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The Challenge Of Homoeopathy

- Dr. Dhrubananda Das

 The primary concern of any nation is the welfare of its citizens, In 1974 West Germany invested almost 29 per cent of its gross national product on social welfare projects (I), and this is equalled or even bettered by the other “Welfare states” of Europe and America. While a debate persists as to whether welfare activities can go too far, as possibly in New Zealand, (2) this is purely academic where the developing nations are concerned where they have not gone far enough. 

            A leading commentator defines a welfare state as one which is “expected to act and not stand by passively when is people - or any disadvantaged group - are forced to cope with problems of social and economic security beyond their power to control” (3). Broadly, the state is concerned with two types of people: the weak, underprivileged and handicapped, such as blind and maimed persons, the jobless, the poor and the sick; and the “ deviants’, that nebulous community which either lives outside the moral and legal norms of society, or whose activities society finds in varying degrees, difficult to accept. The latter category numbers the homosexual, the drug addict, the psychotic killer the common felon, the suicide and the drunkard, among others, and it is with these persons that homoeopathy is specially concerned.

            This is not to say that homoeopathy has no role to play in the treatment of the sick and the undernourished, for it is a potent instrument o cure, but here its function is not exclusive since modern medicine as well as traditional systems such as ayurveda and acupuncture have their respective use and followings. The point which needs examination in the present paper is whether homoeopathy can offer a viable alternative to these other systems or whether it should confine itself to a supplementary roles, at least for the moment.

            Homoeopathy as a medical philosophy was formulated by a German physician and scientist, Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), whose Organon of the Healing Art enunciates the principles of the science. These are as follows: (a) conception of the “vital force”, (b) conception of  “potency”; (c) conception of similia similibus curantur, the law of similars: (d) conception of the “totality of symptoms”; (e) conception of the “minimum dose”.

           Homoeopathy believes that disease, when it comes, attacks not the physical body but the “vital force”, an entity somewhat like the soul which exists in the human system as also in the animal and vegetable systems. This “vital force” exists at various levels of which the physical body is the outermost, and the will and understanding the innermost. These innumerable levels are calculated through the system of “potentisation” when a medicine is diluted by a special process to different “potencies”, such as the IX (one part of medicine to nine parts of alcohol or spirit), 2X (one part of IX to nine parts o spirit and so on, in different ‘scales’ such as the decimal, designated X, the centesimal, designated C, where the ratio of dilution is 1: 100; and the 50 millesimal, where the ratio is 1: 50000. 

            Disease attacks the “vital force” at o near these different levels, and a medicine potentised as near as possible to the afflicted level has to be administered in order to achieve a cure. The selection of the medicine is done on the principle of similars, and the administration on the basis of the totality of symptoms.

            The law of similars states that substance taken repeatedly in some quantity produces certain symptoms in a healthy person, and the same substance when potentised can remove these very symptoms in a sick person. Thus cinchona bark  (quinine) if taken for some time y a healthy person the symptoms of malaria, though it is a well known fact that quinine is a remedy for persons suffering from malaria. The qualities of homeopathic medicines are determined by a process called “proving”, whereby a substance is given to a group of healthy persons called “provers”, and the symptoms which make their appearance are noted down, both by the pover himself and by the medical personnel supervising the proving. Once the “symptom picture” of a substance is elicited in this manner, it is known that the substance will be able to remove these symptoms if encountered in a sick person.

            It is here that the principle of totality comes in. Many remedies will have some of the symptoms of a diseased person, just as there are many medicines which can be administered for dysentery. The one which will be most effective is, however, that which has the maximum number of symptoms brought out during its proving tallying with the symptoms of the patient. Once this matching is done correctly the medicine will cure. Since homoopathic medicines sometimes cause an aggravation of symptoms soon after they are taken, it is necessary that the minimum quantity is given. Hahnemann himself recommended the ideal quantity as a pill the size of a poppy seed.

