
and it is what we strive to achieve with every patient. If you read our books,
such as Ritalin-Free Kids, Rage-Free Kids, Whole
Woman Homeopathy, Prozac-Free,
and A Drug-Free Approach to Asperger Syndrome and
Autism, you will see the
degree of healing possible with the correct medicine. We are not always able
to find the simillimum for every patient and may have to settle for a series
of homeopathic medicines that are approximations. These approximate medicines
each cover a part of the symptom picture and thus do part of the job, but
not the complete healing we know is possible with the single correct medicine.
Other homeopathic medicines may be beneficial for acute illnesses or first
aid, but nothing matches the comprehensive benefits of the simillimum.
Permanent Healing Back to Birth, According to the Laws of Cure
One sign that a patient may have received his or her simillimum is the return
of symptoms experienced previously, perhaps years or decades earlier. These
often come in the reverse order of their original appearance. The symptoms
stay for a much shorter time than they had originally, although the time
is proportionate to their original appearance. If observed carefully, this
process may result in the reappearance of symptoms dating all the way back
to infancy or even birth itself. The return of old symptoms is an excellent
sign in homeopathic treatment, indicating that the medicine is producing
results. Such a phenomenon is rarely seen in conventional medicine where
either it would not be believed or would be misinterpreted as renewed illness
rather than as part of a curative process.
Other observed indications of a healing process underway are skin eruptions
and discharges occurring for no apparent reason. These seem to be part of the
body's attempt to cleanse and heal itself in response to the stimulus
of the homeopathic medicine. During the healing process, symptoms may also
disappear from center to periphery, from top to bottom, and from most important
to least important organs and functions. These directions of healing are known
classically as the Laws of Cure. Although the healing processes may not occur
in those exact ways in every case, they often fit at least part of that pattern
described by the observant nineteenth century homeopath from Pennsylvania,
Constantine Hering.
One Dose May Last for Months
Another surprising and illogical, though common, event in homeopathic practice
occurs when one dose of a homeopathic medicine produces effects for weeks,
months, or even years. It appears that the medicine acts as a catalyst to
a healing process that has a certain momentum specific to the particular
combination of the person, the illness, and the medicine itself. During the
indefinite period of that medicine's single dose action, symptoms
are mitigated or they simply disappear. After that period, the symptoms may
return until another dose of medicine is administered; in some cases, the
symptoms may never return, leaving the patient in good health. A dose of
a well selected homeopathic medicine that works perfectly will cure the patient
of all the symptoms that it matches. Unbelievable, perhaps, but again, demonstrable
in clinical practice.
Symptoms Borrowed from Nature
One interesting idea regarding homeopathy, recently proposed by Dr. Rajan Sankaran,
is that the symptom picture of the homeopathic medicine is in a sense borrowed
from the substance in nature from which the medicine is derived. The patient
literally and metaphorically takes on the state of the substance in nature,
producing the same physical and mental state that would be produced by actually
being toxically affected by the substance, but without experiencing any actual
contact with it. In this way, a person acquires symptoms from a substance,
like an exotic mineral, plant, or animal, that may exist half-a-world away,
without any conscious knowledge of the resulting state. During the homeopathic
interview, when the patient is led into a process that reaches beyond the
conscious mind, the nature of substance itself begins to be revealed by the
patient's words and gestures. These words and gestures have nothing
to do with the actual situation or conscious thoughts and feelings of the
patient. Sankaran calls these symptoms non-human specific feelings and sensations
that come directly from the substance itself. The patient may say, "I
have no idea why I'm saying this," when referring to these
sensations and thoughts, but those reactions often relate directly to the
substance that the patient needs as medicine. For example, a patient needing
a medicine from a bird may start to speak about being up above all her worries,
flying freely. A patient who needs a mineral medicine may speak about his
structure crumbling, thereby pointing to a substance like that within Arsenicum,
a remedy used when a patient talks about fears of imminent death. A person
may relate a sensation found characteristically only in patients needing
a medicine from a certain plant family, such as the feeling of constriction
and expansion found in medicines made from the cactus family.
Incredible but True
All the above discussion may cause a person to decide that homeopathy is just
a hoax, a delusion, or simply an elaborate form of placebo. If so, use other
forms of healing and be well.
For those of you who can willingly suspend your disbelief, we urge you to give
homeopathy the benefit of the doubt and try it. Do the Arnica test on a bruise
or black eye, or the Apis test on a bee sting. Give Chamomilla to a screaming,
teething baby and see if the placebo effect works. Try Cantharis for a raging,
exquisitely painful bladder infection with blood in the urine, or for a burn
from the stove. Try Gelsemium or Oscillococcinum for the flu. (See our book,
Homeopathic Self-Care: The Quick and Easy Guide for
the Whole Family for directions.)
If those remedies work, consult an experienced classical homeopath for your
constitutional remedy, and, if you are given an effective medicine, watch your
chronic illnesses and mental and emotional states improve and resolve over
several months to a year. See for yourself if this incredible medicine produces
the plausible results that we know are possible.
Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman and Robert Ullman are licensed naturopathic
physicians, board certified in homeopathy. Their books include A
Drug-Free Approach to Asperger Syndrome and Autism, Ritalin-Free
Kids, Rage-Free Kids, Prozac Free, Homeopathic
Self-Care: The Quick and Easy Guide for the Whole Family, Whole
Woman Homeopathy, The Patient's
Guide to Homeopathic Medicine, and Mystics, Masters, Saints and Sages-Stories
of Enlightenment. They teach and lecture internationally and practice
at The Northwest Center for Homeopathic Medicine in Edmonds, Washington
and Langley, Washington. They treat patients by phone as well as in
person and can be reached by telephone at 425-774-5599 or by fax at
425-670-0319. Their web site is www.healthyhomeopathy.com.
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