Homeopathic or Medical Healing, a right to be wrong ?

In our world of advanced medical knowledge we can all rely on the assurance that our medical practitioners and researchers are constantly working to improve the health and physical welfare for all people and by extension the very environment in which we live.

Modern medical science is now at a stage in its evolution today that would bewilder a doctor a mere one hundred years ago. It is exciting therefore to imagine what medical discoveries await the human race even twenty years from now never mind one hundred years from now. But not all medical discoveries and advancements are directly utilised by the ordinary person in the street as these discoveries are released on to the world markets, hospitals and GP practices. Due to the human condition however, it seems that even discoveries that are created for the benefit of a person's health are only available to some people, namely those who can afford to buy the products.

Medicine like any product is under the influence of human, financial and political constraints. Medical treatments are given under a strict doctrine of medical laws and it seems that if a patient cannot be cured according to this doctrine then they must suffer the consequences. In the past, some doctors studied a different method of healing which today would be classed by the medical establishment as alternative medicine but some of these alternative practices are considered very serious indeed by the practitioners themselves.

The founder of homeopathy was a doctor from Germany called Samuel Hahnemann who lived about 200 years ago in the town of Leipzig. The medical practices in those days were rather harsh and actually resulted in many cases in causing a worsening of the patient's condition or of developing further complications i.e. disease or even death. Blood letting and cranial drilling seemed to be the pinnacle of medical knowledge and it is said that a grandmother who after a lifetime of raising her own and her grandchildren would have seen all the diseases and infections that a society in those days could develop. Therefore, a grandmother would probably have as much medical knowledge as the typical medical graduate of the time in the 1700's. At this time the 'germ theory' was unknown and doctors simply did not really know just how or where a disease actually came from. Dr. Hahnemann recognised that medicine in his day was severely lacking in concrete factual data regarding the origins of disease and he was publicly laughed at by his peers when he suggested that disease was caused probably by tiny seed like organisms that transmitted unfavourable chemicals into the blood. Also he berated his colleagues and once again was the subject of great hilarity when he suggested that doctors should perform surgery under scrupulously clean conditions, obviously not the full schilling !

Hahnemann decided that a career in medicine was against his principles and that it caused more damage to a patient than healed. To make money to support his growing family he also translated medical texts. A book written by an eminent surgeon of the day described the reason why Cinchona bark was effective against malaria. The eminent surgeon's reply in this book was that the Cinchona bark's efficacy was due to its bitterness and this was apparently accepted medical doctrine of the day! Hahnemann had an idea from this. He knew that certain substances worked but only in certain doses, too much or too little, that was the question. In order to conserve supplies of drugs he experimented with chemicals known for their efficacy in certain disorders. How little should he use before the medicine lost its potency and where the drug had no effect at all but yet it still was in the body doing something!

To test how little he could possibly use, Hahnemann diluted his medicines further and further until no trace of the original substance was left but his personal medical conviction was that all matter had an inate force which we now know because of quantum physics would be an electrical field that surrounds all matter. With every dilution, taking a drop from each previous dilution he would add 100 drops of water to every successive dilution and each time would bang or as it is known succuss the container against a firm leather base. Hahnemann discovered that by transmitting the original essence as he called it from the original undiluted mixture into the diluted end product he could still effect a cure by now only using microscopic amounts of medicine which had the same effect as if using the original undiluted mixture.

Obviously in Hahnemann's day and in our present time, pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies were not too pleased with someone asking for medical practitioners to use only microscopic amounts of chemicals, it would put them out of business. Also Hahnemann considered that if a doctor, and himself also, could not cure a patient then the doctor should not receive payment. Hahnemann actually returned to medical practice using homeopathy as his method of cure and with great confidence used his 'no cure, no payment' strategy.

This article is merely an introduction to this fascinating subject that receives derision and praise in equal measure. I personally believe that in the realms of quantum physics that homeopathy will one day be proved to be either a viable medical practice that should be incorporated into our understanding of human existence or just a psychological myth invented by a down at heel German GP 200 years ago. No one knows when we will find out for sure, but, many homeopathic remedies are diluted into the levels of 10,000 dilutions meaning that it is only water and nothing else in the container, but try drinking that particular dilution and tell me that nothing happens to you. You can only acquire a dilution of 10,000 if you are a qualified homeopath, but doubters beware, I did warn you :)