            In time, homoeopathy spread from its native Germany to various parts of the world, including India. There are homoepathic hospitals and clinics in most countries, and in Moscow city alone some years back five million homoeopathic prescriptions were filled within a single year. The Royal London Homoepathic Hospital, which has the Queen of England as Patron has crossed the hundredth year of its existence. Here are homoeopaths in every town and city and in most villages in India where homoeopathy’s star is sharply in the ascendant. Span magazine in its May 1981 issue focused the increasing impact of homoeopathy in the USA in an article “The Return of Homoeopathy”. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has recognised the fact of homoeopathy’s rising influence throughout the world as an alternative to conventional medicine in a “round - table” discussion in the November 1983 issue of its journal Forum and n a publication on unconventional medicine entitled. Traditional Medicine and Health Care Converage. 

            There are many ways in which homoeopathy, supplemented by its sister science. Biochemistry can participate in the adventure of social upliftment in India. In a nation where the vast majority of the population still exists at a level of abysmal need, there is a pressing need for a system such as homoeopathy which is extremely powerful in its action without being harmful even if taken relatively indiscriminately, incredibly cheap, easily available within the country with an already substantially developed infrastructure of practitioners, pharmacies manufacturing units for drugs and ancillary equipment hospitals and clinics and medical colleges for training up recruits. Finally there is no pollution of the environment with the use of homoeopathic remedies.

            Homoeopathy does not confine its action to the physical body alone, or even to the body and the mind. The homoeopathic “ totality” embraces symptoms of the body mind and soul, with implications not only for purely medical problems but also for ethical ones. What Gregor Mendel discovered about conditions transmitted from one generation to the other through the genes had been grasped by the genius of Hahnemann much earlier. What a man is today, according to homoeopathy, is very largely what his parents were yesterday, not merely physically or mentally but also in matters which are generally considered to come under the ambit of the term “ ethics”, as for instance maliciousness, drunkenness or a tendency to commit suicide or murder.

            The recognition of the “oul” element in homoeopathy, of the fact that a “bad” person is not totally responsible for his “badness” gives its role in social development an added dimension. The distinction between health and disease on the one hand and ethics on the other o between purely medical problems and moral ones is blurred and one finds homoepaths treating and curing many “moral” problem such as kleptomania, suicidal tendencies malice and the like. This opens up two very interesting avenues of social research: the responsibility of an individual for his action, and the possibility of building up a stable, responsible manpower for the future. It is necessary to examine both of these in some detail on account of their deeply humanistic implications on human welfare.

            The moral dilemma: A homoeopathic medicinal substance during its proving elicits a number of symptoms encompassing the entire man, body, mind and soul. Thus, according to the law of similars this same substance can cure these symptoms when it comes up against them in a sick person. This has far-reaching implications:  “moral” symptoms can be created and also cured by medicine. Man is constantly exposed to various influences: the qualities inherited by him from his parents the impact of the cosmic environment, the planets of the solar system which have been found to influence human behavioural patterns and even his destiny social influences such as school and the circle of fiends and acquaintances; and purely environmental factors such as toxic fumes, polluted water and air, and crops grown on soil poisoned with excessive use of chemicals. An example or two should suffice to indicate the immensity of the problem. 

            The motor car has become a way of life throughout the world, and in the developed countries a car is within the reach of even a lower middle class family. The proliferation of petrol pumps and service stations coupled with the easy accessibility of motor vehicles, has led to substantial pollution of the environment by petrol and diesel, ensuring that in the developed nations and in urban centres in comparatively under-developed ones people are regularly inhaling petroleum fumes. Petroleum is the homoeopathic medicine prepared from petrol. J.H.Clarke has this to say of effects on a patient of his:

He (i.e. a patient of Clarke’s told me that the (petroleum) vapour had the singular effect of making some of the workmen insane causing: Desire to kill, hallucinations, they will se things not actually visible…. (4)

             Many Families cook in aluminium containers or eat from aluminium plates. This can cause a mental state of inclination to suicide (5), which can be removed with Alumina, Similarly Natrum muriaticum-common salt – is capable of removing violent rages, anthropophobia and hatred for those who have formerly given offence in come way conditions which are created by the use of large quantities of salt. As Clarke observes,  “a large number of people are steadily poisoning themselves by taking excessive quantities of salt with their food. Nat. m. 30 antidote most of the effects of the crude..”(6), 

            The point which is sought to be emphasised through these instances is that inherent in our very life-patterns is the seed of moral and mental disorder and it is futile to blame a person constantly inhaling the toxic fumes of petrol for the desire to kill which might lead him to commit murder, or the child brought up on aluminium utensils and cutlery who suddenly commits suicide. What is required in such cases is not social or legal disapprobation but understanding and correction. That this is being realised by social scientists and others is evident from the facts of  “diminished responsibility” in British law and the psychiatric examination of criminals particularly in the USA. A person’s parentage upbringing and environment are being given due weight age in the consideration of his fault, and homoeopathy offers an effective method not only of understanding but also of correction. 

            The effects of inheritance: Inheritance plays a major role in homoeopathic philosophy and therapeutics. Read in conjunction with the concept of disease afflicting body, mind and soul together, the theory of inherited symptoms enunciated by Hahnemann implies that much of what a person is he inherits from his parents, and the actions which flow from his inherited characteristics are also a consequence of his ancestry. A desire to kill or a propensity towards alcohol can as easily be inherited as cancer or a love for antiques. Unless treated homoeopathically, these and similar characteristics will be transmitted down the generations. The homoeopathic remedy which is selected on the basis of the law of similars and the totality of symptoms can erase adverse symptoms and so ensure that future generations will not suffer from them. Specifically, the “nosode”. A medicine prepared from the tissues of a diseased organism – can be used to eradicate susceptibility to certain major disease conditions. It is accepted that cancer occurs repeatedly in some families giving rise to the theory that cancer is hereditary. Unless the susceptibility to cancer is eliminated in one generation it will continue to be transmitted to succeeding ones. The nosode if administered will ensure that the cancer strain is removed from the family inheritance. Carcinosin is the nosode of carcinoma, as Tubercnlinum is of tuberculosis and Dipiherianum of diphtheria. Since the nosode is a homoeopathic medicine it will also have an effect if diagnosed and administered symptomatically. Lyssin, prepared from the saliva of a rabid dog and used in hydrophobia, has elicited the following symptoms: “Insane ideas enter his head, for instances, to throw a glass of water into some one’s face”, “inclined to use insulting language, scold his friends, beat and abuse those near him”; “inclination to utter malediction”; and “a kind of savageness in his temper”(7). These are symptoms which can be removed in one generation, and be prevented from being passed on to the next, by the use of Lyssin. Mankind can gradually be released from the grip of disease in its limited mental and physical interpretation and also from the impulses, desires and tendencies, implanted or acquired, which impel him towards sin or crime.

             The Mind of Man: It is in the mind that ideas are conceived and take root and much of it continues to remain unknown, a twilight zone in which the demons of darkness wage heir eternal war against the forces of light. The higher the homoeopath probes along the scale of potency, the deeper he penetrates into this shadowy area. He realises that it is both futile and ridiculous to use terms as inadequate as “sanity” or “madness” to demarcate the myriads of stage levels and states at which the mind exists. A man is not “mad” simply because he behaves oddly, nor is he totally “sane” because his behaviour is not out of the ordinary. He can be “sane” in all respects and “mad” only in one direction: as Shakespeare’s Hamlet observed, he can be mad only “north north west”. To even begin to limit the multiple states of the mind within identifiable categories is to insult the divine intelligence which created it. Homoeopathy realises this fully well, and merely records symptoms of the mind without attempting to attach labels. Mental symptoms form part of the totality, and when the matching of drug with patient is correct a cure results, and many a “mad” person becomes “sane”. Veratrum album is one of the major homoeopathic insanity remedies, and Hahnemann had said that it had the power “to promote a cure of almost one third of the insane in lunatic asylum”(8). Many of the inmates of lunatic asylums have tendency to tear off their clothes, bite their shoes to pieces and swallow them, display immoderate anger, exhibit anger, religious fervour and yet indulge in obscene language, and swallow their own excrement. These are classic Veratrum symptoms, and patients exhibiting them can be cured of these and allied characteristics, and thus their “madness”, by the drug. It lies with in the power of homoeopathy given a fair trial, to cure even those long-standing mental cases considered incurable, more so in today’s developed nations where the stress of modern existence has led to a sharp increase in psychiatric problems.

           Deviance and the Deviant: The mind harbours within its precincts the seeds of deviance, much of which has been inherited and much acquired. Scientific studies have shown that the weakness for drink exists in a more marked fashion in families which have a history of addiction o alcohol than in those which have not. The use of remedies such as Spiritus quercus glandium can remove the craving for alcohol and help re-establish a drunkard as a useful and responsible member of society. Similar are the cases of other types of, deviants frowned on by society: kleptomaniacs, drug addicts, prostitutes thieves and murderes, sexual, perverts and juvenile delinquent.  Homoeopathy offers them not only sympathy but also help, and in its positive attitude towards moral offenders is to be found one of the most effective means of rehabilitation therapy. 

            The Aged, the Infirm and the Handicapped: Homoeopathic treatment achieves cure with little or no adverse side effects on the human system. This being the case, old age can be looked forward to with comparative case of mind since health leads to greater enjoyment of life, and even if one were to fall ill the cost of medicines and treatment is negligible while the curative power is more than in other systems. To the handicapped, such as the blind, homoeopathy can often restore the precious gift of sight, while to the mained and crippled it bring freedom from pain and greater activity in the remaining limbs. 

            Endemic and epidemic diseases: The underdeveloped countries, where medicare facilities are poor, suffer from diseases such as malaria, cholera, typhoid, gastro-enteritis, dysentery and influenza which every year extract a heavy fall in human life. Homoeopathy has medicines which can reduce the impact of such diseases both by prevention and cure, as with Rubini’s Spirit of Camphor which prevents and cures cholera. While detailed statistics are not available in most cases, record maintained during a cholera epidemic in Europe prove instructive: the ratio of dead to recovered treated allopathically was 6:5 while homoeopathically it was 2:49 (9).

             Obstinate, Backward and Troublesome Children: Homoeopathy can bring joy to many a mother plagued by worry over her children. Backward children or those whose mental faculties are underdeveloped in relation to their age and size, can be improved to a point where they can join the mainstream of educational and social life in school. Moderation can be introduced into the behaviour of liars or obstinate, and those excessively naughty and mischievous or even  “wicked” can be brought under control. Excessive promiscuity in growing boys and girls and even sexual aberrations are curable with homoeopathic medicines, and evils associated with a boy’s first introduction at college or late school stage to the world of “grown-ups”-drinking, drug addiction, smoking, immoderate behaviour in many forms- can either be prevented or controlled once they have appeared Homoeopathic treatment in such cases o in more extreme forms of juvenile delinquency can be a convenient handmaid to corrective therapy in detention centres  and psychiatric clinics.

             That homoeopathy has come to stay all over the world is something which can no longer be denied by even its worst opponents. It is upto those who conceive and guide the policies of health and social welfare to take advantage of this unique form of medication, which is at once medicine and more than medicine a philosophy as well as a way of life. It requires a deep understanding of the human situation if its services are to be effectively utilised. To the lawyer it holds forth the vista of a new approach to crime an criminals based on humanism which requires that the circumstances under which a crime has been committed and which have led up to it over the years be given due importance in the evaluation of guilt. To the Church and other organisations religions and social, concerned with human conduct, it presents a picture of map constantly at a crossroads and propelled by heredity and environment, over which he has little control in one or the other direction. To the medical planner it offers a uniquely powerful system of therapeutics which has answers for most of the conditions considered incurable and even the threat of dread diseases such as AIDS can be faced with confidence secure in the knowledge that somewhere in the recesses of the huge homoeopathic materia a remedy exists whose symptom will answer to those of AIDS. And the financial planner finds that the eradication of disease is achieved at a vary low cost. A world in which sin and crime are on the increase and millions of people are plagued y disease in its many forms can no longer afford to ignore the call of homoeopathy. Supplementary to other forms of therapeutics and therapy at present it is the medical system of the future, and in its extensive repertory in which are catalogued the myriads of mental physical and moral states which the homoeopath calls “symptoms” is to be found perhaps the most detailed blueprint for social development.

Notes and references

Dr. Dhrubananda Das is a senior civil servant by profession, belonging to the Indian Administrative Service. A regular contributor to The Telegraph, The Sentinel etc. A multifaceted personality. He has written sixteen books on alternative healing, including the spirit aspects, and innumerable articles on various aspects of life, humanity etc.

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